Хеннинг Манкелль - After the Fire

‘Perhaps you could come here?’

‘There isn’t room for the two of us and so much worry in your caravan.’

I asked if I could reach her during the evening, and she said yes.

‘What are you doing right now?’ I asked.

‘I’m praying that there isn’t anything seriously wrong with your grandchild.’

‘That’s what you’re thinking. What are you doing?’

‘I’m standing here holding my gloves and a bag of groceries. I’m on my way home.’

Silence drifted by. A gust of wind shook the caravan.

‘Thank you,’ I said and ended the call.

I went out into the cold air and took a deep breath. It was already dark. I went down to the bench on the jetty. My phone rang again; it was Louise. Agnes was about to undergo an MRI scan; the doctors still hadn’t reached a firm diagnosis, but I could tell from her voice that she was more scared than the first time she called. I don’t think I was able to hide my own panic at the thought of what must not happen.

It was a brief conversation; Agnes was being taken away on a trolley, and someone told Louise to switch off her phone.

I shivered and went back to the caravan. Proximity to death turns time into an overstretched elastic band, making us constantly afraid that it will break. The information about Agnes was too vague; I thought I ought to speak to one of her doctors, but my French wasn’t good enough. I knew that fear was drilling deep holes in Louise, and there was nothing I could do to help her.

I had a sleepless night; Louise called at first light to tell me that Agnes had a mild form of meningitis. She would have to stay in the hospital for a week or so, then hopefully everything would be fine.

We both started crying; we were exhausted. At least now we could rest.

I was woken by the sound of an engine at some point during the morning. My jaw was aching where my tooth had broken off. I drank a scoop of water out of the container on the draining board. I knew Jansson was on his way; no other engine sounds like his.

I was sitting on the bench by the time he rounded the headland. He hove to, leaving the engine running. I relaxed; he wasn’t intending to stay long this time either. He looped the mooring rope around the bollard and clambered ashore. We shook hands and discussed the essentials: the weather, wind direction, the banks of cloud over to the east, the temperature, the ice and the fact that the Enberg family, who farmed sheep and fish, had a ten-year-old daughter who played the double bass; she had just been given a grant of three thousand kronor by the Lions.

I waited impatiently for Jansson to tell me why he had come. I didn’t want to run the risk of him staying any longer than necessary, so I didn’t mention Louise’s calls or my lack of sleep.

‘I’m going to visit my brother,’ he said at last, when there was nothing more to say about the weather.

‘You’ve got a brother? I’ve never heard you mention him.’

‘We don’t have much contact with each other. He’s a few years younger than me, and he left long before you moved here.’

‘But you’ve never even told me that you’ve got a brother!’

‘Of course I have.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘In Huddinge.’

‘Stockholm...and that’s where you’re going?’

‘I’m setting off first thing tomorrow morning, and I’ll be away until Sunday.’

I did a quick calculation: he would be away for three days.

Jansson got to his feet. ‘It’s many years since I was in Stockholm,’ he said as he unhooked the mooring rope. ‘Perhaps it’s time to see how the capital city is getting on.’

‘Have a good trip, and say hello to your brother from me. What’s his name?’

‘Albin.’

We waved to each other as he reversed away from the jetty. I found it very strange that Jansson had never mentioned his brother in all the years I had known him. Or had I forgotten?

I managed to get hold of a dentist who was willing to see me. The trip and the treatment took three hours; by the time I got back the pain had gone.

The following day I woke early; I had slept for many hours. Louise rang at eleven o’clock that night and told me that the doctors now had Agnes’s illness under control. She promised to call me the next day. That night I went to bed with a feeling of relief that I didn’t recognise from any other time in my life.

It was cold and still when I woke up. As I sat at the table with a cup of coffee, I was struck by a thought that I immediately pushed aside. But it came back.

I would go over to Stångskär and visit Jansson’s house. He had once told me that he kept a spare key under a stone in the garden.

I couldn’t explain why I needed to go there; perhaps it was something to do with the unease I had felt when the Valfridssons’ house burned down?

At ten o’clock in the morning I left the island and set my course for Stångskär. From time to time the boat sliced through thin shards of floating ice. Another week of this cold, and the ice would be here to stay.

Jansson’s boathouse and his old slipway lay in a south-facing inlet, where he and his boats were sheltered from the worst of the storms coming in from the north and west. I switched off the engine and drifted towards the jetty. His boat wasn’t there; he really had gone to see his brother. I climbed out and called his name a few times just to make sure he really wasn’t around. I walked up to his two-storey house, which was one of the oldest in the archipelago. I knocked on the door but no one answered. The key was well hidden, and it took me a while to find it. As I inserted it in the lock I wondered once again why I was making this secret visit. I thought about Oslovski’s house and about the deserted house deep in the forest. And now here I was at Jansson’s red-painted cottage with its sparkling windows and freshly painted decorative carving above the porch.

I went inside. Jansson kept the place very clean. The floors were spotless; everything in the kitchen shone. In that way he reminded me of Oslovski. I went upstairs and into what must be his room. The bed was neatly made, slippers side by side, no clothes lying around. The other rooms were empty because he never had visitors. The beds were made up, but for what reason? Could they be an expression of his loneliness, his longing?

I went back downstairs. In the living room he had draped a sheet over the television. The house didn’t suit Jansson at all. He should live in completely different conditions.

Finally I went into the laundry room beyond the kitchen. Again, everything was in perfect order. The pale January sun shone in through the window. Clean clothes were arranged on hangers, underwear folded in baskets. I suddenly remembered Jansson bringing me underpants after my house had burned down.

I was just about to leave when I noticed the laundry basket, which contained items that had not yet been washed. I saw the shirt and trousers Jansson had been wearing at my New Year’s Eve party and when I saw him later at the fire.

I couldn’t help picking them up. They told me nothing that I didn’t already know. I was just about to put them back when I noticed another shirt underneath. This one had black sooty marks on the lower part of the sleeves. I lifted it to my nose; it stank of petrol.

My head was spinning. I felt as if I could see everything with perfect clarity.

The night when my house burned down, a dazzling light had flared up.

That’s how it must have happened.

When I went back to the boat a little while later, I was afraid.

I hoped I hadn’t left any traces behind.

I thought about the Japanese garden my daughter had described to me.

The Ocean of Emptiness.