Henning Mankell: The Troubled Man

Wallander thought about the Swedish soldiers who had been sent to Afghanistan. That would never have happened if the Americans hadn’t asked for them. Not openly, but behind the scenes, just as their submarines had hidden themselves in Swedish territorial waters in the early 1980s with the approval of the Swedish navy and Swedish politicians. Or as CIA operatives were allowed to capture two suspected Egyptian terrorists on Swedish territory on December 18, 2001, and have them returned in humiliating circumstances to their home country, where they were imprisoned and tortured. Wallander could imagine that if Håkan von Enke were to be unmasked, he would be hailed as a hero, not as a despicable traitor.

Nothing, he thought, is certain. Not the way in which these events are interpreted, nor what the rest of my life will be like.

The May morning was fine but chilly. Around noon he went for a long walk with Jussi, who seemed to be back in good health. When Linda arrived, without Hans but with Klara, Wallander had finished straightening up the house and checking that there weren’t any papers lying around that he didn’t want her to see. Klara had fallen asleep in the car. Wallander carefully carried her indoors and laid her down on the sofa. Holding her in his arms always gave him the feeling that Linda had returned in another guise.

They sat down at the kitchen table to drink coffee.

“Did you clean?” Linda asked.

“I’ve done nothing else all day.”

She laughed and shook her head. Then she turned serious again. Wallander knew that all the problems Hans had been forced to cope with had been shattering for her as well.

“I want to start work again,” she said. “I can’t go on much longer just being a mom.”

“But there are only four more months of your maternity leave...”

“Four months can be a very long time. I’m getting very impatient.”

“With Klara?”

“With myself.”

“That’s something you inherited from me. Impatience.”

“I thought you always said that patience was the most important virtue for a police officer.”

“But that doesn’t mean that patience is something you’re born with — you have to learn it.”

She took a sip of coffee and thought over what he had said.

“I feel old,” Wallander said. “I wake up every day feeling that everything is going so incredibly fast. I don’t know if I’m running after something or away from something. I just run. To be completely honest, I’m scared stiff of growing old.”

“Think of Granddad! He just kept on going as usual and never worried about the fact that he was growing old.”

“That’s not true. He was scared of dying.”

“Sometimes, maybe. But not all the time.”

“He was a strange man. I don’t think anyone can compare themselves to him.”

“I do.”

“You had a relationship with him that I lost when I was very young. I sometimes think about the fact that he always had a better relationship with Kristina. Maybe it’s just that he found it easier to get along with women? I was born the wrong sex. He never wanted a son.”

“That’s ridiculous, and you know it.”

“Ridiculous or not, that’s what I keep thinking. I’m scared of old age.”

She reached across the table and stroked his arm.

“I’ve noticed that you get worried. But deep down you know there’s no point. You can’t do anything about your age.”

“I know,” said Wallander. “But sometimes it feels like complaining is all you can do.”

Linda stayed for several hours. They talked until Klara woke up, and with a broad smile on her face she ran over to Wallander.

Wallander suddenly felt terrified. His memory had deserted him again. He didn’t know who the girl running toward him was. He knew he’d seen her before, but what her name was or what she was doing in his house he had no idea.

It was as if everything had fallen silent. As if all colors had faded away, and all he was left with was black and white.

The shadow grew more intense. And Kurt Wallander slowly descended into a darkness that some years later transported him into the empty universe known as Alzheimer’s disease.

After that there is nothing more. The story of Kurt Wallander is finished, once and for all. The years — ten, perhaps more — he has left to live are his own. His and Linda’s, his and Klara’s; nobody else’s.

In the world of fiction it is possible to take many liberties. For instance, it is not unusual for me to change a landscape slightly so that nobody can say: “It was exactly there! That’s precisely where the action took place!”

The thought behind this is of course to stress the difference between fact and fiction. What I write could have taken place as I narrate it. But it didn’t necessarily do so.

There are many shifts of that type in this book, between what actually happened and what might conceivably have happened.

Like most other authors, I write in order to try to make the world more understandable. In that respect, fiction can be superior to factual realism.

So it doesn’t matter whether or not there is a nursing home somewhere in central Sweden called Niklasgården. Nor does it matter if there is a banquet hall on Östermalm in Stockholm where naval officers congregate. Or a café just outside Stockholm that serves the same purpose, where a submarine officer by the name of Hans-Olov Fredhäll might turn up. And Madonna didn’t give a concert in Copenhagen in 2008.

But the most important things in this book are built on the solid foundation of reality.

Many people have helped me in doing the necessary research. I thank them all most gratefully.

However, the responsibility for the contents right up to the final period lies with me. Completely, and with no exceptions.

Gothenburg, June 2009

Henning Mankell