Henning Mankell - The Return of the Dancing Master

As it turned out, it was not at all difficult.

That was what he couldn’t understand. It frightened him, and forced him to think back to all that had happened over fifty years ago, the starting point that led to the deed he had now performed. Why had it been so easy? It should have been the hardest thing there is, killing another human being. The thought depressed him. He’d been convinced that it would be difficult. All the time he’d worried that when the moment came, he would hesitate, and afterwards be overcome by remorse; but his conscience had remained at peace.

He sat in the car for ages, trying to understand. In the end, when his urge to drink something very strong got the better of him, he started the engine and drove away.

He continued towards Malmö. After a while he could see on his right a long bridge linking Sweden to Denmark. He drove into the city and had no difficulty finding the car rental company. When he paid the bill, he was surprised at how much they’d charged him. He said nothing, of course, and paid in cash, though he’d left them his credit card number when he rented the car. He hoped the documentation recording that Fernando Hereira had rented a car in Sweden would disappear into the depths of some archive.

Back on the street, he found that there was a cold wind blowing in from the sea, but it had stopped raining. He set off towards the city center and stopped at a hotel in a side street off the first square he came to. No sooner had he entered his room than he stripped down and took a shower. While he was living in the forest he’d forced himself to take a dip in the freezing lake once a week and try to rinse all the filth away. Now, as he stood under his shower in Malmö, he thought that at last he could wash off all the ingrown dirt.

Afterwards, he wrapped himself in a bath towel and sat down with the last of the bottles in his backpack. Freedom! He took three large swigs, and felt the warmth spreading over his body. The previous night he’d drunk too much. That had annoyed him. Tonight the only thing he needed to worry about was getting to the airport the next day.

He stretched out on the bed. He was thinking more clearly now that he had brandy flowing through his veins. What had happened was rapidly becoming a memory. His aim now was to get home to his workshop. His whole life revolved around that. The cramped workshop behind the house in Avenida Corrientes was the cathedral he attended every morning. And his family, of course. His children had left the nest. His daughter Dolores had moved to Montevideo and would soon give him his first grandchild. Then there was Rakel, who was still studying to be a doctor. And Marcus, the restless dreamer of the family, who longed to become a poet, although he was earning his living at the moment as a researcher for a radical program on Argentinean television. He loved his wife, Maria, and his children. Nevertheless, it was his workshop that was the mainspring of his life. He would soon be back there. August Mattson-Herzén was dead. Now there was a chance that all the events that had been haunting him since 1945 might leave him in peace.

He stayed on the bed for a while. Occasionally he reached out for the brandy bottle. Every time he took a swig he made a silent toast to Höllner. But for him, nothing of this would have happened. But for Höllner, he would never have been able to find out who killed his father. He stood up and tipped the contents of his backpack onto the floor. He bent down and picked up the diary he’d been keeping for the forty-three days he’d spent in Sweden, one page for every day. In fact he had gotten as far as page 45. He’d started writing on the flight to Frankfurt, and then on the flight to Copenhagen. He went back to the bed, turned on the bedside lamp, and leafed through the pages. Here was the whole story. He’d written it thinking he might give it to his children, but they wouldn’t get it until after his death. What he’d written was the history of his family. And he’d tried to explain why he’d done what he had done. He’d told his wife he was going on a journey to Europe to meet some furniture makers who could teach him something new. In fact, he had embarked on a journey into his past. In the diary he described it as a door that had to be closed.

Now, as he lay thumbing through what he’d written, he began to have doubts. His children might not understand why their father had made such a long journey to take the life of an old man who lived in seclusion in a remote forest.

He dropped the book on the floor and took another swig of brandy. That was the last one before he dressed and prepared to go out for a meal. He would have something to drink with his food. What was left in the bottle would see him through the night and the next day.

He was feeling drunk now. If he’d been at home in Buenos Aires, Maria would not have said anything, but would have looked accusingly at him. He didn’t need to worry about that now. Tomorrow he’d be on his way home. This evening was for him alone, and his private thoughts.

He left the hotel at 6:30. The strong cold wind almost bowled him over. He had been thinking of going for a walk, but the weather forced him to abandon that idea. He looked around. Further down the street was a restaurant sign, swaying in the wind. He set off in that direction, but hesitated when he got there. There was a television set high in a corner showing an ice hockey match. He could hear the commentary from the street. Some men were sitting at a table, drinking beer, watching the game. He suspected the food wouldn’t be especially good, but on the other hand, he couldn’t face more of the cold.

He sat at an empty table. At the next table was a man staring in silence at his almost empty beer glass. The waitress came with a menu, and he ordered beef steak with béarnaise sauce and fries. And a bottle of wine. Red wine and brandy was what he drank. Never beer, never anything else at all.

“I hear that you speak English,” said the man with the beer glass.

Silberstein nodded. He hoped very much the man at the next table wouldn’t start talking to him. He wanted to be at peace with his thoughts.

“Where do you come from?” the man said.

“Argentina,” Silberstein said.

The man looked at him, his eyes glassy. “ Entonces, debe hablar español, ” he said.

His pronunciation was almost perfect. Silberstein looked at him in surprise.

“I used to be a sailor,” the man said, still speaking Spanish. “I lived in South America for some years. That was a long time ago, but when you learn a language properly, it stays with you.”

Silberstein agreed.

“I can see you want to be left in peace,” the man said. “That suits me fine. So do I.”

He ordered another beer. Silberstein tasted his wine. He’d ordered the house wine. That was an error. But he didn’t have the energy to send it back. All he was really interested in was staying drunk.

A loud roar filled the premises. Something had happened in the ice hockey match. Players dressed in blue and yellow embraced each other. The food arrived. To his surprise, it was good. He drank more wine. He felt calm now. All the tension had faded away, and was being replaced by a vast and liberating vacuum. Molin was dead. He had achieved what he had set out to do.

He’d finished eating when he glanced at the television screen. There was evidently a break in the match. A woman was reading the news. He almost dropped his glass when the dead man’s face appeared on the screen. He couldn’t understand what the woman said. He sat motionless, and could feel his heart pounding. For a moment, he half-expected his own face to appear there as well. But the face that did appear was not his own, but another old man. A face he recognized.