Хеннинг Манкелль - Italian Shoes

It took a long time to write those few lines. By the time I thought I had written something that might suffice, the kitchen floor was covered in scrunched-up paper. What I had put wasn’t actually true. My fury had not passed, my animals could have survived for a while longer — Jansson could have managed. Nor was I entirely sure that I wanted to meet them again in the near future. I needed time to think things over. Not least to decide what to say to Agnes Klarström, if I could find her.

The letter to Agnes Klarström did not take long to write. I realised that I had been carrying it around in my head for many years. I just wanted to meet her, that was all. I sent her my address and signed it: she would no doubt never be able to forget that name. I hoped I was writing to the right person.

When Jansson arrived the following day, it had turned windy. I noted in my logbook that the temperature had fallen during the night, and the squally wind was veering between west and south-west.

Jansson was on time. I gave him three hundred kronor for collecting me, and insisted that he accepted the payment.

‘I’d like you to post these two letters for me,’ I said, handing them to him.

I had taped all four corners on each of them. He made no attempt to disguise his astonishment that I was holding two letters in my hand.

‘I write when I have to. Otherwise not.’

‘That picture postcard you sent me was very pretty.’

‘A fence covered in snow? What’s pretty about that?’

I was getting impatient.

‘How is the toothache?’ I asked, in an attempt to cover up my irritation.

‘It comes and goes. It’s worst up here on the right.’

Jansson opened his mouth wide.

‘I can’t see anything wrong,’ I said. ‘Talk to a dentist.’

Jansson tried to close his mouth. There was a creaking sound. His jaw locked, and he stood there with his mouth half open. I could see that it was painful. He tried to speak, but it was impossible to understand what he said. I pressed gently with my thumbs on either side of his face, feeling for his jawbone, and massaged until he could close his mouth again.

‘That hurt.’

‘Try to avoid yawning or opening your mouth too wide for a few days.’

‘Is this an indication of some serious illness?’

‘Not at all. You don’t need to worry.’

Jansson drove off with my letters. The wind bit into my face as I walked back to the house.

That afternoon I opened the door to the ant room. Still more of the tablecloth seemed to have been swallowed up by the constantly growing anthill. But generally speaking, the room and the bed where Harriet had slept were still as they were when we’d left them.

Days passed and nothing happened. I walked over the ice until I came to the open sea. I measured the thickness of the ice in three different places. I didn’t need to consult my earlier logbooks in order to establish that the ice had never been as thick as this before, for as long as I’d lived on the island.

I peeped under the tarpaulin and tried to judge if I’d ever be able to put to sea again in my boat. Had it been beached for too long? Would I have the strength and energy to carry out the necessary repairs and spruce it up again? I replaced the tarpaulin without having answered my question.

One evening the telephone rang. A rare thing. More often than not it would be some telephone company or other urging me to change my supplier, or to install broadband. When they discovered where I lived and that I was an old-age pensioner, they usually lost interest. Besides, I haven’t the slightest idea what broadband is.

A female voice I didn’t recognise said: ‘Agnes Klarström here. I’ve received your letter.’

I held my breath. Didn’t say a word.

‘Hello? Hello?’

I said nothing. After further attempts to lure me out of my cave, she hung up.

So I’d found her. The letter had reached the address it was sent to. She lived near Flen.

There was an old map of Sweden in one of the kitchen drawers. I think it used to belong to my grandfather. He sometimes used to go on about how he would like to visit Falkenberg before he died. I’ve no idea why he wanted to go there; but he had never been to Stockholm, nor had he ever ventured outside the borders of Sweden. He took his dream of visiting Falkenberg with him to his grave.

I spread the map out over the table and located Flen. The scale wasn’t big enough for me to pin down Sångledsbyn. It would take me two hours at most to drive there. I had made up my mind: I was going to pay her a visit.

Two days later I walked across the ice to my car. I hadn’t left a note on my door this time or told Jansson. The dog and the cat had been supplied with sufficient food. The sky was blue, it was dead calm, plus two degrees. I drove north, turned off inland and reached Flen shortly after two in the afternoon. I found a book shop, bought a large-scale map and tracked down Sångledsbyn. It was only a couple of miles away from Harpsund, which is the location of the summer residence of Swedish prime ministers. Once upon a time, a man had lived there who made a fortune out of cork. He had left his home to the state. There was an oak tree in the grounds around which many a visiting foreign statesman, their retinue and their hosts had gathered — not many of the younger generation would ever have heard of them.

I knew all that about Harpsund because my father had once worked there as a waiter when the then prime minister, Tage Erlander, had been entertaining foreign guests. He never tired of talking about the men — they were all men, no women — sitting around the table conducting important discussions about world politics. This had been during the Cold War; he had made a special effort to move without making a noise, and could recall details of the menu, and the wines. Unfortunately there had also been an incident that came close to causing a scandal. He used to describe it as if he had been party to something top secret, and was chary about revealing any details to me and my mother. One of the guests had become extremely drunk. He had delivered an incomprehensible ‘thank you’ speech at the wrong time, which had caused a bit of a problem for the waiters: but they had saved the day and delayed the serving of the dessert, which had been about to begin. Shortly afterwards the drunken man had been found dead to the world on the lawn at the front of the house.

‘Fagerholm got himself drunk in most unfortunate circumstances,’ my father used to say in serious tones.

My mother and I never discovered who this Fagerholm was. It was only much later on, when my father had died, that I realised he must have been one of the Finnish trade union leaders of the day.

However, living close to Harpsund now was a woman whose arm I had cut off.

Sångledsbyn consisted of a few farms spread along the shore of an oval-shaped lake. The fields and meadows were covered in snow. I had taken my binoculars with me and climbed to the top of a hillock in order to get a better overview. People occasionally crossed over the farmyards, between outhouses and barns, or house and garage. None of those I saw could have been Agnes Klarström.

I gave a start. A dog was sniffing at my feet. A man in a long overcoat and wellington boots was standing on the road below. He shouted for the dog, and raised a hand in greeting. I hid my binoculars in a pocket and went down to the road. We spoke briefly about the view, and the long, dry winter.

‘Is there somebody in this village by the name of Agnes Klarström?’ I asked.

The man pointed at the house furthest away.

‘She lives there with her bloody kids,’ he replied. ‘I didn’t used to have a dog until that lot came here. Now everybody has a dog.’