Хеннинг Манкелль - Italian Shoes

A doctor came and said nothing was certain, but that they would probably need to operate and that Sima was not reacting to anything they attempted. He asked me several questions, but I had to tell him that I simply didn’t know if she was suffering from any illnesses, or if she had tried to commit suicide before. The woman who would be able to answer questions like that was on her way here.

Agnes arrived shortly after ten. It occurred to me to wonder how she could drive a car with only one arm. Did she have a specially adapted vehicle? But it wasn’t important. I took her behind the curtain to where Sima was lying. Agnes sobbed quietly, but I didn’t want Sima to hear anything like that and took Agnes out again.

‘There’s no change,’ I said. ‘But the very fact that you’ve come makes everything better. Try talking to her. She needs to know that you’re here.’

‘Will she be able to hear what I say?’

‘We don’t know. But we can hope.’

Agnes spoke to the doctor. No illnesses, no medication, no previous suicide attempts as far as she was aware. The doctor, who was about my age, said that the situation was unchanged but slightly more stable since Sima had been admitted. There was no reason for the moment to be unduly worried.

Agnes was relieved. There was a coffee machine in the corridor. Between us we managed to scrape together the necessary small change for two cups of awful coffee. I was surprised by the adroitness with which she used one hand where I needed two.

I told Agnes what had happened. She shook her head slowly.

‘She might well have been on the way to Russia. Sima always tries to climb mountains. She’s never satisfied with walking along normal paths like the rest of us.’

‘But why should she want to come and visit me?’

‘You live on an island. Russia is on the other side of the sea.’

‘But when she gets to the island I live on, she tries to take her own life. I don’t get it.’

‘You can never tell by looking at a person just how badly damaged he or she is inside.’

‘She told me a few things.’

‘So perhaps you have some idea.’

At about three o’clock, a nurse came to say that Sima’s condition had stabilised. If we wanted to go home, we could. She would phone us if there was any change. As we had nowhere to go to we stayed there for the rest of the day and all night. Agnes curled up on a narrow sofa and dozed. I spent most of the time on a chair leafing through well-thumbed magazines in which people I’d never heard of, pictured in dazzlingly bright colours, trumpeted to the world how important they were. We occasionally went to get something to eat, but we were never away for long.

Shortly after five in the morning, a nurse came to the waiting room to inform us that there had been a sudden change. Serious internal bleeding had occurred, and surgeons were about to operate in an attempt to stabilise her condition.

We had taken things too much for granted. Sima was suddenly drifting away from us again.

At twenty past six the doctor came to see us. He seemed to be very tired, sat down on a chair and stared at his hands. They hadn’t been able to stop the bleeding. Sima was dead. She had never come round. If we needed support, the hospital offered a counselling service.

We went in together to see her. All the tubes had been removed, and the machines switched off. The yellow pallor that makes the newly dead look like a waxwork had already taken a grip of her face. I don’t know how many dead people I have seen in my life. I have watched people die, I have performed post-mortem examinations, I have held human brains in my hands. Nevertheless, it was me who burst into tears; Agnes was in so much pain that she was incapable of reaction. She grasped my arm; I could feel that she was strong — and I wished that she would never let go.

I wanted to stay there, but Agnes asked me to go back home. She would stay with Sima, I had done all that I could, she was grateful, but she wanted to be on her own. She accompanied me to my taxi. It was a beautiful morning, still chilly. Yellow coltsfoot were in bloom on the verge leading up to A&E.

A coltsfoot moment, I thought. Just now, this morning, when Sima was lying dead inside there. Just for a brief moment she had sparkled like a ruby. Now it was as if she had never existed.

The only thing about death that scares me is its utter indifference.

‘The sword,’ I said. ‘And she had a case as well. What do you want me to do with that?’

‘I’ll be in touch,’ said Agnes. ‘I can’t say when. But I know where to find you.’

I watched her go back into the hospital. A one-armed sorrowful angel, who had just lost one of her wicked but remarkable children.

I got into the taxi and said where I wanted to go to. The driver eyed me suspiciously. I realised that I made a dodgy impression, to say the least. Dishevelled clothes, cut-down wellington boots, unshaven and hollow-eyed.

‘We usually ask for payment in advance for long journeys like this,’ the driver said. ‘We’ve had some bad experiences.’

I felt in my pockets and realised that I didn’t even have my wallet with me. I turned to the driver.

‘My daughter has just died. I want to go home. You’ll be paid. Please drive slowly and carefully.’

I started to weep. He said nothing more until we pulled up at the quayside. It was ten o’clock. There was a slight breeze that hardly disturbed the water in the harbour. I asked the taxi driver to stop outside the red wooden building that housed the coastguard. Hans Lundman had seen the taxi approaching and had come out of the door. He could see from my face that the outcome had not been good.

‘She died,’ I said. ‘Internal bleeding. It was unexpected. We thought she was going to make it. I need to borrow a thousand kronor from you to pay for the taxi.’

‘I’ll put it on my credit card,’ said Lundman, and headed for the taxi.

He’d finished his shift several hours previously. I realised that he had stayed on in the hope of being there when I got back to the quayside. Hans Lundman lived on one of the islands in the southern archipelago.

‘I’ll take you home,’ he said.

‘I don’t have any money at home,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to ask Jansson to take some out of the bank for me.’

‘Who cares about money at a time like this?’ he said.

I always feel at ease when I’m at sea. Hans Lundman’s boat was an old converted fishing vessel that progressed at a stately pace. His work occasionally forced him to hurry, but he never rushed otherwise.

We berthed at the jetty. It was sunny, and warm. Spring had sprung. But I felt devoid of any such feelings.

‘There’s a boat out there at the Sighs,’ I said. ‘Moored there. It’s stolen.’

He understood.

‘We’ll discover it tomorrow,’ he said. ‘It just so happens that I’ll be passing there on patrol tomorrow. Nobody knows who stole it.’

We shook hands.

‘She shouldn’t have died,’ I said.

‘No,’ said Lundman. ‘She really shouldn’t.’

I remained on the jetty and watched him reverse out of the inlet. He raised his hand in farewell, then was gone.

I sat down on the bench. It was much later when I returned to my house, where the front door was standing wide open.

The oaks were unusually late this year.

I recorded in my logbook that the big oak tree between the boathouse and what used to be my grandparents’ henhouse didn’t start turning green until 25 May. The cluster of oaks around the inlet on the north side of the island — the inlet that for some incomprehensible reason had always been known as the Quarrel — started to come into leaf a few days earlier.