Хеннинг Манкелль - Italian Shoes

It was only later, when I had got dressed and warmed up again, that I remembered the bone. I still don’t know what made me do it, but I put my boots on, walked down to the jetty and located it. The piece of bone was certainly not from a bird. I sat down on the jetty and examined it closely. Could it be from a mink, or a hare?

Then I realised what it was. It couldn’t be anything else. It was a piece of bone from my old cat. I put it on the jetty at my feet, and wondered how the dog had found it. I felt cold and sad inside at the way in which my cat had turned up again in the end.

I took the dog with me for a walk round the island. There was no sign of any more bones, no tracks. Only that little fragment of bone, as if the cat had sent me a greeting in order to assure me that I no longer needed to wonder or to search. She was dead, and had been dead for a long time.

I wrote about the bone in my logbook. A mere three words.

‘Dog, bone, sorrow.’

I buried the fragment of bone next to Harriet’s and my old dog’s graves. It was a post day, so I went to the jetty. Jansson came chugging up on time as usual. He hove to by the jetty and announced that he felt very tired and was permanently thirsty. He had started to get cramp in his calves during the night.

‘It could be diabetes,’ I told him. ‘The symptoms suggest that possibility. I can’t examine you here, but you ought to go to the health centre.’

‘Is it fatal?’ he asked, looking worried.

‘Not necessarily. It can be treated.’

I couldn’t help feeling a little bit pleased that Jansson, who had always been as fit as a fiddle, had now revealed the first crack in his armour, and was in the same boat as the rest of us.

He thought about what I’d said for a few seconds, then bent down and picked up a large parcel from the deck. He handed it to me.

‘But I haven’t ordered anything.’

‘I know nothing about it. But it’s addressed to you. And it’s prepaid, so there are no postal charges.’

I took the parcel. My name was clearly written in beautifully formed letters. There were no sender’s details.

Jansson backed away from the jetty. Even if he had in fact got diabetes, he would live for many years yet. He would certainly outlive me and my dicky heart.

I sat down in the kitchen and opened the parcel. It contained a pair of black shoes with a hint of violet. Giaconelli had enclosed a card on which he’d written that it had brought him great pleasure to demonstrate his great respect for my feet.

I changed my socks, put on the shoes and walked round the kitchen. They fitted just as well as he had promised they would. The dog was lying on the threshold, watching me with interest. I went into the other room and showed the ants my new shoes.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so happy.

Every day for the rest of the winter I would walk around the kitchen several times in Giaconelli’s shoes. I never wore them outside the house, and always put them back in their box.

Spring arrived at the beginning of April. There was still a little ice in my inlet, but it wouldn’t be long before it thawed.

Early one morning I started to remove the anthill.

It was time to do it now. It couldn’t wait any longer.

I used my spade to remove it bit by bit, carefully placing it into the wheelbarrow.

The spade suddenly hit against something solid. When I had cleared away the conifer needles and ants, I saw that it was one of Harriet’s empty bottles. There was something inside it. I removed the cork and found a rolled-up photograph of Harriet and me, taken shortly before I abandoned her, when we were young.

There was water in the background. We could have been standing by Riddarfjärden in Stockholm. A breeze was ruffling Harriet’s hair. I was smiling straight at the camera. I recalled that we had asked a passing stranger to take the picture.

I turned it over. Harriet had drawn a map. It was of my island. Underneath it she had written: ‘We came this far.’

I sat in the kitchen for a long time, gazing at that photograph.

Then I continued transporting the ants to their new life. It was all finished by the evening. The anthill had been moved.

I walked round my island. Flocks of migrating birds were flying over the sea.

It was just as Harriet had written. We had come this far.

No further than that. But this far.