It seemed to me that I had a daughter who had great empathy for others; sharing responsibility for such a severely disabled child was impressive. How she could combine activities such as helping terminally ill patients to see Rembrandt’s paintings one last time with her ‘work’ as a pickpocket was beyond me. But I was a part of her and she was a part of me. This was a story that had only just begun. I wondered whether Louise understood me better than I understood her.
This is how far I have come. From a waiter’s house in Stockholm to a hotel room in Paris. Once I was a successful surgeon who made a mistake. Now I’m an old man whose house has burned down. Not much more than that.
I do not fear death. Death must be freedom from fear. The ultimate freedom.
I got out of bed, fetched some sheets of paper from the brown folder on the desk and tried to formulate my thoughts. But no words came, no sentences. Only childish maps of imaginary archipelagos, with narrow sounds, hidden inlets and strange, bottomless depths filled both sides of the paper. It was the only map of my life I was capable of creating.
I thought about Ahmed and the remarkable Bedouin in the bottle he had given me. Perhaps I ought to give him one of my imaginary archipelagos, from a part of the world that was completely unknown to him?
I went out and wandered around Montparnasse for a while before heading for the Metro station exit where I assumed Louise would eventually arrive. It was cold and dark, and the people hurrying up and down the stairs were all absorbed in their own lives.
No one saw me, no one was missing me.
Louise turned up just before seven. She was carrying the bottle, wrapped in newspaper and brown paper. She was surprised to see me waiting and asked if something had happened. I had the feeling that she was worried about me.
‘I’m going home tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I don’t like dramatic farewells. Neither do you.’
She laughed. Just like Harriet, I thought in surprise. I’d never noticed that before.
‘Well, at least we’re alike in one way,’ she said. ‘Dramatic meetings or goodbyes can often be unpleasant.’
She handed over the package and told me to be careful, particularly when I put it in the overhead locker on the plane.
‘32B,’ I said. ‘I’ll be squashed between two other people.’
Then there was no more to say.
‘I’ll come,’ she said. ‘We’ll come. But you need to go home and build a new house. You can’t die until you’ve done that.’
‘I have no intention of dying,’ I said. ‘And of course I’ll make sure the house is built. I’m not going to leave you a ruin.’
We hugged, then she turned and went back down the stairs. I watched until she disappeared. Perhaps I was hoping that she would turn around, change her mind?
I went to a nearby bistro and drew my old house on the white tablecloth. From memory, in full detail. I couldn’t imagine building anything different.
It was nine thirty by the time I went back to the hotel. A light drizzle was falling on Montparnasse. I hoped all the walking I had done during the course of the day would help me sleep.
Monsieur Pierre had gone home; I had never seen the night porter before. He was very young and had a ponytail and an earring. I wondered briefly what Monsieur Pierre thought about sharing a workspace with him.
Then I noticed Lisa Modin sitting in one of the armchairs in reception. She stood up and asked if she was disturbing me.
‘Not at all. I’ve just said goodbye to my daughter. She’s been released from prison, but she’s staying in Paris.’
I didn’t mention Ahmed or his brother.
‘I’ve been given a bottle with a Bedouin encampment inside it,’ I continued. ‘One day I hope I’ll be living in a house with a shelf I can put it on.’
Lisa didn’t say anything, she just carried on looking at me.
We went up in the lift. I placed the brown package on the desk in my room, then I sat down on the bed. Lisa sat down beside me. Neither of us said anything. When the silence had gone on for too long, I told her I was going home the next day.
‘Me too,’ she said.
‘Maybe we’re on the same flight?’
‘I’m going by train. Didn’t I tell you? I’m scared of flying. My train leaves at 16.20.’
‘Hamburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm?’
‘That’s right. I came here because I wanted to see you; I don’t know why. I’m not sorry I yelled at you; what happened, happened. But I don’t want my trip to have been completely pointless.’
‘Perhaps we share a feeling of loneliness,’ I said.
‘Sentimentality doesn’t suit you. Our expectations are different. I have none, but that’s not the case with you. Expecting nothing is an expectation in itself.’
‘We could lie down on the bed,’ I suggested. ‘Nothing more.’
She took off her jacket and her shoes. They were red and had higher heels than any of the shoes I had seen her wearing before. I took off my jumper.
Lisa was the second woman with whom I had shared a bed during my stay in Paris. Last night Louise had lain here, her breathing deep and steady. Now I had Lisa Modin by my side.
I thought about the desert and the Bedouin tent and the horse.
It was a moment of great calm, the beginning of freedom. Suddenly the fire and my flight from the blinding light were far, far away.
Chapter 19
We didn’t touch each other that night.
We talked for a long time about the city in which we found ourselves.
Lisa started to tell me about herself. The whole of her childhood had been almost unbelievably harmonious. She could remember moments when she had been so bored that she had wondered if life really was an endless, tedious road. She also talked about her fear of flying, which she had never managed to conquer. It had started on a long-haul flight home from Sri Lanka. At some point during the night, as she curled up in her seat on the darkened plane, she had suddenly understood that she was ten kilometres up in the air.
‘I was being carried on the shoulders of emptiness,’ she said. ‘Sooner or later the weight would become too great. I’ve never set foot on a plane since.’
Our nocturnal conversation came and went in waves. She told me she had spoken to the priest on the phone.
‘I asked him about the bear’s tooth that was supposed to have been found on Vrångskär, but he didn’t know what I was talking about. There was no bear’s tooth in his house, in the church or in the parish hall.’
‘That’s what I said,’ I replied. ‘I told you it was just something I’d heard. Even a non-existent bear’s tooth can become a legend.’
We talked about all the poor people we had seen on the streets of Paris.
‘Poverty is getting closer and closer to us,’ she said. ‘No one can escape.’
‘Sometimes I think that the period and the country in which I have lived is a great big, wonderful anomaly,’ I said. ‘I have never been without money, unless I have deliberately made that choice. We know very little about the world our children will inherit.’
‘Perhaps that’s why I’ve never wanted children,’ Lisa said. ‘Because I could never guarantee that they would have a good life.’