He had been tired all of his adult life. He had no idea how he’d gotten by. Looking back, he could recognize only an endless string of days that he’d somehow muddled through. He had hardly any memories unconnected with his tiredness. In photographs taken of him he always looked haggard. The shadows had also taken their revenge on him during his two marriages: his wives had been frustrated by his constant state of unease, and the fact that when he wasn’t working, he was always half-asleep. They had lost patience with finding him up for most of the night, and he was never able to explain why he couldn’t sleep like a normal person. In the end they had left him, and he was alone again.
He looked at his watch. 4:15 A.M. He went to the kitchen and poured himself coffee from the thermos he’d filled before going to bed. The thermometer outside the window showed — 2 °C. If he didn’t remember to change the screws holding it in place, before long it would fall. He moved the curtain, and the dog started barking out there in the darkness. Shaka was the only security he had. He had found the name he’d given his Norwegian elkhound in a book — he couldn’t remember the title. It had something to do with a powerful Zulu chieftain, and he had thought it a suitable name for a guard dog. Short and easy to shout. He took his coffee into the living room. The thick curtains were securely drawn. He knew that already, but felt compelled to keep checking. He checked the windows.
Then he sat at the table again and contemplated the jigsaw pieces spread out before him. It was a good puzzle. It had lots of pieces and demanded imagination and perseverance to solve it. Whenever he finished a puzzle, he would burn it and immediately start on a new one. He made sure he always had a store of puzzles. It was a bit like a smoker and his cigarettes. For years he’d been a member of a worldwide club devoted to the culture of jigsaw puzzles. It was based in Rome, and every month he would get a newsletter with information about puzzlemakers who had ceased trading and others who had entered the field. As early as the mid-1970s it had struck him how hard it was to find really good puzzles — that is, hand-sawn ones. He didn’t think much of the mechanically-produced ones. There was no logic in the way the pieces were cut, and they didn’t fit in with the patterns. That might make them hard to solve, but the difficulties were mechanically contrived. Just now he was working on a puzzle based on Rembrandt’s The Conspiracy of the Bathavians under Claudius Civilis. It had 3,000 pieces and had been made by a specialist in Rouen. Once he had driven down to visit the man. They had talked about how the best puzzles were the ones with the most subtle nuances of light. And how Rembrandt’s color schemes made the greatest demands.
He sat holding a piece that obviously belonged in the background of the painting. It took him nearly ten minutes to find where. He checked his watch again: 4:30. Hours to go before dawn, before the shadows would withdraw and he could get some sleep.
It seemed to him that on the whole everything had become much simpler since he’d turned sixty-five and retired. He didn’t need to be anxious about feeling tired all day. Didn’t need to be scared of nodding off at work. But the shadows should have left him in peace long ago. He had served his time. They had no need now to keep their eye on him. His life had been ruined.
He went to the bookcase where he kept his CD player. He’d bought it a few months ago, on one of his rare visits to Östersund. He put the disc back in the machine — he’d been surprised to find it among the pop music in the shop where he’d bought the player. It was a tango, a genuine Argentinean tango. He turned up the sound. The elkhound out there in the dark had good ears and responded to the music with a bark, then was quiet again. He went back to the table and walked around it, studying the puzzle as he listened to the music. There was plenty yet to do. It would keep him going for at least three more nights before he burned it. He had several more, still in their boxes. Then he would drive to the post office in Sveg and collect another batch sent by the old master in Rouen.
He sat on the sofa to enjoy the music. It had been one of his life’s ambitions to visit Argentina. To spend a few months in Buenos Aires, dancing the tango every night. But it had never happened; something always cropped up to make him draw back at the last minute. When he’d left Vastergotland eleven years ago and moved north to the forests of Härjedalen, he’d meant to take a trip every year. He lived frugally, and although his pension wasn’t a big one, he could afford it. In fact, all he’d done was drive around Europe once or twice looking for new jigsaw puzzles.
He would never go to Argentina. He would never dance the tango in Buenos Aires. But there’s nothing to stop me from dancing here, he thought. I have the music and I have my partner.
He stood up. It was 5 A.M. Dawn was a long way off. It was time for a dance. He went to the bedroom and took his dark suit from the wardrobe. He examined it carefully before putting it on. A stain on the jacket lapel annoyed him. He wet a handkerchief and wiped it clean. Then he changed. This morning he chose a rust-brown tie to go with his white shirt. Most important of all were the shoes. He had several pairs of Italian dancing shoes, all expensive. For the serious dancer, the shoes had to be perfect.
When he was ready, he studied his appearance in the mirror on the wardrobe door. His hair was gray and cropped short. He was thin; he told himself he should eat more. But he looked considerably younger than his seventy-six years.
He knocked on the door to the spare bedroom. He imagined hearing somebody bidding him enter. He opened the door and switched on the light. His dancing partner was lying in the bed. He was always surprised by how real she looked, even though she was only a doll. He pulled back the duvet and lifted her up. She was wearing a white blouse and a black skirt. He’d given her the name Esmeralda. There were some bottles of perfume on the bedside table. He sat her down, and selected a discreet Dior, which he sprayed gently onto her neck. When he closed his eyes it seemed to him that there was no difference between the doll and a living human being.
He escorted her to the living room. He’d often thought he should take away all the furniture, fix some dimmed lights in the ceiling, and place a burning cigar in an ashtray. Then he would have his own Argentinean dance hall. But he’d never gotten around to it. There was just the empty stretch of floor between the table and the bookcase with the CD player. He slid his shoes into the loops attached to the bottoms of Esmeralda’s feet.
Then he started dancing. As he twirled Esmeralda around the floor, he felt he had succeeded in sweeping all the shadows out of the room. He was very light on his feet. He had learned a lot of dances over the years, but it was the tango that suited him best. And there was nobody he danced with as well as Esmeralda. Once there had been a woman in Borås, Rosemarie, who had a milliner’s shop. He used to dance the tango with her, and none of his previous partners had followed him as well as she did. One day, when he was getting ready to drive to Gothenburg, where he’d arranged to meet her at a dance club, he received a call saying she’d been killed in a car accident. He danced with lots of other women after that, but it wasn’t until he created Esmeralda that he got the same feeling he’d had with Rosemarie.
He had the idea many years ago. He had tuned in to a musical on television; he’d been awake all night, as usual. In the film a man — Gene Kelly, perhaps — had danced with a doll. He’d been fascinated, and decided then and there that he would make one himself.
The hardest part was the filling. He’d tried all sorts of things, but it wasn’t until he’d filled her with foam rubber that it felt as if he were holding a real person in his arms. He had chosen to give her large breasts and a big bottom. Both his wives had been slim. Now he’d provided himself with a woman who had something he could get his hands around. When he danced with her and smelled her perfume, he was sometimes aroused; but that hadn’t happened often over the last five or six years. His erotic desires had started to fade.