The Man Who Smiled (22 page)

The afternoon had turned into evening, and rain threatened. He decided to have one more ride on the big wheel, but he never did. Something had happened. The big wheel and the roundabouts and the rifle range suddenly lost all their attraction, and people started hurrying towards the restaurant. He had gone along with the tide, elbowed his way to the front and seen something he could never forget. It had been a rite of passage, something he had not realised existed, but it taught him that life is made up of a series of rites of passage of whose existence we are unaware until we find ourselves in the midst of them.

When he pushed and shoved his way to the front he found his own father in a violent fight with one of the Silk Knights and several security guards, waiters and other complete strangers. The dining table had been overturned, glasses and bottles were broken, a beefsteak dripping with gravy and dark brown onion rings was dangling from his father's arm, his nose was bleeding and he was throwing punches left, right and centre. It had all happened so quickly. Wallander shouted his father's name, in a mixture of fear and panic - but then it was all over. Burly, red-faced bouncers intervened; police officers appeared from nowhere, and his father was dragged away along with Anton and the Pole. All that was left was a battered broad-brimmed hat. He tried to run after them and grab hold of his father, but he was pulled back. He stumbled to the gate, and burst into tears as he watched his father driven away in a police car.

He walked all the way home, and it started raining before he got there. Everything was in turmoil, his universe had crumbled away and he only wished he could have erased everything that had happened. But you cannot erase reality. He hurried on through the downpour and wondered whether he would ever see his father again. He sat all night in the studio, waiting for him. The smell of turps almost choked him, and every time he heard a car he would run out to the gate. He fell asleep in the end, curled up on the floor.

He woke up to find his father bending over him. He had a piece of cotton wool in one of his nostrils, and his left eye was swollen and discoloured. He stank of drink, a sort of stale oil smell, but the boy sat up and flung his arms round his father.

"They wouldn't listen to me," his father said. "They wouldn't listen. I told them my boy was with us, but they wouldn't listen. How did you get home?"

Wallander told him that he had walked all the way home through the rain.

"I'm sorry it turned out like that," his father said. "But I got so angry. They were saying something that just wasn't true."

His father picked up one of the paintings and studied it with his good eye. It was one with a grouse in the foreground.

"I got so angry," he said again. "Those bastards maintained it was a partridge. They said I had painted the bird so badly, you couldn't tell if it was a grouse or a partridge. What else can you do but get angry? I'm not having them put my honour and competence in doubt."

"Of course it's a grouse," Wallander had said. "Anybody can see it isn't a partridge."

His father regarded him with a smile. Two of his front teeth were missing. His smile's broken, Wallander thought. My father's smile's broken.

Then they had a cup of coffee. It was still raining, and his father had slowly cooled down.

"Fancy not being able to tell the difference between a grouse and a partridge," he kept protesting, half incantation, half prayer. "Claiming I can't paint a bird the way it looks."

All this went through Wallander's mind as he drove to Simrishamn. He also recalled that the two men, the one called Anton and the Pole, had kept coming back every year to buy paintings. The fight, the sudden anger, the excessive tipples of brandy, everything had turned into a hilarious episode they could now remember and laugh about. Anton had even paid the dentist's bills. That's friendship, he thought. Behind the fight there was something more important, friendship between the art dealers and the man who kept on at his never-changing pictures so that they had something to sell.

He thought about the painting in the flat in Helsingborg, and about all the other flats he had not seen but where nevertheless the grouse was portrayed against a landscape over which the sun never set.

For the first time he thought he had gained an insight. Throughout his life his father had prevented the sun from setting. That had been his livelihood, his message. He had painted pictures so that people who bought them to hang on their walls could see it was possible to hold the sun captive.

He came to Simrishamn, parked outside the police station and went in. Torsten Lundström was at his desk. He was due to retire and Wallander knew him for a kind man, a police officer of the old school who wanted nothing but good for his fellow men. He nodded at Wallander and put down the newspaper he was reading. Wallander sat on a chair in front of his desk and looked at him.

"Can you tell me what happened?" he said. "I know my father got mixed up in a fight at the off-licence, but that's about all I know."

"Well, it was like this," Lundström said with a friendly smile. "Your father drove up to the off-licence in a taxi at about 4.00 in the afternoon, went inside, took the ticket with his queue number from the machine and sat down to wait. It seems he didn't notice when his number came up. After a while he went up to the counter and demanded to be served even though he had missed his turn. The shop assistant handled the whole thing really badly, apparently insisting that your father get a new number and start at the back of the queue. Your father refused, another customer whose number had come up pushed his way past and told your father to get lost. To everybody's surprise your father was so angry he turned and thumped this man. The assistant intervened, so your father started fighting with him as well. You can imagine what happened next. But at least nobody got hurt. Your father might have some pain in his right hand, though. He seems to be pretty strong, despite his age."

"Where is he?"

Lundström pointed to a door in the background. "What'll happen now?" Wallander asked.

"You can take him home. I'm afraid he'll be charged with causing an affray. Unless you can sort it out with the man he punched and the shop assistant. I'll have a word with the prosecutor and do what I can."

He handed Wallander a piece of paper with two names and addresses on it.

"I don't think the fellow in the shop will give you any difficulty," he said. "I know him. The other man, Sten Wickberg, could be a bit of a problem. He owns a firm of haulage contractors. Lives in Kivik. He seems to have made up his mind to come down on your poor father from a great height. You could try calling him. The number's there. And Simrishamn Taxis are owed 230 kronor. In all the confusion, he never got round to paying. The driver's name is Waldemar Kåge. I've had a word with him. He knows he'll get his money."

Wallander took the sheet of paper and put it in his pocket. Then he motioned towards the door behind him. "How is he?"

"I think he's simmered down. But he still insists he had every right to defend himself."

"Defend himself?" Wallander said. "But he was the one who started it all."

"Well, he feels he had a right to defend his place in the queue," Lundström said. "For Christ's sake!"

Lundström stood up. "You can take him home now," he said. "By the way, what's this I hear about your car going up in flames?"

"There could have been something wrong with the electrics" Wallander said. "Anyway, it was an old banger."

"I'll disappear for a few minutes," Lundström said. "The door locks itself when you close it."

"Thanks for your help," Wallander said.

"What help?" Lundström said, putting on his cap and going out.

Wallander knocked and opened the door. His father was sitting on a bench in the bare room, cleaning his fingernails with a nail. When he saw who it was, he rose to his feet and was clearly annoyed.

"You took your time," he said. "How long did you intend making me wait here?"

"I came as quickly as I could," Wallander said. "Let's go home now." "Not until I've paid for the taxi," his father said. "I want to do the right thing."

"We'll sort that out later."

They left the police station and drove home in silence. Wallander could see that his father had already forgotten what had happened. It wasn't until they reached the turning to Glimmingehus that Wallander turned to him.

"What happened to Anton and the Pole?" he asked.

"Do you remember them?" his father asked in surprise.

"There was a fight on that occasion as well," Wallander said with a sigh.

"I thought you would have forgotten about that," his father said. "I don't know what became of the Pole. It's getting on for 20 years since I last heard of him. He had gone over to something he thought would be more profitable. Pornographic magazines. I don't know how he got on. But Anton's dead. Drank himself to death. That must be nearly 25 years ago."

"What were you doing at the off-licence?" Wallander asked. "What you normally do there," his father said. "I wanted to buy some brandy."

"I thought you didn't like brandy." "My wife enjoys a glass in the evening." "Gertrud drinks brandy?"

"Why shouldn't she? Don't start thinking you can tell her what to do and what not to do, like you've been trying to do to me."

Wallander could not believe his ears. "I've never tried to tell you what to do," he said angrily. "If anybody's been trying to tell somebody else what to do, it's been you telling me."

"If you'd listened to me you'd never have joined the police force," his father said. "And in view of what's happened these last few years, that would have been to your advantage, of course."

Wallander realised the best he could do was to change the subject. "It was a good job you weren't injured," he said.

"You have to preserve your dignity," his father said. "And your place in the queue. Otherwise they walk all over you."

"I am afraid you might be charged."

"I shall deny it."

"Deny what? Everybody knows it was you who started the fight. There's no way you can deny it."

"All I did was preserve my dignity," his father said. "Do they put you in prison for that nowadays?"

"You won't go to prison," Wallander said. "You might have to pay damages, though."

"I shall refuse," his father said.

"I'll pay them," Wallander said. "You punched another customer on the nose. That sort of thing gets punished." "You have to preserve your dignity."

Wallander gave up. Shortly afterwards they turned into his father's drive.

"Don't mention this to Gertrud," his father said as he got out of the car. Wallander was surprised by his insistent tone. "I won't say a word."

Gertrud and his father had married the year before. She had started to work for him when he had begun to show signs of senility. She introduced a new dimension into his solitary life - she had visited him three days a week - and there had been a big change in his father, who no longer seemed to be senile. She was 30 years his junior, but that apparently did not matter to either of them. Wallander was aghast at the thought of their marrying, but he had discovered that she was good-hearted and determined to go through with it. He did not know much about her, beyond the fact that she was local, had two grownup children and had been divorced for years. They seemed to have found happiness together, and Wallander had often felt a degree of jealousy. His own life seemed to be so miserable and was getting worse all the time so that what he needed was a home help for himself.

Gertrud was preparing the evening meal when they went in. As always, she was delighted to welcome him. He apologised for not being able to join them for supper, blaming pressure of work. Instead, he went with his father to the studio, where they drank a cup of coffee which they made on the filthy hotplate.

"I saw one of your pictures on a wall in Helsingborg the other night," Wallander said.

"There've been quite a few over the years," his father said.

"How many have you made?"

"I could work it out if I wanted to," his father said. "But I don't." "It must be thousands."

"I'd rather not think about it. It would be inviting the Reaper into the parlour."

The comment surprised Wallander. He had never heard him refer to his age, never mind his death. It struck him that he had no idea how frightened his father might be of dying. After all these years, I know nothing at all about my father, he thought. And he probably knows equally little about me.

His father was peering at him short-sightedly.

"So, you're fit again, are you?" he said. "You've started work again. The last time you were here, before you went to that guest house at Skagen, you said you were going to pack it in as a police officer. You've changed your mind, have you?"

"Something happened," Wallander said. He would rather not get involved in a discussion about his job. They always ended up quarrelling.

"I gather you're a pretty good police officer," his father said suddenly.

"Who told you that?" Wallander said.

"Gertrud. They've been writing about you in the newspapers. I don't read them, but she claims they say you're a good police officer." "Newspapers say all kinds of things." "I'm only repeating what she says." "What do
you
say?"

"That I tried to put you off joining, and I still think you should be doing something else."

"I don't suppose I'll ever stop," Wallander said. "I'm coming up to 50. I'll be a police officer as long as I work."

They heard Gertrud shouting that the food was on the table.

"I'd never have thought you'd have remembered Anton and the Pole," said his father as they walked over to the house.

"It's one of the most vivid memories I have of my childhood," Wallander said. "Do you know what I used to call all those strange people who came to buy your paintings?"

"They were art dealers," his father said.

"I know," Wallander said. "But to me they were the Silk Knights." His father stopped in his tracks and stared at him. He burst out laughing.