Sidetracked - By Henning Mankell & Steven T. Murray Page 0,110

she took hold of his arm he pulled himself free and locked himself inside the barn. Through the window, she watched him start a fire in the stove, and when he started tearing up his canvases and stuffing them into the flames she called Wallander.

They crossed the courtyard as she talked. Wallander saw smoke billowing from the chimney. He went up to the window and peered inside. His father looked wild and demented. His hair was on end, he was without his glasses, and the studio was a wreck. He was squishing around barefoot amongst spilled pots of paint, and trampled canvases were strewn everywhere. He was ripping up a canvas and stuffing the pieces into the fire. Wallander thought he saw a shoe burning in the stove. He knocked on the window, but there was no response. He tried the door. Locked. He banged on it and yelled that he had come to visit. There was no answer, but the racket inside continued. Wallander looked around for something to break down the door. But his father kept all his tools in the studio.

Wallander studied the door, which he had helped build. He took off his jacket and handed it to Gertrud. Then he slammed his shoulder against it as hard as he could. The whole doorjamb came away, and Wallander tumbled into the room, banging his head on a wheelbarrow. His father glanced at him vacantly and went on tearing up canvases.

Gertrud wanted to come in, but Wallander warned her away. He had seen his father like this once before, a strange combination of detachment and manic confusion. On that occasion he had found him walking in his pyjamas through a muddy field with a suitcase in his hand. Now he went up to him, took him by the shoulders, and began talking soothingly to him. He asked if there was something wrong. He said the paintings were fine, they were the best he’d ever done, the grouse were beautifully painted. Everything was all right. Anyone could have a bad day once in a while. But he had to stop burning things for no reason. Why should they have a fire in the middle of summer, anyway? They could get cleaned up and talk about the trip to Italy. Wallander kept talking, with a strong grip on his father’s shoulders, as the old man squinted myopically at him. While Wallander kept up his reassuring chatter he discovered his glasses trampled to bits on the floor. He asked Gertrud, who was hovering by the door, whether there was a spare pair. She ran to the house to get them and handed them to Wallander, who wiped them on his sleeve and then set them on his father’s nose. He continued to speak in a soothing voice, repeating his words as if he were reading the verses of a prayer. His father looked at him in bewilderment at first, then astonishment, and finally it seemed as though he had come to his senses again. Wallander released his grip. His father looked cautiously about him at the destruction.

“What happened here?” he asked. Wallander could see that he had forgotten everything. Gertrud began to weep. Wallander told her firmly to go and make some coffee. They’d be there in a minute. At last the old man seemed to grasp that he had been involved in the havoc.

“Did I do all this?” he asked, looking at Wallander with restless eyes, as if he feared the answer.

“Who doesn’t get sick and tired of things?” Wallander said. “But it’s all over now. We’ll soon get this mess cleaned up.”

His father looked at the smashed door.

“Who needs doors in the middle of summer?” said Wallander. “There aren’t any closed doors in Rome in the summer. You’ll have to get used to that.”

His father walked slowly through the debris from the frenzy that neither he nor anyone else could explain. Wallander felt a lump in his throat. There was something helpless about his father, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. He lifted the broken door and leaned it against the wall. He began tidying up the room, discovering that many of the canvases had survived. His father sat on a stool at his workbench and watched. Gertrud came in and told them that coffee was ready. Wallander gestured to her to take his father inside. Then he cleaned up the worst of the mess.

Before he went into the kitchen he called home. Linda was there.