Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell

town in deep distress. My grandparents’ island was a part of this gigantic abandoned, unneeded archipelago lining the edge of Sweden, comprising not only islands along our coasts, but just as many villages and small towns in inland backwaters and in the forests. In this town there were no jetties for mooring and going ashore, no angry-sounding hydrocopters whipping up a whirlwind of snow as they approached with their cargo of post and junk mail. Nevertheless, wandering around this deserted place felt like walking around a skerry at the edge of the open sea. Blue television light spilled out of windows on to the snow; sometimes snatches of television sound could be heard, bits of different programmes leaking out from the windows. I thought of loneliness and all these people watching different programmes. Every evening people of all generations burrowed into different worlds, beamed down by the satellites.
    In the old days, we used to have the same programmes to talk about. What did people talk about now?
    I paused at what had once been the railway station, and tied my scarf more tightly round my neck. It was cold, and a wind was getting up. I walked along the deserted platform. A single goods wagon stood in a snow-filled siding, an abandoned bull in its stall. In the faint light from a single lamp I tried to read the old timetablestill attached to the station wall in a case with a cracked glass window. I checked my watch. A southbound train would have been due at any moment. I waited, thinking that stranger things had been known to happen than a ghost train materialising out of the darkness and heading for the bridge over the frozen river.
    But no train came. Nothing came. If I’d had a bit of hay with me, I’d have left it in front of the old goods wagon. I resumed my walk. The clear sky was full of stars. I searched for some kind of movement, a shooting star perhaps, or a satellite, perhaps even a whisper from one of the gods who are alleged to live up there. But nothing happened. The night sky was mute. I continued as far as the bridge over the frozen river. There was a log lying on the ice. A black line in the middle of all the white. I couldn’t remember the name of the river. I thought it might be the Ljusnan, but wasn’t sure.
    I remained standing on the bridge for what seemed ages. I suddenly had the feeling that I was no longer alone under those high iron arches. There were other people there as well, and it dawned on me that what I could see was in fact myself. At all ages, from the little boy who had scurried around and played on my grandparents’ island, to the me who, many years later, had left Harriet, and eventually the man I was now. For a brief moment I could see myself, as I had been and as the man I had become.
    I searched among the figures surrounding me for one that was different, somebody I might have become: but there was no one. Not even a man who followed in thefootsteps of his father and worked as a waiter in various restaurants.
    I have no idea how long I stood there on the bridge. When I went back to the guest house, the apparitions had disappeared.
    I lay down on the bed, rubbed up against her arm, and fell asleep.
    I dreamt about climbing up the iron bridge in the middle of the night. I was perched on the very top of one of the huge arches, and knew that at any moment I was going to fall down on to the ice.
    It was snowing gently when we set out the next day to find the right logging road. I couldn’t remember what it looked like. There was nothing in the monotonous landscape to jog my memory. But I knew that we were close by. The pool was somewhere in the middle of the triangle formed by Aftonlöten, Ytterhögdal and Fnussjen.
    Harriet appeared rather better in the morning. When I woke up, she was already washed and dressed. We had breakfast in a small dining room where we were the only guests. Harriet had also had a dream during the night. It was about us, a trip