The Hand that Trembles

SIX

It was just before two o’clock. The sound from the street had abated in intensity but a car or motorcycle would occasionally drive down the monsoon-ravaged street. It had been one of the rainiest Bangalore Octobers in memory and this had left its mark. The streets were ruined, large potholes created dangerous traps, the water had turned the surface to washing boards, and whole pavements had collapsed, so undermined had they become.

And still it rained. More sporadically in the interior and not as violently as two, three weeks ago, but as recently as the past few days hundreds of people had died. Weddings had been rendered impossible because brides and bridegrooms had not been able to be brought together. School instruction had been suspended and everyone talked of ‘the great depression.’ Jan Svensk finally understood that this referred to a powerful low pressure weather system out at sea.

In addition, it was unexpectedly cold. The newspaper, which appeared tucked into the door handle every morning, indicated that it was time to get out one’s winter clothes, as the temperature the day before had sunk to the record low of fifty-six degrees.

The hospitals had been deluged by those seeking assistance, suffering coughs and fevers, and even Svensk had been stricken by ‘the big depression.’ He could not sleep, and it was not the rain that was keeping him awake, nor – as in the first few days – the jet lag; it was his thoughts of Sven-Arne Persson, and by extension Uppsala and his own life. Anxiety caused him to writhe on his bed, turn on the reading lamp, open a book for a while only to lay it aside, turn out the light, and try once again to fall asleep.

Now he had given up. He glanced at the telephone. Should he call home to Elise? It was only half past nine in the evening in Uppsala. But he abandoned the thought. They had spoken recently and she would wonder why he was calling so soon after they last talked. A conversation that contained the usual phrases but lacked all warmth. Jan Svensk had replaced the receiver with sadness, well aware that something was missing, and he grew increasingly morose as he recalled how joyless their exchange had been. No words of love, nothing of longing or desire, only the routine talk of everyday, if there had been exciting mail, if someone had called, how the weather had been, how the children were. He had talked about Bangalore in an uninspired way, the weather, the masses of people, his ongoing work.

Everything was fine. No one had called. No, mostly bills and some of his magazines. The children were well. No, they were with friends. It was snowing.

It’s raining here, he thought, and looked at the brick tiles that covered the hotel entryway. Many of the tiles were chipped, which he found irritating. Suddenly he caught a motion on the wall above the entrance. A squirrel scampering along a thirty-centimetre-wide ledge running under the windows on the third floor. It was running back and forth in an anxious manner. Clearly it wanted to get down. But how had it ended up there? At one end of the ledge there was only a ninety-degree corner to a smooth concrete wall and the other end looked equally unpromising. But there was also a tree – it looked to be a rubber plant – admittedly a couple of metres out from the wall, but it was also the only thing that could offer a way out of the nervous back and forth. It was clear that the squirrel had also come to this conclusion, because it started pausing for longer and longer stretches at this corner, leaning forward daringly and examining the leaves shiny with rain, before leaving once more for the other end.

And so it went on. Jan Svensk followed it with his gaze, increasingly sympathetic to the miserable creature. No, don’t stay there, he thought, as the squirrel calculated the distance to the tree. Jump! You can do it. You’re a squirrel.

A final check, a quick shake of his body, stillness and concentration for a couple of seconds, and then came the jump.

The squirrel disappeared into the dark interior of the tree. Jan Svensk remained standing at the window for a little longer. A moped sputtered along on the street. The rain fell.

The distraction offered by the moments when he had been so absorbed by the squirrel’s actions had somewhat lightened his mood.

It occurred to him that he could call home and talk about the unlikely chance encounter with Sven-Arne Persson, but put this out of his mind. If he was going to call anyone about this, it would be his parents. They had been acquainted with Persson. He should call them anyway; they always received his calls with genuine warmth and gave expression to an embarrassing mixture of pride and worry. But he decided he would put this off for one more day; he needed to think the whole thing through.

He crawled into bed, turned off the light, and rearranged his pillows in a way that he thought would facilitate sleep.

He woke up at half past four, awakened by the signal from some kind of service phone on the wall of the corridor outside.

The call was over after a brief but loud discussion. Jan Svensk then heard the lift mechanism start up and in his half sleeping and dazed state he associated it with a war film he had seen in his youth. There it was the mechanism to a giant piece of artillery that regulated the sight of a cannon – a contraption that set its sights on the intended target with no apparent human intervention. The machinery was composed of well-oiled cogs and pins that coldly and unhesitatingly brought the deadly things into firing mode.

For a second, there was a cut to the triumphant face of the commander, and thereafter the flames from the fire against the backdrop of the night sky. The mighty thunder and high-pitched whine of the projectiles were amplified by the speakers of the cinema.

Jan Svensk could no longer remember what the target was, but most likely it was a ship making its way through the Atlantic night, whose crew was secure in the belief that they were at a safe distance from the enemy coastline and firepower.

How wrong they were, Jan Svensk thought, and shortly returned to sleep.