Free A Treacherous Paradise by Henning Mankell

on the trestles, and soon to be tipped overboard into the sea.
    Hanna looked at the men who were standing in a semicircle. None of them could bring themselves to look her in the eye. Death was embarrassing, it made them self-conscious and insecure.
    She looked up at the sky, and the sun that was broiling hot even though it was so early in the morning. In her thoughts she suddenly found herself back in the sleigh, behind Forsman’s broad back.
    Then it was the cold, she thought. Now it’s the heat. But in a way they are the same.
    And the movement. Then it was a sleigh, now it was a ship slowly, almost imperceptibly, swaying in the swell.
    Captain Svartman was dressed in his uniform and with white gloves: in his hand was the book with instructions for how to conduct a burial at sea. He read in a monotonous but loud voice. He had no fears when it came to carrying out his duties as captain.
    Hanna suspected that more than anything else Svartman was angry because somebody had ignored his exhortations and gone ashore, even though he must have been aware of the danger he was exposing himself to.
    The man who was about to be buried had died completely unnecessarily. A man who had been stupid and not listened to what Captain Svartman had to say to him.
    Hanna had the feeling that Svartman was not simply mourning the loss of his third mate. He also felt that he’d been let down.

19
    THE CEREMONY WAS short. Captain Svartman did not deviate from the set text, added nothing personal. He fell silent when he came to the end of the order of service and nodded to his second mate, who had a good singing voice and launched into a hymn. Oddly enough he had chosen a Christmas hymn.
    Shine over sea and shore, star in the distance.
    The rest of the crew joined in, mumbling, with here and there a jarring false note. Hanna glanced furtively at them. Some were not singing at all.
    Which ones were thinking about the man who had died? Some were, no doubt. Others, perhaps most of them, were just grateful that they were still alive.
    When the hymn was over Captain Svartman nodded at Hanna, inviting her to step forward. He had explained to her that there were not really any rules or traditions with regard to what a widow in the crew should do as a final farewell to her husband during a burial at sea.
    ‘Place your hand on the sailcloth,’ he had suggested. ‘As we don’t have any flowers on board, your hand can be the symbol of a final farewell.’
    He could have sacrificed one of his potted plants, she thought. Broken off one of the flowers and given it to me. But he didn’t.
    She did as he had suggested, and placed her right hand on the flag. Tried to conjure up Lundmark in her mind’s eye. But although he had only been dead for a few days, it seemed that she was already having difficulty in recreating his face.
    Death is like a fog, she thought, which slowly envelops the person who is passing away.
    She took a pace backwards, Captain Svartman nodded again, four able seamen stepped forward, lifted up the plank and tipped the dead body overboard. Captain Svartman had picked his strongest sailors because the sailcloth contained not only a dead body but also several sinkers weighing many kilos, in order to make sure that the cloth coffin really did sink to the bottom of the sea.
    1,935 metres. Her husband was going to have a much deeper grave than the deepest grave on land. It would take almost thirty minutes for the dead body to reach the bottom. Halvorsen had told her that objects sink very slowly at great depths.
    The sea burial was over, the crew returned to their work. Only a few minutes later there was a clattering noise in the engine room. The ship was moving again, the interval was over.
    Hanna remained standing by the rail. There was no longer anything to be seen in the water. She turned away and went straight to the galley where the mess-room boy had begun preparing lunch. She put on her apron – and then discovered that a deckhand had