Italian Shoes (2009) by Henning Mankell

Author:Henning Mankell [Mankell, Henning]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Henning Mankell
ISBN: 9781846550997
Publisher: Harvill Secker
Published: 2009-08-22T23:00:00+00:00

I rang directory enquiries, but there was nobody in Stockholm of that name. I asked the operator, who said her name was Elin, to extend the search to the whole of Sweden.

There was one Agnes Klarstrho could be the one I was looking for. She lived near Flen, some fifty miles west of Stockholm: the address suggested a farm in a village called Sledsbyn. I made a note of the address and her telephone number.

The dog was asleep. The cat was outside in the moonlight. I stood up and went to the room in which a half-finished mat was still stretched over the frame of my grandmothers loom. It had always been a significant image as far as I was concerned: this is what death always looks like when it rudely interrupts and terminates our lives. On a shelf where there had previously been reels of thread, I stored various papers I had been keeping for many years. A thin file

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containing documents, from my rather poor school-leaving report that my father was so proud of that he learned it off by heart, to the accursed copy of the notes of the amputation. The file was sparse because I have always had no difficulty in discarding papers that most people regard as important to keep. On top was the will that a ridiculously expensive lawyer had drawn up for me. Now I was forced to change it, because I had acquired a daughter. But that was not the reason I had come to the room with the loom that still smelled of my grandmother. I took out the operation notes from 9 March 1991. I spread the sheet of paper out on the table in front of me and read it from first to last.

Every word was like a sharp stone paving the path to my ruin. From the very first words: Diagnosis: chondrosarcoma of the proximal humerus sin, to the last one of all, Bandaging.

Bandaging. That was all. The operation was over, the patient was wheeled away to the recovery room. Minus an arm, but still with that confounded tumour in the bone of the other upper arm.

I read: Pre-op assessment. Twenty-year-old right-handed woman, previously basically healthy, examined in Stockholm due to swollen left upper arm. MRI scan shows low-grade chondrosarcoma left upper arm. Subsequent scan confirms diagnoisis, patient agrees to amputation of proximal humerus which allows adequate margin. Operation: intubation narcosis, sunbed position, arm exposed. Usual antibiotic prophylaxis. Incision from coracoid process along lower edge of deltoid to the anterior fold of the axilla. Ligation of a cephalic vein and detachment of pectoralis. Identification of vascular structure, ligation of veins and securing of arteries with double ligatures. Extrusion of nerves from wound, and division. Then separation of deltoid muscle from humerus, and of latissimus dorsi and teres major. Separation of long and short head of biceps, also of coracobrachialis slightly below amputation level. Humerus sawn off at surgical neck and filed. Stump covered by triceps, which are separated, and by coracobrachialis.

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