The Man with the Silver Saab by Alexander McCall Smith

Author:Alexander McCall Smith [McCall Smith, Alexander]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2021-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE GARDENS OF CHILDHOOD

The following day, Ulf had an appointment shortly after lunch with his therapist, Dr. Svensson. The therapist was a natty dresser, and the moment Ulf entered his consulting room, he noticed Dr. Svensson’s shoes. This was the second pair of fine English shoes he had encountered within a week. There had been that pair of Oxfords worn by the elegantly dressed Anders Kindgren, and now here was a pair of tobacco-coloured half-brogues, once again of a characteristic English cut, sported by Ulf’s therapist. He would need to take a closer look to identify their maker, of course, but that was difficult to do discreetly. Shoes, Ulf felt, spoke volumes: no shoe was silent when it came to making revealing statements about its owner.

Dr. Svensson followed his gaze. He might not have had Ulf’s ability to read shoes, but he was adept at reading eyes. What the eyes did in a few seconds, Dr. Svensson once wrote, tells you more than many hours on the couch.

“You’re interested in my shoes,” the therapist said.

Ulf looked up, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I was staring.”

“Nothing wrong with staring,” said Dr. Svensson. “Indeed, we should stare more, rather than less. We need to dwell on our surroundings a bit more, rather than taking them for granted.” He paused. “I like my shoes.”

Ulf wondered how many people disliked their shoes. There were, he supposed, many who had to make do with shoes that they would not choose to wear, had they the choice—people who were too poor to own anything but the humblest shoes, people who were obliged to wear hand-me-downs, people who had no shoes at all. We sometimes forgot about poverty in our sated societies.

“You’re thinking about shoes?” asked Dr. Svensson.

Ulf admitted he was. “I was thinking about how there are people who have to make do with inadequate shoes. There must be many—not here in Sweden, but in poorer countries.”

“There undoubtedly are,” said Dr. Svensson. “And even in Sweden there’ll be some parents who don’t have the money to buy their children shoes that fit. We’re rich—but not that rich.”

“And supportive,” added Ulf, “but not that supportive.” He sighed. There were people who did not have papers; people on the margins for one reason or another. No society on earth, it seemed, had solved the problem of poverty; and the image of The Peaceable Kingdom came to him, and he looked away in sadness.

Dr. Svensson, though, was still thinking of shoes. “I’ve always longed to have a pair of made-to-measure shoes,” he said, a note of wistfulness creeping into his voice. “They make lasts just for you—exact models of your feet. They build the leather around them, and the shoes fit perfectly. It’s like walking around with gloves on your feet.”

“Very nice,” said Ulf.

“But expensive,” added Dr. Svensson.

“Nice things often are.”

That was true, said Dr. Svensson, but one should not fall into the trap of thinking that material things could be the solution to the pain of living. “People talk about shopping therapy,” he said.

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