pyramids?'
'I'm not talking about everyone else, I'm talking about me.'
Wallander realised it was futile to try to reason with his father. At the same time he couldn't help but be impressed with his intractability.
'I'm here now,' Wallander said. 'I'll try to get you out tomorrow. Or later today. I'll pay the fine and then it's over. We'll leave this place, go to the hotel and get your suitcase. Then we'll fly home.'
'I've paid for my room until the twenty-first.'
Wallander nodded patiently.
'Fine. I'm going home. You stay. But if you climb the pyramids one more time you're on your own.'
'I never got that far,' his father said. 'It was difficult. And steep.'
'Why did you want to get to the top?'
His father hesitated before answering.
'It's a dream I've had all these years. That's all. I think that one should be faithful to one's dreams.'
The conversation died away. Several minutes later Radwan returned. He offered Wallander's father a cigarette and lit it for him.
'Have you started smoking now?'
'Only when I'm in jail. Never anywhere else.'
Wallander turned to Radwan.
'I assume there's no possibility that I can take my father with me now?'
'He must appear before the court today at ten o'clock. The judge will most likely accept the fine.'
'Most likely?'
'Nothing is certain,' Radwan said. 'But we have to hope for the best.'
Wallander said goodbye to his father. Radwan followed him out to a patrol car that was waiting to take him back to the hotel. It was now six o'clock.
'I will send a car to pick you up a little after nine,' Radwan said as they parted. 'One should always help a foreign colleague.'
Wallander thanked him and got into the car. Again he was thrown back against the seat as it sped off, sirens blaring.
At half past six Wallander ordered a wake-up call and collapsed naked on the bed. I have to get him out, he thought. If he ends up in prison he'll die.
Wallander sank into a restless slumber but was awakened by the sun rising over the horizon. He had a shower and dressed. He was already down to his last clean shirt.
He walked out. It was cooler now, in the morning. Suddenly he stopped. Now he saw the pyramids. He stood absolutely still. The feeling of their enormity was overwhelming. He walked away from the hotel and up the hill that led to the entrance to the Giza plateau. Along the way he was offered rides on both donkeys and camels. But he walked. Deep down he understood his father. One should stay faithful to one's dreams. How faithful had he been to his own? He stopped close to the entrance and looked at the pyramids. Imagined his father climbing up the steeply inclined walls.
He ended up standing there for a long time before he returned to the hotel and had breakfast. At nine o'clock he was outside the hotel entrance, waiting. The patrol car arrived after several minutes. Traffic was heavy and the sirens were on as usual. Wallander crossed the Nile for the fourth time. He saw now that he was in a huge metropolis, incalculable, clamorous.
The court was on a street by the name of Al Azhar. Radwan was standing on the steps, smoking, as the car pulled up.
'I hope you had a few hours of sleep,' he said. 'It is not good for a person to go without sleep.'
They walked into the building.
'Your father is already here.'
'Does he have a defence lawyer?' Wallander asked.
'He has a court-assigned assistant. This is a court for minor offences.'
'But he could still receive two years in prison?'
'There is a big difference between a death sentence and two years,' Radwan said thoughtfully.
They walked into the courtroom. Some cleaners were walking around, dusting.
'Your father's case is the first of the day,' Radwan said.
Then his father was led in. Wallander stared horrified at him. His father was in handcuffs. Tears welled up in Wallander's eyes. Radwan glanced at him and put a hand on his shoulder.
A lone judge walked in and sat down. A prosecutor seemed to appear out of thin air and rattled off a long tirade that Wallander assumed to be the charges. Radwan leaned over.
'It looks good,' he whispered. 'He claims that your father is old and confused.'
As long as no one translates that, Wallander thought. Then he really will go crazy.
The prosecutor sat down. The court assistant made a very brief statement.
'He is making the case for a fine,' Radwan whispered. 'I have informed the court that you are here, that you are his son and that you are a policeman.'
The assistant sat down. Wallander saw that his father wanted to say something. But the court assistant shook his head.
The judge struck the table with his gavel and uttered a few words.
Then he banged the gavel again, got up and left.
'A fine,' Radwan said and patted Wallander on the shoulder. 'It can be paid here in the courtroom. Then your father is free to go.'
Wallander took out the bag inside his shirt.
Radwan led him to a table where a man calculated the sum from British pounds into Egyptian pounds. Almost all of Wallander's money disappeared. He received an illegible receipt for the amount. Radwan made sure his father's handcuffs were removed.
'I hope that the rest of your journey is pleasant,' Radwan said and shook both their hands. 'But it is not advisable for your father to attempt to climb the pyramids again.'
Radwan had a patrol car take them back to the hotel. Wallander made a note of Radwan's address. He realised that this would not have been so easy without Radwan's help. In some way he wanted to thank him. Perhaps it would be most appropriate to send him a painting with a wood grouse?
His father was in high spirits and commented on everything that they drove past. Wallander was simply tired.
'Now I will show you the pyramids,' his father said happily when they reached the hotel.
'Not right now,' Wallander said. 'I need to sleep for a few hours. You too. Then we'll look at the pyramids. When I've booked my return flight.'
His father looked intently at him.
'I must say that you surprise me. That you spared no expense in flying out here and getting me out. I would not have thought that of you.'
Wallander did not answer.
'Go to bed,' he said. 'I'll meet you here at two o'clock.'
Wallander did not manage to fall asleep. After writhing on his bed for an hour he went to the reception desk and asked them for help in booking his return flight. He was directed to a travel agency located in another part of the hotel. There he was assisted by an unbelievably beautiful woman who spoke perfect English. She managed to get him a seat on the plane that was leaving Cairo the following day, the eighteenth of December, at nine o'clock. Since the plane only stopped in Frankfurt, he would already be in Kastrup at two o'clock that afternoon. After he had confirmed his seat, it was only one o'clock. He sat down in a cafe next to the lobby and drank some water and a cup of very hot coffee that was much too sweet. At exactly two o'clock his father appeared. He was wearing his pith helmet.
Together they explored the Giza plateau in the intense heat. Wallander thought several times that he was going to faint. But his father seemed unaffected by the heat. Down by the Sphinx Wallander at last found some shade. His father narrated and Wallander realised that he knew a great deal about the Egypt of old where the pyramids and the remarkable Sphinx had once been built.
