Baiba

Baiba is Wallander’s former partner in Riga, a relationship that has ended but remains emotionally unfinished for him. She appears only briefly in the evidence, yet her memory shapes his response to a new romance, and a phone call after a year apart exposes the gap between what Wallander says and what he can honestly claim to feel.

A Past Relationship Recalled

When Wallander worries that Elvira Lindfeldt may be occupied with someone else, he remembers having once made the same mistake with Baiba. He had gone to Riga without warning her to test his suspicions, only to discover that there was no other man in her life. He recognizes that he was wrong. The episode gives his present jealousy a history: his fear of being misled has led him before to act on suspicion, and the memory now urges him to take Elvira at her word.

Baiba is therefore present in the narrative first as a point of comparison rather than through a scene of her own. Wallander’s recollection establishes that they shared a relationship close enough for him to travel to Riga over his doubts, but the evidence does not describe the circumstances of their separation or Baiba’s experience of that earlier episode.

The Call from Riga

After about a year without speaking, Baiba calls Wallander shortly before midnight to see how he is doing. They exchange brief assurances that each is fine, then ask whether they ever think about one another. Baiba says that she does, and treats the call itself as evidence of her concern. Wallander says that he thinks about her all the time, but recognizes that he is lying or at least exaggerating.

The asymmetry is quiet but telling. Baiba’s stated reason for calling is to find out how Wallander is; his question seeks reassurance that he still occupies her thoughts. He cannot answer his own question about whether he misses her. He knows the relationship belongs to the past and is fading, yet he cannot entirely release either Baiba or the memories of their time together.

Wallander’s Unfinished Attachment

The call comes during a period of acute loneliness for Wallander, after his friendship with Martinsson has broken and he has discovered that Sten Widén has left without saying goodbye. Against those losses, Baiba’s voice briefly restores a connection across the distance between Riga and Ystad, but the conversation does not resolve what remains between them. It ends after they talk about other things, leaving Wallander with uncertainty rather than renewed commitment.

Wallander likens his difficulty reaching his feelings to a firewall: a barrier he carries within himself and does not always know how to pass. The image belongs to his self-understanding, not to any stated explanation from Baiba. Her limited but consequential presence shows how an old relationship can persist as memory and longing even when its future is unclear and Wallander cannot reliably say what he feels.