The Historians Read online

  “Sven Feldt.”

  “It’s me, Jens.”

  “Hi.” Sven sounded happy. Jens couldn’t remember when they’d last spoken. They’d both been busy.

  “I was hoping for dinner,” Jens said. “Tonight, perhaps?”

  “That would be great, but it has to be a late one. The fallout from the riot in Uppsala is keeping us busy.”

  They agreed to meet at the restaurant Norma in Old Town.

  “Everything alright?” Sven asked.

  “Absolutely.” Jens thought about the typist listening in and recording his response right now. “You?”

  “Same,” Sven said cheerily.

  The war was making everyone sound positive.

  Jens sat down at his desk. Perhaps, like Kristina told him, the minister knew best, and he ought to leave well enough alone. But to doctor records . . . Jens felt someone ought to be told. Günther could hardly be planning a military operation on his own. But he remembered a rumor . . . Günther encouraging Germany to support an overthrow of the government in Sweden, to put Sweden on Germany’s side.

  It was early morning, and already he’d had it. He picked up his briefcase, opened it and swore. He’d left his notebook at home. He swore again.

  Well, he needed it. He and Kristina had slept at his small flat in Old Town last night. He could be back before anybody noticed. He took his jacket and left everything else the way it was.

  He crossed Norrbro Bridge, the soft sounds of moving water underneath him eerie in the silence. He missed the hum from the cars. Early on, he’d enjoyed the peace. Now, he felt Stockholm was but a shell of a city without the traffic pumping through its veins. He continued past the Three Crowns castle, past the Stockholm Cathedral with its sculpture of Sankt Göran and the dragon and into the small streets of Old Town.

  He didn’t know what to do about the archivist’s missing registers, but he’d talk to Sven about it. Sven would give advice.

  He followed Österlånggatan, peeking into the dark side alleys that led down to the water, many of them now blocked off with heaps of firewood. These streets used to contain trade of all sorts, but the whole of Old Town was being renovated. Vendors were no longer welcome.

  Farther along, the door to his apartment building opened and a man exited. Jens stopped abruptly. Karl Schnurre? There was no mistaking the corpulent figure. What had he been doing in Jens’s building?

  Schnurre began walking in his direction. Jens jumped back into a side street and pressed himself against the wall. Schnurre passed on the pavement so close to him that had he looked his way, he would have seen him.

  Jens tried to think who else lived in his apartment building and couldn’t see who Schnurre would possibly have been visiting. Not Mr. Bellman on the main floor. He was a hundred years old. The ladies on the second floor were both retired, living alone. One of them had been a schoolteacher, the other a shopkeeper. Neither of them had any German connections, as far as he knew. There was only his flat remaining, and the one opposite him, which was usually empty. The owner, a Mr. Enander, Jens had never met. Occasionally, he had heard sounds from the apartment late at night. It was said that Enander was a traveling businessman who used his flat mainly as a pied-à-terre.

  When Schurre had disappeared around a corner, Jens walked to his building, unlocked the door and ran up his stairs, hoping that he’d be wrong and that Kristina would be long gone. But when he opened the door to his apartment, she was still there.

  “Jens?” she said. She came out from the kitchen wearing an apron and holding a kitchen towel in her hands. “What are you doing here?”

  “I forgot my notebook,” he said.

  She laughed but didn’t let go of him with her eyes. “Oh, you are funny. Don’t move, I’ll get it for you!” She walked to pick up his notebook from his desk and put it in his hands. “Here you go.” She stood so that she blocked the entrance to the kitchen. Should he say what he’d seen? Ask her if she knew what Schnurre could have been doing in Jens’s building?

  There was a knock on the front door. “Miss Bolander?”

  “Oh, that must be the dry-cleaning service I ordered.” She passed him to open the door. Quickly, Jens glanced into the kitchen. On his kitchen counter, newly washed, were two coffee cups with plates.

  He looked at her straight back as she counted coins for the boy.

  “Well, I’m off,” he said finally. “I’ll see you later.”

  “See you tonight,” she said and kissed his cheek.

  JENS DIDN’T LIKE this. Not one bit. Kristina didn’t know Schnurre, did she? Apart from that one dinner—when Barbro had asked to bring the man—he didn’t think they’d met.

  He walked back to work, troubled. Kristina would never meet with the man on her own. He was a German senior official. She couldn’t. That would be immensely dangerous in all sorts of ways. And why? What reason would they have to meet?

  He exited Old Town by the statue of Sankt Göran.

  Three gentlemen in hats and long dark coats were now standing on Norrbro bridge: his own minister, Christian Günther; the minister of social affairs, Möller; and Prime Minister Hansson. The Swedish government, basically, on a Stockholm bridge at midday. What on earth were they doing out here?

  Günther was the first one to see him. He frowned. Hansson’s bushy eyebrows shot up.

  “Gentlemen.” Jens nodded.

  “A good day for bumping into old friends,” Günther said.

  “Yes,” Jens smiled. “Indeed.”

  He walked past them. There was no way the three of them had “bumped into” each other. Their agendas were full. And there was no meeting scheduled between them.

  Whatever they are discussing, he thought, it’s urgent and they don’t want to be overheard. He couldn’t remember them ever having taken similar precautions before and his mouth felt dry. He hoped it wasn’t about another turn of the war. Whatever it is, he thought, it’s important.

  12.

  Blackåsen Mountain

  Taneli woke up in the middle of the night, panting. A dream, he thought. Just a dream. But the smell in his nostrils was so strong, his stomach heaved. He thought he might vomit.

  On the other side of the tent lay his mother and father; their puffing rhythmic, heavy. Above him, through the hole in the cloth, he glimpsed a blue sky, the burnt tinge showing him it was still night. The thrush that had to move its nest on their arrival from a tree beside and which had been singing nightly ever since, was crooning its dull tjyh-tjyh-tjyh.

  Taneli crawled toward the opening of the tent and went outside. He inhaled the fresh air as if he could drink it. His pulse was still beating rapidly in his neck. Raija came bounding over. She danced around him, nipped his hand, looped his legs and almost tripped him up. He patted her head and then walked to the river, Raija skipping at his heels.

  It wasn’t a normal dream, he thought as he squatted down by the chilly water, cupped his hands and drank. In fact, it wasn’t a dream at all. Just a scent. The odour on your hand after touching a fire pot, or red rock in the ground. Cool, humid. Tangy. Iron. That’s what it was. Iron. Not usually a bad smell, but this time it had been overpowering. In his dream, he had gagged. And there had been such fear: his heart had been pounding, his eyes tearing up and then this all-consuming reek that ate itself into his head, down his throat, into his tummy . . .

  He stood up and tried to shake the feeling off. He was scared. At the fire pit, he sat down next to the charred ground. He bent forward, put his arms on his knees. Raija flopped down beside him and her warm body pressed into his. He closed his eyes. He was still tired. Perhaps he could sleep, he thought. But each time his body relaxed, the memory of the dream jolted him back. Raija didn’t move. She was a solid lump by his side.

  As always, Nihkko woke up first. His tent opening was pushed aside and he crawled out. He was agile even though his hair was white, his face a wrinkly brown and his walk bowlegged as if his center was being pulled toward the earth.

 
Nihkko approached Taneli and began building a fire. Soon, there were orange flickers among the dry twigs. Taneli sat up. Now, he realized how cold he was. He couldn’t wait for the flames to grow stronger. Nihkko disappeared, waddling down to the river with the pot, then returned and hung it on the stand to boil. Then he sat down cross-legged and waited.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Taneli said.

  Nihkko poked in the fire with a stick, adjusting the branches. He was easy to talk to. Some of the older ones were. They took the time and had the wisdom to remain quiet when people stumbled, trying to express what they were feeling. Not all of the old ones were quiet, though. Nihkko’s wife, for example, never stopped talking. Taneli didn’t know how Nihkko could put up with it. It would drive him mad to have a woman babbling in his ear all the time.

  He told Nihkko about his dream. He tried to describe the scent—how powerful it was, how violent.

  For a long time, Nihkko said nothing. He just sat. Taneli waited.

  “Your sister,” he said at last.

  At first, Taneli didn’t understand, then he did.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you still believe she is alive?”

  Taneli nodded.

  “Has she ever tried to . . . contact you?”

  Taneli frowned. Not exactly. He just knew she wasn’t dead.

  Nihkko sighed. “How old are you now, Taneli?”

  “Nine.”

  “You are young,” Nihkko said, “but growing older. As you grow, there will be new abilities, new skills. New sensitivities.” He stressed the last word. “The two of you are connected, that much is clear. Perhaps she is sending you the scent.”

  “A clue,” Taneli said. At first, he felt ecstatic. Then he got worried. “Will there be more?” he asked.

  “I don’t think she will stop now, do you?”

  Taneli shook his head.

  “I want you to be attentive and careful,” Nihkko said. “Don’t let her take over your head. Don’t, under any circumstances, let her lead you. The dead may mean well, but death can change them. They no longer know what is right or wrong. They become very selfish.”

  Taneli shook his head again: she was not dead.

  Nihkko raised a finger. We disagree on this, yes, he seemed to say. “She is not the only one who has vanished,” he said then. “There have been many.”

  Many? Who? Taneli drew in his breath sharply.

  “Many of our kind.” The elder nodded. “You remember Ámmon?”

  Taneli nodded.

  “He was one of them.”

  Taneli had thought Ámmon had died of natural causes. How come he didn’t know about this? How come it wasn’t discussed?

  Taneli knew why. In their traditions, it was believed that if you put words on things, you made them real. A person was not sick, just tired. The herd was not scared, only alert.

  One after another, the tent openings moved. People were coming out, yawning, stretching.

  “Nihkko?” The sharp voice of his wife.

  Nihkko seemed to shrink. Then he lifted his hand and waved to her.

  “Be very careful,” he repeated to Taneli in a low voice.

  “I was thinking about the herd . . .” His wife began talking before she’d reached him. Taneli rose.

  THE ENTIRE DAY, Taneli waited for his father to come home from the mine. When he came, he went straight to the river to wash and Taneli followed him. Taneli sat down on the shore and watched as his father rinsed himself: one arm, then the other, his chest, his armpits, his stomach—his leather trousers getting dark from the water. He scooped liquid in both hands and doused his face, over and over and over, as if there was more to wash off than just the dirt and soot. The water must be freezing cold, but his father didn’t care. He’s washing it off, Taneli thought. The mountain.

  Taneli’s cousin Olet and some of the other boys his age were angry with the men working for the mining company. “Our land in the first place,” they said with hard eyes. “The settlers should never have been allowed here. We should have fought them.”

  Nihkko wouldn’t tolerate such language. “The Sami are not fighters.” He’d shut them down.

  But Olet and his friends were still talking. They’d gather in the forest close to the mine and debate. Their voices were angry and carried far.

  But Taneli could see there had been no choice for his father and the others.

  When his father was done washing, he came to sit beside his son.

  Taneli glanced at him. His face was sinking in on itself, his head balding, his skin a gray shade from the dirt of the mine that could never be washed away. In time, his father would become like one of these rocks, Taneli thought. No one would be able to tell the difference.

  “I wanted to ask you something,” Taneli said.

  The rock beside him blinked his eyes as if the mere thought of Taneli asking questions was painful.

  “Could you tell me the history of Blackåsen?” he asked.

  Taneli could feel his father stiffen, but he didn’t immediately say no.

  “What do you want to know?” he asked.

  “All of it,” Taneli said.

  His father remained silent. Taneli wasn’t sure if he was going to answer, but then his father took a deep breath and began. “Our people used to say Blackåsen Mountain had the most powerful spirit of all. A spirit strong enough to challenge the Christian God. Its spirit was fickle, unfair in punishment, quick to anger, difficult to please. In olden days, our tribe used to cross Blackåsen twice each year: on our way to and from the winter pastures—that was when we spent the summers on the other side, before they said we were not allowed. Each passage was followed by rituals. We sacrificed; we took great care not to take anything from the mountain without asking. And it allowed us passage. The mountain haunted those who settled near it, but never us. Then the settlers found the iron. When they started drawing it out, I feared the worst. I kept waiting for the mountain to respond, to punish them, slaughter them. But nothing happened. Nothing. Look at it now; they’ve halved its size, flattened it into this unremarkable hill”—he snorted—“and still no response. But wait . . .”

  Taneli held his breath.

  “They say there’s more iron beneath the mountain than in the mountain itself. That the ore continues downward, all the way to the middle of the earth. As if there is more of it down there than on the surface. That’s when it will happen.”

  His father had lowered his voice and Taneli shivered.

  “Once they’ve reached flat ground and start rooting into its depths, going deeper, that is when the spirit will rise up and crush them all. Its revenge will be on a scale unheard of and it would be better for us all if we were as far away as possible.”

  He sounded as if he were talking about the end of the world.

  “I wish I didn’t have anything to do with this, but . . .” He shrugged. “And I have been punished.” He nodded. “Severely punished.”

  Javanna, Taneli thought.

  “Does anything . . .” Taneli said hesitantly, “live on the mountain?”

  His father pulled back and looked at him. “What do you mean?” He shook his head. “Not now. Once upon a time, the wildlife was everywhere. All the animals and birds wanted to make their home there. But now, with the explosions and the machines . . . nothing can stay there.”

  And yet . . . , Taneli thought. A smell of iron strong enough to make him vomit. Javanna was telling him something about the mountain.

  13.

  Laura

  Laura lay watching the faint gray glow entering through the curtain until her room was light enough to see. She had slept poorly, woken up repeatedly, tossed and turned. The decor hadn’t changed. Once, she had come here to the Gillet Hotel with a lover. He’d been a student, his confidence drawn from the fact of his father being an influential politician. But what had been love at first sight had dissipated with dawn. She had lain there in this same light, looking at the boy beside her, watching his thin, ash-
blond hair, the light stubble on his cheeks, the mouth that looked vulnerable as he slept. Her father wouldn’t like him. He was not a “good friend,” despite his influential family, she remembered thinking, even though, of course, she didn’t care about what her father thought. Before he woke up, she’d gotten dressed and left.

  Britta, too, had once stayed at this hotel. They’d compared notes on how the bedrooms had been furnished. “Though it never occurred to me it could have been love,” Britta said, and Laura exploded in laughter.

  She’d assumed that the reason Britta hadn’t wanted to fall in love was so she could remain free, not get tied down. But then she had fallen in love. Laura wished she knew with whom.

  She ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant and didn’t recognize any of the waiters, although she used to know them all. Perhaps the familiar ones had left. Perhaps it was because normally, she’d be an evening guest, not a morning guest. Whatever it was, it made her feel old.

  INSPECTOR ACKERMAN WAS at the police station, at his desk, smoking. The room was small and cold, white walls aging yellow from cigarette smoke.

  He looked up, moved the cigarette to the other hand, then stood to greet her. She realized he resembled Humphrey Bogart. The thought made her smile. Britta would have loved that. Britta would have noticed it even if her best friend had just been killed. Humphrey Bogart is investigating your murder, she thought, and immediately felt her mouth twitch into something like a sob.