The Historians Read online

  Laura knew of Sven Olov Lindholm. She remembered his grinning face from the news reports earlier that week as he stood on the Uppsala mound with a Nazi salute while the police cut down protestors with sabres. It had been all over the news both in Sweden and abroad: the press describing the police as “Nazi-friendly.”

  “Did she get caught up in the riots?”

  “No, she spent Easter in Stockholm. Didn’t get back until after. This happened before she left.”

  Stockholm. Britta had been in Stockholm without getting in touch.

  “Why would she have met with him?”

  “I don’t know. But I saw them at Kafé Centrum. They didn’t seem unfriendly.”

  “Never,” Laura said.

  Britta was not a Nazi sympathiser. She could perhaps be deemed immoral when it came to her own life, but when it came to human rights and justice, she was the most moral person Laura knew. She’d remained friends with Andreas, for heaven’s sake.

  Andreas’s eyes were large. “I’m only telling you what I saw. They were having coffee. Then she told me she was going to Stockholm for a few days. She came back Tuesday and called me to arrange to meet for dinner yesterday. I was going to ask her about Lindholm.”

  Before she could probe him further, the caretaker of Ekman’s House arrived.

  Laura tried her best smile.

  The thin, gray-haired man scowled. Did he remember having to clean up after her and the others after their nachspiele?

  “I wonder if you might let us in?” she asked.

  “Why?”

  She didn’t want to tell him about Britta. It seemed ridiculous now; what would Britta be doing alone in a locked building? “I forgot a book here. In the large meeting hall upstairs.” She hoped he didn’t keep track of who was a student and who had left the program.

  He grimaced again but unlocked the doors. Laura looked at Andreas, signaling him to follow. In the hallway, she paused. It smelled of cold stone. The vault where they had used to have their nachspiele lay at the end of the corridor near the back. A few steps down, and there it would be: white stone walls, a single dark wooden table. Candles in iron holders along the walls and the rusty chandelier above the table provided the lighting and threw the arch of the room into a dusky warmth. She would bet the room still echoed with their laughter.

  She felt the usual tingle of excitement.

  She could envision them now, the cellar room full of smoke, the debates getting more heated as the evening went on. Lectures taught them history and methods to study. The nachspiele had been about playing with knowledge, debating under the supervision of the most brilliant mind Laura had ever met, that anyone of them had ever met. “Most students will be contented with the lectures,” Professor Lindahl had said in his soft voice when he first invited her to the meals. “I think of such students as able artisans. We need able artisans; there is nothing wrong with being one. But other students need . . . more.”

  The delight of being part of those needing more! Her stomach still swooped at the thought.

  Of course, the other history teachers had not liked the nachspiele, calling them “unorthodox,” even “dangerous.” Especially one: Professor Falk. He had tried to get the headmaster to shut them down. But the headmaster hadn’t wanted to vex Professor Lindahl and thus they had continued.

  Who had taken their places at the nachspiele now that they were gone? She hadn’t thought to ask Britta.

  The caretaker indicated the stairs. She walked up the stone steps to the room where the Historical Society meetings took place. The windowless space was gloomy. Back then, they’d never noticed. Professor Lindahl had stood at the front, his blond hair glowing white in the dimness. All eyes on him, the students’ burning with admiration. The other lecturers’ faces, sullen. Professor Lindahl was a legend. Rumor had it that he knew the prime minister had lied about the state of the Swedish defense program by counting the number of times his eyes blinked during the speech. People said he was called in to advise the Swedish government and that its members feared him as much as they revered him. He’d been responsible for the removal of more than one minister from his post. He’d been involved in instating a few as well. Yes, Professor Lindahl was special. There had been a lot of jealousy among the faculty.

  “Where did you sit?” the caretaker asked.

  She lifted her brows. Oh, the book. “Right here.” She pointed to the chair beside her. “I guess I must have left it in the library after all.”

  They walked back downstairs to the vestibule. Behind the stairs, in the corridor leading to the vault, a movement, low down by the floor. Dark, small. A rat? Laura hesitated. “I’m just going to have a look . . .”

  There was a poster on the wall in the corridor: The Finnish Cause Is Our Cause, depicting two soldiers dressed in white, skiing, one wearing the Finnish flag, the other, the Swedish. The poster was old; the cause had already been lost and now “the Finnish cause” was no longer the same as the Swedish; the Finns had joined forces with the Germans to fight the Soviet Union. But at least the worst fears of the Reds storming into Sweden hadn’t materialized. Not yet.

  On the floor, a short trail of brown spots. Coffee? The caretaker was losing his touch.

  She came to the opening and stopped.

  Britta sat in the dim room on a chair by the table, wearing a brown skirt and a brown sweater with a collar. Her head was lowered and her loose blond hair hung over her face. She hadn’t put it up as she usually did, yet Laura would have recognized that mane anywhere.

  Laura held her breath.

  “Britta?”

  She felt, rather than heard, Andreas and the caretaker approach. Her heart thudded in her chest. She took the two steps down. Britta didn’t move. Was there a rope around her torso?

  Britta’s sweater was bloody, torn into shreds, her ravaged chest visible through the slashes.

  Did she fold away Britta’s hair to see her face? Put her hand under the chin and raise it?

  She must have done so, for afterward she knew that there was a tiny black hole in her friend’s right temple. The left side of her face was swollen. Her mascara had run and painted black shapes on her cheek. What was on the other side, you couldn’t tell. It was covered by blood since her right eye had been gouged out. Later, Laura would only remember details: minutiae, vibrant, in color and excruciatingly clear, such as how white and clean the rope was that held her friend upright. Or how Britta’s ankles were crossed, and one shoe had come off, displaying a stockinged heel discolored black by the leather. The tinny moan from the caretaker behind her. Andreas leaning against the wall as if broken. Her own scream that seemed to fill the small area. Or the sour tear in her throat, as she vomited on the floor.

  A POLICEMAN LED her upstairs. Laura was standing with her arms wrapped around herself in the windowless gray room. She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs had collapsed. She closed her eyes, but the image of what she had seen was imprinted on her mind. It always would be. There was a wave of nausea, and she thought she might vomit again. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. This couldn’t be happening. Impossible.

  A man in his forties entered. He had heavy facial features and thick black hair. His eyes were deep set and dark. “Laura Dahlgren?”

  Had she told them her name? She couldn’t remember.

  “I am Police Inspector Ackerman. Please take a seat.”

  Laura sank down on the chair closest to her. Her knees were shaking, knocking against each other. Her fingers tugged at the sleeves of her shirt as if they had a life of their own. The policeman watched her for a moment, brown eyes squinting, then opened a black notebook and took out a pen.

  “You found her,” he stated.

  Her teeth were chattering. Breathe, she told herself. Focus. Her grandfather had taught her: when panicking, focus on your breathing and the next task. Then the next. Don’t think. Whatever you do, don’t think. Her father would just say “Control yourself.” Same thing.

  “What is her name?”r />
  “Britta Hallberg.” Her jaws were tight, and she had to force her mouth to open. Her voice sounded distant. Not like her own.

  “Where was she from?”

  “Blackåsen.”

  “How did you know her?”

  “We studied together, before the war broke out.”

  “And she continued her studies?”

  She nodded. “Research, for her doctorate.”

  “What?”

  “What do you mean?” She didn’t understand.

  “What did you study?”

  “History.”

  “And what do you do now?”

  “I work for a trade delegation in Stockholm.”

  “Stockholm. Why are you here today?”

  “Andreas . . . Britta’s friend, was worried,” she said. “He couldn’t find her. He called me. I came, and we searched for her together.”

  “Why was he worried?”

  “He and Britta had agreed to meet last night, and she didn’t come. That made him worried.”

  She inhaled and it sounded like a hiccup. Don’t think now. Later.

  “Has this happened before? Her going missing and him calling?”

  “No.”

  “You said ‘Britta’s friend.’” Does that mean he’s not a friend of yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why did he call you?”

  “I think she must have been frightened.” A flash of Britta’s streaked face. She had to swallow. Breathe. “She had told him that if anything happened to her, he needed to call me. And when I met her last time, I got a feeling there was something wrong.”

  “But she didn’t tell you what it was?”

  She shook her head. If only she had insisted! Her face twisted into a sob, but she forced it back under control. If she started, she’d never stop.

  Inspector Ackerman tapped his pen against the book.

  “How did you know you would find her here?” he asked.

  “I didn’t . . .” She sounded desperate. “Andreas had already looked for her in other places. I didn’t expect to find her.”

  He scribbled in his book. “The young man. Was he her . . . ?”

  “They were childhood friends, that’s all. Where is he? Andreas?”

  “We will question him at the station.”

  “Why?”

  “It is better.”

  He didn’t want them here together after finding Britta, she thought. He wanted to ask his questions without them having spoken to each other about what they’d seen. Perhaps also because Andreas was Sami.

  Andreas knows, she thought then, with such certainty she surprised herself. He knows who did this.

  No. Impossible. He cared for Britta, she had to give him that. If he knew more, he would have said. But he had been scared. Perhaps he was just worried about Britta. But that worried after only one evening’s absence? It didn’t make sense.

  “Did she have anyone else?”

  “No one in particular. Well, not that I know of.”

  Erik would be devastated. The others . . . She’d have to tell them. Britta, who’d remained outside the war, was the first one among them to die. It didn’t feel real. Her teeth began chattering again and she shivered. She put her hands between her thighs, squeezed them, tried to calm her body down.

  The policeman studied her.

  “Did she have any enemies?”

  “She is friends with everyone . . . Was . . . Everyone liked her.”

  Images of Britta flickered through her mind—Britta laughing, cigarette between two fingers, champagne glass in the other hand, her head turning right and left as she said hello to people. Everyone’s gaze following her.

  She blinked hard, didn’t want to see.

  “Who would do such a thing?” he asked.

  “No one,” she said.

  He looked at her. Someone had.

  “I don’t know. Everyone liked her,” she repeated. Loved her, she thought.

  “Anything else that strikes you as strange or unusual, lately?”

  “I haven’t seen her since February. I don’t know what was going on in her life recently.” It hurt to admit that.

  “Was she politically active?”

  “No. She had strong opinions of right and wrong . . . of justice, but she wasn’t engaged in a party or anything . . .”

  She didn’t tell him about Britta supposedly meeting with Sven Olov Lindholm. Andreas could tell him that himself. She still didn’t believe it.

  “Why did you come here to look for her?” he asked.

  “Like I said, it was the only place left. We went to her dorm. Andreas had asked in class.”

  “Who comes here?”

  “The history students. The professors.”

  “Who has a key to this house?”

  “You’ll have to ask the administration. The caretaker does. There’s a key at the historical administration. It hangs on the wall. We all know this.”

  “All, as in . . . ?”

  “Students, teachers . . . But why?” she said. “Why on earth would anyone do this? Britta was . . .” her voice broke. Lovely. Wonderful. Harmless.

  He didn’t respond.

  “Is there anything else you can think of that might be important?” he asked instead. “Arguments, past lovers . . . ?”

  She shook her head. There were plenty of past lovers, of course, but that had been innocent. They had fought—their group—toward the end, but that had nothing to do with this. She thought back to Britta’s room. Something about it still bothered her.

  The image of her ravaged friend floated up before her again. “Her upper body.” Her hand flew up to touch her own blouse. “Her eye . . . What happened to her?”

  He shut his book. For a moment she thought he wouldn’t respond. “It looks as if she was tortured,” he said then.

  Laura gasped. To hear it said out loud . . . “Tortured?”

  He nodded. She covered her mouth, then removed her hand. “And shot?” she asked, remembering the wound in the temple.

  He nodded again. “We will know more after the autopsy.”

  Laura shivered. “The shot to her temple . . . It’s so . . . cold.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, rising to stand. “The coldest wounds can display the most passion, don’t you think?”

  2.

  Jens

  It’s not reasonable.” Daniel Jonsson, one of the archivists, followed Jens Regnell down the corridors—not for the first time—waving a bunch of papers. “You have to tell him.”

  “I have.” Jens took the steps up to the second floor two at a time. You don’t know how many times, he thought.

  They were in the Arvfurstens palats, the seat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The unreasonable person they were speaking about was the minister himself, Christian Günther, to whom Jens was a secretary.

  “He’s been doing this since the beginning of his tenure. There must be archives. Especially now, when we’re changing our positions, there must be trails of what we say and do.”

  The civil servant’s curly gray hair was standing on end as if he had thrust his fingers through it before coming to find Jens. His glasses had slid down his nose and he pushed them up with a finger as he blinked and walked sideways trying to catch Jens’s gaze.

  “The minister runs things the way he decides,” Jens said. “And he is successful.”

  This was a partial truth. In his short time with Christian Günther, Jens had learned that the foreign minister was popular with the prime minister, detested by the Swedish people, mistrusted by the press, perceived as pro-German.

  The archivist scoffed. “He doesn’t follow the government’s policies but makes up his own as he goes.”

  Jens slowed his steps. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” he said.

  The archivist gave him a look—you know I’m right—and they walked a couple of steps in silence.

  Jens did know Daniel was right. He might be new in his post, but he had
heard the rumors. German activities approved with no government protocols or records, least of all from Günther. Sweden might be neutral, but they’d had to acquiesce, even now with Allied pressure on them to “cut the Germans off, or else . . .” It was a balancing act. Sweden was completely dependent on German imports and although, after Stalingrad, Günther had instructed his staff that their foreign policies must now include the possibility of a German defeat, Germany had not yet lost. The commander of the Swedish Armed Forces, Törnell, still thought they would win.

  “There are rules,” Daniel said. “If he won’t record the minutes of the meetings, you’ll have to.”

  Jens wanted to laugh. Or cry. At most meetings, Günther would ask his staff to leave, despite them grumbling it was against due process. In their communications, the Germans called him an “unobjectionable friend of Germany.”

  Jens stopped. In the gold-framed mirror behind Daniel he caught a glimpse of himself: too blond, too blue-eyed, too bloody earnest; a schoolboy soon to turn thirty-five in some dressing-up game, wearing a dark suit and a white shirt with a darker tie. What on earth was he doing here?

  “Listen,” he said to Daniel. “I will do what I can. What are you missing?”

  “The records show there have been several phone calls between our minister and the Danish foreign minister over the last few weeks. I spoke with my counterpart in Denmark and he said the exiled Norwegian foreign affairs minister was also involved. These contacts aren’t logged at our end. There aren’t any notes. I need to at least log them and list what was discussed.”

  “I’m sure they were just updating each other on recent events.”

  “There should still be records.”

  “Weren’t they listened to?”

  Calls had been monitored by the Security Services since the beginning of the war—listened to, registered. Mail was read and censored. Daniel had likely gotten his information from those registers.

  Daniel scoffed. “You try getting information out of the Security Services.”

  “And your counterparts . . . Didn’t they tell you what the meetings were about?”

  “I didn’t ask! What will it look like if it’s revealed we have zero insight?”