The Return of the Dancing Master (31 page)

He turned on the engine and backed out of his parking spot. He didn't see the man in the shadows writing down his registration number.

 

 

He drove out of Kalmar, on the Vastervik road. There was an all-night diner there. A semi was parked outside. When he went into the café, he noticed the driver immediately, sitting with his head against the wall, sleeping with his mouth open. Nobody here will wake you up, he thought. An all-night diner is not like a library.

The woman behind the counter gave him a smile. She had a nametag: she was called Erika. He poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Are you a truck driver?” she said.

“Afraid not.”

“Professional drivers don't need to pay for coffee during the night.”

“Maybe I should change jobs,” he said.

She declined his offer to pay. He took a good look at her and decided she had a pretty face, in spite of the stark light from the fluorescent lights on the ceiling.

When he sat down, he realized how exhausted he was. He still couldn't come to terms with what he'd found in Wetterstedt's desk drawer. He would have to face up to that later, but not now.

He drank his coffee, decided against a refill. He was in Borås by 9, by way of Jönköping. He'd stopped twice and taken a nap. On both occasions he'd been woken by headlights in his face.

He undressed and stretched out on the bed. I got away with it, he thought. Nobody will be able to prove that I broke into Wetterstedt's apartment. Nobody saw me. Before going to sleep, he tried to work out how many days he'd been away. He couldn't make it add up. Nothing added up.

He closed his eyes and thought about the woman who hadn't charged him for his coffee. He had already forgotten her name.

H
e had disposed of the tools on the road home, but when he woke up after a few hours of restless sleep, he began to wonder if he'd only imagined it. The first thing he did was to go through his pockets. No sign of the tools. Somewhere not far from Jonkoping, at the coldest and darkest time of the night, he had stopped to sleep. Before driving away from the rest stop, he'd buried the jimmy and the screwdriver under the moss. He remembered exactly what he'd done, but even so, he couldn't help wondering. He seemed to be unsure of everything now.

He stood at the window, looking down over Allégatan. He could hear Mrs. Håkansson playing the piano in the apartment downstairs. This was a regular occurrence, every day except Sunday. She played the piano from 11:15 to 12:15. Always the same piece, over and over again. There was a detective inspector at the police station who was interested in classical music. Once Lindman had tried to hum the tune for him, and the inspector had said without hesitation that it was Chopin. Lindman had later bought a record with that particular mazurka. For some time when he was working nights and sleeping during the day he would try to play the record simultaneously with Mrs. Håkansson's playing, but he had never managed to get the two versions synchronized.

She was playing now. In my chaotic world, she's the only thing that is unchanging, he thought. He looked into the street. The self-discipline he had hitherto taken for granted didn't exist any longer. It had been sheer idiocy to break into Wetterstedt's apartment. Even if he'd left no trace behind, even if he'd taken nothing other than a piece of knowledge he would have preferred to be without.

He finished his breakfast and gathered the dirty laundry he was going to take to Elena's. There was a laundry room in the basement of the apartments where he lived, but he hardly ever used it. Then he fetched a photo album he kept in a bureau, and sat with it on the living room sofa. His mother had collected the pictures and given him the album as a twenty-first birthday present. He remembered how, when he was very small, his father had taken photographs with a box camera. After that he'd bought more modern models, and the last pictures in the book had been taken by a Minolta SLR camera. It had always been his father taking the pictures, never his mother, although he'd used the self-timer whenever practical. Lindman studied the pictures, his mother on the left and his father on the right. There was always a hint of stress in his father's face, as if he had only just come into the picture before it was taken. It often went awry. Lindman remembered once when there was only one exposure left on the film and his father had stumbled as he hurried away from the camera. He leafed through the album. There were his sisters side-by-side, and his mother staring straight at the lens.

What do my sisters know about their father's political views? Presumably nothing. What did my mother know? And could she have shared his opinions?

He started over again and worked his way slowly through the album, one picture at a time.

Pictures only show the surface, he thought. Something quite different was going on underneath. I had a father who led a double life. Perhaps there were other families in cottages on Getterön that he would visit and get involved in discussions about the Fourth Reich that he must have hoped would come to pass sooner or later. When Lindman was growing up, in the 1960s and 1970s, there had never been any mention of Nazism. He had a vague memory of classmates at school hissing “Jewish swine” at some unpleasant person who wasn't in fact
Jewish at all. There were swastikas drawn on the bathroom walls at school, and the caretaker would be furious and try to scrub them off. Even so, he certainly couldn't recall any symptoms of Nazism.

The pictures slowly brought memories to life. The album was made up of stepping stones that he could jump on. In between were other memories that had not been photographed, but which came to mind even so.

 

 

Lindman could remember it well. It wasn't a wording made up in retrospect: that was exactly what his father said. And the owner didn't react to the last comment: “We should throw them all out.” He might have smiled or nodded, but he didn't say anything. Then they had bought the bicycle, tied it to the roof of the car, and driven back to Kinna. The memory was crystal-clear, but how had he reacted at the time? He'd been full of enthusiasm about the long-hoped-for bike. He remembered the smell of the shop—rubber and oil. Nevertheless, he remembered something else he'd felt at the time—not that his father thought the gypsies and Yugoslavs should be thrown out, but the fact that his father had expressed an opinion. A political opinion. That was so unusual.

When he was growing up, nothing had ever been discussed among the family apart from insignificant matters. What to have for dinner, whether the lawn needed mowing, what color they should choose for the kitchen tablecloth they were going to buy. There was one exception: music. That was something they could talk about.

All his father listened to was old-fashioned jazz. Lindman could still remember the names of some of the musicians his father had tried in
vain to persuade him to listen to and admire. King Oliver, the cornet player who had inspired Louis Armstrong. He'd played with a handkerchief over his fingers so that other trumpeters wouldn't be able to work out how he'd managed to produce his advanced solos. And then there was a clarinetist called Johnny Doods. And the outstanding Bix Beiderbecke. Time and time again Lindman had been forced to listen to these scratchy old recordings, and he'd pretended to like what he heard. Pretended to be as enthusiastic as his father wanted him to be. If he did that, he might stand a better chance of getting a new ice hockey set, or something else he badly wanted. In reality, he preferred to listen to the same music as his sisters. Often the Beatles, but more usually the Rolling Stones. His father had accepted that, as far as music was concerned, his daughters were a lost cause; but he thought that his son just might be saved.

When he was younger, his father had played the music he admired. There was a banjo hanging on the living-room wall. Occasionally he would take it down and play. Just a few chords, no more. It was a Levin with a long neck. A real beauty, his father had insisted, dating from the 1920s. There was also a picture of his father playing in the Bourbon Street Band—drums, bass, trumpet, clarinet, and trombone. Plus his father on the banjo.

They'd often discussed music at home—but nothing that might fuel his father's furious outbursts, which were rare, but real. While Lindman grew up, he was constantly worried about the possibility of his father exploding into a fit of rage.

When they went to Boras to buy the bicycle, his father had expressed an opinion that went a long way beyond deploring the stupidity of listening to pathetic pop music. What he said had to do with people and their right to exist. “We should throw them all out.” The memory grew in Lindman's consciousness as he recalled the incident.

And there was an epilogue.

He could still hear those words, as clear as a bell. He also remembered feeling worried about what his father had said. Not about what might happen to the gypsies if they didn't have the sense to flee the
country on their own. It had more to do with himself. If his father was right, he was destined to think the same thing, that the gypsies ought to be thrown out.

His memories drifted away. There was nothing left of the rest of the journey. It was only when they got back home and his mother came out to admire the new bicycle that his memory started to work again.

 

 

The telephone rang. He gave a start, put the album down, and answered.

“Olausson here. How are you?”

He'd expected to hear Elena's voice. He was instantly on his guard. “I don't know how I am. I just go through the motions, waiting for the treatment.”

“Can you come to the station? Are you up to it?”

“What about?”

“A minor matter. When can you be here?”

“Five minutes from now.”

“Let's say half an hour, then. Come straight up to my office.”

Lindman hung up. Olausson hadn't laughed. Kalmar has caught up with me already, he thought. The forced door, the police in Kalmar asking questions, another policeman, a colleague from Borås paying an unexpected visit. Does he know anything about the break-in? Let's call our colleagues in Borås and ask.

That's what must have happened. It was nearly 2 P.M. That meant the police in Kalmar would have had time to search the apartment and talk to Wetterstedt. He was sweating. He was sure there was nothing to link him to the affair, but he'd have to talk to Olausson without being able to mention anything about the contents of the brown leather file box in the desk drawer.

The telephone rang again. This time it was Elena.

“I thought you were going to come here?”

“I have a few things to take care of. Then I'll come.”

“What sort of things?”

He was tempted to hang up the phone.

“I have to go to the police station. We can talk later. Bye.”

He hadn't the energy to deal with questions just now. It would be hard enough inventing something plausible enough to convince Olausson.

He stood in the window and rehearsed the story he'd made up about his activities the previous day. Then he put on his jacket and headed for the police station.