The Return of the Dancing Master (59 page)

In the cafeteria some young men in kilts were sitting at one table, talking in low voices. Margaret chose a window table where she could see the battlefield, and beyond it Inverness and the sea.

“I didn't like him,” she said firmly. “I couldn't shake him off, even though I'd made it clear from the start that his journey was a waste of time. I already had a husband. He might have been a bit of a handful, and he drank too much, but he was the father of my son and that was the most important thing. I told Herbert to come to his senses and go back to Sweden. I thought he'd done that and left. Then he phoned me at the police station. I was afraid he might come to my home, so I agreed to meet him again. That was when he told me.”

“That he was a Nazi?”

“That he'd
been
a Nazi. He had enough sense to realize that I'd experienced Hitler's brutality during the air raids here in Britain. He claimed to regret it all.”

“Did you believe him?”

“I don't know. I was only interested in getting rid of him.”

“But you still went for walks with him?”

“He started using me as a mother confessor. He insisted it had been a youthful mistake. I remember being afraid that he might go down on his knees. It was pretty awful in point of fact. He wanted me to forgive him. As if I were a priest or a messenger from all those who'd suffered in the Hitler period.”

“What did you say?”

“That I could listen, but that his conscience had nothing to do with me.”

The men in kilts stood up and left. The rain was now beating against the window pane.

She looked at him. “But it wasn't true, is that it?”

“What do you mean?”

“That he regretted it.”

“I believe that he was a Nazi until the day he died. He was terrified about what had happened in Germany, but I don't think he gave up his Nazi beliefs. He even handed them down to his daughter. She's dead too.”

“How come?”

“She was shot in an exchange of fire with the police. She damn near killed me.”

“I'm an old woman,” she said. “I have time. Or maybe I don't. But I want to hear the whole story from the start. Herbert Molin is starting to interest me, and that's something new.”

 

 

When Lindman was on the flight back to London, where Elena was waiting for him, he thought that it was only when he told the story to Margaret, in the cafeteria at the museum in Culloden, that he grasped the full seriousness of what had happened during those autumn weeks in Harjedalen. Now he was able to see everything in a new light, the bloodstained tango steps, the remains of the tent by the black water. Most of all he saw himself, the person he'd been at that time, a man like a quivering shadow at the edge of a remarkable murder investigation. As he told the story to Margaret it was as if he'd become a pawn in the game: it was him, but then again not him, a different person he no longer wanted anything to do with.

When he came to the end, they sat there in silence for the longest time, staring out at the rain, now easing off. She asked no questions, merely sat there stroking her nose with the tip of a lean finger. There were not many visitors to Culloden that day. The girls behind the counter in the cafeteria had nothing to do, and were reading magazines or travel brochures.

“It's stopped raining,” she said eventually. “Time for my second walk among the dead. I'd like you to come with me.”

The wind had veered from the north to the east. This time she took a different path, apparently wanting to cover the entire battlefield in her walks.

“I was twenty when war broke out,” she said. “I lived in London then. I remember that awful autumn of 1940, when the siren went and we knew somebody would die that night, but didn't know if it would be us. I remember thinking that it was Evil itself that had broken loose. They weren't airplanes up there in the darkness, they were devils with tails and clawed feet, carrying bombs and dropping them on us. Later, much later, when I'd become a police officer, I realized that there was no such thing as an evil person, people with evil in their soul, if you see what I mean. Only circumstances that induce that evil.”

“I wonder what Molin thought about himself.”

“If he was an evil person, you mean?”

“Yes.”

She pondered before replying. They had stopped by a tall cairn at the edge of the battlefield so that she could retie a shoelace. He tried to help her, but she refused.

“Herbert saw himself as a victim,” she said. “At least, he did in his confessions to me. I know now it was all lies. I didn't see through him at the time, though. I was mainly worried that he'd become so lovesick that he'd stand outside my window howling.”

“But he didn't?”

“Thank God, no.”

“What did he say when he left?”

“ ‘Goodbye.' That's all. Maybe he tried to kiss me. I can't remember. I was just glad to see the back of him.”

“Then you heard nothing more of him?”

“Never. Not until now. When you came here and told me your remarkable story.”

They had reached the end of the battlefield for the second time and started walking back again.

“I never believed that Nazism had died with Hitler,” she said. “There are just as many people today who think the same evil thoughts, who despise other people, who are racists. But they're called different names, and use different methods. There are no fights between hordes of warriors on battlefields nowadays. Hatred of people you despise is expressed in a different way. From underneath, you might say. This country, and indeed the whole of Europe, is being blown apart from the inside by its contempt for weakness, its attacks on refugees, its racism. I see it all around me, and I ask myself if we are able to offer sufficiently firm resistance.”

Lindman opened the gate, but she didn't follow him out.

“I'll stay here a bit longer. I haven't really finished with the dead yet. Your story was remarkable, but I still haven't had an answer to the question I've been asking myself, of course.”

“Which question is that?”

“Why did you come here?”

“Curiosity. I wanted to know who was the person behind the letter ‘M' in the diary. I wanted to know why he had made that journey to Scotland.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes. That's all.”

She brushed her hair out of her face and smiled.

“Good luck,” she said.

“With what?”

“You might find him one day. Aron Silberstein, who murdered Herbert.”

“So he told you what had happened in Berlin?”

“He told me about his fear. The man called Lukas Silberstein who had been his dancing master had a son called Aron. Herbert was afraid someone would take revenge, and he thought that is where it would come from. He remembered that little boy, Aron. I think Herbert dreamt about him every night. I have an instinct that he was the one who tracked Herbert down in the end.”

“Aron Silberstein?”

“I have a good memory. That was the name he told me. Anyway, it's time for us to say goodbye. I'm going back to my dead souls. And you're going back to the living.” She stepped forward and stroked him on the cheek. He watched her marching resolutely back onto the battlefield. He kept watching her until she was out of sight. This marked the end of his thoughts about what had happened last autumn. Somewhere in the Ostersund police archives was a diary that had been hidden away with a raincoat. Also in the package were the letters and photographs. Now he had met Margaret Simmons. She'd not only told him about Molin's journey to Scotland; she'd also given him the name of the man who called himself Fernando Hereira. He went into the museum and bought a postcard. Then he sat down on a bench and wrote to Larsson.

He drove back to Inverness. The man in the hotel reception said he would mail the postcard.

The rest of his time in Inverness was spent waiting. He went for a long walk, he had dinner at the same restaurant as on the previous day, and he talked for a long time on the telephone to Elena in the evening. He was missing her and now no longer had a problem telling her so.

He flew to London the next afternoon. He took a taxi from Gatwick to the hotel where Elena was staying. They spent three more days in London before going home to Borås.

 

 

Stefan Lindman started work again on April 17, a Monday. The first thing he did was to go to the archive where the picture of the visiting group of British police officers from 1971 was hanging on the wall. He took it down and put it in a box with other photographs from that visit. Then he returned the box to its place, hidden away in a corner closet.

He took a deep breath, and resumed the work he'd been missing for so long.

T
his is a novel. In other words, I'm not describing events, people, and places exactly as they are, or have been, in real life. I take liberties, move crossroads, repaint houses, and most of all I construct fictional events where necessary. And it is sometimes necessary. The same applies to the people in this book. I very much doubt if there is a detective inspector in the Ostersund police force called Giuseppe, to take one example. This means that nobody should think that any of my characters have been based on her or himself. It is not altogether possible to avoid similarities with living people, however, and if there are any such similarities in this book, they are pure coincidences.

But the sun does rise at about 7:45 A.M. at the beginning of November in Harjedalen. In among all the fiction there may well be quite a number of other convincing truths.

Which was of course the intention.

Also by Henning Mankell

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 1999 by Henning Mankell

English translation © 2004 by Laurie Thompson
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form,
without written permission from the publisher.

Published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 2004 Originally published as
Danslärarens återkomst
by Ordfront Förlag, Stockholm, 1999 English translation first published in Great Britain by The Harvill Press, London, 2003 Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York

 

eISBN : 978-1-595-58615-5

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