The Historians

by Cecilia Ekbäck

  “I don’t know. It looked more as if they’d been searching for something.”

  “What would that be?” the policeman asked.

  “I have no idea. I work for the trade committee that negotiates with the Germans, but I never take work home.”

  She had to call Wallenberg. She had to let him know.

  “A man came out of our building, perhaps fifteen minutes before we went in,” she told the policeman.

  “What did he look like?”

  “I couldn’t really tell. He had his head down.”

  “We will need to talk to you again,” the policeman said. “Later tonight, or tomorrow. The forensics team is here now. Where will you go?”

  “To my father’s house.” She gave him the address.

  “It might not be us who come to see you.”

  No, she thought. This was a bomb. It would be the Hestapo who came—she used the nickname for Sweden’s Security Services.

  “Miss Dahlgren. Miss Dahlgren!”

  A man in a trench coat and hat was waving to her from outside the cordoned-off area. Emil Persson, a journalist at Svenska Dagbladet, or The English Daily, as the Germans called it. Emil had done a piece on her father not long ago: “The Central Banker Who Keeps Sweden Steady.” Her father had liked the article. “You’re so vain,” she’d teased him. He had just laughed.

  “What happened?” he asked when she reached him.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “A bomb? Was it in your flat?”

  “She won’t answer questions.” The policeman had followed her. “Right now, Miss Dahlgren will go home. We’ll inform you when we have anything to reveal.”

  Laura nodded to Emil Persson. Another time.

  “But why your flat, Laura?” he shouted after her as she left. “Does it have to do with your father, or with Wallenberg?”

  They got a lift in a police car. Erik insisted on coming with her and dropping her off.

  “That was close,” he said as they sat together in the backseat. He’d taken her hand, or she, his. The skin was warm, the hand strong.

  “It has to do with Britta,” she said.

  He shook his head. “This probably has to do with your work. A bomb . . . A lot of people don’t like the stance Sweden has taken with the Germans.”

  Collaborators, not neutral, prolonging the war; she’d heard all the comments. The Finns and the Norwegians felt that Sweden had sold out. In many ways, they had.

  “And now there will be others who don’t appreciate that Sweden is turning pro-Allied.”

  She was surprised he knew this. Perhaps it was just plain obvious to everyone.

  “Then they wouldn’t start with me,” she said. “I’m just a low-level administrator.”

  And not like this, she thought. There would have been a contact, a warning, an attempt to get her to cooperate. No, this was different.

  “You travel with Wallenberg. People say you’re his right hand.”

  Did they? Was she? It was true, he liked having her in the room. He said she gave him a different insight into the negotiations.

  They were coming up to her father’s villa and she saw it as Erik must see it: the avenue of elm trees, the majestic white mansion; from what she knew, he had grown up in very different conditions. But he didn’t seem to notice.

  “It’s too much of a coincidence,” she muttered. “First Britta and now this.”

  “Whatever it is, I don’t like it,” Erik said. “Tonight was a close call. You do realize that, don’t you?”

  She did. But none of it made sense.

  SHE CALLED JACOB Wallenberg on the number he had provided for emergencies.

  He interrupted her. “Where are you?”

  “At my father’s house.”

  “I’ll be there in half an hour.” He hung up.

  Laura and her father waited in his study. Her father kept walking around, turning to stare at her, then sitting down again.

  “Why wouldn’t you tell me she had died?”

  “I just didn’t,” she said. “I guess I was still shocked.”

  “And then you went back there?” He raked his hands through his hair, then stood up again. “Why, Laura? Why?”

  “Why are you angry with me?” she asked.

  “I’m not angry with you. But this had nothing to do with you. You should have known to leave well enough alone.”

  She thought of Professor Lindahl saying one had to be “careful about these things.”

  But what had she done? Asked a few questions? She had found out nothing, but the two events being linked seemed incontestable to her. She remembered her overturned apartment. They had been looking for something, she thought again. What if it was never about what she might have shared with Britta, only what Britta might have shared with her? But why blow the apartment up? To kill her? And in case whatever they were looking for was there, even if they hadn’t found it—did they want to destroy it?

  When Wallenberg arrived, the two men shook hands, then both turned to look at Laura, their foreheads wrinkled. They looked so similar that on another occasion she would have laughed.

  Laura stood up and went to pour herself a whiskey, thinking she might need it. She took a sip. It burned in her chest.

  “Tell me all of it,” Wallenberg said and sat down on the settee beside her father’s desk.

  When she had finished, he pursed his lips and tapped the frame of his glasses against his chin. Laura could feel the room bristling from the energy between the two men.

  “I asked Laura to make sure the death of her friend didn’t have something to do with us,” Wallenberg said to her father.

  “How could you?” her father exploded. “A murder, and you send her to ask questions?”

  Laura cringed; it was as if this was between the two of them and she wasn’t even there.

  Wallenberg sighed. “You’re her father. I do understand how it must seem.”

  “So, this is about your work then?”

  Wallenberg shook his head. “I don’t think so. Our group have received no threats, apart from the usual ones. The negotiations are tricky. We’re caught between Germany and the Allies.” Wallenberg and her father exchanged a glance—they were both well aware of the gravity of the situation. “But if this was about us, I can’t imagine they would have tried to blow Laura up. It would be far more likely that they would have tried to get her to talk—like they apparently did with her friend.”

  Laura agreed with him.

  “Unless other things have happened that you’re not telling me?” Wallenberg said to Laura.

  “No.” Laura shook her head. “No!” she insisted when they both kept staring at her.

  “The Security Services will come and see you tomorrow,” Wallenberg said. “Whatever you tell them will go to Germany—the political side of Germany.”

  He was meaning the Gestapo and the SS, she thought. The Security Services were still awfully close to them. Acting almost like a fifth column. The country was leaking like a sieve.

  “You mustn’t lie, and you must tell all of it. But I want you to know it doesn’t stay with them.”

  Her father sighed.

  “My phone calls are listened to,” Wallenberg said. “My phone has been tapped since the beginning of the war. I am certain the same is true for you. How do you feel?”

  How did she feel? Confused. Not as much scared or sad as empty. She’d been proud of that flat. It had been her home for the last five years.

  “Alright,” she said.

  “I don’t want you to come into work,” he said.

  “I can work!” Laura protested. “I’m fine.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, “but I cannot have you there until we know what this is.”

  He wasn’t thinking about her, he was protecting the negotiations. Their negotiations.

  She exhaled. “But you asked me to ask questions.”

  “I did. But now I think you were right: this has nothing to do with us. It
has everything to do with you. And your friend.”

  She felt sullied, although she had done nothing wrong.

  Her father didn’t seem surprised. He’d known Wallenberg would do this. He’d expected it. That was what happened when you were a woman, she thought. If something happened involving you, regardless of whether it was your fault, you were dropped, as if you were contagious.

  “Well then,” her father concluded the conversation, “you are home now. You’ll be safe.”

  And as simply as that, she had lost her job, too.

  17.

  Jens

  The administrative assistant came to find Jens as he was about to leave.

  “It was hard,” she said, lifting thin eyebrows as if it had surprised her. “The personnel department claims they cannot give out details.”

  “I guess they have their rules,” he said.

  “Usually, it’s not this difficult.”

  He waited.

  “Daniel Jonsson is off sick. The lady who has taken his place is called Emilia Svensson. She used to work for the Ministry of Defense and she’ll be here until further notice.”

  “Ah,” he said, “thank you. Sick with what?”

  She shook her head. “They don’t seem to think he’s coming back.”

  It hadn’t taken them more than a night to find a replacement. Normally, if an employee was unwell, their position would remain unfilled until it was certain that the person wasn’t returning. Perhaps there had been an accident?

  “I did manage to find his address, though,” the woman said and handed him a piece of paper. “You know, if you need to pick up your book.”

  JENS WAITED FOR Sven inside the Norma restaurant, but as it became clear his friend would be later than agreed, he ordered his food. He sat at the wooden table and read the day’s papers again. The waitress behind the glass counter was dark-haired and green-eyed. She was wearing a checkered dress and a cap. She had a thin, triangular-shaped face with sharp features and angles, the skin blue-white and so vulnerable looking where her chin met her ear. She caught his stare, looked away, but then met his gaze again and smiled.

  This time, Jens broke away. He had Kristina now. Though Kristina had no vulnerable areas by her chin. He frowned at the thought of having to confront her about Schnurre’s visit. He sighed. Oh, by the way, you have no idea who I saw . . .

  Jens waited for over an hour, but Sven didn’t show. As he put his hand in his pocket to grab his wallet, his fingers brushed the note from the administrative assistant containing Daniel Jonsson’s address. Perhaps he was only putting off talking to Kristina about Schnurre.

  DANIEL JONSSON LIVED in an apartment on Folkungagatan in Södermalm, walking distance from Old Town. As Jens crossed the waters over to Södermalm, he stopped and looked back, thrown by the views, as always. There was no other city as beautiful as Stockholm. The sea winding itself through the town, the bridges, the pastel-colored houses, the many church spires. He could not live anywhere else. But the city was shifting so much that he sometimes had the impression he could hear the stretched fabric ripping: the industrialization and the population increase had brought with them massive changes. There was the new upper class; people coming from the trades and industry. And parliamentary democracy was just over twenty years old. People expected a lot from something that was still forming. It had to become more equal, rights for everyone, and Jens wanted to be a part of that.

  The windows of the building where Daniel lived were dark, like all the other Stockholm windows. The air smelled warm, of greenery and dust.

  He rang Daniel’s doorbell, but nobody answered. He tried a couple of times and stepped back, but the windows remained dark. As he was about to leave, a man opened the street door from the inside, hat pushed low. Jens took the door from him and entered. Daniel Jonsson lived on the third floor. He took the steps two at a time.

  He knocked on the door. No response. Could Daniel be so sick he’d ended up in hospital? He knocked again, then bent down to look through the mail slot. The apartment lay dark and still and yet . . . Jens had the feeling someone was there. Holding their breath, standing motionless.

  “Daniel?” he called into the darkness.

  There was no response.

  “Daniel.” He was whispering now, though he wasn’t sure why. “This is Jens, from the ministry. I need to talk to you.”

  No response. Jens stood up, took his notebook from his bag and tore out a page. On it, he wrote his name and home phone number. He thought for a minute, then added his address. Please get in touch, he wrote. I believe you.

  As he got home, his own flat, too, lay in darkness. On the kitchen table was a note from Kristina: My father called. I have to work tonight and so I will sleep at home. See you tomorrow?

  IT WAS A busy morning. The Germans had lifted their ban on ships bringing imported goods to Sweden. They’d have coffee and fish again, Jens thought. And new shoes. Sweden had also been invited to attend formal trade negotiations with the United Kingdom and the United States. Günther had asked Jens to do some preparatory work.

  Jens: “Do you think the Allies actually might bomb us if the negotiations don’t go well?”

  Günther, face grim: “I think they could.”

  There was a knock on the door and Sven entered, wearing his usual tweed suit and with his hair combed back. His face, normally fragile-looking with its large, downturned eyes, curved nose and thin lips, looked even more so.

  “I’m sorry about standing you up last night,” he said in his soft voice.

  Jens shook his head. “Don’t worry.”

  “We got delayed working on the budget.” Sven pulled a face. “And then, later in the evening, there was an explosion in an apartment in central Stockholm. The police called the minister as we were leaving.”

  “An explosion? I didn’t hear about it.”

  “The woman who owns the apartment works for Wallenberg in the committee that trades with the Germans. They are treating it as a terrorist attack.” Sven shrugged. “Nothing will be said officially or released to the papers.”

  “She works for Wallenberg? We would have met, then. Who is it?”

  “Her name is Laura Dahlgren.”

  They had met once, here at the ministry. Jens remembered a young woman with blond shoulder-length hair and big gray eyes. Beautiful, yet slightly detached and aloof. Smart. Intense. Her eyes hadn’t left him, never blinked, as he had talked about the ministry’s role in the negotiations. She felt superior, he’d thought. Entitled.

  “Are there many such things we don’t hear about?” Jens prompted.

  Sven shrugged. “Not many.”

  “But?” Jens asked.

  “Recently, there have been two: the bomb and a murder.”

  “A murder?”

  Sven nodded. “Here’s the thing,” he said, lowering his voice and glancing at the door. “The woman who was murdered and the woman whose apartment blew up were friends. They went to university together. What are the chances of that?

  “Rumor has it that the murdered one was a swallow.”

  Jens thought about Barbro Cassel and Karl Schnurre. What a life these young women were condemning themselves to. Kristina’s face slithered through his mind, but he closed that thought down, wouldn’t go there. He couldn’t see Laura Dahlgren being a secret agent, however. She was too intense. Who would want to go out with her?

  “What is the C-Bureau doing about the murder of their agent?” he asked.

  Sven scoffed. Unlike his father, he had little respect for the C-Bureau. He thought them brutes who should not have been allowed in the first place. “Probably trying to stay as far away from it as possible, covering up any tracks leading to them, and throwing out a few leading the wrong way.”

  “But the Security Services have gotten themselves involved, so there must be a threatening scenario of some sort.”

  Jens wondered if Sven had told his minister about the C-Bureau. An impossible situation: torn between two loya
lties; one to his father, who’d helped set up the C-Bureau, and the other to his boss, who ultimately headed up the rival agency.

  “Who was she?”

  “A student. A party girl. A nobody. But clever and well liked. A good source for the Bureau, too, from what I have been told.”

  Well liked, Jens thought. She would have had lots of “clients.” He thought about Barbro Cassel, though the woman obviously hadn’t been her, as Barbro had been to their dinner the other night.

  “What was her name?” he asked, just to make certain.

  “Britta Hallberg.”

  Not Barbro. Though the name sounded familiar.

  “You need to find out more,” Jens said. “This doesn’t sound right.”

  Sven shrugged. “It’s being managed by the Security Services.”

  “Which come under your boss. Surely he’d want to know more? This is about activities on Swedish land. If it has to do with foreign forces, then Günther needs to know as well.”

  Sven looked away.

  “Sorry,” Jens said. Too much. He raised his hand. “I’m preoccupied with my own issues. A few days ago, an archivist here asked me to find out why Günther had spoken to the foreign ministers of Denmark and Norway, in order to log the conversations. I spoke with the minister and he claimed the conversations had never taken place. Not only did he deny it, but I think he threatened me. Or, my job, rather. I went back to the archivist, whose paperwork has now gone missing, as have the records in the registrar. And now the archivist himself is ‘off sick.’” He marked the quotation marks in the air with his fingers. “This is why I wanted to see you yesterday. I wanted to ask for your advice.”

  “Do you trust the archivist more than Günther?” Sven asked.

  They were whispering now.

  “The archivist is known to be diligent and conscientious.”

  Sven nodded. Answer enough. He too had heard the rumors about the foreign minister.

  “How would one go about getting the records changed?” Jens asked.

  “I have no idea. Möller would have to approve it, I guess. Günther couldn’t just waltz in and ask to have them changed. And if my minister knew, I think I would, too.”

  “Perhaps he knows someone,” Jens said.