The Historians

by Cecilia Ekbäck

  A Scandinavian Reich based on the supposed supremacy of the Nordic race.

  It wasn’t hard to believe.

  After all, it was what had happened to them; they had started to believe in it.

  She knew who had noticed it: Matti, of course. A Finn, not a Scandinavian.

  For months, they had studied the Scandinavian race for the project on faith, looking for proof points as to why the race was superior. They’d written them down as arguments: Denmark, Sweden and Norway never having been overwhelmed by foreign conquest, thus one pure single racial type from the beginning: taller, blonder—Matti had stuck out his tongue at them. They listed the conquests of the Vikings and, later, took a particular interest in the victories made by Karl XII. Their people were conquerors. They formulated the quest of their new version of Asatru, the Norse faith, as one for land: to regain the territories lost by Karl XII. The symbols and myths of their pursuit became the gods themselves and the tales found in the Prose Edda.

  It was interesting, Laura had thought. The five of them had been caught up in this high-energy feeling. The more they researched, the more committed they became. The more plausible it seemed. Important, even. She could see a leader using the arguments they were creating to whip up emotion and instill action. She could see it.

  And then, one day, they’d been debating something so trivial that she couldn’t even remember what it was. They’d all been of the same opinion, apart from Matti, who had disagreed with them.

  “You’re wrong,” Britta had said.

  “I don’t think so.” Matti’s voice had been light. She remembered this, remembered getting disproportionately annoyed at his lightness. He didn’t understand how important it was, she’d thought. He just didn’t understand.

  “Four against one,” Karl-Henrik said.

  “I still don’t think so.”

  The room fell quiet and still. It wasn’t a good stillness. Matti had noticed it now, too. His face had become serious.

  “Come on, Matti,” Erik said. “Just go with it, alright.”

  “No.”

  Then Karl-Henrik had muttered something along the lines that obviously Matti wouldn’t understand . . . couldn’t understand. And she recalled it because it came from Karl-Henrik. It was something she would have expected from Erik, who was the hotheaded one. And also, because she had agreed with him: Matti wouldn’t understand. He was different. I slept with him, she’d thought to herself and felt shame.

  “You’re incredible,” Matti had said, moving his eyes from one person to the next, looking as if he was actually seeing them for the first time. Laura had lowered her gaze when her eyes had met his. “You actually believe this shit.”

  38.

  Jens

  Sven’s father was in the military. He looked like an impatient, aggressive version of his son. He moved with force and one facial expression quickly replaced another, as if all life stayed with the father and the son had been given an economical version. Did Magnus Feldt know that his son was homosexual? Jens hoped he did and that he accepted it.

  A drunken evening, in the corridor outside the washroom: a young, slender man squeezing Sven’s arm, then his hand moving across to linger on Sven’s crotch—Sven himself smiling with a delight Jens had not seen on his face before or since—until he noticed Jens, that was.

  Yes, Jens knew that Sven was homosexual even though they’d not spoken about it. Homosexuality was still illegal, still considered a mental derangement. It had never bothered Jens one bit.

  “I’m glad you could see me at such short notice,” Jens said.

  “Anytime,” Magnus said. “My son’s best friend . . . And the secretary to the foreign minister, too.”

  They sat down in the living room, though Magnus was quickly up on his feet again. “A drink, perhaps?”

  “Sure,” Jens said. “Whatever you’re having.”

  Magnus poured a beer and handed it to him. “So, what can I do for you?” He took a sip of his own drink, smacked his lips and showed his teeth.

  “It’s delicate,” Jens said.

  Magnus laughed. “There’s a war on our borders. Everything’s delicate.”

  “It’s about the swallows.”

  Magnus’s mouth opened and then closed. “Sven told you.”

  “No, no . . . This came from somewhere else. It’s more that I was hoping that you knew something about it,” Jens said carefully, the way he had planned, so as not to land Sven in any trouble. “With your position in the military, I was thinking that it would be strange if you didn’t.”

  “I might do,” Magnus admitted.

  “I’m wondering about a particular young woman . . . Her name was Britta Hallberg. She was supposedly in the program, but she was killed a month ago.”

  “Yes, I heard something about that.”

  “Do you have any idea who she was seeing? Professionally, I mean . . . As I work for Christian Günther, I’d just like to be aware.”

  “Of swallows and where they nest? I’m not involved in the actual running of the program.”

  “Is there any chance you could find out for me?”

  “I probably can.”

  “Please don’t tell anyone . . . It’s delicate . . .”

  Magnus smiled. “More so for me than for you.”

  IT WAS A warm, pleasant evening. In Kungsträdgården park, the cherry trees had exploded in pink clouds. He sat down on one of the benches underneath. This beautiful city, his city, evil running just underneath their feet. It was as if their whole society was built on a lie. He thought about Laura up north. Perhaps he should have gone with her. It had all happened so quickly, he hadn’t had time to think. But she was smart. She’d know to be careful. He hoped so, anyway. He wished he could contact her, but he’d have to wait until she came back. If I don’t hear from her within a week, he promised himself, I’ll go and look for her.

  They knew what it was now, but not who was involved or how to try to stop it. Laura had told him her friends were trying to map the relationships between the State Institute for Racial Biology and other organizations, but even so—what were they going to do about it?

  We need proof, he thought. At the moment, it’s just hearsay.

  He leaned his head back on the bench. Above him, a roof of rosy white blossoms. They were going to come for him. He knew too much. Was he ready for that? No, he wasn’t. He might lose his life for this. But it was impossible to know about it and remain standing on the sidelines. Though Kristina might be at risk . . .

  He sat up. With Jim, they had killed the ones close to him, not Jim himself.

  He needed to hurry.

  AS HE OPENED the door to his apartment, he could hear women laughing. He exhaled, a long, slow breath.

  “Jens?” Kristina came out in the hallway, followed by Barbro Cassel. “We were just saying goodbye.”

  The cheeks of both women were glowing. Jens put his arm around Kristina’s waist. He buried his face in her hair. She was fine. Everything was fine.

  “Oh,” she said, “I think someone’s missed me.”

  “I did,” Jens said. He let go of her. “Don’t leave on my behalf,” he said to Barbro.

  “No,” Barbro said. “I have to. I was just on my way.”

  She turned to hug Kristina goodbye and smiled at Jens. “Hopefully, next time I’ll see more of you.”

  “How was your day?” Kristina asked, as she sauntered into the living room.

  “Interesting,” he said and hung up his jacket.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “What?”

  She came out into the hallway with a yellow scarf. “Barbro forgot it.”

  “I’ll run after her,” Jens offered.

  He took the scarf, ran down the stairs and caught up with her outside the front door.

  “You forgot this,” he said.

  “Ah, thank you. It’s my favorite.”

  Farther away in one of the doorways he could see the man with the fedora, smoking.<
br />
  “You need to tell them that this is too obvious,” Jens said, nodding in the direction of the man.

  “What?” Barbro looked up at him.

  “The surveillance on Mr. Enander. Kristina told me. She shouldn’t have,” he added.

  There was a strange look on Barbro’s face. “I really don’t understand what you’re talking about, Jens.”

  Before he could answer, the door opened behind him and Kristina came out. “And you forgot these as well,” she said and handed Barbro a pair of gloves. “They were on the hat shelf.”

  “My goodness!” Barbro said. “I don’t know where my head is today.”

  Jens walked up the stairs behind Kristina. The front door shut with a bang behind them and it startled him. He felt lightheaded. Barbro had acted as if she really didn’t know what he was saying. But if she hadn’t told Kristina about Mr. Enander, then who had? And he remembered the two coffee cups in the sink the day that Schnurre had come out of his house.

  39.

  Blackåsen Mountain

  Sandler had never known such pain before. The right side of his body was burning. Every breath squeezed itself in and out of his chest. But he would live. Dr. Ingemarsson had said so. “Your lung collapsed,” he’d said when Sandler woke up. “I’ve expanded it with oxygen; the tube needs to remain in for a couple of days and then we’ll close the wound.”

  He eyed the doctor’s handiwork on his chest. A plastic tube ran from his body into a bottle of water on the floor, the water bubbling as he breathed. Where the tube entered his chest were several large black sutures. “To seal the skin,” the doctor said when he pointed to it.

  “What about the bullet?”

  “I don’t think we’ll ever find it, but we don’t need to.”

  Sandler tried to imagine living with a bullet inside him for the rest of his life.

  The doctor wanted to report the event to the police, but Sandler had refused, said absolutely not. His superior had told him to leave well enough alone, not to rock the boat. Telling the police would most definitely be rocking the boat. He’d said their access to Blackåsen Mountain had been granted from the highest levels. No, whatever was going on, this was something he had to solve on his own. But the man had shot him. Actually shot him.

  “We can’t have a murderer running amok in our town,” the doctor said, packing up his bag.

  “We won’t,” Sandler said. “I’ll deal with it.”

  “Perhaps he’ll shoot someone else.”

  “I said I’ll deal with it!”

  The director had raised his voice. His heart was beating rapidly. He oversaw this town. It was his right to decide. The doctor met his gaze from behind steel-rimmed glasses. “Fine,” he said. The director was still in charge.

  “Don’t tell anyone what has happened.”

  “What do you want us to do with the boy?” the housekeeper asked, wringing her hands, once the doctor had left.

  He needed to ask the boy what Notholm wanted with him. “Give him a room,” Sandler said.

  “It’s highly unusual,” she tried.

  “Give him a room.” He raised his voice for the second time and lost his breath. His chest wheezed and he gulped for air.

  Bloody hell, he thought when she left. He was still in charge but only just. People were questioning his decisions left and right.

  He closed his eyes as the pain tore at him. The doctor had wanted to give him morphine, but that, too, he had refused. He needed to stay clearheaded.

  Why had Notholm tried to capture the boy? At least the boy was safe in his house.

  He opened his eyes. The man had actually shot him. Cold-bloodedly, without any fear for the consequences. What kind of support did Notholm have?

  Director Sandler tried to sit up and failed, pain cutting through his side as if he were being knifed.

  “Get me the boy,” he called. “Get me the boy!”

  The housekeeper opened his door. “Director!” she exclaimed, seeing him trying to lift himself up. “You should be resting!”

  “I want to talk to the Sami boy,” he said. “And I want the stable hand to bring me my gun.”

  Her mouth opened.

  “Now!” he commanded.

  Her mouth shut again.

  If only he understood what was going on, he thought, it would make it easier to decide on the right action to take.

  He tried to breathe slowly and focus to lessen the pain.

  The Sami boy opened the door. He didn’t reach very far above the door handle. Sandler tried to gesture for him to come in but found he couldn’t raise his arm.

  “Enter,” he said. “Sit down.” He nodded to the chair by the end of the bed.

  The boy sat down, touched the shaped armrests with his fingers, broke off in his movement and put the hands in his lap.

  “What is your name?” asked the director.

  “Taneli,” the boy answered.

  Sandler nodded. “So what was this all about?”

  Taneli hesitated. He didn’t know if he should tell the whole story. But if the director was a part of it, he wouldn’t have tried to save Taneli, would he? The director had taken a bullet for him.

  “You owe it to me to tell me,” Sandler said.

  Yes, Taneli figured, he did.

  “I think they are stealing people,” he said.

  “Stealing people? What do you mean?”

  “My sister disappeared,” Taneli said. “There have been others, too. Other Sami. There was this man . . . he said that if I paid him two hundred crowns, he would tell me where they kept her. When I came, he wasn’t there. This other man was. I think it was a trap.”

  That was why he took the money, Sandler thought. To save his sister. But stealing people? Sami people. That made no sense. What did they need them for?

  Taneli pulled out the bills from inside his shirt and held them out to the director. “I’m sorry,” he said, his gaze firm.

  “It’s fine,” Sandler said. “Well, not thieving, of course.” He tried to make a stern face. “That’s not fine, but I understand . . . Why would Mr. Notholm want you?”

  “Mr. Notholm?”

  “That was the man who tried to take you last night.”

  “I think it was because I said I didn’t want to have a Swedish skull,” Taneli said.

  “Why would Mr. Notholm care if you didn’t want to have a Swedish skull?” Sandler asked, perplexed.

  Then he thought about Dr. Öhrnberg’s dealings with Notholm. Öhrnberg was a scientist specializing in eugenics and was in charge of the local arm of the State Institute for Racial Biology.

  “He was there when they measured us. I said I didn’t want one. I think he got upset.” The boy shrugged.

  Could Notholm be petty enough for that to vex him? Sandler already knew the answer.

  “The man I thought I was meeting . . . Áslat. He knew things about my sister that only she could have told him. If this was set up by Mr. Notholm, then he must have told Áslat. It must mean that Mr. Notholm has her.”

  There was a knock on the door and the stable hand entered with Sandler’s revolver. He handed it to him, frowning as if worried. Sandler ignored his look, checked that the weapon was loaded and put it on his bedside table.

  “I suggest you sleep in here,” he said to Taneli when the stable hand had left. He was sleepy now and speaking took a great effort. Notholm and Öhrnberg . . . He needed to think this through. He would deal with it but not now. “I don’t know how wide a grip Mr. Notholm has on this town, that’s all. I want you to be safe.”

  Leave if you want, he thought. He was now so tired, he couldn’t be bothered. He closed his eyes, then remembered the loaded revolver by his side. What if the boy shot him?

  Never mind, he thought. Never mind. The worst had already happened.

  SANDLER SLEPT FOR a long time, only waking up for brief moments. He wasn’t certain how much time had passed. The Sami boy, Taneli, was sleeping by the window on the floor. He was just
a kid, the director thought. The light threw shadows on his face; his eyelashes looked like thick feathers.

  The boy opened his eyes.

  “Good morning,” Sandler said.

  “Good morning.”

  “I’m sorry we didn’t get you a bed.”

  The boy smiled. “We don’t use them,” he said.

  No. He guessed they didn’t.

  The housekeeper entered with breakfast. She helped him sit up, puffed his pillows and then lifted the tray into his lap.

  “Please bring breakfast for the boy, too,” he said.

  Her mouth compressed, but she nodded.

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Two days,” she said. “The doctor has been looking in on you regularly. He said he expected you to sleep a lot.”

  She straightened his covers.

  “There’s a rumor going around,” she said, before leaving.

  “What kind of a rumor?”

  “That you’re dead, sir.”

  Well, he couldn’t have that.

  “Get Dr. Ingemarsson to come here,” he said. “Tell him he needs to remove the tube.”

  THE DOCTOR REMOVED the tube and restitched the hole. “Complete rest,” he said, “for a week or more.”

  Taneli was watching them. If the doctor was surprised at seeing Taneli there, he didn’t say.

  “I need to go for a walk,” the director said. He tried to move. Goddamn, it hurt.

  “One week,” the doctor reiterated and didn’t help him.

  As soon as the doctor left, Sandler turned to the boy. “You need to help me,” he said. “To get up.”

  “The doctor . . .”

  “Dr. Ingemarsson has no idea what we’re up against here. It can’t look like I’m losing control. I don’t know what that would unleash. Will you help me?”

  The boy helped him rise and then get dressed. “Goddamn, bloody, almighty,” Sandler muttered to himself. “Jesus Christ!” The pain was so severe it made him feel faint. But he had to get out there: just show himself. Who knew what they’d do otherwise?

  THEY WALKED DOWN the main street: the director and the boy. Not far down, they met Hallberg with a group of men. Sandler was exhausted. It was too early. His left side was screaming with pain, but he forced himself onward, knowing people were watching. He wanted to lean on the boy but didn’t. As if Taneli sensed what was going on, he moved closer. Reaching distance.