The Return of the Dancing Master

by Henning Mankell

They knew immediately that they were both immigrants from Germany – they had similar accents. He had expected to discover that Höllner was one of the large group of Germans who came to Argentina via the well-organised lifelines that helped Nazis flee the Third Reich, which was supposed to last for a thousand years but which now lay in ruins. At first Silberstein hadn’t given his real name. Höllner might easily have been one of those who entered the country on false papers; perhaps he’d landed in Argentina from one of the U-boats that were sailing up and down the coast of Argentina in the spring of 1945. He might also have been assisted by one of the Nazi groups that operated from Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Or he might have come later, when Juan Peron opened his political arms to welcome German immigrants without asking any questions about their past. Silberstein knew that Argentina was full of Nazis who had gone to ground, war criminals who lived in constant fear of being arrested. People who had never renounced their beliefs, and still had a bust of Hitler in a prominent position at home. But Höllner was not one of those. He’d referred to the war as the catastrophe it was. His father had been a high-ranking Nazi, but Höllner himself was one of the many German immigrants who had come to Argentina in search of a future they thought they could never find in the ruins of Europe.

  They had shared a table at La Cãbana. Silberstein could still remember that they’d ordered the same meal – a meat stew the chefs at La Cãbana made better than anybody else. Afterwards they’d walked home together, as they lived in the same neighbourhood, Silberstein in Avenida Corrientes and Höllner a few blocks further on. They arranged to meet again. Höllner explained that he was a widower, whose children had returned to Europe. Until recently he had been running a printing business, but now he’d sold it. Silberstein invited him to visit the workshop where he restored old furniture. Höllner accepted the invitation, and then it became the norm for him to visit Silberstein in the mornings. He seemed never to tire of watching Silberstein painstakingly re-upholstering an old chair brought in by some member of the Argentinian upper classes. They would occasionally go out to the courtyard for a coffee and a smoke.

  They’d compared their lives, as old people do. And it was while they were doing so that Höllner asked in passing if Silberstein happened to be related to a certain herr Jacob Silberstein from Berlin, who had escaped being deported with his fellow-Jews in the 1930s, and then avoided all other forms of persecution during the war because he was the only person who could give Hermann Goering a satisfactory massage to ease his back pains. Feeling that history had caught up with him at a stroke, Silberstein told him that the masseur Jacob Silberstein was his uncle. And that it was thanks to the special privileges enjoyed by Jacob that his brother Lukas, Silberstein’s father, had also evaded deportation. Höllner explained that he himself had met Jacob Silberstein because his own father had also been massaged by him.

  Silberstein had immediately closed his workshop and posted a notice on the door to the effect that he wouldn’t be back until the following day. Then he’d accompanied Höllner to his home, not far from the harbour in a badly maintained block of flats. Höllner had a small flat overlooking the rear courtyard. Silberstein could remember the strong scent of lavender, and all the awful watercolours of the Pampas painted by Höllner’s wife. They’d talked long into the night about the amazing coincidences, how their paths had crossed in Berlin so many years ago. Höllner was three years younger than Silberstein. He was only nine in 1945, and his memories were fuzzy. But he remembered the man who was fetched by car once a week to give his father a massage. He even remembered thinking that there was something remarkable about it, something remarkable and also a little dangerous, in that a Jew (whose name he didn’t know at that time) was still there in Berlin. And, moreover, a man being protected by no less a person than the terrifying Reichsmarschall Goering. But when he recounted what he remembered about Jacob Silberstein’s appearance and his gait, Silberstein knew that there could have been no misunderstanding: Höllner was talking about his uncle.

  The key reference was to an ear, his left ear, that Jacob Silberstein had disfigured as a child, cutting himself on a shattered window pane. Silberstein broke into a sweat when Höllner described the ear he remembered so vividly. There was no doubt at all, and Silberstein was so touched that he felt obliged to embrace Höllner.

  Now, lying in his tent, he remembered all that as if it had happened only yesterday. Silberstein checked his watch. 10.15. He changed identity again in his thoughts. Now he was Fernando Hereira. He had landed in Sweden as Hereira. He was an Argentinian citizen on holiday in Sweden. Nothing else. Least of all Aron Silberstein who arrived in Buenos Aires one spring day in 1953 and had never been back to Europe since. Not until now, when he finally had an opportunity to do what he’d been longing to do all those years.

  He dressed, broke camp and drove back to the main road. He stopped for lunch outside Varberg. His headache had cleared up by now. Two more hours and he’d be in Malmö. The car hire company was next to the railway station. That was where he’d collected the car 40 days earlier, and that was where he would return it. No doubt he’d be able to find a hotel nearby. Before then he would have to get rid of the tent and the sleeping bag. He’d dumped the camping stove, saucepans and plates in a rubbish bin at a lay-by in Dalarna. He’d thrown all the cutlery into a river he’d driven over. He’d keep a lookout for a suitable place to off-load the rest of his stuff before he got to Malmö.

  He found what he was looking for a few kilometres north of Helsingborg: a skip behind a petrol station where he’d stopped to fill up for the last time. He buried the tent and the sleeping bag under the cardboard boxes and plastic bottles that had already filled the skip. Then he took out a plastic bag lying at the top of his rucksack. It contained a bloodstained shirt. Although he’d been wearing overalls that he’d burnt while still up there in the forest, Molin had managed to cover his shirt in blood. How it had happened was still a mystery. Just as big a mystery as why he hadn’t burnt the shirt when he’d disposed of the overalls.

  Deep down, though, he knew the answer. He’d kept the shirt so that he could look at it and convince himself that what had happened was real, not simply a dream. Now he didn’t need it any longer. The time for remembering was in the past. He dug the plastic bag as deep into the skip as he could. As he did so, his mind turned again to Höllner, the pale man that he’d met at La Cãbana. Had it not been for him, he wouldn’t be here now, shedding the last physical traces of a journey to Sweden during which he’d taken a person’s life, and sent a final horrific greeting to the equally horrific past by means of some blood-soaked footprints he’d left behind on a wooden floor.

  From now on the only traces would be inside his head.

  He returned to his car and sat at the wheel without starting the engine. A question was nagging away at the back of his mind. It had been there ever since the night he’d attacked Molin’s house. A question regarding an unexpected discovery he’d made about himself. He had felt frightened on the way to Sweden. He’d spent the whole of the long flight wondering how he would manage to achieve the mission he’d set himself. A mission comprising a single task: killing a man. So far in his life he had never been anywhere near close to harming another human being. He hated violence, he was scared stiff of being assaulted himself. But there he was, on his way to another continent to kill a man in cold blood. A man he’d met six or seven times before, when he was 12 years old.

  As it turned out, it was not at all difficult.

  That was what he couldn’t understand. It frightened him, and forced him to think back to all that had happened over 50 years ago, the starting point that led to the deed he had now performed. Why had it been so easy? It ought to be the hardest thing there is, killing another human being. The thought depressed him. He’d been convinced that it would be difficult. All the time he’d worried that when the moment came, he would hesitate, and afterwards be overcome by remorse; but his conscience had remained at peace.

  He s
at in the car for ages, trying to understand. In the end, when his urge to drink something very strong got the better of him, he started the engine and drove away.

  He continued towards Malmö. After a while he could see on his right a long bridge linking Sweden to Denmark. He drove into the city and had no difficulty finding the car hire company. When he paid the bill, he was surprised at how much they’d charged him. He said nothing, of course, and paid in cash, though he’d left them his credit card number when he rented the car. He hoped the documentation recording that Fernando Hereira had rented a car in Sweden would disappear in the depths of some archive.

  Back on the street, he found that there was a cold wind blowing in from the sea, but it had stopped raining. He set off towards the city centre and stopped at a hotel in a side street off the first square he came to. No sooner had he entered his room than he stripped down and took a shower. While he was living in the forest he’d forced himself to take a dip in the freezing lake once a week and try to rinse all the filth away. Now, as he stood under his shower in Malmö, he thought that at last he could wash off all the ingrained dirt.

  Afterwards, he wrapped himself in a bath towel and sat down with the last of the bottles in his rucksack. Freedom! He took three large swigs, and felt the warmth spreading over his body. The previous night he’d drunk too much. That had annoyed him. Tonight the only thing he needed to worry about was getting to the airport the next day.

  He stretched out on the bed. He was thinking more clearly now that he had brandy flowing through his veins. What had happened was rapidly becoming a memory. His aim now was to get home to his workshop. His whole life revolved around that. The cramped workshop behind the house in Avenida Corrientes was the cathedral he attended every morning. And his family, of course. His children had flown the nest. His daughter Dolores had moved to Montevideo and would soon give him his first grandchild. Then there was Rakel, who was still studying to be a doctor. And Marcus, the restless dreamer of the family, who longed to become a poet, although he was earning his living at the moment as a researcher for a radical programme on Argentinian television. He loved his wife, Maria, and his children. Nevertheless, it was his workshop that was the mainspring of his life. He would soon be back there. August Mattson-Herzén was dead. Now there was a chance that all the events that had been haunting him since 1945 might leave him in peace.

  He stayed on the bed for a while. Occasionally he reached out for the brandy bottle. Every time he took a swig he made a silent toast to Höllner. But for him, nothing of this would have happened. But for Höllner, he would never have been able to find out who killed his father. He stood up and tipped the contents of his rucksack onto the floor. He bent down and picked up the diary he’d been keeping for the 43 days he’d spent in Sweden, one page for every day. In fact he had got as far as page 39. He’d started writing on the flight to Frankfurt, and then on the flight to Copenhagen. He went back to the bed, switched on the bedside lamp and leafed through the pages. Here was the whole story. He’d written it thinking he might give it to his children, but they wouldn’t get it until after his death. What he’d written was the history of his family. And he’d tried to explain why he’d done what he had done. He’d told his wife he was going on a journey to Europe to meet some furniture makers who could teach him something new. In fact, he had embarked on a journey into his past. In the diary he described it as a door that had to be closed.

  Now, as he lay thumbing through what he’d written, he began to have doubts. His children might not understand why their father had made such a long journey to take the life of an old man who lived in seclusion in a remote forest.

  He dropped the book on the floor and took another swig of brandy. That was the last one before he dressed and prepared to go out for a meal. He would have something to drink with his food. What was left in the bottle would see him through the night and the next day.

  He was feeling tipsy now. If he’d been at home in Buenos Aires, Maria would not have said anything, but looked accusingly at him. He didn’t need to worry about that now. Tomorrow he’d be on his way home. This evening was for him alone, and his private thoughts.

  He left the hotel at 6.30. The strong, cold wind almost bowled him over. He had been thinking of going for a walk, but the weather forced him to abandon that idea. He looked round. Further down the street was a restaurant sign, swaying in the wind. He set off in that direction, but hesitated when he got there. There was a television set high in a corner showing an ice hockey match. He could hear the commentary from the street. Some men were sitting at a table, drinking beer, watching the game. He suspected the food wouldn’t be especially good, but on the other hand, he couldn’t face more of the cold. He sat at an empty table. At the next table was a man staring in silence at his almost empty beer glass. The waitress came with a menu, and he ordered beef steak with Béarnaise sauce and chips. And a bottle of wine. Red wine and brandy was what he drank. Never beer, never anything else at all.

  “I hear that you speak English,” said the man with the beer glass.

  Silberstein nodded. He hoped to goodness the man at the next table wouldn’t start talking to him. He wanted to be at peace with his thoughts.

  “Where do you come from?” the man said.

  “Argentina,” Silberstein said.

  The man looked at him, his eyes glassy. “Entonces, debe hablar español,” he said.

  His pronunciation was almost perfect. Silberstein looked at him in surprise.

  “I used to be a sailor,” the man said, still speaking Spanish. “I lived in South America for some years. That was a long time ago, but when you learn a language properly, it stays with you.”

  Silberstein agreed.

  “I can see you want to be left in peace,” the man said. “That suits me fine. So do I.”

  He ordered another beer. Silberstein tasted his wine. He’d ordered the house wine. That was an error. But he hadn’t the energy to send it back. All he was really interested in was staying tipsy.

  A loud roar filled the premises. Something had happened in the ice hockey match. Players dressed in blue and yellow embraced each other. The food arrived. To his surprise, it was good. He drank more wine. He felt calm now. All the tension had faded away, and was being replaced by a vast and liberating vacuum. Mattson-Herzén was dead. He had achieved what he had set out to do.

  He’d finished eating when he glanced at the television screen. There was evidently a break in the match. A woman was reading the news. He almost dropped his glass when the dead man’s face appeared on the screen. He couldn’t understand what the woman said. He sat motionless, and could feel his heart pounding. For a moment, he half-expected his own face to appear there as well. But the face that did appear was not his own, but another old man. A face he recognised.

  He turned to the man at the next table, who seemed to be lost in thought.

  “What are they saying on the news?” he said.

  The man turned to the television and listened. “Two men have been murdered,” he said. “First one, and then another. Up in Norrland. One was a policeman, the other played the violin. They think they were killed by the same murderer.”

  The picture on the screen disappeared, but he knew now that his eyes had not deceived him. The first man was Mattson-Herzén, or Molin, and the second one was the man he’d once seen visiting him.

  Silberstein put down his glass and tried to think straight. The same murderer. That wasn’t true. He had killed the man who called himself Molin, but not the other man.

  He sat quite still. The ice hockey match had started again.

  CHAPTER 13

  The night of November 3, 1999 was one of the longest Stefan Lindman had ever endured. When dawn finally broke, faint light creeping over the wooded hills, it felt as though he were in a weightless vacuum. He’d stopped thinking long ago. Everything happening around him seemed surreal, a nightmare. A nightmare that began when he’d walked round the trees and found Andersson’s body. />
  He had forced himself to feel for traces of a pulse, which he knew had stopped for ever. The body was still warm – at any rate, rigor mortis had not yet set in. That could mean that whoever shot him was still in the vicinity. The light from Lindman’s torch had shown where the shot blast had hit him, just over his heart. He’d almost fainted. It was a big hole. Andersson had been executed from close quarters, with a shotgun.

  The dog had started howling as soon as Lindman tied it up. His first thought was that it might have found the scent of the killer, who might be very close. Lindman had raced back to it, scratching his face badly on tree branches. Somewhere along the way he’d also lost his mobile phone, which had been in his shirt pocket. He’d taken the dog back to the house, and rung the emergency number. Lindman had mentioned Larsson’s name and from then on, the man on duty in Östersund had asked no unnecessary questions. He’d asked if Lindman had a mobile, was told he’d dropped it somewhere, and said he would ring the number to help him to find it. Now it was beginning to get light; his telephone was still lost, and he had not heard it ringing. He had the feeling all the time that the killer was close by. He’d crouched low as he ran to his car, and reversed into a dustbin as he turned to drive to the main road and give directions to the first of the police cars. The man in Östersund said they would be coming from Sveg.

  The first to arrive was Johansson. He had a colleague with him, Sune Hodell. Lindman led them to Andersson’s body, and both officers drew back in horror. Then time had dragged as they waited for daylight. They set up their base in Andersson’s house. Johansson had been in constant telephone contact with Östersund. At one point he’d come into the living room where Lindman was lying down on the sofa with a nose-bleed, and announced that Larsson was on his way from Östersund. The cars from Jämtland turned up soon after midnight, and were closely followed by the doctor. Johansson had got through to him in a hunting lodge north of Funäsdalen. He’d contacted colleagues in the neighbouring provinces of Hälsingland and Dalarna to tell them what had happened. Once during the night Lindman had heard him talking to the Norwegian police in Rorös. The forensic team had rigged up a floodlight in the forest, but the investigation had been marking time, waiting for the light of morning.