But how could anyone defend a dictatorship? It took Sara a while to get to the bottom of this.
The dominance of the USA following the Second World War made some people dream of something else – a counterweight. And thanks to its propaganda and its false statistics relating to economic success, the Soviet Union became just such an alternative for many people. It showed there were other paths that could be followed.
And since Sweden had been just as influenced by Germany before the outbreak of war as it came to be by America following the war, there were many who felt sympathy for both halves of the country and its highly developed culture – music, literature, philosophy, design, theatre. What was more, East Germany had distanced itself significantly more from the Third Reich than West Germany had. Officially, at least.
Sweden’s declared neutrality meant, among other things, that they wanted to keep an open mind when it came to the construction of socialism in the East – perhaps in order to counterbalance the powerful American influence. Whatever the reason was, there was excessive lenience in relation to shortcomings in freedom of expression and movement in the Eastern Bloc. They were regarded as childhood illnesses that would be grown out of.
Another important explanation was that many people quite simply believed in socialism. They looked to the utopian theory, and overlooked the violations of freedom and oppression that were the practical outcome.
At the same time, the Cold War was the age of secrecy and double-dealing. Sweden’s official neutrality concealed an expansive, secret partnership with NATO. And this was in parallel with the export of arms to a string of dictators and warmongering countries, in contravention of what was prescribed by law and formal declarations. Another example was IB – the spy organisation that not even everyone in government knew about, and whose primary purpose was to aid the Social Democratic Workers’ Party to identify and work against political opponents.
Sara couldn’t help being fascinated by all the mysterious deaths in the 1980s that could be connected in one way or another, and via different forums, to the export of arms and other secret dealings with East Germany, even if it had nothing to do with the murder of Stellan. The prime minister shot in the open street; the reporter dropped into the Hammarby harbour in her car; the arms inspector pushed in front of an underground train; the UN Assistant-Secretary-General whose plane was blown up: they all had connections to arms exports, as inspectors or witnesses, and a large proportion of those exports went via East Germany. And in none of these cases had those responsible been found.
But if it was Stellan’s past that had caught up with him . . . was it a former East German he’d harmed who had killed him? Or a family member, like Dlugosch? Someone who’d lost someone?
Or was there something else in his background? Could old agents still be active? If so, why would they want to kill him?
And what had they done with Agneta?
14
Sara emerged from the Gamla Stan underground station by Mälartorget, walked along Munkbroleden and past Tyska Brinken as far as Kornhamnstorg. She avoided the narrow alleyways. She’d never liked them, which was strange for someone who’d opted to live in the old town. As usual, she’d left the car in the police car park.
She passed the Chinese restaurant and the corner shop where newspaper placards were already proclaiming the passing of the people’s favourite.
STELLAN BROMAN DEAD – MURDERED AT HOME.
UNCLE STELLAN MURDERED – FOUND BY DAUGHTER.
In the latter, the word ‘found’ was in a significantly smaller font than the other words.
A truck carrying graduating high school students drove around the square and came to a stop by the kerb. The students were drunk, sweaty and soaked in bubbly. Their voices were hoarse, but they carried on screeching – mostly old hits from the 1980s: ‘Vill ha dig’, ‘Sommartider’. It created an odd sensation of childhood.
An empty champagne bottle smashed to the ground as a young girl in a short purple skirt climbed down from the truck on unsteady legs. Hanging around her neck was a blue and yellow ribbon with bunches of flowers that had already lost most of their petals. The girl wobbled towards Stora Nygatan, and Sara assumed she had her sights set on a door in the very corner of the square, given it was adorned with blue and yellow balloons and a sign with the name ‘Elsa’. But the trajectory was far from being as straight as an arrow – so it wasn’t easy to tell where she was heading.
It then transpired that this Elsa’s heels were too high for her degree of inebriation. As her bawling classmates rolled away to the sound of ‘Varning på stan’, she stumbled and fell to the ground.
Sara hurried forward and helped her up. She’d scraped her forehead and chin, and there was blood running from her nose and lips, but the young woman merely waved her away, her mind on partying. She needed to go home and change, she said. And then she tottered onwards, with one hand held to her face to avoid getting blood on her champagne-sodden clothes.
Sara carried on past her old regular pub from her own student days. It was still just as fascinating living here, right by Tabac – even if it was called something else these days. Once upon a time she’d commuted for more than an hour each way, a fair number of evenings a week, to hang out there. And she’d thought it was worth it. It was so important to belong when you were young. When Sara had graduated from high school, the truck had driven all the way from Vällingby into the city centre, because that was where they’d wanted to show off. Stureplan, Kungsträdgården, Sveavägen, Södermalm – the entire city had been theirs. For a few hours, at any rate.
She cut across the north corner of the square and entered the narrow glass-roofed arcade. The passage continued towards Västerlånggatan, but she stopped by a solid wooden door that led up to the private flats. Most of the building was offices, but there were homes at the top. She’d been concerned when Martin had bought the flat using most of the money he’d got for his company, but just as he’d predicted, it was worth twice that today, so it had undeniably been a good investment. So long as the market didn’t crash . . . That was all people with flats in the city centre ever seemed to talk about, Sara thought to herself.
She’d never imagined living somewhere this big. It had felt strange at first, but now she’d got used to it. Some people lived like this, and she was one of them. A duplex covering almost 300 square metres with views of Slussen and Södermalm, filled with wood panelling and textures everywhere and parquet that creaked. And a gym and sauna. And at the very top, a tower with views in all directions. She usually had a glass of wine with Anna up there on the occasions they wanted to meet and didn’t want to talk about work. With all the roofs, the waters of Slussen below and the German church right beside them, the tower room gave you the impression that you owned the world. It was said that a previous owner had hidden Nazis on the run up there after the end of the Second World War.
Sometimes, it felt as though she didn’t have the right to call this magnificent flat her home, since she hadn’t contributed a penny and would never have been able to buy a similar home by herself. But Martin had lived off Sara for fifteen years while trying to become an artist, and then when he was starting up his company. They had two children and they were married. So they were meant to share everything – in sickness and in health, as they said. But whether a huge flat in the old town was part of sickness or health, Sara wasn’t sure. For her, a flat this size really meant there was just a lot more cleaning to do. She refused to get a cleaner, regardless of the fact that it was tax-deductible. Martin handled half of the maintenance, no matter how much of the martyr he played, and the kids had been made to take more responsibility for cleaning the bigger they had got. And sometimes you had to put up with things being dusty. That was how they got by.
Sara stopped at the threshold and listened for sounds from inside the flat. No one was at home.
At moments like this, pauses in life when time seemed to be standing still, she loved her home. The silenc
e of the huge flat was majestic, as if it were set to music – and almost sacred.
Thoughts about her murdered childhood idol made Sara look for her old violin. She found it at the back of the dressing room, behind the Pilates ball, the bed of nails and the boxes of expensive boots with stiletto heels that she never wore. She hadn’t played for years, but after tuning the violin she set off, playing her eternal companion and adversary, ‘Erbarme dich’ from the St Matthew Passion. It had been described as the most beautiful piece of music ever written for the violin. Above all, it had been Stellan’s favourite piece, and Sara had spent many hours and years of practice attempting to master it. Without success, if she was asked to judge.
Since Bach was the last thing Stellan had listened to, and since he was the one who’d given her the instrument, Sara thought it was fitting. But she felt a little ashamed when she put down the violin. Perhaps that was why it had been in the dressing room for so long.
After once overhearing a quarrel between Sara and her mother about their lack of money, Stellan and Agneta had given her the violin and paid for her lessons. And naturally, they’d chosen the best teacher available. Well, not available, exactly – given that she didn’t usually accept private pupils. She’d only taken on Sara as a favour to Stellan and Agneta.
Irina Handamirov, first violinist in the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra for four decades, Professor of the Violin at the Royal College of Music and grandchild of the legendary Ivana Adelenya. With three sisters who also became violinists, Handamirov had a family relationship with her instrument that had always made Sara envious.
Handamirov had frequently encouraged her to improvise when she played – to dare to get it wrong. To find new ways, new perspectives. But Sara had decided she had to master the Bach piece before she could start playing about with it. And she had never learned to master it. She’d learned to play it almost technically perfectly but, in her own view, without the soul that shone through when her teacher played the piece.
Handamirov had described different ways of getting into a piece. For Sara, there was only one. Get on with it and do it as correctly as possible. She knew that she thought more about her mistakes than the joy the music brought her, and she knew that was stupid. Holding her back.
But the piece had stuck better than she’d thought. The feelings of the bow’s friction against the strings was still just as enchanting, just as tactile. The sound emerged as if by a miracle. It was amazing to think that it was Sara summoning it.
She became absorbed in the piece yet again, losing herself in it, forgetting all else. But as ever, reality returned afterwards, along with its sharper edges.
She lowered the instrument and looked at it.
She knew she was talented, but she couldn’t escape the sensation that her diligent practice in her teens had been more about pleasing her surroundings than herself – a way of showing gratitude for a gift she’d never really asked for.
In practice, she hadn’t even wanted a violin. She’d only wanted her mother to be able to buy one for her. Just like the Bromans could buy everything for their daughters – clothes, ski equipment, musical instruments, trips. The violin had become a symbol of everything that was unattainable, and Stellan and Agneta had happened to hear of that. It had left Sara with no choice.
But the violin wasn’t hers – not really. She had been given it, but she hadn’t mastered it. The violin was not part of her.
And this home wasn’t hers. It was Martin who had paid for it.
Perhaps that was why she’d kept her surname when they married, rather than taking Martin’s. ‘Sara Titus’ sounded feeble. Like an under-confident supply teacher. Nowak was her name.
Otherwise, there wasn’t much that was hers.
The children no longer sought her out, and in their eyes she mostly posed an obstacle on the path to everything fun that life had to offer. ‘Mum’ was just the description of a role nowadays. And her marriage was mostly a by-numbers affair, even if that brought with it a certain sense of comfort. Like having the same things for Christmas dinner every year – not because they tasted good, but because that was how it was meant to be. Like sole and lutfisk.
If neither her home nor her violin were truly hers, and the kids were on the way out . . .
Who exactly was she?
The name that she knew belonged to her – what did it stand for?
In the absence of an answer, she turned on the television – a sixty-five-inch monstrosity that she would never have chosen. There was something unnatural about a newsreader whose face was five times the size of your own, as if giants had taken over the country and were proclaiming the new laws. Obey or be eaten.
The afternoon show was naturally about Uncle Stellan. There was always a big audience when one of the country’s true icons passed away, and mourning dead celebrities seemed to have become something of a public amusement in recent years. Perhaps it was symptomatic of a narcissistic era, Sara thought to herself. As if another person’s death primarily offered the opportunity to express some deep-seated thought that you could get likes for. Sara had never understood the point of Facebook posts like ‘RIP Whitney Houston’ from ordinary Swedes.
The producer for the memorial programme didn’t quite seem to have decided which was most important: the brutal murder, or the nostalgic retrospective of Stellan’s long career. The result was a roller coaster that segued from crime reporting to a cavalcade of memories. Even if Stellan hadn’t been seen on television for many years, it was absolutely clear how much he’d helped to set the tone of Swedish TV. So they went all out and the conclusion was: ‘Per Albin gave us the welfare state, Ingvar Kamprad furnished it and Stellan Broman entertained it.’ Now all three were dead, and the welfare state with them – to the delight of certain conservative columnists.
Sara lowered the volume on the television and looked out of the window towards the water. There were usually boats down there, waiting to pass through the lock into the Saltsjön bay, but right now the whole place was a huge building site. There really ought to have been sunbathers and young couples down there enjoying the weather – or perhaps not enjoying it at all, but breaking up, or comforting each other because one of them had lost their job, or wondering why some love interest never called.
The sun was lavishing its rays on the scene even on a day like this. The weather gods were clearly above human tragedy.
But Sara couldn’t let go of the mystery.
Where was Agneta?
She watched two underground trains pass each other on the railway bridge across the entrance to the bay by Riddarfjärden while she racked her brains. Had Agneta tried to escape, and had something happened to her? An accident? A heart attack? Sara’s colleagues were searching as effectively as they could, and sooner or later some clue would turn up.
Might Agneta’s disappearance also be connected to Stellan’s work for East Germany? If so, how?
Sara considered what she knew about the Cold War. In her childhood, the term had been diffuse and vaguely frightening. A fear you could neither grasp nor understand. It was war, but there was no one shooting. You were supposed to be scared, even though you couldn’t see anything to be scared of and despite no grown-up explaining why.
She remembered leafing through the thin pages of the heavy phone book. Right at the back, there had been a warning that war could happen at any moment. Everywhere – in schools, in leisure centres and in basements – there were air raid shelters with heavy iron door handles that could be turned to make the shelters safe from nuclear attacks. And inside them were table tennis tables to ensure that the kids could have some fun in the meantime, until such a time as war did break out.
The war could come, and that was what the Cold War was. An uninterrupted bombardment of frightening warnings, a constant fear. Things could go off at any moment. Any day now, the planet might be gone. Nothing lasted forever.
Sara went into the gym – or rather, the room in which Martin had installed
a treadmill, rowing machine, exercise bike and two benches with barbells, dumbbells and weights. He’d also covered all the walls with mirrors. It was a bit nuts really, Sara thought to herself – but she put the warm-up weights on the barbell, changed, lay down and began pushing the weights up towards the ceiling and down again, over and over.
Each time she worked out, her adrenaline would skyrocket and everything she was angry about would resurface. If nothing else, it made her try harder.
After three heavy sets, she pulled out her mobile and called her mother.
‘Hello. What do you want?’ said Jane.
What a tone of voice! Was it so out of the ordinary for her to be calling? Was she such a rubbish daughter? Because that hadn’t been broken Swedish – it had been reproachful. Dear God, surely she was allowed to call without wanting something? Even if that wasn’t the case on this particular occasion . . . Sara was tempted to hang up, but she actually had a question to ask.
‘You sound out of breath,’ said her mother.
Sara had been sitting quietly, breathing heavily while she thought.
‘I’m working out.’
‘I am, too. I’m going to start walking. Those were some lovely walker shoes I got.’
‘They’re called walking shoes.’
‘What does it matter what they’re called? I’m going to walk in them – not talk to them.’
‘OK, OK,’ said Sara, pausing before getting to the point. ‘Stellan’s dead.’
‘I know. I saw it on the news.’
‘I’ve been there. In the house.’
‘Of course. You’re a policewoman.’
‘Not every police officer goes to every crime scene, Mum.’
‘What do I know?’
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