by Per Wahlöö
Captain Schmidt: With that we can consider charges numbers eighty-three to and including numbers one hundred and three and one hundred and four, concerning rebel activities, terror, murder and accessory to murder, organised sabotage and furthering of escape from the country to have been concluded. All of them have been admitted by the accused and corroborated further by his own testimony. As we still have part of the day left and the accused seems to have recovered somewhat, I suggest that we also deal with charge number …
Colonel Orbal: What’s that row? Is it an alarm clock, or what?
Major von Peters: Sounds like a telephone.
Major Niblack: It is a telephone, here on the shelf under the table—just a moment and I’ll answer it.
Colonel Orbal: What sort of idiot is it ‘phoning in the middle of a session?
Major Niblack: Hullo … yes, Niblack here … yes, sir … yes, sir … I see, sir …
Velder: Excuse me? What did you say?
Major von Peters: Shut up, you.
Major Niblack: Gentlemen. That was Colonel Pigafetta ‘phoning. General Widder died ten minutes ago at the military hospital in Oswaldsburg, without regaining consciousness.
Colonel Orbal: Oh, Christ!
Major von Peters: What did I tell you?
Colonel Orbal: What do we do about it then?
Major von Peters: We could have a minute’s silence.
Colonel Orbal: Excellent idea. To honour the memory of our late Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, General … what was his first name, now?
Lieutenant Brown: Jan, sir.
Colonel Orbal: Oh, yes. To honour the memory of General Jan Widder, we will keep one minute’s silence. Everyone stand to attention. You do the timing, Brown.
* * *
Colonel Orbal: For God’s sake, Brown. Isn’t the time up now?
Lieutenant Brown: Five seconds left, sir. Now.
Colonel Orbal: That’s that. So Pigafetta’s Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force now, is he?
Major von Peters: And a general. Christ!
Commander Kampenmann: With reference to what has happened, wouldn’t it be appropriate to break off the session today.
Colonel Orbal: Exactly. Have you anything else to say, Schmidt?
Captain Schmidt: I request to be allowed to place this part of the case, which embraces charges eighty-three to and including one hundred and one, as well as one hundred and three and one hundred and four, before the court for consideration.
Major von Peters: Granted. The parties may leave.
Colonel Orbal: Bloody bad show, this business about Widder.
Major Niblack: I feel paralysed with grief and distress.
Colonel Orbal: What? Well, it’s not much good moping now. That was a good story, Niblack, that one from Africa. Tried it out in the mess last night. Great success. But of course I’d forgotten what cunt was in Swahili.
Major Niblack: Kwahashu.
Colonel Orbal: That’s it. Difficult word. Must write it down.
Major von Peters: Adjourn the session now, Mateo.
Colonel Orbal: Oh, yes. We’ll be burying Widder tomorrow, I suppose, well, presumably. The session is adjourned until Wednesday at eleven o’clock.
Thirteenth Day
Lieutenant Brown: Those present, Colonel Mateo Orbal, Army, also Chairman of the Presidium of this Extra-ordinary Court Martial; Major Carl von Peters, Army, Commander Arnold Kampenmann, Navy. The Prosecuting Officer is Captain Wilfred Schmidt, Navy, and the accused is assisted by Captain Roger Endicott, Air Force. Officer presenting the case is Lieutenant Arie Brown, Air Force. Justice Tadeusz Haller reports his absence.
Colonel Orbal: Where’s the representative of the Air Force then? Is neither Pigafetta nor that Niblack coming?
Lieutenant Brown: Colonel Pigafetta has not reported his absence. He has probably been delayed for a few minutes.
Colonel Orbal: And Haller’s presumably boycotted the session completely. He’s said to be occupied with important government matters. Oh, well, let’s start, anyhow. Brown, call in …
Commander Kampenmann: I’m afraid that won’t do. We can do without Justice Haller, but all three branches of the armed forces must be represented on the presidium.
Major von Peters: That’s correct, actually. It’s down in the instructions. There, Mateo, paragraph eleven.
Colonel Orbal: Then we’ll have to wait. Fearfully fancy uniform you were wearing at the funeral, Kampenmann.
Commander Kampenmann: Parade uniform was the order of the day. Nothing one could do about it.
Colonel Orbal: Looked like one of those chaps standing outside hotels summoning cars.
Major von Peters: I heard something sensational at HQ this morning. They say that the General’s not thinking of appointing Pigafetta.
Colonel Orbal: Who the hell is he going to have then?
Major von Peters: Chief-of-Staff of the Air Force perhaps.
Colonel Orbal: Bloch? He’s supposed to be a frightful dunderhead. Even for an airman.
Major von Peters: Well, I don’t know. It’s only a rumour.
Colonel Orbal: When’s it being decided?
Major von Peters: Next meeting a week today.
Colonel Orbal: Pity Haller isn’t here. He probably knows. Here’s Pigafetta, anyhow.
Colonel Pigafetta: I apologise for being somewhat delayed, but the events of the last few days have left me up to my ears in work.
Colonel Orbal: I was thinking of saying a few words … yes. As the senior officer present, I should like to convey our deep commiseration with the grief which has afflicted the Air Force. And the nation.
Colonel Pigafetta: Thank you. As you will understand, this has been a great blow, not least to myself personally.
Commander Kampenmann: How far have you got with the enquiry?
Colonel Pigafetta: The crash commission’s work has been completed. Their report will be handed in this morning. But as is usual in cases like this, the direct cause of the accident is hard to establish.
Commander Kampenmann: They say that the plane exploded, or at least caught fire in the air.
Colonel Pigafetta: Nonsense. The general stalled immediately after taking off. Naturally the plane’s tanks were full and the plane caught fire when it crash-landed on the airfield. When the rescue-team managed to get the general out of the plane, he was already seriously burnt. There are, unfortunately, many other examples of similar courses of events, from Air Forces in all countries.
Colonel Orbal: Damned fine speech you made yesterday, Pigafetta. Taut and gripping. The Chief of State thought so too.
Colonel Pigafetta: I hope you understand that I have been put in a very stressed position by being forced not only to act as Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, but also having this court martial to think about.
Colonel Orbal: Of course. But it probably won’t go on much longer. Perhaps we’d better get started, for that matter. Call in the parties, Brown.
Captain Schmidt: We have heard how the left-radical régime was dissolved and how the accused’s co-operation with enemies of the people, Janos Edner and Aranca Peterson, came to an end.
Commander Kampenmann: Where did those people go to afterwards? That isn’t clearly explained in the preliminary investigation.
Captain Schmidt: Danica Rodriguez is said to be in Africa and the last that was heard of Gaspar Bartholic was that he was in South America. What happened to the enemies of the people Janos Edner and Aranca Peterson, on the other hand, is now clear.
Commander Kampenmann: How did things go for them?
Captain Schmidt: Velder had nothing to do with the matter. But there is an extra appendix, V IX/13xxB, concerning the matter. It consists of a fragment of the unpublished and clearly also incomplete memoirs which Janos Edner and Aranca Peterson were working on. The document has been kept for the last year in the archives of the secret police, and is marked secret, third grade. It has nothing directly to do with the Velder case, except to the extent that i
t can be considered a passive indication that his connections with Janos Edner were really broken off on the night of the fifteenth of March and never taken up again. I do not consider it essential evidence in the case, but if anyone wishes it, then naturally it must be read out. Lieutenant Brown …
Major von Peters: Kampenmann, what the hell use is this? Haven’t we really had enough of this reading out aloud?
Commander Kampenmann: I consider the information valuable in order to have a clear picture, but if you don’t …
Captain Schmidt: Oh, the fragment is quite brief. The text is thought to have been written by Janos Edner no more than fourteen months ago. There is even a date on the first page. As far as I can make out, it’s a kind of preface to those memoirs. If you please, Brown.
Lieutenant Brown: Appendix V IX/13xxB, concerning the circumstances and events after the break-through and victory of nationalism. Confiscated documentation, written by the traitor and enemy of the people Janos Edner. Marked secret according to paragraphs eight, nine, eleven and fourteen to twenty-two. The text is as follows:
The house we live in lies on a stony slope and outside it is the sea, which is blue in the summer and grey in the winter.
We had a little money placed abroad, not particularly much, but enough to buy this little white house and live in it, and we live in the only country which will give us a residence visa.
Outside the house is a veranda, and we usually sit there looking out over the sea, and below, a narrow stony path winds down to the gate and the road. During the first years, people used to stop at the gate and look at us and sometimes they took photographs, but I haven’t seen anyone for a long time now.
They irritated me enormously, but now that they don’t come any longer, I miss them.
At that time, I often imagined that someone I’d never seen before would open the gate and walk up the path, one hand in his coat pocket all the time, but now I’ve stopped expecting it. We had a revolver at home then, but Aranca threw it away over a year ago. She always disliked firearms.
Naturally, we’re thinking of writing this account together, but I do the final draft, because I’ve always been the better writer of the two of us. I make no claim for its absolute accuracy in every detail, as there are things we’ve heard at second and third hand and certainly things we’ve never found out at all. Naturally, it isn’t completely objective either. On the whole, I don’t believe such a thing as true objectivity exists.
We’ve taken our time over it, but now we are going to start and we’re sitting here looking out over the sea and now and again a fishing boat appears far away. So this is how it is to end, despite the fact that I always saw myself alone in a dark hotel room, where I was lying on my back in bed, smoking and watching the reflections of the street lights on the ceiling and listening to the sounds of an alien city. But naturally all that was much too romantic.
We’re sitting here and when dusk falls we seldom bother to light the paraffin lamp. We’re usually thinking about the same thing, but we never speak about it.
The text ends there.
Colonel Orbal: Quite incomprehensible, as usual.
Captain Schmidt: Well, as you see, it’s just a fragment. However, it has been proved that Janos Edner wrote this fourteen months and three days ago, on the eleventh of February last year.
Commander Kampenmann: What happened then?
Captain Schmidt: Ten days later, that is on the twenty-third of February, the authorities in the country where they lived informed us that Janos Edner and Aranca Peterson had died. They were murdered by one or several unknown people, who made their way into the house through an open window and shot them dead with an automatic pistol. They had clearly been surprised in their sleep, for when the servants came next morning, both of them lay dead in bed. The assailants have not yet been found. The police down there presume that it was an ordinary bandit attack and that the murderers were after money. Both Janos Edner and Aranca Peterson were stateless, and the case attracted no special attention.
Commander Kampenmann: May I ask one more thing? How did that document come to be in the archives of the secret police?
Captain Schmidt: I really have no idea whatsoever.
Major von Peters: Have you any more speciality interests, Kampenmann? Or is this internal exchange between the representatives of the Navy now concluded, so that we might possibly go on to the actual matter in hand? This happens to be a court martial.
Captain Schmidt: I shall now take up charge number one hundred and two in the case against Erwin Velder. Within this complex of crimes, which includes points eighty-two to and including number one hundred and twenty-seven, this offence is to some extent unique. Nonetheless, it is, as are so many of Velder’s crimes, of an unusually crude and unpleasant nature. The Ministry of Justice has laid special weight on insistence that this point is taken up for judgement and is thoroughly considered. The charge is one of rape.
Colonel Orbal: What? Rape?
Captain Schmidt: This crime was committed somewhat earlier than a number of others already dealt with. The event on which the charge is based occurred on the evening of the third of February at Janos Edner’s so-called headquarters, where the accused was serving.
Colonel Orbal: Get to the point, now. Who was it he raped?
Captain Schmidt: The victim was one of Janos Edner’s collaborators, or fellow-criminals I should say, the person who has been mentioned earlier on several occasions, Danica Rodriguez.
Colonel Orbal: God Almighty. The woman with a moustache.
Captain Schmidt: As the case for the prosecution and the evidence offered on this point is entirely based on the accused’s own statement and his own account of the circumstances, I request to be allowed to call Corporal Erwin Velder as witness.
Colonel Orbal: Granted. See to it that that primus stove is working properly, Endicott, so that we can hear what he’s saying. And Schmidt, don’t let him get away with things like when he refused to describe the orgies with those two tarts he had living with him.
Captain Schmidt: Is the accused ready? Has he understood which section he is dealing with?
Captain Endicott: Yes, it should go well.
Colonel Orbal: Push him up to the rail then. That’s it. Get going, now, Velder.
Captain Endicott: Velder, this is about what happened on the evening of the third of February.
Velder: Yes. About Dana. Oh, yes.
Colonel Orbal: Well, get weaving now.
Velder: Edner’s headquarters were set up at that manor house by the fifteenth of December, and before the first of January, we had all moved down into the bunker. Colonel Fox had had the bunker built to use as an operations centre in case the bid for power failed in the Central Province and he’d been forced to send troops westwards to Oswaldsburg. At least that’s what was said afterwards and we thought it seemed plausible.
Colonel Orbal: What’s that got to do with it?
Major von Peters: One may well ask. Get this filth over and done with as soon as possible, Endicott. We haven’t got the rest of our lives.
Velder: Excuse me? Yes, well, as I said, the bunker. It was there that Janos and Aranca’s children were murdered … and the nurse. Only a young girl. Her name was Irene Miller.
Colonel Orbal: What’s all this nonsense? Miller? Did he rape her too?
Velder: The shell went through the concrete casemate and blew up the whole room. Everything was blown to bits. Everyone.
Major von Peters: Obviously a cartouche.
Colonel Orbal: For Christ’s and all the bloody angels’ sake, Endicott, get the man on the right track. He’s going quite haywire.
Captain Endicott: I need a few minutes, I think, sir.
Colonel Orbal: Yes, yes, for God’s sake.
* * *
Captain Endicott: It should be all right now, sir. If we avoid interrupting him.
Velder: The installation really only consisted of three bunkers connected by underground corridors. Five of the
rooms we used as offices, communications centres, orderly rooms, operations department and so on. They made a group on their own. The second group was divided into two rooms where Janos Edner, Aranca Peterson, the children and their nurse lived. And in the third, Bartholic, Dana and I had our living quarters, a room each, all adjoining one another. We had electricity and water from our own power installations, which had also been put in before, by the Army.
Major von Peters: Extremely interesting.
Captain Endicott: Major von Peters, please …
Major von Peters: Ach.
Velder: The position was that before that night when everything happened and which meant that the war started, I lived what you might call a very regular life. Sexually, too, of course.
Major von Peters: Why of course?
Colonel Orbal: Don’t you see? With those two tarts. Go on, Velder.
Velder: Like so many other things, all that came to an end when I fetched Aranca and Janos from the government office that night. After that … well, after that I didn’t see my wives again and I had no contact with women. So we moved to headquarters on the fifteenth of December and we stayed there for three months. We worked together and I was constantly together with Dana Rodriguez in the daytime, and at night we slept in adjoining rooms. I can’t deny that she soon began to make a tremendous impression on me. Why should I deny it, for that matter? She always wore khaki overalls and rubber boots and it was only too clear that she wore nothing underneath. At the beginning of January, I asked her if she’d like to sleep with me. She said: ‘No.’ Nothing else, just that. Then I went on asking her now and again, not every day, but perhaps every other. Every time she just said: ‘No.’ When I occasionally asked her why not, she said: ‘Because I don’t want to.’ Each day that went by, she made a greater impression on me, but it didn’t seem as if anyone else bothered with her. Edner had Aranca, and Bartholic went away now and again and arranged his life somewhere else, I think. I didn’t understand Dana at all, although I thought I ought to have learnt a bit about women by then. But I did see that she wasn’t sexually indifferent to me, nor uninterested in me. Sometimes I caught her looking at me and a few times her eyes were quite glazed, but still she said nothing but no. She didn’t have anyone else either, I’m certain of that, as we only had a partition wall between us and I could hear most of what she was up to. Although I’ve never believed in force in connection with sex, she drove me absolutely crazy. It got worse every day and finally …