The Steel Spring

by Per Wahlöö

  On the other side of the road there was a factory. Every morning thousands of people, mainly women of different ages, would stream in through the gates. Many had small children with them. They left the children in a low, yellow-brick building to the right of the factory entrance. Some of the children whined and cried when their mothers left them, but within a few minutes they could be seen running around the playground outside the yellow building. They played and made plenty of noise. The women who looked after the children wore white cotton housecoats buttoned at the front. They all seemed to be expecting babies and he worked out that they were simply members of the workforce who had fallen pregnant and been automatically transferred to nursery duties.

  There was laughter and a buzz of conversation in the morning when the women arrived for work in the factory and in the afternoon when they went home. Sometimes they would sing.

  Jensen was not actually in pain any more, but he could not walk properly and felt very tired. He slept almost twenty hours a day.

  One day the doctor appeared with a newspaper again, pointed to a headline and spoke quickly and agitatedly. When he realised Jensen did not understand a word, he shrugged and left.

  The nurse was twenty-five at most. When they took their walks in the grounds, he supported himself on her arm. It was muscular and steady. She seemed calm, contented and harmonious. He was convinced he had once seen her crying.

  CHAPTER 5

  Jensen stood at the window with thin blue curtains and looked out over the lawn towards the road and factory. He had seen another camel a few days earlier.

  He was wearing his own suit. They had removed the bandages and taken out the stitches and he could move relatively freely. The only thing that was still difficult was going to the toilet.

  There was a knock at the door and he turned to see who it was. The doctor and nurse never knocked, and nor did the cleaning lady or the man who came to mend the WC that was always going wrong.

  Nobody entered but the knock came again. Jensen went over to the door and opened it. Outside stood a small, grey-haired man in a dark blue suit and black felt hat. He had glasses and was carrying a black briefcase. The man immediately took off his hat and said:

  ‘Inspector Jensen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was the first word he had spoken since reaching the airport three months earlier. He thought his voice sounded husky and alien.

  ‘I’ve got a message for you. May I come in?’ What the man said was grammatically correct, but he had a slight accent.

  Jensen stepped aside.

  ‘Be my guest.’

  It was an effort to speak, and it almost disgusted him somehow.

  The man took off his hat and opened his briefcase. He took out a pink telex strip and handed it to Jensen. The message was concise.

  Return home immediately.

  Jensen looked enquiringly at his visitor.

  ‘Who sent this?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Why isn’t it signed?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The man hesitated for a moment.

  ‘The communication came through diplomatic channels,’ he said.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I come from one of the sections of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I have never been to your country, but I studied the language at university.’

  Jensen said nothing. Waited for the man to continue.

  ‘We knew nothing about your state of health, not even whether you were still alive. I was sent here to deliver the message.’

  Jensen still said nothing.

  ‘Your doctor says you have quite recovered and can leave the hospital the day after tomorrow. There are just a few tests to do first.’

  The man hesitated again. Then he said:

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘The doctor says they initially thought there was no hope for you.’

  He produced an envelope from his briefcase.

  ‘I have taken the liberty of reserving a seat for you on a plane leaving at 9 a.m. the day after tomorrow. Here are the tickets.’

  Jensen took the envelope and put it away in his inside pocket.

  ‘Did the communication say anything apart from those three words?’

  More hesitation.

  ‘Only some general instructions, such as how and where to find you.’

  ‘Do you know who the communication came from?’

  Pause.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I’m not permitted to tell you that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The sender of the message specifically asked me not to. It wasn’t our idea, you see.’

  ‘Wasn’t it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But I have been given the task of relaying your answer to the person in question. Will you be flying home the day after tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jensen.

  ‘Excellent,’ said the man, picking up his hat. He went towards the door.

  ‘Just a moment,’ said Jensen. ‘Have you been in contact with our embassy?’

  The man had already half opened the door. He stopped, caught in mid movement.

  ‘Your embassy is unmanned.’

  ‘Unmanned?’

  ‘Yes. There’s nobody there.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. Goodbye.’

  CHAPTER 6

  The nurse gave Jensen a lift to the airport. She was wearing open sandals and a strappy, red cotton dress. The road was full of potholes and it was a battered old car, but she drove fast and skilfully. Jensen was sitting in the back seat. He noted the sweat glistening on the back of her neck and between her shoulder blades. Out in the fields he saw tractors and combine harvesters. They passed through a village of low, mud houses. The village street was swarming with children and domestic animals. She constantly sounded her horn to chase chickens, goats and pigs out of the way. The children roared with laughter at her. She stuck her tongue out at them and they laughed even more.

  The nurse had a luxuriant growth of black hair in her armpits. Outside the terminal building she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek.

  The noise of the engine changed and the plane began its descent. Jensen looked at the clock. It was two hours earlier than expected. The seat-belt signs were switched on, the plane cut through the cloud cover, levelled out over misty fields and landed on a runway shiny with rain. Once the jet engines had whined to a stop, he looked out of the window.

  He wasn’t home yet. But he immediately recognised where he was and knew where they had landed. In a neighbouring country, not his own. He knew the language here and even spoke it tolerably well. The schedule had indicated it would be a non-stop flight. He remained in his seat.

  After a while, an official of some kind came into the cabin and said:

  ‘The plane will not continue its journey. All passengers are invited to disembark.’

  He repeated the announcement in a number of languages. Apart from Jensen, there were only two other passengers on board.

  Outside it was raining and the raw chill in the air caught him off guard. The arrivals hall was noisy and smoky, crammed with people drinking beer and talking over each other.

  The woman at the information desk gave him a pitying look and said:

  ‘There are no planes going there. All flights have been suspended until further notice.’

  ‘Suspended?’

  ‘Yes. All communications have been cut off.’

  ‘Where can I telephone from?’

  ‘Here. But there’s no point. The phone lines aren’t working either.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nobody knows for sure.’

  At that moment, he heard his name being called over the public address system. The woman did a double take, and looked at his ticket again.

  ‘Is your name Jensen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Follow
me.’

  She took him over to a lift and up to the top floor.

  ‘Go to reception room four,’ she said. ‘They’re expecting you.’ Jensen walked along the carpeted corridor, reading the doors. He stopped at number four and knocked.

  ‘Come in,’ said a voice.

  There were three men in the room. Two of them were slumped in comfortable armchairs. Their faces were drawn and pale. He did not know either of them. There was a third person over by the window, standing with his back to the door. As he turned round, Jensen recognised him. It was the man from the election posters. The man considered to represent the totally interdependent concepts of welfare, security and accord better than anyone else. He had been the Minister for the Interior when Jensen left, and ought to be head of government by now. His Excellency.

  ‘Are you Jensen?’ he said in a shrill, uncontrolled tone.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sit down, for God’s sake. Sit down.’

  Inspector Jensen sat down.

  CHAPTER 7

  ‘I’ve heard about you, Jensen,’ said His Excellency, the senior minister. ‘You caused me a certain amount of inconvenience a few years back.’

  He was plainly making an effort to keep his voice at a normal level. To sound as if things were as usual.

  ‘Would you like a beer?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘They make damn good beer here, I must say.’

  He sat down opposite Jensen. As he poured his own beer, his hands shook so much that he almost knocked the glass over.

  ‘You know these gentlemen, of course?’

  Jensen had never seen them before and had no idea who they were, even after the minister had introduced them by name. They were both members of the government.

  ‘Someone said once that the distance between the people and those in authority was too great,’ the senior minister mumbled to himself.

  Jensen knew what he meant. The red-haired police doctor had once said:

  ‘Can you think of anything more abstract and distant than God and the minister? Anything more remote?’

  There was something in what he said. The Accord regime did not promote any kind of cult of the personality; that had been one of its founding principles. The general uniformity and smoothing out that was its goal did not allow for any positions of personal power other than those based on capital, which could be consolidated without the intervention of the public sector. For official functions there was always the Regent to call on. It was only in the last two elections that there had been a named candidate with a face, presumably so the relationship between people in general and the technocrats who exercised formal power should not get too unreal.

  ‘Prime Minister …’ said Jensen, but the man instantly interrupted him.

  ‘I’m not the head of government. The election was … postponed.’

  ‘Why?’

  The minister stood up suddenly. He made a jerky sort of gesture, contemplated his trembling hands for a moment and then thrust them in his jacket pockets.

  ‘Circumstances were such that it was considered appropriate to postpone the democratic elections,’ he said stonily.

  One of the other men cleared his throat and said:

  ‘Inspector Jensen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you send in your declaration of loyalty?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I told you there was no connection,’ the minister said peevishly.

  In the room, all was silent. Outside, the jet engines roared. Jensen looked at the men one after the other and said calmly:

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘The incomprehensible thing is, we don’t know. We don’t know what’s happened and above all, we don’t know how it’s happened. There’s no logical connection between the details we do know.’

  ‘What details?’

  ‘Jensen, we need to take this from the beginning.’

  ‘Yes. Why are we here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know? How did you get here?’

  ‘The same way as you. On a plane. From abroad. We were on our way back from a … state visit. But we couldn’t get any further than this. All communications are severed.’

  ‘Why are all communications severed?’

  ‘We don’t know. Nobody knows.’

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Three days.’

  ‘Have you tried to get home by other means?’

  His Excellency did not answer.

  ‘You summoned me here, is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Jensen, we need to take things in order. Firstly, are you willing to take on the mission?’

  ‘What mission?’

  ‘Investigating what’s happened. Since we don’t know where we are, we can’t give you any precise orders.’

  ‘I know where we are.’

  ‘You misunderstand me. I mean in a legal sense. As you may know, we haven’t recognised the government in this country, for practical economic reasons. For us, it exists only as a geographical concept. We have no extraterritorial rights.’

  ‘Why are we here, then?’

  The minister threw out his arms.

  ‘Where the hell do you want us to go? I ask you to do me a favour, do the country a favour, and you …’

  He left the sentence unfinished. The member of the cabinet who had not yet spoken shook his head and said:

  ‘Police. What did I tell you?’

  The man was fairly young and had an arrogant, supercilious manner. Jensen recalled having heard his name a few times and knew he was one of the government’s rising stars. He had held various ministerial positions and the general expectation was that he would head the government sooner or later. At present he was the Minister for Education. He had previously been head of communications, charged with the sensitive task of directing radio and television censorship.

  Jensen regarded him without expression and said:

  ‘I would just like to point out that I am not on active duty, that we are abroad, and that I have been given no concrete information whatsoever except what I was told at the airline desk.’

  ‘Jensen, Jensen,’ the senior minister said sorrowfully and imploringly. ‘We know you are an extraordinarily skilful police officer.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. The way you handled that embarrassing affair four and a half years ago admittedly made things even more embarrassing, but the investigation was technically perfect …’

  ‘So perfect that it led to the deaths of thirty-two people, you mean?’

  ‘Don’t rake all that up again now.’

  The Minister for Education said frostily:

  ‘Mr Jensen, I hope you are aware that we can put you back on the beat the minute the situation returns to normal. We can also kick you out of the force altogether if we feel like it. You’ve caused trouble before.’

  ‘Just so,’ said the senior minister. ‘You should think of your family, at the very least.’

  ‘I haven’t got one,’ said Jensen.

  ‘All right then, what is it you want? Money?’

  ‘Facts.’

  ‘I told you: there aren’t any. We don’t know what’s happened.’

  ‘Why were the elections postponed?’ Jensen asked.

  The senior minister gave a nervous shrug.

  ‘As I said …’

  The education expert jumped up and gave the senior minister a far from appreciative look.

  ‘The election was postponed because of the serious disturbances that erupted in the closing stages of the campaign,’ he said.

  ‘Disturbances of what kind?’

  ‘Riots. Running battles. The police and army were called in.’

  ‘A revolt?’ Jensen said doubtfully.

  ‘Not at all. It was more a case of people turning with justified indignation on the nation’s enemies within. Unfortunately they res
orted to methods that were far too violent.’

  ‘What happened then? Once the election had been postponed?’

  ‘That is something we don’t know with any certainty. Most of the government left the country at that point.’

  ‘With their families?’

  ‘Yes, they’re safe.’

  ‘And the Regent?’

  ‘In a place of safety.’

  ‘Why are all the borders closed?’

  ‘As far as we are aware, the borders aren’t closed at all.’

  ‘But all communications are cut off?’

  ‘Yes. Because a very serious epidemic is raging in the country. Here and in other foreign countries, they have accepted that theory.’

  ‘And is there any factual proof that the theory is correct?’

  ‘Yes. Before communications were broken off, the authorities requested medical help from abroad.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Some personnel, mostly volunteer doctors and nurses from a number of foreign countries, immediately went on their own initiative. Soon after that, the message came through that the situation was under control and no further help was required.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Just after we had that message, communications were broken off.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Five days ago. To be precise, I can tell you there has been no official contact for the past five days or nights.’

  ‘But unofficially?’

  ‘A few people have left the country. In groups of varying sizes. None of them we have been in touch with knows for sure what’s happened.’

  ‘Why did they leave the country?’

  ‘Fear and uncertainty drove them to it. But …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There are various indications to support the theory that an epidemic has broken out there. A number of people have died in hospitals abroad.’

  ‘What of?’

  ‘It’s been impossible to establish the cause.’

  ‘Are the border controls still working?’

  ‘As you know, most of our borders are sea ones, and the land borders, as you also know, generally run through areas that are practically uninhabited. After much persuasion the police forces of neighbouring states agreed to reconnoitre outposts on our territory. Very unwillingly, I must say. Everyone’s scared of the epidemic.’