by Mattias Berg
I managed to get to my feet, my body seemingly moving on its own. As soon as I came into the living room, Sixten forced a champagne glass into my hand.
“At long last, Erasmus. I have to admit I was wondering what on earth you were all up to in there, in your various bathrooms. But it’ll have been worth waiting for . . .”
Aina interrupted, her smile even broader than Sixten’s if that were possible.
“Long hair really suits you, Erasmus.”
“Yes, you should have seen him when he was a student, in his first year . . .” Ingrid said—before she and Aina started giggling like schoolgirls.
I was trying to get a grip on the situation, my expression giving nothing away. The champagne must have gone straight to Aina’s head. She who never drank a drop.
While I took a careful mouthful of the alcohol, I let my eyes travel across the walls, the marine paintings, the mustard-yellow curtain arrangement: all this intense normality. Trying to find the ways which Zafirah and perhaps Kurt-or-John would get in. As well as the hidden emergency exits through which we would soon have to escape.
Sixten emptied the champagne bottle into our glasses, cleared his throat and began his speech.
“O.K., everybody, it’s time. The moment I never thought would arrive. When Aina at last becomes older than me!”
Small roses flushed Aina’s cheeks, Ingrid gave her a sisterly hug. I looked around for the potted plant, had to stay sober. Sixten cleared his throat again before going on.
“Be all that as it may . . . as it may . . .”
When he looked down at the floor, a little too long for it to have been merely for effect, I thought I could see tears in his eyes.
“. . . for our many long years together, my darling Aina . . . for the fact that Providence brought us together. Skål to you—and to us!”
“Amen to that!” Jesús María said.
An awkward silence followed: this may well have been the Nurse’s first utterance in this group. I noted that she too had emptied her glass. Everyone except Jesús María then turned their gaze toward me. It was my turn next.
“To Aina!” I said.
Ingrid awaited her turn, a practiced speaker. Then she too raised her glass and caught everyone’s attention. Let her look slowly and theatrically move between Sixten, Aina and me.
“Für Elise!” she said at last.
I jumped as if hit by a shock wave, could not stop myself. Ingrid’s two small words had confirmed my hypothesis. It was Beethoven’s best known piano sonata, the one which Lise Meitner used to play as a four-handed piece with her nephew and fellow researcher Otto Robert Frisch. Maybe not least because Lise’s real first name was none other than Elise.
Besides which, the first letters in the name of the sonata were the same as on the key Sixten had given me: “F.E.”
My thoughts swirled chaotically. What I simply could not understand was what Aina could have to do with any of this. Until Ingrid addressed the birthday girl, now all of a sudden pale.
“It was in many ways Lise, or Elise, who shaped even your destiny. Made my and Sixten’s relationship impossible—and at the same time allowed you two to live your wonderful lives together. In one magical instant. Almost exactly forty-five years ago, on October 25, 1968, just after 4.00 p.m.”
The silence became like a vacuum: we were all gasping for breath.
“And not even I, with my galloping imagination, thought that I would ever get to see either of you again.”
A new artificial pause, and I stole a look at Jesús María. Even she was staring at her feet.
“But in the end, that’s how it turned out: at your home in Ursvik, of all places. And at long last I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the fact that you too, in turn, have made it possible for me to be standing here today. That you have indirectly played your part in what we are now on the way to accomplishing. So skål and a hugely happy birthday, dearest Aina! Your place in history is secure.”
Sixten refilled our glasses once more before we clinked them in toast and were about to take our places at the table. I picked up my hybrid again and fingered the key in the right-hand trouser pocket of my dinner jacket. Held back a little as we made our way to the kitchen.
“Yet there’s not a single word in my dissertation about any underground laboratory,” I said, as quietly as possible.
Ingrid leaned closer. Her breath carried the fruity aroma of vintage champagne.
“No, I promised Lise that, my treasure. That she could take the secret to the grave with her.”
Then she put her mouth to my ear: her warmth burned on my skin.
“But in practice it makes no difference, since the key has been lost without trace for decades. So no-one other than the angels knows what’s under that trap-door.”
2.14
It was impossible to concentrate. However much Aina asked, however hard she pushed me. Because I was thinking about the key, the trap-door, the laboratory, what Ingrid had said. And the two messages to my cell phone. Edelweiss’ gentle voice. The photograph of Zafirah with the jerry can.
So there I sat, looking for alternatives, emergency exits, while Sixten placed the first course and then the main course on the table. Toast Skagen with fresh shrimp and Kalix bleak roe, filet of beef with Hasselback potatoes and morel sauce.
But Aina would not give up. From somewhere far away—although she was only on the other side of the table—she kept questioning me in her strong Swedish accent. She had a firm grasp of English terminology, all the technical terms: seemed to know most of what there was to know about even our own nuclear weapons. The whole expansion which the rest of the world had long since interpreted as disarmament. All of those damned speeches.
It was more reminiscent of an interrogation training session than a conversation. Aina’s sharp look, her fiery, or maybe implacable, side. Her narrowed eyes which could surely see through anybody. The rest of the company—the birthday dinner party—slowly but surely faded away around us.
And in the end I could not resist. Talking as ever on a general level, no classified information, but still, I told Aina that our so-called “Revitalization” would cost us at least 350 billion dollars in the coming decade. And that the total cost for the world’s nuclear weapons arsenals at the moment was estimated to amount to a trillion dollars per decade.
Because those in the humanities are often mathematically illiterate, I felt I had to clarify the amount. A one and twelve noughts. One million million. This before the vast world-wide rearmament, phase two, which would be the secondary result of our own efforts, I said.
Aina nodded eagerly. She reminded me so much of my mother before she vanished into herself: the same warm acuity. I gave her more to nibble on. Details of how much we were spending on nuclear weapons research right now, without the media bothering very much about it—at the same time as we were using all our negotiation skills and rhetoric to stop more countries from starting their own little Doomsday kits.
I took a deep breath and rattled off information. Told her that in the last financial year 433 nuclear weapons projects had been carried out at the Sandia National Laboratory, with a total budget of 2.5 billion dollars. Los Alamos had 293 projects costing 2 billion, Lawrence Livermore 159 projects for just over 1.5 billion, Y-12 seventy-six projects for 800 million, Kansas City 102 projects for 600 million, Nevada forty projects for 400 million, Pantex nineteen projects for half a billion and Savannah River ten projects for 150 million dollars.
“It’s so incredibly difficult to take you seriously,” Aina said.
I did not answer—because I did not know if Aina was being dismissive about us here now, our wounded little team, or about the entire nation.
“And yet we have to. Every second.”
I said nothing. Listened for sounds from outside, any sign from the attackers, somewhere beneath Sixten and Ingrid’s restrained conversation about the old times. Jesús María was not there at all, she must have gone to the bathroom.
“How do you mean, Aina?”
“Where to begin? Perhaps with your sporting talk: about the nuclear football, or the ‘baseball’ cards?”
Then she began questioning me about the briefcase and the cards, which reminded her of the collectors’ cards from childhood. On the front there was a photograph of the possible terrorist. On the back, succinct facts: name, home town, relationships, suspected crimes, the basic necessities for those who ordered our drones into Pakistan, Syria or Afghanistan. So as to be able to lock the sight on that specific person’s cell phone—regardless of who might be holding it at the moment of impact.
“What we’re talking about is a death sentence which is completely unjustifiable from any legal point of view,” Aina said.
Then she went on about how vulnerable the system was. The fact that around one thousand of our warheads, and about the same number of Russian ones, are incessantly online, fully primed to be launched at any moment.
“Isn’t it strange, Erasmus, that everybody talks about this as if it were in the past, in the imperfect tense: joking about the Cold War—without realizing that the situation is unchanged today. And, with extinction, there are no nuances. Even if the number of warheads ready to be fired off during the worst years was perhaps three times as high as now, it’s still more than enough. The combined explosive force of the American missiles alone can wipe out mankind—and make the globe uninhabitable for all time. In addition to disturbing the equilibrium of the universe, what with the effect of the sun through all those dust clouds rising high into the atmosphere and the cold emanating from the then desolate Tellus, well, you know . . .”
Aina emptied her glass, and kept on talking to me as if I had no role in the current events.
“And imagine if, or rather when, all of this is hacked. It is after all more than twenty years since Kevin Mitnick was said to be able to start a nuclear war simply by whistling into a pay phone . . .”
I naturally said nothing about the fact that, at that moment, our entire nuclear weapons system appeared to have been both hacked and encrypted by a lone individual. Out of the corner of my eye I saw how precisely that woman was leaning further and further over the table, ever closer to Sixten. As if lost in their common history.
Aina did not spare either of them a look.
“Recently I also heard a lecture on what are called autonomous weapons systems: war launched without us being involved. The academic said that man is more and more being regarded as the weak link in the chain. That we will soon find ourselves outside the ‘decision loop’, as she put it.”
A scent wafted from the other side of the table, so distant and yet so familiar. Chanel No. 5, the most classic of perfumes. My mother’s party perfume. I thought about remarking that Aina and she used the same fragrance. But I could not get a word in edgeways.
“And it’s certainly not only you, Erasmus. The lunacy is spreading all over the world again. North Korea, Iran, this appalling Islamic State which could get its hands on a warhead, and Russia obviously. Did you know that the Russians practiced offensive nuclear weapons attacks on us as recently as last Easter, on Good Friday, as if nothing were sacred? The targets were in part the National Defense Radio Establishment on Lovön island, which would have destroyed our early-warning system, and the air base at Haghult. I assume you picked it up on your screens.”
I gestured palms up, non-committally, so many incidents had occurred and I had no idea how much Aina knew—since Sixten had said that she expressly asked not to be kept informed of what we were doing. In case she got to hear anything at all about Ingrid’s crazy plan.
“And do you know what really annoys me, Erasmus?”
I shook my head. Felt Aina’s warmth, that paradoxically intense energy from this prim and proper person.
“That you Americans think you’re pretty special. As if the U.S. could never go the same way as so many other dominant powers in history, often when they’ve been spouting about freedom of expression and human rights or have been culturally the most prominent. France under Robespierre, the Soviet Union after the Revolution. I suppose I don’t have to say anything about Germany.
She reached for water.
“And if the worse comes to the worst, it won’t need much in your case either. One single mad ruler—for example that billionaire clown who the other day threatened to run in the next presidential elections. Imagine someone like that with his finger on the button.”
I held my hand over my glass to stop Aina from giving me a refill.
“Yet we can never know if a dangerous president represents a bigger risk that missiles will be fired off, if it couldn’t just as easily happen with the most reasonable ruler. Because the nuclear weapons system is a kind of regime in itself. Lives its own life, with or without safety measures, calculations.”
She paused, gave me an enquiring look. “You’re very quiet, Erasmus . . . don’t you agree?”
I met Aina’s eyes. How could I remind her that that was precisely why I now found myself here in her home in Ursvik—and not with my own family, on the other side of the Atlantic. But my direct look must have been enough.
“But of course you do, my God, how silly of me.”
Aina got up to start tidying things away, to make room for dessert. But Sixten gently ushered her back to her chair. Laid out side plates and cups, put the presents on the table in front of her, placed the princess cake in the middle of the tableau.
At that moment I clearly detected the smell of burning, perhaps even of gasoline, but thought it came from the candles which Sixten was lighting on the cake. Seventy of them neatly arranged in the green marzipan. The whole ritual took a while. First to light them, one at a time, with the elegant lighter which Sixten produced from the waistcoat of his dinner jacket. Then to let Aina have a total of five goes before she blew them all out.
Only after the applause died down did I hear the noise. The crackling sounded cozy, as if it came from a log fire—except that there was no fireplace in the house. It quickly grew to a roar, before the stench of fuel and smoke really hit us. When we came into the living room the blackout curtains were already in a burning heap on the floor, the discarded jerry can lying among them.
It took only a few seconds before the heat and the smoke became explosive. The modular construction of the house was as if designed for a pyromaniac: the flames spread through the rooms with lightning speed. I hoisted the hybrid onto my shoulders and drew my weapon. The Nurse came rushing out of the smaller bathroom as Sixten, with Aina tightly clutching his hand, led us through the smoke-filled hallway, where our outdoor gear was kept at the ready, toward the laundry room. More gasoline-soaked blackout curtains formed a ring of fire around the dryer and the drain in the floor. Effectively sealing off our only emergency escape route, down underground.
There was only one other way. Sixten rushed ahead up the stairs, the flames beginning to lick up the walls and the ceiling, in the direction of their bedroom. Unlatched the security locks, flung the window wide open and threw out the burning curtains—before jumping out with Aina held tight within his arms.
Then we threw ourselves after them. Straight out into the night.
3
First Down
October—December 2013
Kiruna, Sweden
3.01
It seemed as though the atomic winter had started just north of Gävle. The branches in the never-ending pine forest were weighed down to the ground with the constant snow, a fine powder which fell like radioactivity but was its exact opposite. The picture of innocent, virginal white.
So far from what fell over the Japanese fishermen after the tests at Bikini Atoll in 1954, covering both them and the catch in their nets. Just days later the disintegration of their organisms was in full progress. Bleeding from mouths and stomachs, then their hair fell out, long strips of skin came off their backs.
We passed Bollnäs, Ljusdal, kept heading north. At regular intervals I carefully raised the
roller blind and looked out. It had stopped snowing, but the drifts were piled up against the platforms like solidified ocean waves, frozen and bewitched in mid-movement. Ånge at around midnight seemed enclosed in ice. The birches around the station looked silver-dipped, stiff with hoarfrost. We were being transported through a tunnel of deep winter. I tried in vain to sleep, that typical yellow station light filtering in under the blind. The squealing of the carriages as they were laboriously connected to or uncoupled from the train.
It could have been peaceful, graceful. As magical as the endless night trains of my childhood to my grandmother’s. My mother trying to teach me about the history of art, I her about cryptography. The aroma from her unconventional picnic, often some sort of Indian lentil stew with cumin and ginger, spread its way through the corridors where we spent the nights sitting on small fold-out seats, since neither of us wanted to or could sleep.
That is what it could have felt like now: momentary compassion, some sort of respite. If the feeling had not been the very opposite.
The memories were seething in my mind. How we had rushed through the darkened surroundings of the houses, the street lights cut off. Yet the light from the massive blaze behind us—explosive as in war-time, napalm, fire bombs—allowed me to lead us to the bottom of the yard as the heat from the fire burned like a blow-dryer on the back of my neck. Along the paths of the wooded area beyond, our three silhouettes cast distorted shadows that chased with us between the trees.
I had tried hard not to look into the windows of the other houses, with all those families. Especially not the ones with teddy bears and little lamps shining all night long. Where I knew that children would be lying in deep and trusting sleep. Yet images of my own children flickered for a moment, from when they were very small.