time he was due to pay Krekula, he snatched away the envelope containing the money just as the haulier was about to take it. Krekula was left standing there, holding his hand out and feeling silly.
“Isak,” Schorner had said. “A genuine Jewish name,
Krekula had assured Schorner that he was not.
“I can’t do business with Jews, you see.”
Again Krekula assured Schorner that he was not of Jewish ancestry.
Schorner had sat in silence for what seemed an age.
“Ah well,” he had said eventually, and handed over the envelope containing the money.
As if he was not entirely convinced.
Now Schorner is a sort of powder keg on legs. All the setbacks the Germans experience on the battlefield, all the indulgence displayed by Sweden towards the allies, everything seems to be conspiring to create a minefield around him. Last week, for instance, he heard that three Polish submarines were lurking in Lake Malaren just off Mariefred, and nobody was doing anything about it – not even the German government. He is calm, and flirts with Kerttu as usual, but there is a field of energy surrounding him, just waiting to go off. He is ready to explode. In fact, he is longing to explode.
Sweden’s Foreign Minister has expressed his worry about terminating the transport arrangements this way: “The final blows of a wounded beast of prey can be devastating.” Schorner is that beast.
But Kerttu notices nothing. Isak Krekula watches stony-faced as she purrs and churrs in response to Schorner’s flattery. Her chestnut hair sweeps over one eye
Schorner has a soft spot for Kerttu. She has done him a lot of favours in recent years. Passed on bits of information she has picked up here and there. Just over a year ago a German transport plane with a cargo of machine guns had to make an emergency landing somewhere in the forest several kilometres inland. Kerttu and Krekula were in Lulea, and Kerttu took the opportunity to go to the hairdresser’s. When she came out, she was able to tell Schorner exactly where the plane had come down: the wife of the forest owner had mentioned it while having her hair cut. The landowner had not reported his find to the police. Perhaps he had hoped to earn some money on the side. The pilot and all the passengers had died in the crash. On another occasion Kerttu was able to tell Schorner about a journalist who had taken photographs of railway waggons full of German weapons. That kind of thing. Important and trivial. That is how it is with Kerttu. People want to tell her things. They want her to look at them with her greenish-brown eyes. It lifts your soul when a beautiful young girl looks at you. Schorner usually writes down the information she gives him in a little notebook. It is bound in black leather, and he writes in it with a pencil. Then he puts the notebook away in his briefcase. If the information turns out to be correct and is of use to the Germans, Kerttu usually gets paid. The time she told him about the German transport plane, he gave her a thousand kronor. That is more money than her father Matti earns in a whole year.
So she has acquired a tidy little sum. And she has not wasted it. She lives with her parents and does not have to pay for board and lodging, and she has lent money to Krekula, who has in turn invested it in his haulage business. Krekula is paid well by the German army. He does not ask many questions, and he delivers the goods to their destinations.
Now Schorner takes Krekula and Kerttu to one side and asks if Krekula is prepared to lend Kerttu to him for a little job.
Kerttu pretends to be offended and asks Herr Schorner if he does not think he ought to be asking her instead of Krekula. She is not Krekula’s property, after all.
Schorner laughs and says that Kerttu is an adventuress. He knows that she will want to do it.
Krekula says that Kerttu will make up her own mind, but of course he is wondering what it is all about.
“Ah well,” Schorner says. “The thing is that three Danish prisoners of war have escaped from a German ship moored in Lulea harbour. I want them recaptured.”
He smiles, winks and offers them a cigarette.
Krekula realizes that, behind his smile, Schorner is furious. The resistance movement in Denmark has become properly organized during the summer, and the Germans have been having enormous problems with sabotage and other anti-German activities.
Schorner knows only too well that ruthlessness must be met with ruthlessness. An eye for an eye. In Norway the Germans have escalated the level of terror imposed on the civilian population, which is essential to keep people under control now that the 25th Panzer Division has withdrawn to France.
“Someone has hidden them,” Schorner says. “There is a resistance movement here in Sweden as well. And I have a pretty good idea that a particular young man probably knows where those Danes are. And that young man has a weakness. He’s very fond of attractive girls.”
And he tells them what he has in mind. Promises them generous payment.
Krekula’s head fills with images. He pictures Kerttu coming back from her little outing with bits of straw clinging to her back and her hair tousled. But it is a lot of money. And Kerttu says yes without so much as a glance in his direction. What can Krekula do about it? Nothing.
Krekula is eighty-five years old. Lying on his back in the little room, he says to himself – as he has been saying to himself ever since – I couldn’t have stopped her.
He shouts for her again. Says he is thirsty. That he is still freezing.
She appears in the doorway with a glass of water in her hand. When he turns to look at her, she empties the glass in a single swig.
“You’ve always revolted me,” she says. “You know that, don’t you?”
Even as she is saying it, the doorbell rings. The police are outside. That little fair-haired inspector Anna-Maria Mella. With two men standing at the bottom of the steps. Mella asks if Tore is in.
Kerttu Krekula realizes that this is serious. The police say nothing about a warrant. Nor do they need to. Kerttu is furious. Absolutely furious.
“Are you mad?” she yells. “Out of your minds? Why are you harassing us? What do you want him for?”
And she stands there screaming as if someone had stuck a stake through her body while the police enter the house and take a look around.
“My boy,” she screams. “My poor boy!”
And when the police have left, she slumps down at the kitchen table with her forehead resting on one arm. She puts her other arm over the top of her head.
Isak Krekula is lying in the little room, shouting. Who the devil was that, he wants to know. Who was it? She does not answer.
I’ve landed on all fours on Kerttu’s draining board. Standing like a cat on the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet. I want to see this. Bloody Kerttu! There’s only the two of us in the kitchen. I accompany her to the open-air dance floor at Gultzauudden just outside Lulea. It’s 28 August, 1943.
There is a dance at Gultzauudden near Lulea. The Swingers are playing. “Sun Shines Brightly on Your Little Cottage”, “With You in My Arms”, “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and other popular songs. The mosquitoes and horseflies join in the “Sjosala Waltz”, and the telephone wires sag under the weight of the swallows, sitting in a row as if at the front of the stalls.
The young men are wearing suits finished with French seams. The girls are in home-sewn outfits with stiffened bell skirts. Everyone is slim and willowy in these straitened times of food rationing.
