“John’s mother,” said Sarah. “The reason she’s staring like that is that as usual she’s dead drunk. All the others are of his uncle, the colonel, visiting fine people that he’s met.”
“You say colonel,” said Johansson. “I thought you said he was a professor.”
“We’ll discuss that later,” said Sarah. “After you’ve looked at all his photos where he’s visiting fine people that he’d met.”
Not a bad summary, thought Johansson. In the photo where he was the youngest, the uncle was dressed in full academic regalia with a flat hat, black robe, and chain, courteously bowing toward a white-haired skeleton in the same getup. In the others as a rule he was dressed in uniform or double-breasted suit with broad lapels, and depending on the outfit he was either saluting or shaking hands with other men, without exception older than himself and, judging by their appearance, higher class as well. Two of them Johansson even recognized. The first from his school history textbook, for it was President Harry S. Truman, who, politely leaning forward, was shaking hands with Uncle Colonel-Professor, who, despite the broad-striped suit, was standing at stiff attention with his chin thrust forward and a steely glance. Who the hell is it that he resembles? thought Johansson.
In the other photo he was standing in dress uniform, saluting a small bulldog-like man who seemed to be looking at something else, unclear what but in any case outside the picture, and who quite recently, in a historical sense, had been host to Johansson and his colleagues: the legendary head of the FBI, founder of the FBI Academy in Quantico, J. Edgar Hoover. He resembles someone, thought Johansson with increasing irritation, and it wasn’t Hoover, for he only resembled himself.
One of the photos was more informal. The colonel in his forties with a somewhat older man, both in double-breasted striped suits, smiling broadly toward the photographer with their arms around each other’s shoulders. There was also summer and sun glistening on the waves of Strömmen in Stockholm with the palace in the background. It must have been taken outside the Grand Hotel, thought Johansson with surprise, and from force of habit he turned the photograph over. A brief handwritten text: “Comrades in the field, Stockholm, June 1945.”
“My hometown,” said Johansson delightedly, despite the fact that he had been born in the sticks north of Näsåker, and handed the photo over to Sarah. “This is Stockholm. You can see the Royal Palace in the background.”
“Very nice,” said Sarah politely. “Do you know who he’s hugging?” she asked, giving the photo back.
No one I know, thought Johansson, shaking his head. “Not a clue.”
“But Hoover you recognized,” she said and smiled teasingly. “The fact is, here at home this man is almost as big a legend as Hoover. His name was Bill Donovan, known as Wild Bill. He was the first head of what in time became the CIA, although during the war it was called OSS, Office of Strategic Services. I believe it was in 1947 that they changed the name to CIA.”
So that’s how it was, thought Johansson and nodded. Who is it that he resembles? he thought. It wasn’t Wild Bill Donovan, even if he and Uncle Colonel were rather like one another.
He thought of it on the stairway to the upper story. Of course, it’s that human disaster Backstroem, thought Johansson with delight. Apart from the difference in age they could be identical twins, he thought.
“Special Agent Backstroem,” said Johansson out loud to himself.
“Pardon?” said Sarah.
“It was nothing,” said Johansson. “I was just thinking out loud.”
It’s strange how often you think of things when you’re on a staircase, he thought.
On the upper story there was a hallway, and past that a narrow corridor with rows of doors to a half dozen bedrooms of varying size, besides one larger and one smaller bathroom.
“I was thinking about starting by showing you the colonel’s room,” said Sarah.
The colonel? The professor? A man with at least two strings on his lyre, thought Johansson.
Colonel John C. Buchanan had obviously had the use of the largest bedroom in the house, with his own bathroom. The furniture also provided a picture of the man who had lived there, even if a very curtailed one. Against the one short wall stood a tall, narrow bed with a mahogany headboard and frame that still held a mattress, although the linens were gone. On each side of the bed stood a nightstand of the same type of wood and on the one to the right of the pillow was an old-fashioned iron bed lamp with a parchment shade.
On the opposite wall stood an English desk and a desk chair in the same style with a high back and broad arms, upholstered in green leather. On the wall above the desk were ten or so lighter areas where paintings or photographs of various sizes had clearly been hanging, and the desktop was also completely empty of objects with the exception of an electroplated penholder.
The room had two high windows out toward the street, where Johansson could see Sarah’s black Volvo. A cornice hung over heavy dark curtains, running on tracks, that could be pulled closed. On the opposite long wall toward the corridor stood a large green safe of 1970s vintage with a combination lock and the solid door standing ajar. Inside it was empty.
Empty, thought Johansson and looked at Sarah.
“You call him the colonel,” he said, “but first you told me that he was a professor at the university in this city.”
“Yes,” said Sarah. “He was, in the formal sense-professor, that is. He wrote a dissertation in political science right before the war. I’ve never read it but Dad did when I started seeing John, and Dad was completely crazy for a whole month. He was as crazy as he usually gets when you award the year’s Nobel Prize in economics.”
Now she’s smiling again, thought Johansson.
“Although he really was a colonel, I guess,” said Sarah. “He became an officer when we entered the war and I believe he retired sometime in the early sixties. It was then he got that position at the university. It was an open secret that it was in gratitude for his time in the military. It’s true they created a new professorship for him, in contemporary European history or something like that, and the lectures he gave attracted a certain amount of attention, to put it nicely, and he was always just called the colonel.”
“What did he do in the military?”
“Intelligence officer,” said Sarah, nodding decisively. “To put it simply, he worked for the CIA, or its precursor, the OSS. I said that already, didn’t I? He did his service in Europe, among other places in your home country. He was at the embassy in Stockholm for several years. You saw the photo yourself down in the living room.”
“You’re quite certain that he worked for the CIA?” said Johansson.
“Quite certain,” said Sarah, shrugging her shoulders. “That’s what everyone said. John harped on it constantly and what other reason would there be to stand and hug someone like Wild Bill Donovan?”
And why did they take a photo when they did it? thought Johansson. I would think it must almost have been considered official misconduct in those circles.
“Did you ever meet him?” asked Johansson.
“I met him a few times when John and I were together. He was just as unhappy that John was seeing me as Dad was that I was seeing John, so on that point they were in agreement.” Sarah smiled and shook her head. “He didn’t like me,” she continued.
“Why is that?” said Johansson. “Was he as crazy as his nephew?”
“Because I’m Jewish,” said Sarah.
“I understand,” said Johansson. How the hell do you respond to that, he thought.
Then they were in John’s room. Considerably smaller and without a bathroom, but for the most part furnished along the same fundamental principles minus the safe and the heavy curtains but plus a TV, VCR, and radio cassette player. Clearly someone had lived in the room until quite recently, a person who wasn’t especially orderly, at that.