The remaining pictures depicted only papers, white typewriter paper with varying amounts of text, sometimes typewritten, some longhand. Several papers crumpled up, smoothed out to be photographed and, he hoped, crumpled up again and returned to their original position. And it was now that Berg started having problems. Krassner’s handwriting-for you had to assume that he was the one who’d held the pen-was hard to decipher, and what was actually written there was cryptic, often abbreviated, and obviously in English throughout. Same thing with the typewritten pages: short sections and lines of text without a single context, more like drafts and directions for an outline than parts of a narrative. This is no manuscript, thought Berg-with one exception, which was possibly a basis for something that was probably meant to become a book.
The exception looked suspiciously like the title page to a book, and without being particularly familiar with the matter Berg assumed that it was a not entirely unusual expression of the agonies of authorship. “The Spy Who Went East, by John P. Krassner,” Berg read, whereupon he made a neat little pencil mark in the upper right-hand corner of his copy. Easier to see when you leaf through it, thought Berg, who had an idea that he should first try to arrange his material in some sort of logical narrative sequence. What the whole thing was really about would be a question for later.
In total eighty-five pages with varying amounts of text, Berg thought after a second count, using a moistened index finger. Sixty-one of them, folded, wrinkled, crumpled up, seemed to emanate from the pile on his desk and the floor around it, while the remaining twenty-four, judging by one of the interior pictures, had been more or less organized on Krassner’s otherwise not especially well-organized desk.
Berg first sorted the papers into two piles-wrinkled versus more or less orderly-in order to try to ascertain whether the written material in each pile possibly indicated some separate context or intellectual development, but it hadn’t made him any wiser. After more than an hour of reading, his only conclusion was that clearly this dealt in part with things that the author was already done with or had rejected and thrown away, and in part with things that he hadn’t gotten around to throwing out, but that the distinction was simply not clear from the written text. The fellow actually seems to be extremely confused, thought Berg, and for some reason he also happened to think about Waltin. Well-tailored, smiling, and in his eloquent way convinced that Krassner was a completely uninteresting nutcase who was only wasting their time.
More than once during the afternoon he pondered his poor English. In an absolute sense, and definitely in a relative sense as well, it was true that he spoke better English than the majority of his colleagues at a corresponding hierarchical level within the police operation. Not compared to Waltin, of course, for he had a quite different background, but by comparison with real police officers. In a normal, social context he managed well enough, but here he felt hopelessly handicapped. English was not his language, period, and more than once he’d been surprised by the fact that certain of his fellow workers had the temerity to maintain that they spoke fluent English. And they obviously believed it, despite the fact that their English was even worse than his.
Even before he’d started his go-through, his secretary had supplied him with a thick English-Swedish technical dictionary that he’d used before in similar connections. After lunch she’d been able to fetch a few more books that dealt with American technical expressions and common abbreviations, American colloquialisms and American slang, and after several more hours of fruitless linguistic efforts he finally gave up. He underlined those words, expressions, and passages that he didn’t understand, had his secretary copy them, and called in one of his linguists from the analysis section.
Reminds me a little of Marja when she was younger, thought Berg, who often thought about his wife, and he smiled at his hastily summoned assistant.
“You couldn’t help me with a little translation, could you?” said Berg, handing over the list of hard-to-decipher words and expressions. “From English to Swedish,” he added, and for some reason he almost sounded apologetic as he said it.
The female linguist quickly looked through the copy he’d given her, nodded, and smiled.
“I think I can manage this,” she said. “When do you want it?”
“As quickly as possible,” said Berg, and an hour later she was back in his office.
“Well,” said Berg, smiling. “How did it go?”
“I think I’ve managed most of it. In a few cases I’ve provided alternative interpretations. The most likely ones are on top.” She handed over a few neatly typewritten pages in a red plastic folder.
“Tell me,” said Berg. “Who wrote this? What kind of person?” he clarified.
“Goodness,” she said, smiling. “Linguistic psychology is not really my strong suit.”
“Try,” insisted Berg.
“American,” she said, “definitely American. Neither young nor old, somewhere between thirty and forty, I’d say. Academic, seems to have written a bit, might even be a journalist, and in that case I think I can guess who his idol is.”
“I see,” said Berg. “Who?”
“Hunter Thompson,” said the translator. “You can see the Gonzo journalism in his way of writing, even if I would say it’s the wrong context in which to use it.”
“Gonzo journalism?”
“How to explain,” she said, smiling. “Let’s put it like this. If you’re going to describe an event or a person, what’s important journalistically is not the event or person itself but rather the journalist’s feelings and thoughts in the presence of the event or person. What’s interesting is what goes on in the head of the journalist, if I may say so.”
This sounds extraordinarily practical, thought Berg.
“That sounds awfully practical. Must save an awful lot of time.”
“Certainly,” said his coworker, giggling. “Although if it’s a good head then it can be both interesting and entertaining. Like Hunter Thompson, for example, when he’s at his best. When he’s bad he’s just incomprehensible.”
“Sounds a little doubtful if it’s the truth you’re after,” Berg objected.
“The best Swedish example is probably Göran Skytte. Of a Gonzo journalist, I mean.”
Skytte, thought Berg. Wasn’t he that tall, unpleasant, self-centered, boring Scandian who ran around with that dreadful Guillou?
“So Skytte is a Swedish Hunter Thompson?”
“Well,” his coworker objected, “I have a boyfriend who plays hockey in Division Four, but I guess he’s not exactly a Gretzky. Although he would no doubt really like to be.”
“This here, then,” said Berg, pointing at the papers in the red plastic folder.
“With the qualification that my basis for comparison is perhaps a bit thin, then I think I would still maintain that Skytte is better.”
“Skytte is better,” said Berg. Than Krassner, he thought.
“Definitely,” said the translator. “If we’re talking Gonzo journalism, then Thompson plays in the National Hockey League, Skytte is in Swedish Division Four, while this guy here still has major problems with ice-skating.”
“Despite the Gonzo journalism?” said Berg. And its practical relationship to the truth, he thought.
“Perhaps more accurately, just because of that. May I ask a question?” She looked at Berg with a certain apparent hesitation.
“Yes,” said Berg. “Although I can’t promise that you’ll get an answer.”
“These things that you wanted me to translate. This much I understand, of course, that it’s the basis or draft or texts for some kind of book.”