Wonder if you can live that way? thought Johansson, drawing more hot water in order to preserve his philosophical state of mind. Life as a bearable division of pleasure and tedium with occasional temporary efforts as soon as loneliness became too marked? Although in the long run it probably wouldn’t work, thought Johansson, taking a sip of his highball. It has to lead to something more lasting. How was it he’d put it, the poet Vennberg? “Cry of loon and knife toward open eye / anything at all just not the same loneliness anew.”
He’s a good poet, that Vennberg, thought Johansson. He wasn’t alone in thinking that, either. He was the prime minister’s favorite poet too, for hadn’t he read that in some book whose author and title he’d otherwise forgotten? Some political journalist at Aftonbladet, and types like that were a dime a dozen at that rag, thought Johansson. Although Vennberg was all right. He’s probably never shot a loon, thought Johansson and smiled, for he himself had shot a good many, even when he was a little boy-he could still hear Papa Evert’s curses ringing in his ears when he’d come home with his illegal contribution to the dinner table.
Wonder if the prime minister has ever shot a loon, thought Johansson, and in that moment he understood exactly what had happened when Krassner died.
When Johansson climbed out of the bath he dried himself extra carefully, for now was not the time for rushing ahead. Then he put on his dressing gown and went into his study and took out the plastic bag with Krassner’s papers. Set them on the desk and decided to start with the bundle that contained the manuscript to Krassner’s book, “The Spy Who Went East.”
He found it almost at once. First the title page with the author’s name. Then a table of contents with chapter headings that extended over two pages, still incomplete and with handwritten corrections and additions. Then he found what he was looking for. On a page of its own, a quote that served as an introduction to the text that followed in the first chapter.
Johansson translated as he read, which was no great art because for the most part he could reproduce the short passage by heart both in the English original and the Swedish translation.
“I have lived my life caught between the longing of summer and the cold of winter. As a young man I used to think that when summer comes I would fall in love with someone, someone I would love a lot, and then, that’s when I would start living my life for real. But by the time I had accomplished all those things I had to do before, summer was already gone and all that remained was the winter cold. And that, that was not the life that I had hoped for.”
Now there was an additional reference. On a separate page with footnotes that had been inserted after the chapter: “Extract of letter from Pilgrim to Fionn, April 1955.”
Johansson put the manuscript aside and took out paper and pen. What was it that she’d said, Sarah Weissman, that extraordinarily talented woman, when they’d met? Only a week ago, but it already seemed like an eternity. This was nothing that Krassner had written himself; on the other hand it might very well be something he’d pinched from someone else. On that point she’d clearly been quite right, and now when Johansson was sitting with the key-or at least the start of a key-it didn’t seem as if he’d intended to conceal that relationship, either. The author was clearly a person who’d chosen to call himself Pilgrim and who, more than thirty years ago, had written a letter addressed to another pseudonym, Fionn.
What else had she said about the author? That it was a man, obviously, for women didn’t write like that; a man who was neither American nor British but who spoke the language fluently for the most part; an educated, talented man with a poetic disposition, or rather a poetic ambition, perhaps. Johansson had an excellent memory, this memory in particular was recent, and without having made any notes he recalled that this was exactly how she’d expressed herself.
“I have lived my life caught between the longing of summer and the cold of winter…”; “Cry of loon and knife toward open eye / anything at all just not the same loneliness anew.” Vennberg’s poem must be of considerably later date, thought Johansson, but that was actually quite uninteresting, for this dealt with something else, a poetic disposition, a poetic ambition, a way of seeing, experiencing, and formulating, and a favorite poet was not something that you chose by accident.
The prime minister, thought Johansson. This he’d already understood, and it was a conviction so strong as to leave no room for other alternatives. The prime minister was Pilgrim, or more exactly… he had been, more than thirty years ago.
…
And who is Fionn? thought Johansson. Who was it that Pilgrim was writing to? Easy as pie, thought Johansson, for he’d already figured that out, and when he pulled out the relevant volume of The Swedish Reference Book from the bookshelf it was mostly to get confirmation in print. Finn, he thought. Fionn must be Finn in English.
“Finn, Anglicized form of the Gaelic name Fionn, hero in ancient Irish saga literature, see Finn cycle,” Johansson read.
John C. Buchanan, Krassner’s uncle, he thought, who in the spring of 1955, when the cold war was at its coldest, must have had his ass full as a CIA agent in Europe and Sweden. How was it Sarah had described him? One of those shrewd, lying, really thirsty, and naturally prejudiced Irishmen. But he must have had something else, thought Johansson, for this was certainly no shabby agent he’d managed to recruit.
This is the only reasonable explanation, he thought, for it was a farewell letter sure enough, but hardly a farewell to life. Only a former external collaborator with the world’s fourth-largest security organization who, in an educated, talented, and, considering the context, unusually poetic manner, was stating that he no longer wanted to be part of it. A still-young man who had other plans for his future life.
What do I have to do with this? thought Johansson with irritation, looking around for his highball, which he must have left behind in the bathroom. Not a thing, for regardless of what Pilgrim and Fionn had been up to more than thirty years ago, it was still a good five years too late for someone like Johansson to even lift his little finger. Statutes of limitation are not a stupid invention, thought Johansson. They save a lot of unnecessary running around. So what should he do now? For a police officer like himself there was actually only one problem remaining, and that was Krassner himself. What was it Sarah had said? That he would rather die than take his own life, and on that point she had probably been right as well, thought Johansson. What remains is just to find out how it really happened.
Obviously it was Krassner that SePo was interested in the whole time, and quite certainly it was pure coincidence that M’Boye got to function as a hanger for Krassner’s overcoat. Not even the secret police were so dumb that they didn’t understand that it was a matter of a tiny window of happiness for the white regime in South Africa, and that someone like M’Boye might very soon be sitting in the new government. The trade federation has clearly realized that, for otherwise why would they have brought him here? Presumably SePo hasn’t even given a thought to him, thought Johansson, and from what he’d heard from Wiklander he didn’t seem to have realized anything either.
Rule number one, thought Johansson, leaning back in his desk chair. You have to like the situation. During his more than twenty years as a policeman he could not recall any situation that he disliked as intensely as the one in which he now found himself.
Rule number two, thought Johansson. Don’t complicate things unnecessarily. He hadn’t encountered anything as complicated as Krassner’s so-called suicide, either. And what the hell do I say to Jarnie? he thought with a deep sigh. Quite apart from the fact that he’s my best friend, he’s going to think I’m not all there.