He stood at the window, looking down over Allégatan. He could hear Mrs. Håkansson playing the piano in the apartment downstairs. This was a regular occurrence, every day except Sunday. She played the piano from 11:15 to 12:15. Always the same piece, over and over again. There was a detective inspector at the police station who was interested in classical music. Once Lindman had tried to hum the tune for him, and the inspector had said without hesitation that it was Chopin. Lindman had later bought a record with that particular mazurka. For some time when he was working nights and sleeping during the day he would try to play the record simultaneously with Mrs. Håkansson’s playing, but he had never managed to get the two versions synchronized.
She was playing now. In my chaotic world, she’s the only thing that is unchanging, he thought. He looked into the street. The self-discipline he had hitherto taken for granted didn’t exist any longer. It had been sheer idiocy to break into Wetterstedt’s apartment. Even if he’d left no trace behind, even if he’d taken nothing other than a piece of knowledge he would have preferred to be without.
He finished his breakfast and gathered the dirty laundry he was going to take to Elena’s. There was a laundry room in the basement of the apartments where he lived, but he hardly ever used it. Then he fetched a photo album he kept in a bureau, and sat with it on the living room sofa. His mother had collected the pictures and given him the album as a twenty-first birthday present. He remembered how, when he was very small, his father had taken photographs with a box camera. After that he’d bought more modern models, and the last pictures in the book had been taken by a Minolta SLR camera. It had always been his father taking the pictures, never his mother, although he’d used the self-timer whenever practical. Lindman studied the pictures, his mother on the left and his father on the right. There was always a hint of stress in his father’s face, as if he had only just come into the picture before it was taken. It often went awry. Lindman remembered once when there was only one exposure left on the film and his father had stumbled as he hurried away from the camera. He leafed through the album. There were his sisters side-by-side, and his mother staring straight at the lens.
What do my sisters know about their father’s political views? Presumably nothing. What did my mother know? And could she have shared his opinions?
He started over again and worked his way slowly through the album, one picture at a time.
1969, he’s seven. His first day at school. Colors starting to fade. He remembered how proud he was of his new dark blue blazer.
1971, he’s nine. It’s summer. They’ve gone to Varberg, and rented a little cottage on the island of Getterön. Beach towels among the rocks, a transistor radio. He could even remember the music being played when the picture was taken: “Sail along, silvery moon.” He remembered because his father had said what it was called just before pressing the self-timer. It was idyllic there among the rocks, his father, mother, himself, and his two teenaged sisters. The sun was bright, the shadows solid, and the colors faded, as usual.
Pictures only show the surface, he thought. Something quite different was going on underneath. I had a father who led a double life. Perhaps there were other families in cottages on Getterön that he would visit and get involved in discussions about the Fourth Reich that he must have hoped would come to pass sooner or later. When Lindman was growing up, in the 1960s and 1970s, there had never been any mention of Nazism. He had a vague memory of classmates at school hissing “Jewish swine” at some unpleasant person who wasn’t in fact Jewish at all. There were swastikas drawn on the bathroom walls at school, and the caretaker would be furious and try to scrub them off. Even so, he certainly couldn’t recall any symptoms of Nazism.
The pictures slowly brought memories to life. The album was made up of stepping stones that he could jump on. In between were other memories that had not been photographed, but which came to mind even so.
He must have been twelve years old. He’d been hoping for a new bike for ages. His father wasn’t stingy, but it took some time to convince him that the old one simply wasn’t much use anymore. In the end his father gave in, and they drove to Borås.
They had to wait their turn in the shop. Another man was buying a bike for his son. He spoke broken Swedish. It took some time to complete the deal, and the man and the boy went off with the new bicycle. The shop owner was about the same age as Stefan’s father. He apologized for the delay.
“Those Yugoslavians. We’re getting more and more of ’em.”
“What are they doing here?” his father said. “They should be sent back. They have no business being in Sweden. Haven’t we got enough problems. with all the Finns? Not to mention the gypsies. We should throw them all out.”
Lindman could remember it well. It wasn’t a wording made up in retrospect: that was exactly what his father said. And the owner didn’t react to the last comment: “We should throw them all out.” He might have smiled or nodded, but he didn’t say anything. Then they had bought the bicycle, tied it to the roof of the car, and driven back to Kinna. The memory was crystal-clear, but how had he reacted at the time? He’d been full of enthusiasm about the long-hoped-for bike. He remembered the smell of the shop — rubber and oil. Nevertheless, he remembered something else he’d felt at the time — not that his father thought the gypsies and Yugoslavs should be thrown out, but the fact that his father had expressed an opinion. A political opinion. That was so unusual.
When he was growing up, nothing had ever been discussed among the family apart from insignificant matters. What to have for dinner, whether the lawn needed mowing, what color they should choose for the kitchen tablecloth they were going to buy. There was one exception: music. That was something they could talk about.
All his father listened to was old-fashioned jazz. Lindman could still remember the names of some of the musicians his father had tried in vain to persuade him to listen to and admire. King Oliver, the cornet player who had inspired Louis Armstrong. He’d played with a handkerchief over his fingers so that other trumpeters wouldn’t be able to work out how he’d managed to produce his advanced solos. And then there was a clarinetist called Johnny Doods. And the outstanding Bix Beiderbecke. Time and time again Lindman had been forced to listen to these scratchy old recordings, and he’d pretended to like what he heard. Pretended to be as enthusiastic as his father wanted him to be. If he did that, he might stand a better chance of getting a new ice hockey set, or something else he badly wanted. In reality, he preferred to listen to the same music as his sisters. Often the Beatles, but more usually the Rolling Stones. His father had accepted that, as far as music was concerned, his daughters were a lost cause; but he thought that his son just might be saved.
When he was younger, his father had played the music he admired. There was a banjo hanging on the living-room wall. Occasionally he would take it down and play. Just a few chords, no more. It was a Levin with a long neck. A real beauty, his father had insisted, dating from the 1920s. There was also a picture of his father playing in the Bourbon Street Band — drums, bass, trumpet, clarinet, and trombone. Plus his father on the banjo.