“We’ll see,” she said wearily and hung up.
He switched off his cell phone and remained sitting there in the darkness. Then he left the car and walked back to Allégatan. He wondered if this is what death looked like, a solitary figure walking through the night.
He slept badly and got up at 6 A.M. No doubt Elena would be awake already. He should call her, but he didn’t feel up to it. He forced himself to eat a substantial breakfast, then went to fetch his car. There was a gusty wind blowing, and he felt the cold. He drove south out of Borås. When he came to Kinna he left the main road and drove into the town itself. He stopped outside the house where he’d grown up. He knew that the man who lived there now was a potter who had made his studio in what used to be his father’s garage and workshop. The house looked deserted in the early morning light. The branches of the tree where Lindman and his sisters used to have a swing were swaying in the strong wind. He suddenly thought that he could see his father come out of the door and walk towards him, but instead of his usual suit and gray overcoat he was wearing the uniform that hung in Berggren’s closet.
Lindman drove back to the main road and didn’t stop again until he came to Varberg. He had coffee at the café opposite the railway station, and borrowed their phone book to look up Anna Jacobi’s number. The address was in a suburb to the south of the town. Perhaps he should call first, but then Anna Jacobi or whoever answered might say that the old man didn’t want to or wasn’t well enough to be visited. He eventually found the place, after several wrong turns.
The house looked as if it had been built around the turn of the century, and stood out from the other houses, which were all modern. He opened the gate and walked down the long gravel path to the front door, which was under a veranda roof. He hesitated before ringing the bell. What am I doing? he thought. What do I expect Jacobi to tell me? He was my father’s friend. Superficially, at least. What my father really thought about Jews I can only imagine, and fear the worst. Nevertheless, he was one of the small group of well-to-do people who lived in Kinna in those days. That must have been the most important thing as far as my father was concerned, keeping the peace in that little group. I’ll never know what he really thought about Jacobi.
He decided to take the Strong Sweden Foundation as his starting point, the reason why his father had made a pledge in his will. He’d asked about it once before. Now he was coming to ask again, and if necessary he would say it had to do with Molin’s death. I’ve already been in Olausson’s office and lied through my teeth to him. I can hardly make matters any worse. He rang the doorbell.
After the second ring, the door was opened by a woman in her forties. She looked at him from behind a pair of thick glasses that magnified her pupils. He introduced himself and explained what he wanted.
“My father doesn’t receive visitors,” she said. “He’s old and ill and wants to be left in peace.”
Lindman could hear the sound of classical music from inside the house.
“My father listens to Bach every morning. In case you’re wondering. Today he asked for the third Brandenburg Concerto. He says it’s the only thing that keeps him going. Bach’s music.”
“I have something important to ask him about.”
“My father stopped dealing with anything remotely connected with work a long time ago.”
“This is personal. He once drew up a will for my father. I spoke to your father about it in connection with my father’s estate. Now the matter of a pledge in the will has come up again, in connection with a difficult legal case. I won’t pretend that it doesn’t have great significance for me personally as well.”
She shook her head. “I’ve no doubt that what you want to ask is important, but the answer has to be no even so.”
“I promise not to stay for more than a couple of minutes.”
“The answer is still no. I’m sorry.”
She took a step back before closing the door.
“Your father is old, and he’ll soon be dead. I’m young, but I might die soon as well. I have cancer. It would make it easier for me to die if I were able to ask my questions.”
Anna Jacobi stared at him from behind her thick glasses. She was using a very strong perfume that irritated Lindman’s nose.
“I assume that people don’t tell lies about fatal illnesses.”
“If you like I can give you the telephone number of my doctor in Borås.”
“I’ll ask my father. If he says no, I shall have to ask you to leave.”
Lindman agreed and she shut the door. He could still hear the music. He waited. He was beginning to think she’d closed the door for good when she came back.
“Fifteen minutes, no more,” she said. “I’ll be timing you.”
She ushered him into the house. The music was still there, but the volume had been turned down. She opened the door of a large room with bare walls, and a hospital bed in the middle.
“Speak into his left ear,” she said. “He can’t hear anything in his right one.”
She closed the door behind him. Lindman suspected he’d heard a trace of weariness or irritation in her voice when she referred to her father’s deafness. He went up to the bed. The man in it was thin and hollow-cheeked. In a way he reminded Lindman of Emil Wetterstedt. Another skeletal figure, waiting to die.
Jacobi turned his head to look at him. He gestured to a chair at the side of the bed.
“The music is nearly finished,” he said. “Please excuse me, but I regard it as a serious crime to interrupt the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.”
Lindman sat on the chair and waited. Jacobi had turned up the volume with a remote control, and the music echoed round the room. The old man lay listening, with his eyes closed. When the music stopped he pressed the remote control with trembling fingers, and put it on his stomach.
“I shall die soon,” he said. “I think it has been a great blessing to live after Bach. I have my own way of measuring time, and I divide history into the age before Bach and the age after him. An author whose name I’ve forgotten has written poems about that. I am being granted the enormous privilege of spending my last days to the accompaniment of his music.”
He adjusted his head on the pillows.
“Now the music has finished and we can talk. What was it you wanted?”
“My name is Stefan Lindman.”
“My daughter has already told me that,” Jacobi said, impatiently. “I remember your father. I drew up his will. That was what you wanted to discuss, but I don’t know how you can expect me to remember the terms of an individual will. I must have drawn up at least a thousand during my forty-seven years as a practicing attorney.”
“It has to do with a donation to a foundation called Strong Sweden.”
“I might remember. But I might not.”
“It transpires that the foundation is part of a Nazi organization here in Sweden.”
Jacobi drummed his fingers on his quilt. “Nazism died with Hitler.”
“It appears that a lot of people in Sweden still support this organization. And the fact is that young people are joining it.”
Jacobi looked hard at him. “Some people collect stamps. Others collect matchbox labels. I regard it as not impossible that there are some people who collect obsolete political ideals. People have always wasted their lives doing pointless things. Nowadays people drop dead while staring at all those trivial and degrading television series that go on forever.”
“My father pledged money to this organization. You knew him. Was he a Nazi?”
“I knew your father as a proud and patriotic Swede. No more than that.”
“And my mother?”
“I didn’t have much contact with her. Is she still alive?”