Henning Mankell - The Return of the Dancing Master

“When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow. The morning flight to Landvetter.”

“I’ll arrange for somebody to drive you to the airport.”

They shook hands.

“It’s all been very peculiar,” Rundström said, “but I figure that one way or another I’ve come around to understanding most of what’s been going on. Not everything. You never do understand everything. There are always gaps. But most of it. Enough to solve the murders.”

“Something tells me you’ll have problems in catching Hereira,” Lindman said.

“He smoked French cigarettes,” Rundström said. “Do you remember the butts you found down by the lake, and gave to Larsson?”

Lindman remembered. “I agree,” he said. “There are always gaps. Not least this mysterious person named ‘M.’ in Scotland.”

Rundström left. Lindman took it that Rundström hadn’t read Molin’s diary. The receptionist was ashen.

“Did I do the wrong thing?” she asked.

“Yes. But it’s all finished now. I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ll leave you to your test drivers and Baltic orienteering specialists.”

That evening he had dinner in the hotel, then called Elena and said he’d be coming home. He was on his way to bed when Rundström called to say that Larsson was doing pretty well under the circumstances. The wound was serious, but not life-threatening. Johansson was in a much worse state. He’d had a nervous breakdown. Rundström ended by telling Lindman that Special Branch was now involved.

“This is going to be splashed all over the news,” he said. “We’ve turned over a very large rock. It’s already obvious that this Nazi network is far more extensive than anybody ever dreamed of. Think of yourself as lucky that the reporters won’t be gunning for you.”

Lindman lay awake for a long time after that. He wondered how the funeral had gone. Most of all it was memories of his father flooding through his mind. I’ll never understand him, he thought. I won’t ever be able to forgive him either, even if he is dead and buried. He never showed his true face to me and my sisters. I had a father who worshiped evil.

The following morning Lindman was taken to the airport in Frösön. Just before 11 A.M. his plane touched down at Landvetter. Elena was there to meet him, and he was extremely pleased to see her.

Two days later, on November 19, sleet was falling on Borås as Lindman walked up the hill to the hospital. He felt calm, and was confident he could handle whatever was in store for him.

He had coffee in the cafeteria. Copies of yesterday’s evening papers were piled up on a chair. The front pages were full of what had been going on in Härjedalen, and about the Swedish branch of a worldwide network of Nazi organizations. The head of Special Branch had made a statement. “This is a shocking exposure of something that goes much deeper and is much more dangerous than the neo-Nazis, all those tiny groups dominated by skinheads that have been associated with Fascist aspirations.”

Lindman put the newspapers down. It was 8:10 A.M. Time for him to go to the people who were waiting for him.

Hereira was still at large. Lindman wondered where he had disappeared, and hoped the man would get back to Buenos Aires. Smoke a few more French cigarettes in peace and quiet. The crime he’d committed had been atoned for long ago.

On Sunday, April 9, Lindman picked up Elena early in the morning. On the way from Allégatan to Norrby he’d started humming. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that. Nor did he know at first what it was he was humming. A song of somewhere far from Sweden, he seemed to recall as he drove through the empty streets. Then it dawned on him that it was something his father used to play on the banjo. “Beale Street Blues.” Lindman also remembered his father saying that it was a street that really did exist, possibly in several North American cities, but certainly in Memphis.

I remember his music, Lindman thought, but my father, his face, his lunatic political opinions, have all started to fade into oblivion. He emerged from the shadows to tell me who he really was. Now I’ve kicked him back. The only way I’m going to remember him now and in the future is by the fragments of songs that have stuck in my head. Maybe that provides him with a redeeming feature. As far as Nazis were concerned, black people, their music, their traditions, their way of life — everything was barbaric. Blacks were subhuman creatures. Although the African American athlete Jesse Owens was the star of the 1936 Olympics, Hitler refused to shake his hand. But my father loved the music of black men, the blues. He made no attempt to hide it either. Perhaps that’s where I can find a crack in his defenses, a reason for thinking that he hadn’t given himself entirely to evil and to contempt for his fellowman. I’ll never know if I’m right, but I have the right to believe what I want to believe.

Elena was waiting for him at her front door. On the way to the airport they talked about which of them was looking forward to the trip more. Elena, who had seldom been even a few kilometers from Borås, or Lindman, whose doctor had given him hope that he’d overcome his cancer, thanks to the radiation therapy and the subsequent operation. They didn’t agree on the answer, but it was only a game.

They left for London Gatwick on a British Airways flight at 7:35 A.M. Elena was afraid of flying and clutched Lindman’s hand as the airplane took off and flew out to sea north of Kungsbacka. As they carved their way through the clouds, Lindman experienced a feeling of liberation. For six months he’d lived with a fear that hardly left him. Now it had gone. It wasn’t absolutely certain that he was or would ever be fully cured — his doctor had told him he would have to have tests for five years — but he could lead a normal life again, not be forever on the lookout for symptoms, not nourish the fear he had harbored for so long. Now that he was in the airplane, he felt that at last he’d really taken that vital step away from the fear, and back to something he’d long been waiting for.

Elena looked at him.

“A penny for your thoughts.”

“What I haven’t dared to think for half a year.”

She said nothing, but took hold of his hand. He thought he would burst into tears, but he managed to keep control of himself.

They landed at Gatwick, and after passing through customs they went their different ways. Elena was going to spend two days in London visiting a distant relative from Krakow who had a grocery store in one of London’s suburbs. Lindman would be continuing his journey on a domestic flight.

“I still don’t understand why you have to make this extra trip,” Elena said.

“Don’t forget that I’m a police officer. I want to follow things through to the bitter end.”

“But you’ve arrested the murderer, haven’t you? Or one of them, at least. And the woman is dead. You know why it all happened. What more is there to find out?”

“There are always gaps. Perhaps it’s only curiosity, something only indirectly linked.”

She eyed him severely. “It said in the newspapers that an officer had been wounded and another one had been in extreme danger. I wonder when you’re going to admit to me that you were the one in danger? How long do I have to wait?”

Lindman said nothing, merely flung out his arms.

“You don’t know why you have to make this extra journey,” Elena said. “Is that it? Or is there something you don’t want to tell me? Why can’t you just tell me the truth?”

“I’m trying to learn how to do that. But I have told you the truth. It’s just that there’s one last door I want to open, and find out what’s behind it.”