Dr. B. Read online

  Epigraph

  Cut off the supply of iron and you will force Hitler to capitulate.

  Fritz Thyssen, Paris, 1939

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Sunflowers

  The Boy in the Tower

  Café Ogo

  The Opera Bar

  Look at the Wonder and Beauty

  Invisible Ink

  17 Villagatan

  Snow Crystals

  Letter to Germany

  The Spaniards Inn

  Wagner Evening

  Grand Mal

  32 Frejgatan

  Rheinmetall

  Afterword

  Source Notes

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Immanuel’s face showed no sign of blushing. It would have been superfluous anyway, for the shame he bore ran deeper than that. He stood with his back to the corridor wall and felt the chill of the plaster against his head. The light of a bulb hanging from the blistered ceiling fell on his colorless face. So this would be where it ended.

  He would have liked to withdraw, and yet he remained in the brightly lit corner, right by the turn in the east corridor on the first floor of Kronoberg Prison. From here one had a view in both directions. He noticed immediately when the guards brought a new arrival to the cell or wheeled along the clattering soup trolley. Moreover, it was here the detainees could meet briefly on their way to the linen closet, where they had to leave their bedding at daybreak and collect it at nightfall.

  Why they let him stay here he didn’t know; the guards came and went, passing him as if he were invisible. Yet it was right here in the corner that the publisher caught sight of him. It was obvious he recognized Immanuel instantly as he came walking down the corridor, holding his sheets.

  In the light from the bulb Immanuel saw the publisher look at him coldly. At the man who had been the recently appointed editor, the journalist with the byline Dr. B., the new member of staff who had quickly become known by all as Immanuel. The publishing house lawyer cautioned strongly against all contact with him now. He had offended in a way that could only be viewed as unforgivable for a Jewish immigrant. The lawyer had apparently emphasized just how unforgivable.

  He had asked for help in making contact with his wife and family. Concern for them had overcome the stranglehold of shame that seemed to render him powerless. His family were living in complete limbo, a situation that must have been unbearable for his wife. His own anxiety kept him awake at night.

  Gottfried Bermann Fischer did not even pause. Nor did he turn when Immanuel addressed him.

  “Gottfried. Listen to me.”

  No, what he was guilty of was patently impossible to forgive. And what would happen to them now, to his family and the publisher’s? Avoiding deportation looked hopeless. Stockholm had rescued them. They had managed this far. But what was left now? The world was divided. There were places where Jews couldn’t live. And there were places they couldn’t enter.

  Immanuel saw the publisher’s back disappear into the gloom of the corridor in the direction of the linen closet.

  It was too dark in the cell to study the report and all its long-winded appendices. But he had read them so many times that certain of the passages had lodged in his mind. Some of the sections he could recite verbatim. The letter around which it all revolved had been transcribed and translated, including the invisible lines. Now the thick sheaf of papers lay on the cold floor beside the bunk. From time to time he groped for one of the pages, held it up to his eyes, and with a struggle managed to decipher it. After the search of the house, typescript from the Weil family’s typewriter had been analyzed by a tireless gentleman from the Secret Service, the same tall, thin inspector who conducted the interrogations. Immanuel made it out, letter by letter:

  This specimen was typed on a Rheinmetall machine:

  A s d f g h j k ö ä y x c v b n m , .—q w e r t z u i o ü ß ß ß ß ß ß

  = e 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ” — ) ) ) ) ) § § § § § § § § / / / / / / / / ^ + + + + + + + +

  + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

  The serial number of the machine is 161732.

  It is reportedly the property of Weil.

  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 é ` =

  q w e r t z u i o p ü ß

  a s d f g h j k l ö ä

  y x c v b n m , . - - - -

  This machine is quite distinctive in that, inter alia, it lacks the letter A with a ring on top. It is reasonable to assume that the person in custody used such a machine, since I have noted that in certain correspondence he added rings above the letters by hand, including in some cases on the wrong letters. Of course the Jewish family Weil say they did not lend anyone their machines, but that information cannot be trusted. In addition it would be useful if it did prove to be the machine on which the letters were typed, for then we could have a crack at the Weils as well.

  14 April 1940 / O.D.

  It was as if the inspector’s own speculations surfaced here, without being clarified or conforming to the strict format of the report. The report itself was introduced with a list of all the visas and stamps in the suspect’s passport, which Immanuel could recite like a litany. There followed an account of his racial origin: “Despite the fact the detainee’s passport is not stamped with a J, the detainee maintains he is Jewish.” As he read this section for the seventh or perhaps eighth time, he was overcome by such weariness that his eyelids gave in to the weight, and the half-light of the cell gave way to the gentler darkness of his closed eyes. In this internal night, syllable by syllable, he made his way through the text he now knew by heart: “His father was without question a full Jew. However his mother’s descent has not been established.”

  161732. O.D. All those numbers and abbreviations bewildered him.

  He leaned back on the hard bunk. Was it just his imagination, or could he hear the sound of a typewriter through the wall? Or was it coming from above, through the ceiling? He might be mistaken, but hadn’t someone said that the investigation records were typed out in rooms located in the same prison block as the cells, but on a different floor? Whatever the source, the sound increased in intensity, only to fade away. Then it came back, even more distinctly. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack. It was a vehement, sharp tapping. Perhaps his arrest warrant had been hammered out on that machine.

  He had always liked listening to his wife working in the evenings as she typed up the articles he had dictated during the day. But in comparison that was a gentle hum, broken only by the ping at the end of the line and the swish of the carriage return. The boys didn’t mind it either, even referring to the noise as their lullaby. This industrious clatter, on the other hand, had something metallic about it, rather like the sound of crickets or a distant choir of voices emitting a harsh, rhythmic dissonance. It seemed clear to him now that it was the staccato rattle from several machines. The noise seeped into the room as a distant babble trickling across the floor. His eyelids were so heavy now, he couldn’t open them.

  There appeared to be something burning high up outside the window. It must be the fire in the tower of St. Gertrude’s Church, spreading heat and light as far as the prison, he thought, the fire that had made the tower collapse and the spire with the golden cockerel come crashing to the ground. Without, thank heavens, injuring anyone on Tyska Brinken, the street below. The rooster itself was undamaged, as he had ascertained on a recent visit to the church. That was when he had seen the boy disappear up into the tower. Should he be worried about the fire?

  But what if it was arson? he could clearly hear a friendly voice whisper. Now the noise of the typewriters had completely receded,
and instead he heard the repeated whispering. Yes, you must understand, it was definitely arson. He recognized the voice, but how could it possibly be heard in here? It was quite plainly Rickman. Alfred Frederick Rickman, the laughing Englishman. Arson or not, now the flames were very close indeed. But it wasn’t the heat of the fire in St. Gertrude’s he could feel; he should have known that at once. No, it was the offices of the newspaper Norrskensflamman that were burning. It was obvious it was arson, that was evident to everyone, and it was as clear as day that it was the editor of their rival in Luleå who was behind it. They might have been in league with the cabal around the German consul, the one who invited the arctic explorer. How strange. Suddenly he was unsure whether it really was Rickman’s voice he could hear, or could it be that of the German polar explorer? In any event, now the man’s voice was drowned out by the tolling of bells. Was it the church outside the prison, or was it once again the chimes of St. Gertrude’s in Gamla Stan that he had heard distinctly earlier in the day? The sound reached a crescendo. The melody was hard to follow. As a matter of fact there was no tune at all; it sounded more like the heavy hammer blows in a smithy.

  He sat up in a cold sweat. He must have dozed off and begun imagining things. What he had heard was nothing more than the sound of the cell’s door being opened with customary lack of care. There had been no bells, only the jangling of keys and the deafening noise of the weighty bolt being pushed upright and banging against the doorframe. There were no more flames to be seen, only bright sunlight streaming into the cell through the tiny window.

  He had fallen asleep properly for the first time in several days. His nightshirt was wet, and he could feel his heart pounding with fear. As he placed his feet on the cold stone floor, the door opened, the food trolley was wheeled in, and a plate of porridge was unceremoniously set down on the nightstand. The trolley was wheeled back out by the tight-lipped guard, the door slammed shut, and he was alone once more.

  It was now sufficiently light in the room for Immanuel to gather up all the documents scattered over the floor. At the top of the pile he placed on the bunk was the report about the glass bottle of invisible ink and the German fountain pen he had hidden in the bureau. Lucia had sensed all along that nothing good would come of it. It should be out of the house, she had said. And she was right: they had deciphered the letter to Kutzner, the editor in Berlin, and uncovered the lines about the Englishmen and their plans.

  He read:

  On 19 April 1940 the National Forensic Science Institute received the following material from the National Criminal Police third division with a request for investigation: A glass container with ca 25 cl of pale yellowish-green liquid. The container bears a label with the letter T. A fountain pen of the brand Tintenkuli. The purpose of the investigation was to establish the type of liquid in the container.

  Hereby solemnly declared that chemical analysis of the liquid found it to consist of a 0.4% solution of yellow prussiate of potash (K4Fe[CN]6).

  All was revealed, nothing kept secret, even from the prisoner himself.

  This, then, was where it would end, what had begun just a few months earlier in a time that was turbulent and yet full of light. A time of prospects and breaking with the past. A time so bright it was dazzling. A time when Immanuel could still see a way out.

  Sunflowers

  Immanuel knew nothing about the island. But he was sure the light that morning was more golden than anything he had ever experienced and the pale woman on the jetty the most ethereal creature he had ever set eyes upon. He could barely make out her shape. She was almost diaphanous, her hair translucent, the breeze giving it life. The sound of the engine grew louder, and he could see the boat approaching, although the reflections on the water made it hard to focus. This morning was nothing but sun.

  Now she was already standing in the bow of the motorboat that had come to fetch them. In her white dress her body could only be described as a shimmering light. Helios was the god of the sun, but of the seas too, he thought, as he stepped aboard, firm-footed but happy nonetheless to hold on to the strong arm of the boatman. Helios gave us something priceless, the gift of sight. He dwelt in a light-filled palace on the great river at the eastern ends of the earth.

  Thoughts flitted across Immanuel’s mind as if he were not really up and awake, but still lying in relative comfort on the sofa in Mittag-Leffler’s mathematical library. A slim volume with the puzzling title On the Motion of a Rigid Body about a Fixed Point was the last thing his eyes had rested on for a few seconds before the shifting images of sleep displaced it. He had slept badly and woken repeatedly with a gnawing sense of unease, as if misgivings concerning the immediate future were already confirmed.

  He was still in this state of mind, and the monotonous drone of the engine heightened the sensation of riding through a dream, but not a dream that belonged in the night. From his slumped position on a white leather bench right at the stern he could make out the boatman’s muscular back ahead of him, but the impression this gave was of traveling under the glistening water and not on top of it.

  Impatient shouting from the bow interrupted his thoughts. The athletic boatman appeared to be doing the splits, with one foot on the deck and the other on the lowest of a flight of stone steps that was surprisingly grandiose for a little island of otherwise frugal wooden structures. Immanuel’s gaze followed the steps up. A series of small terraces could soon be seen, lined by statues and enormous rhododendron bushes. The young woman, who had been friendly enough but of few words when she met him on the jetty and had then stood bolt upright in the bow throughout the short journey, seemed to have disappeared into thin air. For a second he thought he saw her figure flash past behind a railing quite a long way up the steps.

  Or maybe it was reflected light, tricking him into seeing things that weren’t there. He found it hard to clear his vision, his eyes still slightly dazzled after the boat ride. But suddenly he caught sight of something unexpected. High up, amid the huge treetops, stood a gray stone building of almost ridiculous dimensions. It was partly concealed by leaves, which had already turned to flaming red. It was autumn, but still as warm as high summer. In front of the castle, for a castle it was, were Norway maples and laburnums.

  “You’ll have to wait here until Miss is back from the house,” the boatman said, with no great warmth. “Madame doesn’t want the guests to go up by themselves, under any circumstances.” He turned away with a gesture that clearly implied he had said what he was going to say and now was going to mind his own business. Silence fell, an oppressive silence.

  “Thank you for the ride. It was quick. Smart boat, by the way,” Immanuel said, in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. That his Swedish was less than perfect was not going to stop him making casual conversation. It was something he had resolved to do from the moment he arrived in his adopted country.

  The boatman seemed little interested in chat. They were both now standing firmly on the quay, with the terraces at their backs and the pale-green water in front of them. On the other side of the bay the leafy gardens of Djursholm were visible, and behind the rich autumn reds was the hint of one grand villa more stately than the rest. Somewhere it must be possible to make out parts of the Mittag-Leffler Institute, where Immanuel had spent the night so he could walk down through the wooded neighborhood at dawn and be on the jetty at the allotted time. Unusual for a breakfast meeting to require a motorboat journey, he thought, turning to look back in the other direction, up toward the villa that seemed now, in the wavering morning light, to be floating among the treetops. He followed the elegant lines of the Louis XVI–style building, and for a second he forgot his uneasy feeling; a feeling that in fact he was to have every reason for, given the deception the trip would demand of him.

  The house stood on massive foundations. They must have transported huge quantities of stones here on barges, he was thinking, when a sudden metallic noise roused him from his musings. The boatman, his blond hair swept back, had dropped someth
ing heavy and compact onto the quay, making them both jump. In a split second the man had bent down and picked up the object, before hastily slipping it inside his blue sports jacket. It was a pistol, small and hard, black as tar. A piece of coal, hard, absorbing all the sunlight, it was so black.

  The whole thing happened so quickly, it was difficult afterward to be totally sure it hadn’t been a figment of Immanuel’s imagination. It hadn’t occurred to him that the man piloting the boat that had picked him up from a wooden jetty in the tranquil setting of residential Djursholm would be armed. There was silence, apart from a dull thud every so often when the boat moored several meters below them hit the quay. The engine was turned off now, and with some curiosity Immanuel gazed down at the elegant craft. He was familiar with these neat, speedy wooden boats from his visits to friends at Lake Garda, but he hadn’t seen a single one since arriving in these latitudes.

  “Has it been imported from Italy, maybe?” he asked aloud, to break the silence.

  The boatman turned to look at Immanuel, blinking nervously into the sun, but still said nothing, as if he hadn’t heard the remark, or deemed it irrelevant. Perhaps he had found the incident with the pistol embarrassing. Or perhaps he was unaware that the guest had seen the handgun that had dropped to the ground momentarily, only to be just as swiftly slipped into the holster in all likelihood concealed under his jacket.

  Seagulls landed close to the bow of the boat, unperturbed by the presence of the two men. They fought over a small, shiny fish jumping around on the stone surface.

  “Everyone knows it’s a copy that Kassman had built of the old boat, the one that went up in flames,” the boatman said suddenly, almost reproachfully.

  “Kassman? Who’s Kassman?”

  “No problem for the likes of Gunnar Kassman to find a new engineer and a new gardener,” the boatman went on, as if he hadn’t heard the question. “Who wouldn’t want to work for a boss like him? Especially if you’re not that fussy about the true source of the money. No, Director Kassman entertained women with champagne and caviar, and men as well. The motorboats were moored here at the quay until midnight, before heading back to town. Who cared if one of the boats went up in flames at daybreak, and a young engineer and a groundsman vanished into the deep? Who cared about it, except for Karin, who was to have married Axel a few days later? She was only nineteen, too young to marry maybe, but that’s how it was. Her life was over then.”