Dr. B. Read online

  Judgment Day or not, vital decisions for the progress of the war would be taken by his adopted country’s government this autumn or winter. Though perhaps in the long run it would be the family of the industrial tycoon who decided, or so it sometimes seemed to anyone trying to follow the negotiations. Lagerberg had promised to arrange an audience for him with Marcus Wallenberg.

  It was evident that the whole scenario could change radically over a matter of weeks. And if the Germans entered the country, what would happen then? What help would an increased fee from Basler Nachrichten be when that day came? How would they be able to leave Stockholm without a visa for any other possible country? Deportation to Germany would be equivalent to a death sentence. Perhaps the boys should stay here if flight became the only option. But the mere thought was unbearable. He had the same suffocating sensation he had experienced so often since their arrival here, an increasingly frequent reminder of the seriousness of their plight. The relative calm could end at any moment, he knew it, his body knew it. It wasn’t just the swastika in the window of the German travel agency around the corner, or the growingly sympathetic articles about National Socialism in one of the city’s evening papers. No, the signs were visible everywhere for anyone who wanted to see, and he wasn’t one of the blind masses.

  Basically he and his family were stuck here. As he looked around, it occurred to him that many of the people gathered in the café would undoubtedly be in the same position. They had nowhere to go. Many were waiting in vain for travel documents and transit visas that would enable onward movement from the northern metropolis in which they found themselves in their escape from worse fates.

  He could hear German being spoken behind him, and the exchange was such he couldn’t help following what was said. Two middle-aged gentlemen were in lively discussion about a disastrous voyage across the Atlantic. It was as if the whole room was buzzing with similar tales.

  “Apparently certain people were offered entry if they paid five hundred dollars. You can imagine the chaos onboard!”

  “How long is the crossing from Hamburg to Cuba? Two weeks, or more? Over nine hundred people tried to disembark. My sister said she received a letter from one of the few who managed it. It might have been one of those who paid. Others tried to throw themselves into the sea in sheer desperation. An entire family went on hunger strike.”

  “Naturally it didn’t do any good.”

  “Of course not.”

  Immanuel had seen some newspaper reports about a passenger ship full of refugees from Germany who had been denied entry permits to Cuba. After futile attempts to stop at a port in Florida, the captain had been obliged to return to Europe with almost a thousand refugees. It had been a veritable hell onboard. Shortage of food and other essentials. Psychological mayhem, mutiny attempts. If his memory served him correctly, they were finally allowed to disembark in Antwerp, hundreds of people without homes to return to. He must have read the story in De Telegraaf. The ship was called the St. Louis, that was the only thing he could remember with certainty.

  Immanuel immersed himself in his newspaper but found it hard to concentrate on Albert Oeri’s editorial about the German steel magnate, the greatest of them all, who was in exile in Switzerland. There were too many causes for concern. His wife’s persistent dizzy spells were getting worse and worse. She needed to be seen by a doctor, but would he be able to get her to Sophiahemmet Hospital, as Lagerberg had promised? Another worry was his brother, Gerhard. Right up until the journey to the Latvian resort in the summer he had been a cherished family member, loved by the boys and a true support to Lucia. Immanuel cursed the fact that he had treated his brother’s decision to remain in Poland so lightly. An ingenious young bachelor like him would always find a way to get by, he had said cheerfully. On that warm evening at the beginning of July when they had all set off in a comfortable Russian sleeping car, Gerhard had stood alone on the platform. The boys had hung out of the open window, waving and laughing, as he ran alongside and tried to keep up with the train. Since that time all contact had been lost.

  After Immanuel fell asleep, his brother often appeared in obscure fantasy scenes that he couldn’t fight. Recurring dreams churned on, monotonous and disquieting. Now and then he woke in the night, thinking he could hear him shouting. In the dreams his brother was imprisoned. He was threatened and intimidated. His cries were desperate.

  It was difficult to escape these thoughts. To break the vicious circle, Immanuel concentrated on his article on the outbreak of war. It had been abridged somewhat but nevertheless made very clear the vulnerable position of the Swedes. Had the people of the capital realized what was at stake, what was happening in their country? Did they register the level of curiosity with which reporters from all over the world followed every tiny hint coming from government or industry?

  Apart from some rather unsavory characters he had learned to recognize, more and more women had sat down at the tables. Most of them were in their early twenties and elegantly dressed. All the same he could sense something rather gauche and provincial behind the sophisticated facades, as if they had just arrived from the country and adopted a worldly attitude with the help of a few quickly acquired props—cigarette cases, satin gloves. They sat in small chattering groups, animated and noisy. Had the cigarette smoke not been so thick, the scent of cheap perfume would have made him queasy.

  He tried to take a sip of the piping hot tea the short-haired girl behind the counter had been kind enough to bring to the table for him, the girl who always greeted him with the familiarity of someone who had known him for a long time. There were two women behind him now, sitting so close he couldn’t focus on the newspaper article about growing Finno-Russian tension and the Åland Islands question. Instead he was drawn into a matter of an entirely different kind.

  “And you went home with him just for a new brooch and a few glasses of champagne at the Riche?”

  “What would you have done? You can’t pretend to be Little Miss Proper. I can guess what goes on when you invite someone from the German legation over to the boardinghouse. Like the one with the posh car with a chauffeur that you went swanning around with all night. Him with the necklace.”

  “I have absolutely never invited him in. What are you talking about?”

  “No, you don’t need to because he had his own suite at the Reisen, didn’t he, and took girls like you to the Grand and then back to his hotel room. He was one of the swanky ones.”

  “You’re only jealous. Next time he comes, he’s going to introduce me to his friends at the embassy and the people he knows in high society, he’s promised. And when he comes next time he’ll be divorced, for my sake.”

  “Hahaha! And you’ll soon be having dinner with a Bernadotte?”

  The conversation was interrupted by a paper airplane sailing across the room from another table and landing in front of them. When the piece of paper was unfolded, it evidently revealed a message so comical, the two dolled-up women burst into laughter in unison before subsiding into whispers and giggles. They behaved as if they were in their own living room. All these foreign people from other countries immersed in reading didn’t appear to bother them in the least. They gaily greeted women at other tables, who for their part came over to borrow cigarettes.

  Every so often the young women changed places and formed new groups, as if there was a secret format familiar only to those in the know and to which they adhered without deviation. The two chatty ladies had found a new place farther inside the café. The two Germans who had been discussing the disastrous passage to Cuba were now in their old seats.

  “Yes, of course one feels hard-pressed! Trapped, even. To a certain extent I am trapped.”

  Immanuel glanced in their direction. The two gentlemen were engrossed over a small chessboard and a notebook that appeared to have a great number of sections. In the mutual mumbling it was difficult to catch any complete sentences. But there was a sudden commentary from the other man, perhaps in delayed response. br />
  “The white rook must get to the a squares via g8 to capture the black bishop and the black queen without losing time. Since the black rook will be needed later, it can’t be taken but must retreat to the only square from which it can come back and block b1, namely h1. Then, my friend, the coast is clear!”

  A young woman Immanuel thought he recognized came in to collect some confectionery that had clearly been preordered. It was on the counter, already wrapped to be taken away. On the way out she nodded discreetly to him, and he recalled where he had seen her. It was Miss Stern, the woman from Vienna whom Bermann Fischer had appointed as secretary and who was, he had said, privy to the questions Rickman wished to talk over with Immanuel. Indeed the Englishman might appear at any moment, as it was almost three o’clock. Behind him the chess players continued to air possible alternatives.

  “Trapped or not, you missed that. The black queen begins by taking the piece guarding the superfluous knight on the checkmate square, so that the black king can go there on the second move.”

  Another person had joined the conversation. His shrill voice was familiar, and Immanuel gathered immediately that it was Ascher who had taken a seat at the adjacent table. He was obviously sufficiently knowledgeable to be able to follow the game analysis. Ascher was speaking loudly, as if he wanted Immanuel to hear his every word.

  “The white rook must go to the a squares via g8. Exactly so. That’s how simple it is to remove or cut off all the black pieces that can come in between, while covering all the squares around the black king. Anyone who gets blocked in like this hasn’t exploited the rook’s potential. Each piece has its own rules, its own possible escape route.”

  Ascher then fell silent as he turned to Immanuel with little more than a tap on the shoulder in greeting. He had probably seen Immanuel enter the café and decided not to forgo this opportunity of resuming their generally quite strained discourse. Immanuel had never shown much bonhomie, but Ascher wasn’t deterred. Now he slid over beside his colleague and left the two chess players to themselves.

  “Frankly, I see my own situation in the same way. I have the church, my friend. The Curia. I might have cut off the road to the temple; I’ve been criticized for that too. But anyone called Ascher is never completely cut off from the words of the prophets. What else? I have socialism, which for the time being I regard as no great asset. And we have certain new movements in the homeland that might be less than fruitful for the likes of us, but I’m having a number of talks at the German legation that have, surprisingly, opened some doors. Into a future where all exits might not be closed after all.”

  What sort of admission was this? Immanuel, who hadn’t been listening very attentively and didn’t follow the religious turns at all, had no desire whatsoever to confide in this man, of whom both he and Lucia had felt vaguely suspicious. In reality he had tried to avoid the man for as long as possible. But now Ascher was sitting next to him and clearly intent upon a conversation about the predicament that, when all was said and done, they shared. For in a way, of course, they were both trapped.

  Although disagreeable, Ascher was far from narrow-minded. There was always some new theory or doctrine he wanted to quote. This time was no different. Immanuel had felt it coming when he saw Ascher holding an opened tract by a contemporary zoologist, which he proceeded to place on top of the pile of newspapers.

  “Have you heard of Hedinger, my young friend in Bern who runs Dählhözli Zoo? Didn’t I tell you about him and his ideas about escape response in animals, specifically so-called higher mammals, including man?”

  Immanuel said nothing, but he had indeed come across the biologist’s name, and that had been entirely attributable to Albert Oeri’s curiosity regarding all kinds of eccentrics and madcaps. There was no shortage of them in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, and notwithstanding that Oeri’s expertise was in the field of politics, he was keen that they should be given a voice in the newspaper he published. The whole world was on view in Basler Nachrichten, and the whole of Switzerland, Oeri would repeat at every opportunity. And sure enough, one day it would be about the strange psychiatrist who declared he had lost his childhood faith when he had a vision in which the golden sunbeams shining down on the cathedral roof in Basel were suddenly transformed into turds. Oeri had himself profiled this singular mind doctor, a friend of his since childhood. The next day it would be some wayward theologian or indeed the young zoo director in Bern. Immanuel even remembered an inspired article on the psychological life of animals by that original young man, but he didn’t have a chance to mention it before Ascher carried on.

  “Hunger and sexual appetite may be important drivers for all life-forms, no one can deny. But it is the ability to flee that is paramount, from a biological point of view. All animals, even the largest and most powerful, have enemies, and that makes escape capability pivotal. And in man, Hedinger says, escape routes are forming all the time. They aren’t visible, but they exist.”

  Immanuel nodded as if he understood the line of thought. They remained side by side with their teacups before them, neither of them saying anything. Ascher was frantically flicking through his newspapers as if searching for an article that had mysteriously disappeared. In the end he gave up and with an impatient movement folded the newspapers and ostentatiously placed the slender pamphlet about animals on top of the pile. He took a deep breath.

  “Our behavior is developed at an abstract level; animals find a means of escape more instinctively. But look around you here, and you’ll be reminded of scenes you’ve experienced in front of an enclosure at the zoo. An animal nervously walking back and forth, again and again, as if driven by something mechanical. Emitting the same sound, time after time, an abject expression of frustration and resignation. Tossing its head to and fro, with no purpose and no possibility of an outcome. Licking frenetically at one spot and starting to bite the bars of the cage in a mixture of aggression and apathy.”

  Reluctantly Immanuel looked up. He had no wish to be drawn into Ascher’s flights of fancy in this way and intended to extricate himself from the situation by fetching more tea and sitting down at a now empty table beside the counter. Rickman might appear at any moment. Immanuel made it perfectly clear he wasn’t interested in engaging in deeper discussion, packing his things into his briefcase and turning to the entrance. He folded the newspaper and put it in his jacket pocket. But Ascher didn’t appear to pick up the signals.

  “Take a look around this café, and you will see the same mixture of resignation and aggression in people’s eyes, pleading and at the same time ready to attack if the opportunity arises. They are prepared to do whatever is necessary if a means of escape presents itself. I myself am prepared to do whatever is necessary. Aren’t you?”

  Immanuel had risen to his feet. Just as he took a step toward the counter, he felt a draft from the door. A man was walking toward him with his hand outstretched, wearing a gray overcoat that had been thoroughly drenched by the heavy rain. As he removed his hat, which was also soaked, he revealed a head of slicked-back brown hair. The whole impression was one of casual elegance. With a truly winsome smile spreading over his entire face, he was the first to speak, embracing Immanuel in an astonishingly familiar way, considering they had never met.

  “Marvelous! There you are! I do apologize for being a tad late. I have been so much looking forward to making your acquaintance. Gottfried has only the very best things to say about you—he commended your know-how and skill in conveying the right message in the written word. What is required is a professional, he said. A real professional. A man with proper expertise. Yes, in a word, he insisted that I meet you.”

  They sat down beside the counter. Rickman kept leaning forward across the table, his face so close it made Immanuel flinch.

  The conversation that followed was conducted alternately in English and German, and now and then in a strange mixture, interrupted regularly by Rickman’s guffaws. In place of a letter of introduction he had brought a th
in book, practically a pamphlet, published in Britain by Faber & Faber. With a degree of pride he passed the little booklet across the table, and with some surprise Immanuel noted the title Swedish Iron Ore beneath the publisher’s well-known logo, and at the bottom the author’s name: Alfred Frederick Rickman.

  “Yes, that’s me,” Rickman said, pointing to his name. “I thought it might make an impression on a literary individual like you. Gottfried said he was greatly impressed by my choice of publishing house. The fact is, I didn’t have much to do with it; it all came about on commission, and it’s the only thing I’ve ever had in print in all my checkered career. I suppose Gottfried mentioned that I’m now a businessman. My office is on Näckströmsgatan, right by Kungsträdgården. Dental Materials Ltd. I run the firm with my fiancée. I suggest we meet there when you’ve had a look at the information. It’s not suitable for perusal in public, if you know what I mean.”

  He winked in a slightly affected way, as if they were sharing a secret, and then pushed a thick envelope across, addressed in capital letters to Verlag Bermann Fischer. In pencil someone had added the address, 19 Stureplan, and in fainter writing the name Immanuel. No surname, no title.

  Immanuel left the envelope and instead opened the little pamphlet on Swedish iron ore, which proved to be a book about the mines in the north of Sweden and associated transport routes and port facilities. It was complete with maps and diagrams, adding apparent authority to its review of the recent growth in Swedish iron-ore mining. The book, which had no literary pretensions despite the distinguished imprint, had been published in London the previous year and therefore must be judged to be a current report. By no means without interest, thought Immanuel, who only over the last few days had himself tried to examine the political significance of iron-ore export more thoroughly. But in truth he was bewildered by the direction the conversation had taken. He was mentally forming a question that he hadn’t yet managed to articulate when Rickman rose to take his leave, patting him on the shoulder and adding some final words while glancing out at the street.