Searching for Wallenberg (21 page)

“I promise you,” Stalin replied, “that the matter will be investigated and cleared up. I shall see to it personally.”

Documentation of the above Söderblom-Stalin exchange was released in 1980. One year before, Söderblom, in retirement in Uppsala, told his questioners that he had done all he could under the circumstances. “I didn’t want to make a direct accusation to the Russians that they had killed Wallenberg or something of that kind,” he said. “It would have made the whole situation more difficult if such an unsuitable suggestion had been made.”

True, Gellerman knew, since those old days, the Swedes had become more and more critical of their ambassador and their diplomacy of that time. But where was the Wallenberg family, the powerful Marcus and Jacob, during all of that? Where was Swedish skepticism and inquiry about that famous family? Why were they let off the hook, so conveniently, till this day, and the full blame placed on the politicians? …

Through a young Swedish friend who had once been a student of his ex-wife’s at the college and was now an architect living in a suburb, Gellerman had a lead on a local gentleman who claimed some personal knowledge of Wallenberg.

A short older gentleman, paunchy in a suit, arrived at the house in Lindingö with boxes of files, and a shy smile and handshake. He introduced himself as Olaf Selling and sat in a chair; and, after introductory words, he explained who he was and how he had come to save all the clippings in the Swedish newspapers that had come out about RW. Politely Manny interrupted him and asked him to talk first about his relationship with Raoul. In a basic English, Olaf told of meeting Raoul when they were both drafted for their two-year service in the Swedish army. Their basic training was up north, for several months, and while he never came to know Raoul intimately—nobody did—it was a very small group of recruits that were housed together, several of them heading for officer school. In the training camp, RW proved himself to be a good soldier in every way, dutiful, respectful, modest, never relying on his famous name for any special privileges or preferences. Except for one time.

“A few things stood out.”

“Like what?” inquired Manny.

“Well, Mr. Wallenberg was always a great practical joker, you see, never to really hurt anyone, but just to be sort of … playful.”

“Mischief, you mean?”

“Yes, small mischief. Like creating a letter to a young man from a made-up admirer. Everyone liked him for this, very much. It made everyone laugh, and loosen up, you say?”

“Interesting. One wouldn’t have known that. What else?”

“Well, I remember one situation very clearly to this day, which showed a different side. Our platoon sergeant grew very angry one day at one of us, a lower-class brat, and he called him out front and criticized him very severely, humiliating the fellow in front of all of of us. Suddenly, Mr. Wallenberg stepped forward, saying the sergeant was going out too far in his denunciations, and he had no right to do this! Everyone waited for the sergeant in command, who had total power to reprimand anyone, including Mr. W., and probably restrict his chances for making it into officer school. He challenged Raoul, who had taken two steps forward, standing at attention, to think about what he was doing, and I always remember Mr. W.’s words back: “I have thought about what I am doing. You may criticize and chastise any of us, but not humiliate us.” This was amazing, a true challenge to army authority! And Mr. Wallenberg, despite his familiar name, was clearly endangering his status. That made no difference. He faced the tough sergeant who, after a very a tense minute or two, sent the first soldier back to the group, and he proceeded on with the next drills. We were all shocked at this rebellious act by our young comrade. And for the rest of our time there, we all admired Mr. Wallenberg very much, and he returned to being a well-behaved soldier. And, yes, Mr. Wallenberg made his officer school, and became a lieutenant, though he didn’t stay in the army.”

I thanked Olaf for these memories, adding that the same character traits he recalled had shown up both in graduate school in America and in service in Budapest.

“You see, though he stayed to himself,” Olaf continued, “he was the favorite of our group, because we could rely on him, because he did not try to use the power of his name, and because he used his humor well. The army, and patriotism, were to be taken seriously, but not
that
seriously. We as individual human beings came first, always. It never mattered what class we came from.”

I nodded, charting more of Raoul, and accepting the boxes of files, which Olaf had collected ever since those army days with his old training comrade.

Before leaving Stockholm, Manny did some more checking around and research. With the aid of historian Susanne Berger’s work, he discovered that in 1943 the Enskilda Bank alone controlled resources of $647, 794, and 917 millions, and by 1947 Wallenberg firms world-wide employed 150,000 workers. (In 1999 the number of workers had grown to 600,000 and the Wallenberg business assets were valued at about 900 billion Swedish kroner, or about $90 billion.) Furthermore, he learned that during the war the Wallenberg firms had not only been the main supplier of ball bearings to the Nazis—to keep their tanks and planes running—but also to the Soviet Union, and in late 1944 Marcus Wallenberg was crucial in bringing about the Soviet-Finish Armistice Agreement. In other words, the power of the Wallenberg family was enormous, both financially and politically, and it was emphatically clear to Manny that, had the family exerted any pressure on the Swedish government, or even worked with the Russians (who needed the trade badly), Raoul would have had a far better fate. He would have been exchanged, and lived.

Manny went to the bank to try to see his source, Peter, but no luck; he was given the runaround. When he wrote Peter from his laptop, he heard back only a cryptic note, saying that, when it was time to contact Prof. G. again, he would. Shades of Deep Throat.

He tried to see Nina Lagergren, the half sister of Raoul, but she said she was just leaving town to visit a friend and was unsure of her return. A two-sentence note. So he ambled about the modest-sized cozy city, regal with order, charming with narrow streets, small elegant shops, thatched roofs, and church steeples. The sky hung low and was gray. The citizens were polite, orderly, cosmopolitan; they went about their business efficiently; and there was no big traffic noise or bustle like in New York. At the Stockholm Public Library, he admired the inside architecture, the beautiful circular shape and dark woods, the curving mahogany bookshelves, the cordiality of the librarians and students. Manny came to realize that, beneath all that, the city disguised its past, and the government, its secrets. All that order and civility was hiding deep dark truths of Wallenberg family power and betrayal, and of government cowardice. Beneath the handsome architecture, and the high moral declarations, ran Bergmanesque truths of cover-up and evil; the soul of its recent political history was rotten.

A pedestrian in the SoFo district recommended the Café Cinema coffee shop, where Manny ordered an open-faced sandwich of herring and onion and a cream sauce, reminiscent of his sailing days with Norwegian freighters. A superb dark coffee was brought first. The café was small, maybe ten tables, with film photos and posters on the walls, DVDs, and a cozy atmosphere.

A gentleman asked if he might sit across from him, as the other tables seemed filled up or private. The familiar stranger wore a dark sport jacket and patterned blue shirt, set down his fedora and asked how he was enjoying his visit.

Above him Manny noticed an old movie poster of Leslie Howard, with Myrna Loy, in
The Scarlet Pimpernel.
He remembered it from the Pitkin Theater in Brooklyn, years ago. “The visit has been fine.”

“Have you learned anything new on this mission?”

Manny held back his surprise. “New? Not particularly, I guess.”

“It’s a cool sober city, as you can see. I had some good plans for modernizing it a bit more, in my small ways; even made some drawings. Did you get to the quay or dock?”

Manny shook his head.

The waiter came and brought over the sandwich, which was set on a large plate with sliced tomato and onions on the side.

“How about the Wallenbergs? Any luck there, with my cousins? Or my half sister?”

Manny shook his head.

A wan half smile. “I didn’t think so. But you did try; so now, do you wish to give up the journey?”

A pause to take it all in. “Of course not, my friend.”

The waiter asked if he needed anything else? “I heard you say something.”

Manny motioned him away.

He spoke again, to Raoul. “I am in this for keeps.”

The gentleman nodded. A gesture of understanding and sympathy. “But you did hear a danger signal, I imagine. Pay attention to it, Professor. My cousins are very strong people in this town. And elsewhere. All over Europe.”

“I shall pay attention to it.”

“Europe is not America, you know. Things have happened here that got covered over, for years sometimes. This is our history.”

Manny nodded, thinking of all the American things “covered over”—the Dred Scott case, the Leo Frank lynching, Sacco and Vanzetti, the Rosenbergs, on and on, and the anonymous lynchings, killings, injustices. “Ours too.”

“Ah, but Europe is a bit different. As is my family and its unique history, especially during the war.”

“Did you know ‘too much’ for your own good, if I may ask?”

“Maybe. But regardless, I would have said nothing to injure my cousins.”

“But they wouldn’t or couldn’t take any chances.”

The gentleman shrugged. “Who knows? But finally it wasn’t up to them to find or free me; that was the government’s responsibility.”

“But the family could have helped.”

“We should avoid ‘could haves’ as much as possible. And pursue instead, well, what you wish to pursue.”

The waiter was standing there, bowing slightly, asking if everything was in order? Smiling sympathetically.

“Oh, yes, perfectly in order. Thank you.”

The bill was presented; Manny paid it and departed.

On the evening flight to Budapest, he sat in the window seat looking out at the lines of blue and white horizon, and felt himself to be like a constant commuter, flying back and forth without a final destination. Where he was going now, he knew; but later on?

Just then the man next to him removed his hat and asked if Gellerman might lower the porthole shade a bit.

Manny nodded and complied.

He put on his CD player and listened to his son’s CD, playing the gavotte movement of the fifth Bach suite. The notes were clearly and surely played, and the repetitions and variations seemed nuanced and rather exquisite. In his mind, he saw the boy’s bowing hand, with the elbow in its correct position, and the fingers moving quickly over the strings. Each year he took more and more control of the instrument. Soon he would go to music camp in Maine, and in a few weeks he would be playing a small chamber concert there, which Manny would attend. Recently, the boy had even begun taking an interest in composing! This stirred the father.

For some reason that movie poster of Leslie Howard as the Scarlet Pimpernel floated before him, and Manny remembered that handsome hero who led the double life during the French revolution, the undergound hero and the effete aristocrat. If he were alive and was playing in this current film, should he be cast as Manny, the professor/detective, or as RW, the noble hero? Easy choice. No question about it.

A woman next to him asked why he was going to Budapest.

Gellerman was taken aback, couldn’t quite answer at first. “Well, I’m trying to find someone actually.”

“Who?”

Manny stared at this curious woman, with the prominent-featured face, asking these oddly nosey questions.

“Well, he’s dead now. The man I’m looking for. A Swedish fellow who lived in Budapest in 1944.”

The woman took her eyeglasses from her chest and put them on; she nodded and opened her Swedish newspaper. “Why are you hunting down a dead man?”

Manny was bewildered both by the question and by the line of questioning. It was not the woman’s business! And yet Manny didn’t feel as though the stranger was being impertinent; it was something else—seriously inquisitive, even intimate. He couldn’t quite find the right words to answer.

She refolded her newspaper and took out a laptop.

Manny felt perspiration. Why? The plane dipped. What was going on here?

“Do dead men really have that much to say to you? Unless they are family, of course.” The lilt of her accent was Swedish, modified by expert English.

“No, he’s not family. A stranger, actually, but one I have come to know.”

“Know? How so?”

“Through letters, witnesses, research, bits and pages of history …”

The woman looked out over her bifocals. “You can’t really know a man that way, can you?” She shook her head, skeptically. “That’s hearsay. Other men’s views and illusions. Then there is the distance of many years, and faulty, selective memories. No, not the same as the real person, living, acting, having to make difficult choices in a sudden moment.”

Manny wondered about this woman, berating him this way.

“Besides, how do you ever know a man, unless you’ve been with him a long time and observed him under various circumstances?” A pause. “Most men hardly know themselves! Or can admit truths to themselves.”

Manny closed his eyes for a minute, baffled, just as the jet was jarred suddenly by a wave of turbulence.

When he opened his eyes again, the woman was absent, replaced by a ruddy fellow in a suit, who jovially apologized for having taken the armrest!

In Budapest Manny called his cello boy in New Hampshire, got an update on his music plans, and told him to be prepared: Dad would be in the other Sweden, in Maine, to see his August performance. Next he read an e-mail from his other son, Seth, who was sending on a small piece he had written for a college course in essay writing. With force and clarity, the essay depicted the death of his uncle at a young age, twenty-one. Manny admired the boy’s superior prose and his insights. He had secretly felt ashamed that he had never felt “authentic” grief like that of his mother and the other mourners, but only followed the protocol of the event. But the real success of the essay was the strategy of describing, and using as a metaphor, the Lego monorail that the young uncle had created and kept in his room while he was dying of cancer; such a creation had always been the highest aspiration of young Seth, whose passion for Lego building had started at age three, when he made his first piece, a green tractor, while on a plane ride to Jerusalem with his parents. The boy had it in him to be a writer, a real writer, not a journalist or advertising jingle man. Imagine that, one boy a cellist, the other a literary man. Where was the young historian? Well, no need; the world had enough of those.