Searching for Wallenberg (25 page)

Well, whatever it was, it set his nerves on edge, and he used that phrase again,
What if
? A First Alert warning beeped in his brain, whenever he got too complacent about things here …

Throughout the night, he seemed to hear more muted footsteps, several times sitting up, bolt upright, even pulling the light on, since the room was black due to the closed shutters … Was it the madwoman creeping around, checking on him? Or, more probable, the ghost of Raoul, wandering up and down, unnerved by the stranger in his room, on his daybed? …

Seeking sleep, he focused on Jackie taking his lead from first base, leaning low, arms dangling, ready to go! … and next on his little cellist, practicing his vibrato, playing the Bach prelude …

In the morning, he was a proper guest, sitting at the breakfast table, dutifully accepting the soft-boiled eggs and toast with jam from Zsuzsa, and nodding or answering politely whenever a question was put to him (“How did you sleep? Did you have to get up during the night? Was it quiet enough?”) The sunlight was filtering through the white lace curtains; Mrs. Frank (or W.) was busy pampering him, and he accepted his role.

“Tell me,” she said at their second cup of coffee, “do you think, if we continue to trust each other, that you will want to help me with a project?”

He held his espresso cup, just before it reached his lips.

“And what do you have in mind?”

“Well,” she said, leaning forward demurely, “I believe that many people will want to know my story, or my father’s story with the family. And since I am not a writer,” she laughed girlishly, “perhaps you would want to help me?”

He slowly raised the cup again, eyeing her and trying to absorb her words. “You mean, a memoir of sorts?”

“Why, I suppose you can call it that.” Her face was glowing, translucent.

He drank, savoring the taste, and wondered which bridge he would go for a walk on, the Lancet or the Chain? “That may be interesting, yes. When were you thinking of this?”

Her shoulders shrugged, and she smiled. “I have been patient; I can be patient further. If you would help me, however, I know that I can get to the materials much quicker.”

Oh, he liked that noun; it rang up his historian’s register! “Yes, it would take time to gather and examine the materials.”

“I think I have many of the materials here, but some are hidden away, in the countryside. But it wouldn’t take too long to gather them all up.”

He restrained his heart from fluttering. “Fair enough. When you think you are ready, we will consider the matter very seriously.”

“And how long do you think the actual writing would take?”

“Oh, I don’t quite know, maybe six months? A year? …”

She nodded, soberly.

Patiently, Gellerman wiped his eyeglass lenses. “I better get going now; I have some work to do, and my plane leaves very early morning, you realize.”

“No, I didn’t realize.”

He got up and she escorted him to the foyer, where she helped him with his raincoat.

“You will call me later, of course?”

He thanked her for all her hospitality, thought better of kissing her cheek, and shook her hand. “Yes, I will.”

Outside the air was thin and clear, and though it was cloudy, the city never looked finer. Or was it rather the sense of escape that filled his lungs? Escape back to the real, the solid.

He walked toward the river and the first bridge, along the busy streets, but when he came across a used bookstore, he wandered in.

Finding a section on English books, he browsed. A mix of real books and incidental items. He came upon a book he had read many years ago,
The Varieties of Religious Experience
by William James. He skimmed through it, stopping at the chapter called “The Sick Soul,” read a few of the interesting quotes on failure from Goethe and Robert Louis Stevenson, and moved on to passages about melancholy and the neurotic condition. He blew the dust away, took the surprise volume to the shopkeeper, paid, and walked outside again, grateful that he had reading for the evening and the plane ride.

Oh, it was quite wonderful to be free and easy on these streets, away from neurosis, fantasy, and madness, and back out into the world of normalcy. Soon, he came to the Chain bridge and began walking across it, toward the Buda hills, passing pedestrians. The steel-gray Danube ran below, choppy, and he looked toward the upward bend of the river, leading toward Prague. The wind blew, and at one point snatched his cap away! But a couple retrieved it, and he thanked them. His cell phone rang, startling him.

“Yes?”

“Will you say good-bye to me?”

Who? “Yes, of course.”

“This afternoon at five, we can meet in the Central Café?”

“It’s a date, thank you.”

On the Malév Airline morning flight to Stockholm he read through his notes, which he had worked on all through the evening and next day, after his tea with Dora, the skeptical daughter. The Zsuzsanna tale was an extraordinary one, no doubt—worthy of an Isaac B. Singer story, filled with miraculous faith and fairytale myth. Meticulously, Manny had written down everything about the meetings, from sepia photographs to sensational claims, not knowing what was important and what was dross; at home he would have much to digest. And at the tea Dora was once again sizing him up, to see whether he was remaining honest and trustworthy. (With her short skirt and pretty smile, was there also a seductive subtext?) In turn, Manny asked the small dark-haired beauty to check up on her mother, and see if she was truly serious in writing a memoir, and if so, to help her gather her “materials.” Dora smiled, her thick lips and shining eyes mobile— mocking him or her mother? Or both? (“Yes, Mum does have a small desk locked up in the country cottage,” she acknowledged, “and it’s remained a secret even from me.”) At the end he left with her his copy of William James, saying, “This may interest Mom.” Now, riding smoothly above the white clouds, he felt satisfied, having come through a challenge, and now heading back to Sweden to check out his mole in the bank.

Back in his B and B in Stockholm, he wrote an e-mail note to Peter, and when he heard nothing by the next morning, he walked over to the Enskilda and asked for him. A gray-haired gentleman emerged from the barred-off area, escorted Manny to a private chair, and asked what was his business with “this Peter?” Manny explained it was a personal matter. And what was his last name? Manny was taken aback and tried to recall a name. The young banker nodded politely, and rejoined that there had been “a Peter” who had been transferred to another branch, beyond the city, and that if Manny wished to leave a note for him, he would send it on. Helpless, Manny scribbled a note and departed.

Gathering his thoughts, he walked around the town, past the tidy shops and the seaside yachts, took a coffee, and spent an hour and a half in a pocket-sized museum of Swedish interior designs, observing a new robotic vacuum cleaner and new automatic coffee machine and flat wall-mounted stereo, and assorted other elegant inventions dating back to the 1950s. After, he walked back to the street of the bank just near the five o’clock close, and waited across the street alongside a busy cheese shop. Soon, the employees began filing out steadily; no sign of him. After a half hour of standing there in the fine June weather, he moved off, found out the listed time of the next morning’s opening, and meandered about again. He took a dinner in a small restaurant, observing the well-dressed patrons and thought about what it might mean if no Peter turned up.

The next morning, after another useless e-mail, he was back at his observation post at seven thirty, watching the trickling of employees enter the bank, and then a fuller stream near nine o’clock, but there was no Peter. Manny was perplexed, anxious, shocked. What should or could he do? Go to the police? Hire a private detective? He held onto his cap in the wind and took a taxi over to the Municipal Building holding the archivist records. He hunted about and found the archivist who had been kindly to him on his previous research expedition. He invited the archivist to lunch, and told his tale. “Weird, isn’t it?” he asked. The fellow, Bengt, continued to eat his open-faced sandwich, and responded, “Perhaps not so weird, considering the family. The Wallenbergs are notorious for their secrecy and privacy. It is as if they are behind a high wall, powerful and private, and it is not easy to break through.”

“Any suggestions for what I might do?”

“Not really,” he shrugged. “They are very powerful, almost like a state within a state, with its own ministers and rules of governance. Moreover, nothing can be proved. Where is the evidence for any wrongdoing? Just the e-mail caution? That is not enough.”

“So, am I supposed to … forget the whole matter?”

Bengt nodded slowly. “I am afraid, unless you happen to know the king, or the major editors of the big newspapers, and even then …”—he held his palms out—“there is not much to do.”

Manny tried to absorb all that; he excused himself to go to the bathroom, on the way passing a wall of half mirrors. On his way back, he stopped by those mirrors and witnessed a rather helpless soul in a frayed sport jacket with a wearied look on his face. Defeat in the eyes. Is this where his goose chase was leading him?

At the table Manny thanked Bengt and said he’d be in touch.

“Please do not judge all of us by the Enskilda Wallenbergs,” he said, standing. “By the standards and values of Raoul, yes, but not the others. Raoul was a courageous soul, and more and more we Swedes look up to him, and what he accomplished in his young life. So, please keep up your search; it is a worthy one.”

Manny nodded, and felt the need to get out—of Sweden, and of Europe; the sudden real-life detective story, coming on top of his Hungarian theater of the absurd, was too unreal, too unsettling.

Back home on the hillside in New Hampshire, he wandered about, reflecting upon all that had occurred over there, surrounded now by his old environment, where country life and class schedules and boring routines were the principal matters at hand. Plus the usual Iraq war declarations by elected liars, crooks, and cowards, and yet a new shooting in a high school. Freedom, USA-style, meant shooting guns … No dark history hovering here, no odd fantasies, no unfathomable puzzles; reality here appeared easier and clearer, especially at the campus oasis. The psyche could stay cool and resilient, and not be subject to flights of fancy and fantasy. Let the heated memories and dementia of Budapest remain over there, along with the covered-up secrets of Stockholm. We here would go about our business of seeing movies, tossing Frisbees, throwing baseballs, bombing distant countries and shooting up the school kids.

As for written history and RW, the old scripts and traditional perspectives would hold their ground. A memoir by the bizarre woman might be written for her daughter and grandchildren, not for the public. The Swedish-Russian Working Group could renew itself and go on digging, and come up against the stone wall created by Putin’s Russia, and Swedish cowardice. And maybe one day even Angela’s thesis could become a university monograph, or better yet, an alternative narrative from that of Prof. Gellerman, which would focus up front and center on the lingering doubts and cloudy coverup. The biographies now—and those in the future—suffered from lack of concrete evidence, important and huge gaps, speculation parading as fact.

Driving over to Maine to hear the boy play and see the music camp, he passed through vast areas of open space and mountains, while listening to NPR (before it cut out). The usual fair-mindedness, giving both sides of the Iraq situation—did it have two sides?—delivered by the melodious voices. At one point the reporter was interviewing a Baghdad family about the implosion of their neighborhood in the past six months, a tale that proved to be informative and moving about daily life for Iraqis, not the headlines; but abruptly the studio announcer cut them off, thanking them and moving on. The “segment” was finished, its time allotment of three to four minutes used up. The melodious voice jumped from the really interesting family to a cute songwriter from Nashville! Manny was taken aback, angry. Is that where his dues went, for such stupidity? NPR, seeking increased “marketshare” like any commercial station, had become milk toast mainstream, its old liberal bite gone. Imagine them doing the RW story, giving it a full four-minute segment, providing both sides, of course, both Gromyko and the Swedish ambassador, for
fairness.

A few hours of green hills later, he found the boy messy-haired, bushy-tailed, and excited. He gave him the visiting presents: two musical scores, a few DVDs (of conductors) and CDs of cellists, and a leather pouch for his music. “Wow, Dad, these are great!” He hugged his father warmly. In return, Manny asked him to play a little, before dinner, and they found an empty studio in the woods. Josh played a prelude of Bach, slow and lovely, and Manny applauded his rich sound. Smiling puckishly, he said, “Want to hear something else a little different, Dad?”

“Sure,” he told him.

He commenced to play a new piece, strange and unfamiliar, odd sounds mingling with felt melodies, and the whole thing mixed and surprising. After five or six minutes, he was finished, and looked up, “What do you think?”

“Well, I don’t really know. But it’s interesting. Who wrote it?”

His face glowing, he said, “I did.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Hey,” he uttered, “that’s wonderful!”

“Thanks a lot. It’s not finished yet.”

Manny paused. “Do you have a name yet?”

He nodded, shyly, and said, “I call it the Wallenberg Suite.”

Taken aback, he didn’t know what to do, but he was so moved by his impulse that he got up and gave him a tight hug and kiss.

“That’s special, my sweet composer, just very special.”

“I am really glad you like it, Dad, ’cause I wrote it for you. I mean for your work on him.”

Manny kneeled in front of him and stared at his hazel eyes. “You are a great boy. So thoughtful and so talented. Let’s take you for a real treat over at that restaurant in Bridgeton, the one you’ve wanted to go to, okay?”