“They’re fairly big in the field,” Farnbach said. “I’ve been with them fourteen years.” He looked at the detective walking along at his left. The man’s upturned nose and pointy chin reminded him of a captain he had served under in the SS, one who had begun interrogations with exactly this disarming bullshit of “nothing to worry about, it’s entirely unofficial.” Later had come the accusations, the demands, the torture.
“And is that where you come from?” Löfquist asked. “Lübeck?”
“No, I’m from Dortmund originally, and I live now in Reinfeld, which is near Lübeck. When I’m not in Sweden, that is. I have an apartment in Stockholm.” How much, Farnbach wondered, did the son of a bitch know, and how in God’s name had he found it out? Had the whole operation been blown? Were Hessen and Kleist and the others facing the same situation right now, or was this his own private failure?
“Turn in here,” Löfquist said, pointing toward a footpath into the woods at their right. “It leads to a better vantage point.”
They entered the narrow path and followed its near-night darkness uphill. Farnbach unbuttoned the breast of his coat, concerned about getting his gun out quickly if worse came to worst.
“I’ve spent some time in Germany myself,” Löfquist said. “Took ship from Lübeck once, as a matter of fact.”
He had switched to German, and fairly good German. Farnbach, disconcerted, wondered whether there might really be nothing to worry about; was it possible that Lars Lennart Löfquist wanted only a chance to use his German? It seemed too much to hope for. In German too, he said, “Your German’s very good. Is that why you like speaking with us, to get a chance to use it?”
“I don’t speak to all Germans,” Löfquist said, his voice charged with suppressed merriment. “Only former corporals who’ve put on weight and call themselves ‘Busch’ instead of Farnstein!”
Farnbach stopped and stared at him.
Smiling, Löfquist took his hat off; looked up and moved aside into better light; and laughing now, faced Farnbach and gave himself the substitute mustache of an extended finger.
Farnbach was astonished. “Oh my God!” he gasped. “I thought of you just a second ago! I guess I—My God! Captain Hartung!”
The two shook hands enthusiastically, and the captain, laughing, embraced Farnbach and clapped him on the back; then jammed his hat back on and grasped Farnbach’s shoulders with both hands and grinned at him. “What joy to see one of the old faces again!” he exclaimed. “I’m liable to cry, God damn it!”
“But…how can this be?” Farnbach asked, thoroughly confused now. “I’m…astounded!”
The captain laughed. “You can be Busch,” he said; “why can’t I be Löfquist? My God, I’ve got an accent! Listen to me; I’m really a fucking Swede now!”
“And you are a detective?”
“That I am.”
“Christ, you threw a scare into me, sir.”
The captain nodded regretfully, patting Farnbach’s shoulder. “Yes, we still worry that the ax might fall, eh, Farnstein? Even after all these years. That’s why I keep an eye out for foreigners. I still dream once in a while that I’m hauled up on trial!”
“I can’t believe it’s you!” Farnbach said, not yet composed. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so surprised!”
They walked on up the path.
“I never forget a face, I never forget a name.” The captain laid an arm over Farnbach’s shoulders. “I spotted you standing by your car, at the gas station on Krondikesvägen. ‘That’s Corporal Farnstein in that elegant coat,’ I said; ‘I’ll bet a hundred kronor.’”
“It’s Farnbach, sir, not ‘stein.’”
“Oh? Well, ‘stein’ is close enough, isn’t it, after thirty years? With all the men I commanded? Of course, I had to be absolutely certain before I could speak. It was your voice that clinched it; it hasn’t changed at all. And drop the ‘sir,’ will you? Though I have to admit it’s nice hearing it again.”
“How in the world did you wind up here?” Farnbach asked. “And a detective, of all things!”
“It’s no great story,” the captain said, taking his arm from Farnbach’s shoulders. “I had a sister who was married to a Swede, on a farm down in Skåne. After I was captured I escaped from the internment camp and got over by ship—Lübeck to Trelleborg; that was the sailing I mentioned—and hid out with them. He wasn’t too keen on it. Lars Löfquist. A real s.o.b.; he mistreated poor Eri something awful. After a year or so he and I had a big row and I accidentally finished him. Well, I simply buried him good and deep and took his place! We were the same type physically, so his papers suited me, and Eri was glad to be rid of him. When someone who knew him came by I bandaged my face and she told them a lamp had exploded and I couldn’t talk too much. After a couple of months we sold the farm and came up north here. To Sundsvall first, where we worked in a cannery, which was awful; and three years later, here to Storlien, where there were openings on the force and jobs for Eri in shops. And that’s it. I liked police work, and what better way to get wind if anyone was looking for me? That roaring you hear is the fall; it’s just around the bend. Now what about you, Farnstein? Farnbach! How did you become Herr Busch the affluent salesman? That coat must have cost you more than I make in a year!”
“I’m not ‘Herr Busch,’” Farnbach said sourly. “I’m ‘Senhor Paz’ of Pôrto Alegre, Brazil. Busch is a cover. I’m up here on a job for the Comrades Organization, and a damned crazy job it is too.”
Now it was the captain’s turn to stop and stare, astonished. “You mean…it’s real? The Organization exists? It’s not just…newspaper stories?”
“It’s real, all right,” Farnbach said. “They helped me get settled there, found me a good job…”
“And they’re here now? In Sweden?”
“I’m here now; they’re still down there, working with Dr. Mengele to ‘fulfill the Aryan destiny.’ At least that’s what they tell me.”
“But…this is marvelous, Farnstein! My God, it’s the most exciting news I’ve—We aren’t done! We won’t be beaten! What’s going on? Can you tell me? Would it violate orders to tell an SS officer?”
“Fuck orders, I’m sick of orders,” Farnbach said. He looked for a moment at the startled captain, then said, “I’m here in Storlien to kill a schoolteacher. An old man who’s not our enemy and who can’t possibly affect the course of history by so much as a hair. But killing him, and a lot of others, is a ‘holy operation’ that’s going to bring us back to power somehow. So says Dr. Mengele.” He turned and strode away up the path.
The captain, confused, watched him go, then hurried angrily after him. “Damn it, what’s the idea?” he demanded. “If you can’t tell me, say so! Don’t give me—Was it all shit? That’s a lousy trick to pull on me, FarnBACH!”
Farnbach, breathing hard through his nostrils, came out onto a small balcony of jutting rock, and grasping its iron railing with both hands, gazed bitterly at a broad sheet of shining water that sheared down torrentially at his left. He followed the gleaming water-sheet down and down into its thundering foaming basin, and spat at it.
The captain yanked him around. “That’s a lousy trick to pull,” he cried, close and loud against the fall’s thunder. “I really believed you!”
“It wasn’t a trick,” Farnbach insisted. “It’s the truth, every word of it! I killed a man in Göteborg two weeks ago—a teacher too, Anders Runsten. Did you ever hear of him? Neither did I. Neither did anyone. A complete nonentity, retired, sixty-five. A beer-bottle collector, for God’s sake! Bragged to me about his eight hundred and thirty beer bottles! I…shot him in the head and emptied his wallet.”