Arno put down the book, drank his beer and looked away across the library. He looked without seeing towards the window, out through the park and off into the distance. Rostov, he thought, well that’s how it was: it came and went between the two armies, lying there quietly but – as it were – being transferred between different worlds, between German and Russian jurisdiction. It was reminiscent of a nearby town he himself knew, Kharkov: taken in 1941, then lost and then reclaimed in the spring of 1943, and then retaken by the Russians in the summer. Back and forth, back and forth, yet somehow still and unchanged. An example of movement as a state.
It was the Eastern Front existence in a nutshell. And reading this, being immersed in the German language, being swept away by the German spirit, Arno had an inspiration: I can’t live here. I have to return to Germany. Not to war, not to serve in the German Army, and not just for some veteran club activities. I simply have to get back there. But how?
He went back to reading Coburg’s book. He finished a couple of beers and was still reading when the bar finally closed. He borrowed the book and went home, deep in thought. Once there, he lay down on the couch in the living room and read on. He read about Stalingrad, he read about Kursk, he read about the beginning of the campaign in 1941 and the end in 1945. And in the process he relived his own experiences in the east, in Ukraine and southern Russia, Kamenets-Podolsky and Belarus, Warsaw and Hungary: the hardships, living on the edge, the trials and tribulations. But also with a sense of being at home.
At about ten PM Solbritt arrived. Arno got up, said hello and had some tea with her.
“So how was it on the sewing circle?”
“OK,” she said. “But since everyone attended we had no one to gossip about.”
They laughed at this. Later they went to bed. That night Arno dreamed that he was fighting in a battle. Oddly, he was fighting along Hansi Bauer, his old squad leader during the war. In the dream Bauer was Arno’s adjutant. The friendly forces being dressed in checkered white-red livery and the enemy in green livery. They fought with cavalry and infantry, swords and pikes, a bit like the Thirty Years’ War, although without firearms at all.
The fight went on for a while, a long and bloody battle that the red-white side won. After this the dream changed scenes and Arno dreamed of something else.
When he woke up in the morning Arno thought: Bauer was in my dream. How strange. I never dreamed of him before, as far as I can remember. True, I liked to have him as a Squad Leader and deputy during the war, he was a rock. But why did I dream about him now? Is it Germany calling again? I mean, yesterday I read of the Eastern Front. And now the Bauer dream. Either my Eastern Front reading affected me or the dream is trying to tell me something.
When he got home from work later that day a letter awaited him. It was from Bauer, his old war comrade. Really weird, Arno thought. From dream to reality, as it were. His dream of last night indeed had been important. It had been trying to tell him something.
In the letter Bauer told him that he was now living in the Bavarian capital, Munich. He said that he ran a security firm and that he needed help. He asked Arno to come down and strengthen the unit. He had several major operations going on at the time.
Arno was glad to get this letter. He wanted to help his German friend. He wanted something sensible to do and “German security company” sounded more exciting than drilling Swedish grunts in the basics. The Swedish Army was a fine institution but Arno couldn’t find any joy in the work at hand. The inspiration was gone.
But to go to Germany, for this Arno had inspiration. So to cut a long story short, he applied for and got three months’ leave from the Army. Before the journey south he kept in touch with Bauer, among other things over the phone. The German said that the help was long overdue. Come and help me, you’ll get paid and you can stay in my house for a while. This was the crux of Bauer’s message.
On Monday, October 5, 1958 Arno took the train south. Solbritt stayed in the flat. Arno would just go to scout and reconnoiter; that was the plan. He hadn’t decided on moving to Germany permanently. So now he travelled by rail from Sollefteå to Långsele, and from there via the mainline to Stockholm. The train journey took some ten hours. He had a sleeper ticket and slept well in his bunk.
On arrival at Stockholm Central Station, at 8:12, he went to the café for a sandwich and a cup of coffee. Then he went to Norra Bantorget to take a bus to Bromma airport.
Once at Bantorget square, Arno sat down on a bench. He placed his old brown suitcase on the ground, safely tucked between his legs. Gossamer clouds drifted past in the blue sky. The temperature was mild for the season, about eight degrees Centigrade. His view was dominated by the LO Castle, a magnificent building of red sandstone, designed by Ferdinand Boberg and built at the beginning of the century. Now this building housed working-class bureaucrats, the united, major trade unions in their national HQ, in Swedish, Landsorganisationen, shortened to LO.
This LO exerted a certain political hegemony in the country through its connections with the ruling Labour Party. Socialism and collectivism were the watchwords, although industrialists, merchants and capitalists weren’t powerless either. Right- and left- wing eminences ruled the Swedish ship in fairly good agreement. True, they disagreed on the ATP issue, but in general most issues in the land were decided in a spirit of unity. High taxes, strong defence, a big welfare state – this was the Sweden he really wasn’t bothered about anymore. He wanted to go to his new destination and to get to work on something interesting again.
Arno sat admiring the LO Castle facade, golden in the morning sun. He appreciated the park nearby, a grove of elms and beeches, now leafless. He thought: my dear Sweden, you’re probably an excellent country. But I have dual citizenship and now I’ll work for a while in Germany, I guess.
The bus came, a Scania with the entrance behind the driver. Arno paid a conductor, took his ticket, sat down and admired the interior of vinyl, lacquered plywood and lino floor. More passengers got on and the bus drove away, heading along the Karlberg Canal and passing the Karlberg Palace, the school for Army Cadets. Arno had not taken that career path and now he didn’t care. Perhaps he could have got in in the early ’50s if he had set his mind to it, but he lacked the motivation to become an officer in the peacetime army. True, there was the Cold War, but at heart Arno doubted that Russia would attack the West. Russia had been completely exhausted in 1945. If some Russians leaders wanted to start a new war they would probably have a popular uprising on their hands.
Bolshevik Russia was aggressive. The Hungarians could tell you all about that. So its neighbours should keep their guard up in presence of its huge military forces. But would there be war, real, actual shooting war? Arno doubted it. There may be war in the Middle East where they weren’t as war weary as the Europeans. The Middle East just hadn’t experienced a war of the Eastern Front type. But a new war in Europe? Now, in 1958? Arno just couldn’t see it. And this made him lose inspiration for a career as an army officer. He was proud of his work as a Swedish Sergeant Major but he didn’t feel like continuing in the profession.