Algot Forslund was the lawyer who had served the family almost as long as she had. If he was not much for food he made up for it in drink. “Home cooking” in Forslund’s case meant a plate of herring, but primarily aquavit.
She looked intently at the professor, but was unable even to confirm that she had understood his words.
“There’s been a lot for me too,” said the professor.
She withstood the impulse to go up and wipe off the table.
“Maybe we’re burnt out,” the professor said with a grin.
She left the dining room, mute and with a sense of having been betrayed.
Twelve
“You can never have too many leaves,” said Karsten Heller.
He smiled more broadly than the associate professor could remember anyone in his company having done for years.
The gardener had packed half a dozen trash bags full of beech leaves. They resembled swollen black eggs, ready to burst at any moment.
“You’re sure that-”
“Take as many as you want,” the associate professor assured him. “I’m just happy to get rid of some of them.”
He appreciated his new acquaintance, who became loquacious where plants were concerned, but otherwise apparently preferred to work in silence. The associate professor sensed that he worked a lot on his own.
When another four sacks were filled Haller looked up. He resembled a hunter proudly observing the day’s catch.
“I was thinking about something,” said the associate professor. “When we last met you said something about it being a stone that the police picked up in Ohler’s yard. How could you be so sure of that?”
“Because I threw it,” Haller said simply.
“What do you mean?”
“I was the one who threw the stone. The evening before. It landed on the roof and evidently rolled down on the front side.”
“Why is that?” the associate professor said sheepishly.
Haller laughed.
“Yes, why?” he repeated. “It was an impulse. It pleased me enormously. I could throw another, yes, I could let fly a whole flat of cobblestones. Preferably with a catapult, you know, one of these medieval devices, so that it would rain stones over the house.”
He was smiling, but the associate professor could hear a kind of conviction behind the bantering tone.
“It truly was a spectacle,” said the associate professor after a moment’s silence, and they both joined in a laugh.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“That would be good,” said Haller.
“I only have a few almond cookies,” the associate professor said apologetically.
The associate professor considered a moment whether he should invite Haller up into the tower but that didn’t feel quite right. When the coffee was ready and they were sitting down in the kitchen, after a while he ventured a question.
“Do you know Professor von Ohler from before?”
“No, not personally,” Haller replied.
“You know that he’s been awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine?”
“That has probably not escaped anyone.”
The associate professor suddenly became thoughtful. He had been distracted by the talk about a catapult, imagined a siege, a boyish image, where showers of stones shot down from the sky, and for that reason he had been lured into laughter. But now he became wary. What did he know about the gardener on the other side of the table? There was something about him that did not tally with the image he had gotten of him yesterday.
“Have a cookie,” the associate professor offered.
Haller inspected the associate professor before he sank his teeth into the cookie.
“What I do is probably pretty clear, but what is your occupation?”
For a moment the associate professor considered fabricating something, denying his background, inventing something new, but realized that it was simplest to stick to the truth.
“I’m also a doctor, a virologist like Ohler. We actually worked together for almost thirty years at University Hospital.”
Haller looked a little surprised but said nothing. He seemed to be waiting for a continuation. The associate professor felt as though he had to explain himself, excuse why he had been a colleague of the professor for such a long time. It was as if that created a kind of distance to the gardener.
“But we don’t socialize,” he added.
“And you’re not getting any prize,” Haller noted.
The associate professor stood up to get the coffee.
“Refill?”
“Thanks,” said Haller, pushing the cup closer to the associate professor, “but then it’s time to get going.”
“How long will you be here?”
“Just a few more days. I’m going to dig a couple more flower beds and prune the maple on the front side, maybe cut down a birch tree.”
“Sensible,” said the associate professor. “I’ve dug up a witch alder, in case you’re interested.”
Haller smiled and nodded. He emptied his cup and push the chair back from the table.
“May I ask a personal question? Not because it concerns me, but you seem to harbor a certain animosity with respect to Professor von Ohler.”
“That was nicely put,” said Haller. “But it’s true. I don’t know him personally, as I said, but to me he represents the worst thing about this town.”
“And that is?”
“The so-called educated classes’ contempt and suppression.”
“And how do you know that the professor stands for such values? I mean, if you don’t know him personally.”
“I know him anyway,” said Haller with a sarcastic smile. “As I assume that you know your colleague very well. And then you yourself live in this educated area in a millionaire’s house.”
The associate professor felt how embarrassed he became, at the same time as he was provoked by the other man’s slightly scornful tone.
“Excuse me,” said Haller. “I didn’t mean to be insolent.”
“What’s wrong with education?” the associate professor asked calmly, but then it was as if an immense force filled him. “Tell me that! Is education wrong? I am sitting on a farm worker’s kitchen bench, the bench of my childhood. Any education I’ve acquired I’ve had to fight my way for, inch by inch.”
Haller was astonished at the other man’s sudden transformation. He never would have expected such fury from him.
“Inch by inch!” the associate professor repeated and underscored his anger by striking his index finger on the table. “Not an inch for free!”
“Excuse me,” said Haller again, raising his hands in a conciliatory gesture, but the associate professor would not let himself be stopped.
“I’m sitting in this house, yes, it’s true, worth several million kronor today, an inconceivable amount of money. My father grew up in a drafty farm laborer’s shack in Rasbo, full of snotty children and wall lice. Two of his siblings died from the Spanish flu. I speak several languages, my mother knew a little Finnish, that was all. My father only went to school for three years. I became a medical doctor in a specialty that he could not even conceive of. He could not have pronounced the title of my dissertation. I have traveled all over the globe, the farthest my father got was to Skinnskatteberg to bury a brother. My parents would burst with pride if they could see me today. Tell me, master gardener, have I done wrong? Should I regret it?”
“Excuse me,” Haller repeated for the third time. “Of course you didn’t do wrong. I didn’t know about your background, the fact is that I-”
“You talk about contempt,” the associate professor interrupted, feeling the heat in his face. “But you are the one who is contemptuous.”