Exiles (27 page)

“It is only a matter of time before Aaronson renews contact with you,” Svenson said. “Keep in mind that when you hear from him, we will be ready to help. We would like to help him to disappear. We would agree to do that. But we need help from you, too.”

“Okay,” Spiegel said. “I’ll think about it.” But he knew what kind of help they would want: reports on membership, on new recruits, on contacts with the States and with foreign governments, all the things that he had done his best, so far, to know nothing about. “But what if I do help you?” Spiegel added. “Then what? After Aaronson is gone, and military intelligence, so-called, goes off following another scent, what happens to me?”

“That depends on what kind of help you would like,” Svenson said.

“I need papers,” Spiegel said. “I need a residence permit.”

“Is that so?” Svenson said. “I would have thought, once Aaronson has gone, there would no longer be a reason for you to stay in Sweden. I would have thought you could be more useful elsewhere.”

“So are you offering to help me disappear, too?”

“You?” Svenson said. He leaned toward Spiegel, and his dark hair flopped down, nearly concealing his bright eyes. “But have you forgotten? You have already disappeared.”

“The vanishing American,” Brunius said.

“Nobody in authority knows that you are still in Uppsala, except for us. And we can be very—what is your word?—discreet.”

“You mean even this meeting,” Spiegel said. “We’re off the books? Nobody else in the department knows who I am or why you brought me here?”

“At this point, that is correct. As far as our official reports are concerned, you are merely a voluntary participant in one of our ongoing investigations, nothing more.”

“Then I’m free to go,” Spiegel said.

“Of course,” Svenson said. “Anytime.” He stood and turned the knob to unlock the door, a subtle reminder, Spiegel felt, that despite the protestations he had been held captive. “Let us just consider this a friendly conversation. How do you say it? A preliminary exchange of ideas.”

“Yes, like the Paris peace talks,” Spiegel said. “Preliminary to the bombing.”

Svenson let out a sharp laugh, and Brunius joined in, his laugh so high-pitched it was almost a giggle, though Spiegel doubted if Special Officer Brunius understood the reference.

Spiegel stepped into the corridor. Svenson and Brunius stood behind him, in the doorway. “It’s too bad about your friend, though,” Svenson said. “I mean the little fellow that was with you on the bridge. What is it you call him?”

“You mean the Worm?”

“Yes, that one. I don’t think he looked so good.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The river. He fell over the bridge. When you were running, swinging that stick and all. You caused quite a bit of trouble. Maybe even injured your friend. There could be issues we might have to raise, charges. For now, though, let us say your friend was injured in an accident. But we could change our minds after we investigate. Yes, we could change our minds. Good day, Lenny.”

“Good day,” Brunius said, and raised his flat, paw-like hand. For the first time, Spiegel could see an expression on his face: a big, self-satisfied grin.

13

After Spiegel left the
police headquarters, went home, and filled Tracy in about the interrogation, they agreed that the Swedes didn’t want the U.S. military using Uppsala as a proving ground for its cold-war battles. Any attack on the credibility of ARMS would only strengthen the platform of the right-wing, isolationist fanatics, like Edström and his Sweden First Party. So the police had been ordered to clear Aaronson out of their jurisdiction before he could cause any more problems.

“Then I’ve got nothing to worry about,” Spiegel said.

“Unless they can’t find Aaronson, and they decide to throw someone else to the wolves,” Tracy said. “A sacrificial lamb.”

They would have to keep tabs on the Worm, to make sure he didn’t turn. They didn’t want him talking to the police about Aaronson’s journeys, and they didn’t want him agreeing to testify against Spiegel—swearing that Spiegel tried to knock him off the bridge, or whatever—in return for a guarantee of citizenship, of housing vouchers, or other tempting benefits laid out on the welfare-state
smörgåsbord
.

The next day, they visited the Worm in the hospital, a sprawling, two-story, crescent-shaped building set in parklike grounds in the fields behind the botanical gardens. The place looked more like a country lodge than a health clinic. Dappled sunlight filtered through the abundant, leafy trees and sparkled in the hallways. Nurses in crisp uniforms walked silently down the wide corridors, pushing big steel trays filled with cups and vials. The only sounds were the occasional beep and ping from monitors concealed behind closed doors.

The Worm was sitting up in bed, propped on bolsters. He was sipping orange juice that had been brought to him on a cafeteria tray.

“Splendid digs,” Spiegel said. “When can I move in?”

“All you gotta do is get sick,” the Worm said.

“Welcome to socialized medicine,” Tracy said. “I could get to like this.” She fingered the fabrics on the armchairs. The wall hangings were plush and luxurious. In place of a dresser there was a large oak armoire that held a color TV and a small but excellent stereo.

“Yes, a room to die for,” the Worm said.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Spiegel said.

“How are you?” Tracy put in. “So tell us what happened.”

“They’re saying you did it,” the Worm said. “At least, asking me if you did. Which tells me they want to put the finger on you, but—”

“Hold on,” Spiegel said. “Who’s saying? I did what?”

“Cops. They were all over me, as soon as I got shifted to this, what do they call it,
sjukhuset
?”

Hospital—literally, the sick house—was one of the hardest words for an American to pronounce. The only one harder was
sjuksköterska
, nurse, or sick sister, which was supposed to sound like “shook-shooterska,” with the
sh
containing the hint of a whistle. The Worm pronounced all of his Swedish the same way: badly.

“Transferred you from where?”

“I couldn’t really tell. A horrible clinic, dirty and smelling of bleach. When they pulled me from the river, I was barely alive, coughing blood and brine. Each cough I think I’m spitting up pieces of my lungs. I’m screaming for air. By the time I know what happened, I’m on a cot, next to a junkie with the shakes, sweat and vomit all over his face. I’m waiting for a doctor. A cop shows up, says in pretty good English that they can get me out of there, into a real hospital, if I can help with their investigation. I don’t argue. I can still hardly speak. I can’t even see. My eyes are stinging from the river water, I guess.

“They put me in a wheelchair. On the way out I saw the rest of the clinic, men like scarecrows with hollow eyes, shivering in their thin green hospital gowns. Awful. They wanted me to see—that’s where I’ll be if I don’t cooperate. Then they took me here.”

“And they want you to tell them that I pushed you into the river?”

“They want me to say that Aaronson did.”

“The Uppsala police know who I am. Do they know you know?”

“I don’t know.”

“So what did you tell them?” Tracy asked.

“That I wanted a lawyer.”

“Ha,” Spiegel said. “You know, here, you’ve got no Miranda rights.”

“No what?”

Didn’t everyone know the term?

“Anyway,” Spiegel said, “they haven’t accused you of anything. You’re the victim.”

“But I bought time,” the Worm said. “I ain’t gonna lie. There was a real stampede when you were running the wrong way off the bridge, swinging that pole. I was trying to keep an eye on you, to see where you were going, when I felt a smack against the side of my head.” The Worm touched his cheek to point out the purple stain of a bruise.

“It could have been an accident, someone else with a banner, turning around too fast, catching me on the blind side with the butt end of a pole.

“I went down against the railing. Then two hands came toward me, I thought to help me up. I reached for them, and, bang, it was like a ramrod hit me in the chest, and I was falling backward toward the water. As I dropped, all’s I could see was Reston leaning over the railing, a big smile on his face.”

“You saying he pushed you in?”

“I’m not saying. I can’t say. I don’t think he was sorry to see it happen, though.”

* * *

“I’m calling this meeting to order.” Hyde was speaking. Today, he wasn’t wearing his beret. He wore khakis and camouflage, like the rest of the deserters. He slammed his hand against the desktop, trying to get the meeting under control.

“Who drafted you?” one of the guys shouted from the back of the room.

“Yo’ mama,” someone called from another corner.

“She got better taste than that,” someone else yelled. There were sparks of laughter as Hyde kept whacking his hand against the wood. With each slap, the desk lamp beside him leaped and worked its way closer to the edge. Either he gets this meeting going or the lamp hits the floor, Spiegel thought.

Spiegel sat in a straight-backed chair next to the makeshift dais. He felt like a prisoner in the dock, which in a sense he was. Hyde had called for the meeting—the first ARMS gathering in a month—to discuss the organization’s finances (shaky), its leadership (lacking), and its political influence, which had diminished to the point of near invisibility following the May Day fiasco. Because of the stampede and the riot, which forced the organizing committee to cancel the afternoon rally, the deserters had become pariahs among their former allies in the student left and the labor unions, and the city council, fearful of associating itself with a violent international movement or perhaps just taking the opportunity to play out for political advantage some long-held but seldom expressed racial and ethnic prejudices, had refused to receive the ARMS petition. Spiegel understood. Aaronson was to blame for the decline and fall of ARMS. He had abandoned the men in their time of need, and now the Vandals were storming the gates, with blood in their eyes and smoke on their tongues. Spiegel knew that to save himself he might have to proclaim the truth. He could protect Aaronson only for so long. It was hard work, playing a role, and it had got him nowhere, nothing— except that it had brought him to Tracy. And he had been wondering: When the moment came, as he believed that it had, when he would have to give himself up—or more accurately— relinquish a false identity and reclaim his own, would he have to give up Tracy as well?

Gradually, the noise abated and the men settled into position, some in chairs, some standing. They began to focus on Hyde at the front of the room, still slapping his hand on the table for order. A gray cloud of smoke hovered near the ceiling, fracturing the light into discernible shafts. It had been some time, Spiegel thought, since he had been in a room that was thick with the bitter scent of tobacco. Swedes, he had noticed, tended to restrict their cigarettes to the outdoors, as if smoking were a sport. The Americans tended to smoke indoors, and for them smoking was an act of assertion, even aggression, a way by which the men stained the air and marked off a bit of territory as their own. Spiegel saw Zeke sitting near the rear of the room, sucking powerfully on the last nub of his cigarette so that the glowing ash tip was pulled almost to his lips, a kiss of fire. Sated with the fumes, Zeke dropped the butt onto the floor and squashed it with his heel, as if it were a bug.

“Now, no one of us ever was elected officer or president or anything like that,” Hyde was saying, “but somehow Aaronson got himself appointed leader of this here group. Maybe he appointed himself. I don’t know. But long as I’ve been here in Uppsala, we all have gone along with that, and it’s been okay. Our housing ain’t so bad, we all have pretty secure resident status, we got enough scratch to get by, all that shit. But the past two months, some of us have noticed, things ain’t been right. Aaronson goes off to . . . somewhere, supposed to be to recruit new members, but he comes back with nothing. No one’s joined us here since the winter. And he goes on TV, a disaster far as I can tell, and then he ain’t heard of no more. He gets like real tight with his old lady, and he ain’t got no more time for this group. He won’t call a meeting, he won’t write the May Day speech, he won’t even stand up at the rally and present the petition to the city council. So we’re wondering: What’s going on? Is he trying to back away from this ARMS group because he knows something’s coming down and he wants to be out of the free-fire zone when the shit hits? So we start looking into Aaronson and what he’s been up to, and we find out about these other problems.”

“That’s right, you tell it, brother,” one of the guys called out from the floor. Spiegel thought it was Hyde’s gap-toothed partner from the May Day march.

“It’s the money, man,” Hyde went on. “Now most of you all know that Aaronson, when he came to Sweden, brought with him a fair bit of cash, and he used it to set up a bank account for the movement. And that money grew, man, though none of us really knows how. We make it our business not to know, okay? Maybe he’s dealing in something, maybe he’s got a rich grandmama who believes in our cause. I don’t know, don’t wanna know, right? But there’s a purse full of money, and Aaronson’s holding the strings. He’ll loosen up and let a piece out now and then, and each of us has probably gone to him for a little float to tide us over some rough passages. Each of us knows about the money and we’re, how do you say it, beholden to him. Nobody wants to talk about this situation, even to the other brothers, ’cause we’re afraid Aaronson will turn off the tap. And we long for that money, even a drop of it. It’s like a drop of water for a parched man. So the money’s Aaronson’s little secret source of power, held over our heads, and just out of reach. Am I right?”

A few of the men nodded in agreement; others bleated out the responsory, “That’s right,” as if Hyde were running a revival meeting. Spiegel knew what he was talking about, too. The cops had been watching the bank account. Apparently Hyde had been watching it as well.

“So Reston has begun to look into Aaronson’s transactions, and I turn the floor over to him to tell you what we’ve learned.”

Reston stood and took Hyde’s place at the front of the room. He kept his back to Spiegel, unwilling to meet his contemptuous gaze. Reston pulled some papers from one of the flapped pockets on his flak jacket. “Now, I’m not so good with numbers and all, so you guys will have to bear with me, but what I’ve got here is a copy of the bank statement of the account that Aaronson set up for ARMS. For us. Now, it says here that it’s in his name, I can make that out, and then some words that I’m told mean it’s an account held for all of us, like a group, but with him as the, like, the trustee or treasurer. It means anyone can put in money. But he’s the only guy who can take it out, right? Him and the person who co-signed the account, his old lady.”

“Sounds like a pretty good deal, for him,” one of the guys said, and pointed at Spiegel. There was some laughter, scattered and sharp, like buckshot against tin. Spiegel looked straight ahead. He would hold his peace until Reston and Hyde finished their assault.

“What we see here,” Reston continued, “is, from the time Aaronson arrived in Uppsala and set up this account, it kept growing every month, till there was, it shows, about twenty-thousand kroner in there, and that’s more than five thousand bucks. Then, he takes out about a thousand kroner in March, and that’s to pay for his trip to Germany, yes? All through April the account keeps growing and then, bang! Look what happened last week. The account is just about cleared out, wiped off the slate. Somebody goes in, pulls eighteen-thousand kroner, and that leaves us just about at empty. You can see this for yourself.” And Hyde handed the crumpled copy of the bank statement to one of the men, who studied the columns of numbers and then passed it on so that it would circulate around the room. It would come to Spiegel last, if at all.

“Thanks, brother,” Hyde said, taking the floor back from Reston. “So the question is, and we will ask our comrade to explain it to us, what the hell happened to all this money? It was not flowing into Uppsala for the personal and political benefit of Aaronson. It was meant for ARMS, for the movement. So where did it come from, where is it going, and what are you going to do to replace it?”

“Could I speak to that? Could I speak now?” Spiegel asked. But he wondered, if they gave him permission to respond to the accusations, what he could say. He knew the source of the money, or thought he did, but so did Reston. The money had come from foreign governments, most recently from the Soviet Union, but laundered and filtered through some obscure, gauzy network of charities and trusts and relief agencies so that no one, not even the cops or the spies, could say for sure which blocks of cash came from what source. But where had the money gone? Had Aaronson somehow managed to tap into the account from abroad? Had Tracy acted for him?

“A moment, in a moment,” Hyde said. “We will want to hear from you. But first I want the brothers to hear all the charges I am bringing against you.”

“Charges? Am I on trial?” Spiegel said. “ ’Cause if I am, I’d as soon resign and be done with it.”

“Resign from what?” Hyde said. “We ain’t got no officers, no constitution. That would be hierarchical bullshit, as you’ve taught us. It would be a replication of the authoritarian military culture, if I am quoting you correctly. As a result, we don’t have officers. As a result, there is no office from which you can resign. Am I correct?”