Part 24 (1/2)

Berit took off her hat and gloves and folded her scarf. 'I'm thinking of going to lunch early today. Do you want to come?'

Annika logged out of the system, fished her purse out of her bag, and discovered she was out of lunch vouchers.

'Do we have to go down to the canteen?' she said, looking round, suspicious of the newfound warmth.

Berit hung up her coat on a hanger, brus.h.i.+ng the garment's shoulders with her hand.

'We could go out if you like, but I did go past the Seven Rats, and it looked pretty empty. They've got stir-fried chicken with cashew nuts downstairs.'

Annika bit the nail of her left index finger, considering the offer, then nodded.

'What have you been out doing?' she asked as they went down the stairs.

'Rumours about a government reshuffle,' Berit said, puffing her hair where it had been squashed by her hat. 'The Prime Minister hasn't got long before the EU elections, and if he's going to rearrange his ministers he has to do it now.'

'And? Who's likely to go this time?' Annika said, picking up an orange plastic tray in the canteen.

'Well, Bjornlund, for a start,' Berit said. 'She's the worst Culture Minister we've ever had. She hasn't come up with a single proposal in nine years. There are rumours that Christer Lundgren is on his way back from exile at Swedish Steel in Lulea.' Berit opened a bottle of low-alcohol beer.

'Really?'

'Well, he never left the management committee, so a ministerial post was probably always in the pipeline.'

Annika nodded. Several years ago she had told Berit her thoughts about Christer Lundgren's resignation, showing her the doc.u.ments and travel receipts that proved that the Trade Minister hadn't even been in Stockholm the night Josefin Liljeberg was killed. He had been meeting someone in Tallinn in Estonia, a meeting that was so controversial that he would rather accept a murder charge than reveal who he had met. There was only one explanation, Annika and Berit had agreed: Christer Lundgren was sacrificing himself for his party. Who he met in Tallinn and what they discussed could never be revealed. And she had told Karina Bjornlund.

She had made the mistake of trying to get a comment from Christer Lundgren by telling the whole story to his press secretary. She never got a reply. Instead, Karina Bjornlund had suddenly become a cabinet minister.

'My stupid question paved the way for our Minister of Culture,' Annika said.

'Probably,' Berit said.

'Which means that it's really my fault that Sweden's got such useless cultural policies, doesn't it?'

'Quite right,' Berit said. 'What did you really want to see me about?' Berit leaned back in her seat.

'I'm after your past,' Annika said. 'What was the 9 April Declaration?'

Berit chewed a mouthful of food, a thoughtful look in her eyes, then shook her head. 'Nope, no idea. Why do you ask?'

Annika drank the last of her water.

'I saw it in the caption to a picture on the net, some lads in the sixties who were going to mobilize the ma.s.ses in the name of Chairman Mao.'

Berit stopped chewing and stared at her. 'Sounds like the Uppsala Rebels.' She put down her knife and fork, ran her tongue over her teeth, and nodded to herself. 'Yes, that fits,' she said. 'They made some sort of declaration in the spring of sixty-eight. I can't swear that it was April ninth, but they were certainly extremely active that spring.'

She laughed and shook her head, then picked up her knife and fork again and went on eating.

'What?' Annika said. 'Tell me!'

Berit sighed and smiled. 'I told you how they would phone and make threats to us at the Vietnam Bulletin Vietnam Bulletin?' she said. 'The Uppsala Rebels were proper little idiots. Every day they held marathon meetings, in various locations. They would start at one in the afternoon and carry on till long after midnight. A friend of mine went along once, said there was very little politics involved he described it as more of a hallelujah orgy.'

'A revivalist meeting?'

Berit took another mouthful, some water, and swallowed.

'That's what they reminded some people of, yes. Everyone who attended was a committed Maoist. They stood up one by one and bore witness to the way Mao's thoughts had been like a spiritual atom bomb for them. After every speaker there was wild applause. Every now and then there'd be a break, and they'd have sandwiches and beer, then they'd carry on with a new round of personal statements.'

'Like what?' Annika said. 'What did they say?'

'They quoted the Master. Anyone trying to formulate their own phrases was immediately accused of bourgeois use of language. The only exception was ”Death to the fascists in the Communist a.s.sociation of Marxist-Leninists”.'

Annika leaned back in her chair, picking out a cashew nut from under a lettuce leaf and popping it in her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully. 'But surely they were communists as well?'

'Oh yes,' Berit said, wiping her chin with the napkin. 'But nothing upset the rebels more than those who almost almost thought like them. Torbjorn Safve, who wrote a brilliant book about the rebel movement, called it ”paranoid discontent”. The sort of posters people put up on their walls was a big deal for them. If anyone had a poster of Lenin that was bigger than the picture of Mao, that was regarded as counterrevolutionary. If the top edge of a picture of Mao was lower than the top edge of a picture of Lenin or Marx, that was enough for someone to be accused of a lack of conviction.' thought like them. Torbjorn Safve, who wrote a brilliant book about the rebel movement, called it ”paranoid discontent”. The sort of posters people put up on their walls was a big deal for them. If anyone had a poster of Lenin that was bigger than the picture of Mao, that was regarded as counterrevolutionary. If the top edge of a picture of Mao was lower than the top edge of a picture of Lenin or Marx, that was enough for someone to be accused of a lack of conviction.'

'I don't suppose you knew an active rebel by the name of Goran Nilsson?' Annika asked, looking expectantly at Berit.

Her colleague reached for a toothpick and pulled off the plastic. 'Not that I can recall. Should I?'

Annika sighed and shook her head.

'Have you tried the archive?' Berit asked.

'Nothing.'

Berit frowned in concentration.

'The first of May that year, the rebels marched through Uppsala in a big, organized demonstration. As far as I remember, all the big papers covered it. Maybe he was involved?'

Annika got up, her tray in one hand and her purse in the other.

'I'll check right now,' she said. 'Are you coming?'

'Why not?' Berit said.

They went out of the canteen's back door and took the emergency staircase to the second floor, then went through a narrow corridor to the huge text and picture archive. Everything ever printed in the Evening Post Evening Post and and Fine Morning News Fine Morning News in the past hundred and fifty years was stored here. in the past hundred and fifty years was stored here.

'The files are at the back on the left,' Berit said.

They found the morning papers from May 1968 after a minute or so. Annika pulled down the bound bundle from the top shelf, covering herself in dust and dirt. She coughed and pulled a face.

2 May 1968: the front page was full of the rebels' demonstration through Uppsala the day before. Annika frowned and looked more closely.

'Are these your revolutionary rebels?' she said in disbelief. 'They look like any other middle-cla.s.s kids, the whole lot of them.'

Berit ran her hand over the yellowing newspaper, a rustling sound beneath her dry fingertip, her middle finger stopping on the cropped head of the leader of the march.