Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End

CHAPTER XI

Between Summer’s Longing and Winter’s End

Albany, New York, in December

[MONDAY, DECEMBER 9]

The local weather report promised milder weather after the weekend, but forgot to mention the snow. When Johansson woke up on Monday morning, it was coming down heavily outside the window of the professor’s bedroom, and, Norrlander that he was, he realized that there could be problems driving. Sarah seemed to have drawn the same conclusion, even though she was born in Manhattan.

“Jesus,” she said. “Have you seen the kind of weather we’re having? Now we’ve got to get a move on so you don’t miss your train.”

Johansson had showered, gotten dressed, and packed his few belongings in the practical shoulder bag he’d bought cheaply in the gift shop at the FBI. It took a quarter of an hour, and when he came down to the kitchen he was met by his hostess, who was busy with breakfast. Newly showered, fresh, and energetic judging by her appearance, she had apparently dressed in a shorter time than Johansson, for when she’d come in to wake him she was still in a nightgown.

A highly remarkable woman, thought Johansson, which in his native dialect was a mark of great respect.

“How would you like your eggs?” asked Sarah.

…

Scrambled eggs, fried ham, toast, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and a large cup of coffee while he was entertained by Sarah, who talked happily about snowstorms and other local bad weather in Albany and its vicinity that she’d experienced during her not altogether long life. And so far it had been very good, but then the subject of precipitation had come up and the misery had begun.

It was only a few miles to the bank-Sarah made use of Citibank’s local branch-but because the Volvo didn’t have snow tires and the world outside the windowpanes was white with snow, it had required a good deal of skidding and zigzagging from one side of the road to the other before they finally arrived. Inside the bank it was calm and silent, with almost no customers.

“Some weather,” said Sarah happily as she lowered the hood of her ankle-length red wool coat.

“It looks like we’ll be having a white Christmas,” the female cashier concurred, smiling amiably. “Are you going to stay home or are you driving to New York?”

Know each other from before, thought Johansson automatically. Just so they don’t start babbling a lot, he thought, nervously glancing at his watch.

The babbling had been confined to a polite minimum. Then Sarah filled out a slip of paper with her name and safe-deposit box number and shot off a big smile at an older uniformed guard who was posted at the entrance a few yards away, at the same time as she nodded toward Johansson in explanation.

“He’s with me,” said Sarah. “He’s my new assistant.”

The guard had been content to smile paternally toward Sarah and more neutrally toward Johansson, and two minutes later they were standing down in the bank vault where Sarah set the key in the lock of the largest type of safe-deposit box.

Wonder if that’s the key that was in the shoe, thought Johansson.

“Now let’s see,” said Sarah.

She winked conspiratorially at Johansson while they helped each other pull out the box and place it on a nearby table.

“Should you or I look?” Sarah asked, giggling.

“It’s your box,” said Johansson. “You look.”

Sarah shook her head and smiled.

“You get to look first,” she said. “It’s my Christmas present to you.”

Paper, nothing but paper, and considerably less than he’d imagined, but in any case a pile about eight inches high that was divided in plastic sleeves and between thin cardboard folders, at least one of which looked old.

“This is clearly the manuscript of his book,” said Sarah, who had already started rooting in the pile. “It’s actually thicker than I thought.” She handed over a bundle of more than a hundred typewritten pages encased in a plastic sleeve.

Johansson took it and quickly leafed through while he eyeballed the pages. The title and author’s name in large letters on the cover page. “The Spy Who Went East, by John P. Krassner,” Johansson read. Foreword, table of contents, and completely written out pages at the beginning. Chapter headings, typewritten outlines, and difficult-to-decipher handwritten notes on the otherwise empty pages toward the end.

He writes the way he cleans his room, thought Johansson, weighing the thin bundle of papers in his hand.

“A typical John manuscript,” said Sarah, smiling. “Exists for the most part in the author’s head. I have a suggestion,” she continued, nodding toward the pile on the table. “Put everything in that practical little bag with the fancy emblem and read it in peace and quiet when you have time. But I don’t believe you should expect too much. John was not exactly a Hemingway, to put it mildly.”

“He wanted you to have copies,” Johansson objected. So I’ll probably miss that eleven o’clock train, he thought.

“Forget it,” snorted Sarah and suddenly seemed upset for the first time since he’d met her. “Not on your life. I don’t give a hoot about his damn copies.”

Oops, thought Johansson. She’s a redhead all right.

…

In the car en route to the station she explained how she viewed the matter.

“Perhaps you think I’m the surly type,” she said, shaking her head, “but for the past ten years I haven’t wanted to deal with John. For me he was a finished chapter when I broke up with him, and as I said that was more than ten years ago, but because he could never take no for an answer I’ve had to put up with him anyway. Despite the fact that I’ve been sick of him and all his fantasies the whole time, and despite the fact that I’d had it up to here with him and his old fascist uncle.” She measured a few inches over her flowing red hair with her hand.

“And yet you were his heir,” said Johansson, smiling wryly.

“Sure,” said Sarah. “He was like that. Refused to take no for an answer. But I’ve never wished him dead in earnest, and I’m truly sorry that he is dead, for I don’t wish that on anyone. Do you know what I’m thinking about doing?” she continued.

Johansson shook his head.

“I’m going to give it all away to charity.”

“You haven’t thought about seeing it as personal compensation?” Johansson suggested, for he could look out for himself when it really counted. That shack ought to be worth quite a bit, if it’s not too heavily mortgaged, he thought.

“It’s out of the question,” said Sarah. “Besides, I have enough to get by. I don’t want to have anything to do with John anymore, much less his ridiculous papers and his silly fantasies. John is dead, okay. I intend to let him rest in peace and I definitely don’t intend to contribute to his being able to continue stirring up trouble from the place where he is now. He’s certainly in heaven, after all. If you’re going to be God to Irishmen, you probably have to have a forgiving nature.”

Now she’s herself again, thought Johansson.

“I propose that we do it like this,” said Johansson. “I’ll read the papers at my own leisure, and if there’s something that I think that you absolutely need to hear about I’ll contact you.”

Sarah shrugged her shoulders.

“Okay,” she said. “Although I find it extremely hard to think what that might be.”

Once they arrived at the station, Johansson’s train should already have left, but because it was delayed a half hour they actually had plenty of time. They had left her car in the parking lot and when Johansson handed her the keys he felt a stab of guilty conscience.

“Can you manage getting out of here?” he asked.

“I’ll take a taxi,” said Sarah, smiling. “Then I’ll fetch the car when the weather gets better. They say it will warm up.”

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled again.

“Take care of yourself too,” she said. “You have a considerably tougher journey than I have.”

Then she’d lowered the hood of her red coat, stood on tiptoe, hugged him, and with lips puckered gave him a big kiss right on the mouth.

“Take care, detective,” she said. “And don’t forget to call if you should happen to be in the area.”

On the train people were standing in the aisles. Reading Krassner’s papers wasn’t even to be considered. The trip to New York took almost five hours instead of less than three, and when he arrived there wasn’t much time to play with if he was going to make it to his flight. But once he found his way out of the underworld and out of Grand Central Station it had stopped snowing and he understood that his earthly problems were over for now.

At seven-thirty the SAS evening plane from New York, destination Stockholm, leveled out at its cruising altitude right according to schedule. The warning signs in the cabin had been turned off, and he heard the clinking from the beverage cart behind the galley curtain just as he sensed a faint aroma of food. He had packed the papers he’d gotten in his suitcase. He’d be able to read them when he was home.

That must be the cleverest woman I’ve met in my whole life, thought Johansson. She was rather pretty too, and yet she’d been together with that nutcase Krassner.

I don’t understand women, thought Johansson, sighing.