“By the way, I found something that I think Don was interested in,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Yesterday I got the diary of that woman who was in the resistance movement. I wanted to tell you in person—she mentions a Scandinavian guy at a vineyard. His name was Per, but he seems kind of anonymous, and had very pale skin and hair. That fits with the photos we’ve seen of Sven. As we discussed before, Sven was almost certainly using a different identity. It might be a long shot, but it’s worth looking into.”
She nodded. “Absolutely. And you’ve told Don?”
“Yes, just now, when I managed to get him to myself for a while.”
“And he listened to you?”
“He did. He thought it sounded exciting.”
Bente managed a smile. “Great.” She ought to be pleased that they’d captured Don’s interest, but it bothered her that he had ignored her all evening.
“Time for more Manhattans!” a voice announced from the kitchen. Hanna appeared in the doorway with another tray of cocktails, with Lydia, Don, and Agneta right behind her. Clearly the premium wines had been abandoned in favor of Hanna’s hastily mixed Manhattans.
The others took a glass, then Hanna shoved the tray under Bente’s and Didrik’s noses.
“Thanks, I’m fine.” Bente held up her wineglass.
“Er ...” Didrik’s eyes flickered toward Bente; he obviously remembered her comments about the dubious quality of her sister’s cocktails, but he picked up a glass like the polite guest he was. “Thank you.” He nodded to Hanna, then took a sip.
“Good, isn’t it?” Hanna said.
“Fantastic.” He pursed his lips. Bente could see that he was trying not to grimace, and she only just managed to stop herself from laughing.
“It’s okay, you can pour it in that plant pot,” she said when Hanna had gone back inside.
“Are you sure the pansies won’t die—along with anyone else who drank one of these?” Didrik asked before tipping out the contents of his glass.
Don, Agneta, and Lydia sipped happily as Agneta fiddled with her phone. Soon music was pouring out of the speakers in the living room, and the small speaker on the balcony. The trio started dancing, Agneta in Dad’s old oilskin coat and her Wellington boots. Bente and Didrik stayed where they were, watching the three of them.
Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” came on, and as always when Bruce began to sing, Bente felt the pain in her heart, in her bones.
The dancers bellowed along with the lyrics, singing about a spark being needed to make a fire.
“So what do you say?” Didrik held out his hand, and Bente got to her feet. The balcony floor was cold beneath her warm soles. They joined the others, dancing in the dark, with the sparkling lights of the city all around them.
Next came the opening chords of Springsteen’s “The River.” Bente sank down on the sun lounger in one corner with Didrik beside her as the others shimmied in the living room, singing away and clutching their cocktails.
She rested her head against the wall. Listening to Bruce always made her feel ambivalent. To her, his music meant weekends. Childhood. Security. Normality. It reminded her of Dad, who always wore a suit to the office but jeans and a T-shirt at home, sang and danced to Bruce while cooking dinner, drove her to and from sports practice and other childhood activities, and played badminton with a group of local dads on Tuesday evenings. In so many ways he had been a perfectly ordinary father. But the darkness had always been there. At the time, Bente had noticed only that there were periods when he was low.
“Thinking about your dad?” Didrik asked.
“Yes ... or rather the way life used to be.”
There was such a clear division in her mind between before and after. A before with a dancing dad at the weekends who cooked meals for his family and their friends; when their family went on skip trips with other families and were invited over for dinner in return. When everything was carefree. And then there was an after—a time whenBente, Hanna, and their mother had no friends left. When they were excluded from the community, brutally and completely.
And when they no longer had Dad either.
“And how was life back then?”
“It was ...” She looked at him, smiled. “I like that.”
“What?”
“The fact that you’re curious about me.” She couldn’t resist placing a hand on his arm. Feeling the tweed fabric of his jacket, rough and almost prickly beneath her fingers. She completely forgot that she was trying to remain objective when it came to Didrik.
