Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The - Stieg Larsson [72]
“In the early hours of June 22 in 1941, Lobach knocked on the door of my bedroom. My room was next to his wife’s bedroom, and he signalled me to be quiet, get dressed, and come with him. We went downstairs and sat in the smoking salon. Lobach had been up all night. He had the radio on, and I realised that something serious had happened. Operation Barbarossa had begun. Germany had invaded the Soviet Union on Midsummer Eve.” Vanger gestured in resignation. “Lobach took out two glasses and poured a generous aquavit for each of us. He was obviously shaken. When I asked him what it all meant, he replied with foresight that it meant the end for Germany and Nazism. I only half believed him—Hitler seemed undefeatable, after all—but Lobach and I drank a toast to the fall of Germany. Then he turned his attention to practical matters.”
Blomkvist nodded to signal that he was still following the story.
“First, he had no possibility of contacting my father for instructions, but on his own initiative he had decided to cut short my visit to Germany and send me home. Second, he asked me to do something for him.”
Vanger pointed to a yellowed portrait of a dark-haired woman, in three-quarter view.
“Lobach had been married for forty years, but in 1919 he met a wildly beautiful woman half his age, and he fell hopelessly in love with her. She was a poor, simple seamstress. Lobach courted her, and like so many other wealthy men, he could afford to install her in an apartment a convenient distance from his office. She became his mistress. In 1921 she had a daughter, who was christened Edith.”
“Rich older man, poor young woman, and a love child—that can’t have caused much of a scandal in the forties,” Blomkvist said.
“Absolutely right. If it hadn’t been for one thing. The woman was Jewish, and consequently Lobach was the father of a Jew in the midst of Nazi Germany. He was what they called a ‘traitor to his race.’”
“Ah…That does change the situation. What happened?”
“Edith’s mother had been picked up in 1939. She disappeared, and we can only guess what her fate was. It was known, of course, that she had a daughter who was not yet included on any transport list, and who was now being sought by the department of the Gestapo whose job it was to track down fugitive Jews. In the summer of 1941, the week that I arrived in Hamburg, Edith’s mother was somehow linked to Lobach, and he was summoned for an interview. He acknowledged the relationship and his paternity, but he stated that he had no idea where his daughter might be, and he had not had any contact with her in ten years.”
“So where was the daughter?”
“I had seen her every day in the Lobachs’ home. A sweet and quiet twenty-year-old girl who cleaned my room and helped serve dinner. By 1937 the persecution of the Jews had been going on for several years, and Edith’s mother had begged Lobach for help. And he did help—Lobach loved his illegitimate child just as much as his legitimate children. He hid her in the most unlikely place he could think of—right in front of everyone’s nose. He had arranged for counterfeit documents, and he had taken her in as their housekeeper.”
“Did his wife know who she was?”
“No, it seemed she had no idea. It had worked for four years, but now Lobach felt the noose tightening. It was only a matter of time before the Gestapo would come knocking on the door. Then he went to get his daughter and introduced her to me as such. She was very shy and didn’t even dare look me in the eye. She must have been up half the night waiting to be called. Lobach begged me to save her life.”
“How?”
“He had arranged the whole thing. I was supposed to be staying another three weeks and then to take the night train to Copenhagen and continue by ferry across the sound—a relatively safe trip, even in wartime. But two days after our conversation a freighter owned by the Vanger Corporation was to leave Hamburg headed