Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [47]
‘The right-wing group,’ she said, ‘led by C-H Hermansson. They distanced themselves from both the Stalinists and the Maoists, and ended up with a sort of old-fashioned revisionism that we may as well call Social Democracy. They’re today’s Left Party, with almost ten per cent of our parliamentary seats.’
Berit took a sip of coffee, then raised her middle finger.
‘Then there was the centre,’ she said, ‘led by the chief editor of Northern Lights, Alf Löwenborg, who lined up on the Soviet side.’
She changed fingers.
‘And then there was the left-wing group, led by Nils Holberg, which favoured China.’
‘When did all this happen?’ Annika asked.
‘The Swedish Communist Party broke up after its twenty-first party congress, in May nineteen sixty-seven,’ Berit said. ‘The party changed its name to the Left Party Communists, and the left-wing group broke away to form the Communist Association of Marxist-Leninists. After that things developed quickly. The Vietnam movement, Clarté, the Rs – the revolutionaries – all popped up. In the spring of sixty-eight it culminated with the occupation of the student union and the rebel movement in Uppsala. They were actually the worst of all, the Uppsala rebels. They spent the whole of that spring making threats against us.’
She held her right hand up to her ear like a phone. ‘“If you don’t attend the revolutionary mass-meeting to listen to the grievances of the masses, some comrades will come and fetch you.”’
‘Sounds nice,’ Annika said. ‘And they were Maoists?’
‘Well, the real Maoists were no problem. They always asked: what would the Master do? Would he personally have committed these acts in the name of the revolution? If the answer was no, they didn’t do it. It was the hangers-on who were worst, the ones out for kicks, with their mass psychosis and sect behaviour.’
She looked at her watch. ‘I have to go. The Green Party have promised a statement about Baltic fishing quotas at one o’clock.’
Annika gave a theatrical yawn.
‘Ha ha,’ Berit said, standing up and picking up the sticky plastic tray to take over to the bin. ‘It’s all right for you, writing about your dead journalists. Over in my corner we’re dealing with the really important stuff, like all those murdered cod . . .’
Annika laughed, then silence fell coldly around her. A whiff of old lasagne wafted up at her, sticky and fatty, and she pushed it away. She became conscious of the colleagues around her, some of them talking quietly, but most of them on their own, bent over newspapers as they clutched their plastic cutlery. Somewhere behind the counter a microwave pinged, and two men from sport were buying eight pastries.
She drank her coffee slowly, one of the many dark silhouettes outlined against the cold light, one of the workers at the newspaper factory.
A function. Not an individual.
Thomas never really liked meetings in the offices of the Federation of County Councils. Even if he was broadly in favour of looking into how far the two associations should be merged, he always felt slightly at a disadvantage when they met on Sophia Grenborg’s home turf. It was mostly small things, like not knowing his way around, using the wrong lift, forgetting the names of the other staff.
Mind you, he didn’t know their names at the Association of Local Councils either, he realized.
He took a deep breath and pushed open the door out onto Hornsgatan, feeling the cold bite at his ears immediately. Entering the Federation of County Councils, he found his way through the labyrinth on the fifth floor, feeling slightly stressed. Sophia came towards him, her blond bob swaying, shiny and straight, as she walked, her jacket unbuttoned, her heels clicking on the wooden floor.
‘Welcome,’ she said, taking his hand in hers, small and soft, warm and dry. ‘The others are already here.’
He started to shrug off his coat, immediately anxious that they had been waiting for him.
She took a step closer, and he noticed her perfume. Light, fresh, sporty.
‘You’re not late,’ she whispered. ‘They’re drinking coffee in the conference room.