The telephone rings in the hall. She puts the glass on the stool and sinks beneath the water. She doesn’t want to hear the telephone. When she can no longer breathe and has to come up gasping for air, the telephone is still ringing. She blinks water from her eyes and sticks fingers in her ears.
She removes her fingers. The ringing has stopped. She sips the wine again. The telephone may have gone quiet, but it is still on her mind. It is late. No one rings her at such a late hour. She begins to wonder who could have rung, and this detracts from the joy of lying in the bath and getting warm. As she leans back, she grips her hair and twists it lightly so the water runs off. The telephone rings again. Ester sighs, gets out of the bath, careful not to slip, and takes a towel from the shelf. She lays it down beside the bath. Steps onto it and sends a disapproving glance at her body in the mirror on the door. The shameful red scar glistens. Every time it is as though she can hear the flap of the awning in Jaffa Road. She sees Jonatan’s sleeping face in the pram. The sun reflecting on the knife of the man running towards her.
Ester takes the bathrobe hanging from the hook on the door and wraps it around her.
Tells herself she did well. She managed to react. A shameful scar and pain for many years is nothing compared with losing your life or your child.
But how long can you have luck on your side?
She should have thought about that before she went out. Because on a day like that she ought to have known there would be reactions. She glimpses her critical eyes in the mirror again. Should she have stayed indoors? On a day of national celebration?
She walks into the hall. Answers the telephone.
‘Sverre Fenstad here. Sorry, but I called earlier without success. This is quite important.’
Ester doesn’t have a chance to respond before he carries on:
‘Has Gerhard contacted you?’
‘No.’
Silence for a few seconds.
‘Have you tried to contact him?’
‘No.’
Now Sverre Fenstad’s silence is longer. At length he coughs. ‘I’m ever so slightly uneasy that I don’t know Gerhard’s agenda.’
‘But you told me his plans, didn’t you?’
‘To clear up a murder that took place during the war? I’ve offered him help, but he isn’t interested. I think he has other plans, but he’s keeping them close to his chest.’
‘Perhaps he wants to do things his way. It’s his business. And in fact it’s not strange that he wants contact with his child.’
‘I’m afraid there’s more to it than that, Ester. He has revenge on his mind. And that could affect us both.’
‘Just a moment.’ She puts down the receiver and goes into the bathroom. Takes the bottle and the glass. Fills it. Thinking about what Sverre has just said. She carries the glass to the phone. ‘Back again.’
‘I said it could affect us both.’
‘Speak for yourself. But you said something about revenge. I didn’t understand that.’
‘I had that impression when he was at mine.’
‘What would he want to avenge?’
The silence tells her she has touched on a sore point.
She is about to say goodbye, but is not quite quick enough:
‘Gerhard’s come back to Norway after many years, and you and I are in an odd situation.’
‘I’m not. He hasn’t contacted me. So he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me, which I am the first to respect.’
‘He wants to know what happened when Åse died – and you were her best friend and confidante.’
‘I think you’re blowing this out of proportion, Sverre.’
Ester considers whether to tell Sverre that Gerhard creeps around cemeteries when normal people are in bed. But she holds her tongue. There is something here she should find out for herself. But the unsettled score she has with Gerhard Falkum is private.
‘I’m serious.’
Ester takes a sip of wine. ‘What if Gerhard actually does just want to be a father to his daughter?’
Sverre is quiet for a long while. ‘I have a suggestion,’ he says at last.
‘OK?’
‘We discover what he really wants.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘You knew Åse, you knew Gerhard, and you were the link between him and Stockholm.’
‘I’m a music teacher. Nothing more, nothing less.’
‘Ester…’
‘You’re a man with power. You’re on speaking terms with all the cabinet ministers. If you think Gerhard has dubious intentions, you can thwart them with a phone call or by pulling strings, as you’ve always done.’
Sverre carries on: ‘All conflicts can be shown to lead back to people. The same is true of solutions. Gerhard’s a man with mental wounds. I understand him and you understand him, and we both know different sides of this case.’
Speak for yourself, she thinks, without bothering to say so again. She puts down her glass. If there is one person whose actions she doesn’t understand it is Gerhard Falkum. She opens her bathrobe and examines the scar on her stomach again in the mirror.
‘I’d just like to ask you a little favour,’ he says. ‘Tomorrow, if you have the time and opportunity.’
‘And what kind of favour would that be?’
3
The wall clock shows a quarter to ten. Three quarters of an hour have gone since Gerhard Falkum left the breakfast room and took the lift up to his floor. Sverre Fenstad moves from the chair he has been sitting in and goes into the hotel lobby. A newspaper under his arm, he looks for a table in the lounge. Finds one, sits down and orders a coffee. Asks to pay at once – ‘Should I have to go suddenly.’ The waitress takes the note. She goes to the till and returns with the change.
From the chair where he is sitting now he can keep an eye on the checkin counter, the lift doors and the windows looking out onto Karl Johans gate. There are two receptionists on duty. They are busy. A businessman is checking out and new hotel guests are arriving. The bellboy rolls suitcases into a left-luggage room before accompanying the new guests up the stairs to the breakfast room.
The lift doors open. Two people with suitcases and keys in their hands. But then Sverre catches sight of Gerhard leaving the lift behind them. He is lost in the crowd by the reception desk. Fenstad looks out of the window. Spots Gerhard again, now outside the entrance. He is carrying a briefcase.
Sverre raises the morning edition of Aftenposten in front of his face as Gerhard, briefcase under his arm, stops and buttons up his coat. When Sverre lowers the newspaper Gerhard has passed the windows. Sverre cranes his neck and watches him until he rounds the corner.
Then Sverre stands and picks up his stick. He leaves the newspaper and goes to the lift, which is open. He enters. Presses the button for the fifth floor. The doors close. The lift ascends. The doors open and he steps out. He walks down the corridor and passes a cleaning trolley in front of an open door. A chambermaid with bed linen in her hand comes out of the room. Inside there is a food tray on the floor. Half a bottle of champagne and two used plates. He nods to the chambermaid, continues to the corner and turns down the corridor, stopping by the last door. Hangs the stick over his forearm and takes a piece of hard plastic from his pocket. Looks around. No one in sight. He inserts the plastic inside the door by the lock. Slides it down. Wiggles it until he feels the catch. Takes the plastic and pushes the door open. Sverre Fenstad enters Gerhard’s room and closes the door behind him.
Ester regrets having agreed to this. She is soon fed up with waiting. Besides, standing at a tram stop with one tram after another passing, and not getting on any of them soon attracts attention. So she uses her imagination as best she can. She studies the film posters in the glass cases outside the Scala, sits on a bench by a rose bush in front of the entrance to Pernille restaurant. Gets up, strolls over to the kiosk beside the entrance to Theater Café. Buys a cone of jelly babies. Returns to the line of cinema posters. She is bac
k at the tram stop when she sees Gerhard outside the hotel entrance. He is walking in the direction of the Odd Fellow building. He looks like a businessman, with his navyblue coat and a briefcase under his arm. Under the coat he is wearing a suit. Between the lapels a collar and tie are visible.
He goes round the corner, heading for the harbour.
Ester tightens her scarf and puts on sunglasses. She follows him along the pavement, fifty metres behind.
Gerhard passes a flower shop and a gentlemen’s hairdresser’s before crossing the street outside Saga cinema. He strides past the entrance. He has a clear destination; it’s as though he is going to an important meeting.
Gerhard crosses Klingenberggata. On the opposite side he marches into the Thiisgården branch of Andresens Bank.
Ester reaches the bank. Removes her sunglasses. Slowly approaches the front door. Through the windows she can see Gerhard being shown to a staircase in the middle of the room. She can see the silhouette of a figure disappearing down the staircase. What does she feel? The excitement she had felt when she saw Gerhard the evening before has gone. She wonders why that should be. The moment in the cemetery? Or that she is sneaking around after him for the second successive day without making her presence known? Something else? She doesn’t know. She goes into the delicatessen opposite the bank.
Sverre Fenstad has entered a large, comfortably furnished hotel room. It is on a corner of the fifth floor and has a balcony. The door to which is open. A suitcase lies on the bench beside the main door. It is empty. On the bedside table there is a novel written by Arild Borgen: And Night Turned Slowly to Day. The dust jacket is shiny and the price sticker is still on it. He flicks through the pages. Puts the book back and opens the drawer. Nothing apart from the obligatory New Testament. He goes to the desk. A pile of newspapers and various magazines. He leafs through the pile. No notes. In his mind’s eye he sees Gerhard putting the briefcase under his arm. If Gerhard has any important documents, that is where they will be. But Sverre Fenstad isn’t going to give up that easily.
He goes into the bathroom. There is a toiletry bag on the shelf under the mirror. He opens it. Sees two bottles. Shakes one of them. Pills. He takes both out and reads the labels. Puts them back. Leaves the bathroom and goes to the wardrobe filling almost one whole wall of the room. Opens the door. Clothes on hangers. He starts thumbing through them systematically.
In the delicatessen Ester stands watching the door to the bank through the shop window. She is still asking herself why she said yes to Sverre. She doesn’t like spying on people. Sverre Fenstad is a man with influence. Why not use it? Why this amateur surveillance?
An assistant behind her says: ‘Can I help?’
Ester turns to the woman. ‘I’m just thinking.’
Other customers are seen to while she stands there. Once again the shop is empty. Finally Gerhard emerges from the bank. Ester gives him a few metres head start, then sets off.
Gerhard walks back the same way he came.
Presumably he is on his way to the hotel and his room. Ester hurries to the telephone booths outside the Saga cinema. There are two, but both are busy.
Stupid, Ester thinks. Stubborn Sverre and all his daft suggestions.
In the left-hand booth there is a teenage girl, eighteen or nineteen, with the receiver held to her ear. She is winding chewing gum around her forefinger as she talks. In the other there is a gentleman skimming through the telephone directory.
Ester knocks on the door.
The man doesn’t hear.
The girl in the booth on the left laughs out loud. She hoists herself up onto the shelf with the directories, long legs in a short skirt.
Ester knocks again.
Finally the man reacts. Straightens up and turns.
Ester taps her watch and angles her head.
He opens the door a fraction. ‘Are you in a hurry, frøken? If so, by all means.’ He comes out.
Frøken, Ester thinks, and goes in.
The girl in the mini-skirt laughs so loud the windows vibrate.
Ester has learned the number by heart. Finally she finds a coin in her pocket. The paper cone of sweets comes out with it. She eats a jelly baby and inserts the coin in the machine. The dial moves so slowly. Outside the booth the man smiles at her. A wrinkled face. Grey hair and grey moustache. She opens the door and offers him a sweet. He thanks her and deliberates which one to take. Chooses a red jelly baby and looks for another. At long last the phone rings. It rings for a long time. A voice says Hotel Continental. Ester closes the door and asks to be put through to Gary Larson’s room. Looks down at the cone. The man has helped himself to at least five. No red ones left. She looks out. He is walking away.
Gerhard stands reading the headlines of the newspapers on the table in the kiosk. Then he takes the morning edition of Aftenposten and pays. Goes into the lobby. Makes his way to the lift. Passing reception.
‘Larson?’
Gerhard turns. The receptionist is standing with the receiver under his chin. Gerhard goes to the counter.
‘There’s a lady on the line asking to be put through to your room. Would you like to take the call in your room?’
Gerhard says he can take it there and then.
The receptionist passes him the receiver.
Gerhard grips it and says his name.
The line is dead.
Gerhard shrugs and passes the phone back. ‘Did she leave her name?’
The receptionist shakes his head.
Gerhard goes into the lift, presses the button for the fifth floor. The doors close.
Sverre Fenstad has moved back into the bathroom. From his inside pocket he takes a tool he has brought with him, a small spanner. His fingers work quickly. Sverre knows that a hotel guest can never be absolutely sure of the staff. However virtuous we may appear, we humans, Sverre thinks, are all voyeurs. We want to know about our neighbours. The more mysterious and closed a person appears, the more our curiosity is piqued. Sverre knows this, he is like that himself now: he wants to get in the room, he wants to lift the duvet, he wants to see who Gerhard really is and he wants to know his secrets. Of course the man who has rented this room also knows this side of human nature. If he really has something he wants to hide he will go to extremes to hide it. The object, if it is an object, won’t be in a suitcase, won’t be in a pocket and won’t be in an envelope in the desk; it will be somewhere the hotel staff either wouldn’t think of looking or can’t be bothered to look. In all hotel rooms there is a place like that: the cistern in the toilet. Sverre has already loosened the screw holding the lid in place and his fingers are now groping inside. His face breaks into a little smile. It is here. You’re getting warm now, Sverre. His forehead is sweating as his fingers grope through the cold water. He can feel something. He digs in his pocket for the other tool he brought. His wet fingers stick to the lining, but eventually he produces a little torch. He shines it into the cistern and peers inside. What he can see is a weapon, a kind of knife – a bayonet or a stiletto. He straightens up and puts the lid back into place. At that moment he hears the rattle of keys outside the door to the hotel room.
Stockholm, December 1942
1
Darkness is falling as Ester clears her desk and gets ready to leave for the day. There is still a light on behind Torgersen’s door. Otherwise the office is deserted and quiet. The flames in the stove are roaring and there is a freezing cold draught coming from the window where Ester is standing, looking down on the scene below. Under the street lamps busy people scurry hither and thither despite the cold. Christmas is approaching. On the radio they have been talking about record low temperatures. In Laxbäcken, minus fifty-five has been recorded. The thermometer outside the window where Ester is standing shows a mere minus twenty-four. That is cold enough. The clear, stable weather can only move the cold further south in Europe. She thinks about her parents. What warm clothing do they have?
Torgersen opens the door of his office. She turns and l
ooks at him.
He asks if it is still as cold outside.
She examines the thermometer even though she knows the answer and says minus twenty-four.
He asks why she hasn’t left yet.
She says there were a few things that had to be finished. ‘But now I’m on my way.’
He praises her work rate.
She looks down, lost for words.
He asks if there is any news about her family.
She says she has reason to believe they are in Germany. Not wishing to say more or reveal her fears. Torgersen looks down. He has never been good at social intimacy. He pats his pockets. Composes himself. There is something he wants to say. She is beginning to know him now.
He looks up and straight at her. He expresses his sympathy.
It is as if she understands what he is thinking and so has to think the same herself. And again she is overcome by the same cold fear of what may happen to them – or may have happened already. It is like an acute stomach ache. She has to take a seat.
‘What’s the matter, Ester?’
Torgersen is standing in front of her. His eyes are genuinely sympathetic.
She searches for words. In the end she says even just the thought that she left them to come to Sweden while they stayed makes her feel unwell. It feels like betrayal.
‘You haven’t betrayed them. You did what you held to be right, and that’s never a mistake.’
The Courier Page 15
