He takes a deep breath and can feel he is not very steady on his feet. He drank most of the wine and on top of that had two cognacs. He decides to walk it off.
His hip is fine this evening. He barely feels any pain, and there is hardly anyone else out – only the occasional taxi passing. It is so quiet he can hear the click of his own shoes and the tap of his stick between every pace. Then he hears another rhythm. The sound of footsteps. Sverre Fenstad casts a glance over his shoulder.
Some distance behind him, a man in dark clothes and a hat is ambling on the opposite side of the street, in the shade of the trees in the Palace Gardens. He has his hands in his coat pockets. He is no more than an outline, a silhouette against the trees in the park. But the silhouette is unmistakeable.
Sverre walks on. But feels uneasy having Gerhard behind him. He stops and turns around. Gerhard stops too. In the silence they stand staring at each other.
Sverre Fenstad sets off again. But then he thinks: I can’t be bothered with this. Gerhard isn’t going to try anything here. There are witnesses around. He decides to confront him. He spins around.
But Gerhard has vanished.
4
Sverre can feel a nagging anxiety in his chest now. He walks down the tiled corridor leading to the platform. He glances over his shoulder again and again. Every time he is able to confirm that he is not being followed. A Sognsvann line metro train has just gone. Almost twenty minutes to wait. He finds a free space on a bench. He leans back against the wall and wakes with a start as a dark-red train glides alongside the platform. He quickly checks his watch. He has been asleep for more than ten minutes. His nervousness is mounting. He has lost some of his self-control. The doors slide open and the conductor jumps out. There are still a few minutes left before departure. Sverre Fenstad sits down in the non-smoking compartment at the front of the empty carriage. The conductor and the driver are chatting outside. The driver lights the stub of a roll-up he takes from a matchbox. The conductor comments on the diminutive size. Sverre doesn’t hear the response. He has fallen into his own reverie. Remembering the time the air-raid siren went off after the German ammunition dump in Filipstad exploded. The cargo ship SS Selma was fully laden with German grenades. It was being unloaded when there was an explosion. Which year was that? Forty-three? Before Christmas? Yes, December forty-three. What a bang! And what panic! Between forty and fifty people were killed, more than four hundred wounded. Grenades were raining down on Oslo. It was a Sunday. He had been out with Vera then as well. Rain and slush. They had been two of several thousand people who came down here afterwards, to the underground. He and Vera had made their way along the rails and found some stairs in the tunnel that led to an exit in Oscars gate. From there they walked around to find out what had happened. It could have been an air raid, or sabotage. But it turned out that Germans themselves caused it.
The door to the driver’s cabin closes and soon after the conductor blows his whistle. Sverre puts a hand in his pocket and takes out his ticket.
When the train stops in Valkyrie plass no one gets off or on. Sverre looks out and imagines a young Ester waiting on the platform with illegal newspapers in a bag. He thinks about the magical capacity of towns to remain backdrops for generations of people. Someone stole a first kiss in a place like this. Others had their lives turned upside down by stumbling or meeting a gaze. All the time a place such as this waits patiently for new events from a new narrative.
The train stops at Majorstua. Here the platform is crowded. Sverre looks at his watch and guesses the nine o’clock performance at the Colosseum cinema has just finished. The carriage is crammed full. Sverre moves closer to the window to make more room on the seat. Two middle-aged women sit down and talk about the film. Sverre Fenstad gathers that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are the main stars. ‘Such is love,’ says one woman. ‘That’s how it is. You can’t escape the truth.’ Her friend is more interested in Taylor’s figure. ‘Don’t you think she’s put on weight? She was so attractive when she played Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Goodness me, now that was a love story.’
Sverre closes his eyes and ears. The train ride is a routine your body adapts to all on its own. He has calmed down, and when sleep comes he does nothing to prevent it. He nods off again and wakes automatically on the incline up to Østhorn station. Now there aren’t so many people in the carriage. He waits until the train sets off again. Then he buttons up his coat and gets to his feet. At Nordberg he is the only passenger to alight.
5
Gerhard is standing by the garden gate in front of Sverre’s house. The Sognsvann train departs from Nordberg station. A single person comes down the slope to the crossing. Sverre’s figure is easily recognisable because of the stick.
Quietly, Gerhard waits until he can hear the rhythmical tap of the stick on the tarmac. Then he crosses the lawn and goes in through the open veranda door. Gerhard goes up the stairs and into Sverre’s bathroom. From here he can see down to the gate and the front of the house.
Gerhard looks through the bathroom window as Sverre Fenstad appears behind the hedge. He stops and stands quite still. Sverre has at last seen what has been happening.
When Sverre leaves the station he is thinking about Vera and the times they will never see again. He walks into the light from the street lamp and out again. That is when he notices the light behind the hedge. The discovery causes him to slow down and he feels a cold claw in his lower abdomen. At the garden gate he sees the light is on in the sitting room. He stops. The sitting-room window should not be lit. The light is always turned off when he isn’t at home.
He stands under the birch tree, looking at the light in the window. It is almost as if the house has become alien to him.
No movements behind the glass that he can discern.
Eventually he treads warily towards the wrought-iron gate in front of the entrance. The gate is wide open. He walks through, leaving it open. Walks around the house, into the garden.
His shoes shuffle through the wet grass as he slowly makes his way along the house wall, rounds the corner and stops. The veranda door is open. It gapes ominously. Sverre starts sweating. The silence is numbing. He looks around. Some windows in the houses nearby are lit, but not a sound can be heard through his open veranda door. He forces himself to step onto the veranda. Tries to tread silently on the tiles. The curtain flaps through the door. He lifts his stick and holds it at the ready, like a club, as he enters.
Stockholm, December 1942
1
Gerhard holds the front door open for her. The cold air hits them. The taxi is waiting by the kerb. The driver sees Gerhard is carrying a rucksack, so he walks around the car and opens the boot. Gerhard shakes his head and puts the rucksack on the rear seat, then gets in. Ester gives the driver the address. Now he holds the door open for her.
The car sets off. Ester looks through the window without registering anything but illuminated shop windows and the dark shadows of people on the pavement. She is unsure what is going on between them and considers it positive that Gerhard is moving out. At that moment she notices a shift in atmosphere and turns to him. He says nothing. Just looks at her.
The car pulls up. The driver turns round and announces: ‘Hotel Sirena.’
Gerhard opens the door and slips the rucksack onto his back. He asks: ‘Are you going to come up with me and have a look?’ She agrees and wriggles out of the car. She is about to take money from her bag, but changes her mind. Asks the driver to wait. Avoids eye contact with Gerhard. Instead she looks up at the façade. Dirty, grey building. Dirty windows. The sign above the entrance isn’t easy to see. She follows him up the steps and inside.
They enter the reception area. No service. She waits by the lift while he goes to the counter.
There is a bell on the counter. He presses it. No audible response. He turns to her, eyebrows raised. She shrugs. He presses again. No ring, no buzz. He holds the button down.
A door opens and a squat man in tr
ousers, vest and hanging braces comes through the opening behind the counter. He is chewing. Tells Gerhard he can take his finger off the bell now. He takes a ledger from a drawer.
Ester turns her back while Gerhard registers and is given a key.
The lift is a little cage with walls of black steel grating. The door is wrought-iron and closes with a scissor mechanism. They have to stand close to fit in. Ester avoids his gaze as the lift transports them up through the floors. Getting out, Gerhard walks ahead down a narrow corridor smelling of dust and mould. He unlocks the door and enters. Sighs at the sight that meets them inside. A prison bed, a sink, a table and a chair.
‘Not exactly an esplanade hotel in St Tropez.’
‘Only German soldiers stay there. You wouldn’t have liked it any better.’
He grins.
She smiles back.
He eyes her from the side. ‘It would be easier to convince the police we’re married if we lived together, fru Larsen.’
She doesn’t know what to reply. She likes the intimacy, but she doesn’t like his references to the relationship. In a way her silence emphasises what she doesn’t say. They are standing close. She steps back and says nervously: ‘Now, you promise me you won’t get drunk again.’
‘Ester,’ he says, slumping down onto the chair. ‘There’s something you have to know. I’m not cut out for this.’
She knows what is about to come and she understands.
‘I’d rather go back to Norway than stay in a filthy hotel under a false name.’
She looks away. Wanting to reassure him. She knows she isn’t allowed to say this, but decides to reveal the plan anyway. ‘They’re planning to organise Norwegian troops here, in Sweden.’
He gets to his feet, but his eyes are sceptical.
‘This is actually confidential information,’ she says. ‘But there are lots of Norwegians who want to go back and fight. That’s why Swedish soldiers are being brought in to train Norwegian troops. The idea is that it will take place in Kjesäter.’
He turns his back on her.
She takes a step forwards, apprehensive.
He turns round. ‘And what good is that to me?’
‘It means you’ll get what you want anyway. Military training. Mobilisation.’
His eyes harden. ‘But I was promised transport to England. You heard that yourself. It was a promise.’
She doesn’t remember Torgersen’s phrasing, but she doesn’t want an argument. ‘You have to understand that you have to be patient. There are thousands of Norwegian men wanting to enlist and return to fight.’
‘Enlist? I don’t need any register. I’m signed up. I’ve been signed up and have fought against the Germans from the very first day!’
‘Torgersen’s a man of his word. Just be a little patient. It won’t be long now. I’m sure of that.’
He shakes his head.
‘I’ll push, Gerhard. I promise you.’
‘The people here are out-and-out amateurs.’ He extends an arm to take in the room. ‘Look what they do with their resources. Pack me off into this grubby hotel room instead of helping me go to a training camp. Do you really think I can accept this?’
‘For Åse’s sake.’
He shakes his head.
‘For your daughter’s sake.’
‘Ester, you can see the meaninglessness of this existence. You have to.’ Then she says: ‘For my sake.’
He sighs out loud and smiles condescendingly. ‘Ester, you must never make a promise you can’t keep.’
They exchange glances and she has to look away. She knows all too well that he knows what she is thinking.
‘I promise to tell them how hard you think this is,’ she says. She can hear in her own ears how empty this promise is, but she needs to talk about something trivial to break out of this intense atmosphere.
She goes to the door. Turns and looks at him. Walks back and gives him a quick, firm hug before leaving and going back to the lift.
She struggles with the concertina door. Can’t get it to close completely. The lift won’t start. The metal rattles as she pushes the door open and pulls it back with all her strength. The lift still won’t budge. Staircase, she thinks. At that moment a door in the corridor opens. A fat woman in a nightie stares at her, a cigarette in the corner of her mouth. She is wearing slippers. In one of them there is a hole and a toe is sticking out.
Ester tries once again to get the lift moving, but nothing happens. The fat woman comes into the corridor. She shuffles over to the lift and presses a button. The lift starts. Ester watches the woman’s body disappear. She has a rash on her calves.
In the street, she scans the front of the hotel. Waves up at the window where she thinks Gerhard is, then jumps into the taxi, which immediately draws away.
Oslo, November 1967
1
Sverre pauses inside the veranda door. He stands quite still, listening, but can’t hear any unfamiliar sounds. He sees the silhouette of Gerhard following him alongside the Palace Gardens. What if he is waiting for him in his house?
Gerhard must be unbalanced. Sverre has had dealings with such people before. But this man has no limits. He breaks into people’s houses. In addition, he is armed. There is one thing Sverre has no doubts about: Gerhard is dangerous.
But he has to control his panic. And then he must search his house with a fine-tooth comb. First of all, he closes the veranda door behind him. Then he goes right into the house and up the stairs.
The hallway is empty. Nothing seems changed. His pulse rate is high when he pushes open his bedroom door. But the room is empty.
The bathroom is empty.
Back down the stairs. The same on the ground floor. No one in the sitting room, no one in the kitchen. Nothing seems to have been touched.
Can Gerhard have left the house with the door open? Is this tit for tat – a threat?
Sverre stands in front of the cellar door. At length he opens it. First, he peers down into the darkness. Then he switches on the light. Sees nothing unusual. The stairs are steep and he has to concentrate not to fall. He stops halfway. Looks back. The door slowly closes.
Sverre continues downwards, step by step. At the bottom he twists the next switch. The neon tube on the ceiling flickers. It won’t light up. He studies the hobby-room door as the light struggles to come on. Then there is a bang.
Sverre’s heart stops and he falls against the wall.
His forehead scrapes against the coarse brickwork. He gasps for air and claws at the concrete wall, but nothing happens – except the bang growing into a low roar.
He clutches his chest and realises the noise is the central boiler coming on. He breathes through his mouth, regains his balance and doesn’t move until he is back to normal. His chest still hurts. The central heating hums, and the marker on the boiler’s temperature gauge rises.
He moves forwards and opens the hobby-room door. Turns on the ceiling lamp. Nothing appears to have been touched. Leather, tools and stuffed animals. All the mess is as before. The dust is as before.
He turns round. The pain in his chest is less noticeable as he staggers to the stairs and goes back up. There is nothing out of the ordinary in the house. No drawers opened, no clocks stolen, none of Lillian’s silverware in the sideboard has gone, nor the record player or the expensive Tandberg Sølvsuper radio. The wall clock shows it will soon be midnight.
Here, in the hallway, he stops and looks at the telephone.
He flicks through the directory. Finds the number of the police. Deliberates. Changes his mind. Puts the directory back. Takes the little wallet from his inside pocket and finds a private number instead. Looks at the clock. It is past midnight. It is a weekday. He stands up and deliberates. In the end he lifts the receiver and rings Hotel Continental. He asks to speak to Gary Larson. He is put through. The phone rings for a long time. No one answers.
He puts down the receiver. ‘Oh Gerhard, Gerhard,’ he mumbles, and goes over to the bar. Open
s the cabinet. Pours himself a drink from the bottle he offered to Gerhard a few days ago. Drains the glass in one swig. Puts down the glass and goes to the bathroom.
Afterwards he goes back to the telephone. Rings Hotel Continental once again. He is put through to Gary Larson’s room. No one answers this time either. He holds the receiver and listens to the constant ringing. He wonders whether not knowing where Gerhard is might be a cause for concern. Ends up telling himself Gerhard has been here to frighten him. As a kind of retaliation for his visit to Gerhard’s room. An eye for an eye. Presumably Gerhard is on his way back to the hotel. Or he is intentionally letting the telephone ring because he suspects it is Sverre calling.
Sverre walks through the house one last time, checking that all the doors are locked. The front door, the veranda door. Now that he is sure he is alone, it costs him nothing to go down to the cellar and check the entrance there. The wooden doorframe is damaged. This is where Gerhard broke in, possibly with the help of a jemmy or some other tool. He forced the frame to the side. That won’t happen again. The door has two locks: a normal lock and a metal fitting on the inside that can be padlocked. He goes into the hobby room and takes the padlock from the drawer. Locks the door. Now it won’t be so easy to break in again. He checks that the windows are properly closed. He stops by the telephone and lifts the receiver. He lays it on the table. The sound of the dialling tone follows him up the stairs.
He gets undressed to go to bed. Opens the bedroom window a little. Changes his mind and closes it. Once again he makes sure the window is closed before he slips under the duvet.
2
A shadow leans over the bed. A figure wearing a balaclava. Sverre tries to raise a hand and push the man away, but can’t. He wants to tear off the balaclava, but still he can’t move his hand. Sverre realises he is dreaming. As he realises this, the shadow disappears, and Sverre feels cold. It is the cold that has woken him.
The Courier Page 18
