He wakes with a start.
The window is wide open.
Sverre is immediately alert and tries to control his breathing. He lies still, listening. It is raining outside. A branch scrapes against the pane. He turns his head carefully. The darkness in the corridor outside the bedroom is a black wall. The door is open.
Someone has opened the bedroom door. Someone has been in here while he has been asleep and opened the window.
Now Sverre hears a strange hissing sound beneath the driving wind and rain, from inside the house, on the floor below.
He tries to slide from under the duvet without rustling the material. Puts his feet on the ground. He stands up and the pain in his hip flares.
He teeters, but manages to stay upright. The floorboards creak as he walks to the wall. He looks over his shoulder as his hand fumbles with the window catch. Grabs it. Closes the window. Limps to the door. Scans the darkness in the corridor outside the bedroom. Listens. Silence – apart from the strange hiss from downstairs.
What is Gerhard up to?
Sverre goes back to the bed. Opens the drawer in the bedside table. Where there is a dagger. He takes it and heads for the dark corridor. Inches alongside the wall, dagger raised, to the staircase.
His mouth is dry. His arms and legs feel numb.
He pauses at the top of the stairs. At the foot, light is coming in – through an open door.
Someone has switched on the light. Someone is still here.
He wants to shout, but his voice won’t carry. He is sweating and his dagger hand is trembling.
But he doesn’t want to be like this. He needs to have certainty. Needs to know what is going on.
He forces himself to go downstairs. One hand is on the banister. The other is holding the dagger aloft
The hissing is getting louder with every step he takes.
Before he reaches the bottom he sees the telephone receiver is back in position.
He stops on the lowest step, his hand squeezing the banister as he stares at the telephone. The light from the sitting-room doorway falls on it.
Slowly he turns his head to the right.
The sitting-room door is ajar. This is where the hissing is coming from.
He continues to the door and pushes it open with the dagger.
No one there, but the television is on. There is snow on the screen. Noise. He walks in. Switches the television off. There is total silence.
There is a light on in the kitchen. That door is ajar too.
He tries to move without making a sound. The door hinges scream.
On the worktop there is a half-empty coffee cup.
The kettle is on the stove. He feels it. It is still warm.
As he places his hand on the kettle the telephone rings. He turns. Goes to the hall and lifts the receiver. ‘Hello. Sverre Fenstad here.’
No answer.
‘Hello?’ he repeats.
A click tells him the caller has hung up.
He cradles the receiver and goes towards the sitting-room door. He sees the outline of a man in the TV screen. His knees give way. He clutches his chest.
But the movements on the screen tell him this pathetic shadow of a person is himself.
He has to lean against the door frame until he is calm again. Then he limps into the sitting room and sits down on the chair in the corner. Here he has a better chance of seeing what is going on than he does in the upstairs bedroom.
He tells himself he has to search the house, thinking at the same time it isn’t necessary. The person who has been here has gone. However, Sverre knows he has to strike back. He has to show Gerhard. He has to make him understand that this time he has gone too far.
In fact there is only one thing to do: ring Brustad early tomorrow morning.
Could Brustad have met Gerhard during the war? he reflects. Of course, it is a possibility, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. He seems to recall that Brustad was in Oslo all of 1941. Afterwards he was at the intelligence office in Sweden for a short while, before going to London, where he worked as a security officer in intelligence. Sverre doesn’t think Brustad knew Gerhard Falkum. Sverre doesn’t have to tell the surveillance boss the whole story. It doesn’t matter anyway. Brustad never does the dirty work himself.
Sverre Fenstad raises his hand. It is still trembling. The doors and windows were closed when he went to bed. How could Gerhard have got in?
Sverre leans back in the chair and surveys his home. When day breaks, he thinks, when daylight returns, so will serenity, and then I will be able to put this experience behind me.
Stockholm, December 1942
1
They walk past the lines of partition walls. Even though all the booths are empty, Markus chooses the shooting range at the very end.
‘We won’t be disturbed here.’
She gazes at the targets hanging from the ceiling while Markus takes the weapon apart. The gun is smaller than the one she found in Gerhard’s bedside table.
Markus tells her it is a Husqvarna M40.
She notices a crank handle on the wall. The targets can be wound back and forth.
‘Pay attention,’ Markus reproves. The barrel, the stock, the magazine and the lock lie in pieces on the bench. He shows her which movable parts it is important to lubricate and how the gun works. ‘You pull the trigger, the firing pin hits the primer in the cartridge, the powder explodes, the bullet is fired and the force makes this slide backwards. Notice the springs. The empty cartridge case is ejected and the next one is pushed up by the magazine. They call this gun a Lahti.’
He shows her how to load the magazine. Eight shots. He tells her to push the magazine in.
She holds the gun. Presses.
‘You have to use a little strength.’
He takes it back and does it. The magazine clicks into place. He cocks the gun. Takes out the magazine and passes it back. ‘Your turn.’
She tries again. Likes the feel of the gun in her hand. Pushes the magazine in. Cocks the gun.
He nods. Takes the gun back from her. Applies the safety catch and afterwards shows her how to hold it. ‘With both hands. Hold your arms out at shoulder height. Look at the angle between my upper arm and chest.’
She looks. Lifts her own arms and compares.
‘Feet well apart. That’ll give you good balance. Slight bend in the knees, so you’re supple. Straight back. In that way the gun’s stable and the chances of hitting with several shots are that much greater.’
She nods again.
‘Try to imagine a straight line between your nose, the sights on the gun and the target. Try.’
She tries.
He asks her what she is doing on Friday.
She lowers the gun.
He repeats the question.
She says she is going to the synagogue.
His face brightens. ‘Good. Then we can go together!’
She has to smile when he laughs. Markus has an infectious laugh. But she doesn’t respond to his invitation. She takes the weapon.
‘Ear defenders.’
She puts down the gun and places the defenders over her ears.
He nods.
She holds the gun with both hands outstretched as he has shown her. The target has been drawn onto the chest region of a man in silhouette. She tries to pull the trigger.
‘Release the safety catch first.’
She smiles sheepishly, does as he says and lifts the gun again. Pulls the trigger, but doesn’t manage to stifle a squeal as her hands fly into the air.
Markus grins.
Ester blushes. I’m a fool, she thinks.
‘You felt it then. You have to be the boss. You have to control the gun. Hold it down.’
Ester can feel the blush is still there.
Once again she holds the weapon with both hands and her arms outstretched. Focuses on the target. Fires three shots. The impact of the shots tears at her arms. She knows she has missed the target, but not a soun
d escapes her mouth.
Markus nods acknowledgement. She takes off the ear defenders.
He takes the gun and applies the safety catch. ‘It’s hot. Feel.’
She feels.
‘The heat affects the metal. It can become unstable. That’s why lubrication and cleaning are so incredibly important.’
She gives a start when a shot goes off somewhere behind them in the cellar.
‘You have to get used to the noise down here,’ he says, loading the magazine.
Ester cranes her neck. A man emerges from a booth further down. Now he is standing with his back to them. He is wearing only a singlet on his chest, and the muscles in his upper arms and back ripple as he forces cartridges into the magazine. He turns and fiddles with the gun. There is something familiar about his profile.
‘Do you know everyone here?’ she asks.
Markus shakes his head.
She motions her head towards the man in the singlet and arches both eyebrows.
Markus shakes his head and whispers. ‘English. SIS. Secret Intelligence Service. He’s an English intelligence officer.’
She stares at the furthest booth again. The man puts the ear defenders over his head and readies himself. Then she recognises him. Round, rimless glasses and a narrow mouth. It is the man from the cinema. The man Gerhard spoke with in Tegnérlunden after she had gone to see what the police were doing in Kammakargatan 33.
He looks up and their eyes meet.
He shows no sign of recognition. A second later and he is hidden by the booth wall. A quick series of shots. Then it is quiet and the target glides back to the booth.
‘There are lots of Englishmen in Stockholm,’ Markus whispers with a grin. ‘Very hush-hush because of the war. But you get used to them,’ he says, passing her the gun. ‘Come on. Another round.’
2
Snow is falling fast. Her whole field of vision is obscured by thick, white stripes angling downwards. The world is disappearing. Cars stand askew, their wheels spinning. Trams have come to a halt as the conductors work with crowbars and gas flames on the rails to remove the ice and snow from the points. A man in a winter coat with his collar up and his hat pulled down over his forehead is shovelling snow from a car parked by the pavement. Ester is overjoyed that she can walk to work. Even if that, too, is sometimes a trial. The snowploughs churn the snow onto the pavement so that the road is the only viable place to walk. Until a bus races along and she has to leap for her life and wade through deep snow again.
On her way up the steps to the intelligence office she has to slow down. She is walking behind a snow-covered back she seems to recognise. When he turns to brush the snow off his shoulders there is no doubt: ‘Number Thirteen,’ she says.
Sverre Fenstad beams. ‘Ester!’
‘But what are you doing here?’ she says, genuinely surprised. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve had to leave Norway, too!’
He shakes his head. ‘I have a meeting.’
‘But what’s happened?’
‘Nothing special. Those of us at home just have to coordinate with those of you here in Sweden now and then. We’re going to see each other many times. But I’m going back tonight or tomorrow.’
He opens the door and holds it for her. ‘Ladies first.’
They go inside.
In the office Torgersen is waiting.
While they are hanging up their clothes, Sverre whispers: ‘You’re looking good, Ester.’
‘Thank you, and the same to you.’
Sverre thrusts a hand into his inside jacket pocket and pulls out a letter. ‘For you, from Åse Lajord’s mother.’
She takes it and studies the envelope. When she looks up, Sverre Fenstad has gone into Torgersen’s office.
Ester becomes aware of an unfamiliar scent in the office. It is after-shave. It smells like lemon. It is only now that she notices they have company. He is sitting by the window. An athletic-looking man in his forties. He is wearing casual clothes. Breeches and a woollen jumper. There is a peaked cap beside him on the table. He seems inaccessible, sitting there and tamping his pipe.
Ester sits down at her desk. Soon she realises that everyone else in the office knows him. Mildred and Margit talk to him, and she realises he has news from Norway. They look at her and whisper. The man answers in short sentences. Occasionally he removes the pipe from his mouth and pretends to examine the glow in the bowl. What he actually does is cast a furtive glance at her; she notices.
They are talking about my parents, she thinks. They are saying I am Jewish. They are wallowing in the tragedy that my family has been deported to Germany. She looks down without letting on that she has noticed. She realises that this man has not come from the refugee reception centre. He must have come with Sverre Fenstad.
After an hour, Torgersen’s door opens. Sverre appears. ‘Ester, can you come in for a moment?’
She gets up and goes in.
Four men are sitting around the meeting table. She knows Sverre Fenstad and Torgersen. The other two she doesn’t know, but she is aware they are high-ranking officers in the legation.
Torgersen introduces her and says she is responsible for contact with Gerhard Falkum.
‘What’s your impression, Ester? How is he coping with the situation?’
Ester says what she knows. The waiting is getting on his nerves. She wonders whether to say what she thinks deep down and decides to do so. She says Gerhard is reacting badly to being inactive. He feels negative about having to hide in Sweden. For him, going back to Norway is a more attractive option. She says that, for his sake, she hopes he can soon be transported to England. That will solve everything. It is inhuman to escape to freedom and have to live like a wanted criminal here in Sweden.
The others regard her in silence.
Should she say she has seen Gerhard with a British intelligence officer? Pass on Gerhard’s story that the man gets booze for him? It could be true. And what damage has it done, actually? The English are enemies of Germany, as the Norwegians are. Sometimes Gerhard does have to go into the street, and then he will, of necessity, meet people.
‘What does he want to do in Norway?’ Sverre interrupts her line of thought.
‘Fight,’ Ester says. ‘He’s desperate to be active. He thinks his existence here is pointless; he might as well be in hiding with Norwegian saboteurs in Norway. At the start he kept asking me if I knew when he was going to England. Now he has stopped. In my opinion he’s losing confidence in us. So he wants to cross the border. He’s had to move once already while he’s been with us, because of the police. He thinks it would be better for everyone if he’s actively doing resistance work instead of passively waiting for the Swedish police to arrest him. At least that’s what he tells me. The more time that passes before he travels to England, the more desperate he’s becoming.’
There is silence in the room. The participants let the information sink in and say nothing.
Ester wonders whether she has laid it on too thick. She decides to quote Gerhard’s own words. ‘He sees himself as a resource. He’s been active in the resistance right from the very first day. He thinks it’s indefensible to pack him off into a hotel when they could be using him.’
‘He’s absolutely right about that.’ It is the man sitting next to Sverre Fenstad who says it. He adds that Gerhard would probably be well received at home. ‘Falkum’s a man with unusual war experience. He distinguished himself in Spain, especially in Cordoba in August of 1936.’
The others exchange glances, and Ester can see they don’t appreciate the man’s comments.
Ester is unsure what they expect from her now and looks at them. They look back at her.
Torgersen whispers: ‘Thank you, Ester. You can go now.’
She gets up and makes for the door.
‘Ester.’
It is Sverre. She turns to face him.
‘Kolstad,’ Sverre says. ‘He’s out there with you. Can you ask him to come in please?’
She
nods and closes the door after her. Again she has become unsure of her role and how she was playing it. It wasn’t her intention to say unfavourable things about Gerhard. She just wanted to communicate the fact that he is having a difficult time. She pauses with her back to the door for a few moments. The Norwegian in the breeches is perching on the edge of Mildred’s desk now. She is laughing at something he has said. ‘Are you Kolstad?’ she asks.
He looks up.
‘Sverre’s asked to see you.’ She motions with her head.
‘Me?’ He grimaces. ‘That’s a first,’ he says and pats Mildred on the shoulder. He departs, followed by waves of after-shave.
Ester has made up her mind: she doesn’t like him. ‘Who’s he?’ she asks Mildred.
‘Kolstad? He’s a sort of bodyguard, I think.’
Oslo, November 1967
1
Sverre Fenstad raps the door knocker twice and waits.
The door is opened by a woman in her fifties, wearing a blue dress with white dots. Her blonde hair is dark at the roots, and its straight fall tells him she has just combed it.
‘Grete,’ Sverre says. ‘I was hoping to find you both at home,’ he adds quickly when he sees her confusion.
She stares at him. He tells her why he has come. The information has an impact. She steps aside to let him in.
The couple have probably just had lunch. There is a smell of boiled cod and melted butter in the house. Sverre struggles to interpret the atmosphere. He isn’t asked to sit down. Nor is he offered anything. Grete stands by the window, glaring accusatorily at her husband, who has been lying on the sofa, but now swings his feet to the floor and pokes them into a pair of worn slippers.
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ Grete says. ‘I think it would be good for her to meet her father.’
Erik looks at her without answering. Then at Sverre.
Sverre doesn’t like the atmosphere and wonders if there is anything he can do to alleviate it. A loudspeaker crackles. It is Erik switching on the Tandberg radio in the cabinet beside the sofa. Erik sits up straight, still reticent.
The Courier Page 19
