‘Answer me!’ Grete demands. ‘You find out that Gerhard’s alive and wants contact – and you say nothing? Not to me and not to her.’
Erik doesn’t seem to hear.
Grete glares at Erik, who still seems to be wondering what to say. ‘We heard he’d been killed,’ she says to Sverre. ‘That’s why we agreed to adopt Turid. And now you’re saying he’s alive?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Sverre says. ‘The plane crash and the death were reported by our people in Stockholm. No one was in a position to doubt the information in those days. But in fact it was incorrect. The man who wishes to contact Turid is indeed Gerhard Falkum. What I’d like to know is whether he’s contacted you.’
She shakes her head.
The valves in the radio have warmed up and the news reader’s voice booms through the speaker. Erik looks at the radio for a few seconds, then clears his throat: ‘It won’t happen anyway.’
Grete has to raise her voice to drown out the news reader: ‘What won’t?’
‘Gerhard contacting Turid.’
Grete goes to the cabinet and presses a button. The radio dies and the silence spreading through the room is charged again.
‘You can’t just decide that on your own.’
The couple stare at each other for so long that Sverre feels he should leave. He backs towards the door.
‘Grete,’ Erik says quietly. ‘We’re not alone.’
Grete is about to say something, but bites her tongue.
Sverre Fenstad feels this is the right moment. ‘He might’ve contacted her directly, but then she would’ve told you, wouldn’t she?’
Grete eyes him uneasily. ‘Would he contact her without our consent?’
Sverre shrugs. ‘Anything’s possible. Besides, she’s old enough. She can do as she likes.’
Grete turns to her husband: ‘Erik.’
Her husband doesn’t answer.
‘Gerhard’s intentions aren’t good,’ she says quietly. ‘I can feel that in my bones. I’m sure it was him who sent the photo of Åse to Turid.’
Sverre arches both eyebrows. ‘The photo?’
‘She received a letter. A photo of Åse. A few days ago.’
‘May I see it?’
The couple exchange glances. Erik shrugs. Grete leaves the room.
The two men wait until she has closed the door after her. Then they look at each other. ‘See what you’re doing?’ Erik is furious.
Sverre has decided to ignore emotional outbursts. ‘Gerhard’s in town, Erik. Neither you nor I can do anything about that.’
‘You can do something about it, if you want to.’
‘Wanting to meet your own child is perfectly natural.’
Erik glowers at him. ‘So you think he’s restrained himself over there for all these years, do you? Then he just comes here, on an impulse, without writing first, without so much as a hint to Turid that he exists in all the time she’s been alive?’
Sverre has no answer.
‘Do you really think one of God’s own behaves like that? Do you? Do you? Sverre Fenstad?’
‘What I think is immaterial.’
‘Fine. But I still make the decisions in my house.’ Erik stands up. He marches past his guest without another word. The door slams after him.
Shortly afterwards Grete peeks through the door. ‘What was that?’
‘No idea,’ Sverre says, taking the proffered photo. He retrieves his glasses from his breast pocket. Angles the photograph so that the light from the window falls on it. An attractive fair-haired woman is sitting on a doorstep. She is laughing at the photographer. The door is in two parts. The top part is open; the bottom part closed. The cabin walls are made of logs. She is wearing pitch-seamed boots, a woollen skirt and a thick Fana-style cardigan, buttoned up to her neck. Her hands are folded in her lap. The sun is in her eyes and one is squinting. A thick plait is coiled over her shoulder.
‘It was taken at the mountain farm,’ Grete says. ‘It’s ours now. But the farmhouse there has been demolished. It was like a bake house with an oven, a fireplace and a griddle. I went there with my mother a few times to make flat bread.’
‘I visited them in their flat a few times,’ he says. ‘Åse and Gerhard. But I’d forgotten how beautiful she was.’
‘We went to the same school. She was a couple of years older than me. But that was how it was in those days. One school in every village, and only one class for all the children. Now come and look at this.’ She takes Sverre to the wall unit behind the radio cabinet, opens a cupboard and takes out a thick envelope full of photographs. ‘I’ve got a school photo.’ She flicks through the photographs. ‘Here.’ She passes him a large photograph of a group of children in front of a white house. The teacher stands erect, posing on the far left, with a watch chain over his waistcoat and a crooked pipe in the corner of his mouth. The children have clearly been smartened up. The boys with water-combed hair, the girls with ribbons in theirs. One of the boys is wearing a sailor’s outfit.
‘That’s me’. Grete’s finger points to a little girl. ‘And here’s Åse.’
Fenstad recognises the girl photographed in front of the bake house a few years later. She has a slide in her hair. The clean-cut features are unmistakeable. She is also taller than most of the other girls.
‘And this is Erik.’ Grete points to the boy in the sailor’s outfit. He is sitting on the grass and looking at the photographer sceptically. ‘Åse and I weren’t close friends, but we knew each other well. She moved to Oslo straight after the war broke out.’
‘Why did she do that?’
‘Gerhard.’
‘Did she get to know him in Oslo?’
Grete shakes her head. ‘They met in Fagernes. She was working as a receptionist at Fagerlund Hotel. He sold advertising for a newspaper in Gjøvik. Vestopland. He travelled around and got to know people everywhere. He stopped when the newspaper went Nazi. But he knew a lot of people. I think that was why he was at the centre of the resistance organisation in the area later.’
‘And Erik?’
‘What about Erik?’
‘What was the relationship between Erik and Gerhard like?’
She takes a deep breath. ‘I don’t like talking about my husband when he isn’t present.’
He nods and says: ‘I understand.’
‘Do you?’ she says.
Sverre is unsure how to interpret the question, so he changes the subject. ‘What’s the relationship between the sisters – Turid and Arna?’
Grete glances over her shoulder. Sverre turns round.
Erik is standing in the doorway, obviously angry. Trembling with rage, he says: ‘It’s time for you to clear off, Sverre. Take the past with you and tell that bastard whatever you like – so long as the message is the following: keep well away from us.’
Sverre passes the school photograph back to Grete. He scrutinises Erik for a few seconds … Then, without a word, he takes his stick, turns and limps towards the door.
Stockholm, December 1942
1
For the third time today Gerhard does his abdominal curls, knee bends and arm stretches in series of four. This makes him hot. Afterwards he dismantles his gun. Performing familiar routines can stop you thinking. Thinking about what has happened. Doing simple activities, but doing them properly. He takes a penknife from his rucksack, opens the blade and carefully scrapes the metal on the inside of the gunstock. There. The little black stain has gone, and once again the steel is smooth and shiny with oil. He keeps cleaning. Focusing on the metal and the various parts. Not thinking about Oslo, not thinking about what has happened or what might happen. Once upon a time cleaning your weapon or boots was ingrained wisdom, a form of meditation, because cleaning a rifle or rubbing grease into the leather was important, as well as setting you on a journey inside yourself, away from the gunfire and nausea of the blowflies hatching in the flesh of dead comrades. Now he is in the same frame of mind. He has laid the individual parts of the
gun on a newspaper on the floor. Together with a little bottle of lubricating oil and a wad of cotton waste. He twists some cotton and moistens it with oil, pushes the wad through the barrel with a pencil. Lifts the little bottle and drips oil onto the trigger parts. Pulls the trigger. Ensures that everything is working and moving easily. His fingers glisten with grease. He points the barrel and flicks away a bit of fluff. Puts all the parts back down on the newspaper. Wipes his hands on the cotton. Gets to his feet. Pats his pockets. The cigarette packet is on the table. He flicks a cigarette from the packet. Pats his pockets again. Sees the matches on the window sill. It is dark outside. As he lights the cigarette he senses a movement in an archway on the opposite side of the street. Instinctively he backs away from the window. Stiffens for a few seconds, hugging the wall. Then his head and body slowly move back into the room. He is surprised by his own bizarre reaction. By his squeezing up against a wall like a petrified hare, in this neutral country. Nevertheless, he stays where he is, smoking, pensive. The cigarette is stained with grease from his fingers. He can’t dismiss his automatic reaction. Adrenalin. It has rarely fooled him. He tears himself away, goes into the room, sits down. Gets up again. Goes back to the corner. Twists back the blind and peers out. Eventually he catches sight of the outline of a person against the wall where he first saw a movement. He lets go of the blind. Stands by the room’s modest sink, smoking, thinking. Drops the half-smoked cigarette into the sink. It goes out with a hiss in the plug-hole.
He avoids the window as he gets dressed to go out – jumper, scarf, winter coat, peaked cap with earflaps.
He looks at the lubricated gun. Goes to the bed and fills the magazine. Loads the magazine and cocks the gun. Sticks the weapon in his coat pocket and goes into the corridor. It is dark. He walks slowly down the corridor and turns right. There is one solitary light bulb in the ceiling. He stops by the lift. It is on its way up to the floors above. But the arrow above the door points to the basement. He opens the door to the narrow fire escape. Takes the staircase down to the lobby.
The lobby is empty. The receptionist is not there.
He goes outside. Lingers for a moment in the doorway. The cold bites at his cheeks and his breath is white. He flips up his collar and crosses the street with his hands in his coat pockets. Heads for the archway where he saw the figure. Hangs back, listening. There is no one here now. He still searches the whole area, looks behind the rubbish bins, but his conclusion is the same. There is no one there now. He goes back into the street and turns right towards a shop. Goes inside. It is well stocked. They also have cigarettes. He searches his pockets, finds some ration cards and thumbs through them. Two Norwegian tobacco vouchers. He scrunches them up. Throws them into the wastepaper basket by the door. Locates the Swedish vouchers. He buys a pouch of tobacco. Goes back. Passes the archway and checks. No one is there now, either. He leaves and walks down the street without turning or glancing over his shoulder. Goes into the next archway. Hides. Waits, holding the gun firmly in his pocket. He hears footsteps. They stop. Gerhard peeks out. Can’t see anything apart from a dark shadow at the corner of the gate. He waits. But nothing happens. There is a clatter on the stairs inside the block behind him. A door opens. A family of four come out. Gerhard joins them and goes out through the gate. No one is standing on the corner.
Gerhard stops on the pavement. Everything looks as it always does on a cold evening in this city. He crosses the street and returns to Sirena Hotel. Enters the lobby. The receptionist is back. Gerhard nods to him and goes to the lift, which is open. Closes the iron doors with a bang. The metal judders as the lift starts. Judders again when it stops.
Back in his room he takes off his outdoor clothes and blows on his fingers, which are red and cold. He puts the gun in his back pocket. Goes to the bedhead, where his rucksack is. Rummages through it for his binoculars. Turns off the light and stands behind the blind. Stares out. The street lamp casts a dark shadow over the archway. But at the edge of the cone of light he sees something. He lifts the binoculars. Puts them to his eyes. Finds the bulbous shape at the edge. It is the end of a boot. It has to belong to someone, he thinks, putting the binoculars on the window sill.
He ponders his next step. Takes the gun from his back pocket. Lays it down on the window sill as well and looks out. In the distance he can hear a hum. It is the tram in Hamngatan. It is coming this way. The single headlamp bores a tunnel of light between the houses. For one brief second it illuminates the dark archway. A brief second of light. But there is no doubt. A man’s face is staring up at Gerhard’s window.
Oslo, November 1967
1
The front door to Regnbuen night club opens. Out come two women, wearing pink aprons and low shoes. One uses a long-handled broom to keep the door open. Afterwards they both push a trolley in through the door. The door closes behind them as Ester unlocks her yellow Renault Dauphine parked by the pavement. She gets in but doesn’t switch on the ignition; she just sits still with her hands on the wheel.
It is time for a confrontation. It can’t be helped that Gerhard is avoiding her. Avoidance is his project. As for her, she can’t wait any longer. A telephone conversation is out of the question. She wants to look him in the eye. She wants to be on the offensive.
The parking meter clicks, and the tab behind the glass shows red. She looks up. Further ahead a car pulls away from the kerb. It is a better spot. The view is better. She starts the engine, signals and moves out.
This parking spot is free. She manoeuvres her way into it and switches off the engine. Here, on the corner between Klingenberggata and Stortingsgata, she has a good view of the main entrance to the hotel. Here she can wait until Gerhard comes out or goes in. When she sees him she will get out of the car and shout. She has no idea if her plan will succeed, but she is going to try. She hasn’t got a plan B anyway.
There, in front of the entrance, a white Volvo Amazon pulls up. A uniformed hotel employee gets out of the car, holding the keys in his hand.
The uniformed man at the entrance occasionally hails taxis for guests coming out.
This could take time, she thinks, inserting the eight-track cassette into the player. Harry Belafonte sings a slow blues:
I gambled on your love, baby, and got a losing hand…
As Belafonte makes way for the saxophonist, Gerhard appears.
She grips the door handle, but hesitates as he exchanges a few words with the man in the hotel uniform. Then he gets into the parked Amazon. That is a surprise. Gerhard must have rented the car. She deliberates for a few seconds.
Gerhard’s car starts up. Then he drives past her. She turns the ignition key and follows.
Both have to stop for the lights. Ester dons her sunglasses, stretches and checks in the mirror to see what she looks like.
2
The white Amazon is parked in front of a patisserie in Uranienborgveien. Ester has found a gap fifty metres behind it. She sits at the wheel, waiting. Gerhard comes out of the patisserie with a white paper bag in his hand. He stands for a few seconds on the pavement. Looks in her direction. Ester has the feeling that she has been seen. Well, so be it. The sooner, the better. But then he walks around the car and gets in. The Amazon signals and pulls out. Ester lets it go, then follows.
At Vestkanttorget she sees Gerhard’s car drive down Middelthuns gate. Harry Belafonte is singing and Ester hums along.
The lights are green. They change to yellow. Ester accelerates. The lights change to red as she crosses. They pass Frogner Stadium and the entrance to Frogner Lido, which is closed for the winter.
The Amazon turns into the car park by Frogner Park.
Ester chooses the alternative. She turns right. Finds a free spot in front of the waterworks company.
She gets out of the car and her eyes search the trees in Frogner Park. She sees him disappear through them.
She runs across the road. Enters the park. Most of the leaves have fallen. The birch trees stand bare against the yellowish-brown au
tumn mosaic on the ground. Only the occasional maple tree still has a faded red crown intact.
Gerhard has the same white bag in his hand. He walks in front of the fountain. It has been turned off for the winter. Gerhard continues to the bridge. Here he leans against the wall and looks down into the water.
Now, she thinks, but doesn’t move, and is annoyed with herself because she has hesitated. She sits on the stone wall surrounding the square with the fountain.
He leans against the parapet. Then he turns and stares straight at her.
Ester leans back and looks up into the sun. When she looks left again, he has gone. She gets up. Goes over to where Gerhard was standing. Looks down and sees him. Gerhard has gone down the steps to the little area around a pier of the bridge. He is sitting on a bench. He has taken a bread roll from the bag and is throwing pieces to the ducks. Many of the ducks waddle up the bank towards the bench. Ester takes a deep breath, dashes across the bridge and goes down the steps to the bench.
Stockholm, December 1942
1
Stockholm’s trams have a problem; many of them stand idle. It has something to do with ice on the electric cables. Ester doesn’t care. She resorts to Shanks’s pony. It is good to move. She has wrapped herself up well. Wound the long scarf round her neck and head several times. Few people have ventured outside. She has the pavement almost to herself. She soon warms up. Rime frost settles on the tufts of hair poking out from her scarf. She thinks about the news she is bearing and what it means – for Gerhard obviously, but also for herself. Choosing the route through Kungsträdgården Park she makes for Norrmalmstorg. The snow on the path is hard packed, and the low afternoon sun casts long shadows from the trees. A man on a kick-sled comes towards her. He is wearing a fur hat and thick mittens and sends her a sombre nod as the sled glides past with almost no sound.
The Courier Page 20
