The German Girl

by Lily Graham

  Smidt nodded. Then frowned. ‘And he wouldn’t lie – to keep her safe?’

  Kalle looked at Smidt. He had to give it to him. The man wasn’t stupid. It was Smidt after all who had tracked down the van driver, Herman, who had been acting suspiciously, pretending to be taking a delivery across the border, only to drive to the forest. Herman was in prison now – as some of the other escapees had given his name. Smidt had known about Herman, or suspected him at least and he’d eventually traced them all to the forest. Later he’d been fooled by the twins, which galled him so much because he’d been on their trail.

  Kalle nodded. ‘Yes, that’s possible. Hopefully this won’t make you uncomfortable, sir, but perhaps we will tell Jürgen that she is going to go to jail but if he helps identify her she will only receive a mild sentence or something… something to help him give her up?’

  Smidt’s eyes widened and he looked at Kalle in shock.

  Kalle pretended to be sheepish. ‘Sorry, sir, that’s probably beneath you…’

  ‘No, no, that’s – well, that’s perfect. I think that would work.’ He ran a hand through his red hair again and looked up at the tall, burly ranger, with new respect.

  ‘I think then it would make sense not to have anyone else in the room – we wouldn’t want anyone reporting what we’ve said, you know – if it’s not strictly the truth,’ added Kalle.

  ‘Yes.’ Smidt nodded, and soon after they were shown inside Jürgen’s room.

  Kalle launched into his story, giving Jürgen subtle clues to play along, though he wasn’t sure at first if the boy understood.

  Eventually, they got to the part about the identifiable mark and Kalle issued a prompt. ‘Something that she was born with, perhaps?’

  Jürgen frowned, looking up at the two men. He was confused. He’d thought the last time he’d seen the big forest ranger he had been trying to tell him that he could trust him – but now he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know what to say. Either he said that his twin did have a mark that she didn’t, and they left, or he said that she didn’t and some poor girl might be deported. So he kept quiet.

  Kalle had anticipated this, however.

  ‘I expected this response,’ he said to Officer Smidt, as if the boy was a naughty rascal. ‘But I have an idea. Can you take the manacles off the boy?’

  Smidt frowned. ‘What – why?’

  ‘Don’t worry – if he tries anything he’ll be toast – I just need to check something. Sometimes words aren’t really needed,’ he said.

  Smidt looked confused but he unlocked the boy’s handcuffs. Strictly speaking they wouldn’t ordinarily have used them but this boy had been proving particularly difficult.

  Kalle nodded and came forward quickly. He whispered in the boy’s ear, ‘Just play along, okay, I’m going to help you.’

  Jürgen looked at him like he was mad, just as Kalle cried, ‘Yes – a birthmark, just like hers, come look,’ and just as Smidt came forward eagerly to see, Kalle slipped a needle from out of his ranger jacket, and shoved it into the man’s thin, pale neck. Then he held him, before he hit the floor with a thud.

  ‘What are you—?’ cried Jürgen.

  ‘Shhh! Be quiet. Quickly, I’ve given him a tranquilliser – it can knock out a full-grown moose, so he’ll be out for a few hours. Get out of bed – and swap clothes with him. He told me you’re a good actor. Well, you’ll have to act better than you ever have in your life – today you’re him. Help me put him in the bed; hopefully with any luck we’ll manage to get out of here before anyone notices the mix-up.’

  Somehow, they managed to get out of the room and down the hall without an alarm firing off. Thankfully, on Kalle’s suggestion, they’d had an audience alone so there were no officers near the small nurse’s station where Jürgen had been kept.

  ‘How long before they notice it’s not me, do you think?’ asked Jürgen, adjusting his Nazi officer uniform, which itched against his skin. His skin crawled, and he wished he could take it off.

  ‘Stop that,’ said Kalle. ‘Remember, you’re an officer, you’re in charge, arrogant even.’

  Jürgen took a deep breath, and Kalle watched in amazement as the boy straightened his shoulders and assumed a superior air. He marched alongside Kalle, as if he didn’t still have a piece of bullet lodged inside his leg, not deigning to look at the male receptionist as they were buzzed out of the door. It helped that Kalle had rubbed dried ochre into the boy’s blond hair. From a distance, he looked a little like Smidt. Kalle kept his palms close to his side, hoping no one would notice the tell-tale stain across them.

  23

  Asta got a job at a second-hand bookshop in the centre of the town. It was a sliver of a shop, where books were piled in thin wooden shelves that snaked around corners to the ceiling.

  She was one of only three employees, and to begin with, in the heart of that winter, her job was mainly to make tea and to call for one of the other assistants when a customer arrived. But soon, in her methodical way, Asta was beginning to pick up the language. She didn’t have much else to focus on – aside from her constant grief over the loss of Jürgen, and the worry of her parents – so learning Danish was a welcome distraction that she threw herself into heart and soul. She created cards full of nouns, and later verbs, expressions and phrases that she memorised. It would take nearly a year for her to feel proficient in the language, but after three months, her grasp was pretty impressive for someone whose only word had been ‘tak’.

  Which is what she’d used to thank Kalle, the man who’d carried her to safety, and saved her life – such a small word, to convey so much.

  Almost every day, Oliver came to visit her in the shop, greeting her and Bjørn.

  ‘You know he used to like coming with Trine to work, but I suppose a bookshop is more of a comfortable environment.’

  He wasn’t wrong. The dog had found several corners in which to rest, and to look as endearing as possible to passers-by. Times were tough with the war in Europe, but customers who popped into the store often found it in their hearts to share a little of their pastries with the dog, who was a perfect actor, pretending with each and every one that this was all such a delightful surprise…

  ‘He’s going to get fat if you carry on letting them do that,’ he told Asta, watching as an old woman, who’d come past to collect a book of Shelley’s poetry, fed the dog the scraps of her morning pastry.

  Asta shrugged, then climbed a steel ladder to put back a book that a customer hadn’t wanted. ‘He’ll be the only one in Denmark with a tummy when this war is over,’ she said. Her dark blonde hair fell across her face, and she tucked it behind her ears. There was a hole in the rose-coloured cardigan she wore, and her pencil skirt was loose, but she had never looked more beautiful to Oliver than she did at that moment. The overhead lighting shone on her hair, a rare smile darted across her face, and her eyes were alight for just a moment.

  As quickly as it had appeared, the expression was gone, as she began to climb down from the shelf. She seemed to have retrieved whatever baggage she had left on the ground and donned it like a cloak.

  ‘You don’t have to stop smiling, you know, it’s not like it makes you a bad person…’

  ‘Sometimes I think it does.’

  ‘Would he want that – for you never to smile again?’

  It was exactly this sort of comment that irritated her about Oliver, though of course he’d become very dear to her over the past year, even if she found that hard to admit out loud. ‘Of course he wouldn’t – I’m not an idiot. My brother would want me to be happy, but he was no saint either… he’d be furious if I didn’t miss him. I hate how people talk about others like that – like that when they’re gone they turn into these perfect people who never got cross or jealous…’

  To her surprise, Oliver grinned. ‘Fair enough. So, tell me about him.’

  There was no one in the shop; the other two booksellers were on their lunch break. Asta could either tell Oliver to leave or she coul
d speak about her twin. To her surprise, she chose the latter. Oliver was still there an hour later, when he was due back at college for a lecture. He didn’t mind. Some things were worth waiting for.

  By March, when Oliver started to fetch her from work, she had to admit to herself that this young man with his sunny smile and jaunty step made life worth living. She had begun to feel something almost like joy pass over her whenever she heard his tuneless whistle as he strolled up the street to the bookshop.

  Trine and Lisbet were glad.

  ‘She needs a friend, that much is true,’ said Trine.

  ‘But is it more than that?’ asked Lisbet. Hope and worry were mixed in her eyes.

  Trine shrugged. ‘I don’t know. They’re the same age – almost eighteen.’

  Oliver was studying mathematics at college, and the two often shared a train ride into the town, along with the dog.

  Asta refused to speak anything but Danish – something Oliver and Trine encouraged.

  At the end of the month, they had a low-key celebration for Asta’s eighteenth birthday, Trine had made a cake as she’d managed to get some flour and a rather precious egg – and Asta put on a brave face, as she ate it, while Trine, Oliver and Lisbet sang.

  It was only later that Trine could hear her crying softly all through the night.

  It was Jürgen’s birthday too.

  Just as Asta was beginning to take a breath, the ground shifted beneath her feet once more. On 9 April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark. The fighting lasted several hours, before word spread from Copenhagen that resistance was futile, the German military was far stronger.

  Asta stood outside the shop that afternoon and watched with her colleagues in horror as German soldiers marched triumphantly into the city, passing by the bookshop, victorious.

  She would find out later that they had used the same route she had almost a year and a half before.

  Oliver clasped her hand tightly, as she shivered, and watched with fear and hatred in her eyes. She paused only long enough for their booted feet to disappear from view to be sick on the road. But no one heard her over the relentless sound of those boots that seemed to march on for eternity.

  24

  It was called a ‘peaceful occupation’ as Denmark was allowed to keep their government, while accommodating the will of the Germans. Discovering that she was allowed to continue in her job – as if life was normal – was strange to Asta. Unlike in Germany, there weren’t separate rules for people like her. But even so, she was always aware of the threat to liberty maintained by the constant military presence of the Nazis.

  ‘I think – it’s mostly something we can live with here,’ said Trine, one night during a blackout, as they sat around the kitchen table, Bjørn’s head on Asta’s lap. ‘They aren’t ruling as if we are in Germany – with the same restrictions.’

  ‘For now,’ said Asta. ‘Back home, we also felt like they were putting us through things we could “live with”, trust me. They don’t do everything all at once, Trine. They turn the water up slowly, it’s only later that you realise you’ve been boiled alive.’

  Trine frowned, and stared at her niece, wondering again at how much she had been forced to grow up in such a short space of time.

  How could she have survived what she had – only to be put through this now?

  There were fears that the Jewish population were headed for the same trouble in Denmark as they had in Germany, and the rest of occupied Europe.

  What was worse was the growing sympathy in some quarters for just that.

  ‘It’s ludicrous,’ said one of the shop assistants, Caj, as Asta was returning a set of books to the shelves. ‘Here we are, supposedly neutral, but we have our own socialist party wanting to implement more of the Nazi propaganda. Thankfully the government is resisting.’

  Asta nodded. It had made the news the day before; as mounting pressure from the Germans insisted that Denmark deal with their ‘Jewish problem’, Danish Foreign Minister Erik Scavenius responded to the Germans by saying that ‘In Denmark we do not have a Jewish problem.’

  For most, these were their friends, neighbours and fellow citizens. Asta had drawn courage from that. But when she left the store later that day, Bjørn at her heels, and she passed two soldiers in the street, her heart leapt into her throat, and it was some time before she could calm down again.

  Oliver met her at the corner, saw her white, stricken face, and pulled her towards him. ‘You’re shaking,’ he said, rubbing her arms. ‘It’s all going to be all right, you’ll see.’

  She didn’t answer, but when he made to pull away, she clung on.

  It was the sign he’d been hoping for, so patiently all this time. Asta looked up at him, sometime later, after her shaking had subsided, and felt a stab of guilt. There was a look on his face as if what had happened between them meant something… something she might need to confront later. For now, selfishly, she stayed in his embrace, for now it was the only space she felt safe.

  Trine was grateful that she still had her job, but she was even more grateful for the network of people that passed through the newsroom. They couldn’t publish every story that came their way anymore but they still listened, and for now, it was like keeping an eye on a boiling pot. An editor she knew, who came to visit her boss, told her about a group of friends of his, and the alliance they were forming. ‘For when the shit hits the fan. We might have had to shut down all the land borders but there’s one thing the Germans haven’t really got a handle on just yet,’ he told her.

  ‘What’s that?’ she’d asked.

  ‘The Øresund.’

  It was the strait that connected the town of Elsinore to neighbouring Helsingborg in Sweden.

  ‘Why is that important?’ she asked.

  ‘Because it’s a way out – if and when we need it,’ he said.

  Trine had swallowed; it was the use of that ‘when’ that had made her pause.

  Later that day, Trine implored Asta, ‘You have to eat.’ She watched as her niece picked at her food. Rationing was tough, and some things were harder to get like coffee and sugar, but the Danes were probably doing the best out of everyone in Europe – which wasn’t saying all that much, as many were near starvation. Still, considering how badly off some of the other countries were, the idea of laying anything to waste seemed utterly immoral. Asta knew this in every fibre of her being but her anxiety made eating excruciating. Nausea roiled within her but she shoved the piece of bread into her mouth and swallowed the rest of the thin soup that was their dinner.

  She sighed deeply and Trine looked at her sharply. ‘What is it?’ asked Trine.

  ‘Nothing,’ lied Asta. ‘Just thinking. Oliver will be around later.’

  Her aunt’s face brightened. ‘I’m so glad you and Oliver are together,’ said Trine.

  Asta looked at the floor. Were they together? He seemed to think so, whenever he took her hand or kissed her cheek. She liked being held by him, enjoyed being in his company. She was grateful for his friendship – she just wished it didn’t mean something else to him. Something more.

  Then, somehow, another year had passed, with Asta still working at the bookstore, the daily round of soldiers in their streets, coupons, blackouts, war, air raids. By the end of that year, Asta had become almost fluent in Danish. There was never talk again of becoming a veterinarian. Just survival – living through this.

  It was a cold December night when Asta heard the knock at the door at just past ten. Her bedroom was the kitchen now. Trine had insisted that she keep sleeping in her room, but it hadn’t felt right to Asta, now that she had recovered – and she truly didn’t mind. It was close to the wood burner, and the kitchen bench with its piles of blankets was cosy.

  She slipped on one of her aunt’s old cardigans and padded to the door, switching on the light. Only to blink as a strange man stared back at her. He was tall and broad, with a beard.

  She took an involuntary step back.

  ‘I—’ he said, look
ing beyond her into the pitch-black darkness of the house.

  ‘It is you, thank God,’ he said. ‘I’ve been to two different houses…’

  She blinked. When he stepped forward under the porch light, she felt her knees turn to jelly.

  She recognised him – how could she not? Her heart started to thud with a mixture of fear and pain – she would never forget this man for as long as she lived. Kalle Blomkvist. The man who’d carried her away from her brother as he lay dying. The man who’d helped her cross the border.

  Even now – after all this time – she had an urge to almost run again.

  He could see the fear in her eyes, stark and real. He held up a hand. ‘I’m not here for me. There’s somebody you need to see.’

  Asta felt a scream build in her throat, as Kalle grabbed her hand and pulled her into the freezing cold air.

  There was a car parked just around the corner. ‘What are you doing?’ she said, struggling for breath. Was he turning her in? Should she scream?

  ‘It’s okay, Asta,’ he said, holding onto her arm tightly so she wouldn’t run away, as he dragged her towards the car. It was a black Citroën, the windows dark, but when he opened the passenger door, and she saw an SS soldier, the scream that had been building exploded. Kalle clamped a hand to her mouth, and shook his head. The scream was stifled by the sound of the waves crashing on the sea.

  The soldier sat up, very slowly. He was weak and thin, but the smile he offered was anything but feeble. ‘Eh, Küken, I knew you’d scream the place down.’

  25

  Asta flung herself at her twin, holding him tightly, as the tears wracked her thin frame. ‘You’re alive?’ she cried, over and over. ‘But how?’

  ‘I’ll tell you, I promise, but can we get inside – I feel the desperate need to take off this uniform – wearing it was the only way I could get across the border.’