The Quisling Orchid
Page 7
When the elevator doors opened he stumbled out, landing heavily against the door opposite. He made two or three half-hearted attempts to insert his key in the lock, then just pressed his head against the door. He said he was sorry and that he was a mess, and then he said he was sorry for being a mess and embarrassing us both.
I gave him a minute to get it out of his system, the same minute Monica sometimes gave me. I said, ‘That’s enough.’ After five years running from whatever he was running from, he should have been tempered; he should have been as hard and unyielding as the metal cylinders he peddled across Norway.
I took the key from him and opened the door. He fell into the room, landing face down on the carpet; I had to step over him to reach the bathroom, and once inside I locked myself in. I removed the belt from my skirt and ran a fingernail along its seam until I found the hiding place for my protection: a razor blade wrapped in foil. Monica had given it to me for my thirteenth birthday.
If you’re trapped, she’d said, and there really is no other way out, then take this, hold it tight between your thumb and first finger. Slash down across the hand that’s holding you; that should be enough. If they don’t let go, try for the cheek, but never the throat and never the eyes. A judge won’t be sympathetic; you’re Erik Brenna’s daughter.
I think I’d asked for a tape recorder.
I splashed cold water over my face and ran my fingers through my hair; a small handful came away, stuck to my palm. I stared at it for while before dropping it in the bin. I wished I had a toothbrush.
When I left the bathroom I found him sitting on the edge of the bed. His hands were clasped behind his neck and he was staring at the carpet.
‘I’ll stay,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Thank you.’
‘We can talk, then we can fuck, then I’ll go. Understand?’
He nodded again, but still wouldn’t look at me.
Chapter 8
‘I am sorry, Silje. I cannot print this. Not this time.’ Junges Fehn handed back the bundled sheets and moved to close his front door.
Silje placed her hand against it. ‘I do not understand. You have never refused me before.’
‘This piece is different.’
‘I am a journalist,’ Silje announced grandly. ‘I am bound to speak the truth.’
‘You speak of appeasement.’ Junges replied. ‘You speak of bowing our heads while these filthy sons of dogs rape our homeland.’
Silje looked back to the gate where Erik stood obediently holding her bicycle and pretending not to hear.
‘I do not like the Germans any more than you do, but they are here and they are dangerous. I do not think we should do anything to place the village in peril.’
Lisbeth, Junges’ daughter, appeared briefly at the window; she frowned at Silje and disappeared.
‘Did she tell you not to print the newsletter?’
Junges stroked his beard and coughed.
‘Yours is the only printing press between here and Bergen. Where else can I go?’
‘That is not my concern, Silje. The things you said in The Mottled Goat, the things you say in your newsletter… Lisbeth is right; this is cowardice and I cannot condone it.’
‘She has put you up to this,’ Silje said. ‘I knew as much. She is jealous of me, you know. She is jealous because I take after my mother and she takes after hers.’
‘Have a care, Silje. This is my family you’re talking about.’
Erik rang the bicycle’s bell as the leathered, sour face of Mrs Fehn appeared at an upstairs window. She opened it and thrust her head out into the crisp, dew-laden morning. ‘You are not welcome here, Silje Ohnstad! And is that you lurking by our fence, Erik Brenna? Take your strumpet and leave.’
‘Silje, I think we should go.’ Erik smiled sheepishly at the passers-by who slowed their pace as they walked by the cottage.
‘Good morning, Mrs Fehn,’ Silje said. ‘And how are you today?’
Mrs Fehn scowled and went back inside, slamming the window after her.
‘What does she mean “strumpet”?’ Silje asked hotly.
‘What does she mean?’ Junges took her by the arm and led her away from his front door. Erik dropped the bicycle to the ground and vaulted the gate.
‘Erik, I think Mr Fehn would just like a private chat.’
Erik demanded to know what kind of ‘private chat’.
‘The kind that does not concern you. Please watch my bicycle; there is still a thief in the village.’
‘One stolen ladder will not lead us to the pit,’ Erik mumbled, but still did as he was told.
Silje wrestled her arm free and walked herself around to the side of the cottage, away from the prying eyes and Erik’s ears.
‘Why should she call me that?’
‘Because she knows, Silje,’ Junges whispered through his teeth. Silje caught his breath and realised he’d been drinking. He ran his fingers through his thin wisps of grey hair and then cracked all his knuckles, one after the other. ‘Because she has always known. She has chosen to stay silent until now. When Lisbeth told us what you said about leaving the Jews to the mercies of the Germans—’
‘I never said that!’
‘Lisbeth says that you did.’
‘Then she is lying!’
‘It does not matter.’
‘It matters to me!’
‘The point is,’ Junges said, the strain to his patience making a vein in his temple throb, ‘she knows. She knows that we were intimate. She knows that I was weak, and she now knows you did it only because you needed that old printing press in my barn. She knows that I am a pathetic excuse of a man.’ He stared at Silje, his eyes stained pink, waiting for her to say something.
And Silje, fearing the loss of her printing press, chose to say something she hoped would save it: ‘Did you tell her we were only intimate once?’
* * *
Erik was busying himself straightening the spokes on Silje’s bicycle when she appeared from behind the cottage and walked briskly towards him.
‘We’re leaving,’ she said, taking the bicycle and setting it on the road.
‘Where is Mr Fehn?’
‘In his barn, crying.’
‘Crying?’ Erik looked anxiously back towards the cottage. ‘Is he all right?’
‘I’m sure he’ll be fine. Are you coming or not?’
Erik nodded and followed her away from the cottage.
The village was uncommonly busy for the time of morning. Silje was used to having the streets to herself when she delivered her newsletter from the weekly print run, but now it seemed that the villagers turned out en masse, gathered in small huddles to discuss what had now become known as the ‘German problem’.
We should fight!
We should do no such thing!
But the British are fighting them!
The British are fighting them in other peoples’ countries. God forbid they should leave a mess on their own doorstep!
Are we to let these scum run roughshod over us then? Even the French are fighting them!
The snatches of conversation were as varied as they were passionate – passionate with an unmistakable undertone of resistance.
‘I need another printing press,’ Silje said, watching Tomas Lostrom, the baker, demonstrate how to incapacitate an enemy soldier. His audience, the dour group of ancient women who formed the Fólkvangr cake-making circle, seemed guardedly impressed.
‘Listen to him. He plans to fight the invaders, armed with the contents of his kitchen drawer. This is madness.’
Erik said nothing, though his pace had measurably slowed. He shuffled his hands in and out of his pockets and seemed to be quite unlike himself.
‘Erik, whatever is the matter? Are you still brooding over our last meeting?’
Erik shook his head, and then nodded. ‘You did not call on me. We fight and it is always me who has to come crawling back to you.’
‘I would not call it crawling—’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘You have been with him!’ Erik shouted so suddenly and so loudly that he startled Fólkvangr’s shepherds who were gathered in the shadow of The Mottled Goat.
‘The farrier. I know about you and Junges.’
‘Erik, whoever told you—’
‘I am not a fool, Silje; please do not treat me as such.’
They walked on in a most terrible silence. Erik, she thought, had run out of patience while she herself had run out of lies.
‘I needed the printing press. That is all. He was lonely and I needed the printing press.’
‘For your newsletter.’
‘Yes, for my newsletter.’
‘And your newsletter was worth your virtue.’
Silje felt herself swallow. ‘You were my first, Erik,’ she said. ‘You know that.’ And to her shame, she realised she had not run out of lies after all.
They passed the monument to her mother, and she resisted the draw to spend a few moments tending it. She looked at Erik and saw that he was waiting for her to hurry away from him, to go to the orchids and turn the soil, or remove aphids, or uproot weeds.
She stayed with him as the cobbles became the dust track that led away from the village.
‘Will you stay for breakfast?’ she asked hopefully.
His reply was brisk and sharp. ‘If I may.’
‘Of course you may.’
‘Then I accept. I would very much like to speak to your father.’
When it became clear he was not going to elaborate further, Silje asked him why. She put a lightness into her voice, anxious that Erik would not be left with the notion that she cared whether he spoke to her father or not.
‘That is between myself and Mr Ohnstad.’
‘If you insist, but he will tell me anyway.’
They carried on to the crossroads that could take them to the Ohnstad cottage, or Bergen, or to the hills and the chestnut tree where they had first made love.
‘My home is that way,’ said Silje.
Erik looked towards the hills, and perhaps by virtue of memory, Silje thought, the chestnut tree.
‘I sometimes think you care little for me, Silje.’
‘That is a terrible thing to say,’ she replied, and was alarmed to find herself wondering if it were true. The sound of a poorly-maintained engine grew steadily from the east.
‘Yes,’ Erik said, ‘indeed it is.’ He scratched his head and turned to see a cloud of dust rattling towards them. A moment later, Jon Ohnstad’s truck hove into view, and Silje couldn’t remember when she was ever so grateful to see him. He came to a halt at the crossroads.
‘Hello there, young Erik,’ Jon Ohnstad said. He reached from the cab and shook Erik’s hand. ‘I haven’t seen you at the cottage for a while. The smithing and your artistry keeping you busy, I suppose.’
‘Yes sir, amongst other things.’
Silje wondered when, if ever, she would see the fruits of Erik’s artistic labours.
‘Or has my sister been keeping you at your wits’ end?’ Magnus reached over his father to cuff Erik’s shoulder.
‘She likes to keep me… alert. Sir, I wonder if I might come to the cottage later this evening so that we might—’
‘I would enjoy nothing more, my boy; but tonight is not a good night.’
‘That’s right,’ Magnus agreed. ‘Perhaps some other time.’
And it was only then Silje noticed that both her father and brother appeared uncommonly anxious.
‘Yes,’ Jon Ohnstad said, ‘another time.’
Erik looked hurt.
‘We have errands to run,’ said Magnus. ‘Get in Silje; we may need your help.’
Silje asked, ‘What’s going on?’
‘If it’s help you need—’
Jon Ohnstad said, ’That’s quite all right. Three is plenty.’
‘More than enough,’ said Magnus. ‘Silje, get in the truck.’
Without taking her eyes from them, Silje walked around and opened the door. ‘I will come and see you later,’ she said to Erik.
‘Don’t feel you have to if—’
‘I want to. So I will see you later this evening.’ She climbed into the cab, and over Magnus to sit between him and her father.
‘What about your bike?’
‘Look after it for her,’ Jon Ohnstad said. ‘I’ll come for it this evening. Mind how you go, young man.’ He gunned the engine, leaving Erik cocooned in a cyclone of smoke and dust.
* * *
‘I am sure that one of you will tell me what is going on.’
The truck rattled and lurched from one side of the road to the other. Her father was driving like a madman, which was very unlike him.
And then there was her brother, Magnus. His hair, dirty and unkempt, his chin unshaven, and an unsightly cut near his right eye.
‘Where were you last night?’ Silje asked. ‘Where were you the night before that?’
‘We received word from Bergen,’ Jon Ohnstad said. ‘It is almost over.’
‘What are you talking about, Father? What is “almost over”.’
‘The transportation,’ Magnus replied. ‘The Jews have been turned out of their homes, rounded up and taken to the docks, or shot in the street if they resist.’
‘Ah, so we’re to bring them all back; the three of us.’
‘Do not be facetious, Daughter. It is most unbecoming.’
‘Then someone had better tell me why we are going to Bergen.’
‘We are going because I made a promise,’ Jon Ohnstad said, ‘and if I am anything then I am a man of my word.’
His mind was set; there was little point arguing further. Silje fumed and busied herself writing notes for her next editorial. She entitled it Secrets within our Family and began by saying Fólkvangr was a family and that families should have no secrets. Secrets, she wrote, bred mistrust which led to further secrets and further mistrust. She finished the note with a stern mention of the missing ladder.
The town of Bergen was greyer than she remembered, though it had been less than a month since she’d last travelled there. At first she thought it was just the unseasonably dark sky; or perhaps the sombre aspect was merely a reflection of the countless grey uniforms that stood in almost every doorway, at every corner, that could be seen riding on every tram, or in every car. If there are so many Germans here, Silje thought, then who is laying waste to the rest of Europe?
The townspeople swelled the numbers, though they moved more slowly than the invaders, and with their heads bowed. The shops and offices were still as pristine, except for the Jewish establishments that nestled between the marketplace and the law firms. Some of them had been destroyed by fire; the ones that remained had been daubed with the bright yellow stars of St David. The curtain-maker, a young man with bright blue eyes and a slow, measured smile, and whose name Silje could not recall, was lying on the ground outside his shop. There was blood on the wall above him, blood and a neat cross of bullet holes.
‘He was caught trying to hide them,’ Magnus said. ‘They will leave him there for a day as a warning.’
Her father drove slowly, as though they were part of a funeral procession. He smiled politely at the soldiers manning the checkpoints and barricades.
Magnus, to Silje’s surprise, appeared to be praying.
‘We are going to see the hat-maker, aren’t we? Mr Dorfmann and his blind daughter?’
‘Mr Dorfmann is gone.’ Jon Ohnstad drew in his lower lip and inhaled deeply.
‘What? How? How do you know this?’
Ahead of them, a German staff sergeant raised his hand.
‘Damn him,’ Magnus said.
His father brought the truck to a halt. ‘Calm yourself. We have done nothing wrong.’
‘But we are about to, aren’t we?’ said Silje.
‘That depends,’ said Jon Ohnstad, ‘on what you think is wrong.’
The sergeant approached and looked inside the cab, casting his eyes over everything inanimate and paying no attention to the occupants. ‘Where are you coming from?’
‘Fólkvangr,’ they said as one voice.
‘I have never heard of it.’ The soldier reached inside and pressed his hand against the steering wheel, sounding the horn. He walked around the front, tapping at the metalwork with the stock of his rifle. ‘And what is your business in Bergen?’ Again he reached inside the cab, this time searching inside the compartment by Silje’s knees.
‘I am delivering flowers to my friend,’ Jon Ohnstad said quickly. ‘He owns a shop on the harbour front.’
Silje was relieved she remembered him. ‘Mr Helsing. He sells clothing for the fishermen.’
But the soldier seemed uninterested. He walked to the back of the truck and threw open the tarpaulin. Silje felt her throat tighten.
He poked at the bundles of flowers, then he nodded to his colleague, who raised the gate.
‘Orchids,’ Silje called out. ‘The finest orchids in all of Norway.’
‘Silje!’ Magnus hissed.
Jon Ohnstad eased the truck forward, slowly, barely touching the pedal until they were clear of the barricade. Silje realised she was holding her breath.
They made a left turn just shy of the harbour and then a shallow right. It was only when the truck stopped in an alley behind the hat-maker’s shop that Silje let the air back into her lungs.
‘I have never been so frightened,’ she said, ‘and I have no idea why.’
Magnus and her father jumped from the vehicle without a word. She followed and saw that the hat-maker’s neighbour was waiting for them. Mr Helsing was an extraordinarily tall man who was so thin that Silje often wondered how he remained upright in the harbour breeze. He was older than her father, with strands of white hair below his crown and weathered skin that whispered of an old life spent at sea. He did not, Silje thought, look like the kind of man who enjoyed flowers.
‘You came,’ Mr Helsing said. ‘Thank God. I do not think I could prevent them from ransacking the place any longer.’