‘Start boiling some water,’ she told her father. ‘I cannot prevent the Nazis from shooting us, but at least I can do something about the smell.’
* * *
Freya remained curled up on the small bed while Silje dragged cloths, oil-sheets and the bathtub to the centre of the room. She called downstairs for the first pot of hot water. The tub was half-filled after a few minutes. Silje told her father to fetch more.
When she closed the door, the tiny dark room closed in on her; the cloying warmth, the smell of old wood and human waste. She coughed, her eyes streaming.
‘Get up,’ she snapped. ‘Take off your clothes.’
Freya did not stir.
‘I would very much like to avoid touching you,’ Silje said. ‘I would very much like to not have to slap you.’
After a few moments it became clear the Jewess was not going to move. Silje approached the bed and reached for her, and in that instant Freya became a wild thing, clawing and snarling and blindly lashing out at the world she’d so come to despise. Silje weaved between her limbs and took hold of her wrists; they felt thin and brittle in her hands and she feared that if the child did not stop thrashing she would surely break.
‘Stop it, Freya! You must stop!’
‘Silje, is everything all right in there? Do you need—?’
‘All is well, Father! And I told you to start boiling more water!’
Freya cried and spat and snarled, smearing her filth on Silje’s dress and hands.
Silje herself marvelled at how such a slight girl could be so strong. ‘I lost my mother!’ she cried. ‘She was taken from me when I was a child. And I wish I’d had someone to claw and scratch at. Well you are in good fortune, Freya.’ Silje hit her, as hard as she could. ‘Because you have me.’
Exhausted, she climbed from the bed and wiped her hands and her face with a dampened cloth. She swallowed, feeling an uncommon dryness about her mouth. ‘Now, stand up and take off your clothes.’
Again, Jon Ohnstad’s voice came from beyond the door. ‘Silje?’
‘Father, please – the water!’
She listened to him making his way down the staircase and turned to see that Freya was still trying to rise from the bed, the eruption of grief having drained the very last of her strength.
Foolish, Silje thought. I should have made her eat something.
‘Come,’ she said. ‘Let me help you.’
The girl was almost unconscious, so Silje sat her upright and raised her arms so she could take off her dress. She was thinner than she’d imagined; her bones poked out at strange angles from beneath her milk-white flesh. Silje laid her down and covered her hands with a dry cloth to peel away her undergarments. The smell collided with her, making her cough and fight to draw breath. Fearing that at any moment she might lose consciousness herself, she carried Freya to the bath, kneeling to set her down gently in the warm water. Then she ran to the other side of the room and threw open a window to take in lungfuls of the outside air.
In her weakness, Freya was little more than a rag doll. She said nothing while Silje washed her hair and her neck, and cleaned her legs and her arms.
Jon Ohnstad knocked on the door and left more pots of hot water before retreating to the safety of the kitchen. Freya turned to listen, her lips forming words without sound.
‘Speak up child; I cannot hear you,’ Silje said, lifting her right arm and scrubbing furiously along its length.
‘I said he is very kind.’
Silje stopped to look at her, watching her lifeless eyes searching for her face. ‘Yes, he is.’ She set about Freya’s neck and shoulders with the brush.
‘And you are kind too.’
‘Think nothing of it.’
‘I am sorry for hitting you.’
‘You were upset. I understand.’
‘And I am sorry about your mother.’
‘You may stop talking now.’
‘My father said you are pretty, so I think your mother was pretty too.’
‘I do not like it when people talk about my mother, especially those who did not know her. Now lean forward.’
Freya leaned forward, and Silje poured hot water over her back.
‘When they came for my father, I did nothing.’
‘There was nothing you could do.’ She lifted her hands from the water and began cleaning the soil from under Freya's fingernails.
‘I stayed under the floor and tried not to make a sound. I heard them beat him, and I heard them ask where his daughter was. He said he had sent me away. They did not believe him. They said they would cut off his fingers one by one until he told them.’
‘Please do not say anymore.’
‘Eleven screams. I heard him scream eleven times.’
‘Freya, please stop.’
‘He begged them to kill him, but he did not give me to them. And so I hid under the floor like a frightened child while they cut pieces from my father and took him away.’
‘That is enough for today. Stand up.’
With Silje’s help, Freya got to her feet and stepped from the bath.
‘Inside the camp, how will he live? How will he eat? Who will take care of him?’
‘I do not know,’ Silje said, thinking that poor Mr Dorfmann was very unlikely to reach the camp.
‘And when he returns, how will he make his hats?’ She began to weep, and Silje thought it odd that dead eyes could make living tears. She took a fresh cloth and knelt down, drying Freya’s feet and her calves and her thighs. The girl stood with her eyes pointed towards the ceiling. Silje thought her skin felt softer, more delicate than her own, though her fingertips were as hard as stone. The girl’s raven black hair and alabaster flesh imbued her with a beauty she found somewhat unearthly and cold – and yet still she was beset by envy.
Envious of an orphaned, blind Jewish girl. Perhaps it is my nature to covet anything I do not have, even if I do not truly desire it. She lost herself while staring at the hollow of Freya’s stomach. ‘I can say nothing to comfort you,’ she said hurriedly. ‘All I know is that your father gave himself to save you, and that if you die of grief then his gift will have been wasted. I will not see such a good man go to waste. Do you understand?’
Freya nodded. She reached out, her fingers lightly caressing Silje’s chin, and with her bearings discovered she pressed her lips against Silje’s cheek. ‘You are kind. Why do you hide it?’
Silje cleared her throat. ‘You seem much better now,’ she said, wiping her cheek with the heel of her hand. ‘I will bring you some soup.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Stop thanking me. It is only soup.’
‘Not just for the soup. And thank your father for me. I do not know what I can do to ever—’
‘When you have your strength then I expect you to help around the village and on the farm. There is always lots to do and that is the only payment we need.’
‘Of course. I will help as much as I can.’
‘Though I am not sure how much you can do if you cannot see.’
‘I can sew and I can cook.’
‘What the village needs is farmers and woodcutters.’
‘I can cut wood.’
‘Well, we shall see about that.’ Silje realised she was staring again, at this frail creature trembling in front of her, all sharpened bones, marbled skin and a cascade of wild black hair.
And her eyebrows, she thought. I wonder if the poor creature knows that she always seems to be scowling. A fine layer of down covered the girl’s forearms and her calves. It thickened to a dark forest below her stomach. General Gruetzmacher was wrong; if the Jews were demons of the night, then surely this one would take a form far more beguiling.
‘I will find you some clothes before you die of a chill,’ Silje said hoarsely.
‘Thank you.’
‘And please stop thanking me.’
* * *
Jon Ohnstad looked up from his orchids when he heard Silje on the stairs.
‘Ah, the enraged stamping,’ he said. ‘Passed down from your mother and down from her mother before her.’
‘She cannot stay here.’ Silje threw open the back doors and looked outside. ‘I tossed her bedding out of the window. Where is it?’
‘I think I heard the goats take it.’
Silje slammed the door shut. ‘She cannot stay here.’
‘I believe you said that.’
‘I am sorry; I did not think you heard me!’
‘She is a blind, lonely, frightened girl.’
‘I am not stupid, Father; I understand that. But she will bring the world down around us; I know it.’
‘Nonsense. Only you, Magnus and me even know she is here.’
‘The Germans know that Mr Dorfmann had a daughter. They will come looking for her.’
‘And why should they look for her in Fólkvangr? And why do you keep wiping your cheek like that?’
‘You are trying to change the subject.’ Silje snatched her hand away from her face. ‘She kissed me, if you must know. I think she may have had something on her lips. My skin itches.’
‘She kissed you?’ Jon Ohnstad raised both eyebrows and beamed. Silje couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled so freely. ‘That is wonderful!’
‘What is so wonderful about being kissed by a blind Jew?’
‘It means she likes you! You have a new friend! And lower your voice; she will hear you.’
‘I have plenty of friends; I do not need another one.’
‘You have plenty of male friends, Silje.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ The itch quickly spread from Silje’s cheek to her jaw, her forehead, behind her ears – until it seemed her entire face was burning.
‘You’re blushing; there is no need.’ He beckoned for her to sit next to him.
‘I am going to be honest with you, Silje.’
‘Must you?’
‘Women, in general, do not seem to like you very much.’
Silje remained silent for the space of a heartbeat. Her eyes narrowed and Jon Ohnstad shrank in his seat as though he’d heard the mountains suddenly breathe.
She tapped a fingernail on the table, a hollow sound that rang out like a gunshot. ‘What did you say?’
‘Not all of them,’ he added hastily, ‘but a few, especially those around the village, and perhaps some in Bergen, and maybe one or two in the outlying—’
‘Father!’
His thumbs chased each other in tight circles. ‘Anyway, women do not seem to like you very much.’
‘That is a lie!’ Silje cried, jumping to her feet. ‘Everyone likes me!’
‘I am afraid that is not entirely true.’
‘Ask Erik or Benjamin or Simen or Nils or Mikker; they will all tell you that I—’
‘All men, which is the point I am trying to make. Women do not seem to take you, and I think it is important that you have female friends. I am hoping that Freya will be the first of many.’
Silje exploded, sweeping away his instruments, books and honey jars on her way to the cottage door. Before slamming it behind her she turned to her father and said, ‘It is not my fault I’m pretty!’
The cottage shook, and Jon Ohnstad was left alone to look sadly upon the only two things Silje had not sent crashing to the floor: the orchids.
He sighed and rose to his feet to search for the cottage broom.
Chapter 10
‘You have a Jew,’ Erik said, ‘in your cottage.’
Silje thought if his eyes opened any wider they would tumble from his face. ‘Tell me you think it is madness.’
‘Well…’ He sneezed and sat upright.
‘If the Germans find her then we will all be executed.’
‘But your father made a promise.’
‘He did, but I did not.’
‘Silje,’ said Erik solemnly, ‘do not do anything stupid.’
‘I will not betray her if that’s what you’re worried about.’ She lay back in the hay and gazed at the barn ceiling. It occurred to her that she would know any barn in Fólkvangr simply by looking at the latticework that supported the roof, or the stacking of the hay bales, or by the smell of the animals that were kept there. Erik’s barn stood next to the cottage where he lived, left in his care by his parents when they took his sisters and emigrated to the Australias. It had been a sorrowful parting; his mother had said that war was coming, and that they would be safer there. She had begged Erik to come with them, but he’d refused.
‘Not without you,’ he’d said to Silje, leaving her both humbled and guilty at once.
And so the Brennas had left without their son, and made him promise that Silje would not set foot in their home while they were gone.
He often invited her, and though she longed to see the artwork he kept in his attic room, she was proud enough not to cross any threshold where she was unwelcome. The cottage still belonged to his parents, after all…
In truth, Silje did not really mind; it was the barn she loved. It was where Erik laboured as an apprentice mechanic and farrier, under the stern tutelage of Junges Fehn. The barn smelled of machine oil and fresh winter pine. It smelled of him.
She said, ‘I was not asked, or even told, that she was coming to stay with us. I live there too.’
‘Perhaps there was no time. I understand the Transportation happened quickly.’
‘Yes, I suppose.’ She ran her fingers down his back. ‘The General is a man of unfeeling efficiency. I fear for us all, should he turn his attentions to Fólkvangr.’
Erik kissed her on the cheek, the same place where Freya had kissed her a few hours earlier. The flesh there heated and tingled.
‘He has no reason to come here,’ Erik said.
‘What if he finds out about her?’ Silje wiped her face with the back of her hand.
‘No one knows she is here.’
‘You know, I know, my father knows, Magnus knows, poor Mr Dorfmann’s neighbour knows…’
‘Then perhaps,’ Erik said, gently guiding her hand away from her cheek, ‘we should resolve not to tell anyone else.’
‘I didn’t tell—’
‘You told me.’
‘Well, of course I told you. You are my—’
‘I am your what?’
‘You are my man,’ she said, firmly, finally. ‘You are my man, Erik Brenna, and if I cannot trust you with my heart and my secrets then I cannot trust anyone.’
Erik was overjoyed, so much so that he sprang upon her, sending them tumbling down into the bales of hay. Silje shrieked with delight as they rebounded from one stack and then the next, to land on the barn floor, covered in straw and sawdust.
‘You have made me the happiest man alive!’ Erik cried.
‘Erik, our clothes!’
‘We will climb up and find them,’ he said, picking her up and casting her into a haystack. He threw himself down beside her and covered them both with loose hay. ‘You do not know how long I’ve waited for you to say that.’
‘They are only words, Erik.’
‘They are words when they are said. Until they are said, they are a yearning, Silje – a painful yearning.’
‘Erik, you have me.’ She smiled and reached down between his thighs. ‘Often.’
He pushed her hand away. ‘That is not what I mean. I am talking about a commitment. I am talking about promising to spend our lives together, forsaking all others.’
There was something in the way he said ‘forsaking’ that chilled her to her marrow. She shivered and asked, ‘How long have you felt like this?’
‘Since we were children.’
‘I am being serious.’
‘So am I.’
‘Then that is a very long time.’
‘You are worth the wait.’ He leaned over her. ‘I have something to tell you. Well, something to ask you.’
Silje braced herself. Her stomach tightened and she heard her own breathing quicken. She touched her cheek, much kissed of late, and found
herself thinking of her father and her brother and of Freya, and of the enemy that had landed on Norway’s coast.
‘Erik, the war…’
‘Exactly, and that is why I need to ask you now.’
She closed her eyes, unsure of what she would say: yes; no; perhaps; there have been many others. ‘Then if you must. Ask me.’
‘I am joining the Resistance,’ he announced grandly. ‘Will you wait for me?’
Silje opened her eyes and blinked. ‘What?’
‘I am joining the Norwegian Resistance. Will you wait for me? I do not know how long I will be gone, but knowing that I have you to come back to will make the time—’
‘No,’ said Silje. ‘No you will not. I forbid it.’
‘But it is my duty. As a free man of Norway I must do what I can to repel the Nazis from—’
‘You are a man of Fólkvangr! Your duty is to this village! Your duty is to me!’
‘I am doing this for you! Do you want us to live our lives under Quisling’s thumb? Under German rule?’
‘I do not care!’ She jumped to her feet and began climbing the bales. ‘I do not care about anything else but you, my family, and this village!’
‘You cannot save Fólkvangr while the rest of Norway goes to hell!’
‘I do not know what has gotten into people of late! Stolen ladders, stray Jews… My father behaves like he has been gifted a second daughter, and Magnus… I have not seen Magnus for days. And I know he has not returned to the seminary; his bible is still at the cottage. And now… this… you!’
When Silje reached the top of the bales she searched for her clothes. She looked down at Erik and saw that he wouldn’t look back; instead he turned away from her, scratching nervously at his chest.
‘But you have seen him, haven’t you? It is the Resistance. He’s joined the Resistance and he has convinced you to go with him.’
‘Would you marry a coward?’
‘No sooner than I would marry a dead man,’ she said, putting on her undergarments, ‘which is what you will be, Erik Brenna!’
‘You are being unreasonable.’
‘And you are being stupid,’ she replied, fighting her way into her dress. ‘Do you think you are being any less brave by staying here, and looking after the village? Is it less courageous to help look after the people you are supposed to love?’ She pushed her feet into her sandals and jumped down into the haystack, sliding down and through it to land on her feet. ‘You will not do this, Erik Brenna. I will not allow—’
The Quisling Orchid Page 9
