She was surprised to hear her own name, and I was stunned I’d made such a stupid mistake. She stared at me, and then came closer. ‘I’ve seen you around before, haven’t I.’
I swallowed and said that I’d come round to pick up some papers for the museum.
‘Yes, I thought I recognised you.’
My mind flashed back to Kirsten’s office, asking for Mr Klein’s address, then raced forward to a police officer asking me why I needed the address if I’d been to his home before.
My fingerprints were all over the apartment. I should have just called the police the moment I found him. What the fuck was I thinking?
I’d been thinking like Monica. I’d been thinking of a pretend life on the run, the imagined need to cover my tracks. I cursed her and thrust my shoulder against the door.
Mrs Einhorn cried, ‘What the hell are you doing?’
I threw myself at the door again; the wood split around the hinges.
‘I’m going to call the police!’
‘I very much wish you would, Mrs Einhorn.’ Seemed the only way to go was forward.
On the fifth try, the door sprang free. I ran inside and screamed as loudly as I could. Mrs Einhorn followed me inside. ‘Oh.’
‘Get an ambulance!’
‘I don’t think that’s going to help him, dear.’
I picked up the phone and made the call while Mrs Einhorn busied herself looking around the apartment. The woman on the line calmly took the details, stopping every other question to ask me if I was all right. When she asked me my name, I hesitated.
‘I’m going to need your name,’ she said emphatically.
‘Brigit,’ I said. ‘Brigit Fossen.’
The line went silent. Behind me, Mrs Einhorn was taking large steps across the living room.
The officer came back on the line. ‘I’m sorry but are you the Brigit Fossen?’
‘I suppose.’
Mrs Einhorn said the apartment was bigger than her own.
‘Would you stay on the line for me, Miss Fossen?’
I said I would, and imagined she was gathering a small choir to sing Deutschland erwache into the mouthpiece. Instead, a calm, almost kindly male voice came back.
‘Miss Fossen?’
‘Speaking.’
Another round of silence; I could hear voices in the background, so I assumed the choir had arrived. I was thinking like my mother, an expectation that I’d only ever see the worst in people. Funny that the longer we were apart, the more like her I became.
‘Are you still there, Miss Fossen?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’ve been trying to trace you for quite some time.’
I gripped the handset tightly, closed my eyes. They couldn’t know. If they’d known I was here then they’d know about Klein, and they wouldn’t just leave him here. It was something else.
‘We’ll send a car for you,’ the police officer said. ‘I’m afraid it’s your mother.’
Chapter 24
By late morning, Silje felt so bruised and shaken by her encounters with Marit and Lisbeth she relinquished all notion of speaking to Freya that day. If the fates had turned Fólkvangr against her then she could not bear to think how Freya would answer her plea to come home.
And so, later that morning, Silje returned to the cottage, greeted Magnus and her father somewhat curtly, and then retired to her room. She lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the goats in the field and the sparrows chattering in the trees outside her window. It was more than an hour before a clear thought passed through her head, untarnished by images of war and memories of past misdeeds. Her thoughts turned to Freya so she pushed her hands under her pillow.
Magnus knocked on the door and entered at the same time. He smiled and placed a mug of honey and milk on her bedside stand.
‘You do not have to tell me what is wrong,’ he said. ‘Just tell me if I can help.’
She smiled back and said all was well. ‘I have had something of an unpleasant morning, that is all.’
‘I have those,’ he replied. ‘Usually after an evening spent with Father in The Mottled Goat.’ He waited for her to laugh, and when she did not, he shrugged and scratched at the whiskers on his neck.
‘What of your friend, the Englander?’
Magnus gasped and then slammed the door to her room. He skipped over the bed and pulled the windows shut. ‘How did you know?’
‘Does it matter? I trust he will not return.’
‘He will not! But you must not breathe a word of this to anyone.’
‘Why does all the village think I am a collaborator? I would sooner cut out my tongue than betray you!’
Her brother’s silence clawed at her soul.
‘You are supposed to say “Yes, Silje, my dear sweet sister, I know that you would endure any torture the Nazis devised to protect Fólkvangr.”’
‘I know you would.’
‘Then why did you not say it!’
Magnus had no reply. Or rather, his reply would make things a thousand times worse.
‘It is Resistance business, Silje,’ he said quietly. ‘Not everything that goes on in this village is your concern.’ He stroked her cheek, kissed her, and made his way to the door.
‘Magnus.’
‘Yes?’
‘I think I’m in love with someone else.’
She barely had time to blink before he was sitting attentively on the edge of her bed. ‘What? You mean someone other than Erik?’
‘Obviously.’
‘My God, Silje! Who?’
‘Why is that important?’
‘Is it Junges Fehn? Please God, not him! He is far too… married!’
‘It is not Junges.’
‘Then it is someone younger.’ Magnus stroked at his beard and pursed his lips in concentration. ‘But most of the younger men you have been with are fighting with the Resistance…’
‘Magnus!’
‘Olaf! It is Olaf, the miller’s son!’
‘Does it really matter who it is?’
‘No,’ he conceded. ‘I suppose not. Have you told Erik?’
‘I have only just realised this myself.’
‘Then you must tell him; it would be a betrayal not to.’
Betrayal, Silje thought. That word… ‘I will tell him. I will tell him as soon as I know how.’
‘“How” does not matter, Silje. Any way you tell him will destroy him, so do it quickly. Make the cut clean.’ He rose to his feet and shook his head. ‘I sometimes wonder why Freya worships you the way she does.’
‘Do you not think I feel bad enough?’
‘I think you treat this village like your own personal doll house, and we are just mannequins that you shape and twist as you please.’
‘You should leave now.’
‘Tell him, Silje. Soon.’
‘Just get out.’
* * *
Staff Sergeant Krause arrived at three that very same afternoon. She stopped the car at the cottage gate, climbed out and opened the rear door. She stood to attention and waited.
‘She is here,’ Jon Ohnstad said, peering through the window. ‘Are you sure you do not want me to come with you?’
Silje slipped into her best footwear: the white dress shoes that had belonged to her mother. ‘You were not invited.’
‘Nevertheless, I am your father, so I am sure the General will have no objection if—’
Silje kissed him on the cheek. ‘Stay here, do not smoke your pipe in the kitchen and keep Magnus out of trouble. I will be back soon. Now, how do I look?’ She fanned the hem of her blue dress, and her father smiled.
‘Like your mother.’
‘You always say that.’
‘Because you will always look like your mother. But you should be careful, Silje. This General Gruetzmacher is—’
‘Nazi scum, but I think I have charmed him. Perhaps I remind him of his wife.’
‘Yes,’ said Jon Ohnstad, with the barest hint of irony in
his voice. ‘That must be it.’
She left the cottage, smiling at her father one last time before closing the door.
Sergeant Krause clicked her heels together. The last time Silje had seen her she was wearing the standard uniform of a Reich soldier. Today, she was dressed in a black skirt suit with a red armband. There were tiny silver skulls pinned to her lapels. ‘Fräulein.’ She swept her hand towards the back seat of the car. Silje climbed in and pulled the door shut before the Sergeant had the chance to do it for her.
It would be a long journey so as soon as they set off, Silje started counting trees: firs, pines, the rare and beautiful mountain oaks… The winter snows had gone and the mountains had reclaimed vibrant green as their colour. Silje wondered how Freya could stand not being able to see any of this. The sun hung low between the mountain peaks, bathing the forest with a gentle warmth. She would feel the warmth, Silje thought, but still…
‘Are you enjoying the Rostbratwurst?’
‘What?’
‘The recipe I sent,’ said the Sergeant. ‘Have you tried it again since we last met?’
‘Not as yet.’ Silje vowed that she never would.
‘You said that you enjoyed it before.’
She remember that she had. ‘I have been very busy, and meat is very scarce.’
‘Of course, yes. The Resistance makes life difficult for all of us.’
Silje fumed.
The Sergeant coughed and cleared her throat. ‘You and Lieutenant Klein are no longer courting.’
‘What did you say?’
‘You and the Lieutenant. You have parted ways, yes?’
‘Forgive me, Sergeant, but I do not think that is any of your business.’
‘Forgive me, Fräulein. You are quite right.’
Silje scowled to herself and carried on counting the trees.
‘It is just that the Lieutenant has not been himself of late, and I wondered if that was the reason. I thought that perhaps you and he had—’
‘Are you fond of Lieutenant Klein, Sergeant?’
The back of Sergeant Krause’s neck turned bright red.
‘If you wish to make your feelings known to him then you have my blessing.’
‘I do not wish to interfere if—’
‘We are no longer together, Sergeant. I am to marry another.’
The Sergeant, uncharmingly, breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Then I shall make myself known to him this very night. It is why I have worn my dress uniform.’
‘It is very nice, very… dark.’
‘I am older than he is. Do you think it matters?’
‘No.’
‘And I am not very pretty, and I do not have a good shape, and he is a lieutenant. Perhaps I should wait. I have applied for officer’s training, but I do not know if I will be accepted.’ She slowed down and leaned closer to the windscreen. ‘How do you people find your way around without road signs?’
‘We built this land,’ Silje replied curtly. ‘We know where everything is.’
‘Of course. Sometimes I forget that I am the intruder here.’
It was the first time Silje had heard a German admit to that which the whole of Norway knew to be true: that this was not a rescue, or aid from a distant neighbour. It was an invasion, breathtaking in its size and brutal in its execution. She looked closely at the back of the Sergeant’s neck. Her hair was pulled up and tied beneath her cap, but stray hairs fell across her collar, below which her flesh curiously changed hue.
‘You have beautiful hair,’ said Silje. She actually thought it rather coarse, even more so than Freya’s.
The Sergeant blushed again. ‘Thank you, Fräulein.’
‘Why do you think that you will not be accepted into officer’s training?’
‘There are those who think that I would be unsuitable.’
‘Because you are part-Jewish?’
Krause sighed. ‘On my grandmother’s side. Is it so obvious?’
‘You seek to lighten the tone of your skin. It would seem a lot of trouble for a soldier to go to without good reason. It is unfortunate.’
‘In many ways.’ The Sergeant took one hand from the wheel to adjust her collar.
‘Do you believe what your masters tell you about the Jews?’
Krause was silent for a moment. ‘The alternative to not believing is too terrible to think about.’
‘I would like to know what you think… I am sorry, I have never asked your name.’
‘Ingeborge,’ the Sergeant said. ‘Though my friends call me Inge.’ She tapped the steering wheel and looked at Silje through the mirror. ‘That is not true; I have no friends. Everyone calls me Krause.’
‘I would like to know what you really think of the Jews, Inge.’
Staff Sergeant Krause spoke slowly. ‘I think they are people. I think they are a good people and they are a bad people, and they are a people who are both. But until one man said otherwise, they were Germans, just like me, or Norwegians, just like you. They worship differently, but how does this make them a plague?’
* * *
The staff car drew into Bergen’s main square, and Silje witnessed the true extent of the General’s desire to keep the peace: gallows erected from the finest Norwegian oak; gallows from which eight corpses hung and collided gently in the harbour breeze.
Five men, two women, and a boy who could not have been more than ten years old.
Silje demanded that Krause stop the car.
‘Three Jews,’ said the Sergeant. ‘We found them hiding in one of the fishing boats. The fishermen were attempting to take them out to one of the British ships stationed just beyond our waters.’
‘And the others?’ whispered Silje.
‘The fishermen, their wives and one of their sons.’
Three soldiers stood guard at the gallows, presumably, Silje thought, to prevent the corpses from being taken away.
‘He murdered a child,’ Silje said.
‘He does what he must to maintain order.’
‘And this sits well with you, does it?’
‘Do not ask me any more questions, Fräu Ohnstad.’
And so they drove on in silence, through the grey streets where hardly a Norwegian could be seen. The town had become a garrison, Germans infesting its every square yard. Along the main thoroughfare that faced the harbour, where Mr Dorfmann once ran the finest millinery in all of Bergen, a series of wooden posts had been driven through the ground. The wall behind the post was crumbling under the weight of bullets.
‘For the firing squad,’ Krause said.
‘I know what it’s for.’ Silje sat back and closed her eyes.
Another left turn brought the staff car to Bergen’s centre, and the town hall which served as forward area command for the German forces. Their flags hung from its lateral poles, and the iron cross festooned every arch and every window. The invaders had erected barricades and posted a heavy machine gun at each corner, and when she looked up Silje could see the shadow cast by an anti-aircraft battery mounted on the roof.
A paratrooper raised the barrier, allowing the car into the main courtyard. Krause stopped the car near the steps, got out and opened Silje’s door.
‘I will return for you at six o’clock.’
Silje nodded and made her way up the staircase to the main doors. The guards either side snapped to attention; she almost leapt out of her own skin. She wondered if she should knock, and while she wondered, one of the guards reached over and rapped firmly on the oak door.
The door opened, and a man Silje recognised as the town hall curator stepped out. He looked as grey as the rest of Bergen; there were deep red circles below his eyes, and Silje imagined that he must spend all his nights in tears. She did not want to imagine the things he’d seen.
‘Miss Ohnstad,’ he said. ‘General Gruetzmacher is expecting you. Please come inside.’
Silje did as she was told, following him along a wide hallway carpeted in blood red. The walls were lined with large portr
aits of the Nazi High Command, Hitler featuring most prominently. The pictures had been hung close to the high ceiling to prevent defacement. Lower down, and contained in much smaller frames, were portraits of Norway’s Nasjonal Samling.
‘Who is that?’ Silje pointed to a larger portrait that hung at the same height as Hitler, though its subject did not appear to be wearing a uniform.
‘Josef Terboven,’ the curator replied without looking. ‘Soon to be appointed Reichskommissar of Norway.’
Silje wasn’t sure what the title meant, but it sounded grand, much more important than leader of the despised fascist party. ‘Then Quisling is no longer our leader?’
‘Quisling has failed to bend the Norwegian knee, and Hitler is displeased. As editor-in-chief of the Germans’ most popular regional newsletter, I would have expected you to know this.’
‘I pick the recipes and judge the contests,’ Silje said. ‘The politics and the war fall to the General’s staff.’
‘Our people call it The Quisling Orchid.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Perhaps it should be renamed The Terboven Orchid,’ he turned his head and smiled thinly at her, ‘to keep with the times.’
A long flight of stairs arced to the left and then levelled out to another hallway. Silje thought she was being taken to a huge pair of doors at the end of the hall; instead, the curator veered right.
‘In here.’ He opened the door and she followed him inside.
The General stood behind a chair placed at one end of a dining table dwarfed by the size and majesty of the room.
‘Fräu Ohnstad.’
He’d chosen to leave the dining hall untouched; there were no German flags or portraits of high-ranking Nazis. The pale cream walls were decorated with fine tapestries, and the Norwegian flag hung from pikes mounted high at each corner. The floor was marble, darker than the walls and polished to a muted sheen that swallowed the light reflected from the chandeliers. Silje clamped her mouth shut when she realised it was hanging open. The General didn’t seem to mind; indeed, he seemed pleased that she was so impressed.
He pulled out her chair. ‘You must be hungry after your journey. Please, sit.’
Silje walked over, conscious of the scraping noise her mother’s shoes were making on the marble floor. Her father was always telling her to lift her feet.
The Quisling Orchid Page 23
