The Quisling Orchid

by Dominic Ossiah

  ‘You are alone?’

  Clearly.

  ‘You didn’t bring her with you? The woman with the eyebrows? Is she with you?’ He stepped out of the way without waiting for an answer. ‘You’d better come in.’

  I eased carefully past him, seeing there was a gelatinous bulge under his shirt. He saw me looking at it and crossed his arms over his chest. It was a colostomy bag. So at some point during his life, my newfound friend had made the acquaintance of Jesper Bergström.

  A short hallway took us through to his living room, a large hexagon with a beige carpet. There was an angle of four couches against the furthest walls and a wooden television cabinet set opposite. A collection of smooth oak and marble tables were arranged, apparently at random, in the centre of the room, while every other wall had been turned into a bookcase that stretched from floor to ceiling. There were no photographs or pictures or mirrors. There was a drinks cabinet from where he poured himself a brandy from a crystal decanter.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’

  I shook my head and thought about Mr Klein lying dead in his small, grime-laden flat. I wondered why some war criminals lived better than others.

  ‘You wish to ask me two questions.’ He sipped at the glass and closed his eyes.

  More games. I was so tired of these people and their games. But at least the first question was obvious. ‘Who are you?’

  He opened his eyes and smiled. ‘Who am I now, or who was I then?’

  ‘Whichever will get me out of here soonest.’

  He was speechless for a moment; then, keen to maintain his air of self-importance, he threw back his head and laughed. ‘You have something of a fire in you. I did not expect that.’

  He placed the glass on the edge of the cabinet and smoothed down his shirt before making his announcement. ‘I am Doctor Altman Gust.’ He looked at me as though expecting me to swoon. Instead, I raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

  ‘I see that you have not been properly briefed,’ he said, visibly deflated. ‘I was one of the Reich’s foremost scientists. I am surprised you have not heard of me.’

  I apologised.

  ‘My work is still used in the treatment of schizophrenia and multiple personality disorders in Europe and the United States. In fact, the research I carried out during—’

  ‘You’re another Mengler,’ I said. ‘I get it.’

  ‘Mengler was a hack. I am a psychiatrist and a student of the neurosciences. And now your second question.’

  As easy as the first. ‘Why hasn’t Mr Bergström killed you?’

  His face sank and he swallowed so loudly I could hear it from across the room. So that wasn’t the right question.

  ‘You do not wish to know about Iscariot?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I replied. ‘I need to know how to stay alive. He’s been dismembering Nazis for years, but he didn’t kill Klein—’

  ‘Who is Klein?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter; he’s gone. But when he was alive he bought time by selling out war criminals like yourself.’

  Gust nodded ruefully. ‘Then you know all you need to know.’ He poured himself another drink, his hands shaking so violently he couldn’t put back the stopper. He placed it on cabinet. ‘Bergström is a practical man. He can be reasoned with, bargained with once he has taken his pound of flesh.’ He looked down at the bulge under his shirt. His fingers danced towards it, then he remembered he had company. ‘If you can withstand the interrogation, if you can beg when your mouth is full of your own blood, then you may be able to prove you have some future value to him.’

  I saw the tears in his eyes as he moved the bureau away from the wall. He ripped the soft wood from the rear of the cabinet and felt his way inside the frame. ‘Do you want to know how to be useful to him, Fräulein? Betray everything and everyone you hold dear. Ah, here we are.’ He had a large envelope in his hand. It had been white many years ago, but age and handling had turned it a pale yellow. ‘This is my final bargaining chip. This is the last thing I have that kept me alive. It is Iscariot.’

  He placed the envelope in my hands. I couldn’t close my fingers to hold onto it, so it just stayed there resting on my palms.

  ‘Then you should keep it,’ I said.

  He walked back to the bottle and refilled his glass. He poured a second one for me. ‘You will drink with me, Fräulein.’

  I said that I would.

  ‘There is no point keeping it. Cleaver knows I have nothing left to offer him.’

  I sipped at the glass, felt the liquid burning the back of my throat. I didn’t like the taste; I didn’t like the burning. I took another sip. ‘He wants me to betray my father.’

  Gust nodded. ‘And will you?’

  ‘He says he’ll kill me if I don’t.’

  ‘That is not what I asked.’

  I looked at the envelope and asked what was in it.

  ‘A secret,’ he said.

  ‘And why does he want me to have it?’

  ‘That I cannot answer.’

  I opened the envelope, and he walked back to one of his uncomfortable-looking chairs.

  Documents, all stamped klassifiziert and bearing the Nazi eagle. There were pictures of women and children, photographed face-on and again in profile. The text was so dense it gave me a headache just looking at it. Worse, it was all in German.

  ‘You should go now.’ Gust had arranged himself so he was facing the window, away from the apartment door. ‘He will be here soon.’

  ‘Bergström is still in Norway.’

  ‘Oh child, you understand so little. Go. You will not wish to bear witness to what comes next.’

  ‘I’ll speak to him. I’ll tell him you cooperated.’

  ‘This is the agreement, Fräulein. I live as long as I am useful. But you should not concern yourself. When I first told him of Iscariot he thought I was lying. I showed him some of those documents and he left to speak to his friends at MOSSAD. He returned two days later and told me that I was to say nothing about this to anyone. He said in return for this information I would live for two more years and would be granted a relatively painless death.’

  I wanted to tell him that pain, by its very nature, is relative. What is pain to a man who was forced to eat his own flesh and blood to survive the camps? No, Gust was going to die and he would die horribly.

  ‘I should be going.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, you really should.’

  I left him alone, sitting with his eyes pointing at the sky. I took the stairs down to the lobby and was not surprised to find Bergström waiting for me outside. He was leaning against a plain white Mercedes van, and he was wearing blue overalls. There were two other men with him who were unloading plastic crates.

  ‘Do you have it?’ Bergström said.

  I showed him the envelope. The two men carried the crates inside the apartment building without so much as a glance in my direction.

  ‘Good. Read it through—’

  ‘It’s in German.’

  ‘Read it through and it will explain everything.’

  ‘How can I do that? I can barely read Norwegian.’

  ‘You know what a library is, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t understand why I have to do all this. Gust says you’ve seen the document; you know what’s in it. Why do you need me?’

  He looked up and squinted at the window where I knew Gust was sitting, staring out. ‘I have not told you before. I will not tell you now. Just keep your side of the agreement. Deliver your father and you can carry on running around Norway, indulging your mother’s persecution complex. Now, I have work to do. Contact me on this number when you have your answer.’ He handed me a slip of paper.

  ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I’m coming back to the apartment with you.’

  He narrowed his eyes; I couldn’t tell if it was rage or admiration. ‘And why on earth would you want to do that?’

  ‘I don’t want him to s
uffer.’

  ‘And you think that I will be less thorough in my work in front of an audience.’

  That was what I was thinking, yes. He took my wrist, deforming the bone in his grip. ‘Come then, Miss Fossen,’ he said, half-pulling, half-dragging me up the steps. ‘Let me show you what little difference you make.’

  Chapter 44

  ‘Fair maiden?’ Magnus made an unpleasant sound in his throat, part way between a laugh and a sneer. ‘You are many things, Dear Sister, but a “fair maiden” is not one of them.’

  Though Silje rejoiced that her twin had been somewhat restored to her, at times such as these she wished he’d been returned less his acerbity. Freya had cast her spell over him, and Magnus had left his room and stepped back into his old life. Still, he rarely smiled and seldom spoke, and some days she hated how hurtful he could be.

  She snatched the newsletter from him and gave it to Gunther, who sat to her left. Freya, who was sewing yet another eyepatch for Magnus, sat to her right.

  ‘Ignore him,’ Gunther said. ‘You have been a hero this day, Silje.’

  ‘Save your praise,’ Silje said, blushing. ‘Just do not ask me to do it again.’

  Gunther had come to the cottage in the dead of darkness three nights before. An urgent transmission had been sent to members of the local resistance group without a key to decipher it.

  ‘Another newsletter,’ Silje had said, grinding her fists against her eyes. ‘Gunther, we sent out the last one but a week ago! The General will never agree to it!’

  ‘You must make him, Silje; it is vitally important that this message goes out.’

  ‘And how will I make him do that?’

  Gunther had looked to the earth and scuffed his boot in the pebbles.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I would not ask if it were not important.’ He’d looked around him, peering into the blackness. ‘It concerns the Quisling operation. We need to—’

  ‘I do not need to know. I do not wish to know. Just give me the key and I will do what I can.’

  And so that night, she’d assembled another newsletter, made from articles and stories and recipes she’d previously deigned unfit for publication. She’d written her own wedding announcement, weaving the message key into the text. She’d written a courteous reminder of Quisling’s visit, and persuaded her father to take her to Bergen so she could speak to General Gruetzmacher before he carried out his morning inspection of the garrison…

  ‘I did wonder,’ said Magnus, belching on his ale, ‘how you managed to convince him.’

  ‘You should not ask such things,’ Freya said, always so forgiving, even when he was cruel to her.

  ‘He can ask if he wishes, Freya.’ Silje turned to him and stared savagely into his single eye. ‘You wish to know if I opened my legs for him, yes?’

  Magnus grumbled something under his breath and looked down into his ale.

  ‘If you want to know, Magnus, then have the courage to ask me, instead of making cowardly attacks from across the table.’

  He kept his eye down, stirring his tankard with his finger.

  ‘He did not mean it.’ Freya placed a hand on his and then her other hand atop Silje’s.

  ‘But you want to know too, don’t you?’

  ‘Why would I possibly want to—?’

  ‘I did not have to do anything,’ Silje said. ‘He simply took the papers and said he’d have the newsletter ready for distribution by the afternoon.’

  ‘He wanted… nothing?’ Gunther looked at her cautiously. ‘That does seem strange.’

  ‘He is a strange man; insane, in fact.’

  ‘What was so important that it was worth risking my sister’s virtue,’ Magnus said without looking up.

  Cruelty, again, thought Silje.

  ‘It does not matter.’

  ‘It does, clearly,’ Magnus said.

  Gunther said, ‘Let it drop, Magnus.’

  But Magnus would not. He leaned back in his chair. ‘You will not say because you do not trust me.’

  ‘Now you are being ridiculous.’

  ‘You used to share operational imperatives with me. You used to seek my aid in planning raids, sabotaging supply routes—’

  ‘Keep your voice down, damn you!’

  ‘And now, you do not seem to trust any of us,’ Magnus flashed a self-satisfied grin and then downed his ale. ‘Or is it just me. You think I broke under torture, do you not?’

  ‘Any man would. It is nothing to be ashamed of.’

  ‘I did not break!’ His fist slammed against the table and Freya jumped to her feet in fright.

  Silje gently took her arm and whispered words to soothe her while Magnus and Gunther rose from their seats to hurl insults and accusations at each other. Freya was shaking, her bare feet tapping nervously against the stone floor. If they had been alone then Silje would have taken her hand and placed it against her breast so she could feel her heart and set her world right from the love she found there.

  But they were not alone, so Silje whispered to her before turning away and shouting at Magnus and Gunther. ‘Enough! If this is how men of war carry themselves then it is small wonder Norway was taken so easily!’

  Both men fell silent, and after a moment given for pride’s sake, took their seats. Gunther apologised. Magnus did not.

  ‘Perhaps you should tell us,’ Freya said.

  Gunther looked at all three of them. Perhaps he is seeing betrayal in all of us, Silje thought.

  ‘This goes no further than this table.’

  ‘Which goes without saying,’ Magnus replied evenly. He joined Silje and Freya in leaning towards Gunther.

  ‘Our training camp near Trondheim has been compromised. Many men were lost and the Germans took the coded messages, but we are confident they will be unable to decipher them. So that we may continue to prepare for the Quisling operation, we need to move our forces somewhere close, somewhere safe.’

  Silje waited patiently for him to finish. Before he could utter another word, however, Freya cried, ‘No! No! You cannot bring them here!’

  Silje tried to calm her while Grette ushered the tavern regulars towards the door.

  ‘In future,’ Grette said, ‘you should conduct your business in the church; no one goes there.’

  Silje apologised and thanked her.

  ‘Fólkvangr would never betray you,’ Grette said to Gunther. ‘But we are a small village of old people; do not bring this war down on us.’

  ‘I will not; we will not. The kidnapping will be carried out when he has left Bergen.’

  ‘Stop telling us things we do not wish to know!’

  ‘I am simply reassuring you. The soldiers will live in the hills above the village, though they will come here for supplies and any medical treatment that Doctor Lomen can provide. After we have taken the Puppet then they will disperse without returning to Fólkvangr. Nothing can go wrong.’

  Silje sighed. ‘How I wish you had not said that.’

  ‘The decision has been made. We have no choice.’

  ‘And what about Silje?’ Freya said. ‘What will happen to Silje when they find out she was a part of this?’

  ‘I do not understand,’ Gunther said – and Silje would have sworn to any god that she’d seen his trigger finger twitch. ‘Why would they find out?’

  ‘Tell him!’

  Gunther and Magnus looked to Silje.

  ‘Go on!’

  ‘Yes, I think perhaps you should tell us, Silje,’ said Gunther. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘The Germans,’ she whispered, hoping that no one would hear her.

  ‘What of them,’ Gunther said impatiently.

  ‘They draw closer. They know how the code works, and they suspect the key is being transmitted in the open. Berlin has sent its best mathematicians to crack the key.’

  ‘See!’ Freya cried. ‘It is only a matter of time. I said this was a dangerous plan from the beginning!’

  The little colour Gunther possessed had drain
ed from his cheeks. ‘How long have you known this?’

  ‘For three nights.’

  ‘Jesus Christ! The General told you this himself! And you did not think to tell me!’

  ‘They do not know The Orchid is carrying the key. It is the last place they will look. It is a good plan; it always has been.’

  Freya was trying to stare at her. ‘My God, you’re enjoying this.’

  ‘If I’d told you then you would cease the operation.’

  ‘Damn right I would!’

  ‘But now it is too late.’

  Gunther fumed.

  ‘They will kill you,’ said Magnus, stirring his ale. ‘But first they will torture you, within an inch of your life. Then they will patch you up, let you rest, and then after a day they will start again.’ His voice was cold, and broken. ‘It is time for you to stop seeking attention, Sister, and think of what this will do to the village.’

  ‘Do you not grow tired, Magnus?’ Silje said. ‘Do you not grow weary of our friends the Germans taking our priests and our teachers, our very freedom? Do you not grow sick of the Nazis turning our entire country into a Berlin ghetto?’ She dried her eyes with her sleeve. ‘Well I am tired. I am tired of these animals taking us into dark rooms and doing as they see fit.’

  The others protested as loudly and as sharply as they could. She rebuked each argument as it was hurled at her, and during the discourse, Gunther remained silent.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Magnus said to him. ‘Don’t just sit there! Tell her!’

  Silje said, ‘He won’t.’

  Gunther hunched down even further.

  ‘He won’t speak because he has already made his decision: we shall fight on. Isn’t that right, Gunther?’

  Gunther finally found the courage to look at her, look at all of them. ’If there was another way…’

  The others could say nothing.

  ‘I am going home to rest for a while.’ Silje took a mouthful of Magnus’s ale, and found that as heartbroken and powerless as she felt, she still did not care much for the taste. ‘I would speak with you in private, Gunther,’ she said, and left The Mottled Goat without waiting to see if he’d follow.