And so Bergström and Mr Gust stood by the picture window and smoked cigarettes, while Bergström’s men carefully laid out polythene sheeting on the floor. Mr Gust talked about the war, the German economy and his hope for reunification.
‘It will happen,’ he said.
‘Never.’ Bergstrom blew smoke into the air. ‘There is too much to forgive.’
‘Not everyone is like you, Bergström.’
One of Bergström’s men dropped a suitcase. It landed heavily on one corner and sprang open, spilling polished medical instruments and butcher’s tools onto the floor. All of it looked brand new.
‘You take care of your tools, Herr Bergström.’ Gust drew on his cigarette; his hands were shaking. So were mine. He looked at his watch as though he were about to miss an appointment somewhere else. ‘You said it would be quick. You promised. Why do you need all that?’
Bergström glanced at the open case, at the shining metal that skidded and slid across the floor, even as his men tried to gather it. He opened his mouth but one of them spoke first.
‘It is not up to him. He had no right to make you such a promise.’
‘You will hold your tongue, Yosef, or so help me I will cut it from your throat.’
Yosef, unfazed, carried on. ‘The Israeli government has decreed that you must suffer for your crimes. A quick death is not in your future, Herr Gust.’ To make his point, he flicked the blade of a hacksaw with his finger. The foil sang, and that was my cue to vomit as loudly and violently as I could.
‘The floor,’ Gust cried. ‘God in heaven, the floor!’ He moved from his spot and Bergström restrained him by placing his hand on his chest. Gust looked at him, enraged.
‘You were running towards her,’ Bergström said, ‘but you were looking at the door.’
Gust began to shake, to weep; the smell of my own vomit made me retch again.
‘Please,’ he cried. ‘I beg of you; do not do this! I have done everything you asked!’
‘It is not up to him.’ Yosef made his way to the bathroom, carrying four large plastic containers labelled as corrosives.
A glass of water appeared at my shoulder. I looked up; it was the other agent holding it. He was much younger and had yet to say a word.
‘First time out?’ I ventured, taking the glass from him.
He moved away from me without replying. He knelt down at the edge of the polythene, arranging tools at one corner – scalpels, hand-drills – before shuffling to the next and doing the same again – hacksaws, chisels and a sledgehammer. ‘For his elbows and his knees,’ he said when he saw me staring.
‘This isn’t right. You know it isn’t right.’
‘What he did to my countrymen isn’t right,’ the young agent said, but I could see his heart wasn’t in it.
Gust was on his knees now, clutching the legs of Bergström’s overalls as though his life depended on it. It didn’t of course; he was going to die either way; the only question was how long it would take and how painful it would be.
‘Get up,’ said Bergström. ‘The woman can see you! Be a man, for Christ’s sake!’
Gust stayed precisely where he was, his tear-stained eyes following the young agent as he turned the floor of the apartment into a compact abattoir.
I could hear the shower running.
Gust was practically screaming now, and I wondered why no one else living in the building could hear him. Perhaps they were used to MOSSAD agents roaming murderously all over Dresden. Gust held on even tighter; Bergström struck him, and tried to pull away, the leg of his overalls riding up and revealing a holster strapped just above his ankle.
‘I have more,’ Gust pleaded. ‘I have more names! I can give you—’
Bergström shouted ‘You are embarrassing yourself!’ and took another half-step back, his exposed ankle facing me.
‘What is going on out there?’ Yosef called out from the bathroom. Bergström turned his head and stared at me. What the fuck are you waiting for?
I glanced at the agent; he was still arranging Bergström’s instruments, so I lunged from my seat, slipped in my own vomit and skidded across the floor, scrambling to reach Bergström before the agent saw what I was doing. Bergström cried out in surprise as I ripped the gun from its holster and aimed it at Gust’s head. Gust thanked me as I pulled the trigger – nothing happened.
‘For the love of God! Can’t you do anything right?’ Bergström snatched the gun from me, released the safety and shot Gust in the face. His aim was off, even I could tell, but then he had the other agent to worry about who was already reaching for his gun. The second shot was better, hitting the younger man between the eyes, and then he turned the gun towards the bathroom and fired. Yosef ran out, pistol held in front of him, and into the bullet, the impact flipping him so he landed on his stomach. A second later I heard a thud as the first agent landed on the polythene.
Bergström looked angrily at me and I thought I was next. Instead he handed me the gun and said, ‘Hit me.’
‘What?’
‘Across the face, below the temple but above the cheek. Watch you don’t crack the eye socket.’
‘I’m not going to hit you! You’ll kill me!’
‘I will kill you if you don’t. Now get on with it; we don’t have all—’
I struck him as hard as I could, and he spun round, crashing to the floor. When he got to his feet, he had a tooth from Gust’s shattered jawbone lodged in his cheek.
‘Now, once more,’ he said picking out the tooth and putting it in his pocket, ‘but this time with feeling.’
The second blow was weaker than the first. By this time, he’d given up on me ever doing anything right. He snatched back the gun and told me to leave.
‘The police have only agreed to half an hour for the cleanup.’ He looked around and made a quick account of the blood-spattered floor and the pulp staining the walls. ‘This will take far longer.’
‘I’ll help you.’
‘You’ll just get in the way,’ he said, moving Gust’s body away from the skirting boards. ‘But your offer is much appreciated.’ He muttered something about the flooring. ‘Get yourself cleaned up. Use the shower, don’t go near the bath.’
I did as I was told, spending only a minute in the shower; the fumes from the bath made my eyes stream, so much so that I could barely see to find the towel. I found a set of overalls neatly folded on the floor in front of the bathroom door; I put them on and went back into the living room where Bergström was rolling Yosef’s corpse in polythene.
‘What will you tell MOSSAD?’
‘I will tell them that the operation went to shit. Gust grabbed my gun, hit me and shot the other two agents before I could stop him.’ He tapped thoughtfully on his lower lip. ‘I should probably shoot myself in the leg or something.’
‘Will they believe you?’
‘I hope so. Now you need to leave.’
I headed for the door, trying not to run.
He called after me. ‘When I gave you the gun, Miss Fossen, why didn’t you shoot me?’
I stood there, trembling, lost, disconnected, and after a while he smiled and said, ‘Ah, you just didn’t think of it.’
Chapter 48
The Ohnstad family did not receive many guests, and Silje wondered if it was their distance from the village – though it was not more than a mile or so – or if perhaps it was her. The women in the village were wary of her. Perhaps the men did not come because their wives would not let them.
Well, they were here now.
She looked up, and found herself crushed beneath the intensity of her father’s eyes.
‘Please do not look at me like that,’ she whispered.
Freya squeezed her hand.
Gunther Braithwaite cleared his throat. ‘Well, we appear to have something of a situation.’ It was not much, but enough to break the silence.
‘That is what you call it?’ growled Magnus.
Gunther had brought three of his lieuten
ants with him. Ebenhard Holm and Barthold Rønning had grown up in the village but had left some years ago. They were a few years older than Silje. She’d heard that Barthold was a school teacher in Oslo; she had no notion of how Ebenhard made his living, though by the looks of him, bare-knuckle boxer would have been her first guess.
The third was Carina, a woman in her forties with greying hair and eyes of steel that fixed Silje with an unwavering look of mistrust. She did not smile, not that Silje expected her to. She hardly spoke, for which Silje was thankful. She held her machine gun in her arms in much the same way a mother would hold an infant.
‘And so you have not seen him for six days.’
Silje shook her head. ‘Not since that day he…’ She looked at Freya, wishing Freya could look back. If you could see, Silje thought, then I would not feel so alone. ‘Not since the day he saw us.’
‘In the hills,’ Magnus added unnecessarily.
Gunther sipped his tea and scratched his head.
Ebenhard said, ‘Did he seem angry?’
‘He’d just discovered the love of his life entangled with another woman,’ Jon Ohnstad rumbled. ‘So yes, I would venture that he would “seem angry”.’
‘I think the question that Ebenhard is asking,’ said Carina, ‘is how angry did he seem.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean.’ Silje's neck ached from hanging her head.
‘I think you do,’ said Gunther, ‘otherwise you would not have contacted me. Erik is missing, beside himself with grief. You are worried what he might do.’
‘I thought you might help me find him.’
‘The Resistance? You thought the Resistance would help find your spurned—’
‘That is enough, Magnus,’ Jon Ohnstad said. He did not seem angry to Silje, just disappointed, which was a thousand times worse.
Her brother wasn’t done with her. ‘So what is this between you and her? What do you call that?’
‘We had not thought to name it,’ said Freya.
‘You will be silent until you are spoken to. How could you do something like this? You are a Jew, for Christ’s sake; you of all people must know how ungodly this is.’
Silje told him he must not speak to her like that.
‘A woman, and another woman… together.’ Carina shook her head. ‘I have heard of such things but I never thought I’d see it with my own eyes.’
‘It is fairly common in Oslo,’ said Barthold.
Carina snorted. ‘Well, that is Oslo.’
‘None of this is important,’ said Gunther. ‘The question is, what will he do?’
‘What Gunther is trying to say,’ said Magnus wearily, ‘is will Erik betray us?’
‘No! Why would he do that?’
‘To exact revenge on you both.’ Magnus leaned back in his chair, giving Silje the impression he was enjoying this perhaps more than he should. ‘He could tell the Germans about her. They could come for her, and then they will shoot us for harbouring her. They could put the whole village to the gun for—’
‘Magnus, stop! He would not do such a thing. I have hurt him terribly, but he would not risk the lives of his friends just to hurt me in return.’
Magnus looked unconvinced. ‘We should abandon the operation.’
‘I told you it was wrong to trust these hill folk,’ Carina said. ‘The war does not touch them so how they can hope to understand the need for secrecy?’
Silje narrowed her eyes. Hill folk.
‘We have spent too long planning this, Magnus. We cannot just give up because we suspect that—’
‘If he tells the Germans that Freya is here then they will come and search the whole mountain for other Jews. That is what they did in Poland and in France. They will find them, and our camps, our training grounds, our munitions stores…’
Freya, who had remained obediently silent, decided to speak up. ‘I will turn myself over to them.’
‘Out of the question,’ said Silje’s father. ‘No one will be given to those animals, not while I draw breath.’
‘Take me to Bergen. I will surrender myself far from the village and then they will have no reason to come here.’
‘And what if they torture you, Freya?’ said Magnus. ‘What if they cut the flesh from your bones to find out where other Jews are hiding? Do you think you can hold your tongue until your body finally succumbs to the pain?’
‘You held on,’ she said quietly.
‘I knew my family would come for me.’
‘We should find him,’ said Carina, ‘and end him if we have to.’
‘If we are going to fight this war by murdering our own then we should surrender to the Nazis now.’
Carina replied, ‘We are already killing our own, Mr Ohnstad, when we must.’
‘Not us, not in Fólkvangr.’ And Jon Ohnstad fixed her with such a look that she shrank away from him, in spite of herself.
They sat in silence for what seemed like forever to Silje. She thought that the plan should be abandoned, but if that was how she felt then it meant that she didn’t trust Erik, that she had hurt him enough that he would hurt the village in return.
And still her father could not bring himself to look at her, and because she do could nothing about Erik, that became her most immediate concern. ‘I did not want you to find out like this.’
Jon Ohnstad said nothing.
‘Sir, this was not Silje’s doing. It was I who—’
‘You do not need to defend her, Freya. I know her better than I know myself. I am well aware who instigated this… this… whatever this is.’
Freya held Silje’s hand so tightly she felt the bones of her fingers creak.
‘Is there anything I have done in my life that you approve of?’ Silje asked.
‘Please do not pretend my approval means anything to you.’
‘Perhaps we should return to the matter at hand,’ said Barthold.
‘There is nothing more to discuss,’ said Jon Ohnstad. ‘The Germans could be on their way while we sit here talking. You must remove your men from the village and the hills and wait for another opportunity to present itself.’
Carina said, ‘Again, do you have any idea how long we have—?’
‘Do you have any idea how many children there are in this village?’
Gunther tapped his fingertips against the table. His brow furrowed and Silje wondered if this was a decision she would be prepared to make, to balance the lives contained in a small village against the effort to drive the Nazis from their homeland. He looked at her, hoping to find the answer in her eyes. ‘I should contact my superiors.’
‘There is no time,’ Ebenhard said. ‘By the time the English have drunk their tea, smoked their cigars and had their cosy little fireside chats, the opportunity will be lost.’
‘We have a chance to deliver a crippling blow to our enemy,’ Barthold agreed. ‘And with respect, Gunther, this is not your country. The decision should be ours.’
‘And with respect, Barthold, this is not your village – not anymore.’ Silje would have risen to her feet but she feared Freya would not let go of her hand. ‘The Germans,’ she said. ‘I have known their kind. I know the depravity that festers in their black souls. If you do this then the consequences will be worse than you can possibly imagine. But you know this, don’t you, Gunther?’
Gunther looked to his compatriots before nodding slowly.
‘And yet you and your masters, thousands of miles away, believe it is worth the sacrifice.’
Again, a nod.
‘Then why stop now?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘There is a chance that Erik has already told the Germans about Freya. There is a chance that they are already preparing to sweep the mountain for Jews. There is a chance that we will win this war, and a chance that we will all die tomorrow. We cannot run from whatever will be. All we can do is meet it and pray that we are strong enough to break our way through.’
‘You cannot speak for the village, Si
lje,’ said Magnus.
‘There is not one person in this room, no, on this mountain, who loves Fólkvangr more than I. Without this village I am nothing.’
‘You love Fólkvangr so much you would put her neck on the block for these strangers?’
‘I would risk everything if it meant Freya could live free.’
Jon Ohnstad blinked rapidly and then simply stared at her. ‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘I never thought I’d live to see the day.’
‘You are being ridiculous,’ Carina said. ‘What possible good can come of this farce of a coupling?’
‘You will grow tired of her, Silje,’ Magnus said, with only sadness, and no desire to inflict pain. ‘You will tire of her as you grew tired of Erik.’
‘I was never in love with Erik. I wished that I were, more than anything. And I would have married him because he would make a fine husband for any woman.’
‘Any woman except you,’ her father said.
‘Erik made me feel safe and whole. Freya makes me feel…’ And it struck Silje that in all this time she’d never looked inside herself, gazed at the changes Freya had wrought in her soul.
‘Standing on the top of the mountain,’ said Freya, ‘with the wind pressing at your back and your toes dangling over the edge. Every moment I am with her, I want to cry with joy simply because I’m alive. I want to sing whenever I hear her voice. When I am alone all I think about is her, just the scent of her, the feeling of her skin next to mine, the touch of her—’
Silje gently squeezed her hand. ‘I think we have made our point.’
Jon Ohnstad gazed at them, but his eyes did not appear unkind, more bewildered.
‘Two women, together.’ Carina shook her head, determined not to recover from it. ‘I don’t even know if there is a name for that.’
‘We told you,’ Freya said. ‘It is called being in love.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She laughed joylessly. ‘Find me when you are both in the twilight of your lives, and then tell me what love is.’
Silje wanted to point out that when Freya and she were in their twilight years, Carina herself would be long dead and buried. It was Freya’s turn to squeeze Silje’s hand, pressing her to hold her tongue.
The Quisling Orchid Page 44
