‘I took you in because I thought I could help you. I thought we could help each other. And when you said what you said, about us being together, I just froze from the inside out, and I’m sorry. But I miss you. I miss cooking for you, and I miss telling you what to do, so I would like you to come home.’
Home.
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I can’t, not until I’ve finished this.’
‘Oh God, Brigit, you don’t even know what “this” is.’
She was right, of course she was, but I’d lived my whole life like this. All this stuff with Bergström and the diaries and the decrepit Nazis he kept putting down like crippled dogs was nothing more than an extension of that life. It was just moving more quickly, that’s all, and now it was bound with the feeling that it would all soon come to an end.
Chapter 52
I got up about eight, had breakfast and headed back to the library with my box of notes, pens and a ruler I had yet to use.
I’d been there, every day, for three months. I was aware that the reams of unread papers were rapidly shrinking away and I was no closer to the answer. Gruetzmacher’s life history revealed nothing I hadn’t known weeks before. He was an ambitious, handsome and gifted degenerate.
The second-from-last sheet was a cutting from Adresseavisen, dated 29th December 1967 – just a few years ago.
On Christmas Day 1967, Levi Szachmanowicz, a retired psychiatrist originally from the town of Telemark in Germany, opened the door of the Auckland maisonette where he’d lived since his retirement. Eye witnesses say that two policemen entered his home.
Two days later, Szachmanowicz’s housekeeper returned from her vacation to find the doctor’s body suspended from the ceiling, minus his skeleton which was later found in Norway. It had been cleaned and varnished, and left less than a mile away from where the village of Fólkvangr had once stood.
The location of the skeleton was the clue to the motive of such a brutal murder (the doctor would have certainly endured the most terrifying pain before dying from blood loss), and to the real identity of Doctor Szachmanowicz, later revealed as General Karl Gruetzmacher, the Butcher of Fólkvangr, who had evaded capture having fled Germany at the end of the war.
This was the work of Israeli Intelligence (we know this because they were quite happy to admit it), aided by the Norwegian Security services, and rumour has it, a privateer.
Many would say that Gruetzmacher deserved this, but here is the question we must ask ourselves: is it right for any post-war government to be so closely associated with what amounts to execution without trial?
Bergström had drawn a circle around the word privateer with a red marker pen; he certainly wasn’t modest about his work. The rest of the cutting was a short and unflattering obituary, which again told me nothing I hadn’t known before. I put the sheets in the ‘done’ pile and picked up the final bundle of papers. It was much thinner than the rest, and had been coated in some sort of clear plastic to preserve it. It was a short memo, undated and unsigned. After so many months of practice, my German was good enough to read it.
When I looked down, the pages of the memo were scattered on the oak floor. I should have gathered them, but I knew I didn’t have to. Bergström would take care of it, like he’d taken care of everything.
He’d known. He’d led me around by the nose for months, and all the time he’d known.
Chapter 53
‘We cannot take the main road back to the village,’ Jon Ohnstad said.
Silje agreed. ‘We will never get past them, not in the truck.’
‘The east road then.’
‘It is far too narrow. The ground is treacherous and it is too dark. You will drive us over the edge.’
‘The road is passable until we reach Heimdall’s Point. Then we abandon the truck and walk, though how we will find our way in this cursed darkness—’
‘I will guide you,’ said Freya. ‘I know the way.’
The journey was indeed treacherous. The sun had melted the snow, and then, hours later, when it had fallen below the horizon, the roads had frozen and were left covered in a thin layer of clear ice. But Jon Ohnstad knew the lands and his truck well, and a few hours later they arrived at the narrowing called Heimdall’s Point with him having lost control only once – an overzealous turn of the wheel that had brought them within a hair’s width of the ledge. Their hearts were still in their mouths when they abandoned the truck and followed Freya into the darkness.
After an hour, Silje could not feel her toes. She worried about Freya who still insisted in walking with her feet bare. Still, the ice under foot did not seem to faze her in the least. While Silje and her father slipped, slid and danced to remain on their feet, Freya walked with a steady assuredness, following a near-perfect straight line.
‘Are you not cold?’
‘Of course I am cold, but we will be home soon.’
Silje narrowed her eyes, trying to pierce the darkness. She wondered if she too would have a greater awareness of her place in the world if she could not rely upon her eyes to see it.
‘I can see light.’ Her father pointed at four glowing pinpricks some way in the distance.
‘That is the home of Doctor Lomen,’ said Freya. ‘We are in Fólkvangr.’
They pressed on to the doctor’s house.
His door had been left open and calling out his name showed that he was not at home. They were cold and hungry so they went inside to warm themselves by the fire he’d left burning. Silje went through all the upstairs rooms, searching the wardrobes. There would be clothes to fit all of them; the sons of Doctor Lomen had varied immensely in girth and stature.
Even though she’d spent time warming herself in front of the log fire, Silje felt a cold chill as she slipped into a thick woollen shirt and a pair of dark grey trousers that had belonged to Wilfried, the middle son. She remembered seeing him wearing the same trousers at Mr Kleppe’s funeral; the shirt she remembered from somewhere else…
Wilfried had been a quiet, measured man, and always polite in spurning her advances.
‘You will learn much from me, Wilfried Lomen,’ she’d said while unbuttoning his shirt. ‘So much more than you will learn from that strumpet you are seeing in Bergen. I do not understand why you would leave Fólkvangr when everything you could possibly desire can be found here.’
He’d folded his hands around her own and gently lifted them away from his chest. ‘I am leaving because I love her, Silje. I hope that you will understand this when you are older.’
Silje trembled in front of the fire.
‘Is all well with you, Daughter?’ Her father entered the room, tucking a sweater into an over-sized pair of trousers.
Silje nodded, but said ‘No.’
‘Hmmm.’ He cast his eyes to the ceiling. Somewhere above them, Freya was rifling through a trunk of clothes, looking for something that would fit. ‘If she makes you happy then everything else will fall into place. You will see. People said that your mother and I would never—’
‘It is not that, Father.’ She crossed her arms and shivered. ‘May I ask you a question?’
‘All right.’ Something in her manner compelled him to take his seat in another man’s armchair.
It was not a question that she’d ever thought to ask. It was not a question she’d even asked of herself. It is best done quickly then, she thought. Like pulling a tooth, or castrating a goat. ‘Why is it that I cast my favours so freely?’
Silence; then from several feet away she heard him swallow.
‘I think perhaps that is not a question a daughter should ask her father.’
‘I am asking you, nevertheless.’
He muttered something under his breath, about the mind of a woman being a place only a lunatic would dare travel.
‘Father!’
‘I am thinking!’ He rose to his feet and moved to stand beside her, next to the fire. ‘The loss of your mother affected you greatly.’
‘It affected us all.
’
‘Yes, but in different ways. Magnus involved himself in pursuits that were not to my liking. What was that thing he would do with the planks of pinewood tied to his feet?’
‘Skiing.’
‘Yes, a ridiculous carry-on. And then he wanted to be a mountaineer, climbing the sides of the mountains when we have perfectly adequate paths to the summit. Danger made him forget his pain.’
‘And you…’
‘Drank, yes. I drank much, for many years. Grette would send someone to the cottage and you and Magnus would come with a wheelbarrow to carry me home.’ He chuckled and removed his cap to scratch his head. ‘But then there is you, sweet Silje. You lost your mother and would not lose anyone else. You devoted yourself to keeping Fólkvangr as your mother left it. You have tried your best to make us happy in our little corner of the mountain. There are things you have done, Silje, things that I am sure you are not proud of, but you have done them to keep us together.’
Silje wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. ‘And after everything, I have failed.’
‘We do not know what the Germans are planning, Silje.’
‘I feel it, Father. We will lose Fólkvangr this night.’
Freya appeared in the parlour’s doorway. She wore a set of black overalls that Silje suspected had belonged to Roald, Doctor Lomen’s second eldest. Amongst his many talents Roald had been the village mechanic, and with the help of her father, had kept the family truck moving far beyond its lifetime. She wondered if her father would be able to keep it going without Roald’s patience and guidance, and then she thought of the truck, abandoned in the snow and ice. It will be fine, she told herself. Roald will watch over it.
‘I can hear you crying,’ Freya said. ‘There is no need. We will prevail.’
Jon Ohnstad opened the door, and the bitterness of the mountains blew its way through the parlour and out into the kitchen. ‘Come, we must warn the village.’
* * *
‘It sounds to me,’ Freya said, moving her head from side to side, ‘as if they already know.’ She dug her toes into the snow and reached for Silje’s hand.
Silje held onto it tightly and glanced at her father who lit his pipe with trembling fingers.
Fólkvangr was preparing for war.
They emerged cautiously from the woodland west of the village and were swept into the tumultuous swell of villagers and Resistance fighters that criss-crossed the main thoroughfare. In spite of the curfew, every streetlamp and every light in every home was lit to bring some semblance of daylight to the cold night. Order were shouted and obeyed without hesitation. Horses and carts rolled in and out of the village, bringing sandbags to narrow and fortify the main streets. Mr Kleppe’s funeral was the last time Silje had seen every villager out of their homes all at once. Then, the mood had been one of sombre celebration; this was entirely different. There was a palpable excitement in the air, a warmth, a togetherness, a bonding in loyalty and courage.
This will never do, she thought. This will never do at all.
The village women were running from door to door, gathering children and lifting them into two horse-drawn carts that followed. Silje assumed that the children were being taken to the safety of the higher mountains. Some of the women joined them, but most said their tearful goodbyes and stayed to partake in the defence of the village.
They promised their children that they would see them again, very soon.
Gunther Braithwaite ran over to them. He had a rifle slung across his shoulder and a pistol strapped to his waist. ‘You are here,’ he said. ‘We thought the Germans had taken you on the road.’
‘We came east.’ Silje watched in horror as a machine gun misfired, sending everyone around it sprawling on the ground for safety.
‘Sorry!’ Mrs Tufte called out from behind the trigger. ‘I think I have the hang of it now!’ She saw Silje and waved.
‘She insisted,’ Gunther assured them. ‘They all did.’
‘Will you please tell us what is going on?’ Silje noticed that her father was licking his lips; he was an old soldier, as were many of the village’s elders. The smell of machine grease and cordite had awoken something in him, and she did not care for it.
‘We thought Gruetzmacher was planning a night exercise for his men; he’s done it before to test their readiness. And then we received word from our people in Bergen. Every Norwegian working at the town hall was shot late this evening.’
Freya’s legs gave way; she would have fallen had she not such a hold on Silje’s arm.
‘So they are coming here.’
Gunther shook his head and hunched his shoulder to reseat the rifle. ‘We do not think so. We think they have discovered the location of our strongholds high in the mountains and are mounting an assault.’
‘At night, fighting uphill?’ It was Jon Ohnstad’s turn to shake his head. ‘That is madness!’
‘Word has it that General Gruetzmacher is not in his right mind and hasn’t been for some time.’
Carina hurried over, carrying her captured sten gun. ‘I think we should send Mrs Tufte with the children. She will most probably kill us all before the Germans do.’
‘We need all the help we can muster, Carina. Her distance vision is good, her hands are strong. We need her.’
Carina reluctantly allowed the matter to drop and turned her attentions to Silje. ‘It would appear that you were wrong about Erik Brenna.’
‘I do not know what you mean.’
‘I mean he betrayed us. He knew of our bases in the hills; he knew of the Jews hiding with us in the mountains. And now, days after his disappearance, every Norwegian at German HQ is dead and there is a sizeable ground force coming our way. I do not believe these matters are unrelated, Miss Ohnstad. Perhaps if you’d learned to keep your knees together then all this could have been—’
It was less a slap, more of a punch; it caught Carina squarely on the jaw and sent her spinning to the ground. Gunther and Jon Ohnstad restrained her as she jumped to her feet and clawed wildly at Silje, who stood quietly massaging her fist while Freya demanded to know what had happened.
‘Hush, Freya. It is nothing.’ Silje turned to Carina who was being held fast by Gunther and her father. ‘And you are not to say such things to me again.’
Carina wrenched herself free. She glared at Silje, her fingers twitching against the machine gun. ‘Look what you have brought on us, Silje Ohnstad.’ She swept her hand outwards, taking in all of Fólkvangr. ‘Just look.’
‘Go to the tavern, Carina,’ Gunther snapped. ‘Grette needs help with the ammunition.’ She sneered and opened her mouth to say something, but Gunther was having none of it. ‘That is an order!’
‘Remember my words, Silje; all this on you.’ With that, she shouldered the machine gun and made her way through the snow towards The Mottled Goat.
Before she was out of earshot, Silje rounded on Gunther. ‘Why must you make your stand here? In my village? Are you mad or simply heartless? We are not soldiers!’
‘Silje, there was no choice, and once I explained it to them—’
‘You “explained”, did you? Did you explain that Gruetzmacher’s men are the pride of Germany’s Expeditionary Force; did you explain to my friends, my family, that these men gloried themselves by butchering Poland?’
‘He told us all this and more, Silje.’ Kvist Gundersen limped towards them. He carried the ancient blunderbuss that Silje remembered hanging on the privy door behind his cottage. She wondered if it had been cleaned and serviced at least once in the last fifteen years. ‘The Jews in the mountains above us? They are Norwegians, just like us. There are hundreds of them, Silje. Old men, women, children…’
‘And we need to give them time to make their escape,’ said Gunther. ‘Six hours, that is all. The Germans will take at least two hours to get here; that leaves four.’
‘And you do not think that Gruetzmacher cannot decimate us in two.’
‘We are not planning to fight him,’ K
vist said. ‘We just need to stall him; delay him for just a few short hours.’
‘And you can do that,’ Freya said, her right ear turned towards the sound of guns being loaded. ‘You can keep him talking.’
‘She will not speak with that monster, Freya,’ said Jon Ohnstad. ‘In fact, it would be far safer if you joined the children in the mountains.’
‘Father, I am not going anywhere.’
‘Nor I.’ And Freya dug her heels into the snow to show that she meant it. ‘My place is at her side.’
Kvist Gundersen looked at Jon Ohnstad and raised an eyebrow. Jon Ohnstad shrugged, feeling little inclination to explain.
‘Is this something akin to Ada Vetlesen and Mrs Bruun?’
‘Kvist, it is none of your business.’
He tipped his cap and slid the blunderbuss across the crook of his arm. ‘I shall see you all on the field,’ he said and sauntered away.
‘He seemed happy,’ said Freya.
‘Because this is an adventure for old men,’ Silje replied.
Jon Ohnstad pointed to the cluster of cottages nearest the forest. ‘You should move a detachment beyond the village. Hide the men in the trees and be prepared to cut off the Germans’ escape route.’
Gunther said, ’It will not come to that.’
‘But you will do as I ask, nevertheless.’
Gunther nodded and barked orders to his men. Minutes later, eight Resistance fighters ran from the village and disappeared into the trees.
He is wrong, Silje thought. They are all so very wrong. She took Freya’s hand and guided her through the chaos. ‘Can you find your way from home to home?’
‘You know I can, Silje.’
‘Then we shall help gather the children.’
With so much else to do, and with more than enough of the village women taking the children to safety, Silje knew that two more hands would make little difference, especially when she saw how Freya had to walk with more care to avoid the fighters and villagers who did not have the time to be mindful of a blind Jewess in their midst.
The Quisling Orchid Page 47
