This Shining Land

by Rosalind Laker

  “You’ve been a great help to my mother, I’ve been told. I’m most grateful.”

  Karen gave a self-deprecating little shrug of her shoulders. “I’ve done no more than anyone else would have done. Getting your father back on his feet has been team-work, and if we can reverse the process of his ebbing strength with some new medicine the doctor is trying out on him, then we’ll have nothing more to worry about as far as his health is concerned.”

  If asked what her position was in the household, Karen would have replied that she was the maid, but there was nothing servile in the title. She was a farmer’s daughter in her own right, and in coming to give domestic aid to the Ryen household she was following an old custom by which farm girls left their own homes to work elsewhere, the times for arrival and departure being April and October, unless they were snapped up into marriage in the meantime, a most likely event. The tradition had evolved in past centuries to prevent intermarriage in remote valleys, and until the enemy invasion it had still been carried on by those girls with no interest in a city career and who wanted a man of the land for a husband. German restrictions on travel had finally broken the custom, and Karen had only been granted a permit to leave her own home and reside at Ryen Farm through the special reason of there being illness in the house.

  Gina, ushering everybody into places at the supper table, had come as a maid herself to Ryen Farm. It was not as large in those days as the farm on which she had been born, and she had been a trifle superior towards it and to Edvard, the eldest son who was to inherit the property eventually.

  Gina had had no intention of remaining longer than the obligatory six months, but she had not counted on the passion of the large, bearlike man who had made her lose her head for the first and only time in her life, making her believe she was in love with him. It had not taken long for her to realise the marriage had been a mistake. Intellectually they had nothing in common and the physical side of their marriage became no more than a duty to her. She suffered much from the biting tongue of her mother-in-law until she became mistress of the farmhouse herself. By that time Rolf had been born and Erik was on the way.

  Johanna went through habit to the place at the table that had been hers since childhood. Rolf did the same, sitting on the left hand side of Edvard, who was at the head of the table. Gina sat at the other end, and Karen, her status being that of family, took a seat beside Johanna. It was of necessity a simple supper. There was black bread to eat, for the farmers had to account for their grain and received no concessions, being rationed to rough flour with its strange ingredients, including seaweed, with everyone else. There was a little homemade butter, milk to drink, and a dishful of cold veal and lamb. Although the amount of meat was sparse in comparison with the days before the invasion, it was a marvellous sight for Johanna. Meat had disappeared from the shops throughout the country, and it was a long time since she had eaten anything except fish as a main course. As for butter, she could not remember when she had last tasted it. The lack of sugar on the table went without comment, for it was rarely available.

  “After the lambing,” Rolf told Johanna, “we hid some of the flock up in the summer byre and we have cattle there too. Our neighbours are doing the same. It’s not much we can keep back, but at least not everything we produce is going into German stomachs. When somebody slaughters secretly, we receive a joint and so do the other farms. Then when it’s our turn, we reciprocate.”

  “Suppose the Germans should hear the cattle lowing?”

  “No chance. The byre is out of earshot from the valley and in any case the waterfall’s roar masks everything. Even if the Germans suspected something, I doubt if they would care to investigate except en masse and we’d have plenty of warning of that sort of approach—time to hide the animals higher up. The soldiers are scared of going into the mountains. There they’re completely vulnerable. A local marksman could pick them off in turn and their bodies would never be found.”

  “Then the high terrain is still ours? One is free to come and go there?”

  “Except where there are hairpin roads or tracks wide enough for them to drive their armoured vehicles in some strength. Luckily for us, there’s nowhere around here like that.”

  She found it inspiring to know she could wander the mountain slopes above her home with no fear of meeting the enemy in her path.

  Throughout the rest of the meal there was plenty of conversation. Johanna noticed that Rolf and Karen were on good terms, quick to laugh together and liking each other, but there was no more to it than that. She believed her brother had never really recovered from being turned down by a girl he had been in love with since his schooldays. Unlike Erik, he was not transient in his affairs.

  Next morning she wrote to Steffen’s aunt to ask when she might call to see her. Ålesund was in the allotted radius of locally permitted travel and there would be no problem about getting there. She put the letter in the mail-box at the side of the road and then went for a long walk, covering old tracks through the woods and across the bridge that spanned the river where the salmon would come leaping up on Midsummer Eve as promptly as if they had a calendar somewhere in the green depths of the oceans from which they came. Leaning her arms on the timber top-rail, she looked down into the clear and rushing water, able to glimpse the darting of speckled trout between the boulders. She could discern the small, pale-tinted stones similar to those that Steffen had gathered from a lake-shore to make into the necklace that she treasured. A yearning filled her for his mouth, his arms and his body. When would they meet again? Surely he would get in touch with her as soon as it was safe. Perhaps his aunt would be able to give her some news of him.

  Restlessly she moved away from the bridge and continued her walk. The air was sweetly scented by the lilies-of-the-valley that covered the floor of the forest and clung to the banks of every brook and stream that flashed back the sunlight in a gushing down to join the river’s flow. She climbed a mountain path to a point where she could sit on a rocky ledge near the thundering waterfall and look down at the farmhouse and the spread of the valleys with their sharp new greens, and ploughed land dark and rich as plum cake where sowing had taken place.

  In the clear air she could see neighbours working around the other farmsteads. Last night not a light had shown in any of the windows due to the black-out regulations, and she had missed the twinkling clusters that previously had spread down to join those of the hamlet at the inlet’s edge. Her sense of restlessness increased, the very tranquility of the scene making her want to take some immediate active part against the dark threat that lay over everybody there. The passive waiting that Rolf had advised for the time being was not for her. Again she hoped it would not be too long before one of Leif’s contacts made himself known with some resistance work, however small the task, that she might do.

  Johanna received a prompt reply from Steffen’s aunt. Frøken Astrid Larsen wrote with an invitation to lunch. Gina made up a package of some homemade beef sausages and a small block of butter for Johanna to take, a gift that would be more welcome than gold. A neighbour gave her a lift into Ålesund in his horse-drawn trap. She alighted near the towering rock in the centre of the town where hundreds of sea gulls nested, their screeching and wheeling overhead a part of the everyday scene in the salty, busy port. Johanna had always liked Ålesund. It was built on three islands linked by bridges, the buildings so crammed together that the pastel-coloured warehouses rose up sheer from the sea water which lapped the banks at every turn in a street, the masts of tied-up fishing boats as thick as fences through which to view the passing sea traffic.

  Once, in the past, she had been there when the annual cry had gone up across the harbour and through the town. The herrings are coming! Then hundreds of single diesel engines had started up with their distinctive tonk-tonk sound, and the whole fleet of fishing boats had put to sea with nets for the great shoals that turned the water for miles around into molten silver. Now there was a three-mile fishing limit and any boat t
hat ventured beyond was liable to be shot at by the patrolling Luftwaffe or vessels keeping guard. It was the route that escapees took from the west coast, and the number of German soldiers at the quayside and on duty throughout the town showed how alert a vigil was kept as a preventative measure. On walls and posts everywhere was the now more than familiar warning: Any person attempting to leave the country will be shot. Many people had been caught and executed, mostly young men, often still in their teens. There was a bereaved family in Johanna’s own valley.

  Astrid Larsen’s house occupied a choice site on a wooded slope that looked out across the islands and harbour to the open sea. A winding road led up to it through a residential area where many fine houses stood amid flower gardens and blossoming orchards. Johanna picked it out before she reached it from the description that Frøken Larsen had written her. It was a sizeable mansion, its paintwork a pale amber with filigreed white woodwork that reached into simplified dragon heads at the four corners of the roof, giving it the graceful look of a Viking ship.

  When she reached the side lane that led to it from the winding road she came to a halt, hesitating as to what she should do next, for half a dozen German vehicles were parked outside the gate in a naturally formed forecourt bordered by bushes and trees. At first she thought it was an inspection raid; then she noticed there were at least two large staff cars of the type used by high-ranking Gestapo and the Wehrmacht. The military drivers of these and the other cars lounged about, chatting together and smoking cigarettes. Then she saw an elderly, distinguished-looking woman with softly waved white hair beckoning to her from the gate. Johanna went to her, ignoring the whistles and remarks of the German drivers.

  “Take no notice of them,” Astrid Larsen said firmly, ushering her through the gate. “This way. Follow me.”

  She did not take Johanna up to the main entrance, out of which a lieutenant was emerging, pulling on his gloves and talking over his shoulder to someone inside the hallway. Instead they went to the side of the long, two-storied building and entered by a verandah door into a large and airy room. Astrid stood back to appraise Johanna in a friendly manner.

  “Welcome to the small section of my home in which I’m still permitted to reside.”

  “Thank you.” Johanna could not hold back the question that was uppermost in her mind. “Do you have any news of Steffen?”

  The woman put a finger to her lips immediately and indicated that danger lurked behind some double doors which were padlocked on her side. Her whisper came close to Johanna’s ear. “Yes, he’s safe and well. No more now, please.” Then in a normal voice she added, “Take off your jacket. I’ll hang it up for you.”

  Johanna obeyed, finding it hard to contain her impatient longing to question further. It did seem as if Astrid Larsen might have had contact with Steffen.

  She handed over the package she had brought with her. “This is a gift from my mother. Living on a farm means there is a little to spare sometimes.”

  It was gratefully accepted. “I must apologise for my haste in bringing you into the house, but I wanted to get you away from those soldiers outside as quickly as possible. Not many of my visitors these days are as young and pretty as you, and I was afraid of the reception you would get.”

  From the direction of the padlocked double doors there came some distinctive, although muffled sounds. Astrid noticed Johanna’s startled glance and gave a restrained sigh. “I thought you might have guessed, but obviously you haven’t. That part of the house has become an officers’ brothel. I think my home was selected because of the parking facilities outside.” A look of weary forbearance showed in her eyes. “I’m afraid it gets very noisy on the other side of those doors at times.”

  Johanna was momentarily at a loss for words. She knew of the German brothel ships that went from harbour to harbour along the fjords and up the long coast to serve the widely distributed troops, but she had not known before that probably the best houses in many places were being taken over for this usage. That this should have happened to this quiet, dignified woman seemed particularly cruel. “I suppose I should have guessed from some of the remarks that the drivers made. It was naïve of me not to have realised at once.”

  “So you understand German? So do I, but I pretend otherwise. It saves being drawn into conversation when the girls shout at me from the windows. They think me a doddery old woman and that suits my purpose.”

  “How long has your home been commandeered?”

  “Four months. It came as a great shock to me. I was given an hour’s notice in which to remove whatever I needed into this part of the house. I have this room, which was used for parties when Steffen was growing up, and there’s a small pantry across the hallway that I’ve made into a kitchenette. A stairway gives me access to a bedroom and bathroom above. So here I stay, an outcast in my own property.”

  “Is the rest of the house just as you left it?”

  “Yes. I keep remembering pieces of china and certain books and other things I wished I’d brought in here, but I was in an upset state when I was being turned out and now I couldn’t bear to go back in there with the Germans in possession.” She became brisk in her attitude as if shaking off a distress she did not want to show. “Now I’m sure you would like to freshen up after your journey. I’ll take your mother’s kind gift into the kitchen and put it in a cool place.”

  Upstairs, on the way to the bathroom, Johanna saw that access from the main part of the house had been solidly boarded up and Astrid had drawn a chest of drawers across it on her side. Downstairs again, Johanna wandered on her own around the large and gracious room. Its cool greens with white seemed a fitting setting for Steffen’s aunt, who was an elegant woman, her casual touch of a floating scarf giving a style that Johanna recognised as an inborn knowledge of how to dress, even though her dress and hair-style belonged to a previous decade. The house must have been furnished when Astrid was still youngish, for everything on view in this section was of the art nouveau period. The silver objects included a pair of magnificent candelabra, each one a draped female figure holding aloft the curving stems of lilies in which the candle-holders were cradled. Most spectacular of all were three paintings by Edvard Munch that dominated one wall. Two were sunset scenes radiating in reds and oranges the heat of a fading day, while the third was a sensitive portrait of a girl in a white frock, who was unmistakably a young Astrid with the longish nose, wide mouth and dark eyes shadowed by shining tawny hair. Johanna drew in her breath, turning as the woman came back into the room.

  “You know Munch!”

  “I knew him. A long time ago …”

  “Was he truly as handsome as I’ve always heard?”

  A smile twitched Astrid’s lined lips. “He was reputed to be the finest-looking man in all Scandinavia, and rightly so. He was more handsome than you could imagine possible.”

  “It’s a marvellous painting of you.”

  “He painted it under the apple trees at his beloved red house at Åsgårdstrand. I was spending the summer there by the fjord with friends. My father would never have allowed me to go to that house if he had known. Munch had made himself notorious with women and the local residents peeped behind their lace curtains when he went by. For me it was the happiest summer of my life.” Her scarf wafted as she went to touch the signature in the corner of one of the sunset paintings. “He would never have parted with any one of my three paintings nowadays. Did you know that he will not let any of his work out of his possession any more? He lives like a recluse near Oslo, painting his life away. I’m fortunate to have these to remind me of the time when I knew him well.”

  Johanna, looking at the portraits painted in a long ago summer, wondered about the young, impressionable girl and her relationship with the older, experienced artist. Was that why Astrid had never married? Had a brief summer love made everything else pale before it? Maybe Munch should not have given her the paintings. They had kept the spell alive. Instinctively she folded her fingers around the necklac
e she wore. It was as evocative for her as any painting, perhaps more now than at any other time being as she was in Steffen’s childhood home.

  “Tell me about Steffen, Frøken Larsen. It must have disrupted your life to have a young boy come to live here.”

  Astrid laughed merrily. “It did indeed. But once he had recovered from his initial bereavement he was my brother all over again—boisterous, good-humoured and, in time, sports-crazy. He and his mother had stayed with me many times when he was very young, so it was not as strange as it might have been for him to make his home with me while his father was at sea. Then, when my brother died on a voyage, I had to become both mother and father to him and I did my best to follow his parents’ wishes with regard to his English education and so forth.” She went to a rosewood cabinet and took out a large photograph album. “I’m sure you’d like to look through these while I make final preparations for lunch.”

  Johanna sat down and took the album onto her lap. Turning the pages, she followed Steffen from boyhood through adolescence and into young manhood. Girls figured prominently in many of the later snapshots and during his educational days; whether in England or in Norway, the inevitable pretty female company was usually present. Astrid must have thought about this afterwards, for during lunch she made a point of emphasising the fact that she had never known her nephew to be so keen that she and a girl he knew should become friends.

  “You may call me Astrid,” she invited as if to completely weigh the balance. “Steffen has done so since he became grown-up. I must say it makes me feel younger.” Then she glanced at the gold locket-watch she wore on a chain. “It’s time. He will be here now.”

  “Here?” In spite of her joyful astonishment Johanna kept her voice low.

  Vigorously Astrid rose to her feet. “There’s a small doorway in the cupboard under the stairs that you’ll have to get through. You’ll find yourself in a cellar that is completely detached from the larger one that runs under the rest of the house. It belonged to a farm building that once stood at right angles to this site and the Germans completely overlooked it when they inspected the place. Steffen used to make it a pirates’ cave and a Viking den and so forth in his boyhood. It really is an ideal hideout.”