This Shining Land

by Rosalind Laker

  She answered him easily. “I went home because I was needed there. Now that a German doctor has diagnosed his complaint correctly, Father is in better health and things have changed. Help is well organised in the house and on the land, which leaves me free to take up my secretarial career again.”

  “I heard Edvard was showing signs of improvement when I telephoned Gina one day to inquire after him. I always expected you would go back to Oslo as soon as you had the chance.”

  “I’d like to, later on. At the present time the city is too unsettled.”

  He let her remark pass without comment, aware she was referring to the wave after wave of arrests sweeping through the capital. The activities of the Gestapo sickened him. He preferred to ignore the happenings they brought about. “Then we’d better get down to brass tacks and discuss the job I’m offering. What’s your shorthand speed these days?”

  When the routine questions had been duly asked and answered, he told her what the office hours were and explained how he liked the place run, concluding with an introduction to his filing system. He was impressed by her knowledge of German and could see that she would deal with everything in a competent manner, for it was echoed already in her attitude towards him during the business part of the interview, showing she did not intend to take advantage of the fact that they were distant cousins and bore the same surname. She was by far the best qualified of the interviewees, quite apart from being the best looker, and her attractive appearance would add prestige to his office. There only remained one matter to settle.

  “Now, about your brothers,” he said heavily, moving his bulk to one side of his chair and playing his fingers on one of the chair-arms.

  She realised the moment had come when everything was hanging in the balance, and tightened her hands in her lap. “Yes?”

  “They would have been an embarrassment to me if anyone in this place had chosen to link our joint surnames. As it happened, nobody did. I prefer matters to remain that way. Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Then you have no objection to my wish to safeguard completely my position on all counts, however slight the connection?”

  “None at all. I’d be here to do a job to the best of my ability. That’s all that would matter to me.”

  He was satisfied. It was easy to guess that she had private loyalties that were as strong as ever, but she had made it clear that her work would be all-important to her and would be divorced from anything else in her life. It was good enough for him. He was aware that many whom he recruited into work for the Germans did so through the necessity of supporting their families and not through choice, but the end result was the same. So it would be with his new secretary and her eagerness to resume her career. He had decided to appoint her, able to visualise many a mundane task delegated into her capable hands.

  “If you should be appointed, would you continue to live at the farm?” He had a good reason for finding out about that. The kernel of an idea was forming at the back of his mind, although it was too early to make any reference to it.

  “No, I have an elderly friend in Ålesund, Astrid Larsen, who would be willing to let me have a room and live with her.”

  “That would be an excellent arrangement.” When his own selfish requirements were not to the fore he could be a generous man and he wanted to show Johanna she would lose nothing by her business association with him. “I’m sure you and your parents have been anxious about your brothers. I’ve heard nothing more about Erik since his disappearance, but I can tell you what has happened to Rolf.”

  “Where is he?” There was a catch in her throat. “We’ve heard nothing. All we know is that he’s in a camp somewhere.”

  Taking a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles up from the desk, he put them on as he went across to one of the filing cabinets and pulled out a drawer. Taking out a sheaf clipped together, he glanced down the names until he found what he was looking for. “He was taken to Grini after his arrest.”

  “Grini?” She whitened. It was the concentration camp that struck dread into everyone, for it had become notorious as being the worst camp in the whole country.

  “Since then he’s been moved to a labour camp near Kirkenes and there he’ll stay until the teachers in prison, and out of it, break down this united front against joining the minister-president’s Teachers’ Nazi Association.”

  “They won’t do that.”

  “I’m inclined to agree with you.” He replaced the sheaf of papers and closed the drawer.

  “Why do you have that list?”

  “I get copies in a case like this one where a large number of prisoners have been formed into a new labour force. Even though I have nothing to do with the military movement of compulsory labour, I’m kept informed about them.” Linking his hands behind his back, he regarded her from over the top of his spectacles from where he stood. “Do you still want to work for me?”

  Her head jerked up. “More than ever. I think I’d go mad if I had to return to domestic chores after getting back into an office today.”

  “Good. Then the job is yours. Can you start on Monday?”

  A rush of relief was followed by a heady exultancy. “Yes, Tom. I’ll be here.”

  He saw her to the door and then went to the window to watch her go down the cobbled street. The sentries turned their heads to follow her with their gaze. Not even those stockings could disguise her beautiful legs. The idea that had come into his mind earlier returned to formulate itself a little more.

  As Johanna walked through the town bound for the winding road that would take her up to Astrid’s house where she would deliver the good news, she did not notice a heavily bearded fisherman turn aside casually to study some deep-sea tackle displayed in a shop window. He watched her reflection go past on the opposite side of the street. Erik, who had landed a fellow countryman, a secret agent, in a neighbouring cove the night before from his “Shetland Bus,” wondered where his sister had been and where she was going. She looked well, which was a good sign. Although he had made many trips across the North Sea, this was his first experience of seeing a member of his own family and having to avoid recognition. It had happened to others serving with him, some seeing their own wives and children and still having to turn away. The rules laid down were strict. Too many lives were involved and too much was at stake for the slightest risk to be taken. Whenever someone had erred, invariably the results had been tragic, often not because of anybody’s wish, only through a family’s natural jubilation at a reunion that could not be kept secret in a tight-knit community and frequently reaching German ears. Reprisals against local people were savage. The fishing village of Telavågen near Bergen had been wiped off the map after two Resistance fighters had been found sheltering there. The villagers saw their homes burned down, their fishing boats sunk and their cattle confiscated before they themselves were carted off, all the men over sixteen to concentration camps in Germany, all the women and children to labour camps in Norway. If it had been Karen passing by instead of Johanna, he would still have kept his face averted.

  When evening came he would be sailing back to the Shetlands with a secret agent going to consult with the Norwegian Government in London and two people forced to flee the Nazis. This was his last trip until autumn came again, for the return of everlasting daylight to the night hours made it virtually impossible to cross without being sighted by enemy ships or planes. He ended his apparent scrutiny of the window’s display when his sister’s reflection vanished from the glass.

  In the far north the snow retreated daily from the Kirkenes area to settle in the heights. The hardships of everyone in the camp had been made worse by the bitter cold, a torment to the poorly clad, and many were suffering from the after-effects of frostbite. Now the brown earth, left naked by the snow, was leaping forth in green growth and tender northern flowers in the full glory of the arctic spring. Rolf in his patched prison uniform, bearded and with his hair rough cut, turned his face to the returning
sun, absorbing it into himself as those in other lands rejoice in rain after a lengthy drought. There was news to cheer him and his colleagues. It had just been passed to him by a local tradesman delivering goods to the camp commandant. In the absence of letters, which were not allowed to be written or received, any scrap of news from the outside world was welcome and the information given to him would be a tonic to everyone.

  He made the announcement in the compound from an upturned crate. All those who were not bedridden through injury or sickness gathered in front of him, looking much like a motley school assembly. Rolf grinned at them, a breeze flicking his shaggy hair.

  “My friends! I have great news! Although our imprisonment is to continue, all our colleagues left behind at Grini and other concentration camps are to be released. The majority of teachers in this country are to be allowed to return to their schools, all of which will be reopened after the long closure. Do you realise what this means? Quisling has given in! The official cover-up says there was a general misunderstanding by those in our profession as to what was intended. In other words, the Teachers’ Nazi Association is virtually eliminated and the Hitler Youth movement planned for our pupils has fallen through.” His voice gained momentum. “We’ve won our cause!”

  There was a tremendous burst of cheering. They clapped each other on the back and shook hands and shouted their jubilation with the sportsmen’s fist of victory. Some wept, overcome by knowing that everything they had suffered had brought a reward which at times had seemed as remote as the Holy Grail. All knew that by standing together they had stopped the Nazi advance where it mattered most. If freedom of thought had been broken down then the whole resistance movement would have been without a future.

  Rolf, who had jumped down from the crate, was joining in the hand-shaking and jubilation. This success would strengthen those in other fields, and the switch in the situation give him more authority as the camp spokesman. He would work now to get the sick released. For the rest of them nothing would be as hard as it had been before.

  Chapter 9

  It took several days before Johanna became used to her new surroundings. Her desk was in the outer office, which was well appointed with a sizeable window that looked down into the street, boldly patterned curtains and a lacquered floor that shone like a mirror. A cleaning crew of local women kept everything spotless, which was at least in the tradition of all things Scandinavian. There was nothing difficult about her work to make her feel uncomfortable—it was being in close proximity to so many uniformed Germans that she found unnerving. At first she could not get over an instinctive pang of apprehension every time the door opened and a soldier entered. It was the same when she showed her identity card at the entrance each morning. As for the constant barrage of “Heil Hitler” with every coming and going, she thought it was like a form of demonic worship and was thankful that at least her office and Tom’s were spared a photograph of the Führer on the wall.

  It had not been easy letting her parents know that she was to become Tom’s secretary. “I can’t stay at home indefinitely,” she had replied to her father’s strongly voiced objections. “As for working for a collaborator, that is unfortunate, but even people who are not Quislings have to answer to the Nazis in some way or other. There’s no way of avoiding German authority.”

  Gina, who had appeared more puzzled than angry, probed her reasons. “You could have gone back to the fur shop.”

  “Maybe I will, later on. Meanwhile I’ll be near at hand if you want me at any time.”

  Her father had continued to be upset until her mother calmed him down with her reassurances. Not for the first time Johanna thought her mother to be an extraordinarily perceptive woman. There were many parents these days who suspected their adult offspring of being involved with the Resistance and some were equally involved themselves. On the other side there were families unaware that one of their members was working for the Germans. Sometimes when the truth came out it brought about rifts that would never be healed. At least her parents knew that wherever her employment took her and however they might object to it, she would not be influenced by Nazism.

  In preparation for whatever might come during her employment, she had devised her own code for recording information that might be of use, keeping a notebook in her purse in which to jot down in shorthand as mundane shopping notes anything of the slightest interest, for she had to be ready for a spot check of her belongings at any time.

  She met Gunnar by arrangement to clear all points that had arisen now that she knew the office and its layout. There were to be various signals by which she could let it be known that she had information to pass on, the most sophisticated a coded telephone call, the simplest and safest a stick left in a certain cleft tree.

  In the office, she soon saw that Tom’s inclination towards an easy life would be to her advantage. Within a couple of weeks of her becoming his secretary, she saw how he was shuffling work over to her that should have been his responsibility. She took it willingly, hoping eventually to glean something of use from much that was mundane and routine. She saw her task as passing on minuscule pieces of a jigsaw puzzle which might or might not prove to be a vital link when the whole picture was put together by Intelligence.

  The first time a German officer tried to date her she was not unprepared. She had had attention from all ranks in the corridors and on the stairways from the day she started to work there and since she was there, none of them would suspect she wasn’t as much a collaborator as her employer. The lieutenant who strolled into the office was a tall young man who wore his uniform well and knew it, a medal ribbon on his chest for valour in one of the blitzkrieg campaigns. She was typing a letter and had looked up with a faint smile of greeting since he was within her province. “Guten Tag,” she said. “Do you have an appointment with Major Ryen?”

  He shook his head, coming to stand in front of her desk. “Nein, fräulein. It’s you I want to see. I’m in the office on the next floor up. I thought I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Kurt Scheidt. If I may be of assistance to you in any way, please don’t hesitate to let me know.”

  “Well, thank you,” she said easily. “I’ll remember that.”

  “Is it correct that you are related to Major Ryen?”

  “We’re first cousins once removed.” She indicated the letter in the typewriter. “I am rather busy at the moment.”

  “My apologies. Would you be free this evening? There’s a dance at the officers’ mess in the garrison headquarters and I would very much like to take you there.”

  “Sorry,” she replied brightly. “I have a date already.”

  “Then tomorrow? There’s a hotel that’s allowed special catering facilities for officers’ entertainment. We could dine there.”

  The connecting door into the main office opened and Tom came out, large and affable. He did not look anything like a white knight and yet he had come to her rescue, raising his eyebrows inquiringly at the officer as if he had not caught snatches of the conversation through the opaque glass panel. “Ah. Are you waiting to see me, Oberleutnant Scheidt?”

  “Er—no, Major. I was talking to Fräulein Ryen.”

  “Oh, yes?” Tom commented nonchalantly. Turning to Johanna, he pushed back his cuff to study his gold watch. “Better make it a quarter to six instead of six o’clock this evening,” he said as if confirming an arrangement with her. “I’ve two more letters to dictate. Come into the office now.”

  The lieutenant left and she followed Tom into the office. “I could have managed that myself,” she said to him with amusement, “and better than you did.”

  “I know that, but I don’t want you pestered,” he replied, sitting down at his desk. “These small fry must be kept at bay.”

  “What do you mean?” She seated herself in the chair from which she took dictation, her shorthand pad and pencil ready on her knee.

  “It’s not important now. We’ll talk about it another time.” He proceeded with the dictation an
d she thought no more about the incident.

  On the day that Edvard came downstairs for the first time it was Karen who guided him. Gina stood waiting at the foot of the flight. She had long since come to accept Karen’s obsessive care for her husband, understanding its roots, and it had relieved her of many chores and sleepless nights. The girl was pink with excitement, her silver-fair hair caught up in a ribboned topknot that added colour and gave her the innocent look of a child at a party. She cajoled Edvard briskly, not diminishing his dignity by her encouragement.

  “That’s it. Well done! Now another step. And another.”

  Gina could have completed the girl’s inducements as if they had been part of a nursery rhyme. Now another step for Erik. And another for Erik. She supposed everybody found his own way of getting through the trial of separation, or any other crisis. Karen’s was more unusual than most.

  By the end of the week Edvard had progressed to sitting on the porch in the sunshine. Karen had just seen him into the house again and had returned to collect a plaid shawl from the chair when her name was spoken. She turned around, the shawl in her hands, and caught her breath in dread. Carl Müller stood on the grassy slope leading up to the house, feet apart, thumbs in his belt. He was without his helmet this day, his forage cap at an angle on his dark, short-cropped head. Her eyes narrowed against the sun.