This Shining Land

by Rosalind Laker

  Shock made it impossible for Johanna to sleep. That night she lay awake under her blanket staring upwards in the darkness, and the next day she went around in a daze to face a similar terrible night. She collapsed on the morning of the seventh of May while at a laundry tub. Other women carried her to her bunk where the Frenchwoman cradled her until she slept.

  Not yet recovered from her exhaustion, she was the last in the hut to wake during the night when there was a disturbance in the camp. She sat up in her bunk to see all the women huddled together in terror. Swiftly she swung her feet to the floor and went to join them; no need to ask what was happening. As the guards unlocked the door of the hut and ordered everyone outside, she shared the same thought with all the rest of the women: now it was to be their turn. It was as each one of them had feared at the back of her mind. When the last day came, the Germans would turn on their prisoners and shoot them down.

  “Out! All of you! Move!” The guards were in a savage mood.

  Some of the women began to cry. Johanna put her arm around one who had an injured leg and helped her down the steps. All the camp lights were on. They and the rest of the women trailing out of the other huts made a curious sight in their variety of makeshift nightclothes, some clutching blankets around them, a few bravely holding up heads full of curling rags, for all had clung to routine as a means of sustaining morale. Many were barefoot as they gathered close together in the compound. Searchlights, adding to the blaze on them, showed their stricken faces. Yet there was no panic. They simply drew still nearer one another for support and comfort when, from the direction of the barracks, there was the dreaded sound of military footsteps approaching at a sharp pace.

  “They’re coming,” one woman exclaimed tremulously. A catching of breath and a suppressed sob or two went through the crowd of frightened women like a soft breeze. Johanna steeled herself for whatever was to come, her arm still steadying her injured companion. Briefly she closed her eyes to summon up courage.

  A man in a uniform that neither she nor the other women immediately recognised came striding into the compound, followed by several others. Quickly he mounted some steps in front of a building and turned to address them in a loud, strong voice, throwing his arms wide.

  “Ladies! We are the Swedish Red Cross and we have come to take care of you. The war is over. Germany has surrendered to the Allies. You are free!”

  There was such a long silence that the Red Cross commander began to wonder if his Swedish accent had made his announcement unintelligible to his listeners. Then there came a spontaneous outburst of joy. The women began to dance and laugh and hug each other, every one of them crying with happiness. A few, unable to bear such momentous news after so much despair, sat down on the ground and rocked with the wonder of it. Johanna stood motionless, hands dropped to her side, while the weeping and embracing and prancing went on around her as if she were in the eye of a hurricane. She was thinking of Steffen. If only he could have been allowed another forty-eight hours he would have been rejoicing in the men’s compound where a great shout had gone up that must have been heard far across the neighbouring hills.

  Returning to their huts, the women dressed and began gathering together their few possessions. The Red Cross had transport waiting at the gates. Those living within the Oslo region would be taken home. The rest would be housed overnight in schools and hospitals in the capital where the hotels were prepared to feed them, food having been secretly moved in over the past weeks by the Resistance in preparation for the liberation of those in the concentration camps. Johanna collected up the small treasures that had kept her mind occupied through many dreary hours, a small rag doll she had sewn, a patchwork scarf made from scraps, and a plaited belt. Last of all she took her letter to Steffen from behind the panel. It had been her link with him during the last months of his life and she could not discard it now.

  “Are you ready?” A Red Cross woman was at her side. “Good. Where is your home?”

  “On the west coast, but I’d like to be taken to a house in Grefsen. That was my second home for a long time.”

  “Will anyone be there to look after you?”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  Johanna joined the rest of the women leaving the hut. When they came near the open gates that were standing wide, they broke spontaneously into a run, laughing and shrieking and shouting with joy. Johanna ran with them and once outside the gates she stopped to breathe free air deep into her lungs. Many others did the same. In the distance there was the sweet sound of a church bell chiming in freedom. It was a deeply moving moment.

  Then the women were assisted up into the waiting buses, sitting jammed together to make room for as many as possible, all wanting to get away from Grini without any delay. There was a sea of released people everywhere, a disciplined crowd in spite of the exuberance of mood and occasionally wild bursts of cheering and singing of the national anthem and happy embracing.

  In the bus Johanna sat looking out at the landscape revealed by the dawn light. When the bus drove through Oslo, dropping women off at their homes, there were many reunions with people rushing out of houses in their nightclothes and whole families hugging each other in a group, the returned member laughing and crying in the middle. In the city itself the Norwegian flag had appeared everywhere as if there had been a sudden blossoming of red, white and blue. Swastikas were being pulled down and two men on ladders were already chipping away at a plaster German eagle spread across the entrance of a building. All government buildings and former military headquarters were being guarded by members of the Resistance in white armbands. Their aim was to keep the peace and prevent any uprising in vengeance against the enemy. Johanna guessed the situation was still extremely delicate. The Germans in Norway, unlike their comrades elsewhere in rabble-like disintegration, were still in top form and fully equipped, and had yet to lay down their weapons. A twist of mood by Reichskommissar Terboven and a rescinded decision to follow in the wake of the rest of the defeated Wehrmacht could be catastrophic. Johanna had her own personal battle waiting for her in the Alsteens’ house. She intended to drive out the German officer who was there.

  She was the last passenger in the bus and was dropped at the gate. The front door was open and there were lights in the house. As the bus drew away she waved to her rescuers; then she went up the path, memories flooding in on her. As soon as she entered, she realised that the Nazi occupant had departed in haste. Going from room to room she saw where he had gathered up possessions from bureaus, cupboards and drawers. In the kitchen the coffee-pot was still warm and on the table a patch of crumbs, remnants of a hasty snack. Upstairs it was the same. The bed was rumpled and the quilt thrown back as he must have left it upon hearing of his country’s surrender from the telephone at the bedside—a new extension. He had forgotten a leather greatcoat in the clothes closet. In a sudden surge of ungovernable rage she tore it from the hanger, threw it on the floor and kicked it frenziedly all the way down the stairs as if its owner were in it. When she had kicked it outside she slammed the front door shut and leaned against it, feeling quite unsteady.

  After getting her breath back, she lifted the telephone receiver in the hall and rang home. Her father, up for the milking, answered.

  “Hello, Father,” she said huskily. “It’s Johanna. I’m free.”

  It was the most emotional call she had ever made, speaking to her parents in turn, all three of them overwhelmed. Afterwards came the saddest. She rang Astrid and they spoke quietly together for several minutes. Astrid was brave and did not give way. “Come and see me as soon as you can, my dear.”

  “I will.”

  Johanna was less brave. As soon as she had replaced the receiver she sat bowed over with sorrow in the hall chair for a considerable time. When she did move it was to switch off the lights that had been left burning and go listlessly upstairs to run a hot bath. The Nazi officer had left soap and shampoo. For the first time in months she saw her naked body in a mirror. She was so th
in that all her bones stood out and there were sores on her arms from malnutrition. It was therapeutic to immerse herself completely in the steaming water. For months she had had only cold showers, standing on wooden slats in a chill bathhouse with hundreds of other naked women as thin as herself, many prisoners of long standing being positively skeletal. She washed her hair into a luxurious lather, never again to have it raked viciously through by a toothcomb wielded by a hard-handed Nazi nurse in the disinfection hut. When she stepped out of the bath there were soft towels to wrap around her. Nothing seemed quite real.

  Still in the towel, she wondered if there was anything in the house she could wear until she had laundered her clothes from the camp. She opened drawers and found nothing. It was when she was coming out of her old room that she remembered leaving a box of clothes in the cellar. Was it possible they were still under the cupboard where she had hidden them?

  In her bare feet she hurried down there. At first glance she thought there was no hope. All the treasured things Anna had stored there were gone. The old cupboard was still bolted to the wall, the doors removed, probably for firewood. Kneeling down, she stretched her hand underneath through a mass of clinging cobwebs. Just when she was thinking the box was no longer there, she felt the corner of it and pulled it forward. She had some difficulty in getting it through the aperture, and the box split. When she lifted the lid it was like discovering treasure trove. On top of some evening dresses were some items of satin lingerie, a couple of dresses, skirts, jackets and a pair of evening sandals.

  While dressing in her old room she thought she heard a vehicle draw up in the lane and depart again, but paid no attention. When her dress was fastened she sat down on a chair to put on the evening sandals, vaguely thankful to be rid of the wooden clogs that had often rubbed her toes. A numbness within her still remained, a combination of grief and a certain bewilderment at all that had happened with such speed. She had just finished putting the straps through the buckles when she heard the front door open. Had the Alsteens returned home already? Uncertainly she went out onto the landing.

  A tall man stood in the hall, a borrowed raincoat over black prison garb with the special triangle for harsh treatment on his chest, a package under his arm. At the sound of her approach he looked up, his face lighting up in welcome and joy. He was far thinner and paler than when she had last seen him, his temple and cheeks hollow, his bones sharp. She could only gasp his name rapturously: “Steffen!”

  “Jo, darling!”

  She flew down to meet him as he flung aside the package to hold out his arms to her. He seized her in an impact of kissing that melded them together and they stayed in their embrace, unable to speak or even to think beyond this mind-dazzling moment of reunion.

  “Tell me I’m not dreaming,” she implored frantically, her fingertips running over his face as he still held her within the tight circle of his arms.

  “As you once said to me, this is no dream. We’re together, Jo. No more partings.”

  Her voice was choked. “I saw your last message to me in Grini. We must ring Astrid. She thinks—”

  “I’ve already done that. It’s how I knew you were here. She had just spoken to you when I rang.”

  “How did you escape being shot?”

  “It was more than a firing squad that was meant for me. Hundreds of special prisoners like me, who had failed to talk or against whom the Nazis had a particular grudge, were hurriedly transferred to Mysen, a camp near the Swedish border. The whole area had been laid with explosives. At the moment of liberation we were to be blown up in our huts. Fortunately the commandant in charge of the camp was absent with eye trouble and his deputy got cold feet at the last minute. He was suddenly afraid for his own skin. Local Resistance freed us and issued each one with a package of new clothes, which I’ve yet to put on, and brought me into Oslo by bus. My only thought was to find you.”

  She was filled with wonderment that so much happiness could come at once. Still more happiness came to them in the hours that followed, hours that were completely theirs.

  Away in the city a kind of joyous madness had taken over. The German commander-in-chief had formally surrendered to the Resistance. Every shop and place of business was shut in a public holiday. After Steffen had burned his prison uniform and Johanna’s camp clothes, he deposited the Nazi’s leather greatcoat in the garbage bin for collection. Then they went to see and join in the celebrations. Oslo was alive with flags. Everyone carried one or wore one or cheered the unfurling of yet another on a flagpole. Every street fluttered with the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes with the Norwegian flag hanging from balconies and roofs. A placard in one of the store windows summed up the atmosphere of the day: Closed because of Joy!

  Policemen who had refused to collaborate, or had worked secretly within the quisling ranks as Resistance contacts, had donned their dark blue uniforms again and were hailed enthusiastically as they directed traffic and controlled the rejoicing crowds with grins and laughter. Bands played, people sang and danced and young children were wide-eyed at the jollifications, having no memory of anything but fear on the streets. Members of the Resistance, in the open at last and on duty as Johanna had seen earlier, had flowers thrust into their lapels and pockets. There had been some minor incidents that they had been unable to prevent. The windows of several Nazi headquarters had been smashed. In the suburbs, as elsewhere in the country, quislings had had their windows smashed and their property taken out of their houses and burned in bonfires. Yet few, if any, suffered personal attacks. In the hour of liberation the people were remarkably tolerant. It was a national characteristic to forgive but never to forget. Each quisling was destined to live with the stigma of traitor to the end of his or her days.

  Steffen reported for duty at a Resistance mobilisation centre. The Milorg officer with the armband on his tweed jacket regarded Steffen’s thin face and hands observantly. “You’re right out of camp, aren’t you? Which one?”

  “Grini.”

  The officer whistled through his teeth. “Are you! This isn’t the place for you. You’re entitled to a full spell of recuperation. We’ll be guarding every main building until the government returns from London and we hand over our emergency rule. The Crown Prince is on his way. The King will follow next month. In the meantime enjoy yourself for a while. You’ve earned it.”

  The celebrations went on all through the night, but Steffen and Johanna returned home to the peace and quiet of the house. Bonfires of black-out material burned everywhere, the glow flickering across the ceiling of the room where they slept in each other’s arms.

  Behind the festivities in the city and elsewhere, much was going on. Quisling had been arrested. Reichskommissar Terboven had committed suicide. The prisons were filling up with collaborators, black market racketeers, former secret police and Nazi informers. All the Gestapo had fled from their headquarters in Victoria Terrasse, disguising themselves as ordinary officers of the Wehrmacht, but they were known to too many and found themselves rounded up into their own cells where they had tortured and mentally destroyed so many in their power. The Gestapo chief was in the cell where Steffen had suffered the most cruelly devised violence that had left permanent scars on his body and which was to haunt him in nightmares for many years to come.

  The telephone awoke Johanna in the morning. With Steffen still sleeping she left the narrow bed they had shared in her old room and padded through to the new telephone the Nazi had installed. It was her mother, excitedly ringing to say a cable from Rolf had arrived.

  “It says: ‘Safe and well. Coming home soon. Wendy and your new grandson will follow shortly. Fond greetings to all, Rolf.’ ”

  “That’s wonderful news! There’s nothing from Erik yet?”

  “Nothing.”

  Johanna and Steffen decided to have a week on their own together before going home. They needed the time, not only to make the most of being with each other again, but to adjust to life away from camp routine. They both had to
report to the hospital for medical care and to receive extra vitamins provided by the International Red Cross to rebuild their strength. Johanna’s menstrual cycle had almost ceased during imprisonment on the inadequate diet and through stress, and she was afraid she had been deprived of the chance to have children. The doctors were reassuring and told her that with time all should be well.

  Together they saw the exuberant return of Crown Prince Olav in a sea of flags, and watched British-trained Free Norwegian troops who had served from D-Day right through to victory in Germany march with other Allied troops down Karl Johans Gate. Garlanded with flowers, the men were cheered until they were surely deafened by the joyous noise. Overhead Norwegian squadrons came home. Rolf flew his Spitfire into Gardermoen aerodrome near Oslo. When he jumped from it onto Norwegian soil he felt himself take root again.

  Johanna had cleared away all evidence of a Nazi officer’s ever having been in the Alsteens’ home by the last day before she and Steffen planned to leave for the west coast. She was sitting in the flower garden writing a letter to Anna and Viktor, which she intended to leave in the house for them, when she heard a taxi. Putting the pen and the writing paper down on the slatted seat beside her, she sprang up and hurried to see who had come. A small woman on her own was paying the taxi driver, who had placed her suitcases on the front porch. It was Anna. When she saw Johanna she exclaimed with delighted surprise. They rushed to hug each other joyfully.

  “Let me look at you.” Anna held her back to study her face. “You’re too thin. I must cook you some good meals. I have a crate of food coming from Sweden. No rationing there, you know. Lights on all through the war and no black-out.” Then she saw the question in Johanna’s eyes and smiled sadly. “My dear Viktor died over four years ago on the way into Sweden. He never knew that we reached safety.”