by Robert Elmer
“Pigeon race,” said Henrik, as if that would explain everything. He was holding the wicker basket with both birds under his arm. “Is that clock right?”
“Last time I set it,” replied the man, looking at his own wristwatch to check. He was probably as old as Peter’s grandfather, and even looked a lot like him, with little puffs of gray hair around his ears and a friendly expression in his eyes. “Can I help you boys with something?”
“We have to let one of the birds go at exactly eight o’clock,” explained Peter. “And then the next one will go five minutes later.”
“Birds?” asked the innkeeper, eyeing the basket under Henrik’s arm.
Peter nodded. Maybe he’s never seen homing pigeons like ours before.
“Oh, yeah,” said Henrik. “Homing pigeons. We’re racing them back home to Helsingor.”
“Oh,” the man nodded. “Like they used to use in the last war for sending secret messages.” He looked interested enough, probably as long as they didn’t let the pigeons go in his hotel. “That was before they had radios, the way we have today. Soldiers would send their messages back and forth with these birds, just the same way you’re doing now. Of course,” he continued his story, “for your sake, I’m glad there aren’t any German soldiers nosing around the hotel this morning.”
“Yeah?” Henrik asked. “Why? The birds aren’t illegal, are they?”
“Illegal, no,” said the man. Then he lowered his voice, as if he were telling them some kind of secret. “But those Germans are always asking questions, and whenever they start asking questions, the rest of us get into trouble. There’s no use getting into trouble over something like your pets there. If you boys know what I mean.”
Peter didn’t know what he meant, not quite. The birds? Illegal? Henrik and Peter just stood there and stared at the innkeeper. Henrik’s eyes were big, as if he was thinking about what the man had just said.
“Well, come on, boys,” said the man, looking down the hall at a guest. “Let’s launch those birds and see what happens.”
Peter looked through the lobby out the front door. Henrik put down the basket, propped the door open with a rock, and walked out carefully with Number One in his hands. A minute until eight. At the first bong of the clock, Peter waved his hand, and Henrik tossed the bird into the air. Peter and the innkeeper trotted out as Number One circled briefly over the hotel roof, around the gardens and the beach, and then headed straight back down the coast. Peter could hear his wings whistling. The bird would be home in just a few minutes.
“How much do you want to bet Number One is the first one back to the coop?” Henrik said as the three of them walked back into the empty lobby. Suddenly a green uniformed German soldier walked up behind Henrik. He must have just come around from the other side of the building. Henrik nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw who was right behind him.
“Excuse me, please,” said the grim faced soldier. He didn’t seem much older than twenty or so, blond and crew cut. He walked in as if he didn’t know his way around very well, stepped past Henrik, and went right to the counter. He looked impatiently at the old man, drumming his fingers on the big walnut counter as he spoke in a mixture of broken Danish and German. Peter strained to understand the conversation, something about getting directions, or trying to find out about the best way to get to Gilleleje, a popular spot for tourists up the coast. What’s he saying?
The old innkeeper, now behind the counter, only returned an icy stare. “Sorry,” he said in Danish. “I don’t think I follow what you’re saying.” He made no attempt to slow down to let the soldier understand better; instead, he was talking as quickly as he could. “My German is pretty rusty.”
They went back and forth like that for almost a minute. The soldier frowned, waved his arms, and tried to mix in a little more Danish. The innkeeper didn’t slow down for a second, doing his best to frustrate the young soldier. Any other time it would have been almost funny for Henrik and Peter to watch. This time, though, they slipped out the door into the sunshine.
“Wow,” said Peter. “You almost jumped through the ceiling when he came up on you like that. I think we better get out of here.”
Instead, Henrik looked straight back at his friend, and his eyebrows clamped down on his forehead. “No way!” he said. “We didn’t come all this way to only let one bird go.”
“But you heard the innkeeper, didn’t you?” Peter looked back at the hotel and shivered. We should be back home. “How they used to use pigeons for sending secret messages during the last war? What if that German guy sees our bird and—"
“Don’t worry about it,” Henrik interrupted, wearing the same determined expression. This was not the carefree Henrik anymore. “Nothing will happen. We’re just a couple of kids, remember? All you have to do is get back in there and watch for the time. When it’s exactly five after eight, bend down and tie your shoe. I’ll just go around the corner real quick and let Number Two go.” Then he pulled Number Two out of the basket, holding the speckled gray bird firmly.
Peter felt his heart pumping double time, but he sucked in his breath, went back into the hotel, and sat down in a soft chair. Why don’t we just go home? The soldier was still waving his arms at the innkeeper, but the old man was sticking to his act, looking as if he couldn’t understand a word. Peter peeked up from behind a magazine and checked the clock. Four minutes after. There was no time to think about how stupid he was for coming back in. As soon as the big hand hit the five he quietly padded over close to the door, bent down, and pretended to tie his shoe. Henrik saw him from outside, nodded, and disappeared around the corner with the bird. (He was holding it behind his back by then.) Just then the soldier threw up his hands for the last time in disgust, exhaled something in pure, steely German, wheeled around, and stared straight at Peter. Peter’s shoes felt as if they were glued to the floor, but the soldier just looked past him and went for the door.
It all happened in an instant, too late to warn Henrik. But the look on Peter’s face told the innkeeper all he needed to know. The birds may not have been illegal, but the soldier was sure to notice. Were they for messages? Who gave permission? And what is your name? Henrik Melchior the Jew was the last person who needed to get into trouble with a German soldier.
A second later, the innkeeper was calling the soldier back.
“Wait a minute, please,” he said in perfect German. “I just remembered a shortcut you might be interested in.”
The soldier, who was just pushing open the door, stopped in his tracks and glanced over his shoulder in surprise. The expression on his face turned from puzzled to angry, but he wheeled around and came back in.
Peter nodded in relief to the innkeeper behind the counter and hurried out. The soldier brushed by him again, going the opposite direction. Peter didn’t look up, or even breathe, until he was outside again with the door closed behind him. Number Two was still circling higher and higher overhead.
“Hey, how about that,” said Henrik, smiling, as Peter rounded the corner of the building. He was back to his old self. “Right under his nose!”
“That wasn’t funny, Henrik,” said Peter. “You don’t know how close we came to getting in big trouble.” He told him how the innkeeper had kept the soldier from going out when Henrik was letting the bird go.
“Yeah, but what could he have done?” Henrik was putting on a good show. They both knew—or guessed—what the soldier could have done.
“I don’t know, but were you ready to find out?”
“Hey, I could have told Herr Corporal all about the top secret, intelligence gathering spy bird, right?” Henrik had one leg over his bike again, ready to go.
That’s Henrik, thought Peter. Always on the edge. Someday, that’s going to get us in real, live trouble, never mind the fact that he’s Jewish.
Just having been so close to a German soldier made Peter kind of shaky. He wondered if Henrik felt like that. He had to—but then again, maybe not, the way he talked.
Then Peter remembered how scared Henrik had looked, just for a second, when the innkeeper had told them his story. Henrik looked over his shoulder to see if Peter was coming, and they pedaled away.
“See that guy’s motorcycle parked over there behind the building?” Henrik yelled. Peter glanced back over at the hotel. A motorcycle with a sidecar was still there under the shade of a birch tree. That was why they hadn’t seen the soldier pull up to the hotel.
“I see it.”
“We should have gotten some sugar from the hotel and put it in his gas tank. Wreck the engine.”
“You’re not serious,” said Peter. “They would have thrown the old innkeeper in jail and tossed away the key. Us, too. He was a nice guy.” Here I am still shaking, and Henrik is cracking sabotage jokes.
Peter pedaled as fast as he could. All he wanted was to get back home, away from the Marienlyst Hotel.
“Who was a nice guy? The Nazi?” Henrik teased. “Anyway, I heard that pouring varnish into a car’s oil is even better. Starts right up, runs smooth, but once it cools down and the varnish dries all inside the engine, you can never start it again.”
Peter didn’t say anything and just kept pedaling. The ocean was on their left now, and the coastline of Sweden was clearly visible across the water. Here and there a fishing boat bobbed around in the waves; Peter thought one of the boats could have been his uncle’s.
But this time they weren’t sightseeing, and they didn’t stop to explore any beaches, either. Both of them were pedaling fast to get back to Grandfather’s boathouse. As usual, Henrik was right out in front, and Peter was puffing pretty hard, trying to keep up. Their tires were keeping time. Ka thunk. Ka thunk. Ka thunk.
“Hey, Henrik,” Peter wheezed between breaths. “Don’t you think the birds are going to beat us anyway?”
Henrik looked back with his usual grin. “Number One,” was all he said. It seemed as if he was barely breathing hard, even though he was pedaling fast enough to keep ahead of Peter.
“Huh?” Peter shot back. It was hard for him to get annoyed at Henrik for anything, especially when his friend started grinning and clowning. “You’re crazy. Number Two is going to beat your bird by an hour!”
So they both crouched down, pedaling faster and faster as they pulled into the city. They passed the small boat harbor on the north side of the city, where the swimming pier was. That used to be a busy place, but the Germans made anyone with a pleasure boat keep it tied up, just like they made people lock up their cars. Then right on Green Garden Street, left at Saint Anne’s, and past the huge steeples of the old Saint Mary’s Catholic church. They were in the city now, racing as fast as they dared through the narrowing streets. The city was built way before cars came around, and the streets in some neighborhoods were almost narrow enough to hop across in one big jump. If you didn’t mind the bumpy ride, they were perfect for bikes.
“Elise better be there, after all this,” said Peter to no one in particular. Henrik just looked ahead and hunched over his handlebars like a professional bike racer.
They sped down Saint Anne’s, straight for the inner harbor where Grandfather’s neat little boathouse perched on the waterfront. Peter seemed to get his second wind, or else Henrik slowed down, because they pulled up wheel to wheel in front of the little shed. They jumped off their bikes, let them roll against the wall by the side of the door, and burst in.
Elise was sitting on the workbench, in between cans of paint and a pile of rope boat fenders, the kind Grandfather braided together to protect the sides of boats. Her nose was in a book, and she didn’t even look up. Henrik and Peter both stood there gasping, catching their breath.
“Well?” said Peter between breaths. He could tell both birds were back in the cage part of the shed. They were doing their usual thing—strutting, making pigeon sounds with the other birds.
“Well, what?” said Elise from behind the book. She was acting as if she didn’t care, but Peter could see her grinning. She turned a page.
“Come on, you know. Which bird made it inside first?” replied Peter, getting impatient. Elise always teases us like this, he thought. And we always play along, especially Henrik. This time, I want to find out.
“Okay, let’s see,” she said slowly. “It was the one that has checkered feathers. That’s Number One, right?”
“You know that’s Number Two,” snapped Peter.
“Or was it the one with the pretty blue bars across the back?” Elise flashed that annoying smile of hers.
“Come on, Elise, stop teasing,” pleaded Henrik. Even he was getting impatient.
“You promised,” added Peter. “Remember the dishes?”
“Well, it was close,” she finally admitted. “But Number One was the first one through the trap door.”
“Yeah!” whooped Henrik, pulling his fist down like a conductor with a steam whistle. “I knew Number One would live up to his name.”
“Not so fast, Henrik,” said Peter. “Did you forget about the handicap?” Henrik frowned. “We let Number One go first, remember? To really win, he’d have to win by more than five minutes. So how long did it take before Number Two showed up?” Peter was crossing his fingers, hoping that Elise had paid attention.
“Well, since I knew you would ask that question,” said his sister, “I brought along father’s pocket watch, and I have an exact clock in time.” She was drawing this out for all it was worth. Looking down at her dad’s old gold watch in her hand, she pronounced the final verdict. “Number One came in the door five minutes and forty seven seconds ahead of Number Two.”
“Ha!” said Henrik. “We won by almost a minute!” Now he was really grinning.
By this time Peter had gathered his bird from the cage, and he held her between his hands. He loved the way the feathers on the bird’s neck glimmered blue green. “Oh, well,” he whispered to the bird. “You did your best. It was only forty seven seconds.”
“Congratulations,” he said to Henrik. “So how about a rematch tomorrow? Only next time, let’s let them go at the same time, just to see what happens. At the castle.”
“With Number Three,” said Elise. “I’m almost finished with this book I have to read.”
“You’re both on,” said Henrik. “Tomorrow afternoon.”
A Visit With Holger the Dane
4
Kronborg is the most famous castle in Denmark, which is something every Danish schoolkid learns before he’s ten. (In Elise’s case, make that age seven. She was reading big history books by then.) It’s right by the ocean, and it has two tall towers, a moat, and everything else a castle is supposed to have. It was built to watch over the Sound between Denmark and Sweden, and keep track of anyone who wanted to sail through—kind of a giant tollbooth with cannons. Later, they turned it into a museum. It’s right at the narrowest part of the Sound, where the big Atlantic Ocean skinnies way down before it widens out again as the Baltic Sea.
From the castle a person can see Sweden right across the water—only about two miles away. It was a great place to let the birds go, and it’s where Peter, Elise, and Henrik rode their bikes the next day, Sunday afternoon.
Peter’s favorite part about the Kronborg Castle was the dungeon. Down there, in a dark room as big as a cave, was a great statue of a fairy tale character named Holger. Holger the Dane. Holger Danske. He was huge—about the size of a truck, as tall as the ceiling—and he looked like an old Viking sitting in his easy chair, snoozing. The story went that when Denmark really needed him to defend the country, he’d wake up and come to the rescue. Peter’s dad once said that old Holger’s alarm clock went off April 9, 1940 (the day the Germans invaded), and he slept right through it.
Still thinking about the close call the day before, both Peter and Henrik waited an extra long time to let a German army truck pass ahead of them on the road to the castle. And when a motorcycle roared by, both of them shaded their faces, as if they were looking down.
Elise looked puzzled. “So are we in extr
a trouble with the Nazis today?” she asked.
Henrik and Peter glanced nervously at each other. Even though Henrik had seemed brave the day before, Peter noticed that his friend wasn’t acting like a daring Resistance fighter that day. They both fidgeted and stared at their feet. Obviously, neither of them wanted to be the first to say anything—not to Elise.
“We just came kind of close to a German soldier yesterday,” Peter said finally. “I didn’t really want to run in to the same guy again.”
“Who?” asked Elise, her eyes sparking with curiosity.
“Just some soldier who came into the hotel while we were letting the pigeons go,” explained Henrik.
“You were letting the birds go in a hotel?”
“No, no,” said Peter, and he told her what had happened at the Marienlyst.
When Peter finished, Elise let out a low whistle. “I can’t believe you let the second one go after all that,” she said.
Henrik just grinned, looking more the way he did the afternoon before. “Well,” he said, “we couldn’t let one German soldier spoil our race.”
By that time the three were at Kronborg Castle, and they stood on the wide stone bridge leading over the moat. Peter glanced around nervously. What if they see us again? he thought.
“I don’t see anyone,” announced Henrik, leaning his bike against the railing and undoing the bird basket.
“Just to be safe,” said Elise, “let’s forget about your handicaps.”
“Or about anything fancy, like letting the birds go five minutes apart,” added Peter. In his mind he could still see the soldier staring at him for that brief moment the day before.
