The Beekeeper's Ball

by Susan Wiggs

  She simply shook her head. “I wanted the entire ordeal behind me as quickly as possible. However, after the war, I made an attempt to seek out the child that was taken from me. This turned out to be an impossible quest. Once the Nazis realized their regime was on the brink of collapse, they were quick to cover their crimes. The children born from this experiment became known as orphans of shame, although they came innocently into the world. Many were abandoned as all the birthing homes were evacuated in a panic, and the records were destroyed. It’s assumed that the children survived thanks to the kindness of strangers, but understandably, their heritage was kept secret.”

  Tess regarded the poetry booklet with a nauseated expression.

  “It took me many years to forgive myself, though I always realized nothing that happened was my fault.” She sighed. “It was so long ago. A different person, a different life. After I escaped, I discovered Eva had been transported to Theresienstadt, and I realized my own suffering paled in comparison. And my own fortunes improved once I made myself useful to the Holger Danske. That was when I encountered Magnus again.”

  “I didn’t recognize her at first,” he said. “If I’d known...”

  She offered a smile that was full of affection, giving Isabel the sense of a shared secret. “You would have been more civil to me?”

  “I was civil.”

  “Hmph.” She turned to Mac. “The very first time we met, he shoved me into a boat—”

  “It was either that or be questioned by the brownshirts,” Magnus said.

  “The second time we met,” she continued, “he cut off all of my hair. I’m not sure I’ve ever forgiven him for that.”

  Isabel frowned. “What do you mean, he cut off all your hair?”

  “He turned me into a boy.”

  PART FIVE

  Ten thousand forager bees in a typical hive need to coordinate their quest for nectar. They do this through the famed “waggle dance,” which communicates the flight direction and distance to sources of nectar. The complexity and precision of these dances is breathtaking, and success relies on the integrity of a nervous system where each synapse is crucial. It is no surprise then that honey bees have been shown to have a higher number of neurological receptors than other insects.

  —Soil Association [www.soilassociation.org]

  Brine:

  1 pint buttermilk mixed with 2 teaspoons kosher salt and ½ teaspoon pepper

  Chicken:

  1 cup all-purpose flour

  2 teaspoons salt

  ¼ teaspoon black pepper

  2 teaspoons paprika

  1 free range, organic chicken, cut into 8 pieces

  ½ cup butter

  Sauce:

  4 tablespoons (¼ cup) butter

  ¼ cup lemon juice

  ¼ cup honey

  Make a buttermilk brine for the chicken by combining the buttermilk, salt and pepper in a large resealable plastic bag. Add chicken pieces and chill overnight. Drain before using.

  Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Combine flour, salt, pepper and paprika in a bag and shake each chicken piece to coat it in the flour mixture.

  Melt a stick of butter in a big ovenproof skillet. Over medium heat, add chicken pieces in a single layer, turning chicken to coat with butter.

  Bake skin-side down for thirty minutes.

  Melt remaining butter in a small pan and whisk in the honey and lemon.

  Turn the chicken pieces, pour on the honey butter sauce, and bake an additional 20 to 30 minutes or until tender. Serve with biscuits and pan juices.

  [Source: Adapted from the Mr. Food Test Kitchen]

  Chapter Thirteen

  June 1942

  “Why do I always have to be the one to go first?” Magnus muttered, his breath coming quick and shallow with nervousness.

  “Because you’re the smallest,” said Kjeld, a boy he’d been bunking with in a boatyard at the edge of the old town near the port. They were camped out in a lap-sided wooden fishing boat, long abandoned and flipped over with its keel pointing at the sky like the dorsal fin of a shark. To the casual observer, the old boats in the yard appeared to be rotting into the marsh on the east side. In reality, the abandoned watercraft had become a rabbit warren of hiding places for supplies, everything from sacks of dried, salted fish to boxes of dynamite to the occasional fugitive on the run from the law. They also briefly sheltered Jews from the Nazis and underground resistance fighters and agents.

  “Here’s what you have to do,” said Kjeld. He was a big blond-headed kid with crooked teeth and a wicked aim with his throwing arm. Actual firearms were hard to come by, but a guy with good aim managed to do a lot of damage with rags soaked in gasoline, rocks and kitchen matches. Kjeld had been known to break a window at fifty paces with a fist-size river stone. “The German ship will be taking on food supplies at about ten in the morning. You’ll be smuggled aboard in an apple barrel. Come and see.”

  Magnus regarded the barrel with a dubious frown. “I’m to hide in the bottom of that, am I?”

  “Yes. Ingenious, isn’t it?”

  The barrel had a false bottom with just enough space for Magnus to fold his wiry frame into a tucked position. The upper part was filled with wood shavings and apples from the previous autumn’s harvest.

  When the Germans had first invaded and taken up occupation in Denmark, many promises had been made regarding the safety and security of the Danish people. The rationale—which no one with half a brain believed—was that the Danes under German protection would be shielded from attack by the British enemy.

  The real reason for capitulation was simply the law of numbers. The Danish army had no chance against the Nazi war machine.

  But that didn’t mean there weren’t ways to fight back. Ever since meeting the man known as the Teacher, Magnus was learning things he’d never dreamed of.

  Before the Germans moved in, he had been a guileless, even well-behaved boy who would have been appalled at the idea of pulling any sort of bold or risky prank in defiance of the authorities. But the night the Nazis had taken his family, they had also taken his innocence.

  These days, he had no more scruples than a feral alley cat bent on survival. In the service of the resistance, he had lied, cheated and stolen. He had planted dynamite in warehouses and drilled holes in ships’ hulls. He’d never killed a German, but he would do so if he had to.

  He just hoped he wouldn’t have to.

  “And once I’m aboard?”

  “Someone else will tell you your objective.”

  Magnus nodded. No single member of the resistance was permitted to know all the details of an operation. That way if someone was caught, he wouldn’t be able to furnish any information, even if he was tortured. Magnus was quite confident that the other boy’s name was not Kjeld. It was someone else entirely who told him what he was to do once he made it down to the ship’s cargo area.

  He was to find a collection of certain marked crates, and to replace the instruction labels on them. This would ensure that the crates would be left at the dock tonight rather than being loaded on transport trucks. He didn’t know what was in the crates, probably didn’t want to know. They might be filled with anything from office supplies to munitions.

  Kjeld helped him into the barrel and loosely replaced the top. Magnus waited in the cramped, dark space, which smelled of ripe apples and packing straw. He was jostled and rolled along, gritting his teeth and pressing himself against the sides to avoid making a sound. He wasn’t scared. Concentrating on his mission kept him from feeling afraid. The need for revenge was like a cold, clean blade.

  Once aboard, he waited in darkness for a few minutes. It was silent. Time to move. He pushed up on the lid of the crate. It was dark in the hold, but he had a very small battery torch to light his way. Jus
t as he’d been told, there was a stack of marked crates. He replaced the labels with the ones he’d been given, ensuring that the supplies would be misdirected. Someone was going to get into big trouble, but it wouldn’t be him. As quick and discreet as a wharf rat, he made his way out of the supply hold and climbed over the edge, landing almost soundlessly on the dock.

  Then he went to work on the next part of his assignment. He had been given a code word and told to meet another agent on Gammel Strand, an old street and public market along a beach canal where white-scarved women from the fishing village of Skovshoved sold their fish. He scanned the area along the portside plaza, a busy place at midday. The ever-present soldiers milled at the edges of the crowd. The Danes were used to them now, and for the most part, the two factions kept their distance from one another.

  On one corner was a group of people awaiting the horse bus. Petrol was in such short supply that some areas of the city had been obliged to revive the old way of transport—long buses with bench seats and a canopy overhead. The big draft horses harnessed to the rig looked old and weary as they clopped through the streets of Copenhagen. They probably were old and weary. The more able-bodied horses tended to be commandeered by the German authorities and shipped to the war zone to pull supply trains.

  Next to the bus kiosk was an old stone water fountain set into a moss-covered wall, the stream dripping steadily into a cracked concrete basin. The side of the bus shelter was plastered with the latest Nazi proclamation, which had begun to appear throughout the city. “Effective One July, all Jews without exception must display the yellow Star of David emblem on the right upper sleeve, such emblems to be provided and distributed by the Central Authority. Failure to comply will be considered an act of insubordination. By order of the Reich.”

  The Danes, whether Jewish or not, despised the proclamation, and rumors were rife throughout the city that they would defy the order by any means necessary.

  Magnus waited anxiously until the bus lurched away with its passengers. The plaza still teemed with dockworkers, the women selling fish and people going about their business. Two guys pulled an iron-wheeled ice truck along the quays and offered shovelfuls of ice to the fishmongers.

  Magnus was nearing the kiosk when a washerwoman appeared, her drab blue work uniform hanging off her frame, and her clogs stained black with filth. A soiled kerchief covered her head, holding her hair back from her expressionless face.

  Great, thought Magnus. Just what he needed, a bystander. Now his contact would have to wait to approach him.

  She bent and dipped a sponge in the bucket, but instead of washing the glass window of the kiosk, she wiped a swath of charcoal colored paint across the printed decree. Working quickly, she wrote in big, bold letters. “In a pig’s eye.”

  Then, as calmly as you please, she emptied the bucket of black liquid into the gutter and washed her hands in the water fountain.

  Magnus waited at the kiosk, trying his best to suppress a grin of surprise. So this was his contact after all. The code word was pig. He just hadn’t expected to see it like this. His next move was to casually switch his rucksack full of schoolbooks from one shoulder to the other to acknowledge the contact. Moments later, the girl returned to the kiosk, setting down her bucket and scrub brush.

  He stared up at the clock on the facade of one of the tall, colorful buildings, pretending to check the time. “That was cheeky of you.”

  “I do what I can.” Her voice was soft. She sounded younger than she looked. She probably was younger than she looked. But like him, she might have had to leave her childhood behind just to survive. Her pale skin, stretched across her cheekbones, was streaked with dirt, and her expression was set in a frown. She held her jaw firmly, as if clenching her teeth. The German occupation took its toll in ways he was only just discovering. Although there was no direct warfare and fighting, the strain and uncertainty of day-to-day life under Nazi rule pressed down on the spirit. Her expression exuded anger and distress.

  Magnus wondered what trouble the woman—just a girl, really—had endured at the hands of the Nazis.

  “I don’t suppose it’s helpful to tell you how dangerous it is, baiting the Nazis like that,” he said.

  “Everything is dangerous these days,” she replied in a flat, matter-of-fact tone.

  “Do you have a message for me?”

  “You’re to go to the east harbor and find the Selfors,” she said. “A supply ship. Do you know it?”

  He had just come from the harbor, having risked his neck in that apple barrel to change the labels on the shipping crates. “Of course.”

  “Go to the shipmaster’s office on the dock there. He will have a parcel for you. It’s to be delivered to the Ivarsen Brothers’ shop on Linden Street.”

  Magnus felt a dark surge of pride. He knew the task was related to the making of firearms, the very job his father had done before his arrest. Somehow, participating in the illicit activity made him feel closer to his father. He wondered every day what had become of his parents after the night they’d been taken away, even though the speculation led to terrible imaginings. Yet this made him even more determined to survive and carry on the fight, helping Danish patriots to manufacture machine guns right under the noses of the Nazis.

  “That is all you need to know for now,” said the girl. “Take your time, but don’t dawdle too much. And for heaven’s sake, don’t get caught.”

  “I never get caught.”

  There was a long pause. Then she said, “I know.”

  He frowned. “Hey, have we met?”

  “I...”

  Two things happened at that point. A group of brownshirts appeared in the plaza, moving in a cluster of shiny boots and polished weapons. Their customary swagger and loud, joking voices commanded attention. Magnus hated their cheery confidence. He hated that they were young well-fed men with their polished boots and holstered Luger sidearms. He hated that they seemed utterly unafraid of anything.

  The brownshirts had a special knack for ferreting out troublemakers. When he first joined the resistance, Magnus had learned to play up his schoolboy-innocent looks. Usually, the Nazis paid him no more mind than they would a stray cat.

  The other thing that happened in that moment was that she ducked her head and hunched up her shoulders in a way that tweaked his memory. “It’s uncanny,” he said at last, speaking without looking at her. “I could swear we’ve met somewhere. Do we know each other?”

  “It doesn’t pay to know anyone these days.” She pressed her lips together in a tight seam.

  He couldn’t believe how hardened she was for one so young. Yet her eyes looked as old and cold as rock itself. What had she endured, to armor herself like that?

  We’ve all suffered.

  The wind came up and ruffled her kerchief, snatching it from her head. The thing blew across the path of the Nazi soldiers and unleashed a curtain of pale gold hair that had been concealed beneath the soiled fabric. She grabbed for the scarf, but a soldier’s bayonet stabbed into it and lifted it like a flag of surrender.

  Magnus had an urge to grab the blonde girl and run. Instead, he gritted his teeth and forced himself to hold still. He had learned early on in his underground work that you don’t challenge the brownshirts. The first summer of the occupation, his friend Ikey had seen some soldiers tormenting a dog in Golden Prince Park. Ikey had stepped in and objected, trying to save the dog. For his troubles, he’d had his face smashed in by the butt of a rifle, and would never look the same.

  The soldier with the bayonet toyed with the blonde girl. “You want this?” He teased, holding the scarf just out of reach. “Ask nicely.”

  She held out her hand. “Please give me back my scarf.” She spoke in Danish, not German. A common washerwoman wouldn’t know German.

  Even from ten paces, Magnus could feel the rage emanating from he
r. He could also see other people watching. Like him, they knew the dangers of interfering. The Nazis had been in occupation long enough to have trained the locals to keep their distance. People got smart—or they disappeared. Like Magnus’s parents.

  “Come closer, little maid,” one of the brownshirts said.

  It was dangerous to be beautiful in Denmark. Magnus was annoyed at the girl for being beautiful. Didn’t she know any better?

  “Never mind,” she abruptly said to the soldier. “You can keep it as a souvenir. I must be going. I have work to do.”

  She turned away, but the soldier grabbed her arm.

  Magnus regarded the hand on her arm and nearly exploded. With every cell in his body, he wanted to leap to her defense. But the soldier was surrounded by three others. They always traveled in packs, like wolves.

  He couldn’t simply stand by and do nothing.

  “Greta,” he called out. “Ah, there you are, Greta.” Magnus approached the soldier, offering a subservient nod. “Thank you for finding my sister. She wandered off and forgot her appointment at the public clinic.”

  “Who the hell are you?” the soldier asked.

  Magnus touched the brim of his cap. “Her brother, sir. I try to look after her, but she is...” He pointed a finger at his ear and twirled it around. “Simple, you know?”

  “In fact, I do not know, boy,” said the soldier.

  “It gets her in trouble sometimes.” As he spoke, Magnus plucked the scarf from the bayonet and handed it to the girl. “I must get her to the clinic for her dose of penicillin. She has an unfortunate condition.” He dropped his voice. “The kind you can’t wash off. You didn’t get too close to her, did you?”

  The soldier stepped back, a disgusted expression on his face, and shooed them both away. “Be gone, then. Take this filthy thing with you.” He spat on the ground and turned away.