by Kris Tualla
“Nooooo!” she shrieked with the last of her breath.
Suddenly Selby was free. Nothing held her up and her knees buckled. She fell hard to the pavement and sucked air through her bruised and burning throat, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
*****
The gentleman with the paperclip outside the stage door, whose chest she had touched just two hours earlier, walked into the spotless kitchen. “How are you feeling, Miss Sunde?”
Selby sat huddled on a wooden chair, sipping weak tea with the man’s wife. “I-I am unharmed,” she croaked.
The man looked at his wife, his face a question mark.
“She was not raped,” the woman said. “He tried, but you stopped him in time.”
He nodded and sighed his relief. “You are lucky that the lieutenant chose our house to attack you against.”
“Where is he now?” Selby rasped.
A crooked smile lifted the older man’s cheeks. “Lying by the road, half a mile away, with an empty aquavit bottle.”
“They can’t trace him back to you?” Selby pressed, worried that her savior would become her martyr.
“No. Don’t worry.” He pulled out a chair. “Now we need to get you back to where you are staying.”
It was a question. “The Ålesund Guesthouse,” she answered.
He nodded. “I’ll telephone them now.”
Selby straightened. “Be careful what you say!”
The man glanced at his wife and smiled softly. “I know someone there. They will come when I say the right word.”
After he left the kitchen to make the call, Selby turned to his wife. “The resistance.”
The woman carried Selby’s empty tea cup to the sink without answering. Then she turned around and leaned against it, her arms folded.
She smiled softly and shrugged one shoulder. “There are many ways to fight a war.”
Selby was so touched that she almost lost the cracked and fragile composure which had held her upright since the Nazi officer’s attack.
“We wear a paperclip,” she whispered.
“We stand together,” the woman responded.
*****
Dahl walked Selby upstairs to her room. As grateful as she was for his steadying presence, all she wanted to do right now was strip off the red dress, stuff it into the fireplace, and set it aflame with a very large match.
Damn Fritz Walder.
Damn that Nazi bastard to hell.
“Are you going to be alright, Sel?” Dahl asked gently after she unlocked the door to her room.
Selby looked up into his compassionate green eyes. “I am physically fine, Dahl. He got close, but he didn’t achieve his objective.”
Dahl cocked one brow. “Spoken like a true operative.”
Selby tsked. “You know what I mean.”
He leaned against the doorframe, folded his arms, and leaned his head down to her level. “I know that men have hurt you before. And I know that you hate to show weakness. Right?”
Selby felt tears welling; she rubbed them away with her fingertips. “I’m sorry, Dahl. I just want to be alone right now.”
Dahl lifted her chin so she had to look at him again. “I’m here if you need me. You know that, Sel.”
“Thank you.” Selby managed a shaky smile.
She stepped into the sanctuary of her little room and gently closed the door. Without moving any farther she kicked off her high-heeled shoes, pulled the red backless dress over her head, and tossed it into the fireplace.
Wearing only her bra, garter belt, stockings, and panties, Selby grabbed the box off the mantle and struck a long match. She touched the flame to the dress and then dropped the useless shoes on top of it.
Selby stood in front of the strengthening fire and watched the silk fabric smoke, flame, curl, and turn to ash.
Die you seductive bitch.
And take Lieutenant Fritz Walder to hell with you.
Chapter
Six
April 11, 1942
Oslo, Norway
Teigen walked toward the dining hall of the recently built Grini Women’s Prison outside of Oslo with his head high and his back straight. He’d be damned if he’d let these Nazi bastards defeat him.
Today marked three weeks since he was severely beaten in the middle of the night, handcuffed, tossed in a van with a dozen other bleeding men, and locked up with three of them in a cell built for two.
Concussed, battered, and bruised, his first few days in prison were hazy. He wasn’t aware whether it was day or night. Food made him vomit. His head throbbed with a pulse so loud he could hear it. All he could do was curl up on the too-short-for-him bottom bunk, keep his swollen eyes closed, and remember to breathe.
One of his cellmates was apparently in worse shape than Teigen was. He disappeared to the infirmary before Teigen even learned the man’s name.
While he was gone, the three remaining men put together the fact that they were all teachers, they had all refused to sign the declaration, and they had all been holding illegal classes for their students.
“How did they know?” Jans asked.
“Someone had to speak up,” Teigen grumbled. “There were three teachers in my school who did sign the damned thing. I would expect the Nazi shits visited them and pressured them into turning us in.”
“Does anyone know how many teachers were arrested?” The three men looked at each other. None of them had the answer.
But by the second week in prison, when Teigen was feeling able to function somewhat normally and their cellmate had returned from the infirmary with his arm in a cast, their jailors were bragging about that number.
“One thousand,” they taunted during one of the two daily meals. “One thousand of Norway’s brightest men, teachers of children, who were so foolish as to ignore the requirement set forth by your esteemed Minister-President Vidkun Quisling.”
Several men coughed loudly at that, intentionally disrupting the mocking announcement.
“How smart are you now?” the officer shouted over the din. “You are crowded onto this women’s prison because you are more foolish than women!”
Crowded was certainly the truth.
According to the newspaper article Teigen read when the facility first opened the prison was built for seven hundred women, two to a cell. Now a second bunk had been squeezed into each cell, leaving only two feet between them in the eight foot wide compartments. And from what Teigen could see, the Germans had filled the prison to its new capacity.
Though Teigen had never met his cellmates before they were locked in together, he eventually counted seventeen of his Oslo Secondary School co-workers in the total. Rumors claimed that at least a third of the one thousand teachers arrested were from Oslo and the surrounding area.
“What do you think we’ll have for breakfast today?” Jans joked. “Herring? Or maybe it will be herring this time.”
“I smell herring,” a man behind them in line joined in. “So I think today it’ll be herring instead.”
“Silence!” their guard barked. “You are lucky to be fed at all!”
Teigen clenched his jaw. The pants he was wearing when he was arrested—none of the prisoners had been given anything new to wear—were loose around his waist. He knew his weight was dropping, in spite of his efforts to keep his body strong.
The men in the cells had figured out ways to exercise using the bunks as equipment. They called out to each other down the row of cells, challenging each other to contests in pull-ups or push-ups or anything else they could think of. It passed the time and released the testosterone that might otherwise cause the tightly confined men to erupt in useless fights.
For the most part, the guards left the men alone to do as they wished.
“Oh look. Herring.” Jans shrugged and flashed a boyish grin. “Guess I was wrong.”
Several men in line chuckled. No one made any further comment as the single file rank took their tin plates of herring and b
oiled potatoes to the long tables where they sat shoulder-to-shoulder to eat.
An SS officer—a major by the insignia on his shoulder—stepped up to a platform at one end of the dining hall. He had a microphone and when he switched it on the resultant piercing squeal silenced the room.
“I have an announcement to make,” he said in heavily accent Norsk. “Today we will begin to transport five hundred of our unlawful teacher prisoners to a labor camp in Kirkenes. These men have continually refused to acknowledge Adolf Hitler and his glorious Third Reich as their leader and must be punished.”
He clacked his heels together and held out a stiff arm. “Heil Hitler!” The microphone squealed its outrage as the major turned it off.
Teigen stared at his denuded tin plate, gleaming dully in the light from the high row of barred windows that illuminated the hall. He held no false sense of security; he knew he was going to be one of the five hundred. He was absolutely certain of it.
If that is my path, Lord, I ask that you make me strong.
The meal was officially over. The men stood up in silence and filed from the room. No one spoke as they walked back to their wing and reentered their cells. Each man was obviously wondering who would be plucked out for transport, and who would remain in the relative safety of Grini prison.
Once Teigen was alone with his cellmates, he pointed at Hal. “Your arm is in a cast. You would be useless at a labor camp.”
Hal smiled nervously. “Best broken arm I ever had.”
“And you,” Teigen pointed to the white-haired Ole, “Are—forgive me for saying this—too old.”
Ole pressed his lips together and grimaced. “As much as I wish to disagree with your assessment, Teigen, I’m afraid you are right. I’m long past my physical prime.”
Jans’ face was pale under his shock of light brown hair, but the set of his jaw was firm. “That leaves the two of us.”
Teigen nodded solemnly. “Yes, it does.”
Jans glanced at the two other men. “I’ve never been so far north. Have any of you?”
They shook their heads.
“It’s deep inside the Arctic Circle.” Teigen plucked at his thick wool sweater. “At least I have this.”
“For how many months is the sun up all night?” Jans turned to Teigen. “Do you know?”
“Sorry. I teach chemistry, not geography.”
Ole cleared his throat. “The sun will be always above or below the horizon for one month before and one month after each solstice—June twenty-first and December twenty-first.” He waved a hand. “Or thereabouts.”
Jan shuddered. “How long do you think they’ll keep us there?”
Teigen didn’t want to say the words out loud because he didn’t want them to be real.
“Teigen?” Jans implored. “What do you think?”
Teigen drew a deep breath. “It’s possible we’ll be there until the war ends.”
Or until we die.
Some words needed to be locked away, even if they were true.
April 12, 1942
Oslo, Norway
Thankfully, Teigen was assigned to the next-to-last group of teachers to board the waiting cattle-cars. The Nazis chose midnight to begin their rail journey northwards, hoping to sneak the teachers out of Oslo without the residents knowing.
Even waiting the few minutes it took to load the remaining teachers into the last of the open cars grated on his nerves. The men standing tightly against him reeked of unwashed bodies and clothes.
Teigen knew he smelled as bad as anyone. He had taken the liberty of washing out his underwear and t-shirt in his cell’s sink a couple times, and let them dry as much as possible overnight before putting them back on in the morning. But his pants and sweater were in need of a good cleaning.
I don’t see that happening in a labor camp.
With a loud rumble and heavy clank of metal, the door on the car behind his was closed and latched.
“Good. We should be leaving soon,” someone on the other side of the packed car said.
“Not likely,” Jans muttered beside him. “Now we have to wait for all the Nazi royalty to board—and they are in no rush.”
“How do you know that?” another man queried.
Jans spoke louder so the others could hear him. “My pappa worked for the trains, and I helped him when I was out of school.”
“How long is the journey to Kirkenes?”
Jan’s lips twisted. “It’s normally about twelve hours to Trondheim, assuming the tracks are clear. That’s the end of the rail line.”
“Twelve? On our feet the whole time?” someone shouted.
“I guess we won’t get any sleep tonight.”
“What if we have to take a piss?”
“They might stop and let us out once or twice.” The tone was cautiously hopeful.
Teigen looked at Jans and shrugged. “One can only hope.”
*****
After the train finally lurched into motion, the wind mercifully blew away the fug of their bodies—but the sting of frost was still heavy in the air this time of year. Teigen pulled his sweater over his head, framing his face with the neck opening, to keep his ears from freezing. Then he faced backwards in the car putting his back to the wind and tucked his hands under his arms.
Most of the men copied his actions. And no one complained about being so crowded in the car. Instead, they were grateful for the shared body heat. The teachers traveled in subdued silence; some were able to doze while standing, held upright by the press around them.
“The sun’s coming up.” Teigen pointed to the east with his chin.
Jans looked toward the pale lavender glow on the horizon. “It must be around five or five-thirty, then.”
“What time do you think we started moving?”
Jans shrugged as best he could in the tight space. “Half past twelve?”
Teigen sighed. “Nine more hours to go…”
He watched the sky gradually lighten until the train slowed to an unexpected stop. Every man in the car came to life.
“Why are we stopping?”
“I don’t know. There’s nothing here.”
One at a time, each of the ten cattle cars was opened. Surrounded by armed Nazi soldiers, the men were allowed to quickly relieve themselves on the ground beside the track before being herded back into the cars.
“They had to wait until it was light enough to see us,” Teigen observed as relief swept through him.
“It’s too bad not everyone could hold their water,” Jans grumbled as he zipped his fly. “Did you see how wet the floor was?”
“I smelled it.” Teigen zipped his trousers as well. “Too bad for those standing nearby.”
The train was on the move again when the sun peeked over the distant mountains. Teigen squinted as the piercing rays hit his eyes. He turned his back on the bright intrusion.
“The one day I would have enjoyed some clouds,” he grumbled.
Jans leaned closer to Teigen and pointed ahead of them. His expression was grim. “That’s Lillehammer.”
Teigen frowned. “Is something wrong with Lillehammer?”
Jans shook his head. “It means we’re traveling more slowly than usual. This route should only take three hours, but we’ve been traveling for five.”
Teigen groaned and closed his eyes. Their uncomfortable journey was going to last longer than they expected. And what would happen once they reached Trondheim?
I wonder if I could sleep standing up.
He must have succeeded to some extent because he jerked awake, roused by an impossible noise. Teigen craned his neck, trying to see over the cars in front of theirs.
“What’s that sound?”
The men near the outer sides of the car reported what they saw. “There are people beside the track. Cheering.”
“What are they saying?”
“Stay together.”
“They’re singing… Hey—that’s the national anthem!”
Sev
eral men stuck out their hands and pulled them back in with packets.
“What is it?”
One of them held up the opened packet. “Food!”
Dozens of arms reached out both sides of the car instantly. Nearly half of them were rewarded with anything from a slice of cheese to dried meat or a bottle of ale.
“How did they know?” Jans asked Teigen.
“The Resistance.” The man speaking wagged his finger over his head. “They know everything.”
Teigen frowned. “Are you saying that the Resistance knows that this train is loaded with arrested teachers who are being transported to a labor camp at the top of the world?”
The man nodded. “That is exactly what I am saying.”
“But… how?” Teigen shook his head. “They would have to have been there when the announcement was made.”
“Not necessarily,” another one offered. “They would only need to hear it from someone who was.”
Teigen accepted a piece of dried meat from one of the men and chewed it as he pondered that idea. He knew about the Norwegian Resistance, of course, ever since the day that his homeland was invaded and occupied. But always he assumed they were just a mismatched band of radicals trying to get themselves killed while playing at being heroes.
This was nothing like that.
This was the action of a highly organized and informed group of people who were reacting to a very bad situation in a very encouraging way.
In fact it was the Resistance who delivered the letters of declination to Oskar Jung the day after the Oslo Secondary School teachers were asked to sign the Declaration of Loyalty.
He took another nibble of the jerky and chewed slowly.
Huh.
Chapter
Seven
April 13, 1942
Trondheim, Norway
Over the next ten hours the train passed through Ringebu, Otta, Kongsvoll, and Støren. In each town the crowds mimicked the ones that came before. The people cheered for the teachers, sang traditional songs, and handed out packages of food—until German guards drove them away.
