by Andrew Gross
“The Odinskjegg,” she repeated.
“Yes. A hard ‘g’ this time.”
“Odinskjegg. And people say German is a difficult language.”
“We Vikings know how to build ships, but don’t talk so much, so that’s what we ended up with.”
She laughed. “So do you really believe that?”
“About the Vikings? It’s true, I’m afraid.”
“I meant about the legend you spoke of.”
“The Odinskjegg?” He shrugged. “In times like these, it’s not so bad to believe in something. Even a folk tale.”
“Or a Beethoven concerto.”
“Or a Beethoven concerto, why not? Though here, we prefer Sibelius and Grieg.”
“My grandfather plays Sibelius as well,” she said. “And Grieg’s Holberg Suite.”
“Is that so?” He watched her as she stared out at the snowcapped peaks, leaning on her toes. They remained silent for a while. The ferry cut through the breeze on the silvery lake, and she shielded her eyes from the bright sun. He knew it was silly to feel anything but a moment’s diversion. In Nottogen their paths would diverge and likely never cross again.
“No,” he said, out of the blue. “To your question, I never did believe much of that. The trolls and all … But at the very least, it makes a nice story.”
He finished his smoke and tossed the butt into the lake.
She looked at him. “My grandfather will be wondering where I am. He’s probably thinking I fell overboard. He cautioned me not to talk too much to the people here. He said German speakers are not so well liked here.”
“No more than the Vikings would be if we rode down the streets of Vienna in tanks and trucks. However, in your case we’ll make an exception. Your command of English has saved you.”
“Thank you for my hat, Herr…?”
“Holgersen,” he said, after a moment’s pause, giving her the name on his forged identity papers. “I was glad to help, Fraulein Ritter. Perhaps I will see you again when we disembark.”
“I’ll wear this hat.” She turned as she headed back toward the first-class compartment. “That way, you’ll be sure to distinguish me from all the Norwegians.”
* * *
The rest of the trip Nordstrum didn’t think on much else, going back over their conversation. He thought he could have been wittier, and maybe not so dour when it came to the Occupation or the weather. Even in war, he thought, did people not laugh, smile, drink, even fall in love? Even with a pretty Austrian gal who would be out of Norway in a week and he would never see again.
Still … The fates of Hella and Anna-Lisette were never far from his mind. When you let your guard down, he reminded himself, look what can happen.
He tossed another cigarette butt into the Heddasvat. The Odinskjegg had now ducked behind the clouds.
Still, as the ferry docked in Nottogen, he searched for her amid the crowd. Her grandfather was in a dark coat and full suit, maybe seventy, with a head of thinning white hair under a low knit cap. They walked slowly as the crowd filled in around them near the off-ramp, the musician clutching his instrument case. At the ramp a crewman brought their bags.
“May I help?” Nordstrum edged over to her from the crowd. “I saw the hat. I couldn’t help but be drawn to it.”
“Thank you,” she said brightly. He could see she was happy he had found her again. “Grandfather, this is Herr Holgersen,” she said in German. “He saved my hat from a watery grave. But in fact,” she turned back, “I think we are being met by our hosts.”
On the dock, next to a large Daimler with red flags with Nazi crosses on it, two German officers were waving to get their attention. One, a major, seemed to pick them out of the crowd on deck, and shouted above the throng. “Herr Ritter! Over here!”
“Ah, Natalie, schau!” Ritter pointed toward them, waving back.
“Please allow me anyway.” Nordstrum took their two heavy suitcases across the ramp and placed them on the wharf. The German officers hurried up to them and warmly shook hands. Nordstrum didn’t want to get too close, though the officers were far too excited to greet their famous guest to have even the remotest interest in him. He said with a shrug, “If all is well, then, I think I’ll leave you to your hosts.”
“Thank you again,” Natalie Ritter said. He detected a touch of disappointment, as this was where their paths would diverge. Were life different, he would have surely found a way to ask her to a drink or to dinner.
“Perhaps we shall see you in Rjukan? At the King Edvard Hall?” she said.
“You never know. Life takes you where you least expect.” He shrugged. But the place would be crowded with Germans, and who knew where he’d have to be. “I wish you the very best. For your hat, and for your concerts, Fraulein Ritter.”
“Natalie,” her grandfather cut them off. The officers had placed their bags in the car.
“I’ll say good-bye then.” Nordstrum stepped back.
She nodded, showing disappointment too. “Good-bye.”
With a glance at the German officers, Nordstrum edged his way into the safety of the crowd. When he turned back, he watched Natalie and her grandfather step into the car and, with a beep of the horn to clear the way, drive off.
Stupid, he told himself again, to even think of it. Still he whispered her name out loud. “Natalie.”
60
Nordstrum spent the week on business trying to assess what the Germans’ intentions were with the plant, and it was only when Einar contacted him, saying it was urgent they speak the following morning, that Nordstrum ventured into town. Natalie had crossed his mind many times in the past few days, but just as quickly he’d pushed the thought away, as something that might have had hope if he was not in the midst of a war, but now had no prospect. Not to mention she was an Austrian citizen who would be gone in a week, and in the meantime, was surrounded by a company of Germans.
Still, he did come down into town the night of the concert from the hut at Swansu to wait in the shadows of the Mercantile League building across from King Edvard Hall. He did not dare go in, of course. It was far too risky. He was still a hunted man, though it had been a year since the raid and his face was no longer on every door. But from across the street he did hear the pleasing sound of a cello from within, punctuated by peals of enthusiastic applause.
He had no real intention to meet her—there were far too many Germans around. Still, he was here, even if inside he couldn’t fully answer why.
After what he was sure was the final applause, the doors of the hall opened and spectators streamed out—mostly Germans of all ranks and a few Hirden, some with women on their arms, which made the bile in Nordstrum’s gut rise. There were collaborators in every crowd.
He waited across the street from the side entrance, the performers’ door. Several German officers and a few town dignitaries congregated there. A voice inside him told him to go. Go. He had no business here. But after a few minutes, the doors opened and Ritter and Natalie came out, to much attention. She was beautiful, dressed in a tasteful red dress with a brooch on her breast, her hair pinned up, a black wool coat covering her against the cold, and this time, to his amusement, she wore real boots. Still, her smile was as radiant as her dress as she greeted and shook the hands of the well-wishers, German and Norwegian alike, tied to her grandfather’s arm.
At a lull, her gaze drifted to the street, in some disappointment perhaps, as if expecting someone who did not show.
Nordstrum stepped out of the shadows.
She saw him. Her face lit up. There was no way to hide it. She waited for him to come over, but he motioned her over to him. After she shook another hand or two, she whispered something in her grandfather’s ear and, buttoning her coat, came across the street.
“I’m happy to see you,” she said brightly.
“Me, as well,” he said. “I found myself here after all. Would you mind stepping over here?” Out of the glare of the street, a few feet down the alley. The congr
atulations were ongoing. No one seemed to have noticed her departure.
“Were you at the concert?” she asked.
“I’m sorry,” Nordstrum lied, “music is not my passion. But I see you are now in the height of Norwegian fashion.” He acknowledged her laced boots.
“Yes, after your lesson I’m trying hard to fit in. We are going to have dinner back at the hotel with some of our hosts. Are you available to join us?”
“I’m afraid not,” he declined. His eye shot across the street to the crowd of officers and Hirden. “And I’m afraid I’m not dressed for the occasion.”
“I understand,” she said. “I told Papa I had a headache and would meet him back at the hotel. At the very least you can walk me there.”
It still wasn’t the smartest idea, but Nordstrum didn’t want to give her any cause to suspect him. Or disappoint her. The crowd had now dispersed. “It would be my pleasure.”
It was only two or three blocks. And while Rjukan was a tiny town, he led her to the side of the street. A couple of Germans went by, tipping their caps to Natalie. “Fraulein.” Maybe they had been inside.
Nordstrum averted his gaze as they went by.
“You don’t seem to be at home in the company of Germans,” Natalie observed.
“As I told you, they are occupiers of my country,” Nordstrum said. “I feel like a lot of the people do.”
“You know, to some, Austria is an occupied country as well. The Anschluss that merged our countries is not how all of us feel.”
“Still, your grandfather plays Beethoven and Bach, serenading the Nazis.”
“Yes, the Germans come to hear,” Natalie said. “A musician plays to his audience. So who is your audience, Mr. Holgersen? Besides saving ladies’ hats, what is it you do?”
“I was studying to be an engineer before the war.”
“An engineer. Buildings? Ships?”
“More like bridges and dams.”
“And whose bridges or dams would you be building these days, if you had the chance? Norway’s or the Reich’s?” She stopped. “In war, we all do things that are not a matter of choice. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course I understand,” he said. “The answer is, if directed to, I would not be building bridges or dams right now.”
He looked at her. Her eyes glistened in the lamplight. As bold as it would have been, if he wasn’t in public, with a hundred Germans only paces away, he might have kissed her right there.
“How long will you be staying?” he asked instead, taking her arm and continuing down the hill.
“We have another performance scheduled for the sixteenth. Next Sunday. Then we are off to Oslo and Copenhagen on the morning ferry Monday and back home. Are you around in Rjukan during that time?”
He didn’t answer right away. He had a job to do. Even to be here now was a risk. Her hotel was just ahead. As they approached, he noticed too many Hirden and Germans for him to go any farther. He led her to the side under a shop’s canopy. “I think it’s best I leave you here.”
“If I told my grandfather my headache would cause me to miss supper, would you be able to dine with me?”
“I can’t.” Though nothing would have pleased him more. “I’m sorry.”
She took his arm. “Well, anyway, I’m very pleased you showed up. I was wondering if you would. Perhaps I will see you again before we leave.”
“That would be my wish.”
“My wish as well.” She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She said with a wry smile, “I’m not sure you could be building any bridges these days, Mr. Holgersen, given how you seem to keep to yourself.”
He squeezed her hand as she went into the lobby. She turned back once with a smile, and then he saw her being greeted by the throng of fawning German officers. “Ah, Fraulein Ritter…”
Averting his face, Nordstrum headed back up the hill. He wished this war would be over at last. He was tired of having to live life in the shadows.
61
Dieter Lund heard August Ritter’s performance at the concert hall, seated in the third row, next to Trudi, who was bulging a bit out of some new bright red dress she had ordered from Copenhagen, and Major Ficht, newly in charge of the security team at Vemork.
The old cellist held the house spellbound, playing Brahms, Mozart, and Beethoven, and finishing with a Grieg concerto.
At the end, the hall stood and erupted in applause.
It was true Lund knew little about classical music. It had never been something that had interested him much in his youth. Or that he’d had the time or the inclination for since then. And now that he served the Germans, he tried to stay out of those conversations when they turned to culture or the arts.
But one thing he did know was that he had never seen anyone quite as beautiful as the cellist’s granddaughter who had accompanied him to Norway. During the concert, he could not take his eyes off her, seated in the balcony above them. He had met her as part of the delegation upon her arrival in Rjukan and offered to make her and her grandfather’s stay as pleasant as possible. Perhaps even a private tour of their beautiful region, he proposed.
Staring up at her, his eyes flitting between Ritter and the occasional, perfunctory smile at his wife, he couldn’t believe the wild thoughts that were dancing through his head.
Later, he was among those invited to dine with August Ritter and his granddaughter at the Prinzregent Hotel. It was an honor, he knew, to even be included. Among the dignitaries were Gestapo chief Muggenthaler and Josef Terboven, the German civilian attaché in Norway, and the heads of the German cultural legation. Trudi was not asked to attend, as none of the other officers had their wives, which was fine with Lund. And when he saw Natalie Ritter come down the street from the concert hall at the hotel, he felt goose bumps on his arms in the greeting line. He thought and thought about what he would say. She had several days to fill here. He chastised himself that he had let such an unlikely fantasy interfere with his thoughts of the real work that needed to be done.
As she arrived he noticed a man, maybe twenty yards up the street, heading back up the hill. There was a momentary familiarity about him and then he was gone. And she was here, radiant as ever, distracting his attention.
“Fraulein Ritter…” Lund took her hand. Then just as quickly the dignitaries swallowed her up and escorted her to the dining room for dinner.
After dinner, the thought still nagging him, he took her aside. “If I might ask, Fraulein, who was that man I saw you with as you arrived at the hotel?”
“Merely a friend,” Natalie Ritter replied. “I met him on our journey here.”
“And does your friend have a name?” Lund pushed, traversing the delicate boundary between politeness and insistence that was his learned terrain. “Perhaps we can invite him along for our ride.”
“Do the police always inquire so boldly of personal things here in Norway, Captain…?” she said back.
“Lund.” He bowed again as he reminded her.
“Yes. Captain Lund. Leave it that he is simply a friend. I met him in my travels. If the police require more, I’m sure my grandfather would be happy to accompany me to your headquarters.”
Lund smiled. This girl had a resiliency beyond her young looks. “That will hardly be necessary.” He took a step back. “I merely thought he looked familiar. My apologies, Fraulein, if in any way I have—”
An SS major stepped up, his gushing captivation diverting her attention, and then Lund was left standing by himself, a familiar hole of feeling ignored expanding in his chest, and then a face coming into his mind, like a dark cloud sweeping over the mountains, foretelling rain on even the brightest of days. Someone I met on my travels. A face he pushed back, distracted by the toast taking place now, and he looked at her surrounded by fawning officers, convincing himself that no, of course, it could not be.
62
Having agreed to meet Einar the next day, Nordstrum spent the night in the custodian’s r
oom at a warehouse in Rjukan. In the morning, he got on the bus to Vigne, which was filled with people on their way to work. Einar met him in his car on his way to work in Mosvatn.
They hadn’t seen each other for months, since the day Nordstrum had tried to free his father. “How have you been, Kurt?” his friend asked. “The work must be appealing, you look a little different than I’ve seen you.”
“Different?” Nordstrum was groomed. His beard was trimmed a bit.
“I don’t know.…” His friend took a long look at him. “Happy, somehow.”
“Who knows? Must be all the good weather lately.”
“Well, I’m afraid what I have to tell you will make you anything but happy. I’ve heard from inside the plant that the Germans are planning on moving their stocks of heavy water back to Germany.”
“To Germany?” Clearly that meant they’d made enough to do the job. “When?”
“Soon. A week, maybe. My man wasn’t sure.”
“A week? You’re sure of this?” In such a short time, it was virtually impossible to organize anything with England to stop it.
“He said they’ve shut down the compressors and are in the process of draining the cells. So far, it seems they’ve built up an inventory of around eleven thousand pounds.”
“The people at SOE won’t be very happy to hear this,” Nordstrum said.
“They should have thought of that possibility when they recklessly bombed the plant. What other option was there for the Germans to do? We forced their hand.”
Nordstrum nodded and blew a blast of air out his cheeks. “The place is overflowing with SS. The new security measures make it almost impossible to get a team back inside. Even if we could get one together…”
“Yes, I advised them of that,” Einar said.
“And what was the reply?”
“Here…” Einar reached in his pocket and handed Nordstrum the handwritten message, from Tronstad himself.
It read, Under no circumstance must the shipment be allowed to leave. Organize a local team and carry it out. All good luck.
