A man comes round the bend from Frølichbyen. There is something familiar about his gait. The way he moves his legs. She watches him. They wave to each other at the same moment. It is Erik.
There are only two people in front of Åse in the queue as Erik crosses the street and they say hi.
Another woman leaves the shop. One person left in front of Åse.
Erik stops and tells Åse her mother sends her love and he has something from her.
‘Have you got time to wait? It’s my turn soon.’
He lifts his hand. ‘I’ll drop by later.’
It is Åse’s turn. She puts the brake on the pram. ‘When?’
But Erik is already well down the road.
3
Åse has had the blackout blind up for a long time as she puts Turid in the cradle. She is spreading the cover over the baby when there is a knock at the door. She switches off the light and goes out, leaving the door to Turid’s room ajar. She listens for a few seconds for any noises. There is another knock and all is quiet in the bedroom. She goes into the hall and waits. No coded knock. It might be Erik. Perhaps he knows Gerhard isn’t at home, she thinks, but represses the thought at once. She opens the door a fraction.
Erik is taking off his rucksack.
She opens the door fully and lets him in.
‘Any luck at the shop?’ Erik puts the rucksack on the floor. Bends down and loosens his shoelaces.
‘I got some flour and potatoes,’ she says. ‘So I haven’t got much to offer you.’
‘My treat,’ he says. He shakes the rucksack.
She can’t help but smile. ‘When Turid’s bigger you can have a permanent job here, as Santa.’
‘Your mother sends her love,’ he says, getting to his feet. ‘By the way, love from Gerhard as well.’
Åse looks at him in surprise.
Erik opens the rucksack and winks. ‘Secret. Hush-hush!’
He imitates Gerhard. Åse has to smile, even though she does dislike people mimicking others.
She wants to know more. ‘Did he say when he was coming home?’
Erik straightens up. Looks at her.
There is a slightly uncomfortable silence and she feels she has to do something; she looks away. Goes to the window for some air. Remembers the blackout and turns back to him.
He says: ‘Sorry. Wasn’t thinking. We should say as little as possible to one another. Forget what I said.’ Then he smiles and rummages in the rucksack. ‘Look what I’ve got!’
But Åse can’t move on from the atmosphere. ‘Was it a long time ago?’
‘Was what a long time ago?’
‘When you saw Gerhard?’
‘Early this morning.’ Erik puts the contents of the rucksack on the table: a small tub of milk, cheese, bread and something bigger wrapped in brown paper. He points to it. ‘Shank of lamb,’ he says. ‘From your mum. But what have we got here…?’ With an even bigger smile on his face he lifts up first a dark, elegant bottle of fortified wine. Then a box of what must be chocolates. And a carton of cigarettes.
Åse gapes at the bounty, overwhelmed.
But he hasn’t finished yet. Another bottle appears. ‘Scotch.’
She smiles.
He winks at her. ‘Shall we have a taste?’
‘Where did you get it from?’
Typical Erik. Things he can’t say, he acts. He stretches out his arms to the side, hums engine noises and imitates a plane in the sky.
‘An airdrop?’
Erik puts a finger to his lips again. ‘Shhhh!! Are you crazy?’
Erik lifts the first bottle: Harvey’s Bristol Cream. ‘But we need something to drink it in,’ he says, pulling off the cork. ‘Sherry, Åse. Drunk by the finer ladies of England!’ He holds the bottle to her nose. ‘Smell.’
4
Erik can’t take his eyes off Åse’s face as she sniffs the Bristol Cream. The high forehead with the finely drawn eyebrows, the cheekbones and the nose; he can barely look at her lips, they are like a wound in her face. Now they spread into a smile and his heart beats faster.
‘I’ve never tasted sherry.’
‘Then it’s about time you did,’ he says, having cleared his throat to make his voice carry. He swallows. ‘Glasses.’
Åse gets up, moving supplely and soundlessly across the floor. She fetches two glasses from the kitchen cupboard. Puts them on the table and folds her hands in her lap.
Erik fills one glass. Sets the bottle down and twists off the cork of the whisky bottle. ‘If you’re going to drink like a queen, I’m going to drink like a king.’
Åse smiles again, revealing her pearly-white teeth. When she closes her mouth his senses are reeling.
She sips from her glass. Nods contentedly, raises her glass and studies the colour of the sherry.
Then she remembers something, stands up and listens at the door behind them. ‘Have to keep an ear open for Turid.’
Erik finishes his glass. Theatrically shakes his jowls and gasps for breath.
She comes back, sits down and takes another sip.
He feels the fire from the whisky spread through his stomach and enjoys it. Leans back against the wall and feels how good it is to be in her company, here and now.
As usual she is curious as to what is happening at home and what he can tell her. Who has hitched up with whom? He tells her that her mother occasionally has help at the farm – a widow from Skrautvål. But her mother always asks after her.
He fills both of their glasses.
She has turned serious.
He doesn’t like it when she turns serious. But there is nothing he can do about it. ‘She asks if you have everything you need.’
Åse looks down.
‘And of course she asks when you’re going to come to your senses and move back home.’
She doesn’t say anything now either. So they sit there, silent, lost in thought. Her with her eyes inwards. Him with his eyes on her. He doesn’t want her to be sad and unthinkingly grips her hand.
She stands up quickly and frees her hand as though it were burning. ‘No one can turn back time, Erik.’
She sits down again.
He listens for the baby’s cries, but there is total silence.
Erik leans forwards in the chair. ‘Åse.’
She puts down her glass. ‘Yes?’
‘Isn’t it difficult, being alone so much of the time, with a baby and all that?’
The thick plait slips off her shoulder. ‘I’m not in the mood to discuss things like that.’
‘Åse?’
‘Yes?’
‘Can I ask you a deeply personal question?’
She beams a smile again. ‘Ask away. I’ll say if it’s too personal.’
‘Why are you and Gerhard still not married?’
‘We’ll get married when the war’s over.’
‘What if the war never ends?’
She is the one to look away. But her smile is condescending now, and he doesn’t care for it much. ‘Gerhard’s sure the war will be over by next summer. He says no one can withstand the terrible Siberian winter. The Red Army is falling back, as the tsar’s soldiers did against Napoleon. The Germans will fail. It’s pointless declaring war against nature. Hitler thinks he can defeat God.’
Erik doesn’t like to hear Gerhard’s profundities. He says; ‘Let’s not talk about Gerhard now.’
‘Fine.’
‘Or Hitler.’
‘Nor Hitler.’
‘Can I ask you another personal question?’
Åse nods.
A sound reaches them from the bedroom. ‘I have to see to the baby.’ She stands up.
He grabs her hand and holds her back.
Åse stands still.
He gets to his feet and spins her round. They are the same height. But she is looking at the floor. He places a finger under her chin and raises it. They look each other in the eye.
She says: ‘I think I’m a bit drunk.’
‘Me
too.’ He can hear his voice is hoarse. He has to swallow.
Then he holds her face with both hands and tries to press his lips against hers.
She pushes him away and shakes her head.
The sound in the bedroom turns to crying.
Erik grins and clings to her. ‘I want to dance.’
He leads her across the floor. Forces her arm up and out. His knee between hers. Swings her around.
She uses the next swing to break free.
But he doesn’t let go. It becomes a wrestling match.
Åse falls. Her head hits the edge of the stove. She lies motionless on the floor.
Erik kneels down. ‘Åse?’
He bends over her. ‘Åse!’ He shakes her, thinking no one has ever seen a more beautiful creature. The buttons of her blouse are threatening to burst. Her skirt has ridden up, revealing stocking tops against a background of white thighs. He lifts his hand, the movement isn’t his; his hand is being steered by the Maker, three fingertips against this milky skin.
She opens her eyes.
He takes away his fingers.
She looks at his hand. ‘Budge, Erik.’
He doesn’t.
‘Erik! Move!’
He puts a finger to his mouth. ‘Shhh.’
She listens and they exchange looks. Once again all is quiet behind the door where Turid is asleep.
5
Åse can feel eyes on her. She is dreaming and knows she is, and at the same time she has two worries. One is the staring eyes. The other is an absence. My child, she thinks. It is not the eyes she should be dreaming about but Turid. She should be listening because Turid may need something.
She opens her eyes.
At that moment she hears a noise.
It is a familiar sound.
She is lying in bed in the semi-darkness, listening for snuffles from her daughter. But the child is quiet. Then she knows what the noise was. A door. It was the door closing. She sits up in bed with a start. She gropes to the left. Feels Erik’s shoulder. He is here, lying on his side. He stirs and grunts in his sleep.
Erik is here. So it can’t have been him.
Åse looks at the sitting-room door. There is a light on behind it. She is breathing through an open mouth now; her mind is working feverishly. Did she remember to switch off the light? She tells herself she must have left it on.
She knows there shouldn’t be a light on behind the door. She manages to swing her legs out of bed and stand on the floor, knowing fear has not deceived her. She did switch off the light. She always switches off the light. Something is very wrong. Perhaps that is exactly why she is moving. It is the certainty that her child is in a different room that pushes her on, that forces her towards the sitting-room door, even though she has apprehensions and she fears that they will be confirmed. She is naked, but couldn’t care less. She just wants the pain in her chest to go. She doesn’t want a dry mouth, doesn’t want to fight to control her breathing. And hopes against hope that she is wrong, that everything is fine and the sound of a door closing was part of her dream. No one has been here, no one has stood over the bed looking at her. No one knows what you had the temerity to do in the night, no one, she tells herself. She opens the door without making a sound and glides out of the bedroom.
At first glance everything looks as it did when she and Erik left the room a few hours previously. Åse strides over to the other door, which is ajar, as it should be. She pushes it inwards. Quietly. She tiptoes in and leans over the cradle. Turid is sleeping soundly. Åse holds her hand over her face, and feels the puffs of breath on her palm. She resists the temptation to lift her up. She backs slowly out of the room and gently pulls the door to, but leaves it open a crack.
She turns round and takes two steps, then freezes.
The ashtray. There are cigarette ends in the ashtray.
Now Åse is wide awake. Now she can also smell the smoke. That is new. No one smoked in this room last night.
But someone sat here smoking while she and Erik slept in the adjacent room. She looks into the hallway, looks at the front door. The person who sat here let himself in with a key.
Åse, still naked, stands bent over, almost doubled up in the chilly room. She knows the nightmare hasn’t even started yet. The dream wasn’t lying. He did stand over the bed staring at her. The door she heard closing wasn’t part of a dream. She looks at the blackout blind. A thought strikes her. She has no idea what time it is. But she does know it is night. She can feel it is because she has scarcely slept.
Where is he now? Outside the door, in the stairwell? In the yard?
Åse is sure of one thing. Erik has to get away before he returns.
Oslo, November 1967
1
Her flared white trousers flap as she walks. Her plimsolls are closer to grey than white. She is wearing a tight, pink woollen jumper under a well-worn military jacket. She is carrying a shopping net. Erik knows the net contains a law book, a pencil case and an exercise book. He knows her everyday routine.
She waits until the tram has left before she rushes across the rails. At that moment, in the way she moves, she is the spitting image of her mother. Erik thinks she rushes in a controlled manner – as if she lets her legs do the running while her torso strolls, slightly bent over. Of all the mannerisms she has inherited from her mother this is the one he appreciates most. Watching her through the large sitting-room window as she hurries up Slemdalsveien, it strikes him how strange it will be when, one day, she moves out. He hopes that won’t be for a while. She still has two semesters left of her course, and at this moment she doesn’t have a steady boyfriend.
Turid stops by the line of post boxes. She puts a hand inside theirs and takes out the contents. Pushes a strand of hair behind her ear and then flicks through the mail while ambling to the front entrance of their semi-detached house.
She stops by the door. Reads the address on one envelope again. Then she stuffs the rest under her arm and opens this one. Studying the letter, she opens the wrought-iron gate as if on autopilot. This is when she usually looks up at him in the window and waves. Not today. She dawdles towards the door, engrossed in her reading.
Erik goes back to his chair and sits down with the newspaper.
Turid is now in the hallway. Grete sticks her head in from the kitchen.
‘What are you looking at?’ she asks.
‘A photo of my mum.’
‘Me?’
‘No, Åse.’
Erik lays down the newspaper. He sees his daughter pass the photo to Grete.
‘You’re so like her,’ says Grete. ‘Look, Erik.’
Erik gets up joins them and looks at the photo Grete is holding. It is old and worn, dog-eared and scratched.
‘Where did you get it?’
‘Came in the post.’
He arches both eyebrows and all three of them exchange glances. ‘Who sent it?’
‘No idea.’ Turid passes him the envelope. It is addressed to her. Both the name and address are written in black capitals. The envelope has a stamp, but there is no sender’s name.
‘Any letter with it?’
Turid shakes her head. ‘Odd, isn’t it? Hm? Sending me a photo of her in the post?’ Turid looks from one to the other. ‘Why do that?’
Erik can feel himself becoming annoyed. ‘Don’t ask me. No one here sent that letter.’
Turid eyes him. Now it is her turn to become annoyed. ‘It’s my mother, and someone has sent me a photo of her. What’s your problem?’
He opens his palms. ‘Nothing.’
Turid snatches back the photo. ‘That’s mine.’
‘By all means. I wasn’t planning to steal it.’
‘Stop it, both of you,’ Grete says, and adds: ‘Arna rang. She’s got an extra shift and will eat at work.’
She talks to her husband’s back. He is on his way to the kitchen table.
‘That photo,’ her daughter whispers to her. ‘I don’t understand.’
Erik slides down onto the chair. ‘You’re not the only one.’
Grete puts a casserole dish on the table. Fish balls in white sauce. Then she brings a pan of potatoes. ‘There’ll probably be more letters,’ she says. ‘There’s bound to be an explanation.’
Erik spears a potato with his fork and starts peeling it. ‘Someone might’ve found this old photo and thought you should have it.’
Grete gets up and fetches the dish of grated carrot. ‘Almost forgot this.’
The atmosphere during the meal is not as Erik had imagined it would be, if indeed he had imagined anything. He tries to think of something to say that would make sitting there more congenial. But he can’t. He looks at Grete and Turid, who are both picking at their food as though their thoughts were elsewhere. He is ill at ease and he wonders whether he is the one who has caused this tense silence, even though he doesn’t want it himself. He would like to do something to lighten the atmosphere. He has tried before in such situations, but usually he fails.
‘It was taken before she had you,’ Grete says.
Turid looks up. ‘Can you see that?’
‘You’re not in the picture. That was Åse in a nutshell. She never let you out of her sight, not for one second.’
Turid falls into a deep reverie.
‘Perhaps my father took the photo,’ she says.
‘Perhaps,’ Grete says, winking at her.
‘Anyway, it wasn’t him who sent it. That’s for sure,’ Erik chips in. ‘I imagine the person who put that in the post box must’ve been alive, don’t you think?’
The Courier Page 4