The ticking of the clock on the wall is loud again.
‘This incident was just chance, I’m sure, and now that I think about it perhaps everything else was chance too, but…’
They sit for a long time without speaking.
A telephone rings in another room. She lets it ring.
He coughs politely. ‘Just answer it.’
She shakes her head. ‘I was on the waiting list for that phone for two years. In many ways it was worth the wait, but I refuse to let it interrupt conversations like this one.’
Eventually it stops ringing.
He smiles. ‘I could never let a phone ring. Aren’t you worried it might’ve been something important?’
‘Important?’
‘Your son? What if it was him ringing from Tel Aviv?’
‘He’s in the military. The little money he earns he spends on other things than ringing his mother.’
They sit in silence until Ester asks: ‘Do you ever think about what life has done to us, Sverre?’
Sverre smiles wryly. ‘Do you mean what war’s done to us?’
‘No, I mean what life’s done to us – turned us into.’
‘I do. Every day, Ester. Every single day.’
After Sverre has gone, Ester stands by the window, looking down. She waits until she sees him emerge in the street below. Watches him lean on his stick and walk in the direction of Frognerveien. She waits until she hears the tram’s metal wheels squeal on the rails and stop. She doesn’t move until the tram has set off again and she can be sure Sverre is no longer at the tram stop. Only then does she go into the hallway and don her outdoor clothes.
3
Gunnar Wiklund is singing about Ramona on the radio. Ester turns down the volume, as she does whenever she has to concentrate harder on driving – like now, keeping an eye open for a free parking spot. Kvadraturen is full of parked cars. Driving up Kirkegata for the third time, she finally sees an empty space. She switches the radio off and slots in. Gets out. Rummages through her bag for a coin. Inserts it in the parking meter and turns the knob. Half an hour should do it. She walks briskly to Den norske Creditbank. Stops by the kiosk on the corner. She rarely reads weekly magazines and hesitates when it is her turn in the queue. But then she sees the cheerful face of King Olav in the recent edition of Allers, asks for this magazine and pays. Slips it under her arm and continues to the bank. Enters. Waits her turn. The woman behind the counter has back-combed blonde hair with so much lacquer it seems to defy gravity.
‘How can I help?’
Ester says she wants to open her bank box.
The woman locks her till, signals to the colleague sitting next to her and gets up. She is wearing a tartan-patterned woollen skirt and a pink blouse. She leads the way down to the vault. Ester holds her breath. The woman has been as generous with perfume as she was with the hair spray.
Under the cashier’s surveillance Ester opens the door to the cabinet where the boxes are kept and takes out hers. Then goes behind the curtain, where she is alone. She opens the box.
Inside is a short-barrelled revolver.
She removes it and stuffs it in the pocket of her trench coat. Takes the packet of ammunition and drops it into her other pocket.
Stands pensively examining the pile of passports from various countries. Opens the French one. It has run out. She sees how young she was in the photograph. And remembers how old she thought she looked when the photograph was taken.
She flicks through the pile until she finds her Israeli passport. It is still valid. Pensive, she holds onto it while she makes a decision. Then she puts the pile back into the box, closes it, and joins the bank employee waiting in the vault. She pushes the box back in and locks up.
Ester thanks the cashier, goes up the stairs and out of the bank.
4
The centre pages of Allers show a picture of King Olav and the Crown Prince. It is evening, they are standing in front of the entrance to the Grand Hotel and both are smiling into the camera. One self-assured and worldly-wise. The other more embarrassed, as though the smile is a nervous, though polite, grimace. Ester has put the magazine on the kitchen table. Now she is taking apart her old Colt Cobra 38 Special and putting the parts on the heads of the king and crown prince. She takes a rag from the cupboard under the sink unit. Then goes into the room where the sewing machine is. Opens the drawer under the needle. Takes out a small bottle of oil. Goes back to the kitchen. Lubricates all the parts of the gun. Reassembles the revolver. Puts it down. Wipes her hands on the rag. Rubs the remains of the oil from the weapon. Rotates the cylinder. Listens to the sound. Gives the cylinder a drop more oil and rotates it again. Listens. Another drop, until she is happy. Holds the gun out straight and pulls the trigger. Once, then again, and one more time.
She flips open the cylinder. Places a bullet in each chamber. She clicks the cylinder back into place and applies the safety catch. Deliberates. Goes back to her study. She removes three volumes of Aschehoug’s Encyclopaedia from a shelf on the bookcase and puts the revolver in the void by the wall. Puts the books back into position. Notices the bulge in the line of spines with disapproval. Adjusts the other fifteen volumes until they are all the same distance from the wall. Approves. Goes back. Meets her own eyes in the hallway mirror. Tells herself, yes, this is the right thing to do. Turns away from the mirror to avoid seeing her own doubts. Continues into the kitchen. Folds up the magazine. Puts it in the sitting-room stove and strikes a match. It burns well.
Stockholm, December 1942
1
A solitary lamp hangs from a cable beneath the arch of the tunnel. The lamp starts to buzz, the light goes out and comes back on. Again it goes dark, then the light flickers, sending a flashing gleam across the platform and stairs.
Further ahead there is a bench by the wall. Ester heads for it, and crosses the platform. Every time the light goes out, she stops so as not to miss her footing and fall onto the rails. When the light returns she carries on. Walking slowly. It feels like treading water, her slow walk to the metro carriage. The carriage door is open. Now she hears footsteps behind her, coming closer. Nevertheless, she can’t quicken her pace. All too slowly she lifts her feet and climbs into the carriage. She gasps for air. The sound of footsteps comes even closer. She wants to flee. But her legs are so heavy, she can’t even move them now. The footsteps are getting louder. Echoing. She sinks to the floor and holds her hands to her ears. The door closes. A man with blue eyes stands outside. He bangs on the glass of the door. Hard. Repeatedly. At that moment she sits up in bed with a start.
She is bathed in sweat and out of breath. She peers into the darkness. Switches on a light. She gets out of bed, tiptoes into the sitting room. Switches on the light there. Goes to the hall. Takes a deep breath and braces herself. Unlocks the door to the stairs and sets the bolt in such a way that it can’t close. Runs into the toilet. Freezing cold. The porcelain of the bowl is cold too. She pees. Hurries back to her flat. Locks the door and runs into the kitchen. Washes her hands. Dashes back to her bedroom. Gets under the duvet and looks at the ceiling. The sheet under the duvet is still warm. She goes to turn out the light, but rolls over the side of the bed first, looks underneath, checks no one is hiding there, then she turns out the light. Lies curled up to regain heat and fall asleep, but remembers she has her back to the door, and that isn’t good, so she twists round and switches on the light again to check the door is closed.
She thinks about the dream, about the panic she felt in Valkyrie plass. Reruns what happened. Thinks about her contact, the woman who went down to the wrong platform followed by the police. She must have done that on purpose. To give Ester a chance. Because she herself had been arrested. But why had she been arrested? Could there be any other explanation than it was the work of an informer? Someone must have whispered a word into a policeman’s ear. Someone who presumably knew there was to be a meeting, a handover of illegal newspapers right there. Or perhaps not? No, Ester has to dismiss any o
ther explanation. She is sure of one thing: the woman could have waited anywhere; the reason she went to the right place but on the wrong platform must have been because the policeman knew about Valkyrie plass. He just didn’t know where on the station.
Ester lies staring into the darkness as her thoughts churn, the way they do whenever she chews over this incident, knowing she won’t go back to sleep. She has had this dream before. She has woken up from this dream before. She has lain in bed looking into the darkness in the same way before. She needs to do something about this, she thinks. To try and make herself stronger. Other people are suffering. She is fine. She is safe. She can’t let a nightmare rule her circadian rhythms.
She rolls over onto her back. Sneaks a look at her watch. It is getting on for five in the morning. She has to be up at seven anyway, and now she is wide awake. She sighs, makes a decision and gets up.
2
Ester is usually the person who opens up in the morning. That is why it is generally her who puts on the kettle. The rationing scheme means they have to resort to ersatz coffee. And with Swedish cargo ships being torpedoed, as Torgersen is wont to say, the little coffee there is has to be imported from Argentina. Despite rationing, Mildred always has access to cigarettes. Both Margit and Mildred smoke. For lack of other topics they talk about cigarette brands and how women should hold a cigarette. Margit and Mildred say women can do most things men can do. Then they discuss the purpose of inhaling. Mildred is annoyed that Margit doesn’t inhale. ‘There’s no point smoking if you don’t draw the smoke down.’ Mildred is experienced and blows smoke through her nose as she speaks.
‘But I’m just a social smoker, really,’ Margit says.
Ester looks out of the window and sees Torgersen crossing the street. Immediately the smokers scamper about like squirrels, airing the room and rinsing their mouths and emptying ashtrays. When Torgersen opens the door, everyone is sitting at work, deep in concentration.
Ester looks up. She nods to Torgersen, then goes back to her typing.
He hangs his coat on the hat stand.
She sits with her back to him, waiting for the familiar sounds – him going into his office and closing the door behind him. As she hears neither, she turns round. ‘Yes?’
‘Is Falkum getting on alright?’
Ester is put on the spot. Four days have already passed since she fetched Gerhard from Kjesäter. But she hasn’t seen him. ‘I think so.’
He looks down. ‘Good, Ester, good.’ He goes into his office.
She watches the door close. Wonders why Torgersen has asked her about Gerhard. So no one else is keeping in touch with him, and Torgersen assumes it is her job?
I ought to pop round then, she thinks. Today, this afternoon. Now she is unsure. What am I going to do there? Ask him if he has enough money, like an old aunty – if he is remembering to clean his teeth?
At that moment Markus comes into the office. He is breathless and holding an envelope. It is a letter for her.
This startles Ester, and she stands up so quickly her chair teeters threateningly. She reads the name of the sender. It is Ada Vinje. She looks up and meets Markus’s questioning gaze. She grimaces. Frightened to open it. Watches Markus as he does his rounds. Turning all the time and looking at her. Then he has finished and motions towards the envelope on the table. Isn’t she going to open the letter?
He talks in a low voice and she answers in an equally low tone. ‘I’m afraid of what’s in it.’
He understands. She can read it in his eyes. Markus is also nervous. The last letter from her mother was already several weeks old. So Ada must be someone who knows why Ester hasn’t received any further letters.
Over Markus’s shoulder she can see that the others are pretending that they aren’t interested. But they are. Everyone is consumed by the rumours and everyone is after news from home. Markus picks up the envelope and passes it to her.
Ester runs a finger along the edge of the flap. In fact it looks unopened. But is that possible? Could this letter of all letters have managed to evade censorship? Her apprehensions have crept up from her stomach and now run along her arms and legs. She stands up. Goes to the window and looks out and down on Karlavägen. A black vehicle races up towards the crossroads. Another emerges from Banérgatan. The lorry brakes and goes into a skid. They are going to crash.
Ester turns quickly and hears the bang at the same moment. She doesn’t want to see. In her mind’s eye she sees the deer that was run over on their Easter holidays when she turned fifteen. The thud and the deer rolling across the carriageway in such a brutal, uncontrolled fashion, down into the ditch, where its thin legs trembled less and less until they stopped. She opens her eyes. No one else in the room appears to be taking any notice of the noise outside.
That must be a bad omen, she thinks. I go to the window and something like that happens. Her hand on the envelope is shaking. She feels sick and has to support herself.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘A car crash,’ she says. ‘I can’t bear to see it.’
Everyone races past her to the window.
She sits down and rips open the envelope with her forefinger. Slumping down as she reads.
Markus has lost interest in the collision. ‘Tell me, Ester; tell me what it says.’
Ester gets to her feet. She staggers towards the dining room.
Markus stands looking down at the letter. He can only read the first line: Dear Ester.
He seems to be leaning on the table as his hand spreads out the whole letter:
Dear Ester,
I hope this letter finds you in good health. I will be brief. I truly regret to have to pass on this news. A week ago today a slave ship left Oslo harbour. On board were Norwegian Jews and their German guards. There were as many women and children as men. No distinction was made between the healthy and the sick. No one was travelling of their own will. Everyone had been rounded up by Norwegians and stowed in the miserable hold like goods. During the night our own policemen ordered them out of their beds, young and old alike. Even patients from the hospital were hoisted aboard the ship in their sick beds. Your dear mother, father and grandmother were among them. They were in good health. That is all I know. It is with great sorrow that I have to give you such terrible news. Because it doesn’t stop here. A family of Nazi sympathisers has moved into the flat you grew up in and had to flee. They have no sense of shame, not even about using your parents’ furniture and things. There are many of us clenching our fists in anger. One day justice will prevail. I know it will, Ester. In Ecclesiastes it says there is a time for everything, a time for war and a time for peace. With God’s help there will be a glimpse of hope in the darkness. The Nazis are in trouble on the eastern front. And now winter is around the corner. I dearly hope the rumours from London are correct and the German army will meet the same fate as Napoleon’s the last time pride came before a fall on the Russian steppes. Small comfort maybe. But there are many of us who think about you. There are many of us who thank the Lord that you escaped unscathed.
Please, Ester, write and tell us how you are doing.
All the very best wishes, Ada
PS: Your cat has landed on her feet. She is pregnant! Her stomach is bulging like a balloon. This may sound trivial, but good news is good news, however small.
Markus looks up.
Mildred is glaring at him from the window. ‘It’s not nice to read other people’s mail, Markus.’
He doesn’t answer. Just stares blindly into the air.
Mildred looks past him and at the closed door to the dining room. It has stayed closed. She looks back at Markus. ‘Bad news?’
Markus nods. ‘These accursed rumours,’ he says. ‘You never know what’s true and what isn’t.’
He turns on his heel and walks out.
Oslo, November 1967
1
It is half past two in the afternoon. Sverre is standing with his back to the heavy door of the National Archives of Norw
ay building, watching the traffic, when the door opens behind him. Only then does he turn.
Vera has become a woman of almost sixty, hair dyed a reddish-brown, glasses on her nose and a chain attached to the frame. She is still wonderfully curvaceous. They hug. Neither of them speaks.
She tightens the belt of her coat.
‘Have you finished for the day?’
She shakes her head. ‘It’s so nice out. Let’s go for a little stroll.’
They walk side by side, extolling the mild, sunny autumn. They walk towards the Kontraskjæret area. He asks, and she says she already has a grandchild.
‘Astrid was only sixteen, so Tulla is two years old. A young mother. But her husband’s a great guy. He’s an engineer on a Bergesen Line tanker. Sails for months at a time, so Astrid and Tulla are at home with us a lot.’
He says it must be nice to see time pass and manifest itself in new generations.
‘Yes, it’s just lovely. Grandchildren are a great gift, Sverre.’ Then Vera says she has been following his son and is sure he is going to have a great career as a politician. ‘He’s inherited his father’s wit, intellect and charm.’ She winks at him, and he can’t help but smile.
They cross the lawns in front of Akershus, stop and look at the view over Honnør Quay, the City Hall and Akers Mekaniske Verksted shipyard. The traffic by the quays is dense. He asks if she would like a cup of coffee at Skansen café, but she suggests a harbour walk instead. They take the steps down to the pavement below. She waits for him as he leans on his stick for the last few. They exchange glances.
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