‘Of course I care. This is my home. The people are part of me. When they hate me, how can I feel anything but hatred for myself?’
‘Then why do you not tell them what you’re doing for the Resistance? Tell them about the newsletter.’
‘I cannot tell them! If the secret falls into German hands—’
‘Fólkvangr knows about me and I have not fallen into German hands. Do you not trust the villagers?’
‘I trust them, but any of them would break under German inquisition. I have heard stories: prisoners throwing themselves from the windows of Victoria Terrasse, even before their interrogation has begun. Do you think the Fehns could withstand such torture? Or Mrs Tufte? Or Mr Bergström? Or young Jesper?’
Freya snatched Silje’s hand and held it against her chest. ‘Please, do not say such things.’ Silje felt a heart pounding and was unsure if it was Freya’s or her own.
‘We shall go upstairs,’ said Freya. ‘It will make us both feel better.’
‘I am exhausted and I am not in the mood.’
‘Please!’ Freya leaned closer to whisper into her ear, though there really was no need, not to Silje’s mind at least. ‘We can try those things again, from Magnus’s book. I promise I won’t make any noise this time.’
Silje nodded as though she’d been asked to clean out the goats’ pen, and it was such an ungracious gesture she was glad Freya could not see it. ‘Just for an hour, no more. We both have much to—’
Freya shrieked with delight and ran for the stairs, pulling a tired and startled Silje behind her.
* * *
There were times, if they had been apart for an hour, or a day, when they would seek out one another and run to find a stable or an outhouse where they could be alone. There they would explore every part of their joined flesh; their need for intimacy would drive them beneath each other’s skin, leaving them spent and aching. And afterward, Freya would wonder aloud where they could travel to spend their lives together. Silje would wonder, in silence, how she could be so cruel to Erik, and to Freya’s bewilderment she would often weep.
Then there were other times, when Silje would lie next to her with the book taken from beneath Magnus’s wardrobe. She would read stories and poetry to her, delighting Freya with her portrayals of salacious queens and their submissive maids. And afterward Silje would treat their lovemaking as a kind of nature experiment, labouring between Freya’s legs with great diligence while referring to the more instructive chapters of the book.
‘Do you like it if I do… this?’
‘Yes… yes, I think so.’
‘And what about this?’
‘Again, yes. I will like whatever you do, so I see little point in—’
‘And this?’
‘What are you…? Silje… wait… no… just… stop… Silje, stop it! I’m not a pregnant goat!’
Silje, being Silje, preferred to be adventurous on her own terms. She would describe the book's pictures and illustrations in great detail, responding to Freya’s inquisitive lust with ‘Yes, we can try that’ or ‘No, because it sounds disgusting’ or ‘Yes, I’m sure they do it in Oslo, but we are not in Oslo; we’re in Fólkvangr.’
It was most frustrating, and Freya, being Freya, was at her most unpredictable when frustrated.
And so it was, during the hour together which would leave them bitten, scratched, exhausted and estranged, Freya slid over Silje’s back and snaked an arm under her breasts. She kissed her and whispered into her ear. ‘If you do not like it then tell me.’
Silje closed her eyes, feeling her lover’s heart pounding between her shoulders. She turned her head to plant kisses along her arm. ‘If I do not like what?’
But Freya had already lost herself to a passion that burned with the heat and ferocity of a fever. She drew her tongue along Silje’s neck, tasting the blood orchids in her perspiration, her hand delving softly between her haunches.
‘What are you doing?’
Freya kissed the side of her throat, breathing in the scent where her hair met her skin. She whispered again, ‘Hush’ and eased her thumb gently into Silje’s bowel.
It was a part of herself Silje had surrendered only once before – to Junges Fehn.
But now it was different; now there was no coercion or pain; instead, she felt only hunger, an embrace of the forbidden, delight in a torment that served only to excite her more.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to arch her spine, but with Freya’s weight pressing on her, found she could not. She melted against the sheets and cried out, clenching the covers in her fists.
‘Do you like this? Do you want me to stop?’
She pressed her fingernails into Freya’s arm and whispered, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Silje, do you want me to—?’
She reached her climax, raising a cry that left its echo burning in Freya’s ears. Her body rattled for moments longer until she was at last spent. Freya folded her arms around her, caring nothing for her own repletion, and held her until the tremors ceased. Then she kissed her shoulder and whispered to her: ‘Don’t ever leave me. I won’t ask you to make me promises you cannot keep, or say that you will never love another, or that I will always be your most favoured. Just never leave me.’
Without a word, Silje jumped to her feet and slipped into her dress.
‘Silje?’ Freya swept the sheets with her hand, becoming frantic when she realised she was no longer there. ‘Silje, what’s wrong? What have I done?’
Silje ran from the room, shrouded in a thundercloud of her own making – and it was six days before she spoke to Freya again.
Chapter 29
On the morning of Freya Dorfmann’s nineteenth birthday, Magnus Ohnstad was nowhere to be found. In the early hours, Silje had crept into his room to replace the book he kept hidden under his wardrobe.
Since they were children, Magnus had set small, invisible traps that would tell him if she’d ventured into his private space: a piece of paper placed on the dresser so it would fall in the draft of a door being opened; a single hair placed carefully between the same door and the frame; fingernail clippings that would scatter as she walked across the floor. Of course, Magnus did not set his ‘whisperers’ when he retired for the night, and as fate would have it, he possessed the determination of a corpse when it came to not being woken. And so, as Silje had discovered early in their lives, the best time to sneak into Magnus’s room was when he was in it.
But in the early hours on the morning of Freya’s birthday, Magnus was not in his bed. These days, he often did not emerge until midday. She looked around the room. The bed was made, the floor spotlessly clean. He’d become strangely house-proud since he began his assignations with the Resistance. Silje wondered if Gunther Braithwaite had stolen away from Mrs Tufte’s home in a similarly furtive manner. Magnus was enamoured with him; it is almost love, she thought, though a very different love than that she shared with Freya. Magnus simply wanted to be Gunther Braithwaite: an officer, a spy, a trained killer. Silje considered Freya and herself equals, as long as she did not account for her own wisdom, beauty and fair complexion.
Though Silje was forced to confess that under Mrs Tufte’s bothersome care, Freya had indeed transformed. Her hair was blonde and her skin had darkened under the mountain sun. Her thin, girlish frame had blossomed, thanks to a diet rich with goats’ milk, cheese and freshly baked bread (though Freya often complained that the staple of Fólkvangr was wreaking havoc with her digestion). Her deceptively strong musculature grew stronger still, as she was, like all the villagers, cursed to spend at least half her waking hours walking up hill.
But even before, when Freya had been the blind slip of a child they had rescued from under the floorboards of a milliner’s shop, Silje knew; she knew that Freya would take her heart from her chest, hold it to her own and never return it.
She would love her forever, and this, more than anything, terrified her. Her skin broke into pins and needles, and her legs threatened
to give way.
All this, even when I just think about her…
She pushed the book under the wardrobe as far as it would go. Then she got to her feet and looked through the window for the sun; dawn had broken. She decided she would spend the morning looking for Gunther. Wherever he was, Magnus would be close by.
* * *
Mrs Tufte had awoken to find Freya bounding about the cottage in a state of childish excitement, and her occasional guest, the erstwhile and unlikely-christened Gunther Braithwaite, grimly packing his haversack to leave. He seemed agitated.
‘What is the matter, Mr Braithwaite?’
Gunther checked his pistol and pushed it inside the haversack. He followed it with four clips of ammunition and a grenade, which she had told him before to keep in the outdoor privy, not inside the cottage. She would have said something, shaken a stern finger at him, taken time to restate the cottage rules that neither he nor Freya seemed to pay any mind to. But Gunther was in haste and did not appear to be in the mood for reprimands. For the first time since they’d met, he carried the bearing of the British Intelligence officer he claimed to be. She took his arm, finding the sinews in his bicep and gently pressing her fingers into them until he was forced to stop and listen.
‘Where are you going? You will miss Freya’s celebration.’
Freya was busy making a terrible noise with the pots and pans in the kitchen. She had threatened to bake something.
‘Bergen,’ Gunther said.
‘And what is there for you in Bergen, on today of all days?’
‘Even if I knew for sure, I would not tell you.’
Mrs Tufte had done her best to look hurt, and in some small way had succeeded.
Gunther sighed. ’I have received word from London concerning your countrymen.’
‘Treachery?’
‘Far worse: stupidity.’
‘So London is spying on us, as it spies on the Nazis.’
‘It is war, Mrs Tufte; we spy on everyone.’
‘Are you going to kill our countrymen, Gunther?’ She had hoped the bullets were destined for the head and chest of General Gruetzmacher.
‘No.’
‘Then you must tell me what is going on.’ It was only then she realised that his shadow was missing. When some Resistance operation was afoot, he and the Ohnstad boy would stand in this very room, blackening their faces, checking their ammunition, grinning at each other as though this were all a schoolboy’s game.
‘Where is Magnus?’
Gunther threw his bag across his back. ‘I must go. Tell Freya I am sorry. I will return before darkness falls.’
‘We are in the mountains,’ Mrs Tufte said grimly. ‘Who knows when the night will come.’
Gunther smiled and told her again he was sorry. As he walked to the door, Mrs Tufte called out to him, though she was sure she did not mean to. ‘I expect to see you back at this cottage, young man, before the night is over. Do you understand me?’
He stopped for a moment, and she prayed he would not turn around; there were tears in her eyes, and she disliked showing anyone her heart.
Thankfully, he mumbled ‘goodbye’ and left without sparing her another glance.
She took a moment to compose herself and then went to see what had befallen her kitchen.
* * *
‘You have lost your mind, Eva,’ said Mrs Munsen, who had been Eva Tufte’s best friend since they were children, and who was the only person in the village permitted to speak of the true whereabouts of Mr Tufte. ‘The Germans are not stupid. Such a gathering will attract attention and put the child, and us, at risk.’
Mrs Tufte eased herself back in her rocking chair and drew on a long clay pipe, the only personal effect her husband had left when he’d vanished into the night all those years ago. Mrs Munsen, a thin, weather-beaten woman with thick grey hair and whiskers to match, lit her own pipe and raised it to a group of men trying to erect a stall in front of the candlemaker’s.
‘They will suspect nothing,’ said Mrs Tufte, ‘as long as these fools remember that this is not a celebration; it is simply a barterer’s market, with more cake stalls than are perhaps necessary.’
‘Hmph,’ Mrs Munsen said.
Mrs Tufte scrutinised the square to see if there was anything she had missed. The bunting was in place, and every window box was laden with flowers: roses, tulips and orchids of every hue, creating an orchestra of sight and scent. Jon Ohnstad had outdone himself. She looked to the line of tables laden with plates of homemade biscuits, small cakes, and juices crushed from vegetables and the very few fruits that Jon Ohnstad had managed to trade during his travels to Bergen. He had also supplied several kegs of his honeyed mead, which Grette, The Mottled Goat’s barkeep, was carrying three barrels at a time across her broad shoulders. The tiny village post office had pulled out its awning for the first time in years, and was selling paper and bottles of ink. There was a banner attached to the table, written out and painstakingly coloured so as to be an artwork in itself. It read, When did you last write to your sweetheart?
Mrs Munsen sniffed and said, ‘Freya is not your family.’
Mrs Tufte puffed stiffly on her pipe, but did not reply.
‘I am just saying, Eva, she will not always be here.’
‘She has no other family; where else is she to go? Fólkvangr is her home now, and I daresay after the war she will choose to stay with me.’ Mrs Tufte swallowed. ‘Us – I meant stay with us, in Fólkvangr.’
Mrs Munsen thought that perhaps now was not the time for painful truths, so she took a different path, one that she hoped would burst the cloud she’d placed over her friend. ‘I saw that young man of yours leaving the village this morning.’
‘And which young man is that?’
‘You know who I mean, Eva. Do not be coy.’
‘Do not be disgusting,’ Mrs Tufte said, blushing. ‘He is young enough to be my grandson. And while we are about the subject, there is far too much carrying-on in this village for my liking. When people make a commitment, they should stick to it. I have mine, though my husband chose not to.’
Mrs Munsen shrugged. ‘If the gravy is good for goose, it is good for the goat.’
‘I have never understood what you mean by that.’
‘Gunther! That is his name! I knew I would remember it. He left on that infernal motorcycle of his, racing from the village as though his short life no longer mattered to him.’
‘An errand,’ Mrs Tufte said flatly, ‘for me. And what business have you being awake at such an ungodly hour?’
‘I was making cakes,’ Mrs Munsen said, waving her pipe at the cake stall. ‘And like yourself, I was too excited to sleep. It seems so long since we had a birthday.’
‘Hush!’
‘A celebration then. For so long, we have bowed our heads at memorials.’ She patted Mrs Tufte’s thigh. ‘On second thought, a fine idea, Eva; a very fine idea.’ Mrs Munsen groaned, creaked up from her rocking chair and announced she was going to direct the menfolk in setting up the candle stall. ‘They will either injure themselves or burn the village to ash unless someone takes charge.’ She limped away, and as soon as she’d gone, Freya appeared in the doorway of Mrs Tufte’s cottage. Mrs Tufte wondered how much she’d heard.
Freya squeezed her shoulder and leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. Nothing more was said. She listened for the trucks and carthorses before making her way across the cobbles towards the candle stall.
‘Be careful,’ Mrs Tufte called.
Freya called back that she was always careful.
‘And you look very beautiful, young Freya.’
The girl had made the most striking dress for the celebration that wasn’t. It pinched her small waist and flowed down to cover her knees; a patchwork of rough diamond shapes hastily sewn together; a confusion of magical colours that could only have been cast by a girl who could not see. Mrs Tufte wondered if her own daughters would have been as gifted as Freya, had she been blessed with them.
Freya half-turned and curtsied before continuing on her way. She joined Mrs Munsen at the stall, where the menfolk patted her on the back and watched in awe as she sniffed the candles and identified the precise ingredients of each one.
Mrs Tufte rocked gently in her chair. Of all Freya’s parlour tricks, this was her most favourite. But when Freya took a cigar from Rolf Soren’s mouth and attempted to light a candle, Mrs Tufte leapt from her seat. Fortunately, Mrs Munsen was as quick as she was vigilant. She snatched the candle from Freya’s hands while the menfolk roared with laughter. Shaking a finger under Freya’s nose, she reminded her, in a needlessly loud voice, that silly blind girls and naked flames were kept apart for very good reasons.
Freya apologised and tried her best not to smile.
Satisfied that the danger had passed, Mrs Tufte took her seat again. She decided there and then that daughters, while a blessing, would have been the death of her. She did not understand how Jon Ohnstad had not simply wasted away through worry.
* * *
As the sun climbed above the mountain peak and the morning wore on, Fólkvangr turned out in its entirety. They exchanged goods and talked at great length about the invasion, the Resistance, and Norway’s place in the world when the war was over.
Some expressed fear there would be little left of Norway for its place in the world to matter.
And though Mrs Tufte had strictly forbidden it, the villagers were wishing Freya a happy birthday and furtively pressing coins and small gifts into her hands.
‘Are you crying, Doctor Lomen?’ asked Freya.
The Doctor coughed gruffly and smoothed the teardrops from his magnificent moustache. ‘No, child. Why would you say such a thing?’
‘Your voice,’ said Freya. ‘I must be mistaken.’
‘Indeed you are,’ said the doctor and coughed again.
‘But if you were crying,’ she said, ‘what would you be crying about?’
The Quisling Orchid Page 28