‘Silje, listen.’
‘Do not spoil it, Father.’
‘It is important.’
Well, whatever it is, promise not to insult me.’
And Jon Ohnstad, being a man who was not given to breaking his word, chose to say nothing. Several moments passed, long enough for the sun to begin its slow descent behind the mountains, and for Silje’s patience – one corner of love, she thought bitterly – to break.
‘What did you want to say to me?’
‘It is not important.’
‘Clearly it is, or you would have not brought it up.’
He took his pipe from his lips and tapped out the tobacco on the ground. ‘Do you remember Mrs Gyldenløve?’
‘The shoemaker’s wife from Kronstadt?’
‘No, the other Mrs Gyldenløve.’
Silje said she did not know who she was.
‘She is a seamstress in Bergen. She lives in a house a short amble from the quay. A widow. I often take flowers to her, more of late.’
‘You have never mentioned her,’ Silje said. ‘Is she pretty?’
‘That is an odd question. Why do you ask?’
‘I am curious.’
‘Why are you curious?’
‘Why are you evading my question?’
‘I am not evading your question, Daughter. I am trying to tell you something important while you seem more concerned with the notion that I have betrayed the memory of your mother.’
‘And have you?’
‘Have I what?’
‘Have you been unfaithful to Mother?’
‘I do not think that is any concern of yours and it is not what I wanted to speak to you about.’
‘If you think that you indulging yourself in all kinds of harlotry behind Mother’s back is no concern of mine then I’m afraid you are—’
‘Silje… you remember your mother is dead, don’t you?’
‘That… is… a horrible thing to say.’
Jon Ohnstad sighed and shook his head. ‘Mrs Gyldenløve has a daughter, younger than you, perhaps not as pretty.’
‘Dear God. Not the daughter…’ She remembered that her father was in the autumn of his years when he first met her mother.
Her father said, ‘Do not make me raise my voice, Silje.’
And so she remained silent. I will listen, she told herself. I will listen and then I will have my say.
‘Mrs Gyldenløve’s daughter worked in the town hall kitchens before the invasion. In spite of her mother’s petitions, she continued to work there after the Nazis took the hall for their headquarters. Gruetzmacher paid a visit to the kitchens one day several months ago, and that is where he laid eyes on Tonelise.’
‘I do not wish to hear th—’
‘And since then,’ Jon Ohstad said firmly, ‘Tonelise goes to his study every Monday at precisely four o’clock. He locks the door, and she is released an hour later. She finishes her shift, cleans the kitchens and checks the cold room stock before returning home where she spends an hour trying to remove her skin with a scrubbing brush.’
Silje remained silent.
‘I fear that if it goes on then she may take her own life.’ Jon Ohnstad looked at her. Silje looked away, aware that she was swaying slightly in the breeze.
‘I know that you are sometimes called to the General’s chambers,’ he continued, though she could tell he did not want to. ‘I have asked you this before—’
‘And I have told you before, we discuss the newsletter. That is all.’
‘And I have told you before,’ her father said sternly, ‘I am not some fool who wishes to be cosseted in a bed of your lies.’
‘Like Erik, you mean.’
‘Yes, like Erik.’
‘I thought you liked him.’
‘I love him as though he were my own son. But that does not mean he is not a fool.’
‘And you are happy for your daughter to marry a fool?’
‘I am happy when you are happy, that is all, and you seek to distract me, Silje, but I know you too well. I will speak and you, for once, will listen. I know that you are… familiar with the company of men.’
Silje felt her face flush bright red and then drain almost as quickly. She wanted to stamp her foot and shout ‘Father, please!’ so loudly that her voice would carry across the mountains. Instead, her words escaped her as a humiliated whisper.
Her father licked his lips and forced himself to press on. ‘I have said nothing because…’ He looked to the sky for guidance. He scored his fingers through the earth and took a deep breath. ‘I took a woman, Silje, a girl younger than you are now, as my second wife without a binding separation from Marit. So with adultery as my first, bigamy became my second crime against morality.’
‘It does not matter,’ Silje said. ‘You loved Mother. We all did. You were unfaithful to Marit, but you were faithful to Her; that is all that matters.’
Again, he licked his lips and looked down to the ground.
And in that moment of silence, Silje’s world crumbled into dust.
‘You are lying,’ she said, though she could not think of a reason why he would tell her such a thing unless it were true. ‘Who?’
‘Does it really matter?’
‘It matters to me! Who was she?’
‘It is not important, Silje!’
‘You fucked some other woman—’
‘And you will mind your tongue when you speak to me!’
‘You fucked another woman behind our backs and then you tell me that it is not important! How dare you!’ Silje jumped to her feet. ‘She is still alive, isn’t she? She lives in the village?’ Her eyes darted to every bush, every plant, every stone, every rock she could see; expecting the woman to leap out to taunt her. ‘It was Marit, wasn’t it? Men! You always shit so close to home!’
His face took on the aspect of a winter storm, so much so that Silje would have believed she heard thunder as he clenched his fists and the air cracked between his knuckles. They stared at each other, defiantly, as strangers. Her father said, ‘It is the wife of Junges Fehn.’
Silje blinked rapidly to clear her eyes and then looked away. It was, to her, beyond all comprehension, and yet a tiny voice at the base of her skull said that perhaps it was justice, though it was likely Mrs Fehn had sinned against Silje’s family long before Silje had cast her shadow over hers. She looked at her father; he seemed different to her now. Smaller.
‘Were you with her when Mother was dying?’ She left herself open and unshielded, dreading his reply.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It was just once, and we both agreed it was a mistake.’
‘Just the once,’ she echoed.
‘And there has been no one else since. Still, it haunts me, and perhaps my own weakness has prevented me protecting you from yours.’
‘I am not… weak.’
‘All I am saying is that you must treat Erik with more respect than I treated your mother. That is all I wanted to—’
‘You are not welcome at my wedding,’ she said, regretting it as soon as the words escaped her lips.
‘You do not mean that.’
‘I do,’ she lied.
‘For a mistake I made twenty years ago.’
‘If you dare show your face, I shall have Gunther throw you from the church!’
To her surprise, this seemed to amuse her father more than wound him.
‘Not Erik?’ he asked.
She swore under her breath and got to her feet.
‘I did not mean it,’ he called after her. ‘I know that you care for him, Silje.’
She chose not to hear him. It was a lie she could only bear to hear from herself.
* * *
The Truth followed her along the crooked road leading from her home to Fólkvangr. When she tried to run from it, the Truth sang louder.
You do not love him. You never have.
Silje tried to swear it away, but the Truth persisted. It is the girl you want. Take her. She is yours.
Take her and leave this place.
This place.
Her universe wheeled and circled above the mountain, the cottage and Fólkvangr. Or perhaps the mountain, the cottage and the village orbited her. She thought of the ladder in the sky Erik had painted and kept hidden from her. You should feel blessed, she told herself. It was rare that one would know such boundless love from another, so to know such a love from two was a seldom thing indeed. She stopped running where the path split into three.
Leave Fólkvangr.
She could not. Never.
Who would take care of Magnus and her father? She had happily taken the mantle when her mother had passed away. It was her pleasure and her duty. Fólkvangr was her life.
‘Perhaps they should call this place Irony.’
Silje shrieked.
‘Forgive me.’ Gunther stepped out from behind an oak tree that had, over the course of centuries, grown a deep smile near the centre of its trunk. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’
‘What were you doing?’ said Silje, fanning herself for drama’s sake. ‘You could have given me a seizure.’
‘I doubt that.’ Gunther took a few steps towards her. Silje took three steps back. ‘I heard running so I took cover. Force of habit I’m afraid.’ He looked back towards the tree and nodded as though thanking it for growing there.
‘Is this what they teach you in spy school?’
Gunther smiled in that way that made her feel as if she were six years old. ‘Amongst other things, yes.’
‘And what do you mean by “Irony”?’
He shivered and rubbed his hands together. ‘It came to me as I watched you standing there where the road divides, trying to decide between them.’
‘I was not deciding; I will stay on this road, the one that leads to the village.’
Gunther grinned and Silje wanted to slap his face. ‘I wasn’t talking about the road,’ he said.
‘Then I have no idea what you are talking about.’
‘Have it your way, as is your wont. Let us talk about Quisling.’
‘If we must talk about something.’ She continued briskly along the road to Fólkvangr, leaving Gunther to hurry after her.
‘It is all set,’ he said in a loud whisper. ‘Thanks to your dealings with the General—’
‘“Dealings”? Is that what we are calling it now?’
He says it so quickly, Silje thought. Rehearsed, revised, rehearsed again, to save us both discomfort. She was having none of it, not today.
Gunther coughed and opened his mouth to speak.
‘Whatever you are thinking of saying, it will be the wrong thing, Gunther. Best leave it at that.’
He had to say something. ‘British Intelligence and the Norwegian Resistance will not forget your sacrifice.’
‘As I said: the wrong thing.’ She stopped and took a deep breath to chill her lungs. ‘What is it you were telling me?’
Gunther had turned a sickly shade of pink. The English, Silje thought; they cannot even blush properly.
‘From the fragments of information you have provided,’ he began, still feeling the need to praise, however indirectly, Silje’s talent for whoring secrets from the enemy, ‘we have pieced together Quisling’s itinerary for the day. He will be heavily guarded at all times. A sniper is our best option though it is unlikely he would escape, even in the confusion.’
‘I’m sure there will be no shortage of volunteers.’
‘Of that I have no doubt, but Command thinks that a suicide operation would be less effective in rallying Norwegians than a clean strike with no casualties on our side.’
‘Are you saying we are cowards?’
‘No, I am saying that your docile aggression needs to be stoked, as it were.’
She wondered what ‘as it were’ meant. ‘You are calling us cowards! Perhaps you should go to the cottage and explain this to my brother!’
‘Why are you so difficult to talk to?’
‘Why are you such an idiot?’
He seized her by the arms and pressed his lips against hers. He closed his eyes tightly; his nostrils flared as he pulled her closer. Silje watched him with her left eyebrow raised. He should stop soon, she thought. But he did not. It occurred to her that perhaps he was unsure how. She gently pushed him away.
‘Are you quite finished?’ she said.
‘I’m sorry; I don’t know what came over—’
‘Good.’ She pointedly wiped her mouth, smiled and grasped the belt around his waist.
‘Silje, please; I am very flattered but I think it would be a terrible idea for us to—’
Silje pulled down on his belt and at the same time drove her knee into his groin.
Gunther’s eyes bulged from their sockets. Silje noted, with some satisfaction, that her kneecap had caught him squarely in the stirring of an erection.
‘You were saying,’ she said as he crumpled to the ground, ‘some nonsense about something coming over you? What came over you, Gunther Braithwaite, was bad manners. You think because I allow some demented Nazi between my knees I’m fair game for a hero of British Intelligence.’
‘It’s not like that,’ he squealed like a goat at its own castration.
‘Apologise.’
‘I have.’
‘Again, with feeling.’
‘I am very sorry.’
‘No, don’t try to get up. Stay there and tell me what I need to know of this plan.’
Gunther rolled into a sitting position. He looked paler than usual; Silje hoped she hadn’t done him a permanent injury, not that he deserved anything less.
‘We are not going to kill him,’ Gunther said. ‘We are going to kidnap him.’ Deciding that he’d been chastised sufficiently, he struggled to his feet. ‘I can see this surprises you.’
‘You have misread me again, Gunther; I’m trying not to laugh.’
‘Well, at least you’re trying,’ Gunther said glumly. ‘My superiors were not so polite when I first told them about the plan.’
‘If you think sending a sniper is a suicide mission, then what do you call a kidnap attempt?’
‘Something they are not expecting. A sniper would be unable to escape. The kidnappers will have a hostage: Quisling himself.’
He seemed to double in height.
‘A while ago you told me that Gruetzmacher will present his eugenics scheme to Quisling over a late supper.’
Silje remembered. Cruelty seemed to loosen his tongue, and on that particular day he’d bled secrets even he knew he should not.
‘Are you all right?’
She blinked and found Gunther was staring at her.
‘The Hilton,’ she said. ‘You mean to take him at the Hilton.’
Gunther smiled, this time making her feel his equal. Perhaps a kick to the nether parts earned respect in the English.
‘We have people working there: chefs and the serving staff. Trust me, this will be much easier than trying to shoot him. He will be surrounded by Krauts ten layers deep. A shot like that is more likely to kill one of his bodyguards than him.’
‘Have you considered aiming for his head?’
Gunther treated her to the other smile, the one that made her feel like a small and slow child. ‘Yes, we have. The distances involved would mean a sniper of extraordinary skill, and my superiors tell me the best ones are being held back for France.’ He scratched at his moustache. ‘Magnus could have made that shot,’ he said. ‘He had a gift.’
‘And look where it got him, and please don’t say anything about how his sacrifice will be remembered. Just make sure your superiors remember all of Norway.’
She set off for Fólkvangr, her steps lighter, no longer pressed into the earth by the reproach festering inside her chest. She decided this new feeling of pride and togetherness was patriotism and she very much liked it.
‘Where do you think you are going?’ she asked.
‘I thought I might accompany you to the village. It is getting late and it would be un
gentlemanly of me to allow—’
‘And now you are concerned with being a gentleman. You are full of surprises this evening, Gunther Braithwaite.’
‘Every time you say my name, I think you are laughing at me.’
‘Perhaps I am. Go to the cottage, Gunther. Sit with my brother and tell him how the war progresses.’
He looked uncertain, perhaps even guilty.
‘He bears you no ill will; no more than he bears the rest of the world anyway.’
* * *
She approached the village at twice her strolling pace, which gave the sentry very little time to signal ahead.
‘What are you doing here?’ Ingrid Haud cried. She rode her bicycle in a tight circle around Silje, slowing her down. ‘You are not supposed to come back this way.’
‘So I am no longer allowed to come to the village in the evening?’
‘No! Yes! Of course yes, but not tonight.’
‘And what is so special about tonight?’
The circle grew tighter until Ingrid rode to a halt, blocking Silje’s path. ‘If I tell you, you did not hear it from me.’
‘I understand.’
‘I mean it Silje; I was not supposed to tell you this under pain of a sound spanking.’
‘That does sound serious, so I promise I will not say a word.’
Ingrid glanced around to make sure the trees hadn’t snuck up on them, and then beckoned for Silje to lean closer. ‘They are testing the lights.’
‘Lights. What lights?’
‘The Christmas lights.’
‘But it isn’t Christmas.’
Ingrid folded her arms and made a show of tapping an impatient foot. ‘They are for your wedding dance. Erik borrowed them from Junges Fehn who told me to tell you “congratulations” if I saw you before he did.’
‘Then you must thank him if you see him before I do.’
‘He also said to tell you that he will be unable to attend your wedding because Mrs Fehn says he will have a cold that day.’
‘I see.’
‘I don’t.’
‘And I am not supposed to know about these lights.’
Ingrid shook her head so vigorously, Silje was afraid her thin neck would sprain. ‘If I see you coming then I have to give the secret signal.’
‘A secret signal too! This is all so exciting. I will not delay you any longer; the signal must be given.’
The Quisling Orchid Page 38