‘You are leaving.’
Freya did not shake her head.
‘You are leaving Fólkvangr.’
The girl sighed and her thin body shook.
‘You are leaving Norway.’ Silje’s heart folded and kindled into ashes. ‘When?’
‘The day after your wedding.’
‘You are leaving me.’
‘I am starting a new life in England, Silje. Gunther is returning to London before he is deployed to Paris. We will row out of the harbour at Trondheim and rendezvous with a British submarine in the seas to the North.’
When he forced his lips to mine, he wasn’t declaring his love; he was saying goodbye. ‘What will you do in England?’ she asked, wondering when she had become so vain.
‘I can help the Jewish refugees. Hundreds of us escape every day, even as thousands more are put to the chambers.’
‘You cannot go. I won’t let you.’
‘There has to be more to my life than being a tiny part of yours. If you love me as you say you do then you will understand that.’
‘I will call off the wedding. I will tell Erik this very night. I will tell all of Fólkvangr, all of Norway, that we will be together now and for always. You are smiling. You think I will not do this for you. I will go and tell Mrs Tufte and her coven of witches this very instant.’
Silje opened the parlour door and Freya pushed it shut.
Mrs Tufte called from the next room, asking if all was well.
‘Yes, Mrs Tufte. I bumped into the door.’
‘You never bump into any door, Freya Dorfmann.’
Silje began to sob under her breath.
‘Very well then,’ said Mrs Tufte. ‘Call if you need anything, and do not waste any more flour. There is a war on.’
Freya said, ‘Yes, Mrs Tufte,’ and reached out until her fingertips found Silje’s cheek. She ran her hands over her eyes, across her forehead, and down either side of her nose until her fingers rested on her lips. ‘Still so beautiful,’ she whispered. ‘You will not say anything to Erik, because it is not within you to be so cruel. He has loved you for so long. He deserves the chance to make you happy in return.’
‘I am dreaming,’ said Silje. ‘I am asleep, and when I wake you will have said none of this.’ It was a childish thing to say and Silje did not want Freya to remember her for childish things. ‘I do not understand; why would you do this to us… to me.’
Freya wiped away her tears and said, ‘It would mean the world if you wished me luck.’
‘Wish you luck.’ said Silje. I will do no such thing. I will curse you with every sinew of my being. I will pray you never know peace. You made me want you, love you, and when I see I will never want or love another, you abandon me. No, I will not wish you well. I wish you all the misfortune your treacherous heart deserves. The General is right; your kind is evil, Freya Dorfmann.
‘Silje?’
Silje opened her eyes and smiled. ‘You will not need luck, Freya. I was blessed to know you even if it was for a short time. You will be safer in England and Gunther will take good care of you.’
Freya beamed with joy. ‘Then tell Mrs Tufte you are going to run errands with me, and we will walk the hills together this last time.’
Chapter 42
Dusk had fallen when they left Mrs Tufte’s cottage. The air was warm, though Silje thought there was a bitterness to it, something she’d tasted as a child: the tears that ran down the back of her throat when her father told her her mother would soar with the angels.
It is loss, she thought, looking at Freya. And when I lose you, it will be like losing her all over again.
Freya took her by the hand as they walked past the Fehns’ cottage. There was a light in the front parlour and a candle burning in an upstairs window.
Freya sniffed the air. ’Why do they burn a candle?’
‘They burn it for Lisbeth, so she can always find her way home.’
Freya nodded and squeezed her hand. ‘That is very sweet.’
‘I will burn a candle for you so that you will find your way back to me.’
‘I will not know it is there, Silje, not from England.’
‘I will light it anyway.’
They walked in silence, a southerly road from the Fehns’ home, a road that Silje seldom took. It was steep, even for those hardened by the mountains. The trees grew thick, the rocks grew larger with every step, and high above them the foliage met and conspired to shun the light of the moon. It would have been a despairing journey, but she was with Freya, and Freya travelled with light and colour in her wake. She held Silje’s hand tightly and led her with an assuredness that dispelled Silje’s fear. How perfect they were when they were together, and how foolish she was not to have seen it before.
Less than half a mile from the village, the road ended at a large cottage, even larger than that of the Fehns. In front of the cottage was a square containing a miniature castle and a moat. Silje remembered the castle, how its intricately carved ramparts and buttresses towered over her, blocking out the sun. Now it stopped just shy of her chest. Had it been so long since she’d visited Doctor Lomen’s home?
‘Why are we here, Freya?’
‘Because Doctor Lomen has yet to reply to the wedding invitation.’
‘Are you really so eager to see me given away to another?’
‘I want this to be the happiest day of your life, Silje. How can it be if someone as dear to us as Doctor Lomen does not attend?’
The door to the cottage was shut, but opened easily when Freya pushed against it. Doctor Lomen had a hallway, a sure sign of affluence in Silje’s mind. It was dark, too dark to see, so she allowed Freya to lead her, and when Freya stopped sharply she almost ran into her.
‘I hear breathing. He’s in here.’
Silje held her by the wrist to stop her from opening the door. ‘We usually knock,’ she said, rapping her knuckles against the pine. ‘Doctor Lomen?’
There was no reply.
‘Are you sure he is in there?’
Freya slipped past her and pushed open the door. Silje followed her inside and still could not see a thing, though now she could hear the sound of breathing, and could smell unwashed flesh and the rancid tang of urine.
‘What are you doing here?’ growled a voice in the darkness.
‘We should leave,’ said Silje.
‘We are not leaving,’ Freya replied. ‘Doctor Lomen. It is Silje and Freya. We have come to see you.’
‘Obviously,’ the voice growled back.
‘May we light a candle?’
‘You may not. Now please leave.’
‘I am going to light a candle, Doctor Lomen,’ Silje said. ‘Freya may be able to see you in the strange way she sees everything. But in here I am blind and I am sure you would not want me to stumble and hurt myself. I doubt you are in any state to attend to me.’
She heard him cough, heard Freya strike a match, heard herself whisper ‘God in heaven’ at the first sight of the good doctor in the dim light. His skin had thinned, so much so that she could see the veins and bones underneath. His eyes were hollow and had sunken deep into his skull; his hair, once the colour of fire, had dulled and greyed. His magnificent moustache had disappeared, though patches of it remained. It seemed he’d hacked at it and then decided there was no point in finishing the job. He is killing himself, she thought, as slowly and as painfully as he can. She guessed he had not eaten sufficiently in weeks, though he must have been drinking water to have survived so long.
At least she hoped it was water.
She allowed her nose to twitch, just once, and said, ‘I think a good long bath is in order, Doctor Lomen.’
The doctor’s eyes switched between them, and he drew his arms more tightly around a picture he held to his chest. Freya felt her way along the walls until she found the door that led to the rear of the house.
‘May I take that from you?’ Silje said, wrestling the picture out of his grip. Freya returned a moment late
r carrying a large metal tub. She placed it to one side, hearing Silje struggling.
‘Can I help?’ she asked doubtfully.
‘There is no need.’ Silje pushed the picture towards him and then pulled it back sharply, taking the doctor by surprise and causing him to relinquish his grasp.
‘There’s nothing here,’ she said, looking at the empty frame. ‘What happened to the picture?’
Doctor Lomen looked at the frame as though trying to remember something.
‘Was this a picture of your sons?’
He stared blankly at the frame.
‘No matter,’ said Silje, throwing it to one side. ‘We shall find the picture later. Before that, we shall get you clean and then make you something to eat.’
Though she did not savour the thought of seeing the doctor without attire, Silje decided that she should be the one to wash him.
‘I have experience,’ she told Freya.
‘And what is that supposed to mean?’
‘It means that I know how to wash people who – through no fault of theirs – have been unable to keep themselves clean for a number of days, or weeks.’
‘You are referring to me.’
‘I am. Besides, you are far too young to be seeing old men without their clothes.’
‘I am not so old,’ the doctor grumbled.
‘Too young to—I am blind!’ Freya said. She found Silje’s breathing and leaned closer so she could whisper into her ear. ‘And not too young for you to take me whenever you please.’
‘What was that? It is rude to whisper, child!’ Doctor Lomen struggled to his feet, and then collapsed into his chair. ‘I am not drunk!’
‘We did not say you were drunk, Doctor Lomen.’ Silje glared at her. ‘But you do need someone to look after you, to make sure you are well enough to attend my wedding.’
Freya’s nostrils flared. ‘I will be in the kitchen.’ She stormed through to the back of the house, caring little for what she trod on or kicked from her path.
Doctor Lomen belched loudly. ‘She seems angry with you.’
‘She is always angry with me. Now take off your clothes while I fetch some water.’
A shallow brook ran close to Doctor Lomen’s home, and it was from there that Silje filled four large pails and took them back to the cottage. She heaved them through and landed them awkwardly on the floor. To her astonishment, the doctor was already naked and sitting in the tin bathtub, staring at the window. His eyes swivelled towards her as she approached with the first pail.
‘The water will be quite cold at this time of year,’ she warned. ‘Perhaps I should warm it first.’
‘Nonsense, child. We are of mountain stock,’ he said, the only explanation that the men of the mountain needed for childish and foolhardy behaviour.
‘Very well.’ She held the bucket above the bath and averted her eyes. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I am,’ the doctor said stubbornly through clenched teeth.
Silje chanced a downward glance before she began to pour. His body was thin and white, and the flesh, like that of his face, was almost transparent and tempered with liver spots. She was suddenly afraid that a rush of cold water would dissolve him like salt. ‘Please hurry with the soup, Freya.’
In the kitchen, several pots crashed to the floor by way of reply. Silje swallowed and allowed a tentative eye to rove towards the doctor’s groin where his manhood lay coiled in a nest of red hair. By Silje’s reckoning the doctor was of similar proportions to Junges Fehn, perhaps larger, though circumcised which she did not particularly care for.
‘Do not just stand there, child,’ the doctor barked, his eyes shut.
Silje poured the contents of the pail over him, and to his credit, he hardly flinched, though the shock forced the last mote of air from his lungs.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he said finally. ‘That was most—’ he coughed a mouthful of sputum on to the floor, ‘bracing.’
Silje thought it best he did not remain in the bath for too long, so proceeded to scrub him quickly and with vigour. The second round of cold water brought a scream that rattled the cottage rafters. By the third, he was acclimatised and very much sober.
‘When I said I was not drunk,’ he began, ‘I was lying.’
Silje scoured about his armpits.
‘This is the most sober I have been since the night of Freya’s birthday, the night I lost my sons.’
She wiped the flannel across his chest.
‘I was prepared for the eventuality,’ he said, ‘no matter how unpleasant, that I might outlive one or two of them. Perhaps Jostein or Lars; they were both always so reckless.’
Silje remembered that Lars had once tried to leap from one mountain ledge to another when they were twelve years old. She’d promised him a kiss if he could do so. He’d plummeted over fifty feet, his fall arrested by the branches of the pine trees that grew below. He’d escaped with cuts and a broken wrist. Even as Doctor Lomen came bounding through the forest with her father and six others, Lars had struggled to his feet and stolen his prize: a kiss he’d planted firmly on her lips. He’d said she should forget any promises she’d made to Erik Brenna. He was braver and far more worthy of her.
‘I kept them away from you, you know.’ Doctor Lomen took the flannel from her and proceeded to clean his private parts. ‘If you could make Lars jump from a mountain then I could not bear to think what you could make the younger ones do.’
‘I said I was sorry for that a long time ago.’
‘I am not chastising you, child. It just occurred to me how little I knew of destiny’s cruelty back then. I thought that they were only in danger from a flighty little strumpet who lived just beyond the village.’ He chuckled so Silje decided he’d spoken in jest. ‘How much wiser I am today,’ he said. ‘And this newfound wisdom only cost me my sons.’
‘You are not to blame. It was the Germans. It is always the Germans. Your sons died bravely trying to—’
‘They died stupidly. They died wastefully, on a scheme that was doomed to failure and almost brought the wrath of the Reich down upon our heads.’
‘You must not say such things! You must never say such things.’
‘Do not mistake my anger for regret, Silje Ohnstad. My sons I will always love but I will always punish myself for not showing them how precious they were to me. Perhaps if I had told them then they would not have thrown their lives away. Perhaps they would not have been the cause of your brother’s terrible ordeal.’
‘They would have done this foolish thing no matter what,’ said Silje firmly. ‘Because they loved you and wanted you to be proud of them. Are you proud of them, Doctor Lomen?’
‘Roy,’ he said. ‘He must have been so very frightened…’
‘Answer me.’
The doctor whispered ‘Pride’ and nodded slowly. ‘I hope I will be, one day.’
‘Then as your friends we shall wait with you for that day.’
He nodded grimly and rose from the bath.
She leaned back on her haunches and watched transfixed as the doctor’s phallus travelled endlessly past her line of sight.
‘A towel, if you please.’
Silje blinked. She had not thought to find one.
* * *
The doctor consumed a whole pot of soup without offering any to his saviours. Neither of them cared; they were just pleased to see a semblance of colour returning to his flesh.
Silje found him some clothes while Freya told him about the forthcoming wedding in rapid bursts of excited exposition. She ended her monologue by thrusting an invitation under his nose. ‘Please say you’ll come.’
He had to cross his eyes to read it.
‘Please!’
‘Freya, if the doctor does not wish to attend—’
‘I will be there,’ he said.
‘And you will be fit and you will be strong and healthy, yes?’
He nodded; Freya waited.
‘Yes, I will eat plenty and stay away from alcohol.�
�
‘And you will be clean,’ Silje. said ‘You will have a bath on the morning of the wedding.’
The doctor chose not to dignify her request with an answer. ‘And I will return to my duties as soon as I am able.’
They left the cottage after Freya told the doctor to open wide, and then, with Silje holding her hand, placed a sugar lump on the end of his tongue. The doctor seemed puzzled for a moment, then roared with laughter.
‘The pair of you,’ he said. ‘Stay friends, always. Things are so much better in this world when you are together.’
Silje looked at her. Freya did not look back. It was one of the rare times Silje wished she could.
* * *
‘And now, your brother.’ Freya waved the last invitation as they walked back along Fólkvangr’s main thoroughfare.
Silje refused to believe Magnus had not said he’d come. ‘He does not have to reply. He is my brother. His reply is a given.’
‘Just to be sure then.’
The German curfew kept the streets empty. The Germans’ fear of air-raids kept them dark. It had been many months since Freya had lit the lamps, a task she’d taken to alone since the death of Mr Kleppe. Silje had protested, of course, but found that these days she was less inclined to battle through Freya’s wilfulness. She wondered if it was because she no longer saw her as the lost, blind orphan adopted by the village. She is a grown woman now, Silje thought. Less easy to influence, less likely to bind herself in an unholy triangle for something as fleeting and intangible as love.
‘If you come back to our cottage then you will miss the curfew.’
‘If the Germans find out I’ve missed the curfew then that will be the least of my worries.’
‘Nevertheless, it would be wise for you to stay with us tonight.’
‘Us?’ echoed Freya. ‘Or you?’
The Quisling Orchid Page 40