The Apple Orchard

by Susan Wiggs

  “You’re the Winther girl?” the boy asked.

  She didn’t answer. He was a stranger. “Who are you?”

  “A friend. Call me Magnus.”

  “They took my mama away. And they tried to catch me, but Mama told me to run for my life. Maybe my papa will come...” she said in a shaky voice.

  “I’ll take you somewhere safe.”

  She felt sick to her stomach, because in some small, horror-stricken corner of her mind, she understood that her father would not come. “The brownshirts took him, too.”

  The boy looked her over. Annelise read something in his silence. I’m sorry.

  “You’re going to have to stay quiet and trust me,” he said. “It’s scary, I know.” He held out his hand.

  She couldn’t think. The day was still bright. A family of swans paddled by, three gray-fuzzed chicks behind a majestic white bird. Annelise didn’t know what else to do, so she put her hand in the boy’s and let him tow her along. This pale-haired, scar-faced stranger convinced her to come with him, even though she had no notion of what he might do to her. After seeing her beautiful angel mother dragged away by the brownshirts, she realized nothing worse could ever happen to her, today or ever. She told him about her grandmother up in Helsingør, and he said he’d take her there. Back when times were normal, Annelise and her parents took their motorcar or the local train or ferry up the coast to Grandma’s. Magnus said it was safer to go by boat.

  Before long, they came to the city docks. There, they faded into the shadows and waited. The boy kept hold of her hand. His skin was rough and scabby. After a while, he brought her down to an open dory, the kind Papa sometimes took her rowing in on Sunday afternoons.

  “Put this on,” said the boy, tossing her a canvas life vest. “Hurry, or—”

  “Halt,” barked a voice. “What do you think you’re doing?” Two soldiers crowded in on them. Their uniforms were covered in badges and insignia, their belts shiny and bulging with holsters. Annelise cowered, remembering the men who had grabbed her mother.

  “Taking my little sister boating this fine afternoon,” the boy called Magnus declared. “Last I heard, there was no prohibition against taking a child boating.” His tone was insolent but not quite defiant.

  The taller soldier glared at them, first at the boy, then at Annelise. His eyes felt like daggers. Annelise fought the urge to run. She thought of her brave mother and stared right back.

  “Off we go, then,” said Magnus, grasping her under the armpits. In one powerful movement, he swung her up and over the gunwale of the boat. Just for a second, her feet were framed against the sky-blue background, as though stretching up to heaven.

  Part Six

  TWEED KETTLE PIE

  In wartime, nearly all foods were rationed. Families were encouraged to grow as much food as possible themselves, and to serve wild-caught fish at the height of freshness. Women believed creating nutritious meals was their munition of war.

  2 pounds potatoes

  salt

  1/4 cup milk

  4 tablespoons cream cheese

  3 tablespoons unsalted butter

  1/4 cup chives (minced fresh, or scallions)

  6 tablespoons butter (divided)

  4 tablespoons flour

  2 cups milk

  a few pinches salt

  pinch ground nutmeg

  pinch ground cloves

  1/2 cup diced onion

  2 cups mixed cooked vegetables: peas, carrots, cauliflower, whatever is in season

  2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

  4-8 ounces salmon filet, poached and flaked

  1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

  Peel and dice the potatoes, and boil until tender. Combine with salt, 1/4 cup milk, the cream cheese, 1 tablespoon butter and chives and mash or whip until smooth.

  While potatoes are boiling, melt 4 tablespoons butter and combine with flour to make a roux. Slowly add the milk and stir on low until thickened. Season with salt, nutmeg and cloves.

  Sauté the onion in the rest of the butter until soft. Add the rest of the vegetables, the parsley and salmon and combine well.

  Pour the mixture into a wide baking dish and top with the white sauce. Spread the mashed potatoes over this and top with cheese. Bake at 350 degrees F until bubbly and brown on top. Let the casserole rest for about 15 minutes, and serve warm.

  (Source: Traditional; of Scottish origin)

  Ten

  “Have you ever heard of a woman named Annelise Winther?” Tess asked Dominic as they left the hospital together.

  “Doesn’t ring a bell. Should it?”

  “There was a card from her to Magnus in the room.” She flushed a little. “It felt strange, sitting there with nothing to say, so I read the get-well cards aloud to him. One of them was from Miss Winther—a recent client of mine in San Francisco. It can’t be a coincidence that they know each other.”

  “Maybe your sister can tell you more.”

  While she still had a signal, Tess phoned the office. Jude got on the line. “Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m doing much better, thank you for asking,” she said.

  “Then why aren’t you at work?”

  “I had to... Something came up.” She wasn’t sure how much she wanted to share with him at this point. “A family matter.”

  He snorted. “Since when do you have a family?”

  “Nice, Jude.”

  “I’m just saying. If you don’t get back on the job, you won’t have a job. Jesus, you went from a meeting with Dane Sheffield to playing Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.”

  “I never take time off,” she protested. “A couple of days aren’t going to matter. Brooks said Mr. Sheffield is going to reschedule our meeting. I’ll come back to the city for that.”

  “You need to come back to the city for good. You know as well as I do, it’s either-or. Assuming you see a future here. Look, I have to go. I’m getting another call....”

  “Jude, hang on—”

  “Get back on the job, Tess. I’m telling you this as a friend.” He rang off before she could reply.

  She glared at her phone, then stuffed it in her bag.

  “Problems?” asked Dominic.

  “My work. I’ve never gone AWOL before.”

  “You never had a trip to the emergency room before,” he pointed out.

  “This business...it’s fast-paced. There are deadlines. Upcoming auctions. If things get away from me, it can screw everything up.”

  “I see. Didn’t know antiquities was a life-or-death business.”

  “It is to some.” She was quiet the rest of the way home. Back at Bella Vista, she thanked Dominic for the lift. “So I guess...I’ll be heading back to the city,” she said. “I mean, there’s nothing more for me to do here, right?” Jude was right; she should get back on the job. Work was normal. She needed to feel normal.

  “Up to you.”

  Tess couldn’t figure out why she felt guilty about leaving. But honestly, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do next. “Isabel is surrounded by friends,” she said. “She really doesn’t need me.” She paused and looked at Dominic. “No comment?”

  “I figure you’re just thinking aloud.”

  “Well, since you seem to know everyone around here, I thought you might have an opinion.”

  “Everybody has an opinion. The smart ones keep it to themselves.”

  “Ha, ha.” As they headed for the front entry, she inhaled the heavy sweetness of the apple harvest. Everything here seemed so abundant and ripe for renewal that she couldn’t get her head around the idea that Magnus was flat broke.

  “Oh, good, you’re back,” Isabel said, coming out to meet them at the door. She looked lovely but harried in a gauzy paisley skirt and peasant blouse. “How’s Grandfather?”

  “The nurse said they might be taking him off the ventilator,” Tess reported.

  Isabel’s eyes brightened. “That’s good, right? Please tell me it’s good
.”

  “It’s a positive sign. Dr. Hattori said you can call him for more details.”

  “Speaking of details...” Isabel’s gaze shifted nervously. “Dominic, do you have time to talk about finances?”

  “I should go,” Tess said, not wanting to intrude. “I need to pack up my things.”

  “What? Pack? You’re not leaving.” Isabel bit her lip.

  “I don’t belong here,” said Tess. “I’ve left a dozen things up in the air in the city—”

  “Please,” said Isabel. “I know this is a strange situation, and it’s all new to you, but I just... I would love it if you could stay.”

  Tess felt an itch of discomfort as she looked at Isabel. “Honestly, I’m a complete outsider here. I just don’t see how I can help you.”

  “You’re helping by being here.” Isabel went to the window and looked out. The peaceful scene seemed to mock the mood in the room. She turned back to Tess. “There’s so much to sort out. And you’re used to dealing with old records, right? I mean, in your job at the auction house?”

  With every fiber of her being, Tess did not want to be involved in this. Regardless of her preference, she was involved, thanks to the whim of an old man. But it was the raw need and fear in Isabel’s eyes that moved her. “You have to understand, I don’t know anything about this situation.”

  “Then we’ll work together.” Isabel touched Tess’s arm briefly. “Thanks.”

  Isabel fetched a tray of coffee and biscotti from the kitchen and led the way into a cluttered study. The room was dominated by a massive postmaster-style desk filled with drawers, cubbies and little nooks. It reminded Tess of a heavier, more masculine version of her nana’s desk in Things Forgotten. “Grandfather built it himself,” Isabel said with wistful pride. “He’s made a hobby of creating carved boxes. Some of them have trick drawers and hidden compartments.” There was no place to set the tray, so she put it down on a stack of files and papers.

  An atmosphere of unfinished business hung in the air, mingling with the sweetish aroma of old pipe tobacco emanating from a rack of carved meerschaum pipes on the windowsill.

  “The place is a mess, just as he left it,” Isabel said. “It’s as if he stepped out for a few minutes. I suppose, as far as he was concerned, that was what he did.”

  Tess scanned the bookcases, crammed with unsorted books on every conceivable topic—farming and flower arrangement, child rearing and religion. There was something oddly familiar to her about the disorganization and clutter. To Tess, this did not look like a mess, but like a work area. She felt at ease in this space.

  “Do you know someone named Annelise Winther?” she asked Isabel. “There was a card from her in Magnus’s room.”

  “Never heard of her,” Isabel said. “Why do you ask?”

  “She came from Denmark after the war. I met her in the city. Was there a group or network of survivors or immigrants? Maybe that’s how they met?”

  “Maybe. Grandfather didn’t talk much about Denmark. Neither did Bubbie.”

  “She was Danish, too?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a thick old-fashioned Bible, bound in leather with intricate iron hinges, on top of the desk. Tess lifted the cover and first few pages, revealing a record of births, deaths and marriages in what she presumed was Danish. The family tree dated back to the 1700s. She perked up with foolish hope. This was a record of her lineage—her family. But the records ended with the marriage of Magnus to Eva Salomon, dated 1954.

  They sat around the desk and Isabel poured coffee and served the biscotti. By now it went without saying that she’d made them herself, and that they were delicious.

  “So, is it true?” asked Isabel, leaning toward Dominic. “Are we as broke as I think we are? Or are there other accounts or funds...?”

  Dominic nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “Was Magnus aware of the situation?” Tess asked. She had a lot more questions, ones she couldn’t voice just yet. Had Dominic known about the trouble when he’d come to get her? Of course he had. Then why hadn’t he explained it to her? Did he think she’d refuse to come if she knew the estate was in distress?

  “It’s been an issue for a while,” Dominic explained. “Magnus didn’t want anyone to know.”

  “He was so stubborn that way,” Isabel said. “He didn’t want to worry anyone.”

  Dominic took a bound document from his briefcase and set it on the desk.

  “Grandfather’s will,” she said. It was printed on legal-sized paper with pale blue backing.

  She placed her hands in her lap as though loath to touch it. Tess turned to the signature page and stared at the name scrawled there in bold strokes. Magnus Christian Johansen. “Isn’t this a little premature?” she asked, incensed. “Not to mention insensitive, bringing it up at a time like this?”

  “It brought us together,” Isabel quietly pointed out. “He rewrote it shortly before the accident, didn’t he, Dominic?”

  “Why then?” asked Tess.

  “I don’t know. Look, I don’t like this any better than you do, but you both need to be informed,” he said. “The two of you are named as his sole heirs, and everything falls to you in equal parts.” Despite his words, the expression on Dominic Rossi’s face indicated that things were not so simple.

  “Isabel can get a line of credit,” Tess suggested. “You could help her with that.”

  Dominic took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Lines of stress bracketed his mouth. “God knows, I wish I could. Isabel, I hate like hell that I’m having to tell you this.”

  “Tell me what?” She balled her hands at her sides.

  His gaze flicked from Isabel to Tess and back again. Tess frowned, silently urging him to get on with it.

  “Magnus took a loan against Bella Vista,” Dominic said. “Three separate times, and the outstanding balances are now higher than his equity in the place.”

  The visions in Tess’s head of a simple solution disappeared with an inaudible poof. She glanced over at Isabel, who had gone pale beneath her pretty olive-toned skin. She obviously didn’t need help understanding what Dominic was saying.

  “What’s going to happen?” she asked.

  A weighty pause pressed down on them. Through the open window, Tess could hear workers talking, the rumble of a truck motor and the grind of machinery.

  “Dominic?” Isabel whispered.

  He exhaled slowly, faced her head-on. “The property is going into foreclosure. Christ, Isabel, I hate this.”

  Isabel sank into a chair.

  “Foreclosure? You mean your bank’s going to take Bella Vista?” asked Tess.

  He turned to her, his eyes joyless, his jaw hard with frustration.

  “But aren’t you...aren’t...you the bank?”

  “I work for the bank, yes.”

  Tess felt a blaze of anger. “Then can’t you stop it?”

  “Not this time,” he told her quietly.

  She wanted to strangle him for causing the stricken look on Isabel’s face. “What do you mean, not this time?”

  “I’ve managed to defer the proceedings for years,” he said. “I’d still be doing that, except the bank changed hands. Regulations have changed, too. The new bank isn’t local, and the underwriters won’t grant any more extensions. There’s a firm deadline.”

  “Does Grandfather even know about this?” asked Isabel.

  “I told him right before the accident.”

  “Does your bank know they’re foreclosing on a guy in a coma?” Tess demanded. “Does that matter at all? Isn’t his accident some kind of mitigating circumstance to get the bank to back off?”

  “Not under the current regulations. Now that the bank has changed hands, there are new rules in place.”

  “I don’t get you, Dominic. You knew Magnus as well as anyone around here. You’ve got nothing but good things to say about him. And now you’re foreclosing on his property.”

  “I hate it. If the bank
had its way, it would have taken place long ago. I’ve used every postponement and suspension available.”

  He looked utterly frustrated, his jaw clenching and unclenching, hands gripping a stack of paperwork.

  “So what’s going to happen? How is this going to work?”

  He explained the procedure that would be followed—the notice of sale, the appointment of a trustee to oversee the sale, the looming public auction. The whole time he was talking, Tess looked out the window at the harvest in full swing, feeling a sense of loss not for herself, but for Isabel. She pictured her sister having to remove herself from this place and make a new life elsewhere.

  “That’s grim,” she said, tearing her gaze from the view. She paged through the document he handed her, the fine print and official language all but impenetrable. “Isabel? Are you getting this?” she asked, her heart aching for her sister.

  “I had no idea things were this bad,” Isabel said. “It’s so sudden.... I guess I’m in shock.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dominic said, taking her hand with a familiar touch. “I’ve pushed the deadline as far as I could.”

  “What will happen after the foreclosure? Will everyone at Bella Vista be evicted?” Tess demanded. “The Navarros, the workers, everyone?”

  “You can stay as tenants paying rent, but that’s a temporary solution. It might buy a little more time. There can be a settlement up to five days before the auction.”

  “But to make a settlement, we have to come up with cash.” Tess shuffled the papers again. “Nobody has this kind of cash. Good lord, what was the old man thinking?”

  Isabel winced and turned away. “He was looking out for everyone who depends on him.”

  Maybe it was a blessing, thought Tess, that she’d never had to depend on Magnus.

  “He was waiting for the kind of year he had in 1997,” said Dominic. “Everybody set records around here. We haven’t seen a year like that since.”

  “So we’re out of time, there won’t be a bonanza year...tell us what to expect,” Tess said.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Tess, we all know the answer to that,” Isabel said, getting up and pacing the room. “I’ll have to vacate the premises. We all will. And then... Oh, God.” She put her hands to her face.