Land of Hidden Fires

by Kirk Kjeldsen

  After a while, a wolf howled in the distance, startling Kari. A chill ran down her spine, and she regretted not putting on another sweater before she’d left their house. She buried her fists in the deep pockets of her woolen coat and continued on her way. Before long, she came across the spaced tracks of a mountain hare, its tiny footfalls barely breaking through the thick crust atop the snow.

  Kari soon spotted the splintered crown of a tall spruce in the distance, and then another, and then a knocked-down birch. Her heartbeat quickened, and she picked up her pace. A short distance later, she saw the rudder of the P-47, emerging from a snowdrift like the dorsal fin of a shark. She followed the trail of the wreckage, and she soon came upon a rear gun mount assembly, and then the tail gear axle, and then the wings. Not long after that, she spotted the plane’s fuselage. It looked like a bathtub, and it lay crumpled against rocks at the end of a long, deep groove in the frozen earth.

  She slowly approached the fuselage. The area around it reeked of gasoline and burnt rubber, stinging her nostrils and eyes. The plane’s landing gear was gone, its propeller had sheared off, and the canopy was smashed. The name “MAJOR LANCE MAHURIN” was painted beneath the cockpit window, above six small German crosses, and the words “ROZZIE BETH” were painted in looping red cursive by the nose.

  Kari reached forward and touched the side of the plane, expecting to feel heat or vibrations or even electricity. Instead, the riveted steel panel was stone still and as cold as ice. She carefully climbed onto to the tail of the plane and scuttled her way toward the nose. Then she peered into the darkened cockpit, expecting the worst, but she found it empty, other than the shattered pieces of the instrument panel.

  She climbed down from the plane and searched the wreck site, looking for footprints or signs of the pilot. There wasn’t much, though, other than a headset and a dented canteen. She scanned the area, but there were no further clues. She closed her eyes and turned until she could feel the wind blowing straight at her. Once certain of its path, she set out in the direction it was blowing, assuming that any parachutes would’ve been carried that way.

  Kari pushed deeper into the forest and soon came upon another set of mountain hare tracks. Then she found the mussel-shaped tracks of a roe deer, remembering them from the hunting trips she’d taken with her grandfather. She grew sentimental for a moment, wishing he were there with her, as he’d always seemed to know what to do. But he wasn’t there, and there was no chance of him returning from the dead, either, so she shook it from her mind and continued on her way.

  Her thoughts soon drifted back toward the pilot. She wondered what he looked like, and where he was from, and if he had someone waiting for him back home. She envisioned him gunning down squadrons of Messerschmitts in spectacular dogfights, handsome and larger than life like Clark Gable in Night Flight or Cary Grant in Only Angels Have Wings. She’d never seen an American before, other than in magazines or in movies her mother had taken her to see at the Rosendal in Trondheim, and she imagined they must be bigger than Norwegians and Germans somehow, and better looking, as if from some more evolved race or distant planet.

  Kari continued to follow the direction of the wind. After she’d walked for almost an hour, the thought occurred to her that she’d brought no weapon. She’d assumed she wouldn’t need one—it had been an Allied plane, after all—but then it dawned on her that there might be Germans out looking for the pilot as well. There’d been a strict curfew in effect since 1942, and the penalty for breaking it was severe. She’d heard about the prison camp in Falstad, and the rumors of the torture and executions that had taken place there. One of her neighbors, a schoolteacher, had been sent there in October just for possessing some American newspapers, and no one had heard from the man since.

  She grew nauseous, and her knees buckled. She considered turning back, but then realized she’d have just as much chance of running into Germans heading home as she’d have going forward. Continuing on, she made her way through a wooded hill and past an old hunting cabin, then began to make her way down the other side of the hill, soon entering another stretch of forest. Before long, she heard a soft, flapping noise in the distance; it sounded like a flag fluttering in the breeze.

  Her heartbeat accelerated, and she felt a cold sweat forming on the back of her neck. The sound grew louder as she continued through the forest, and she soon saw something moving in the distance. At first, she thought her mind was playing tricks on her; it looked like a giant marionette, suspended in mid-air and jerking on its strings. But as she approached it, she realized it was the back of the pilot, hanging from the lines of his parachute, which were tangled up in the branches of a tree.

  Kari moved toward the pilot. He heard her crunching footsteps and struggled to turn around, waving a pistol before him. He was no matinee idol, but he was still handsome in an easy, carefree way, with a lanky runner’s build and thick, sandy hair slicked back with Brylcreem.

  “Who’s there?” he said, speaking with a slow, country lilt.

  Kari stepped forward from the darkness and raised her hands so he could see them.

  “Don’t shoot,” she said.

  His eyes narrowed as he sized her up.

  “You speak English?” he asked.

  She nodded. He lowered the pistol.

  “How far am I from Sweden?” he asked.

  “Maybe sixty kilometers.”

  “You know anyone in the resistance?”

  She hesitated for a long moment. Then she answered him, surprising even herself with her reply.

  “I am,” she said.

  CHAPTER 3

  Snow began to fall. It came down in hard, tiny bits at first that stung the skin and crackled as it hit the trees. Then, as it picked up, it softened, falling like flour from a sifter. Before long, big, saucer-shaped flakes began to flutter down and fill the air, choking out the moonlight.

  Kari made her way back to the hunting cabin, a warm, giddy feeling coursing through her. She felt both terrified and exhilarated at the same time, like the time she and her mother went out to the edge of Preikestolen, the towering cliff overlooking the Lysefjord. She pictured herself riding to Sweden with the pilot, and she imagined them falling for each other along the way. She fantasized about him embracing her when they crossed the border, so grateful that he’d offer to take her back to America. She’d decline, of course, out of modesty, but he’d persuade her, promising her a spectacular life in California or wherever it was he was from.

  The grumble of a low-flying Heinkel He 111 snapped Kari abruptly from her reverie. She looked up just in time to see its distinct, bullet-shaped nose as it rumbled past, presumably on its way to the German base in Trondheim. She picked up her pace and continued on, trudging back up the hill. Before long, she spotted the cabin in the distance.

  She approached the cabin just as the moon had begun its descent. The cabin looked like it hadn’t been used in years; a snowdrift covered its door, and no smoke rose from its stove chimney. Kari looked in the cabin’s only window, but she saw nothing; no light burned inside. She cleared the snow from the door and tried the handle, but it was rusted shut. She tried it again and again, and after a few tries, she finally managed to open it.

  Kari stepped inside the cabin. It smelled like old newspaper and mushrooms, and she stumbled over an upturned chair and nearly tumbled to the floor. After righting herself against a table, she continued to grope her way toward the fireplace. She reached for the mantel, grimacing as she felt something fuzzy scuttle away.

  She soon found the base of an old oil lamp. After a few matches, she managed to light its nubby wick, filling the room with a soft yellow light. She glanced around at her surroundings; it reminded her of her grandfather’s hunting cabin, up on Forbordsfjellet Mountain, where she’d spent her summers as a girl. A narrow bed with a heap of musty blankets occupied one corner of the room, and a few sagging boxes of tools and supplies filled another corner.

  Kari approached the boxes of tools and
supplies and rummaged through them. She found a rusty sheath knife in one, which she stuffed into her waistband. In the bottom of the other box, she found a coil of rope. She checked the rest of the cabin, looking under the bed and in the small cupboard, but there was nothing else worth taking. Then she left the cabin and hurried her way back to the pilot, following the trail of her vanishing tracks.

  At the bottom of the hill, Kari slowed down, not wanting to appear over-eager. She fixed her hair and tried to straighten her coat, ashamed at how shabby it looked. Continuing on, she soon reached the stand of trees where she thought she’d left the pilot, then felt her heart stop when she saw nothing there. Before she could figure out what had happened, a voice called to her nearby, and she turned to see the pilot hanging from another stand of trees.

  “Almost thought you forgot me,” he said.

  Embarrassed, she shook her head.

  “You got a name?” he asked.

  “Kari,” she said.

  “I’m Lance Mahurin, of the U.S. Army Air Corps—”

  She interrupted him.

  “I know,” she said.

  “How—?”

  She interrupted him.

  “I saw it on your plane,” she said.

  “Well now,” he said, grinning.

  She turned away, trying not to blush. He watched her unwind a few lengths of rope from the coil.

  “You sure you don’t want to get some help?” he asked.

  She nodded, knowing that getting help would mean involving the resistance, which would also mean the end of their time together. She wrapped the end of the rope around her hand, then tossed the coil toward the branches above him. It unraveled after it went over them, and the other end of the rope dropped down within his reach.

  “Atta girl,” he said.

  “Tie it around your waist,” she said.

  He did. She took the other end of the rope and wrapped it around a nearby tree, then tied the rope around her own waist.

  “Now cut the lines,” she said. “I’ll lower you down.”

  He pulled a survival knife from a leather scabbard and began to cut his parachute lines. After he severed the last one, the rope went taut, and he dropped down, nearly yanking Kari off her feet.

  “Careful,” he said.

  She dug in and got a firm hold on the rope. Then she slowly walked toward the tree, and as she did, Lance began to lower toward the ground.

  Halfway down, Lance noticed the rope was fraying as it rubbed against the bark.

  “Watch out—”

  Before he could finish, the rope snapped with a rasping crack. Lance fell the last few meters to the ground as Kari tumbled headfirst into the snow. He got up and hurried over to her, helping her to her feet.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  She nodded as she wiped the snow from her face, her cheeks burning red with embarrassment.

  They trudged back in the direction of the farm. Kari occasionally glanced over at Lance, turning away whenever their eyes met. There was so much she wanted to ask him, least of all who Rozzie Beth was, but she didn’t know where or how to begin, much less how to phrase it in English. They walked in silence instead, listening to the sound of the wind and the sighing trees.

  They wound through the forest until they reached a dry, snow-covered creek. After crossing it, they made their way through a meadow that looked like it’d been slathered with vanilla icing. Before long, they reached the stone wall marking the boundary to the Jacobsen farm. Lance started for the Jacobsens’ house, but Kari stopped him and shook her head.

  “Quislings,” she said.

  She moved on, and he followed her. The winds picked up, rustling the naked branches of the trees. Though the sun was still a rumor below the horizon, a weak purple-blue light began to steep into the sky.

  They soon came to the frozen brook, and after crossing it, they approached the farm.

  “Is this where you live?” asked Lance.

  Kari shook her head and looked away.

  “It’s just some old sheep farmer,” she said.

  They made their way across the property, past a rotting granary that had been built by Kari’s great-grandfather. She stopped when they reached the barn.

  “Wait here,” she said. “I’ll get you some clothes.”

  Before Lance could reply, Kari left him and approached the house. Then she opened the front door and went in, carefully closing the door behind her. She made her way down the hall, tiptoeing around the creaky boards in her path. When she reached the door to her father’s room, she slowly turned the handle and stepped inside.

  Kari approached the bed and looked at her father. He seemed so much smaller while sleeping, and so much frailer, bent in upon himself like a folding chair. His jaw was clenched, and his thick arms were wrapped around a pillow, like they were the wings of some wrecked bird protecting its young. She stood there for a moment, feeling pity toward him until she remembered how much she resented him.

  Kari went forward and approached the closet. She carefully opened it and looked through her father’s clothing; aside from his one, ill-fitting suit, which he hadn’t worn since Martha’s funeral, his shirts and pants were all variations of the same plain farmer’s outfit, and all in muted blacks and greys. She selected the smallest items she could find, which consisted of a pair of patched wool pants, an old pea coat, and a thick cable sweater that Erling seldom wore. Then she closed the closet door and crept her way back across the room.

  Before Kari reached the door, Erling stirred, groaning as if he’d been punched in the gut. Kari froze and waited, holding her breath. She watched him wrestle with his sheets, grappling with some invisible foe. After a moment, he settled down again and fell back to sleep, and she continued on her way, leaving the room and quietly closing the door behind her.

  She made her way back to the kitchen. Then she opened the cupboard and looked inside. There wasn’t much, other than some coarse rye flour, a sack of dried peas, and a few scrawny potatoes. It didn’t seem like enough for one person, much less two.

  Kari closed the cupboard and took a rusty coffee can down from a shelf. Then she reached into it and pulled a handful of ten and twenty-five øre coins, most of which were zinc, which the government had been using instead of nickel since the Germans had invaded. She counted them, wondering how many she could take without Erling noticing. After a moment, she decided to take them all, then put the empty can back onto the shelf.

  She left the house and went back to the barn, where Lance waited, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands.

  “Here,” she said, handing him the clothes.

  “Thanks for your help,” he said. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”

  She forced a smile and turned away, feeling a growing sense of unease that he was about to leave her. A moment later, he finished changing, and she turned back to face him, startled at how ordinary he appeared without his flight suit. The only things he wore that didn’t look like they belonged to a Norwegian farmer were his scuffed jump boots.

  “How do I look?” he asked, taking the D-ration bars and cigarettes from his flight suit and stuffing them into the pockets of the pea coat.

  “Like a sheep farmer,” she said.

  He smiled. She smiled back. Another awkward silence passed, and Kari felt the air escaping from her. Do something, said a voice in her head, a voice that sounded vaguely like her late mother’s. Do something now, or you’ll regret it.

  “So,” he said, glancing around at their surroundings. “What’s the best way to Sweden?”

  “Through the mountains,” she said.

  “Can you draw me a map?”

  She started to nod, out of reflex, then stopped, taking a moment to compose herself before continuing.

  “I can take you,” she said, her heart hammering in her chest.

  “I can’t ask you to do that—”

  She interrupted him.

  “You don’t have to ask,” she said, hes
itating a moment before adding: “It’s my duty.”

  He smiled, revealing a toothy grin. She forced a smile back, her heart still pounding in her chest. They carried the flight suit behind the barn and put it in an old, stone-lined fire pit. Kari doused it with some kerosene she’d gotten from the barn.

  Lance then lit the flight suit with his Zippo, and they silently watched it burn.

  CHAPTER 4

  The dawn sky filled with a pearly, multicolored light. Thin bands of clouds appeared on the horizon in violet and peach-colored waves. Swifts and other early risers broke the night’s silence, rousing from their nests to feed their fledglings. A young ptarmigan took flight from its perch atop a snowdrift, carving a lazy semicircle over the valley before disappearing into the forest.

  Kari and Lance rode Erling’s rickety cart along an old dirt road. She’d told Lance that the farmer was a friend of the resistance, and that he wouldn’t mind them using it. The first lie she’d made had been difficult, twisting her stomach into knots, but each successive fiction had become easier to voice. She’d even started to feel guilty about it, but her guilt was quickly displaced by the exhilaration of being with Lance. He was so much more interesting than the local boys, and he wasn’t so timid, like Håkon Grabow, or such a jerk, like Jan Petter Voss.

  Torden strained against his reins, huffing little white clouds of hot breath into the cold air. He seemed happy to be out, and to have something to do other than the rote chores they generally gave him. They continued along the dirt road until they reached the Stjørdal River, then followed the river until they picked up a paved country road, which they took east toward Hegra. The roads were empty, and most of them were still buried under the snow. Since the invasion, the only ones allowed to use gas-powered vehicles were police, military, doctors, and administrators, all of whom were rarities in the Stjørdalen Valley.

  After a while, Lance pulled a battered pack of Lucky Strikes from his pocket. He offered it to Kari.