“What about you?” she said.
“What about me what?”
“You have a family?”
He nodded.
“Five sisters and a brother,” he said. “My old man was good at making kids, just not so good at sticking around to raise them.”
Unable to think of a more subtle way to ask the question she’d wanted to ask since she’d first encountered him, she finally just blurted it out.
“Who’s Rozzie Beth?” she asked.
“Beg your pardon?”
“The name on your plane.”
He laughed.
“What’s so funny?” she said.
“Rozzie Beth’s my mother,” he said. “Rosalyn Elizabeth Mahurin.”
Kari said nothing, embarrassed.
“You thought that was the name of my girl or something, didn’t you?” he said.
“No—”
He interrupted her.
“I had a girl back home, but you know how things happen,” he said, grinning, before beginning to sing. “Now I ain’t got nobody, and nobody cares for me . . .”
She couldn’t help but laugh. After a moment, he began to laugh as well. She felt warm, excited, and alive. She wanted to step across the fire and spin him around, and to pull his face to hers and kiss him deeply on the mouth. He surely had to be a better kisser than Håkon or Jan Petter. But what if he stopped me? she wondered. What if he wasn’t interested? She shuddered; the embarrassment and shame would be mortifying.
She hoped he’d make the first move. She closed her eyes and tried to will it to happen, as absurd as that seemed. Before anything did happen, though, she heard something crash through the underbrush nearby. She opened her eyes and looked toward the origin of the sound, covering herself with her hands. Then she heard another crash, followed by some breaking branches.
Torden nickered and tugged at his reins, and Lance stood, drawing his pistol from its holster.
“Wait here,” said Lance.
Before Kari could reply, he bolted into the forest with his pistol raised. She grabbed her long underwear and stepped into it, then quickly dressed, pulling on the rest of her still-damp clothing.
Kari removed her knife from its sheath and held it before her, ready to defend herself. After a moment, she heard a gunshot ring out nearby, and her breath caught in her throat.
“Lance?” she said.
He didn’t reply. She thought about saying his name again but then stopped herself, realizing that if the Germans had gotten him, she’d be giving herself up as well. She turned and kicked snow on the fire, and it hissed and spat at her before going out. Then she went over and crouched behind a tree, gripping the knife.
After a long, tense moment, Kari saw a shape approaching in the darkness. She tightened her grip on the knife handle, her heart thudding in her chest. For a moment, she thought she saw a man holding a short machine gun, and she stiffened, preparing to strike. Then she relaxed when she realized it was just Lance, holding a rabbit by its haunches.
“I found us some dinner,” he said, grinning.
CHAPTER 10
The late afternoon sky lay dark and low, like the ceiling of a longhouse. A pair of hawks circled overhead, searching for prey. Spotting a vole, one of the hawks drifted down and opened its talons to strike. Before it could, though, the animal darted down a tunnel in the snow, and the hawk wheeled back up toward the sky, disappearing behind the clouds.
Erling headed east along the logging roads, avoiding the main road and the towns and villages alongside it. The route meandered, so he rode the mule as hard as he could, trying to cut the distance between Kari and himself. Every time Loki eased up a bit, he snapped the reins or dug his boot heels into Loki’s ribs. The mule snorted and whinnied with each jab, but Erling ignored him, driving him onward.
They came to a fork in the road as the sun began to set, though it was difficult to tell, as the path leading to the east was buried in snow. Erling pulled up on the reins and paused for a moment; he looked to his right, where the logging road curled back toward the main road, and then to his left, where a cluster of farmhouses, including his cousin Reidar’s, stood to the north. He wanted to continue heading eastward, and hopefully catch Kari during the night, assuming she’d stop to rest. He knew his animals would need to be looked after, though, and the only one he was comfortable entrusting that to was Reidar, so he nudged his mule toward the path leading north.
They took a waggling trail down through the forest and into a wide, tree-covered valley. Loki’s hooves broke through the icy drifts covering the trail and found traction in the underlying snow. As the remaining daylight bled from the sky, the dark trees began to blend with the purpling night. Erling searched for lights in the distance, eventually spotting a burning lamp inside a farmhouse window.
He passed the first pair of farmhouses, leaving the trail and giving them a wide berth in case there were dogs. The last thing he wanted to do was attract attention, as it would have been unusual enough to be travelling out after curfew, much less saddleless upon the back of a mule. Before long, he spotted Reidar’s clapboard barn in the distance, looking much larger than he’d remembered. The farmhouse had a fresh coat of mustard-colored paint, and an ornately carved stabbur stood between the farmhouse and the barn.
Erling pulled up on Loki’s reins and hesitated for a moment, watching a pillar of smoke rise from the farmhouse chimney. He and Reidar had been close growing up—their fathers were brothers—and Reidar had looked up to Erling, as Erling was two years older than him. They’d helped out at each other’s farms every summer, and they’d hunted deer together every fall. Erling had even served as the best man at Reidar’s wedding, but as Reidar’s farm had prospered and his family had grown, Erling’s fortunes had gone in the opposite direction. Reidar had tried to help Erling the same way that Erling had helped him, but Erling had stubbornly refused it, and they’d grown apart. He didn’t want to ask for Reidar’s help now, either, but he couldn’t see any other way.
After a long moment, Erling finally got down off his mule and tied him to a nearby tree, not wanting to explain more than he had to to his cousin. Then he set out for Reidar’s house, trudging his way through the icy, knee-deep snow. As he approached the farmhouse, he caught a whiff of something gamy and rich cooking inside—his favorite lapskaus, perhaps, or maybe fårikål—and his stomach rumbled. He pushed the thoughts of food from his mind as he continued on, soon reaching the front door.
Erling turned around and looked to see if Loki could be spotted from the house. After making sure the mule wasn’t visible, he turned back toward the door and took a deep breath. Then he knocked. A moment later, he heard muffled voices inside, followed by the sounds of approaching footsteps. The door opened to reveal two burly teenage boys who stood a full head above Erling; the last time he’d seen them, they’d barely reached his waist. Nearby, in the living room, two girls played a game of Gnav with their mother, Aase, who looked like she hadn’t aged since Erling had last seen her, her hourglass figure impossible to ignore even when blunted by a drab farmwoman’s dress.
“Yes?” said the taller boy.
“Erik?” replied Erling, guessing.
The other boy responded.
“Who are you?” he said, narrowing his gaze.
“I’m a cousin of your father’s,” said Erling.
Before either of the boys could reply, a deep voice bellowed from the next room.
“Who is it?”
Erling turned to see Reidar approaching, wiping his hands on a towel. Reidar had put on weight since Erling had last seen him—he’d never been small, but he looked like the Julenisse now, ruddy and plump—and his once-red beard was shot through with streaks of grey. Despite the obvious signs of aging, though, he still had the creaseless brow of a man content with his fate. His sparkling blue eyes widened when he saw his cousin standing in the doorway.
“Erling?”
The way he said it, it sounded more like a question
than a statement.
CHAPTER 11
The new day dawned greyer than the previous one. The air smelled like rock salt and sheared metal, and it was cold again, February cold, like the calendar had changed direction and was heading in reverse. To the northwest, by Trondheim, a thin rope of black smoke rose twisting in the wind. To the south, thick storm clouds gathered over the mountains, pooling like spilled mercury. It felt ominous and still, like the world was coming to an end.
It was still dark when Kari woke. She’d only slept a few hours, despite being exhausted. Birdsong and other morning noises had pulled her from a dreamless sleep, and shivering, she instinctively reached for her blankets. When her hands found her trousers instead, and the cold, hard ground beneath her, she bolted upright, suddenly remembering where she was.
She wiped the sleep from her eyes and glanced around at her surroundings. The fire lay in its ashes, a ring of matted, dead grass around it where the snow had melted. Lance lay across from her with his hands between his legs, curled up like a pill bug. He looked boyish as he slept, his brow slack and the lines gone from his face.
Kari watched Lance for a while as the sun climbed behind him, over the eastern mountains. She wondered what he’d done before he’d become a pilot. Had he gone to college, or was he a tradesman or a farmer, like her father? Was he from the south, which she knew nothing about, other than what she’d seen in Gone with the Wind, or was he from the west? Maybe California, or Texas? She thought about the other woman he’d mentioned, and wondered if she’d been pretty, or smart, or easy, like the girls from Trondheim who wore makeup and made fun of her plain clothing. Would he see more in her than he’d seen in his last girlfriend, or would he be joking about her with the next woman he’d meet, referring to her as some simple farm girl he’d taken advantage of in order to get home? Then she thought about her father, alone at their farm. She suddenly felt guilty again, and then she felt angry with Erling for having the power to make her feel that way.
She continued to watch Lance until the sun had risen above the mountains, and the rats and other nocturnal animals had returned to their nests and dens. After a while, the trilling music of a swallow finally pulled him from his sleep. He opened his eyes and glanced around, his gaze narrowing as it stopped on her.
“How long have you been watching me?” he asked.
“Not long,” she said.
He grinned. She fought the urge to smile back, turning away.
A black dot appeared on the horizon, above the mountains east of Hegra. After a moment, another point appeared, and then a third spot that was larger than the other two. Outlines soon emerged as the approaching shapes swelled in size; they first looked like insects, and then birds, and finally, German warplanes. A deep droning noise accompanied them, growing louder as the aircraft approached and pushing aside the quiet of the cold winter morning. The planes flashed overhead with a thunderous roar, and just as quickly as they’d appeared, they began to disappear again, growing smaller and smaller as they faded into the distance.
Moltke and his men rode the half-tracks toward the farm closest to the crash site. He sat in the back of the trailing vehicle and sipped whiskey-laced coffee from his silver flask, trying to still a headache that made his skull feel like it was in a vise. They’d spent the night in Hegra, at a hotel the Waffen-SS had taken over during their siege against the nearby fortress. As much as he’d disliked Trondheim, Moltke had found his backcountry accommodations even worse. After eating a flavorless meal of boiled potatoes, boiled cauliflower, and boiled whitefish, he’d been forced to share a room with one of his men, sleeping on a lumpy mattress that smelled of mothballs and hay. Half the night, he’d stared at the water-stained ceiling thinking about how far away Africa was, while the other half he’d spent trying to ignore the sounds of Schweitzer in the next room, rutting with the hotel maid.
The half-tracks soon crested a hill and barreled down a cratered dirt road, causing Moltke to taste bile at the back of his throat. He chased it with another swig of his whiskey-laced coffee—which contained too much weak Norwegian coffee and not enough Irish whiskey for his tastes—and then he put away the flask, not wanting to run out before the day was even halfway through. Then he looked ahead and saw the farmhouse in the distance, where a young child carried a pair of tin pails toward a crumbling barn. He frowned as he lit a cigarette, noting that it looked more like something out of a Caspar David Friedrich painting than an actual war.
They pulled the half-tracks to a stop at the end of the road, then got out and approached the barn. Goetz had polished Moltke’s riding boots that morning, and Moltke had worn the Totenkopf insignia on his collar and hatband patches, hoping it would instill fear in the locals. A burly farmer emerged from the barn before they got there and stared blankly at the men, his bloodshot eyes glassed over. Moltke took a small notebook from the pocket of his trench coat and checked the background information he’d gotten from the Gestapo—the farmer’s name was Gustav Lorck; he came from a long line of smallholders; he had a wife and five children; he’d surrendered his firearms when he’d been ordered to; and he had no apparent ties to the resistance.
“Herr Lorck?” said Moltke.
The farmer narrowed his gaze, but he said nothing.
“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
The farmer shook his head.
“How about English?” asked Moltke. “Snakker du engelsk?”
Again, the farmer shook his head. Moltke turned to Schweitzer.
“Ask him about the pilot,” he said.
Schweitzer addressed the farmer in clunky Norwegian. The farmer replied in Norwegian, keeping his eyes on Moltke.
“What’d he say?” asked Moltke.
“He says he doesn’t know anything about any pilot,” said Schweitzer.
Moltke looked into the barn and saw two young children milking a pair of thin cows.
“Where are his other children?” said Moltke.
Schweitzer addressed the farmer in Norwegian again, and the farmer replied again in Norwegian, shaking his head.
“Well?” said Moltke.
“He said he doesn’t have any other children,” said Schweitzer.
“He’s lying,” said Moltke, pointing to his black book. “It says here he has five children. Where are the others?”
Schweitzer addressed the farmer in Norwegian, and the farmer replied, shaking his head and growing upset.
“He says you’re mistaken,” said Schweitzer.
Moltke turned to the others.
“Search the house,” he said.
Blücher and two of the enlisted men approached the house, their machine guns raised. The farmer went after them and grabbed Blücher by the arm, spinning him around. Blücher pointed his machine gun at the farmer’s chest, and Moltke’s heart leapt into his throat.
“Loslassen!” shouted Blücher.
Ignoring him, the farmer grabbed Blücher’s machine gun by the barrel and pointed it toward the sky.
“Stehen bleiben,” said Moltke.
The farmer ignored him, and he and Blücher wrestled for control of the machine gun as the others looked on.
“Stehen bleiben!” shouted Moltke, his voice wavering.
The farmer continued to fight with Blücher, gaining control of the machine gun and turning it on Blücher, but Schweitzer pulled out his Browning pistol and pointed it at the farmer’s head before the farmer could pull the trigger.
“Lower the gun,” said Schweitzer, first in English and then in Norwegian. Defiant, the farmer hesitated. Schweitzer cocked the hammer of his pistol and repeated his command, but before the farmer could react, a child spoke from the barn.
“Wait,” said the child.
They all turned to see a nine-year-old girl standing at the entrance to the barn.
“I speak some English,” said the girl. “I learn at school, before the war.”
“Where are the others?” said Moltke, his heart hammering in his chest.
The farm
er continued to shout at them in Norwegian, and Moltke turned to his men.
“Shut him up,” he said.
Goetz and Schweitzer grabbed the farmer and took the machine gun from him. The farmer started to speak, but before he could finish, Schweitzer smacked him in the mouth.
“Halt die Klappe!” said Schweitzer.
Moltke turned back to the girl.
“Where are they?” he said.
“I show you,” she said.
Moltke hesitated.
“Come,” said the girl, beckoning with her tiny hand. “It’s okay.”
After a moment, Moltke turned to his men and nodded to the farmer.
“Watch him,” he said to Schweitzer.
Schweitzer put his pistol to the farmer’s head and shoved him forward while Moltke and the others followed the girl into the forest. They wandered along a narrow and curling path through the wilderness, past an old stabbur that had caved in upon itself. For some reason, Moltke thought of the Grimms’ fairy tale “The Wolf and the Fox,” and how the smaller fox had tricked the wolf, leading to the wolf’s demise. He pulled his Walther P38 from its holster and held it by his side as he continued on, his finger hovering above the trigger.
They crossed a frozen creek and went up and then down a small hill. Then the girl led them to a clearing. Three small, knee-high mounds stood in the snow before them, lined in a row. A larger mound stood behind them, underneath a copse of crooked trees.
The girl knelt down next to one of the smaller mounds and began to clear away the snow, but Moltke ordered his men to stop her. Then he turned to Goetz and nodded, and Goetz knelt down where the girl had been and finished clearing away the snow, revealing a small headstone with the name “MARTIN” on it, above a cross and the dates 1935–1942. Goetz cleared the snow off the next mound, revealing the name “BERIT” above another cross and the dates 1932–1942, and then cleared the snow from the last, which had the name “ELSE” above a tiny cross, over the dates 1939–1942.
Land of Hidden Fires Page 6