The Fragile Hour

by Rosalind Laker

  He eased himself swiftly through the gap and she followed as soon as she could get her feet on a rung after him. The soldiers had broken through from the street and their heavy boots were charging up the stairs, more coming from the direction of the shop. The cupboard shut on the second that the door of her hall burst open.

  In the inky darkness Anna let her forehead rest on the top rung, needing time to come to terms with what was happening. She wondered how many of the Resistance the Germans had expected to find with her, for as far as she could judge, an excessive number of men had been sent to arrest one woman. Angrily she found that she could not stop trembling.

  Nils, standing at the bottom of the ladder, took hold of her ankles. “Come down, Anna,” he urged softly.

  She descended slowly and he took her into his arms, holding her close as they listened to the thumping of feet and the creaking of floorboards above as the search for her went on.

  “I wish you hadn’t come here today,” she whispered unhappily. “In fact, you should have stayed away from me altogether for your own good. You’ve only put yourself in unnecessary danger.”

  As he answered, she could hear the smile in his voice. “How could I ever not be with you when I had the chance?”

  It was not the time to continue the argument they had begun upstairs and she remained silent, remembering that he would have risked his life still further for her if they had left the apartment in time to escape this search.

  Overhead boards creaked and furniture was overturned with reverberating crashes. They both grew tense as the cupboard doors were flung open and everything on the shelves was tossed out in turn, but the floor-lid remained untouched. Yet they both knew that somebody might return to it.

  Then they heard her kitchen table being set down and dragged into position under the skylight. It showed that she would not have been safe if she had crouched on the roof. When the soldier who had climbed up to look out jumped down from the table again with a thump, it seemed as if he must surely come through the ceiling of the hideout.

  Still the soldiers did not leave. It could only mean they were searching for evidence against her and anyone associated with her.

  “What of Aunt Rosa?” she whispered fearfully.

  “She won’t be touched. There’s nothing to link her with you. Remember that she’s my aunt now.”

  Anna pressed her cheek against his in speechless gratitude. His arms closed tighter about her and he was further convinced that he had only to be patient and she would come back to him.

  Neither Anna nor Nils knew how long they stood together before the heavy footsteps went away down the stairs again and finally left the building. There was only a pause before the boarding up of her street door and that of the shop began. Yet she knew that they had to be prepared for a trick. There had been times when somebody had deemed it safe to emerge from hiding only to find the enemy still waiting to pounce.

  “We must wait a while longer,” Nils warned as if reading her thoughts. “Is there any way out now other than the roof?”

  “There’s a high window in the office if it hasn’t been boarded up.”

  “We’ll look later.”

  “I don’t think I’ll risk switching on the light yet. Let’s sit down. It’s been quite a day.”

  She guided him across to the divan and took the chair herself. The darkness was therapeutic. She began to feel drowsy. Nils slept first and did not wake as she did whenever a board settled or there was the sudden tumble of something that had been precariously lodged.

  When Anna awoke in the middle of the night, it was through the creaking of the shop stairs. She sprang up and shook Nils into wakefulness.

  “There’s somebody in the building!”

  He was on his feet immediately, and together they listened intently. There was no mistake and he drew his gun from his shoulder-slung holster. Anna took hers from the secret pocket of her coat. Then the floor-lid was being lifted. The beam of a flashlight was directed down the ladder.

  “Anna? Are you there?” Karl’s voice demanded.

  “Yes!” she cried out in relief. “And Nils is with me!”

  “Thank God you’re safe!”

  He had already come through the aperture to descend the ladder, and his flashlight enabled her to cross to the light-switch. The shaded pink lamps illuminated the room.

  “How did you know I was here?” she asked eagerly as he stepped off the last rung and gave her a quick kiss. Neither noticed that Nils put his gun away slowly as if he would still like to use it. He fiercely resented what he saw as an unnecessary intrusion.

  “Edvin rang me after he’d spoken to you, Anna,” Karl explained, his arm still about her. “I was still at the warehouse. I came here straight away, but the Germans had arrived before me, so I waited and watched. When they didn’t bring you out with them, I had to keep out of sight until after curfew when I could get into the building after dark and find out if you were trapped here.” He turned to Nils. “How did you reach Anna?”

  “I was here already when she arrived. Did you come through the office window?”

  Karl gave a nod. “We can leave that way too.”

  They discussed as to where Anna should go to be safe in this emergency. Nils suggested that she go to her aunt’s home for the time being. Anna argued furiously against it.

  “You’ve really no choice,” Nils said. “You mustn’t be found, and that’s the obvious place to hide as your aunt already knows you’re in the Resistance.” To Karl he added, “Through pulling some German strings, I’ve managed to stop any surprise raids being made on Fru Johansen’s apartment.”

  “If that’s the case, you should go there, Anna,” Karl endorsed. “There’ll be a watch kept day and night for you at the railway and bus stations. Civilian vehicles of all kinds will be turned inside out at check-points. As soon as the hunt cools down, the Resistance will get you away.” He drew her to him. “If it’s humanly possible, I’ll meet you wherever you are.”

  “We’d better get going, Karl!” Nils snapped. With a sense of shock, it seemed to Anna that a wave of hatred emanated from him like a cold, invisible mist.

  Anna delayed only long enough to take a couple of travel passes from the secret compartment of her suitcase and push her toilet-bag into her coat pocket. Toothbrushes were like gold these days. She left everything else and went up the ladder after the two men. Standing in her hall again, she caught a glimpse in the flashlight’s beam of the destruction in her living-room. She turned away from the sight.

  Downstairs in the shop the large display window was intact. Outside the rain was pelting down, the blacked-out city in total darkness. Broken glass from the door cracked under their feet as they went into the office. Both men pushed the heavy desk against the wall under the high window, before adding a chair to make exiting easier.

  Karl went out of the window first and dropped to the pavement below. As soon as he had checked it was safe, Anna followed and he caught her as she descended. Nils was next. The darkness and the rain were a shield. They went from doorway to doorway in turn, pressing themselves back when once a patrol went by. The most perilous part was after they had left the shelter of the trees in Studenterlunden, for there were sentries at the Storting. But these must have been huddled up in their capes, rain running from their helmets, and failed to see anything unusual.

  With a master key Karl opened the main entrance of the building where Aunt Rosa’s apartment was located. Then Anna was alone in the marble-floored lobby and had closed the door behind her. Karl had given her the flashlight and she switched it on to see her way as she crept up the stairs. Wet and cold and shivering, she let herself into the apartment. She hung her dripping coat up in the bathroom. There she dried her hair, which had been sticking to her head as if glued. In the bedroom that had always been hers she tossed off her clothes and fell into bed. She slept instantly.

  *

  Anna stayed five weeks at her aunt’s apartment. Frida, who had been
let into the secret at last, was as delighted as Rosa to have her there. Fortunately Anna had brought her ration card, and managed to alter the name on it to `Hanna Hanson’, but there was so little in the unheated shops, the assistants in coats, hats and gloves, that often the main meal was watery soup. It was Rosa’s joke as the three of the them sat down to eat in the kitchen, which was the warmest room, that they themselves were as bundled up as Eskimos to keep warm.

  Nils called frequently, always letting his officer acquaintances know afterwards that he had made another duty call on his aunt. He was a welcome link for Anna with the outside world, for, although she never tired of her aunt’s company, it was the incarceration that she found tedious. She had to disappear into her bedroom whenever the doorbell rang.

  At least she and Nils seemed to regain their old footing and she was always eager to hear the latest war news, which he also shared with Rosa and Frida. On the continent the Allies were continuing to advance, but he always emphasised any set-backs as if to quell their hopes that the war would be over soon. She concluded that his policy was to face one day at a time. After all, he never knew if the Germans would find out that they had a spy in their midst. He was living on a razor’s edge even more than she.

  It was from him that she and Rosa first heard of a new development in Norway itself. In Hitler’s desperate need for extra troops on the Eastern Front, Norwegian youths were being rounded up and sent there as untrained and unwilling recruits.

  “Hundreds of them have already fled into the mountains,” he added, “and with their ration books withdrawn its hard to get them fed.”

  One evening when they were on their own, Rosa having gone early to bed, Anna sat back in her chair as she challenged him sharply.

  “Frida saw you at the harbour yesterday. She said you were watching food supplies being loaded aboard a German ship. Couldn’t you have done something to prevent it?”

  He looked at her despairingly. “I could have stopped the supplies at source, but I can’t risk the Germans becoming suspicious about me. Do you think I like people going hungry? Rations have been cut to almost nothing in Germany too.” He let his head drop into his hands where he was sitting. “How is this whole mess to end?”

  She went went to drop down on her knees at his side and put her arms about him. “Don’t, Nils! I shouldn’t have said what I did. Especially when I’m leaving Oslo tomorrow. I don’t want us to part at odds with each other.”

  He raised his head, looking even more depressed. “Where are you going?”

  “Back to the west coast. A radio operator is needed.”

  He was startled. “Do you know what you’re saying? The German detector vans can pick up a signal in no time at all. It’s a cat and mouse existence.”

  “Not where I’m going.”

  “The mountains? No! You can refuse the assignment.”

  “But I want to go. I’ve been shut up here too long. Edvin got in touch with me yesterday. Karl has been in Oslo again and we’ll be travelling on the same train, but not together. I’ve been sent a bottle of brown hair dye and a fresh set of identity papers in another name. Luckily Aunt Rosa stored my ski-clothes and boots with all else I left here and so I’ll be well equipped.”

  Her satisfaction with the entire project exasperated him. Although Karl seemed to be constantly disrupting their lives, he had never stopped believing that it was only a passing phase for her. When it came to the crunch, she would be drawn back to him as if to her roots. His fear was of any harm coming to her, more than ever now with this new and deadly task she was undertaking.

  “I wish this bloody war was over!” he exclaimed bitterly.

  “That’s everybody’s dream at the present time,” she said sympathetically.

  In the hall before leaving, Nils made one last appeal to her. “Think this project over carefully,” he implored. “Let me find you still here when I come again.”

  He saw the answer in her eyes. Pulling her to him he kissed her with a desperate fervour as if it might be for the last time. For that reason she responded with affection, being as fearful for his safety as he was for hers.

  Leaving Rosa next morning was just as hard. After Frida’s tearful goodbye it was a relief that Rosa held back tears with a smile as she had always done. She had not been told why her niece was going away with dyed hair and darkened brows, clad in warm ski-clothes with her pre-war rucksack, but she knew it meant danger.

  “Farvel, my dear Anna,” she said fondly as they embraced. “Keep safe and well.”

  “I will. You, too.” Anna gave her a final hug and paused again by the stairs to give a little wave. “I’ll be back.”

  Rosa remained by the door until her niece’s footsteps had faded away to be followed by the thud of the closing street door.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Anna arrived in Bergen after a tiring journey of several hours. She had not seen Karl, who would be on another part of the train. As it came to a standstill she saw two SS officers on the platform and became anxious when they began scanning the disembarking passengers.

  There was no reason why they should be waiting for her, but it was impossible not to fear betrayal at all times. At the moment she was wedged in by passengers behind and those waiting to take their turn in getting off. It was not until the person in front of her alighted that the SS officers sighted their true quarry farther down the platform, and one shouted out as they moved swiftly in that direction.

  “Achtung! Stay where you are!”

  Anna sprang down from the train in time to see Karl dashing across the platform to leap down on to the tracks. Immediately there seemed to be storm-troopers appearing from everywhere to swarm down after him, the officers in the lead, revolvers in their hands.

  Swiftly Anna edged her way across the platform, some passengers having begun to run in their haste to get away from this potentially dangerous situation. She was in time to see Karl bolting along at the side of another stationary train before disappearing between two wagons. In horror she heard gun-shots ring out.

  A departing businessman jostled her, muttering some advice. “It’s not wise to hang about, fröken. Keep going.”

  Somehow Anna forced herself to leave the platform with everyone else. In the station she pretended to be choosing a newspaper from a rack while waiting in an agony of mind to discover whether or not Karl had managed to get away.

  Finally bystanders began moving aside to let the returning stormtroopers through. Anna caught her breath in shock as she saw Karl in their midst, being prodded along by rifles. He was ashen-faced and supporting his limp left arm across his chest with his right hand, the sleeve blood-soaked. She thought he would not see her, but he must have been watching out, for he sent a single deep glance under lowered lids that conveyed a warning and his own farewell.

  Afterwards Anna remembered nothing of walking to the hotel where she and Karl had stayed when they had first come to Bergen together. She checked into the hotel room that had been booked for her, dropped her rucksack on to the floor and sat with her head in her hands. For the first time she felt close to despair.

  When a knock came on the door, Anna knew it would be Lars, whom she was expecting. She had not seen him since the last time she was in Bergen. He guessed at once by her lack of colour and strained expression, that she had bad news.

  “What’s happened?” he asked, closing the door behind him.

  “Karl was arrested after a chase at Bergen railway station. He was wounded.” She told him all she had seen.

  He shook his head gravely and swore, thumping a fist on the end of the bed by which he stood. “I never thought they’d get Karl! He’s evaded them so many times.”

  “Where do you think they’ll take him after the interrogation?” she asked tonelessly, refusing to consider that he might not survive it.

  “Who can say?” Lars went along with her wish to keep the worst at bay, although he knew that such a prize captive as Karl would be subjected to the most sadi
stic of treatments. “There are so many patriots confined in camps these days that a few months ago another was built not all that far from Oslo. Recently most of our men arrested have been sent there.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” she said tersely. “Already it’s becoming as notorious as Grini.”

  He hoped she had not heard much about its commandant, Oberst-Leutnant Horwitz, a brutal sharp-faced Nazi, who had openly expressed a wish for a proper concentration camp in Norway with a gas chamber in which to get rid of obdurate prisoners. “If Karl should survive interrogation and be sent there,” Lars said, wanting to do what he could for Anna in her distress, “I might be able to find out. The Resistance has a contact in an ear specialist at a nearby hospital. Horwitz has become his patient, hoping that damage to an ear-drum on the Russian Front can be corrected. The doctor keeps his own eyes and ears open when he visits Horwitz at the camp. He’s even come away with a message or two at times that are smuggled to him.”

  “Then I must hope for that.”

  They talked about Karl’s arrest for a while longer, trying to work out how he could have been betrayed. Anna wondered if he had been followed from Oslo by a Quisling, who had travelled in the same carriage and then identified him by a signal to the waiting enemy. “Otherwise how could he have been known to them?” she concluded.

  Lars nodded. “That’s possible. After all, if the Germans had been on to his whereabouts in Oslo they would have arrested him before he could board the train.” He regarded her sympathetically. “We shan’t discover the truth of it unless Karl knows and can tell us one day.”

  She was grateful that he was trying to boost her hopes for Karl’s survival. “You’re right, but that won’t stop me trying to remember anything that might give me a clue.” Taking a grip on herself, she took a deep breath. “Do I leave here tomorrow as planned?”

  “Yes. You’ll be OK?”

  She looked at him squarely. “I will.”