Shadow on the Mountain

by Margi Preus

  He went to the door, then turned back. “Say,” he said, “did you hear that Pastor Tronstad was asked if he would bury a German?”

  Ingrid shook her head.

  “He’s a little hard of hearing, you know, and he said, ‘What? A German? Sure, I’d be glad to bury all of them.’” Espen went out, laughing. He tiptoed to his room and flopped down onto his bed with all his clothes on. There were so many things to think about, but he was so tired. He thought for a moment about the big game coming up, and then, just before he dropped off to sleep, he wondered what Ingrid was writing in her diary. He hoped, for all their sakes, that it wasn’t anything that could get her into trouble.

  oke: What’s the difference between the Nazis and a bucket of manure? Answer: The bucket, Ingrid wrote in her diary. She would remember to tell Espen that one next time.

  Everybody thought the Germans would be gone by now. But they’re not. Why did they invade us? We were a peaceful country, minding our own business. And when will they ever leave?

  Ingrid fumed, thinking about how the Germans walked into and out of the town’s banks and shops and cafés as if they owned them, or stomped into peoples’ homes and took things that didn’t belong to them: blankets and food and even soap! The only soap their family had was a few slivers that Mor had hidden behind some books in the bookcase.

  They act like they own the whole country! And they eat up the food that should be ours.

  Just thinking about it made Ingrid’s stomach complain. Dinner had been a thin stew of rutabagas and turnips and just the tiniest bit of pork.

  They are as fat as pigs, she wrote. Every time I see them, I want to kick them in the shins. I can’t, so I kick them with my pen! Ha!

  School was back in session now, after having been closed from the invasion, on April 9, through August. Ingrid had hoped that things would feel normal again once classes resumed. But even at school things were different. Some teachers who’d joined the fighting had been killed or captured during the intense battles in the weeks following the invasion. Even some of the older boys were gone.

  Ingrid chewed her pen for a moment. Then there was Espen. It was nice that he’d come in to talk to her tonight, but she knew he had made up a story because he’d had to tell her something.

  Now everybody has a secret, she wrote in her diary. Maybe it’s a secret stash of chocolate, an illegal newspaper, or a diary. Espen has a secret, too.

  What was it that had kept him out so late at night? she wondered. And why wouldn’t he tell her? They’d never kept secrets from each other before.

  Whatever his secret was, she intended to find out.

  n the day of the big soccer match with the Tyssedal Tigers, Espen joined some of his teammates as they waited for the ferry that would take them down the fjord to Tyssedal. Stein, Per, and the twins, Leif and Ole, sat on a low stone wall, eating ice cream out of little paper cups. They stared at the street where columns of German soldiers marched in formation, something they did often. Frequently, like today, the soldiers were accompanied by a brass band.

  “Ice cream!” Espen said, when he joined them. “Where’d you get that?”

  The boys pointed their little wooden spoons at the small group of officers milling about across the street.

  “You accepted ice cream from them?”

  “‘Accepted’?” Ole said. “No! We nipped these when their backs were turned. Go over there. Maybe you can swipe some, too.”

  Espen looked at the off-duty officers clustered outside the café. They were talking with some young women. “Nei,” he said. “I’d rather starve.”

  The boys sat in sullen silence for a while, watching the soldiers march in lockstep, swinging their legs high into the air in front of them.

  “Why do they march like that?” Leif asked.

  “Maybe they can’t bend their knees!” his brother said.

  “Maybe they haven’t got any?” Espen said. “Just wooden sticks for legs?”

  “I know what they haven’t got any of,” Per said.

  They all laughed.

  “Hey, don’t laugh,” Leif warned.

  “They can shoot you for that,” Ole added.

  “Did you see the latest poster?” Leif said. “It says, ‘Every civilian caught with weapon in hand will be SHOT … Anyone destroying constructions serving the traffic and military blah-blah-blah will be SHOT … Anyone using weapons contrary to international law will be SHOT.’”

  “Ja, I saw that,” Espen said. “On the bottom of the poster someone had written, ‘Anyone who has not already been shot will be SHOT.’”

  They laughed, and Espen did, too, sort of, but it made him feel sick. All these soldiers everywhere, always with guns, their metal helmets, the tramping of their boots—walking in and out of the stores, up and down the streets …

  “Kjell!” he heard one of the boys call out, and he turned around to see Kjell striding toward them.

  “Kjell!” Espen said. “Great! Move over, you louts.”

  Everyone shoved over so Kjell could sit down.

  Espen smiled. He was younger than them all, and it had been Kjell who had suggested him when the team had been short of players, and it was Kjell who had always stood up for him against his older—and bigger—teammates. Espen was happy Kjell had decided to play today. It would be just like old times. Later, when they were alone, Espen could ask him why he had been in that car full of Germans.

  Now the soldiers were singing, “… fahren wir gegen Engeland.”

  “What are they saying?” Ole asked.

  His brother whacked the back of his head. “I knew you weren’t paying attention in German class.”

  “They’re singing, ‘We’re on our way to England,’” Espen said.

  “I guess the war is over now,” Per said, “at least for us.”

  “We tried to join the military, Ole and me, back when they were still fighting,” Leif mumbled, his mouth full of ice cream.

  “But we were too young,” Ole said.

  “And still are,” said Leif.

  “You can still join up, you know,” Kjell said brightly.

  The other boys turned and stared at him.

  Kjell pointed to the soldiers in the street.

  “Join up … with them?” Leif asked.

  “Why not? They’re here to help us,” Kjell said.

  “Help us how?” Stein said.

  “They’ve come to protect us from the British, and especially from the Bolsheviks.”

  Leif snorted, spitting out his ice cream.

  “We can protect ourselves!” Stein exclaimed. “We don’t need Germany coming in and taking over our country!”

  “Protect ourselves?” Kjell said. “The Norwegian military didn’t last two months against the Wehrmacht! How well do you think we’d do against the Russians? Do you want those Bolsheviks coming and taking over our country? What if they invaded Norway, just like they did Finland? Germany can protect us from them.”

  “You’re crazy,” Stein told him.

  “No,” Kjell said, “you are. You have your head in the sand.”

  “You have your head up your—”

  “Hey, look,” Espen said, standing up.

  Kjell interrupted him. “Germany is our friend.”

  “If Germany is our friend, why did they drop bombs on us?” Leif asked.

  “They wouldn’t have had to if we had followed our government’s orders.”

  “The Quisling puppet show?” Stein said. “Is that what you’re calling ‘our government’? King Haakon rejected the Nazi demands. He said we should fight! He said we should resist!”

  “The king is a traitor!” Kjell said.

  “Take that back!” Stein jumped up and grabbed Kjell’s coat collar, but Kjell knocked his hand away, stood up, and pushed him.

  “The king ran away,” Kjell said. He started to turn, but Stein caught him by the arm and punched him in the face.

  Blood gushed from Kjell’s nose, and Espen groped i
n his pocket for a handkerchief. Someone handed Kjell a paper napkin, which he held to his nose as he stalked away.

  Espen went after him. “Kjell!” he called. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Kjell said. “It’s just a bloody nose.” He turned and kept walking, so Espen had to jog to keep up.

  “Why do you say things like that? Do you want to get into a fight? I mean, you don’t really feel like that, do you?” Espen said. “You don’t really believe the Germans are here to help us. With all their rules and arresting people and everything.”

  “We might have to give up a little bit of freedom, but it will be worth it to be safe.” Kjell stopped and faced Espen. “Maybe you don’t see it that way yet, but you will. Think about it.”

  Espen took a deep breath and said, “I saw you in that car full of Germans.”

  “When was that?” Kjell said.

  “You know when,” Espen said. “You saw me, too.”

  “Don’t remember it.”

  “On the road to Fossen a couple of days ago. I was on my bike.”

  “Where were you going?” Kjell asked.

  “To see my uncle,” Espen answered. “Where were you going?”

  “I don’t recall I was even there,” Kjell said. He turned and began walking away.

  Could it have been someone else in that car? Had Espen been mistaken? It had been twilight, and the people in the car were more like shapes and shadows than anything else. Perhaps it had been someone who looked like Kjell, and Espen was being suspicious of his friend for no good reason.

  But he felt a little sick to his stomach. Maybe because he was hungry. But maybe it was because he was pretty sure that Kjell, whom he had always considered his best friend, had lied to him. Even more unsettling was that he had lied so coolly, so casually. Espen wondered how many times he might have lied before.

  “Kjell!” Espen yelled after him. “Aren’t you coming to the game?”

  Espen watched Kjell’s back as his friend moved down the street. He knew there were plenty of Norwegians who were sympathetic to the Nazis. Vidkun Quisling, who was now head of the government, had welcomed the Germans. But, still … his best friend? He felt queasy and wanted to sit down. It was as if the whole world had shifted and was spinning wrong. Too fast. Too fast the wrong way.

  Why had Kjell denied he’d been in that car full of Germans? Espen knew he was lying. But Espen took only a few more steps before realizing that he, too, had lied. He’d told Kjell he had been going to visit his uncle, which wasn’t true at all.

  Flaming, devilish hell, he thought. If nothing else ruins our friendship, lying will certainly kill it.

  He walked slowly back to the others.

  “Is he coming?” Leif asked.

  Espen shook his head.

  “Now look what you did!” Per said to Stein. “You lost us our best player!”

  “What do you mean?” Ole said. “What about …” He tossed his hair and held his nose high in the air. “Aksel?”

  The other boys groaned, and Per aimed a spoonful of ice cream at Ole. The ice cream catapulted out of the spoon but sailed right past its intended target and continued toward the street. They all followed its trajectory. At first it looked as if it would hit one of the many helmets parading by, but at the last second, an officer stepped in front of it, and the ice cream landed with a splat on the back of his neck. He stopped.

  Per took off running. The other boys stayed but turned their heads away, as if they had always been innocently focused on the other end of the street. Only Espen stared at the officer, curious to see what he would do. The German reached behind his neck and felt the ice cream. Then he turned and fixed his gaze on Espen.

  The man could have been one of his own countrymen: strong and hardy looking, with fair hair and blue eyes, like a lot of Norwegians. He looked like someone who could take you on in a ski race. Maybe they could be friends, Espen thought, the Norwegians and the Germans. They were a lot alike, he supposed. At least, that’s what the Germans kept telling them, anyway.

  The officer smiled and nodded in a friendly way. That’s what they all did. They all tried to act friendly.

  But before the smile appeared, there had been a moment, a look. It was as if the officer had seen right through Espen. As if he knew about the comments he and his friends had just made; as if he knew about the dinner conversations around his family’s table; as if he knew that Espen and his sister had a competition going for the best stupid-Nazi joke; as if he knew that, right now, there was a stack of illegal newspapers sitting on Espen’s living room floor. It was the look you gave a dog when you knew he had chewed up your best pair of shoes and you intended to punish him. I am the master, it said, and you are the dog.

  Perhaps it was a look meant to throw cold water onto his fervor, but instead, it was like throwing gasoline on a fire. The officer turned away, and Espen smoldered. He felt as if he was made of tinder and kindling, and all it had taken was this officer’s eyes on him to ignite it.

  ff we go to Tyssedal,” Ole said as the ferry chugged down the fjord toward the little village.

  “To play against the Tyssedal Tigers,” Per said. “They’re big.”

  “And tough,” Leif said.

  “And mean,” added Ole.

  The other boys on the team murmured agreement. “You boys are babies,” Aksel said, sniffing. He stalked to the other side of the ferry, where he stood facing into the wind, letting it blow his hair back. Espen thought he looked like one of the blond, blue-eyed Nordic lads the Nazis put on their posters.

  As the ferry approached the village, the boys grew quiet, contemplating both the challenge of the opposing team and their playing field. The only place flat enough to play soccer in Tyssedal was a rocky ledge on the side of the mountain, high above the village. The boys silently slipped on their soccer jerseys, which were all so raggedy that even their team name, the Hornets, was barely visible anymore. But nobody had enough money to buy a new one.

  The team disembarked from the ferry and began the long walk up to the soccer field.

  The Tigers were already there; the Hornets could hear them shouting taunts down at them.

  “OK, team, we need to concentrate,” Stein said. “We have a shot at the championship; I guess we all know that. We also know that the Tigers are tough. So let’s play our best—for ourselves, our coach and in the name of the king!”

  “Leve Kongen!” the team cheered. “Long live the king!” All of them joined in except Aksel, who, as usual, walked separately from them.

  They reached the field and began warming up, and Espen thought about how he and Kjell used to play together. They’d run up and down the soccer field until the sun slipped behind the mountains and their steamy breath hung in the frosty air. Finally, Espen—it would always be Espen—would get so tired, he’d lean over, his hands on his knees, gasping. “We have to quit!” he’d said once, and Kjell had replied, “Never! Press on until there is nothing left in you but the will to press on.” Espen knew he meant it.

  After the coin toss, Aksel began ordering all the boys into positions, even though Stein was the captain. The team had agreed that Stein would take over for their coach, who had gotten away to England to join the Allied forces. At least, that’s what they’d been told.

  Aksel finished by saying, “Ole and Per, you play midfield. Leif and Stein, you can play defense, and you”—he pointed at Espen—“be goalie. It won’t matter that you’re in the net, because I’ll keep all the action on the other side of the field.”

  Before the Hornets could protest, the referee blew the whistle, and the Tigers kicked off.

  The ball went back and forth, but the Tigers were big and strong, and it was hard to play against them. The field was a frightening place to play. So high up on the mountain, any stray kick to their west would send the ball soaring out over the cliff and hundreds of feet down before it crashed into the salty fjord.

  Espen stayed by the goal, and while the play w
as centered on the other half of the field, his eyes strayed to the black water below. He thought about the newspapers on his living room floor. One of the stories in the paper was about some saboteurs who had blown up a power station in Alvik. Maybe he would get an assignment like that! He imagined himself laying dynamite and tiptoeing backward, letting the fuse snake out …

  Someone shouted, and he turned his attention back to the game. Too late! A big Tyssedal boy was charging toward him, taking a shot before Espen could even focus. The ball flew into the net, and the Tigers began to celebrate. Cowbells clanged in response from the village below.

  Aksel stormed toward him. “You are as dumb as a bag of rocks!”

  “It was too fast for me,” Espen said.

  “Keep your eyes open next time.” Aksel shot him a dark look, then began admonishing the team to “pass the ball to me more. I’ll score us some goals.”

  The Hornets kicked off, and Stein passed the ball to Aksel in front of the goal. Now it was just Aksel against the Tigers’ goalie. He dribbled toward the net and took a shot, but the kick was much too forceful. The ball soared over the net and disappeared over the edge of the cliff.

  Neither team had an extra soccer ball, so the match would have to stop while someone went to retrieve the lost ball.

  Aksel pointed to Espen. “You’re the goalie. You haven’t been running. You go get it.”

  “I didn’t kick it,” Espen began to say, but he knew it wasn’t worth arguing over. Aksel never listened to anyone.

  Espen sprinted down the mountain to a fisherman’s dock and borrowed a dinghy and rowed out into the fjord to recover the soccer ball. Mountains rose out of the water on all sides, a thousand feet high. Waterfalls thundered off the cliffs into the dark and endlessly deep fjord.

  He saw the ball bobbing in the water and rowed to it, then leaned over the side of the boat to snag it. He didn’t really want to look past his reflection on the surface, because he and Kjell had once seen a draug in this fjord. Or what they had decided must have been one. A draug could shift shapes. It could appear as a man or as a white horse, but this one had been a huge gray monster with a great dragon’s head festooned with fleshy whiskers. He still saw it sometimes when he closed his eyes, or sometimes in his dreams.