Shadow on the Mountain

by Margi Preus

  “Sticking her tongue out at the Germans.” Snekker laughed. “You’ve been observing her closely.”

  Yes, Espen supposed he had.

  “Yet you haven’t asked her out,” Snekker said.

  “I haven’t even talked to her!”

  Snekker laughed heartily. “Well, then,” he said, “you have only yourself to blame. Hey, Odin, I have a joke, too. You know why there are no more eggs?”

  “No, why?”

  “Because in the country, the Germans get all the eggs, and in the city, they get all the chicks!”

  Espen didn’t laugh.

  “OK, maybe that wasn’t so funny,” Snekker said. He looked at his watch. “Anyway, now it’s time.” He disappeared into the hut and returned with a very small radio.

  “Oh, of course!” Espen said. “I’ve heard about these little British-made ‘sweethearts.’”

  “Go ahead,” Snekker said. “Set it up.”

  After a few moments of crackling static, the radio fell silent. “I don’t think it’s working,” Espen said.

  “That can’t be,” Snekker replied. “It’s almost time to transmit the information you brought me.”

  “I brought you information?”

  Snekker removed a turnip from the bunch in Espen’s rucksack and pulled a wedge out of it. From inside the turnip, he extracted a crumpled piece of paper. Then he fiddled with the radio himself. “Dead!” he said finally. “Do you know anyone who can fix it?”

  “Ja,” Espen answered. Ole had a job repairing radios for the Nazis, so they could listen to their propaganda stations. He also played a very useful role for nonlegal radio owners.

  “We’ll miss this transmission,” Snekker said, “because you’ll need to take this radio down to town and get it fixed or get a new part if you have to. Then you can bring it back up here.”

  “Why me?” Espen asked. “Why don’t you—” But then he thought about Solveig going downtown, and maybe …

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll take it.”

  “Make sure nobody sees you!” Snekker said. “If you go that way”—he pointed through the birch forest and down the mountain slope—“it’s almost all good cover. There’s only one open spot where it’s marshland. Just don’t be skiing through there when any Germans fly over.”

  “I guess the Germans know there are radio transmissions,” Espen said. “They just haven’t figured out where they’re coming from.”

  “Well, if they come prowling about,” Snekker said, “I’ve got a secret weapon.”

  “What’s that?”

  Snekker turned around, pointed his backside at Espen and let out a prolonged fart.

  “I’ll get some bread from Johansen’s bakery when I’m in town,” Espen told him. “They advertise that their bread goes ‘two tones higher.’”

  “Won’t that be lovely?” Snekker said. “It’ll be a regular symphony around here!”

  Snekker’s laughter followed Espen as he made his way through the stand of birches and on down the mountainside.

  He sure makes a lot of noise for someone in hiding, Espen thought.

  A few inches of powdery snow covered the icy crust underneath, making for easy skiing. Winding gradually down the hillside, he went from the birches to a stand of spruce trees and into a pine forest.

  He tried to think of a good opening line in case he “ran into” Solveig. She would be downtown, and he would casually bump into her, and she would say, Why, hello, Espen, here you are. And then he would say—

  What was that noise? He was suddenly aware that he had skied out into the middle of the open marshland Snekker had warned him about, and the noise he heard was the drone of an airplane.

  By the sound of the engine, he could tell the pilot was flying low—it was a Fieseler Storch, a German spy plane. Espen glanced at his watch. Sure enough, it was exactly the time Snekker would have been transmitting radio signals. If he’d had a radio. But his radio—the very one these pilots were looking for—was in Espen’s backpack, which suddenly felt very, very heavy.

  Like a startled rabbit, he froze. He should not freeze, he thought, even as he stood there, frozen. They were sure to notice him there in the middle of the clearing, trying to look invisible. Nothing would make him look more guilty, unless it was skiing fast for cover. Which there wasn’t any of, anyway.

  Then he remembered the brave old lady who had handed his rucksack to the German soldier at the train station. Be like that, he thought. Obvious and brave. Be so obvious that they don’t believe you could possibly be trying to hide anything. So, as the pilot flew overhead, Espen waved his arms, waved his ski poles, and shouted and smiled—like a kid who was excited to see an airplane fly so close and so low. So low, in fact, that he could see the startled face of the German pilot.

  Good thing he can’t see my heart jumping around in my chest, Espen thought, as the man in the cockpit waved back and steered the plane away.

  He stood still for a few moments, listening to the receding drone of the plane, then set off again. The act of skiing steadied him, but it took a long time for his heart to resume its normal rate. Still, he knew he was getting smarter about all of this. Smarter about seeming stupid, he thought, and he laughed. Yes, and braver. Brave enough to face down an enemy airplane. But was he brave enough to talk to Solveig?

  ust outside of town, Espen caught a glimpse of red stockings rounding a corner. They were his sister’s stockings. Where was she going? The only thing up that road was the German compound. What business could she possibly have there?

  Espen ditched his skis in an alley and followed Ingrid, trying to be nonchalant, while his heart started up again, echoing loudly, as if inside an empty oil drum. He was afraid for her, walking so boldly, her schoolbag bouncing on her back, toward the camp. He was afraid for himself, too. He carried an illegal radio, and he was only too aware of the penalty he could face for that.

  It was almost dark by the time Ingrid reached the edge of the compound. Espen, not far behind her, slipped into the cover of some spruce trees. Peeking out from the fringe of branches, he had a partial view of the camp. He could make out the barracks for the soldiers and the separate barracks for the prisoners of war. An armed patrol guarded the prisoners who hovered near the fence. Even from this distance, he could see how stooped and gaunt they were. He’d seen these POWs being worked like slaves, digging ditches and pushing wheelbarrows full of rock and rubble.

  What was Ingrid up to? he wondered as she approached the barbed-wire fence. Soon the searchlights would start sweeping the area, illuminating everything in their paths. Did Ingrid realize that?

  He caught his breath when a guard looked her way, and he lunged forward, ready to … do what, he didn’t know. But Ingrid calmly reached into her bag and took out a package. What was she holding? And why had the guard, just then, turned his back? The prisoners acted as if they had been waiting for her, and they eagerly reached through the fence as she began placing what looked like small packages in their hands. Food. She was giving them food!

  When it was all gone, she slung her schoolbag over her shoulder and walked away.

  Espen retrieved his skis and hurried to catch up with his sister. A jumble of feelings coursed through him. He was angry at Ingrid for endangering herself. Yet he felt a little bit proud of her. After all, she was brave! She was also limping.

  “That’s pretty stupid, what you just did,” Espen said once he caught up with her.

  She turned to face him. “Have you been spying on me?” she asked.

  “I just happened to see what you were doing back there. Where did that food come from?”

  “Don’t worry, there’s still food at home … I stole some ration cards, if you must know.”

  Espen’s jaw dropped. His sweet little sister had stolen ration cards? “Do Mor and Far know?” he asked. “I don’t think they’d be happy to know you’re doing such things.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s dangerous,” Espen sai
d.

  “I’m not the only one in the family doing dangerous things,” Ingrid replied.

  Espen took her arm. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, what are you doing way out here? I know that you’re not just delivering newspapers.”

  “You—you’ve been spying on me!” Espen sputtered.

  “And you have been spying on me,” Ingrid said, “so we’re even.” She limped away.

  “What’s the matter with your foot?” Espen asked. “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” Ingrid answered. “It’s my shoe.” She lifted her foot to reveal the sole of her shoe flopping. “I have to walk like this, or the sole flaps back and trips me.”

  Espen looked around. This was not the way he had intended to walk into town. This whole episode with Ingrid had gotten him sidetracked.

  “Well, come on,” he said with a sigh. “Mr. Levin’s shop is just ahead. Let’s get it fixed.” The radio weighed heavily on his back. He wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible, but he had some money in his pocket, and he could pay for the repair of his sister’s shoe.

  “What if that guard had seen you, though?” he asked as he hurried her along.

  “Oh, he saw me,” Ingrid said. “I always go to that part of the fence, because of that guard.”

  “What do you mean, ‘always’?” Espen said.

  “I’ve been doing this for ages,” Ingrid told him. “But Mor was starting to wonder where our food was going …”

  “Ja!” Espen said. “Me, too! Listen, Ingrid, you could really get yourself into trouble!”

  “They’re not all terrible, you know, the soldiers. They’re old men. Or just boys, not much older than you, Espen. They don’t want to be here any more than we want them here. Do you ever think of that? I feel sorry for them. All the Norwegians are just as cold as ice to them. We won’t talk to them; we won’t sit next to them on a bus or a train; we won’t answer them if they speak to us. Little kids won’t even accept chocolate from them.”

  “It isn’t any worse than the way we treat Norwegian collaborators,” Espen said.

  “I know,” Ingrid replied. “The Ice Front—don’t speak to them; don’t have anything to do with them. That seems mean, too.”

  “The point is not to be mean. The point is to keep others from joining them. If people are ‘on the fence,’ perhaps they’ll realize it’s not worth losing contact with their friends and neighbors—or even relatives—just for a job or a radio or whatever reward they think they’re going to get out of it.”

  They walked along in silence for a while. Espen thought of how Kjell and his grandmother must feel. They were getting “the ice treatment,” too.

  “Hey, did you hear we’ll be having pork for Christmas?” Ingrid asked.

  “Really?” Espen said. “How’s that?”

  “The swine will still be here!”

  “Oh,” Espen chuckled. “I get it. The German swine! Ha-ha!”

  “That joke is sort of funny, but it sort of isn’t,” Ingrid said. “It’s actually kind of sad. We will all have a poor Christmas, but the Germans will be even worse off than we are.”

  “How can you say that?” Espen said. “They’re far more likely to have a pork roast than we are!”

  “Yes, but what good is it if you’re without your family?”

  They arrived at the shop, and, relieved to at least be off the street, Espen pushed the door open. His glasses fogged up immediately, and he took them off and cleaned them with a corner of his shirt. When he put them back on, he froze.

  Three smartly dressed men—secret police in plainclothes, Espen quickly surmised—were jotting things in notepads. One of them was going through the cash register drawer.

  Espen started to back out, but Ingrid stepped forward.

  “Yes?” one of the men said. The smell of his hair pomade made Espen’s stomach turn.

  “May I see Mr. Levin? I need my shoe repaired,” Ingrid said. She held up her shoe for the man to see.

  “The shop is closed.” The man pointed to the sign on the door. The word OPEN faced the inside of the shop. Espen hadn’t noticed it when they came in.

  “But …,” Ingrid started to say.

  Espen gripped her arm. “We’ll get it fixed later,” he said between his teeth. He pulled on her arm, but she wrenched free.

  “Can we at least have a pair of shoelaces, so I can tie my shoe together?”

  The man stared at Ingrid with his ice-blue eyes, then tossed her a pair of shoelaces from a jar on the counter. “No charge,” he said. His eyes strayed over Espen’s rucksack.

  Espen pulled Ingrid outside and away from the shop.

  “What was that all about?” she said. “Where was Mr. Levin?”

  “We have to get out of here,” Espen said. “Something smells bad.” Like something very rotten being covered up by hair pomade, he thought.

  A block down, Ingrid sat down on a step and said she wanted to tie the lace around her shoe.

  “I’ll be right back,” Espen said. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  He turned and walked back toward the shop, trying to stay in the shadows of the buildings. Perhaps he could find out what was going on without being seen.

  But, suddenly, Kjell appeared and pulled him into an alley. “What were you doing in that shop?” he hissed.

  “Shopping for shoelaces,” Espen replied. “They have very sturdy laces. Just a few pair left. If you want some, you’d better hurry.”

  “You shouldn’t draw attention to yourself in such a way,” Kjell said.

  “I should draw attention to myself in some other way?” Espen asked. He tried to sound lighthearted, even though he was painfully aware of the contraband that he was, at that moment, carrying in his rucksack.

  “It’s not a joking matter, what I’m talking about.”

  Espen looked at him. Was this a threat? A warning? What was Kjell trying to say?

  A couple approached from the other direction, and Kjell strode away. Espen stared after his former friend, then went back to Ingrid and told her to go straight home—no dillydallying—and to tell Mor to leave the window by the front door open as an all-clear sign, letting him know there were no unwanted “visitors” inside.

  After the radio had been delivered for repair to Ole, Espen went home, took note of the open window, and went inside. His father was sitting at the kitchen table, looking over some papers.

  “What happened today, Far?” Espen asked him. “Ingrid and I stopped at Mr. Levin’s shop, and—”

  “Arrested!” his father exclaimed. “Because he is Jewish—arrested!”

  “I didn’t know he was Jewish,” Espen said. “What will happen to him?”

  His father shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Didn’t anyone know this was going to happen?” Espen asked. “Couldn’t he have been warned, at least?”

  His father crammed the dried berry leaves he now used as a tobacco substitute into his pipe. “Last night was the first anyone knew about it. Someone leaked the information to the Norwegian police. Our police chief called the few Jews in town and told them he was going to have to arrest them today. It was a warning, of course. But Mr. Levin didn’t leave. Maybe because, like so many of us, he didn’t believe it could really happen here.”

  “Just like we didn’t think we would ever be involved in the war!” Espen said.

  “We keep making the same mistake, don’t we?” His father looked up at him.

  “Why, though? On what grounds can they arrest a person just because he’s Jewish?”

  His father lit his pipe. “Hitler envisions a ‘new Europe,’ a Europe of Aryan people only. Fair-haired, fair-skinned people—like us. He wants to hold up Norway as a model.”

  Espen’s mouth suddenly filled with saliva; he went to the sink and spat. “We should have known,” he said. “There were warning signs!”

  “Yes,” his father said simply.

  Later, lying in his bed, Espen took off his gl
asses and put them on his nightstand. Without them, the room and everything in it was a blur.

  He stared up at the ceiling. He had not been “watching with both eyes.” He’d known that Jews had been singled out for harassment by the Nazis. He’d heard what Kjell had said about Jews, and he’d just listened in shocked silence. He could tell himself now that he had thought Kjell’s awful comments were all stupid blather, that there wasn’t really anything to it. But those ideas had come from somewhere. From someone who had power.

  It made him feel helpless—like he often felt now, like how he’d felt when he watched Ingrid approaching the prison, and again when the guard had glanced her way.

  But that had changed as he watched his little sister give food to the starving prisoners. In spite of all that had happened, somehow he felt as if this one small act of kindness could change everything. Shift the world slightly. Tilt the world a little bit back toward right.

  nside the hut at Oleanna, Espen and his friends strained to listen to a tinny voice issuing from a small headset. The BBC news broadcast was nearly over, and they held their breath as several phrases were read: “The fox is dancing tango in the kitchen,” then “Sleeping Beauty is asleep,” and finally, “The rabbit plays harmonica.”

  “That’s us!” Stein said.

  They grabbed their packs and left the stuffy hut for the crisp mountain air. They stepped into their skis and snagged a couple of toboggans while Snekker came out to offer last-minute instructions. “Three fires in a line, a hundred meters apart!” he shouted after them as they began wending their way through the trees and up the mountainside.

  “Espen,” Per said as they skied side by side. “Do you ever feel as if someone is watching you?”

  “Now, you mean?”

  “No, just … sometimes.”

  “Have you seen anyone?” Espen asked.

  Per shook his head. “It’s just a feeling, I guess.”

  Espen was quiet. He had to admit that he’d felt it, too, at times. A glimpse of someone disappearing around a corner. A face obscured by a newspaper. Just little things, probably meaningless. He pointed at Stein, Gust, Leif, and Ole, straggling along behind them. “I feel like we’re being followed right now,” he joked.