Shell

by Kristina Olsson

  As the librarian handed him a bundle of files he peered over at Pearl’s. Spring fashion shows? And saw the clipping in her hand. “Himmler and the Swedish royal.” His eyes turned serious. He cocked his head, frowned.

  Just trying to track someone down. Pearl kept her voice light, closed the file, signed it out.

  Henry was leafing through the top folder in his own pile. Did Constance tell you about her husband? He glanced up at her. He was involved in all that.

  Pearl tried for calm, for unsurprised. She had no idea what he was getting at.

  But he was distracted now, and began to walk away. He said over his shoulder: The White Buses, that’s right. Is it an anniversary or something? Then he was gone; he did not see her face lose its color, her look sharpen. Constance. Back at her desk she scrabbled around for the writer’s number and immediately dialed it.

  Later that afternoon Axel stepped off a bus at Palm Beach. The sun’s heat had dissipated, but beneath his bare feet he could feel warmth stored in the pale sand. He rolled up his trousers and walked close to the shoreline, though the sea hurled itself towards him, each wave explosive, detonated by wind. There was no room in his head for anything but this, the need to keep his body moving forward, against the wall of sound. To find a path, any path, from the beach to Pittwater. Up across the top of the hill and down, the bus driver had said, to where old boatsheds were scattered like birds on the water’s edge. Mate, it’s a bit of a trek.

  I want to draw them, Axel had told him, a reply to his squinty eyes.

  Nothing should delay him now. It was imperative he find the architect, speak to him, ascertain his level of awareness. Had Utzon felt the strength of the animosity against him, the depth of the misunderstandings? Even the engineers spoke scurrilously about him. Did he know? He may not have heard the word on the street or read the newspapers. The objectionable newspapers. He had to be warned.

  The wind whipped up dry sand and the air turned sharp, needling his eyes. He had to walk with his face averted. So he was startled when the lighthouse reared up within minutes, or so it seemed. He knew he had walked too far. He turned, looked at his watch, stared back towards the bus stop and the small beach kiosk, veiled now by porous curtains of sandy air. Anxiety knotted his stomach. It had to be today. Each morning and afternoon brought the danger closer, made it darker. Out past the waves, clouds threw black pools of shadow on the ocean. They were omens, he knew that; why did no one else? He stared as they grew and spread across the heaving surface. Then looked back to the line of trees on the hill, pleaded for some guidance, some clue to the right way.

  But the sun was already faded, watery, an ineffective guide. He shuffled towards the low dunes, sank to his knees in the sand. Tears burned beneath his eyelids, and he swiped at them savagely, hating himself. There was no room for self-pity. All his energies must be in service of this task now, in circumventing the forces gathered against Utzon. It was they who must go, not the architect. He breathed deeply, drawing on all his strength and the certainty that Utzon could be saved. He had to think carefully. Be strategic.

  He rolled onto his stomach and looked through dune grasses towards the other end of the beach. As Utzon had done, trying to see. He’d directed the architects in his team to lie or crouch behind sand dunes and see the scene partial. Fractional. Its place and shape in the whole. It left room for imagination, to show pieces rather than entirety. And allowed perspective, angles of sight: the way light and shadow played against the fabric of sky, of salt-strafed air, the effect of looking through lines of foreground. The way meaning bulged from shapes so familiar to the eye that they were unseen, disregarded.

  She caught the ferry this time. The city muted, benign in its spring dusk, but there was an oiliness to the harbor, as if some ugliness had been secreted below. She shivered and pulled her coat close, lifted her eyes from the water to the bridge. Remembered the first time she’d walked across with Axel, his face grave and words stumbling in his attempt to describe wonder. It leaps across the water, he said, slowing as they reached the northern end. He turned to look back, and then forward again. But also time. You could be one person at that end, and another at this. His eyes shone with emotion. Don’t you think?

  Now the ferry passed beneath the arches made carnival with lights, and she thought she finally understood. Here is a threshold; she had known it as a child. The realization like a balloon inflating inside her as she looked up at the dark expanse. The fretwork of brute steel and bolts thick as a man’s thigh, all somehow bent to elegance, to grace. She knew absolutely that the person she was before the ferry slipped beneath it, becoming part of its shadow, absorbed in its shape, would be different to the one who rode the ferry home. The woman who walked off the boat in Manly would be someone else.

  She had, she saw, been waiting for this person, and the knowledge that transformed her, for a long time.

  Axel stood on warm sand, squinted towards the horizon, watched the tide withdraw. He thought: what the land knows. Knowledge of this place had entered his head incrementally, as water pushed over sand. Whatever had happened here had entered the soil: blood, water, bones—all beneath his feet. Every intention, won or lost. Just as it was at home. He shivered, watching children play in the shallows. Realizing that these people had grown from the very dirt they were born to. As he had. Swallowed the air and the water and the minerals in the earth. These people had absorbed sea water and the drift of desert at their backs. Felt the weight of it on their shoulders. The weight of history, of all they had come to and all they had inflicted on this place. Perhaps, he thought suddenly, that weight stopped them welcoming others here. They themselves had been the newcomers once; at a cellular level, they knew what they were capable of.

  But no. They were blinded by sun; it meant they didn’t have to look. Where Axel came from, you had to look hard. Work for your visions, your insights. Set free in the immense southern ocean, this country sprawled like a sunbather. Without borders, it imagined its enemies, was free to create them. Looked only at themselves rather than over their shoulders. Found it too easy to be right.

  It came to him then, suddenly. That he had approached this place like a child looking for a gift hidden in a wide field. There was something it held for him, something lay waiting, the answer to a question, the exact shape of absence. Had he arrived here expecting to become whole, to grow the missing limb? To feel something numb reawaken to feeling? As if this place might give something back, and he could return home complete. But that meant learning a new language that was not a spoken one, rather one that explained where he was, what he saw and heard and felt.

  Constance opened the door with a perfunctory hello and turned back into the flat, as she had the first time. Once again the plain house dress, loose and belted at the waist, the slippers, but her hair elegant, swept up in a neat French roll. Pearl followed her into the room, noticing all this but mostly the hunch in her shoulders, the slight curve in her back. Tonight, Constance looked old.

  The White Buses, eh? Wasting no time on preliminaries. Haven’t heard the phrase for years. Years. She slumped onto a chair at the small kitchen table, leaned back. Elbow bent, cigarette between her fingers, so that smoke tendriled in a strand of hair around her ear. What do you want to know? She picked up her drink. Indicated the chair opposite, the whiskey bottle on the table and the empty glass next to it. Ice in the fridge.

  Pearl poured a finger and held up the glass. Everything, she said. Whatever you know. Your health. She tipped it back and let the liquid warm her chest. It’s just a personal interest. I’m trying to track someone down. Her words a momentary, ghostly echo of finding her brothers’ tracks. Too late.

  Constance drew on her cigarette, swallowed the last of her whiskey, pushed the empty glass towards Pearl. Well, my dear. It’s a long time ago. And I was only on the periphery of it all. She tapped her cigarette on the edge of a glass ashtray. But my husband was a Swede. High up in the Red Cross. He felt a responsibility. She watched smoke
rise and dissipate against the high ceiling. He was a fastidious man. Had a conscience.

  Pearl sat with this last sentence, letting “fastidious” find its place. How did he feel, she said carefully, about Sweden staying out of the war?

  Divided. Sawn in two. She waited a beat. Those countries are so close together, you don’t realize it here. Sweden, Norway, Denmark. They were all neutral at the outbreak of war, it was their policy. But it was obvious that Denmark and Norway would fall. Constance glanced towards her. Only Sweden was left. Doing a mad soft-shoe shuffle to stay out. To keep both sides happy. She let out a breath. I suppose that’s what neutrality is.

  Neutrality is not taking a side. Pearl’s voice calm, clear.

  Constance looked suddenly sober. It’s staying out of conflict, she said, the words edged with iron. It grows out of pacifism. A dislike of war. She looked at Pearl with a steady eye. A bit like your own distaste for sending Australians to Vietnam.

  Forcing them to go to Vietnam, she said. Or encouraging them. She bit her lip. But there was an ethical dilemma in Europe, wasn’t there, Constance? A whole race of people was being exterminated. How do you remain impartial to that?

  You are very naïve, my girl, but I’ll tell you. You don’t.

  Remain impartial?

  Of course you don’t. Do you think they were monsters? Without morals or virtue? Of course they took a side.

  Pearl was silent.

  Besides, Constance continued, there were many Swedish Jews, or Jewish Swedes, I don’t know, but many of them were caught up in this too.

  Which brings us back to the White Buses. Pearl’s voice quieter now. Some say—

  And how would these “some” know? It’s all politics and expedience, my dear Pearl—Australia didn’t go into the last war to save the Jews, it went in to save itself. It followed Britain in as they’re following America in now. There’s no difference.

  An uneasy silence hung over the table. Then Constance went on, as if she had rehearsed: At any rate in 1944 and ’45 the Swedes were the right people at the right time. The Allies were getting the upper hand, the Germans could see it. They were going to blow up the concentration camps, kill everyone. She took a deep breath. My husband was involved in the plan to get people out. It involved talks with Himmler, so who else could do it? Only a nation that was neutral.

  Pearl lifted her empty glass. Put it down. I’m sorry, Constance, but you might say they had to do it. Pearl looked the older woman in the eye. Who else had trade contacts with the Germans?

  For God’s sake. Are we going over that old ground? It’s all there in the records. If people want to read it. Constance waved her hand as if she was conjuring the facts. The proof. Look. My husband knew Bernadotte It was all down to him really. She looked once more towards the ceiling. He did most of the negotiating with Himmler for the release of prisoners, for their transport on the buses. She turned her own glass around and around on the table. Back and forward to Germany, talking to that pig. He was fearless.

  Talking to Himmler? Names like that, spoken aloud, still carried a chill. Pearl felt it in the hairs on her arms, on her scalp.

  Yes. Himmler could see how things were. He tried to ingratiate himself with the Allies. Constance was lost for long seconds, staring into thin air. But the secrecy was like a deadlock, the logistics, the strategy. There had to be absolute silence in the press, a complete blackout. Any publicity and Hitler would be apoplectic. The whole game would be up.

  Constance looked across at Pearl, perhaps for the first time. And you know, no one broke it. The silence. Every newspaper and radio station stood firm. She pursed her lips. I admired them for that; all those lives were saved. She shrugged. But call a spade a spade. At the time the press was almost an organ of government. In Sweden I mean, as well as elsewhere. They could be shut down for publishing anything anti-German. Anything. It was shameful. Her cigarette had burned down to nothing. She stared at it as she spoke. I said to my husband, they should be ashamed.

  Pearl had smelled the alcohol on her as she’d come in the door, but now she saw Constance had been drinking solidly for a while. She was just this side of drunk, trying to keep her eyes focused, her words crisp. Not quite succeeding. I mean it’s easy enough in retrospect, she said now. At the time it was terrifying. Bloody terrifying. But had to be done. She glanced up. Know what I’m saying?

  The conversation had taken the edge off her imperiousness, gave her something else—not quite softness, but a fine vein of nostalgia, perhaps. Pearl softened in return. Hitler, she said. Here he was just a word, rather than a man. A fearful idea.

  He was mad, demonic. Every one of those missions was mined with danger, one slip and boom! They could all be lost.

  They sat and drank. Occasionally the yellow beam of headlights flashed on the window and across the wall like a message. Constance tapped the cigarette butt on the table. After minutes of silence, she spoke. But you know. She picked up her drink. Gazed through the thick glass as if it might talk. For the drivers and volunteers, the most frightening thing, I think, wasn’t the Führer at all. It was the faces. She turned the glass in her hand. When they got to the camps. The faces, the emaciated bodies, the empty eyes. It was like they were collecting ghosts. That’s what the drivers said. They got them onto the buses and it was as if they were alive but not alive. They’d shriveled away, they were husks.

  Pearl let the words sit like stones between them.

  And then there were the bodies, the bones. The children.

  His first wave found him too early and unprepared, harder than he recalled, more solid. He picked himself up, pushed hair from his eyes. Now his body remembered: watch the wave, watch it build. Wait for the peak. At the last moment: dive. Under and up. Under and up. Each wave different, with a subtly different mood. Each one a live thing, with its own beat and rhythm. Each one a challenge: dive and surface, concede and resist, breathe, fight. The sea itself irresistible, capricious.

  This, he thought, was what he loved most: that in the sea’s urgent attempt to pitch its energies against his, there was give as well as take. His mother believed that nature had a conscience, that this was implicit. It had a will, almost human. Axel did not agree. Nature was ruthless, insatiable, blind. But there were times when he could feel something else in its moods. Not human, not anthropomorphic, but driven by its own forces, accumulated over millennia. Not a will, but a memory. An unfailing memory.

  He staggered from the water, his arms clasped across his chest, holding himself. When his feet met soft sand he turned. From here the current was invisible, the strong fingers of tide and channel; it was benign, a blue pool rimmed by the horizon, pulling, pushing, giving, taking. He watched waves build by increments, gathering themselves. The ocean before him, he thought, was an equation, a fair one. It might take his body and pummel it and might suck out its life; but eventually it would return that body, rolling him clean, white, salt-encrusted, back to the waiting shore.

  Finally: Were you involved with the buses? I mean the operation itself. Pearl needed to keep Constance talking now, before the rest of her words slid away.

  Oh God no, not really. Peripheral, as I said. She squinted at Pearl through smoke from the last long pull and exhalation from the stub of her cigarette. Accommodation, food, things like that. Liaison with the Swedish Red Cross. I had some language then. She barked a laugh. Raised her glass again. Now I’m flat out saying akvavit. Skål!

  Did you ever hear of a man called Anders Lindquist?

  In the resistance?

  I think so. Maybe the White Buses, not sure. He and his wife lived in southern Sweden. He did missions to Europe, perhaps to the camps.

  Constance tipped her head back, closed her eyes. Pearl looked at the ropy neck, the incongruous string of amethysts and opals. Seeing the elegant younger woman now, lending her fierce brain to the movement, her eye on its narrative shape, its possibilities.

  Lindquist rings a bell. There was a definite lisp, if not a slur, in
the words now. But it’s a common name, Lindquist. She bent her head, perhaps a whole minute went by; she might have been thinking and she might have been sleeping.

  No matter, Constance. Pearl was quiet. It was a long shot. So many people and so long ago.

  Wait, wait. Her head tipped up again. Constance placed both hands, palm down, on the table, leaned forward. Southern Sweden, you said? Not Malmö but further up.

  Near some of the glass—

  Yes, yes. She pursed her lips, admonishing herself. Anders Lindquist. He and his wife helped with the Danish Jews, put people up. But he also drove with the White Buses. I remember now. She leaned back, frowned. They volunteered, all of them.

  Pearl held her breath.

  The things they saw. Christ.

  What happened to Anders Lindquist?

  Killed himself after the war.

  The air unstable now, the room an island at tide’s turn, a storm wind rising, unreadable. Pearl looked hard at Constance to make sure she herself wasn’t dreaming, that Constance was indeed speaking. Looked down at her own glass: just one measure. Not enough. And now more words, reaching her across the expanse of laminex, an ocean of space. Constance said: A few of them did. Good people, lost. Survived the war but not the peace.

  Pearl heard her own voice, thin, and questions for their own sake. Are you sure, Constance? Are you certain of the name? Anders Lindquist? Could there be others with that name?

  Others with that name, sure, but not with that history. Not that I recall. And you said he came from up-country, near the glass villages. What do they call it? She bowed her head. Pearl wondered if she would raise it again or give in to sleep. But it came rearing up. Småland! That’s it. Glass. All through the place. And water, everywhere.