Almost Autumn

by Marianne Kaurin

  “Ilse,” she shouts, she knows she mustn’t shout but she can’t help herself. “Ilse!”

  The girl stands still. There’s just a few meters between them. Then she turns around abruptly.

  She’s younger than Ilse, perhaps no older than thirteen. Her hair hangs down by her face; she’s pale, with large black eyes, her mouth forming something close to a smile.

  “Are you looking for someone?”

  Sonja says nothing. She bends over, gasps for air, sits on her haunches for a moment and stares at the ground. She can see the girl’s shoes, the tips of them pointing right at her, immobile. For a second Sonja is so small, twelve years old, eleven maybe, younger than the girl before her, younger than she remembers being in a long time. She opens her mouth, goes to say something, but no sound comes out. She wants to tell the girl that she thought she was Ilse, to tell her that Ilse has gone missing, how afraid she is for her—she wants to tell her about her mother, sitting on the sack and dabbing at the blood on her face, about Miriam who never stops asking questions, about the neighbor who had driven them here, the way he had pretended not to know them. She wants to tell her everything. But there’s so much commotion, an infant howls shrilly, metal against the hard ground, orders being called out, a man wails, he calls out a name just a few meters away, he’s lying on a stretcher; Gerda, he groans, Gerda. Everything moves as if through a filter, all the contours fade to transparency, only sediment remains all around her, everything distorted. She remains crouched down, can’t face standing up again, her legs ache but other parts of her too, even more so. Her mother and Miriam can’t see her here, they’re sitting too far away, there are hundreds of bodies between them. She’s alone for a moment, just a moment before she has to return to them, and in that moment it all floods forth; everything she’s held in, hidden from Miriam, hidden from her mother.

  When she looks up again the girl is gone, as if she’d never been there in the first place. Sonja looks around to see where she has disappeared to, but she fails to spot her anywhere.

  Her legs tingle. She makes her way over to where her mother and Miriam are sitting, stopping as she catches sight of them. Miriam is sitting with a boy, the one wearing the blue hat who had stuck his tongue out at them not so long ago. Now the boy is huddled close to Miriam with her doll in his lap. Sonja sees Miriam showing him how to remove the doll’s sweater by undoing the buttons at the back.

  “Erik’s learning how to dress Bella,” Miriam says as Sonja walks toward them. The boy’s hands twist and turn around the doll, taking off her sweater and skirt and looking at the naked doll’s body with a satisfied expression.

  Sonja says nothing, standing and looking at them, but then she catches Miriam’s gaze and it is as if Miriam has suddenly remembered why she is there, as if she has only just noticed that Sonja has returned alone.

  “I couldn’t see Ilse,” Sonja says before Miriam has the chance to ask.

  Then something happens. Several people move, stand up, look at the fence. It is as if the crowd holds its breath, a collective hush falling over the throng of people. They come in flocks, streaming onto the pier, a rush of bodies. And there, at the front, it’s him, it’s definitely him.

  SONJA’S FACE IS THE FIRST THAT ISAK SEES. Her red hat, gray coat, the scarf around her neck, when she’s bundled up in so many layers her face looks so small, but even so he knows that it’s her. He can see her eyes, looking right at him, filled with questions; has she seen that it’s him, does she recognize him? It feels as if a thousand days have passed since he saw her last. So much has happened in these past few weeks, so many thoughts have passed through his mind, so much fear, so much hope. This is exactly what he has hoped for and exactly what he has feared. That he would see them again. That it would be here.

  She raises her hand in a kind of wave, yes, she waves at him, she’s seen him. He lifts his left hand, his right fist clenched. His fingers all still stinging, he can feel them throbbing, the pain pumping steadily beneath his nails, yellow and thick. Now he can see Hanna too, she stands up, just behind Sonja, he can see that she’s holding something white, pressing it to her head. Sonja lifts Miriam, points, Miriam’s head turning, her eyes desperately searching.

  The joy at seeing them again swells inside him, regardless of the situation; he’s been so afraid that it would never come to pass, that he’d never get through it, never come out alive.

  He had tried to have a letter smuggled out to them. One evening in the barracks he’d found a pencil stub on the floor, picked it up, hidden it, and every day he had hunted for something that he could use, a scrap of paper, anything at all that he could scribble a few words on; just so they’d know where he was, that he was alive. And one day there it was, hanging before him, a written order to the prisoners pinned to the wall with a drawing pin. It said something about lice, the need to be mindful about personal hygiene, but the text covered only the top half of the sheet of paper. That same night he fumbled his way over to the piece of paper, pulled out the drawing pin, and hid the sheet beneath his thin mattress. He ripped off the lower half and wrote a message during the night in the pitch-darkness. The morning after, when he saw what he’d written, he realized that it looked like something scribbled by a six-year-old. The letters were lopsided and childish, and at some points he’d missed the mark entirely and the words merged into one another. But it was possible to read three sentences: All is well. At Berg near Tønsberg. Home soon. He couldn’t be certain about the last bit, but he wanted to give the impression of being in control of the situation, that he had heard news, that he’d soon be back.

  He’d noticed one of the prison guards, a young man with a distinctive western accent. He wasn’t as short-tempered as the others, never threw insults around or became violent with them. There was something in his eyes, in the way that he looked at the prisoners, as if he didn’t wish to torment them any further. His colleagues did all that they could to humiliate and bully them, showing off their own strength while the young man stood in the background, silent. Maybe he hadn’t realized what the work would entail, Isak thought, maybe he was just glad to have found something to do; he was young and no doubt needed the money, just like everyone else.

  One evening an opportunity arose. The young prison guard stood at the top of the barracks to take watch, making sure the men turned in for the night. As usual he stood without saying a word, gazing vacantly ahead, no commando cries, not a sound to be heard from him. Isak approached, his hand clasping the piece of paper in the pocket of his prison outfit; he had folded it up and written the address on the outside. He was taking a huge risk, he’d seen the way that the guards had reacted to people even over the most trivial things: taking too long at mealtimes, a missing button on their uniforms, an answer that didn’t come quickly enough for their liking. They’d had to experience it. And now there he stood, trying to deliver a piece of paper.

  The prison guard looked at him, yes, what did he want? Isak kept his gaze low, could he go to the toilet? The prison guard nodded; Isak glanced up for a brief second and looked him in the eye.

  “Please,” he whispered, holding out his hand.

  The prison guard snatched the piece of paper, a lightning reflex, his eyes flashing.

  Isak broke into a cold sweat that night, lying in his bed and picturing Hanna’s face, her smile, perhaps even her tears as she read those three lines and called for the girls.

  The following day, the guard failed to turn up. Another guard stood and watched them, the kind who loved the job and the sound of his own boots patrolling the bunks.

  His anxiety about seeing them again, the uncertainty. The men had talked about it on the train that very morning. Tightly huddled in the carriage, he’d heard several of them wondering aloud if they’d ever see their families again. It hadn’t been an optimistic conversation—quite the contrary, in fact. The notion that they might trundle into Oslo and be permitted to go their own ways seemed improbable; nobody really expected it to be the case,
not after a month spent at Berg.

  They hadn’t received any word about where they were going, though many believed they might be headed to a work camp in the north of the country. If they were to see their families that day, then it could only mean that they were being sent away too.

  And now, as they arrive at the quay, he feels the questions swirl around inside him like dry leaves. Where are they going? All these people. What’s going on? He sees the ship, the confusion of suitcases, the guards in green uniforms, hears the shouts, the cries of children, the drone of the vessel. It doesn’t bode well, he’s certain of it. He might have thought, once or twice, in spite of everything that had happened, that things could turn around, get better. But now he’s seen too much, heard too much. They are going to die. He knows it.

  He waves at Miriam, who smiles at him. Just a few meters now, a few meters separating them. But then he realizes; she isn’t there. Ilse isn’t with them.

  THEY HOLD EACH OTHER CLOSE. HE buries his face into her neck, feels her cold skin against his nose. Hanna doesn’t smell the same, not the way that he’s used to. She smells of sweat; he becomes aware of the odor of her body. He’s always felt that their bodies fit perfectly together, but now she’s so thin, on the brink of disappearing. He can feel her trembling slightly, a faint shake, as if her legs might give way beneath her at any moment. He squeezes her hard, moves his left hand up to her face, and holds her like a newborn baby that can’t quite lift its own head yet.

  “Ilse?” he whispers in her ear. “Why isn’t Ilse here?”

  He releases his grip on her and looks her in the eye. He’s never seen her looking so anguished, so completely distraught. She doesn’t respond to him, just looks at him, her lips thin, dry, her eyes cloudy. Blood trickles from a long cut above her right eye; somebody must have hit her hard. She sinks down onto the rough woolen sack and presses a handkerchief to her forehead; he can hear her groaning.

  Isak hugs Miriam, lifting her up and holding her close, her body hanging in his arms. He feels her breath, a warm tickle against his cheek, her lips.

  Sonja, the one he’d seen first. Her eyes are red and puffy.

  “Do you know where we’re going?” she whispers as they embrace each other.

  “No,” he replies, looking around. “I don’t know.”

  He can sense her unease, her eyes flickering all around.

  “Where is Ilse?” he asks; he still hasn’t received an answer.

  “We don’t know,” Sonja says. “She didn’t come home last night.”

  He can’t say what he’s thinking, that perhaps it’s a good thing that Ilse isn’t there, that perhaps she’s been lucky. He can’t say it, can’t give too much away. He has to keep his assumptions to himself, everything he fears, none of it can be allowed to slip out.

  Hanna is standing once again.

  “Where have you been, Isak?”

  She stares at him.

  The letter; he knows now that they never received it, that Hanna hasn’t known where he’s been since the moment he walked out the door that morning, one month ago. He hesitates, doesn’t quite know where to begin. He doesn’t have the time to go into detail, doesn’t wish to either, not here, not now. She’s troubled enough as things stand, her face is so gaunt, her skin almost transparent. He has to choose his words carefully now, say only what’s necessary, just as he had in the letter he had written that night. He thinks for a brief moment.

  “I’ve been at Berg detention center, near Tønsberg,” he says.

  He feels the dull ache in his bad hand; it throbs. He gives her a wary smile. Inhales.

  “I’m just fine, don’t you worry,” he adds.

  HE’S NOT FINE. HE HASN’T BEEN FINE for a long time. He can still feel the cold mud that they’d had to roll around in, the way that their uniforms had become rigid after standing for hours in the square where they held roll call. He still has the taste of rotten turnip in his mouth from the soup they were fed, and he can still hear screams, some of them his own, from when they had laid into his right hand.

  He didn’t know where he was going when they had come to arrest him that morning. It was dark outside and no later than six o’clock; he was flanked by two men who didn’t speak to each other. They took the tram to Majorstua, walked in the direction of Frogner Park, and stopped at Kirkeveien, just outside number 23. Once there he had been required to register and they wanted to know everything: his name, date of birth, address, profession, nationality, height, weight. There were other men there when he arrived, the youngest aged sixteen and others of all ages above that, and all Jewish. He recognized several of them.

  They were ordered to stand in a line with their faces to a brick wall, lifting their arms above their heads. They waited. Isak closed his eyes, listened, footsteps, voices; he was going to die, he thought, there, with his arms in the air, shot against a wall. By his side was a man, around thirty maybe, beads of sweat forming on his forehead, his arms shaking.

  How long had they stood there? It had felt like hours. Isak felt the prickling sensation in his arms, all the blood pooling at his shoulders, his shoulder blades thumping, his neck burning. Heavy-duty vehicles trundled into the area. They were ordered to board buses and trucks, all with their arms still held above their heads.

  Through Oslo and out of the city, heading eastward, there was silence on board. A dark building appeared before them as the bus drew to a halt. Bredtveit Prison. It rained. Isak squeezed his eyes tight shut, felt the droplets run from his hairline and down over his forehead; they stood in line for a long time, the guards shielded from the downpour by umbrellas. Roll call; everyone was to be entered into the prison register, address, profession, date of birth, the same information all over again. Then one by one they were taken to a room where men in white coats were required to perform a brief medical examination.

  The following morning they were ordered to march down the hillside in front of the prison toward an empty train that waited on the tracks; the guards called out to them that they had to make haste, they needed to run, and they bumped into those who dawdled, pressing themselves tightly into the carriages to allow the doors to close and the train to leave.

  They arrived at Berg detention center that evening, which was situated deep within a dense forest. Barbed wire surrounded the center, eleven or twelve guards standing in a semicircle as they marched in the door. There were some low buildings around the open main square, large floodlights. On that first night they slept on the floor. Isak had been allocated a space beside a man he had met at Kirkeveien, Samuel, who trembled where he lay.

  He looks Hanna in the eye. He’s never done that before, lied to her face. He may have embellished the truth once in a while, carefully chosen what to share with her, but this is a lie; he’s told her he’s fine but it couldn’t be further from the truth. She looks at him, a long, hard gaze. She doesn’t believe him, he can tell. She has that look he knows so well, the one that bores its way deep inside him and sees what he can’t bear to see himself. He feels his hand, heavy, swollen, distended.

  The sausage. He had stolen it from the kitchen. Gnawed and gnawed at the meat, the salty flavor spreading through his mouth—he hadn’t thought twice, had simply reached out a hand and grabbed it. Three weeks of turnips from the large pans of soup, the sausage was for the employees, yet still Isak sat on the latrine and chewed.

  The following day the missing item was noticed. For a number of hours they stood lined up as the guards walked from one end of the line to the other. If nobody admitted to this, they’d take ten men from the lineup, it could be any of them, the guards told them as they passed. Isak shook, sweated, he ought to say something, confess, ten men, he kept his mouth shut, looked down at the ground. A guard approached him, stopped in front of him, and stared at him for several minutes.

  “Isn’t this the kitchen helper?” he said after a few moments. “Isn’t this the turnip chief? The esteemed soup chef?” he continued, mockingly.

  Isak didn
’t lift his gaze, he knew the rules; if the guards asked them something then they were to look down, not at them.

  “You’re in the kitchen every day,” the guard continued. “Do you have something you want to tell us?”

  They had marched him into a room in the guards’ quarters. Ten strokes on his right hand. After the fifth he no longer registered when the cane met its target. Only that evening as he lay in the barracks had he seen how bad the damage was. The nails of his index and middle finger were crushed, a flesh wound spanning his entire hand. He groaned where he lay that whole night, throwing up on the floor in a state of semiconsciousness.

  Green uniforms swarm the pier, shouting over one another, barking orders, shoving people aside. He hears people begging for themselves and their families, begging to be allowed to leave. One woman’s clothing has been ripped almost to shreds and she tries her best to cover herself, her body exposed, holding her arms over her naked breasts. He can see Miriam clutching on to Sonja, gazing all around her, saying nothing.

  The air brims with activity, dense with fog and steam. Something is happening. The time has come for the passengers to board.

  THEY MAKE IT BACK BY THE MORNING, Ilse Stern and Hermann Rød. The tram journey down from Kjelsås feels so long, the city coming into view atop the Grefsen plateau, the tenements down below, three people sitting in one of them, waiting, anxious, fearful. Hermann sits by her side. He looks serious. She moves closer to him, rests her head against his shoulder; he smells so good, so safe, she could sit here all day, just like this, in silence at his side. The tram stops at Torshov, the doors opening up once again, humming, she places her hand on Hermann’s; his hand is warm, the cut now dry and hardened, a dark red stripe on his index finger. He had broken the glass with nothing but his bare hands, squeezing his body through the narrow windowpane and breaking into the cabin. What would she say; how would she explain it when she got home? She looks at Hermann and he smiles at her, hesitant, maybe not a smile after all, just his lips moving. Yesterday she had only intended to walk and walk, all through the city and then back home in the evening after having made her mother sit and stew. But now, now she’d spent the whole night away, she hadn’t planned on staying out for so long. The tram trundles toward Biermanns gate. She would have to embellish the truth slightly, make things sound much worse than they had been, exaggerate a little. The darkness, the snow, the empty cabin they’d just had to break into, the cold, the fear, how lost they had been. It’s not possible to explain, she’s gone too far now, her mother is bound to fly off the handle, unleash all the thoughts that have plagued her since Ilse’s disappearance, and she deserves it this time; defending herself isn’t an option.