“What happened to your bicycle?”
“It was stolen yesterday.” One of his sisters, Bente or Jytte, moans in her sleep inside the bedroom. Poul-Erik wraps a blanket around him himself.
“Stolen? What’s that supposed to mean?” She carries the sleeping baby into the bedroom. Her eyes strike lightning in his direction. “Your father worked very hard to be able to give you that bicycle. What are you going to say to him when he gets home?”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“Your fault.” She squeezes past him. Sweaty and angry. “You should be ashamed. You’ll never become a real man, Poul-Erik. You’re nothing but a sissy.” She snorts and sits heavily on the stool by the kitchen table. “You ain’t good for shit.”
Poul-Erik stares at her rough washerwoman hands, the dry, damaged skin. He feels the tears building, as the rage boils in his belly; he keeps it all inside.
“I’ve been washing stairs my whole life. One day after the other.” Her fat fingers drum the table for each word. “Since I was five years old. I’ve never complained. Shame on you. I’m embarrassed to have a son like you…can’t even look after his own bicycle. You just wait until your dad comes home. Then you’ll be in trouble, I can tell you that much.”
“I know.”
“Did you report it stolen?”
“To who? The Germans took the police, remember.”
“To the Hilfspolizei. To the Hipo.”
“No, I am not going to have anything to do with those bastards.”
She stares at him. “Sit down, my boy,” she says in a completely different tone of voice. “Are you hungry? There’s some porridge left in the pot. It’s cold, but you can still eat it.” She doesn’t wait for him to answer, but scoops some porridge into a tin bowl. “Here, eat.”
Poul-Erik eats the cold, lumpy porridge.
“The neighbor’s little boy, Gunnar, died today,” his mum says, lighting a new cigarette. The smoke smells more like burnt hay than tobacco. She talks on for a while about the neighbor and other small kids who have died in this part of the city the last couple of years. Dead infants are a common thing living in the slum. Poul-Erik doesn’t listen. He has gotten used to his mother’s strange moods. At least his father is far away in Germany. That has made Poul-Erik’s everyday life a bit easier the last few months. Now it is only at work where he gets beat on.
“… you understand that?” She pokes him with a finger.
“What?”
“Are you even listening?”
“Sure am.”
“No, you’re not. I can tell. I’m your mother. I can read you like an open book!”
“You can’t read at all, mum.”
“Are you being cheeky?”
“No, I’m not. Thanks for dinner.”
“Oh, my.” She stares at him with her bloodshot and watery eyes. “You just hang in there, boy, hang in with that apprenticeship of yours, do you hear me? You are lucky they would even take someone like you. You’re a child of the slums. A ragtag. On top of that, you’re a whining piece of shit. Nobody will ever do anything for you. Do you understand what I’m saying? They’ll let you starve to death, no problem. Nobody is going to cry on your grave.”
“I’ll get by.”
“You just be happy you weren’t forced to go to Germany to work like your daddy was. Do you think he …” And again Poul-Erik shuts off. Now she will repeat the story about Poul-Erik’s dad—that honorable working man—who had to go all the way to Germany to work because he was unemployed and couldn’t provide for his family. The longer he is gone, the better a man he becomes.
In the bedroom, the baby, little Henning, starts to cry.
“Oh, goddammit!” She takes a pacifier made from an old cloth and dips it in schnapps, before pushing her way into the bedroom, to give the pacifier to little Henning.
“Now, he’ll sleep the rest of the night,” she smiles, coming back into the kitchen. Poul-Erik puts the tin bowl away and goes into the living room to get ready for sleep himself. His bed is the four dining chairs pushed together with a pair of blankets on top. This has been his bed for the last ten years.
“Do you want a tiny shot to sleep on?” she asks, pouring schnapps into two small, dirty glasses.
“Yes,” he whispers, sneaking back into the kitchen.
“You’ll be a man soon enough.” She laughs quietly to salute her own joke. “If you find a way to get your bicycle back, I won’t tell your old man. After all, you’re my little sweetheart. I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
Poul-Erik takes the glass of schnapps and washes the hot fluid down his throat. “I’m not afraid of him.”
She laughs even more. “You got to be kidding.”
He lies down on the chairs and closes his eyes. Now he can hear the humming sound in his ear again. Sleep comes quickly, almost like an embrace. On the verge of sleep, he still hears his mother moving around in the kitchen. She is also getting ready for sleep. He knows the sounds. She is about to pee in the kitchen sink.
16
“Indeed, indeed I tell you.” BB’s voice echoes through the empty church, as she quietly slips in the door, spotting him high on the pulpit. He doesn’t see her. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who doesn’t own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and flees. The wolf snatches the sheep, and scatters them. The hired hand flees because he is a hired hand, and doesn’t care for the sheep.”
She calmly moves down the church, trying to rub some warmth into her hands. There’s not a single cloud in the sky today, but it’s windy. The wind is coming in ice cold from the East. The church seems bigger in daylight. She unties her scarf and pulls it from her head.
“So the Lord Jesus spoke according to the gospel of John. And he continued his speech: I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and I’m known by my own; even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep.” BB smiles, as he finally sees her and comes down from the pulpit to greet her. “I’m rehearsing the Sunday sermon. It’s good to see you. I got your message the day before yesterday. That is my wife did. Sit down.”
She sits while he lights up his pipe. A curl of his dark hair falls down his forehead. He aims his blue eyes at her and she refuses to feel anything.
“Why do sermons have to be so boring?” she asks, looking away.
“Because.”
“Oh.” She crosses her legs, straightens her skirt. “But he isn’t going to get me—that Jesus guy—if that’s all he got.”
“I’m sure he won’t.” He takes the pipe from his mouth. “How beautiful you are and how pleasing, O love, with your delights! Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit. I said: ‘I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit. May your breasts be like the clusters of the wine, the fragrance of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine.’”
“Isn’t it a sin to say something like that in a church?” she says, staring at his lips.
He smiles. “Can’t be. It’s from the Bible.”
“Oh, my.”
“However, I am positive it did count as a sin what we did right there on the floor the other night.” Now he whispers, as he takes her hand.
“You got my message?” She leans towards him, clenching his hand in both of her hands. “We were betrayed again!”
“Yeah, I got your message. And, thank you so much. I had to tell my wife everything.”
“Everything?”
“About the sabotage.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t know what to do. She’s terrified.”
“I had the kid to take care of. He shot two Hipo. He totally lost it. They were expecting us, but we got there early. Took them by surprise. If we hadn’t we would have both been killed. We’ve got an informer at our throats.”
He coughs. “Tell me what happened.”
She tells him how
she met Poul-Erik (who she calls Willy, of course) in front of the municipal hospital. The telephone call Willy had to make to cancel an appointment with his master. The tailwind on the ride to Frederiksberg. The backyard where they left their bicycles and finally the van, disguised as a plumber’s car.
“Of course, no plumbers drive on gasoline. So, I pulled out my pistol and walked up to the van. Tore the doors in the back of the van open, and found two little Hipo pigs sitting behind a heavy machine gun. I shot them both.”
“Why did you do that?”
“What do you mean? They would have shot us.”
“Not if you had abandoned the mission when you smelled the gasoline. You knew it was a trap, and you went straight in nonetheless. There was no reason at all to do that. In fact, it was a very stupid thing to do, Alis K. Yesterday, four innocent Danes were gunned down by the Schalburg Corps in the streets of Valby as vengeance for the four Hipo you and Willy killed. There was no need for that to happen.”
“The Hipo and the Gestapo are fair game. They are cleared to be killed by the resistance at any time.”
“Nevertheless, you should have aborted the operation. Understood?”
“But—”
“No! No buts. Do you understand? The mission was to terminate one specific Hipo officer. Not four by random. You didn’t get the one you were after so the operation was a failure.”
“Well, I’d say four dead Hipo pigs is quite a bonus.”
“No.” Lightning shoots from his eyes. “It was not.”
She sits there for a long time, staring down at the floor, feeling his gaze, but too angry to return it.
Long minutes of silence, then he sighs. “Tell me the rest.”
Not wasting too many words, she tells him about the missing bicycles. About the other two Hipo, who came after them in the van, and how they got her. She doesn’t tell him about the way they beat her up nor about the scratches and bruises she has got as a reminder. What she does tell him is about Willy’s two amazing bull’s-eye shots and about the escape in the van, ending with the telephone call and the message to BB’s wife.
“It’s strange about those bicycles,” BB says.
“No, it is not. Someone stole them, that’s what happened. You haven’t been able to turn your back on anything since the police were taken away. If it was the Hipo who took the bicycles, they would have been waiting for us there. They must’ve been able to figure out that we’d come back for the bicycles, right?”
“Sounds about right.” He lets a hand slide through his hair. “Is he going to make it, the boy, Willy?”
“He just needs a little time, that’s all. He’s a good boy.”
“Good. What did you do after you called my wife?”
She tilts her head and smiles. “I couldn’t just leave him shaking like that on the street, so I took him home with me. Made him some tea, talked a while.”
“Wasn’t that quite risky?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Now, he knows where you live. It looks like we got a traitor among us, and it might be him.”
“The boy had just killed two Hipo to save my life! If he’s the informer that would seem a little …” She waves her hand. For some stupid reason she feels like crying.
“We have all killed some Germans or Hipo.”
“Sure, but …”
“What did you do after the tea?”
“Why?”
“Just asking.”
She gets up and walks to the altar to straighten the altar cloth. “I was expecting a customer. He couldn’t stay for long.”
“A customer?”
“Now you’re jealous?”
“Ingrid, goddammit!”
”My name is Alis K when I’m talking to you. And if you, Johannes, of all people, are going to be jealous, then this conversation is over.”
His shoulders collapse. “It’s only because I love you.”
“So you keep saying.”
“You don’t believe me?”
She returns to her seat, smoothing her skirt once again. “I do not believe in anything, my good reverend. I am trying to survive.”
“The informer,” BB says after a while. “Who do you think, it is?”
“Jens.”
“Jens?”
“No doubt. He made himself disappear last time we got betrayed. And he was the one who assigned me to liquidate that Hipo pig yesterday. They knew what time we’d come. They were expecting us.”
“Sure, but—”
“He’s a dirty cop.”
“That doesn’t necessarily make him an informer.”
“It’s Jens I tell you.”
“Alis K, you hate him just because he’s a police officer. Don’t accuse him unless you can prove it.”
“Oh, but it is either you, me, him or Borge. Nobody, but the four of us, has had sufficient knowledge about both operations.”
“And Willy.”
“And Willy, sure. If you insist.”
“There could be others. One of us obviously couldn’t keep their mouth shut. Or maybe someone has been eavesdropping on us. You see, I can’t figure why the Gestapo hasn’t shown up at any of our homes or hideouts. I know all your real names, except that boy, Willy. So does Jens. You know some of our real names, and so does Borge.”
“Only Willy doesn’t. Well…now he knows my address.”
“Exactly.”
17
The puddles are covered in ice this morning. Poul-Erik walks against the wind along Norrebrogade. In the black sky high above, the stars are still sparkling. Dawn is still hours away.
However, the city is already awake. Bicycles are rushing by, heading in the opposite direction towards the center of Copenhagen. People like him dressed in their work clothes trot along the sidewalks holding the first or the second beer of the day in their hands. An overcrowded tram starts up, leaving a guy in a light jacket behind. The bakery is open today, which means that they must have found some way to obtain some kind of flour. Probably barley flour.
Poul-Erik hasn’t had any breakfast. He walks as fast as possible, holding his breath so he won’t catch the smell of freshly baked bread. His stomach hurts.
A couple of gas generator cars chug by. A horse-drawn garbage truck carries the stench of decaying waste down the street.
There are posters on the long, decorticated cemetery wall encouraging the public to report any member of the resistance to the Gestapo.
The saboteurs haven’t made any contact since he left Alis K, and it’s starting to worry him. He wants to fight. Do something. It wears him out to wait. There is no rest anywhere.
A German military convoy crosses Norrebrogade at the end of the cemetery, and he has to stop and wait as it goes by. While he stands there, blowing warmth down his folded hands, a big, black Ford stops at the intersection. He eyes it. Doesn’t need to smell the fumes to know it is a Hipo car. The car has no doors. They have been removed to make it faster for the officers to get out of the vehicle. There are four of them inside the Ford. Black uniforms, black caps. One of them speaks, making the other three laugh. The driver looks straight at Poul-Erik, who immediately looks away.
Instead he glances down the crossing street, Jagtvej. There are still seven or eight trucks left before the military convoy has passed. The light from their headlights is dimmed and is only just visible on the cobblestones. Suddenly he is sweating like a pig. He glances back at the Hipo Ford from the corner of his eye. The driver is smoking now. The commander, who always sits in the front seat next to the driver, gets out of the car and walks over to have a look down Jagtvej. Putting a finger to his black cap, he greets a German officer passing by in a VW-Kübelwagen before he returns to the black Ford and jumps inside. He says something to the others. He is a big man, well over two meters tall. Rosy cheeks. Big hands.
Poul-Erik is unable to breathe. He turns away, looking at the dark morning sky. It is him. The Hipo bastard. It is him. The man he was supposed to
have killed. Einar Hovgaard. The man on the photo, Alis K showed to him. It is him.
The last vehicle of the convoy crosses Norrebrogade, and Poul-Erik hurries across the street. Using all his will not to look back.
Behind him, the Hipo car speeds up. He has never been this afraid before. Walking too fast, nearly running, but he doesn’t. He can hear the car approach from behind and wishes he had brought his pistol, but it is hidden back home inside the outhouse in the backyard.
And then the Hipo car passes him. It just passed him. He stares as the red glow from the sole dim taillight heads on down the dark city street. They didn’t recognize him.
Only as he passes the church of St. Stefan further down the street, does his heart returns to its normal pace, and he realizes that he is still walking far too fast, stumbling by actually, and he slows down. His stomach is a tight knot.
Later, by the S-train station, he meets the black Ford once again. It is blocking the street. Continuing along the sidewalk, Poul-Erik aims his face straight ahead, only his eyes turn to look. The driver is standing by the car, gun in hand. The car’s headlights are pointing at a group of people being body searched by the other three Hipo. A woman is thrown into the street, collapsing on the cobblestones. The huge Hipo Commander kicks her in the gut, again and again. He snatches his long truncheon from his belt and pounds her head with it.
Chased by the screams and cries of the poor woman, Poul-Erik hurries through the viaduct and away as the S-train passes over him on the bridge.
Ten minutes later, the smith slaps him in the face for being late at work. He’s just lucky the Master Smith hasn’t arrived yet, as he would have been beaten by him as well.
Then he has to get back at the circular saw to continue yesterday’s work while the smith opens another beer and the blue flashes from the welder light up the workshop.
18
Frost flowers cover the windows in the allotment house. Nothing but shadows and spots of light can be seen through them. But that’s all he needs to tell that somebody is sneaking around the garden.
The Informer (Sabotage Group BB) Page 6