The Last Pilgrim

by Gard Sveen

  A middle-aged NS woman was sitting in the chair next to her. As soon as Moen stepped away, she put down the magazine she was reading and turned to Agnes. Nazi women had started frequenting Moen’s beauty salon back in the spring and early summer of 1940 when money in Norway began changing hands. At first Agnes was nauseated by the sight of all these Nazis, but now, two years later, she realized just how valuable they might be.

  “So, a special occasion, Ms. Gerner?” The woman’s voice was cold, bordering on arrogant, and her expression was patronizing at best.

  “I’ve been invited to Gustav Lande’s tonight.”

  The woman’s face fell. Maybe she had been expecting Agnes to say that she didn’t have anything special going on, even though many of the Nazi women knew that Agnes Gerner would go to bed with Helge Schreiner, if need be. But Gustav Lande? That was something else entirely.

  Agnes turned to look at the woman and flashed her most enchanting little-girl smile.

  The only thing that bothered her was that she’d arranged to meet the Pilgrim in Sten’s Park that evening, but was going to have to miss it. Last week he’d told her that they would have to meet in parks and doorways for the time being, until he could possibly borrow an apartment from friends who were unaware of what he was doing, but those sorts of friends were few and far between. Number 1 thought that their relationship was dangerous and had apparently forbidden him to continue seeing Agnes. The Pilgrim thought he was so determined to end their relationship that he’d put both her apartment and all the safe houses under surveillance. According to Number 1, love had no place in war. It was a danger to them all.

  As if anyone has to convince us of that, Agnes thought as she let the front door close quietly behind her. She took down the invitation from Gustav Lande, which she’d stuck in the frame of the mirror in the entryway, and ran her finger over the heavy card stock. Even at times like this, Gustav could apparently afford to spend money on dazzling white stationery edged with a gold border. “Dear Agnes,” he’d written. “Thank you for an unforgettable evening.” His signature was confident and verging on stylish. Agnes set the invitation down on the teak bureau under the mirror and cast a quick glance at her watch so she could calculate how much time she had to get ready. Then she opened her purse and took out the envelope from Helge K. Moen. She crumpled up the beauty salon receipt and placed it on the bureau. Then she took out the strip of paper tucked into the bottom of the envelope. She looked at herself in the mirror, then took off her hat and studied her hair, which was stiff with hair spray. The darkness of the entryway made her face look white, almost like a death mask. She unfolded the strip of paper and headed to the kitchen, studying the brief, cryptic message on her way. By the time she had lifted up the loose floorboard at the end of the counter with only a butter knife, then wiggled out the baseboard, she had almost memorized all the letters. Tucked away in the dark among the old junk and dust bunnies was the codebook.

  Agnes sat down at the kitchen table, gripping the strip of paper as if it were the most valuable object in the world.

  The fox is a wily hunter.

  Number 1

  She lit a match to the paper and then tossed it into the sink. During the few seconds it took to turn to ash, she managed to think about nothing at all. Then she snickered. What sort of message was that? But when she turned on the faucet to wash it away, she suddenly remembered who had said those words.

  “The fox is a wily hunter.” Those were the words of Archibald Lafton, the head of the Oslo service. He’d said that the Germans were like foxes, and that a fox was so smart it would play dead to lure its prey.

  Everything had happened so fast. She hadn’t even cleared it with Number 1 whether she should get involved with Gustav Lande. She’d merely taken the Pilgrim’s blessing as the signal to go ahead.

  This must be Number 1’s way of warning her. As long as she’d been Schreiner’s lover, the German intelligence service hadn’t taken any interest in her. But now, assuming Gustav continued to shower her with affection, she needed to be extra careful. She was well aware of that, of course, but the terse message from Number 1 still put her on high alert.

  And so it begins, she thought.

  She knew that they’d lost people, as recently as a week ago. The Pilgrim had told her about it, even though she didn’t want to know. The only thing she wanted to know was that she’d been given the green light to continue. If it eventually turned out that she was in imminent danger of the Germans closing the net around her, they would make sure to get her out of the city and then out of the country. Wouldn’t they? Besides, she’d been in the Germans’ sights before and managed to emerge unscathed. She’d been one of many Brits who were questioned at Nazi headquarters at Møllergata 19 in April 1940, but the Germans had let her go after less than an hour. They’d even offered her an apology. Now, two years later, with a mother and sister like hers, and after spending several months with a Nazi and faithful NS member, it didn’t matter that she still held dual citizenship.

  But things were undoubtedly getting more serious. She tried to imagine how the evening might go. The Germans clearly knew that Gustav Lande desired her. She wondered what the Brits would do in their place. We’d put in a man to stay close to Gustav, she thought.

  A man who played dead.

  From the moment she entered Lande’s home, she would be under scrutiny. Maybe she already was.

  The hot water from the shower almost scalded her skin, but it also liberated her from the chill she’d felt ever since she’d remembered Lafton’s words. How naïve she’d been when she was first recruited.

  She turned off the shower and leaned her head against the wall.

  “The fox is a wily hunter,” she whispered.

  Dripping wet, she went into the bedroom. Without drawing the curtains, she let the white towel fall to the floor and then stood there, studying herself, wearing only a shower cap. Carefully she pulled it off, but her hair was so plastered with hairspray that it only took a slight touch-up to restore it to the way Moen had styled it.

  She decided to wear the same black cocktail dress she’d worn at the Rainbow two weeks ago. Though it revealed that she was a bit too thin in the hips, it also showed off all her best attributes. In the entryway she cast another glance at the invitation with Lande’s handwritten greeting. If drinks were served first, it wouldn’t be so bad.

  She opened her makeup case and began applying rouge, transforming the pale death mask into a woman who would be able to manipulate Gustav Lande until she had him exactly where she wanted him.

  Gustav Lande’s house was like a dream. It couldn’t have been more than ten years old, built in the functionalist style, with three stories and a two-car basement garage. Glass bricks covered large portions of the façade and formed a semicircle that filled nearly an entire gable wall. The house was surrounded by an enormous garden, and Agnes even caught a glimpse in the pale evening light of a tennis court in back. She paid the cab driver, then walked up the flagstone path to the house, trembling slightly. A gentle breeze brushed her cheek, somehow calming her before she reached the steps to the front door, which stood open. Another car pulled up at the gate behind her. Agnes turned around and saw a German officer get out of the vehicle before his adjutant managed to open the door for him. The officer practically bellowed an order, waving away the adjutant, who saluted as he stood in the middle of the street. The black SS uniform was unmistakable. She couldn’t see what rank the man held, but she wouldn’t have had to be a member of the Oslo service to know that he was no ordinary staff officer.

  Dear God, thought Agnes. She checked once more to make sure the cyanide pill was still in the little pocket of her clutch. Inside she was greeted by a strikingly ugly maid. Her birdlike face and gray, lifeless eyes were unlike anything Agnes had ever seen before. The large room was crowded with guests and filled with the buzz of voices and muted piano music. Hired waiters hurried to the kitchen, carrying silver trays with empty wine glasses. The do
ors leading to the dining room stood open, and she could see a group of people inside, all of whom were smiling. A man wearing a dark suit doubled over, apparently unable to stop laughing at some amusing remark. On either side of the French doors stood pedestal tables holding flower arrangements. The table to the left was adorned with an NS banner, and the other displayed a swastika.

  Amid the crush of people—though perhaps not as many guests as she had initially thought—Agnes saw the maid with the strangely birdlike face emerge from the dining room. Fortunately, someone Agnes finally recognized was right behind her. Gustav Lande wore a white tux that showed off his suntanned face. He was still no match for the Pilgrim, but she found herself struck by his bold appearance—he looked like a savior who would rescue her from any fears she had of being found out in this place.

  “Ms. Gerner,” he said, kissing her on each cheek. He smelled strongly of aftershave lotion, and she could see from his eyes that he’d been drinking. Or crying. Or both. “You have no idea how much this means to me,” he said, touching her hand.

  “Please call me Agnes,” she replied, giving him a look she otherwise reserved for the Pilgrim.

  “Agnes,” said Lande. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the SS officer who had arrived after her had been detained by several other Germans near the door. He cast a quick glance in her direction, and she quickly turned toward Lande and gave him a smile. He placed his hand on her bare shoulder. The feeling of his large hand on her skin immediately brought her pulse rate down to an acceptable level. She was once again able to think—if not rationally, at least coherently. The SS officer had been in the room less than a minute, but something about her seemed to have already caught his attention. His gaze was different from that of other men. He was not looking at her with desire. It’s my nerves, she thought. He smells my anxiety. But she quickly pushed that thought aside. The SS officer was probably no different than any other man. She needed to be on the attack. It was the only way. Fortunately, Lande steered her away from the SS officer just then.

  Agnes was introduced to more than forty guests on her tour of the house, many of whom were Norwegian. She tried to memorize their names, and even recognized one of the NS women from Moen’s beauty salon. But she saw no one from Schreiner’s social circle. She effusively greeted a couple of high-ranking German Wehrmacht officers, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if Terboven himself—Norway’s top Nazi—had been present.

  She noticed that her hands were shaking when she retreated to the guest bathroom. She had excused herself before Lande had managed to introduce her to the remaining guests, including the SS officer. She tried to calm her nerves by running cold water over her forearms. Just as she was about to reenter the crowd, she instinctively stopped. She heard a sound behind her, barely audible, but one that shouldn’t have been there in the quiet corridor. It was a long hallway, its walls lined with black-and-white lithographs in narrow wooden frames. It ended at a glass wall facing the garden, from which the neighboring house could be glimpsed between the trees. A door on the left seemed to have opened. No, thought Agnes. I’m just imagining things.

  She turned back.

  As she reached for the door handle to exit the corridor, she heard a voice behind her say, “Can I help you, miss?”

  Agnes gave such a start that she almost dropped her clutch.

  The maid was standing in the middle of the hall. With the light at her back, shining through the window at the end of the corridor, she appeared almost demonic. Agnes wondered how Gustav Lande could stand having such a creature in his house. Dressed in that black maid’s uniform, she looked like the living dead.

  “Mr. Lande was kind enough to direct me to the ladies’ room,” Agnes said as she opened the door. She was relieved to be able to escape this woman, this creature. She felt a tremor ripple through her body, and for a few seconds it was as if she were in a dream, in which she kept trying to open the door but never managed to do so, as the black-clad maid with the transparent bird-face soundlessly approached from behind.

  Acknowledging the irony, she felt greatly relieved to be rejoining the other guests. But while she was away, the inevitable had occurred: she saw Lande take two glasses from a waiter’s tray and hand one of them to the SS officer. The three oak leaves on his uniform revealed that he was a brigadier and major general. He and Lande were talking to a Wehrmacht officer and a middle-aged couple who were clearly Norwegian. There’s no way around it, she thought, and made her way over to them. Lande’s face lit up with a smile.

  “Agnes,” he said, motioning for her to come closer. “May I present Brigadier Seeholz?”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Agnes, holding out her hand. The fox is a wily hunter, she thought, so watch every word you say.

  He took her slender hand in his and raised it to his lips to kiss it lightly, keeping his eyes fixed on hers, probably to see whether she flinched.

  “Freu’ mich, Fräulein.” He released her hand. Agnes forced herself not to stare at the skull-emblazoned ring that he wore on his right hand. She now saw that he was missing the little finger on his left hand. Suddenly she recalled who he was. Seeholz. He was the righthand man of Heinrich Fehlis, who was in charge of the Gestapo in Norway. He’d arrived last fall to head up the commerce division of the SS in Norway. Oh yes, she thought. Either I will enter into heaven, or the gates of hell will open and swallow me whole.

  “Your first time here?” asked Seeholz after Agnes had been introduced to the middle-aged couple. She understood they were contributors to one of Lande’s many projects, as well as Party members, of course. They may even have been among the first to join.

  Agnes nodded and felt Lande’s hand disappear from her back. Seeholz said something to the Norwegian couple, but she didn’t catch what he said. Lande murmured his apologies and followed the maid upstairs.

  Don’t leave me here, she thought. You’re throwing me to the wolves!

  “So. How is your mother?” Seeholz asked after Lande was out of earshot. Agnes felt the floor give way beneath her, as if she were sliding across ice, and for a moment she felt weightless. In the brief time she’d known Lande, the Germans had clearly managed to live up to their reputation as meticulous intelligence agents. She shook her head in a charming fashion, as if she were only twenty-four and didn’t understand the question.

  “I hope Churchill hasn’t interned her husband,” said Seeholz, downing the rest of his champagne. “We’re going to bomb some sense into him. Mark my words.” He took two fresh glasses from a waiter’s tray and handed one to Agnes. Then he raised his glass in a toast.

  They clinked glasses. Apparently none of the others standing nearby dared even open their mouths.

  “These are difficult times, Herr Brigadeführer,” said Agnes. “Terribly difficult.”

  Seeholz didn’t reply. He seemed to be clenching his jaw.

  “The best-case scenario,” said Agnes, “would be if he came to his senses and realized that the Führer’s fight against the Bolsheviks is also of benefit to Great Britain. You must understand that it’s hard for me to see the English suffer.”

  All other conversations seemed to come to a halt, or maybe they merely became one big blanket of background noise. No, no, she thought a moment later. Everything was proceeding normally. The other conversations were unaffected by the fact that she, Agnes Gerner, was about to be cross-examined by Brigadier Seeholz, a man who could have her arrested, tortured, and executed with a snap of his fingers.

  Though his gaze was piercing, it wasn’t unfriendly. She wasn’t sure how to interpret it.

  “I fully understand your view, Ms. Gerner,” said Seeholz. “And believe me, your mother’s new husband would have aspired to a good position in a government with Mosley as the British prime minister. I can almost guarantee that. But why did you decide to return to Norway? Why not Germany, like Ms. Mitford?”

  Unity Mitford was one of Hitler’s biggest admirers, and her sister Diana was married to Mosley. Th
ey were Great Britain’s worst fascists—people for whom Agnes had the greatest contempt. Unfortunately, all of them belonged to the same social circle as her own mother. Seeholz seemed to have chosen to ignore the fact that Unity Mitford had tried to kill herself in Munich after Chamberlain’s declaration of war.

  “Well, my mother sent me to Norway,” Agnes told him. She immediately regretted her remark, which sounded implausible, although it could just as well have been true.

  The SS officer studied her, trying to meet her eye.

  Only now did she notice how her pulse had quickened. Her veins felt as thin as threads, and her face had probably lost all color. Yet she managed to assume a confident expression and give him a little smile, the sort that no man, or at least not one like him, could resist.

  “Excuse me, Herr Brigadeführer, but are you questioning my loyalty to Germany?” Agnes hastened to say before she could change her mind.

  This time there was utter silence all around her. A tense silence that spread in ripples through the entire room. Even the pianist must have noticed because the melody he was playing faded away. A man standing next to Agnes nervously cleared his throat.

  Brigadier Seeholz looked surprised, as if her response were the last thing he’d expected.

  “My father’s family immigrated to Norway from Germany . . . in 1645. Perhaps that was before your own family arrived in Germany, Herr Brigadeführer?”

  Seeholz gave her a long look. Someone clinked a glass. Someone else flicked a cigarette lighter. Seeholz frowned and exhaled through his nose, like a bull preparing to charge. Yet a smile seemed to be tugging at his lips.

  “My dear Ms. Gerner. I like you,” said Seeholz. “You don’t try to appease me, and you’re not afraid of me. I can’t abide people who are afraid of me.” He gave her a smile that for the first time seemed genuine. Then he laughed, hinting that there was a real person inside that black uniform. Gradually sounds returned to the room, and the pianist began to play again. To Agnes, it seemed as if the whole place were relieved, as if the pianist were playing the loveliest of tunes, as if all this were no longer real.