Niels’s cold squint told her he remembered the incident as well. Would he bring it up?
But all he said was, “The attack on the hydro plant. I want names of all participants.” He handed over a block of paper and a pencil. “Most importantly, the names in your organization.”
She took a long breath. “Does this mean you’ll release me?”
He snorted. “Of course not. But I think you’ll prefer being arrested to being shot, which is generally required for spies and saboteurs.” He sat down across from her and lit a cigarette. “I’ll wait.”
Maybe he didn’t remember the slap after all. So many more dramatic things had happened in the following months: the auditorium fire, the closing of the university, the shipping of hundreds of students to Germany for indoctrination. He could easily have forgotten. Maybe she could negotiate herself out of this crisis after all.
Besides, having to write rather than reply gave her an advantage—time to think. She could structure the confession, control the narrative to an extent. A nice list of a dozen names would please him, make him think he’d gained something, and it would take him a while to realize she’d given him nothing new.
She started by listing the dead men on the gliders, and those they’d already captured and killed. She followed by adding one or two names of the Norwegians in charge of the operations at SOE, names he almost certainly knew. The rest of the names she listed were pure fiction—Pedersen, Sørensen, Lindberg, though for authenticity, she finished by writing the name of her own father, Jomar Brun, safely arrived in Scotland. Not a single authentic local name. She handed the paper to him.
He read through it quickly, then glanced up with cold suspicion. “Who are your local contacts?”
“I don’t have any. That was my problem. I worked with Sørensen and Lindberg on the Vemork mission, and then all three of us went our own ways. I don’t know where the others ended up, but I fled westward and got caught in a snowstorm. By sheer luck, the Sami discovered me, and they didn’t ask questions. As long as I made myself useful, I could stay.”
He stubbed out his cigarette. “You can’t seriously expect me to believe you committed a major act of sabotage with only two associates, then went to live on the Hardanger for a month. What involvement did you have with the recent bombardment?”
“None at all. I didn’t even know about it until I came into Rjuken hoping to hide.”
“You are trying my patience, Kirsten. You had to at least have access to a radio to coordinate with the others.”
She had a cover for this, too. “Yes, of course we did, before the attack, at a cabin near Lake Langesya. After we succeeded in shutting down the facility, I don’t know what they did with it. My only concern was hiding out for a few weeks, then trying to get help to escape Norway.”
“You mean to tell me you had no contact with resistance people in Rjuken? That beggars belief.”
“Why would I have anything to do with the local resistance? All the planning was done outside, and the sabotage by myself and the men I’ve told you about.”
He dropped his eyes in quiet exasperation. He drew out a cigarette, slowly, methodically, and lit it with a silver lighter from his chest pocket. He took a long inhalation and studied her. She hated being at his mercy and tried another tack. Nostalgia.
“We were fellow students in Oslo, Niels. All of us were patriots, courageous and bursting with ideals. Then Terboven shut down the university and arrested a few hundred of the best of us. I never saw you again after that. About half of us were released, and the rest carted off to Germany. What happened to you?”
He flicked the ash of his cigarette onto the concrete floor. “I was one of those people ‘carted off,’ as you call it. But it was the best thing that ever happened to me. The Germans gave us a chance to be re-educated, to join forces with them, and become leaders in the New Norway.”
“To become one of the master race. Is that it?”
He took another puff and blew smoke straight upward, as if offering it to some higher being. “You say that with such contempt, but you’re wrong. The only people more Aryan than the Germans are the Norwegians, and they’re offering us the chance to take advantage of our superiority. Why anyone, especially someone who looks like you, would refuse that offer, is beyond me.”
“Why didn’t you join the SS? I understand they have a Norwegian division.”
“You mean Den Norske Legion? I tried. But I was a few centimeters too short. A shame, because it’s obvious, my blood is pure Aryan. Yours, too. We’d have made a good couple, you and I.”
“I don’t think so,” she said softly, her skin crawling with the memory of his hand on her breast.
He took a final puff, then dropped the butt on the floor and crushed it with his foot. He smiled gently as he stood up and strode toward her.
“You haven’t changed a bit, Kirsten. You’re still that deceitful little vixen you were in Oslo.” He squinted again, apparently recalling old resentments. “You women think you can control us, toy with us. You use your bodies to make us chase you, and then you humiliate us.”
He stood directly in front of her now and yanked her up by one arm to face him. “But now the tables are turned, aren’t they? Now you need me on your side.”
“We’re both Norwegians. You should already be on my side.” He was so close, she could smell his cigarette on his breath.
He ignored her remark. “I can release you, you know, destroy your report and simply say it was a misunderstanding. If you cooperate.” He stroked her breast. “I know what women like. I like it, too.” He slid an arm around her waist.
She leaned back, away from him. “You really think I’d let you maul me to get out of here?”
“Maul you? Don’t be dramatic. It would just be an hour of pleasure for both of us, and then you could go home.” He pressed his pelvis against her, and she felt his erection. It was reckless to refuse him, even worse to insult him, but she lost control.
She slapped him, recalling that she’d done it once before.
He recoiled, his expression ice cold, and struck her back, so hard her ears rang.
“You’re going to regret that slap, and the one before. I neglected to mention that Reichskommisar Josef Terboven is due to inspect the Rjukan facilities in a few days. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to know we have the daughter of Jomar Brun in custody. And while he’s interrogating you, which may turn out to be extremely unpleasant, you should remember that you could have spared yourself the whole mess.”
He turned abruptly and left, slamming the steel door closed behind him.
She dropped back onto the cell cot and stared, stupefied, at the cell walls. The dark window revealed that night had fallen, and as she lay down, all her fears invaded her like a string of phantoms. The faces of those who depended on her silence flashed by: her SOE comrades, Paulsson, Skinnarland; then Jova, Alof, and Gaiju, whose political innocence she’d destroyed; Birgit and Odin, whose courage she admired; and Maarit, whom she loved.
The final thought caught her up short, and she turned it around in her mind. Suddenly she seemed to have an anchor and a resolve. She’d try to protect all the others, but for Maarit, she would endure the most. For Maarit she would keep silent, no matter what.
The glaring overhead light and the activity in the corridor outside her cell kept her from sleeping. She ached, and her feet were painfully cold, so she stood up and moved around, trying to warm herself and drive off anxiety. Had word of her arrest gotten back to Birgit and Milorg. Or had Miko simply fled? Were Maarit and Birgit still safe? What had they done after she disappeared?
Defeated, she cocooned herself again in her single blanket and was trying to sleep when she heard a voice. Startled, she sat upright but could see no one.
“Psst,” the voice said again. “You, in the next cell!”
She tumbled out of the cot and pressed her ear against the wall for the voice, finally locating the sound coming through the ventilation hole near
her feet. She knelt down and spoke into it. “Who are you?”
“What’s your name?” the voice asked.
She hesitated. Should she risk telling her name to an unknown person? But the police already knew it. It could scarcely hurt if a fellow prisoner knew it as well. And possibility of communication instantly relieved the grimness of the cell.
“Kirsten Brun. What’s yours?”
“Dag. You just arrived? I’ve been here a week. Nice to have a neighbor. Do you know why they arrested you?”
She debated how much to tell him. It was not impossible that he was an informer, getting information in the guise of a prisoner. But it would be safe to tell him what her captors already knew. “They suspect me of resistance activity.”
“If you’re related to Jomar Brun, I hope you are. With me, it’s no secret. They shot my wife for hiding fugitives. They’d have shot me, too, but I was at work. They arrested me later, and now I wish I’d done something more to deserve it, some kind of sabotage. Then jailing would make some sense. Anyhow, I want to rest now. We can talk more tomorrow.”
She returned to her cot and tried to sleep again, consoling herself that at least she had blown up a German chemical laboratory. She was an adversary, not a victim.
* * *
Kirsten had no way to know how much time had passed, but she must have dozed after all, since when a sound awoke her, she recalled her dream of trying to flee, paralyzed, through snow.
It was a jailor bringing some warm liquid that was neither tea nor coffee, but she drank it, grateful.
An hour later he came again, to lead her wordlessly to another room. Two chairs, the sole furniture in the room, lit by a single bulb hanging overhead, revealed it was for interrogation.
Nonetheless, her captors seemed to be in no hurry to question her, for she waited, it seemed, endlessly, passing from fear to nervous irritation, and then to somnolence. She was nodding off when the door finally opened again, and she jerked to wakefulness.
Halvorson entered first and stood off to one side, giving way to an officer who stopped directly in front of her. He held a piece of paper, which appeared to be her written confession. Presumably it was to intimidate her.
Reichskommisar Josef Terboven was immediately recognizable. His thin, bony face was rendered even more austere by wire-rimmed glasses. His hair, cut in the military style with close-shaven temples, was thin and greasy. The icy ambition that made Norwegians—even Norwegian Nazis—hate him was evident in his expression, which never seemed to change. He had ordered the shutdown of her university and the “reeducation” of hundreds of students just like Niels Halvorson. Although he had been traveling, his uniform was immaculate.
She gazed up at him, trying to show neither fear nor defiance. It was important to convince him she was cooperative but not craven. “Kirsten Brun, is it?” It was a rhetorical question. “I will be brief. We know what you’ve done at Vemork, and that alone is enough to have you executed. But it is impossible that you were unaided by Milorg criminals in Rjukan. Give us their names, and I’ll spare your life.”
Remarkably, he didn’t threaten torture. Could she still talk her way out of this?
“I’ve given you all the names I can. We were directed completely from London and the British forces. The only local Norwegians involved were Pedersen, Sørensen and Lindberg. I don’t know what happened to them after we separated. They were supposed to try to get to Sweden, and I was headed south for Oslo but got lost in a snowstorm. The Sami saved my life, but it took weeks for me to recover from frostbite. When I finally recovered, I came into Rjukan hoping to locate someone in Milorg with a radio. I might have found someone if your men hadn’t arrested me for trying to stop them from abusing a Sami and his dog.”
“A very nice tale, which I understood you’ve already told Deputy Chief Halvorson. You’ll have to do better than that.”
“I told him everything I could. I swear. London deliberately avoids contact with local resistance to prevent reprisals. I looked for local help only because I missed my contact in Oslo.”
“Who was the Oslo contact?”
“Sonderberg,” she answered, knowing he, too, had fled Norway.
“How exactly did you expect to contact traitors in Rjukan? What was your signal to them?”
“I…I planned to mention Vemork, ask if people knew anyone at the plant. If they were happy about the raid, I knew I could trust them. But no one claimed to know anything about it. Or if they did, they said it was a bad idea. If Milorg is in Rjukan, I never did find it.”
“Where’s Jomar Brun?” He looked into empty space, as if he found the entire conversation boring.
She stifled a smile, answering that one. “London by now, I think.”
“Who at the plant is working with you?”
“No one, now. We didn’t need anyone. My father sent plant details so we could find our way rapidly to the heavy-water laboratory. It went very quickly, and we were amazed that the searchlights never came on.”
“Who did you report to in Rjukan?” He was trying to trick her; she’d already told him she knew no one.
“I told you. London specifically set the raid up as an independent action.”
“Why did you go to Rjukan?” He was repeating himself, obviously hoping she’d forget the details of her story.
“I knew it from my childhood. I was looking for a place to stay while I searched for someone with a radio, and I thought I’d have a better chance here. But no one would talk to me.”
Terboven sighed, and Kirsten was certain she’d be tortured. But all he did was turn on his heel. “Put her on the transfer list,” he ordered, then marched from the room.
Left alone with his captive, Halvorson finally spoke. “This is your lucky day. I never would have guessed it. I’d have shot you in a minute, but I guess it pays to be the daughter of someone important. He’s putting you ‘in storage’ in Germany for future use.”
“I’m being shipped to Germany?”
“Yes, to one of their camps, where your ‘nonexistent’ Milorg friends can’t help you.” He stepped toward her, where she still sat, and gazed down at her breasts. “What a fool you are. You could have avoided all this, and a lot worse to come.” Then he, too, strode from the room.
* * *
Back in her cell Kirsten felt the urgent need to talk to someone. She listened for the jailor to lock her cell door and walk away, then waited a few cautious minutes before dropping to the floor to the ventilation hole.
“Dag, are you there?” she whispered.
After a few moments, his voice came back through the hole. “I’m here. What happened? Did they hurt you?”
“No, astonishingly. Terboven himself interrogated me, and he just put me on a list for transport. To Germany, I guess.”
“Sounds like they decided you were more valuable to them alive.”
“You think so?”
“It’s a good strategy. You know, since they were wiped out in Stalingrad, they’ve been more or less retreating from the eastern front. Maybe they’re using people like you as an insurance policy for future negotiations in case their glorious Reich doesn’t succeed after all. You can be exchanged for someone.”
“You really think they’re planning that far ahead?”
“They must be. Why else would they be transporting so many of us to Germany? They ship us by the thousands, when they could just as easily execute us here.”
“Strange. And sad. I also wonder, if we’re so many, why do we turn into sheep? Why don’t we attack them? After a few fatalities, we’d overcome them.”
“Because no one wants to be the first man to strike. He’s always shot. Everyone’s willing to rebel later on, after the guns have been taken away.”
“I see the problem, but I hate it. I think—”
Angry male voices came through the ventilation hole, as did the sound of scuffling. Dag had been caught talking to her and was being beaten. She retreated to her cot and curled up, anxio
us and uncertain.
Another day passed, and no voice came through the little hole. When she lay on the floor to listen, she heard nothing. Presumably he’d been taken to another cell, and she felt another layer of guilt. He was being punished for helping her. She was left largely alone, though she received mugs of the warm but unidentifiable drink twice a day and heavy saw-dusty bread in the evening. By the third day, she was weak with hunger, but as she was drifting into a torpor, the cell door suddenly sprang open. Apparently, it was transport day.
Chapter Thirteen
In Rjukan, Maarit sat with Birgit, Odin, and Rolf Sørlie, at a table in the kitchen belonging to someone called “Red,” though he had not a single red hair on his head. Clever, actually, to separate code name from appearance.
Maarit got to the point. “Can’t we do anything for her?” She glanced toward Birgit for support but found none.
“Not at the moment. Remember, by now she’s probably been interrogated, and we can’t know what she’s told them. It’s likely they’ll get our names from her. We have to reckon with that.”
Red packed some sort of tobacco into his pipe. “Birgit’s in the most danger, because of the café, but your friend also might have talked about Odin’s garage. That’s why we should stop meeting there.”
Maarit returned to her question. “Can we get a note back to her, to let her know we haven’t abandoned her?”
Birgit shook her head. “That would be reckless. And in any case, we have no contacts in the local jail. We know what’s going on because the asshole of a deputy chief of police boasts about it in public. It’s a way to keep everyone in line.”
To Sleep With Reindeer Page 16