by Kris Tualla
Letter from your brother… caught his eye. Only then did he take a good look at the third envelope. There was nothing on the outside to indicate where it came from.
Teigen tore open the envelope. Inside was a somewhat ragged-edged missive in his older brother’s handwriting. He tucked that away to read later as well.
“Do you have your key?” he asked Bennett. The two men got on so well that they chose to remain roommates.
“I do.” Bennett held up proof and dangled it in front of Teigen. “Third floor. Let’s go.”
*****
Selby watched Teigen and Bennett walk off. She couldn’t help but wonder what he was planning to say to his deceitful fiancée. Had the woman two-timed him? Or did she simply fall into the first bed that threw back the covers? Whichever it was, Elsa had done Teigen very wrong.
If the tables were turned, Selby would be brutal.
But he’s not a brutal man.
Selby walked up to the second floor with Dahl, eschewing the elevator. She didn’t want to be confined in a small space with Teigen right now. Her feelings about him were so capricious that being near him set her on edge.
One minute she wanted to gouge his eyes out. The next, she wanted to stand by his side forever.
Selby’s general mistrust of men was long held and deeply seated. Her father died in the Great War and the Danish man her mother married afterwards could only be described as cruel.
When she was young, Selby hid from him when he went into one of his lunatic rages. He screamed at her mother, accusing her of sleeping with Russians and threatened to kill her. Selby cried in her closet and prayed that God would strike him dead.
But as an adolescent she started stepping between him and her mother.
When she did, his rage turned into lust. He violated her body with his hands and pleasured himself while he did. He slapped her if she made a sound, claiming that she was trying to entice him to enter her.
“I know what you want, bitch,” he growled in her ear as she struggled to swallow her whimpers. “But I won’t let you give me the clap, you filthy whore.”
Selby’s mother tried to stop her from interfering at first, and then tried to stop the man Selby never called father from hurting her. Those attempts earned her mother multiple broken noses and teeth.
Selby reached her breaking point and ran away when she was fifteen. She read in the Bergen newspaper a month later that the man shot her mother and then himself.
She went back to their house and cried for a week.
Then she washed herself off, took anything that she could pawn, and returned to Bergen. Her last act before she left was to set the house on fire.
“Who are we meeting tomorrow?” Selby asked to shake the unpleasant memories from her mind.
“Colonel Berntsen. He’ll come to the theater at ten in the morning.” Dahl set their suitcases down in front of her door.
Selby unlocked it and Dahl carried her suitcase inside. “Thanks.”
“Can I get you anything?” he asked.
“No, I’m fine.”
“Then I’ll collect you for dinner at six.” Dahl walked out the door and lifted his case again. He turned back and smiled as he pulled her door shut.
Selby dropped onto the bed with a frustrated sigh. For years she hadn’t thought about her past. But now that Teigen Hansen reappeared as a real flesh-and-blood man and joined her life, the thirteen-year-old memories were haunting her.
Why now?
Probably because they shined a light on how different he was from that horrid man.
But she couldn’t know that for certain. Not until she saw how he treated Elsa.
Because Elsa was guilty.
She had forced Teigen to ignore the German occupation and act as if nothing had happened. She broke her promise to marry him when he sent the letter declining to sign Quisling’s Declaration of Loyalty to Nazism.
And within weeks after that, she became pregnant with another man’s child—falsely claiming that child was Teigen’s and fraudulently filing for his salary after he was arrested.
Selby wanted to scratch the woman’s eyes out and throw her in prison.
“Oh, good Lord,” she moaned. “Why do I care so much? It’s not my fight.”
Because Teigen is getting to you.
“Damn it!”
Selby jumped off the bed and tossed her suitcase onto the spot where she had been laying. She flipped the latches, tossed back the top, and started unpacking as she always did. Some people didn’t mind living out of a suitcase, but she always moved in to her hotel room. The troupe never stayed less than ten days in any city, so it was worth it to her.
“Thank goodness for hotel laundresses,” she muttered and stuffed a few items into the cloth bag in the closet.
When she was done she removed her wig, washed her face, kicked off her shoes, and laid back down on the bed, closing her eyes.
Selby knew instinctively that this stop in Oslo was going change her relationship with Teigen. Right now, he annoyed the snot out of her. His refusal to be controlled reminded her of a stallion who submits to the bit only because he chooses to at the moment.
The thing that really rankled her was that his instincts were usually spot on.
All he needs to do is ask first.
She imagined his bright green eyes looking at her from under a cocked brow, as if to ask if that was really necessary.
She could almost hear his voice: “You would say yes. You know you would. Why waste the time?”
Damn it.
*****
The Milorg officers in the troupe—Dahl, Selby, Gunter, and Bennett—sat at dinner together. Once their supper order was taken and a pitcher of beer placed in front of them, Dahl clasped his hands on the table.
“I received bad news today, and there’s no way to soften it…” He looked at each of them. “Thirty-four men were shot in Trondheim yesterday as retaliation for the sabotage of a train carrying munitions.”
Selby gasped. These things happened in war, and non-combatant Norway was no exception. But that didn’t mitigate her horror.
“Do we know any of them?” she asked, afraid of the answer.
Dahl nodded. “Sadly, yes.”
He pulled a list from his pocket. As they passed the list around the table, no one spoke. When Selby saw the names, tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Lieutenant Ole Arnesen. He’s only been the ranking officer there for a few months.” She heaved a ragged sigh and handed the list back to Dahl before wiping her cheeks. “Milorg will make sure his family is taken care of.”
“His wife will probably move back up to Bodø. That’s where she’s from.” Dahl refolded the paper and stuck it back in his pocket.
The waiter brought their soup; potato with fish. Selby stared at it, her appetite gone.
“I do have another matter to discuss,” Dahl said as he salted his soup. “Promotions.”
Selby lifted her eyes. “In the troupe?”
Dahl nodded. “I want to make Hansen a sergeant. He’s worked hard and proven his worth. And, he could use the money I think.”
Bennett blanched. “A sergeant? Like me?”
Dahl grinned at the props manager. “No, not like you. I’m promoting you to lieutenant.”
“All right, then!” Bennett grinned back. “An extra twenty kroner a week and I still get to boss Hansen around.”
Selby frowned. “Doesn’t he give you guff?”
Bennett waved a dismissive hand. “Nah.”
“He does it to you because you’re a woman,” Gunter stated between spoonfuls of soup. “He doesn’t like taking orders from a girl.”
Selby bristled. “Did he say that?”
Gunter shrugged. “Doesn’t have to. He’s a man, isn’t he?”
“I never had a problem with taking orders from you, Selby,” Bennett said. “Just for the record.”
“You still out-rank him, Sel.” Dahl’s tone was infuriatingly condescending. “I’m sure it’ll be fin
e.”
Selby stood up and threw her napkin in her uneaten soup. The three men stopped eating and stared up at her.
“First of all, I’m not worried about Hansen taking orders from me,” Selby ground through clenched teeth. “It doesn’t matter if I’m a woman. I’ve got the training and the experience behind me that he doesn’t have.”
She stepped away from her chair and shoved it against the table. “And secondly, if any of you thinks I am somehow diminished in my capabilities because I’m female, I challenge you to back that up with a gun. You choose the time and place. We’ll see who’s the better shot.”
She turned her back on three faces blank with shock and stormed out of the dining room.
Chapter
Nineteen
The elevator door opened and Selby ran right into Teigen Hansen’s chest.
“Hold on.” Teigen grabbed her arms and kept her from stumbling backwards in her pumps. “What’s going on?”
He was the last man she wanted to see at the moment. “Let go of me!”
He did. “Selby, what happened?”
She lifted her chin and glowered up at him. “I don’t want to discuss it with you.”
“Fine.” He stepped out of the elevator leaving the operator to gape at them. “Have you had supper?”
Her stomach growled. “I’m not hungry.”
“Liar. Come on.” He took her arm gently and headed into the lobby. “I know a place I’ll bet you’ve never heard of.”
For some reason, she let him lead her. Compared to Dahl’s solicitous attitude, Teigen’s no-nonsense demeanor and gentle touch made her willing to accompany him.
“Where are we going?”
Teigen took off his coat and draped it around her shoulders. “Two blocks. Best fårikål in Oslo.”
Selby stopped walking. “I can’t take your coat. You’ll freeze.”
Teigen laughed. “It’s warmer here than the Arctic, I’ll tell you that for sure. And I didn’t have a nice warm coat there.” He tugged on her arm. “Come on. Two blocks.”
*****
Though snow crunched under his boots and the night was black, Teigen truly didn’t feel the cold. He was elated to have this version of Selby on his arm and looked forward to sharing a traditional and unassuming Norwegian supper with her.
He couldn’t say why he invited her. But she was so unusually discomfited when she ran into him—literally—that he slipped into protector mode.
Meet her needs first, solve her problem second.
Teigen claimed a wooden booth by the window. The owner of the tavern hurried over as soon as he saw the teacher.
He grabbed Teigen’s hand and pumped his arm. “Mister Hansen! How are you doing?”
Teigen grinned. “I have survived Quisling’s best efforts to destroy me, Anton.”
“Aw, you are too thin,” Anton fussed.
Teigen glanced at Selby to try and judge her mood; at the moment she was calmly listening. “Believe it or not, I have gained back most of the weight I lost in Kirkenes.”
“Well, tonight I’ll feed you for free. No argument.” Anton waved an expansive hand and seemed to just now notice Selby. “Both of you.”
“Anton, this is Miss Selby Sunde, lead actress in the Royal Shakespearean Acting Troupe. They are performing at the National Theater for the next week.”
The tavern owner blushed and bowed like she was royalty. Teigen rubbed his mouth to cover his chuckle.
“My pleasure, miss.”
Selby looked at Teigen, her eyes wide with surprise. “Oh! Thank you, sir. You may… rise?”
Anton straightened. “I have a nice little bottle of wine. I’ll bring it right away. Excuse me.”
As he hurried away, Teigen couldn’t hold back his amusement. “Well, he was impressed.”
Selby smiled for the first time this evening. “You are still getting free food, I see.”
He shook his head, still laughing. “Not normally. But Oslo was my home and he knows me.”
“Did you bring Elsa here?”
Teigen tilted his head, his laughter quashed. “Why would you ask me that?”
Selby blinked at him. “I don’t know.”
Teigen stared back. The idea she might be jealous had hatched in his mind and was now crawling down through his chest.
“I was with Elsa for five years,” he said carefully. “I thought she was the love of my life.” He paused, and then said, “I have since come to know better.”
What the hell are you saying?
Selby recoiled. “What does that mean?”
Teigen turned and smiled at Anton, who set a bottle of red wine and two glasses on the table.
“I hid this from the Germans,” he whispered as he poured.
Teigen crossed his heart. “We won’t tell.”
When the tavern owner left them alone again, Selby leaned forward. “What do you mean you have come to know better?”
Teigen was at a distinct fork in the road. He had two clear directions to choose from. He chose the dangerous one.
“I never thought back then that I would find another woman who interested me.”
Selby’s cheeks flushed under dilated pupils. “And have you?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure yet.” He took a sip of the wine. “This is good. You should try it.”
Selby looked a little frantic. “When will you know?”
Teigen set his glass down and twirled it slowly between his finger and thumb. He didn’t look at Selby, knowing that to say what he was going to say and be looking at her at the same time was far too direct.
“When she does, I suppose.”
He thought for a minute that Selby might bolt. If their food had not arrived, she probably would have.
Instead, she drained her wine glass and poured more.
“Try the fårikål,” Teigen urged, deflecting the conversation again. “Tell me what you think.”
She seemed to be considering what to do. Eventually, she lifted the spoon and dipped into the peppery mutton and cabbage casserole. When she put the creamy deliciousness in her mouth, her disposition changed in a moment.
“This is amazing,” she mumbled past the spoonful.
Teigen smiled at her. “I’m glad you like it.”
The pair ate in silence for a while, the air between them lightening and the wine bottle emptying. Coffee appeared at their elbows and their empty bowls were cleared away.
Teigen ventured to ask, “Will you tell me why you were so upset earlier that you were willing to forgo your supper?”
Selby scoffed and stirred the single sugar cube she was given into her coffee. “Men.”
Teigen nodded his understanding. “So your meeting of the officers didn’t go well.”
She shot him a dark glance. “Why do you all have to assume you’re better than me?”
Careful, Teig.
He looked sincerely confused. “Why do you think they assume that?”
“Because you’re all big important men, of course.” She waved her palms in front of her while she spoke then dropped them on the table. “And I’m just a lowly woman.”
Teigen refused to jump into that foray unarmed. He needed more to go on. “What started it?”
“Some of you are being promoted.”
“And you should be, too?” he guessed.
She rolled her eyes. “No, I’m fine. I don’t want Dahl’s job.”
“Then what—”
She slammed her fists on the table. “I just want to be shown the same respect that the male officers are!”
That cannon ball hit him squarely in the chest. “And I’m the guilty one.”
She stared at him for a brief moment before answering. “It’s not just you. But yes, it’s you.”
Teigen’s shoulders fell. “Am I being promoted?”
Selby lifted her coffee cup in a mock toast. “Well, you’re pretty darn good at what you do, aren’t you?”
“At your expense.”
&nb
sp; She shook her head. “I didn’t say that.”
Teigen looked contrite. “You don’t have to.”
He sipped his cooling coffee in silence. If he really thought about it, he had been chafing at the bit under her authority. Was it because she was a woman?
No.
“If I do buck, it’s because you’re better than you think you are.”
Her cup hit the tabletop. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Teigen spoke evenly, keeping all discernable emotion from his voice. “That means you don’t trust yourself enough to let those under you do what they do best.”
When she looked confused, he tried to explain it better. “If you allow your soldiers to fight, they’ll bring you glory.”
She looked gobsmacked. “Am I holding you back?”
“Sometimes. Yes. But I think you do it because you don’t know how good you are.” Teigen combed both hands through his hair and spoke the truth. “You’re amazing, Selby. You’re smart. You have all kinds of skills. You’re fearless…”
He leaned forward and pinned her gaze with his. “Only when you step forward, do you leave room for those behind you to step forward as well.”
Selby looked like she’d seen a ghost. Her face fell slack, blanched white, and then flushed red.
“That makes so much sense.”
Oh, thank God.
“I’m serious, Teigen. That makes all the sense in the world.” She clapped her hands on her head. “Why didn’t anyone point that out to me before?”
He relaxed against the bench seat, deeply relieved. “Because as soldiers they never learned it, would be my guess.”
She looked at him intently. “Then how did you learn it?”
Teigen smiled. “It’s what teachers do every day.”
*****
Teigen walked Selby back to the hotel before curfew, again refusing to wear his coat and insisting he was fine.
“Arctic Circle, remember?” was all he said.
She realized again that the man she knew now was not the same man who was arrested last spring. After all that happened to him, how could he be?
“When you were in the labor camp, were you hoping to come back and teach again?” she asked.