The House by the Fjord (5 page)

‘At a dance,' Anna replied. ‘I had not wanted to go that evening, having danced almost every night the previous week, but Molly begged me, because neither of us ever went on our own. So to please her I went and that's where I met Johan.'

‘What a good thing you did go,' Pat said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Anna was thankful that there had been no expression of sympathy and yet she sensed that all felt compassion for her. At times grief would drag at her heart so painfully that tears would come without warning. ‘Yes,' she said quickly, ‘I'm so thankful that I did.'

‘Why was your Rolf in hospital, Pat?' someone asked. ‘You've never told us. Was he wounded?'

Pat threw back her head in amusement. ‘Not that time! Later he was sent to a military hospital after he was shot down near the end of the war. He had come into my ward that first time to have his tonsils out! When I went to take his temperature, the cheeky devil put his hand up my skirt and snapped my stocking suspender belt! Even though he was my patient, I slapped him hard!' She joined in everybody's burst of laughter as she reached down to pick up one of the toddlers, a pretty little girl, who had made herself sticky with a candy. ‘Just look at you, Mandy! It's all round your mouth.'

Matters were put right with a rough wipe by a damp cloth on face and fingers before the child was set back on the floor to continue playing with some cotton reels and a few coloured wooden bricks.

Sally, having refilled everybody's cup, sat down next to Anna. ‘I'm from Toronto,' she said. ‘Arvid and I met when he was training with other pilots at “Little Norway” in Canada.' She lifted away the toddler that had burrowed into her and held him up in her arms. ‘This is Tom, our son and heir. According to Arvid, this little fellow will one day be the world's champion skier with at least a dozen Olympic gold medals.'

The toddler regarded Anna seriously. When she smiled and spoke to him, he just stared as if making up his mind about her. He was a handsome child, blue-eyed and fair-haired. She could guess how his father would dote on him.

Next to be introduced was Wendy Misund, who was quaintly old-fashioned in that she had her straight hair parted on the side and caught back with a tortoiseshell slide such as a young schoolgirl might wear, her only make-up a touch of lipstick. Her whole manner was quiet and retiring, and yet her welcome was warmer than might have been expected.

‘I hope you will be very happy here, Anna,' she said quietly. ‘We shall all do what we can to make that happen. As for how I met Edvard, it was at a dance, just like you. It was during a ladies'
Excuse Me
waltz. I know the girl he was dancing with was furious when I tapped his shoulder for him to relinquish her for me. She looked as if she would have liked to claw my eyes out.'

Pat was regarding her approvingly. ‘It was probably the bravest thing you ever did, because you are the shyest person I have ever known.'

Wendy blushed. ‘Yes, I don't know where I found the courage. But Edvard had such a gentle look that I felt magnetized towards him.'

‘The enemy didn't find him very gentle,' Pat joked.

‘Yes, but he's different on solid ground. We married just before the Allied invasion. I had no clothing coupons left, but I borrowed a white satin evening gown from my aunt, which had been designed for her by Schiaparelli in Paris before the war. It was so elegant. Somebody loaned me a veil and a coronet of pearls.'

Sally gave a nod of approval. ‘That's how a bride should look. I had no such luck. Arvid and I had arranged everything to marry on a certain date, but then only a day after he had finished his training and gained his wings he was suddenly told in the morning that he would be shipped back to England that same evening. So we married in a rush that afternoon with no time to wait for any of the finery still being made for me. I wore a blue suit and a wide-brimmed hat of the same colour. Not at all what I always thought I should wear as a bride.'

‘I'm sure you looked beautiful,' Anna said sincerely, thinking that Sally would have looked elegant even if clothed in the proverbial sack.

Then Wendy spoke up. ‘I met Edvard at an Anglo-Norse wedding when I was one of the bridesmaids and he was the best man. I had to wear a pre-war white evening dress at my own marriage too,' she said, ‘but I covered it from the waist with some white net that an aunt gave me to give it a bouffant skirt.'

‘That would have looked pretty,' Anna said. ‘What flowers did you have?'

‘A Victorian posy. It was made for me by a cousin, who had been a florist before she went into an ammunition factory for her war work.'

‘I carried pink roses,' Jane said, putting down her emptied coffee cup. ‘I had wanted white ones, but in those days one had to take whatever was available. In any case, I married in uniform.'

‘So did I,' Helen said. ‘I was a sergeant in the ATS. Sverre and I met in an air-raid shelter during a night of bombing when we were both on leave in London. Needless to say, we spent the rest of that leave together and were married three months later.'

Rosemary spoke up. ‘I met Henrik when I was collecting for a Wings for Victory appeal. I was working in an aircraft factory then, although I never knew which part I was making! When I spotted Henrik, I shook my collecting tin at him and not long afterwards I was wearing my grandmother's chiffon wedding dress from the 1920s. It had a low waistline and was covered with pearls. I loved it.'

Anna thought to herself how wartime had been a time of quick decisions, for nobody in the services or in civilian life knew what might lie ahead and happiness was never taken for granted. During the talk of weddings she had noticed that all the women wore their wedding rings on the third finger of their right hands as Norwegians did, but there was no need for her to change hers from her left hand, for here in Norway it showed – being the same for both for men and women – that the wearer was widowed.

‘How is your Norwegian, Anna?' Pat was asking her. ‘
Snakker deg Norsk?
'

‘No, I'm sorry to say that my knowledge of the language is almost negligible, but I'm sure each one of you is fluent,' she answered, making a sweeping gesture to include them all.

‘Some of us are better than others,' Sally replied, ‘but we all make mistakes.'

‘Funny ones sometimes,' Pat said. ‘At my father-in-law's farm I went for a walk and came to a field where a truly gigantic ox was tethered in a field. I was so impressed that when I returned to the farmhouse I wanted to tell my mother-in-law and sister-in-law what I had seen, but I couldn't think of the word for “bull” or “ox”. So I translated it literally into Norwegian by saying that I had just seen what must surely be the largest ever man-cow in the world.' She chuckled. ‘They had been so very polite and restrained about previous mistakes I had made, but this time they fell about laughing, unable to help themselves.'

The others laughed and Anna spoke up with interest. ‘So what was the right word?'

‘Ox! Oxen! Just the same as in English!'

‘At least you made yourself understood,' Anna said, amused as all the others had been by the error. ‘That would have been beyond my ability.'

‘Then you should have some lessons in Norwegian from Fru Eriksen,' Sally suggested. ‘She is a teacher by profession, but because she was a quisling and taught the Nazi doctrine during the occupation no school wants her now. She served a prison sentence as did other traitors. Her home is just near the shop. I went to her for a little while to improve my Norwegian and so did Vanessa and Wendy.'

‘I did too,' Helen said. ‘She was very helpful.'

‘I should like to do that,' Anna said, thinking that even if she were only in Norway for a short time, it would be useful to build on the smattering of the language that she had already learned. What was more, if she should meet her father-in-law before leaving, it might help to build a better relationship between them if she could speak a little to him in his own language.

‘Then we'll go to see her when we leave here,' Molly said quickly, not wanting Anna to have the chance to change her mind.

The morning ended pleasantly with various social events discussed and arranged. Anna was included in everything. She and Molly walked back along the lane with Pat and Vanessa, who were pushing their young ones in their prams. Both of them lived in the German cabins, all of which were exactly the same as Molly's, and they were neighbours. It was there that the four of them parted company, Molly and Anna going off to see the retired teacher.

Fru Eriksen was a trim, slender woman in her fifties, but with a fine bone structure that would carry her good looks into old age. She spoke excellent English in educated tones that were almost free of a Norsk accent. Her home was as neat and spotless as she was herself.

‘So you wish to have lessons?' she said to Anna when the three of them were seated. ‘How advanced are you?'

‘I'm a beginner,' Anna answered, ‘but I'm very keen to learn while I'm here.'

‘Then we can start tomorrow morning if my terms are agreeable to you.'

Anna thought them reasonable, especially as she was to be taught individually and not in a class. Just before she and Molly left the house, Anna asked Fru Eriksen how she had learned to speak English so perfectly.

‘When my father was working abroad for a German company, he sent me to an exclusive school for young ladies in England,' she replied. ‘Good speech and good manners counted for more there than education. A ridiculous situation, but I endured it and spent school holidays with him in Germany. Nevertheless, one particular teacher in England inspired me with an interest in languages, which I have studied ever since.'

When they had left the house, Anna asked Molly about Fru Eriksen's husband.

‘He was a patriot and she was too fond of the Nazi doctrine. He went to sea just before the German invasion and never came back. On the day of the liberation, Fru Eriksen was one of the women seized for collaborating with the enemy. That's when her head was shaved to mark her out as a traitor.'

‘It was a tough punishment,' Anna observed.

‘Fru Eriksen went to prison for six months with other traitors,' Molly said. ‘It would have been for much longer, except that on one occasion when she was entertaining some Nazi officers she had her cousin, a resistance fighter, hidden in her attic. He spoke up for her at the trial. Fru Eriksen has a large strawberry field and sells her fruit, but she must be aware that when people buy them, they always call them Nazi strawberries. Those berries in my kitchen are some of hers. We are having them for
middag
later today.'

‘They looked delicious.'

‘Her Nazi raspberries are big and juicy and equally good.'

Anna's first lesson went well. She had brought an English–Norwegian dictionary from home, one that Johan had given her, and she took it with her. Fru Eriksen must have known that Molly would have filled in her Nazi background, but made no reference to it in any way. The woman began by explaining the basic rules of the language, the grammar, the pronunciation and why there was such an abundance of dialects in which people took a great pride.

‘It is like the national costumes in that a dialect can vary from valley to valley,' she said. ‘It makes it easy for fellow Norwegians to spot exactly where a person comes from in this country. You may find it hard to believe now, but there will come a day when you will be able to do the same.'

The lesson ended with some basic social conversation, for Fru Eriksen believed in helping a pupil feel at ease early on when in company.

When Anna left at the end of her lesson, she paused to look in the window of the little local shop. There was a display of tins and cardboard trade signs, but no food on view. She had a newly acquired food ration card, which had been organized for her, but she had given it to Molly, who needed it for an extra person to feed. Yet perhaps there could be something in the shop that she could buy without a ration card for her friend. Maybe the shop sold bunches of flowers or had a choice of blossoming plants.

A little bell tinkled over the shop door as she entered. As the airfield was in the midst of farmland, she was not surprised to see there were swastika-stamped sacks of seeds propped along one wall and a stack of wooden hay-rakes. There was a box of potatoes and another of cabbages, but that was all. As for the shelves behind the counter, they were only displaying packets of dried vegetable soup and a number of wooden items such as spoons, mugs and plates, which Anna guessed were locally produced by a carpenter as they were very basic. There were a few sepia postcards of local views and a comical one of a girl sitting astride a pig, all of them slightly curled by age and the sun. None was suitable to send her aunt, who would judge Norway anew by the dreary views, and so she decided to keep to writing dutiful letters.

A woman in a spotless white apron had come to stand behind the counter and was eyeing Anna with curiosity, knowing her to be a new arrival.

‘
Vaer so god?
' the woman said enquiringly.

Anna tried to think what she could say from her lesson that morning, but only one suitable phrase came to mind

‘It is a beautiful day,' she said in Norwegian.

‘
Ja
,' the woman replied, still with an expectant look on her face. She was surprised when the young woman bade her good day and left again.

Anna told Molly about it afterwards. ‘There was nothing to buy.'

‘No, there wouldn't be anything today, but when there's a delivery of food products, a long line of people wait to get whatever is available. Just like it was at home during the war. It's the same in Oslo when goods come in. Would you like a day's sightseeing there next week?'