The House by the Fjord (8 page)

Alexander noticed that Anna sat as though frozen with her head bowed. He rested a hand on her shoulder in a protective gesture as he tried to stem the old lady's flow of tragic reminiscences.

‘Yes, Fru Dahl,' he said, not sure how much Anna would gather from the woman's rapid Norwegian dialect. ‘I'm well aware of what happened in those camps and can guess what happened here.'

Yet the woman proved unstoppable. ‘There's a small hut in there where they kept the condemned the night before their execution. The walls are covered with last messages to people named, such as “Give my love to my parents” – “Tell my beloved wife and children that my last thoughts will be of them”
—
'

The stem of the wine glass snapped in Anna's hand and she looked up tragically as the brandy spread out on the wooden floor. ‘I'm so sorry, Fru Dahl. I've broken your lovely wine glass.'

The woman declared it was of no importance and would have poured her a measure in another glass, but Anna shook her head, wiping her eyes, and Alexander intervened.

‘I'll take Anna for drive. I don't want her to think of the forest as being wholly ruined by what she saw.' Then he added to her, ‘It will heal itself with new trees and bushes, ferns and flowers, but there will be a memorial to those that lost their lives there. They will never be forgotten.'

They drove quite a long way and she saw aspects of the forest that she had never seen before. There were the bare slopes where local people would ski in winter, and nearby there was a ski-jump, and farther on a lake that would become a skating rink for children when temperatures dropped. They saw several elk, which regarded them from a distance with long mournful faces, their antlers widely magnificent.

‘It is beautiful around here, Alex,' she said, for they were now on first name terms.

He had stopped the car and they had got out to sit on a fallen tree trunk, drinking coffee in mugs from a vacuum flask that he had produced.

‘Wait till you see where your father-in-law lives in the town of Molde,' he said, ‘because there it is possible to look out across the fjord and see eighty-seven mountain peaks. You'll never want to leave.'

‘Johan told me about them. He was skiing up in those mountains when he saw Molde being bombed.'

‘The Nazis knew that the King and the Crown Prince and the government would have reached there on their flight from Oslo. It's why German bombers tried to destroy every defenceless little town along the route. Wooden houses soon blaze like torches.'

She shook her head at the tragedy of it, wondering if Alex would now tell her why he was in England during the war and which service he was in, but it did not happen and she was reluctant to question him. Then they returned to the car.

She had recovered from her initial shock and was glad that the beautiful forest had not been lost to her through the horrific deeds that had been carried out in one heart-torn part of it. With time, when all sign of the camp had been removed, the forest would heal again, as Alex had said, and it would be as if nothing had ever violated its quiet peace and beauty, but the men that had died there would always be remembered by those who had loved them, as well as those who had respected them.

‘Are you still coming to Molde at Christmas?' Alex asked her before they parted outside the Dahls' house.

‘Yes,' she answered without hesitation.

‘Then I'll look forward to seeing you.' He gave her a wave as he drove off, and she felt extremely grateful for the help he had given her as she went into the house. Although he had said that business had brought him to Oslo again, she thought it significant that he had gone out of his way to visit her. It seemed as if her father-in-law was keeping a close check on her, and yet on reflection she realized that Alex had mentioned Steffan Vartdal only in a passing reference and neither had he asked her if she had read the document that he had left for her to study. Perhaps he had come of his own free will just to see her. It was an interesting thought.

Four

Before winter set in, workmen and trucks appeared further up the lane from where Anna was living and she realized that the concentration camp was being dismantled. Bonfires flickered through the trees and the trucks carried away loads to be destroyed elsewhere. It had been announced that a memorial was to be erected there and she thought that very soon the beautiful forest would heal its terrible scars.

Every day the weather was getting colder. One morning the forest was covered in hoar frost and sparkled as if every tree had been decked dazzlingly for Christmas. Soon afterwards the snow came and Anna awoke that day to a new vista and the sound of her elderly landlord clearing the steps of snow. She ran to the window and there she stood gazing across at the gigantic cones of snow that now covered every tree in sight. Then she heard sleigh bells and watched in delight as one of the local farmers drove past on his sleigh, the first of many that she was to see in the days and weeks ahead.

As soon as Anna had had her breakfast, she wrapped up warmly in a thick jacket that her aunt had sent at her request, with some other items of winter clothing for her extended visit. Then, pulling her woollen cap well down over her ears, she went outside. The cold air stung her nostrils and nipped her cheeks, but she was so delighted with the glorious scene all around her that she scarcely noticed. Odin, seeing her, began jumping at his leash, eager for a walk, and she released him to let him go bounding along beside her.

She made two discoveries as they walked the lane, which had already been cleared by a snowplough. Firstly, the dry cold did not penetrate her warm clothing and, secondly, the snow did not have the wet texture of the snow she was used to in England, but due to the low temperature it flew up like grains of rice when she kicked it.

She walked as far as Molly's cabin where she was welcomed in for a steaming cup of coffee while Odin settled down on the porch outside. Later they would go off to learn a Scottish dance new to them under Helen's supervision. Anna was enjoying the lessons. The war brides had been given permission to hold their lessons in an old shed on the airfield, which was not used by the air force. The Highland music was supplied by a gramophone, Helen having brought the records with her from Scotland.

All the war brides agreed that their first winter in Norway had not been as cold as this one was proving to be. For some time now officers and ranks alike were wearing well-fitting greatcoats and handsome round fur hats with the insignia of the Royal Norwegian Air Force. Pat and Sally took their toddlers, well wrapped up, out on little sleds just as the local people did. Anna decided that one of these sleds, which were sold in the local shop, was just what she needed. She could pull along her purchases whenever foodstuffs were on sale there or elsewhere on the farms, for she had discovered that even a well-gloved hand soon became stiff and chilled to the bone when carrying anything and was agony to thaw in lukewarm water. It would be easier to pull a sledge by straps over her shoulders, even though it would make her feel as if she were ready to accompany Amundsen to the South Pole.

When Fru Dahl, whose daughter did her shopping for her, saw Anna about to set out with the sled, she beckoned to her to wait. A few minutes later, the old lady reappeared with a dog's sled harness for Odin. Afterwards, to Anna's delight, he pulled the shopping effortlessly for her.

The daily temperature at Gardermoen began to average well below zero. Soon it was said generally to be the coldest winter in living memory and even Oslo fjord had begun to freeze. Anna's aunt wrote from England that it was the coldest season that she or anyone else could remember and the whole of Europe seemed similarly afflicted by the merciless weather.

Everything carried on as usual in Norway. Trains kept running and snow ploughs kept the roads clear, although the former were not always on time due to unusual avalanches of snow blocking the lines and having to be cleared. Military flying was often curtailed, for heavy falls of snow were frequent, obliterating everything, but the social life of the airfield continued unhampered and many people went around on skis. Olav and Molly taught Anna to ski and she was quick to learn, in spite of many falls in the process.

It was because she was unused to such cold weather that it played tricks on her. She had been warned never to touch metal outside with her bare hand or else she would stick to it, which she was careful to remember, but she had given up hanging out her washing because it became as stiff as boards in a matter of seconds. One day the local shop had had some jellies for sale and she had made a raspberry-flavoured one, which she put outside her apartment on top of a cupboard on the landing to cool, knowing that it would set quicker there in the unheated area than in her warm apartment. A little later when she was on her way out to visit Molly, she found it had frozen to solid ice, giving her an indication just how cold it could be indoors as well as out when there was no stove to keep everything warm.

Karl Haug had been posted elsewhere and so Anna did not see him more than a couple of times after the night she wished to forget. His gaze had lingered on her and they had spoken, but he had made no attempt to restart what had happened between them.

Another purchase Anna made was a
spark
. This was a simple form of transport that everyone seemed to possess, for these were everywhere. It consisted of a simple wooden chair fastened on to two metal runners, which extended behind it, and it was on these that one scooted along the icy roads while holding on to the top of the chair, with sometimes either a passenger or purchases on the seat. Anna had come on her
spark
on the evening she and Molly had decided to go to the airfield cinema to see the Marx Brothers in
A Night at the Opera
.

‘You sit and I'll scoot,' Anna said as they were about to set off. Molly was wearing an ancient fur coat that her mother had sent her. She would not wear it in daylight, having once caught a glimpse of a customer in an Oslo shop mirror and thought what a terrible sight the woman presented in a ginger fur coat and a woolly hat, until she had realized with dismay that it was a reflection of herself.

The runways, illumined by the airfields lights, gave a wonderful surface for a good pace as they swept along between the high banks of cleared snow on either side. They had covered quite a distance when an unexpected happening took place. Two young airmen, bundled up like polar bears in their thick jackets and fur hats, who had spotted them from a distance, came darting forward with a whoop of triumph.

‘Want some help?' one joked as he and his companion leapt one behind the other on to the runners with Anna, and promptly increased the pace of the
spark
to a tremendous speed. Molly uttered a piercing shriek, which was drowned by the airmen's noisy cheering, and Anna clung desperately to the back of the passenger-chair, her cries to slow down unheeded. The runway was skimming away under them until suddenly there was a deafening crack as one of the metal runners snapped. The next moment all four of them were sent flying on to the runway.

Anna felt like a spinning top as she slid across the icy surface. As she sat up, she was relieved to see that nobody was injured. Molly, who was sitting with her legs stuck out in front of her, her fur coat split from shoulder to hem, was laughing helplessly at the stark expressions of the two airmen as they recognized her as the wife of one of their senior officers. It was obvious they had mistaken her and Anna for two civilian girls from the kitchens, homeward bound on the
spark
.

Molly cut short their apologies as they helped her up, Anna already on her feet. ‘Just find us another
spark
,' Molly said in Norwegian, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes, ‘and then I'll forget I ever saw you.'

They bolted off to do her bidding and returned very soon afterwards on another
spark
at almost the same speed. They saluted smartly as Anna and Molly set off again, both of the young men still awed by what they had done. Afterwards, on a leisurely homeward run, Molly declared she had laughed far more at them than at the Marx brothers.

It was at this time of freezing temperatures that Anna saw the Northern Lights for the first time. They were pale and wispy, but they were there, brushing long fingers of feathery light over the whole night sky in a way that was both beautiful and strange. She gazed at them in wonder. Then, when it became still colder, and on the nights when the sky was clear of clouds, there were waves of beautiful colours sweeping majestically across the skies.

For some time now the war brides, cooperating with the Norwegian wives, had been planning a big party all together early in the New Year when they had returned from their various Christmas destinations. The husbands would be their guests and any other of the single officers wishing to come with girlfriends would add to the enjoyment of the party. To this aim, the British and the Norwegian wives met once a week to drink coffee and give a regular donation to the funds, which were in the care of Sally as treasurer. Soon a good sum began to accumulate that was well on the way to covering all the food and drink for the evening. The commanding officer had given his permission for the party to be held in the mess hall where once German air crews had been briefed for bombing sorties.

In Oslo the shops had made their premises and windows as festive as possible, and the department store of Stein og Strom had a beautifully decorated Christmas tree that reached through an upper floor almost to the ceiling.

On a shopping trip Anna and Molly found that a great deal of Christmas stock had come in or had been saved for the festive season. There were plenty of pretty tree ornaments to buy, most of them artistically fashioned in paper. At one counter, silk ties were being sold, and after waiting in line for half an hour Anna was able to purchase one for her father-in-law, and Molly bought the same for hers too. There was another long wait to buy some very good costume jewellery, and Anna managed to get a pretty green enamelled necklace for Steffan Vartdal's housekeeper.