The Storm Sister (The Seven Sisters #2) (68 page)

One afternoon in August, he put down the pencil he used to write on the sheet music and stretched his arms above him in relief. The last orchestration was now complete. His composition was
finished.

The following Sunday, he and Karine took baby Felix up by train to visit his parents at Froskehuset. After lunch, he handed out the sheet music containing the parts for cello, violin and oboe
and asked Karine and Horst to study them. After a quick rehearsal – they were both experienced sightreaders – Pip sat down at the piano and the little orchestra began to play.

Twenty minutes later, Pip rested his hands in his lap and turned to see his mother wiping tears from her eyes.

‘My son wrote that . . .’ she whispered, glancing up at her husband. ‘I think he has inherited your own father’s gift, Horst.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Horst, also visibly moved. He clapped a hand on Pip’s shoulder. ‘It’s truly inspired, my boy. It must be played to Harald Heide as soon as
possible. I am convinced he will wish to premiere it here in Bergen.’

‘Of course, it’s all down to me for buying you the piano,’ said Karine airily as they sat on the train on the way home. ‘And now, when you become rich,
you can replace the pearl necklace I sold to buy it.’ She reached over to kiss his cheek as she saw the shocked expression on his face. ‘Do not fret, my love. You have done Felix and me
proud and we love you.’

Pip plucked up the courage to seek out Harald Heide at the concert hall before the first evening performance of the week. Finding him backstage, he explained that he had written a concerto and
wished to gain Harald’s opinion on it.

‘No time like the present. Why don’t you play it for me now?’ Harald suggested.

‘Er . . . very well, sir.’ Nervously, Pip sat down, put his fingers to the keys and played the entire concerto through from memory. Harald did not stop him, and when Pip had
finished, he applauded him loudly.

‘Well, well, it’s very, very good indeed, Herr Halvorsen. The recurring theme is delightfully original and hypnotic. I’m already humming it. Glancing through these pages, I can
see that some of the orchestrations will need work, but I can give you some help with those. I wonder,’ he said as he handed the sheets of music back to Pip, ‘whether we have another
young Grieg in our midst. There was a definite strain of his work within the structure, but perhaps I also heard Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky in there as well.’

‘I am hoping you heard a bit of me too, sir,’ Pip replied bravely.

‘Indeed I did, indeed I did. Well done, young man. I think we might look towards adding it to the programme in early spring, which would give you time to work on the
orchestrations.’

After the concert, Pip took the liberty of waking up his sleeping wife. ‘Can you believe it,
kjære
?! It’s happening! By this time next year, I may be a professional
composer!’

‘That is the most wonderful thing I have ever heard. Not that I doubted it for a second. You will have influence,’ she said with a giggle. ‘I will be the wife of the famous Pip
Halvorsen.’

‘Of course, I will be “Jens Halvorsen”,’ he corrected her. ‘Taking the proper name of my grandfather before me.’

‘Who I’m sure would be very proud of you,
chérie
. As I am.’

They toasted the news with a glass of aquavit each and then completed the celebration with a silent bout of lovemaking, so as not to disturb Felix, who lay peacefully asleep in his cot at the
bottom of their bed.

Why is it that happiness is always short-lived?
Pip asked himself miserably as he read in the newspaper on 4th September that, following the German invasion of Poland
on 1st September, France and Britain had declared war on Germany. As Pip left the house and walked the short distance to the concert hall for a rehearsal, he could feel the pall of gloom which hung
over the town’s residents.

‘But Norway managed to remain neutral in the last war, so why not in this one? We are a nation of pacifists and should have nothing to fear,’ said Samuel, one of Pip’s fellow
musicians, as the orchestra tuned up their instruments in the pit. All of them were agog at the news and buzzing with nervous tension.

‘Ah, but remember that Vidkun Quisling, who leads the fascist party here in Norway, is doing his best to drum up support for Hitler’s cause,’ replied Horst sombrely as he
rosined his cello bow. ‘He has already presented many lectures on what he calls “the Jewish problem”. And should he come to power, God forbid, there can be little doubt that he
would take the side of the Germans.’

After the concert, Pip drew his father to one side. ‘Far, do you really think that we will become involved in this war?’

‘I’m afraid it is possible.’ Horst shrugged sadly. ‘And even if our nation resists the call to bear arms for either side, I have my doubts that the German regime will
leave us be.’

That night, Pip did his best to console Karine, whose eyes burnt once more with the fear he had seen in Leipzig.

‘Please, calm yourself,’ he said to her as she paced up and down in the kitchen, holding a wriggling Felix protectively to her breast, as if the Nazis would suddenly burst through
the front door and wrest her son from her arms. ‘Remember that you are now a baptised Lutheran and your name is Halvorsen. Even if the Nazis invade here, which is very unlikely, no one is to
know that you’re Jewish by birth.’

‘Oh Pip! Please, stop being so naive! They would only need to take one look at me to see the truth. And then a little investigation would reveal it. You do not understand their
thoroughness – they will stop at nothing to root us out! And what about our son? He has Jewish blood! Perhaps they will take him too!’

‘I cannot see any way they can discover it. And besides, we have to believe they will not come here,’ Pip said, pushing his father’s earlier comments determinedly to the back
of his mind. ‘I’ve been told by several people that there is a constant trickle of Jews coming from Europe via Sweden to Norway to
escape
the Nazi threat. They see it as a safe
haven. Why can’t you?’

‘Because they may be wrong, Pip . . . they may be wrong.’ She sighed suddenly, and collapsed into a chair. ‘Will I always be forced to feel fear?’

‘I swear, Karine, I will do everything I can to protect you and Felix. Whatever it takes, my love.’

She looked up at him, her dark eyes haunted and disbelieving. ‘I know that is your wish,
chérie
, and I thank you for it, but sadly even you may not be able to save me this
time.’

Just as had happened after the Mendelssohn statue in Leipzig had been reduced to rubble, Pip felt the atmosphere of tension calming in the following month, as everyone in Norway began to accept
the situation and react to it accordingly. King Haakon and their prime minister, Johan Nygaardsvold, did all they could to reassure their citizens that Germany was not interested in their tiny
corner of the world. There was no need to panic, they reiterated, although the army and navy had been mobilised and various precautions were already being put in place in case the worst did
happen.

At the same time, Pip, guided by the experienced and nurturing hands of Harald, spent hours perfecting his orchestrations. Just before Christmas, Harald gave him the wonderful news that
The
Hero Concerto
was to be included in the Spring Programme. This engendered further rounds of aquavit when he arrived home after the concert that evening.

‘And my first performance will be dedicated to you, my love.’

‘And I will be there to hear you give birth to your masterpiece. You were there when I gave birth to mine,’ she said as she threw herself drunkenly into his arms. And then they made
love with noisy abandon, unimpeded by their son, who was staying overnight at his grandparents’.

On a rainy March morning in 1940, Pip sat across the breakfast table from his wife, and saw a frown deepen on her brow as she read the letter from her parents.

‘What is it, my love?’ he asked her.

Her eyes met his. ‘My parents say that we should leave for America immediately. They are convinced that Herr Hitler’s plan is for world domination. That he will not be sated until he
has control of Europe and then beyond. See, they have sent as many dollars as they could to help us with the cost of the voyage.’ She waved some thin notes at him. ‘If we sold the
piano, we could easily find the rest of the money. They say France and even Norway are no longer safe from invasion.’

Pip, only weeks away from his premiere, scheduled for a special Sunday concert at the Nationale Scene theatre on 14th April, met her gaze steadily. ‘Forgive me, but how can your parents,
who are thousands of miles away, know more about the situation in Europe than we do?’

‘Because they have an overview, a neutrality that we here cannot have. We are “in” it, and perhaps we are all deluding ourselves here in Norway, because it is all we can do for
comfort. Pip, truly, I think it is time for us to leave,’ she urged him.

‘My darling, you know as well as I do that the future for all three of us rests on the success of the premiere of my concerto. How on earth can I walk away from that now?’

‘To keep your wife and child safe, perhaps?’

‘Karine, please don’t say that! I have done all I can to protect you and will continue to do so. If we wish to make our future in America, I must have a reputation that goes before
me. If I don’t have it, I will arrive as simply another would-be composer from a country most Americans have never heard of. I doubt I’ll walk into the New York Philharmonic or any
other orchestra as a tea boy, let alone as someone to be taken seriously.’

Pip saw the sudden anger flash in Karine’s eyes. ‘Are you sure it is the money you wish for? Or is this more for your own ego?’

‘Please, stop patronising me,’ he said coldly as he rose from the table. ‘I am your husband, and the father of our son. And it is up to me to make the decisions in this house.
I have a meeting with Harald in twenty minutes. We’ll talk about this later.’

Pip left the house, seething with resentment and thinking that sometimes Karine pushed him too far. As well as reading every newspaper he could lay his hands on, his ear was constantly to the
ground, carefully monitoring the chatter on the streets and in the orchestra pit. There were two Jewish musicians amongst their ranks and neither of them seemed to think there was a reason to
panic. And no one had so far suggested that Herr Hitler had imminent plans to invade Norway. Surely, he thought as he walked through the streets of the town, Karine’s parents were
scaremongering? Given the premiere was in three weeks’ time, it would be total madness for them to leave now.

And for once, Pip thought, a surge of irritation rising inside him at the undermining of his opinions, Karine would listen to her husband.

‘Then so be it.’ Karine shrugged dismissively as Pip told her that evening that his plan was for the family to remain in Bergen until after the premiere. ‘If
you believe that your wife and son are safe here, I have no choice but to trust you.’

‘I do believe you are safe. For now anyway. In the future, we can take a view as necessary.’ Pip watched her as she rose from her chair after listening tensely to his strong rebuttal
of her parents’ thoughts and her own instincts. ‘Of course, I cannot stop you leaving if that is what you wish to do,’ he added with a weary shrug.