The Second Winter, page 25
The rickety dresser creaked as she tugged on the top drawer. Its frame gave beneath the force, and it wobbled as the drawer finally jerked open. Polina lifted out the garments inside — a shirt so badly torn that it was useless except as a rag, a lone sock, a singlet stained with blood. She dropped these onto the floor, then pulled the drawer out farther, searched it inside all the way to the back with her fingers to make sure that it was empty. She repeated this exercise with the next drawer down. The third drawer didn’t want to budge. Its contents were heavy, and she had to lift it and cheat it from side to side finally to pry it open just an inch or two. The musty smell of decaying paper wafted from the gap. She pried it open farther, revealing a cache of leather-bound books. The names of the authors, stamped in gold on the spines, meant nothing to her. Tolstoy, Flaubert, Zola, Dante. She picked one up, lifted the cover, ran a finger over the engraved lettering of the title. Anna Karenina. As worn as the edges were, the pages were still crisp. The novel hadn’t been read. She mouthed the first line, softly, fumbling with the written words. All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Closing the book, she set it down on the floor, then emptied this drawer, too. The last drawer, again, was stuck and didn’t want to give up its secrets. Spying an old boot peeking out from the closet, she used it to bang the drawer a few times in order to loosen it, then was able to pull it forward. The drawer, however, proved to be empty, save for a bundle of old pencils and three or four chipped and bent lead soldiers.
Standing back up, hands on her hips, she surveyed the room. Downstairs, something creaked, and she held herself still, listened. But it was nothing — the house reacting to changing temperatures outside, perhaps. In the faraway distance, she could hear the sawing of wood, closer, the quiet howl of the wind. This was a constant sound in Jutland, and she had already become used to it. She swiveled on her heel, pursed her lips. At last, her eyes settled on the broken, overturned chair. The wool upholstery, which had once been white, was now so grimy that it was gray, especially in a dark patch next to a hole in the chair’s side. The hole itself, Polina remarked, wasn’t a tear but a slit, sliced cleanly. She crossed the room, reached her hand inside. A smile creased her lips. She pulled out a notebook first, then a bundle of paper crowns.
Sitting down on the edge of the mattress, she opened the notebook in her lap and began leafing through it. A few sheets seemed to keep a tally of Amalia’s wages, others to track the balance of various loans. For the most part, though, page after page, it was nothing more than a list of sundries and figures. Ham for Easter, 1.25. Sugar, .15. Another pair of shoes for O., .50. Remainder, 28.85. Plus October, 43.85. When she reached a page in the middle of the ledger that contained only a few sentences, she stopped. Fredrik’s handwriting was very precise, and she had no trouble reading it. The first three words were written large. NO MORE DEBTS. Underneath, the lettering was smaller but no less resolute. A man only owes who he wants. Polina pondered the words, then flipped the page. The rest of the notebook was filled only with numbers reflecting Fredrik’s meager household account, no further cryptic notes.
She closed the ledger and was about to turn her attention to the roll of bills, when something fluttered from the last pages — a small scrap of fading red construction paper, cut with scissors into the crude shape of a heart, the way a child would fashion it. She picked it up from the floor, turned it over. There was nothing written on either side to identify it. It could have been inconsequential. It could have been a Christmas decoration that had found its way between the pages of the notebook, or something that one of the children had given to their father. But she knew that it wasn’t. She brought it to the base of her nose. The faint scent of expensive perfume made her shiver again, as she had when she first entered the room. She examined the heart a second time, front and back, as if she might somehow have missed some writing that could establish its provenance, then slipped it back into the ledger.
After replacing the notebook in its hiding place inside the broken chair, she counted the money. The thought, to tuck a few bills into her pocket, never crossed her mind. She rebundled it, then returned the money into the hole, too, and, after stuffing the clothing and books back into the dresser drawers, left the room.
23.
“A man walks with a whore into her bedroom.” Fredrik’s voice carried over the other voices in a dimly lit bar in the village of Aalborg. It was already late, nearly ten o’clock, and the patrons were drinking up before curfew. Conversations were growing louder. Fredrik held an empty shot glass in one hand, with the other was propping himself up on the oak counter. Even slouched, he was head and shoulders taller than anyone else in the room. The man standing beside him was sipping the froth off a mug of beer. The next man over was lighting a cigarette, listening as Fredrik began his joke. “There is a chair on one side, a bed on the other —”
The man lighting the cigarette blew smoke through his teeth. “You’re an idiot, Gregersen, an idiot — you know what an idiot you are? I was the one who told you that joke. Don’t you remember? That’s my joke.” He grabbed the shorter man standing between them and shook his shoulders hard enough to spill his beer. “Steen here heard me tell the joke to you, didn’t you, Steen? Hell, even Svend heard me tell the joke —” He twisted to get the attention of the bartender. “Isn’t that right, Svend? I’ve told this joke to all of you — to everyone here — haven’t I?”
“A hundred times,” the bartender agreed.
“A thousand,” Steen said.
Across the room, a farmer with slack cheeks and a gray beard raised his glass in a salute. Another man seated at the same table shouted over the noise, “Her ass, eh? She likes it in the ass.”
The man with the cigarette grabbed his whiskey, returned the farmer’s salute. “You see? It’s my joke. And everybody’s heard it already.”
Fredrik twirled his empty glass slowly between his massive fingers, then set it on the counter and signaled the bartender for another shot. “That might be, Pedersen,” he said, “but the difference here is that this time the woman isn’t a whore.”
“No?” Pedersen arched his eyebrows. The cigarette dangled from his lips. He was a lanky, gregarious man who looked significantly more intelligent than he was — a favorite of the other customers at the bar.
Fredrik shook his head. “No,” he said. “This time the woman is your mother.”
Steen choked and snorted a mouthful of beer through his nose. Pedersen cleared him away with a push, and the smaller man, still drowning, took a step backward to wipe his face clean. Behind the counter, the bartender was filling Fredrik’s glass, and he laughed, too, silently, but hard enough to sprinkle the oak counter with whiskey. Cheers to that, someone else said. Did you hear that? another man chuckled. Pedersen’s mother takes it like the Greeks.
Fredrik lifted his whiskey, drank it in a single swallow, slammed the glass onto the counter. “Another,” he said.
“Easy, there,” the bartender told him, though he was already filling the glass. “Who’s going to pay for all this?”
Fredrik stuck his hand into his pocket, dug for a few crowns, slapped them on the counter next to the whiskey. “I am,” he said. “In fact, I’m paying for drinks all around.”
Skaal! someone shouted.
Skaal! the rest of the bar echoed, and to a man everyone in the room bent their heads into their drinks.
Fredrik knew that he was being foolish. The bundles of crowns were burning a hole in his pocket. He had never bought a round of drinks before, not once in his life. Behind his back, his friends liked to remark how difficult it would be to pry a single øre from his fingers. Still, he felt light tonight, and it was nice to relax a little.
Pedersen took a deep drag on his cigarette, then draped an arm over Steen’s shoulders and leaned toward Fredrik. “So what do you think about this business with Vilfred?” he asked.
Steen shook Pedersen off him long enough to take a careful look around the room. “Shhh,” he warned. “No need to shout.”
“Why shhh?” Pedersen was suddenly belligerent. He wasn’t used to so much whiskey. “We can talk, can’t we? Vilfred’s our friend, there’s no more to it than that.”
“Shhh!” Steen hissed again. “Don’t be a fool.”
“You’re both fools,” Fredrik said. “That’s what I think.”
Pedersen faced him. Steen’s brow furrowed. Behind the counter, the bartender filled their glasses. “Almost closing time,” he said.
“Sure, sure,” Fredrik said. “If the Nazis tell us to go home, we go home like good children. Who are we to decide how much we can drink or how late we can stay up?”
Pedersen’s eyes sharpened, despite the alcohol. “And yet you call us fools,” he said.
Fredrik shrugged. “Vilfred wasn’t alone that night, was he? You set fire to Jepsen’s warehouse last month, sure as he did. I call that stupid.”
“Christ,” Steen said. “I’m telling you — quiet.”
“Jepsen’s a Dane,” Fredrik said. “You probably went to school with him, didn’t you?”
“Jepsen’s a traitor,” Pedersen said. “And to tell you the truth, I didn’t like him any more when he was sitting in the front row with the answer to every question. He was every bit the weasel then that he is now.” He tried to make this into a joke with a laugh, but Fredrik didn’t join him.
“That might be,” Fredrik said with another shrug. “But the three of you set fire to a warehouse full of Danish grain. And now Vilfred’s in jail.”
“The grain was only feeding the Nazis,” Pedersen countered. “And Vilfred knew the risks. We stand up and we fight — or are you happy cowering like a baby, Gregersen?”
Steen looked over his shoulder, met another man’s stare. “I’m telling you,” he said, slapping his friend’s chest with the back of his hands. “Quiet.” He thought about giving Fredrik a small punch as well, but decided better of it. “The walls in here have ears.”
Fredrik sneered. “You know what will happen to Vilfred? He will be shot — executed without a trial. Are you going to tell me that the small fire you three set was worth it?”
Pedersen swallowed his whiskey, set his glass on the counter. Fredrik held his glass toward the bartender, too. Rather than pour the drinks himself, the barman slid the bottle down to them. He had heard enough of the conversation to know to keep his distance. Steen nursed his beer, eyeing the crowd in the mirror that hung behind the counter. Pedersen leaned in close to Fredrik’s ear while Fredrik filled their glasses. This time, he spoke in a whisper. “We’re going to get him out.”
Fredrik exhaled through his teeth and shook his head, still unconvinced.
Pedersen gave the counter a firm tap with the tip of his index finger. “He’s our friend, isn’t he?”
“A friend worth dying for? You don’t have the guts, either of you.”
Pedersen leaned even closer. “Tonight.”
Fredrik swallowed his whiskey. At last, the alcohol was going to his head. He palmed the glass, appraised Pedersen, waited for him to tell him more.
“They’re going to move him tomorrow,” Pedersen said. “That’s what we’ve heard — tomorrow our man Munk is going to sign him over to the Germans, and you know what that means. They’ll take him to the base in Aalborg for questioning, and we’ll never see him again.”
Fredrik smirked. “So that’s what it is, then.”
“What’s it?” Pedersen asked him.
“You’re afraid he’s going to talk. That’s why you want to spring him — you’re afraid he’s going to finger you, too, before they shoot him.”
Before Pedersen or Steen could respond, the door to the bar was pushed open, and a man in uniform entered. Steen spotted him first, and he gave Pedersen a sharp nudge.
“Speak of the devil,” Pedersen said.
When Fredrik caught sight of the Danish policeman in the mirror behind the counter, his mouth tightened into a frown. He swiveled, raised his voice. “What’s this, Brink? Haven’t you heard about the curfew? Or perhaps you think it doesn’t apply to you?”
The policeman was closing the door behind him. “Does it?” he snapped. Conversations lulled. He glanced around the bar at the men seated there, then tracked Fredrik’s voice to the counter. When he met the farmhand’s eyes, he half smiled, as if the two of them were in on a small joke. “Anyway, curfew or not, I see you’ve still got a bottle for yourself.” He made his way across the room between tables, approached the counter, offered Pedersen and Steen a curt nod. “How are the three of you tonight?” he greeted them.
“I was feeling much better,” Fredrik said, “just before the door opened.”
The policeman sniffed, as if Fredrik had meant something funny. The farmhand didn’t yield an inch for him, and the policeman jostled Steen to make space.
“I don’t remember asking you to join us,” Fredrik said.
“Do I need an invitation?” the policeman retorted. He signaled the bartender. “A shot of vodka,” he ordered, “and a glass of water.”
“On your way home from the precinct, Brink?” Pedersen asked him.
“Hmmm?” The policeman assessed Pedersen out the corner of his eye. “Me? No — I have the late shift — I’m just on my way in.”
“So you’re standing watch tonight,” Pedersen said, “are you?” Except for a few scattered voices, the bar had fallen quiet.
“It’s my job,” the policeman said.
“And we’re all grateful to you,” Fredrik said, “for keeping us safe.”
“What’s that?” The policeman cleared his throat nervously, threw a glance over his shoulder at the hushed room. “You don’t like the job I’m doing?”
“Is it your job,” Fredrik pressed him, “to turn a Dane over to the Germans?
The policeman swallowed his vodka, then followed the shot with a few large gulps of water. He held the empty shot glass toward the bartender, waited for him to refill it. “Vilfred Thiesen?”
“That’s who we’re talking about,” Fredrik said. “Isn’t it?”
“Is it?” The policeman drank his second vodka, then placed the glass back down on the counter, so gently that it slid sideways in a small pool of whiskey and beer. “I thought maybe you were asking me about his accomplices.” He pulled a few coins from his pocket, dropped them next to the glass. “Thiesen didn’t set fire to that warehouse by himself. Did you know that? Jepsen was there that night. He saw the gasoline being poured. He said there were others. At least two others. They should be found and interrogated, too, alongside Thiesen. And I’m sure they will be.”
Pedersen froze. Steen couldn’t resist a frantic glance at the taller man. Fredrik harrumphed. “What do you think will happen to you, Brink,” the farmhand asked, “when your friends pack up their guns and their tanks and leave the country?”
The policeman shrugged his burly shoulders. On his way back through the bar, he raised his voice. “They’re not my friends, the Germans. Any more than you are, Fredrik.”
“You take care of yourself, Lars,” Fredrik said to him.
The policeman paused at the door. “I would say the same to you.” Then he let himself out.
When the door clicked shut behind him, a few people laughed, but the mood had darkened, and everyone had become much more somber. Fredrik waited for voices once again to fill the room before leaning toward the other two men. “I’ll do it,” he said. Now he was the one to speak in a hushed tone.
Both Pedersen and Steen understood, but neither could quite believe it. “You’ll do what?” Pedersen asked, also in a whisper. He wanted to hear Fredrik say it.
Fredrik’s eyes met Pedersen’s. “I’ll get Vilfred out,” he said. “Tonight.”
“He’s your brother-in-law,” Steen said. “Isn’t he?”
“Lars Brink?” Fredrik shook his head. “I never married the woman,” he said. “I only made her pregnant.”
Pedersen lifted his glass. “Skaal,” he said. He waited for Fredrik and Steen to raise their glasses, too, then the three men drank.
Two hours later, Fredrik sat crouched in an unlit doorway across the street from the police station. Snow was falling, and the temperature had dropped. His chest was cramped with a sharp pain he hadn’t felt before. Still groggy from the alcohol, he found himself fading in and out, focusing on the snow rather than the building behind it, and then the station house would begin to float like a helium balloon against the black sky. Once or twice, he caught himself falling asleep. He was holding himself up with a hand pressed against a brick façade, and his fingers were so cold that they were beginning to bleed. The staff sergeant from the evening shift, whom Lars Brink was supposed to relieve, hadn’t yet left to head home. Perhaps he was lingering as long as he could in a building with central heat. Fredrik wasn’t afraid — he wasn’t sober enough to worry about one more policeman. But he had no quarrel with the staff sergeant. He didn’t even know who he was. Perhaps the man had a wife and family. He lowered his head, fought to keep his eyes from closing.
