The Second Winter, page 29
“Yes,” Polina answered, in a whisper.
“Don’t move, then. Stay there until I come back for you, understand? Don’t move.”
The hole beneath her closed like the aperture of a camera, and that was it, Polina was encased in blackness. She choked on the odor of rodent feces and piss. Only a thin layer of thatch shielded her from the wind, and she shivered, unable to wrap even her own arms around herself for warmth. Rats ventured back out from the walls. She could hear them, but it was too dark to see. And then, tracking the scrape of their claws and the slither of their bellies, she glimpsed the shiny glint of their eyes. Beneath her, Fredrik’s heavy footsteps shook the stairs, then the bolt on the front door clicked, the hinges squealed. A breath of air ruffled her hair. The beams creaked, the rats circled. Looking down, Polina realized that there was a tiny crack between the boards of the trapdoor, almost too small to notice. She leaned toward it. If she concentrated hard enough, she could just make out the top stair and then a sliver of the hallway. It was, she thought, like looking through the window into a dollhouse — and, focusing like this, she hoped she might also forget about the rats.
“What do you want this time?” Fredrik asked, pulling the door open. “Eh, Jungmann? Axel is still dead, I suppose. And the Jews are still slipping through your fingers like sand?”
As long as the magistrate had known him, Fredrik had never appeared so nervous before. He sniffed the air. The house smelled different, too. He had him. He could sense it. The wind gusted against his back. Beneath the brim of his homburg, the mist climbed his skull like icy fingers. “May I come inside, Gregersen? It’s cold today.”
The farmhand took a step back from the door — an uncertain step, Jungmann remarked. And again the thought crossed his mind. He had him. But what was different today? Fredrik was chewing his lip — as if he was trying to bite a piece of chapped skin off it. As if his skin was too dry. Or like an addict. The magistrate measured the light inside, peered into the shadows, at last followed the farmhand into his shack. If Fredrik hadn’t been a Gregersen, he would have dispensed with him long ago. He didn’t like him, not one bit. He was a savage. Now he had him. But he mustn’t get too confident. Cornered, there was no telling what Fredrik might do. Jungmann pulled his gloves off his hands. Watching him, Fredrik noticed how dainty his fingers were. His nails were cut, buffed like a woman’s. “You’ve already searched the house a few days ago,” the farmhand said.
And Jungmann thought, The tip is correct, he’s harboring someone here. That’s what is different today — Fredrik is scared. “You know,” he said, “you’re not fooling anyone, Gregersen.”
Fredrik had been on the cusp of asking the magistrate if he wanted tea. It wasn’t in his nature to kowtow — but he saw the importance of distracting him. Now bile rose in his throat, and he changed his mind. “What do you mean, fooling anyone?”
“Your pupils are so dilated,” the magistrate said, “that I’m surprised you can see anything at all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Show me your hands.”
Fredrik didn’t react.
“You’re shaking like a leaf.”
“What is it you want, Jungmann?”
“You’re an addict, aren’t you? A thief and a junkie.”
“What is it you want?” Fredrik repeated, unable to modulate his voice. His fingers twitched. It would be so easy to snap this man’s gizzard.
Upstairs in the attic, through the crack in the trapdoor, Polina saw the shadows shift beneath her. An addict. Of course she had known. How many had she come across in the last few years? Too many to count. Somehow, though, she had thought that this man was different.
“I have already told you everything I know about Axel Madsen,” Fredrik blustered. “You searched the house — what more do you want?”
Jungmann was enjoying the farmhand’s discomposure. He wasn’t used to it. This was a new sensation for him. If he prodded this unsophisticated man, he would come apart into pieces. “I haven’t mentioned Axel Madsen to you today, have I?”
A feeling of foreboding overcame Fredrik. Equally, he wasn’t used to this man’s confidence. “Maybe a cup of tea,” he said, stumbling over the words.
In other circumstances, Jungmann might have felt sorry for him. Scoffing at the offer, he turned on his heel, leaned his head out the door, whistled. The soldiers had gathered in front of the truck. He pointed around the side of the porch, and two of them began circling the cottage. Then he snapped his fingers, signaled for another to approach. The soldier who had given his crotch a lewd squeeze passing Amalia in the road trotted toward him. “We’re here on a tip,” the magistrate said to Fredrik.
“A tip from who?” Fredrik asked. He couldn’t resist the question, as pointless as it was.
Jungmann sniffed. “A tip,” he repeated. “Just a tip.”
“You can go to hell,” Fredrik said.
“Can I?” Jungmann twisted around to face him again. He was still holding his black leather gloves, and he shoved them into a pocket, then, unbuttoning his long coat, deliberately unsnapped the holster on his belt. “You’re harboring someone here, Gregersen,” he said.
Fredrik paused too long. “You don’t have any right —” he said. “You can’t just come into my house and search it whenever you please.”
“No?”
On the porch, the soldier’s footsteps shook the cottage. His shadow darkened the doorway. When he appeared at the threshold, Fredrik seethed. This soldier was a kid. A pimple-faced boy not yet twenty years old. He probably had pimples on his ass, too — his dick was probably as bald as a girl’s twat. He could take him apart with one hand and worry about Jungmann with the other.
Outside, Oskar had retreated to the side of the barn, uncertain what else to do. The saw still sat in the cut he had been tearing in the plank, and he lifted it out, set it down on the boards. The mist made it difficult to keep track of the activity across the yard. Two of the soldiers had disappeared around the cottage. Oskar watched as a third followed Jungmann inside. The boots this soldier wore were polished to such a gloss that they rippled in the gray light as he passed through the doorway. The last two soldiers stayed with the truck. One cupped a hand over a match lit by the other, leaned forward with a cigarette in his mouth to dip its tip into the flame.
On the side of the highway, Amalia stopped walking when the growl of another engine broke the silence. Something was wrong. Jungmann had turned off the highway onto the Nielsens’ farm. They were coming for her father, she knew that they were. Weak headlights burned holes in the mist, then a small black Opel followed them into view. Munk, the chief of police, hovered behind the windshield, his gloved hands clamping the steering wheel. The Opel’s tall tires spit chunks of ice backward in its wake as it slipped past into the mist. Amalia waited until she heard this car, too, gear down and turn off the road onto the farm. Then she pulled her coat tight and bent her head into the wind again. She had no choice but to keep walking. The Hartmanns were expecting her. The Nielsens needed the flour.
“I have heard,” Jungmann said to Fredrik, “that you have come into some money recently.”
“What business is that of yours?”
“A new scarf, a round of drinks at Albert’s, vodka from Russia, lingerie from Mathiesen’s. Where does a man like you get the money for such indulgences? This is my business, Gregersen. This is my business.”
Fredrik squared his shoulders, blocked the young soldier from entering beyond the vestibule. His jaw was clenched. He was grinding his molars, breathing through his nose.
“I am going to have to ask you once again,” Jungmann said, “for the key to the cellar.” Fredrik barely heard him. “The key,” the magistrate repeated, “to the cellar. Or I will simply break the door down.”
Fredrik’s teeth felt loose in his gums. He rubbed his tongue over them as if they were foreign objects. Stones. “You searched the cellar already. And you came up empty.”
“The key.” Jungmann’s hand moved to his holster. It felt better, grasping the butt of his pistol. When Fredrik took a step toward him, he yanked the gun out — but Fredrik raised his hands, nodded toward the kitchen. Jungmann eased the weapon back into its sheath, let the huge man pass.
Fredrik opened a drawer, found the key. He weighed it in his hand, then tossed it to the magistrate. The glint of steel in the bottom of the drawer caught his eye. He had sharpened the carving knife himself just a few days ago. The blade’s new edge hadn’t yet begun to oxidize.
“Search the house,” Jungmann barked to the soldier. “Upstairs, too.” He made certain that the German had understood him, then returned his attention to the farmhand. “You stay inside, understand?” He glanced across the driveway at the soldiers smoking in front of the truck. “I’ve got the house covered. If you follow me outside, they’ll shoot you, Fredrik. Do you hear me? And nobody will shed a tear.”
Fredrik watched Jungmann descend the stairs to the yard. The magistrate’s boots crunched on the frozen snow as he skirted the cottage. The key slid into the padlock on the cellar doors.
The soldier glanced into the kitchen at Fredrik, then crossed into the sitting room. His attention had been drawn to the small items on the mantel — a single photograph of Oskar as a baby in a white christening gown, a few blue-and-white porcelain figurines that had been given to Amalia by the Gregersens when she was a child, a silver matchbox that had belonged to Fredrik’s father. The soldier picked up the matchbox, opened it, closed it again. Fredrik’s face hardened as he watched the German shove the heirloom unceremoniously into his pocket. The soft tramp of Jungmann’s fancy boots descending into the cellar barely disturbed the silence. When the soldier emerged from the sitting room then headed for the stairs, Fredrik’s hand dropped to the open kitchen drawer.
In the attic, the rats were growing bolder. Their claws scratched the rafters, only inches from Polina’s fingers. Their whiskers caressed the wood. They were hungry, testing her, getting set to attack. She focused on the narrow fissure in the trapdoor. Her arms were beginning to ache. The rafters splintered into her skin.
Beneath her, the soldier appeared at the top of the stairs, barely visible through the crack. Polina could feel his every step in her bones. When he glanced up at the trapdoor, her head jerked backward involuntarily. Her scalp flamed, her arms tingled. She suppressed a scream. She was certain that he could see her, too. But he passed underneath without pausing, into the bedroom she shared with Oskar and Amalia.
Two floors below, voices drifted up from the cellar. The magistrate had leaned his head outside and was calling to the soldiers at the truck to bring him a torch. The light from the open doors only lit a small arc at the cellar’s mouth. There was someone here, there was someone hidden inside, Jungmann was certain of it. Boxes scraped the floor. The scent of a cigarette rose through the house.
A rat’s whiskers grazed Polina’s fingers. Polina jumped, and the rafters creaked. The sound was loud enough to give her away. Another rat scurried toward her through the liquid blackness, but she didn’t flinch a second time. She held herself entirely still, too afraid to breathe. Beneath her, the soldier retraced his steps from the children’s bedroom. What had he heard? His boots resounded on the floorboards. In Fredrik’s room, the bedposts whined when he placed a hand on the mattress to peek under the bed. The closet door squeaked. He kicked a pile of old shoes over, then returned to the hallway.
When he spotted the trapdoor, Polina’s eyes met his through the crack. His fingers stretched toward her, then stopped short, two inches from the panel. Fredrik was taller than the mousy-haired boy by at least a foot. Even on his toes, the soldier couldn’t reach the panel. He gritted his teeth and strained — all he needed was an extra inch — then gave up, dropped his arms.
Beside the barn, Oskar watched as Munk’s black Opel pulled through the gates at the top of the property then wound its way down the driveway and rolled into place next to the truck. The remaining soldiers stood at attention to greet the chief of police. One of them saluted, the other squared his shoulders. Munk slammed the car door behind him, spoke a few muffled words.
Inside the cellar, Jungmann heard something move in one corner. He raised the battery-powered torch, directed its beam into the shadows. The yellow light penetrated the dark, growing dimmer as it reached for the far wall. His heart pounded against his ribs. He drew his pistol and pointed it toward the sound. When Munk appeared behind him, his finger very nearly yanked the trigger. He kept his aim steady, called to the police chief over his shoulder. “Is that you, Munk? Come down here, I think I’ve found someone.”
The police chief drew his own pistol as he descended the stairs. His eyes followed the weak beam. “Where?” he asked. “I don’t see anything.”
“In the corner.” Emboldened by the smaller man’s presence, Jungmann took a step forward. The torch lit the back wall. Cobwebs scintillated like silk. And then a rat, as fat as a pregnant cat, scurried through the yellow light.
Munk scoffed. “Is that your fugitive, Johan? A rat?” He returned his pistol to its holster. “Come with me — there’s been a development in town. We caught Vilfred Thiesen — he was hiding with the chickens behind Torben Pedersen’s house. I think he might talk, but he insists upon speaking to you first. He wants your word that we won’t hand him over to the Germans if he fingers Brink’s killer.”
Underneath Polina, the soldier reappeared from Fredrik’s room, now carrying a couple of old boots from the closet. There wasn’t a single chair upstairs except for the one next to Fredrik’s bed, which had a broken leg, not a crate, nor anything large and sturdy enough to hold his weight, or he would have retrieved that instead. He set the boots onto the floor beneath the trapdoor, on their sides so that he could stand on the stiff edges of their heels. Polina watched him straighten up, then balance on the shoes. As his fingers stretched toward her, the light shifted in the very corner of the crack. Polina’s heart pulsed. Fredrik was creeping slowly up the stairs behind the soldier.
As cold as it was in this attic, a bead of sweat gathered on Polina’s forehead. The soldier was reaching for the panel, wobbling on the shoes. The bead of sweat slid down to her chin, dropped onto the trapdoor, splattered next to the crack. Fredrik was nearing the top of the stairs. Something in his hand glimmered — a long-bladed carving knife, which he held loosely at his side. As he approached the soldier, he raised the blade to the height of his chest. Another bead of sweat dropped from Polina’s forehead. This one landed on the crack, blurring her vision just as the soldier’s fingers touched the wooden door. The plank shook, lifted from the frame, began haltingly to move. And then Jungmann’s voice exploded through the cottage. “Bauer? Where are you? Come!”
The boots flipped sideways under the soldier’s feet, and he lost the extra height he needed. The trapdoor dropped back into place. On the stairs, Fredrik tucked the carving knife into his sleeve. The soldier gave the boots a kick, sent them tumbling down the hallway, then pushed past the farmhand on his way downstairs. In the attic, hot tears seared Polina’s cheeks.
“Outside!” Jungmann barked to the soldier. Then to Fredrik, “We’ll be back. Hear? You think you can hide from us, but you can’t, Gregersen, you can’t.”
At the side of the barn, Oskar watched the soldier and the magistrate file from the house. Jungmann and Munk disappeared back into their cars. The soldiers climbed back into the rear of the truck. Metal doors slammed, engines rumbled to life. Exhaust steamed into the roiling air.
28.
By the time Oskar reached the cottage, Fredrik was raging at Polina. She had waited for him to open the trapdoor, then had lowered herself into his hands. Her anxiety was streaming down her face in tears. Fredrik was furious. In another second, he would have grabbed the German boy. He would have had no choice but to finish him. Oskar heard his father’s shouts as he approached the house. I want you out, tonight, do you understand, tonight! Oskar slipped as he climbed the front stairs. He clasped the railing, crossed the porch. His arms were still shaking. His muscles were stiff with cold, his legs were clumsy. He yanked open the door. Inside, shadows were shifting on the stairwell wall. He bounded up the stairs to the second floor three at a time.
Fredrik was snarling like an angry dog. Polina had raised her hands to push him away from her, and the farmhand grabbed her forearms, bent her elbows, pulled her forward onto her toes. His fingers dug into her skin.
Oskar slowed at the landing. “What’s going on?” he demanded. The sprint inside had winded him. “Tell me, Father,” he said, raising his voice, “what are you doing?” His nose was dripping, and he wiped his face with the back of his hand. He had brought the cold into the cottage with him.
Polina’s arms were bruising beneath Fredrik’s fingers. “You were wrong to bring her here,” the farmhand said to his son, without taking his eyes from Polina’s.
Oskar ascended the last stair onto the second floor. “Let her go.”
Fredrik snorted. “They know she’s here, they’ll arrest us if she stays.”
Oskar took another step toward his father. “I said, let her go.”
Fredrik gave Polina’s forearms a final squeeze. Her thin bones bent, her face registered the pain. When the farmhand released her, she dropped from her toes back onto her heels, caught herself against the wall. Fredrik turned away — not from her but from his son. “She won’t spend another night in this house,” he said, controlling his voice. This was a statement of fact, no more. He wouldn’t tolerate dissent. “I won’t have it.”
Oskar reached for Polina, pulled her protectively into his arms. His hand slipped under her shirt. The gesture was accidental, but his fingers remembered her skin. “This wasn’t her fault. There’s no reason to blame her.”
Polina pulled away from him. After the terror she had just experienced, she didn’t want to be touched. “Please,” she said. “No —” But in the narrow hallway, there wasn’t anywhere to escape.
