The Second Winter, page 31
FREDRIK’S WANT
29.
January 1, 1942.
In the early morning, Oskar left the house carrying a small suitcase. He only possessed a few extra pieces of clothing, so the case wasn’t heavy. He stepped outside onto the porch and measured the weight of the sky through a squint. Polina was inside the narrow vestibule behind him, lacing her shoes, and she followed him out a moment later. Amalia had given her a wool sweater, and before leaving in the morning for the Nielsens’ house, she had taken in the waist of one of her heavier skirts. Polina carried her old clothes in a bundle under her arm. They were nicer than the garments she was wearing now, but they were too thin to offer protection from this cold. She gripped Oskar’s arm, marched with him down the icy stairs. When they reached the driveway, their feet sank into the slush. During the night, the snow had turned to rain. The frozen layer of ice that covered the earth was beginning to thaw. Muddy water soaked their shoes. Leaning into the wet wind, they set out together in small, slippery steps across the field toward the barn.
Fredrik looked up from his work on the woodpile. When the door slammed, he paused long enough to take stock of his son and this Polish girl, moving in step, arm in arm, carrying their belongings with them. Then he wiped his brow and bent over the woodpile again and continued to work the saw. His jaw throbbed, his cheekbones were swollen and bruised, his ribs pinched his lungs, but he refused to be hobbled. The drugs and alcohol he had consumed in the last days had left his body weak. It felt good to sweat and to breathe, to labor like this through the tremors. His eyes focused on the metal teeth ripping shards of oak from the trunk of a sapling. He lost himself in the rhythm of the cutting. The long blade sank lower into the wood. When their footsteps became audible, he paid no attention. Perhaps they would stop to say goodbye, or perhaps they wouldn’t. What did it matter? In either case, they were leaving, and this was work that had to be done. Without more wood, he and Amalia would freeze. There were only a few shovelfuls of coal left in the cellar, barely enough to get them through a single night. And after this, a fence needed repairing. The pigs were hungry. He was just at the beginning of another long day, and he didn’t have time to spare. Sentiment was a luxury that this farm couldn’t afford.
Oskar and Polina passed out of view, entered the barn. The smell of mildew and rot drifted down from the ceiling. The roof needed replacing, just like the roof of the cottage. This was something that he and his father had meant to undertake in the spring, once the weather cleared. Now Oskar wouldn’t have to. He set his suitcase down, grabbed the shovel, sank the blade into the dirt floor to the left of one of the posts, beside the pigs’ trough. The money Oskar had taken from the photographer lay about two feet under the surface, wrapped in newspapers, bound in twine. He dug the last few inches carefully, then knelt to scrape the soil out by hand. When he picked up the bundles of notes, they emerged in a cloud of dust. He shook them clean, and clumps of earth scattered across the hard floor. Polina ran her fingers through his hair when he bent over his suitcase. This tenderness confused him in retrospect, when he thought about it afterward. He stopped to look up at her, then snapped the case shut, stood to his feet. It would be wise to get started.
Outside, they paused in front of Fredrik. The farmhand stopped sawing. Oskar remarked that he wasn’t wearing his gloves. His fingers were red, clamped around the edge of the cut log, gripping the handle of the saw. Then — just as Oskar was wondering why — his father reached into his rear pocket, found the gloves, handed them to his son. They were a workman’s gloves, but they would keep his hands warm, too. It was cold, and Oskar had a long way to travel.
“Thank you,” Oskar said.
When Fredrik smiled, his lip cracked, and his mouth began to bleed. He noticed because of the warmth and the flavor, and he swiped at the mess with the back of his hand. Polina tugged Oskar’s sleeve, and he understood that it was time to leave. He tightened his grip on the suitcase. It was a little heavier now with the money inside it. Then he started to walk. Polina held on to his arm. He concentrated on the soft grip of her fingers there, and then on the splash of her footsteps in the dirty snow next to him. Behind them, the saw worked itself back into a rhythm.
At the top of the property, a voice called out Oskar’s name, and he stopped, turned back around. The rain was coming down so steadily now that it was difficult to see. He squinted, held up a hand, searched for Amalia. She had been running for five minutes already, all the way from the Nielsens’ house, and she was out of breath. Her cheeks were flushed. She ran with one arm across her chest, with her other hand lifting her skirt so that she wouldn’t trip. Her hair was soaked, and so was her shirt. She had dashed out of the house without a coat. “Oskar, Oskar.” Her shouts caught up to them before she could. Her breath steamed from her mouth in billows. She could barely take another step. “Oskar, wait, Oskar!”
Oskar waited for his sister. When she reached them, her eyes were thoroughly red. Her face was so wet from the rain that they wouldn’t have otherwise known that she was crying. “You don’t have your jacket,” Oskar said.
“Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?” Amalia choked on the words. She could barely see her brother through her inflamed eyes.
Oskar looked at her, and this was the way that he would always remember her face. “Why don’t you come with us?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said.
“We have enough money,” Oskar said.
Amalia was biting her lip. “You’re going to America?”
Oskar nodded.
She shook her head again. “It’s not for me, I don’t think. I wouldn’t belong there. I belong here instead, with Father.”
“Okay, then,” Oskar said.
“You know — I don’t know what he would do without me.”
“By the way,” Oskar said, “I forgot to tell you — I saw Elke the other day.”
“You did? You saw Mama?”
“It was on my way to Copenhagen — at the station — she was looking well.”
“You saw Mama —” Amalia repeated.
“She said to tell you that she misses you.”
“Did she?”
“She said she wants you to come visit her,” Oskar lied.
“Yes,” Amalia said. “I will.”
“Soon, she said.”
“I will. I’ll go up to Skagen to see her.”
“That’s good,” Oskar said, and brother and sister fell silent.
“Well —” Amalia lurched forward and grabbed Oskar’s shoulders. He was so tall that she had to bend him toward her to give him a kiss. It was an impulsive gesture. She had never kissed him before. Her lips brushed his cheek, and he noticed both how hot her breath was and how cold her lips were. “Goodbye, Oskar,” she said into his ear. “Will I see you again?”
“I don’t know,” Oskar said.
Amalia’s fingers dug into his shoulders. She held on. Then she let go. When their eyes met, they each felt slightly bashful, even in this moment, as they were saying goodbye. And then Oskar turned and stepped through the broken gate and started with Polina down the highway. He didn’t turn back again to look at the cottage where he had grown up or at his father working next to the barn or at his sister standing still at the top of the driveway, unable herself to move, watching her brother disappear into the slanting rain.
When they reached Helsingør, on the sea above Copenhagen, they checked into a small hotel on a side street — a boardinghouse for sailors and journeymen and prostitutes where no one would question what they were doing. Oskar left Polina by herself in the room and, pocketing one of the bundles of crowns, went into the village to find his father’s contact.
This close to the sea, the air was laced with salt, and the mist off the water stung his eyes. It was already after sunset. The narrow streets were as dark as unlit alleys. Shivering, pulling his coat tight around him, he made his way to the address Fredrik had given him. The cobblestones were slippery, and, crossing a street, he tripped on a curb. Spying him from a doorway, mistaking the reason for his disorientation, a beggar wondered whether this boy might be drunk enough to roll, but decided better of it when he realized how tall Oskar was. At the next corner, Oskar stopped to read a street sign, then, gathering his disparate thoughts, continued through the quiet town.
Fredrik’s instructions led him to a pub. The echoes of people speaking and eating met him as he approached. Shadows shifted in the windows. He felt for the packet of crowns in his pocket, screwed up his courage, then stepped inside. It was a small, dark bar, frequented by locals. If a tourist was going to stop for a drink or a bite to eat, it wouldn’t be here, on this narrow alley five or six blocks from the strand. All eyes turned toward him as he entered, and when the patrons didn’t recognize him, their voices dropped. The ceiling was so low that Oskar had to stoop. He ignored the few groups at tables, the two or three men at the counter, and approached the bartender instead. “I’m looking for Mads Knudsen,” he said.
At the counter next to him, a couple of men exchanged a glance through the smoke of their cigarettes. Behind the counter, the barman smiled. “Can I get you a drink?” he asked the boy.
Oskar shook his head. “Mads Knudsen,” he repeated. “I’ve been told I can find him here.”
“Who wants to know?” the barman asked him.
“My father’s name is Fredrik,” Oskar said. “Fredrik Gregersen.”
The barman studied him. “And what’s your name, then?”
“Oskar.”
“Okay, then, Oskar.” The barman looked down the length of the wooden counter, then back at the boy again. The patrons were still listening, the room was still silent. “I can’t tell you if your information is good or bad. But let me put it this way — if a man named Knudsen is here, and if he wants to speak to you, he’ll speak to you. If he doesn’t want to —” The barman shrugged. Behind Oskar, a few men chuckled. Conversations resumed.
Oskar twisted around, looked through the hazy air at the men in the dark, stuffy room. For the most part, they were sailors. This was apparent from their gnarled hands and leathery skin, the deep creases beside their eyes. The bar itself smelled of the sea. “All right,” Oskar said. “You can give me a beer.”
The barman pulled him a pint. Oskar paid with a loose coin, then lifted the thick glass and took a sip. This he would remember as his first taste of freedom. At eighteen, Oskar had never entered a pub by himself, he had never yet ordered himself a beer. The liquid was tepid and flat. He filled his mouth with it and swallowed anyway. If these men were going to rob him, there was little he could do about it, sober or drunk. In any case, he wasn’t ready yet to leave. He couldn’t give up so easily.
“Where are you from, boy?” the man standing at the counter next to him asked.
Oskar set down the heavy glass, took a look at the man. He was older than Oskar had first thought — fifty or sixty. His face was swarthy. His blue eyes were cloudy with cataracts. Over time, his ears had sagged and his nose had grown. He wasn’t tall, but he was as broad as an ox, and his shoulders were thick from years of labor as a longshoreman. “From Jutland,” Oskar said.
“Yeah? Jutland. That’s an easy answer. It’s a big place. You might as well say Denmark.”
“From Aalborg,” Oskar said.
“Hmmm. And your father’s working there?”
“He’s a farmer,” Oskar said. “We live on a farm.”
“And here you are, all the way in Zealand. By yourself?”
The old man’s breath stank like tobacco, and there was something shifty about his eyes. Oskar wondered how wise it was to speak so openly to him. Perhaps this man was trying to trick him somehow. If he found out how much money Oskar was carrying, he might even try to steal it. His hands were misshapen, but they were powerful. Despite his age, he could probably best him in a fight, if that was what this came to. But this man had asked him a question, and Oskar was young and inexperienced. He felt compelled to give him an answer. “Yes,” he said at last. “I came alone.”
“And you say you’re looking for Knudsen?” the man asked him. “Why?”
“Do you know him?”
The man shrugged his heavy shoulders, twisted his lips in a noncommittal frown.
“Is he here?” Oskar asked him. “Do you see him?”
“Buy me a drink,” the man said, “and maybe I will tell you.”
Behind the counter, the barman was smiling. Oskar took another swallow of his beer. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll buy you a drink if you want.”
“A whiskey,” the man said to the barman. “And one for my friend Oskar here, too.”
Oskar felt his face flush red. The man had remembered his name. He watched the barman fill two small shot glasses with amber liquid. When the man grabbed his, a third of it sloshed onto the counter. He drank the rest in a single swallow, then waited for Oskar to do the same. When Oskar set his glass back down, the man was extending a hand toward him. At first, he wasn’t certain what the man intended. Then he took the hand and gave it a shake. The man’s skin was warm and dry, his own was clammy.
“Mads Knudsen,” the man said.
Oskar’s face flushed a second time.
“Another whiskey,” the man said. “This time, I’m paying.” The barman poured their shots, and the man finished his without a pause. When he slammed the empty glass back down on the counter, droplets of spilled whiskey splattered Oskar’s face like the spray of surf. “Now,” the man said, “tell me why your father sent you to find me. It’s been a while since I’ve done any business with him.”
Oskar swallowed his drink, then followed the old longshoreman to a quiet corner and told him about his desire to find passage from Denmark to America.
When Oskar returned to the hotel, Polina wasn’t in their room. The curtains had been left open, and the windows, encrusted with a thin glaze of frost from the polar wind blowing off the sound, glowed softly gray, casting enough light inside to give shape to the dark. Oskar’s first thought upon opening the door was that Polina had left him. He felt himself blanch, and he froze in the doorway, the knob still cold on his fingers. But then he noticed her things on the floor where she had set them. The shirt she had been wearing was laid out on the mattress. And he became aware, too, of the trickle of water from the communal bathroom down the hallway. She was preparing herself for bed, that was all. Letting go of the door, he started down the corridor to find her. He had drunk too much — Knudsen had kept him talking until there was no more whiskey in the bottle — and he staggered into a wall before finding his balance again. At the far end of the hallway, the bathroom door was open a crack. A sliver of white light from the bulb above the mirror flared into the shadows. He squinted into the glare and slowed his step. The floorboards creaked, his coat rustled, but the hum of the taps drowned out his unsteady approach.
Reaching the bathroom, he stopped in the doorway and peeked through the crack. Polina was standing in front of the sink, washing her face. She had placed her hands on the edge of the pedestal and was contemplating her reflection in the mirror. She was naked to the waist, and the diamond ring dangled from its string between her breasts, slowly twisting, its facets catching fire one by one. Except for the water spilling into the porcelain basin, there was no other movement in the room. Polina held herself perfectly still. Her hair, wet from her bath, hung to her shoulders in tight clumps. Tiny streams dripped down her forehead, her cheeks, her neck, her chest, glistening in the electric light. Oskar was staring at her, his mouth slightly agape, when he realized that she, too, was staring back at him. Their eyes met in the mirror, and they gazed at each other, framed inside the plane of the rectangular lens. Neither of them flinched. Neither spoke a word. When Polina did finally turn toward him, Oskar lost his breath as her reflection blossomed into her face and glass softened into flesh. He couldn’t remember a moment like this before, when they had stood this close and simply looked at each other. Behind Oskar, muted voices echoed down the hall. In the bathroom, the water tinkled and gurgled as it escaped into the drain. The faucet whined.
Then Oskar realized how drunk he was. The floor wanted to tip. He couldn’t keep Polina in focus. Swaying on his feet, he spun around and started back up the corridor. The light from the bathroom had blinded him, and he had to peer through a floating image of Polina’s face to find their room again. The bed appeared in front of him, then wheeled into a blur as he sat down. He pulled off his clothes. His head hit the pillow. He tried to stay awake and wait for her. But by the time Polina followed him into the room, he was out.
The bed was a single, narrower than the mattress he slept on at home. When Polina climbed under the blankets next to him, he woke up again, enough to grab hold of her, though not enough to open his eyes, and he pulled her against him so tight that there was no gap between them. He would tell her about his conversation with Knudsen and about the merchant ship in the morning. He was too drunk to speak, too exhausted. And Polina, he knew, needed her sleep as well, every bit as much as he did. It had been a long day, and tomorrow would be even longer. The water in her hair was cold, and it soaked the pillow and penetrated his undershirt. Her smell was familiar now — he could focus on it instead of the strange smells inside this hotel. Outside, the wind gusted, and the windows rattled. The wet bedding grew warmer. Down the street, a group of sailors were laughing, and their voices echoed shrilly off the cobblestones. In the room next door, two men were arguing. But the sounds grew ever more distant, and a few minutes later, Oskar was fast asleep.
The last sensation he would remember was the spreading of her wings, and then being borne aloft on Polina’s slender back, effortlessly, through a sky drawn, like song is, too, in whispers and ink.
Goodbye, Oskar.
When dawn broke, Oskar was standing at the Nielsens’ gate in the pouring, icy rain, saying goodbye to Amalia again. The metallic pulse of Fredrik’s saw echoed up the hill from the side of the barn, in rhythm with his heartbeat. His sister’s lips brushed his cheek. Her whispered parting warmed his ear. Then he became aware of the hard, lumpy, damp pillow. Had he been dreaming? He woke slowly, shivering. The bed was much colder than it should have been. The blankets had fallen off during the night, and he had been too worn out to notice. He woke because Mads Knudsen had arranged for their passage on a Danish icebreaker berthed in the harbor at Helsingør. The icebreaker was leading a Swedish ship through the naval blockade into the North Sea, and the captain had agreed to take Oskar and Polina as far as he could, then smuggle them onto the merchant ship. Oskar had told himself to wake at the first sign of light — the crew wouldn’t wait for them — and that is what his body had done. He reached for the blankets. The salty taste of Polina’s hair teased his tongue. Then he realized that he was by himself in the bed, and he opened his eyes. The air was thick and dusky, the hotel was silent. He lifted himself onto his elbow. The room was empty. Polina was gone.
