The Sound of Light, page 11
Henrik yanked up his coat collar. Pressed it over his mouth. Buried his face low in the boat to smother sounds of coughing or retching if his body betrayed him.
Spasms and prayers ripped through him in equal measure.
Wouldn’t the Germans love to capture the Havmand? Rumors had spread in resistance circles and even at the shipyard—rumors with a legendary ring to them. The Danes loved their valiant heroes of yore, and a new hero might build up national pride and stir people to action. But if the rumor had spread in the resistance, it had spread to infiltrators—and the Germans.
A cough spluttered into Henrik’s closed mouth. Sparkles filled his vision from smothering himself, from avoiding the act of inhaling, which would cut loose a stream of coughs.
A cough burst out—but to the north. The boat’s motor starting.
Henrik twisted his head to see the sky. Dark once again.
He yanked the balaclava off his head, pulled in a deep breath, and let his lungs do what they were designed to do.
Coughs wracked his body. Then retching. Then more coughs. Until he lay shivering and spent.
The motor puttered far in the distance.
Henrik pushed up to peek over the side. When the scull climbed to a crest, he made out a dim silhouette of a patrol boat.
He needed to lie low to put more distance between the vessels. To recover.
If he waited too long, the tide would drag him off course. And the earth revolved closer and closer to the sun, oblivious to his need for darkness.
With great effort, Henrik hauled the watertight box up by its rope. Then he returned his oars to their oarlocks.
“Lord, give me strength.” He leaned back, dragging the oars through the water. His rowing became mechanical, rote, subconscious.
Just as the first rays sneaked over the horizon, Henrik pulled up to the pier.
“There you are,” Thorup said in a tight voice. “I was worried.”
“Had—problems.” Henrik heaved himself up onto the pier. “Patrol boat.”
“Hurry up. We’ve got to get the boat out of the water.”
Using the last of his strength, Henrik helped carry the scull into the boathouse.
After they set it down, Thorup looked at Henrik with concern. “You look—”
“I’m going to bed.” Henrik shuffled toward the door. “Don’t wake me until noon. I’ll make the drop then, take the train home.”
“You—you’re not fine.”
“No.” Henrik could barely open the door. “I’m not.”
20
COPENHAGEN
TUESDAY, JULY 6, 1943
The atrium of Havemanns Magasin soared four stories above as Else and Laila strolled past sleek glass display cases in the modern department store.
After work, they’d indulged in new summer blouses—Laila’s in butter yellow, Else’s in minty blue.
Else opened the door for her friend, and they stepped outside into the warm sunshine on Vesterbrogade. The street was empty. Only a handful of pedestrians—running.
Else’s breath caught.
A young man ran down the street, assisting a young lady who cradled her arm to her chest. A crimson trail ran down her cheek.
“Oh my goodness!” Else fumbled for Laila’s arm, found it, gripped it.
“What on earth?” Laila shrank back toward the display window.
“Take off that hat!” Two men chased the couple. The men wore the hated uniforms of the Frikorps Danmark, the brigade of volunteers who fought for Nazi Germany.
“Her hat. Look.” Laila pointed at the injured woman, who wore a flat knit cap in red, white, and blue concentric circles—the roundel of the British Royal Air Force.
Else had seen similar caps, a sign of solidarity with the Allies and a taunt to the Germans.
“You’re traitors of your country,” the woman cried over her shoulder.
“You’re traitors of your race.” One of the Frikorps men brandished a stick.
The couple tore around the corner and blended into a crowd with the soldiers on their heels. Yelling rose from the crowd. Disordered sounds of thumping feet.
Laila clutched her package to her stomach. “It—it’s a riot.”
“We’d better go the other way.” Else hurried down Vesterbrogade in the opposite direction.
But the intersection ahead teemed with tumult.
“Oh no.” Else stopped hard. “We’re trapped.”
The crowd swarmed toward them, thundered toward them, swallowed them like an amoeba.
“Stay together.” Laila gripped Else’s hand.
Else ran by her friend’s side. The crowd jostled her.
Men and women shouted insults against the Germans, the Frikorps, the Schalburg Corps, and the Danish Nazis.
One man slugged another, and he tumbled toward Laila.
Else yanked her hand and threaded through a narrow opening in the crowd. “This way.”
“You’re taller,” Laila shouted. “Can you see the end?”
“No.” She added a jump to her step. If only Hemming were there. He could see over any crowd. And he’d protect them.
A police siren wailed behind them, building in volume.
Laila glanced back, and her step faltered. “The police.”
“Good.”
“Not good.” She charged forward. “They could arrest us just for being here. I have stencils.”
“Oh no.” She couldn’t let Laila get caught.
Two women hurled potatoes at a man in a black Schalburg Corps uniform, and Else dodged them.
Her breath heaving, she passed two Frikorps thugs beating up a redheaded man.
A cross street. “This way!” Else rounded the corner.
The crowd thinned, and the women broke into a full run. In another block, they cleared the riot area.
Else leaned forward to catch her breath. “What was that about?”
“I don’t know. But if they knew . . . knew I was Jewish.” Laila hugged her package, and furrows etched her forehead.
Else straightened up and rubbed her friend’s taut arm. “What happened to my brave freedom fighter?”
Laila gave her a wan smile. “I prefer to fight on paper.”
“Come on. Let’s go home.”
They couldn’t find a tram, and with their detour, it took forty-five long minutes to reach the boardinghouse.
As they climbed the stairs, Laila winced and pressed a hand to her stomach.
“Are you all right?” Else asked. “I hope you’re not coming down with Hemming’s illness.” On Sunday evening, he’d come home pale, with a rattling cough. He’d asked Fru Riber to call the shipyard and tell them he couldn’t work for at least a week. And on Monday, he hadn’t come down for meals.
“Migraine coming.” Laila’s face pinched. “Need to lie down.”
“I’m sorry.”
Laila held out one hand. “I’ll take your things. Go on in to dinner.”
Else puckered her mouth in sympathy and handed her roommate her briefcase, hat, and package. “I’ll be quiet when I come in.”
A nod of gratitude, and Laila trudged up to their floor.
After she smoothed her hair and her nerves, Else entered the living room. Fru Riber would worry if she heard they’d gotten caught in a riot.
Bustling noises came from the kitchen, and Else joined her landlady.
“Oh, Else!” Fru Riber held a baking pan. “Is it dinnertime already? I’m late. So much chaos in the streets. It took ages to do my shopping. It’ll be at least an hour.”
“Don’t cook for Laila. She has another migraine.” Else reached for an apron on a hook by the door. “How’s Hemming?”
“He hasn’t come down all day—or yesterday.” She set the pan on the table. “When I’m upstairs, I can hear him coughing. And I hear him come down to the bathroom on the men’s floor. But I’m concerned.”
“Oh dear.” Else frowned at the ceiling. “I should check on him.”
“Could you?” Fru Riber unwrapped a package of fish. “I made tea and broth for him. Would you take him a tray? Let me know if we need to call a doctor.”
“I will.” Else pulled a tray from the shelf. Fru Riber could be brusque with Hemming, but she had a good heart, and she’d been especially nice to him since Midsummer Eve.
Else ladled broth into a bowl, and she set the bowl, a teacup, and the teapot on the tray. With care, she carried it up to the garret.
A wet, barking cough proved Hemming still lived, and Else sighed in relief.
The door stood ajar. “Hemming? It’s Else. I brought a tray from Fru Riber.”
“Else?” His voice sounded weak. “Come—come in.”
She nudged the door open with her hip. The room itself was large, but the slanted roof left little usable space for a man of Hemming’s height. And the room stank of body odor, stale air, and illness.
A bed ran along the side wall with the head toward the peak of the roof.
Hemming was pushing himself up to sitting. He wore pale blue pajamas, soaked through along the breastbone, and red spots flared on gray cheeks.
“Let me help.” She set the tray on a trunk by his bed, shoving aside a book, and she arranged two pillows against the wall.
He sank against them and raised bleary eyes to her.
“How are you feeling?” She pressed her hand to his forehead—hot and damp. “Oh dear, you have a fever. Have you taken anything?”
Hemming gestured to bottles of aspirin and cough syrup on the trunk. “This morning—I think.”
“Let’s get you some more.” Else poured a cup of tea, shook out two aspirin tablets, and handed them to Hemming.
He took them slowly, every movement boggy.
Else poured cough syrup into his soupspoon. “We should call the doctor. You might have pneumonia.”
“Nej. I’m better—than yesterday.” When Else held out the spoon, he opened his mouth like a child—a child with a beard.
Hemming swallowed the dose, chased it down with tea, and let out a sigh. “So thirsty.”
“Drink that up. There’s more. And Fru Riber made beef broth.”
He set the teacup on the trunk and reached for the bowl.
“Can you?” Else nudged the bowl closer to him. “Do you need help?”
“I can do it. Thanks.” He cradled the bowl in his massive hand and took a spoonful.
“Would you like fresh air? It’s a nice day outside.” Other than rioters beating each other up. She suppressed a shudder. No need to worry an ill man.
Hemming gave a slow, heavy blink. “Yes. It must . . . smell bad.”
Else threw open the windows in the slanted roof. With the door open, the warm breeze would help clear out the foul air. “That’s nice.”
Hemming sipped soup. His hair stuck out in damp spikes and his bleary gaze fixed on her. No longer a Viking warrior but a very sick boy.
Yet he was a man and she was a woman, and a wave of awkwardness washed over her. She gestured to the tray. “I’ll take that down when you’re done. Would you like me to come back or—”
“Would you stay?” A cough hunched up his shoulders. “My only company lately has been the sound of my own cough.”
What a complex sentence from him. Else smiled and sat in the wooden chair on the far side of the trunk from the bed—the only three pieces of furniture in the room. And no hyggelig bits of decoration to warm it up, not even a rug.
Only the book on the trunk, and she picked it up—Works of Love by Søren Kierkegaard. “Kierkegaard?”
Hemming spluttered out some soup and broke into a coughing fit. He set down the bowl, grabbed a handkerchief, and filled it with wracking coughs, even as he kept his gaze cemented on the book, almost frenzied.
To lessen his embarrassment, Else studied the beautifully bound volume, a strange choice for a man who could barely read.
After Hemming finished coughing, Else gave him a gentle smile. “Kierkegaard?”
He took a swallow from the teacup and wiped his mouth. “You said you like his books. Thought it might—help me read better.” His voice rasped, and he drank more tea.
Her heart softened. If only she’d chosen an author with a simpler style at the bookstore that day. “The words are pretty big.” She weeded condescension from her tone. “Can you—”
He shook his head, and the red on his cheeks consumed the rest of his face.
“His thoughts are big too,” Else said. “Sometimes I have a hard time understanding him.”
One corner of Hemming’s mouth flicked up.
“What if . . .” Else stroked the leather cover. “Would it help if I read it out loud to you?”
His fair eyebrows rose. “Would you?”
“Gladly.” Without the barrier of trying to decode the words, perhaps the ideas would sink in.
Else opened the cover. A bookplate read, “From the library of Frederik Ahlefeldt.” The owner of the shipyard where Hemming worked? Hemming must have found it at a used bookstore. What a strange coincidence.
She began reading. Hemming alternated between soup and tea, and he watched her intently, as if wanting to extract the learning from her head. If only she could give it to him.
After two pages, she gave him a questioning look. “Does that help? Hearing it?”
Hemming twisted the soup bowl in his hand. “I like . . . hearing you talk. Hearing you read.”
He did? With a quick smile, she returned to the book. “Where were we? Yes, here. ‘We can be deceived by believing what is untrue, but we certainly are also deceived by not believing what is true. We can be deceived by appearances, but we certainly are also deceived by the sagacious appearance, by the flattering conceit that considers itself absolutely secure against being deceived. Which deception is more dangerous? . . . What is more difficult—to awaken someone who is sleeping or to awaken someone who, awake, is dreaming that he is awake?’”
Hemming’s eyes crimped in thought, and his mouth curved in enjoyment. He liked hearing her read. And she liked reading.
Maybe he understood some of the lofty thoughts. Maybe he didn’t. But he enjoyed the reading.
A warm sense of companionship nestled inside, coupled with the unmistakable heat of attraction. Even when ill and stinking, this man appealed to her, especially looking at her the way he did.
Attraction couldn’t sustain a relationship, but neither could intellectual stimulation. She’d always longed for both. Perhaps, though . . . could companionship suffice? Could it make a fair substitute for intellect? Even a better substitute?
Perhaps she was foolish to entertain such thoughts. But she’d be a snob to reject them without consideration.
She’d lost her place. “I’m sorry. Where was I?”
“Dreaming that he is awake.”
Else gave him a big smile. He truly listened. And she dove back in to the warmth of stimulating ideas and excellent company.
21
WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 1943
Rain pounded Henrik’s windows. Since the sun wouldn’t set until almost ten at night and clouds blocked the sunlight, he had no way of discerning time. Along with his photographs of family and friends, his wristwatch stayed at Lyd-af-Lys. He used it only for Havmand runs.
Else’s visit would come soon though, he felt it.
Henrik shoved his legs over the side of the bed and gripped the mattress until the dizziness passed. For the past week, a storm had raged in his body. Today the storm had passed. The fever had waned, and pain flared in his chest only when he coughed.
Now his body had to clear the storm-downed branches inside of him.
Time to prepare for Else’s visit.
The Kierkegaard volume could remain out—that error couldn’t be undone. Else seemed to accept his ridiculous excuse for possessing the book, and she’d never mentioned the bookplate in his father’s name.
Bracing himself on the trunk, Henrik eased down to his knees. After he scooted the lamp and books to the floor, he unlocked the trunk.
He stashed away his journal, loaded with his thoughts—far too many about Else. He slipped in Mor’s Bible. Having one item inscribed to an Ahlefeldt could be written off as coincidental, but two? Then he added his university physics textbook, with his own name inside.
He locked the trunk and replaced the lamp and Kierkegaard.
Lately Else had brought other books. During the day, he read Kierkegaard. He didn’t agree with all his ideas, but he appreciated the care and depth of thought.
Henrik eyed the door, left open for fresh air and for Else. Twice a day she visited, bringing food, medicine, and cheer.
She’d even brought him a second pair of pajamas. Every other morning, she ordered him to change during the day so she could launder his pajamas in the evening. In ordinary circumstances, he would have protested that he was capable of doing his own washing, as he had for three years. But now he could barely wash himself.
A few times each day, he dragged himself downstairs to the bathroom, but he could only manage a flimsy sponge bath.
Henrik set his hands on his knees, on the crisp cotton pajamas in bright sky blue, “the same color as your eyes,” Else had said with a wink.
Not a flirtatious wink, but the wink of a sister teasing a brother, perhaps because that brother was too proud of his eye color.
Henrik chuckled, which brought up a string of coughs, clearing mud from the cellar of his lungs. Then he shoveled himself back into bed and closed his eyes until the wooziness faded.
Regardless of how Else meant that wink, it had rendered him mute. At least muteness sounded more like Hemming.
Illness had stolen his discretion, and he’d spoken too loftily during her first visits. He had to be more careful.
Light footsteps creaked on the stairs. Henrik sat up straighter in bed and arranged the sheet over his lap.
“Good evening,” Else called through the open door.
“Good evening. Come in.”
Else entered, and fragrant steam wafted from the tray she carried.
He murmured in double pleasure.
“How do you feel today?” She set down the tray and smiled at him. “You look better.”
Henrik measured his words. “I feel better.”
