Hanna #2
Even in that remotest of places, I learned I wasn’t alone in finding those nightly reports a lifeline.
One evening, when I’d been out late in the rowing boat, I met an elderly fisherman, an old friend of my father.
He gave me some of his catch, and we chatted about his family for a while.
Then he glanced at his watch and said, “It’s time for the news. Come.”
He gestured to me to follow him, and we rowed toward the skerries, entering a little bay. I was surprised to find a few other boats moored there, too. We clambered ashore, and my amazement grew when the rocks beneath our feet seemed to speak, as if they were enchanted.
He led the way to an opening in the cliff face, and we squeezed through the narrow entrance, which broadened out into a cavern.
On a shelf of rock at the rear of the cave sat a wireless set.
We were in darkness, apart from the light from its dial and the glow of a pipe here and there among the listeners.
We all gathered close to listen. “This is London,” the voice had said. “And here is the midnight news…”
I spent my days living simply and quietly at the hut that summer.
As I regained my strength, so my grief transformed itself into a quiet anger that collected in a cold, hard core within me.
I didn’t feel I could talk to Liv about it.
She had always been the gentler of the two of us, and I sensed her grief was softer and more vulnerable.
*
Autumn arrived all too soon, and the local school reopened in Fagernes. Liv was happy to join Erik there and get back to teaching. I think it gave her a sense of purpose, which I envied.
“When are you coming home?” she asked me one day.
I pondered that. And then I realized I was already in the only home remaining to me.
It was sturdily built, strong enough to weather the worst winter storms, and there was still plenty of coal in the shed to keep the stove burning, supplementing the driftwood I collected along the shore.
The milk boat was running again, so I could get regular deliveries of supplies.
The continued challenge of fending for myself would give me purpose, and the storm petrels would keep me company until Christmas.
“I’ll be fine staying here,” I reassured Liv.
“Promise me you’ll come back if you get too lonely or if it’s too hard?” she said, hugging me with a fierceness that brought tears to my eyes.
“Of course,” I replied, smiling to reassure her. “I’m not far away, I have the rowing boat, and there’s still some fuel for the outboard.”
“Be careful, Hanna. I’ve heard the Germans are installing gun emplacements along the coast,” Erik said. His expression was serious. “Send a message to us on the milk boat if you want me to come and fetch you.”
I stood on the porch and waved as they left, noticing how quickly darkness was falling now. The autumn chill made me shiver, and a sudden wave of fear washed through me. I nearly called to them to come back and take me with them after all. But then I pulled myself together.
“Don’t be silly,” I told myself sternly. “It’s just the same as any other evening.” I went back inside and turned on the wireless, finding some music to keep the silence at bay, then busying myself in building up the fire and preparing a little supper.
Before I sat down to eat, I set a candle in the window and lit it, just as we used to do for Pappa.
I watched the pool of light it cast dance on the oil-black surface of the sea and felt a little reassured.
With a sigh, I reached for my book and propped it against the wall so I could continue reading as I settled down to eat my meal of herring and potatoes.
It was the leather-bound book of sagas Mr. Mosling had given me.
I reread it often, taking comfort in the familiar stories and its smell of polish and paper, which reminded me of working in the bookshop.
Just as I picked up my fork, a quiet knock on the door startled me.
Cautiously, I opened it a crack. A man stood there and, at first, I thought he was a stranger.
He wore a fisherman’s thick jumper and a dark cap that cast a shadow across the deeply incised lines of his face. But then he smiled and spoke my name.
“Per!” I gasped, taking his outstretched hand and pulling him across the threshold, quickly shutting the door behind him. I sensed him tremble as I held him, feeling how thin he was, yet how his body had toughened into hard bone and sinew.
“I heard a rumor that a girl had moved into her father’s fishing hut somewhere about these parts,” he said, pulling back to look at me and running a hand over my hair. “I had an idea it might be you, Hanna.”
In the candlelight, dark shadows pooled beneath his eyes, emphasizing the new lines that hunger and hardship had carved into his face. In the seven months since we’d stood beneath the Grouse Tree and kissed, he had been transformed from a boy into a man.
We had much to catch up on. I made him sit and eat the plate of supper I’d prepared, and between hungry mouthfuls, he told me how he and a few others had managed to escape on the first day of the battle.
They’d hidden in the hills above the town at first, blowing up the railway bridge to prevent more German troops reaching it.
“We could see the bombardment from the fjord,” he said. “It was agony watching it, knowing you were down there among it. But then the order came to get up to the border and fight there, so I had to leave. Turning my back on my hometown was a hard moment.”
“There have been so many hard moments,” I whispered.
He reached across the table to take my hand in his. “I heard about your mother, Hanna. I’m so sorry. She was a good woman.”
We talked for hours. Afterward, I cleared away the supper things and went to the window to blow out the candle, ready for bed.
Immediately, the room was suffused with a strange green light.
Per and I exchanged a smile. I threw Mamma’s shawl around my shoulders, and we hurried outside to stand on the beach.
Pappa would have said it was a sign. It was the first sighting of the northern lights that autumn, and it was spectacular.
I’d seen them often over the years, but that night they took my breath away.
Vivid green curtains swept the sky, then drew back to allow a single beam to dance above the hills before it was joined by others, eclipsing the stars with their ballet of light.
Per stood behind me, his arms enfolding me as we watched the show in silence. At last it drew to a close, the stars glowing more brightly as the sky darkened again. Then Per said, “We can get you out if you want. There are boats that can take you and Liv to Britain. Refugees are welcome there.”
I turned to him and shook my head. I’d heard rumors of fishing boats making the dangerous journey across the sea to Scotland, but I couldn’t imagine leaving Norway.
He sighed. “It’s not going to get easier here, you know. I’ve been sent to map the installations the Germans are putting in place along the coast. I don’t know how safe it will be for you to stay on your own.”
I ignored his warning. “How can I help?” I asked. “What can I do? I can watch what’s happening, help you collect information.”
He paused for a split second, his eyes dark in the starlight. “It’s too dangerous. They’re coming down hard on anyone they suspect of being part of the resistance movement. You could be killed if they catch you.”
I’d seen his slight hesitation, though, and I sensed there was an opportunity.
“Resistance,” I said. “I like the sound of that. How can we just sit here and let them take over our land? Give me a job to do, Per. I want to help.”
He glanced toward the hut; then his eyes met mine again.
“What?” I asked. “Tell me.”
“These boats that take refugees across the sea to Britain…they bring things back, too. It’s too dangerous to try to take the…deliveries…farther up the fjord, though. We could do with somewhere to hide them, out here. Just until they can be picked up and taken to where they’re needed.”
I took his hand, leading him back to the hut. “There’s not much space to store things inside. But I can make room in the sea barn.”
He nodded slowly, thinking, then peered between the stilts that held the hut above the water where it jutted into the fjord.
“How would you feel about us building a compartment under here? A false floor. It would be unobtrusive, and we’d disguise it, of course.
If we put in a trapdoor, items could be loaded in and collected from below, from the water. ”
We hatched a plan. And in the next few weeks, under cover of the darker evenings, Per and a couple of other resistance fighters brought the materials needed and built the compartment.
I treasured those days when he was with me at the hut. It felt almost normal, as if this was the life we should always have been leading, his presence as easy and comforting as ever.
I treasured the nights, as well, when he stayed and held me in his arms, keeping the darkness and the fear at bay, whispering his hopes and dreams to me, describing the future we would have together when Norway was free once more.
Afterward, I lay awake listening to the soft rhythm of his breathing, as steady as the waves on the shore, and I tried not to think about how the war would soon force him to leave again.
When the compartment was finished and given a coat of red paint to blend with the walls of the hut, it looked as if it had always been there. Indoors, they’d cut a trapdoor into the floorboards, hidden beneath the rug. It had a lock, too, and Per handed me the key.
“Hide it somewhere safe,” he told me. I put it inside a sea urchin’s shell among the collection of beachcombings on the shelf.
Then he was gone again, and I was alone once more.