Hanna #3
In the dead of night, as the heavy coat of winter fog hung over the sea, fishing boats would slip through the skerries out in the bay and pull up alongside to offload their cargo into the hidden compartment beneath the hut.
Usually, I’d be asleep when they made their late-night deliveries, and the muffled tonk-tonk-tonk of their engines would percolate through my dreams, conjuring up images of my father on the summer days when he’d take us out to help pull in his creels.
After the first visit, unsure whether it really had been just a dream, I risked unlocking the trapdoor to sneak a look in the compartment and found several herring barrels and a large wooden crate.
They’d stowed a couple of creels and a pile of fishing nets there, too, to help camouflage the cache.
It made me smile, knowing how pleased Pappa would have been to think the old fishing hut was playing its part in the fight to rid Norway of its invaders.
*
The day before Christmas, in the midday dusk of deep winter, I took the rowing boat across the fjord to join Liv at Erik’s family home.
It was a calm day, so I didn’t need to use any of my precious supply of fuel for the little outboard engine.
Liv was standing at the harbor, waiting in the glow of a streetlight to greet me with a hug.
She helped me pull the boat up onto the shore and unload the few packages I’d brought.
“Happy birthday,” I said.
“To you, too! And a better year ahead for us, I hope.”
She looked well, her hair gleaming gold in the halo of light.
I felt rather unkempt as she tucked my arm into hers and we walked side by side to Erik’s house.
I did my best to keep the hut neat and tidy, but the effort involved in heating pans of water to wash myself and my clothes sometimes seemed more than the results were worth.
Liv’s hands were soft and white, where mine were callused by the rowing boat’s oars and engrained with coal dust.
“How are your pupils?”
“They were too excited about Christmas to sit still and listen to any stories yesterday. Thank goodness the school’s closed now until the new year.
I need the break! And you? Are you still managing in the hut?
I do hope you’re planning on staying with us until spring.
You know the Terlands really mean their invitation. And I’ve missed you terribly.”
“So have I, Liv. I’ll stay for a couple of weeks. But then I’ll be going back.”
“Honestly,” she said, “I don’t know why you prefer being over there in the cold and the dark on your own. I can understand it in the summer, but not at this time of year.”
I smiled, thinking of the visits from Per, who appeared every now and then and brightened the hut with his presence.
I thought, too, of the boats that would draw up under cover of the winter’s darkness to unload wooden crates into the hidden compartment beneath the floor, and of the satisfaction I felt in knowing I was playing a part, albeit a small one, in helping the resistance fighters.
I couldn’t tell her about any of it, though.
I’d never kept secrets from my sister before, but they were necessary now, for her own safety, as well as to protect Per and the others. The less she knew, the better.
“Well, you know how it is,” I said vaguely.
“Just keeping myself fed and warm takes up most of the day. I’m certainly looking forward to a hot bath.
And I intend on eating as many saffron buns as I can while I’m here and borrowing some books from you—I’ve read all the ones I have, front to back and back to front again. ”
We’d reached the door, and she said, “You’ll have to come back in the first week of May in any case, because Erik and I are going to be married. We’ve set the date. You will be my bridesmaid, won’t you?”
I set down my bags and wrapped her in my arms. “I’m so happy for you. Of course I’ll be here for that. What wonderful news!”
Although Erik and his parents did their best to make the evening a happy one, the celebrations were subdued.
As we raised glasses of spiced gl?gg in a toast that night, marking our twentieth birthday and toasting Liv and Erik’s engagement, I thought how much older we’d all grown over the course of that dark year of 1940.
Twelve months ago, we’d lit the lamp in the window of our home in Narvik, while Mamma had cooked us our favorite meal. Now all of that was gone.
I wondered what the year ahead would bring as I observed the faces around the table.
The overhead lamp cast its light over the party, but I could see the shadow of sadness behind Liv’s smile and the strained lines beneath Erik’s expression, even when he looked at my sister, eyes filled with love.
Beneath the embroidered tablecloth, my hands curled into fists in my lap as my determination redoubled to get our country back. Surely there was more I could do.
And so, while I enjoyed the warmth of the house, the good food, and the company of my sister for the next few weeks, I began counting down the days until I could go back to the fishing hut across the water to wait for Per’s next visit.
My body ached with missing him, but I wanted to ask him, too, how else I could help.
I wanted to do more, to play my own role in fighting the war of resistance.
*
When I returned to the fishing hut at the end of January, the perpetual Arctic night was beginning to relinquish its grip. A grey dawn light washed the sky at midday as I steered the boat back across the fjord.
I didn’t have long to wait before Per made one of his visits. One evening, I heard the familiar sound of an outboard engine and went to help him pull his small boat up onto the pebbles beneath the hut. He scrambled out, and I flung my arms around him, meeting the passion of his kisses with mine.
I never asked where he spent his time, knowing he and some of the other resistance fighters used the huts scattered across the mountains as their bases but never stayed in one place for long.
He’d told me Nina and their parents had moved back to Narvik, and he’d managed to get word to them that he was still alive.
Even they had no idea of his whereabouts, for their own protection as well as his.
He sat by the stove, warming himself as I cooked salt cod and potatoes, and I told him the news from my stay in Fagernes.
When I sat down at the table, I saw he’d been sketching something on a slip of paper with a piece of charcoal.
He set it aside and devoured the food, declaring it to be the best he’d eaten in ages, then picked it up again as I cleared the plates away.
“What’s that you’re drawing?” I asked. He’d always been good at art at school.
A little reluctantly, he turned it round for me to see. It was a portrait of a girl with serious eyes, her hair pulled into a long plait that hung over one shoulder. I picked it up to look more closely. It was just a simple sketch, but he’d captured my likeness well.
When I passed it back to him without a word, he tucked it into the breast pocket of his tunic, saying, “You’ll be with me, wherever I go.”
“I still want to do more to help,” I told him, reaching across the table to take his hand in mine.
“You’re already doing enough, letting us use the hut for supplies. I can’t say anything now, but you’ll see, there is some action planned. We’re going to be fighting back, Hanna. But it’s best you don’t know the details. I can’t let you take any more of a risk.”
I was about to protest, to insist there must be something else I could do, but he was already reluctantly getting to his feet. “Won’t you stay the night?” I asked him.
He pulled me into his arms, kissing me in a way I wanted never to end. But then he drew away, his eyes clouded with a mixture of sadness and longing. When he spoke, his voice was choked with the emotion we both felt.
“Oh, Hanna, how I wish I could. One day, though, we will be together, when all this is over.” He cleared his throat, visibly steeling himself, then nodded toward the leather-bound book of sagas, which sat beside my chair.
“I remember studying that at school. Kegg?ld, skálm?ld, skildir ro klofnir,” he said, quoting a phrase from the Old Norse.
“An axe age, a sword age, when shields are broken. Until Ragnarok is over and the world can rise once again, keep reading your books, Hanna, and dreaming of a better future for us all.”
I stood in the doorway as he pushed his boat into the water and stepped into it. Before picking up the oars to row out a little way and starting the engine, he looked up toward where I stood. I saw his face in the moonlight, the glint of a lock of his golden hair escaping from beneath his dark cap.
Then he patted the breast pocket of his tunic. “Wherever I go,” he said quietly, the words carrying across the stretch of black water that was already broadening between us. I raised a hand, watching until the boat disappeared beyond the skerries, and the darkness swallowed him again.