Hanna #2
That winter was indeed bleak. I was accustomed to the darkness and the squalls that beat the coast with merciless, icy fists, but more than that, a sense of hopelessness had begun to smother the country as the war ground on in Europe and the Nazi occupiers tried to tighten their grip on Norway.
I sat at the workbench, shivering despite being bundled up in layers of warm clothing, hunched over the Morse key as I tapped out my messages and scribbled down the latest instructions, only pausing to ease the cramp from my wrist and frozen fingers when each session was finished.
I was doubly thankful that we had to keep transmissions as short as possible to avoid being picked up by German Direction Finders, who snooped up and down the fjord trying to pinpoint the resistance network’s wireless stations.
Mercifully, there was no sign of Captain Stolz.
Perhaps the weather kept him away, or perhaps he’d moved on to other duties, away from the area, but either way, I was relieved to be spared any more of his visits.
The messages meant little to me. They were heavily coded, strings of nonsensical-sounding words, but I knew they would find their way to those who understood their meaning, when I hid the transcriptions in the compartment under the floor or handed them over, looking like innocent letters, to the skipper of the milk boat for delivery farther up the fjord.
In the darkness of that winter, the wireless became my lifeline, a fragile thread of connection to the possibility of freedom. The hope it held helped tether me as the winds raged around the walls of the sea barn, throwing handfuls of scouring snow into the bay across the white-crested waves.
On a quiet Sunday, between storms, I snatched the opportunity to visit Liv, being careful to hide the wireless set before I left and make sure the antenna on the drying frame was well concealed.
Over lunch, the strain showed on Erik’s face as he described the increasingly growing pressure to teach the Nazi-approved curriculum in schools and to join a new union, created by Quisling.
“Most of us have avoided it so far. I mean, what can they do? They can’t force us to become members, can they?
” There was an uncomfortable silence around the table, broken only by the scrape of a fork against a plate.
None of us wanted to answer that question.
I hugged Liv more tightly than ever when it was time for me to leave. “Be careful,” I told her.
She pulled back a little and scanned my face, her eyes fierce with love. “You, too,” she said.
It was a clear, calm night as I rowed back across the fjord, my way lit by a frost-haloed moon.
I stopped to pull in the crab pot I’d set that morning on my way out and was pleased to find it contained a good-sized troll crab.
My good mood evaporated, though, as I rounded the skerries at the mouth of the bay.
The sight of a motor launch tied alongside the jetty made me miss my stroke with the oars.
The sound of the splash carried across the still mirror of the water, and I saw the figure standing in the moonlight at the end of the pier turn toward the noise.
He raised a hand in greeting. A visceral fear made my stomach clench, but I forced myself to stay calm, to continue to row steadily toward the beach.
As the pebbles crunched beneath the keel, Captain Stolz jumped down from the jetty to help pull in the dinghy.
“Fr?ulein Kristiansen. How nice to see you. I thought I must have missed you again.” His words made me flinch. Again? He had been here before, then, when I was away, snooping about the place. But he surely couldn’t have found anything, I told myself, or it wouldn’t only be him coming back for me.
“I was making the most of the calm day to go out and check my crab pots,” I told him. The best lies are partly true, after all.
“Ah, I see. And did you catch anything?”
I held up the troll crab. “Tonight’s supper,” I said.
“Lecker! You are very enterprising, Hanna. Do you think there might be enough for a guest, as well? Perhaps if he happened to have brought a bottle of good German wine along with him as a gift?”
Every cell in my body shrank from this man, and I felt sick at the thought of his presence in the hut again, with the wireless set hidden so close by. I wanted to shout “No! Go away!” But I forced myself to shrug and nod, because what else could I do?
He seemed to take up far too much space as he sprawled in one of the chairs, his legs in their leather boots stretched out before him, watching as I prepared the meal.
He’d set his cap on the table before him again, next to the bottle of wine he’d brought.
With a flourish of self-congratulation, he poured some into each of the two glasses I’d passed him, my fingers recoiling, like the tendrils of a sea anemone, when his brushed against them. There was no mistaking his intent.
I set down the plates of food and pulled out my chair, careful to sit opposite him, putting as much distance as possible between us. He tucked into the tender crab meat with gusto.
I hope it chokes you, I thought, picking up my own fork.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you for some time,” he said, between mouthfuls.
“I was away for most of the summer, an assignment in the south. But there have been some problems, even up in these remote areas, with a few idiots who refuse to adhere to the laws of the land, so they’ve sent me back.
There aren’t many who would volunteer to stay up here in the darkness through the winter.
I, however, had a good reason to return.
” He patted the breast pocket of his jacket.
“Wherever I go, I still carry that picture of a girl who looks just like you. I haven’t been able to forget you, Hanna. ”
He picked up his glass and raised it toward me. I pretended to be intent on chasing a shred of pickled cabbage around my plate, so that I wouldn’t have to return his toast.
He was silent for a few moments, and when I glanced up again, he was staring at me. There was a flicker of amusement in his cold grey eyes. I felt my face flush hot with annoyance.
“Do you have a boyfriend, Hanna? Some local fisherman, perhaps?”
I shook my head, dropping my gaze demurely to conceal my hatred and fear.
“I thought not. You seem to be a very independent young lady. One who prefers to keep to herself, by all accounts. It must get very lonely for you out here, in the dark months of winter. But now I am back, you will have company. We can spend some more pleasant evenings together, like this one, getting to know one another.”
He reached for the wine bottle, topped up the glass I’d hardly touched, and then refilled his own.
He took a gulp, perhaps to give himself courage, then smiled, with what I suppose he imagined to be charm, although something in his expression reminded me of a shark.
“You are very attractive, Hanna. You and I would be a most suitable match, I believe. But, I must admit, I do find you a little cold, like many Norwegian girls. With time, though, I hope you will begin to thaw a little. I can make life far easier for you, you know. You really don’t have to stay here in this primitive hut, in the middle of nowhere.
Just say the word, and I can make sure you are far more comfortable. ”
He reached across the table and took my hand, but I pulled it away and closed it into a fist in my lap.
“Still playing hard to get, eh? Well, that is entirely proper, I suppose. Luckily for you, I’m a patient man.” He picked up his glass and downed the final dregs of his wine, then got to his feet, settling his cap firmly on his head.
I stood, too, wanting to hurry him out of the hut so I could bolt the door behind him and eradicate all traces of his presence.
At the threshold, he turned and took hold of my hand once more, raising it to his lips.
Then he clicked his heels together, the sound like the crack of a whip making me wince.
“Farvel for n?, Hanna,” he said, in his heavily accented Norwegian. “See you before long.”
I watched from the window until I was sure he’d left the bay and there was nothing left of him but the gentle shimmer of moonlight on the ripples left in the wake of the launch.
Then my legs gave way beneath me, and I slid down the wall, hugging my knees into my body, making myself as small as I could.
I don’t know how long I stayed like that, but my limbs were cold and stiff by the time I got back to my feet and began clearing away the supper things.
I lay awake long into the night, staring into the darkness and, no matter how tightly I pulled the quilt around me, I was unable to get warm beneath the covers.