Hanna #3
We went back to the hut to wait for nightfall, busying ourselves with washing the blood from the rug and the walls of the hut. I heated water so that Liv could wash every last trace of him from her body, then burned her torn clothing, which I knew she’d never want to wear again.
I took the book of sagas from the shelf and turned the pages until I found the passage I was looking for.
An axe age, a sword age, when shields are broken.
I remembered Per quoting those words to me, that last time I’d seen him.
Well, I thought, Ragnarok is still raging.
But we have survived today to fight on. The memory of him, and of what his fate had been, gave me the strength to do what had to be done, as I carefully placed the sketch between the pages and closed the book.
In the darkness, we made our way back to the jetty.
Liv came behind me in the dinghy while I steered the launch out beyond the skerries to the deepest part of the fjord, where the tidal flow is the strongest. It took all my strength to heave the body overboard, letting the blanket unfurl, the stones in his pockets committing him to the depths of the kelp beds and the keeping of the sea goddess Rán.
I handed the bundled-up blanket to Liv, then clambered awkwardly into the dinghy as she held it steady.
I’d left the launch’s engine running and gave it a push out into the channel.
The tide would carry it down the fjord so that, when it was finally found, it would be some way off, washed up on some rocks, perhaps, with nothing to link it to us.
We were silent at first, as we rowed back to the bay.
The night was filled with stars, but then a shimmer erased them.
“Look,” I whispered, and Liv turned her bruised face toward the heavens.
Skeins of green light began to dance above us, sweeping from beyond the mountains to fill the sky with their soft brilliance, bathing us in their glow.
It felt like a blessing, just when we most needed one.
I wished the lights could wash away our pain, absolve our guilt.
I wished we were children again, that we could go back to the beginning, before the war, climb into our parents’ arms and feel safe.
As if she’d read my mind, Liv said softly, “Remember how Pappa used to tell us they are a bridge between the earth and the realm of the gods? Perhaps they’re taking the soul of that man. I hope so. He was some mother’s son, after all.”
We rowed on in silence again for a few strokes, and then she said, “I hate this war with all my heart. How it has taken so many. What it has done to us. Do you think we can survive it, Hanna?”
“We will survive it. We have to.” I pulled hard on my oar, turning the bow of the boat toward the bay. “I’m sorry I killed him. I would never want to take a life. But if it was a choice between you and anyone else, I’d do the same again.”
The heavenly ballet above us grew more brilliant, the dancing lights weaving and intertwining, like long strands of hair blown on a cosmic wind.
Liv spoke again, at last. “He thought I was you, Hanna. He talked about his previous visits. Then he said it was your duty to give him a pure-blooded Aryan child…and that there are places in Germany where you could go, where such children can be raised properly. When I tried to protest, he grew angry. He said you’d played games with him long enough, and now he was going to take what was rightfully his.
” Her voice was gentle, her words lacking bitterness.
“Did he…?” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I hoped against hope that I’d got there in time, that she’d been able to fend him off, her scream of “No!” still ringing in my ears.
“I tried to fight him off. But he raped me, Hanna.” Her tone was as gentle as ever, but the bluntness of the words felt like a brutal blow.
I slumped over my oar, unable to go on, and a sob escaped me, rising like a bubble of air from deep in the sea.
She stopped rowing too then, laying her hand on my arm. “Don’t, Hanna. I was glad it was me, not you. At least I saved you from that.”
I rested my head against her shoulder, feeling completely exhausted, and we let the boat drift into the bay.
Beneath us, the water reflected the aurora, wavelets aglow with tongues of purple and green that licked the sides of the boat until the tide carried us onto the beach.
The crunch of the pebbles brought us to our senses.
We pulled the boat up alongside the sea barn and put away the oars.
As we walked toward the hut, Liv asked, “What did you do with the gun?”
“It’s safely hidden again,” I replied.
“Okay,” she said. “But tomorrow, you will show me where it is and teach me how to use it. In case next time I have to save you.”
I glanced back over my shoulder toward the barn, giving a shiver of apprehension at the thought of a “next time.” The northern lights had faded now, leaving only a faint green glow in the sky above the hills, the stars pinpricks in the dark as they reappeared, one by one.
We shared a mattress that night, and I held her in my arms, trying to give her comfort and quell the shudders that ran through her, like storm squalls.
She fell into a troubled sleep, at last, but I lay awake staring at the ceiling of the hut.
The night smelt of damp wool from the rug, which we’d spread back in place over the trapdoor in the floor to dry in the heat from the stove.
Liv whimpered in her dreams. Although we’d burned the blanket and cleaned away every last vestige of Captain Stolz, his presence was like a miasma, hanging in the air.
A reminder, impossible to wash away, that we remained in mortal danger here.