Hanna #2
There were shouts from the guards, the sound of running feet.
Orders barked to “Stop that noise!” But the singing didn’t stop.
There was nothing they could do as, one by one, more voices joined in until it seemed that the whole prison camp was singing.
I raised myself on tiptoe at the window and sang, too, hearing Kirsten at the window next to mine.
And then, beyond that, I could make out Liv’s sweet voice, full of feeling, as we sang the final lines together, not just for Christmas Eve, but for our birthday, too.
S? skal du blive trolig her, i mitt hjerte sv?pt.
So you can stay here, faithfully wrapped in my heart.
The camp fell silent again, and I held my breath, waiting for reprisals to be meted out. But the guards must have decided there were too many of us to punish, so there were just a few more shouts as they rounded up the prisoners in the yard and sent them back to their cells.
I stayed at my window, the birch tree blurring through the tears that filled my eyes. I blinked them away as fat white flakes of snow began to fall. I stayed there, watching, as the bare branches became swathed in a mantle of white velvet, barely visible through the darkness.
*
As the weeks went by, I saw the first faint haze of green appear on the branches of the tree as spring arrived.
Liv and I were released from solitary confinement at last, either because they needed the space to punish other prisoners or because they needed more pairs of hands to labor in the fields, planting that year’s crops.
Never before had v?rf?lelse—springfulness—felt so good after months shut away from the light of day.
Liv was weak and tired, her cough still bothering her, and I was glad when they moved her back to the sewing room where Aunt Sylvia could take her under her wing once more.
I gained some small pleasure in working outdoors again, even though I was always hungry, and it was a joy to be back in a cell with Liv in the evenings.
We discovered how overcrowded the camp had become: the room with four bunks now had to accommodate eight women.
Kirsten Brunvoll, the other NN prisoner who’d been in the next-door cell in solitary, was put in the same room as us, and it was good to get to know her better and to thank her for helping us communicate.
She was older than we were and had lived not far from Oslo.
She told us she had two sons, one of whom had escaped via Sweden, but her husband and younger son had been arrested, as she had, for their involvement in the production of the illegal newspaper.
She’d hoped to find them in the camp at Grini but heard from another prisoner that they’d been sent to a camp in Germany.
In spite of everything, though, she kept all our spirits up with her keen sense of humor and her determination to be reunited with her family one day.
*
One summer’s morning, a warden flung open the door of our room and told all eight of us to gather our things together, as we were to leave on a transport to Germany in an hour’s time.
We had almost nothing to take with us, other than a shared toothbrush, a sliver of soap that Liv had somehow managed to procure, the strips of rag we tied around our waists beneath our dresses and used as washcloths on the rare occasions we were allowed a shower, and our black headscarves.
Some of the other prisoners were better off, though, with their own clothes, bags of food, and toiletries sent to the camp by their families.
We joined them in the queue in front of our block as the buses arrived.
Aunt Sylvia made sure Liv and I were on the same bus as her, alongside Kirsten, Johanna, and some of the others from the sewing room who’d been selected for this transport.
It helped a little to be with our friends, and I hoped we could stick together when we reached the other end of our journey, wherever that might turn out to be.
We were driven out through the gates of the camp and were soon passing through the outskirts of Oslo.
I pressed my face against the window, watching ordinary people going about their daily business, their heads bowed beneath the scrutiny of the German soldiers who patrolled the city’s streets.
They scarcely raised their eyes as we passed.
Did they know where these buses were taking their fellow countrymen?
Did they fear that they, too, might one day be sent away from their homes as prisoners?
We pulled up at the harbor where a ship was waiting, and a guard shouted at us to get out and line up on the quayside, the sun hot on our backs. A frightened, silent crowd stood watching from a distance.
“Hold your heads high,” Aunt Sylvia said quietly. “Show them we won’t be beaten, come what may.”
I raised my eyes to scan the faces, never expecting to recognize anyone among them, for Liv and I had no one left but each other. Then, standing a little apart from the rest of the onlookers, I saw him.
Euan was there, bearing witness, gazing straight at me, his eyes never leaving mine in the few moments before we were herded up the gangplank and onto the ship.
I was careful not to let my expression change, not to give away that I had recognized him.
But his presence steadied me. I knew we were remembered, that the authorities hadn’t succeeded in making us disappear behind their screen of Night and Fog.
I supposed there must be more commando raids planned if he was here, and that gave me hope.
Had he learned that my name and Liv’s were stitched onto the scarf Aunt Sylvia had smuggled out of the camp?
And had he managed, somehow, to get hold of a copy of the list of prisoners on this latest transport to Germany?
I had no way of knowing, but it gave me strength to see proof that the secret lines of communication still operated.
I lifted my chin a little higher as I walked up the gangway and risked one last glance back to the shore, where he stood, still watching until the very end.
We were ordered into the hold of the ship by guards with rifles and crammed into dirty pens, which stank of mold and human excrement.
It was clearly not the first time it had been used to transport such a cargo of human misery.
It was stifling down there, and the only light came from a narrow vent above us, through which I saw Oslo disappearing as the ship began to move.
At last, once we were far enough away from land, we were allowed up on deck. “Stick together, ladies,” Aunt Sylvia said, although we needed no urging. There was comfort in the bonds we’d forged in Grini camp.
It was evening, and a fine sea mist swirled around us as we strained to catch a last glimpse of the Norwegian coastline.
We saw then that our ship had been joined by a convoy of others, each one emblazoned with the insignia of the German Navy.
Kirsten came to stand alongside me at the rail.
“Do you think we are being used as protection for them?” she said.
I nodded, a grim conviction dawning. Our ship stood out among the others, and I was sure it was deliberate.
We were their safeguard against a torpedo attack, used as human shields to protect German soldiers going home on leave.
The short summer night felt as long as an entire winter when we were at risk of being attacked at any second.
But finally, we saw the coastline of Denmark appear, and then we were docking at Aarhus.
A small miracle occurred on the quay. We were herded off the ship and ordered to line up again while we awaited the arrival of more buses.
The harbor was busy with ships coming and going, and there were several vendors on the quayside hoping to sell their wares.
Aunt Sylvia spotted a woman with a basket of strawberries standing near us.
To my amazement, she reached into a hidden pocket in the lining of her coat and pulled out some money, then beckoned the strawberry seller over and bought as many as her funds would allow, sharing them out among us.
For a few, blissful moments, we stood there in the Danish sunshine, eating sweet berries like holidaymakers.
Liv and I exchanged smiles, savoring the tart juice of the first fresh fruit we’d eaten in months, each mouthful an explosion of flavor after our monotonous diet of bread, soup, and oatmeal.
We licked every last morsel from our fingers before the buses arrived and we were ordered onto them.
Those strawberries lifted our spirits all the way to the German border.
But at the crossing point, we fell silent again, apprehensive about where we were going next.
I noticed how Liv’s fingertips brushed the outline of the letters sewn onto the sleeve of her dress, and I thought she must be thinking, as I was, that here we might be made to disappear into the Night and Fog once and for all.
I threaded my arm through hers, comforting myself as well as her.
She turned to face me. “I’m sorry, Hanna. It’s my fault for getting you into this.”
“Hush,” I replied softly. “I could just as easily have got us both caught, and the outcome would have been far worse. We knew the risks. We’ve survived solitary confinement at Grini. How much worse can it get?”
It was probably a very good thing we didn’t know the answer to that question. We could never have imagined what lay ahead.
“Where do you think we’re going?” she asked, her eyes dark with fear.
I tried to smile but could feel my lips tremble. “East of the sun and west of the moon, on the far side of winter,” I replied. “But whatever happens, Liv, we will stay together. I promise.”