The Fragile Hour (30 page)

“
You should have tried me!” she protested.

“
I didn’t want to risk any divisions between us.” He shrugged ruefully. “I didn’t know then that war itself would keep us apart for a time.”

“
I hadn’t expected it either,” she said in a quieter tone, able to accept that he had wanted no dissension between them. “Tell me about those visits to Munich in your school holidays. The rest of us were always told it was to improve your knowledge of the language and that you stayed with a schoolmaster and his wife and family.”

“
That was correct, but it wasn’t known that he was my late father’s brother. The reason was that my adoptive mother wanted nobody to know I was not her own child, but then she was a very possessive woman. Her husband understood and he knew I needed to grow up free of maternal manacles. He also thought I had a right to know my own people.”

“
Early on you used to bring back snaps you’d taken with your box camera,” she said reminiscently, remembering how she had envied those who had been with him. “Mostly of children of about your own age swimming or diving or on picnics. There were lots of their pets too. There was one of you with a parrot.”

He
raised his eyebrows. “You remember that? Yes, there were plenty of good times. My uncle was a beer-swilling, humorous man and I liked him. I suppose I knew from what was said that he was in the Nazi Party, but it meant nothing to me then. It was the same with his sons being in the Hitler Youth, which seemed no different to me from the Boy Scout Movement. My German origins enabled me to take part with my cousins in the competitive sports, and sport was everything to me as you know.”

Anna
nodded. “I can see how it must have seemed all right to you when you were a boy. After all, the rest of the world didn’t sound any alarms at first, but what about later on?”

“
I’d come through it all unscathed, although by that time all my German friends were Nazis and I had begun to see what was really happening there. It made me realise the urgent need for a stronger government here that would be prepared for whatever might come in the future. That was when I began to have political aims myself and, of course, I was outspoken with my radical ideas, which didn’t please a lot of people, including Fru Johansen.”

Anna
experienced a renewed stab of grief at her aunt’s name. “I think you made amends for that in what you did for her recently.”

“
I hope so. Perhaps she would have been more tolerant in the past if she’d understood my concern that Norway had continued too long following its own ways on the fringes of world affairs. Not that I had foreseen the violence that was to come, the King’s defiance or the bloodshed. As soon as the Resistance was formed I volunteered and told them everything, just as I’ve told you.” Nils put aside the glass he was holding and leaned towards her. “You and I belong to two nations, but,” he added vehemently, “Norway will always come first with me.”

“
I think I’ll always be equally divided,” Anna answered, as she stood up. “I’d better dress for dinner as if this were an evening like any other for the officers of this camp.”

“
But it’s already been different for us in more ways than one. We’ve had a talk that we should have had a long time ago.” He rose to put his hands on her shoulders and kiss her lips softly, restraining himself from taking her mouth as he would have wished. As he drew away from her, he saw that her eyes were closed and her lashes wet with tears.

He
kissed her lids. “What’s the matter?” he asked tenderly.

She
looked up at him. “Being here. Our talk. Karl in that dreadful place. Losing Aunt Rosa.” Her voice was choked. “For a moment I felt lost.”

“
You can never be that with me.” He went with her to the door, his arm about her waist, and watched her go upstairs before returning to his whisky. He felt anxious about her.

At
the head of the stairs and out of Nils’s sight Anna had halted, gripping the newel post as if her legs might give way. A dreadful suspicion had laid hold of her while Nils had been talking and she could not drive it away. When he had kissed her she had felt as if she were saying farewell to all the dreams and joys she had shared with him in the past.

Drawing
herself up, she went into her room and closed the door, leaning back against it for a few moments. She had unpacked when up here before and spread on the bed was the black georgette dinner gown with a
Christina
label that she had put ready to wear. Going across to it she pushed it aside and sat down, trying to cope with everything that seemed to be falling into place.

She
herself had sparked it off unwittingly by remembering his collection of childhood snaps. It had led in her own mind to others he had taken as a young man of harbours and inlets of the coast and fjords with an expensive German camera he had brought back with him. All of them would have been helpful to those planning the invasion that had come from every vital point along the whole coastline.

There
was so much more coming back to her now. She recalled how she would have been caught in that first Bergen sortie if Nils had not seen her with Karl and feared that she might be involved in it. He had been able to warn them of the German guards being trebled at the factory only because he had alerted the enemy to the forthcoming sabotage raid in the first place!

Then
there was the time she had met him in Tresfjord Church. He had said he was hiding after an act of sabotage had gone wrong, but most surely he had been responsible for that failure or else the Germans would not have released him so quickly. All of it had been planned carefully to avoid his becoming suspect to the Resistance.

Her
thoughts raced on. He had waited until she had left the Alesund hotel before giving away her friends to the enemy. Again to protect her he had tipped off the Gestapo about the patriots at the next hotel with whom she was to have carried out further Resistance work. Finally she herself had told him that Karl would be on the Oslo to Bergen train! Involuntarily she pressed the back of her hand against her mouth as if it were still possible to hold back that deadly information that had been given on trust. She had thought she knew Nils through and through, but she had never known him at all.

Automatically
Anna went through the procedure of getting ready for the evening, which she dreaded now more than ever. She almost wept with angry frustration, her nerves strained, when she found the back of the dinner gown almost impossible to hook up.

Nils
’s voice came from outside the door. “Are you all right, Anna? You’ve been a long time.”

“
I can’t fasten my dress,” she answered fiercely through her teeth, wanting him to keep away, but he came into the room.

“
I’ll do it.”

She
was already turned away from him, the ivory ‘V’ of her back exposed, her shining hair white-gold in the light. His ever-present desire for her gripped him. Instead of hooking up the dress, he slid his hands into it, cupping her firm round breasts and rediscovering her responsive nipples as he kissed the nape of her neck lovingly.

“
I’ve waited so long for us to be close again as we were before.” His voice was heavy with need. “We’re together again, my darling. I couldn’t live without you. You’re in my blood, my bones, my very guts! How lovely you feel!” A groan of yearning escaped him. “I want to kiss your breasts and every part of you.”

“
No, Nils!” she protested sharply, wanting to scream at him in her rage at all he had done to betray a country that had made him one of its own. His breath was warm as he nuzzled her neck, one of his hands sliding further down her body to hold her between her legs. She tried to jerk away. “Let me go!”

He
was deaf to the warning in her taut voice, elated that she was in his embrace, knowing her sensuality and confident that she would melt under his caresses as she had always done, now that they were alone and beginning again. “I love you more than ever!”

He
swept her round and his mouth drove passionately into hers as he held her arched against his demanding body. With his free hand he pulled her gown to her waist and tugged it over her hips until it tumbled about her feet. As he caught her about the thighs to carry her with him to the bed, she resorted to methods she had not wanted to use.

He
released her instantly with a shout of excruciating pain and staggered back to thump against the wall. “Why the hell did you do that?” he yelled furiously, shock and disbelief on his agony-contorted features.

She
went to rescue the gown from the floor. “I didn’t want to hurt you!” she gave back, her fury equal to his, “but it’s time you faced facts. I don’t know any more than you if Karl will live after all he’s been through, but even if I lose him I’ll go on loving him for the rest of my life! Neither you nor anyone else can ever take his place! Now leave me alone!”

He
glared at her in his rage before he went, slamming the door behind him with such force that the whole building seemed to shake. She stared at her own stark, white face in the mirror. He had finally accepted that he had lost her.

Anna
waited until she heard the dinner guest arrive before going downstairs. She had not attempted to hook up the dinner gown again and had put on a short green dress that was easy to fasten. In her fish-skin handbag she had her gun, never knowing when she might have to use it in an emergency.

She
saw Nils before he saw her. He was pouring a drink for the
Oberleutnant
. He turned with the glass and their eyes met. His were as cold and hard as Arctic ice.

Anna
felt a great quaking fear strike at her. Suppose Nils intended to let the destruction of the camp go ahead? He had betrayed so many. Maybe he had volunteered for this sortie to make sure that it happened, and that Karl, in particular, with all the other prisoners who had fought against the Nazi regime were wiped out together.

“
Come in, Anna,” Nils said in an expressionless voice. “I’d like you to meet Oberleutnant Ulman.”

The
officer was a large, overweight man with a broad face, narrow, dark eyes and a fleshy mouth. As the introductions took place he clicked his heels, bowed to Anna and kissed her hand.

“
It’s a pleasure to be in your company for the evening,
fraulein
.”

Anna,
having been used to making conversation with German officers at the Alesund hotel, knew how to talk to him on non-controversial subjects. Nils contributed, but did not look fully at her at any time. His hostility seeped towards her, but Ulman was unaware of it.

Dinner
was served in the
Kommodant’s
dining-room on a table laid with white damask, lighted candles and fine Norwegian silverware. Anna kept her handbag with her and put it on the floor beside her chair. Outwardly she appeared relaxed, but she was alert to every nuance in the men’s voices, as if seeking clues to what might have been plotted between them without her knowledge.

Ulman
was enjoying himself. There had been certain indications that he was winning favour with the new
Kommodant
and that could lead to promotion. If Reichskommissar Terboven continued the war from Norway, he hoped that this man would stay on and Horwitz be invalided home. As for this evening, there was good wine to compensate for the rationed food and a beautiful woman, whom he believed he had impressed.

It
was as he was about to take up his wine glass again that there came a commotion outside and the camp klaxon blared out the arranged signal. His glass tipped over, flooding the table with red wine, and he sprang to his feet to rush and pull the black-out back from the window. Every floodlight in the camp was blazing.

“
The war must be over!” he gasped. “The lights can only mean that Reichskommissar Terboven has decided to surrender too!”

As
if to confirm what he had said, the door was flung open and a young officer rushed in, despair in his face.

“
The Fatherland has surrendered unconditionally,
Herr
Kommodant
! Armed civilian men with armbands have been seen from the lookout tower advancing on the camp! The Resistance is coming in already to take over!”

Nils
had not moved and did not even turn his head. “My orders are that every man lay down his weapons and there is to be full co-operation with the Norwegian in command.”

“
Yes, sir.” The officer rushed out again. Cheering was beginning to resound from the prisoners in the camp.

Anna
tilted her head back in thankfulness. She was full of joy. The fragile hour in which Norway could still have been held in an iron first was over too. Karl was safe! As soon as the Resistance arrived she would go to him!

She
looked at Nils and then rose slowly to her feet in growing concern. He still had not moved and sat staring fixedly at Ulman, who had turned away from the window to face him. Neither of them noticed that she drew her gun from her handbag and held it down at her side.