World War II Thriller Collection (102 page)

“Anyway, it's not as if we're shopkeepers, for heaven's sake,” Karen said airily. “I hate the Nazis, but what are they going to do to the family that owns the largest bank in the country?”

Harald thought that was stupid. “The Nazis can do anything they like, you should know that by now,” he said scornfully.

“Oh, should I?” Karen said coldly, and he realized he had offended her.

He was about to explain how Uncle Joachim had been persecuted but, at that moment, Mrs. Duchwitz joined them, and they started talking about the Royal Danish Ballet's current production, which was
Les Sylphides.

“I love the music,” Harald said. He had heard it on the radio and could play snatches of it on the piano.

“Have you seen the ballet?” Mrs. Duchwitz asked him.

“No.” He felt the urge to give the impression that he had seen many ballets, but had happened to miss this one. Then he realized just how risky it would be to fake it in front of this highly knowledgeable family. “To be honest, I've never been to the theater,” he confessed.

“How dreadful,” Karen said with a supercilious air.

Mrs. Duchwitz shot her a look of disapproval. “Then Karen must take you,” she said.

“Mother, I'm terribly busy,” Karen protested. “I'm understudying a principal role!”

Harald felt hurt by her rejection, but guessed he was being punished for speaking dismissively to her about the Nazis.

He drained his glass. He had enjoyed the bittersweet taste of the cocktail, and it had given him a relaxed sense of well-being, but perhaps it had also made him careless of what he said. He regretted affronting Karen. Now that she had suddenly cooled, he realized how much he had come to like her.

The maid who had been serving drinks announced that dinner was ready, and opened a pair of doors that led to the dining room. They walked through and sat at one end of a long table. The maid offered wine, but Harald declined.

They had vegetable soup, cod in white sauce, and lamb chops with gravy. There was plenty of food, despite rationing, and Mrs. Duchwitz explained that much of what they ate came from the estate.

Throughout the meal, Karen said nothing directly to Harald, but addressed her conversation to the company in general. Even when he asked her a question, she looked at the others as she answered. Harald was dismayed. She was the most enchanting girl he had ever met, and he had got on the wrong side of her within a couple of hours.

Afterward, they returned to the drawing room and had real coffee. Harald wondered where Mrs. Duchwitz had bought it. Coffee was like gold dust, and she certainly had not grown it in a Danish garden.

Karen went out onto the terrace for a cigarette, and Tik explained that their old-fashioned parents did not like to see girls smoking. Harald was awestruck at the sophistication of a girl who drank cocktails
and
smoked.

When Karen came back in, Mr. Duchwitz sat at the piano and began turning over the pages on the music stand. Mrs. Duchwitz stood behind him. “Beethoven?” he said, and she nodded. He played a few notes, and she began to sing a song in German. Harald was impressed, and at the end he applauded.

Tik said, “Sing another one, Mother.”

“All right,” she said. “But then you have to play something.”

The parents performed another song, then Tik fetched his clarinet and played a simple Mozart lullaby. Mr. Duchwitz returned to the piano and played a Chopin waltz, from
Les Sylphides,
and Karen kicked off her shoes and showed them one of the dances she was understudying.

Then they all looked expectantly at Harald.

He realized he was supposed to perform. He could not sing, except for roaring out Danish folk songs, so he would have to play. “I'm not very good at classical music,” he said.

“Rubbish,” Tik said. “You play the piano in your father's church, you told me.”

Harald sat at the keyboard. He really could not inflict inspirational Lutheran hymns on a cultured Jewish family. He hesitated, then began to play “Pine Top's Boogie-Woogie.” It started with a melodic trill played by the right hand. Then the left hand began the insistently rhythmic bass pattern, and the right played the blues discords that were so seductive. After a few moments, he lost his self-consciousness and began to feel the music. He played louder and more emphatically, calling out in English at the high points: “Everybody, boogie-woogie!” just like Pine Top. The tune came to its climax and he said: “That's what I'm talkin' about!”

When he finished, there was silence in the room. Mr. Duchwitz wore the pained expression of a man who has accidentally swallowed something rotten. Even Tik looked embarrassed. Mrs. Duchwitz said, “Well, I must say, I don't think anything quite like that has ever been heard in this room.”

Harald realized he had made a mistake. The highbrow Duchwitz family disapproved of jazz as much as his own parents. They were cultured, but that did not make them open-minded. “Oh, dear,” he said. “I see that was not the right sort of thing.”

“Indeed not,” said Mr. Duchwitz.

From behind the sofa, Karen caught Harald's eye. He expected to see a supercilious smile on her face but, to his surprise and delight, she gave him a broad wink.

That made it worthwhile.

On Sunday morning, he woke up thinking about Karen.

He hoped she might come into the boys' room to chat, as she had yesterday, but they did not see her. She did not appear at breakfast. Trying hard to sound casual, Harald asked Tik where she was. Uninterested, Tik said she was probably doing her exercises.

After breakfast, Harald and Tik did two hours of exam revision. They both expected to pass easily, but they were not taking any chances, as the results would decide whether they could go to university. At eleven o'clock they went for a walk around the estate.

Near the end of the long drive, partly hidden from view by a stand of trees, was a ruined monastery. “It was taken over by the King after the Reformation, and used as a home for a hundred years,” Tik said. “Then Kirstenslot was built, and the old place fell into disuse.”

They explored the cloisters where the monks had walked. The cells were now storerooms for garden equipment. “Some of this stuff hasn't been looked at for decades,” Tik said, poking a rusty iron wheel with the toe of his shoe. He opened a door into a large, well-lit room. There was no glass in the narrow windows, but the place was clean and dry. “This used to be the dormitory,” Tik said. “It's still used in summer, by seasonal workers on the farm.”

They entered the disused church, now a junk room. There was a musty smell. A thin black-and-white cat stared at them as if to ask what right they had to walk in like that, then it escaped through a glassless window.

Harald lifted a canvas sheet to reveal a gleaming Rolls-Royce sedan mounted on blocks. “Your father's?” Harald said.

“Yes—put away until petrol goes on sale again.”

There was a scarred wooden workbench with a vise, and a collection of tools that had presumably been used to maintain the car when it was running. In the corner was a washbasin with a single tap. Up against the wall were stacks of wooden boxes that had once held soap and oranges. Harald looked inside one and found a jumble of toy cars made of painted tin. He picked one up. A driver was depicted on the windows, in profile on the side window, full face on the windshield. He remembered when such toys had been infinitely desirable to him. He put the car back carefully.

In the far corner was a single-engined airplane with no wings.

Harald looked at it with interest. “What's this?”

“A Hornet Moth, made by de Havilland, the English company. Father bought it five years ago, but he never learned to fly it.”

“Have you been up in it?”

“Oh, yes, we had great rides when it was new.”

Harald touched the great propeller, at least six feet long. The mathematically precise curves made it a work of art in his eyes. The aircraft leaned slightly to one side, and he saw that the undercarriage was damaged and one tire was flat.

He felt the fuselage and was surprised to find it was made of some kind of fabric, stretched taut over a frame, with small rips and wrinkles in places. It was painted light blue with a black coachline edged in white, but the paintwork that might once have been cheerful was now dull, dusty, and streaked with oil. It did have wings, he now saw—biplane wings, painted silver—but they were hinged, and had been swung around to point backward.

He looked through the side window into the cabin. It was much like the front of a car. There were two seats side by side and a varnished wooden instrument panel with an assortment of dials. The upholstery of one seat had burst, and the stuffing was coming out. It looked as if mice had nested there.

He found the door handle and clambered inside, ignoring the soft scuttling sounds he heard. He sat on the one intact seat. The controls appeared simple. In the middle was a Y-shaped joystick that could be operated from either seat. He put his hand on the stick and his feet on the pedals. He thought flying would be even more thrilling than driving a motorcycle. He imagined himself soaring over the castle like a giant bird, with the roar of the engine in his ears.

“Did you ever fly it yourself?” he asked Tik.

“No. Karen took lessons, though.”

“Did she?”

“She wasn't old enough to qualify, but she was very good.”

Harald experimented with the controls. He saw a pair of “On/Off” switches and flicked them both, but nothing happened. The stick and the pedals seemed loose, as if they were not connected to anything. Seeing what he was doing, Tik said, “Some of the cables were taken out last year—they were needed to repair one of the farm machines. Let's go.”

Harald could have spent another hour fiddling with the aircraft, but Tik was impatient, so he climbed out.

They left from the back of the monastery and followed a cart track through a wood. Attached to Kirstenslot was a large farm. “It's been rented
to the Nielsen family since before I was born,” Tik said. “They raise pigs for bacon, they keep a dairy herd that wins prizes, and they have several hundred acres under cereal crops.”

They tramped around a broad wheat field, crossed a pasture full of black-and-white cows, and smelled the pigs from a distance. On the dirt road leading to the farmhouse, they came across a tractor and trailer. A young man in overalls was peering at the engine. Tik shook hands with the man and said, “Hello, Frederik, what's wrong?”

“Engine died on me in the middle of the road. I was taking Mr. Nielsen and the family to church in the trailer.” Harald looked again at the trailer and saw that it contained two benches. “Now the grown-ups are walking to church and the kiddies have been took home.”

“My friend Harald here is a wizard with all kinds of engines.”

“I wouldn't mind if he'd take a look.”

The tractor was an up-to-date model, with a diesel engine, and rubber tires rather than steel wheels. Harald bent down to study the innards. “What happens when you turn her over?”

“I'll show you.” Frederik pulled a handle. The started motor whined, but the engine would not catch. “She needs a new fuel pump, I think.” Frederik shook his head despairingly. “We can't get spare parts for none of our machines.”

Harald frowned skeptically. He could smell fuel, which suggested to him that the pump was working, but the diesel was not reaching the cylinders. “Would you try the starter once more?”

Frederik pulled the handle. Harald thought he saw the fuel filter outlet pipe move. Looking more closely, he saw that diesel was leaking from the release valve. He reached in and wiggled the nut. The entire valve assembly came away from the filter. “There's the problem,” he said. “The screw thread inside this nut has worn down, for some reason, and it's letting the fuel escape. Have you got a piece of wire?”

Frederik reached into the pockets of his tweed trousers. “I've got a stout bit of string here.”

“That will do temporarily.” Harald put the valve back in position and tied it to the filter with the string so that it could not wobble. “Try the starter now.”