I Can't Begin to Tell You (21 page)

Freya
.

‘I’m
pretty sure it was Arne. I recognized his coat. He will have gone.’

‘I’m not moving until you explain,’ said Tanne.

‘Go, Felix,’ said … Freya.

The light from the door illuminated unshaven features that were grey with fatigue. All the same, Tanne acknowledged, he was a good-looking man.

A nod. Then, without another word, he picked up his cap, stuck it on his head and disappeared.

She gazed after him. ‘
Mor
, have you gone mad? No, scrub that. Have
I
gone mad?’

Her mother took Tanne’s arm, hustled her outside and fastened the door.

‘Answer me.’

‘Don’t argue. Go back to the house and wait.’

In her bedroom, Tanne found herself peering into the mirror. Did she recognize herself? She backed away to the bed, sat down on its edge and went over what had happened. Her mother, her infuriating mother, was clearly caught up in resistance work.

How blind could you be? Why hadn’t she considered what was going on out of sight months ago? The war was more than two years old and she should have been sharper and wiser. It wouldn’t have taken much wit to realize that resistance must be there. From her mother’s action over Lippiman, from what Hannah had told her last night, from what she had just witnessed, she now knew without a doubt that it
was
there.

She had been blind.

Tanne looked down at her hands. It was dawning on her that every person had to make up their own mind about where they stood.

It was then Tanne was assaulted by an unwelcome thought. Even worse than her political and moral myopia was the knowledge she had been outdone by her mother.

She dismissed that one as unworthy.

What
was she to do?

Change out of her walking trousers, for a start.

Punctuated by long pauses during which she found herself staring glassily out of the window, she hunted out a wool blouse and serge skirt.

My mother is a liar?

Again, she consulted the mirror, then picked up her hairbrush and tackled the snarls in her hair.

She was attempting to fasten the buttons at her wrist when her mother came into the bedroom and shut the door quietly behind her.

Tanne didn’t look up. ‘Don’t bother to lie to me,
Mor
.’

‘I’m not going to lie.’ Kay sat down in the antique chair upholstered in a blue-and-white stripe that had been given to Tanne by her Swedish godmother. ‘I want you to listen carefully.’

Tanne slipped on her shoes. ‘How long have you being doing this,
Mor
? This isn’t just rescuing Lippiman or distributing a few underground pamplets, is it? This is bigger, something organized.’

‘I can’t go into detail, Tanne, except to say that what you saw affects your safety and it won’t happen again. But you must understand that absolute secrecy and discretion are imperative.
Do
you understand?’

‘Last time I checked, I had a brain.’

‘Don’t joke, Tanne.’

‘Where did you get the equipment? Where are these messages going?’ She bent over to adjust her shoe. ‘Why are they being sent?’

Her mother was twisting her wedding ring round and round her finger. ‘The less you know, the less you can reveal under duress.’

‘Duress?’ Tanne’s heart gave a massive thump. ‘What are you talking about? Are you in trouble?’

‘I thought you said you had a brain?’

Tanne shrugged.

‘Use
it, Tanne. What do you think men like Juncker are capable of? Or the
Gestapomen
. Or –’ her mouth was set ‘– the SS? You’ve seen and heard what’s happening on our streets, in the prisons and …’ She sighed. ‘You know what’s being said.’

‘I’m not blind or deaf.’ Tanne was struggling with the cuff again. ‘But are
you
playing politics to annoy
Far
?’

Her mother got up and took possession of Tanne’s wrist to deal with the rogue button. Her hand was perfectly steady. ‘You don’t
play
politics in war.’ It was a quiet, but deadly, rebuke.

Angry with her mother, but angrier with herself for being so slow, so uninformed, so out of control, Tanne couldn’t resist saying, ‘Have you thought that you are putting
Far
and Rosenlund in danger?’

‘I think of nothing else.’

‘So why do it? Just because you crave a bit of adventure with a stranger?’

‘Take that back.’

There was a pause.

‘Sorry,
Mor
.’ Tanne swallowed. ‘I’m being stupid. It’s the shock of finding you … But why you?’

‘Do you want the truth? I wasn’t bold or brave or decisive. I was asked to help out once. I said yes but only the once. But it doesn’t work like that. Let that be a lesson, Tanne. One tiny step and you are sucked in.’ The grey eyes were troubled. ‘In the end, I had gone too far to turn back. But I’ve had my life. You haven’t and you
mustn’t
get involved.’ Raising Tanne’s hand to her mouth, she kissed it and pressed it to her cheek. ‘Listen to me,
min elskede
. Please.’

The gossip in København. Shootings. Killings. Prison. Torture. Death. Belief. Principle … All these were closing in on Tanne and she had to make sense of them.

Her mother was still talking: ‘… But I do believe the Nazis have to be stopped. I want to be able to say that I went to the aid of my country.’

It irritated Tanne. ‘
Your
country?’

Silence.

‘I suppose I should have known that would be your reaction.’ Her mother made for the door.

‘Stop!’ Tanne was beginning to feel desperate. ‘Please. Let’s start again. I am involved,
Mor
. I’ve seen what I shouldn’t have done. That makes me so.’

‘No, it doesn’t.’

With a snap, she opened the door and almost collided with Bror. Having returned from his morning inspection of the grounds, he had washed and changed. His hair was damp, his eyes bright from the exercise and Tanne knew he would smell of his special Berlin cologne.

‘Raised voices. Are you two quarrelling?’

He looked only at Tanne.

Tanne’s eyes encountered her mother’s. Her mother’s secrets were bad enough. The danger was frightening. Worse, was the destruction of the perfect candour between herself and her father.

From now on, Tanne could not say anything. She had to be silent.

The strain told on Tanne. Her head pounded incessantly, her eyes were inflamed from interrupted sleep and she found it an effort to concentrate on even the simplest tasks.

A few days later she drew her father aside after breakfast.

‘
Far
, the Germans are demanding a percentage of what we produce on the farms. What if we don’t declare the total dairy yields?’

They happened to be by the stairs, standing almost directly under the family tree.

Unusually, a lock of hair had fallen over her father’s face which made him look younger. ‘Are you turning militant?’

‘No, only practical. Why should they take our hard-won yields?’

‘I’m not going to discuss it.’ His silver cigarette case was
never far away, and he took it out of his pocket. ‘Tanne, I’m planning a duck shoot. Do you want to come?’

Childhood memories springing up from the time when she craved nothing more than to be with her father, tucked up in a hide, or wading through the marsh. Riding across the fields, wind stippling the water, the ever-changing cloud shapes. Their whispered asides. Mud, salty marsh, sappy, whippy grass. At the end of a hard session, the exhaustion which flooded, sweet and lovely, through the body.

‘No, thank you,
Far
.’

‘Not shoot?’

She bit down on her lower lip. ‘With everything that’s going on, I don’t see duck-shooting in the same way.’

He shrugged but she knew that he was offended. ‘No discussion? Shooting duck is over? Just like that?’ He turned away. ‘If that is what you wish.’

She wasn’t going to let this go. Calculating that, in the end, her father would not ignore anything which affected Rosenlund, she said, ‘
Far
, you haven’t answered my question. The dairy yields?’

Tanne was right. He took a moment and then refused to answer the question directly: ‘There’re more ways of skinning a cat than the obvious. I was thinking of ploughing up the south meadow to try for extra crops next year to make up the shortfall.’

He smiled down at her. ‘The Protectorate is not going away and, whatever the bad history between Danes and Germans, we remain cousins.’ He pointed to the family tree. ‘Think of Sophia-Maria.’

‘Even if the Nazis are wrong,
Far
?’

‘Ah, so … I can see what you are thinking. The wind is changing. Am I right?’ He extracted a cigarette from the case and a fleck of tobacco drifted to the floor. ‘Tanne, I could support your idea by falsifying the figures, but I would be putting Rosenlund at risk.’

Tanne
forced herself to look at him but her thoughts were elsewhere.

Messages needed to be sent … to whom and when?

He continued, with a touch of impatience. ‘It wasn’t possible for Denmark to defend itself. We didn’t have the troops and the border is easy to cross. Why not save lives and negotiate? Why not ensure that Rosenlund survives. For you.’

Perhaps her father was right and life could continue as normal? Practicality. Pragmatism. Wasn’t the first duty of life to survive it? Planted in the human spirit was an ineradicable will to live. The images which now haunted Tanne rose in her mind … Hannah’s pale contorted face as she described how her brother had fled from the police, the dead cyclist, his blood on her legs and trickling between the cobblestones …

‘What if I don’t want it?’

‘Tanne. Please.’

‘What if the price isn’t worth it?’

‘Because you’re young, my darling daughter, you can’t see it. When I die, you will be thankful for this.’

Tanne watched him take the stairs two at a time. At the top he turned round. ‘But don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of years left in me yet.’

For a moment, his hand rested on the rail.

How lonely he seemed. Even with her mother by his side, he had always been a bit of a stoic.

But it didn’t make him right.

Tanne fled back to København for a few days, calculating that different faces, different places would give her breathing space.

Arriving in the afternoon, she discovered that Grete and Hannah were tied up until the evening. No matter. She made her way to a favoured spot: the gardens of the Rosenborg Palace.

Fireworks, bonfires and any midsummer celebrations had all been banned for the coming year, but the Københavners didn’t
appear to be too depressed about these restrictions on their national life. In fact, they appeared to enjoy flouting the regulations and had come out in droves to enjoy a pale spring sunshine and to mill about in large groups. Well wrapped up, Tanne settled herself on a sunny seat to watch one particular group drinking beer and singing songs of an increasingly patriotic nature, while elsewhere there were deals being done, arguments taking place, lovers meeting and families taking pleasure in being together.

She spotted a German soldier exchange a packet of cigarettes for shaving soap with a man in a brown suit, and a youth in a
HitlerJugend
shirt helping a mother with a screaming toddler.

Ordinary things. Ordinary life. Yet, not.

‘Look at this …’ cried a blonde girl in a green overcoat, clapping a beanie hat with British RAF colours onto her head.

Within seconds, a couple of Danish police surrounded the girl. One of the policemen grabbed her wrist. She tried to wrest it out of his grasp.

Tanne got up.

Move away, Tanne
.
Survive
.

Not honourable. Pragmatic, though, if … if … she was to work for Denmark’s freedom.

The girl’s friend froze with a biscuit held halfway to her mouth, watching as a German
feldgendarme
materialized out of the crowd and ordered the blonde girl to her feet.

She was now sobbing.

The
feldgendarme
gestured towards the exit and the Danish police dragged the girl away, leaving an upended bottle of beer to soak into the grass where, only a moment ago, she had been happily chatting with her friend.

A veil dropped over the promise of the day. In its place was a sourness. Those closest to the incident were rattled and anxious. A woman in a headscarf hustled away her two children. Others headed out of the gardens.

Tanne
edged her way towards the exit. At the Kronprinsessegade gate, a man stood aside to let her through. He was wearing horn-rimmed spectacles and his skin looked an unhealthy greyish colour. Even so, she recognized him.

‘Felix.’

He turned on his heel and walked swiftly away but she ran after him. ‘You were with my mother.’ That brought him to a halt. ‘Who are you? Tell me.’

His gaze shifted up and down the street. ‘Shut up, please.’

‘Tell me, then.’

Felix came to a decision. ‘Turn down Dronningens Tværgade and at the junction with Bredgade there is the Café Amadeus. Order a coffee.’

This was a dream. This was real. She had strayed into a Hans Christian Andersen’s fantasy. A bubble lodged itself in her chest. Excitement? Laughter? No, surely not laughter. More a sense that she was arriving at a place which she hadn’t known existed.

The coffee was in front of her when Felix arrived and slid in beside her on the banquette. She circled it with her hands. ‘You look different.’

‘It’s amazing what glasses and a bit of dust on the skin can do.’ His eyes moved restlessly around the room. ‘Don’t make it obvious but the man who has just come in … what’s he doing?’

‘What?’

Gathering her wits, Tanne bent down to adjust her shoe and sneaked a look. The man? Elderly, almost befuddled-looking, with a wispy beard. He had ordered a beer. He was watching them. She fiddled again with her shoe and straightened up. ‘He’s watching us.’

Felix leaned towards her. ‘Kiss me.’

Not for one second did she hesitate. His mouth was alien and not at all passionate. Up close, his skin under the dust was smooth and fresh and she breathed in an unfamiliar scent.