I Can't Begin to Tell You (27 page)

Freya had left a couple of books with the food. Wincing, he picked up one – an edition of
Niels Lyhne
by Jens Peter Jacobsen, a Danish classic. Keeping his injured arm tight against his body, he managed to flip the book open at random and read:

Something had given way in him, the night his child died. He had lost faith in himself, lost his belief in the power of human beings to bear the life they had to live …

He put it aside. He had to bear his life, here and now. There was no one else to help him.

He returned to the chest and stepped onto it. Outside, in the near distance, the lake glittered around the island in its centre. Beyond the lake stretched fields of arable land, dotted with a few cottages and clumps of trees. A couple of song thrushes sat in the tree to his right.

Directly beneath him was a terrace, paved with limestone flags. Various seats were positioned to catch the best view of the lake.

Voices sounded and Freya came into view below him. A pair of dogs pattered behind her. She was remonstrating with a tall, fair man whom he took to be her husband. They remained talking on the terrace for some time. Once, she laid a hand on his arm and he moved away. They continued to talk but at a distance.

Once or twice, Freya glanced up towards the window. She couldn’t have known that Felix was watching. All the same, it made him feel stronger.

Around noon, he manhandled the case out of the chest. What he was doing was out of order. He was putting the house in danger. But it had to be. Those were the choices in war.

Setting it up took an age. The aerial refused to obey him,
the wire coils were unruly and he had trouble adjusting the dials.

As a result, he was a few minutes late for his sked. Placing his finger on the transmitter key, he began a stumbling transmission.

Afterwards, slumped down on the makeshift bed, he told himself that he should not have done that.

In København, Hannah asked Tanne to accompany her to a meeting. ‘I can’t tell you what it’s about. Will you come?’

‘I can’t,’ replied Tanne. ‘We’ve guests coming to stay tonight. My mother has … what I mean is, I have to help out.’

A German general was staying overnight at Rosenlund and Tanne’s presence had been requested.

‘I see.’ Hannah fixed scornful eyes on Tanne. ‘Are you sure you want to run about after your mother? Don’t you think you need to be here, with us?’ She thrust a pamphlet at Tanne. ‘Take it home. Read it. Think.’

When Denmark was defeated by the Prussians in 1864, the country mourned its lost territories like lost children. To many, the country was terminally weakened. Its rulers were left fractured and indecisive, a state of mind they attempted to mask by burying themselves on their estates.

Tanne winced on reading that sentence. It was close to home.

It was a stance which underlined their refusal to face the realities. But today’s younger generation refuses to accept the oppressor and will dedicate themselves to the fight. We will mount a vigil. We will take down our arms and use them. Only one path leads to freedom and
that is the path of action
.

It was signed: Nerthus, goddess of peace and fertility.

Back at Rosenlund, Birgit had spent the day taking down the damask curtains in the hall and re-hanging the antique lace summer drapes. Tanne stopped to admire the lace waterfall spilling over the newly waxed floor.

Up
on the stair landing, she looked out of the window. Had she let Hannah down? Hannah thought so.

At this time of the year the outlines of the landscape were softening fast and sunlight traced gorgeous dancing patterns on the water.

Always … always … she loved the moment when new foliage unfurled and the spikes of wild narcissi and crocuses broke cover under the hedgerows and trees. They seemed almost unbearably green and vivid and this year, too, for some reason, she felt more aware of her surroundings, her eyes sharper. Her skin was more receptive to the texture of her clothes – the green wool skirt and tweed jacket that she favoured flowing coolly over her contours. Everything about her was mysteriously more sensitive to stimuli.

The sun was hitting the island. Apparently, in warm weather, Princess Sophia-Maria loved to be rowed out there, and in later years generations of Eberstern children had also made themselves master of its enchantments with picnics, games and sleepovers.

Presiding over the staircase, Sophia-Maria’s portrait awaited its annual dusting. Her father would fuss. Her mother would fuss. Everyone would fuss. ‘She’s only a minor royal,’ Tanne teased her father, more than once. ‘Couldn’t we have done better?’

Minor or not, Sophia-Maria – so splendid in her sumptuous court dress which, since Napoleon was ravaging Europe, was prudently embroidered with the imperial bees – held sway over this family. She had bestowed not only her ormolu clocks, jewels, furniture and china on future Ebersterns but also the constituents of her blood and her genes. In return, she apparently demanded from these innocent descendants an acknowledgement of the almost mystical link with Germany.

In her bedroom, Tanne closed the door and leaned back. Genuflecting to a past was no longer valid.

Instead,
she thought of Felix.

Who was he? In one sense, the answer was easy. A man who carried a gun, transmitted messages clandestinely and disguised himself, was a spy or a soldier. But what sort of spy or soldier, and what sort of man?

Birgit knocked and entered. She had pressed Tanne’s new blue dress and handed it over. ‘
Fru
Eberstern says you are to look your best.’

The German general and his wife were due to arrive at Rosenlund during the afternoon and to stay overnight with them. Everyone, including her mother, was tense.

Her mother …

Freya?

The English mother … with her strange quirks, such as her insistence on taking tea in the afternoons and her refusal to fight the cold in the Danish way – it had taken Kay years to accept that wearing two pairs of socks in winter boots was an efficient method of keeping the feet warm, just to cite one example. If she was honest, in her crueller moments Tanne enjoyed her mother’s discomfort when she clashed against her children’s innate Danishness and Danish sense of family.

Tanne hung up the frock in the cupboard, the wooden hangers on the rail clacking together. Then she checked herself. A sixth sense commanded her:
Hide Hannah’s pamphlet
. Placing it in a cardboard shoe box, she stowed it at the back of the cupboard.

Her mother was nowhere to be found in the house. After a search, Tanne discovered her in the stable yard backing Loki into the shafts of the pony trap which was loaded with blankets and bottles of water.

‘What on earth are you doing?’

Loki’s hooves clicked on the stones. Her mother checked the harness. ‘Thought I’d give Loki some exercise. He’s like a buttered bun.’

‘Have
you got time before the exciting general arrives?’

‘Would I be doing it otherwise?’ said her mother.

Tanne smelled a large rat: ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘If you want to go out, keep your father company, darling. He’s driving into Køge for fertilizer, if he can get it.’

‘I’m coming with you.’

‘Tanne, I would like to be on my own for a bit.’ Her mother threw the reins over Loki’s head and hauled herself up into the trap.

Tanne looked up at her. ‘The truth.’

Loki was proving skittish and her mother concentrated on controlling him. ‘Tanne, you’re meddling and you’ve no idea of … well, what you’re doing.’

‘Maybe. But try me.’

‘Keep a hold on Loki.’ Her mother put on her gloves and gathered up the reins.

Tanne grabbed at Loki’s bridle and brought him to a standstill. ‘No more evasion.’ No more of the unspoken. ‘I know and you know you’re up to something.’ She tightened her grasp on Loki. ‘I’m not letting you go,
Mor
.’ She paused for maximum effect. ‘Or should I say
Freya
?’

‘Stop it.’ A tiny bead of sweat stood out on her mother’s upper lip. ‘Tanne, you and Nils are dearer than life,’ she said. ‘This is no game and I have no time. Go away, Tanne.
Go away
…’

‘Move over.’ So saying, Tanne swung herself up beside her mother. ‘Why are you sweating?’

The reply was impassioned. ‘Listen to me, Tanne. I brought you into this world, and my great responsibility in life is to you. I have to protect you, not lead you into danger.’

‘Isn’t it a bit late for all that?’

Her mother made a noise between a sob and a laugh.

Tanne reached over and kidnapped the reins from her mother. ‘Walk on, Loki.’ Loki moved forward. ‘I’m learning that life is precarious …’

‘You’re
too young, Tanne.’

‘… Learning it fast, too. This war is dangerous. Therefore we can’t avoid danger. Where are we going?’

Her mother sounded desperate. ‘But you haven’t lived yet, or even seen the world.’

Cunning and sophistry were what Tanne needed – certainly for the new kind of morality she was discovering. ‘I was born to find my own feet.’

‘Go back to the house. Please. I couldn’t bear it if you were involved.’

Tanne shot her a look. She understood … or thought she did … that, for a parent, to work alone was much easier because it would be unendurable to watch a child suffer.

‘You have done your job,
Mor
.’ Tanne pressed home her point. ‘We can share this.’

‘God help me,’ she murmured.

It flashed across Tanne’s mind that the balance of power between parent and child was never meant to remain constant and this was the moment when it shifted.

‘Where to?’

Her mother stared ahead.

‘Where to?’

Again the noise between a sob and a laugh. ‘The steps to my office and then on to Ove’s cottage. It’s been empty since he left for Germany.’

‘Listen to me,’ said Tanne, as she concentrated on turning the trap round. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re doing but I can help and I
should
help. I know every building, every path, every fox and chicken here. Every pig. Every rut in the road. And I know them better than you.’ Her mother’s eyes glistened with sudden tears. ‘You need me. I let you baby me,
Mor
. For too long, perhaps. But it’s time to be realistic. Isn’t it?’ Her mother wiped a hand across her eyes. ‘Isn’t it?’

Her mother sighed raggedly and gave in. ‘It is, Tanne.’

The
die was cast.

‘So what’s happening?’

On viewing Felix, his arm swollen, slumped against the wall in the attic, Tanne was afraid. He looked dreadful: pallid, bruised under the eyes and unsteady on his feet. The pair of them took turns to keep watch and thus it was a slow, agonizing process to manhandle him down the steps and into the dog cart.

‘Get the case, darling …’ Her mother was hauling on the reins and Tanne gasped at its weight as she stowed it beside Felix.

Tanne took charge of the driving. ‘Go, go, Loki.’ She urged him into a brisk trot and followed the cart track around the perimeter of the lake. From time to time they hit a rut and Felix groaned. Tanne ached to hold him … help him … do anything.

Ove’s cottage came into view. It was half a mile or so from any of the other cottages and partly hidden by trees. It had been a clever choice. Versed in Rosenlund’s schedules, Tanne knew that changeover day for tenants was 1 November or 1 May so the cottage would remain empty until November.

If it was secluded, it was without running water or electricity. But Tanne was confident that, thanks to her father’s insistence on a roster of building maintenance for the cottages, it would be in reasonable condition.

But for a table and a bench, it was empty of furniture. There was not even a bed. They coaxed a by-now-semi-conscious Felix inside and laid him in the downstairs area on the floor.

Tanne fussed with a rug. ‘He needs a doctor.’

‘Not safe.’ Her mother cut her off.

Tanne was almost breathless at the thought of Felix’s discomfort. ‘But he
needs
one. Look at him,’ she pleaded. ‘Let me fetch Dr Hansen.’

‘Too risky. We don’t know what Hansen thinks.’

Fear sharpened Tanne’s tongue. ‘
You
don’t,
Mor
. We do. His
family have worked with our family forever and he’s known us all our lives. We live in the same community.’

Felix was muttering unintelligibly.

‘Hand me the other rug, will you?’ Her mother wrapped it round a restless Felix.

Tanne watched her. ‘I know we could trust Hansen.’

Hustling her into a corner, her mother hissed into Tanne’s ear: ‘You said you wanted to grow up. Yes?’ Her tone softened, and she caressed Tanne’s cheek. ‘I believe you. But have you any idea what war does to people? It’s good that you have such faith, really good. But even the best can act completely out of character and do terrible things when they or their loved ones are threatened.’

‘Doctors don’t take sides,’ Tanne said, stubborn and unconvinced.

‘I am afraid we’ve no option.’

Her mother returned to Felix. Tanne watched as she gently inserted a third rug under his wounded arm to make him more comfortable and made him drink a mouthful of water.

Her terror was that he would die – of wounds, or infection … or exhaustion.

But this wasn’t the time or place to get emotional. A flush spread over Tanne’s face, a shamed one. She and her mother had to deal with the situation and, despite never having had to face such a challenge in her privileged life before, she must rise to it.

Felix drank gratefully. ‘Do you think you can work the set?’

Her mother nodded. ‘Just.’

‘Listen carefully. “Fish, stream, light, shine and kiss”.’

‘Got them,’ she said.

‘Repeat.’

Her mother recited them almost gaily. ‘See! It’ll be fine, Felix.’

The sight of Felix trying to concentrate affected Tanne and she was forced to look away.

‘This is against every rule in the book but it’s yours now …’
He had to pause between words. ‘The poem they come from was handed to me by a bloody genius in London who would shoot me if he knew what I was doing. Use it until we organize something else, until I can get word to London.’ He moved his head restlessly. ‘But not from here. The listeners will have clocked the location. Do it somewhere else. Understand? Not here.’

‘You’re not to talk any more.’

‘Tell them we’re going off air for the time being.’

He looked so ill.

Her mother looked at her watch. Time to go. ‘I’m going to hide the wireless,’ she said. ‘Stay here with him.’

Ten minutes later she reappeared. ‘Done.’

They left Felix wrapped in the blanket.

‘The general will be here in an hour,’ said her mother as she steered Loki into the stable yard. ‘Tanne … I’ve got to get ready.’

They looked at each other – two women with traces of blood on their hands and clothing. Tanne’s throat constricted. Why hadn’t she ever seen that she and her mother were cut from the same cloth?

‘Go and change,’ she said, her mind rapidly sorting out options. ‘I’ll see to things. Tell them you’d made a mistake about me and I had been invited out to a dinner in Køge all along which I could not get out of. I’ll take food and aspirin over to him.’

Her mother raised a sceptical eyebrow.

‘
Mor
, I’m in this now.’

Maybe she could make up for the fact that so far she had shamefully ignored the reach and compass of this war?

Her mother seized Tanne’s hand. ‘Lives depend on this. Yours, his, mine.’

An hour later Tanne cycled up Køge’s main street and dismounted outside the chemist.

There
was a queue for his services. On a normal day, Tanne enjoyed watching the pharmacist deploy his dark blue medicine bottles and count out the pills.

The queue shuffled forward.

Eventually, the pharmacist turned to Tanne and she requested aspirin and antiseptic powder, explaining that the friend with whom she was having supper had cut her hand chopping the beetroot.