I Can't Begin to Tell You (4 page)

Bror had returned from the fishing trip on Jutland in the late afternoon just over a week after Kay’s meeting with Anton in Køge’s market place.

Halfway down the lime walk, Kay heard the sounds of his arrival. The dogs did, too, and they set up a howling before circling behind Kay and disappearing back to the house.

Kay did not follow them to greet him as she once might have done.

Instead, she continued down to the lake and stood and watched the water, which always gave her great delight. An eddy at the water’s edge – stirred by the colony of eider duck which had landed further out towards the island – shook the pebbles in a frail replica of a tide.

Undecided, anxious, unsure … was she being sucked back and forth over the pebbles like the lake water?

The slanting autumn sun struck its surface and the ray split into shades of white and blue. Underneath, the stones were outlined with extraordinary clarity.

It wouldn’t be long before Bror came to find her.

Correct. Five minutes or so later the dogs came pattering up and his figure could be seen walking down the lime walk. It was a matter of moments before he reached her, caught her up and kissed her.

‘I’m back,’ he said unnecessarily. ‘Miss me?’

‘Yes.’

Good at reading her, he took a cue from her expression. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I want to talk to you.’

Placing a finger under her chin, he up-tilted her face. ‘Do
that. It’s been a long, lonely journey. Lots of spot checks. Soldiers all over the place. Not much to eat.’

How familiar he smelled with the mix of his cologne – ordered regularly from the shop in Berlin, for nothing else would do – the rough tweed of his jacket and just the lightest tang of male sweat.

She stepped away from him, which alerted him.

‘I take it this is serious.’

England
, she thought.
Bandits in the shadows
. ‘Did you sign the Declaration?’

The blue eyes narrowed. ‘Who’ve you been talking to?’ There was a pause. ‘I see, Anton.’

‘Not exactly. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Anton should be less loose-tongued. He has an axe to grind and he likes to cause trouble.’

‘What axe?’

Bror said in level tone. ‘He’s also a womanizer.’

‘Are you seriously telling me Anton thinks he’ll seduce me by telling me that?’ She squared up to Bror. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘No, it isn’t. Make me understand this … Why have you sold us to the Nazis? I understand your feeling and affections for Germany. I share many of them. I like your Munich relations. I know my children have German blood in them and I have always been proud of it … but Hitler is mad. And so are the idiots around him. Actually, I take that back. They can’t be idiots because they seem to be quite effective. But they’re evil.’

Tails at full mast, the dogs shot out from a clump of bulrushes. Bror snapped his fingers at Sif. ‘Down, girl.’

Kay turned away. ‘Don’t put us in the wrong, too. Think about the Americans having come in with the Allies. The situation can’t be that bleak for you to do this, not as bleak as it was at the beginning of the war.’

‘But
they are bleak,’ he said. ‘We can’t ignore it. Communists are being rounded up –’

‘And you agree with all that?’

That angered him. ‘Don’t treat me like a fool, Kay.’ He stuffed his hands into his pockets. ‘Listen to me, the Reich is a very efficient machine, perhaps the most efficient the world has seen. It will win. We Danes have an advantage because the Nazis think we share in their Aryan brotherhood rubbish. I think we have to capitalize on it to save lives.’

Up in the sky, flying low, a plane screamed across the house and lake. The noise was ear-splitting … and, somehow, barbaric. Furiously, she pointed at it. ‘Your friends.’

Bror didn’t bother to look up. ‘Well, let’s hope for everyone’s sake it isn’t a British bomber.’ He paused. ‘We will have to get used to the noise of planes.’

In spring, the patch of bulrushes which the dogs had taken themselves into was ring-fenced for the nesting birds, but now, in autumn, the huge spiky seed cases were stiffening in the cold. Bending down, Bror traced the outline of a seed head. ‘I’ve signed the Declaration of Goodwill to the Occupier. The Minister of Agriculture drafted it and asked the landowners to endorse it.’ He straightened up. ‘I did it to protect you, the children, Rosenlund.’ He was addressing her back. Almost pleading. ‘It will keep us safe, Kay.’

At that, she turned and grabbed the lapels of his jacket. ‘But you didn’t consult me! I would never have said yes. Never.’ She tugged hard. ‘
Why
didn’t you ask me?’

‘I didn’t because it’s difficult for you.’ Kay was silent. ‘Do I need to point it out? I wanted to spare you.’

She pushed him away and stamped her foot down hard. A shower of grit rose and pattered back to earth.

‘Think about it, Kay. The minute war was declared we, the Danes, lost half our export market – our market with the British. How do we make it up? We have to eat and earn money. There’s always the risk of social unrest if trade and production
fall. People will starve. The Germans want our food, our meat, our expertise. That need will keep Denmark going until the war is over.’

‘If the Nazis are beaten, your name will be on that document, Bror.’ A piece of grit had fallen into her shoe and she concentrated on its sharp sting.

‘Here …’ He had noticed. ‘Lean on me.’ Kay unlaced the shoe, took it off and knocked out the grit. Bror continued: ‘The community has to survive and I have to try to make sure it does. Not taking extreme positions will serve us better.’

She shoved her foot back into the shoe and knelt down. ‘What about German morality? You can’t just march about Europe invading every country that takes your fancy.’ The bow wouldn’t tie and she yanked at the laces.

‘You British are special …’ He was stepping carefully but not carefully enough. ‘But you’re islanders, Kay, and it influences how you see the rest of the world. The Germans and the British are always at each other’s throats. Danes are more practical and less ambitious in that respect. We prefer to endure and put our heads down.’

The soil under her knee was brown and green, and strewn with pebbles, but they blurred with the onset of her fury. Whipping to her feet, she said: ‘Do you know what you have just done?’

‘You’re going to tell me.’

Her voice shook. ‘You’ve just told me I don’t belong here. But I’ve lived here longer than I lived in England. Remember that.’

‘Kay …’

Bror put out a hand to restrain her but she dodged out of reach. Turning on her heel, she left him gazing over the flat, shiny water.

It was easy enough to avoid him for the rest of the day. Inviting herself to supper with an artist who was currently renting a cottage in Køge and with whom she had made friends, she made sure she was out of the house until bedtime as well.

Returning
home at ten-thirty or so, she went straight upstairs to their pretty yellow-and-white bedroom. There she sat at the dressing table brushing her hair with hard, determined sweeps that set her teeth on edge.

Bror entered.

She glanced up. Ignoring her protest, he prised the brush away. ‘My job, I think.’

When he brushed her hair, there was no need for explanations, or even talk. She had learned the signs. Short, sharp strokes indicated Bror was agitated – probably something to do with the farms or the house. Slow, hypnotic ones told her all was well. Often, the brushing of Kay’s hair was the signal he wanted her.

By the same token, if Kay held herself stiffly, or did not respond, he knew he had reparations to make. If she relaxed – easing back against the chair – he might abandon his task to kiss her neck.

These were the signals between them which made up a coded language they both understood. It contained their marital world: their jokes and teases, their angers, their desire for one another and, until recently, their mutual understanding.

She closed her eyes. Bror was so gentle – but then he always was with animals, with children, with her.

Drawing the bristles through the long, blonde strands, he said at last, ‘Kay, it’s war and we have Tanne and Nils to consider.’

‘Oh, so it isn’t Rosenlund that’s your main concern?’

He slapped the brush down on the glass top of the dressing table.

‘Do you mean to be so childish?’

She picked up the brush and pressed it back into his hand. ‘Then don’t tell me I don’t belong here. Ever.’

It was Bror’s turn to apologize. ‘I was clumsy.’

‘Thank you.’ He caught up a handful of her hair and she asked in a low voice: ‘Have you any idea how you hurt me?’

‘Very much, I expect.’ He teased the brush through a lock of
hair – and the strokes seemed to replicate themselves up and down her body. He shifted closer. ‘You and I must decide how to get through the war. Together.’

She got to her feet and folded back the lace-edged top sheet on the bed. The under sheet was pulled taut and inviting over the softest mattress topping that Denmark could manufacture. She looked up at him. ‘Yes, we must.’ She removed her dressing gown. ‘But you have made it difficult.’

Bror shrugged. ‘That’s the burden I shall have to carry. I couldn’t do otherwise.’

‘Not even for me?’

‘It was for you. And the children.’

She stared at him. ‘But we have to think about the bigger issues.’

He sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Survival is a very big issue and I know you’ll say, “But not survival at any price”, and it’s a good argument. We’ve never had to face starvation, or brutal retribution, and others do, but we have a duty to survive, too. Kay …’ He was sad, sorry, determined, reasonable, and, suddenly, much older. ‘Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. It’s far harder to take what some might consider the coward’s path.’ He looked down at his clasped hands and said simply, ‘I know that’s what you think.’

There was a long, horrible silence.

Do I help Anton? Do I not?

Coward.

‘Come here, Kay.’

After a moment, she obeyed. He stood up and began to ease off her nightdress.

‘No,’ she said, resisting. ‘Not while we’re like this.’

‘Please,’ he said. ‘Let us try. It’s a way of understanding.’

They knew so well how they both responded, and what they wanted from each other. This time, Bror was determined to make her part of who he was and what he felt for her – and she slipped into the old pleasures, as she had done so many times.

At
the finish, however, Kay was no clearer on what to do.

Bror raised himself up onto an elbow. ‘Kay, please remember …’ He was searching for the right nuance. ‘… it hasn’t just been me and Rosenlund. It’s been you, too. You’ve been part of it and I couldn’t have done it without you. We’ve been a partnership.’

‘ “Why aren’t we in the fight?” these Danes will ask. And “What can we do?” ’ reiterated Anton in her ear.

She turned her head on the pillow to look at him and the lazy, sensual, miasmic aftermath of sex disappeared. To her distress, she was looking at a man she wasn’t sure she recognized. ‘A war changes people and things. Bror … you signing the Declaration has changed the situation … That’s what I feel …’ She twisted the sheet between her fingers. ‘I won’t mention it again but, if we are to be truthful, I must say.’

He rolled over and kissed her. It was a rough, hard gesture. ‘And you not supporting me,’ he pointed out. ‘That changes things, too.’

After he fell asleep, Kay remained awake, her fingers bunched up into her palms. War had a long reach. Being innocent of what that meant did not spare anyone from its malignity. Bror had never disappointed her, never let her down … never let anyone down as far as she knew. Now, he had.

She must deal with it.

Her imaginings were as vivid and disturbing as they usually were in the small hours. She brooded over her weeping mother, the beatings, the violence, the Nazis’ rape and pillage, the death of decency. In particular, she thought of the young girl standing on a platform on a railway station with her death warrant by her feet.

The mind could not absorb too much at once – or, at least, not hers. Picking through the pros and cons, she reminded herself that any big decision was riddled with conflict and, possibly, contradictions. When fear of being caught had to be added to
the mix then … then the terrors and complications threatened to be overwhelming.

Early the next morning Anton telephoned and caught Kay at her most fatigued and fragile. ‘I need help,’ he said. ‘You’re my last resort. I was going to send flowers to someone but she’s gone away. They are so beautiful that I don’t want to waste them. Can I send them to you?’

Irresolute, she clutched the telephone receiver.

‘Kay … ?’ Anton adopted the wooing tone. ‘They will go to waste.’

Bror’s pragmatism wasn’t enough.

Bandits operating in the shadows
.

She heard herself say in a perfectly normal voice: ‘How lovely.’

‘I’m not quite sure when. It could be tomorrow, or one of the following two days,’ he said. ‘Just as soon as I can get hold of the gardener. He usually manages to deliver things between five and six p.m. But if he hasn’t after three days, then he won’t because the flowers will be past their best.’ There was a pause. ‘By the way, darling, the birches down by the lake look very fine this year, particularly those just by the oak. You know the one.’ There was another pause. ‘I meant to ask you the other day if you’ve read Steinbeck’s
The Moon is Down
? You should, it’s very good, even in translation. Do ask your visitors about it and see if I’m right.’

The following afternoon, a bouquet of autumn blooms in arterial reds, marmalades and the deep black-red of a dahlia arrived for Kay.

Their spicy, piquant scent hinted of soil and sun, which never failed to delight Kay. She bore them off to the vase room and, while she arranged them, she tried to make sense of the intelligence which Bror had given her over the telephone.

One agent coming in. Wait for up to three days in the birch wood by the oak tree. The password is
…