The Second Winter (23 page)

At the top of the stairs, Lise slowed to let the other cousins go ahead of them. Most of the rooms occupied by the children were in another wing from the one where Ludvig had placed Oskar. Oskar hadn’t realized it, but his uncle wanted him where he could keep an eye on him — and away from his own children. Lise squeezed Oskar’s fingers as they watched the other cousins scurry down the wide hallway. The tallest girl’s blond hair bounced up and down as she ran. She shrank as she got farther away — that is how long the corridor was — and her voice receded into an echo. Only Wilhelm remained with them. He wasn’t about to let his sister cozy up to this dirty peasant. Lise eyed her brother, then yanked Oskar closer. She stood on her toes to whisper in his ear. “I’m not tired yet. Are you?”

“What are you saying to him?” Wilhelm demanded.

Lise strained to bring herself closer to Oskar’s ear. “I’ll pretend to go to my room. Meet me back here in five minutes, okay?”

Oskar gave Lise a quick hug. “Good night, then,” he said.

She looked up at him, uncertain whether he was rejecting her plan or furthering it with a ruse. “Did you hear what I said?” she whispered, loudly enough for her brother to hear as well.

Oskar gave a stray lock of her hair a gentle tug. “And good night to you, too,” he said to Wilhelm. “It was good to meet you.”

“We already knew you,” Wilhelm said. “Our fathers are brothers.”

Oskar shrugged. Then he turned and made his way down the wide corridor to his room. His cousins’ voices faded behind him. Lise was chiding her brother, and her brother was lecturing her in return. By the time Oskar reached the door to his room, they were gone, and Oskar was glad. It had been a long and confusing day. He was ready for bed.

His hand was on the knob when the distant strains of the piano stopped him short. The music reached him barely louder than a whisper, but Oskar recognized the melody. It was the same one that Lise had just taught him. “Heart and Soul.” Only now it was being played by a professional, and, though the salon was too far away for Oskar to hear the words, the singer was accompanying the piano as well. He hesitated, then, as drained as he was, started back down the corridor. At the top of the staircase, the singer’s voice sharpened into lyrics. Oskar couldn’t understand the English. He had studied the language a little as a child, but it hadn’t stuck with him. Nevertheless enraptured by the song, he sat down on the top stair and listened.

The music was still playing a few minutes later when the doorbell rang. It was cold on the stairs, and Oskar had buried his hands behind his knees. Hunching forward, he peered
into the foyer through the posts of the marble balustrade. His view was obstructed by the crystals of the gigantic chandelier, but he was still able to see the entryway in bits and pieces. A feeling of melancholy had gripped him. When the door swung open, he didn’t much care whom the family had invited for a drink on Christmas, and he hardly took notice as a man dressed in a black coat and a formal hat accompanied another man in elegant evening wear through the front door. A couple of steps behind them, a bespectacled man wearing a green uniform paused in the doorway. It took a few beats for Oskar to realize that it was a Nazi lieutenant’s uniform, and then to recognize that the three men were speaking German. Oskar felt suddenly exhausted. The day caught up with him in a rush. The morning had begun all the way back in Jutland, with the visit from Jungmann and Munk. The stress of carrying the jewels to Copenhagen had overwhelmed him. His family’s apparent wealth had stunned him. And now this —
Germans
, invited into the Gregersen house for a Christmas dance.

When Ludvig met his guests in the foyer, Oskar dipped back into the shadows. Hidden from view, he watched his uncle, listening to the harsh cadence of the cultivated German he spoke as he welcomed these Nazis inside. And then, taking hold of the German soldier’s arm, another figure — a woman, a girl — appeared in the doorway. And at first sight of her, Oskar felt his breath catch in his throat. His fingers tightened on the cold marble of the balustrade. A spike of adrenaline stabbed his heart, as sharply as if the hormone had coalesced into an actual dagger.

As she crossed the foyer, the sharp edges of the chandelier’s crystals tore the girl apart, into a million kaleidoscopic fragments. Oskar pulled himself to his feet to get a better view. Her hair was coiffed into a lacquered bun. She
was dressed in a bright red dress — silk, like something a Chinese girl would wear — and black patent high heels. Her legs and arms were uncovered, and just this peek of her skin was enough to give the impression that she was naked. Her eyes were blue, so pale that they were almost colorless — Oskar could see this all the way from where he stood. But what dazzled him most was her makeup. Her face was caked with powder. Her cheeks were thick with it. It was a mask, as white as milk. Her eyelashes were heavy black lines. Her mouth was a violet gash. Oskar took a step down the stairs, craned his neck to follow the girl as she strolled into the salon on the German lieutenant’s arm.

Just as she was about to disappear, Polina’s eyes darted up the staircase, and they locked with Oskar’s. But she walked into the party beside Hermann Schmidt without a pause. If her expression hadn’t narrowed, however slightly, Oskar would have imagined that she had looked right through him.

“You’re here.”

Oskar didn’t recognize the voice behind him.

“I wasn’t sure if you were coming.”

He took another step down the stairs, caught a last glimpse of the girl’s shoes. Then they disappeared, too.

“Oskar? Do you hear what music they’re playing?”

He took yet another step down. But now the girl in the red dress was gone.

“Are you all right?” Lise hesitated on the top stair. She had changed clothes, though Oskar was slow to appreciate it. She had pulled on a nightgown. She was thinner than he had realized — a waif. “Oskar?”

“Yes — of course I am — yes, I’m fine.”

Lise examined him, then, taking a few quick steps down, grabbed him by the hand. “Come on then.”

“Come on where?”

“Downstairs,” Lise said. “I know a way into the kitchen from the back. We can get another piece of cake. The cook is a girl named Patricia.” She spoke the name with a French accent. “She’s a nice girl, she’s my friend. Come.”

Oskar followed his cousin down the stairs. He was tired, and he didn’t want to upset his uncle. But he might be able to get another look at the girl from the kitchen.

They were almost in the foyer when Ludvig reemerged from the salon together with his wife. Lise ducked behind the balustrade before Oskar could react, yanked his arm to pull him down next to her. She clenched her teeth in an excited smile, held her finger to her lips.
I think it’s outrageous
, Oskar’s aunt was saying.
And no, I won’t play hostess to her, Ludvig — I wouldn’t know what to say to her
. Their footsteps receded. Ludvig was leading her into a service corridor.
We can’t afford to be rude, Grete
, he replied.
After all, they are more than just our guests
. Lise waited for her parents’ voices to fade, then stood again and tugged Oskar the rest of the way down the stairs. At the entrance into the service corridor, she opened the door a crack and peered into the shadows, to make sure her parents were gone and the way was clear.

“Shhh,” she whispered. She pointed at Oskar’s shoes. “Take them off. They make a huge racket. If you don’t take them off, they’ll catch us for sure.”

Oskar slipped his farmer’s shoes off his feet, then followed his cousin into the corridor. They had made their way through the bowels of the house and were about to enter the kitchen, when a door swung open and Ludwig and his wife suddenly reappeared, both of them carrying a bottle of Fru Gregersen’s precious wine in either hand, dusty from the rack in the cellar. Oskar recognized immediately how unhappy
his uncle would be to see him there, caught like a thief in his socks, with his clunky, mud-caked shoes in his own hands, even before Ludvig’s eyes darkened and his brow furrowed and he began to chastise them. Lise took a small step backward and, cowering, attempted to hide herself behind her taller, larger cousin.

“What is this?” Ludvig began. It took a few seconds for his fury to gather itself into words. His back straightened. His chest expanded. He rose up a little onto his toes, as if he was determined to make himself that much taller than his nephew. “So,” he said, searching for the best way to articulate his indignation. “So — You’re Fredrik’s son after all, I see. It’s not so hard to follow the rules, is it? I told you to go upstairs. I told you it was bedtime. This is a simple rule, isn’t it? Or do you think I make the rules so that you can break them? Is that what you think?”

“Papa, please,” Lise said, from behind Oskar, “we were just going to find Patricia and see if she would give us a piece of cake —”

As reasonable as this explanation may have been, it was lost on Ludvig, who bristled even more at the sound of his daughter’s voice. His face reddened, and he took a deep breath. Although it was Lise who had interrupted him, when he began to speak again, he directed his anger at Oskar. “Rules are made to be followed, young man,” he said. “Do you hear me? Of course, your father never understood this either. He didn’t like to be called a second-class citizen, but that’s what he was. That’s what I was, too. That’s what all children are until they’re old enough to participate — second-class citizens. This wasn’t something Father directed at Fredrik. The rules didn’t just apply to him, they applied to all of us. But they did apply to him, too. Well, now, you see how angry you’ve gotten me. Lise,
you stay here — your mother and I will talk to you separately. You, young man, up to bed! Now. And so help me, if I find you talking to my daughter again — if I find you outside your room again — I’ll kick you out, onto the street. Understand? We’ve been kind enough to open our door to you. Be good enough to respect our rules now that you’re inside.”

Oskar didn’t respond. Perhaps his uncle had a point. But they hadn’t simply let him in — this house belonged as much to him in the end as it did to Ludvig. And as gracious as his grandmother had been, there had in fact been something dismissive about her attitude, he reflected, something just as patronizing in its own way as this display from his uncle. He let Ludvig finish his rant, which he suspected had little to do with this infraction of his rules, without speaking a single word at all. This was deep-seated anger, and there was no point in trying to defend himself. Then, freeing himself from his cousin, who didn’t want to be left alone with her parents, he tousled her hair then followed the indistinct buzz of voices and laughter back down the dark corridor to the stairs.

In the salon, the beautiful song had come to an end, and now a German waltz was playing.

Forty-five minutes later, Oskar was standing at the window in his bedroom. The music downstairs seeped through the floor, so muted that he could barely hear it. The air was infused with the smell of Cuban tobacco. Oskar hadn’t been able to sneak another glimpse of the girl, but her made-up face continued to haunt him. Ludvig had instructed him not to open the curtains, so he had switched off the lights first, then peeled them back carefully. They hadn’t just been pulled closed. They were pinned together, and at the wall on either side of the window
they were tacked to the plaster. Oskar pried out the pins from the bottom up, opened a slit large enough to slip inside. He had been standing at the window for ten, fifteen minutes. His legs were cramping. Fatigue was overtaking him. He was determined, though, to see the girl again, even if only for a second or two as she left the house. His breath fogged the glass, and his vision blurred. He wrapped his arms around himself to fend off the chill. After a few more minutes passed, he was beginning to nod off. And then, at the base of the driveway, he noticed a figure hidden in the dark.

He wouldn’t have seen the man at all. It was a good distance from the house to the street, and it was a black night. The clouds were low, no streetlamps were burning. Shadows blanketed the garden. The faint ocher glow of a cigarette gave the man away. At first, it hung in the air a few feet from the ground. Then it swept upward, and when the man inhaled, the ember brightened enough to draw an obscure, russet face from the dark. Oskar saw only his profile, and then the hat he was wearing. The fedora.