The Second Winter (25 page)

Oskar was confused — it was obvious that the jewelry was more valuable than anyone had thought.

“This jewelry belongs in a museum, do you understand? All of it.”

Oskar received this as good news. “So how much, then,” he prompted.

“Take a look around you,” Rahbek said. “That’s my bed there, do you see it? This is my kitchen — we’re sitting in it — I don’t have sugar, I don’t have milk, didn’t you hear me tell you? I’m smoking the butt of a cigarette I already smoked yesterday. Didn’t you see me light it?”

It took Oskar a moment to realize that Rahbek was handing him back the pendant.

“Don’t misunderstand me, boy. I’d like to buy this from you, the whole lot of it, and normally I could raise the money — in a day, in a week, something this large, maybe a month, I don’t know. But this —
this
— Right now —” He spread his hands. “I don’t have a crown to scratch my ass. And even if I did, it would be suicide for me if I tried to move something like this. I don’t even like to have it in my house. I could try to take it off your hands cheap, but, well — you might as well offer me a suitcase full of explosives.”

Oskar swallowed the dregs of his coffee, then shoved the pendant back into his pocket.

“Careful!” Rahbek snapped involuntarily. He chuckled, catching himself. “Careful with it,” he explained. He watched Oskar return the rest of the jewelry to the suitcase, wincing a little with every handful. “You know — I haven’t seen your father for more than ten years. And he hasn’t seen me either. So you can explain to him — things aren’t what they once were. There’s a war going on, for god’s sake. And I’m not the same man I used to be.” He gestured, palms up, at the forlorn apartment. “I’m still in the same place — but look at me. Take a look at me, and tell your father what you have seen.”

Oskar closed the satchel, stood slowly from the table. “Thanks for the coffee, then.”

Rahbek didn’t stand to show him out. He simply rested his hands on his thighs and, slumping in his chair, shook his head. “Tell Fredrik I’m sorry.”

Oskar took an uncertain step toward the door. “I need to sell it —”

“There is only one man —” Rahbek began, then cut himself off.

Oskar turned to face him. He read the old man’s hesitation. “We need the money,” he said. “Things are bad. My father won’t understand if I come back home with it, especially if all I can tell him is that it’s too valuable.” He shrugged. “I’ll sell it in the street if there’s no other way.”

Rahbek studied him, critically, then looked away, drew a deep breath, belched again. At last, he relented. “There’s only one man I know right now,” he said, “who can fence this for you. Only one man. But it’s dangerous. Understand? Dangerous. He’s not a Dane. He’s a German —”

Oskar waited.

“Okay.” Rahbek’s head sagged onto his chest. “For your father, then —” He took an old lead pencil, picked up a leather-bound book, scrawled a name and an address on the first page. “Okay,” he said again. “Okay.” And then he ripped the page from the book and handed it to Oskar.

Oskar was all the way downstairs in the lobby of the building before he noticed the book’s title engraved on the page.
Captain Blood
, by Rafael Sabatini. He read the address, then set off across Copenhagen to the Nazi quarter. The satchel felt even heavier now. He had to tighten his grip to keep the oily handle from sliding through his fingers. The wind blew off the water, his knuckles turned red.

It was snowing by the time Oskar reached Hermann Schmidt’s apartment building. The sky was low. The temperature was dropping. The road was icy, and within minutes it was covered with a thin white blanket. Oskar ducked into a doorway across the street, stared up at the bank of steel-frame windows that comprised the façade of the building’s upper floors. This was his opportunity to prove himself to his father, and Oskar knew it. Fredrik hadn’t expected any of this. He had imagined that Oskar would sell the jewelry to Rahbek and return straight home with his pockets full of crowns. Approaching this German wasn’t a simple wrinkle in the plan, and it wasn’t something a child would do. He was walking into a lion’s den. He lingered in the doorway, thinking about his next steps.

Noticing a deep fissure in the wall, a sudden thought occurred to him. First giving the pocket of his trousers a tap to check that the pendant was safe, Oskar knelt, grabbed a handful of the jewelry from the satchel, shoved it into his jacket pocket. Then he worked the soft leather case into the cavity and covered it with a loose brick. When he stood back up, he felt elated, as if he had solved a difficult puzzle.

Across the street, shadows moved inside the apartment on the second floor. Someone was there. He leaned out from the doorway, made certain that the coast was clear. People were working in the bakery on the ground floor of the building. Otherwise, the neighborhood was quiet. If he was actually going to go through with this, the time was now. He screwed up his courage, took a step into the street. As he reached the center of the road, though, a face appeared in the window upstairs that stopped him in his tracks. His heel slipped on the ice, and he nearly lost his balance. His first thought was that he must be imagining it. But there was no mistake. It was
her
— it was
the girl whom he had seen the night before at Fru Gregersen’s. Her face was no longer made up. But Oskar would have recognized her in his sleep.

Polina looked down at him, and their eyes met.

The wind gusted, and snowflakes as soft and papery as ash swirled against his face. At the end of the street, a car emerged from the mist, led by headlights that flickered in the blizzard like candles. For a few beats, Oskar remained frozen. Then he continued deliberately to the entrance of the building. When he reached the door, his hands were shaking. He found the intercom, read Hermann’s name next to a buzzer. The car rumbled toward him, its tires slipping on the slick cobblestones. Oskar pressed the button, listened to the faint buzz inside as the car plowed past. The intercom beeped, then a male voice sounded over the speaker. “
Bitte
?”

Oskar spoke no German. “Mika Rahbek sent me.”

“Who?”

“Mika Rahbek.”

There was a long pause. “Identify yourself.” Hermann’s Danish was so clipped that Oskar barely understood him.

“I’m sorry,” Oskar replied. “I can’t do that.”

There was another pause. At the end of the street, the car’s engine faded into the wind. Next door, the bakery’s machinery whined and clanged. The aroma of baking bread charged the air. Then the latch clicked, and Oskar gave the door a shove.

The lobby was unadorned, grim, tiled in green porcelain. A metal staircase led upstairs. As Oskar approached the second story, a door swung open at the landing, and he was greeted by the barrel of a German pistol. His grip tightened on the banister. Behind the precise shape of the gun, Hermann hovered in the dim light. His spectacles glinted. His face — familiar from the night before — was a delicate nose, a thin mouth, a weak
chin. His cheeks were slick, backlit by the windows behind him. As Oskar reached the top step, the floor began to spin. He hung on to the banister, met the smaller man’s gaze.

“What do you want?” Hermann demanded.

“Mika Rahbek sent me,” Oskar repeated.

“That is what you have already told me.”

“I have something. Rahbek told me you might be able to help me sell it.”

The German lieutenant glanced down the length of the narrow, unlit corridor. “Perhaps we should discuss this inside.” He took half a step backward, gave the pistol a shake.

Oskar followed him into the apartment. He couldn’t help himself — the moment he entered the barren room, he scanned it for the girl. She was seated at a small metal desk, facing the windows. Oskar recognized every contour of her face. As if, somehow, he had known her for years. He became aware of the rest of the apartment gradually — the uncomfortable bed pushed against a wall, the two or three light-bulbs dangling from wires tacked to the ceiling, the oversize wardrobe, tilting on its feet. The mirror hanging on the wardrobe’s door cast a cool reflection onto the industrial floor. On a nightstand next to the bed, a red-white-and-black band of ribbon caught the light, drawing Oskar’s eye to a small medal suspended beneath it — the previous year, Hermann had been awarded a War Merit Cross, and this was where he kept it, on display in a polished leather case beside an old, battered clock. Behind Oskar, the front door closed with a clank. The pistol emerged from the shadows. Its burnished steel absorbed the light like a chunk of coal. Beneath him, once again the floor began to spin, and his legs felt weak. Still, Oskar couldn’t help himself — despite the danger, despite his apprehension, his eyes returned to the girl.

“Now, what is it that you want?”

Oskar couldn’t find his voice to answer. The hollow tip of the Luger was aimed at his heart. The German’s finger was steady on the trigger. The sweet smell of machine oil, the faint odor of gunpowder, wafted from the weapon.

The lieutenant’s lips whitened against his teeth.
Who was this standing in his apartment? My god, he was nothing more than a boy
. “What do you want?” he repeated. He was going to have to coax it out of him. The boy, he realized, was frightened. “You said you have something for me. What is it?”

Oskar struggled for his voice. “Yes.”

“Show me.”

Oskar reached into his jacket pocket. The lieutenant’s grip tightened on the pistol. Oskar’s fingers clasped the jewelry he had grabbed from the satchel. He hoped that he had been lucky enough to take some of the better pieces — he should have paid more attention at Rahbek’s apartment. His hand unfolded to reveal the shimmering loot. A gold bracelet. A chain. A single earring studded with small red stones. A diamond ring.

Behind his spectacles, the German’s eyes widened. He pointed the pistol toward the desk where Polina was seated. “There,” he directed Oskar. “Set it down in the light.”

Oskar felt out of sync. The closer he got to the girl, the more dizzy he became. He watched his hand place the jewelry on the battered desk as if these fingers belonged to someone else. The chain tangled with the earring. He couldn’t separate the two pieces.

“Let me do that. Step away.”

Oskar took a step backward. Hermann was mesmerized. Forgetting himself for a few seconds, he set the pistol on the desk, gently pulled the chain from the earring, laid
the pieces out. Then he picked the pistol back up, nudged Polina on her shoulder, pointed with his chin at the narrow bed. She stood without a word and crossed the stark room. Oskar watched her, unable to focus on anything else. When she passed him, their eyes met for a split second. His heart leaped.
She had smiled
.

“Where did you get this?”

“I found it,” Oskar said. The lie thrilled him. He had been thinking about it after his meeting with Rahbek — it was the perfect answer.

“You
found
it. I see.” The German sneered. “And only this?”

“What is it worth to you?” Oskar asked.

“I asked you a question, boy — Only this?”

“And I will answer —” Oskar’s voice emerged in a crushed whisper. “— when you tell me what it’s worth to you.” He was already certain that the German was going to want the rest. The hollow tip of the pistol traced a circle across his chest. It had been wise of him to hide the satchel.

“You have a big mouth for such a young boy.”

“If you’re not interested, then —” Oskar took a faltering step back toward the desk.

“I didn’t say that, did I?”

“What will you pay me for it? How much?”

“How much I pay will depend upon how much there is.”

“A thousand crowns,” Oskar said. His father had told him five hundred.

“A
thousand
?” The German was incredulous.

“Do you have it?” Out the corner of his eye, Oskar was aware that Polina had turned her head. She was appraising him.

The German’s mouth mimicked a tight-lipped smile. “Are you trying to play me, boy?”

“Play you?” Oskar wasn’t certain what the lieutenant meant.

“You come in here with a few pieces of jewelry, you shake me down, find out how much money I’m holding, then you try to rob me.”

If Oskar hadn’t been so nervous, he would have smiled. The German’s guess was so far off the mark. He held his hands out, palms up. “I came to sell you what I found.”

Hermann’s eyes narrowed. “Are you armed?”

Oskar shook his head.

Hermann turned toward Polina. “Come here,” he commanded. He kept the pistol trained on Oskar as she stood from the bed. “Search him.”

Polina didn’t speak. She motioned for Oskar to raise his arms, then carefully began to pat him down. Her hands caressed the tops of his shoulders, then slid softly down his ribs. When she reached his pocket, her fingers fumbled with the sapphire pendant through the material of his trousers. Their eyes connected, but she moved on. Beneath the inseam of his trousers, her fingers grazed his testicles, and Oskar understood that this was intentional.
She was teasing him
. When she was finished, she shook her head.

“Nothing?” the German asked her.