The Second Winter (30 page)

Halfway across the icy yard, he was joined by his father. Fredrik had been working outside, scraping snow off the roof of a shed. He had been working in the light of a kerosene lantern before the fuel had run dry. He would finish tomorrow in daylight. When he fell into step beside his son, he was winded from the effort, and his breath billowed in front of him. “It sounds like you fed them, too,” he said.

Oskar nodded. “I did.”

“Animals are always happier when they’ve eaten.”

Oskar remembered his own hunger, but he kept his mouth shut.

“A famished pig becomes a lion. Starve him and he bites your fingers off.” When Fredrik placed a hand on Oskar’s shoulder, his son was surprised by the touch, and he was surprised even more when his father left the hand resting there as they walked. “Feed him, and he becomes a meal himself.”

Oskar stamped his boots on the porch, and dirty chunks of frozen turf skittered across the painted wood planks.

“I suppose you brought back something else from Copenhagen,” Fredrik said. He stamped his boots, too. “Other than the whore.”

His father was only expecting five hundred crowns for the whole of the treasure. He would be happy, Oskar thought, with two hundred and fifty. There was no reason to tell Fredrik the truth. The day before, Oskar had wanted nothing more than to impress his father with his success. Now the thought occurred to him that he might have his own use for the money. He opened his mouth, ready to deceive, but found he couldn’t. “More than you thought.”

Fredrik took one last whack with his boot against the side of the house. A chunk of ice disintegrated like a diamond beneath a hammer. “Oh?”

“A lot more,” Oskar said.

“How much?” Fredrik wanted to know. It had been a long year, and this was going to be a difficult winter. Even with the food from the farm, his family was suffering. Fredrik wondered how much longer Amalia would be able to continue working like this. He saw how tired she was.

“A thousand.”

Fredrik allowed himself a smile. It was no wonder that the old Jew had clung to the suitcase so tightly. “Why don’t we bring some wood inside,” he said. “You can light a fire.”

It was clear from his father’s words that at least a few crowns were already spent.
You
can light a fire. Fredrik would head into town to find Isabella. It might be a day or two before they saw him again. “Will you have dinner with us?”

Fredrik jostled his son’s shoulder. “You did well, Oskar,” he said, choosing not to reply — perhaps because he didn’t know the answer yet himself. “In that at least, you did well.” He chuckled, but there was no mirth in the sound. “Still, I noticed you put a ring on the girl’s finger.”

Oskar thought about explaining, but he didn’t know how. He remembered pulling the ring from his pocket, turning it over in his hand, suggesting to the German that he might want to give it to Polina. The smell of baking bread came back to him with the memory, strong enough that the thought crossed his mind that Amalia might have the oven on inside.

“You could have gotten more,” Fredrik said. “Eh? If you hadn’t kept the ring for yourself —”

Oskar shook his head. This wasn’t true — he had sold the ring to the German, then had stolen it back from him again — but the story was too complicated to relate. He glanced up at his father, realized that he would never understand.

Fredrik surprised him with another smile. “Anyway,” he said, “at least you’re finally acting like a man.” Then he led his son inside.

In the kitchen, the kettle was on the stove, and the water was boiling, forgotten. The metal was nearly dry, and the room smelled of scorched iron. The pot was so hot that it would crack under running water. Polina was seated at the table, holding a cup of tea to her lips. She had found the sugar in
the cupboard, and a spoon was sticking out from the small paper bag. Oskar had been expecting to find his sister there. Normally, Amalia would have had the kitchen clean from the dishes left over from their lunch. The table would be set, the counters would be clear, food would be roasting in the oven or simmering on the stove. There was little doubt how Fredrik would react to this disarray. And the sugar was for special occasions. Only Amalia was allowed to touch it, for she alone knew how to apportion it to get the most from the bag.

But Fredrik crossed to the stove and turned off the flame himself. He set the glowing kettle onto a hob at the back where it would cool down slowly. Then he stepped behind Polina and took the cup from her hand. The liquid inside was still scalding — she had only poured it a couple of moments earlier — but he swallowed half in a single mouthful, as if this indeed was the way he liked his tea, boiling hot and as thick as syrup with precious sugar. His Adam’s apple bobbed beneath the gray stubble crawling down his neck from his chin. He wiped his lips with his sleeve, offered the cup back to Polina. He was already drunk, Oskar realized, on the thousand crowns. “Where’s my daughter?” he asked.

“She was tired,” Polina said. Within the walls of his own house, Oskar was more aware of her accent. “So I told her to lie down for a while. She fell asleep, I think. Upstairs, in her bed.”

Fredrik looked around the small kitchen. Polina had made herself at home. She had cut herself a slice from the bread, leaving crumbs that would feed the mice. She had found a tin of cookies left over from Amalia’s birthday, and even though they had been rationed until they were stale, she had treated herself to a few. She had tried to saw a chunk off the salami, but it was too hard, and she had left it where she had laid it, on the counter. Fredrik smiled — he had been right about this girl, that
much she had already proved — but it was a tolerant smile. There was something compelling about her, wasn’t there — There was a reason why Oskar had fallen under her spell. She wasn’t an ordinary person. Well, they never were, he thought. They always had their stories to tell if you let them. “Now,” he announced, nodding his head at the mess on the counter. “I was planning to eat in town anyway. I’ll be leaving before it gets too late, and you can clean this up after I’m gone.”

Oskar saw the kitchen through his father’s eyes. Taking a step past him, he wrapped the bread in its foil, set it back inside the box, put the salami away, brushed the crumbs into the sink. “I’ll light a fire,” he said. “The house is cold.”

Fredrik grabbed the tin of stale cookies and set it squarely down in the center of the table. As if he were serving them cake and champagne. “Let’s have a little celebration before I go,” he said. “After all, it’s almost the New Year, isn’t it?”

Oskar crossed the small cottage into the sitting room, where he stacked a few logs onto the grate in the fireplace. “I can make us some coffee,” he said, “once the kettle cools back down.”

“Forget the coffee,” Fredrik said. “I’ll open a bottle, eh? And you know what I’d like to do then?” He reached into the cupboard, found what he was looking for. “Play a game of cards.”

It had been years since his father had wanted to play with him. Those had always formed some of Oskar’s fondest memories — the few times when his father had sat with Amalia and him and taught them hearts. In front of the hearth, he stopped still, bewildered by the recollection. When he looked back into the kitchen, the deck of tired blue cards was splayed in his father’s gigantic hands like an Oriental fan.

When Amalia stumbled into the kitchen an hour later, the bright light stung her eyes. She took in the cards on the table, the open bottle half empty next to her father, the three glasses in front of them. The smile on Oskar’s face perplexed her, as did the amount of flesh on display below the unbuttoned collar of Polina’s blouse. The diamond ring dangled from the shoelace around the Polish girl’s neck, cradled in her exposed cleavage. Candles burned on the table. Wax had melted onto the cloth. The house was as hot as an oven. It was this that had woken her — the heat, and the rumble of her father’s voice and the tittering strain of Polina’s laughter. Polina was still laughing as Amalia stepped through the doorway. When their eyes met, she quieted, but forced a smile. Amalia stopped where she was, blinking, trying to make sense of the scene.

Fredrik’s back was to the door. “What,” he said, “did the police come inside?” He swiveled in his chair to see what had dampened the cheer. When he caught sight of his daughter, he opened his arms and offered her his lap. “Come,” he said. “Get yourself a glass, then have yourself a seat.”

Amalia wasn’t keen on letting her father know how relieved she felt to be included. But she obeyed and pulled the last of their four glasses from the cupboard and took a careful seat on her father’s thigh. “I fell asleep,” she said, “before I could make dinner.”

Fredrik filled her glass with an ounce or two of whiskey. “Nonsense,” he told her. “You’re working too hard anyway. Those bastards — what are they paying you? Fifty øre a day, isn’t it?”

Amalia took an experimental sip. Her father had never poured her a glass before. The liquid burned her lips and tongue, then cut a swath down her throat. Almost immediately, the alcohol went to her head. Now the expression on Oskar’s face made more sense. He wasn’t used to it either.

“Eh? Fifty øre a day?”

Amalia didn’t answer. Fredrik knew exactly how much they paid her, because he counted her earnings himself every week. Three crowns that went straight into his pocket. He would take the coins from her with a scowl on his face, as if he was doing her a favor letting her remain in his house for so little.

“Maybe it’s time to tell the Nielsens what they can do with their lousy fifty øre, what do you think?” He gave his daughter a squeeze. “Maybe then you can spend a little more time on yourself, the way a girl your age should. I know I haven’t been the best father, but things are going to change, I can promise you that.” He finished the whiskey in his glass, poured himself another. “Things are going to change.”

“I don’t want anything to change, Papa,” Amalia said.

“No?” Fredrik let out a guffaw, as if she had made a joke. “You hear that?” he said to Oskar and Polina both. “She likes to wake up at four and clean the shit off other people’s underpants.”

Amalia pulled herself from her father’s lap, but he grabbed her back again. She acquiesced and collapsed into him beneath the weight of his arm.

“Why don’t you sit down at the table with us?” Oskar suggested. “Amalia plays hearts better than anyone else,” he said to Polina.

“She’s beating us,” Fredrik told Amalia. “We taught her how to play just an hour ago, and already she’s beating us.” He pointed to the score, which he had been tallying on the tablecloth with a lead pencil. “Oskar and I almost have a hundred each already, and she only has twenty-three.” Amalia struggled to stand again, and this time Fredrik let her.

“I’ll deal you in,” Oskar said.

“Yes, sit down,” Polina said. “I think it will be much more fun when you are playing.”

Oskar dealt the cards, and Amalia sipped her whiskey. Her mood lightened, despite her reticence. Every candle they owned was lit. Some were burning on the counter, others on the table. The electric lamp over the sink was glowing, too. The room had never been so bright. She could not recall a moment like this one before in the little cottage.

“Give her twenty-three,” Oskar said to his father. “Like Polina. She should come in with the lowest score.”

“I’ll give her ninety-three,” Fredrik said. “The same score I have.”

“Give her sixty, then,” Oskar said. “In the middle.”

“I’ll give her ninety-three,” Fredrik repeated.

“That’s okay, I’ll take ninety-three,” Amalia said. “I don’t mind — I’ll take your score, Papa.”

“You’re a hard man,” Polina said to Fredrik, “aren’t you?”

Fredrik looked at her, and the room fell silent. Then he picked up his drink and held it toward Polina, waited for her to clink glasses with him.
“Skaal,”
he said, taking a swallow. He wiped his mouth. “A man who leads a hard life,” he told her, “turns into a stone.” He spoke the words somberly, as if he thought that this insight might excuse him for his brusqueness. “Of course, there isn’t much good in a stone. You can’t plant it and expect a statue to grow. Eh? You can only bury it.”

“Flowers blossom on top of graves,” Polina said, “don’t they?” She took a drink, too.

Fredrik’s eyes narrowed. He thought for a moment, and it looked as if the alcohol was going to take him to a darker place. Then he chuckled. “Okay, then.” He leaned forward onto the table, once again picked up the pencil. “You win. I’ll give her twenty-three.” He scratched out the score he had
just written beneath Amalia’s name, wrote in another number. “Just like you. So now we’ll see who the better player is, eh? It’ll be between you and her.” He picked up his cards and began to arrange them.

Polina realized that Oskar was staring at her, and she met his gaze. When her face flushed red, she looked down at her cards, too. She couldn’t remember the last time she had blushed. But his eyes were so intense. She remembered the sensation of his flaccid penis in her hand the night before, at the hotel. His skin had been hot, moist. But he hadn’t shown an ounce of desire.