The Second Winter (20 page)

“Then maybe I should just kill you,” the man said, “if there’s nothing you can tell me.”

Axel sputtered. Saliva bubbled from his lips.

“Don’t spit on me,” the man said. He dug a thumb into Axel’s windpipe. Except for the slow, ticking whine of the bed-springs, the room fell completely silent until he let go again. Axel gulped for air like a dog lunging for a bone. “Three Jews,” the man repeated.

“Three Jews — yes — I remember.”

“Good. They were a family.”

“From Vienna. I remember.”

“A respected family. A professor and his wife.”

“And his daughter,” Axel said.

“A wealthy family.”

Axel’s tears were so hot that they burned fissures into his dirty cheeks. His legs had gone numb, his toes had begun to tingle. “We helped them. We did what Gustav asked us to — we took them to the coast, we put them on the boat.”

“They reached Sweden, but they didn’t make it farther.”

“We did what we were supposed to —”

“In Gothenburg, the girl was raped and killed. Her mother died, too, trying to help her, the way any mother would. Our contact in Sweden only found the professor a week ago. He
was holed up in an abandoned farmhouse with nothing to eat. Can you imagine?”

“We put them on the boat,” Axel said. “We weren’t responsible for them after that.”

“He died, too. Last week. But not before he told his story — not before he was able to get a message to Gustav.”

“I’m sorry,” Axel said.

“Where is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You think we couldn’t have taken it ourselves? If we wanted to —”

“Please — I don’t know anything —”

“Where is it, farmhand? Am I going to find it in this room?”

“I had nothing to do with it.”

“That’s better.” The hands relaxed, though only a little. “Tell me what you know, and I will let you go.”

“You have to let me go,” Axel said. This glimmer of hope was enough to blind him. “You have to — I won’t remember you — I won’t say anything — nothing, I swear.”

“Tell me what you know,” the man said again.

“I told him not to take it.”

“Take what?”

“It was in a bag — a leather suitcase.”

“Exactly.”

“Jewels — money — I don’t know — there was a lot of it.”

“And what happened to that suitcase?”

“I didn’t take it.”

The man waited.
Then who did?
His fingers, cramping Axel’s windpipe, asked the question for him.

“He’ll kill me.”

The man chuckled, and Axel’s blood ran cold.

“Gregersen,” Axel said. And then the light was growing dimmer, the black was becoming thicker, the edges of the room were starting to close. “Fredrik Gregersen,” he managed, and then the room was gone.

Franz Jakobsen didn’t like the feel of the farmhand’s sweat. The pulse of Axel’s heart in his jugular made him sick to his stomach. This was only the fourth person he had killed, and with the first three he had used a gun. He had grown up in Aarhus — not a huge city but big enough. Before the war, he had been a clerk in a bank, down in Schleswig, near the German border. This job tonight put him closer to a farm than he had yet ventured in his life. He wasn’t used to this much contact, with animals or people — and here in the country it was his impression so far that there wasn’t much to separate the two. He grabbed hold of the Adam’s apple. Its shape and texture reminded him of a chicken gizzard. He imagined that it would look the same, ripped from beneath this dirty skin. It had a joint like a crank. He pressed a little harder to investigate, and the snap of connective tissue echoed off the walls of the stuffy room. When Fleming sat up in bed in the room next door, Franz held himself still, listened. Then he tightened his grip again. His teeth dug into his lower lip. The body contracted underneath him in an unconscious spasm, then relaxed. A hand dropped over the edge of the bed frame. Axel’s boots sank into the mattress.

When Franz slipped back outside, accumulated snow slid off the roof, landed beneath the eaves with a quiet, muffled thud. Upstairs, Fleming rolled over again, onto his side, suffocated his fat wife in his beefy arms. In the barn, the pigs huddled. The farmhouse fell back to sleep. The crunch of footsteps dissolved into the wind.

December 25, 1941
.

At ten o’clock on Christmas morning, the snow had turned into rain and sleet. The snow already on the ground was hardening into a layer of ice as the temperature dropped again. Fredrik was outside, beside the barn, splitting wood. His hair was soaked. His wool work shirt clung to his shoulders. The ax was dull, so he was using a sledgehammer and wedge instead. The clank of the hammerhead against the steel block reverberated across the frozen yard, all the way to the Nielsen house. Inside the barn, where the air was humid, Oskar was loosening hay from a bale, stripped down to an undershirt above his heavy winter trousers. The pitchfork’s handle was cracked, and he had to clench it to keep it from splintering. The work was slower than it should have been, and the two cows at the back of the barn, hungry, were growing restless.

Amalia had left for the Nielsens’ in the early morning. After getting out of bed, she had draped the necklace Fredrik had
given her over her pillow. In the dim glow of dawn, the platinum chain had caught the light like the scales of a fish. The sapphire and diamonds scintillated. She gazed at the intricate piece of jewelry, ran her fingers over the glittering stones, then stepped out of her nightshirt and quickly squeezed into her uncomfortable uniform. She would decide what to do with the necklace later. Crossing the room, she tripped on an empty whiskey bottle. On the way downstairs, she found another, and she carried both with her and left them under the kitchen sink before letting herself out of the house. Oskar pulled himself from bed half an hour later. He and Fredrik only grunted their hellos. Neither mentioned Christmas. Oskar buttered a few slices of bread, and they washed the food down with unsweetened tea. Then Oskar had followed his father outside.
Don’t be long in the barn
, Fredrik had told him.
I’m going to need help carting some wood to the house
. Now, Oskar’s hands were bleeding on the handle of the pitchfork. Still, his father had the more difficult job, chopping wood. Oskar knew that he had no right to complain.

The muffled rumble of an engine interrupted Oskar’s rhythm. Outside, the hammering ceased. Oskar stabbed the pitchfork into the bale and, wiping the perspiration from his face with his arm, crossed to the door. A low-slung automobile was rolling down the driveway toward the cottage. Oskar tried to catch his father’s eye, but Fredrik had turned to track the approaching car.

Jungmann’s face took shape behind the flat windshield. There was a man next to him, too, riding in the passenger seat — Josef Munk, the chief of police. Fredrik rested the hammer on its head, ran a hand across his brow, squinted into the sleet as the black Citroën pulled to a stop. The doors swung open, and the two men planted their patent leather boots,
buffed to a shine, into the dirty snow. Up at the main gates, a Daimler truck slowed, then followed the councilman’s automobile onto the property.

Fredrik glanced over his shoulder, found Oskar in the shadows, made sure that his son was taking heed. When he returned his attention to their visitors, the two officials were already marching toward him across the yard. His grip tightened on the hammer. This was the second time in as many months that Jungmann had surprised him with a visit. If this pompous little bureaucrat thought that he could intimidate him, he had a surprise of his own coming. And the police chief was an even more despicable man. The farmhand liked him less than the councilman. Jungmann was a sniveling coward. He cooperated with the Germans because he was afraid of them. Munk was a sympathizer. Two years ago, he had been assigned to a desk — and that would have been his future. He would have been passed over for better men. The German occupation had given him his job. If he had fangs, he would have been a snake. But he didn’t even have teeth. He was a worm, nothing more. When Fredrik hoisted the sledgehammer, Munk’s hand dropped to the holster on his belt. Fredrik snorted. He wondered how quickly this little man could draw his weapon. Not fast enough.

“It’s too bad you have to work so hard on Christmas morning,” Jungmann said.

“You, too,” Fredrik replied. He flipped the hammer around, gripped it just beneath the head. Icy rainwater streamed down his forearm.

“Death doesn’t always respect the holidays,” Munk said.

The Daimler’s engine growled as the driver steered the truck down the driveway. As it slowed, a couple of German soldiers leaped from the rear.

It took Fredrik a few beats to understand Munk’s remark. “Did somebody die?” he asked. The two men were standing in front of him now. The policeman’s posture was rigid, like a soldier’s. Fredrik’s own shoulders were stooped, but he still towered over the shorter Danes.

“An acquaintance of yours,” Jungmann answered.

“Where were you last night, Gregersen?” Munk demanded.

When the driver of the truck killed the engine, the day fell suddenly quiet. Cables whined as the parking brake was yanked. The canvas tarp that enclosed the cargo bed flapped in a gust. Fredrik raised his chin at the soldiers. “What are they doing here on my property?”

“
Your
property?” Jungmann scoffed.

“I live here, don’t I?”

“I asked you a question,” Munk said.

Fredrik met his eyes. When the policeman was a child, his mother had dropped a pot of boiling water from the stove, and the liquid had scalded the young boy’s face. The injured skin had healed, but its coloring was different. Normally, his cheek was too white, paler than his other features. In the cold, the patch of damaged skin turned crimson.

“Last night,” Munk repeated. “Where did you spend Christmas Eve? Answer me, Gregersen.”

Rather than respond, Fredrik swiveled around and scanned the yard. One of the soldiers — a boy with a pimpled face and a slight limp — was circling toward the back of the house, sniffing like a rat. The other had positioned himself at the front of the truck, awaiting orders. It crossed Fredrik’s mind to wonder how thoroughly he had buried the satchel in the barn, after he had dug it up to retrieve the pendant for Amalia. He had been drunk last night. He couldn’t be certain that he had packed the earth well enough to hide it. “Who died?” he asked again.

“I will ask the questions,” Munk insisted.

“Madsen,” Jungmann said.

“Axel?” The news came as a shock.

“Where were you last night?” Munk repeated.

“I wouldn’t harm Axel,” Fredrik said, quick to recover himself. “You know that.”

“What I know,” Munk said, “is that Axel Madsen was murdered in his own bed.”

Fredrik took a step toward the policeman. Recoiling, the smaller man slipped on a chunk of ice and nearly fell. This made Fredrik smile. He bent to pick up a stray log, placed it onto the stack. Beside the cottage, the soldier had stopped in front of the doors that led to the cellar. Finding them padlocked, he lifted the lock, tested the hasp, dropped it again. The clank of the shackle drew Fredrik’s attention. “What are you intending with these dogs, Munk?”

“We’ll need to unlock those doors,” the policeman said.

Fredrik glanced over his shoulder at the barn, looking for his son. Oskar was out of earshot, but he recognized his father’s expression. Fredrik wanted something. Grabbing his coat, which had been lying in a heap by his feet, he started toward the group of men. Fredrik gave him a meaningful nod. “Make yourselves at home,” he said, facing his visitors again.

“Is that your boy?” Munk asked him.

“Oskar,” Fredrik confirmed.

Munk watched the tall boy advance across the icy yard. “Tell him to stay outside.”

“He will unlock the cellar for you,” Fredrik said.

Munk nodded.

“Fetch the key,” Fredrik said to Oskar, raising his voice. “Upstairs in your room — you know where it is. They want to look inside the cellar.”

Oskar considered what his father was telling him. The key to the cellar was in the kitchen drawer, next to the sink, where it always was. There must have been something else upstairs — And then it hit him, just as it had occurred to Fredrik. The pendant. He had seen it on Amalia’s pillow early this morning, where she had left it. Out the corner of his eye, he watched a soldier edge toward him as he reached the stoop.
What is it you think I am hiding in my cellar?
His father’s question followed him into the house.

Oskar closed the front door behind him, then climbed the stairs to the second floor. He was entering the room he shared with Amalia when the soldier’s footsteps shook the porch. Downstairs, the front door opened, the hinges screeched. Oskar stepped around the curtain to Amalia’s bed at the same time as the soldier’s boots bowed the stair treads. The German was only steps behind him. Oskar snatched the pendant off the pillow. The chain slithered through his fingers. He gathered it, tried to slip the necklace into his pocket, but the sharp edge of the setting caught the fabric. He struggled to free it, yanked it from a thread. The soldier had reached the top of the stairs before he was able to shove it into his trousers. When the door swung open, Oskar was standing in the center of the room again. “I’m getting the key,” he said.

The German fastened him with an uncomprehending stare. Their shoulders brushed as Oskar pushed past him. After Oskar was already halfway down the stairs, the soldier noticed the bloody stain Oskar’s hand had left on Amalia’s pillow. He fingered the pillowcase, then let it go, looked around the room. In the kitchen, Oskar grabbed the key from the drawer. He was outside again by the time the soldier had followed him out of the bedroom. From the edge of the porch, he tossed the key to the other soldier. Then he met his father’s gaze. A cold wind blew, and the film of sweat that covered his body turned to ice.

A few hours later, the storm had let up. At the train station in Aalborg, Oskar stood on the platform, clutching the old Jew’s satchel. The train from the north was late, but with the severity of the weather, that was to be expected. He craned his neck to get a better view up the tracks. The silver edge of the steel rails glistened in the dim light of the early afternoon, punched from the snow and ice that blanketed the landscape. Except for an off-duty policeman and a well-dressed man smoking a cigarette, the station was deserted. Oskar watched the man out the corner of his eye. Clamping the cigarette in his lips, the man lifted a fedora off his head, smoothed his waxed hair over his temples, then set the elegant hat back down, gripped the brim front and back to pull it into place. The drizzle wet his cigarette, and he cupped it in a hand to protect the ember. Then, exhaling a stream of smoke, he strolled across the platform, stood idly in front of a kiosk, reading a bulletin. Oskar forgot about him. The rails began to hum, and he tightened his grip on the satchel and once again peered up the tracks. A
single bright light pierced the mist, shadowed by the suggestion of a locomotive.