I Can't Begin to Tell You (12 page)

Arne
had taught Nils and Tanne how to spot the signs of winter starvation. ‘A hungry deer scratches up patches of snow to try to get at the leaves below. Watch for the scatters of urine in the snow that mean they are dying.’

‘Promise me you won’t get involved, Tanne?’ her father repeated.

She sneaked a sideways look at him. Her father’s fair hair was silvering up. Definitely, he was older, more careworn, slightly haunted. She had always felt that she knew him best of all, and considered him as ‘hers’. She understood his handsome, slightly remote exterior hid passionate feelings. Perhaps a vulnerability? Her friends knew better than to criticize him in her presence because Tanne protected him, sometimes against her mother.

‘I promise.’

The snow fell for a day.

Kay received a message from Felix which had been tucked between stones in the wall that ran around the back of the estate. ‘Please bring Aunt Agatha’s present up on Thursday.’

So it begins, she thought.

How do I do it?

It was no use being indulgent, or weak. Having opted to walk this particular path, walk it she must. She was doing it for decency in the largest, widest sense, but that was not to say she didn’t feel frightened, because she did.

She worked out her tactics.

On the Wednesday evening, she put on her black lace dress – a favourite with Bror – and made sure they ate a good dinner. Afterwards, they retired to the small sitting room. Birgit had lit the fire and the card table was pulled up in front of it.

Tanne was staying with a friend in Køge and they had the house to themselves.

‘A game of Snap?’ she suggested.

‘The best of five.’

Bror played ferociously but not ferociously enough. Kay beat him three games to two. Good.

‘Darling …’

Bror smiled his slow, rather sleepy smile which had so enchanted Kay on first meeting him. ‘I know that tone. You want something.’

‘Could I have the car tomorrow? I want to go and see Nils. I’ll park it at the station and be back on the evening train.’

‘But you don’t like driving in the snow.’

‘It
wasn’t that heavy a snowfall so the roads should be passable.’

Bror laid down his cards and made for the whisky decanter.

She felt a chill. ‘Bad loser, darling?’

Glass in hand, he turned round and looked at her. Her smile faded.

‘You’re not going to København to meet Anton, are you?’

The breath seemed stuck in her lungs. Getting up from the card table, she said, ‘I’ll have one, too.’

Bror handed her a measure in a cut-glass tumbler. It tasted of Scottish peat bogs, of wild berries and mountain water – which she remembered from holidays in Argyll before marrying Bror. ‘You haven’t answered my question, Kay.’

Relief.

It was the wrong question and she could deal with it. Kay cradled the glass against her stomach. ‘No. I’m not going to see Anton.’ It occurred to her that she should be more indignant and she added sharply: ‘It’s a ridiculous question.’

Bror considered the contents of his glass. ‘You don’t need me to tell you that Anton wants you, Kay. I notice he’s been sending you flowers …’

‘Look at me, Bror,’ she said angrily.

‘You see, I think …’ He came over and placed a hand under her chin.

She was conscious of his energy – his strong, focused energy – flowing through his fingertips into her. ‘Perhaps
you
should be thinking more clearly, Bror.’

He turned away.

‘Look at me, Bror.’

He shrugged and took up a position by the fireplace. ‘I think that you’re still angry with me about signing the Declaration. Am I right?’ Kay was silent while she worked out her next step. He continued: ‘You forget how well I know you.’

‘The Declaration’s nothing to do with Anton. You’re mixing up the two.’

‘Anton
would absolutely make the Declaration his business. It’s a way of needling me. Anyway, he told me once that if there was a war it was best to be on the side which America was likely to support. Which I’m sure will be your position.’

‘So?’

Bror dropped the subject of Anton. ‘You and I have to be careful that we don’t let all this divide us.’

She bit her lip – and the guilt which was becoming a companion settled over her.

‘Nothing to say, darling?’

‘This
is
ridiculous, Bror. You know how I feel about the Declaration and I am certainly not going to sleep with your cousin. Can we talk about something else?’

‘Better we talk about it, than brood,’ said Bror.

Clutching her whisky, Kay walked up and down, and the heavy material of her skirts swished in the uneasy silence. ‘Haven’t we enough to deal with at the moment?’

‘Kay …’

It was the voice which had wooed her so many times.

The old feelings kicked in – and they also provided a solution to this particular conversation. ‘Darling Bror …’ Kay went over to him and pushed the glass against his chest. ‘Sorry, I’m so sorry … this bloody war.’

He took her glass, set it down and pulled her to him. His hands slid over her shoulder blades. ‘I’m sorry, too.’

When Bror apologized he meant it and she knew how difficult it was for him to do so. Within her armour of black lace, she was as tense as a coiled spring and she longed for the impossible – to return to the beginning. With a sigh, she pressed her face against his chest.

His grip tightened. ‘Kay … ?’ He placed a finger at the base of her neck – precisely at the point where the pulse beat. ‘Why do you want to see Nils? Is there anything wrong?’

‘He’s my son. Why wouldn’t I want to see him?’

Nothing was normal any longer. The lie took shape as easily
as the truth. It was then Kay understood that part of her had already broken away. Part of her was already on that train with the wireless transmitter, working out what to do, how to proceed.

He kissed the place on her neck where his finger had rested.

She murmured, ‘You should want to see him, too. You must try to be closer to him, Bror. Promise me. You never know with a war …’

Her voice trailed away. Had she overdone it? Nils was always a slightly tricky subject.

He flinched. ‘Nils has left home.’ Bror allowed himself a note of regret. ‘Which makes it easier as I don’t have to think about him all the time.’ He laid a hand on her breast and his touch set up familiar sensations in her pelvis. ‘Kay …’ Gently, he pushed her towards the sofa.

She looked up at him. ‘Here?’

‘Yes, here.’

‘Goodness …’ She laughed and dropped back onto the sofa.

Between them they fought with the folds of black lace, which they wadded around her hips. She undid his trousers. He engaged expertly with the button of her French lace knickers.

It was fierce, hot and relatively brief. At one point he turned her over, at another she rose uninhibited above him. The moment appeared to satisfy a need in both of them, and reminded them of an element in their life together which was in danger of being lost. It was, Kay thought, a stirring, salty reminder of the early days when lust preoccupied them, and nothing was political.

Afterwards, they lay jammed together on the sofa like a pair of teenagers.

‘My dress! My poor dress,’ said Kay.

They smiled at each other, broken and uneasy smiles.

What next?

‘Go
to København,’ Bror said. ‘But if the weather is bad, I insist you get Arne to drive you.’

The snowfalls had freshly iced the countryside, and thrown soiled, sleety sheets over the towns and villages.

On the journey from Køge, Kay rubbed a circle out of the ice crystals on the train window. Then she peered out across a white, shrouded landscape. Was she prepared to die for this land?

Retrieved from the pigeon loft, the case was on the rack above her.

Please
… She sent a prayer up into the ether.
Please. Let me do this properly
.

As instructed, she waited by the newspaper vendor at the main station in København. A youth in a peaked cap brushed up against her, slipped a key into her hand and whispered the address, adding: ‘The flat has been checked out. No children. No maids.’

That was important. Children and maids posed a risk

On the pavements, the snow was piled six feet deep but, unusually, the authorities had made no move to clear it away. Carrying the case, Kay emerged from the station. A bitter wind blew from the north which bit into her exposed skin and swirled up her skirt. More than thankful for her boots and gloves, she adjusted her hat and headed for the tram stop.

The city was eerily silent. Cold always dulled her brain and, as Kay grew older, her aversion to it deepened. It crept into her bones and she dreaded the prospect of another vile winter like the previous one.

There were two other passengers at the tram stop, both of them bundled up into coats and scarves. Kay pulled off a glove and checked the key zipped into a compartment in her brown crocodile handbag.

The tram was only half full. Kay chose a seat in the middle of
the carriage and tucked the case under her legs. Two German officers got on and sat down in the seats in front her. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ one of them said politely in bad Danish.

They were dressed in the
feldgrau
soldier’s uniform but, at a pinch, they could have been taken for tourists. Kay was forced to study the back of their heads. One of them had a mole at his hairline, the other had fair acned skin. Their ordinariness made it difficult to feel anything stronger than mild distaste.

The tram hissed along the tracks.

The young girl in a threadbare brown coat seated beside Kay stood up and pushed her way to the standing area at the back.

A few seconds later an elderly man heaved himself to his feet and joined the girl. It wasn’t long before the majority of the passengers followed suit and jammed the standing area, which meant Kay and the German soldiers were the only ones still seated.

More clacking of wheels, plus muffled conversation from the standing platform filtered towards Kay.

A cool head
, Felix had instructed.
Act normally
.

Despite the tuition, Kay’s foot anchoring the case trembled and a numbness crept up her right leg.

If she remained seated, she would be marked out. If she got up, it would be obvious that the case was heavy. Split-second decision. She concentrated on steadying her foot.

Get off the tram.

The next stop was in sight. She picked up the case. One of the soldiers looked round. He had a pleasant, unassuming face. ‘Let me help you,’ he said.

What was normal? What was normal? Certainly not the cocktail of terror and disbelief flowing through her veins.

But this nice, ordinary-looking soldier had read the manual: ‘Be polite to the natives of whichever country you are occupying.’

He held out his hand.

She thought rapidly, running through her experiences of
fraternizing with Bror’s German cousins and connections over the years.

What got the best response from them?

In a flash, she remembered sitting in a plush Munich café, the women at one end of the table, the men at the other and a violinist hard at work on a Strauss waltz. Plates of choux pastry larded with cream were piled high between them. The men smoked cigarettes and kept a close eye on their wives, Kay among them. Play the little woman, she thought. Like the English, German men liked to think that they held all the cards.

‘Thank you,’ she said and followed him to the back of the tram. ‘You’re so kind.’

As she pushed past a knot of passengers, a finger jabbed into her back. She flinched. Another drove painfully into her side.

‘Nazi lover.’

The words were uttered softly but loud enough. Turning her head, she encountered blank faces.

The soldier deposited the case on the pavement and wished her a good day in bad Danish before getting back onto the tram.

The tram drew away. Shivering, Kay looked up at the group of hostile faces, ashamed that she minded what they thought of her.

A feeble sun emerged from the grey cloud but didn’t do anything to raise the temperature. The case handle bit into her fingers and her feet were blocks of ice.

At a junction with Østergarde, she peered into a shop window in which was reflected a blurry, moving collage of other pedestrians checking for tails.

Her own face looked back at her.

Always, she had considered her features too non-descript, except for her chin, which Anton, in one of his flirtatious moments, insisted was a stubborn one. ‘You look as soft as butter, darling, but your chin tells me you’re a fraud dressed up in
pearls.’ She was wearing the substantial Eberstern pearls and an exquisitely cut suit under her coat which, along with the blue hat, was the fruit of one of her pre-war Parisian trips.

How was she managing the transition from well-to-do Danish matron into a secret operator who could be hunted and shot, along with her family?

Nothing will have prepared you for it
… Felix again, instructing and cautioning.

Once more, she checked for a tail in a shop window. It was then she realized that the pearls were unwise. If anyone saw them under her coat, they would mark her out. Impatient with herself, she undid the clasp and dropped them into her bag. Lesson learned.

She quickened her pace, walking as fast as she could manage with the heavy case and without drawing attention to herself.

The safe house was reached through a courtyard at the centre of which the last of the hawthorn berries still clung to the trees. Looking neither right nor left, she skirted round the courtyard. Her nervousness intensified, driving acid into her stomach. God only knew how many pairs of eyes might be watching.

Inserting the key into the door, she pushed it open and stepped onto a pile of letters.

It was apparent at once that no one had been in the stale and unaired flat for some time. Setting the case down, she went on the prowl. In a room leading off the hall there was a vase of mummified flowers. Dead flies littered the windowsill. The floor-length drapes at the windows were coated in dust. The cushions on the sofa still bore the imprints of the people who last sat in them.

Back in the hall, she picked up the post addressed to Mr, Mrs and Master Frederick Mueller and stacked it in piles on the hall table, ready for the addressees to read the contents.

She knew in her heart that it was a useless gesture and something rotten had happened to the Muellers. All the same, she felt obliged to make it. Otherwise, it was to give up.

In
the kitchen, a recipe book lay open on the sideboard. ‘How to make a garlic sausage,’ Kay read. In the sink, dirty cutlery rested in scummy, stagnant water, but the shelves around the room were neatly arranged, the storage jars labelled in a clear hand. The family who had lived here had been proud of the place.