The Last Pilgrim (30 page)

She and Cecilia had just finished taking a swim at the small beach nearby when Brigadier Seeholz came walking around the side of the house wearing a light summer suit and a very unbecoming straw hat. Agnes waved to him and his companion, a woman who looked far too young to be his wife. Then she slipped on a bathrobe that had belonged to Cecilia’s mother and began drying the child’s thick hair. She wrapped a towel around the girl and pulled her close. She breathed in the smell of salt water in Cecilia’s hair as she rubbed her cold little feet.

“A swim fit for a Viking, Ms. Gerner,” said Seeholz, doffing his hat once he reached the dock. He introduced the woman who had come with him. She was about Agnes’s age, a German secretary who was apparently of no significance, like Agnes herself. Seeholz moved off to inspect the big sailboat bobbing in the water where it was moored at the end of the long dock. The young woman went with him, squealing with delight when Seeholz lifted her down into the boat so they could take a closer look.

Gustav Lande came strolling across the lawn with a few others in tow. Agnes picked up Cecilia and carried her over the rocks up to the bathing hut. The man who trailed the small group was someone Agnes had hoped never to see again, though she knew that would have been too good to be true. Lande looked happier than he’d probably been in the past eight years as he accompanied his guests out to the dock. But the handsome figure in the blue blazer and light slacks walking a few paces behind the others made it impossible for Agnes to even try to delude herself into pretending any of this was genuine. The man hesitated before setting foot on the dock. Then he turned and left the group to head straight for the bathing hut where Agnes was draping towels over the white-painted fence.

The reflection in Peter Waldhorst’s sunglasses competed with the shiny pomade in his black hair. He took off his shades as he approached and stuck them in his breast pocket. Agnes had rarely felt so exposed, and no doubt that was his intention as he came over to her. Here she stood, dripping wet, wearing a bathrobe that belonged to Gustav Lande’s late wife, with his daughter clinging to her leg.

“So, Ms. Gerner, we meet again,” said Waldhorst, shaking her hand. “And you must be Cecilia. Am I right?”

“Say hello to Mr. Waldhorst, Cecilia,” said Agnes.

“Call me Peter,” he said, squatting down to look at the girl. Strangely, he looked happy, almost lighthearted, as if he’d had a few drinks before coming out here. Agnes felt a little calmer. She cast a glance at the dock where the other guests had now boarded the sailboat, a J-class yacht that Lande had bought in the United States before the war. Waldhorst stuck his hand in the pocket of his blue blazer.

“Look here,” he said to Cecilia. She took a step back and clung even harder to Agnes’s leg.

“What’s that in your ear, Cecilia?” Waldhorst asked, putting his hand up to her ear. Then he held out his hand. A fifty-øre piece lay on his palm. The little girl uttered a cry of joy and let go of Agnes’s leg.

“Didn’t you know that money grows in your ear?” said Waldhorst. Cecilia shook her head, making her damp curls swing from side to side.

“Well,” said Waldhorst, “you’ll have to keep this. It’s from your ear, after all.” He pressed the coin into her hand and closed her fingers around it. “Do you think there’s something growing in your other ear?”

“No,” said Cecilia. Then she glanced up at Agnes, who once again felt a pang in her heart at the sight of the girl’s lively expression. It was a feeling she didn’t want to acknowledge.

Agnes reached out to stroke her hair.

“We should go now,” she said.

“No, wait a minute,” said Waldhorst, conjuring forth another fifty-øre coin. “Can you believe it?”

Then he stood up and lit a cigarette, with the same movements that Agnes recalled seeing on the terrace at Lande’s house.
What a fine paper-company director you are, Peter Waldhorst,
she thought.

“I suppose this isn’t what you’re planning to wear to dinner,” he said, giving Agnes a wink. Then he pinched Cecilia’s nose, which made her squeal with delight.

“Did he do the same thing to you?” asked Cecilia as they got undressed in the bathing hut and looked out the windows toward the sailboat. Waldhorst was now examining the foredeck of the beautiful vessel along with the rest of the guests.

“No,” said Agnes.
He’s got other tricks in mind for me,
she thought.

She put on her dress and then helped Cecilia with hers. As they walked barefoot through the grass up to the house, she thought the little girl was the best protection she could possibly have.
You wouldn’t dare take me away as long as I have her,
Agnes thought as she poured a glass of juice for Cecilia on the terrace and watched the guests coming back to the house. Only Waldhorst remained on the dock, looking toward the bathing hut. It took him a few seconds to spot them on the terrace. Agnes turned on her heel and disappeared inside the house.

When she was putting Cecilia to bed that evening—once again under the disapproving eye of the maid—the child asked the question she was hoping never to hear: “Can’t you stay here forever?”

She was lying next to Cecilia, the curtains fluttering by the open window. The horizon was turning pink, and the steady hum of voices on the terrace below merged with the sound of a fishing vessel returning to Holmsbu for the night. A flock of seagulls flew behind it, shrieking like a flock of fledgling cuckoos waiting for their mother. The moment Agnes cautiously pulled her arm away, the little girl opened her eyes.

“Go to sleep, sweetheart,” whispered Agnes.

“I wish you could stay here forever,” Cecilia said quietly.

Agnes felt her throat close up. All she could manage was a nod. Finally she said, “We’ll have to see . . . maybe.”

All I want is to get out,
she thought as she stroked Cecilia’s forehead.
With another man, not your father.
Then she realized that there was probably no plan for getting her out. How many Resistance cells were there? If what she was now getting involved in turned out to be too dangerous, would they be able to get her across the border to Sweden or to the west coast and from there by boat to England? Agnes walked across the old pine floorboards to draw the curtains. Down below on the terrace she saw Peter Waldhorst conversing with another German in civvies she had not yet met.

When she went down the winding staircase, she saw that Lande and Brigadier Seeholz must have come inside from the terrace while she was putting Cecilia to bed. She paused on one of the last steps to listen. She could hear their voices coming from the kitchen or maybe from Gustav’s office in an adjoining room. When she continued down to the entryway, she saw that Seeholz’s young female companion was sitting on Waldhorst’s lap out on the terrace. Seeholz evidently didn’t care. In the entryway she could hear his rough voice, occasionally interrupted by Lande’s softer one. She made sure no one on the terrace had noticed her before she turned and briskly headed for the kitchen.

“Yes. Good. We need to post another squadron down there. You see that, don’t you, Gustav?” Seeholz’s voice could be clearly heard through the open door of the office.

One of them seemed to be leafing through some papers. A faint glow from the office fell like a fan across the darkened kitchen.

“Look at this,” said Seeholz. “We need to have antiaircraft positions . . . here and here.” Agnes heard the scratch of a pen on paper and wondered if he was drawing buildings surrounded by flak cannons. “It’s urgent.”

“It’ll be expensive,” said Lande.

“That’s not your concern,” said Seeholz. “And I also need an underground laundry. It’s much too exposed down there. The English could easily bomb the whole place to hell and back. It’s just a question of time. And what will we do then? It’ll set us back years.”

Gustav Lande didn’t reply.

Agnes held her breath. Her pulse was pounding so hard in her temples that she was afraid the men would hear it from inside the office. She couldn’t simply stand here.
Get out!
she thought.
Do something!

“It’s the biggest molybdenum mine operating in all of Europe, Gustav. Do you realize that?”

“I hope that one day I’ll be able to accommodate your needs,” said Lande. “As you say, it’s the biggest mine in Europe right now, but the ore is of low grade. However, I may soon have some very good news for you, Ernst.” He had lowered his voice, clearly not wanting anyone to hear. Least of all her. But she’d already heard enough. If she could pull it off, this was an infinitely greater coup than anything she’d gleaned over the course of two years with Helge Schreiner.

As Agnes cautiously took a step back, she heard a sound on the threshold.

For a moment she stood frozen in place, staring out the window at the gleaming black cars parked in the yard. Although the two men in the office were now practically whispering, Agnes was still able to catch fragments of what they said. Something about a director of research.

The person behind her took a step forward into the kitchen, making the floorboards creak.
What shall I say to him?
she thought. Waldhorst. He’d caught her now. And her purse was upstairs in her room. How could she be so . . .

But no, it was a woman she heard clearing her throat. Agnes hoped against hope to turn and find one of the hired maids or serving girls from Holmsbu. Instead, she found herself gazing right into the birdlike face of Lande’s maid.

The two men continued talking in the office.

Neither Agnes nor the maid said a word. Looking annoyed, Johanne walked past her to the window to draw the blackout curtains. Then she began taking the plates out of the sink where they’d been left to soak.

Agnes hurried out to the terrace before Lande stuck his head out the office door.
How am I going to get out of this?
she thought.

She put her hand on the railing and tried to focus on the beautiful view instead of dwelling on the fact that the maid must have realized she was deliberately eavesdropping on Lande’s conversation with Seeholz. Surely she saw what was going on? Agnes had taken a chance and been caught in the act. Now she wondered how dearly this would cost her. If Johanne was a fool, nothing would happen. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case.

After Agnes had been standing on the terrace for a while, someone came up beside her. She heard the blackout curtains being drawn behind her. That was enough to subdue the mood out on the terrace, and the voices of the others became more muted, more serious in tone.

“What a lovely evening,” said Waldhorst quietly, setting a whisky glass on the railing. His face was like a black-and-white photograph in the growing darkness. “No one could blame you for turning your affections to Mr. Lande, since he owns such a beautiful summer place.” He tried to meet her eye, but she didn’t dare look at him. Instead she stared at the flowering lilac bushes next to the terrace.

“Lilacs,” said Waldhorst when he saw what she was looking at. “How can God make something so alluring and then allow the flowers to live only a few weeks?”

Late that night, she did the only safe thing. While the other guests snored softly a few doors away, she stepped out of her panties, unbuttoned her nightgown, and left her room, closing the door quietly behind her. Then she tiptoed along the corridor. Through a window at the end of the hall she could see that the sun was already appearing on the horizon. She pulled her nightgown over her head, opened the door to Gustav Lande’s bedroom, and sank down onto the bed next to his naked body.

CHAPTER 36

Thursday, June 12, 2003

Steinbu Lodge

Vågå, Norway

It had been a long time since Tommy Bergmann had driven over two hundred miles in one stretch. On his way up the slope where Highway 51 diverged from the 15 at Vågåvatnet, he had trouble staying awake. The long drive wasn’t helping the feeling that this was a complete waste of time. He’d spent all day trying to locate the five people in Krogh’s circle who were still alive. So far he’d found three of them, though his efforts had produced nothing more than a cup of coffee and a few cookies from an old man in the shipping business who lived in Ullernåsen.

He slowed down to maneuver the tight curves that were taking him higher up the mountain. It seemed as if the road wouldn’t stop until it reached the stars above. At last he came upon the exit to Steinbu Lodge and started bumping down the narrow gravel road.

Bergmann parked next to one of the smaller buildings. When he got out of the car, he was greeted by a gust of cold mountain air. It was 11:30 p.m., and the temperature had to be close to freezing. Goosebumps appeared on his skin. He paused to look at the glow from the moon on the shiny, dark surface of the lake at the foot of a slope right in front of the main building. There was not a sound to be heard. A half dozen cars were parked out front, but people who paid to come up here for “good food and relaxation”—as it said on the lodge’s website—apparently went to bed early. No lights were on in any of the windows. Aside from the two porch lights and the illuminated sign welcoming guests to Steinbu Lodge, it was as dark as it ever got at Midsummer in Norway. The vast vault of the sky overhead suddenly made him feel sentimental.