The Woman from Bratislava (11 page)

Jensen turned to look at me. In the same placid tone he said:

‘That’s not so good.’

‘Well, there’s nothing I can do about it,’ I retorted sullenly.

‘All I’m saying is it’s not so good,’ he muttered.

We drove towards Nyborg and then south in the direction of Svendborg.

‘Where are we going?’

‘We’ll be there in less than half an hour,’ he said. ‘All your
questions
will be answered then. Just have a little patience, Mr
Pedersen
, and in the meantime sit back and enjoy our beautiful Fünen countryside.’

There was nothing else for it. No further explanation was
forthcoming. And Fünen
is
very pretty. Besides which, I felt safe in assuming that this small island had not turned into a Danish version of Chechnya. What would be the sense in kidnapping a middle-aged lecturer in Russian and history? So I sat back and watched the lovely Lilliputian scenery slip past until we turned off the main road, drove down a narrow side road, then made a sharp left onto a dirt track leading to a small whitewashed farmhouse with a thatched roof hidden behind a hawthorn hedge. Once parked in the front yard we were invisible from the little side road.

I clambered out of the car and stretched my back. An upright man of around sixty-five was standing in the doorway. A thick mane of white hair was swept back from his high, narrow
forehead
and long, strong arms protruded from a short-sleeved shirt buttoned right up to the throat. When he stepped towards me and smiled I saw a row of even white teeth, and appraising eyes held mine a fraction too long, just as his firm, lengthy handshake was a little overdone. One would have thought we were old friends, miraculously meeting after years apart. From behind him Fritz edged out and looked at me.

‘Hi, Teddy,’ he said.

‘Hi, Fritz. I had a feeling you might be mixed up in this.’

‘If only Irma were here,’ Fritz said, wiping his hands on his trousers. He was wearing his old grey tweed jacket over a
light-coloured
shirt with neatly knotted tie and navy flannels. In his hand was his unlit pipe.

‘Yeah, well, Irma can’t get us out of this one,’ I said.

‘I’m pleased to meet you, Teddy. I’m pleased to meet Irma’s brother. You’re more like your mother, I think,’ the upright old man said. Although I don’t know why I should have thought of him as old, when I had just gauged him to be in his mid-sixties: that would make him only about fifteen years older than me. Maybe he was actually seventy? Well, at any rate we were on first name terms, while to the younger men old Teddy was still Mr Pedersen.

‘I’d really like to know, Mr …?’ I said.

‘Karl Viggo Jensen. Come in and have a bite to eat. Then I will tell you all about your father and my father, and about Irma’s secret life.’

FRITZ CAUGHT THE DIRTY LOOK
I shot him as we walked through the narrow door into a low-ceilinged living room. I could feel anger starting to well up inside me. Not so much over the strange secrecy surrounding this particular meeting, but also at the fact that I had for so many years been kept in the dark about certain crucial aspects of my family history: that my unknown natural father and my dear, but now totally senile mother had lived a double life, like secret agents living in a hostile country. The living room was small and very cosy in an old-fashioned way, with heavy furniture and naturalist pictures on the walls – the royal stag and the weatherbeaten fisherman. Classic, petit-bourgeois kitsch, I thought to myself, with typical academic arrogance. As if my own equally inoffensive abstract poster art was anything other than a reflection of what I and others like me considered pleasing to the eye. Were we not just as rigid in our own ideas of good taste? There was a large bookcase filled mainly, I noticed, with volumes on war and military history. In one corner a worn battered leather armchair was flanked by a small round coffee table and a black pot-bellied stove. There were three books on the table, bookmarks protruding neatly from each one. These volumes were not for decoration. This was where the man of the house sat to read and expand his knowledge. The room had the faintly stuffy air of an old man’s home, overlaid with the smell of pipe smoke. The
resulting
odour was not unpleasant, though: a little musty, rather like windfall apples; a whiff of childhood which brought back
memories
of my maternal grandparents’ smallholding, where I had spent my holidays as a little boy. From where I stood I could see into an antiquated kitchen where a woman of Karl Viggo Jensen’s age was
bustling about. She gave me a quick nod and wiped her hands on her apron before coming through to the living room and offering me her hand. It was damp and cool, but her handshake was firm and the grey eyes in the wrinkled face were bright.

‘Karla Jensen,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you could do with something to eat – it’s not as if you can catch a bite on the ferry nowadays.’

‘That would be lovely, thank you,’ I said, ensnared by the
outmoded
surroundings and atmosphere. In Copenhagen one forgot that in the country another life still went on, at a different tempo and in a different tone. One in which old words and expressions continued to be used, as if television had never been invented.

‘Can it wait fifteen minutes? I’d like to show Irma’s little brother the museum first,’ Karl Viggo Jensen said.

‘There’s no reason why not,’ she said. ‘It’s only a bit of lunch. It won’t come to any harm in fifteen minutes, but if the gentleman is hungry …’

‘No, I’m fine, really,’ I said.

‘Well in that case I’ll put the aquavit back in the fridge,’ she said, as if the schnapps was more important than whatever was
pervading
the house with such delicious odours.

The rest of us filed through another room in which a table was set for lunch, out into the garden and over to a low, whitewashed building which might once have been a pig shed. Our feet swished through the matted layer of leaves from the autumn still lying around a copper beech tree. Karl Viggo, straight-backed, led the way with me trudging at his heels and Fritz bringing up the rear, trailing his feet and panting slightly. He was not as young as he had once been and he had never been one to deny himself
anything
. Were the cigars and the pipe starting to have too marked an effect on my brother’s lungs, I wondered, feeling genuinely worried about him. Families are funny that way: we do not choose them, they can often be a pain in the neck, and yet they are the one constant in our lives.

The room we entered was a grim one, even if it did to some
extent resemble a small local museum in that it had pictures on the walls and exhibits in small glass cases. It was the objects on display which gave the place its sinister air. This was a museum dedicated to the SS, containing photographs of officers in black uniforms with SS runes on their collars, large black-and-white pictures of battle scenes, a Danish flag bearing the words:
Frikorps Danmark
– the Danish Legion. Guns, medals, yellowing letters and documents, what looked like diaries, gas masks, military insignia, accoutrements and dog tags. All the detritus left behind on the battlefields. Maps of the battles of Lake Ilmen, Stalingrad and Narva were carefully arranged in glass cases. With arrows and little labels giving the names of the regiments and which side they were on. As if that were of interest to anyone apart from those involved. In any case, even to a historian such as myself they said nothing. We were talking minor skirmishes on a pretty horrific front line, but obviously that part of the line, with all its small
victories
and defeats, was of interest to those who had been there. To the common soldier war is really just a matter of the next ditch, the next sheltering hedge, the next hot meal. Here one had everything which a small museum run on the limited resources available to such local ventures would be proud to present – were it not for the fact that this was an exhibition in honour of the losing side – and hence: evil. Karl Viggo Jensen said nothing, he merely remained just inside the door while I walked round in silence, looking. Fritz stood in the corner, staring at the floor and shuffling his feet on the scrubbed floor. It was still a pig shed, I thought to myself, but said nothing. Maybe I was simply a little scared, maybe I did not want to hurt Fritz’s feelings. Some of the pictures were well-known to me: the Danish Legion home on leave in ’42, for example. Fritz Clausen, the leader of the Danish Nazi Party, making a speech was another familiar image. And the picture of Christian Frederik Von Schalburg, first commander of the Danish Legion, with his small son in SS uniform – that too I had seen before. But the numerous other photographs of perfectly ordinary young Danish men with
the Swastika and the Danish flag on their jackets pictured at
different
spots along the Eastern Front were new to me. The historians had not concerned themselves much with the losers’ story. For many years there had been no academic posts or grants available for research into this dark chapter of the occupation. But I realised as I wandered round the exhibit that this was not an impartial, if secret, museum. This was a shrine, cherished and cared for as conscientiously as if it were a part of modern-day life and not a testament to acts of treason committed almost sixty years before; as if there were people who wished to say: We did exist. We do not want to be forgotten. We are a part of you.

One of the photographs showed a Waffen SS officer who was the spitting image of Karl Viggo Jensen himself, albeit in a much younger version. If it was the same man then I had got his age all wrong. He was standing next to another man whom I recognised as my father.

‘Yes, that’s me with your father, Teddy,’ Karl Viggo said. I had not heard him come up behind me. I stared at the picture with a combination of fascination and disgust. The two young men stood side by side in their black uniforms, grinning broadly beneath their garrison caps. My father had a machine gun resting on his hip – like a big-game hunter who has just brought down a wild beast. But behind the two men a whole lot of bodies were laid out in rows like the bag from a hunt.

‘Russian partisans. They had killed one of our men, a Dane from Himmerland, and poked his eyes out. So we raided their village, made them sorry they ever did that. War is a dirty
business
, believe me.’

I said nothing. I felt sick, my nausea increasing as I gazed at the picture of my father. I had never really known him, but his blood ran in my veins. And although I did not believe that the sins of the fathers were visited on the sons, it was quite a blow to be confronted with the fact that one’s father had been involved in war crimes on the Eastern Front.

‘That must make you almost eighty,’ I said stupidly.

‘Seventy-eight,’ he said. ‘There aren’t many of us left and most of them are drooling cabbages in nursing homes now, but the Lord has blessed me with excellent health.’

‘Who’s Karl Henrik, then? He can’t possibly be your son?’

‘He’s my nephew, and the secretary of the association. But you’ll hear more about that over lunch. His grandfather is over here, come …’ He pointed to a corner of the room, made to take my arm, but thought better of it when he saw the look on my face. In the corner a number of photographs were displayed alongside two service books emblazoned with the Swastika. In one photo was a man who bore some resemblance to Karl Viggo. He was sitting in an armoured troop carrier with a pipe in his mouth and a rifle across his knees.

‘That’s Hans Peter. This picture was taken in Yugoslavia, not far from Zagreb, where the Nordland Division was stationed in ’43. Hans Peter never came home. He fell at Narva in ’44. He’s buried there. We found his remains a couple of years back and gave him a Christian burial. The Estonians have a greater understanding of our fight against the Reds than you find in this country. Look at the other picture.’

It was another photo of my father. He was stripped to the waist and appeared to be soaping himself before rinsing off the suds under a makeshift shower set up in a tree. He looked thin, but muscular still. On the edge of the shot was a young girl; she had her hands over the lower part of her face, but was obviously in fits of laughter at the apparent antics of the Danish SS soldier.

‘That’s Andrea. Your father was very fond of Andrea. And she of him. She was the daughter of one of the local Ustashi
commandants
who helped us to disarm those lily-livered Italians and hunt down Tito’s devils … oh, and see here.’

It was a small picture in a light wood frame, in colour. It had been taken on a summer’s day in a woodland clearing. A number of people, among them my older sister Irma and my older
brother Fritz, were standing around a monument on which one could make out the words: ‘They gave their lives for the Glory of Denmark’. In the small group I also recognised Karl Viggo and Karl Henrik Jensen.

‘As I say, in the new Estonia they appreciate the contribution we made. We were fighting against the heathen communists. We were fighting Ivan. That picture was taken on June 2nd, 1998. The stone was erected on Christian Frederik von Schalburg’s birthday. We felt that was rather fitting. He was a brave soldier and a good Dane.’

‘And a fucking Nazi and an anti-Semite,’ I burst out, but his voice did not falter:

‘Yes, and so was I, but that’s all in the past. Nazism died in a bunker in Berlin in 1945. That’s what the younger generation don’t understand. That it’s a lost cause, although national socialism was originally conceived as a means of combatting communism and a social guarantee against capitalism. But that’s all over and done with. We made a mistake. We lost the war. National socialism neither can nor should be revived. That’s not the point.

‘Oh, and what is the point?’ I said, with anger and impotence in my voice as well as a note of indignation.

‘Justice. It’s a matter of justice, Teddy,’ he said.

I could not bear to stay another moment in that ghastly room with its grim aesthetic and its worship of evil. Without a word I turned on my heel, strode past Fritz and out into the garden, where I took several deep breaths – as if the fresh air could cleanse my soul of the distorted reflection of one side of my family which that secret room represented. I lit a cigarette, puffed on it
furiously
while staring up at the bare branches of the copper beech. Possible title for this picture:
Shocked Teddy With Cigarette Under Copper Beech
. And this, my usual way of observing myself from the outside and making a joke of the situation helped me to get things back into perspective. I hadn’t even known my father. His blood ran in my veins, but that did not mean that I shared his
views or ever would. I was Teddy, good old, sardonic, distanced Teddy. And besides, this was the stuff of history, it could be
analysed
coolly and objectively, so there was no need to panic. Such was my reasoning, as I smoked that wonderful cigarette in the big garden and tried to bring my galloping heart under control.

For lunch there was herring and beer and schnapps, homemade rolled lamb sausage, rib-roast and streaky pork with apple the like of which I had not tasted in years. The aroma of the tart apples and smoked pork tickled my nostrils. The marinated herring served with curry salad had just the right consistency. The pork crackling was so crisp it made my brain pop. I would have thought that I would have lost my appetite, but Teddy just loves politically
incorrect
food, and having lived for so long in Janne’s salad, bread and pasta hell, he tucked in with a will, washing it all down with two large drams of schnapps and a couple of cold Albani beers. The lady of the house went back and forth, so it was just we four men at the table. The atmosphere was, not surprisingly, a little strained to begin with, but everyone, including Fritz, ate well – although my brother would not look me in the eye. But the old man with the ice-blue gaze and the astonishingly smooth, parchment-like skin on which only the liver spots betrayed his age, acted as if nothing were amiss and chatted with his nephew about everyday doings in the neighbourhood. About a cow that had calved, a son who had gone off the rails, a forthcoming wedding and the new vicar, who hailed from Odense. They made no attempt to include the rest of us in their conversation, but made sure that we were helped to each new dish served up by Mrs Jensen. I had several questions which I wanted to ask Fritz – (or preferably Irma) – in private, but I had no desire to involve the two strangers in our family drama. In any case, this traditional Danish fare was so good, even if the fat content of the pork and apple would have had the Danish Heart Foundation up in arms and condemning us all to a strict diet of vegetables and fibre.

A pot of coffee was placed on the table along with a bottle of
brandy. I refused the latter, remembering that I had to drive back to Copenhagen. I passed on the cigars too. I preferred to stick to my cigarettes. Only once the table and the rest of the low-ceilinged room were wreathed in blue smoke did the old man get down to business. He explained, in the deep voice which his nephew had inherited in such measure, that he had no regrets, but that he admitted having been on the losing side. There was nothing to be done about that. There were not too many of the old legionnaires left. But the survivors met once a year in Austria, a country which took a more sympathetic view of the crusade against Bolshevism. There they could sit in the taverns and sing the old songs. There they could check whether the old uniforms still fitted. There they could tell war stories of the just battle against the Jews and the communists. The pork and apple turned sour in my stomach and I noticed both Fritz and Karl Henrik Jensen shifting restlessly in their chairs. The old man saw it too of course and said: