So, (hello Michael) I am 4 years on from my last post. But I'm not going to catch you all up on my soaring life. I expect most of you know anyway.
I am instead going to write a short story today. We're 17 days into isolation here in Ramparts Walk and I'm wondering why it hadn't occurred to me to write a story before today, but there you go. The last one I wrote was published so even though that would be nice, that is not my motivation today. I awoke this morning with a curiosity about a time/era in Norway and explored it, as can only be done if you don't have to get up for work at 6am. So a few hours of percolation later and I ask my Facebook lovelies for a first sentence. I chose one. Here I go.
First, you select a knife. Not just any knife but your biggest. The one that gets stuck in the block because the blade is a tiny bit too wide for the spalte, so it drags a little and probably blunts it further every time you drive it home.
Second, because you've probably blunted it, you sharpen it. Take a steel and draw the blade towards you repeatedly until it is sharp enough. You will know when it is.
Now, you are ready. I am ready. I crouch by the closed door. It is locked but that means very little.
The Germans have been here for 4 years. Every winter the bones of my country are depleted further. Leeched of goodness; my homeland becomes harder to recognise. Only the forest and the fjord remains the same so I have come here. I fish and I try to remember what life was like for my people before. The Wehrmacht have come and there is nothing to be done but survive the best you can. The front face of a nation that cares nothing for individual nations unless they are their own but some individuals are not so bad. But you will be called a quisling, or traitor, if you try and survive too well.
My thighs start to burn but I can't sit down. I must be ready.
The first time I saw Jan was in the village. The King had watched my village burn to ash after the bombing and left us to flounder in the charred remains. Whole families had been destroyed while he watched from the forest. The ground covered by a thick layer of soft snow. Black ash; white snow; yellow heart. I spied Jan the next day. His big hands rifling through what remained. Looking for money, or someone still alive to torture, I assumed. Maybe a still-breathing jew or two. He hadn't stayed long. Someone taller with a crueler face came for him and he left the burned timbers of my life to be swallowed by another snowfall.
I shift my weight onto my heels, stretch my calves as I rock back and forth. I think I hear something moving in the night. Not a hint of what it is, but I run through an inventory in my head. Could be an elk, or a beaver, the fjord is home to both. But somehow that step sounds more deliberate.
That's when I came here. This cabin had been my family's for generations. My grandparents had decided the forest life was not for them at the turn of the century although to be fair I think my bestefar loved the solitude. I suspect he'd have been happy as Odin up here communing with the red squirrel and taking his orders from the raven even on his own. It was my bestemor who finally wanted the company of women in the village. I often think that they should have parted ways then but that was not the way of things. I've been here 3 years, 2 months, 1 week and 4 days. They were here for over 40 years. I often wonder how my gregarious bestemor survived it. My bestefar was the most loving man I ever knew but he was silent. He fit best with the mountains that protected the cabin from a never-ending sky.
I grip the knife hard. I am sure that I can hear something, no, someone out there. I hope it is who I want it to be but you can never be sure. Once the Germans catch wind that you are a Quisling, they think you are fair game. Their programme of Lebensborn, not surprisingly, is hardly a difficult way to be patriotic: Impregnate as many women as you can; spread that Aryan blood far and wide, soldier.
My mamma was born up here. Bestemor told me of my mamma's birth many times and I never got tired of hearing it. It was fast, luckily, and bestefar had cut the cord with a hot knife and they had laid with the windows open listening to the summer forest awake and alive around them. Their youth had given them each other and this child was the result of many years of grieving. They had thought my mamma was never going to come, but she did, always late, and feisty with life. Then, in turn she had given birth to me, not here, but at the village after my grandparents had returned. My bestefar cut my cord too but with a midwife present this time.. My father, a logger, was away as always. I wasn't a big enough draw to take him away from the forest. Now, I live up here, I understand why.
"Quisling..." A man's voice whispers at the door. It's been several months but our secret word springs alive from his lips.
Others have been but I didn't want them to come. I fought them every time, but it was obvious that they never learned the Norwegian for no.
"Jan?"
"Kjæreste..." Liebchen in his tongue.
I straighten up from behind the door. Not as light on my feet as I used to me. My joints creak and my back takes a few seconds to realise that I am standing.
I open the door a crack. Knife still clenched in my defiant paw. Just in case I am mistaken, just in case this isn't him. The door creaks like my bones. He pushes in and looks at me. His eyes sparking something. It's been so long. My hair is unwashed and tangled but Jan pushes his fingers into the strands and I grab his hips.
"Is it you?" I ask.
"Who else, Kjæreste?"
I do not answer. I am still holding the knife. He strokes my wrist and I let it fall. As he does his big hands find the swelling curve of my belly, and he asks without words.
"Yes," I whisper, "it's yours."
