The Fragile Hour Read online

  “I don’t want that!”

  Margot nodded and leaned forward. “There’s something I’ve been longing to ask you. How did you get on with Karl? I knew from how you introduced yourself at the desk that he had sent you.”

  Anna considered carefully before she answered. “It took me a little time to get on easier terms with him, but I haven’t known him long.”

  “Ah!” Margot sat back with a kind of regretful acceptance of a foregone conclusion. “He’s still grieving for Ingrid.”

  “What do you mean?” Anna asked uncertainly.

  “You didn’t know? Well, of course not. He’d never discuss losing her with a stranger or anybody else for that matter.” Margot shook her head sadly. “He used to be so easy-going and I’d hoped he’d be more of his old self again. After all it’s over two years since since he lost her. They’d met in their last year at school, drifted apart for a while and then met up again to find that they meant everything to each other. They married on the very eve of the invasion. As the Resistance began forming they became involved in it together.”

  “What happened?”

  “Ingrid was on an individual sortie, but she’d been betrayed. The enemy was waiting for her and she was shot while trying to escape.”

  “How terrible!”

  “What made Karl’s bereavement even harder for him was that it should have been his sortie. At the last moment he had switched their missions, believing that the one originally allocated to him was the less dangerous.”

  “Oh, poor man!” Anna’s voice was distressed.

  “I agree. As I’ve said, bereavement changed him and I’d hoped by now that he would be more his old self again.”

  “Have you known him a long time?”

  “All my life. His grandparents and mine were old friends. He used to stay at the country house in Tresfjord.”

  “He told me that.”

  “I’ve had to adjust to being without someone too, although — pray God! — it’s only for the duration of this hateful war.”

  “I noticed your engagement ring.”

  Margot sighed wearily. “Johan had to leave Norway at a moment’s notice. He was in Oslo at the time and escaped into Sweden. I suppose by now he will have managed to get to England. We didn’t even have the chance to say goodbye.”

  “Was he in the Resistance?”

  Margot nodded. “He was with one of the ‘cells’ that were broken up last year through betrayal, probably when somebody was tortured. Since then I’ve carried on working here and also doing transcripts of the BBC news broadcasts to Norway. Emil delivers them to the underground free press.”

  “But listening to the radio is banned since the German confiscation of them. Where is your set?”

  “People hide them in all sorts of places from a tin on a kitchen shelf to a bird’s nesting-box. Ours is in a jewellery-case on Mother’s dressing-table.”

  Anna’s eyes widened and a laugh escaped her. “So much going on here under the noses of the Germans!”

  Margot grinned. “What could be safer?” She stood up. “I must get back to the reception desk. It’s surprising how busy it gets there sometimes. You’ll soon find out for yourself.”

  “I’m pleased you came. I was feeling very much on my own when I arrived here.”

  Margot crossed to the door, but although she took hold of the handle she did not open it at once. “Your chief danger will come from the officers fancying you.”

  “Do you have trouble with them?”

  “I deal with it. How old are you, Anna? I’m twenty-two.”

  “I’ll be the same in ten days’ time.”

  Margot opened the door, but looked back over her shoulder with a smile. “I’ll introduce you to some of my friends and we’ll celebrate your birthday somehow. We still manage to enjoy ourselves occasionally in spite of everything.”

  The door shut after her, but Anna remained seated and pressed the back of her hand against her mouth. Now she knew why Karl had responded to her kiss as he had done and why he had spoken so softly when he had urged her to take care. He had been remembering another woman and another farewell. It had meant nothing on a personal level.

  Chapter Seven

  Within days Anna had acquired a great deal of knowledge about hotel management, absorbing as much as she could, never knowing when she might have to move on. Several officers showed interest in her from the start, chatting to her at every opportunity. She was soon able to pick out one or two among the older officers who were not entirely brainwashed by Nazism and, in spite of their uniform, liked them as ordinary men. Yet she knew they would be as quick to arrest her as the rest and always kept her distance.

  When asked by any of them to tell something about herself, Anna talked of her fictional home and background as well as her supposedly life-long ambition to own her own hotel one day. She always added, as cover for the future, that she hoped to move on to a larger hotel before long.

  “You mustn’t leave too soon!” was the smiling protest that invariably followed. Often she was invited out, but she always refused, using an excuse borrowed from Margot.

  “Fru Sande doesn’t allow anybody on her staff to associate socially with her guests.” Privately Anna thought it a ridiculous excuse, since any one of them could have swept aside these rules at any time. So far this had not happened.

  None of them suspected that when they were dining at the hotel or were otherwise absent, Anna went into the rooms with a spy camera that Emil had brought for her from the local Resistance ‘cell’. There, using keys that Greta provided, she went through any papers left in a locked drawer.

  It had never been done in the hotel before. Although Greta and Margot could converse in German, they would not have known which papers would be most useful to the Resistance. Greta offered to act as lookout for Anna, but she refused.

  “You’re in enough danger as it is by harbouring me. If I’m caught it need be nothing to do with you. There are enough creaking boards in any wooden house to give me warning of someone’s approach.”

  At first, although several of the files that Anna found were labelled Top Secret, the contents contained nothing of importance.

  As Margot had promised, Anna soon met some of her friends, who were all about the same age and fun to be with. Yet circumstances prevented frequent meetings. Once, in a house that stood a far enough distance from a road to be out of German hearing, the gathering broke all the enemy’s rules by dancing to a gramophone and listening to the London news on a little radio produced from its hiding place of a hollowed out fire-log. It was unlikely that the chance of such a party would come again for a long time.

  The following evening Greta told Anna that Major Schultz was dining at the mess as the officers usually did except when off duty. He had not been long at the hotel and seemed to be engaged in some military matter of his own. Anna was wary of him and this would be her first chance to go to his room.

  Anna never locked a bedroom door when she carried out her investigations, her ears always keened for the creaking boards. This time she was rewarded in her search. In the drawer of a bedside table she found a leather file with its own locked clasp. She had been taught how to pick locks during her training and she had it lying open on the bed in a matter of seconds. With an increase in her pulse she found details of a great gun that was to be shipped in and installed in the heights above the town that would give it a wide range over the harbour and the islands all around.

  She used her camera. It became clear that Major Schultz had come to Alesund to be in charge of the installation of this great weapon, all the heavy work to be done by Russian prisoners-of-war. These unfortunate men, captured on the Eastern Front, had been turned into slave labourers and Anna, although she had heard of their ill-treatment, had not yet seen any of them.

  Suddenly she froze. Heavy footsteps were approaching at a determined pace along the corridor. Swiftly she thrust the papers back into the file, clipped the clasp shut and pushed it
into the drawer. But in her haste, after locking it, she dropped the key even as the door began to open, giving her no time to retrieve it. Almost blindly she began tucking up the puffy coverlet to remove the indentation caused by the file.

  “Fröken Larsen?” There was surprise in the officer’s voice.

  With no sign of confusion Anna looked across at him as he closed the door behind him. “Good evening, Major Schultz,” she said smilingly. “I’m just leaving. I’ve been checking that everything is in order as one of my duties.” She had spoken in German.

  He threw his cap and gloves on to a chair and began to unbutton his greatcoat. He was well built, self-assured and aggressively handsome.

  “It’s a pleasure to find you here. We haven’t had a chance to talk since I rescued you in that line-up outside the store.”

  Somehow she managed to keep the smile on her face, although it was an incident that had angered her deeply at the time. She had been in a long queue on Greta’s behalf for some winter-stored apples, newly delivered. The Major had spotted her and taken her right to the head of the queue and into the shop, waiting until she was served. The hostile looks of those in the line had followed her as she left. Nobody dared say anything with the German at her side, but she was acutely aware of the general disgust.

  “That’s right,” she said lightly, going across to take his field-grey greatcoat as he shrugged it off. As he thanked her, she carried it to the clothes closet and hung it away on a hanger. It gave her the chance to stroll back to stand by the bed again and to put her foot firmly over the fallen key as she smoothed a crease as if finishing her task.

  “How are you settling into your new career?” he was asking, standing between her and the door.

  “It’s early days yet, but I’m enjoying it all so far.”

  He was regarding her assessingly. “Did you know that you speak German remarkably well? I compliment you.”

  She did not want his compliments, but forced herself to make conversation.

  “I’ve noticed that your Norwegian is fluent whenever we’ve talked in my language.”

  “I’ve had plenty of opportunity. I was among the first to step on Norwegian soil back in 1940.”

  His arrogant assumption that she would approve his explanation made her anger flicker dangerously. Yet somehow she managed to keep an interested expression on her face as if it were a mask. “I suppose my Norsk accent is as strong when I speak your language as yours when you speak mine.”

  He spread his hands with a smile. “Yours is very charming. So where did you learn my language?”

  “I had a German friend in my childhood. She lived with us for three years. My parents were among others in my country who responded to an appeal after the Great War to take a German child into their home on a temporary basis, because Germany was starving then.” Anna thought to herself that the false background she had been given in her training certainly covered all contingencies. “Naturally, as we played together I gained a good grounding in the language. I also had a good teacher at school.” It passed through her mind that at least that last sentence was true.

  “Your parents’ generosity was highly commendable, but times like that will never come to Germany again. Our Führer has ensured a golden future for us all.” He must have assumed that she was in no hurry to leave by her talking conversationally with him. “I have some excellent wine here in my room. Will you join me in a glass?”

  “Thank you,” she accepted, hoping that he would turn his back as he poured the wine. That would give her a chance to snatch up the key. “But soon I have to take over at the reception desk.”

  “Forget about that for the time being.” He made a dismissive gesture, all his movements sharp and purposeful. To her disappointment he went to a cupboard against the same wall as the bedhead. It enabled him to keep his eyes on her as he stooped down to open its doors.

  “I’ve been wanting to get to know you, Anna,” he said, sparing only a glance to locate the glasses and setting them on the cupboard. “In spite of what you say, I’m sure you must find life dull with Fru Sande keeping you practically under lock and key.”

  “It’s not like that at all. There simply isn’t anywhere much to go these days.”

  He did not even look in the cupboard for the wine, but reached in and took a bottle by the neck from a selected stock. Then he poured the wine, never taking his gaze from her. “There would be if you’d let me take you around. At one of the larger hotels that we have also commandeered we have dances and parties. You’d enjoy them.”

  She took the glass of wine that he handed to her. “Who goes to them apart from your fellow officers and their girlfriends?”

  “Sometimes we invite local dignitaries who are enjoying civil power under our command and their wives too, of course.”

  Anna had another word for these people. Quislings. As for the girls, there were always those unable to resist good-looking men, whatever their crimes, while others of a mercenary turn of mind wanted the extras and the occasional luxury item that a German could give them.

  The Major had tasted the wine and was looking at her expectantly. “Well? What do you think?”

  She took a sip to humour him. “It is very good.”

  “Come and sit down,” he invited, taking a step in the direction of a sofa on the opposite side of the room. “You need to relax when you’re enjoying fine wine. You’re standing there as if you’re glued to the floor.”

  It was exactly how she felt with the key underfoot. “I suppose I am,” she acknowledged.

  Giving a happy little shrug as if already the wine had broken down barriers between them, she promptly sat down on the edge of the bed, a flick of her foot sending the key skimming underneath. She continued to swing her foot back and forth as if it were an expression of pent-up energy. “It’s a long time since I’ve tasted anything as delicious as this.” She drank some more of the wine, wanting to finish it and then get away. “Thank you, Major.”

  As she had feared, he came back to sit facing her on the bed. “Do stop addressing me by my rank, Anna,” he said with smiling impatience. “My name is Klaus.”

  “Very well, Klaus.” She spoke casually as if his request had no importance, but he still seemed encouraged by it.

  “As soon as I saw you I was certain that we had a lot in common. You have an enlightened attitude towards my presence and that of my fellow countrymen here in Norway. I believe you could do a great deal of good in influencing others towards this attitude as you make new friends here in Alesund. Will you do that?”

  She gave him a slow smile. “Naturally I want the best for all my people. I’d do anything towards that end.”

  “I can see we’re going to get on well.” He put his hand over hers, which she was resting on the bed between them.

  She drew it away and looked at her watch. “I must go now.”

  “Not yet. Let me fill up your glass again.”

  She shook her head and set her emptied glass on the bedside table. “No, there isn’t time.”

  He put his glass down beside hers and went with her across the room. There he reached in front of her to take the door-handle first, but he held it, keeping the door closed as he looked into her eyes. “I want to see you often, Anna. Not just here in the hotel. We have to really get to know each other. There’s a supper dance at the end of the week. I’d like you to come with me.”

  She wondered mockingly if he thought the promise of an off-ration meal might sway the balance, but knew that wasn’t true from the way he was looking at her. Although she did not want any more of his unpleasant company, she did not want to throw away the chance of any useful information coming to light through it. “You seem to forget that I have to keep to the rules. In any case, I’ll be working at the weekend.”

  He looked complacent. “You won’t be. I’ll speak to Fru Sande myself.”

  With a flourish he opened the door for her, bowed and clicked his heels. Her final thought as she walked away was
that she would return to his room when he went out in the morning and retrieve the key. But then she considered his invitation. Perhaps she should turn into a Mata Hari after all. Pity she wasn’t as glamorous as Garbo in the film rôle. Anna grinned to herself. She’d always fancied wearing one of those head-hugging caps a-sparkle with crystal beads.

  *

  In the morning Anna had to leave the rescuing of the key to Margot, because she had to go out early at Greta’s request. Carrying a shopping basket, she waited in line for over an hour outside a bakery in the hope of getting some loaves. But no matter that she had Greta’s and Margot’s ration-books with her own, the bread was being issued fairly with only one loaf per customer.

  Anna did not find the waiting hard as many older people and pregnant women did, only that it was time consuming. Fortunately the March day was crisp and bright with a clear blue sky, the sun sparkling on the snow and making the icicles drip. Most of the women chatted together as they waited in a single line that stretched far along the pavement. It was only in line that more than two people could talk together in the street, for otherwise they had to keep on the move. The Germans never risked any group forming, even if it was a family meeting one another.

  When Anna finally took her turn at the bakery counter, she was remembering the warm and spice-fragrant aroma of such bakeries in peacetime. Now there was the pungent, sour smell of the dark flour that was used. She wondered how long it would be before the wonderful cream cakes, such a speciality in times past, would come again. This bakery probably had not made a cake since 1940. Then the newly arrived Germans had bought up all the rich delicacies they could get, eating slabs of butter on cakes and chocolate, having been long starved of it in their own country where Guns before Butter had been the Third Reich’s decree.