House of Evidence(98)

“How did you feel after that?”

“I didn’t really miss those organs. I should naturally have preferred the operation to be tidier, but my problems were only physical. Matthías, on the other hand, was never the same man again; his personality changed completely. Once a strong, virile man, he became very sensitive, listless, and lethargic. I had to become the strong one in our relationship for many years after.”

“Where did you say they moved you to?”

“To Dreibergen. As the war drew to an end, the Germans retreated eastward from the Allied advance, taking their prison population with them. The Dreibergen prison also played an important role after the abortive attempt on Hitler’s life on the twentieth of July 1944. Everyone implicated in that conspiracy was taken there and executed. We prisoners witnessed the executions that night, though we didn’t know who these people were. We just saw the shadows and heard the cries of agony. Up to that point, we had believed that the Nazis would not actually put us to death, and that if we could just survive the mistreatment, we should be safe. These hopes were shattered that night, and Matthías broke down completely. Over the next months, all he wanted to do was to curl up on the floor and await his fate.”

As Hrefna listened to this account, she thought about how distant these events were from her own reality. She had been five years old at the end of the war, and remembered nothing of the war years. During her life, there had always been peace. She thought about the generation that had been born in Europe before the turn of the century and had experienced two world wars. How had they managed to stay sane?

“What saved you?” she asked.

“It was the German girl from Hamburg, the one who interpreted for the Norwegian prisoners, who saved us and many others. The president of the Swedish Red Cross, Count Folke Bernadotte, managed to negotiate with Himmler for the release of Scandinavian prisoners. A motorcade of Swedish buses traveled between prison camps in Germany to pick people up. The German girl had put us on her list. Because our names were there, we were set free. We arrived in Sweden in April 1945. We were in a sanatorium there until we managed to get to Iceland on the Esja that summer, arriving in Reykjavik on the ninth of July.”

“And then you met Jacob Senior again.”

“Yes, that’s why we went to Iceland. We were in a bad state after the mutilations in Rendsburg; our urinary systems were a mess, and we urgently needed the attentions of a skillful surgeon. We knew of a clinic in Switzerland where we could have treatment, but it was expensive, and Matthías thought that Jacob might be able to help us.”

“Was he able to?”

“To a very limited extent. It was a mistake for us to come home.”

“Why?”

“Hearing our account proved too much for Jacob Senior. He blamed himself for what had happened to us, and he had a breakdown.”

“And that was when he stopped writing his diary,” Hrefna said.

“I do not know,” Klemenz said.

“What happened next?”

“Jacob managed to scrape some money together for us, and made a legal transfer of half of the house to Matthías. Old Alfred had disinherited Matthías, and Jacob wanted to make amends. Jacob died a week later, as you know.”

“Do you have a theory about what happened to him?”

“When I heard that Jacob Senior had been found dead, I felt certain that he had taken his own life. His reactions during our meetings over the previous days were of that nature. I recognized them from the prison camps; it was usually obvious when people were haunted by such thoughts. I discussed this with Matthías and we were both worried, regretting very much having burdened him with our troubles. At that point, we decided that this would remain our secret forever.”

“But Jacob Senior was murdered.”

“Yes, according to the police, Jacob was shot. For what reason I do not know, but then I was not familiar with his history here.”

“What did you and Matthías do after Jacob died?”

“After attending the funeral, we left the country on the first available boat. We managed to put together enough money for our operations, and stayed on in Switzerland for a few months. Matthías was on hormone injections after that, and recovered fairly well, mentally. I, on the other hand, chose not to have hormone treatment.”

“Were you told what happened to Matthías yesterday?”

“Yes, I went to the hospital and talked to the doctor who treated him. He said that he had been brought there from the prison. I cannot imagine why he was locked up in the first place, but I know he would never have been able to tolerate it, given his health condition. After the prison camp internment, he suffered from acute claustrophobia and could, for instance, never sleep in a closed room.”