he was in prison. He understood. Perhaps it was
best for Edvard Junior too, not to grow up with a
traitor as a father. Mosken seemed resigned. He
said he wanted to work in transport, but hadn’t
got any of the driving jobs he had applied for.
‘Buy your own truck,’ I said. ‘You should start
up on your own, too.’
‘I haven’t got enough money to do that,’ he
said, with a quick glance in my direction. I had a
vague idea where the conversation was leading.
‘And the banks are not that keen on ex-Eastern
Front men. They think we’re all crooks.’
‘I’ve saved up some money,’ I said. ‘You can
borrow some from me.’
He refused, but I said the matter was closed.
‘I’ll add interest, of course. That goes without
saying,’ I said, and then he brightened up. But he
was soon serious again and said it could be an
expensive time until he really got going. So I
assured him the rate of interest wouldn’t be very
high, it would be more symbolic. Then I ordered
another round of beer and when we had drunk up
and were on our way out we shook hands. We had
a deal.
Oslo. 3 August 1950.
. . . a letter postmarked Vienna in the letterbox. I
placed it on the kitchen table in front of me and
stared at it. Her name and address were written
on the back of the envelope. I had sent a letter to
the Rudolf II Hospital in May in the hope that
someone might know where Helena was in the
world and send it on. In case prying eyes should
happen to open the letter I hadn’t written
anything that could be dangerous for either of us
and, of course, I hadn’t written my real name.
And I definitely hadn’t dared hope for an answer.
Well, I don’t even know if, deep down, I wanted
an answer, not if the answer was the one you
might expect. Married and mother of a child. No,
I didn’t want that. Even though that was what I
had wished her, what I had given my consent to.
My God, we had been so young. She had only
been nineteen. And now, as I held her letter in my
hand, it was all suddenly so unreal, as if the neat
handwriting on the envelope couldn’t have
anything to do with the Helena I had been
dreaming of for six years. I opened the letter with
trembling fingers, forcing myself to expect the
worst. It was a long letter and it is only a few
hours now since I read it for the first time, but
already I know it by heart.
Dear Uriah,
I love you. It is easy to know that I will love
you for the rest of my life, but the strange
thing is it feels as if I have already loved
you for all of my life too. When I received
your letter I wept with happiness. It . . .
Harry went to the kitchen with the manuscript in
his hands, found the coffee in the cupboard over
the sink and put on the coffee pot while continuing
to read. About the happy, though also difficult and
painful, reunion at a hotel in Paris. They get
engaged the next day.
From here on, Gudbrand writes less and less
about Daniel, and finally it seems as if he has
completely disappeared.
Instead he writes about a couple very much in
love who, because of the murder of Christopher
Brockhard, still feel their pursuers’ breath down
their necks. They have secret trysts in Copenhagen,
Amsterdam and Hamburg. Helena knows
Gudbrand’s new identity, but does she know the
whole truth about the murder at the Eastern Front,
about the executions at the Fauke farm? It didn’t
seem so.
They get engaged after the Allies have left
Austria and in 1955 she leaves the country she is
sure will be taken over again by ‘war criminals,
anti-Semites and fanaticists who haven’t learned
from their mistakes’. They settle in Oslo, where
Gudbrand, still using Sindre Fauke’s name,
continues to run his small business. The same year
they are married by a Catholic priest at a private
ceremony in the garden inHolmenkollveien where
they have just bought a large, detached house with
the money Helena received from selling her
sewing business in Vienna. They are happy,
Gudbrand writes.
Harry heard a hiss and to his surprise saw that the
pot had boiled over.
98
Oslo. 17 May 2000.
Rikshospital. 1956.
Helena lost so much blood that her life was in the
balance for a while, but fortunately they acted
promptly. We lost the child. Naturally, Helena
was inconsolable even though I kept repeating
that she was young and we would have many
more opportunities. The doctor was not so
optimistic, however. He said the uterus . . .
Rikshospital. 12 March 1967.
A daughter. She is going to be called Rakel. I
cried and cried, and Helena stroked my cheek
and said God’s ways were . . .