‘I shouted, but it was too late. It was dark.’
‘The moon was shining.’
They squared up to each other. ‘Do you know
what I think?’ Edvard said. ‘No.’
‘Yes, you do. I can see it in your face. Why,
Gudbrand?’
‘I didn’t kill him.’ Gudbrand’s gaze was firmly
fixed on Edvard’s cyclops eye. ‘I tried to talk to
him. He didn’t want to listen to me. Then he just
ran off. What could I have done?’
Both of them were breathing heavily, hunched in
the wind which tore at the vapour from their
mouths.
‘I remember the last time you had the same
expression, Gudbrand. That was the night you
killed the Russian in the bunker.’
Gudbrand shrugged. Edvard laid an icy mitten on
Gudbrand’s arm.
‘Listen. Sindre was not a good soldier, perhaps
he wasn’t even a good person, but we’re moral
individuals and we have to try to maintain a certain
standard and dignity in all this. Do you
understand?’
‘Can I go now?’
Edvard looked at Gudbrand. The rumours about
Hitler no longer triumphing on all fronts had begun
to reach them now. Nevertheless, the stream of
Norwegian volunteers kept growing, and Daniel
and Sindre had already been replaced by two boys
from Tynset. New young faces the whole time.
Some you remembered, some you forgot as soon as
they were gone. Daniel was one that Edvard would
remember, he knew that. Just as he knew that,
before long, Sindre’s face would be erased from
his memory. Rubbed away. Edvard Junior would
be two in a few days. He didn’t proceed with this
line of thought.
‘Yes, go,’ he said. ‘And keep your head down.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Gudbrand said. ‘I’ll be sure to
keep my head down.’
‘Do you remember what Daniel said?’ Edvard
asked with a sort of smile. ‘He said we walked so
much of the time with a stoop that we would be
hunchbacks by the time we returned home.’
A machine gun cackled in the distance.
13
Leningrad. 3 January 1943.
GUDBRAND AWOKE WITH A START. HE BLINKED A
COUPLE of times and saw only the outline of the
row of planks in the bunk above him. There was a
smell of sour wood and earth. Had he screamed?
The other men insisted they were no longer kept
awake by his screams. He lay there, feeling his
pulse slowly calm down. He scratched his side –
the lice never slept.
It was the same dream as always that woke him.
He could still feel the paws on his chest, see the
yellow eyes in the dark, the white predator’s teeth
with the stench of blood on them and the saliva that
ran and ran. And hear the terrified heaving for
breath. Was it his or the predator’s? The dream
was like that: he was asleep and awake at the same
time, but he couldn’t move. The animal’s jaws
were about to close around his throat when the
chatter of a machine gun over by the door woke
him, and he saw the animal being lifted off the
blanket and flung against the earthen wall of the
bunker as it was torn to pieces by the bullets. Then
it was quiet, and on the floor lay a blood-strewn,
amorphous mass of fur. A polecat. And then the
man in the doorway stepped out of the dark and
into the narrow strip of moonlight, so narrow that it
only lit up half of his face. But something in the
dream that night had been different. The muzzle of
the gun smoked as it should and the man smiled as
always, but he had a large black crater in his
forehead. Gudbrand could see the moon through the
hole in his skull when he turned to face him.
Gudbrand felt the cold draught of air from the
open door, turned his head and froze when he saw
the dark figure filling the doorway. Was he still
dreaming? The figure strode into the room, but it
was too dark for Gudbrand to see who it was.
The figure stopped abruptly.
‘Are you awake, Gudbrand?’ The voice was loud
and clear. It was Edvard Mosken. A displeased
mumble came from the other bunks. Edvard came
right up to Gudbrand’s bunk.
‘You’ve got to get up,’ he said.
Gudbrand groaned. ‘You haven’t read the list
properly. I’ve just come off watch. It’s Dale’s —’
‘He’s back.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Dale just came and woke me. Daniel’s back.’
‘What are you talking about?’
In the dark, Gudbrand saw only Edvard’s white
breath. Then he swung his legs off the bunk and
took his boots out from under the blanket. He
usually kept them there when he was asleep so the
damp soles wouldn’t freeze. He put on his coat,
which had been lying on top of the thin woollen