telephone as we attacked my former comrades in
Estonia. That was near Narva . . .’
Fauke raised his coffee mug, with both hands
wrapped round it.
‘I lay on a hillock watching the Russians attack a
German machine-gun post. They were just mown
down by the Germans. One hundred and twenty
men and four horses lay in heaps before the
machine gun finally overheated. Then the
remaining Russians killed them with bayonets to
save ammunition. Half an hour, maximum, passed
from the time the attack was launched until it
finished. A hundred and twenty men dead. Then it
was on to the next post. And the same procedure
there.’
Harry could see the mug was shaking slightly.
‘I knew I was going to die. And for a cause I
didn’t believe in. I didn’t believe in Stalin or
Hitler.’
‘Why did you go to the Eastern Front if you didn’t
believe in the cause?’
‘I was eighteen years old. I had grown up on a
farm way up in Gudbrandsdalen where as a rule
we never saw anyone except our nearest
neighbours. We didn’t read papers, didn’t have any
books – I knew nothing. All I knew about politics
was what my father told me. We were the only
ones left in the family; the rest emigrated to the
USA in the twenties. My parents and the
neighbouring farms on both sides were sworn
Quisling supporters and members of the NS. I had
two older brothers who I looked up to in
absolutely all matters. They were part of Hirden,
the uniformed political activists and it had been
their task to recruit young people to the party at
home, otherwise they would have volunteered to
go to the front as well. That was what they told me
at least. I only discovered later that their job was
to recruit informers. But then it was too late as I
was already on my way to the front.’
‘So you were converted at the front?’
‘I wouldn’t call it a conversion. Most of the
volunteers thought mainly of Norway and little of
politics. The turning point for me came when I
realised I was fighting another country’s war. In
fact, it was that simple. And actually it was no
better fighting for the Russians. In June 1944 I had
unloading duties on the quay in Tallinn, where I
managed to sneak on board a Swedish Red Cross
boat. I buried myself in the coke hold and hid there
for three days. I had carbon monoxide poisoning,
but I recovered in Stockholm. From there I
travelled to the Norwegian border where I crossed
on my own. It was August by then.’
‘Why on your own?’
‘The few people I had contact with in Sweden
didn’t trust me; my story was a little too fantastic.
That was fine, though. I didn’t trust anyone, either.’
He laughed aloud again. ‘So I lay low and coped
in my own way. The border-crossing itself was
child’s play. Believe me, going from Sweden to
Norway during the war was considerably less
dangerous than picking up food rations in
Leningrad. More coffee?’
‘Please. Why didn’t you simply stay in Sweden?’
‘Good question. And one which I’ve asked
myself many times.’
He ran a hand across his thin white hair.
‘I was obsessed by the thought of revenge, you
see. I was young, and when you’re young you tend
to have this delusion about the ideals of justice,
you think it is something we humans are born with.
I was a young man with internal conflicts when I
was at the Eastern Front, and I behaved like a shit
to many of my comrades. Despite that, or precisely
because of it, I swore I would avenge all those
who had sacrificed their lives for the lies they had
fed us back home. And I would take revenge for
my own ruined life which I thought would never be
whole again. All I wanted was to settle a score
with all those who had really betrayed our country.
Nowadays psychologists would probably call it
war psychosis and have me locked up
immediately. Instead I went to Oslo, not knowing
anyone or having a place to stay, carrying papers
that would have me shot on the spot as a deserter.
The day I arrived in Oslo by lorry I went up to
Nordmarka. I slept under some spruce branches
and ate nothing but berries for three days before
they found me.’
‘The Resistance people?’
‘I understand from Even Juul that he told you the
rest.’
‘Yes.’ Harry fidgeted with the mug. The killings.
It was an incomprehensible action which meeting
the man had not made any more comprehensible. It
had been there all the time, at the front of his brain,
ever since Harry saw Fauke standing there smiling
in the doorway and he shook his hand. This man
executed his parents and two brothers.