Tromsø, December 1944
SUNDAY MORNING, MARIT WOKE WITH A START.
“He’s here.”
“What?” Lidy asked from her bed across the room.
“He’s here. Hans.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know it.”
“The army is still retreating. It may be weeks before they all get to Tromsø.”
“I saw him last night. In a dream. He’s hurt. I have to go see him.” She was sitting up already, pulling on her clothes.
“See him where?”
“In the hospital, of course.”
“It’s Sunday. You don’t work. We’re going to church.”
“I’m going to the hospital. Now.” She stood up quickly and sat down again just as fast. She was holding her stomach.
“What’s wrong, Marit?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m a little dizzy, that’s all. I got up too quickly.” She started to get up more slowly, and ran suddenly to the washbasin. She plunged her head into it as she began to vomit.
“Good Lord! Have you had more of the mushrooms? Is this how you know about Hans?!”
Marit didn’t answer. Lidy came over and put a washcloth into the jug of water. She ran it over Marit’s neck.
“Sit down, Marit. Did you take more of Babi’s powder?”
“No. Of course not. I’m just feeling a little sick.”
Lidy sat down next to Marit. “Hans will come to Tromsø soon enough. When he does, he will come find us here. He can look at the registry to see where we went.”
“He’s here. I’ll see him today.”
Lidy’s tone switched from empathy to reproach. “You are stubborn. It won’t bring him back you know. Even if he is here. He’s an officer in the Wehrmacht. He’ll be shipped to Germany. Will you follow him there?”
“If I have to.”
“Damn it, child. Your life is here, and in Karasjok when this war is over. I need you. Babi needs you.”
“I love him.”
“You don’t know what love is.”
Marit rose silently and wiped her face with another damp cloth. She put on her shoes, and lifted the dirty basin to take it downstairs.
“You’re sick. You shouldn’t be up. Where are going?” Lidy asked.
“To the hospital.”
It was much colder than the previous days. The light dusting of snow had blown away, but the wind was bitter and the temperature had dropped well below freezing. Marit could not help thinking of the soldiers on the road towards Tromsø, and the evacuees who were still coming into the town every day. She thought also of those left behind, in the woods, in caves. In this cold, the ground would soon be frozen solid. If they had not finished digging the foundations for their huts, they would not have a warm winter. How many would die because they chose to stay behind? How many had forgotten too much of the old ways to be safe through the long, dark night?
From the hill at the front of the hospital, Marit could see a large ship at dock. There were German soldiers all around the ship. It had a large red cross painted on the smoke stack. Hans had come in this ship. She was sure of it. He came last night. He was somewhere in the hospital.
At the front desk, she saw Marin, one of the nicer clerks.
“Good morning, Marit. Are you working today?”
“No Marin. I’m looking for a friend. Have they registered the men that came in last night?”
“Off the ship? No. Not yet. They’re all Germans anyhow. Evacuees from the east.”
“From Porsanger?”
“Maybe. The east anyway. Some of the badly wounded, and some officers being shipped home to Germany. You have German friends?”
“Yes.”
Marin eyed Marit suspiciously. “They’re on level three. Most of them anyhow. Those that were really in bad shape are in the ICU.” She must have noticed Marit’s puzzled expression. She added: “Intensive Care Unit.”
Marit walked down the long hall to the stairs and made her way up to level three. The ward had been mostly empty the day before. She should have known they were expecting people. They never announced when the soldiers were coming, but the hospital always knew.
She walked down the main aisle of the ward, looking up and down at the beds. She found him about halfway down on the right, sitting on his bed, staring into space.
“Hans?”
He seemed changed. He looked older. Sad.
“Hans?”
“Hhhmm? Marit!” His eyes brightened for a moment, but he turned away when she stepped nearer to hold him.
“Hans? What’s wrong?”
He struggled to find his words. He clearly wanted to speak, but he said nothing. His hands rested on his crutches, and he looked up at Marit, and down again. Marit sat down on the bed opposite his.
Marit reached forward and placed her hands on top of his. She wanted to ask him again; she was asking again, even if no words passed between them. She waited. Surely he would speak.
“Marit, I’m so happy to see you.”
“I knew you were here. I dreamed it last night. I could see you getting off the boat.”
“You dream many things.” He was so sad. She wanted to reach inside of him and rip out his sadness. Or fill him so full of happiness that he could not possibly be sad anymore. Her own heart beat strongly. She was content just to be here with him, to have her hands touching his.
“Hans, I know about the village.”
He looked at her, perplexed.
“How can you know? How could you imagine?” His voice trailed off … “I’m so sorry, Marit. So …”
It was the tone of his confession in his bed that night, Ich liebe Dich. Instead of joy and marvel at the moment, it was the heavy voice of regret, almost before it was spoken. The same tone. Es tut mir leid. Es tut mir so leid.
“Hans, it doesn’t matter what happened. You’re here. And you’re safe. Everything will be better.”
“I want to tell you, Marit. I have to.”
“Alright.”
“I was the senior officer from the detachment at Karasjok. Most of the others you knew had already shipped out. It began just after you left with the evacuees by truck for Skoganvarre.” Hans paused briefly, organizing his thoughts.
“They began streaming into the village from the Border Road. Thousands and thousands of them. You never saw so many soldiers, ragged, and exhausted. They were hungry, and defeated. Their eyes were hollow and their hearts sullen.”
Marit looked at Hans as he spoke, and realized he might be describing himself.
“For almost five days they came, walking day and night. When one group rested, another was on the road, creating the illusion of a constant stream of lost souls. It was warm, and the officers wanted them out of Finland and out of the Finnmark before the cold came.”
“On the morning of November 6th, another group came into the village. This group was of another type. They rode in cars and tanks. They were battle-hardened SS—some Norwegians from the Skandinavia Korps, but mostly Germans. Their eyes were hollow too, but not from defeat. Their eyes showed only the hunger of destruction. They opened unto a void that could never be filled, no matter how much wanton pain they caused. They ran across the countryside like one of the waves from Revelations, a fiery wave of destruction that left nothing alive in its wake. They burned the farm that first morning, and every other building between the border and the village, and those past the village along the south bank of the Karasjokka.”
“Later that evening, the order came to burn the village. Everything. And blow up the bridge. The last of the evacuees had crossed the Karasjokka. It was over.”
Hans’ voice cracked a little, and he stared at the ground as he talked. She wanted to look into his eyes, and tell him she forgave him, but he could not look up.
“I headed a troop along the western side, moving house by house along the river. We doused each home with petrol first, then lit it with the flame throwers. The entire night sky was ablaze in a hellish light. It was as bright as day, but felt oppressively dark. Many of the men took pleasure in the burning. They ran from house to house, screaming and laughing, drunk with the excitement of destruction. At times, along the edge of the village, I thought I could see the eyes of those who stayed behind, watching us from behind a tree or a little ridge, angry and helpless.”
“We converged at last on the church. It was one of the last buildings to burn before the river crossing. We agreed it would be easiest to burn the church from the inside with the flame throwers. We were running out of petrol, and needed more for the cars to leave again. I walked forward, a little sick at the thought of burning even the church …” Hans cried as he spoke now, and it was harder and harder for Marit to make out the words. She was floating back to the village again in her dream. She was the Raven. She could see him coming up to the church. She was here, and there also. One, but apart, in separate places, different times.
“When we got to the church door, it was already wide open. Babi stood there in the doorframe, leaning with one arm on a walking stick, her other arm raised in defiance. She didn’t say anything. She just stood there, her gaze locked on me.”
“I told her we had come to burn the church. I heard her voice in my head. ‘You won’t burn the church, Hans.’ That was all she said. ‘You won’t burn the church.’ For a moment I thought she was right. Why did it need to burn too? Why could we not just leave, and never return? I wanted to listen. I wanted to obey. Then he appeared.”
“Donkey …” said Marit. She could see him now, through the smoke. She could make out his ugly features, and his balding head. His big ears. He was the officer Hans had sparred with. It amazed her that she had not seen him before, in the dream. Her own mind somehow had blocked him out. There he was now, even before Hans had spoken his name.
“Yes, Donkey. He came with the SS men that had been at the Front. Because he knew Karasjok, they had him leading a group of troops on the other side of the village. He took out his gun. His men were behind him, eager to burn the church. He called Babi a witch, and he raised his gun to shoot her.” Hans’ hand went down to his leg and held it a moment. Marit let her hand follow his, and rested it on the injured leg.
“I grabbed his arm, and he shot my leg, and then my knee. I hit him in the face with my elbow. I think he would have shot me in the chest, but another shot rang out from behind. Old Man Jacobsen was there, with a rifle. He came out of nowhere. He shot Donkey in the neck, just under the helmet. He fell forward into my arms, limp and lifeless.”
“The other troops were so shocked, they turned away from me. They … they burned Old Man Jacobsen. Like a torch. They could not miss him. They were hardly twelve feet away. He didn’t scream. I can still see his face through the flames, staring out at me, as though he didn’t know he was on fire. Babi watched the whole thing without moving. The fire in the village was now so hot, I thought for sure the church would burn without us lighting it. It was hard to breathe, and soon, we would not get across the bridge to safety. The path to the bridge was in danger of being cut off. I told the troops to retreat across the river. Somehow, they listened. I turned to get Babi out of the church, but she was gone and the door was closed. I ran down to where Old Man Jacobsen had been, and there was only scorched earth. Just ground. No charred body. No bones.”
“Somehow I limped down the road to the bridge and made it across before the order was given to blow it up. We climbed into the trucks and drove towards Skoganvarre, the night as bright as day as the village and camp burned around us.”
“I waited days for one of the men to challenge me about Donkey. He had his own set of enemies, I guess. No one has said anything since then. Officially, Donkey was lost during the burning.”
Marit stared at Hans, her Hans, who had burned her childhood home and that of every person she had ever known or loved. She tried to hate him, but felt only compassion. It was his unbearable pain and sadness that made Marit turn away.
“Forgive me,” he said. “And ask Babi to forgive me.”
“You saved Babi, and the church. You don’t need forgiveness. You did what you could.”
“So much evil, so much death and destruction…for what? For whom?”
“It is meant to be. He has a reason.”
“What reason can He possibly have, that he lets the Good suffer and rewards evil?”
Marit held his hands tightly. She squeezed them. She kissed his forehead, but he had finished speaking, and she felt him slipping away. He retreated back into the shell he had been in since that night in Karasjok.
“Rest, Hans. Rest.”
She lay him down in the bed, and unfolded a cover to put over him. She sat down next to him, listening to the bells that began to ring out from the church on Storgata, a few blocks below. She could feel the bell swinging, back and forth. Back and forth. Hans lay motionless, looking upwards. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes, but he said nothing. Marit took his hand, his large, strong hand, and put it in her lap.