Was that a sound? She tries to see in the dark.
No. No, all is still. So still as only a winter forest can be in the dark. Quickly now, she scolds herself, before your fingers freeze. The tip of her tongue is out. She feels her work rather than sees it in the darkness.
From her rucksack, she takes out the forked stake. She drives it into the snow, ties the end of the trigger line to the pin she has carved and runs the line under the fork. Her fingers dig.
Last thing to do is to bait her trigger stick and for that she needs fat.
Done. She puts her hands to her mouth, blows hot breath into them—squeezes them to get some feeling back and puts on her mittens. The knife goes into its case, the rucksack onto her back. She hits her thighs with her fists a few times to get the blood flowing.
Then, beneath the big spruce tree below the hill . . . a movement. Fleeting, but she is certain; the darkness changed. It shifted. Swayed. Bulged out in her direction then pulled back.
“Hello?”
She waits.
There is no answer. But Javanna’s chest feels so tight she can’t breathe. She is certain. There is something there.
Stockholm, February 1, 1943
They’d decided to meet at the café in the NK department store. In the elevator, Britta stared at herself in the mirror. She didn’t recognize herself: her lips were cracked, the dark rings under her eyes a faint metallic blue. And the smell. Even though she showered and showered, she still smelled of sweat. The kind you cannot wash away. The reek of fear.
She entered the empty café, looked around, and took a seat on one of the green leather sofas by the atrium.
A man and a woman walked past her. The man fell back and let the woman go before him, his hand still at the curve of her back, as he glanced at Britta. Normally she would have responded: caught his gaze and winked. Normally.
At the entrance: a tall, blond woman in a light coat, eyes searching.
Relief flooded her. She dropped her lighter on the table and rose. Then her friend was in her arms and Britta’s eyes welled up and she felt she’d never let go. Laura.
“Hi,” Laura said softly. She took a step back to look at Britta, hands on her shoulders, eyes narrowing.
“Look at me,” Britta said and wiped her eyes. “I’m getting emotional!” Her face twisted.
Laura squeezed her shoulders.
They sat down. Laura took off her coat and folded it on the sofa beside her. Her face was serious. Her large gray eyes steady, unwavering.
“You’ve lost weight,” she said. Not missing anything.
“I’m smoking too much,” Britta said. “Even more than when you knew me.”
“I still know you.”
Britta tried to smile. “Of course you do.”
Britta picked up the lighter, turned it in her hand. She didn’t know how to approach the matter for which she had come. She loved this woman more than anything. How could she put her, too, in danger? How could she tell her what she had learned? She rubbed her forehead with her knuckle and narrowed her eyes to stop herself from crying again.
“How’s work?” she asked, stalling.
“Brilliant.” Laura sighed and lit a cigarette and signaled the waiter for coffee or its substitute.
Laura was a part of the Swedish trade delegation negotiating iron access with Germany. A dreadful war was ravaging Europe and—in some ways—Laura was having the time of her life. And Britta was the one person she didn’t need to lie to. They’d never lied to each other. Never held back. Before.
“You’re made for it, of course,” Britta said.
“Ten years this weekend since the Nazis came to power,” Laura said. “And things are just getting worse.”
Sweden was on a knife’s edge: there was a potential Allied invasion of Norway that would create a second front in Sweden; there were rumors of the German forces in Norway massing for an invasion of Sweden regardless; and then the Soviet Union advancing in the east . . . Yes, the war was closing in on them.
“Have you heard from the others?” Laura asked.
Britta narrowed her eyes. Tell her, she thought, but couldn’t.
“No,” she said, shortly.
Laura nodded. She paused as the waiter put down two steaming cups. Then she leaned forward and put her hand on Britta’s arm. “How are things really?”
This was the moment. Say it, Britta told herself. Tell her! Instead she heard herself laugh as she leaned back against the sofa.
“Same as usual,” she said. “You know me; still causing trouble left and right.”
And Laura didn’t insist. They sat for a while longer, sipping quietly, but now Britta wanted her friend to leave. Fear was eating away at her. She couldn’t bring Laura into this.
It was time. As Laura put one arm in her coat, Britta grabbed the other.
“You know I love you, right?” she said. Had to say it, one more time.
“Yes,” Laura said and searched her eyes.
Britta let go of her arm, gave a flicker of a smile. “I’m going to finish my drink. You go ahead.”
And so they parted, life taking them in different directions. The last thing Britta saw of her friend was that blond hair turning the corner by the counter.
Blackåsen Mountain, March 31, 1943
He hiccupped. He’d drunk too much. In fact, he was as drunk as a lord. But could you blame him? All day in the dark; the trolleys that had to be lifted onto the tracks; the drilling steel that jammed; the instability of the tunnel roofs; the fear of black lung from the dust . . .
No, after a week mining in hell, a man deserved to drink himself legless.
He hiccupped again and thought of Frida and their six little ones. They’d be fast asleep now. He’d been on his way home when he’d had the impulse to make a detour up to the mine.
When Georg looked back toward the town, it was pitch black. He’d snuck past the Swedish soldiers guarding the rail tracks at the base of the mountain. Tiptoed like a ballerina. A drunk one. He chuckled. Not that it had been hard. Come Friday night, they, too, were sloshed.
He slid. Hands flailing, he tried to grab onto the mountainside, but there was nothing to grip and he went straight down onto one knee. Jesus Christ. Gingerly, he rose and pushed his knee out a few times. It was fine. Perhaps he should turn around.
He burped and it echoed. Sounded like a toad. A mountain toad! This made him laugh again.
No. He just had to be careful he didn’t fall off the path. You’d freeze to death before someone found you.
God, how he hated this mountain; hated it even more at night. Not that he was superstitious, but you couldn’t avoid hearing the stories: sorcerers and witches; curses . . . But Blackåsen had jobs and a man needed to work.
The town was booming thanks to the war. And this, in a sense, was why he was now climbing the mountainside in the middle of the night.
Manfred’s fault. “Shame on us!” Manfred had wailed like he did every Friday. “Our fellow brothers are under their rule, and here we are, a bunch of cowards, working for them.”
They’d patted him on the back, hmmed, tried to get him to shut the fuck up.
Politics were politics, and there was not much an ordinary man could do. The Germans traveled through Blackåsen and it was dangerous to show your feelings. Who knew how things would end?