Chapter 7

Jonas van der Linden, always a light sleeper, rose to consciousness with a (small) sack of potatoes crushing his left arm and shoulder. It had long, black hair.

Gerd.

He stroked the dead weight of her body and the silk of her hair. Gerd slept like a child, boneless and trusting. She muttered something in her sleep.

He grinned wryly. Last night Gerd and Nurket had shown up at his door at 11pm. Gerd had explained Los Joacim’s accident in broad strokes, yawned, and proposed a hot bath for her and a bowl of water for Nurket. He complied willingly. He brought a glass of red wine to her in the bathtub and watched entranced as she floated, mermaid-like, in the water. He had seen figurines like her in a museum in Lima, Peru. He sat down on the edge of the tub.

“Do you want me to wash your hair?”

“Oh, please.”

He wasn’t exactly expert, but he had done this a time or two in the past. He took his shirt off and filled a pitcher with clean, warm water. Laying her head back in his hand, he rubbed and stroked shampoo into her hair until she was crowned with a cap of bubbles. He rinsed her once in the now-tepid bathwater, then lifted her head again and rinsed a second time with the clean water. Her eyes were closed. Jonas bent down and kissed her lightly. Gerd brought a wet arm out of the water and pulled his face close.

The claw-foot tub was not made for a 6 foot man. It was tight, cramped quarters, but with the familiarity of long acquaintance and no secrets, they made the best of it. Minutes later they collapsed in a tangle of arms and legs at odd angles. How they made it to bed he couldn’t recall.

The bedside clock showed 6 a.m. Thursday was his late start day; he didn’t have a class until 10:30. With a prayer of thanks, Jonas let sleep wash back over him.

He woke an hour later to gentle double snoring. Gerd was huffing in her sleep and Nurket was echoing her under the bed. “I need to get a better bed,” he thought incongruously. “She has that massive four-poster and all I have is this rickety relic.” He resolved to begin searching for the perfect bed this very day. After contemplating his reluctant muse for long minutes, Jonas finally felt alive enough to meet the world. He slid noiselessly out of bed. Even Nurket didn’t notice.

Jonas lived on one of three connected islands called Fillene right off shore from town. All three were joined by pedestrian bridges, but no cars could enter. The bridges were too narrow. Jonas didn’t mind; he hated cars. He had first rented the 200 year old house, but when he had met Gerd and had his fate decided for him, he bought it. It was small and quirky, about half the size of Gerd’s house on Lyholmen. Two rooms up, two down. The plumbing had been installed in the late 1800’s and was moody at best. No yard to speak of. But what he had was a view to beat that of the royal yacht: Vågen on the right and a straight shot out the channel to the lighthouse and to her. Jonas had originally had a small powerboat, but once Gerd was in his life he wanted a faster connection. Now he was the proud owner of a 16 foot speedboat with 150 hp. He could get out to Lyholmen in less than 10 minutes.

Jonas had had the bad luck to be born on the “dark continent” of the southwest side of Norway. His parents, who appeared mightily surprised at his arrival, were Haugianere. The Haugianer sect basically believed everything was a sin. How they procreated was anyone’s guess. Jonas was the second child. His older brother Jens, whom he had worshipped, had died at 11 years of age of something as simple as measles. Jonas was 7 when they laid his brother out on the kitchen table, cold and stiff as marble. He had never liked his self-righteous parents up to them; now it became hate. He got into all the trouble a teenager could in a small, buttoned-up town. The day after his 16^th birthday he left town, still no forgiveness in his heart. He had neither seen nor spoken with them since.

But now the joy of love was softening him. Why had he thought of his grey parents right now as he was tip-toeing down the stairs after having his heart wrenched out of his body for the love of a woman? “Love wants to spread,” he thought, “love wants to make more of itself.” He shook his head to regain his senses.

Jonas made a pot of coffee and sat down at his wobbly kitchen table. Coffee was no sin for the Haugianere; in fact their engines ran on it. “They should meet some Muslims,” he snickered. He was never very hungry in the morning, but he knew Gerd was, so he brought out bread, butter, and whatever he had in the fridge to put on it. The local Pulitzer-Prize winning newspaper, the Storesand Courier, landed with a thump against his front door.

The paper carried Einar Iversen’s obituary on an inside page that everyone read. Gotta know who’s dead so you don’t say the wrong thing. The obit gave his name, date of birth and death, and …….. his membership in the Kiwanis? A war hero, they said. What the hell heroic thing had Einar ever done? The obit was vague about it, but something about the Resistance was mentioned. Jonas left the paper folded so Gerd would see the obituary.

He would bring her a tray, he thought. Breakfast in bed, wasn’t that suitably romantic for a besotted almost-40 year old? Jonas rummaged through his ancient refrigerator. He found some cheese with a blue mold cover. Was Jarlsberg supposed to have a blue casing? He didn’t think so and threw it in the trash. The liver sausage was equally slimy-looking. Aha! There was a glass jar of some high-falutin marmalade he had bought on impulse from a cute young girl selling things off the back of her truck. Organic marmalade, what the heck was that? But it smelled good.

Jonas found some bread that wasn’t exactly moldy and toasted it. Did he have eggs? Yes, a 10-package with no noticeable expiration date appeared. He’d make scrambled eggs and toast with marmalade; even an absolute non-cook couldn’t screw that up. And lots more coffee. There was a container that said orange juice, but it smelled of vinegar and he didn’t think that was the right smell. On impulse, he went outside in his slippers and cut a branch off a birch tree. It didn’t even have the beginning of buds, but it was still a branch. He put the cold branch into a tall glass of water.

Jonas scrambled the eggs with a little water and some salt and pepper and remembered to take it off the heat before it had set completely. He put four slices of toast liberally slathered with butter and marmalade on a plate and hunted around for a tray. With the birch-branch “flower,” the golden eggs and the orange marmalade-toast, it looked positively festive. He carried the tray upstairs, the pot of coffee snuggled against his side.

Gerd was out cold, but her nose twitched a little at the aromas that arrived. She yawned and stretched and opened her eyes a slit. Nurket crawled out from under the bed, wagging his tail. Jonas put the tray on a small dresser and dragged it over to her bedside, the glass with the branch threatening to keel over any minute.

“Breakfast for the queen,” Jonas announced proudly. Nurket looked like he approved.

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When Jonas had left for school, Gerd got up and looked around. Jonas wasn’t messy, but he wasn’t quite tidy either. What would it be like if they lived together? Gerd loved her privacy – now that she had decided to remain in this world – but Jonas was growing on her. Did she want to play house?

She only had the clothes she had arrived in yesterday. The snow had abated, now it was glittering in heaps on every street corner, window-frame, and gable. Gerd poured herself a second and third cup of coffee from the thoughtful pot Jonas had left ready for them, found and defrosted some moose meat in his freezer and gave it to Nurket, who apparently was an omnivore.

Since she had come to town with Peder last night and declined the lift back, Gerd had no transportation until Jonas returned from school. That was OK; Nanna had promised to feed Bamse, who got a bit perturbed if his breakfast wasn’t served pronto. And she wanted to visit Los Joacim, partly to assure herself that he was all right and – she had to admit – to nose around and find out if he knew who had attacked him.

Gerd dressed and looked around for something to use as a leash for Nurket. He didn’t even have a collar, poor guy. She decided to stop in at the town pet store and get him some supplies. At the pet store, she found a perfect sky blue collar for him and made a tag that said “If found, call Gerd at 370-1424.” No name; he didn’t have his true name yet. She also got a long leash, useful for town excursions. She had a 15 kilo bag of the best dog food sent out to her on the island. The boy behind the counter promised he would find someone to bring it out as soon as possible.

She put the collar and tag on Nurket, who preened from the honor. The she attached the leash, which he didn’t like quite as much but succumbed to with good grace.

The county hospital was situated on top of a rather steep hill. They could have walked, but Gerd thought the better of it. There were buses every 10 minutes; Gerd and Nurket got on one that was just leaving.

She walked into the main reception area and was surprised that they didn’t immediately tell her to leave her dog outside. She asked for Joacim Corneliussen and was directed to the Intensive Care Unit on the third floor.

At the ICU, a harried nurse pointed to room # 3. Nurket was acting like an invisible dog and no one noticed. She opened the door and entered.

There were two beds in the room. One housed Joacim, lying as if dead with tubes hooked up everywhere, He appeared to be asleep. When Gerd sat down and took his hand, the patient in the other bed woke up. It was an elderly lady, head full of soft white hair. She beckoned Gerd over, wanting to talk.

Gerd dropped the leash on the floor and sat down in the chair next to the other bed. “Hi, grandma,” she said. It wasn’t her grandmother of course, but it could have been.

“Do you know who that is?” whispered the old lady conspiratorially.

“Yes. He’s a neighbor of mine,” Gerd answered.

“That’s Joacim Corneliussen. I knew him well. I’m forgetting my manners: I’m Nora Svestad. That’s an adorable dog. My youngest son had dogs just like that.”

Her “youngest son” must be at least 60, thought Gerd. She held out her hand to the old lady.

“Gerd Ljoset. Pleased to meet you. I beg your pardon, but you don’t sound like you are from here.”

“No, I’m an Oslo girl,” said the 90 year old woman proudly. Joacim groaned lightly, and Gerd hurried to his bedside. He didn’t open his eyes.

“He was beaten up, you know. Probably Eigil, that miserable wretch.”

“Eigil?” Here was yet another person Gerd had never heard of. “Who’s he?”

“Why, Gunnar’s son, didn’t you know? He had a son with that little bitch from Trappene. She told him all his life that his father had been a hero, but I’ll tell you, he wasn’t. A lousy informer, he was.”

Gerd was totally confused. “Who, Eigil?”

“No, little girl, of course not. Eigil wasn’t born then. Gunnar Katte.”

With this, the old lady, Nora Svestad, closed her eyes and dozed off. The number of players in this drama – was it a drama or was she just inventing one? – was multiplying rapidly. Gerd shrugged it off and went back to Joacim. His eyes were closed but he was muttering something. Gerd bent down so she could hear.

“Collaborator,” whispered Joacim. “He deserved it, and more. But I should have told. I didn’t. I should have told.” With those last words, he sank back in a deep, drug-induced sleep. The door opened and a nurse came in.

“How on earth did you get in here?” she barked at Gerd. When she spied Nurket, she went practically apoplectic. “Get out this instant!”

Gerd looked at her unapologetically. “We’re leaving. Joacim Corneliussen is a dear friend of mine. I was the one who found him yesterday. Take good care of him.” With that, she grabbed Nurket’s leash and walked with measured steps out of the hospital room.

Outside the sun glittered through ice-covered branches. It must have gotten a little warmer in the night for so much ice to form, Gerd thought. It was around noon – maybe 1 o’clock or so – and she was getting a little hungry. Wonder if Elspeth had had lunch yet?

She left Nurket tied up outside the library, which did not please him. He looked accusingly at Gerd but believed her when she said she would be right back. Inside, Elspeth was at her post at the information desk, helping some middle-schoolers with their local research. She waved at Gerd.

“Are you coming to take me to lunch? You owe me, you know!” she boomed out, far too loud for a quiet library. Gerd smiled and nodded.

“I am. Let’s go to that Chinese place on East Street.” Ever since her time in Thailand, Gerd had loved Asian food. This was Norwegian-Asian, of course, and not the real thing, but it was as close as they could get in this little snow-bound town in February. There wouldn’t be many customers and she knew the proprietor. He’d probably allow Nurket to lie under their table as long as he was well covered by the drooping table-cloth.

They both ordered hot-and-sour soup and lemon chicken. Both drank green tea – even if they both secretly wanted wine. The wine list here wasn’t exactly stellar.

“Oh, I forgot,” said Elspeth suddenly in the middle of another topic. “I have something for you at the library.”

“More books I might like?” Gerd smiled at her friend. Elspeth was always trying to get her to expand her mind by pushing the strangest books on her.

“Not this time. It’s a box.”

“What kind of box?”

“Just a box. Like a double-sized shoebox, really. Since you were the one who found Einar, I thought I’d give it to you. It’s a bunch of old stuff; I only opened it once. It has some old pictures in it and letters and stuff. I saw a picture of Einar and his poker buddies in it. I don’t know how it ended up in our basement, but there was this history researcher from Olso who wanted us to keep it. He was going to come back and collect it, but he never did. So it’s yours.”

“If it belonged to Einar, it should go to his family, don’t you think?”

“Yes, but who? Anne Lise died years ago and they didn’t have any children that I know of.”

“He has a sister up there behind Berget.”

“Oh her, Susanna the almighty. I’m not giving that old witch the time of day. No, you would take much better care of it.” Elspeth was insistent.

“OK. I’ll hold on to it until someone else wants it.”

They moved on to other topics: who was sleeping with who, whose kids had gotten into trouble, whether Elspeth’s husband had truly wrenched his back or was just lazy. An hour later, they walked back to the library to collect the mysterious box.

Elspeth fund the basement key and they moved together into the bowels of the old library. Not much down here, mostly crates of yellowing newspapers that they hadn’t gotten around to scanning yet. Along both walls ran huge steel shelves; Elspeth moved confidently to a shelf way in the back. It was indeed a double-wide shoebox tied with string. Not heavy. Gerd took it under her arm and they ascended from the musty remnants of time past. At the door, they hugged and Gerd promised that she would definitely accept a dinner invitation some day soon. She collected Nurket, who as always was ecstatic to see her, and the two of them walked slowly through the nearly empty streets, Nurket sniffing and leaving messages on every lamp post.

Back at Jonas’ house, she made another pot of coffee and decided to clean up a bit instead of opening the box. She looked in his fridge: good god, the man would give himself ptomaine poisoning from what grew in there. Fillene didn’t have a grocery store, but there was a small mom-and-pop shop just on the other side of the bridge. Gerd and Nurket made an emergency run to the store to stock up on the basics for Jonas, who would probably never notice.

When Jonas got back from school, they had “high tea” together with Lady Grey (milk for Gerd and lemon for Jonas) and the pastries Gerd had bought. Jonas was quiet and thoughtful. Had something happened? No, he was just thinking of a poem. Did she want to stay the night?

As sweet as that prospect would be, Gerd didn’t. She wanted to get back to the island, to talk with Nanna and Peder, to placate Bamse who was most certainly in a major huff, and to open her mystery box. Jonas started the boat and in 10 minutes they were at her dock. It was always a shock for Gerd to move across the water so fast; it was almost as if her soul had been left behind. They hugged, a bit impersonally at first until they realized what they were doing and then went into a true embrace.

“I’ll be out after school tomorrow. OK?” said Jonas as she stepped onto the dock.

“Of course. Can you stay the weekend?”

“I’m invited?” he teased her.

“You are always invited,” she responded gravely, then smiled. “See you soon.”

Gerd watched his boat speed across Gryta (the local name for the water between Lyholmen and the mainland) until he was hidden by some of the small island. She whistled for Nurket and together they stomped up the snowy path to her house. Nanna had done as promised: fed and petted Bamse, turned on enough electricity to keep the house warm, and left her a note on the kitchen counter saying “Call as soon as you get home!”

Gerd put the box on the big dining table. She thought of Einar, of Joacim, and of the old lady in the hospital. Nora, was it? She would open the box after dinner. Nurket had gone to sleep on “his” blankets by the unlit fireplace. “Our past is never really gone,” she thought. What of Einar’s past could the dusty cardboard box contain?