The Redbreast Read online

  Daniel cleared his throat.

  ‘How did you go about eating your Sunday joint then?’

  Gudbrand needed no second bidding.

  ‘First of all, Dad carved the joint, solemnly, like a priest, while we boys sat completely still, watching. Then Mum put two slices on each plate and poured on gravy, which was so thick that she had to take care she stirred it enough so that it didn’t set. And there were loads of fresh, crisp Brussels sprouts. You should put your helmet on Daniel. What if you got shrapnel in your cap?’

  ‘Imagine if a shell hit my cap. Carry on.’

  Gudbrand closed his eyes and a smile played around his mouth.

  ‘For dessert we had stewed prunes. Or brownies. That wasn’t such usual fare. Mum had brought that tradition from Brooklyn.’

  Daniel spat in the snow. As a rule, watch was an hour during the winter, but both Sindre Fauke and Hallgrim Dale were in bed with temperatures, so Edvard Mosken had decided to increase it to two hours until the section was back to full strength.

  Daniel put a hand on Gudbrand’s shoulder.

  ‘You miss her, don’t you? Your mother.’

  Gudbrand laughed, spat in the same place in the snow as Daniel and gazed up at the frozen stars in the sky. There was a rustling sound in the snow and Daniel raised his head.

  ‘Fox,’ he said.

  It was unbelievable, but even here, where every square metre had been bombed and mines were closer than the cobblestones in Karl Johans gate, there was animal life. Not much, but they had both seen hares and foxes. And the odd polecat. Obviously they tried to shoot whatever they saw. Everything was welcome in the pot. But after one of the Germans had been shot while he was out catching a hare, the top brass had got it into their heads that the Russians were releasing hares in front of the trenches to tempt men out into no man’s land. As if the Russians would voluntarily give away a hare!

  Gudbrand fingered his sore lips and looked at his watch. One hour left to the next watch. He suspected that Sindre had been shoving tobacco up his rectum to give himself a temperature; he was the sort who would do that.

  ‘Why did you move home from the US?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘Wall Street Crash. My father lost his job at the shipyard.’

  ‘There you are,’ Daniel said. ‘That’s capitalism for you. The small guys slog away while the rich get fatter whether it’s boom time or a slump.’

  ‘Well, that’s the way it is.’

  ‘That’s how it’s been so far, but there’ll be changes now. When we win the war, Hitler’s got a little surprise up his sleeve for the people. And your father won’t need to worry any more about being unemployed. You should join the Nasjonal Samling.’

  ‘Do you really believe in all that?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  Gudbrand didn’t like to contradict Daniel so he answered with a shrug of his shoulders, but Daniel repeated the question.

  ‘Of course I believe in it,’ Gudbrand said. ‘But most of all I think about Norway. About not having to have Bolsheviks in the country. If they come, we’ll definitely go back to America.’

  ‘To a capitalist country?’ Daniel’s voice had become a little sharper now. ‘A democracy in the hands of the wealthy, left to chance and corrupt leaders?’

  ‘I’d rather that than communism.’

  ‘Democracies have outlived their use, Gudbrand. Just look at Europe. England and France, they were going to the dogs long before the war began: unemployment, exploitation. There are only two people strong enough to stop Europe’s nosedive into chaos now: Hitler and Stalin. That’s the choice we have. A sister nation or barbarians. There’s almost no one at home who seems to have understood what good luck it was for us that the Germans came first and not Stalin’s butchers.’

  Gudbrand nodded. It wasn’t only what Daniel said, it was the way he said it. With such conviction.

  All of a sudden all hell broke loose and the sky in front of them was white with flares, the ground shook and yellow flashes were followed by brown earth and snow which seemed to launch themselves into the air where the shells fell.

  Gudbrand already lay at the bottom of the trench with his hands over his head, but the whole thing was over as quickly as it had begun. He looked up and there, back behind the trench, behind the machine gun, Daniel was roaring with laughter.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Gudbrand shouted. ‘Use the siren! Get everyone up!’

  But Daniel paid no attention. ‘My dear old friend,’ he shouted with tears of laughter in his eyes. ‘Happy New Year!’

  Daniel pointed to his watch and then it dawned on Gudbrand. Daniel had obviously been waiting for the Russians’ New Year salute, because now he stuck his hand down in the snow which had been piled up against the sentry post to hide the machine gun.

  ‘Brandy,’ he shouted, triumphantly raising into the air a bottle containing a heel of brown liquid. ‘I’ve saved this for more than three months. Help yourself.’

  Gudbrand had crawled up on to his knees and smiled at Daniel.

  ‘You first,’ Gudbrand shouted.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Absolutely sure, old friend. You saved it up. But don’t drink it all!’ Daniel hit the side of the cork until it came out and raised the bottle.

  ‘To Leningrad. In spring we’ll be toasting each other in the Winter Palace,’ he proclaimed and took off his Russian cap. ‘And by summer we’ll be home, hailed as heroes in our beloved Norway.’

  He put the bottle to his lips and threw back his head. The brown liquid gurgled and danced in the neck of the bottle. It twinkled as the glass reflected the light from the sinking flares, and in the years to come Gudbrand would ponder whether it was that the Russian sniper saw: the gleam from the bottle. The next moment Gudbrand heard a high-pitched popping noise and saw the bottle explode in Daniel’s hands. There was a shower of glass and brandy and Gudbrand closed his eyes. He could feel his face was wet; it ran down his cheeks and instinctively he stuck out his tongue to catch a couple of drops. It tasted of almost nothing, just alcohol and something else – something sweet and metallic. The consistency was thick, probably because of the cold, Gudbrand thought, and he opened his eyes again. He couldn’t see Daniel from the trench. He must have dived behind the machine gun when he knew that he had been seen, Gudbrand guessed, but he could feel his heart racing.

  ‘Daniel?’

  No answer.

  ‘Daniel?’

  Gudbrand got to his feet and crawled out of the trench. Daniel was on his back with his cartridge belt under his head and the Russian cap over his face. The snow was spattered with brandy and blood. Gudbrand took the cap in his hand. Daniel was staring with wide eyes up at the starry sky. He had a large, black, gaping hole in the middle of his forehead. Gudbrand still had the sweet metallic taste in his mouth and felt nauseous.

  ‘Daniel.’

  It was barely a whisper between his dry lips. Gudbrand thought Daniel looked like a little boy who wanted to draw angels in the snow but had fallen asleep. With a sob he lurched towards the siren and pulled the crank handle. As the flares sank into their hiding places, the piercing wail of the siren rose towards the heavens.

  ‘That wasn’t how it was supposed to be,’ was all Gudbrand managed to say.

  oooooooo-OOOOOOOO . . . !

  Edvard and the others had come out and stood behind him. Someone shouted Gudbrand’s name, but he didn’t hear. He just wound the handle round and round. In the end Edvard went over and held the handle. Gudbrand let go, but didn’t turn round; he remained where he was, staring at the trench and the sky as the tears froze solid on his cheeks. The lament of the siren subsided.

  ‘That wasn’t how it was supposed to be,’ he whispered.

  11

  Leningrad. 1 January 1943.

  DANIEL ALREADY HAD ICE CRYSTALS UNDER HIS NOSE AND in the corners of his eyes and mouth when they carried him away. Often they used to leave them until they went stiff so they would be easier to carry, but Daniel was in
the way of the machine gun. So two men had dragged him to a branch off the main trench where they laid him on two ammunition boxes kept for burning. Hallgrim Dale had tied sacking around his head so they didn’t have to see the death mask with its ugly grin. Edvard had rung the mass grave in the Northern Sector and explained where Daniel was. They had promised to send two corpse-bearers at some point during the night. Then Mosken had ordered Sindre out of his sick bed to take the rest of the watch with Gudbrand. The first thing they had to do was clean the spattered machine gun.

  ‘They’ve bombed Cologne to smithereens,’ Sindre said.

  They lay side by side on the edge of the trench, in the narrow hollow where they had a view over no man’s land. Gudbrand didn’t like being so close to Sindre.

  ‘And Stalingrad is going down the drain.’

  Gudbrand couldn’t feel the cold; it was as if his head and body were filled with cotton and nothing bothered him any longer. All he felt was the ice-cold metal burning against his skin and the numb fingers which would not obey. He tried again. The stock and the trigger mechanism already lay on the woollen rug beside him in the snow, but it was harder undoing the final piece. In Sennheim they had been trained to dismantle and reassemble a machine gun blindfold. Sennheim, in beautiful, warm, German Elsass. It was different when you couldn’t feel what your fingers were doing.

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’ Sindre said. ‘The Russians will get us. Just as they got Gudeson.’

  Gudbrand remembered the German Wehrmacht captain who had been so amused when Sindre said he came from a farm on the outskirts of a place called Toten.

  ‘Toten. Wie im Totenreich?’ the captain had laughed.

  He lost his grip on the bolt.

  ‘Fuck it!’ Gudbrand’s voice quivered. ‘It’s all the blood sticking the parts together.’

  He placed the top of the little tube of gun oil against the bolt and squeezed. The cold had made the yellowish liquid thick and sluggish; he knew that oil dissolved blood. He had used gun oil when his ear had been inflamed.

  Sindre leaned over and fiddled with one of the cartridges.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. He looked up and grinned, showing the brown stains between his teeth. His pale, unshaven face was so close that Gudbrand could smell the foul breath they all had here after a while. Sindre held up a finger.

  ‘Who’d have thought Daniel had so much brain, eh?’

  Gudbrand turned away.

  Sindre studied the tip of his finger. ‘But he didn’t use it much. Otherwise he wouldn’t have come back from no man’s land that night. I heard you talking about going over. Well, you were certainly . . . good friends, you two, weren’t you?’

  Gudbrand didn’t hear at first; the words were too distant. Then the echo of them reached him, and he felt the warmth surge back into his body.

  ‘The Germans are never going to let us retreat,’ Sindre said. ‘We’re going to die here, every man jack of them. You should have hopped it. The Bolsheviks aren’t supposed to be as brutal as Hitler to people like you and Daniel. Such good friends, I mean.’

  Gudbrand didn’t answer. He could feel the heat in his fingertips now.

  ‘We thought of nipping over there tonight,’ Sindre said. ‘Hallgrim Dale and I. Before it was too late.’

  He twisted in the snow and eyed Gudbrand.

  ‘Don’t look so shocked, Johansen,’ he grinned. ‘Why do you think we said we were ill?’

  Gudbrand curled his toes in his boots. He could feel them now. They felt warm and good. There was something else too.

  ‘Do you want to join us, Johansen?’ Sindre asked.

  The lice! He was warm, but he couldn’t feel the lice. Even the whistling sound under his helmet had stopped.

  ‘So it was you who spread the rumours,’ Gudbrand said.

  ‘Which rumours?’

  ‘Daniel and I talked about going to America, not over to the Russians. And not now, but after the war.’

  Sindre shrugged, looked at his watch and got on to his knees. ‘I’ll shoot you if you try,’ Gudbrand said. ‘With what?’ Sindre asked, gesturing towards the gun parts on the rug. Their rifles were in the bunker and they both knew that Gudbrand wouldn’t be able to get there and back before Sindre had gone.

  ‘Stay here and die if you want, Johansen. All the best to Dale, and tell him to follow.’

  Gudbrand reached inside his uniform and pulled out his bayonet. The moonlight shone on the matt steel blade. Sindre shook his head.

  ‘People like you and Gudeson are dreamers. Put the blade away and join me. The Russians are getting new provisions across Lake Ladoga now. Fresh meat.’

  ‘I’m no traitor,’ Gudbrand said.

  Sindre stood up.

  ‘If you try to kill me with that bayonet, the Dutch listening post will hear us and sound the alarm. Use your head. Who do you think they’ll believe was trying to desert? You, with all the rumours there already are about your plans to do a runner, or me, a party member?’

  ‘Sit down, Sindre Fauke.’

  Sindre laughed.

  ‘You’re no killer, Gudbrand. I’m off now. Give me fifty metres before you sound the alarm, so that you’re in the clear.’

  They eyed each other. Small, feather-light snowflakes had begun to fall between them. Sindre smiled: ‘Moonlight and snow at the same time. That’s a rare sight, isn’t it?’

  12

  Leningrad. 2 January 1943.

  THE TRENCH THE FOUR MEN WERE STANDING IN WAS TWO kilometres north of their own section of the front, at the point where the trench doubled back, almost forming a loop. The captain stood in front of Gudbrand and was stamping his feet. It was snowing and there was already a thin layer of fine snow on the top of the captain’s cap. Edvard Mosken stood next to the captain and observed Gudbrand with one eye wide open, the other almost closed.

  ‘So,’ the captain said. ‘Er ist hinüber zu den Russen geflohen? He’s gone over to the Russians, has he?’

  ‘Ja,’ Gudbrand said.

  ‘Warum?’

  ‘Das weiß ich nicht.’

  The captain gazed into the distance, sucked his teeth and stamped his feet. Then he nodded to Edvard, mumbled a few words to his Rottenführer, the German corporal accompanying him, then they saluted. The snow crunched as they left.

  ‘That was that,’ Edvard said. He was still watching Gudbrand. ‘Yes,’ Gudbrand said. ‘Not much of an investigation.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who would have thought it?’ The one wide-open eye stared life-lessly at Gudbrand.

  ‘Men desert all the time here,’ Gudbrand said. ‘They can’t investigate all of —’

  ‘I mean, who would have thought it of Sindre? Who would have thought he would do something like that?’

  ‘Yes, you could say that,’ Gudbrand said.

  ‘On the spur of the moment. Just got up and made a run for it.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Shame about the machine gun.’ Edvard’s voice was cold with sarcasm.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you couldn’t call the Dutch guards, either?’

  ‘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.