Title: Som man reder. så ligger man
By: dagdrommer
Summary: While celebrating Christmas in San Gabriel, Nick and Greg learns how Greg's Grandparents came to leave Norway.
Characters: Nick, Greg
Genres: drama
Rating: G
Warnings: none

PROLOGUE

Norway, April 9th 1940

Not a ripple was seen on the water surface. The white painted houses surrounding Drøbak were surrounded by darkness and no lights illuminated the dark reef in the middle of the fjord.

It was 04.00. and the morning mist was floating above the sea, hiding the monumental ship gliding through the water. Birger Eriksen was on duty on Oscarsborg Fortress obediently keeping watch over the inlet.

His eyes caught sight of a movement.  It was a ship and it did not belong in his fjord.  It was outside nature’s normal early morning waking.

 Messages had been received; three large ships and more small battle ships were on the way to the fjord.

More messages were sent and received; some said the ships were German.

Colonel Birger Eriksen looked over his men stationed at the canons named Aron, Josva and Moses. Their orders were to stay put until he gave the order to fire. A warning shot was launched, but none of the ships slowed down.

“Fire,” Colonel Eriksen’s voice was firm, and Josva spat out a 350 kg shell.  At 04.21,  the sea caught fire.

The battleship Blücher, that until a few moments ago had sailed proud on the water, sank with the bow down and two propellers up in the air. Heavy amounts of oil leaked out and lit up angry flames. Thousands of men were eaten by the fire or swallowed by the ship on its way down.

50 km further north, at Vika Terasse in Oslo, Foreign Minister Koth and the German messenger Curt Brauer sat facing each other across an old wooden table.

The electricity was out and candles lit the room giving it a glow which did not fit the gravity of the situation.

The smell of stearine * was heavy in the room.

Brauer had brought documents issued by the German High Command concerning demands they were making of the Norwegian government.

 Norway was to give up control of its infrastructure and to put down all military resistance. If they did, Norway would be considered a political independent Kingdom.

“Wir wollen unsere Selbtändighet währen,” * Koth stated after a short consultation with Prime Minister Lie and his government.

“Dann wird es Kampf geben. Nicht kann euch retten,“ * Braüer warned him.

„Wir beugen uns freiwillig nicht, der Kampf ist bereits im Gange.“ *

The unthinkable had happened, Norway was at war.

* Stearine - a hard, slow-burning vegetable oil commonly used in Europe.  US candles are made from paraffin or bee's wax.
* we want to keep our sovereignty.
* Then you will see fight. That cannot be helped.
* We do not surrender freely. The fight has already started.

 

CHAPTER ONE: CHRISTMAS IN  SAN GABRIEL

 

Dec 23rd, Evening

 

San Gabriel is normally chilly in December but this year, it was a record low. There was even a log burning in the fire place and the whole family was assembled in front of the fire. Each was holding a cup of warm liquid to drink. Nick was sipping at the dark blend that Greg served him; a hot cup of gløgg *, sprinkled with almonds and raisins. This was the child friendly version of the Norwegian spicy Christmas beverage, but tomorrow they would be serving the grown up version, made of one part gløgg and one part red wine.

Celebrating Christmas in California with Greg’s family wasn’t as strange as not celebrating Christmas in Texas with his family.  Nick had no doubts about coming with Greg this year.  It was something he wanted to do and he was happy to do it; it was just different.

Mostly it was strange how they did things in a slightly different way, not big differences; just minor things. Like how they were to have Christmas dinner on the 24th ; Christmas Eve. That’s when they celebrate Christmas in Norway, and they had continued that tradition even in USA. Not that they didn’t celebrate the American Christmas on the 25th, they did that as well. So, it wasn’t so much different as it was more.

Although, it was less in a way as well; less people at least.

Nick comes from a huge family, and even with some siblings always away celebrating with their in-laws, the rest of them, all bringing their extended families, makes a huge crowd.

Momma loves spending days in advance making and storing up food.  She complains about it, but deep down she enjoys every minute.  She knows that this food will be eaten by her large and loving family.

Nick also loves it, he loves everything about Christmas. He loves the smells, the sounds, the expectations; but most of all, he loves the expressions on his nieces and nephews faces when they open their gifts; he even loves the hours he spends shopping for those gifts.

He knows that did surprise Greg when they first started going out, how Nick loved shopping for Christmas gifts. It’s true he isn’t fond of shopping, but shopping for gifts is something completely different. That’s about pleasing someone he loves, and Nick loves. He has an enormous capacity for loving.

Sometimes he loves so much that it hurts. There simply isn’t enough time and money to be with everyone he loves as much as he wants. So he misses his family when he celebrates Christmas without them. But he does it out of love; love for Greg.

Greg has grown to be the single most important person in his life. The one that grounds him, the one that’s there for him when he wakes up in the middle of the night bathed in his own sweat trying to escape the memory of a plexi glass box, or when he crashes on the sofa exhausted after a particular tough case.

Greg. Greg was the one who taught him to love himself.

He has always gone out of his way to please everyone else, but he has never really loved himself. Don’t misunderstand, he doesn’t have low esteem. He knows he is a good person, always tries to do the right thing, takes pride in his job and he can even admit he is good looking, but love? Nah, love is for others.

It was Greg that showed him he was special. It was Greg that showed him that someone could love him above everyone else. It was Greg that taught him that someone was willing to spend the rest of their life with him. Him… Nick Stokes… him. 

And he would do the same for Greg. That’s why he’s here instead of home in Texas. That’s why he is surrounded by Greg’s family doing their strange traditions, drinking their funny drinks. And he loves it, because he is surrounded by love.

*

Living in California, they made sure of always using Californian wine with the gløgg. It gave  a pleasant warmth to the drink and a feeling of pride in their hearts. It felt good uniting their roots with their present home in one traditional drink.

Before he turned 21 Greg was given only the non-alcoholic version, unless it was papa Olaf serving. After he turned 16, Greg usually made sure that it was Papa Olaf that served.

When Greg was young, there were seven sharing the gløgg in celebration of the holiday, in the two story home close to the northern edge of San Gabriel.  The house belonged to the Sanders family; Greg and his parents, Lisbet and Michael.  One of the four bedrooms and the only one on the first floor was occupied by Greg’s maternal grandparents, the Hojems.

They had lived with their daughter since Greg was born. At first it was to help out when he was an infant, and his mother had trouble taking care of a child. Then they stayed when Erik Hojem had his heart attack, and his daughter wanted to keep them under the same roof.

Greg’s paternal grandparents, Geoffrey and Benedikte Sofie Sanders would fly in from Wisconsin.  Now both they and Grandma Hojem were gone and there were only four of them to keep the family traditions.  Nick was a welcome addition to the celebration.

Greg’s paternal grandparents lived at the farm where Benedikte Sofie Rasmussen once arrived with her parents from Norway so many years ago. She grew up an only child, and became a strong woman helping her father take care of what he had built with his own hands. She wasn’t born an only child, but her brother Olaf Kristoffer died of tuberculoses at the age of three. They named the farm after him, and she stayed at the Olaf farm until the day she died.

She was lucky. Being a woman and the only living child, she could easily have had her childhood home sold if there was no one to take over when her parents passed away.

But Benedikte Sofie Rasmussen met her man at age nineteen, and he was a good man.

Geoffrey Sanders, born and raised in Wisconsin by Norwegian and Scottish parents, was one of many brothers, and he had no farm to inherit. He was more than happy to work and live on his wife’s parent’s farm as long as they lived. When they died, he continued to honor their home by adding more fields and growing new types of corn. The farm was not big, but it was enough to feed his wife and two sons.

It was a happy day when their eldest son took an interest in working the farm and so it was with an easy heart the youngest boy married his California girl and moved to San Gabriel.

Influenced by the name of the farm, young Greg Sanders started calling his paternal grandparents, Papa and Nana Olaf at age three, and the name stuck from then on.

*

When Greg was a child, he used to love sitting on the floor next to his Grandpa Hojem’s feet while listening to his stories about Christmas in the homeland, and how they had tried to keep those traditions even in a foreign country.

Grandpa would get sentimental and shed a tear when thinking about all he had left back home.  As the story continued, his English slowly turned into Norwegian.Grandma and Lisbet would add to the story with details and English translations so that little Greg could follow the story. When he grew older, he would add to the story himself, as he then knew it by heart.

They always listened to his tales while sitting by the newly decorated tree on the day before Christmas.

Ever since Greg was little and made decorations with his grand mother, they had decorated the tree together on the 23rd and sat down afterwards drinking gløgg. The tree would be small, freshly cut pine and filled with Norwegian flags and bright white candles.

Grandpa Hojem would always tell them about how they had real burning candles when he was a child, and how he one year snuck in to light one in the morning before his mother got up. When his father found out, he was yelled at so bad that he never dared to light another candle again.

Nowadays they had the electrical candles, but they had to be white, and they needed to be authentic looking.

Grandpa Hojem was an old man now. His hair was grey and his skin was wrinkled but his mind was completely clear.

 His hands might be shaking but never his thoughts. He left most of the storytelling to Greg these days, but once in a while they all wanted to hear the familiar stories of the old days back in Norway; stories that bear the memories of who we are; experienced by one generation but carried on by generations to come.

“Hey Grandpa, why don’t you tell Nick how you guys came to the US?” Greg looked up at his grandfather with a smile that reflected the young boy he once was sitting at the very same spot.

“Sure you’re up to that, søtnos *?”

“Sure am, I love that story.”

“It’s getting late, Sweetie, maybe I should wait.”

Grandpa Hojem glanced at the old grandfather clock ticking on the wall noticing it was getting close to ten. The clock had arrived in America years after he had and was one of the few pieces of furniture he had from his old home in Oslo.

“Why don’t you start, and then you can continue tomorrow?” Greg was eager to hear the story again, and even more eager for Nick to learn about his family history. All he had told him so far was that they had come here after the war and that Grandma was pregnant at the time. He wanted Grandpa to tell the story himself.

”Please,” Nick dared to add, he wanted to hear the story, and couldn’t think of anything he rather wanted to do right now.

“Okay,” Grandpa Hojem smiled back at him. “Greg, why don’t you get the album over there?”

By the album, he meant an old book full of photos and newspaper clips collected from Norway and his first years in America.

The book was thick with papers sticking out from nearly every page. It was worn by time and the numbers of loving hands that had gone through the pages looking at the pictures over and over.  It was marked with ancient coffee stains.

Grandpa opened the book and gently stroked his hands over the first black and white picture in the book. It was a grainy picture of a young couple in front of a small wooden house. It was a small home, only containing two rooms, but the outdoor was never ending. The field stretching out behind the house was endless, covered with barley and potatoes.

Two young people were captured in time. He was tall, blond and stalwart. He had grown from a boy to a man, and he had crossed the sea to reach the land where he had the possibility to take care of and provide for his family.

She was fair with long, dark hair. Her clothes were poor and they didn’t seem to shield her from the wind that ruffled her hair and threatened to blow his hat away. But eyes stared straight at you through the camera, telling you that she was woman enough to fight some wind and to stand by her man, even though she was miles away from home. They were a team, and they were good.

The man held a gentle arm around his young wife’s waist, and her belly was heavy with child.

“I came to this country with few earthly goods” Grandpa Hojem began with a clear voice, “I had the woman I loved by my side and our future wrapped up safe in her belly. The year was 1945, but our journey had started 5 years prior, in the land across the sea.”To be continued in two days.....

* gløgg = mulled wine
* Søtnos = a common nickname on your loved ones, a nick name that has excisted in generations. Means something like “sweet nose

CHAPTER TWO: RADIODAYS
Oslo, April 9th 1940


For the last 7 years, the news had been broadcast over the air waves bringing the voices straight into our living room. In a firm Oslo dialect, the same transmission was heard by a loudmouthed fisherman in the Northern wilds and a soft spoken man living in the white cities in the South. We were a unified people, now joined by the advent of national radio.

I would get up at dawn making my bread and coffee. Mother would be up before me, but father would, now that he had left the responsibilities of the store to me, rest a little bit longer in the morning.

I would turn the radio on, a 1938 Radionette Jubileumssuper, placed next to the easy chair by the large window in the living room, in hope of hearing the magical voice of La Mome Piaf. I had fallen utterly in love with her raw and heartbreaking voice, and couldn’t leave before I had heard at least one song in the morning. I sat it on low so not to wake up father and my young sister Liv, but I would hum Mon legionnaire for the rest of the day.

Mother would leave me alone in the living room, letting me enjoy my coffee and fifteen minutes of radio time alone before I made myself ready for work.

Liv was light in spirit hard to wake up in the mornings.

She liked to sleep in late, and often mother had to threaten her with both water in the face and a cut in her play time before she would crawl out from under her warm duvet and join my parents in the kitchen.

Her room was small, only holding her bed and a small desk where she could read and do math. Beside her bed sat a doll brought to her by our grand uncle who earned his living on the sea. The doll was from the Far East, and was by far her dearest belonging. She loved doing the math and she could play with numbers all day long. Every day when I got home from work, I would bring with me damaged buttons from the suits brought in for repairs. She would eagerly count them time and time again.

I left many marks on that desk back when it was mine. When Liv turned ten, and I eighteen, I moved out to sleep on the sofa bed in the living room. The sofa was positioned next to the old pine wood slant front desk, containing all of fathers papers, and his reading glasses placed on top, next to the picture of my beloved grandparents. Liv had happily moved in to the small apartment’s only other bedroom than our parent’s

I would normally have moved out by now, but my father was no longer in good health. He had slipped on the ice two years ago, during a shifting period of the winter, where the snow on the ground melted and froze on and off making the walking conditions particularly difficult. My father did not see the icy patch under the snow. He fell hard and broke his hip.

His body didn’t heal well, and hours behind the counter were too much for him to handle. I already knew I would one day take over his business, Hojem Manufaktur eftf, I just didn’t anticipate it to be this soon.

I hoped I could work only a few hours a day helping my parents out, and reading a subject at the University on the side. No one in my family had ever read at the University, and now I wouldn’t be the one to break that line. Instead, I would listen in on every conversation the young students at the store had. I would eavesdrop pretending I needed to measure their legs yet another time before pinning the needle in, just to absorb a little more information on whatever subject they talked about.

Hojem Manufaktur eftf was located in Oslo’s best neighborhood, just one street off of Bogstadveien, and across the street from Hegdehaugen Isenkram

The hardware store was a good neighbor, seeing that many of its customers had some wealth and was willing to spend it on clothes bought from us. We could offer clothes to both women and men and most of the textures were imported from the continent.

We offered a few ready made suits in the lower price range, which we tailored for the customer but mostly, we sold material to customers who made their own clothes.

They could also pay for us to sew the outfit of their liking. We could offer a few selected patterns to make, and a wide variety of materials to make them from.

The materials included velvet, flannel, satin, silk, wool, chambray, poplin, crepe d’ chine, artificial silk and even denim and mouselin.

Times were harder than ever the last few months. The war raging in Europe made it impossible to get new materials or new merchandise so we were dependent on the stock we already had in house. Luckily we had a healthy stock of black material because women were asking for ‘a little black dress’ suitable for any occasion. All the glossy fashion magazines were showing the work of Coco Channel.

My father had taught me the art of tailoring, but my real talent was sweet talking the customer. If a man didn’t want to buy a suit, he would walk out with one. If he already wanted a suit, he would buy a dress for the missus as well.

You see, the real trick was to talk with the lady. Many people think you have to talk to the man, because he holds the money. But I knew that I had to talk to the woman, give her the idea of what they should buy, and then she would use all her tricks to make the man open his wallet.

Of course, the real wealthy people didn’t buy their clothes from us. No, they had their clothes tailored at Ferner Jacobsen, or better yet, their clothes were bought in London or New York, brought home by sailors doing their shopping while docked at the fashion centers of the world.

I even remember my gymnasium sweetheart getting married in an old wedding dress bought at Bloomingdales. Her father had brought it home in nineteen ten for her mother to wear at their wedding. After 30 years of hanging in a closet and only being taken out every blue moon for admiration, and even after customizing it for the slightly skinnier daughter, the dress was prettier than any wedding dress I have ever seen since.

Most people though didn’t have the luxury of owning a New York dress, we had to do with what we could get in Oslo. We didn’t have the reputation that Ferner Jacobsen had, nor were we as skilled as their tailors. We did however have a loyal group of customers, and a solid roof over our head.

April 9th 1940 had started quite unlike most other mornings. I was ripped out of sleep by the siren signaling with three short beeps instructing me to turn on the radio. The voice that greeted me every morning informed me that the enemy had arrived.

I hurried out the door and down the streets to the Town Center. For the first time in more than 30 years, the store would not open on time.

*

The sound of hundreds of feet keeping a steady rhythm echoed between the brick walls of the University and The National Theatre. There were green uniforms moving as one as far as my eyes could see. Down the proud parade street of Karl Johan they poured into the city like the blood rushing through my veins.

The teeming mass of people hurrying to work stopped and stared. They were astonished as they couldn’t believe their own eyes.

The soldiers flooded the streets arriving from Fornebu, the Oslo airport. They kept arriving all day, plane after plane flying them in, coloring our country in frightening green. The solders were on our soil, and we stood there, watching, stunned, unable to react.

I hadn’t foreseen this coming. I hadn’t anticipated the war knocking on my door. The radio broadcast had reported daily about the war in Europe. I had followed the news closely. Our soldiers had joined the forces abroad. Many had died fighting, but our country was neutral. Or so I thought. We weren’t in any direct danger; we weren’t in the conflict, except now the conflict had moved into our own back yard.

Feeling the pit in my stomach I turned towards Stortinget, the parliament building. The massive stone lions lay guarding the gates, but still not one of them could prevent the scene played out in the streets.

I turned to return to University Square and almost ran over a man as I suddenly shifted direction. “Omforladels,” I chocked out, and lent him a hand as he was about to fall. “No problem,” he returned in a language I think I could recognize as English. He must have understood my apology even though he obviously weren’t Norwegian.

A notebook fell out of his pocket and I picked it up for him. The book was filled with notes in thick letters of graphite. I barely looked at it, and I couldn’t decipher any of the notes scribbled down, only his name on the front of the book I understood; it spelled Leland Stowe.

Had I known the impact his notes would cause, I would have taken his notebook with me, but Leland Stowe was for me then an unknown man with an unknown mission, and I simply handed it back to him. “Thank you,” he said. I could only smile, as English wasn’t a language I had learned.

******

Nick shifted in his seat, looking at Greg with a question in his eyes.

”What?” Greg mouthed.

“What was it with the note book?” Nick whispered. He was eager to listen, but too curious for his own good. It was an occupational habit, always picking up on all the small details.

“Let me tell you,” Grandpa Hojem laughed at him, well aware that Nick never intended him to hear that he was interrupting the story.

“Oh, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that mans hearing,” Greg rolled his eyes at his grandfather, remembering all the times he had misjudged the old mans hearing and unintentionally letting him in on secrets he never meant to share.

”I’ll remember that for later,” Nick said starring straight at the man telling the story.

“You wondered about the notebook. Well you see, Leland Stowe worked as a war correspondent for the Chicago Daily News and the New York Post, and he wrote an article about that very day. I hadn’t heard of him of course, and I only remembered his name because he had the same surname as the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin; a book I had read a couple of times and actually had in my rather full book case stored in our crowded storage space at the loft.

Anyway, as I would later learn, Stowe had interpreted the shock as indifference, as acceptance on the part of the Norwegian population, something I can assure you was not correct. I was one of them, standing there in shock doing nothing as the soldiers marched through our city, but I can tell you it didn’t mean I accepted it. We knew what was going on in Europe, it was just that Germany was so far away. Except for the people at sea, most of us hadn’t been further away than Denmark or Sweden, and many not even that far. We felt safe here in the North, in a neutral country, and we were simply taken by surprise.

Of course we knew there was a slight possibility of war. The government had flight alarm drills and we had instructions on what to do if we heard the sirens; we just never thought we would.

His article was printed in many newspapers and spread to the American people. This had a huge damaging effect on America’s public opinion of the Norwegian resistance and therefore their motivation to help us when we needed it the most. All because of one article and I had probably held the notes to that article in my hand.”

“I didn’t know that” Nick whispered.

“Of course not. I can reassure you that the damage wasn’t irreparable, our dear Princess and your president Franklin Roosevelt made sure of that. But right there and then, the situation was rather tense. Benedikte once told me how they were affected by reading that article.”

“Benedikte, that’s Nana Olaf?” Nick asked before grandpa Hojem continued. They all nodded.

“There wasn’t that much news coming from home, and she was living here in America, reading all she could about what happened in Europe. Seeing that Norway didn’t fight back was a huge disappointment. She was ashamed of her country then, and she has explained to me that it was a feeling she would never want anyone to feel. We may live in America, but we can never get Norway out of our blood and we would like to be proud of the country we came from. It’s our culture, our values and our pride. Feeling that the old country abandoned their people is nothing she wants anyone to have to experience. That’s why what Roosevelt did is so important, but I tell you about that later. Now, where was I?”

“You had just given him back his notebook.”

”Yes, yes I had. Well, I was looking for my friend that I was certain would be there…”



******


I crossed the street just behind a group of green clad men and before a new section arrived. Seeing the students assembled at the university steps I could make out a familiar face. He stood at the second step observing the commotion in the street. The sun was in his eyes, and he shielded them to get a better view of what was going on. His face was grave, and I recognized the expression was one of concern. He was a man of strong conviction and never afraid to stand up for his points of view. I admired that in him, and would always seek his advice.

Hindered by only a few obstacles I managed to cross the square to reach his side.

”Mr. Bøe,” I addressed him, formal now out in the street.

He turned and looked at me a second before he addressed me in the same way.

”Hojem”

I nodded.

”Good day,” I promptly said to lessen my rather rude approach, seeing as he was standing amongst his co-students.

“Is it?” he said turning his eyes towards the street again.

”Doesn’t look like it,” I said under my breath more to myself than to him.

I was eager to hear his opinion. I always was, but this day more than usual.

*

The first time I met Anders Bøe there was nothing particular about him. He came into the store in search of black pants.

I had a few new ones in stock and one in particular that would look good on him. His long legs were made for narrow pants that would emphasize the muscles underneath. His torso, shaped in a solid V, showed a man with great strength and there was no doubt in my mind that the strength in him was not limited to the physical.

His eyes would notice everything in his surrounding and I did not do the mistake of assuming he didn’t notice everything that was going on. He could read me from the very start of our friendship, and as years would go by, that was an ability I would greatly appreciate.

He was tall, fair to his skin and with dark clean cut hair. I had no trouble seeing why women would swarm around him. He was handsome, smart and fun to be with. It would surely be a joy to dress him.

I excused myself to go behind the counter to find my measure tape and pins to mark the correct length on his pants. I would bring them back for mother to customize for him. He could pick them up a few days later.

I couldn’t help but notice the heavy books he carried. He had put them down on the counter while searching for the perfect pants. The titles suggested studies of the law, and he did indeed look like a law student. His head was held high, his back straight and his attitude demanded respect. He had authority, or at least he wanted it to look that way.

A law student; there were many of them in our store. Their preference for a suit according to the expected standard, but without the salary to meet the means, lead them to us. Here they could buy a lower price pre-made suit and only make minor adjustments, rather than to have one tailored from scratch.

We were more than willing to help them. A law student was always more than just a law student; he was also a boyfriend, with the eagerness to please his lady, and a future lawyer, which would have a first and second job that didn’t give them all the great pay off in money. Stay loyal when they had no money and they would be loyal when they could pay some more as well.

Another thing about the students were their age; my age. There was no secret that I loved to talk; I have always loved to talk. But more so, I have always loved to learn. I would ask them all kinds of questions, and most of the time they would answer me. People are like people most, they like talking about themselves and what interests them. And most people, luckily, were interested in the profession which they studied. Mr.Bøe was no exception.

Actually, he was even more eager than most. While most others struck a polite conversation while being measured, he seemed to recognize the sincerity in my interest, and shared more than usual. He didn’t stop with the shallow explanations, but dove into detailed clarifications, and many times I forgot all about measuring, and would sit myself down, pin stuck between my lips and just absorb the new knowledge. So far did he take it that he started coming in to show me new articles, and tell me new stories, and didn’t even pretend to be a customer while doing it anymore.

He had a study break at midday every Wednesday, and it soon became a habit of him to drop by and talk during his break. I started expecting it, and made a habit of having the coffee ready for him when he came.

Mother had taken a liking to him and made sure she had some freshly baked bread and nice spread for us to eat. My favorite would be when mother had made us whole wheat bread with light syrup on butter. On special days, if it was something to celebrate, she would even prepare lefse* she had baked on her takke* to go with our coffee. I swear, if I was a girl, she would have made me marry the man.

His break fell conveniently together with my lunch, and we had a nice small kitchen to eat in at the back of the store. Usually we didn’t let customers back there, but Mr.Bøe wasn’t a customer anymore, he simply was Anders; my dear good friend.

*
Standing on the steps of the School of Law, we watched the throng of soldiers streaming into our country and a nation of people being struck by sheer surprise. As weird as it may sound, I was glad I was experiencing this event side by side with my friend. He always helped ground me, and this day I needed some proof that what I saw wasn’t just a bad dream. If he saw it as well, it must be true, and if he reacted to it, than I couldn’t be all crazy feeling the way I did.

*

Nick brushed his teeth in the bathroom joining Greg’s old bedroom. It was a small bathroom containing a toilet, a sink and a small shower cabinet. No hope of ‘doing it’ in the shower while they were here, and he wouldn’t have done it anyway. The thought of having sex under either parent’s roof was not appealing them. Lucky for them they would only stay a week.

Greg had already climbed into bed and was reading while waiting for Nick to finish up. The bed was small, but would fit them both if they weren’t too keen on having any space between them. Nick was set for a week with nights of spooning. He didn’t mind. Sleeping with Greg in his arms was his favorite way of sleeping, and while on vacation he was actually able to sleep soundly without his usual tossing and turning.

It hadn’t always been like that. He had periods of nights (or days actually) when he couldn’t sleep at all. After staring down the barrel of a gun for the first time he had refused to go to bed afraid of what he would see in his dreams. After almost 48 hours without sleep he had finally fallen into a restless sleep filled with nightmares. It had lasted for nearly 3 weeks before he realized that listening to white noise on TV would help him rest.

After Nigel Crane had stalked him, he had trouble sleeping in his own house. After crashing on Warrick’s lumpy couch for a week, which only made his sore ribs feel even more bruised; he had his friend go through the house with him and make sure there were no more stalkers.

Warrick had even slept in his guestroom for two nights before returning home, leaving Nick to sleep alone in his home again. Warrick was a good friend and would never hold it against him.

After the Walter Gordon case, Nick had trouble with darkness. At that point Greg had come up with the solution. When it was time for Nick to come home after two weeks of rehabilitation in Texas, Greg had showed up at his door with a small fish tank in his arms, and a container filled with colorful fish. It was for his bedroom, and it would illuminate the room with just enough light to not be dark, but not enough light for it to be hard to sleep. He told Nick the names of all the fish, explained a bit about their personalities (only Greg would know about individual fish personalities), and promised to come by every day to make sure they were fed.

They had never really been close friends. They laughed and had fun at work, and would go out together in a group, but never the two of them alone. But after the Gordon case, it had all changed. The fish tank was only the beginning. Greg had admitted later that the whole ordeal had scared the shit out of him, and he had decided that life was too short to be afraid of acting on his feelings. He had been attracted to Nick for a long time, and the thought of losing him even before he had the chance to tell him was devastating. He gave it some time, in Greg’s book that is about 3 weeks, before he started wooing him.

Greg wasn’t the traditional wooer. He didn’t show up on his door with roses and chocolate, and Nick didn’t want any of that. Rather, he started bringing food, videogames and films when he came over to feed the fish. Nick had told him he was perfectly capable of caring for the fish himself. Greg didn’t doubt that, but he had taken a special liking to the fish he told him, so he would like to see them and make sure they got the good stuff. The good stuff was special food prepared by Greg for his own fish that lived in a much larger tank in his own living room.

The daily visits from Greg were so regular that Nick started to keep his special blend of coffee in his own cabinets. He wouldn’t drink from it if Greg wasn’t there, it wouldn’t be the same without Greg’s company. He started thinking about the recliner next to his desk in the living room as “Greg’s recliner” and he even cleared out a drawer for him to keep a change or two for when he wanted a shower after work and needed some clean clothes.

In the beginning, the visits lasted only half an hour. It soon stretched into an hour and then a couple. After a while Greg could easily stay all day, and they would be comfortable in each others company. There was no need to entertain each other. Nick would do his everyday mundane chores and that often included doing Greg’s laundry as well. Greg would use his computer, or bring his own laptop, to do whatever he wanted to do. After a couple of months Nick suggested he crash in the guest room instead of going home. After all, they would have to get up at the same time anyway, to get to work at the same shift.

When it happened, it was an accident, a good accident; their first kiss.

Greg was making them dinner, and he wasn’t a half bad cook. He was filling the plates and handed one to Nick. When Nick took the plate he thanked him and leaned in to give him a quick kiss as a thank you. He never meant to do that. He had felt the urge to, the man spending so much time with him had started to mean the world to him, but he never meant to act on his desire. He just didn’t think. It happened automatically and felt so naturally, and when he realized what he had done, he started apologizing.

Greg had calmly taken the plate back, put both the plates down, and grabbed Nicks face to stop all the apologies flooding out of his mouth.

“Do you really think I spend this much time here, serving you, pampering you, just to feed your fish? This is what I want,” he had said, and settled the discussion. He had slept in Nick’s bed from that day forward.

It may sound selfish, a bit cruel even, to use Nick’s fear of the dark as an access to his heart, but it wasn’t meant like that. To Greg, a fish tank was a genuine gift. He happened to love fish, and he simply couldn’t see any better way to give a little light in the bedroom. And Nick has to agree with him, whenever he wakes up from a nightmare, he will look over to the fish tank and see the colorful fish swim calmly in the water, and he feels peace. And now he can even turn over in bed and watch Greg breathe and know that he will never wake up alone anymore. Life is better with Greg in it, so he definitely won’t mind sharing a rather small bed with him, under his parent’s roof, abstaining from sex for a week, because he would do anything to have this man in his life forever.


Takke = a flat iron plate that one put on the fire to bake lefse.
Lefse = a traditional Norwegian cake.

CHAPTER THREE: THE KING THAT SAID “NO” and A QUISLING AMONG US

Dec 24th Morning.

The smell of roasting pork filled the house.  Lisbet had put the pork rib in the oven at 8am and the smell started to fill the house shortly after.  The recipe was so easy and it only took about 3 hours.

She would let it cool down before cutting it up in serving pieces; then reheat the servings when it was time for dinner. That was the way her mother had always done it and it just made the rib taste better.

She had started preparing for the holiday meal a week ago at the local butcher not far down the street.

She always made a special order for pork ribs and he would prepare it for her the way she wanted it. She always wanted a large piece, at least 6 lbs, a good midrib with the chine still attached. She liked the spare ribs best, but Michael was always so fond of the chine. She made sure the butcher scored the rind and sawed through the bones so she would be able to cut them up for serving.

She didn’t used to have any problems with that procedure; this year though she had almost had to leave the store to hurl. Watching the large piece of pork being handled and cut made her think of the things her boys saw in the morgue at work. She didn’t like the thought of that. Actually she hated it. She hated thinking about her son doing that dangerous job and she wanted to yell at him for doing it. She would like to wrap him in cotton and keep him safe for eternity, but he had made up his mind and done what he wanted. Michael had told her to accept that and she was doing her best to work on it.

Two days ago she had let the meat defrost and rubbed it with plenty of salt and pepper. She had massaged it to make sure the seasoning got into the cuts in the rind. She was just about finished and had put the rib into the fridge to settle for a couple of days when her father walked into the room. He had been coughing violently ash grey to his skin. Greg had hurried in after him worried his grandpa was ill and might fall.

To make a long story short, Greg had wanted to take her father to the doctor; her father had refused. They were both stubborn men and neither was willing to give in to the other.  When she told her son to let her father go, he was 87 years old, clear headed and old enough to make his own decisions, her son snapped back at her, “I’m old enough too” and left the room in anger.

And he is. He is old enough to make his own decisions and she has to respect it even though she’s afraid every day she will get the phone call telling her that she has lost her son.

*

Nick walked in just as she was about to pull the foil off the rib to stop the steaming process and let the roasting begin.

”Let me help you with that pan, ma’am” he said always so polite.

”Thank you,” she said giving him the oven mittens. He lifted the pan to the countertop, let her remove the foil and turn the rib so the rind faced up and would get crunchy. She placed a small plate under the rib to elevate the middle part for a more even roasting.

Nick put the pan pack in the oven and she turned down the heat for the remainder of the cooking time.

“It sure smells good,” Nick said with a hungry undertone in his voice.

“Let me find you breakfast,” she said, wanting to wait on the guest.

“No worries, I can find something myself. You have enough to do already.”

“It’s no problem, I like having my family home for Christmas. And I’m glad you could join us this year.”

“Happy to be here. Do you mind if I take some of that müsli?” Nick asked pointing at a box standing on a shelf.

“Help yourself,“ she answered, “not exactly the kind of breakfast I’m used to feeding the kids in this house.”

Nick laughed at being referred to as a ‘kid’. He was nearing forty and started feeling it. He was having more difficulties keeping his flat stomach, especially with the hours he worked and the food Greg was feeding him. He had once thought Greg didn’t know squat about cooking. He was wrong. Greg wasn’t a chef, far from, but he had a handful of dishes he made really well. Nick especially loved his spaghetti carbonara and chicken filets with mushrooms in cream sauce. The thought of all the great food and the smell that filled the room reminded him that he hadn’t worked out in a while. He and Greg had a healthy sex life, but it wasn’t enough to burn off the extra calories he had added to his daily diet since hooking up with the cookie monster.

“I think I’ll have a run before Greg wakes up. Any time I need to be back?” Nick put the used bowl into the empty dishwasher and directed the question to Lisbet.

“There’s rice porridge at noon, and a fair chance your boyfriend sleeps until then. Enjoy the morning in peace, and do whatever you like sweetheart.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you,” she answered him.

”What do you mean?” Nick came to a halt at the door.

“Thank you for loving Greg.”

“That’s the easiest thing in the world.” Nick smiled at her meaning every word he was saying.

”I know. I love him too, and I know you know I’m too overprotective of him.”

Nick wouldn’t deny it but didn’t see any reason to confirm it either. They both knew it was the truth.

“I am working on it,” she assured him, “I really am. I don’t know if you know about Greg’s brother?”

Nick walked back into the room. “Brother?”  He didn’t remember hearing anything of a brother.

“Still born. Two years before we had Greg.” She hid a tear in the palm if her hand.

“I’m sorry.” Nick took her hands between his own.

“It was a long time ago.  I had three miscarriages, one still born and finally a beautiful, live boy that I just wanted, no needed, to protect from everything that could harm him. I was so scared to lose him too. I realize I’ve been too much for him and that he protects me from the truth now and then. He shouldn’t. And even though I hated the way I found out he’s working in the field, I am glad I found out. I need to accept that I can’t keep him safe forever.”

Nick took her in her arms and let her shed a tear on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she pulled away from him and apologized. “What I meant to say is, I am so glad he has you to take care of him. Look after him for me, please?”

“I will.”

“I know you will. And you have to look after yourself as well. I have finally gotten another son and I’m not losing you either.”

Swallowing down the lump in his throat Nick nodded. “I will.”

“Now, go out on your run. Don’t be stuck in the kitchen with an old weeping woman.”

*

Dec 24th, Noon

Greg walked into the kitchen in his boxers and t-shirt to take part of, for him, the first meal of the day.

“Get dressed,” his mother and boyfriend both yelled at him in unison as he was about to sit down.

“Jeeez,” he said looking at them wide eyed, but he turned around and got dressed before returning to the table. They were all gathered to eat the traditional rice porridge meal and for most people, except Greg, this would have been a warm lunch.

“So, grandpa, why don’t you continue your story?”

“Ja, I was talking about Anders, wasn’t I? Let’s see…. It was winter when Anders one day again sat in our back room….”

*

More than a year and a half had passed since the invasion and though our military fought back, after sixty one days they surrendered.. The struggle was too hard, the men were too few, and the gear was too old. Norway was officially under German occupation.

Things weren’t done the conventional way during wartime though, and the radio that had been our national form of communication was used to make an unexpected announcement.

On the evening of April 9th 1940, Vidgun Quisling, the leader of the Norwegian Nazi party Nasjonal samling, broke into the NRK radio studio to declare himself prime minister

He wasn’t always the Quisling, the Nazi Leader, though. He was born Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling and had a past in the Norwegian government. For two periods he had the position as minister and head of the defence department during the bondeparti-government. It wasn’t until after the bondeparti lost the election in 1933 that he founded the national-romantic fascist party NS, and started having ambitions of being Hitler’s man in Norway.

Hitler however, had no intention of putting Quisling in as prime minister in Norway. Hitler had planned a "friendly takeover" where the elected government remained in power but accepted and supported the invasion. They had not expected the “no” given at Vika Terasse the morning of April 9th.

Quisling’s career as a prime minister was short lived as he had no support in the people. The English language gained a new word for traitor.

With one prime minister less and a government that wouldn’t follow his lead, Hitler sent reichskommisar Joseph Terboven to Norway to win the Norwegians over to the German side and to found a German led government containing 13 Norwegian ministers.

The King, though Danish born but elected as a king after the dissolution of the personal union with Sweden in 1905, was true to his motto “Alt for Norge” (Everything for Norway). He wouldn’t surrender his country to the occupying party and had refused to acknowledge the new government. This was the start of the King and his family’s five years of exile, in England and the USA.

Instead of the usual small talk, Anders asked me to accompany him to the student lodge.  I certainly didn’t mind.

I had been there quite a few times before.  The lodge was located in a quiet clearing less than an hour's walk into the forest from the honorable Frognersæteren Hotel and behind the boundaries of the North Forest.  We went on foot because no motorized vehicles were allowed in the forest.

It was a haven in the winter surrounded by long ski paths stretching from Frognersæteren and Tryvann, to Kikut and Ullevållsæter.

 It wasn’t bad during summer as well, when the small lakes were warmed up by the sun during the long light days.

I won’t deny the students were fond of their liquor and the looks of fine women as well. The women were described in vivid colors, and usually more so as the content of the bottles grew lighter. 

I was lucky to be included even though I was not part of the student union, I wasn’t even a student, but I was a familiar face. And when Anders brought me the first time, no one argued and none had argued ever since.

I hadn’t been there more than twice since that April morning and I had found it to be quite a jøssingreir* ; a recruiting place for the many works of resistance.

The students were all eager to put up a fight and most of them had already fought in the battles taking place in the forest surrounding the capital.

The man leading the commando’s in those battles was Hans Hermanssen, an Inspector for the Creditkassen bank. He was lieutenant in the commando troop in Oslo. On the panic day of April 11th, he started to encourage friends and relatives to go through the North Forest and meet at his cabin late next day.  I’d spoken to Anders about it and we had decided that there was only one thing we could do, we had to fight.

A thousand men in all were sent to the front. Trained skiers were assigned to dedicated ski-companies, directly under Hermanssen’s leadership. I was placed in troop number four, under the leadership of Hermanssen’s brother, Jan, a promising medicine student and a wonderful athlete.

Our job was to observe hostile movements in the North Forest and also make sure none from our area could return to Oslo and reveal the troops positions.

I was mostly located in the area surrounding Kikut and didn’t come in close contact with any live fire. I could hear shots in the distance and repeated reverberations of flight alarms going off. German bomb flights were passing low on the sky above our heads, but they didn’t drop their load until they reached Kjeller and Lillestrøm. Two Norwegian planes were destroyed in the bombing of the military airport of Kjeller, but no people were harmed.

I wish I could say the same of the people on foot in the woods. Many people lost their lives on both sides of the conflict. Unfortunately, Jan Hermanssen was one of them and he was the first, but not the last, man I knew that would lose his life before this war was over.

Eight weeks of fighting came to an end without us gaining the freedom we had hoped for.

June 10th General Otto Ruge signed the papers that ended democracy in Norway.

The King accompanied by the elected government had left the country 3 days prior; the S/S "Devonshire" had brought them to London to continue the fight in exile. 870 Norwegian ships were on the allies’ side and 25.000 Norwegian sailors were on board. The war might have been officially over, the occupation began but the fight was still on.

In the next couple of months, the students kept meeting and I, as I said, had been there only twice. We lived high on the war experiences, both our own and on others. We spent the time discussing the London news, which of course everyone had heard.

Some were spending more time than others to reflect on the war and the fact that it was still going on out there; the war we had to give up in our own forests. After the 61 days of fighting had ended, the Norwegians concealed their weapons by digging holes in the forest and burying them. The willingness to fight, mixed with the means to do so was the seed to ideas of uniting our resistance. It was time to join forces.Anders and I had agreed on meeting at closing time to walk the 7 kilometers from Frognersæteren to the lodge. If we went straight from the store, with only a short stop by home to change clothes and fill up the food sack, we would reach the cabin by sunset. Since it was Friday and I started work an hour later at Saturdays, I would be able to sleep at the cabin, wake up early and walk back to the city in time for opening the next morning.

The ride on the tram was rather quiet. It was quite full and people stood in the aisle even though there were empty seats next to a few young German soldiers. We would rather stand than sit next to them and though I now can sympathize with their uncomfortable faces, at that time I felt nothing but repulsion.

Climbing the steep hills up to the North-Forest I wondered more and more what was going on. I was carefully not to ask, sensing that he didn’t want strange ears listening in on our conversation. To say that less than 10 words were exchanged wouldn’t be an understatement.

Finally leaving the tram and beginning the walk into the forest, we started being more at ease. After about 15 minutes of walk and seeing that we were completely alone, we finally brought up the subject.

“What’s going on?” I asked as carefully as I could.

“We need someone that knows the terrain and knows how to navigate in the woods” he said.

“I do know these forests,” I confirmed, not knowing why they needed that skill.

“We need someone to carry messages through to Sweden. There are people sitting in Stockholm working for Special Operations Executive (SOE), and it’s important that MILORG start cooperating with SOE. The leader of Norwegian Independence Company No. 1 (Nor.I.C 1), Martin Linge, can be contacted at his office in Stockholm and we need someone to carry the messages back and forth. Basically we need someone who can cross the borders un-noticed. Someone who can navigate on his own and is of good physical strength, someone like you.

“I can do that,” I said without hesitation.

“You know you risk arrest or even your life.”

“I know,” I confirmed a third time. There was never a doubt in my heart. “It’s my land too.”

* Jøssing was a name on people working in the resistance in Norwegians during WWII. The name comes from the case against Altman in the Jøssing fjordFebruary 16th 1940. The name was originally used as an insult by the NS (the nazi party) newspaper Fritt Folk,but was soon adopted as a honorary title.

Jøssingreir  (a jøssing nest) was used for any community where there was a large group of jøssing's that were recruited for resistance work.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE VALUE OF A LIFE

“You just jumped in?” Nick asked amazed at the risk he had been willing to take. “I mean, you weren’t afraid? Didn’t you fear for your life?”Nick knew something about taking risks, he had done it many times himself, and he had seen Greg do the same. But that was in the line of duty, with back up in sight and after hours and years of training. He still couldn’t think about how close Greg had been to losing his life when doing this, and sometimes, many times, he wanted to talk to Greg about changing their occupations.  But then, he only had to take one look at the man he loves, to see the strength, the honesty and the will to solve crimes. This is the man he loves, and deep down, he knows that his own passion for his job is a huge part of what Greg loves about him as well. They might be scared for each other and themselves, but they won't be whole without doing what they do. This is who they are.Honestly, he didn’t know how he would have reacted had he been in Grandpa Hojem’s situation, he could only hope he would have had the same guts. Seeing this man, he started to realize where Greg had inherited his courage.

He had often admired Greg for his bravery. Greg would always stand up for what he believed in, and he would always be true to who he was, well almost.

He didn’t exactly act brave when he conveniently forgot to tell his mom he had transferred from the lab to the field. But after getting to know Greg better than anyone, and also knowing Lisbet now, Nick could see why Greg had done that.

Greg had always seemed fearless to Nick. The first time he saw him he was young, and yet he was running the show in the DNA lab. It’s not many people that would have acted with so much confidence in a hectic forensic lab as Greg did at that age, but he did it! He knew he was good. He believed in himself, and he knew that he deserved the confirmation he was asking for.

More of his bravery was displayed when he went straight back to work after the lab blew up. His hands were shaking, as were his nerves, but he did it. He went right back in and proved to himself, and the rest of them, that he could do it. Nick had been so proud of him, but he hadn’t said anything. They were just friends back then.

When he was beaten up though, after saving an innocent man from being killed, Nick had told him how proud he was. They’d become more than friends by then, and it was his boyfriend he had visited at the hospital, and it was his boyfriend’s hand he had held when Greg had called home and finally told his mother about the transfer to the field. It was at his boyfriend’s side he had sat when Greg’s mother had visited him, frantic about seeing her son bruised in a hospital bed. He had seen the same courage in Greg’s eyes when he finally stood up to his mother and told her she had to stop protecting him.

Now, Nick saw happiness in his boyfriend’s eyes when he showed interest in his grandfather’s history.

Grandpa nodded at this outburst and confirmed his thoughts. “I must say, it wasn’t easy making that decision. I didn’t hesitate, but I did it with a heavy heart. If it was concerning only me, I wouldn’t have given it another thought, but it wasn’t. I was obligated to my family as they were dependent on me for support. Let me explain.”

*

Father had no restrictions. He stood on his two feet even with his bad hip helping mother in the store to enable me to take the time off that I needed. If there was one thing I was sure off, it was my parents’ willingness to do their part in keeping this land free.

The Germans hadn’t anticipated meeting such a unified people. During the recent years, the Norwegian people had put behind them a handful of deep and long lasting conflicts. The people had agreed upon democratic values and parliamentary system. There were no members in the parliament who believed in the revolution or the proletarian dictatorship.

At the same time, a separation between the people had been washed away. The two large sports unions were about to unite, and for the first time in history, both the bourgeois and socialistic branches would play the same games.

Labor laws were enacted to give the workers 8 hour days and even statutory vacation time. Salaries had improved and workers had time to spend their money..

There hadn’t been any “roaring of the twenties” in Norway, but now the lifestyle from the continent had started to leak into Norwegian households. Tooth paste, cigarettes, chocolate and soda became common merchandise in everyone’s homes. We listened to Jazz and Swing and drove cars from General Motors. Even Norwegian fabrics were better and brands like Solo, Kvikk lunch and Globoid were launched on the market.

The gap between poor and rich was getting smaller.

So powerful was this unification that even the old battle of what kind of Norwegian we should write (should we change the Danish we had been using into the Norwegian language or should we make a new language based on the Norwegian dialects that we spoke) was buried for a while.

The Norwegian people were proud of being Norwegian, proud of being independent and not willing to settle under a foreign rule after only 35 years of sovereignty.

Clark Gable and Audrey Hepburn were smiling at people from the posters outside the cinemas and the people were smiling at each other. With a paperclip in their button hole or a red top hat on their head, they made a stand that they were Norwegian and intended to stay that way.

My father was no less a Norwegian than any, and he did not argue about me joining the forces. My parents could take care of themselves, but then there was Liv; my little sister Liv.

My parents weren’t young anymore, and Liv needed some special attention and care, and she would need it for a long time. She was ten years old now, and a big girl. She could count and write, and she drew the most delightful drawings.

Her favorite subject to draw would be Ms. Lauritzen, the young lady living across the hallway from us. She lived in a small one room apartment, and we shared the bathroom at the end of the hallway. She had come to the city from the country to work for a family and experience the life in the city. The family she worked for had lost their source of income, just as we had, when the imports stopped arriving from the Continent.

Ms. Lauritzen was living hand to mouth by working in the fruit stands on Youngstorget Square. She would work 8 hours a day selling whatever fruits and vegetables could be found. In the summer she would sell strawberries and apples, and in the autumn, berries and mushrooms found in the woods. Everything edible was eaten and new recipes were created to make use of what we had.

She would always make sure to bring an apple home for Liv, and Liv would always stand in the door waiting eagerly for Ms Lauritzen to return. Liv was a special little girl, a little too special some would say.

You see, when she was born, the doctors told mother that her daughter was not as she should be.  Halfwit they called her.

Her beauty was unquestionable, but her face appeared different than the next baby. Her face was flatter some how. Even the bridge of the nose was flat. Her mouth was small, and her tongue stuck out. It looked large even though it was so tiny. Her rounded cheeks were chubby and I remember wanting to touch them to feel if they were pure silk. I was only eight at the time, and it didn’t occur to me that wanting to cuddle the baby was a little too girlish for a boy. Her eyes were what told me that she was extra special though. They slanted upwards slightly and they smiled at me. I know they say that newborn babies don’t smile, but I swear she did. I think she knew she had me wrapped around her little finger, even from the very first breath.

“Send her away,” they said, “she has to be put in an institution.”

I had never seen my mother this stern before. She was a strict woman, no doubt about it, but this time it was like her greatness was magnified ten times.

“She’s no outcast to be put away,” mother said, “she’s a girl, she’s a life, and her life is worth the same as ours. And that shall be her name: Liv*; because we shall always remember the value of a life.”

Mother looked at Liv and saw a beautiful little baby; a little baby that by April 1940 had grown into a beautiful young girl, a girl that forever needed her family.

So you see, I had to take her into consideration. I had to face that my parents wouldn’t live forever, and that I one day would be her sole provider. I needed to stay safe for her. I wanted her to have a good life, but I also realized that without our freedom there wouldn’t be a life for her to live.

It was with a heavy heart, but with a strong conviction, that I made the decision to take my chance to continue my effort with the resistance force. All I had to do was to make sure I got through it alive.

* Liv = a common name in Norway, and it means “life”.

CHAPTER FIVE: SELLING OUR PRIDE

Nick carefully picked up the napkin and wiped his mouth. Cautiously not to draw attention he spat out the large lump he had found in the porridge. It had a hard and woody consistency and he had almost bit into it when he realized it was not part of the meal. He didn’t want to offend his hostess by complaining about her cocking, so he gently pushed the napkin containing the lump into his pocket.

“What ya got there?” Greg asked spoiling his stealthy maneuver.

“Nothing…”

“Yeah, right…don’t tell me; mom ended up with lumps in the porridge, didn’t she?”

“No,” he didn’t feel bad about lying.

“Oh, well, like I believe you,” Greg smiled and winked at his mother.

“Nick?” Lisbet asked, “Didn’t the food taste good?”

“Yes ma’am, it did,” he thickened his accent to underline his submission to her. He wasn’t lying, it really did taste good, that was, until he had found an unknown substance in there. He would take it up to his room later to analyze it.

“It wouldn’t by any chance be an almond you tried to hide in your pocket?”

“Huh?” He was thrown by the question.

“An almond, blanched to be white?”

He suspiciously pulled out the napkin again and unfolded it to uncover a white almond.

“Yes ma’am, it is.”

“And you tried to hide it not to offend me?”

“Yes ma’am” His earlobes reddened with embarrassment. He knew he was caught.

“Bless you child, I am tempted to give you two prizes.”

“Prize?” Again he was puzzled by her statement.

“Yes, whoever gets the almond wins the prize. Hope you like marzipan.” She handed him a chocolate covered marzipan pig which had Greg’s eyes and drool attached to it.

“It’s mine!” he said possessively to his boyfriend before biting its head off.


*

“Let us do the dishes,” Nick offered when Lisbet was about to clean the table.
“No, that’s no problem. I actually like working in the kitchen on Christmas Eve, besides, I think pappa is ready to tell you more of his story. He’s peeked in here twice already. You don’t want to make a grumpy old man wait.”

*

Before the war ended, I would take many trips to Sweden but my first was when I crossed the border at Ørje the second weeked in February, 1942.

Our mission was to pass information on people that volunteered for the military organization MILORG. This was a new group that just recently formed.

Militær Organisasjon was a secret organization arranging all the various groups that wanted to participate in an internal military resistance. The groups could be doing work like armed resistance, sabotage, intelligence work, supply-missions, raids, espionage, transport of goods imported to the country, release of Norwegian prisoners and escort for citizens fleeing the border to neutral Sweden. Of course, as courier I too needed help from the latter group.

My job was to carry information on to Special Operations Executive. SOE was a British organization, planning and leading resistance in occupied countries, and Norway of course was one of them. Sadly MILORG wasn’t all that well coordinated with SOE and unfortunate incidents happened as result of this. It was important for us to get SOE to acknowledge and start communicating and working with us. We both were working for the same goal.

I was doing this trip with Håkon Steen, a medical student from Trøgstad. We left Oslo by train to Sørumsand, where we had to use cross country skis to get to Hemnes in Høland.
Håkon was a skilled athlete, with national medals in both running and cross country skiing. He was in better physical condition than me, but I was able to follow him without much trouble. It took us about 6 hours at an easy pace to get to Høland. The closer we got to the border the more important it was that it looked like we were out on a Sunday hiking, so the speed was reduced considerably.
We were equipped with false border residence cards identifying us as residents at the border, as well as false passports to use on the other side of the border. The passports were well hidden not to be discovered if we met a border patrol in Norway.
During the war I operated under as many as 12 different names and had passports made for all of them.
It was a challenge to remember all the back stories and keep them straight, but I didn’t make any big blunders.

When we arrived in Hemnes, we met up with two brothers that Håkon had known from his early days in sports, Iver and Hans Klausland. They lived at a small farm at the very edge of the wood. Stretching from the back of their house was 50 km of pine, spruce and birch.
The men did lumbering for a living and stayed in a log cabin 14 days at a time. Working the woods they got to know the area in detail and no one blinked if they were gone for two weeks or so.

It was perfect for guiding people across the border. They would guide many groups of people over and they used different routes based on who they guided and the season of the year.

From their land, the paths through the woods wound their way through moorland and rugged terrain. In the summer, their path was a long walk through the woods and around a lake that crossed the border about 40 km east of their estate. During the winter they would transport the people closer to the border on the road and take a shorter trip through the woods. This was a riskier route as it was more likely to run into the Norwegian border patrol. These were Norwegian men who reported to the Germans.

They could take groups of ten to twenty people at one trip and it was people in Oslo putting the groups together. Sometimes the refugees would walk all the way from Skullerud in Oslo, a trip that would take 5 days to the border, but often they were able to hide the refugees in delivery cars transporting them closer to the border.

During the winter the brothers would use their working horses to pull the children and pregnant women towards the border. A doctor in Oslo provided the children with medicines, making them sleep most of the way. The route was worse for the man in the back having to use a branch to cover the tracks in the snow.

This particular trip though we walked alone without an extended group. We decided to use a third route, one that went across the lake. Winter turned the lake into a usable ice bridge and since only the two of us would be on the ice at one time, we figured we had a fair chance of crossing without being detected.

Our task was to cross this border without being stopped and arrested. The idea of being shot crossed our mind now and then, but was blocked immediately, we didn’t have time to let the fear overwhelmed us. We needed to stay focused on the task, and frankly, being shot wasn’t the worst case scenario. Being arrested and forced to give up information was far worse.

The brothers still lived on the family land and their parents ran their small farm keeping a few animals and growing rye. Thanks to the 7 pigs they had, they would be self sufficient with meat during the winter. They even had some extra to give to the many Norwegian refugees that would come to cross their land on their way to Sweden.

We sought shelter in their house, being fed real bread and even a full cup of rich, fat milk. They only had 4 cows, but they gave enough milk for the family to put away, so even with visitors, they would have more milk to serve than the 0.35 liters per person a week we could get on our ration card in Oslo. I think I drank my milk in one big gulp and the mother, Maja probably saw the pure pleasure in my eyes, because she filled up my glass yet again without a word.

We had to wait another day before we could start on the trip across the border. The day we came, the weather was not on our side. The heavy snow blocked the light from the moon; the light we needed to see to cross the ice.

The next night though was a twilight night.

If Håkon had the upper hand when skiing, navigating through the woods was my area of expertise. Hans would follow us and guide us to the border, but from there it was entirely up to us. I had memorized the map and left it home in Oslo. I could not take the chance of being captured carrying the map with the route marked on it. Neither did I have a compass with me. If we hit the right position on the other side of the lake though, there shouldn’t be any problem getting down to Töcksfors, and from there continue the journey to Stockholm.

A refugee camp had already been organized outside Töcksfors, a bit closer to Årjäng for Norwegian refugees.
The Swedes would have no problem letting us in and sending us to the camp, so we saw no problem if we could only make it to the Swedish side of the lake.

Although the full moon cast a yellow light on the ground, it was still close to pitch dark on the narrow path we were following. The tall pines surrounding the path on all sides threw shadows that seemed to reach all the way to the bottom of our souls. If we hadn’t realized the gravity of the situation before, we were all burdened by it now. For the first time since the war broke out, I felt a total lack of joy.

The night was ice cold as well; it must have been closer to minus 20 degrees and the air hitting my lungs was still cold enough to inflict pain. Crossing a small river turned out to be a struggle. The stream was too strong for the water to freeze, so we were knee deep in ice cold water, holding only about 4 centigrade* .

If you were unlucky enough to slip on the water washed rocks, you could easily get your foot stuck between two stones and the water, even though it was only 40 centimeters deep, would have enough force to pull you under. With one foot trapped and the force of the water; you would not be able to get up. It was important that we all stayed closely together to give each other the necessary support.

Hans had to rely on holding onto a branch and the support of a higher power when he crossed the river alone on his way back.
When all came to all, it wasn’t the river that killed him, but a bullet in the back about two years after we took this first trip.

We couldn’t light a fire to warm ourselves after the journey across the river, but we came prepared. The clothes we wore were exchanged for new ones packed in the rug sack. Afraid of being caught with two sets of clothes, something that would look very suspicious (as if walking in the woods in the middle of the night wasn’t suspicious enough), we hid the clothes so Hans could take them back with him when he returned to the farm. There they would store them for us to use on later trips, or maybe to give to other refugees or couriers that needed them. In wartime, you couldn’t be too picky with who used your clothes and whose gear you were handed.

After 11 hours of walking we finally reached the lake. We could see the clearing ahead of us, bathed in moonlight, with no obstacles to block the light. But that meant there wasn’t any cover to hide behind when crossing and one kilometer is a long way to crawl. We had no choice but to take our chance on running, that is moving as fast as we could on 40 cm of hard packed snow covered with 25 cm of new snow, hoping we would avoid falling through the snow crust.

We waited for two hours at the edge of the lake, observing. After 120 minutes in sheer silence we had seen no movements and took our chance on crossing the border. With our rug sacks firmly attached to our backs we started on the longest kilometer of my life. Driven by pure adrenalin, we managed to cross, and we even came close to entering Sweden at the exact spot we had planned. We only missed by 150 meters to the north, but the hours I spent memorizing the map caused me to have no trouble estimating where we were and steer us in the right direction.

By dawn we could stroll into the small town of Töcsfors dressed and acting as if we were on an ordinary hike. That’s where we met our first obstacle. Instead of walking unseen into town, we walked straight into a Swedish border control unit. I tried to use my best Swedish accent, imitating a thick Värmland dialect saying “Tjena, hur e leget?*” and hoping I would pass as a local. Unfortunately my poor Swedish accent couldn’t hold up during a long conversation and my identity as Norwegian, was soon to be discovered.

On this trip I was Henrik Wikstrøm. The name was easy to remember, Henrik was my fathers name and Wikstrøm was the name of our landlord. According to my papers I was a law student born and raised in Skien. I was hoping they would not ask me any details of Skien, as I had never even been there.

They did however ask me details of the law study. My eagerness to always listen to Anders came in handy and I could loosely refer to subjects he had told me about. I could also name titles of books in the curriculum, as I could remember the books Anders had put on the counter the first time I met him. Lucky for me, neither the border patrol, nor the police assisting them, had any deeper knowledge of the Norwegian law study and they believed my identity. We were free to go and register at the refugee camp.

The questioning and registration at the camp went easily and the trip to Stockholm was no problem from there.

I wasn’t prepared for what met me in Stockholm. The sight was overwhelming. At night, when darkness enwrapped the old buildings in gamla stan*, the light streamed out of the windows. It was a magnificent sight.

I was getting used to the black-out curtains back home and the way all lights were shielded not to give the bombers any clue to where the houses were. I thought I was used to seeing lights as it was less than a year we had lived without it, but when I no longer took it for granted I couldn’t stop letting the sight overwhelm me.

I didn’t sleep much that night; I wandered the streets just looking. I sat down on a bench by the water watching the buildings mirror on the surface of the water sweeping through the city.

*

They moved to the living room to relax and wait for the official Christmas Celebration to start at 17.00. If they’d been in Norway all the church bells would ring Christmas in, but here in California they settled for the clock on the wall to chime five times.

Lisbet would prepare the food; finish up the rib, heat the pork sausage patties and Christmas sausages, boiled almond potatoes, carrots and peas. She would serve both red cabbage and sauerkraut and of course the indispensable at any Norwegian meat dish; the partridgeberries.

Since all of this food was pretty much cooking by itself, she had time to prepare food for the day to come as well. When she was younger, she had been in charge of the Christmas Day food, while her mother had made the Christmas Eve dinner.

After her mother passed away, she had down sized the preparation for Christmas Day, by buying store prepared Christmas dinners and all she had left to do was to make the Waldorf salad and the dressing.

The cakes were already at the house; here she followed the Norwegian tradition with seven different types. She bought them through the local lodge of Son’s of Norway. Although the types might vary, she always had fattigmann, smultringer, goro and krumkaker.* Gingerbread was also needed, but was not originally counted as one of the seven Christmas cakes in Norway. Lisbet wouldn’t have a Christmas without a pumpkin pie either and she would make it herself.

The Norwegian food would have been enough even for Christmas Day, but when she was younger, it was utterly important for her to be as American as possibly.

Preparing all this food would be a lot of work, but Lisbet liked it. She was comfortable in the kitchen and she was a good cook. She had spent many hours in the kitchen as a young girl, learning to make lefse and lapper* from her mother and she had bought numbers of cook books to try out new recipes. She felt blessed when she could chase the men out of the kitchen after eating the Christmas porridge and close the door to the noise from the talk and TV in the living room. She would be alone in the kitchen. This was relaxing for her, smelling the aroma from the food, feeling the heat from the oven and seeing all the decorations hung in a house well cleaned for Christmas.

She would whip up the cream to make both Waldorf salad and rice cream. She let the remains of the porridge stand in a cold water bath to completely cool before mixing it with the cream and placing it the fridge for tonight’s dessert.
Making the Waldorf salad was just routine and it was finished and placed in the fridge.

Doing all the preparation today, made it possible for her family to help out in the soup kitchen a few hours on Christmas Day. They had, after all, already by then celebrated a whole Christmas.

Her father had insisted on them helping out in the soup kitchen. “After all, it was the Swedish Soup given to the children in Norway that helped the nation during the war”, he said, “and if it hadn’t been for the Danish Help, he and his friends in MILORG would have starved.” It was time to pay back.

*

In the living room the men were gathered in front of the TV. They all held a can of beer and they were watching whatever was on, not that they were paying attention. Nick and Greg were more eager to hear more of the story and asked Grandpa to go on.

*

Back in Oslo another battle had begun. So far the most obvious proof that we were under German occupation had been the ration cards and the restrictions against owning a radio. Mother had handed in our radio with a heavy heart. It was bought with hard earned money and was an important link to the outside world.

Our voice wasn’t completely silenced. In London sat three brave men by the names Toralv Øksnevad, Hartvig Kiran and Olav Rytterand. They broadcast news in Norwegian every day at 17.00. Those who dared had hidden a radio receiver and newspapers were written by hand. As the hunger for information grew, the distributors became braver and found ways to get the papers typed. It wasn’t done without risk. Many people were arrested, sent to concentration camps and quite a few were killed for distributing the illegal newspapers.
The voice from London became our inspiration and one of our strongest assets in the fight for our sovereignty.

One piece of news we were happy to hear was in September 1942. President Franklin Roosevelt gave a speech where he said:

”If there is anyone who still wonders why this war is being fought, let him look to Norway. If there is anyone who has any delusions that this war could have been averted, let him look to Norway. And if there is anyone who doubts the democratic will to win, again I say, let him look to Norway.”

"The story of Norway since the conquest shows that while a free democracy may be slow to realize its danger, it can be heroic when aroused. At home, the Norwegian people have silently resisted the invaders' will with grim determination. Abroad, Norwegian ships and Norwegian men have rallied to the cause of the United Nations.“

Our crown princess stood beside him and our reputation as a people not willing to fight against the regime was finally going to be changed.
It lifted our spirits more than anyone can believe.

I was tempted to join a group that distributed the news. I looked upon it as honorable work and felt I owed it to the men who had left Norway to go to England for training. The UK men we called them; the men who joined Nor.I.C. 1 to become specialized agents to do sabotage on targets behind the enemy lines.

I had drawn my line there.

It was one thing to carry messages across the border between Norway and Sweden, but leaving the country and maybe never being sent back home was a risk I was not willing to take. I needed to be able to have my home base in Oslo. Instead I felt I had a duty to do all I could to spread information and help the most I could here at home.

Helping distribute the news seemed like a good idea, but one thing would hinder me and it hit like a fist in the stomach.

You remember the shortness of materials and ready made clothing; even the German soldiers stationed in our country suffered by the lack of imports since the latter part of 1939. After more than two years of service, their uniforms were showing the fatigue the men themselves must have felt.

With numerous holes in their uniform, they started coming to the store to have their uniforms patched; a few at first and then more and more. Both Mother and Father used their sewing skills now to help people patch their clothes, remake old ones and even make new ones out of old fabrics they would have lying around. There wasn’t much earning in this, but sometimes they would get extra sugar or flour that people could spare from their small rations.

It was hard deciding whether or not to take work from the soldiers. They were our enemies. What helped us make up our minds was looking at the barracks barons who worked for German entrepreneurs and were still accepted. People simply needed work and with thousands of soldiers in the country and a Germany that built up its own infrastructure, it wasn’t possible to avoid them if you wanted to work. It wasn't a popular view but people tended to turn a blind eye to the situation. So we did it, even though it left a bitter taste in the mouth.


Having German soldiers as customers put a stop to my idea of distributing illegal newspapers in the store. We couldn’t risk being caught.

The German soldiers provided me with an opportunity to increase my contribution to the war effort.. Nor.I.C 1 needed someone to plant black propaganda. They needed someone to infiltrate Nasjonal Samling, the Nazi Party and the soldiers and give them false information. They saw our store, with soldiers as customers, as the perfect camouflage. All I had to do was pretend to be a Nazi-sympathizer and join the NS. I would be given pamphlets supposedly given out by German authorities and hand them out in the store. It was easy, yet very hard at the same time.

I was the perfect person for it, but it would dishonour our family. No one could know it was a cover. I would drag my families name in the gutter and there was no way of sparing the people I loved.

Father was my rock and my conscious. He had had no doubt; our duty was to help our country.

If our pride was hard to swallow, it was even harder for Liv to understand why she had to stay out of view in the store. Her space was limited to the back room and mostly she stayed in the small kitchen doing her math. At the end of the day she would always have the exact numbers of customers having been in the store during the opening hours. The best times of her day were whenever Anders would stop by. No matter what the purpose of his visit, he never failed to spend some time with Liv, always making her feel like the princess she was.

* lefse = Norwegian soft wrap made from potatoes and flour. It is made on takke, and was often 1 meter in diameter, but only a few millimetres thick. They were dried to be preserved, and soaked to be soft again when being used. When dried, they could last as long as close to a year. They are served with a filling of butter mixed with sugar and cinnamon.
* Lapper = very close to the American pancakes. We do not eat it as breakfast, but as a cake. Often served with jam. Sometimes we can add rice to it, and make “rice-lapper”
* 4 Centigrade = 24.8 F
* Tjena, hur e leget? = Swedish: Hi, how are you?
* Gamla stan = “the old town”, the original area of Stockholm.
* fattigmann, smultringer, goro and krumkaker = traditional Christmas cookies.

CHAPTER SIX: NINNI

It was soon apparent that Liv could no longer be in the store since there were more and more soldiers stopping by. It was also utterly important that we continued our work on distributing the black propaganda, so we could not prevent them from coming. Mother had no time to stay home with Liv between standing in line for ration cards and patching the soldiers’ old uniforms.

Again Anders was the one to give us the solution.

He offered to let his sister take care of Liv while we were at work. His family was wealthy, as his father was a successful bank director and they had 5 rooms in an apartment at Frogner; the very best neighborhood in Oslo. It was space enough for Liv to stay there with them during the days, and his sister was good with kids. We had no other choice than to accept the offer, even though we were skeptic about leaving her in the hands of a stranger.

Liv was a trusting young girl and a lovely spirit, but she did like to have familiar faces around her. We arranged for Anders and his sister Ninni to come over the first Sunday to meet Liv, so that she could get used to Ninni before she would be alone with her.

It wasn’t just Liv that was taken by Ninni’s fair appearance. I was struck by her beauty, no surprise there, her brother was also a very handsome man and I had expected his sister to carry the same fine lines. But seldom had I seen such strong eyes in a woman. It was like she saw straight to my soul and I almost felt embarrassed about having thought of her fine legs. She smiled as she knew my little secret.

Ninni; Nora-Anette Bøe was born in the spring of the Lord’s year of nineteen twenty five. It was during the summer of forty three that I became close to Ninni. She took good care of Liv and my sister was very fond of her.

Ninni would take her out to play almost every day. They used to go to the Frogner park, at the northern end where they had not ploughed the soil to use for growing potatoes. Most green lungs in the city were used to grow food during these skinny years, but a few parks still had grass left for recreation.

*

“Hm… I’m sorry,” Nick interrupted, “green lungs?”

He had no clue what Grandpa meant, and he was so thrown off that he had to ask. Greg was of no help, so he assumed Greg was just as lost but left it to Nick to play the dumb.

“Sorry,” Grandpa answered, “we use that term on parks in a city. The parks are open space in an environment of concrete and traffic, and the green areas give the people in the city a place to breathe and relax.”

Relaxation; Nick assumed they all needed a place to relax, even back then. Maybe especially back then?

When he and Greg wanted to get away to refill their batteries, they usually went hiking. Greg hadn’t been especially fond of hiking to begin with, but Nick had introduced him to it. He had brought him bird watching, which Greg hated and they had never repeated that. Nick would have loved if they could do it together, but only if Greg really liked it. He had no intention of dragging Greg off to activities he didn’t like.

Then they had gone rock climbing at Red Rock Canyon. At first Greg had seemed reluctant, but Nick persuaded him to at least try.

The idea came to him after one night he woke up noticing that Greg was watching him sleep. Greg had started kissing him and caressing him and through the kisses he could taste the saltiness of Greg’s tears.

After some slow kisses Nick had finally gotten Greg to tell him what was bothering him.

Greg was haunted by the thought that maybe he had made the wrong decision when entering the alley the night Demetrius James had died. Maybe, if he had acted a little bit differently, Demetrius would still be alive. He was haunted by the thought that no one would ever trust him anymore, when it was painfully obvious he made questionable choices that could cost people their lives.

Nick hadn’t been rock climbing for a long time, but he had enough experience to bring Greg to a easy spot for beginners and have them climb together. In this sport they needed to trust their partner completely. Nick climbed up first, while Greg fed him rope through the belay device. Nick had full confidence in Greg, both in rock climbing and in life that he would never let him fall.

Nick noticed his thoughts were taking a detour and focused on Grandpa’s story again.


*


Liv would bring her red ball which she would play with for hours if Ninni let her. Ninni would always keep an eye on her, as well as keeping watch to see if any soldiers were in the area. If she ever saw anyone getting close, she would immediately call Liv to hurry up and they would walk up through Essendrops gate and up to Sørkedalsveien before getting to the Majorstuen crossing where there were huge crowds of people. There they could blend in like any young woman with a child.

As always, when they crossed Majorstuen, Liv was eager to take a trip on the tram or the city train; both intersected with all the major lines. Her eyes would shine when she was treated to a trip on one of the motorized transports and she would always take a seat by the window.

In the cold months I did sometimes take her on the train to the North Forrest and she would walk with me when I collected fallen branches from the trees to use as logs on the fire.

The winters had been unusually cold, mostly because the furnace oil was limited and we were only allowed to use fallen branches to make fires in the fireplace. There wasn’t enough wood to heat up the houses during the long winters.

Walking outside all day looking for the wood gave us more light in a dark part of the year and we would always come home with some dry wood to use. We would only heat up the kitchen and we all used that room for all our doings. One can say many negative things about the war, but at least it brought us together.

From Majorstuen they would walk the few hundred meters up Kirkegaten towards Marienlyst and our apartment.

Ninni had a key to our apartment for easier access when she was taking care of Liv. She didn’t use it when she arrived in the morning, but she always used it to lock herself in after being outside all forenoon.

Domestic work was not part of her duties, but she still made a habit of having coffee ready for me when I came home from work. When I say “me”, I of course mean “us” as my parents were also greeted by this warm gesture. I also say “coffee” although the hot beverage we drank at that time did not deserve that name.

Coffee was not available during the war and we used whatever substitute we could get our hands on; usually Kafena, a Norwegian made substitute coffee we could buy in the stores. On special occasions though we used coffee made from burned peas. The coffee substitute didn’t taste all that bad, once you had got used to it. It did however make me appreciate real coffee even more when I got my hands on it again after the war and I have always taken pride in using only the finest blend.

Every afternoon we would drink the Kafena and eat a slice of mother’s bread. Normally we wouldn’t have had such fine bread, due to the very small rations of flour, but because of mother’s bad stomach we had an extra ration. She would use it to bake 2 bread’s a week, only slightly diluted with fish flour. She didn’t even need to use much of it, so there was hardly any bad taste.

Our neighbour, ms Laurtzen who worked at the vegetable stand, went back to the country every now and then. She would bring back butter, cheese and even dried meat for us to buy. All farmers had been ordered to hand in their butter churns, but the farmers came up with clever places to hide their churns when the soldiers came to collect them.

They would also manage to tap off the milk before handing it over to the authorities, so they had something to make butter and cheese from. They had enough to eat and even some left over to sell to the hungry city people. Some farmers made good money doing this.

We were lucky to buy from ms.Lauritzens father, who was in possession of one functioning churn and 12 milk cows. For three winters he helped us through the dark months, but the fourth winter he was ratted out by his landlord who came to him for some cheese. The landlord took the cheese, but still reported him to the Gestapo. They arrested him and sent him to Grini. It was a huge blow for ms. Lauritzen and she lost her spirit after that.

As I said, this was when I got closer to Ninni.

Ninni had a way of noticing other people, and while the rest of us didn’t pay much attention to ms. Lauritzen, who’s name was Magda Kristine by the way, Ninni saw her for who she was. It was one day when we were eating bread, this time with the sparse cheese we could get in the city, that Ninni mentioned something was wrong with Magda; something besides her father’s arrest.

“There’s something more there; she’s weighed by a heavy burden,” she said.

It wasn’t until later that winter that I learned what was really wrong. She had befriended some young men dining at the restaurant down on Youngstorget Square where she stood with her vegetable stand. One man in particular was of interest. He was handsome, polite, and dressed in green. Within two months, she was pregnant with his child.

She wasn’t the first to fall for a German soldier; she wasn’t even the first to have a child with a German. But she was the first among my acquaintances. Tyskertøs* they were called, the women who had children with the enemy. I had more than once seen examples of how these women were treated. They were shunned like the plague and even spat on. They were hated just as much as the Norwegian men choosing to join the NS.

The worst example I ever saw was a woman pushing her little boy in his tram. An elderly, elegant woman was walking towards her on the snowy pavement.

”Mother,” the younger woman said, leaning forward to give the elder woman a kiss to the cheek, only to be rejected with a cold shoulder.

“Please,” the younger woman continued. “Please, this is your grandson.”

“He’s no grandson of mine,” the woman said and spat at the child staring up at her with wide blue eyes.

Through watching how Ninni treated Magda, I learned what an amazing woman Ninni was. She had a heart that was so big it’s a wonder one woman could carry it. But Ninni was a strong woman, and she carried her heart with a head held high. She never cared that people would look at her for talking to, or befriending, the wrong people. She stood by Magda through the hard months of her pregnancy and she sat with her night after night when she cried herself to sleep after giving up her little baby for adoption.

I was drawn to her, not only to her long legs and narrow waist and broad hips, but more to her intelligence, thoughtfulness and compassion; and of course, to her crooked smile, freckled nose and slightly un-proportioned breasts. Yes, I am a man, I was attracted to her breasts and the fact that the two of them seemed to be different size’s made me even more eager to see them naked, not to mention touching them.



*

“Dad,” Lisbet interrupted, “I think this is where you shouldn’t go into details!”

Her outburst made everyone laugh. Some time during the tale Lisbet had finished up what she was doing in the kitchen and came and joined them while the food was in the oven.

”Don’t listen to her,” Grandpa said, “She’s always been such a prude. She probably thinks she was delivered by a stork. I remember seeing her pregnant so I know she did something at one time to make that beautiful grandson of mine.”

“Grandpa,” Greg shrieked as well. “I’d rather keep on believing I was delivered by the stork! Please!”

Nick laughed so hard he almost spilled his coffee.

”What?” Greg gave his boyfriend an angry look.

“You’re such a hypocrite.”

“Why?”

“You can do it as much as you want, but your parents can’t?”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to hear about it! That’s all.”

“Hey! No more talking about sex this Christmas, okay?” Lisbet held up a hand to put an end to this discussion.

“Okay, I won’t talk about sex,” Grandpa promised, “just know that I didn’t buy you on the black market.”


* tyskertøs = German-slut

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE FUTURE

Greg missed his Grandma. She had been the rock in his life. She was there the day his parents had brought him home from the hospital and stayed until he was 23, when she lost her battle with cancer.

She was the one who held him on her lap telling him all the Norwegian fairy tales and read him books, both in English and Norwegian. She was the one who patched his bleeding knee when he had fallen off the neighbour boy’s bicycle and not told his mother about it so that he would not get into trouble. She was the one a heart-broken fifteen year old had come to when he didn’t know where he belonged. He didn’t know whether he liked boys or girls.

It was she that then told him: “Listen to me, gutten min*, you are perfect! God made you and he made you in his image. He gave you the feelings you have, whether it is for girls or for boys. It is God who has made you this way and he wanted you this way. Always remember that you are perfect the way he made you and there is nothing wrong with that. You are good the way you are, do you understand?”

He had only nodded.

She had taken him by his chin and lifted his eyes up to meet hers. “Tell me,” she said,”that you understand.”

“I do.”

”Say it… you are good the way you are.”

”I am good the way I am.”

“That’s right, my boy. You are. And I love you!”

Greg would always regret that he wasn’t there when she died, but he knew she would have understood. He had come back for the funeral and cried for two days straight before he pulled himself together and moved on. He knew she had wanted him to live and not be held back by grief.

The first year after her death was particularly hard; the first of everything without her; the first Easter, his birthday, her birthday… the first Christmas without her making Christmas dinner. That Christmas his mother had cried in the kitchen when making the food. She hadn’t said a word about it, and he hadn’t made a fuss over it. He knew why she did it and let her grieve in peace.

They slowly learned to live without her, but they often took out her picture to look at.

*

Grandpa Hojem sat in his rocking chair looking at a picture of his late wife holding a newborn Lisbet in her arms. Her smile in the picture was warm, yet tired. His eye’s shone with love when he waved his daughter over to give her a kiss on the cheek.

“I love you so much, sweetheart,” he said in his raspy voice.

“Love you too Pappa,” Lisbet said and gave him a kiss back.

Lisbet missed her mother every Christmas. Sure they had their share of fights through the years, but she had also been her rock. She didn’t want to think what she would have done without her mother after Greg was born.

She had tried for so long to get pregnant and she had succeeded, many times. She just hadn’t succeeded in staying pregnant. Time and time again she miscarried. She was so happy when she finally carried a child to full term. She was was in labor for hours and didn’t want to take unnecessary drugs to ease the pain. She would ride it off. She eventually had to cave in and get an epidural, because the baby didn’t seem to want to come. Hours turned into days and when the baby finally was born, it was no longer breathing. The placenta had loosened and the baby had been without oxygen for too long.

She had cried for weeks and months. She hadn’t been able to walk outside the door and her mother had to force her to shower and eat. She was a mom, but she had no baby.


When she got pregnant again two years later, she was scared and happy at the same time. She knew this was her last chance. She was no spring chicken anymore and if she didn’t succeed now, she would give up the idea of having children.

She was closely checked the entire pregnancy. The doctor wanted to keep a close eye on her due to her medical history and when she came close to full term even she started to breathe easier. They reassured her that there was no reason to believe the same thing would happen again.

When labour started early in the morning, they rushed to hospital. They didn’t want to wait until it was shorter between the contractions, she wanted to know she was close to medical help should anything happen. Nothing happened for fourteen long hours, then everything suddenly happened at once. Monitors showed the baby’s heartbeat was weakening and they were losing him. The dad was rushed out of the room, mom was given anaesthetic and an emergency c-section was done to get the baby out within just a few minutes. There was no time to lose and they started the operation as soon as the anaesthetics worked. Time was essential and a more aesthetic bikini line cut was out of question. They had to cut vertically to get to the baby fast.

She lost blood, so much blood, and the wound got infected.

For a few hours it looked like they would lose both mother and baby, but the baby was strong and did fine. The mother however was severely weakened. For days she fell in and out of consciousness and when she did come out of it, the wound would not heal. She was in no physical shape to take care of the baby she had longed for and for the first three months, it was her mother that took care of Greg while Michael took care of her. There was always a special bond between her mother and Greg and sometimes she felt left out.

Nick and Greg smiled at each other watching the love between father and daughter.

“It was at the end of the winter of forty four that Ninni told me the news,” Grandpa said, “that she was pregnant. I wasn’t too surprised, because I had been part of it, although we don’t mention that.”

He laughed at his daughter and continued.

“I’m not saying I didn’t expect it but I thought we had played it safe. I knew there was a risk. I knew I shouldn’t have taken the risk, but oh, I was so in love!”

He looked at the picture again and handed it to Nick to see.

Nick could see the resemblance of Lisbet in Ninni and he could clearly see where she had gotten her looks. She had the same crooked smile Greg had and he wondered how Greg would look holding a child of his own in his embrace. They hadn’t talked about children and he hadn’t made up his mind about it on his own either. For now, being with Greg was enough; anything more than that would be a bonus.

“I knew Ninni was meant for me,” Grandpa continued while Nick passed the picture to Greg, “I was taken by her from the minute I saw her, and I never grew tired of her. Everyone in the family knows that we didn’t always have the calmest marriage.” The entire Sanders family laughed at that statement, and Nick thought of all the stories Greg had told him of how his grandparents could fight quite loudly.

“It could be really heated in many ways, but we don’t mention that, but through it all we loved each other. Ninni was the best mother there ever was. She was brilliant with Lisbet as a child and when Greg was born and she had a second chance to care for a child, she embraced the role as Nana. The two of you were her pride.”


*

Raising a child during wartime wasn’t easy. There were no food or clothes and the war was still raging in the country. Moreover, I was known as a Nazi-sympathizer, so as far as other people knew, my child would be a Nazi-child. It would be an outcast and a subject to spit on. I couldn’t let that happen. I was in deep trouble and I had no idea what to do.

For a few long and troublesome weeks, I tried to act strong for Ninni, although she saw through me as always. She was also very smart, so she knew exactly what I was thinking. She didn’t confront me, she knew I needed time to think for myself, but she did go to her father.

He was the one that came up with the plan that we should board a ship to America and start a new life there. He would even buy the tickets and give us a little starting capital. He wanted us to have a life where we didn’t have to fight rumors of being traitors and where our child could grow up without the stigma. It wasn’t an easy decision to make. I had earlier made decisions based on my need to be in Oslo to take care of my sister and now I had to decide whether or not to leave her.

“You have another family now,” my father reminded me, “your obligation is to your unborn child.”

I couldn’t have made the decision if it weren’t that Ninni’s family took their responsibility as an extended family very seriously. They made a promise to look after Liv and they did.

When my parents were too old to look after Liv, it was Anders and his wife that took her in and cared for her until the day she died at the age of 27.

So we boarded the ship the last weekend of June, 6 weeks after the peace and a couple of hours after our hasty marriage at the city hall. We had witnessed a victorious Norway celebrating our national day for the first time in five years. We had seen Norwegian flags being raised again and people singing our national anthem.

But we had also seen people cutting off the tyskertøser’s hair and calling them whores.

Determined to have a fresh start, without the stigma hanging over our head, we decided to say we left because I had gotten her pregnant before we were married.

We were lucky. We could leave and have a fresh start. My parents though would never, as long as they lived, clear their names and some people looked at them the wrong way for what they thought their son had done.

We brought a chest with our most valued belongings and we set off to our new home land.

Little did we know that the ship we passed on the open sea was carrying the King and Queen returning to Norway. They returned to rebuild a land in ruins, while we left to build a new life far away.

Our paths crossed that night at sea and though we settled and did our best to grow roots for our child in our new land, we never forgot the land we left. The land we fought for and lost despite our victory.

* gutten min = my boy

- THE END -

• Main CSI page
• The new stories
• Gil/Greg stories
• Gil/Nick stories
• Gil/Warrick stories
• Nick/Greg stories
• Nick/Warrick stories
• Greg/Warrick stories
• Nick/Bobby stories
• Jim Brass stories
• David Hodges stories
• CSI: New York stories
• CSI: Miami stories
• Other pairings & threesomes
• Gen CSI stories
• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - The Eighth Season