He stepped outside.
“The air is a little thick in there for you as well?” she said, acknowledging she had recognized him.
“That was very brave,” Nordstrum said. “Not exactly wise, but my compliments nonetheless.”
“Wise hasn’t gotten us very far, has it?” she replied. He could see why the German was so intrigued. She would turn any head with her thick brown hair pulled back, large almond-shaped hazel eyes, and full lips with just the right amount of color on them. “Norwegians are always wise when it comes to history. And look at where we are.” She blew out a plume of smoke and looked at Nordstrum as if she was waiting for an answer. By any standards the woman was beautiful.
“Traveling…?” Nordstrum asked.
She looked at him and slowly edged into an amused smile. “The drunken German captain got shot down. So now, you’ll try your luck?”
“Not at all. I merely was thinking whether you had someone to accompany you home. In case Romeo in there has a desire to press his luck further.”
She looked at him and smiled, in apology now, and chuckled lightly at his remark. “I’m here with friends. My landlady’s birthday. I actually live a short ways away. They’ll take me home. I work in town. Everyone knows me here.”
“Everyone but me, then. I’m Knut,” he said, using the name on his false papers.
“Hella,” the woman acknowledged. “Amundson.”
“Hella, the unwise. But certainly courageous.”
“Hella, the fool, I suspect.” She laughed derisively and blew out another plume of smoke. “But someone has to stand up to them.”
“That was true?” Nordstrum lit up his own cigarette. “About your husband?”
“Almost two years. The last I heard he was in Tonneson.” She shrugged. “I suppose there’s not much hope I’ll ever hear from him again.”
“I knew an Amundson,” Nordstrum said. “Tall, dimple on his chin. Spectacles. He fought in the Gudbrandsdalen Valley.”
She looked up at him with surprise and a bit of hope. “You were there?”
“Yes. But I’m afraid I don’t know what happened to him. We were all kind of on our own by that point.”
“And now?”
“Now…? Now the fight is much different, of course.”
One of the Germans came out. A squat, heavyset man in a homberg and a thin mustache. Leather jacket. The look of the Gestapo. He nodded to her with a slight snicker, noticing them both as he passed.
Nordstrum said under his breath, “I may know how you can really do something, if that’s what you want.”
“How do you have any idea what I want?” she said with a bit of an edge.
“If that’s what you want, of course. I’m sorry for my unkempt appearance, but I’ve been on the vidda for a time. Perhaps we could talk.”
She looked at him, blew out a breath, and dropped her cigarette in the snow. “I think I’d better get back inside. I assume if I’m not already arrested they’ll let me finish my dessert,” she said, declining to pick up on his offer.
“Now that would be wise.” Nordstrum stamped his out as well.
“Tomorrow, maybe,” she said, surprising him. A look that was curious though not fully trusting. “Just a talk. I manage a small perfumery in town. On Princess Juliana Street. No one’s buying these days, other than the Germans and their whores. There’s a café next door. I always take my coffee there. Around ten.”
“Tomorrow, then. Around ten.” Nordstrum nodded.
“If I’m still around.” She smiled and went inside.
“And make sure your friends walk you all the way home,” he called after her.
50
The next morning, Nordstrum found Hella precisely where she said she would be. The café was more like a small indoor eating stand, with a counter, some local workers around, a few muffins and biscuits, the morning newspaper for sale, and three rickety-looking wooden tables.
Nordstrum caught her eye from the street. He went in, ordered a coffee at the counter, and pretended to borrow a sugar from her table. “Not here,” he said.
“There’s the lake. It’s all frozen over. But we could walk along it.”
“My fiancée is in need of a new scent. Perhaps you can pick one out for me.”
She got up and took her coffee with her. “That would be my pleasure.”
*
Inside her shop, which also sold soaps and some inexpensive but tasteful costume jewelry, Hella brought out various scents for him to sample—from France, Italy, even Denmark, and placed them on the counter. She had her hair in a braid today that fell across one shoulder, long and brown. She wore a typical Norwegian sweater with a long wool skirt, but she still made it look stylish with a belt around her waist, and her figure was one that would attract any man. No wonder the German had been so intrigued. Nordstrum figured she was perhaps ten years older than him.
She said, “I don’t know her taste. Or how much you care to spend.”
Nordstrum picked up the French scent—Eau de Elyse—inspected the box for a moment, then placed it back on the counter and looked at her. “I’m in need of someone.”
“Would you like to smell the scent? I could put it on.”
“Of course. Why not?”
She went to the shelf behind her and took a small bottle from it. “You may go on. I’m listening.”
“Someone to operate a radio. It’s dangerous work. As you know, transmitters are expressly not permitted now. If you’re caught, there’s no guarantee I could protect you.”
“I don’t look for anyone to protect me these days.” She sprayed a quick dab on her wrist. “You’ve already seen that.”
“I have. It would be good, though, if you had the freedom to come and go without people watching. And a place from which to send the transmissions. Not in town. Town is far too dangerous. They have their W/T trucks patrolling everywhere. If you’re interested, of course.”
She waited a moment and put her wrist out for Nordstrum to smell. “Do you like?” He drew close and inhaled. “Transmissions to where?”
“It’s lovely. To England,” he said, looking back at her.
“England…” She let the word out like she was languorously blowing out a plume of smoke, a new appreciation in her eyes. “My father has a farm. In the Songvaln. It’s only twelve kilometers to the east. But twelve kilometers here might as well be the North Pole.”
“I wouldn’t want to put your father at any risk.”
“You wouldn’t be. He lives in Bergen now. With my aunt. He’s not so well and she can take care of him better than me. Every week or so, I ski out and look in on the place. Otherwise, it’s completely empty.”
Nordstrum nodded. “You’ll also need to learn code.”
“That should be no problem,” she said with a small smile that went straight to her brown eyes. “Math was always my strong suit.”