But she got up again. Every night. And sat down beside me, just as captivated by the sight of the light above the trees as I was. Just as alert to the sounds of the people we had known.

She only asked me once. “Caleb, Christian, Martin—where are they now?”

I was unable to respond immediately. I didn’t know what I should say. Then I came up with something. “They’ve taken the tractor,” I said. “We said they could have it, remember?”

“Yes.”

“They’ve taken it and driven away.”

“That was smart.”

“Yes. That was very smart.”

With each passing night, there were fewer lights. The screams and shots diminished.

And then one evening there was only darkness above the trees. Silence from the camp. As if it had never existed.

She didn’t ask any questions then either.

She never asked about Francis. And never asked about Marguerite.

Chapter Thirty-One: Signe

Chapter Thirty-One

Signe

The last time I saw you, Magnus . . . the last time we spoke . . . that was right after London.

I left without saying anything to anyone. I just left, went straight from Eidesdalen to Bergen, took out all the money I had in my bank account, and bought a ticket for the ferry to England that was leaving that very evening. I remember the smells on board—stale cigarette smoke, beer, and deep-fried food, the smell of decaying leather seat cushions and sticky linoleum, of diesel from the engine room.

There were towering waves on the crossing, heavy gales, a sea that turned white, choppy breakers crashing against one another, the surface as chaotic and wild as only the North Sea can be.

As if I weren’t feeling nauseous enough already.

London welcomed me with its narrow streets and smoke-filled pubs, but I didn’t embrace this city, didn’t want to make it mine. I had no address, no name to go by. The only thing I’d heard was that you had to find a doctor and then the rest would take care of itself.

Perhaps I hadn’t needed to leave. Most women submitted an application to the medical committee, and some applications were approved, but was I supposed to stand there and beg? Cry? I was furious, I remember, about how they made it so difficult, this choice that after all was mine alone.

I checked into a hotel right beside a large railway station and received the key from the receptionist. When I stood there, with the key in my hand and the knapsack in which I had packed a few things leaning against my leg, in my colorful traditional woolen sweater and my blond hair in practical braids, I must have looked both Norwegian and naïve. Those two things were often connected, braids or no braids.

“Was there something else?” the receptionist asked, warmly and jovially, when I showed no sign of moving. “Anything more I can do for you, love?”