Medusa by Torkil Damhaug Page B

telephone wires, helped refugees over the border: Jewish children, Resistance members who had been betrayed, even those occasional oddballs who just panicked and wanted to get out even though the Germans weren’t after them.
    His father had marked the maps: a cross for each meeting point, dotted lines for the escape routes, circles for the hiding places and communication centres. Afterwards Axel and Brede would play refugees and border guides, and especially Resistance fighters engaging in mortally dangerous sabotage operations. They sank the Blücher in the waters off Drøbak, and drove the Bismarck and the Tirpitz into narrow and treacherous fjords. Above all they blew up the heavy water plant in Vemork. At the very last moment they managed to light the fuse, just before Hitler had finally made his atom bomb; all that was needed was just a few litres of that water, and the Glenne brothers had ruined everything for him. Hitler was furious. He developed an obsessive hatred of them and sent his most dangerous SS men to Norway to capture them. The twins fled to the forest and hid out in the cabins their father had told them about. They sneaked from one to another, dog patrols on their heels, hearing the barking and the shouting of the commandos in German, the most gruesome of all languages. But if one of them was captured, the other would get away, because both had sworn to die rather than inform on his brother.
    These games would get Brede so worked up that he could lie awake all night. Sometimes he would even wake Axel to swear the pact all over again: You will never betray me. I will never betray you.
    Even when they weren’t playing, Axel knew he had to look after his brother. That no one else would do it. Every time Brede did something terrible, their parents talked about how they couldn’t have him in the house any longer. Axel thought of these as threats meant to get Brede to pull himself together; he never dreamt they might actually mean it. Brede couldn’t pull himself together. One week after Balder was shot, they sent him away.
     
    He was sitting on the sofa with Marlen playing Buzz! Jungle when Bie appeared. She stood in the door and watched them. It was 11.30. Axel was still in his boxer shorts and T-shirt, Marlen in her nightie.
    – So this is where you are.
    – Don’t interrupt, Mum, can’t you see we’re working?
    – I see, is that what you’re doing?
    – Don’t you know that playing for children is the same thing as working is for grown-ups?
    – Yes, I guess it is. But what about Daddy? He isn’t a child, is he, or at least not completely.
    – Daddy has a day off. I’m the only one that’s working.
    Bie stood behind them and followed the game on the TV screen for a while. Then she bent down and put her arms round them, both of them, hugging one against each of her cheeks. Axel put his hand behind her and let it slip up under her dressing gown; she was still naked underneath.
    – You’re a fine one, she whispered in his ear.
    – Stop whispering, Marlen protested.
    – I only said to your daddy that he’s, er, very fine.
    – You’re putting him off, she complained. – See, he just lost a life.
    – Serves him right. Bie gave up and disappeared into the kitchen. Shortly afterwards she called out:
    – Have you read the paper, Axel?
    – Sort of.
    She was holding it in front of her as she came back into the room again.
    – Did you see this about the woman missing in the Nordmarka?
    He continued laying waste with the Buzz! control.
    – Did you see who it is? she asked. – Hilde Paulsen, my physio.
    Only now did he react, jumping to his feet, crossing to her. With narrowed eyes he read the story she was pointing to.
     
    He called the police station, explained what it was about. A woman with a strong Stavanger accent came on the line. Her voice was also unusually loud.
    – At what time of the day did you meet her?
    Axel thought it over. He’d been up at Blankvann around 4.30. With the