The Klipfish Code (2 page)

Through clamped teeth, Marit exhaled sharply. "But they're
not
you and Mama." She wanted to shout and cry all at once. How could she convince them? She couldn't be sent away. She needed to be with her parents. Didn't they understand? Only when she was with them did her fear begin to melt. Bestefar was as cold as fish scales! She'd never been able to do anything right around him, unlike her brother. "Then send Lars. Why can't I stay here?"

Mama reached for Marit's hands and held them in her own. "Your grandfather's not easy, I'll grant you that. But you'll be safe. That's our main concern. And you know Aunt Ingeborg adores you."

"I still don't get why
you
and Papa are staying here and sending
us
away." Marit squeezed back tears. "Why can't you come with us?"

Something in Papa's eyes told her there was no room for argument, that their decision was final. "Marit, right now," he said, "the less you know, the better."

That night, after Lars fell asleep, Papa motioned to Marit and Mama from his map-laden table. "I have news," he said. "And you must promise to keep this to yourselves."

Marit glanced at her father's maps. He always kept them neat and organized, but now many were ash-smudged and torn. She nodded, pleased to be invited in on his secret.

"Of course," Mama agreed.

"Boatloads of British soldiers have already landed in darkness at the end of our fjord. They've come because of Britain's own fight with Nazi Germany. They want to help Norway throw off the Germans."

Marit wondered why Papa was telling them all this. She glanced at Mama. The same question seemed to form in her eyes.

"We may have a British visitor sometime tonight. I don't want you to be scared."

"Who, Papa?"

"I don't know exactly."

"Will there be fighting here?"

Papa picked up his fiddle, rested it under his chin, and began to play a soft tune, as if to soothe her. "
Nei,
I hope not."

"What about your maps, Papa? Is the British visitor interested in your maps? Maybe that's why he's coming. If you need help with anything, you know I'd do whatever you and Mama asked, if only I can stay."

If she knew more, perhaps she could make sense of it all.

Later, a faint knock sounded downstairs at the back door.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap.

Marit lay in bed, wide-eyed. Through her open door, she strained to hear.

"Come in," Papa said in a hushed voice. "
Velkommen.
"

In broken Norwegian, a man greeted Papa and Mama, and then said, "Erik Gundersen, I'm told you know the mountains and roads better than anyone in this region."

Mama—who came from a family of teachers and taught English at the upper school—helped translate.

"What news have you heard of Oslo?" Papa asked. "Is the king safe?"

"King Haakon has fled. The Germans are eager to capture him, but so far he has eluded them."

The man went on to explain other events of the war, and Marit listened closely. He explained that the German attack was part of a full-scale invasion of Norway.

"I can understand their targeting Oslo and the larger cities, but Isfjorden?" Papa asked. "We're a village. It makes no sense."

Mama interpreted the soldier's reply. "You're at the
end of the fjord, right across from the Åndalnes port and train depot. That puts this region at risk. The Germans—they want to shatter Norway with one sudden and decisive blow."

"But we're Norwegians," Papa said, anger nearly crushing his voice. A moment of silence passed before he spoke again. "We won't fall that easily."

The man lowered his voice. "We hope not, and that's why we need to work together. I understand you might both be helpful. We need engineers who know the area and we need good translators, too."

Then the door to the staircase was closed, and their voices blurred.

But Marit had heard enough. She was right. Papa's knowledge of the terrain and his engineering skills were going to be used to fight the Germans. And if they needed translators, who could do a better job than Mama, who already taught English? Perhaps her parents would come to realize that they might need extra help. She could do whatever they needed—run errands, deliver messages, help around the home.

Marit was determined to stay awake until the man left, and then ask her parents about his visit. There must be something she could do to help.

But she never got the chance. When she awoke, everything happened with the speed of startled birds. Before she knew it, she was packing her suitcase, picking her
path through her yard, and walking down the bomb-damaged streets to the harbor.

Together with her family, she passed neighbors still at work repairing homes and shops. Some homes were shattered beyond fixing. Before, she would have felt too old to hold Mama's hand in public; now she held on tightly. Everything had changed. It was as if she was watching a girl her age from a great distance—the blond braid that touched her waist, the red and white snowflake sweater, hiking boots and rucksack ... the little brother in his blue wool jacket and the parents.... But nothing about them seemed real. This couldn't possibly be
her
family heading to the dock to wait for the steamer that would ferry her and Lars down Romsdal Fjord—away from home.

As they waited, Mama handed Marit a small basket filled with smoked salmon, cheese, bread, and a jar of milk. But Marit doubted she could eat anything. Her throat tightened with tears.

At the end of the fjord and protected by mountains, her village had always felt safe. Now, scraps of wooden boats filled the harbor and their charred masts poked up like old bones. Stone chimneys stood tall amid piles of burned boards. Wisps of smoke climbed from the rubble. How dare the Nazis invade them? She wanted to scream at the Germans who had dropped the bombs. Didn't they have families, too?

The steamer chugged around the fjord's bend, and Papa knelt and hugged her and Lars close. "Bestefar will meet you two in Ålesund—and then he'll ferry you with his boat back to the island." He paused, as if searching for something more to say. Finally, he stood and said only, "I promise—we'll be together soon."

"Then please," Marit burst out, "please—don't send us away!" She wrapped her arms around her mother. Her entire life was being ripped up by the roots.

Too soon, with Lars at her heels, Marit boarded the steamer. As the engine rumbled and the steamer pulled away and out of the harbor, she raced up the ladder to the stern railing. She had meant to wave goodbye; instead, she gripped the wooden rail and looked back through blurry eyes. Something larger and more frightening than she could possibly understand had been set in motion. Beyond the steamer's churning wake, Mama and Papa became smaller and smaller, until she could not see them at all.

***

Hours later, the steamer eased toward the landing. Fog thick as
risengrot—Marit's
favorite rice pudding—covered the city's harbor as the steamer slowed its engine. Marit kept a lookout for Bestefar's boat, which was like many other fishing trawlers with its two masts, open decks,
wheelhouse, and the
tonk-tonk-tonk
of its engine. They were sturdy wooden boats that handled wind or calm, port or open ocean water.

In the fog, everything was gray and dull. On past holidays, she had loved looking at Ålesund's ornate and colorful buildings. She loved walking past the bustling wharves and fisheries where they turned dry, salted cod into klipfish and shipped it around the world. Once dried and salted, the codfish kept forever. She loved Mama's way of cooking it in butter and water. Though the fisheries used faster, more modern methods, some local fishermen still dried split cod on large boulders in the sun.

She spotted the trawler dockside. Two masts stood tall, the wheelhouse was empty, and Bestefar sat on the rail, his legs crossed in wool trousers, cupping a pipe. "There he is, Lars."

"Bestefar!" Lars called as he ran ahead down the steamer's rough planks, but their grandfather didn't hear. His head was bowed.

Marit followed behind, making her way slowly toward the fishing trawler.

Bestefar looked up and saw them coming. He held up his hand, probably the friendliest gesture Marit guessed she would see from him.

"
Hei,
Bestefar," Marit called, trying to force a little cheerfulness in her voice.

He nodded at them. "Hurry now." Beneath his fisherman's wool cap, tufts of white hair stuck out, matching his well-trimmed mustache. His steely eyes seemed harder than ever. Mama always said he was a happier man when Bestemor—Marit's grandmother—was alive. But she'd died when Marit was only three, too young to remember her. "It's as if your grandmother's long illness drained the life out of him, too," Mama had once tried to explain. "Not only did Ingeborg take over Mama's classroom on the island, but she stayed on at home to care for Papa. He wouldn't leave the house for days, not eating, not even tending his nets. It was your aunt Ingeborg who finally forced him from the house and back to fishing again."

Marit wished she could feel sorry for him, but the only grandfather she'd ever known was cold and short on words—except with Lars, of course.

"Lars," Bestefar said. "You're getting to be a big man now."

Lars jumped right into Bestefar's arms. "Not that big, Bestefar!"

Marit turned away. He hadn't even said hello to her or used her name. If he wanted to be that way, she could too. Let him be in his own salty broth, like herring in a barrel.

"Well, don't just stand there on the dock, Marit. Cast
off now. And no falling in this time. I don't want to fish you out again."

"Bestefar, that was a long time ago." She'd been four when she'd tripped and gone in, nearly drowning. Why couldn't he let it go? Swiftly, she moved to untie the line from the nearest cleat. In her haste, however, she managed to make knots in the rope where there had been none. She felt Bestefar's eyes on her, waiting. She was making a mess of things only because of him. It was the way he was. Nothing was ever done quite right. Never fast enough.

With the rope finally untied, Marit pushed off from the dock and jumped into the boat. The sails were down and secured. Her grandfather ran the engine for the short trip back to the island. He stood in the wheelhouse. Lars stood in front of him, a big smile on his face, hands up on the wheel, pretending to steer beneath Bestefar's large hands.

Seagulls swooped and cried mournfully around the boat as it crossed from the mainland to Godøy Island. Marit stood at the bow and clung to the rails. Salt water splashed up as the bow rose and fell. She breathed in the salty ocean air. She hated to leave her parents, but at least the island was a place she loved to visit. She loved combing the shoreline for treasures. There were the chickens and goats, and Big Olga, with her gentle brown
eyes, the cow Marit had learned to milk years earlier. And Aunt Ingeborg. She was like a crab, hard-shelled on the outside, but soft on the inside. Strict, too, but she had to be. She was a schoolteacher.

Compared with her aunt, Bestefar was ... Marit glanced back at the snow-crowned mountains. She had it. He was a stone troll.

On summer nights, the sun held fast to the sky, refusing to let darkness swallow the land. Whenever Marit opened her eyes, a hazy light covered the island and poured in through the open window. And this night was no different. She drifted on a sea of frustration, a rowboat tossed by every wave.

The bed she shared with Lars barely fit in the room. It may have been her mother's room when she was a girl, but it was never meant to be shared by two—especially with a younger brother. If Lars slept soundly, then he didn't wet their shared bed. If he slept fitfully and cried out from nightmares, then Marit hung sheets on the
clothesline the next morning. Marit envied Aunt Ingeborg sleeping in a bed all by herself in the other upstairs bedroom.

She felt trapped, pushed up against the wall, but at least on her side of the bed, a window looked out toward the sea.

The pasture ended at the shore and rocky peninsula, and at the base of the lighthouse paced a German soldier, his rifle angled on his shoulder. Immediately after the first bombs fell, truckloads of German soldiers arrived and took control of every town in Norway. At first, they handed out candy, which she always refused. Every time Marit saw them, an icy unease settled in her belly. The Nazi soldiers patrolled everywhere, including the islands. And this soldier, guarding this lighthouse, came too close. As far back as she could remember, she'd loved walking out to the lighthouse. It was as much her own as it was every Norwegian's lighthouse.

Over two months had passed since the Germans had dropped bombs and invaded. It was already June. Though more bombs fell up and down Norway's coast, none had yet fallen on Godøy Island. And in all that time—since the day she and Lars had arrived at the island—she hadn't heard from Mama and Papa.
Not a word.
They were her parents. Why didn't they write? Or leave a message on the phone at the island's general store? Phone lines might be down, her parents were
likely helping the British, but things still didn't add up. The British and Norwegians had failed to stop the Germans. The Nazis were rumored to make many unexpected arrests, and when they did, people disappeared. What if Mama and Papa were arrested in Isfjorden? What if she never heard from them again?

With a small kick, Marit untangled her legs from her nightdress. She checked on Lars, to see if he was twitching with nightmares. He slept stomach-down, burrowed in his pillow, his hair rumpled around his head. He breathed slowly, peacefully; otherwise—just to be safe—Marit would have nudged him to get up and use the night pot.

She flopped back down, shifting from her belly to her back. Day by day, there were more orphans in Norway. At least she wasn't one of them. She dropped her forearm across her eyes. But nothing worked.

Finally, Marit gave up and studied the buttery yellow slanted ceiling, the hand-painted chest that held her traveling clothes, and above it on the windowsill, the jar of daisies Lars had gathered alongside the dirt road. She rolled over, facing the wall. Papa had promised they'd be together soon. But when was "soon"? Two months, two years?
When, Papa?
They should never have left Isfjorden—no matter how bad things had seemed; they should have stayed together as a family.