Sloan Wilson - Ice Brothers

“Lots of people in Europe and lots of Danes in Greenland are doing that right now — pretending that the Germans are really not so bad after all, they’re human after all. That’s what Swan kept saying. And I went along with him …”

“Level with me. When I first came here, did you know the Germans were at Supportup?”

“I admit I suspected it, there were all kinds of rumors of Germans landing all up and down the coast. Swan knew it, I don’t know how, but he protected all of us by keeping information like that to himself. He did the lying for all of us. I don’t know whether to thank him or hate him for that.”

“I wish you had told me what you suspected.”

“I thought of it, but can you understand when I say I couldn’t imagine the Germans being defeated? When you come out of Europe, it’s hard to imagine that. I thought that if you went into Supportup, they’d kill you, then come over here and kill us. In my way I tried to protect you, I tried to protect all of us. And anyway, I could have told you nothing but rumors and suspicions. I didn’t really lie to you.”

He said nothing.

“Except you were right to suspect me, and I’m not dead sure you trust me a hundred percent now.”

“My only suspicion now is that you’re trying to boil me alive.”

From beneath the bottom bench she took a bucket of lukewarm water which felt deliciously cool as she slowly poured it over his head and shoulders. When he had dried his face with a towel, she gave him a glass of icy water, and poured one for herself.

“Are you comfortable now?”

“God, yes.”

“Then listen to me a little more. You’ve taught me one thing: the Germans aren’t going to win this war. There are men who can stop them. You’re going to kill all those Germans at Supportup or take them prisoner. I want to help more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. I want to see it when it happens, I don’t just want to hear about it. For a change I want to see how they bleed. They walked all over my country, all over Europe, and I can’t wait to see how they do here. If you’re going to send native Greenlanders against them, no one will be able to tell me from an Eskimo woman. I’m just as strong as they are. Give me a rifle, teach me to use it and give me one of those knives the men on your ship are making. You won’t have to worry about me.”

“Brit, it’s brains, not simple ferocity, that’s going to beat these people. I have a lot to figure out. I’ll fit you in where I can.”

“You look so aloof when you say that. I don’t like you aloof.”

With a smile she threw the icy water in her glass in his face. He grabbed her, but she twisted from his arms. From a corner she picked up three slender twigs that had been tied together and he felt them sting on his shoulders until he took them from her. In the swirls of steam she turned her back to him.

“Use them on me,” she said. “It’s the custom, part of the sauna.”

“It’s not my custom.”

“It doesn’t hurt. It feels good. It brings the blood up. After this we’ll take a dive in the snow.”

“You dive in the snow, not me.”

Grabbing the twigs from him, she briskly slapped her own taut body. Suddenly she opened the side door and he saw her fling herself full length in a snowbank outside. Almost immediately she jumped up, returned with her hands full of snow and threw it on his chest. When he tried to catch her she ran outside again. He followed and for an instant they wrestled in the snow before dashing back into the sauna. After that the boiling water and the shower baths that followed made his skin tingle and every nerve respond as though he were really alive for the first time. He followed her through another door and made love to her in a big feather bed before he realized that they had entered Swanson’s house, and by then it didn’t seem to matter.

“I told you, it brings the blood up,” she said. “Love, hate and saunas — without them we might as well be dead.”

They spent the night in that big feather bed in Swanson’s house. That did not bother him until he awoke in the morning, except there was no real morning now, only an hour or so of blurry light in the sky at noon. Staring out the frosted window into the moonlight, Paul reflected that it was one thing to lock up an old man because his beliefs made that necessary, and another thing to move into his house, drink his booze and sleep with a woman he might still regard as his in his own bed. He stirred restlessly.

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t feel very comfortable here.”

“I bet I can fix that,” she said with a smile.

“Isn’t there somewhere else we can go?”

“Nowhere with a bed like this.”

She began by caressing his neck. She was impossible to resist and he did not try very hard. Never before had a woman taken the initiative and concentrated on trying to please him. He was so tired that the greatest luxury was just relaxing and allowing her to bring back his strength.

“I love you,” he heard himself murmur drowsily over and over again.

“For now,” she said.

“Why do you have to say that?”

“I don’t know. The truth is very sexy to me.”

“Would you like me to come back for you after the war?”

“I like that dream, but right now I don’t need it.”

“I love you,” he said again.

“I wonder if you really would if you knew me?”

“I think I’m getting to know you fairly well.”

“You’re still mad because I was with Swan. That’s why you don’t like this bed.”

“I can understand that you needed someone.”

“You still wonder whether I was with Peo.”

“I refuse to ask you about that.”

She gave a rueful laugh. “I used to be the kind of girl you want. I think you want me to pretend I still am.”

“No …”

“That is a very weak no. Of course I should pretend, but I have my own needs and maybe truth is one of them. Lying isn’t sexy at all for me. Telling the truth is like taking off the clothes.”

“You haven’t lied.”

“I want you to know what I am, what I’ve been through. Try to imagine Denmark when the Germans came in.”

“I can’t really.”

“My husband and my father kept saying things wouldn’t be too bad. They said we shouldn’t antagonize them.”

“In that situation …”

“But Jon loved his job. He had a record as a liberal. He used to give speeches. And my father went into his depression. He wouldn’t leave his bed. Someone had to cope.”

“You don’t have to tell me …”

“You don’t want to hear, do you?”

“I don’t like seeing you in pain.”

“The pain is in keeping it all in. Even Swan wouldn’t have understood.”

“You worked with the Germans for a while.”

“How do you think we got gas and food for the ketch? Everything was rationed and expensive. How do you think we got out of the harbor at all? Someone had to be looking the other way.”

“So you did what you had to do.”

“For the sake of my family — that excuses everything doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I told myself that, and the guilt went away, most of it. When you see people die, it’s hard to worry about sex much. You take help where you can find it and give what you must.”

“Yes.”

“The Eskimos know. They always convert everybody who comes here to convert them.”

“They sure understand necessity.”

“They understand truth. They don’t swear undying love to anyone. They think what we call fidelity must be a joke. Why should laughing together be made so complicated?”

“That wouldn’t work for me.”

She laughed. “It is working for you.”