“Wait,” she said again. Wait.
But the man would not stop.
55.
“Loke Voss has set himself up in an old fäbod on top of the mountain. He is a brownshirt, a rising figure among the Swedish fascists. He makes his collection of mountain shacks over into the local Nazi headquarters. The sisters take their lives in their hands venturing up to Loke’s fäbod hideout.”
All right, Brand wanted to say. Okay. Please stop now.
“The two women approach, wearing their modest home-sewn linen dresses and clumsy farm boots, an unflattering look overall, but practical. They walk the length of the fäbod to the farthest building, a cabin built of peeled logs. A flag with a swastika cross inside a black circle hangs from an outstretched pole above the door. The banner snaps in the breeze, flinging its fabric upwards and reminding the women of the Heil Hitler salute.
“They stand for a moment, unwilling to knock on the door, afraid to open it. They hear voices raised in song. A band of Loke’s boys come marching up the mountain from the other direction, swinging their arms in unison. Their chorus is enough to make the stomach turn.”
Here Moro softly sang the Nazi marching song.
Raise the flag! The ranks tightly closed!
Brownshirts march with calm, steady step!
Clear the streets for the brown battalions!
Clear the streets for the storm division!”
“Then comes a shrill whistle, as a sentry at the opposite end of the compound wakes to women’s presence.
“‘Reds!’ he yells. ‘Vänsterfolk! Kommunister!’”
“The marchers break ranks and charge toward the interlopers, pushing and shoving, screaming into their faces. The women find themselves trapped in a gauntlet of Nazi bullyboys, many of whom are youths they recognize from the neighborhood. The older woman especially is roughed up. The marchers tear her dress. She grips her sister’s hand so tightly that she draws blood, thinking if she let go they would both die.”
No, please. Stop. I don’t want to know.
“Out from the cabin door steps an unlikely savior. Loke Voss appears and immediately calls off his young dogs. Obeying his commands, the tormentors back down. The older sister straightens herself and walks calmly toward Loke. The younger one tries to match her courage but trembles like a leaf.”
Brand stared fixedly at Moro. She felt pinned to her chair. Her breath came with difficulty.
“Can you picture it, Veronika?” Moro asked. “Loke is courtly, smiling, inviting the older sister into his cabin lair. He wears calf-high black boots and the familiar brown uniform. He sports a captain’s insignia. Even though he is still a boy, he believes he has come into his own. With his slick yellow hair and spooky pale eyes, he looks every centimeter an Aryan. Nietzsche’s blond beast personified.
“From childhood the older sister always had Loke in the palm of her hand. He loved her and hated her all at once.
“‘Gustav,’ Klara Dalgren now says to Loke, simply and quietly.
“‘Yes, yes, always Gustav,’ Loke says. ‘Always something with Gustav.’ He laughs. But it is not a real laugh. It is more like something has gotten stuck in his throat and he is trying to get it out.
“‘Come, Klara,’ he says.
“‘Alice, wait outside,’ Klara Dalgren says.
“Alice tries to stop it. ‘Sister, no—’”
“Loke silences her. ‘Yes, dear sister Alice, wait here.’”
“The two of them, Loke and Klara, disappear into the cabin.”
Moro leaned forward and placed the heavy meat of his hand upon Brand’s. “We don’t need to go inside to know what went on within, do we?”
Brand found herself unable to respond. She wanted to challenge him. You can’t know! How could you possibly know? The words caught in her throat.
“The older sister appeals to Loke inside the cabin that afternoon. Spare Gustav’s life, she begs. She knows the Nazis will kill Gustav if he keeps on speaking and writing against them. Loke is the man who will order the assassination done.”
The picture Moro drew drilled its way into Brand’s mind. Fury and disgust rose in her. Her mind buzzed with the words from Elin’s letter. The older man’s hypnotic voice droned on.
“We don’t have to see to know what happened. We witness the older sister plead for the life of Gustav, the man she loved. We can see Loke Voss’s smile crease his face. We hear their dull footsteps as the two of them climb the stairs to the cabin loft. Klara’s ripped dress, torn by his bullyboys, enflames Loke’s mind.”
Brand had heard enough. “Stop!” she shouted. Other customers in the café turned to look. Moro lowered his voice and continued.
“Gustav never finds out. His baby daughter comes along the next November, when he and his wife have already fled America after the arson. Gustav is overjoyed to have a daughter.”
“Marta…” The whisper emerged unbidden from Brand’s lips. Her mother. Which meant…
“All babies are born with blue eyes. But as Marta Dalgren grows into toddlerhood, an awful understanding dawns on Gustav. Before that, he is industrious around the farm in his newly adopted country, still active in worker’s rights, the same old Gustav we know and admire in Sweden. Then the truth settles on him. He changes. He breaks down. The bottle comes along and destroys everything.
“Because the darling daughter that his wife had given birth to now shows those oddly colored eyes, gray with a hint of heliotrope. A very rare color, very distinctive. Your same inherited eyes, Veronika. Poor Gustav knows exactly where he has seen them before. Staring back at him from his daughter’s face are the remarkable and instantly recognizable gray eyes of Loke Voss.”
Brand rose to her feet. “You’re lying!” she shouted. But she knew it was the truth. Loke Voss was her mother’s biological father. Which made Veronika, at least in blood, a member of the Voss clan.
She had knocked over her chair. Other people in the cafe looked over at them.
“Sit,” Moro said. “I told you I have another gift for you, one you have yearned for and felt incomplete without.”
He righted Brand’s toppled
