A smile twitched on Farmor’s lips, then disappeared. “Don’t forget, the communists are the ones in the resistance, causing trouble.”
Else grinned at the image of Hemming as a freedom fighter. “I can’t imagine Hemming causing trouble.”
Farfar chuckled. “I don’t want him getting designs on my granddaughter.”
“No.” Farmor patted Else’s hand. “You’ll make a wonderful wife for some special man.”
Else gave her grandmother a mischievous look. “Some special physicist.”
“Nej! We have too many physicists in this family—your father, your brothers, you.”
Else stepped through the arched gateway leading from the churchyard. “Physicists are the only men who understand what I’m saying.”
“You think you need a man as smart as you.” Farmor lifted her tiny chin. “Nonsense. I’m smarter than your grandfather.”
Else laughed and gasped. “Farmor!”
“She’s right, you know.” Farfar winked at her.
Else hugged her grandmother’s arm. They were both brilliant.
They passed the Søllerød Kro, which had been serving fine meals for over two hundred and fifty years. When Else arrived in Denmark in 1939, her grandparents had treated her to a fancy dinner at the inn with its delightful thatched roof.
“What are your afternoon plans, my Elsebeth?” Farfar said. “You need to take your mind off work.”
She did. Whenever she thought about work, resentment coiled in her gut. Last night she’d confided her problems with Mortensen to her grandparents. They’d told her to continue to work hard and not to be riled by his rudeness.
“Will you paint at the Søllerød Sø again?” Farmor motioned to the little lake behind the church.
Else passed thatch-roofed homes of yellow and white. “I thought I’d ride my bike to the sea and find a spot to paint.” The scattered clouds would create beautiful patterns of light on the water.
Farfar squinted ahead. “There’s a nice beach in Vedbæk just east of here.”
“We used to picnic there,” Farmor said. “Near the Ahlefeldt villa.”
“Ahlefeldt? Like the shipyard?”
“The baron owns the shipyard.” Farfar tipped his hat to a woman out gardening. “Not that we know the family. They don’t belong to the circle of a simple schoolteacher.”
“From what I’ve heard,” Farmor said, “the baron hasn’t come here since the baronesse died about ten years ago. She was only around forty years old.”
“How sad,” Else said.
Farmor tilted her head to the clouds and narrowed her blue eyes. “They had two girls, good girls. Both married now. And a wayward son.”
“Baron Henrik Ahlefeldt.” Farfar frowned. “He had quite the reputation for drunken revelry.”
“Had?” Else hated to gossip but hungered for the story. “Did he die too?”
“Might as well have,” Farfar said. “When the Germans came, he fled to Sweden. Not to fight for the Allies, like a good Dane. Oh no.”
“No?”
“A common coward,” Else’s grandmother said. “Busy scandalizing Stockholm.”
Else huffed. She had no patience for people like the young baron, who received good gifts of position or intelligence or beauty—and squandered them living for themselves.
7
