When Norup had complained, Wolff had told him to solve the problem himself. Else’s throat thickened. “Yes, sir.”
“You also understand this will be your last position as an assistant.” A drumbeat pounded in Wolff’s tone.
Else held her breath. The institute served to kindle bright minds into full brilliance. A fading light didn’t belong. “Yes, sir. I understand.”
At the end of the day, Else exchanged her lab coat for her cobalt blue winter coat and left the institute’s complex of creamy buildings with red roofs and red-sashed windows.
Norup had a prickly nature, and he’d snapped every time Mortensen bit. But Else had smoothed over some tensions in Koch’s lab. Surely she could do the same in Mortensen’s.
The setting sun shot orange and pink into the clouds as Else passed through the wrought-iron gate onto Blegdamsvej.
Next door, Dr. Laila Berend stepped out of the Mathematics Institute, run by Niels Bohr’s brother, Harald. Else hurried to her friend, and her muscles relaxed in anticipation of Laila’s righteous indignation and comfort.
“Look.” Laila gave the street a furtive scan, making her black curls swing, and she pulled a newspaper from inside her coat. The masthead readFrit Danmark—Free Denmark.
Else gasped. “It’s back.”
Laila slid the illegal newspaper inside her coat. “Let’s go home so we can read it.”
The Germans did their best to shut down the underground papers, and in December they’d arrested half a dozen leaders ofFrit Danmark. Apparently, some brave souls had taken on the dangerous task of printing the paper again.
Else strode in the icy air toward the Trianglen, where they could catch a tram. The Germans didn’t officially censor the press, but they hovered over the reporters’ shoulders. Thank goodness, the Germans hadn’t banned listening to the BBC, because the British shortwave broadcasts in Danish provided news from the outside world.
“I think I’ll help,” Laila said.
“Help?”
Laila patted her chest, and the paper crinkled. “The Allies have the Germans on the run—at Stalingrad, in the Caucasus, in North Africa.”
“Finally.” For several years, the Germans had seemed invincible.
“We Danes are so well behaved.” Sarcasm snaked into Laila’s voice. “So they don’t need many soldiers to watch us. If that were to change...”
German soldiers would flood Denmark, flowing away from Russia and Tunisia, easing pressure on the Soviets, the British, and Else’s American friends. Maybe even her own older brothers. But at what cost to Denmark?
“I thought...” Else lowered her voice as they approached the busy triangle-shaped intersection. “I thought you’d been told not to help.”
Laila’s narrow chin edged forward. “The Jewish leaders are afraid that if we get involved, the Germans will use it as an excuse to force antisemitic laws. But I’m tired of this. Throughout Europe, Jews have lost their jobs and freedoms. They’ve been forced to wear yellow stars. They’ve been deported and murdered. The Danish people need to know.”
“Even if—”
“Even if it happens here too?” The light faded from the eveningsky and from Laila’s brown eyes. “Shouldn’t we be willing to take that risk?”
A frigid wind puffed, and Else pulled her scarf over her mouth.
“There’s Line 4.” Laila pointed to a tram with a white numeral four on a green square.
Else followed her friend onto the electric tram car and paid her fare. As she settled into her seat, two German soldiers boarded, wearing sickly greenish-gray overcoats and laughing at some joke.
A frigid hush fell over the car, and Else nudged Laila. Time forDen Kolde Skulder, the cold shoulder the Danes used in the presence of their unwanted visitors.
Passengers stood and stepped off the tram, and Else and Laila joined them. For this thrill of silent resistance, Else would gladly forfeit her fare and walk home.
Before long, they reached Lotte Riber’s boardinghouse, a skinny redbrick building with hunched-up shoulders squeezed between two larger structures. A barbershop occupied the ground floor.
Else and Laila climbed a flight of stairs to the first floor, and Else opened the door to the living room. “Fru Riber! Laila and I are home.”
Their landlady leaned out from the kitchen and smiled. “Hello, girls. Dinner’s at five thirty.”
