Chapter 18

Dear Anne,

Perhaps it's because I'm a woman, anxious that there should be peace in the world and eager to understand both sides of a human quarrel, but I really do try to maintain relationships even with those who might otherwise drive me to drink. Vice Consul Whitney is one of those men who doesn't believe women should be in public life and treats me like a specimen in the zoo. It reminds me of something Mrs. Blair from the DNC said to me about women entering politics "one room at a time." Maybe one man at a time...

"A ccording to our latest intel, His Majesty King Haakon, Crown Prince Olav, and the Norwegian cabinet have fled via destroyer to Troms?. They're out of harm's way for now, but conditions on the ground are changing daily. The area around the city of Narvik is under intense bombardment from both Allied and German forces, making it inadvisable for the minister to travel into the country."

Daisy steepled her fingers under her chin, listening to Lieutenant Bayard's report, checking it against her own reports. "Right. I've spoken to Count Douglas with the Swedish legation—"

"Have you seen this?" Mr. Whitney banged into the office without knocking, his brows scrunched, his face splotchy with outrage. Daisy should have been angry, or at least mildly irritated. Instead, she welcomed his intrusion as if it had been expected. There was something oddly comforting about his labored breathing, heavy sighs, and raspy grunts, and the tap of his rapid footsteps. So long as he was upset with her, it meant there wasn't anything more disastrous for him to focus his ire toward.

"Join us, Mr. Whitney," Daisy said, keeping her voice light. Maybe she'd be accused of softness, rolling over and showing her belly whenever he barked. He should be put in his place firmly. But that had never been her way.

He shook a sheaf of papers at her. "Have you seen this ridiculousness?"

"You'll have to be more specific. Most of what I see is absurd to the extreme these days."

"This damned news article in the Der Bund paper."

"Oh that." She laughed. "Did you see the date on the paper? It was published six months ago."

"I can tell you now if I'd seen it then, I'd have done something about it. As it is, you're content to let such a tissue of lies stand?" He read from the page. "‘Mrs. Harriman plays selections from Chopin, Liszt, and Mozart on the piano for Foreign Minister Koht and throws in here and there a few short political remarks.'" He shot sparks at the two of them, seemingly surprised at their lack of shared fury. "Is that what they think? That you're a wealthy amateur pianist who plinks a few pretty notes in between diplomatic crises?"

"Did they really say that?" Bayard asked, his lips twitching with amusement.

"More or less," she replied, then addressed Mr. Whitney, who remained clearly agitated. "I'm sure the poor reporter did his best." She took up her reading glasses. "Where did you get it anyway?"

"A batch of newspapers and magazines just arrived at the legation. This was in there along with a selection of other materials."

"Lovely. Maybe there's mail from home as well. I haven't heard from Ethel in ages," Daisy said, anticipating a wonderful long newsy letter from her daughter to read over dinner.

"‘Doll... delicate lady... white-haired... no fuss...'" Mr. Whitney was like a dog with a bone. "It makes America a laughingstock, as if we're sending committee ladies to do the important work of diplomacy and statecraft."

"You'd be surprised at how much work of real importance originates with committee ladies," Daisy said, a ring of steel in her voice that caused Lieutenant Bayard and Mr. Whitney to blink in surprise.

The vice consul seemed to come back to himself, almost as if he was surprised by his own outrage. He rattled his pages, his face losing some of its color, and cleared his throat. "Right. Well, so long as we know where we stand, ma'am." He slammed his way back out of the office to answer a ringing telephone.

"What was that about?" the lieutenant finally asked.

"I'd say Mr. Whitney's patriotism has, at least for the moment, trumped his chronic discontent."

"As in ‘he can say it, but he'll be damned if anyone else does'?"

"Something like that." Daisy laughed. "Utter nonsense, but what in life isn't?"

The lieutenant's good humor faded, and there was a worried look in his eye. "Miss Jaffray thinks Whitney's plotting against you."

Daisy finally gave up trying to keep her place in the memo they'd been reviewing. Dog-earing it for later, she focused all her attention on Lieutenant Bayard, who looked as if he wanted the floor to swallow him. "Does she? I don't know if I'd go as far as that."

"You can't say he hasn't tried to undermine your authority. And he's got a chip on his shoulder. I wouldn't put it past him to even an imagined score."

Daisy felt herself settle deeper into her chair, or maybe this added weight was all in her head. Either way, it was a conversation she'd not expected to have and so she was caught off guard. Bayard continued to look equally nonplussed. It gave her a moment to think before she responded.

"When I was appointed minister to Norway, I received a congratulatory letter that said while, on the whole, they were pleased for me, they rather thought women in general should stay out of the male sphere of public life—and this came from a friend."

Lieutenant Bayard had the good sense to see it for the funny story that it was rather than attempt to fill the space with apologies on behalf of mankind. She appreciated that. It was a funny story. She had a million of them.

"Mr. Whitney is a man who sees the world he knows disappearing," she continued on to her point. "He can't stop it any more than he could stop the tide coming in. It scares him as it scares me."

"But you're what he's scared of."

"Not me. I'm very much of his world and his age. Oh, I might have broken a few rules along the way, but I was always the rarity, the speck in the oil. Annoying but acceptable. That's changing with your generation and the war will only hasten that change. My only regret is that it takes such a cataclysm, but then isn't that just how nature works."

T he ancient Kungsholm Church was full as Norwegians flocked to celebrate their country's Independence Day. Rolling her shoulders, Cleo shifted on the uncomfortable pew, trying to find a spot that didn't hit her in the back or numb her rear. Aunt Daisy surreptitiously passed her a mint and a scolding parental glance, and Cleo was reminded of her mother, who used to do the same every Sunday.

Cleo's gaze wandered from the altar and its elaborate painting of Jesus ascending into heaven, passing over the rector, Dr. Krook, gesticulating as his voice reached the arched ceilings and shook the tall windows with words like country , king , courage , and love . Every face was turned toward him like plants toward the sun. Somber, shaped by pain or grief or shock, white as chalk or blotchy with emotion. A few burned with tears.

News had come only days earlier that Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands had fallen to the Germans, and France was reeling. Rumors swirled that the British were scaling back their military plans for Norway, their troops being pulled to the larger battles going on across the North Sea. Aunt Daisy, who was already in constant conversation with Mr. Sterling, spent even longer hours rushing between the Americans, the Norwegians, and the Swedes or locked away on the telephone with every contact she'd made over the course of their stay in Stockholm. Cleo's own work with Mrs. Thorson had increased as new refugees arrived hourly and more housing needed to be found, food distributed, and supplies scrounged.

As her attention wandered, Cleo couldn't help but seek out the crown princess and her children among the assembled congregation. What did she think of the unfolding calamities afflicting the Allies? Had she been able to speak to her husband since their separation at the border? Did she toss and turn at night worrying for his safety, wondering what would become of her and her children? If she'd ever see their home again? If so, she kept it well hidden.

Her porcelain features were nearly translucent under the glare of the chandeliers, made more so by her sober outfit of gray tweed and the demure black hat perched upon her dark head, but there was no defeat in her steady gaze. Nothing despondent in the way she gripped her hymnal or bent to whisper to her daughters with that same look Aunt Daisy had flashed Cleo only moments earlier. She was every inch icy royal defiance, her strength drawn from and mirrored by the crowd.

The doors to the church opened with a bang that had everyone sitting up and peering round. There was a draft, warm and sweet-scented, bringing a smile where there had only been tears. And then the singing began. A few voices raised then more until the church vibrated with sound. It bounced off the vaulted ceilings, carrying them along, lifting them up. Aunt Daisy stood proud and erect as if encased in iron, her expression as stern as that of any of the Norwegians she loved, her voice merging with theirs as an enormous Norwegian flag was carried up the altar, students gripping the edges as they made a slow procession to the altar.

An older woman reached out to touch a corner. A grandmother dabbed her eyes. A man dropped his head into his hands, weeping. Cleo felt their anger and their defiance and their love. It seemed to pulse the air as the singing and the crying continued. Her vision watered with unshed tears. Her fingers brushed an edge of the flag as it passed, the rough fabric sliding cool under her touch. So much love and courage bound up in a symbol. Out of nowhere, she was reminded of a small cemetery near the French village of Verquin and a row of cement crosses, each one bearing only a bronze plaque and a French roundel.

A young woman followed the procession before sliding into a pew just across from her. There was something about her that caught Cleo's eye: her thick honey-brown hair yanked back off her forehead and pinned with ferocity, her jawline jumping as she gripped her handbag, her stance as square as a sailor's on a deck in a storm as she sang in a high alto. After a moment, Cleo found herself humming along, the words unknown but her voice rising and falling as she followed the rousing chorus. At one point, the woman glanced over at her, a speculative gleam in her blue eyes. But Daisy nudged Cleo with an elbow, and when she snuck a look later from beneath her lashes, the woman was gone from her seat. A side door swung closed with a quick snick.

After the service ended, the congregation milled in the aisles and on the grounds outside the church as if reluctant to leave each other's company. As she waited for Aunt Daisy, Cleo wandered to a seat near the fence, where she could enjoy a cigarette and maybe slide her feet out of shoes a size too small. Her godmother and the Norwegian president, Mr. Hambro, stood in conversation. As he worked to make his point, Aunt Daisy wore her ambassador's face, grave yet inscrutable.

How many men over the years had been fooled by that steel-trap mind hidden behind a socialite's smile? All but one. Cleo had never known Bordie Harriman—he'd died the year before she was born—but she'd heard enough stories over the years about Aunt Daisy's husband to feel confident he'd never once been taken in by that patina of maternal softness.

At one point in the discussion, Aunt Daisy's gaze zeroed in on a pair of men watching the crowd from just outside the fence.

Suits.

Like the men in Zakopane.

Cleo's insides shriveled. What were they doing here?

"You're that lady from the elevator, aren't you?" Cleo jumped at the tug on her sleeve from a little girl in a robin's-egg blue coat, her blond curls coming untucked from beneath a small red cap.

"That's right. You're Princess Astrid, aren't you? Where's your mother?"

"With Ragnhild and Harald." The little girl pointed toward the church's main doors, where Crown Princess M?rtha chatted with Reverend Schubeler, who'd led the sermon. Her son and Prince Olav's heir gripped his mother's hand while her older daughter, Ragnhild, stood quietly at her side—a perfect little princess in training.

This one had a sparkle in her eye that Cleo recognized.

"You smell better than you did before," Princess Astrid declared.

"And you're just as rude as ever," Cleo teased, her laughter making the little princess giggle.

"Mama says I'm uforbederlig ." The word was one Cleo hadn't learned, but there was an impish twist to the girl's mouth and the flash of a dimple as she said it that was easily understood. "She says I should be more like my sister. That Papa expects me to behave as a princess of Norway." Her voice dropped at the same time as her smile. "That I should make him proud."

Cleo felt the knife turn in her chest.

Your father would never . . .

Your father always . . .

If your father was here . . .

"I'm sure you make His Royal Highness proud, no matter what."

Astrid's smile bloomed once more, but this time there was no mischief behind it. Instead, there was almost relief.

"Astrid, where are you?" Crown Princess M?rtha's voice carried a hint of command touched with fear.

Her daughter wasn't the only one to look up at her mother's voice. The men on the street did too, though had they ever truly focused anywhere else?

"Go on," Cleo urged Princess Astrid. "Quick now."

The little girl dashed back to the group, where she was gathered in with a whisper in her ear that quickly sobered her. She glanced back at Cleo with what looked like a question in her gaze.

"No matter what!" Cleo heard herself calling out to the girl. "Don't you forget!"

Aunt Daisy joined Cleo under the trees, an odd expression on her face. "We should go."

Their departure was interrupted by the young woman from the church. Her bright blue eyes burned as she held out a hand. "Are you Mrs. Harriman?"

Aunt Daisy experienced the same odd feeling of recognition—Cleo could see it in the way her gaze widened, her stance one of wary curiosity. "That's right."

The woman stepped forward as if to confront her, and Cleo's body went cold. Was this a German assassin? Did she mean to shoot the US minister here in front of all these people? But out of her jacket pocket, she removed only a piece of paper, dog-eared and damp, which she offered to Aunt Daisy. "My name is Sofia Kristiansen. I'm Petra's sister."

T he three of them sat at a table on the Grand Hotel's veranda, overlooking the harbor. Now that Cleo had the chance to study the elder Miss Kristiansen more closely, the resemblance to Petra was obvious. The sisters shared the same elegant bone structure with cheekbones like scythes and a gaze like tempered steel. They both had the same Nordic features and both spoke English fluently with the odd quirk of an American idiom thrown in. But where Petra had been all icy pragmatic intensity, her older sister was gruff and aggressive, her voice husky with stress and cigarettes. The idea that she was a doctor was both surprising and made perfect sense. She burned with coolheaded confidence.

"We tried to locate you when we reached Stockholm," Aunt Daisy explained. "We sent word to the clinic in Domb?s."

"I left Domb?s in April." Sofia ground out her cigarette before taking a moment to finger the lumpy envelope Daisy had handed her at the start of their meal. There was a smudge at one corner and a small tear along the flap. It had been folded and refolded, the creases black with dirt. "I felt I could be more use tending to our troops. I've not really had a permanent address since."

If Cleo closed her eyes, she could see Petra propped up on the pillows of the Petersons' sofa. She could smell the warm scents of vanilla, yeast, and hay that permeated the Petersons' farmhouse. She looked up to see Sofia's gaze upon her—not the cool brilliance of her sister's, but warmer, a golden-flecked aquamarine. The Mediterranean rather than the North Sea.

Cleo looked down to her plate, pushing the peas into small piles, forking the grilled fish to give the illusion of eating. Behind her, someone was talking rapidly in German, too low to make out the words but too loud for her to completely ignore. Was it the same men from the church? It was impossible to know without turning around. The hotel was awash in foreigners of all stripes, friends and enemies. They were seated at adjacent tables in the restaurants and bars, sharing elevators, waiting in line together at the telegraph office. Aunt Daisy claimed she found the constant swirl of people and conversation exhilarating and was preparing to move back from the relative isolation of their hotel in Saltsj?baden. Cleo found it unnerving and caught herself watching her back in ways she never had before.

Sofia tapped a new cigarette from her pack, leaning in to light it off the candle in the middle of the table. Her fingers were long but wiry with strength and stained with tobacco. "I have joined with a medical team headed north to be closer to the border. We'll be ready if we're needed."

"Ready for what?"

Sofia didn't answer, and Aunt Daisy didn't push, as if she already knew. As if she too was aware of the men behind them .

"Petra was furious with you for joining up," Cleo offered. "She didn't think you should risk yourself at the front."

Sofia ran a finger over the envelope's seal, her short nails bitten to the quick. Another difference between the sisters. Now that Cleo looked for them, they were easy to spot. "Petra was always the peacemaker. As a child, she would act as a buffer between me and our parents whenever we fought. She was the good daughter. She did what was expected. She never looked beyond the safe little life she'd built for herself."

"It didn't end up so safe, though, did it?" Cleo felt her anger rising on Petra's behalf.

"That is war." Sofia spread her hands palms up as if her sister's death had been an unavoidable sacrifice.

Cleo's face burned, and she fisted her fork in her hand. "Where were you when your grandmother was stranded in Bergen with no way to get home? Where were you when your parents were trapped in Narvik? Where were you when Petra was dying? It's all well and good to answer your country's call, but what about your family's? What about those you profess to love? If you're not fighting for them, who are you fighting for?"

Aunt Daisy put down her knife and fork, an embarrassed frown wrinkling her brow. Sofia didn't go so far as to blush, but she did look at Cleo with a considering expression, as if her words had pushed past Sofia's indifference to hit some part of her soft underbelly—if Sofia Kristiansen even had one. Cleo wasn't so sure.

"I'm sorry," Cleo said in a mortified rush, wishing she could take back her words. "You really must excuse me. I have a meeting I need to attend." It was the first excuse that came to her mind as she tossed down her napkin, leaving behind her uneaten dinner and a glass of wine she could really have used right now.

She heard Aunt Daisy making her apologies, Sofia brushing it off. Passing the table behind her, she glanced at the group of men she'd overheard earlier. Nothing about them stood out, but all of them gave her the creeps.

With no particular place to go, she wandered the streets around the hotel, crossing the Skeppsholmsbron, pausing halfway over the bridge to stare out across the water to the royal palace standing squat and square without a single fairytale turret or wedding cake adornment. Instead, it projected strength and permanence, a boulder in a stream, the current forever parting around it while it remained untouched.

It was late by the time she returned to the hotel, but Sofia Kristiansen was still there, leaning against a column at the bottom of the stairs smoking a cigarette. She ground it out under her boot heel and approached. Cleo unconsciously braced for a punch.

"I'm sorry for running out like that," she apologized again and almost meant it.

"There's nothing to forgive. You weren't wrong." Sofia motioned for Cleo to join her out of the rush of the lobby's traffic. The alcove she found was quiet, cushioned chairs circling an elegant cherry table. In her belted twill trousers and collared men's shirt, Sofia looked like one of the hotel staff on a smoke break. "I was wrong—for saying those things about Petra. It's as you said, I wasn't there when my family needed me." She shook her cigarette pack, but it was empty. She crumpled the light blue wrapper with its bulldog logo into a ball, only the p in Petter?e's still readable. Then, left without a crutch, she dropped her large bony hands between her trousered knees. "I decided my country needed me more."