The tears were streaming down her cheeks now and I did not know what to do to stop them. I waited for a couple of minutes and then pointed tentatively to the other picture. It was a more recent photograph of an easily recognizable older woman and four dressed-up children sitting on the floor smiling, in front of a Christmas tree and a pile of presents.
‘Anton’s life went to pieces after the war, and with it so did mine and our family life. And in last few years the fight has only got harder. He struggled to do his work, and every kroner he could get his hands on went on cigarettes and booze. Christmas and New Year have always been the highlight of the year, as all our children and grandchildren come here, and out of consideration to them he managed to stay relatively sober for those few days. But last autumn, I was at my wits’ end. We owed money and I had no more friends I could ask for a loan. I desperately needed eighty kroner to pay off the most urgent creditors before Christmas and a hundred more for the Christmas presents and food. I had no idea how I was going to get hold of even fifty kroner. I had nothing left of any value that could be pawned. And then, like a miracle, Kristian stood right here and gave me four fifty-kroner notes. So I swallowed my pride and accepted it. It felt terrible to peddle lies for Christmas and I cried myself to sleep more than once. But then the grandchildren could celebrate Anton’s last Christmas with him, with better food and bigger presents than ever before. And I comforted myself with the thought that people had accepted hush money for worse reasons.’
I looked at the picture of the caretaker’s wife with her grandchildren and realized that it was true that many other people would certainly have accepted dirtier money for far more dubious reasons than that. So I told her the truth – that on a personal level it was very easy to understand and that we could no doubt overlook the legal implications, as long as it was simply a matter of amending an oral statement. And on the condition that we now and in the future were told the truth and nothing but the truth. The caretaker’s wife was mightily relieved and crossed her heart and promised to do so.
‘The fact that your husband was active in the Resistance during the war is new to me. Was he in contact with Harald Olesen at the time, do you know?’
The caretaker’s wife beamed at the thought of the old days and gave me a proud smile before continuing.
‘But of course I know. It was in fact Harald Olesen who asked my husband to join. I can still remember them shaking hands on it, at the kitchen table right here. I helped a bit myself later on. On several occasions we hid refugees in the cellar, until Olesen found a way to get them over the border to Sweden. Anton was just one of many helpers at the time. Harald Olesen was always on the go and managed to build up a big network between here and the border. I have often thought that he must have been a remarkably strong man to not only have coped with all that responsibility during the war, but also to have managed to live with the memories of everything he had experienced.’