‘I do not deny that my mother was once a Nazi, and that she worked for an inhumane regime whose ideology I deplore, but to me, she was never a Nazi; she was just my mother. And not many I know have a better or kinder mother, especially given all the problems she had after the war. We lived with my grandparents for three years before my mother got an underpaid job as a cleaner. I don’t know how many times I heard or saw people shout abuse at her on the street. And I, who was not even born in 1940, was eleven before I made a friend who was allowed to ask me home. Things did get better after that. Two friends came to my twelfth party, five to my thirteenth and nine to my fourteenth, but there was always a shadow that Mother could not shake off. When I was confirmed and my mother stood up alone in church, several of the parents booed.’
He shook his head in indignation – and continued to let off new steam and old hurt.
‘I swore that I would never allow myself to be broken, but instead would show everyone what I was made of. And I have succeeded. My success was Mother’s only triumph after the war. She was persecuted and struggled with various complexes for years. And when the worst of it was finally over, she got cancer, thanks no doubt to all the cigarettes: I grew up in a cloud of smoke.’
He looked at his cigarette with sudden disgust and stubbed it out aggressively in the ashtray on his desk.
‘I keep trying to stop, but it’s not that easy… You must excuse us if we seem a little nervous at the moment – it has been a difficult winter. Just as things were starting to settle after my mother’s funeral and the christening of our boy, this murder happens. Mother fought bravely to the end, but was unlucky. Her last wish was that she would live long enough to see and hold her first grandchild. She lived four weeks longer than the doctor said she would, but our baby was born too late – by only three days. It has been an extremely demanding and painful time.’
I found all this very interesting and wanted to deal with some more details about Kristian Lund’s situation, which was without doubt not easy.
‘Do your parents-in-law know about your mother’s history?’
Kristian’s laughter was as unexpected as it was short and bitter.
‘I dreaded telling them for a long time, but it was not a problem – and there was no reason for it to be. My father-in-law is worth over four million and earned at least three- quarters of that trading with the occupying forces during the war. His companies broke all records in terms of turnover and profit. But do you think he was sentenced or abused by anyone after the war? Oh no, no one dared to reproach a factory owner from Bærum. A single mother from Drammen, on the other hand, was fair game for anyone. It is a shameful story. But I still do not see what my mother’s sad fate has to do with the murder of my neighbour.’