Part 25 (1/2)

Later, in bed, Fraser studied the glossy brochure. Rdal was on the final day. Intervening visits were less alluring, though this was perhaps unfair: had his interests not been so obsessively botanical, there was much of promise, including a visit to Edvard Grieg's house, complete with special piano recital; and a trip to the ”magnificent island home” of another nineteenth century composer he had never heard of, le Bull, described as Hardangerfjord's ”best kept secret.”

He must have dozed, for he was awoken from a fearful dream which had seemed to be happening outside the window, as if something were scrabbling at the pane. It felt sufficiently disquieting and real for him to get up and check. Drawing back the curtains from the half-open window, he was startled by a fluttering commotion: a large bird, a raven maybe, flapped up into his face, its beady eyes glinting in the moonlight. He recoiled in loathing. It was some time before he could catch sleep again.

Next day began with a tour of Bergen, the most interesting feature being the Mariakirken, with a fine medieval triptych and a set of exquisitely carved wooden statues of Christ and his disciples. There was John, the only beardless one, denoting youth and not, as crackpot theorists claimed, Mary Magdalene. A model of a wooden sailing s.h.i.+p hung suspended above the nave, a routine feature of Norwegian churches, indicative of the country's intimate connection with the sea; as were sarcophagi shaped like upturned boats. In the Museum of Modern Art they joined the gaping crowds before The Scream, Edvard Munch's dreadful paean to human angst.

The highlight of the day, however, was Grieg's villa, a few miles out of town. The great composer had chosen his domain well: the elegant wood-framed house was set in s.p.a.cious grounds, with stunning views to the hills and across Lake Nords. Everywhere there were trees. Inge was gathering them outside, like a fussing mother hen.

”Shortly, we are going into Grieg's fine house, to hear his piano played. He lived here for twenty-two years with his wife, Nina. It was Nina who named the house Troldhaugen, the Troll Hill, for it is up here in the mountains that the trolls lived, where the ashes of Grieg and his wife now lie in the cliff above the fjord. You have heard Peer Gynt, which, of course, is about Norway's legends? Peer, you know, is taken by troll maiden to the Hall of the Mountain King, where there is an orgy and, then, these troll girls, they want to kill him, for he is a Christian, but he is being too clever, and so escapes the terrible trolls.”

”There's no end to them!” whispered Eloise.

”I think we've got one conducting the tour,” he remarked, too loudly.

The guide paused, thinking Fraser was asking a question, then proceeded, ”Grieg's grandfather, he came from Aberdeen in Scotland. And so, there are many saying his music is very Scottish, but it is the Norwegian inspiration really, all the hills and the forests. Many Scots they are descended of the Vikings, from when Norway was powerful. Nowadays, we are a peace loving people.”

The cruise around Hardangerfjord proved more rewarding than expected. At Bakke there were Bronze Age carvings, depicting fertility rites, the rocks hollowed out to catch the blood of sacrifice. At Eidfjord was Norway's largest Viking graveyard, and a fourteenth century church built by one Ragna Asulfdatter to atone, so legend told, for the slitting of her husband's throat. At Espevaer they visited the Baadehuset, a stately residence of 1810, said to be haunted by the ghost of its creator, a conscience-stricken naval captain. Best was le Bull's eccentric retreat on the wooded islet of Lysen. The flamboyant, blue and white wooden villa, with its ornate fretwork and onion dome, was according to their ever-cheery guide the scene, on Bull's death, of the most magnificent funeral ever witnessed in Norway. It was, nevertheless, with the satisfaction of reaching a long-awaited goal that they arrived, finally, at Rdal.

As they waited in the fine morning rain to be taken to the Barony, Eloise was like a racehorse stamping at the starting tape, keen to find her wartime witness.

”What are you going to say?” Fraser asked. ”People are funny about the War, you know, here on the continent. It's not like in Britain-all those jolly memories of the Blitz! . . . What did you say this bloke's name was?”

”I didn't. But it's Jonas Nielsen . . . Must be well into his eighties.'”

”The family's still here then?”

”The von Merkens?” Eloise gave him a thoughtful look. ”No, no, not anymore. Anders disappeared after the War. No-one ever found out what happened to him. The Barony pa.s.sed to a distant member of the family in Denmark-an absentee landlord, a playboy. A hideout for his mistresses, basically! After that, it's the usual story. It fell into disuse, conservationists got going about national heritage, the government stepped in, and now it's run jointly with the University of Oslo. Everyone who lived and worked on the estate had the option to stay including, presumably, Nielsen.”

The party was chauffeured up to the Barony through rolling park-land by minibus. The house stood in brilliant formal gardens; built of stone, painted white, with grey-tiled roof and mullioned windows; plain, una.s.suming, functional, yet with an elegant solemnity. It spoke of tradition, stability, of all that was fine and ordered, of continental gravitas; and, whilst calling to mind a baronial house of Scotland, was quintessentially Scandinavian. A park and lake stretched beyond, enclosed by woods. A stark mountain skyline completed the view. Fraser could hardly wait to explore.

First, however, there would be the conducted tour of the house. This he would have been happy to miss; they only had a few hours, and the last thing he felt like was listening to any more babble from the guide.

”It'll probably only take half an hour,” Eloise protested. ”Then you can wander round, and I'll see if I can find Nielsen.”

The tour lengthened beyond the half hour, beyond three-quarters, beyond an hour. Thankfully, it was not conducted by Inge, who grinned and nodded throughout like a toyshop doll, but by an attractive young woman in her twenties, with brown, intelligent eyes and long blond hair, Solvejg, a heritage student from Oslo University.

”Keep your eyes off, she's too young for you!” Eloise cautioned, as Fraser smilingly signalled approval of their new chaperone.

Solvejg spoke with an American tw.a.n.g, blending curiously with the Norwegian vowels. Though her command of English was occasionally eccentric, she gave a professional account of herself, and was remarkably knowledgeable, even when asked questions.

Except in one respect: her detailed history of Rdal's owners, delivered outside in the courtyard, skated hazily over the War, leaving unmentioned its last and most controversial master; though the family's earlier tenure was lengthily described, and much made of the rakish playboy and the conservation story. All attempts by the inquisitive Eloise to coax her were politely sidestepped behind a bland public relations smile; and by this process of attrition, as the party became increasingly impatient, not helped by Eloise's insistent donnish manner, the matter dropped.

”Well, what do you expect?” he whispered. ”Going on like an intellectual. People hate that! And I told you, continentals don't like the War!”

Rdal dated from 1665 and was granted the status of barony, the only one in Norway, by King Christian V in 1675. The house itself was extensively rebuilt in 1745 following a terrible fire, attributed by local lore to an ill-advised marriage. The gardens and park were laid out in the 1840s, amidst inhospitable wilderness. The first owner, Ludwig von Merkens, scion of a Danish aristocratic family, had been awarded Rdal for ridding the area of brigands, a.s.sociated with an ill-reputed n.o.bleman of Swedish ancestry, ousted amidst great bloodshed in 1664. The name of this renegade was Cornelius Lindhorst, descendant of a family going back centuries, linked with all sorts of primitive superst.i.tion and atrocious violence. Here their young chaperone had lapsed into a dramatic manner worthy of the garden gnome.

”In the twelfth century, they say, one of Lindhorst's most evil ancestors lived here in an old castle, which was destroyed. His name was Bjorn, which means the bear. Bjorn, well, he was berserkr. You know, a man of unnatural strength and diabolical fury? And so you have in English ”going berserk?” Well, it is said, he was often changing form. Sometimes appearing as an awful bear, or a wolverine, sometimes as a running dog, or a wolf, or a b.l.o.o.d.y snarling fox, sometimes as a cruel bird with terrible beak, or a bat, or even, they say, a spider or bloodsucker insect-for always he is sucking the blood-and that the form you see him in, well, it is the form you most fear in the creatures.

”Of course, what we are remembering, actually, is a very b.l.o.o.d.y landlord who killed and tortured his people. And so, they translate this into superst.i.tion and tales of horror. For, these berserkrs, they clothed themselves in the hides of bears, and so you have your horrid legends! But, perhaps, in olden days they really believed? As you see, the windows of this house, they have gla.s.s that you cannot see through, only the light. Well, that was to keep out the wild beasts, the monsters, who they hoped are not existing if they do not see them!”

Solvejg was now leading them upstairs to a long corridor lit by stained gla.s.s windows, where family portraits were displayed. Portraits were not an art form Fraser appreciated; they seemed to speak more of the vanity and egotism of the subjects than the talent of the artists. The a.s.sembled sombre visages of the von Merkens, sternly looking down from the huge gilt frames in dour Lutheran self-righteousness, did not break the mould; though, if Solvejg was to be believed, some were masterpieces by esteemed Norwegian artists whose grandeur, alas, had thus far been overlooked by the outside world. They were disconcertingly numerous and the meticulous guide was determined to say something about each in turn, working her way along from the founder, Ludwig. She paused before the picture of an effete, overweight youth in a feathered cap.

”And so, here we have a ghost story! Like in all your country houses!” She put on a hushed voice. ”Well, the ghost of Augustus von Merkens, who you see here, who died of a consumption, it is said he walks at midnight . . . but he never pa.s.ses the turning to the stairs . . . and, you know why? . . . Well, look!”

Heads turned in unison towards a portrait at the top of the stairs: it depicted a grim, humourless, middle-aged woman.

”Well, you know who we have here? . . . It is, of course, Birgitta Lindhorst, his wife's mother . . . And so, he is too frightened to go past the mother-in-law, and so, he goes back to bed!” The party laughed uproariously.

”I thought these Nordic folk were supposed to be liberated!” whispered Fraser.

”A concession, I would think, to the plebeian sense of humour! . . . They're a lot more liberated actually!”

”So I've heard!” he said, grinning.

”I've told you! She's too young for you!”

Relentlessly enthusiastic, Solvejg reached, finally, a portrait of a red-haired woman of uncertain age. An oddity about her face, with its high cheek bones and prognathous jaw, crimson lips half-smiling, was that it just stopped short of being ugly, yet resulting in a striking, if somewhat sinister, beauty. Her prominent grey eyes appeared to scrutinise the viewer with rapacious curiosity. Her cheeks and brow were pale, as if the paint were fading, her throat long and white. Furs draped her broad shoulders. Her garments were voluminous, the shade of ruby wine. The painting seemed to occupy more s.p.a.ce than necessary, as if positioned where once two had hung.

”And here,” declared the guide, ”we have the last of the line, Sophia von Merkens, who died in 1945. A very beautiful woman, who tempted men to their fates. It was said of her that even when she was coming as an angel, she was walking as a demon!”

”Aha!” laughed Fraser, ”Very liberated! A femme fatale!”

”It's a form of empowerment!” hissed Eloise.

The guide was elaborating on Sophia's dubious charms. ”She was a Swede,” she concluded, as if that explained many things.

”What about Anders von Merkens?” interrupted Eloise, somewhat haughtily. ”He was here in the War? . . . That makes him last of the line, surely? . . . I'm talking about her husband.”

”Ah, yes!” The guide put on her professional smile. ”She was married to Anders, her cousin, the Baron. His portrait, it is being restored in Oslo.”

”Leave it!” whispered Fraser, nudging her. ”Don't start accusing the Norwegians of war crimes! That'll go down really well!”

Their companions, mostly elderly Americans, were regarding her impatiently, anxious to terminate the interminable tour. Eloise made to speak, then stopped. Solvejg's smile remained impregnable.

”So, our tour, it is over. The upstairs rooms are private offices for the university. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Now we are going down to the restaurant for a cup of coffee. And, perhaps, a delicious cake of Norway?'

”Funny, that,” said Fraser, as they sat down with their espressos. ”The name, I mean. Lindhorst?”

Eloise eyed him quizzically. ”What?”

”Well, here's an ancient rogue, banished in the seventeenth century by the family, and then the name comes back through intermarriage?”

”Yes,” replied Eloise, looking somewhat nonplussed. ”But you know how it is with names! How many MacDonalds are there in Scotland?”

”Too many!”

They both laughed.

Eloise looked serious for a moment, as if to say something, then drained her cup. ”I must find the curator, or whoever's in charge. See if they can direct me to our friend. Finish your coffee.”

The minutes lengthened.