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porch. I want to smoke.”
    Harald stood up. “The old man won’t like that.”
    â€œI’m twenty-eight,” Arne said. “I’m too old to be told what to do by my father.”
    â€œI agree—but does he?”
    â€œAre you afraid of him?”
    â€œOf course. So is Mother, and just about every other person on this island—even you.”
    Arne grinned. “All right, maybe just a little bit.”
    They stood outside the church door, sheltered from the rain by a little porch. On the far side of a patch of sandy ground they could see the dark shape of the parsonage. Light shone through the diamond-shaped window set into the kitchen door. Arne took out his cigarettes.
    â€œHave you heard from Hermia?” Harald asked him. Arne was engaged to an English girl whom he had not seen for more than a year, since the Germans had occupied Denmark.
    Arne shook his head. “I tried to write to her. I found an address for the British Consulate in Gothenburg.” Danes were allowed to send letters to Sweden, which was neutral. “I addressed it to her at that house, not mentioning the consulate on the envelope. I thought I’d been quite clever, but the censors aren’t so easily fooled. My commanding officer brought the letter back to me and said that if I ever tried anything like that again I’d be court-martialed.”
    Harald liked Hermia. Some of Arne’s girlfriends had been, well, dumb blondes, but Hermia had brains and guts. She was a little scary on first acquaintance, with her dramatic dark looks and her direct manner of speech; but she had endeared herself to Harald by treating him like a man, not just someone’s kid brother. And she was sensationally voluptuous in a swimsuit. “Do you still want to marry her?”
    â€œGod, yes—if she’s alive. She might have been killed by a bomb in London.”
    â€œIt must be hard, not knowing.”
    Arne nodded, then said, “How about you? Any action?”
    Harald shrugged. “Girls my age aren’t interested in schoolboys.” He said it lightly, but he was hiding real resentment. He had suffered a couple of wounding rejections.
    â€œI suppose they want to date a guy who can spend some money on them.”
    â€œExactly. And younger girls . . . I met a girl at Easter, Birgit Claussen.”
    â€œClaussen? The boatbuilding family in Morlunde?”
    â€œYes. She’s pretty, but she’s only sixteen, and she was so boring to talk to.”
    â€œIt’s just as well. The family are Catholics. The old man wouldn’t approve.”
    â€œI know.” Harald frowned. “He’s strange, though. At Easter he preached about tolerance.”
    â€œHe’s about as tolerant as Vlad the Impaler.” Arne threw away the stub of his cigarette. “Let’s go and talk to the old tyrant.”
    â€œBefore we go in . . .”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHow are things in the army?”
    â€œGrim. We can’t defend our country, and most of the time I’m not allowed to fly.”
    â€œHow long can this go on?”
    â€œWho knows? Maybe forever. The Nazis have won everything. There’s no opposition left but the British, and they’re hanging on by a thread.”
    Harald lowered his voice, although there was no one to listen. “Surely someone in Copenhagen must be starting a Resistance movement?”
    Arne shrugged. “If they were, and I knew about it, I couldn’t tell you, could I?” Then, before Harald could say more, Arne dashed through the rain toward the light shining from the kitchen.

Hermia Mount looked with dismay at her lunch—two charred sausages, a dollop of runny mashed potato, and a mound of overcooked cabbage—and she thought with longing of a bar on the Copenhagen waterfront that served three kinds of herring with salad, pickles, warm bread, and lager beer.
    She had been brought up in