I don't know about you, but sometimes things just don't work out for me :)
So I'm stopping my writing now and then, not that I haven't ideas, just that another one sucks me in.
And I was really, really planning to write on those other stories I have, not here. But then this dumb muse knocked on the door again and my two braincells started to fight.

But it smells delicious to my, ah, refined (?) taste :)

So, you want a story?

Well, I’ll give you one. It was in the winter forty four, yes, the war was still on and I was one of the war refugees staying in Sweden .

You could say that life smiled upon me, I had escaped the Germans and the war, to come to peace and neutrality. But there were spies, everywhere there were spies, Russian spies, German spies, Allied spies, you name it, all of them doing their worst to find out what the others was planning. Myself I had nothing to do but survive, no friends to bother me and no relatives, I was the one getting out alive and somehow I didn’t care anymore. I had gotten a cheap room through the Swedish police, and with it a job washing dishes, but for all appearances I was only a walking machine when it happened.

As I came home in the evening a nondescript man stood outside the port.

“Excuse me Sir, I’m searching for Knut Hamstadt.”

Listening I noticed that he had a slight lisp. But it didn't make him sound effeminate. Rather the reverse, for in his struggle to pronounce those r's his speech got an added emphasis.

“That’s me?”

“Would you have a moment over Sir, on a confidential matter?”

I looked at him, he was so nondescript that I felt as if I turned around I would forget that he even was there. There have to be some trick of the trade to it, or else there are people that are born that way. All dressed in grey and black with a blue tie as the only real colour on him he stood there, approximately my size. With a neutral withdrawn expression on his face hidden under the brim of his hat he reminded me most of some sort of clerk perhaps, out for a late meal.

“Come in.” I said opening the door.

Don’t really know why I did it. Letting in unknown men to my inner sanctum wasn’t what I usually did at this time of night, but this time I felt somehow compelled. As I let him in he thanked me politely and then turned to take of his chesterfield and slouch hat letting a plethora of golden red hair fall down. Suddenly I understood why I had let him in. Turning to me in the weak light from my single lamp she was breathtakingly beautiful.

“You’re a girl.” I said surprised.

“And you’re a boy.” She answered, her smile slightly crooked and the lisp suddenly gone. “Won’t you offer a girl a drink?”

As I went to get the Aquavit and two passably clean mugs I looked her over again. She was suddenly shining with vitality, as if the man I had thought her to be had disappeared into smoke. It had to be one of the best magician tricks I’ve ever seen, I shook my head in wonder as I poured her a small one. Putting it in front of her I looked at her and said.

“Bottoms up dear.” Trying to break her composure and wanting to se if she would flounder.

She just smiled back, as composed as an ice cube, her green eyes steadily studying me.

“As long as I’m on top.” She answered, making me flush a little.

So much for that little game I thought as we swept our drinks.

“So what do you want?” I asked a little brusquely. “I was planning to go to bed.”

“Don’t let me stop you.” she answered neutrally as she looked around on what few possessions I had.

‘Damn her’ I thought as I did just that.

Her composure was starting to get to me.

As I went into the loo to change into my bathrobe I could hear her walk up to the portrait of my wife. She had been Jewish and one of those the Nazis had wanted to deport. Our King had refused of course, but what could he do? We were an occupied country. With the help of the resistance we had gotten smuggled out through Lapland in the middle of the winter. The winter up there is hard, down to forty degrees Celcius and it had been very hard on her, but it wasn’t any sickness that had killed her, well, if you don’t count ten bullets from a MP38 schmeiser assault gun as an illness, leaving a jagged stitching from her groin to her heart pouring out her life. She had been the one thing that had held me together, and with her death my whole life had fallen apart.

Of course I had killed them, theirs were a four man patrol over watching the border, and as they came to check on the corpses I was waiting for them, hidden under the snow with only the barrels of my dead partisans two Sten gun’s sticking out, covered by a thin layer of white cloth. I have to admit that I went a little insane there. I tried my damnedest to leave the exact same zigzag pattern on them as they had left on my wife, with one little exception, I also left them sucking on their own privates.

I don’t know why I did that, perhaps I wanted the next patrol to worry a little more, perhaps, I just don’t know, as I say I was losing it there. Don’t ever let someone tell you that war will make a man out of you, at best you will only barely succeed to hang on to what decency you had in you at peace, at worst you will become as I was at that time, an animal out for revenge. I don’t know how or why I survived that night. When some rein herders found me three days later I had already lost two toes, and it was touch and go if my left hand fingers would make it. But slowly they nursed me back to health and sanity. And so, at long time last, I now found myself here, in a cold and snowy Stockholm with a strange girl in a cheap room and nowhere to go, no future to speak of.

“You know that they are searching for you.” I heard say her from the room.

“Are they.” I said coolly, not really caring as I went back in. ‘If they found me that would only be one problem less.’

She seemed to understand somehow as she stood there, still looking at my one photo of Agnes. “She was a very pretty lady.” She said in a soft voice.

I just looked at her as I went to my bed, pulling away the cover to get under the linen.

“I’m going to sleep now.” I said, looking at her. “I don’t know about you.”

Suddenly she smiled. She started to undress, taking it slow and natural as if we were old friends. When she only had her slip left she went over to me asking me.

“Move over.”

She was unflappable that girl, and by now she had got under my skin. I reluctantly moved over, feeling her slide under the sheet.

“I have work for you.” She said.

“I?”

“Oh, let’s talk about that tomorrow.” She said as she turned to look at me. “Now I just want to be held, do you think you could do that for me Knut.”

I hadn’t felt the slightest interest in girls since that fateful evening, and I didn’t feel anything now either. But she was soft and warm, and the nights were cold. So I held her, smelling the sweet clean smell of her as I slowly drifted asleep.

As I woke up the next morning I directly realized that I had overslept. As I tried to get up I realized that someone had wrapped an arm around my chest. It was the girl from last night. As I tried to untangle myself from her she mumbled something and just took a stronger hold of me. ‘What the hell.’ I thought. ‘I’ll just have to call them and say that I’m sick.’. The work had been good to me, it had forced me to go out and made me pay some attention to people around me. I felt a certain obligation towards them. As I laid back she slowly opened those green eyes looking at me.

“Changed your mind?” she asked a little sleepily.

“Yes, I still don’t know what you want.” I answered.

“Oh, what do any girl want, in the arms of her lover.” She joked.

I froze and she must have felt it. “I’m sorry, I know we’re not lovers.” She said apologetically as she looked me in my eyes. “It was a bad joke.”

“Yes.” I muttered looking at the photo in its plain frame that I had bought the first thing I did when coming here. “A real bad joke Ms?”

“Andrea.” She answered. “You can call me Andy.”

I stared at her, ‘Andy, what the hell is that for a name.’

She smiled at me again. “Don’t worry Knut, it will work out.”

“Look, I got to go to the bathroom Andy.” I said as I got up from the bed looking down at her, somehow happy that there was someone else than me there.

“I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

As we sat down at the rickety table to drink the tea she looked around.

“No milk?”

“Sorry, let me run down and see.” I answered.

I found a bottle waiting for me and as I came up with it she still sat there, only dressed in her slip.

“Here you go.” I said.

As we drank our tea we chitchatted about all kind of things. I didn’t know how she did it but somehow she made me start to talk with her. And slowly I told her about our escape and what had happened, I couldn’t tell her about what I had done to them though, but I knew that she already had to know about that as she had told me that they still were looking for me. The boarder between Norway and Sweden was quite civil compared to the Finnish Russian one and the type of atrocity I had done was fairly unheard of. As I stopped she looked at me shaking her head.

“I’m sorry Knut, I wish it hadn’t happened, but it did. Sometimes the best you can do is to just look forward.”

I studied her, under the pale morning light she still looked amazingly beautiful. First I had thought she had used a lot of makeup, but as I looked I realized that except a little lipstick she was all natural.

“Do you like what you’re looking at?”

“You look good.” I admitted grudgingly. “And I wish it hadn’t happened either Andy. But it did, didn’t it? So, what is your proposition?”

“One step at a time.” She said softly. “Let’s see if we can work together first.”

“Well, I need to call my work and tell them I’m sick.”

“No you don’t, you quit it yesterday Knut. It’s all taken care of.”

So? She had to be connected to the Swedish Police somehow, or their internal security bureau IB more probably.

“I did?”

“Oh yes, look here.” She went over to her handbag from where she lifted up a big brown envelope. As she gave it to me I opened the flap and emptied its contents on the table. Looking down at the table I saw three passports. One Swedish, one Norwegian and one Canadian. I stared at them.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Your new passports.”

As I opened them I saw myself in all three, but under different names. They seemed as real as any other passport I had seen. As I knew the Norwegian best I looked at that first. It was under the name of Kjell Bergholst and seemed absolutely authentic, except that the photo was mine. The others seemed just as good.

“Why do I need three passports?” I asked.

“The Swedish is real, if you accept to work with us you will have a new real identity here in Sweden. The other two are fakes, but very good fakes. It will take an expert to suspect anything, the paper and waterstamps, everything is as real as an original and as you see they all are a little thumbed and used. They will pass everywhere Knut.”
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