my dear sister - norway

my dearest sister
december ; 1941

Norway burrows futher under the bedsheets, the third blanket wrapped tightly around him. His house is drafty, and the traffic outside has stilled; curfew is imposed heavily on the citizens of Oslo, nobody is out at this time. Only the seagulls in the distance reveal that there is indeed a world outside his closed window.
It's almost Christmas.
He'd been sitting all evening, writing by candlelight (who has money for a luxury like electric lights these days?), his back bent under his coat. He started wearing outdoor clothes inside in November, when the biting-cold fog almost took his fingers off and frostbite left white patches under his eyes and across his lips as he sat for hours on end in the silent forests, waiting for the boys to return.
It's not good to think of them, now. They have all been imprisoned and shot.
Instead, Norway thinks of his letters. One for the King, surely it will not reach him, but he is allowed to hope. One for Sweden, full of spite, bitter words spat onto the page that he crumpled and tossed into the fire afterwards. No good.
One for her.
It's almost Christmas.
He wonders if she is thinking of him.
'Dear Dan,' he began. His handwriting was always sloppy, but with the cold sending trembles through his wretched body it was almost unintelligible. He hoped, if some officer were to read this letter, they would not know who the mysterious Dan was.
'Happy Christmas. I'm sending this with the boys across the border during the holidays. Maybe the security will be less tight, our friends in black less suspicious. I'll still be working.'
Work, work, work, to the bone. Nothing better to do. They'd threatened to stick him in a labour camp, or prison, or send him south, to Poland maybe, if he did not watch his back. But so far, Norway walked a free man.
'I got my SSU badge. It's a good club. I assume you would join, if you were here. The fight is not yet over. Hold out. I shall see you soon.'
It's no good writing trivialities. His heart yearns and aches to go south, board a boat. Yes, he could do it, if-
Norway was never one to abandon his people.
He will stay.
'All my love goes to you, all-dearest sister.'
A reference to the old fairytale. When the rose bush dwindles, I have surely died. When the lion falls to its knees, you and I shall fade away.
'Yours,
Kongeriket Norge.'