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his dress suit, his left arm around his new wife and a cigarette in his right hand, Ilsa half expected him to walk in the door any minute, fresh from a meeting with the King; it was impossible to believe that she would never see him again.
    Ilsa Lund had been born in Oslo on August 29,1915, just ten years after Norway won independence from Sweden; Oslo was still called Christiania then. Ilsa's father, Edvard Lund, had been a member of parliament, the Storting, which had rejected the Swedish monarch, Oscar II, and established the modern Norwegian state. "To those who question the depth of our desire," he had said in a fiery speech, "I reply: We are ready to prove it with the sacrifice of our lives and our homes— but never of our honor." Ilsa's father was quickly elevated to the cabinet and there he remained until April 1940, when the Nazis appropriated Norway in the name of the Greater German Reich.
    Inghild had been able to take along only a few be longings when she was spirited to London along with the King and the government-in-exile. Ilsa recognized them at once. A lace tablecloth that used to cover a heavy wooden table with thick carved legs, under which she liked to hide as a child. Some silverware. A few Persian rugs, one of which still bore the stains of a glass of milk she had thrown so long ago in a childish tantrum. A small wall clock that had been in her moth er's family for generations. It ticked softly in a corner, every passing second a bitter reminder of the calamity that had befallen their homeland.
    No, that was no way to think, Ilsa told herself. Every tick was one moment closer to liberation and freedom for them all. Whatever role she could play in that liber ation, she was ready.
    Inghild had been preparing some tea for herself, but now she added more water and left it to steep in the pot, to serve later. She produced some cookies, as mothers always will, and some schnapps, which mothers sometimes will.
    "I've been beside myself with worry about you," Inghild told her daughter, her voice alive with relief and delight "After the fall of France your letters sud denly stopped. The Underground were able to tell me you were alive, but little else. Over the next year or so, I got a few of your letters, smuggled in. From our agents, I knew you were in occupied France, but I didn't know where. When I learned that you were headed to Casablanca, I could not ask why, but at least I could do something about it." She laughed. "And now here you are! How I wish your father could see you."
    "So it was you who suggested I contact Berger!" exclaimed Ilsa. In this moment of exultation, she didn't want to think about her father; they would mourn him together later—after she had avenged him. "I might have known my mother would still be watching over me."
    "Yes, mydear," said Inghild. "I may be only one lone woman, but I can still fight for my country—and for my child. Each week I receive briefings from the King's new minister of defense. The government, it seems, values my advice, although for the life of me I don't know why."
    Ilsa took her mother's still-youthful hand, the hand she remembered so well from her childhood. "You know why, Mother," she said. "You and Father were always equal partners. He called you his other self, and he trusted you like none other. Everything he knew you knew, and our country was immeasurably the better for it."
    Inghild's eyes clouded at the memory of Edvard Lund, but she shook it off, unwilling to let it intrude on her happiness. "The Defense Minister told me that Berger might possibly be able to produce a laissez- passer or letter of transit to get you out of Morocco, so I sent word for you to meet him in a cafe. I forget what it was called."
    "Rick's Caf é Am é ricain," said Ilsa. "In Casablanca, sooner or later, everybody comes to Rick's."
    "Yes," said her mother. "I am so happy that Berger was able to get you safely out of Casablanca. Ole was a good boy, but always so skittish. Who