I immediately felt more at home here than at Schelderup Hall. Petter Johannes Wendelboe opened the door himself and showed me into the living room. Having seated me in a comfortable chair by the dining table, he then said he would go and get his wife. I said that some of my questions were about the war and that we perhaps need not disturb her. He nodded and promptly sat down on the chair opposite me.
‘That is very considerate of you. This tragic event has brought up many old memories that are still very hard for my wife to bear,’ he told me.
I glanced quickly around the room. It was far more lived-in than the drawing room at Schelderup Hall. This was partly because the room was smaller. There were only eight chairs around the dining table. However, the main difference was all the family pictures on the wall. It is true that Wendelboe was not smiling in any of them but, photographed in shorts with his daughter and two grandchildren eating ice cream, he could be taken for a grandfather like all others. The sense of gravity was always there. The largest picture on the wall was an old black-and-white photograph of the couple in younger days, together with Ole Kristian Wiig. Mrs Wendelboe had one arm around her husband and one around her brother, but she was leaning most towards her brother.
He followed my gaze and cleared his throat.
‘My wife is a kind-hearted good woman and she was exceptionally close to her brother. It was a great loss to her that touched her life deeply.’
It struck me that this loss had also greatly affected Wendelboe’s life, but that he perhaps would rather die than admit it.
My initial questions about the recent events were quickly answered. He had heard about the young Leonard Schelderup’s death on the radio. It made the situation even more tragic and had been yet another blow for his wife. Neither Wendelboe nor his wife could claim to know Leonard Schelderup well, but they had seen him regularly since he was a child during the war.
‘We have talked about it many times. He was obviously a very talented young man, but quite unlike his father,’ he observed.
‘That nearly sounds like a compliment,’ I ventured.
Wendelboe tightened his lips.
‘Well, yes and no. They were, more than anything, incredibly different. Magdalon was a remarkably strong and successful man, but also a remarkably ruthless man. For a long time we have thought that his son seemed to be kinder, but also weaker.’
