by Lynn Austin
A cold rain began to drizzle, and Miriam walked faster, hugging her bag to her chest. Inside were two warm sweaters and a pair of wool trousers, gifts from Mrs. Huizenga’s own wardrobe after she’d learned how few clothes Miriam and Abba had brought from Germany. “Winter is coming, Miriam. Take these,” she’d insisted. “Leiden can be frigid.” The professor’s wife had been helping her and Abba get settled, inviting Miriam to lunch every week so she could practice her Dutch.
Ans had become a good friend as well, ready to help Miriam with anything she needed. “I’ll take you shopping, if you’d like,” she’d offered. “It’ll be fun! I know where all the best shops are. And you can get some bargains on market day.” Mrs. Huizenga was friendly, but in a more distant way than Ans—perhaps because she didn’t speak German.
Miriam checked her mailbox before unlocking the door to her apartment building, hoping for a letter from Avi. The box was empty. Maybe the mailman hadn’t come yet. She climbed the steep, narrow stairs to her second-floor apartment, brushing icy raindrops from her coat, shaking them off her hat. This apartment was a place to live, but it wasn’t quite home yet. She and Abba lived here like two incomplete souls, missing the other halves of themselves, missing the people they loved.
Ans and Mrs. Huizenga had helped her and Abba rent this apartment, then had taken her shopping for the other essentials necessary to start a household. The front room had two comfortable chairs and a sofa, lacy curtains at the windows, and a radio they could listen to at night. The kitchen had a sink, two small gas burners and an oven, and a table that Abba used as a desk, writing endless letters, desperate to rescue their family in Cologne. Now that Germany was at war, their loved ones’ futures were more uncertain than they’d ever been. Abba had given Miriam the larger bedroom so she would have room to practice her violin. And they had a modern bathroom for Mother. If she ever made it out of Germany, she would find it comfortable here.
“We’ll be fine,” Abba had assured Miriam on the first night they’d lived here. “The Netherlands is at peace. Once our family is together again, everything will be fine, you’ll see.” But as they’d listened to the German news channel each night and heard the Führer’s manic rants, Miriam didn’t see how anything could ever be fine again.
The unpleasant smell of her wet wool coat filled the room as it dried. Miriam didn’t know quite what to do with herself while she waited for the mailman. It hadn’t taken long to put away the new clothes Mrs. Huizenga had given her. She’d practiced her violin all morning and was bored with that. Abba would be teaching at the university all day. With nothing else to do, she decided to write another letter to Avi rather than wait for one from him. She was worried he would need warm winter clothing in the refugee camp, and asked if he wanted her to send some.
At last Miriam saw the mailman coming up the street and hurried downstairs to the mailbox to give him her letter. “Sorry, nothing for you today,” he said when he saw her waiting. Abba would be disappointed too. There had been no mail at all from Germany since the war began two months ago. But there was a letter for her widowed landlady, Mrs. Spielman, who lived in the apartment below theirs and wasn’t able to get out much because of her rheumatism. Miriam knocked on her door.
“Mrs. Spielman? It’s Miriam, from upstairs. You got a letter. I thought I’d save you the trouble of going outside in the cold.” A moment later, the door opened.
“Come in, come in! Quickly!” She beckoned for Miriam to hurry inside while she held on to her squirming cat, Oliver. The fat gray- and black-striped tiger seemed to take great delight in trying to escape every time the door opened. “Would you like a cup of tea? I saw you walking home in the rain a while ago.”
“That would be lovely, if it isn’t too much trouble.”
“Not at all. I could use the company.” She limped into her kitchen—a larger version of the one upstairs—and put the kettle on the burner. Mrs. Spielman, also Jewish, was a pleasant, gray-haired woman in her seventies who was as round and plump as the potato dumplings Mother’s cook used to make. She set out a teapot and cups, her crippled fingers knotted and bent.
“I hope my Dutch is not too bad. I am still learning.”
“I can understand you just fine.”
“Something smells good,” Miriam said, inhaling the aroma of cooking food.
“Ach . . . it’s just some soup I’m throwing together. It’s not so much fun to cook for only myself. Do you enjoy cooking, dear?”
“I . . . um . . . I do not know how. In Germany, our family hired a cook. Abba and I have been eating what is already made.”
“I can teach you if you’d like.”
“Yes? You would not mind?”
“Not at all. Although you probably eat different things in Germany than we do here.”
“It does not matter. We must eat something.”
“Tell me what you have in the house and I’ll help you make something with it for supper.”
Miriam hung her head, embarrassed. “I have nothing. I must go to the market later.”
“No wonder you’re so thin! I’ll write a grocery list for you. Show it to the Jewish butcher on the corner and tell him I sent you. He’ll help you. Then bring everything home and I’ll teach you how to cook it.”
Miriam ran upstairs for her coat, purse, and shopping basket after finishing her tea and the gingery cookie Mrs. Spielman offered with it. “We Dutch love our tea biscuits,” she’d said, laughing.
Thirty minutes later, Miriam was hurrying through her door again with the groceries while Mrs. Spielman wrestled with the cat to keep it from escaping. Miriam’s eyes watered as she peeled and sliced the onion. She added it to the roasting pan and learned how to sear and season the meat before putting it into Mrs. Spielman’s oven to roast.
“Tomorrow I’ll teach you how to make soup for the cold winter months.”
“How will I thank you, Mrs. Spielman?”
“There’s no need. It isn’t only your father you must think about, little Miriam,” she said as they peeled potatoes and chopped carrots to go with the meat. “A pretty young girl like you will surely have a husband to feed one of these days.”
Miriam decided to confide in Mrs. Spielman. She struggled with the language as she groped for words. “I am in love with a man from the refugee camp. His name is Avraham Leopold. He must have a visa to be a student, but the needed papers are in Berlin.”
Mrs. Spielman saw Miriam’s tears. She dried her hands on her apron and pulled her into her arms. They were soft and warm and wonderfully comforting. “You poor dear.”
“I am sorry. I didn’t mean to cry.”
“That’s okay. You can go ahead and cry anytime you want. That’s what my arms are for.”
“I miss Avi so much,” she said, wiping her cheeks. “We write letters but it is not the same. Avi thinks of running from the camp, but if he is caught, they will send him back to Germany.”
“What a tragedy that would be.” She smoothed Miriam’s hair from her face with her knotted fingers.
“In Germany, they made Jews suffer—what is the word?—persecution. I didn’t think anything worse could happen. But now there is a war, and we have no letters from our family. We are so worried.”
“That’s the worst thing about war—all the separations.”
“To me, the worst thing is not dreaming of a future. When there is peace, anything seems possible. Now, nothing does. The future is taken from us and we cannot get it back.”
“At least we’re at peace here in the Netherlands.”
“Yes. And Abba is happy at the university.” Miriam pulled out her handkerchief to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. “When Avi and Mama come, everything will be perfect.” She stuffed her handkerchief back into her pocket and returned to peeling. It seemed like half of the potato was coming off with the peels. “I am not good at this,” she said with a sigh.
“Cooking takes practice. Like learning the violin, I suppose.”
“What a
bout your family, Mrs. Spielman? Have you always lived in Leiden?”
“My husband and I both grew up here. He was a pharmacist and owned a shop on Rapenburg for years. We raised two sons who both live in Amsterdam now, with their families. And I have eight grandchildren.”
“How wonderful!”
“They surely are. You’ll meet them when they come for a visit. I’ve had a happy life, Miriam. The Netherlands has been a good place for Jews to live.”
“You give me hope, Mrs. Spielman—and cooking lessons.”
“Here, let me finish peeling,” she said, taking the knife and potato from Miriam. “By the time your young Avraham arrives, you’ll be able to cook him a feast.”
“That will be wonderful. But will this food be cooked when Abba comes home?”
“Oh yes, my dear. And won’t he be surprised?”
“He will think he’s in paradise.”
CHAPTER 10
Lena’s days fell into a lonely rhythm without Pieter. She did the farm chores—her own as well as his—bundled the children off to school each morning, listened to the news and did mending every evening, tossed and turned in the cold, empty bed at night until the sheets were rumpled and loose, then rose before dawn to do it all over again. There was less laundry to wash, fewer people to cook for, no one to talk to during the day. Winter brought short days and endlessly long nights. She wasn’t sleeping well. Pieter was a quiet man, but she missed his warm, solid presence during the day, his gentle snoring at night.
December could be a dreary month, but today, December 5, the wind blew the clouds toward the sea and a wintry sun made an appearance for the first time in days. Lena put on her warmest coat and tied a kerchief over her hair to bicycle into the village, hoping for a letter from Pieter. He wrote once a week. Lena could tell that he struggled to find something different and interesting to say each time. Tonight was Sinterklaas Eve, and she would love to have a letter to read aloud to the children since Pieter himself couldn’t be home.
She climbed off her bike when she reached town, stopping first at the post office, where her cousin Truus’s husband worked as postmaster. He was five years older than Pieter and hadn’t enlisted in the reserves. “No mail for you today, Lena. Sorry.”
She disguised her disappointment as she thanked him and climbed the stairs to her cousin’s apartment above.
Truus poured them each a cup of coffee. “What do you hear from your soldier boy?”
“His training was supposed to last eight weeks. He should be home any day now.”
“Maybe in time for Sinterklaas Eve?”
“That would be the best present I could imagine. But I doubt if the army thinks about sentimental things like Sinterklaas and hopeful children. I already bought presents for Wim and Maaike. I’m stopping at the bakery next for treats.”
“Well, if he doesn’t come tonight, there’s always Christmas. And what do you hear from Ans? Do you think she’ll be home for Christmas?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. The woman she works for isn’t well.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know, exactly.” Lena knew from Ans’s letters that Mrs. Huizenga suffered from spells of melancholia, but she decided not to tell her cousin. Truus loved a juicy morsel of gossip. Her husband also seemed to know everyone’s business and was jokingly accused by some villagers of reading all the mail.
Lena finished her coffee and hugged Truus goodbye, then went to the bakery for pepernoten and the traditional holiday banket shaped in a W for Wim and an M for Maaike.
“No A for Ans this year?” the baker asked.
Lena shook her head, willing away tears. “Her job in Leiden is very demanding.”
Her last stop was the manse to visit her father. She went in through the kitchen door and wandered through the dining room and front room on the way to his office. The rooms had seemed barren and lifeless since Mama’s death, and Lena always passed through them quickly. Papa had hired a housekeeper to clean and cook for him, but the manse lacked the warmth and cheer that her mother had always given it. A basket of knitting still sat beside her mother’s chair near the window, the needles holding a half-finished pair of socks. Neither Lena nor Papa had the heart to stow the knitting away.
“Engelena! You look hearty and rosy-cheeked!” Papa rose and walked around his desk to kiss her.
“I bicycled into town to buy Sinterklaas treats. I let the sun fool me into thinking it was warm.”
“Any news of when Pieter is coming home?”
“Soon, I hope. Papa, I wanted to ask—do you think you could come out to the farm tonight for Sinterklaas Eve? I know the children will really be missing their father. I will be, too, naturally. Pieter always made the holiday such fun for them.”
“I’ll try. But I’m sure you’ve heard that Mrs. Hoekstra is in her last days. I’m leaving in a few minutes to be with the family.”
“I understand.” Lena had grown up with the demands her father’s role as pastor required. He loved his family, but his work often had to come first. She’d lost track of the number of times he’d been called away from the dinner table or from a special occasion like tonight.
She took her time cycling home to the farm, searching for beauty in the barren tree limbs and drying grasses, finding none. She removed her kerchief to feel what little warmth the sun provided, but it failed to cheer her. Once home, she hid the presents and treats she’d bought for the children and started supper.
Wim and Maaike burst through the kitchen door that afternoon, chattering about Sinterklaas Eve and the school holiday tomorrow. Wim no longer believed that Sinterklaas would arrive on his white horse tonight, bringing presents to all the children, but he gallantly played along for Maaike’s sake.
“Have you been good, Maaike?” he teased as they removed their shoes and hung up their coats. “Or will Zwarte Piet be paying you a visit?” Piet was Sinterklaas’s servant who punished naughty children.
Maaike looked worried as she tugged Lena’s sleeve. “I’ve been good, right, Mama?”
“Yes, little one.” Lena combed her fingers through Maaike’s wind-tangled hair, as thick and golden as Pieter’s.
“I wish Ans was here,” Maaike said.
“And Papa,” Wim added.
“I know. I miss them, too.” She bit her lip, remembering how Pieter would sneak outside when the children weren’t watching and run around to knock on the front door after leaving presents from Sinterklaas on the front step. Then he would race back inside and reappear when the children opened the door to see their treats. Lena couldn’t do the trick by herself.
She and Wim milked the cows together and fed the animals, then the three of them sat down at the kitchen table to eat supper. The children didn’t want much, their tummies full from parties at school. “Is it time to put our shoes outside, Mama?” Maaike asked afterwards.
“Yes, let’s do that.” They went into the barn for a fistful of hay and then down to the root cellar for carrots. These were placed outside in one of their wooden shoes to feed Sinterklaas’s horse. Sinterklaas would fill the other shoe with treats and presents.
“Let’s sing,” Lena said, attempting to lift everyone’s spirits, including her own. She sat at the piano in the front room and played the traditional holiday songs while the children sang along. They were in the middle of a song when a loud knock on the door startled them. Maaike’s face lit up, her mouth open wide in anticipation.
“It’s Sinterklaas!” she giggled. Or maybe Opa. Maybe he’d been able to stop by tonight after all, although Lena hadn’t heard his car.
They all hurried to the door. And there was Pieter!
“Papa!” Maaike cried. Lena thought she might burst with joy as Pieter dropped his sack of belongings and pulled her into his arms, kissing her on the lips, right in front of the children. He hugged Wim and tousled his hair, then scooped Maaike into his arms for a hug.
“Well, I’m sorry I’m not Sinterklaas,” he said,
“but it looks like he’s been here already.” He pointed to the children’s shoes, overflowing with treats. The carrots and hay were gone.
“See, Wim? I told you I’ve been good,” Maaike said, elbowing him.
The children hauled their loot inside, and Lena nestled on the sofa beside her husband as they watched the children tear into their gifts.
“Why didn’t you write and tell me you were coming?” Lena asked.
“I wanted to surprise you.” He lifted her hand and kissed it.
“Well, you certainly did. I thought for sure you were Sinterklaas.”
The children were so excited that Lena didn’t know how she would ever get them to sleep. Pieter sat on the sofa with Wim beside him and Maaike on his lap and told tales of his life as a soldier. At last Lena grew impatient to have Pieter all to herself and sent the children to bed.
“It’s so wonderful to have you beside me in bed again,” she said later. “I’ve been so lonely.”
“Me too. And I’ll tell you one thing, I like being a farmer more than a soldier.”
“Promise you won’t leave me again? It’s terrible here without you.”
Pieter propped himself on one elbow and looked down at her in the darkened room, his expression serious. The half-moon shone through the curtain and lit up his fair hair like spun gold. “I can’t promise that, Lena. They said if there’s a crisis, I’ll have to report back to Den Haag for deployment.”
“Do you think there will be one?”
“Well, not much is happening in the war right now. No major battles between the Nazis and the Allies. They’re calling it a ‘phony’ war.”
Lena pulled him down beside her again. “Let’s pray for peace.”
CHAPTER 11
APRIL 1940
In the months since England and France declared war against Germany, Ans had stayed alert for signs that Eloise might be sliding into depression. It was like watching her navigate a rushing streambed, stepping over slippery rocks, trying not to lose her footing and be swept away. She admired Eloise’s courage. When Ans first arrived in Leiden, Eloise had thrown herself into every task with frantic cheerfulness, talking fast, her graceful hands nervous and fluttery. Now she often had to be coaxed from bed in the morning. She ate very little and was obsessed with listening to news of the war. Not much had been happening so far, but the anxiety of waiting made Eloise’s melancholy worse, as if she feared the approach of a violent storm.
