by Lynn Austin
“I’m okay,” she said again. She had a twenty-five-minute wait until the return train to Leiden. Maybe her knees would stop trembling by then.
When it was time to leave, she and her contact said farewell and picked up each other’s bag. The new one had a botany textbook in it and a bird guidebook. Ans had no idea what messages, if any, were sewn into the lining.
She boarded the train, hoping the Leiden station would be crowded when she got off, hoping Erik would be gone. What could she say to him? No explanation or apology seemed sufficient, no expression of gratitude enough to thank him for saving her.
She hurried home without looking up at anyone, then picked at her supper and went to bed early, telling Eloise she felt unwell.
Ans wept and worried all night long. She loved Erik. She feared this would be the end of their relationship, and she didn’t want it to be. She raged at the war that had made their love impossible. Erik had been trained to obey authority. How could Ans explain that she had to obey a higher authority?
The first thing she said when Erik arrived at her door early the next morning was “I’m so sorry. I know you must be angry with me and—”
But he pulled her into his arms, cutting off her words. He held her tightly, his face pressed against her hair. “Do you want to come in out of the rain?” she asked when he released her again.
“I’m already wet. Let’s walk.”
Ans tied a kerchief over her head and went outside with him. They walked with their arms around each other. Rain dampened her face along with her tears as they followed the street beside the canal until it joined the Rijn, the trees sheltering them from the worst of the rain.
“May I explain why I—?”
“Do you have any idea what would have happened to you if one of those Nazi soldiers had been the one who’d looked in your bag instead of me?” He halted, letting go of her. His voice trembled with emotion. She couldn’t tell if it was sorrow or relief or anger. Perhaps all three. “They would have arrested you. And when you got to the police station, they would have tortured you until you gave up the names of all your contacts. All of the people who were responsible for that newspaper.”
Her stomach rolled with nausea. “You’ve seen this happen, Erik? You’ve witnessed them torturing people?”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you all night! I kept playing the scene over and over, horrified by how close . . .” His breath caught. “Why would you do such a stupid thing? Doesn’t our love or our future mean anything to you?”
“It means everything to me! That’s why I’m doing this. What kind of future will we have under Nazi rule? Under a regime that tortures people? The Netherlands is my home, Erik. If there’s any chance at all that I can help free my country, then I need to take that chance.”
“I can’t . . . I can’t . . .” He shook his head as if waging an internal battle. “I can’t sleep or eat or live knowing how much danger you’re in! I love you, Ans, and I need to protect you from them! Don’t you understand that? I know what they’re like! I know the things they’ll do!”
“How can you keep working for them?” she asked.
He looked away. A bicycle swished past, splashing water from the wet street. “You know the answer. We’ve had this conversation before.” And they’d also heard stories about life in a Nazi labor camp. He reached for her hand. “I need you to promise me you won’t deliver those newspapers again. Otherwise . . . I don’t think I can do this, Ans. I can’t love you as much as I do and know how much danger you’re in. You’re naive and idealistic, and you imagine that it’ll do some good to fight them, but it won’t. You can’t win. They’ll break you. And I couldn’t bear that.”
“I love you too—”
“Then promise me! Promise me right now or I’ll have to walk away!”
“I promise,” she whispered. She could do that much for the man she loved. She would tell Eloise and the others that she had to stop delivering newspapers.
But she hadn’t promised anything else.
CHAPTER 25
DECEMBER 1941
The warm farmhouse kitchen was the same as it had always been for the more than twenty years that Lena had lived here, the fire burning brightly in the stove, her family listening to the boxy wooden radio on the stand in the corner, her knitting needles flying as she worked to finish a pair of socks for Wim. Maaike had her new set of paints and brushes spread out on the table, a gift on Sinterklaas Eve. Wim sat on a chair by the stove beside his father, learning how to carve with the pocketknife that had been his present. The fragrant aroma of hotchpotch from their evening meal still lingered in the air. Everything seemed the same as always.
And yet nothing was the same. Every day, the Nazis issued new regulations that curbed their freedom and made the enemy occupation more difficult to endure. Lena and Pieter loved farming their land, but now that most of their efforts went to feed the enemy, they felt enslaved. The only radio newscasts not under Nazi control were the few minutes of nightly Radio Orange broadcasts from England. As Lena waited for tonight’s news, she worried that even those broadcasts would be taken from them soon. One of the Nazis’ new laws had required all radios to be registered. Lena guessed that the next step would be to confiscate them, and she hadn’t wanted to register. “Who’s going to know whether or not we have a radio?” she’d asked Pieter.
“Every person who has visited our home will know. Everyone who comes in and out of our kitchen can’t miss seeing it.”
“But our friends—”
“We must forget the idea that anyone is our friend. We have no idea who we can trust. Besides, what if Maaike or Wim says something at school about listening to the radio at night?”
“You’re right; you’re right.” They had registered their radio.
Lena paused in her knitting and leaned forward to see the picture Maaike was painting—a green field with black-and-white cows, a blue sky. Marring the expanse of blue was a formation of airplanes. Had they become such a common sight that her daughter included them in her tranquil farm scenes instead of a flock of migrating birds? Lena wanted to grab the brush and paint over the airplanes, erasing them. But no one had been able to stop the Nazis, let alone with a simple brushstroke. She turned her attention to her son. “What are you carving, Wim?”
He held up a lump of wood the size of his fist. “It’s going to be a duck.”
She exhaled with relief, fearing he would fashion a tank or a gun. Their St. Nicholas Day celebration had been leaner this year. Rationing made many goods more expensive and harder to find, but she’d managed to buy a few treats for Wim and Maaike. Lena remembered the night two years ago when Pieter had returned home from his military training to surprise them for St. Nicholas Day. They’d had no idea it would be their last holiday as free people.
Lena resumed knitting as the Radio Orange broadcast began. A moment later, she stilled with news of a special bulletin. “Early yesterday morning, at 7:48 a.m. on the Pacific islands of Hawaii, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the United States’ naval base in Pearl Harbor. The US fleet suffered the loss of its eight battleships anchored there. One hundred and eighty-eight US aircraft were also destroyed in the raid. The loss of life is expected to reach nearly 2,500. In response to this unprovoked attack, the United States has now declared war on Japan.”
“This is overwhelming,” Lena breathed.
Pieter stared at the radio as if waiting to hear it was a joke or a mistake. As the announcer repeated the news bulletin, he looked up at Lena, raking his hand through his thick blond hair. “America is in the fight. They have the resources and manpower to help us win. Remember the first war? Finally there’s hope.”
“Will the Americans help us beat the Nazis?” Wim asked. He had stopped carving, his brow furrowed like his father’s.
Pieter rested his hand on Wim’s shoulder. “Ja, they’ll help us.”
Lena didn’t know whether to feel relieved or horrified by the news. She barely hea
rd the rest of the broadcast, her knitting forgotten as she tried to comprehend this triumph of evil on the other side of the world. The escalation and scope of the war made it seem like something from the biblical book of Revelation. How could God stand by and remain silent?
Pieter switched off the radio when the program ended, returning Lena’s thoughts to her kitchen and her family. “Off to bed with you two,” she said. “School tomorrow.”
Wim shaved a few more slivers from his creation before laying it aside with a sigh and thumping up the wooden steps to his bedroom.
“But my painting isn’t finished,” Maaike complained.
“You can finish it tomorrow after school. Close up the paints so they don’t dry out.” Lena swept up the shavings from Wim’s carving project and fed them into the fire.
“I’ll be up at the windmill,” Pieter said. Lena nodded. She would join him when the children were asleep. She followed Maaike upstairs and helped her get ready for bed. Her room beneath the eaves was warm from the kitchen stove, but by morning, Maaike would be burrowed beneath her comforter. She and Ans had shared this bed, and both Maaike and Lena felt her absence nearly every night.
“Is Ans coming home for Christmas?” Maaike asked as Lena loosened her braid and brushed her golden hair.
“I’m not sure. Let’s hope so.” Lena listened as Maaike knelt by her bed to say her prayers, then tucked her into bed. It wouldn’t take her long to fall asleep. Lena peeked into Wim’s loft afterwards. “Did you say your prayers?” she asked.
“Ja.” At thirteen, he’d outgrown their nightly bedtime rituals, but Lena couldn’t resist crossing to his bed and kissing his forehead.
“Good night, then.”
Downstairs, Lena stoked the kitchen fire, adding fuel before putting on her coat and hat. She turned out all the lights and slipped outside into the freezing night. The wind swirled dried leaves across her path as she plodded up the rise to the windmill in the dark. She found the door and stepped inside, waiting for her eyes to grow accustomed to the even-darker interior. A faint light from Pieter’s candle flickered high above her. The old mill creaked and groaned in the wind as she climbed the narrow steps and then the steep wooden ladder to the very top, where Pieter crouched beneath the massive wooden beams. It was cold in the unheated mill. It smelled of old wood and dust and the oil Pieter used to grease the pump.
“It’s nearly finished,” he said. “Just a couple more nights.” It would be one of several hiding places she and Pieter were building around their farm to prevent the Nazis from stealing everything they labored for all summer.
More than a year and a half had passed since the Nazi invasion, a year and a half since their freedom was stolen. After the first summer, when the enemy had inventoried their farm and then carried off their harvest, Pieter had begun building these caches to keep more of their crops out of Nazi hands. Working at night, after the children were asleep, he and Lena also had created a false floor beneath the hayloft in the barn. They’d dug another chamber beneath the abandoned chicken coop. A false wall in the root cellar hid a secret room behind a row of shelves. They would be arrested or shot if the Nazis discovered what they were doing. Lena lived with the fear of what might happen to her and Pieter and to their children every moment of every day. Yet giving in to the Nazis was unthinkable.
A breeze blew through the open rafters, nearly snuffing out their only candle. They were forced to work in this dim light, afraid that a lantern would shine for miles in the clear December sky. Airplanes droned above them from time to time, a constant reminder of the war, a constant source of fuel for Lena’s hatred. The Nazis had stolen her life and her children’s secure future.
Lena yawned as the hours passed, struggling to keep her eyes open as she held the boards in place for Pieter to hammer. It must be well past midnight by now. They would have only a few hours of sleep before they’d have to get up and begin their chores again.
“That’s it. We’re done for now,” Pieter said at last. He gave a satisfied sigh and blew out the candle, plunging them into darkness. They needed both hands to descend the steep wooden ladders. He closed the door to the outside behind them and took Lena’s hand in his. He had worked without gloves, and his fingers were icy.
She shivered, wanting to hurry along the path to the warm farmhouse, but he pulled her to a stop. “Look up at that sky, Lena. Isn’t it beautiful?” He stood behind her, his arms wrapped around her.
She took comfort from his warmth and strength as she gazed up at the midnight sky. At the moment, there were no airplanes, and she could almost imagine that the war had never happened and everything was as it used to be.
“So many stars!” she murmured. “And they say the universe goes on and on forever, without end. I can’t imagine that, can you?”
“Only an amazing God could create such a wonder.”
She remembered this evening’s news bulletin and felt a tug of fear in her stomach. “How He must grieve when He sees what we’re doing to His beautiful earth. The entire world is at war.” They stood in place for a few minutes, the great swath of the Milky Way shining like a river of starlight. “How can God remain silent and do nothing in the face of all this evil?” she asked.
“He isn’t silent as long as we’re His voice and His hands.”
“It doesn’t seem like we’re doing enough.”
“Each little thing we do to hinder the enemy is enough for now. When the Almighty needs us to do more, He’ll tell us.”
But to do more would mean putting themselves in more danger. Lena’s fear wrestled with her deep hatred for the Nazis. She longed to fight back, to get even, to free her family from their power. Yet she would be a fool not to fear them. She wished her faith was stronger, that she could trust God completely and give her fear and anger to Him. But why had He allowed the Nazis to win in the first place? She exhaled in frustration and felt Pieter’s arms tighten around her.
“What, Lena?”
“I want our life back. I want everything to be the way it used to be. I’m tired of living each day in suspense, not knowing what will happen to us tomorrow, not knowing how long we’ll be forced to live this way. Will it be forever? Will we have to live this way for the rest of our lives?”
“God knows,” he said softly.
They started walking again, following the path by the irrigation ditch, the barn and farmhouse looming shapes against the starlit sky. Lena washed up and put on her nightgown in the dark. But before climbing into bed, she slipped into her children’s rooms, tucking the covers around them. Each day that she managed to keep her family warm and safe and fed felt like a victory.
CHAPTER 26
JULY 1942
The July sun pressed down on Ans like a hot iron as she walked to Leiden University’s observatory. The water in the canal, motionless in the still air, reflected the sun’s fire like a mirror. She slowed her steps as she neared the building with the rounded domes, glancing around for her contact from the newspaper.
Today’s messenger was a new woman, recognizable by the flower she wore and the bag she carried. They greeted each other like friends who’d met by chance and chatted about the warm weather while Ans surveyed their surroundings. She felt safer meeting her contacts in a crowd where they could blend in, but few people were out and about at this time of day, probably due to the heat. The two women quickly exchanged bags.
Ans’s bag hid the news reports that she and Eloise had written, while her contact’s hid the latest edition of the newspaper. Ans didn’t dare read it until she was safely home, but she pulled it out and began scanning it as soon as she was inside. She made her way upstairs to the workroom they’d created in one of the bedrooms on the third floor, her feet moving faster and faster as she climbed, horrified by what she was reading.
“They’re doing it, Eloise!” she said as she arrived upstairs, perspiring and breathless. “The Nazis are actually doing it!”
Eloise stopped typing. “Doing what?”
Eloise huffed with impatience. “Tell me what they’re doing, Ans.”
“The Gestapo in Amsterdam is rounding up Jews during the night, registering them at a theater they’re using as an assembly point, then transporting them out of the country. They’re forcing the Dutch police to help.”
She had an unwelcome image of Erik doing the same thing to innocent people here in Leiden, and her heart squeezed. She’d hoped he would change his mind about helping their enemies after the Dutch East Indies fell to the Japanese in March, but nothing had changed. “I’m not in Java,” he’d said. “Anything I try to do here isn’t going to help my homeland.”
Ans had wanted to shake him. “Don’t you see?” she’d asked. “The world is slowly being swallowed up by evil!”
“Of course I see! But right now, right here in Leiden, there’s nothing we can do to stop it without losing our lives.”
She’d known he was right, but it grieved her every time their arguments ended in this stalemate.
Meanwhile, the Nazis devoured more of their freedom every day. Earlier this spring, all Jews had been ordered to sew yellow stars on their clothing. It seemed like a little thing, but Ans knew that it wasn’t.
“They passed the same law in Germany,” Miriam had told Ans, “and it was no longer safe to go out. Anyone who saw us on the street could persecute us.” Another new law forbade Jews to visit non-Jews, but it hadn’t stopped Ans and Eloise from visiting Miriam. “The Nazis told Mrs. Spielman she no longer owns this apartment building,” Miriam said on one of Ans’s visits. “Dutch Nazis now control all Jewish assets. Every day we wake up wondering what they’ll do to us next.”
