Chasing Shadows

by Lynn Austin

  “Avi . . . ? Elisheva . . . ?” she stammered.

  “Elisheva is at the farm, well and happy and safe. I was just there.”

  Miriam melted with relief, collapsing onto the front stoop before Ans could catch her. “My baby! My baby survived! Thank God . . . !”

  “We haven’t heard from Avi yet, but Eloise contacted Dr. Elzinga and we’re trying to find him. Let me help you up. You need to come inside.” She struggled to lift Miriam to her feet.

  “I need to see Elisheva!”

  “I understand. But you’re trembling all over. You can barely stand. Come inside. Eloise will be overjoyed to see you.”

  The town house was nearly unrecognizable, battered by the war, but it still held memories of so many emotions for Miriam. Relief after arriving here with Abba. Joy in the days spent in her wedding suite with Avi. Terror as she and Avi and Elisheva hid from the Gestapo. And sorrow at their parting nearly three years ago. But their precious daughter was alive! Miriam’s prayers had been answered.

  Eloise understood Miriam’s longing to see Elisheva right away. “For goodness’ sake, Ans, take her to her child! Don’t make her wait.”

  “I will; I will! But she needs to sit down and eat something. You need to get your strength back, Miriam.” Ans drew a map for Avi with directions to her parents’ farm. He could ride the professor’s bicycle there when he came. If he came.

  “I’ll tell him the moment he arrives,” Eloise promised.

  He’ll come. Avi will come, Miriam told herself as she returned to the train station with Ans for another journey. Please, God . . .

  “Can you tell me about the past three years?” Ans asked when they were seated on the train. “How you survived?”

  “I will one day. But not yet.”

  “I understand. I can barely talk about the war either.”

  “I’m so glad that you and Eloise are all right. I know your work with the underground put you in terrible danger. You’re so thin, Ans.”

  “I spent time in Vught Prison. I was delivering ration books and was arrested for breaking curfew. But it’s all in the past now. The war is over and all is well.”

  “Professor Huizenga looked so different. I hardly knew him.”

  “He suffered terribly in the Amersfoort prison camp. His brother was executed. They paid a huge price for the work they did at the bank, but they saved thousands of lives.”

  “I can never repay you for helping us or your parents for hiding Elisheva. So many good, kind people risked their lives for us. I would like to find out about the sisters who owned the last house where I hid. The Nazis arrested them along with me, but we were separated when I was sent to Westerbork.”

  “Oh, Miriam! You were in that horrible place?”

  “My violin saved me. I played in the camp orchestra, so I was exempt from the transports. Otherwise . . . I heard about the concentration camps . . .”

  “And now we have a chance to start all over again.”

  “I know that I’ll never have the life I grew up with in Cologne or even the one I had in Leiden with Abba and Avi. My future is going to look very different from what I imagined.”

  “That’s true for all of us, I think.” The train was moving too slowly, starting and stopping so many times that Miriam wanted to scream. She needed to keep talking or she would go crazy.

  “You had a boyfriend . . . will you marry him now?” she asked Ans.

  “I broke up with Erik. I couldn’t accept what he did, helping the Nazis, joining the Nazi Party. Professor Huizenga says that all of the NSB members are being captured and sent to Westerbork. I suppose that means Erik, too.”

  “I don’t wish that place on anyone.”

  “The professor said he hopes there will be justice, not revenge.”

  “I know that evil people exist in this world, but there are good ones, too. Whatever happens . . . if Elisheva and I are the only ones who’ve survived, I want to raise her to be one of the good ones.”

  They arrived at another station and waited to transfer to a different train. After an eternity, they arrived in the small village near Ans’s farm. She and Miriam were both too weary to walk the final miles, so Miriam waited some more while Ans begged a ride from someone she knew in town.

  Miriam began trembling again when they halted outside the farmhouse, an earthquake deep in her soul. Ans waved at the two men standing in the barn doorway. “That’s my papa and my brother, Wim.” She thanked the driver and helped Miriam from the truck. Miriam longed to run, but her legs could barely hold her. “This is Bep’s mother, Miriam Leopold,” Ans told her father.

  “Bep’s playing out back. I’ll take you to her.” Ans and her father had to hold Miriam up as they walked through the barn and outside again. She saw a woman working in the garden and two girls playing nearby. The beautiful child with the long dark braids was her daughter.

  “Bep, Lena, come here,” Ans’s father called.

  “You must be Miriam. I’m Lena,” the woman said. “I’m so happy to see you!” Lena had tears in her eyes. Elisheva was holding the other girl’s hand as they walked over. Miriam knelt down to face her daughter.

  “Elisheva . . . ,” she breathed. She ached to hold her, but Elisheva didn’t remember her.

  Lena rested her hand on Elisheva’s back. “Bep, honey . . . this is your mother, from the photograph album. She’s here!”

  “May I give you a hug?” Miriam asked. Her daughter looked up at Lena, and in a heartbeat, Lena knelt down and enfolded both of them in her arms, holding Elisheva between them so she wouldn’t be afraid. Her little body was warm and sweaty and alive. Miriam could feel her heartbeat. She inhaled the scent of the wind in her hair. Until the day she died, Miriam would never forget the exquisite joy of this moment.

  With Lena’s patient help, Elisheva warmed up to Miriam in the hours that followed. Bep showed her the doll she’d received for a present and the clothes her sister Maaike had sewn for it. “What’s your doll’s name?” Miriam asked.

  “Nollie. She sleeps with me.”

  Miriam held Elisheva’s hand as she and her brother, Wim, gave a tour of the farm and all the animals. Miriam couldn’t take her eyes off her child. She especially loved hearing her laugh. She had Avi’s wonderful smile. He would always be with Miriam in their daughter’s smile.

  Miriam slept on a mattress in Elisheva’s bedroom that night to be near her. And so she could gaze at her in the moonlight and watch her sleep. She was alive. She was real. They were together again. Miriam helped her dress in the morning and brushed and braided her hair. Each simple act was a gift.

  After breakfast, Miriam took out her violin to play for her daughter. She’d been trembling too greatly throughout the first day to even attempt it. “This is a lullaby I used to play for you when you were a baby. It was your favorite.” Miriam lifted the instrument that was so much a part of her and played from the wellspring of love in her soul. Elisheva didn’t move as she listened, her dark eyes shining. She remembers. Her heart remembers.

  “Play more!” she said, clapping her hands when Miriam finished. Rietje and the residents of Meijers House had done the same. Music had power to heal. Miriam had felt dead inside for so long, but music provided the bridge back to living. She played everything she knew by heart, losing track of time as she filled in all the years that had been lost. At last she stopped, exhausted in body and soul, aware of where she was again. Her beloved daughter was still sitting with rapt attention.

  “She has always loved music,” Lena said. “In the first months she was here and missing you so terribly, singing to her was the only way to soothe her to sleep.”

  Lena loves her too, Miriam realized. And she was grateful.

  Suddenly Ans’s brother began shouting from outside, “Ans! Mama! Everyone, come here!” Miriam hurried outside with the others. Her heart stopped when she saw what the fuss was about.

  Avi!

  He was climbing off Professor Huizenga’s decrepit bicycle, l
etting it fall to the ground, running forward to embrace her. Neither of them could stand. They fell to their knees, wrapped in each other’s arms. How she’d dreamed of this day, fearing in her darkest moments that it would never come. Avi was alive! He was alive! Their daughter was alive! And for the very first time in many years, Miriam heard the song of the wind in the trees and the birds singing praises to God.

  EPILOGUE

  FALL 1945

  Lena stuck a fork into one of the potatoes bubbling in a pot on the stove. Almost done. She was grateful to have food to cook again, her root cellar full after a good fall harvest. She crossed to the sink, glancing out the window as she passed it, watching for Ans. Avraham and Wim were returning from the cow pasture with Bep riding on her abba’s shoulders. She was comfortable with him now, after these past few months together. They had all laughed when Avi had shown them that he could milk a cow. “I learned how while hiding out on a farm like this one,” he’d said proudly. How good it was to see their family reunited and thriving again.

  “I finished setting the table,” Maaike said. “May I go outside and watch for Ans?”

  Lena smoothed Maaike’s fair hair from her face. “Yes, you may. And be sure to let me know when she gets here.”

  “I will.” Maaike dashed off through the door. Lena thanked God that her daughter was becoming less anxious, her nightmares fading into the past. It had been Wim who’d helped Maaike chase away her fears, assuring her as they walked to school and back every day that the Nazis were gone for good.

  The beautiful strains of Miriam’s violin drifted down from upstairs as Lena worked. She would miss hearing Miriam play. Her music had blessed all of them as they’d shed the last layers of gloom from the war. Pieter had invited the Leopolds to live with them while they regained their strength and decided what came next. Truus and the other gossiping villagers now knew the truth about Bep. Ans’s reputation had been vindicated. These past months with her parents had given Bep a chance to get to know them again—and Lena’s family had time to say goodbye to her.

  Bep was fascinated with Miriam’s violin and comfortable sitting on her lap in the evenings as Avi read from the Psalms. They were leaving soon, and Lena would miss them all—but especially little Bep. She was Lena’s beloved daughter, and yet Lena couldn’t hang on to her any more than she could hang on to her other children. The time would come when she would release all of them into God’s capable hands. Miriam had taught her that.

  The potatoes were done. Lena had cooked them with apples, and she mashed them together now to serve with the meatballs that were staying warm in the oven. It was one of Ans’s favorite meals.

  “She’s here! She’s here! Ans is here!” Maaike called from outside.

  Lena smiled to herself. Ans had left home a strong-willed teenager and had suffered much during the war, enduring trials that Lena never would have wished on her beautiful daughter. But Ans had allowed God to use hardship and suffering to transform her into a strong woman of faith. Lena hurried through the door to welcome her home. Ans had regained the weight she’d lost in prison and looked wonderfully healthy again.

  “Are you hungry?” Lena asked after hugging her tightly. “You must be after your long bicycle ride. Come inside and eat.”

  “Look at Ans’s new bicycle, Mama,” Maaike said.

  “It’s not brand-new,” Ans said, laughing. “I got it at a sale of bicycles that were confiscated during the war. Maybe you can get one too.”

  Pieter came out of the barn to greet Ans as well. And Avi and Wim were back from the field with Bep. “The food is all ready,” Lena told everyone. “Wash up so we can eat.” She crouched down in front of Bep after Avi lowered her from his shoulders. “Will you do something for me? Run upstairs and tell your mother that it’s time to eat. She’s practicing her violin.” Bep skipped into the house and up the stairs.

  When they were all seated around the lunch table, Pieter bowed his head to thank God for the food. “And thank You for bringing all of these loved ones safely through the war.” He repeated those words every time he prayed. Lena never tired of thanking God too.

  “Amen,” she said. “Now start passing the food.”

  “I’m bursting to tell everyone my good news,” Ans said as she loaded her plate. Lena looked at her, waiting. “I’ve decided to go to university. Classes start next week.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Pieter said, voicing Lena’s thoughts. “What will you study?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Maybe journalism? I remember how much we relied on newspapers during the war. Eloise thinks I should study medicine.”

  “How are the Huizengas?” Miriam asked. “Will you still live with them?”

  “Yes, they want me to stay. Professor Huizenga is up to his ears with his work at the university. And Eloise is volunteering with the Red Cross in Amsterdam twice a week, helping displaced persons.”

  “So she’s doing well?” Miriam asked.

  “Very well. Eloise has enough energy to do the work of ten people.”

  “We have news too,” Avi said. “We might be neighbors in Leiden soon. I’m going to finish my engineering degree at the university.”

  “That’s great!” Ans said.

  “And we’ll still be close enough to come home to the farm,” Miriam added, “so Elisheva can visit her other mama and papa.”

  Tears filled Lena’s eyes each time she thought of letting Bep go. Her arms would feel so empty without her. How she loved this precious child!

  “And her sister and brother, too,” Maaike added.

  “Our other news isn’t so happy,” Avi said. “I’ve been traveling to Amsterdam every week to see what I can find out about our families. Records from all the camps are slowly being released, so I’ve been searching for names. And I learned that Miriam may be entitled to her family’s assets in Cologne.”

  “Yes, but let’s not spoil this wonderful meal and grand occasion,” Miriam said.

  Lena already knew what Avraham had learned. His family in Berlin and Miriam’s family in Cologne had all perished. Miriam’s father, Professor Jacobs, had died as well. Lena had mourned with them these past weeks, still grieving the loss of her own father. The pain never went away entirely, but time had made it easier to carry, and the waves of grief came less often.

  “Do you have a place to live in Leiden?” Ans asked. “I’m sure Eloise would let you stay with us. She’ll be so excited to see you and Elisheva.”

  “We’re eager to see her too,” Avi said. “I met Mrs. Spielman’s grandson when I was in Amsterdam—Mrs. Spielman was our landlady in Leiden. He was searching the records too and learned that his grandmother was gone. But he knew who Miriam and I were, and he offered to let us live in our old apartment as caretakers. He plans to list the other apartment for rent.”

  “I wonder if Noah felt this way after the flood,” Ans said. “There’s so much destruction everywhere and so much rebuilding to do as we start all over again. But the world is still a beautiful place.”

  “And we have much to be thankful for,” Miriam added. “I realize now that when we were in hiding, we were never hidden from God.”

  “Even so,” Lena said, “it must be very difficult for you and Avi to begin again. Pieter and I still have our home and our farm. I admire your courage to move forward after losing everything.”

  “We don’t understand why God allowed this to happen to our people,” Avi said. “But we won’t turn away from Him in our grief and disappointment. We’ll bring our questions to Him. Miriam’s father once told me that his favorite students were the ones who weren’t afraid to ask questions. He thought God must feel the same way. I believe it will draw us closer to Him as we wait for His answers.”

  “One of my questions,” Miriam said softly, “is why we were spared when so many, many others weren’t.”

  “Only God knows,” Avi said. “But Miriam and I and Elisheva owe a huge debt to all of you. And to so many other courageous people who risked their
lives for us. I don’t know how we will ever repay you.”

  “The best way to repay us,” Pieter said, “is to do the same thing—show kindness and generosity to others.”

  “And by refusing to hate,” Lena added. “I hope none of us ever forgets that hatred and greed were how this terrible war began.”

  Lena would always be grateful for that lesson. And for learning to trust the sovereignty and goodness of God even when tragedy and hardship overwhelmed her. She knew now that God had directed her family in the past and was here with them today. None of them knew the future, but they could trust Him with that, too.

  “Who would like seconds?” she asked. “Eat hearty, everyone! There’s plenty more.”

  CHAPTER 1

  DECEMBER 1951

  Christmas was coming. Eve Dawson saw signs of it all around her Connecticut town as she walked home from work. Pine boughs and wreaths decorated front doors. Christmas lights and tempting gift displays adorned shopwindows. Even the snow blanketing lawns and rooftops and sitting in puffy mounds on all of the bushes looked festive. Yes, Christmas was coming, and with it, the anxiety of trying to squeeze a few extra dollars from her tight budget to buy presents for her five-year-old son, Harry.

  The afternoon was growing dark as she hurried along. The shortened December days meant it was barely light when she left for work in the morning and nearly dark when she returned home. Harry would be watching for her from the picture window, eager to show her something he’d made in kindergarten or to describe the latest exploits of his TV heroes, the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Eve remembered watching for her mum the same way, waiting outside Granny Maud’s cottage for the first glimpse of Mum coming up the road. At least Eve’s job in the typing pool allowed her to return home to Harry every day and tuck him into bed at night. When Eve was Harry’s age, her mum, who’d also been a single mother, had worked as a live-in servant at Wellingford Hall and was only able to see Eve once a week.