She stopped. Lena had seen her features soften as she spoke, and she understood. Sofie had thought she’d found a new family, a simpler, kinder, more loving one. The silence stretched on. Sofie’s eyes were downcast, her lips soft. Lena hated to bring her back to herself, but at last she said, “And …?”
The eyes snapped up. The lips parted, thinned. “Uli came back this week,” she said. “The first time, the time I told you about, he snuck away to the Klaassens’ and threw a pebble at my window. Just as they do in stories,” she said, and her face was soft again, “and I went with him. All three nights the train was here. It was so perfect. Everything was so perfect! I mean almost. They did catch me coming in late twice, like Mevrouw Klaassen said when you were there. Hours after curfew. They didn’t like that. They worried and made me promise I wouldn’t do it again. But then I did.” She paused. “I had to, didn’t I?”
She looked at Lena and went on. “But when he came this last time, I went too far. The Klaassens sleep at the front of the house, and I was at the back. I thought I could sneak him in, just once. It was cold outside, always cold. And we both thought what it would be like to be together in a bed. A real bed, like we’ll have when we’re married. And so I snuck him in. And Meneer Klaassen caught us on the stairs.”
Her face darkened.
“Well, forget about love. Forget about family. In one second, I went from their daughter to a mof lover and a traitor, like the soldiers who practically tore their younger son right out of their arms. In another second, Uli and I were out on the street. They didn’t let me get my things. I have nothing. The train was in town until yesterday, and we stayed together in the straw. He tried to convince me to stow away again, to come with him, but the train was going west, not east. I knew it wasn’t safe. And I wanted to see you. I … I couldn’t just go off like that.”
“Where did you sleep last night?” Lena asked.
“In a garden shed,” Sofie replied. “I have never been so cold.”
Lena had pulled a tuft of grass and was shredding it, blade by blade. She would have to look up soon, look up and meet Sofie’s eyes, but she felt the judgment in her own and kept them on the ground.
At last, Sofie broke the silence. “Oh, Lena, I’m not so bad you can’t even look at me. Uli is the one really good thing in my life, and I am not giving him up. I’m not.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a few sheets of paper, just as she had done the last time they met. Lena stared at her hand. “We’re just waiting for this blasted war to end,” Sofie said, “and we’ll be together. I’ve got his address right here. Minden. His parents live in Minden now, since Düsseldorf was bombed last year.”
But Lena hardly heard what Sofie said. “Was Albert here too this week?” she asked.
Sofie’s eyes flickered and delight stole over her face. “Ah, if they only knew that good little Lena is a mof lover too!” she said.
“He’s not my lover,” Lena said. “You know he’s not. But have you seen him?” She wasn’t sure what she wanted the answer to be. If Sofie had seen him, why hadn’t he sought her, Lena, out? Why hadn’t he sent word somehow? He could at least have sent word through Sofie. She quailed at her own hypocrisy, but she wondered just the same.
“Well, Miss Good Girl Lena—who never longed for any man, let alone a dirty mof …” Her expression turned serious. “No, Lena, I haven’t seen Albert again since that last time. But five days ago, when Uli arrived, he gave me this.” Sofie had pulled a small envelope from among the mess of paper in her hand. She offered it without ceremony. “It is for you.”
Lena snatched it. Like last time, anger surged inside her. How dared Sofie keep a letter meant for her? Had she read it? Then she noted the sealed envelope and Sofie’s hurt stare. The darkness inside her was washed away by a rush of excitement. She turned her attention to the bit of paper in her hand.
My dearest Lena,
I know that you might not have wished it, but I was going to come for you. I was going to send Sofie and wait nearby or something—anything to see you again. But now I am to go far away. I hope to see Uli once more before I go so I can give him this little slip of paper to tell you that you are not forgotten.
Perhaps one day when this war is all behind us, you will send me a word. One word and I will come to you then, wherever you are. I know I am not good with language, and if you were not as good and kind as you are, you might laugh at this little note. But you have brought light and joy into my life, and I pray for your safety and your happiness.
Albert
Lena struggled a little with the German, but Albert had kept his language simple and she understood well enough. She wanted to pore over the note, the handwriting, the paper, the envelope, so meticulously folded and glued, but she did not want Sofie to see how much it mattered to her.
She folded the note, replaced it in its envelope and tucked it away.
Sofie had watched her throughout.
“It was nice of him to write,” Lena said grudgingly, trying to make her voice casual. What did it mean that she was beside herself with joy over this little note? Then she noticed that Sofie’s gaze had lifted. She was looking beyond Lena rather than at her.
Annie was striding toward them across the grass. “You’re wanted at the house,” she said. “Mother says if you don’t come now, she’ll come after you herself.”
The scene that followed was dreadful. They started by sitting down at the kitchen table, like civilized people, but that was as far as the civility went. Sofie’s answers to Vrouw Wijman’s questions did not satisfy. And Vrouw Wijman was not interested in Lena’s contributions.
“The Klaassens are respectable citizens,” Vrouw Wijman said, more than once. “Why would they turn a girl out onto the street if she didn’t deserve it? And why would we take such a girl in?”
“Please, Vrouw Wijman,” Sofie said, all her charm on display, “it was just a misunderstanding. They are good people, but I never meant any harm. Please, please, can’t I stay here with you?”
“She can share my bed,” Lena said. “She’ll work.”
“You stayed with us once before, young lady, if you remember,” Vrouw Wijman said. “You were a child, but your mother was not. When I saw you on my doorstep those few weeks ago, I thought, There walks her mother’s daughter. And that, my dear, is not a compliment. It is not a compliment, and I suspect that you have proven the truth of it.”
Sofie’s shoulders had collapsed at this speech. Her eyes were cast down. Lena, however, felt as if a light had turned on inside her head. So that was why Sofie hadn’t wanted to stay here! Why she had suggested Almelo at all was a whole other question. It was probably the only place she knew. So Sofie’s mother and Annie’s father … That was what it sounded like. Something terrible had happened. And Vrouw Wijman knew.
“Vrouw Wijman,” Lena said, making her voice firm, “Sofie is not a bad girl. Truly, she is not. Please don’t turn her out in the middle of a war. She could be hurt. Raped.”
Vrouw Wijman looked at Lena. “I’ve a good mind to turn you both out,” she said. “You made your own way here. You can make your own way home.” But she looked at Bennie, snug in Lena’s lap, as she spoke.
She would miss me, Lena thought. Not for me, but for the work. She snuggled Bennie a little closer. And I would miss him, she realized. I would miss him a lot. For the second time that day, Nynke and Bep flitted into her mind. Firmly, she ordered them out, inhaling the scent of Bennie’s little-boy hair as she did so.
The door from the lean-to opened, startling everyone. Bennie slithered off Lena’s lap and ran into his father’s arms. Annie bit her pigtail. Sofie hunched deeper, if that were possible. And Lena gripped the edge of the table.
“So it’s true,” Wijman said. He didn’t shout. He lifted Bennie off the ground, swung him through the air and put him down, his attention on the desperate girl hunkered down at the table. “Meneer Klaassen came looking for me at Bert’s. He wanted to be sure I knew what that girl there�
��s been up to.” He turned his gaze full on his wife. “I told him I did not know that she was in Almelo at all. You,” and he bore down on her as he spoke, “have been keeping little secrets.”
Vrouw Wijman was on her feet, ready for him. “And why do you think I didn’t want to mention the Vogel girl to you? Could it be because of the Vogel woman?” She squared her shoulders. “Now step away from me.”
And he did, but his fury did not diminish. Instead it looked for a new target. “He said I should keep an eye on you too,” he said to Lena, “and I expect he’s right. None but me saw you parading around all damp and bare-legged that day. Now who were you putting that show on for? I wonder.”
Bennie was crying by then, backed against Lena’s apparently offensive legs. Sofie had bent right over, arms wrapped around her head as if she thought someone might hit her. Vrouw Wijman sank back onto her chair, the soft flesh of her face and neck slack, the fight gone out of her for the moment.
Lena looked at her accuser, shock and nausea like oil and water in her belly. It was sickening to be accused like that, especially by a man who had trouble keeping his hands to himself, a man who had apparently seduced Sofie’s mother seven years before. Or had the seduction gone the other way? Or had it not been a seduction at all? Had force been involved? Lena’s head reeled while her body recoiled.
Wijman was not done. “You’ll be glad to hear that I didn’t mention your display. I told him that our Lena is a good girl and a hard worker. I also told him that I know the Vogels, that they were once our guests before the war.”
Vrouw Wijman’s head came up again, neck stretched taut.
“So, young lady, you can stay in our house. You will share Lena’s bed. You will not set foot outside or show yourself to anyone. I will give you two days. Then, Lena, you can decide if you wish to stay with us or leave with your young friend here, despite her poor judgment and wicked ways.”
And with those words, he turned and was out of the house, his work for the day not done.
Vrouw Wijman was on her feet, her breath coming in furious gasps. Ignoring her son and her daughter, she came at Sofie with the force of a tank, gripped her arm and yanked her to her feet. “You,” she spat, “will not do to me what your slut of a mother did. Do you understand?”
Sofie’s chin remained in firm contact with her chest as she nodded.
“If I see you within three paces of my husband, I’ll have you out in the street, barefoot and in your shift. And that is after I take the broom to you.”
Bennie whimpered, and Lena pulled him into her arms. “It’s all right,” she whispered lamely. “She doesn’t mean it.” But it was clear to all of them that she did.
Lena took one arm from around the little boy and reached out and touched Vrouw Wijman’s shoulder. The woman flinched and turned her head. Two wet lines marked her face, eyes to chin.
“Sofie won’t do anything wrong,” Lena said. “I’ll see to it.”
At that, Sofie met her eyes. Her voice was not strong, but her words were. “I won’t do anything wrong,” she said, “because I don’t want to. I don’t know what my mother did, but I’m not like that. I love one man.” Her voice grew louder, defiant, angry. “One man. Yes, he is one of the enemy, but he is the man I love. His name is Ulrich. Ulrich Rauch.”
Silence took hold of the room for a few moments. Mevrouw Wijman stepped away from both girls. “Good girl. Bad girl. Whatever you are, you’d better get busy helping Lena make the supper. I am going to go lie down.” And she did.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
With Sofie’s arrival, Lena almost forgot about the conversation with Annie about the Resistance. When she did think of it, she was sure that Annie would do the runs herself or find someone else. How could Lena be a Resistance worker with a lover of the enemy sharing her very bed?
But the conversation had taken place, and it turned out that Annie had no intention of making other plans. Almost a week passed.
Then, on Wednesday afternoon, she walked into the kitchen and spoke. “My bed is much bigger than Lena’s, Mother,” she said, her voice crisp. “It doesn’t make sense for the two of them to share that tiny cot. Lena should come in with me.”
Sofie’s two days’ grace had passed with no further mention of her banishment. Lena had watched in bemused shock as Sofie put a brand-new, and perfectly selected, strategy to work. It turned out that Sofie could clean. At first, she just followed Vrouw Wijman’s angry instructions, passed through Lena, since Vrouw Wijman would neither look at Sofie nor speak to her. Then she started asking questions, still through Lena: questions about cleaning, about getting out stains, about reaching those hard-to-reach spots. On the second day, she made several suggestions that drew Vrouw Wijman’s brows high on her forehead and gave her eyes a glitter that Lena had not seen before.
On the third day, instead of seeing Sofie onto the street, Lena watched, surprised and pleased, as Vrouw Wijman entered deep into conference with her about what might work best to remove those grass stains from Bennie’s pants.
And on that Wednesday afternoon, while Sofie scrubbed away in the kitchen under Vrouw Wijman’s watchful eye, Lena packed her few things into her small suitcase and moved upstairs. Annie did not come with her, and she seemed to take little note of her through the rest of the day. Lena went about her tasks in some bewilderment, and quite unsure, as well, about whether she was pleased with this new arrangement, although she did look forward to a peaceful night. The last few nights’ sleep had been spotty at best, shared as they were with a companion who kicked and wriggled and yanked at the bedding, not to mention moaning over her lost love.
At bedtime that night, Lena found out why Annie had orchestrated the change. Lena undressed shyly and tucked herself into the bed right up against the wall, determined to be no bother. Annie, on the other hand, shucked her clothes off and slithered into her nightgown with no attention to privacy, and positively bounced into bed.
“I should have thought of this ages ago!” she said.
“Why did you?” Lena asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? When can we talk with you downstairs and people always about? Now, with Sofie here, it’s impossible! And so I thought, Bed. That’s the place to talk!”
All in a moment, Lena’s brain cleared. “The Resistance,” she said.
“Yes,” Annie replied. “Didn’t you realize?”
Lena had not.
“Hey, I almost forgot,” Annie said gleefully, and she slid out of bed and rooted around on the floor for a minute. “Look what I’ve got for you!” Back in bed, she held out something.
Lena’s identity card. She took it, and Annie brought the candle close so she could see. There she was. Herself. Lena Berg. And as closely as she peered, she could see nothing wrong. The card did not even look unnaturally new. Relief swept through her—relief of a worry she hadn’t even known she was carrying.
They whispered together for a long time that night after the card was tucked away and the candle blown out. Or Annie whispered and Lena listened.
Annie explained that a large part of Resistance work involved supplying ration cards for people in hiding. Many operations existed to steal ration cards in large quantities. Then they had to be delivered to those who bought food for the hidden. Without weekly ration cards, the hidden people would starve.
“And that’s where girls like us come in,” Annie said. “Nobody notices us … most of the time.”
It sounded simple enough, but Lena’s determination to become a doer of good waned as the night wore on. The risk was death. Death! Perhaps she should say she had changed her mind. But she did not say that, and eventually the two girls lay down, and to Lena’s surprise, she slept.
On Thursday morning, Lena awoke in the pitch dark. Annie was leaning over her, invisible but breathy. “Shhh,” Annie said fiercely. “Here are your instructions.”
Lena sat up abruptly.
Heart pounding, she waited.
“I’m going to show you the rout
e today,” Annie said. “I have the cards. You don’t need to know anything about where they came from. You just take them from me and give them to the man who answers the door if he says, ‘Hello, Elsa. What do you have for me today?’ And that’s it. That’s all.”
Lena could not see Annie’s face, and Annie could not see hers. “That’s it? That’s all? It sounds like a lot to me!”
“Well, it’s not. We’ll leave right after lunch. We’ll just tell Mother that we’re taking Bennie for a bike ride. Then next week, you can go on your own. It’s only once a week.”
“But what about Sofie?”
“What about Sofie? She’s got nothing to do with this. Just keep it to yourself!”
“But what if she …”
Annie reached out and grabbed Lena’s arm. “Look. This work is important. You know you can’t say anything to Sofie. And she’s not allowed to leave the house. She’ll just think you’re off for a bike ride, that’s all.”
It sounded so simple when Annie said it. Lena shrugged the hand off. “Fine. A bike ride after lunch,” she said, and wriggled back down into the bed. She did not have to get up quite yet.
She turned her back on the other girl and tried to go back to sleep, but it was no use. What had she agreed to do?
Vrouw Wijman was gruff that morning, more demanding than usual, if that was possible. In the first days after Sofie’s arrival, Lena had seen her shake with tension when her husband was at home. He stayed away a great deal, though, and as long as he was not there, Vrouw Wijman was easily distracted by cleaning. When he was in the house, Sofie kept her distance. She and Lena and Annie took to eating their dinner early, with Bennie, and thus peace was maintained, fragile though it might be.
Wijman had not asked Lena for help of any kind since she rebuffed him in the kitchen, and though she had felt his eyes on her many times, he had not once touched her since then. He didn’t even look at Sofie. It was almost as if Sofie were a powder keg and his eyes and hands matches. He was afraid of the explosion and took no risks.
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