They were sound questions. At the time, she’d thought them melodramatic.
“Aunt Willie, do you know anything about what’s going on? Do you know this Hendrik de Geer, what his role might be?”
Wilhelmina opened her eyes, her expression grim. “I can’t say for certain what this is all about, but as for Hendrik de Geer—yes, I know him. He’s a devil.”
“In what way? How do you know him? Does Mother—”
“Yes, your mother knows him. And Rachel did, too. We all did, Juliana. He was our friend, before the war, during.”
“But you just said—”
“I know what I said. Hendrik betrayed our friendship, and until I talk to your mother, I will tell you no more about him. But you must be careful of him, Juliana.”
“You know you’re not being fair,” she said simply.
Wilhelmina shrugged, unconcerned with fairness.
“What about Rachel Stein? How did you know her?”
“Ah, Rachel.” Wilhelmina’s eyes softened, and she sighed. Juliana sensed her sadness—and anger. “It’s not right what Rachel suffered. There’s no excuse. None. She was a good woman, Juliana, a dear, funny, sad friend, and perhaps one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known. You should have seen her before the war. Oh, did she have the devil in her eye! She and her brother stayed with me during the occupation. They were Jews, so we had to be extremely cautious.”
“You hid them?”
Aunt Willie nodded solemnly, without pleasure or pride.
“But I had no idea! Mother never said anything about it.”
“Why should she? Many people hid Jews, but not enough. Tens of thousands were murdered. Rounded up like cattle, deported, starved, tortured, shot, gassed. My actions saved two people. Two very dear, very important people to me, but still only two.”
“Nevertheless—”
“Nevertheless nothing. I have no reason to brag.”
Juliana tried to imagine her aunt forty years younger, Rachel Stein, her mother, what they must have gone through as young women. Younger than she herself was now. Would she have had the courage to hide Jews from the Nazis? She would like to think so. But she hoped she’d never know such a thing. It was something, she thought, that should never be tested.
“The Steins must be very grateful to you, Aunt Willie,” she said.
“In some ways, yes, of course, but it’s difficult,” Wilhelmina said, matter-of-fact. “They were made into victims, Juliana, persecuted simply because they were Jews, and simply because I was not a Jew, I was put into a position of power over them—along with your mother, your uncle, your grandparents. We could help them or we could destroy them.”
“But you chose to help.”
“Chose? I’m not so sure. For me, there was never any question of what I had to do. It’s like getting up in the morning. You just wake up. You don’t expect anybody to thank you for doing it.”
Juliana nodded, furious with her mother for never having breathed a word of any of this. What did she think she was protecting her daughter from? But she put that aside for now. “Do you think Rachel Stein and her brother would ever have wanted the chance to repay you?”
Aunt Willie looked at her, truly mystified. “For what? They owe me nothing. They never did. I failed them in too many other ways.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I hope you never will, Juliana. None of us had much control over our fates, but they least of all. Rachel and her family weren’t the only ones we helped—there were strikers, too, and men between the ages of eighteen and fifty who were being rounded up for the labor camps. The on-derduikers, we called them.”
“What does that mean?”
“The hidden people. Onderduik means to dive under. In Holland we have no wide forests or caves, very little countryside. To conceal people we had to put them in our houses, in our attics and cellars, often right under the noses of the Germans. But the Steins were with us the longest. For almost five years we lived in close proximity to each other, always fearful of discovery, rarely having enough food, enough heat. Sometimes we would get on each other’s nerves. It’s only natural. That kind of situation can breed resentment as well as gratitude.” She breathed heavily. “But I’m talking too much. Your mother will be annoyed with me.”
For a moment, Juliana was silent. She was proud of her aunt, amazed by what she’d done, amazed at her courage, but concluded that saying so would only irritate her. Instead she asked, “Was Mother living with you at the time?”
“Your mother’s story is for her to tell.”
“But Rachel Stein came to New York to see her.”
“Yes, she did.”
“Aunt Willie, you know as well as I do that Mother isn’t going to tell me a damn thing.”
Wilhelmina sniffed. “Watch your language.”
“I have a right to know.”
“Do you?”
“All right.” Juliana sighed, knowing she was defeated. She didn’t want to waste time with pointless arguing. “The paper said Rachel Stein came to the United States after World War Two. Why?”
“She and Abraham chose not to stay—they couldn’t. Their community, their family and friends were all gone, and the country itself was decimated. We had just suffered a terrible famine. The Netherlands wasn’t fully liberated until the spring of 1945, almost a year after France and Belgium. The Allies had tried to take Arnhem in the fall of 1944. The plan—Operation Market Garden, it was called—was to create a corridor up through the southeast part of the country into Germany and take control of the three major rivers, isolating the Germany forces occupying Holland. Then the Allies would make the final push into Germany. If it had worked, it would have shortened the war considerably.”
“But it didn’t work,” Juliana said, more or less guessing. Her knowledge of World War II military history was limited.
“No,” Wilhelmina said heavily, “it didn’t work. The Germans responded by tightening their grip on The Netherlands. Food shipments to the cities in the west were cut off, there was virtually no oil or coal, transportation was nearly impossible to obtain. It’s said we had less than five hundred calories a day on which to survive—and there were the onderduikers to feed as well. Your mother was the only person I knew who could make fodder beets and tulip bulbs palatable. It was a terrible, bitter winter. Hongerwinter, we call it. The Winter of Hunger.”
Juliana said nothing. What was there to say? Her mother had never mentioned such suffering. Never.
“In any case,” Aunt Willie went on, “there was nothing left in their country for Rachel and Abraham. They chose to emigrate to the United States, and we drifted apart. It happens.” Wilhelmina was silent for a moment, lost in the past, but she recovered herself and dipped into her paper bag for the cookies, six of them, wrapped in waxed paper. “Here, have a cookie. By the way, have you noticed we’re being followed?”
Juliana turned sharply from the window, but her aunt grabbed her arm, stopping her from looking around. Nodding that she was back under control, Juliana whispered dubiously, “Are you sure?”
“Of course,” Wilhelmina said without arrogance and let go of Juliana’s arm. “I lived under German occupation for five years. I know when I’m being followed—and I don’t like it. The Nazis did too much of it during the war. Now I have no tolerance even for the neighborhood children tagging along behind me.”
Under different circumstances, Juliana might have considered her aunt hopelessly paranoid. But not now. Not after Matthew Stark’s wild, unnerving visit to the Club Aquarian and her own mad flight to Rotterdam.
Her voice deceptively calm, she asked, “What does he look like?”
“A Nazi.” The old Dutchwoman’s mouth was a straight, uncompromising line.
“Aunt Willie, for God’s sake.”
“He followed us onto the train. He’s very blond—”
“So am I. So are you. That doesn’t make us Nazis.”
Wilhelmina ignored her niec
e. “His hair is cut short, and he’s neatly dressed. Too neatly, in my opinion. A young man shouldn’t be too tidy. I know you think I’m narrow-minded, but that’s my way.” She shrugged, lifting her heavy, square shoulders. “The war’s been over a long time now, but I will never forget—or forgive.”
Juliana didn’t comment on her aunt’s views. “What do you think we should do about this guy?”
“For the moment, nothing.”
“And just let the sonofabitch follow us?”
Aunt Willie smiled. “I like your spirit, Juliana. But don’t worry—we’ll get rid of this Nazi in Antwerp.”
When they arrived at the train station in Antwerp, Aunt Willie moved quickly through the crowd, assuming her niece would keep up. She did.
“The Nazi doesn’t know we’ve spotted him,” her old aunt said. “Ha! Such arrogance. But it makes our task much simpler.”
She took Juliana firmly by the elbow, and together they leaped into a bus, leaving their tail behind.
Wilhelmina was beaming. “Well, that was easy.”
“Jesus, Aunt Willie,” Juliana said, but she was impressed, although not at all relieved to have confirmed that Aunt Willie was right: the man had been following them.
Thirteen
Otis Raymond ducked into the fishing shack and collapsed onto his bunk, lying on his back on the stinking mattress. With the back of one skinny hand, he wiped some of the dirt and sweat off his face. He was sweating and shivering at the same time. It wasn’t as cold as Washington, but colder than he was used to. All the campaigns he’d been involved in had taken place in warm climates. He liked the heat, had gotten to where he couldn’t stand the cold. He’d told the guys, “Gimme mosquitoes, dysentery, malaria—just keep your friggin’ snow.”
He could almost feel his bones rattling inside him. He kept getting thinner, must have picked up a worm or something, and he couldn’t keep up with the younger guys, even some of the older ones, the fitness freaks. Christ, he was what, forty? Never thought he’d live even this long.
With a squeaky chuckle, wheezing, he sat up. “You call this living?”
His head wasn’t right, either. Too much booze, too much dope, even though Bloch was pretty strict about that stuff. God wasn’t as straight as the sergeant. But Otis found ways around rules and regulations; he always had. He had a bottle stashed now. Wouldn’t make much difference, though, if he drank it or not. No matter what he did lately, he kept thinking about the old days and the guys he’d saved—but mostly about the ones who’d died. He’d hated having guys go on his ship. He remembered how the poor dumb fucks, the unlucky bastards, would scream for their mothers and girlfriends and wives, or how they’d yell, “fuckin’shit,” or just scream and scream without any words at all, and he could still see the blood and guts and bones and smell the dead and dying stink of them. They’d have to dip the chopper in water, him and Stark, to clean out the blood and guts.
He’d seen men die since Vietnam, but it wasn’t the same. Maybe because he was older, maybe because they weren’t the first, maybe because he just didn’t give a shit anymore—it just wasn’t the same. He didn’t give a flying fuck if he died himself. When he’d first gone to Vietnam, he didn’t figure on living at all. Didn’t know what to do with himself when he did make it out. Go back home and pick tomatoes?
He still didn’t give a damn whether or not he died. Christ, if he did, would he be risking his scrawny neck to help Ryder and get information to Stark?
“Shit,” he muttered, getting out his bottle. “Ryder’s an asshole—Stark, too. What the hell they want me to do? Screw ’em.”
He drank from the bottle and lay back in his bunk. The mattress was full of bugs. He woke up every morning with bites all over him. Fuck it. He didn’t care.
“Hey, Stark, buddy.” Tears welled up in his eyes. “Man, I’m counting on you.”
Matt’d get Ryder’s ass out of the fire, but Otis had quit believing that was the main reason he’d gotten Stark involved. Yeah, he wanted to help Sam, why not? But more than that, he wanted Stark to take out Bloch. He might be the only one who could do it. If he stayed on the story, he’d end up at the camp.
Someone had to do something about Bloch. Goddamn wild animal, the sergeant was. Always had been. Otis didn’t know why the hell he’d signed up with the fucker, except he didn’t have shit else to do and Bloch was offering good money. Stark’d known right from the start what the sergeant was, told Otis, too, but he’d ignored him, just like he’d ignored his daddy who kept telling him he could come on home, he could stay with him and Mamma, find a regular job, eat good. Jeez, when was the last time he’d seen his old man? Five, six years? Probably dead by now.
He drank some more, the warm booze dribbling down the sides of his mouth and onto the mattress, maybe killing off a few bugs. Bloch slept in the main house, living it up, the bastard.
If Matt could see him now. Otis sniffled, imagining his old buddy’s black eyes on him, telling him like no words could what a stupid asshole he was for taking orders from Bloch. For not telling him in the first place Bloch was involved. What the hell. Matthew Stark was on the story now, thanks to Otis Raymond. They’d all be thanking him soon. Yeah. The Weaze’d be responsible for saving Ryder’s stupid ass and seeing Bloch go down.
Good ol’ Weaze.
Nobody had ever expected him to do shit. He remembered how surprised everybody was when he got noticed for his marksmanship at North Fort. Fucking wowed them, he had. Ended up a door gunner because of it. “We can use you, buddy,” they’d said.
He grinned and closed his eyes. They burned from lack of sleep, too much bad living, and too many goddamn memories. But shit. It’d all be worth it. Stark’d say to him, “Hey, good going, Weaze,” the way he had before, back in ’Nam, when Otis hadn’t been brave so much as plain doped-up crazy. This time he was being brave. He knew the risks, knew what he was doing. Yeah, after this, he’d haul out his medals. Brag a little.
The door to the shack creaked open, and Bloch and two of his bodyguards walked in, just like they’d been out fishing all day. Bloch was even cleaned and pressed. Beside him, Otis had always felt like a dirty, slimy worm. It was the one thing the sergeant liked about him, called it proper respect.
Otis wiped the dribbled whiskey off his mouth. He didn’t care if Bloch saw the bottle. He squinted at the sergeant and the guards from the gloom of his corner and wished they’d shut the fucking door. They were letting in the cold air.
“Raymond,” Bloch said.
Out of habit, Otis climbed to his feet. The rules of soldiering were all that made sense to him anymore, maybe all that ever had. He sucked in what was left of his stomach. “Sergeant?”
“You’ve been out of camp, Raymond.” Bloch’s voice was steady, his tone without condemnation or doubt. “You went into town without permission.”
No use denying it, so Otis just stared straight ahead. He couldn’t figure out why, but he wasn’t seeing anything. Just blankness, not even dark. Nothing. It was weird.
Bloch shifted his position on the dirty floor. “You made a telephone call while you were there. Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Do I need to, Sergeant?”
“No,” he said softly, almost sadly, but Otis knew better. Bloch didn’t have feelings. “I don’t suppose you do, Raymond. The call was to Washington, D.C. You talked to Matthew Stark, didn’t you?”
Otis didn’t move, didn’t speak. No point in bluffing. Bloch already knew who he’d called and what he’d said. Bloch knew everything. Otis wasn’t surprised, he wasn’t impressed, he wasn’t even scared. That was just Bloch. One thing: Stark’d handle him. Otis wished he’d have a chance to warn Stark that Bloch was onto him, but what the hell. Matt was good.
“Raymond?”
Otis idly scratched an insect bite on his forearm, and suddenly he smiled. His mind wasn’t going after all. Shit. The uncontrollable visions, awake or asleep—they weren’t the mindless wanderings of a fucking lunatic.<
br />
They were the dreams of a dead man.
Yeah, he thought. Bloch can’t kill me. I’m already dead.
Fourteen
Juliana and Wilhelmina got off the bus near a small tenement building just outside the diamond district. As they walked up the front steps, Wilhelmina scowled at the dead geraniums sticking up out of the window boxes. There was no excuse for such laziness. She rang the doorbell, and a round, bald-headed man came to the door and let them in, introducing himself as Martin Dekker. He was younger than she’d expected, perhaps in his late forties. But these days most people seemed so young. They didn’t remember the war, the bombings, the starvation, the treachery of the Nazis and their collaborators. And if people like herself didn’t tell the young, refused to talk, how could they know? What assurance could there be that it all wouldn’t happen again?
She introduced herself and Juliana, speaking Dutch. She didn’t bother to translate, assuming Juliana could follow along well enough.
“I’m so glad you came,” the Belgian said cheerfully, leading them upstairs as he jingled a huge ring of keys. “There’s still been no word from your brother.”
“Have you called the police?”
Dekker shook his head. “I thought I should wait for you.”
And let me go through the trouble, Wilhelmina thought irritably. People always seem to sense her ability to make difficult decisions. She didn’t like to any more than they did and wasn’t, in her opinion, more competent to do so, but she wasn’t one to leave the dirty work to someone else. It was peculiar how people wanted her to be decisive and then were uncomfortable with her because she was.
“It’s not like Mr. Peperkamp to disappear like this,” Dekker went on. “He’s always been such a good tenant. Now he’s late with his rent, and—” he made an exaggerated sigh of despair “—and nothing from him. Not a word.”
Wilhelmina hoped he didn’t expect her to pay her brother’s rent. She only wanted to find him, not settle his debts. Not getting the desire response, the landlord unlocked the door to Johannes’s apartment and excused himself, thumping quietly back downstairs.
Cut and Run Page 17
