by Liz Tolsma
For a moment or two, she forgot the war, forgot Gerrit, forgot everything.
Then the drone of an Allied plane on its way to Germany split the quiet air. Though the sight of the aircraft had become familiar, especially in the last year and a half or so, it still caused a shiver to run through her. She tugged her sweater around her shoulders and picked up her pace. She needed to finish and hurry home to see what Gerrit had done toward finding her brother.
Cornelia discovered her regal old employer, no taller than a twelve-year-old boy, ensconced on a straight-backed kitchen chair in her sunny front room, rejecting the comfort of the light brown davenport and the dark brown wing chair. An ancient wood-burning stove chased away the chill.
Several rings adorned the woman’s bony fingers, each of the many fake diamonds sparkling in the light. At least four strands of pearls weighed down her skinny neck. She rapped her nails on the wobbly end table. “You are rather late this morning, girl.”
“I apologize. A matter came up that needed my immediate attention.” She should promise it would never happen again, but with a wanted man under her roof, she could offer no guarantees.
“What could be more important than getting an old woman her breakfast? It will be dinnertime before I have anything to eat.”
Cornelia tipped her head to one side. Though Frou de Bruin was slight, she doubted the elderly woman would blow away in the wind. “Do you want an egg?”
“Ja, and some bread. It would be nice to have some of that newfangled hagelslag on it.”
Cornelia’s mouth watered at the thought of the delicious chocolate sprinkles on a piece of light toast. “No hagelslag today.” That was Johan’s favorite breakfast. Would he be around to have it after the war?
Her shoulders sagged in defeat.
“Stand up straight, girl, and no pouting. We all have privations in war. You can’t let a little thing like chocolate sprinkles get the best of you.”
Frou de Bruin didn’t understand. She hadn’t lost anyone in the war. Cornelia shook her head.
Her employer shifted in her chair and scooted to the edge of the seat so her feet touched the pitted wood floor. “What’s the matter with you? The only thing that should be blue is the sky.”
“I, well, so much happened this weekend. It’s, well, complicated.” Cornelia stared at the other woman.
“I am not a dunce. I understand hard things.”
The younger stared at the older. True, Frou de Bruin had been kind to her when she had come to work here two years after Hans’s death, the pain still raw. But how far could she trust another person? Children turned in parents and brothers betrayed sisters. Benevolence at one time did not translate into trustworthiness in the present moment.
“I am not sure I can explain it.” Her stomach writhed.
“I will let you know what you didn’t explain well. Just spit it out.”
Frou de Bruin stayed alone in her house, only going to church on the rare occasion when none of her many ailments were bothering her. She didn’t have anyone to tell if Cornelia shared her secret. Secrets.
Cornelia studied the petite, majestic woman from her tightly pulled-back gray hair to her claw-like fingernails to her tiny yet ladylike crossed ankles. Today she wore a dark purple evening gown, the scooped neckline encrusted with darker purple beads, the entire ensemble more appropriate to the nineteenth century than the twentieth.
She appeared so harmless.
“My brother is missing.”
Frou de Bruin leaned forward, like a child anxious to hear the ending of a suspenseful story. “Did those Nazis get him?”
Cornelia shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but I think so.”
“How can you not know for sure?”
“He is missing, that’s how I know. He was out and never came back.” Why had she blurted even this part of the tale?
“And you have been hiding him? Good for you, girl. You have some fortitude after all. So now what?”
“That’s the question. Perhaps he will be home when I get there. Maybe Johan spent the night at a friend’s house.” Cornelia needed to stop talking.
“Set me up with some nourishment so I don’t wither away before tomorrow morning, and you can go and find out what happened to Johan.”
“Are you sure? You will be okay here?”
“I don’t think I will die before tomorrow, although at my age, you never know.”
Cornelia wanted to jump up and down. “Heel hartelijk bedankt, Frou de Bruin, heel hartelijk bedankt.”
GERRIT ROSE FROM bed once Cornelia left and sat in her rocker for a while, the quiet of the house broken only by the ticking of the schoolhouse clock, its hands inching their way around the dial. Clouds filled the sky throughout the morning and the wind blew hard. He pulled the blue blanket from the bedstee and wrapped it around himself.
Forgive me, Lord, for hurting Cornelia. Forgive me for any role I played in Johan’s disappearance. May she forgive me too.
He couldn’t bear it if she remained angry with him. He enjoyed her closeness, her tender care, her gentle touch.
She had ordered him to figure out a way to find Johan and bring him home. How would he go about that? His shoulder wound and the fact that he was a wanted man complicated things. He racked his brain for an hour or more but found himself no closer to a solution.
Gerrit didn’t know how long it would be before one of the Resistance workers would arrive. The possibility presented itself that Johan had been rounded up in a razzia, along with the others. No one may come.
A knock at the door broke into his thoughts. No banging, no demanding to be let in, just a knock.
Did he dare answer? If the neighbor had come to visit as she had the other day, he would give himself away. But the neighbor should know Cornelia worked.
In the end, he didn’t have to say anything. A voice he recognized as his friend Maarten called, “I have a delivery for Frou de Vries.” Gerrit sighed. Maarten must be bringing Johan home.
Gerrit shuffled to the door and Maarten greeted him with a grin, his dark hair parted and slicked back, not a strand out of place, as usual. “The man you sent told Bear about your wound, so I won’t give you the slap on the back I would like to.”
Gerrit swallowed hard and he bit back the pain as he grabbed his chum in a hug. “So good to see you. A little bit of Leeuwarden in this place.”
His friend’s smile widened. “You manage to get yourself out of more scrapes than anyone I have ever met. Only you can fall into a manure pile and come out smelling like a rose. We thought you were dead.”
Gerrit led him into the kitchen. “Pull up a chair and listen to my tale. No ersatz coffee. I have never been in this kitchen and feel strange about helping myself.”
Maarten waved as he folded his tall, bony frame into a ladderback chair. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”
Gerrit launched into his story, still amazed at God’s providence in his life.
Maarten leaned back and stretched his legs when Gerrit finished. “Incredible.”
“I know.”
“What about this man you sent to us? He said you were staying with him and his sister.”
“She has been nursing me and fussing over me. Like my mother, only better because she is beautiful and compassionate and very sweet.”
“Watch it. A wartime romance complicates things.”
“Don’t worry about that. No romance of any kind between us.” After what happened with Mies, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted another romance—wartime or not. “I have a message for you, some information to share. But first, I have to tell you that Johan, the man I sent you, has gone missing.”
Maarten tented his long fingers. “He never arrived here? We sent him straight home yesterday morning.”
Gerrit sucked in his breath. “Nee, he never showed up here.”
Something had indeed gone wrong.
CHAPTER 12
Cornelia pumped her legs home from Frou de Bruin’s farm at a rapid pace, her
steps keeping tempo with the thoughts flying around her mind. Maybe Johan had come home while she had been away.
Please, Lord, let that be the case. Don’t let anything bad happen to my brother.
This morning she had been so angry with Gerrit, blaming him for Johan’s disappearance. He had argued that her brother volunteered all on his own. She hated to admit it, but he was right. Johan had always been adventuresome, and being cooped up in her small house, not able to go outside, had to be driving him crazy.
With everything inside her, she wanted to stay mad at Gerrit but found it impossible. He could have done more to discourage her brother from this mission, but Johan had been determined to go. Her brother usually got his way. His disappearance wasn’t Gerrit’s fault. Not entirely.
Johan had probably browbeaten him until he gave her brother the address of the Resistance contact.
If anyone held responsibility for Johan’s actions, she did. Gerrit asked her first to go to his friend and deliver the message. Because she declined, Johan stepped in to do the job. Had she laid aside her fear and gone as Gerrit wanted, none of this would have happened. In truth, the fault lay with her.
If Johan went to Germany and never returned, she would be guilty of her brother’s death. He would be the second person she had loved dearly but allowed to go into harm’s way.
Please, Lord, please let Johan be home.
Her legs burned from her quick-paced walk and her fingers stung with the cold. She couldn’t contain a smile when she saw her house. It welcomed her. She entered through the back door and kicked off her klompen. “Johan, I’m home!”
Her brother didn’t answer. Gerrit did. “In the kitchen.”
Her stomach plummeted like a shot-down plane tumbling to earth as she entered the room. “Where is my brother? Isn’t he here?”
Gerrit shook his head. “Sit down.”
She refused his invitation, gripping the back of the kitchen chair so hard her knuckles turned white. “Where is he? What happened to him?”
“I received word from Maarten a little while ago. Johan was arrested and is being held at the jail. First thing tomorrow morning they are transporting him to work on the fortifications in the south.”
Dizziness swept over her and she tilted like a twirling top. Gerrit hurried to her side and steadied her with his left hand before pulling out a chair. “Please sit.”
This time she took his advice. She had done it. She had sent Johan to the front lines. A young man from their tsjerke escaped and told of deprivation, disease, and death. And she could have prevented it all. “What can we do?”
Gerrit sat across from her and grinned. She wanted to slap away those dimples. “Maarten and I have devised a plot to help him escape.” He sounded like a little boy excited about his scheme to pilfer cookies from the kitchen when his mem turned her back.
“What might that plan be?”
“It’s best you not know.”
“That’s not a good enough answer.”
“Never ask an Underground operative questions unless you want the same answer every time. The less you know, the less you can tell.”
“This involves my brother.”
“All the more reason for me to keep quiet.”
She clenched her fists. “Nee, all the more reason to tell me.”
“Not going to happen. I will tell you that we will steal Johan right out from under the Nazis’ noses.”
She rubbed her temples, conceding defeat. “Will it work? Will it bring Johan home?”
He sobered. “Hard to say. But I’m responsible for getting your brother into this trouble. I’ll do all I can to get him out of it.”
“This trouble is my fault. If I had gone, he would be here now. They would never have stopped me, you know.”
“Johan wanted to go. Even if you had volunteered, he would have slipped out of the house. Right now we need to work on securing his release. First thing tomorrow morning I leave to bring him home.”
“But how? You have just been shot in the shoulder.” Wait a minute—he sat in a chair, not in bed. “Why are you up? Are you that much better?”
“The pain is less, and other than preventing you from falling to the floor, I have stayed in this chair.”
“If you open that wound again and get an infection, I don’t know what I will do with you. Let me help you back to bed so you can rest.” Why one minute did she want to slug him and the next minute she cared about his welfare?
He acquiesced without complaint. “I can make it on my own.”
MORNING CAME ALL too soon for Gerrit—not really morning, but the end of his night. Maarten would arrive in a few minutes. This operation needed to succeed for many reasons, the least of which was his redemption in Cornelia’s eyes.
A vision of his sister Dorathee appeared before him, her sweet, innocent face. Another human being had hurt her. Today they wouldn’t hurt another.
He groaned as he swung his legs over the side of the bedstee. His shoulder complained at the movement, but he ignored it. The Underground leaders had taught him that any discomfort could be willed away. Good advice if you were being tortured … good advice if you survived your own execution.
Cornelia greeted him in the kitchen with a bowl of yogurt and a steaming cup of ersatz coffee. He turned up his nose. After the war, he vowed never to touch the bitter brew again for as long as he lived.
“Good morning.” Red rimmed her eyes and dark crescents appeared below them.
He went to her and stroked her cheek. “Didn’t you sleep well?”
She turned and pretended to wipe crumbs from the counter. “Sleep doesn’t come easily when your brother is under arrest, scheduled for shipment to the front lines in the morning.”
“If I could change anything, you know I would.”
“That is the worst part. I believe you would.” She shrugged.
She paced the room several times, worrying the hem of her sweater as she walked. Then she plopped into a kitchen chair. “I am scared, Gerrit.”
Her vulnerability broke his heart. He went to her and, hiding a grimace of pain, gathered her into his arms. “Don’t be frightened. God is on His throne.”
“I know, but what I believe in my head is different from what I feel in my heart. I don’t want anything dreadful to happen to my brother.”
“Everything will be fine.”
“This war has cost me everything. I have nothing more to give.”
“And I’m going to try to make sure you don’t have to give any more. We won’t let them take any more from you. Not this time.”
She gazed at him with such hope in her eyes. He had to bring Johan home with him. And he would.
He ate the breakfast she had prepared. The yogurt tasted good and revived him. Cornelia sat across from him after a few minutes, turning her coffee cup round and round. They didn’t speak until he finished.
“Shall I pray?”
She nodded.
“Dear Father, be with this mission today. Bless it, and if it be Thy will, grant us success. Return Johan to his family and his home.”
Cornelia sniffled and he couldn’t continue. After pausing a few moments, he said, “Amen.”
They both stood. She came around the table to him, gave him a hug, and climbed the stairs. A moment later Maarten knocked on the door.
DARKNESS PRESSED IN on Johan. The old brick walls of the jail cell seeped with moisture and a chill enveloped him. Odors of filthy bodies and unsanitary conditions permeated the air. No one shared the tiny room with him, a gift.
He paced the perimeter—six steps forward, turn, six more steps, turn, and so on. Not knowing what would happen to him today, he couldn’t sit on the filthy straw or the damp floor.
Where might he be headed? He hoped to the fortifications in the south. If he was surrounded by somewhat familiar territory, he had a greater chance of escape. He would blend in better with his own people, and the likelihood increased that he would find a sympathetic countryman to h
elp him get home.
And he would be able to breathe the fresh air. Home sure was as much a prison as this cell.
Six steps forward, turn, six more steps, turn.
He had a plan he would put into motion when the guard came for him. At some point in his journey, he would be alone with one or two soldiers. When the opportunity presented itself, he would kick one of them in the groin, then spin and disable the other in the same manner.
And then he would run. In the schoolyard, all of his classmates commented on what a fast sprinter Johan Kooistra was. He could outpace any of them on any given day.
He would be a hero. He would repay those Germans for what they had done to Corrie, how they had broken her spirit. And for how they had stolen Mem and Heit from him. If it weren’t for the war, he would have been able to get medicine for them and they would be alive and well today.
The Nazis would get a small taste of the misery they had caused his family.
GERRIT GAZED AT the town hall, an old, square, three-story brick building with rows of gleaming windows and twin chimneys jutting into the sky. He smoothed down the green-gray wool German officer’s uniform, cinched the belt at his waist, and adjusted the black bill of the hat, complete with a laurel wreath and an eagle. As he left Cornelia’s, he had caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He looked every inch the German officer.
The stolen German transport truck Maarten drove idled behind him. When Gerrit had pressed his friend to tell him where he had gotten the uniform and the truck, Maarten gave the standard reply, “It is better that you not know.” That suited Gerrit just fine.
He slipped his left hand in his pocket and fingered the forged papers granting him custody of Johan. If they had made even a small error on the documents, they would all suffer a fate worse than building reinforcements along the southern front or working in a German factory ripe for Allied bombing. He withdrew his sweaty hand, fearful of smudging the ink.
He shivered in the early morning chill, then climbed the stone steps. Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the heavy wood door, which creaked in protest. Each step he took in his boots echoed down the corridor. He reached the main reception area and crossed to the big desk.
