by Liz Tolsma
“Heil, Hitler.” He bit down hard to keep from crying out as he raised his right hand in salute, all the while hoping his Dutch-tinged German didn’t tip off the man. Then he handed the documents to the scrawny clerk with wire-rimmed glasses and held his breath.
The clerk took his time, reading every word once, twice, three times. Gerrit didn’t dare try to guess if all this perusal was good or bad. The big clock on the wall ticked away the seconds and minutes.
At last the clerk peered up at Gerrit over his glasses. “I’ll get the prisoner.”
Gerrit nodded and clicked his heels, hoping he didn’t overact. He concentrated on releasing his breath bit by bit. If he let it whoosh out, he might arouse suspicions.
Many more ticks of the clock passed before the clerk returned with a guard.
And Johan.
The young man’s soft blue eyes widened when he saw Gerrit standing there, ready to take custody of him. He gave Johan a slight nod and straightened his back. Johan cleared the emotions from his face. He might make a good Resistance worker yet.
Gerrit stepped forward and grasped Johan’s elbow, then led him out the big door, to the steps and toward the canvas-covered transport truck.
Cornelia’s brother paused. “What … ?”
Gerrit squeezed his elbow hard, wincing at the pain in his shoulder. “Hush. Don’t say a word. Things could still go wrong.”
They took one step down, the truck idling across the street, Maarten waiting for them. Before they descended farther, two German soldiers sauntered to the driver’s side of the truck. Both had close-cropped blond hair. One had wider shoulders and a broader body than the other. They poked their heads into the window and gestured at Gerrit’s friend.
Gerrit pulled Johan back. “Don’t move, in case the cover is blown.”
No sooner had he said the words then Maarten gestured for them to come.
Gerrit led a trembling Johan down the stone steps. “We have to see what they want. Don’t say a word. Follow my lead.” He straightened his own spine.
Maarten spoke to him in German, though his Dutch accent was apparent. “They would like to see the papers.”
Gerrit fished them out of his jacket pocket and handed them to the soldiers.
“Where are you taking this prisoner?”
Gerrit nodded to his fellow Resistance worker. “We have orders to deliver him to Amersfoort.”
“What for?”
“Working with the Resistance.”
The older, smaller of the two pulled a pair of reading glasses from his jacket pocket. Much as before, the officers examined the forged papers with an exacting thoroughness. That much could be said for the Germans.
“Have a nice drive.” The soldier with the glasses handed the papers back to Gerrit before taking the time to sneer at Johan and spit in his face.
Gerrit’s temperature rose by ten degrees.
Johan strained forward.
Even though the idea of kicking the officer sounded appealing, Gerrit hissed at Johan, “Don’t. Do you want to truly be on your way to Amersfoort?”
Cornelia’s brother relaxed and Gerrit shoved him into the back of the truck with what he hoped was convincing roughness. His shoulder burned.
Maarten grinned at him as he climbed into the cab. “That was easy.”
“Don’t speak too soon. We have to get him home.”
CHAPTER 13
The sound of a truck rumbling down the street interrupted Cornelia as she spread fresh sheets on Gerrit’s bedstee. Only the Nazis had petrol. She parted the curtains and peered out, her heart racing when the truck screeched to a stop in front of her house. At the end of her walkway sat the same kind of transport that took away people who never came back. The same kind that took Jap Boersma away the other day. The same kind that might take her away today.
Something must have gone wrong with Gerrit’s plan. Terribly, horribly wrong. They had tortured Gerrit and Johan for information, and now they had come after her. Her entire body quivered and her breath came in short spurts. She sat on the bed, helpless, smoothing her maroon A-line skirt.
The sharp clack of jackboots approached the house. Without a knock, the front door opened. “Cornelia, we’re home.”
Her breathing ceased altogether. She couldn’t trust her ears. “Johan, is that you?”
He bounded into the room. “You will never believe it. I sat in my cell this morning, waiting for them to take me away at any moment. I mean, I had this escape plan all ready to go. Then the guard arrived and led me upstairs. I was prepared to say good-bye to this place forever. And there in the lobby stood Gerrit. They actually handed me over to him. It sure was amazing. Though I didn’t get a chance to put my plan in motion.”
“What plan would that be?” Another one of his crazy schemes.
“How I would get away from them and be a hero myself. Everyone would cheer me. Gerrit would help me join the Resistance.”
Cornelia peered behind her brother but didn’t see Gerrit. “Where is he?”
Johan’s brows furrowed. “He was right behind me.”
Gerrit stumbled into the room. “Not a hero. Just doing my duty.”
She flew to his side, embracing him loosely so as not to cause his shoulder more pain. “Bedankt. You brought my brother back to me. Heel hartelijk bedankt.”
He winced and beads of sweat dotted his forehead.
“I am sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Is it your shoulder?”
He nodded.
“Johan, help me get him to bed.”
Her brother slipped under Gerrit’s good shoulder and eased him to the bedstee. They laid him down, careful not to jostle him. Her hand brushed his shoulder as she pulled up the blanket, and it came away sticky with blood.
Cornelia’s stomach did an about-face. “Look at the wound. It opened again.”
Johan did as she requested, unbuttoning Gerrit’s shirt and peeling away the dressing. “Get a towel. Fast. He is losing blood.”
She ran to the kitchen and grabbed two or three old dish towels, scurrying back to the front room. Her brother yanked them from her hand. “Go get Anki.”
Gerrit shook his head. “Nee. I told you nee.”
Panic wove itself through Johan’s words. “She already knows about you. In fact, she took out the bullet. If she had wanted to turn you in, she would have by now.”
Johan wadded the towels and pressed them into Gerrit’s wound. “Let’s not argue. Go get her.”
ANKI SAT IN the sagging brown sofa next to the long window, sipping her warm water. The weak late winter sun matched the pale yellow of the front room’s walls. She rested her head on her husband’s shoulder. “What I wouldn’t give for a cup of real Indonesian tea.”
He stretched his head, first to the left, then to the right. “Let’s be thankful for all we do have.”
“Can’t you play along with me just once? What do you miss the most?”
“I miss you when I go to work.”
She sat straight and studied his long profile, his almost pointy chin. “Not that. What do you look forward to the most when the war ends?”
“Okay.” He smiled. “Enough raisins to make olliebollen and enough sugar to roll them in.”
Anki could almost smell the sweet donut holes frying. “And you shall have as many of them as you can eat the first day I find raisins and sugar in the market.”
He kissed her cheek and stood. “Now that I have played your game, I have to get ready for work.”
Quiet descended and her thoughts scattered. What might have happened to Johan? Had he come home yesterday? Her hands shook and she set her mug on the floor so she didn’t slosh the water.
She shouldn’t deceive her husband. Spouses should tell each other everything. Piet didn’t favor either the Germans or the Allies but favored telling the truth no matter the outcome.
He said God would protect them and His will would be done.
Anki rubbed the back of her neck, a headache nigglin
g the edges of her brain.
Corrie could deny it, but she had a crush on that Resistance worker. On a man who had involved her and her brother in illegal activity. Never in her life would Anki have imagined Corrie would become a criminal, aiding an Underground agent.
Protect my family, Lord.
She rubbed the spot below her navel, her special secret. Would this child, newly conceived, ever know his aunt or uncle? That was her prayer. She hadn’t told Piet her news yet. She had been waiting to choose the perfect moment but couldn’t wait much longer. The baby would start making his or her presence known soon.
If the Lord answered their prayers and they had good news about Johan, maybe she would tell Piet tonight. She would fix a special dinner, as much as she could with the rations, and they would celebrate. Perhaps confiding in Piet with one bit of news would ease her conscience when she hid more from him.
A gentle rap on the door drew her from her daydream. She was surprised to find Corrie.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on your way to Frou de Bruin’s?”
“Can I come in for a minute?”
Anki opened the door all the way and stepped aside for her sister. “What is it?”
“Is Piet around?”
“He went upstairs to get dressed.”
Corrie spoke so softly Anki had to lean close to hear her. “Gerrit’s shoulder wound has opened. Johan tended to him and told me to get you. You have to hurry and look at it.”
Anki attempted to process one piece of information at a time. “Johan’s home? Praise the Lord.”
Her sister nodded.
“Where has he been?”
Corrie went to the hook by the front door and grabbed Anki’s old red wool coat. “There’s time for that later. Gerrit needs you now. Every second he loses more blood.”
Anki slipped her arms into the jacket her sister held open. “I don’t like this. What am I going to tell my husband now?”
The words had just passed her lips when Piet came down the stairs, buttoning the top button on his white collared shirt, now yellowed because of the lack of good soap. He surveyed the situation—Cornelia in the front hall, Anki with her coat on. “Where are you going? Don’t you have to be at work, Corrie?”
She nodded. “That’s why I’m here. Frou de Bruin isn’t feeling well but won’t send for the doktor. With her age, it would be good for Anki to lend her opinion, you know.”
“And it looks like you are going, my dear, without a word to me.”
Anki snuggled into her husband’s arms. She missed the sweet aroma of his pipe. “Don’t be silly. I was going to say good-bye, but I hadn’t had the chance yet.”
“This couldn’t wait?” Piet kissed her cheek, then nuzzled her ear and neck.
Corrie coughed behind them. “Nee, I am worried about her. She didn’t eat well yesterday.”
“Maybe she wasn’t hungry.”
Anki sensed her husband’s suspicions and needed to deflect them. “I have a surprise for you tonight.”
“What?”
“I am going to make you wait until after work. Now you will have to let me go.”
He released her. “You seem in an awful hurry to get rid of me. What’s going on? Corrie’s had a lot of sick friends in the past few days.”
With each word she spoke, Anki’s list of lies grew. Keeping secrets from Piet wasn’t something she could do much longer. “There is a bug or something going around. Now you need to get over to the milk plant and I need to see to Frou de Bruin.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I would say you two sisters were up to something.”
CORNELIA STOOD IN the hallway, peeking into the front room where Anki examined Gerrit. She didn’t want to see everything that took place in there, but she did want to hear.
“Anki,” Johan said, “thank goodness. The blood has soaked through three towels.”
“Let me take a look.”
The two remained silent for a time, and Cornelia assumed her sister was checking Gerrit. Then Anki sighed. “He ripped open the stitches. The wound is jagged and beyond my ability to do a really good repair job that’s going to hold once he starts moving. A doktor needs to see him.”
Cornelia stepped into the room. “That’s out of the question.”
“If we don’t send for a doktor, he may well die.”
“Nee, we can’t let that happen.”
“Then we have to get Doktor Boukma.”
Gerrit stirred and winced in pain. “Go to Maarten.”
Johan’s broad face lit up like a sunrise over the Frisian plains. “What disguise should I use this time?”
She couldn’t allow Johan to venture out again. Anki couldn’t go either. She didn’t like lying to her husband, and maybe one day she would tell Piet everything, including the location of the area Underground cell.
That left her.
If she wanted Gerrit to live, she had to be the one to go to the Resistance and find out what they should do, and if there was a doktor in the area who could be trusted.
She had been helpless to prevent Hans’s death. She had gotten Johan arrested and almost sent to dig trenches at the southern front.
But they asked her to do the impossible.
Her stomach swung back and forth like a pendulum. So did her mind. She needed to go and save Gerrit’s life, but could she do that while risking her own?
Places like Scheveningen and Vught, which had been vague imaginations, shadowy places where other people went, became real to her. She could smell the death these places implied. And what would happen if the doktor they thought could be trusted turned out to be working for the Nazis instead?
There went her stomach again, slamming against her midsection, sending foul-tasting bile into her throat.
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these …”
She covered her ears, trying to drown out the Lord’s admonition.
Johan rubbed her back. “Corrie’s not going to be able to do it. I will have to go.”
“Nee!” The word burst from her clenched mouth before she could stop it. “I will be the one to go this time. I will do it.”
CHAPTER 14
Cornelia walked the route to the Underground’s headquarters, acting as if she did this every day. She waved to Frou Huizenga when she spotted the woman across the street and stopped for a moment to coo at Mot Portinga’s new daughter. Inside, however, she quivered like a poplar tree in the breeze.
She should be on her way to Frou de Bruin’s house now, but getting help for Gerrit took precedence. From the time he had walked into her house this morning until the time she left to fetch a doktor—not much more than thirty minutes—Gerrit had weakened and faded. The feisty old lady would peck at her to no end when she did arrive, but she would have to make her employer understand that some things were more important than peeling potatoes and washing floors.
A man’s life—Gerrit’s existence—rested in her hands.
She passed the old, familiar shops. At Hear Smeet’s bakery, a few women milled around, waiting for their little loaf of bread, their daily ration. Their thin coats were drawn around their shoulders, their bare legs exposed to the elements.
The same scene played out at the greengrocer’s. Though the man did not have his usual prewar bounty of fruits and vegetables, the town’s women who weren’t at the bakery stood in line here, waiting with open hands for their few potatoes.
Again, she passed the shop without stopping. She rehearsed Johan’s directions to the house and the code knock and words she would need to gain entrance.
Though the walk to the center of the small town didn’t take long, by the time she arrived at the nondescript house stationed in the midst of a row of dwellings sagging under the weight of the occupation, her legs shook and her knees banged together. She didn’t know how much longer she would be able to stand.
She raised her hand, which trembled more than Frou de Bruin’s. Clasping her own wrist to still it, she clos
ed her eyes and inhaled and exhaled a few times.
She tapped the cold metal knocker in the rhythm Johan taught her, praying she had remembered it correctly. With Gerrit losing blood at an alarming rate, she had not been entirely focused.
A deep voice rumbled from the other side of the door. “What do you want?”
“I have a vegetable delivery.”
“Carrots, beets, or potatoes?”
“Green beans.”
Johan told her he had to wait awhile for Bear to open the door, but it flew open wide a few seconds later. Thankful she remembered the code, she crossed the threshold into the dim interior. The man slammed the door shut behind her and bolted it.
He towered over her and, despite the food shortage, appeared well fed. She shrank back until she leaned against the door.
“What do you want?”
“Are you Bear?” Her voice squeaked.
“Ja.”
She swallowed hard around the lump in her throat. “Gerrit’s wound has opened and he’s losing blood. He needs a doktor. If he doesn’t get care soon, he will die.”
“Doktor Boukma can be trusted. Get him and he will take care of Gerrit. He won’t say anything.”
“But I have to get to work.”
“I thought you said Gerrit is about to die.”
“Ja, but I have a job.” Frou de Bruin would be furious with her for being so late. “Can’t one of you go?”
“It’s too dangerous for men to be on the streets. Maarten has a forged ausweis, but that means right now he is supposed to be somewhere working. I couldn’t send him until later. If Gerrit’s condition is as grave as you say, you need to be the one to go.”
Once, when she was small, maybe five or six, she had played along the edge of the canal. Rain had fallen earlier in the day, making the bank slippery. As she played, she lost her footing and slid into the water. Though she struggled, she hadn’t been able to keep her head above water.
That same drowning sensation washed over her now.
“I’ll go.”
Doktor Boukma had delivered her and her siblings, had removed her tonsils, and had stitched up Johan’s head more than once.
“Then you had better hurry.”
