The old woman sat bolt upright and clapped her hands like a little girl, her crooked smile wide as fresh tears streamed down her face. “What nonsense! Of course I know you!” She waggled her index finger at Nora. “Always playing games!” she chortled. “Come, after so long, you must not tease me.” She began muttering again, mumbling disjointed prayers and unintelligible exclamations.
Nora could feel only dismay. The poor woman simply wasn’t there. She had so hoped to talk with someone who would have known who Abram was and why her mother was killed, and why—oh, why?—someone had taken her Rose?
She tried to pull away, but Saartje rose and clutched her again in a desperate embrace. Nora could smell her sweat. They sat that way for what seemed like forever, each in her own prison of pain.
Suddenly, Saartje released her grip. Nora felt the woman’s body slump and then she sat up straight against the headboard, looking at her.
Nora sat there, staring, and then dropped her head, defeated. She could not stop her tears that fell onto the plain, cotton sheet. “I just wish you knew me—knew who I was!” she whispered fiercely.
Nora felt a cold, bony hand gently raise her face. “Of course I know who you are.” The voice was firm and clear. “You are my Anneke.”
48
Nora pulled back and stared at Saartje. She thinks I am Anneke! What can she tell me? Can I believe anything she says? Saartje gazed off into the distance, as if someone were calling her. Nora cupped Saartje’s pale face in her hands and made Saartje look at her.
“Yes, Tante, it is Anneke,” she said softly. “I have come back to get you. You are safe now.”
Saartje smiled and then gave Nora a reproachful look. “Why did you leave us?” Her voice was stern. “You made us hide that boy. And now my Gert is dead!” She pulled away from Nora, sobbing.
“Tante, who is Gert?”
Saartje looked at her with amazement. “Your uncle! Don’t you even remember your Oom Gert? He was so good to you!”
“Of course I remember him.”
“It was that Jewish boy.” Saartje sounded irritated. “It is all your fault.”
“What Jewish boy, Tante? What was his name?”
Saartje shook her head. “I don’t remember. It is all in the box—you know that. You gave it to me.”
“What box?”
Saartje smiled. “The box with the important things in it. Don’t you remember?” Her eyes wavered, looking confused. “It was when you brought that boy to us.”
“Was his name Abram? Abram Rosen?”
The old woman waved her away with a listless hand. “The one the Nazis were after.” Her gaze returned and fixed on Nora’s. “Ach kind, so many horrible things have happened since you went away.”
“What things? Tell me.”
Saartje sobbed quietly and stared at the flickering of the candles. “All you told us was that the Jewish boy would die unless we hid him.” She burst into tears. “And then one night I heard him arguing with Hans outside in the street and a gun went off!” She raised her arms as if to ward off the sound. “Then Hans came inside and told us to hide in the cellar.” She burst into tears. “That night the police came and took away my Gert. And I never saw him again!”
Nora sat, shocked. Then she leaned forward and gently put her hands on Saartje’s wet cheeks. “Tante, please. This is important. Did Hans kill Abram?”
Saartje shook her head. “I don’t know who killed him,” she cried. “You are the one who knows! You sent him to us!”
Nora didn’t know what to think. “Did Abram have any friends? Any family?” she asked. “Anyone who came to visit him while he was with you and Gert?”
Saartje pushed Nora away and stepped down onto the cold stone floor. She began to pace, wringing her hands. “Only the boy, the young one. He came a few times.”
Nora’s heart leaped. This could be it! The connection! She stepped over to Saartje, took her frail elbows in her hands and looked into those wandering eyes. Not now! She has to stay with me long enough to tell me the truth! “Saartje, what was the boy’s name?”
Saartje dropped her head. It felt to Nora that if she loosened her grip, the old woman would fall down. “Anneke, I am too tired. I cannot think about these things anymore. Please leave me alone, kindje,” she whispered. “We will talk later.”
Nora panicked. She shook Saartje gently and spoke more loudly. “Please, Tante—I’m begging you. Just think. What was the name of the boy?”
Saartje raised her head and gave Nora a reproving look. “Do you not know your Bible, child?”
“What do you mean?”
The old woman gazed upward. “Abraham’s promised son.”
Nora could tell she was fading fast. She knelt in front of her and clasped both of Saartje’s thin hands in her own. She looked up. She was so close! Saartje’s blue eyes grew dim. She placed her hand on Nora’s head and gently stroked her hair. “You must study your Bible,” she whispered.
“Please, Tante,” whispered Nora fiercely. “Do you mean than Abram had a son? Is that who visited him?”
“No, no!” said Saartje irritably. “That’s not it at all.”
“What was his name?”
Saartje pulled away, crawled back into bed and assumed the fetal position. Nora rushed over to her, but the old woman’s eyelids had drooped. Nora heard the last faded words fall from her lips. “Abraham’s promised son.”
49
The next morning, Dirk set out, nervous as hell. Who wouldn’t be if he was going to kill someone? He wore the plaid birding hat, heavy jacket and thick pants. With binoculars and a camera around his neck, he pretended to observe the birds hopping on the beach a short distance away from the van der Werff. Every now and then he snapped a few shots, like all the idiotic bird-watchers who, being Dutch, refused to be deterred by shitty weather. He stomped around in the goddamned cold for hours, icy rain trickling down his neck. When by midmorning he had not seen Nora leave, he worried that he had missed her.
He called the hotel from a restaurant close by. No, Mevrouw de Jong had left early. No idea when she would return. Damn it. He hated having to hang around all day, but he had no choice. Finally, around three, he saw her get out of a cab and go into the hotel, but there were too many people going in and out. While pretending to take a few shots of the beach from the back of the hotel, he noted a service entrance. He tried it. Locked. Looking both ways, he pulled a switchblade from his jacket and jimmied the door. Then he walked calmly back to the road, hopped on the bicycle he’d rented and rode to his cabin.
Once there, he poured himself a shot of dark rum. He had the shakes so bad that some of it sloshed onto the floor. God, he needed a fix. His skin crawled and stung. He felt as if he were being devoured by fire ants. But all he had left was one dose and he had to save that for tonight. He lay in his bed all afternoon and evening, visualizing step-by-step every move he would make, anticipating how she would resist him, how he would overpower her.
Around eleven, he took a hot shower and slugged more rum straight from the bottle. Then he cut and dyed his blond hair a nondescript brown from a bottle. Nice touch.
Dirk shook the syringe that Amarisa had given him, the ominous yellow liquid in it swirling silently. It scared the shit out of him. Suddenly he went from feeling frightened to furious.
Fucking bitch! How could he have let her talk him into murder? What if he fucked this up? He’d shot himself up a hundred times, but he’d never done it to someone else kicking and screaming. If he got caught he’d go down for attempted murder, not just assault. He’d be the one rotting in jail. No way. He wasn’t going to jail again—not for Amarisa, not for anyone.
But he needed that goddamned money. So he’d do it his way—with his bare hands, the way he’d always worked. He picked up the syringe, walked to t
he sink, removed the tip and plunged her shit down the drain. Now he felt in control.
Then another idea. He took apart the syringe, scrubbed it with dish soap and hot water and then rinsed it. From his overnight bag, he took out a small bottle of alcohol he always kept to make sure his needles were clean. He poured it inside and outside the syringe, plunged it through, over and over, and then rinsed everything again with hot water.
As it dried, he pulled an envelope from his jacket. Heaven’s powder. So it wasn’t white, just a shitty brown like all street stuff, but it’d get him where he wanted to go. He went through the drill of mixing it with water, adding some lemon juice he had bought in a grocery in town, heating it in a spoon and then—poetic justice—filling Amarisa’s syringe with his shit. What a great fuck-you, he thought.
He felt the fierce need to shoot up, but he’d force himself to wait until just before he went to the hotel. It might give him the balls to go through it. At one in the morning, he walked to the beach, sat inside a stone cabana protected from the wind and watched the black waves crash onto the shore.
After what seemed like forever, it was two o’clock. Surely the hotel was deserted by now, except possibly for the desk clerk. And that bitch was certainly asleep. He slipped the syringe from his pocket, shook it, tied off and shot up. As he walked to the dunes behind the van der Werff, the smack hit him—hard. By the time he reached the service entrance and slipped stealthily up the stairs, he felt as if he were flying.
Killing wouldn’t be so bad.
50
Exhausted, Nora dragged herself up to her room. It was too much for her to bear. The poor woman was demented. And Nora had felt so positive, so certain she would be able to get answers from Saartje, Anneke’s very own aunt, who could have given her the key to end this torture. She was desperate to try again the next day, but the Mother Superior had refused. Her responsibility was to shepherd Saartje’s soul and she would not subject her sister to any more traumatic experiences. Nothing Nora said had changed her mind.
She unlocked her door and dropped onto the bed fully clothed and almost immediately fell into a deep sleep. When she awoke, she looked groggily at her watch. Six p.m. She struggled out of her clothes and crawled into bed. She heard the wind as it whipped around the building, rain slamming against her windows. She fought tears, the piercing disappointment. The ferocity of her wails and sobbing frightened her. It was hopeless! She was no closer to finding Rose.
There was no life left for her without her baby, the softness of her skin, the wonderful heaviness in her arms when she held her. Nothing else mattered. She cried until she could cry no more, rolled over and let the twilight of sleep lull her again. Thankfully, she sank into it.
51
Ariel stood at Nora’s door. He had checked in under a false name at 11:00 p.m. and gotten Nora’s room number from the clerk, which was a surprise. For some reason, the man believed that Ariel was her brother. Now that he didn’t have to wait until morning, he snuck from his room upstairs around two, found her room and raised his hand to knock. A noise caused him to turn around. He saw a large man, a pistol pointed at his head.
Ariel raised his hands and jumped back. “Oh, God! Don’t shoot!”
“Get the fuck out of here—now!”
“Who—who are you?”
“None of your business. Get your ass down the stairs—fast.”
Ariel felt as if his heart had stopped. His arms, still above his head, began shaking. “This is a terrible mistake! Please, listen to me—”
The man now took careful aim. Ariel barreled toward him, gave him a karate chop to the neck and then a swift kick to his stomach. The man staggered and grunted, almost falling, but recovered quickly. He sidestepped Ariel’s next attempt, steadied his grip on the pistol—and fired.
Ariel recoiled as the bullet hammered into his shoulder. Before he could cry out, the man wrenched his neck into a half nelson and hissed into his ear. “The back way. Down the stairs. Two seconds. Don’t scream or you’re dead.” He released him and kicked him toward the stairs.
Ariel felt as if he would pass out, but his terror made him clutch his bloody shoulder and run. He took the stairs two at a time and blasted out of the service door into the night.
52
Nora awoke and the room was dark. She’d been awakened by a noise outside her room. At first she forgot where she was. She turned to the clock on the night table—2:15 a.m. She groaned. The stupor of her sleep had affected her like a narcotic.
Suddenly a form loomed over her. Strong hands clapped themselves over her mouth. Her eyes flew open, but she could not see the monster in the pitch dark. She screamed, but the savage hands pressing down on her mouth prevented any sound.
He yanked her out of bed, still holding one hand over her mouth. He turned her roughly, facing her away from him. A guttural Dutch voice breathed into her ear. “Don’t scream.”
She didn’t move, petrified. Then she remembered. She had unlocked the door and, in her exhaustion, forgotten to lock it behind her. The hands now clutched her throat in an iron grip.
“Who are you?” she croaked, fearing that if she moved he would choke her. “What do you want?”
His mouth was even closer to her ear. “I work for someone who has your daughter,” he whispered.
“Rose, you have Rose? Where is she? Is she all right?”
The man squeezed her throat, not cutting off her air completely, but enough to make her feel faint. “Quiet! She’s alive,” he hissed. “And she’ll stay that way if you stop what you’re doing.”
Nora kicked feebly at his knees, tried to twist around to see him. “Please!” she whispered. “Give her back to me! I’ll give you anything you want!” She could smell the man’s foul sweat.
“Get out of this country and your daughter won’t be hurt. If you don’t, she’s dead.”
“Tell me where she is!” she cried. “I can’t leave without her—please!”
Nora clutched his fingers, trying to pry them from her neck and claw at his face, but he was too strong. Goddamn it! She would will herself to force the bastard to tell her where Rose was, to find out if she was hurt—anything! But he pushed her face down on the bed, shoving her head into the mattress and pressing it there. When she felt herself losing consciousness, he loosened his hold. Then she felt something cold and hard pressed against her temple.
“You want me to kill you, too? What will happen to your sweet baby then?”
“No, no! Please!”
“I don’t think you heard me.”
Suddenly, with all her might, she twisted and escaped his grasp. “Help me!” she screamed. “Someone help me!”
She heard a bang on the door. “Shut up in there! We’re trying to get some sleep!”
“Shit!”
Nora heard the alarm in his voice and then felt him smash her on the temple. The last thing she heard was him running from the room.
53
Ariel ran down the narrow highway to the ferry as fast as his legs would take him. The road was not lit and only white gravel showed him the way. He felt as if he were swimming through syrup, his shoulder on fire. He felt dizzy, as if he might pass out. As he ran, ragged thoughts sliced through his mind. Don’t let them catch me! How many miles to the ferry? Surely he could make it!
The snow had a deep layer of ice underneath it and he slipped and fell, trying not to land on his injured shoulder. He screamed out of frustration and pain. Get up! Keep going! Forget about your shoulder! He struggled to his feet and wiped the sleet from his watch. The green, glowing numbers told him it was almost three. He had checked the ferry schedule when he arrived. The first one left at four-thirty. He had to make it. Terror propelled him as his lungs felt as if they would burst.
Wild thoughts hammered through his brain wit
h each footfall. Had that maniac shot her? Was Nora dead? Even with the silencer, the pistol’s report still rang in Ariel’s ears. Someone must have heard it.
But would the son of a bitch be caught? And how many officers could they have in such a tiny place? He knew that Schiermonnikoog was barely ten miles long, but even if no cars were allowed, the police must have a squad car.
If anyone had seen him, it wouldn’t take long for the police to set out to search the island. He ran faster than he thought possible. He glanced at his shoulder, horrified at the blood that had seeped through his shirt.
Now as he pumped his arms and willed his weak legs forward, he was bombarded by jagged fragments of what had happened that day, playing like a surreal film in his mind. How had it all gone so horribly wrong?
A stitch pierced his side. He stopped running, bent over and gasped for breath. His shoulder throbbed. He was done in. They would find him. He stumbled a few more steps and then looked up. There! He saw it! Through the fog he made out the blurred outline of the ferry station. And yes, the ferry was still there, tied up to the dock!
He looked at his watch. Four twenty-seven. He sprinted the last fifty yards, adrenaline driving his exhausted legs even though he felt as if his chest would explode.
Breathing heavily, he walked into the small wharf house. Hands shaking, he kept his head down as he bought a ticket from a bored clerk who didn’t even ask him why he was panting or why he awkwardly used only his left hand to extract guilders for the fare.
He stuffed the ticket into his pocket and hurried to the upper deck. His shoulder still throbbed, a steady hammering of pain, but he was afraid to go to the men’s room and examine it. Was the bullet still lodged in his body or had it pierced the skin and passed through? If so, the bullet had to be somewhere in the hotel hallway. Maybe the police would match the bullet to that son of a bitch’s gun when—if—they caught him. No doubt Amarisa had sent that bastard. Maybe to kill him, too. The cold wind whipped about him as he waited, terrified that at any moment the police would rush ahead and put him in shackles. If they did, it would only be a matter of time before they got to Leah...to Amarisa...to Rose. He groaned. Had it all been for nothing?
The Tulip Eaters Page 21
