Chasing Shadows Read online

  Eloise had been inconsolable after learning that the Nazis invaded Belgium on the same day as the Netherlands. She refused to take her medicine, knowing it would make her sleep. “I have to know what’s going on!” she’d insisted. Ans feared they would both lose their sanity, cooped up in the house beside the radio. Two days ago, she had decided to take a chance and coaxed Eloise to leave the town house.

  “It’s Sunday. I think we should go to church.” She’d promised Professor Huizenga she’d keep Eloise inside, but the Pieterskerk was only a five-minute walk away.

  Eloise had looked at her with a mocking grin. “Why do you want to go to church? God isn’t answering any of your prayers.”

  “But . . . you and the professor have always gone to church. Every Sunday since I moved here.”

  “Only because Herman finds comfort in it.”

  “Well, I would like to go, but I won’t leave you here alone. Please come with me. I need comfort too.” She’d managed to convince Eloise. The church had been packed.

  Today, Tuesday, was the fifth day of the war, and Eloise seemed to be pulling out of her slump once again by planning how she would fight back. “We’ll take to the streets, if necessary, and fight the enemy hand to hand,” she said. Ans didn’t know whether to discourage her or play along. She wished the professor would come home.

  Late in the afternoon, an urgent news bulletin interrupted the broadcast. Ans heard the trembling emotion in the newscaster’s voice and immediately went to sit beside Eloise, gripping her hands. She tried to brace herself for more bad news, but the announcement was even worse than she imagined. The Nazis had bombed the city of Rotterdam. The center of the city had been demolished. Estimated civilian deaths approached one thousand. Tens of thousands were homeless. “No . . . This can’t be happening . . . ,” Ans moaned.

  But there was more.

  If the Netherlands didn’t surrender immediately, the Nazis threatened to destroy Amsterdam and Utrecht the same way. The Dutch government had surrendered. The five-day war was over. Hundreds of thousands of Dutch soldiers were prisoners of war and could be sent east to labor camps.

  “Papa! They have my papa!” Ans sobbed. “And Erik!” The losses overwhelmed her—her security, her future, her hope. She now lived under enemy occupation.

  Eloise no longer talked of fighting back. She sat on the sofa as if in a trance, staring speechlessly at the radio until night fell, listening to the horrifying descriptions of the devastation in Rotterdam. Grappling with fear and despair herself, Ans couldn’t hope to cheer her. God, help us! Please, please, help us.

  Her prayers were answered before dawn on the morning after the surrender when Professor Huizenga arrived home. Ans and Eloise had been asleep in the front room, where they’d been ever since the invasion, and Eloise sprang up to run to him. Ans was so relieved she wanted to hug him too. He gently enfolded Eloise in his arms as if wrapping a priceless object in cotton batting.

  “I’ve been desperate to get home ever since the invasion,” he said. “I finally decided to start walking. I’ve been on the road all night. Den Haag is only a dozen miles from here, but the Nazis have tanks and troops and roadblocks everywhere. Bridges are gone, and there are craters in the middle of the roads. I made detour after detour. It’s madness!”

  “What happened in Den Haag, Herman? Was it terrible?” Eloise asked. “We heard about Rotterdam.”

  He hesitated before saying, “It was just what you’d expect in a war, Eloise; that’s all I will say. I won’t stir your memories by giving details.” She started to protest, but he stopped her. “Look, my darling. I’m here with you now. And we’re both unharmed. The Nazis are promising a benevolent rule if we cooperate.”

  “Cooperate! I have no intention of cooperating, and I hope you don’t either!”

  “We’ll talk about it after we’ve rested, yes? Right now, I could sleep for a hundred years.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders the way Mama’s hens would use their wings to protect their chicks and led her up the stairs.

  Later that day, the church bells at the Pieterskerk summoned everyone to a special service. Ans went alone to mourn with the entire country for the soldiers and civilians who had died. A year ago, she had wanted so badly to leave the farm and move to Leiden, but now she longed more than anything else to go home. Yet she couldn’t desert Eloise, who needed Ans more than ever. After what they’d experienced together these past five days, the loss would be too much for her.

  Ans was leaving church afterwards when she heard a distant rumbling sound. The people milling around outside the church stopped to listen. “What is that?” someone asked. The roar of powerful engines swelled and grew, along with a rhythmic cadence that Ans recognized as marching footsteps. The Nazis had arrived in Leiden.

  Ans left the church square, following the sound toward the city’s center. The ground shook as Nazi tanks rolled down Breestraat, their treads rumbling on the cobblestones. They were followed by hundreds of Nazi soldiers, marching in step.

  Tears streamed down Ans’s face. She couldn’t move, frozen in shock at the sight of the enemy who had invaded her peaceful nation, bombing innocent men, women, and children, forcing a surrender. It was one thing to hear about it on the radio, another to see the horrifying reality in front of her as soldiers fastened bloodred banners with black swastikas to Leiden’s buildings. A deep rage filled her at the injustice.

  She couldn’t let Eloise see this. Ans turned and sprinted toward the town house, thanking God that they lived on the opposite side of the ancient city moat from the Nazis.

  CHAPTER 18

  Miriam hadn’t slept well since the Netherlands surrendered. On the surface, Leiden seemed to be returning to normal, yet enemy troops now occupied the city, and the menacing Nazi presence hovered over it. She avoided the city center whenever she shopped, unable to bear the sight of swastikas or hear soldiers speaking her native tongue in Leiden’s beautiful streets. This was supposed to be her place of refuge. She and Abba had endured so much, given up so much to reach this place of safety, and overnight that safety had vanished.

  Abba had returned to work at the university but went regularly to the synagogue to pray and talk with the other men. Miriam would hear his quiet rustlings in the apartment after she went to bed and knew he was awake for much of the night. “Please, Abba, you need to get some sleep,” she had pleaded one night.

  “I must find a way to save us,” he had replied. It seemed impossible. There was no place to go. Along with Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium, the Nazis had also invaded France. No one had been able to stop them as they continued to push the Allied forces back.

  Now, as Miriam lay tossing in bed, she knew tonight was going to be another sleepless night. She glanced at her little alarm clock—twenty minutes past midnight—and sighed. The crack of light beneath her bedroom door told her that Abba was also awake. She punched her pillow and closed her eyes, then sat up again when she heard a sound outside. Was someone knocking on the downstairs door? It was right below her bedroom window. She rose, and when she opened her bedroom door, she saw that Abba had heard it too. Miriam followed him downstairs, thinking it might be one of Mrs. Spielman’s sons from Amsterdam, and the elderly woman might not have heard the knock. It was after curfew, so whoever it was needed to get inside quickly.

  Abba unlocked the door and opened it a crack. A moment later, he flung it wide. “Avraham!”

  Miriam gave a cry of joy and rushed into Avi’s arms. He crushed her to himself, and she rocked in his arms, both of them weeping. His body was so cold. And wet. Yet Avraham Leopold was wonderfully alive—and here! Miriam prayed she wasn’t dreaming.

  “I thought I would never see you again!” she said.

  “I had to find you, Miriam. I had to be with you.”

  “Shh, shh!” Abba said. “Come inside, quickly!” He pulled them into the tiny vestibule and led the way upstairs. Miriam and Avi stumbled up the steps behind him, clinging to each other,
unwilling to let go.

  “How did you get here?” Abba asked when they were safely inside. “There are Nazi soldiers everywhere.”

  “I walked a good part of the way,” he said with a little laugh.

  “All the way across the country?”

  Avi nodded. He looked exhausted, his clothes and shoes in tatters. Miriam led him to the sofa and he sank down with her still clinging to him. She wouldn’t let go of him, couldn’t stop looking at his beloved face, afraid he would disappear.

  “When we learned that the Nazis had invaded,” Avi said, “everyone in Westerbork was terrified. We knew we would be trapped there and probably shipped east if the Nazis won.”

  “There is a great deal of despair among our people,” Abba said. “My rabbi said hundreds of Jews in Amsterdam have committed suicide rather than fall into Nazi hands.”

  The news made Miriam shiver. Abba had kept it from her until now. But it made Avi’s safe arrival all the more miraculous. He was here! In their apartment!

  “At dawn on the second day of the invasion,” Avi continued, “a group of us left camp and walked to Assen. Nobody stopped us because the country had much bigger things to worry about than a bunch of Jewish refugees. The Nazis weren’t in Assen yet, so we boarded a train, planning to travel to the coast in Zeeland. We hoped to hire a fishing boat or some other ship to cross the channel to England. I planned to come here and get both of you so we could escape to England together.”

  “I also looked into booking passage to England immediately after the invasion,” Abba said. “A few ships were able to make it across in the early days before the surrender, but the Nazis quickly took control of the Dutch coastline. Crews and passengers of any vessels they caught trying to cross the channel were sent to the labor camp in Mauthausen or shot on sight.”

  Avi closed his eyes for a moment, shaking his head. “We never made it that far. On the very first day, our train was forced to stop near Zwolle because the railroad bridge across the IJssel River had been blown up. We boarded a different train, planning to head toward the northern coast instead. We made it only as far as Leeuwarden when the war halted us again. The people in Friesland were very kind when they heard our story and offered us food and shelter in their homes. But we were a large group and difficult to hide, and the Nazis soon found out about us. We fled once again rather than endanger our hosts, but the Nazis chased us down and took us back to Westerbork.”

  “You were trapped again?”

  Avi nodded. “But before the Nazis had time to count and register everyone, I decided to escape across the heath alone. I’ve been traveling ever since.”

  “All the way across the Netherlands?”

  “Yes. Mostly at night, avoiding the main roads and Nazi roadblocks. So many bridges have been destroyed that I had to swim across canals and rivers in places. The main roads are well guarded. But many wonderful people helped me along the way, feeding me and ferrying me across rivers . . . And now I’m here.”

  Miriam gripped his icy hand, trying to warm it between her own. Avi had nothing with him—no bag, no extra clothing.

  “You must be starving!” Miriam said. She was reluctant to leave his side, but she rose and quickly filled a plate with leftovers and bread from their supper. She sat beside him at the table, watching him wolf it down.

  “That bread is from our Shabbat dinner,” Abba said. “Miriam has learned how to make challah.” Abba’s smile, so rare these days, was warm and tender. He loved Avi too.

  “You’re still keeping Shabbat?” Avi asked.

  Miriam nodded. “Yes. Our landlady has been teaching me how to cook and bake. She eats Shabbat dinner with us sometimes. Families from Abba’s synagogue have also invited us.”

  “We continued celebrating Shabbat at Westerbork, too,” Avi said. “Our simple dinners grew until we filled the entire dining hall on Friday nights.”

  “And now you need to go to bed and rest,” Abba said when Avi finished eating. “You look exhausted.” Miriam stroked his bearded cheek. How she loved his broad grin, his beautiful, shining eyes.

  “Yes, thank you. I will.” He stood, pulling Miriam to her feet. “But before I sleep, Professor Jacobs, there’s something I must ask you. None of us has any idea what will happen now that the Nazis have occupied this country, and—”

  “I know exactly what will happen, Avraham. The same things that happened to us in Germany will happen here. The Nazis will forbid me to teach. We’ll be required to register and to wear yellow stars. They will take our property and our money and our freedom. They will demonize us and persecute us and turn us into their slaves.”

  “I know . . . I know,” Avi said sadly. “I fear it as well. Right now, there’s no way out of the Netherlands, no sympathetic border we can cross, no neighbor to offer asylum. The Nazis surround us on every side. That’s why, with your permission, I would like to ask Miriam to marry me. I’m in love with her.”

  His words stole Miriam’s breath, but from joy this time. She had yearned to hear him say those words during the long weeks they’d written to each other. She’d dreamed of this moment on the endless nights when she couldn’t sleep. She had never dared to hope it would happen.

  “I know we’re young,” Avi continued, “but these are uncertain times, and I would like to bind my life to Miriam’s for as long as our lives may last.”

  “Is this what you also want, Miriam?”

  “Yes, Abba. With all my heart.”

  Tears filled Abba’s eyes. “Of course you have my blessing, my children. Of course you do!”

  “I’ll find work to support us, Professor. From now on, the three of us will live every day to the fullest for as long as we’re able. May we make our home here with you?”

  His tears brimmed and rolled down his cheeks. “Yes! Our new little family will stay together always.”

  Miriam hugged him tightly. “Thank you, Abba!”

  “How soon would you like to marry?”

  “I would marry her tonight if it was possible!” Avi replied. “No one knows what tomorrow will bring.”

  Miriam released her father and took Avi’s hand. “I’ll ask my friend Ans what we’re required to do in this country.”

  “And I will talk to the rabbi,” Abba said. “You will be married beneath a chuppah at the synagogue.”

  Miriam filled the bathtub for Avi. Abba convinced him to sleep in his bed afterwards. Miriam returned to her own room but found it impossible to sleep, her mind racing with joy and hope. Avraham was here! They would start a new life together. For the first time since leaving Westerbork, Miriam fell asleep happy.

  After Abba left for the university the next morning, Miriam and Avi walked hand in hand to the Huizengas’ town house. “This is Avraham,” she told Ans when she answered the door. “He’s here! He made it!”

  Ans gave a cry of delight and pulled them inside. “What an answer to prayer!”

  “Yes. We’re together again, and we want to get married—”

  “That’s marvelous news!” Eloise interrupted. She had followed Ans into the foyer. “You must come in and have some coffee and tell us everything so we can help you plan your wedding!”

  Ans served the coffee as Avi retold the story of his escape. He perched on the edge of the brocade settee, looking out of place in his raggedy clothes. His discomfort in these luxurious surroundings was obvious. Miriam had seen him only in the rustic barracks at Westerbork and briefly in her tiny apartment. Her grandmother’s home had once been this opulent, but Avi came from an ordinary middle-class family in Berlin, his father an accountant, his mother a homemaker.

  “We’re hoping to get married as soon as possible,” he said. “We don’t know what the future will bring, but we want to face it together.”

  “What do we need to do in your country to be married?” Miriam asked.

  Eloise quickly took over in her breathless, chatty way. “I will take you to the registry office myself. You’ll need to apply for a marriage lic
ense, which isn’t difficult to do, and then there will be a civil ceremony. Do you have identification? Birth certificates?”

  “We brought everything with us from Germany,” Miriam replied.

  “Avraham isn’t a Dutch resident, but you are, Miriam. You and your father have been legally registered as residents, and he has a good job at the university, so that should be enough to make it official. I’ll go with you to be one of your witnesses. Ans will, too, won’t you? I can be ready to leave for city hall as soon as you are. What do you say? Shall we get things started?” She stood, ready to leave immediately, but Ans held her back.

  “Eloise, wait . . . Miriam will want her father to be there. And perhaps their other friends—”

  “Of course, of course. We can finish our coffee first. But anyone can see that they’re eager to be together, and I’m ready to help any way I can. Perhaps we can go to city hall—”

  “Wait,” Ans said again. “Eloise . . . you haven’t been to city hall since the surrender. You need to prepare yourself . . . There are enemy soldiers and swastikas everywhere.”

  “Do you think the Nazis will forbid them to get married?” Eloise asked.

  Miriam drew a quick breath. Abba believed the persecution would begin all over again, here in the Netherlands. Avi reached for her hand, squeezing it to reassure her.

  “I’m not saying that,” Ans replied. “As far as I know, the Dutch clerks working in all the public offices are still doing what they’ve always done.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I . . . I’m worried that it will upset you to see the enemy occupying Leiden.”

  “Don’t coddle me, Ans. You’re as bad as Herman.” Eloise glared at Ans.

  Miriam wasn’t used to seeing tension between the two women. Yet she’d noticed how fragile Eloise was and knew Ans was wise to discourage her from witnessing the Nazi takeover.