Chasing Shadows Page 13

“Eloise, there is something else you can help us with,” Miriam said. “Avi escaped with only the clothes on his back. He’s going to need clothes and shoes.”

  “It would attract too much attention if I had carried a suitcase,” he added.

  Eloise seemed to size him up. “You’re not as tall as Herman, but my seamstress can do wonders with sewing needles and scissors.” Eloise became animated again, and Miriam knew she would pour her breathless energy into helping Avi. “Naturally, you must be married in a suit. And I’ll look after the rest of your wardrobe, too, so don’t worry about a thing.”

  “How can we ever thank you?” Miriam asked. “You’ve done so much already, and—”

  “And you, my lovely Miriam, deserve to be wed in silks and lace. Let me see what I have that might suit you. Ans, call my seamstress straightaway. Her number is in my address book.”

  The paperwork required more than a week to process, then Miriam and Avi were married in a civil ceremony in the registry office with Abba and Ans as their witnesses. That afternoon, Miriam stood beneath a chuppah in the synagogue with the man she loved, reciting their marriage vows in a quiet ceremony. They invited Ans and Eloise and Professor Huizenga, along with Mrs. Spielman and some of Abba’s colleagues and friends from the synagogue. Eloise’s dressmaker had altered a beautiful peach-colored silk dress and matching jacket for Miriam to wear, and a dark suit for Avi.

  “You look beautiful,” Abba said with tears in his eyes. “As beautiful as your mother. If only she could be here with us.” Before leaving for the ceremony, Miriam had paged through her photograph album with Abba, remembering their loved ones. Their absence tempered Miriam’s joy. She and Avi should be surrounded by family and friends, dancing with them in a joyous circle as they celebrated.

  Eloise poured her high-spirited energy into hosting a reception at the town house afterwards. “With herring, of course. It’s a Dutch tradition!” She turned the top floor into a bridal suite, insisting that Miriam and Avi spend their first married days there. “You will have the third floor all to yourselves,” she had whispered to them. “My cook will bring room service just like a fancy hotel.”

  “This is the happiest day of my life,” Avi said as he closed the bedroom door and pulled Miriam into his arms.

  He smelled wonderful, the scent of Professor Huizenga’s expensive cologne lingering on his newly tailored clothes. Miriam breathed deeply, the pressure in her chest gone. She could have soared to the treetops if she’d had wings. “It’s my happiest day as well. When I fled from Cologne, I thought I’d never feel joy again.”

  He took her face in his hands, their foreheads touching. “I want to fill your life with love until it overflows, Miriam.” He kissed her, tenderly at first, then with slowly growing passion. She tasted the wine they’d used to toast their marriage on his lips. “I wish I could take you on a proper wedding trip and give you the home you deserve. Living under enemy occupation isn’t the way I’d hoped to begin our new life.”

  Miriam stroked his freshly trimmed beard. “I’m not afraid of anything now that you’re here, my love. We’ll face whatever the future holds, together.”

  CHAPTER 19

  “Let me help you get dressed, Eloise,” Ans begged. “We should go for a walk today.”

  Eloise shook her head as if the effort to speak was too much for her. For the past week, she’d remained in her nightgown and robe all day, floating listlessly around the town house like a ghost of herself. The only reason she would agree to rise at all was to go downstairs and listen to the radio.

  Planning Miriam and Avi’s wedding reception had buoyed Eloise’s spirits. But Ans knew from experience that the higher Eloise’s moods soared, the steeper her fall might be when the euphoria burst. Her despair had deepened throughout the last week of May as the news became increasingly grim, with reports of Nazi victories and crushing Allied defeats. She seemed to shrivel inside herself as they listened and no longer talked of fighting back.

  Professor Huizenga gave up trying to plead with his wife to turn off the news. There was no way to shield her from it. Europe’s fate—their future—hung in the balance.

  The Nazis had stranded the British and French armies on the beaches at Dunkirk, and for a few dread-filled days, it appeared that France and Britain would be forced to surrender too. Then a miracle had lifted their spirits when the Royal Navy and hundreds of civilian vessels had evacuated the British army to safety across the channel.

  But the Netherlands’ last hope for liberation had disappeared with the British forces. The Nazis and their allies now occupied Belgium, leaving the Netherlands cut off from the world and surrounded by Nazi-controlled nations. The French army was in tatters. The Nazis marched relentlessly toward Paris.

  Ans finally coaxed Eloise out of bed, but she cringed when Eloise went to the front room first and switched on the radio. “Let’s wait until after breakfast—”

  “No, wait! Listen!” The excitement in the announcer’s voice was unmistakable. Ans held her breath, hoping it was good news for once. It was. All Dutch soldiers being held as prisoners of war would be set free to return to their jobs and homes.

  “Papa!” Ans shouted. “My papa is coming home! And Erik! Oh, Eloise, thank God!”

  “You must go home and celebrate with your family this weekend.”

  “Thank you! I think I will!” Erik would be coming home too. They’d exchanged letters while he’d been away, and the bond between them had grown stronger as they’d shared their hopes and fears with each other. She could hardly wait to see him.

  Ans packed an overnight bag and set out for the farm on her bicycle early Saturday morning, knowing that the trains would be crammed with Nazis and returning Dutch soldiers. “If Erik comes while I’m at the farm,” she’d told Eloise before leaving, “please let him know when I’ll be back. And that I can’t wait to welcome him home.”

  The air was warm with the promise of summer, the fields green and scented with freshly mown hay. Even the manure smelled good to Ans as she pedaled home, thanking God for sparing Papa and Erik when so many others had died. And thanking Him that the good news had helped Eloise find her footing again in the delicate balancing act she performed every day. The journey was tiring, but Ans sped up as she cycled the last mile home.

  How wonderful it was to hug her family and be with them again. The simple farmhouse with its red-tiled roof, and the attached barn full of cows, and the squawking chickens, and the stately old windmill—none of these familiar sights had ever looked so beautiful to Ans.

  Her down-to-earth papa seemed uncomfortable with the fuss everyone paid him. Mama wouldn’t take her eyes off him. Maaike clung to him like a third leg. Wim followed him around like an unweaned calf.

  “You rode an awfully long way just for me,” he said as Ans hugged him.

  “I needed to make sure you were all right.” Ans thought she saw more wrinkles on his tanned brow. And he looked weary.

  “We did our best,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t enough.”

  When Opa learned that Ans was home, he joined them at the farm for dinner. Mama had cooked Papa’s favorite treat, smoked eel.

  “The village looked unchanged as I cycled through it,” Ans said as they sat around the table. “I didn’t see any red banners or swastikas like the ones all over Leiden.”

  “I suppose that’s one advantage of living in an unimportant, out-of-the-way village,” Mama said. The village Ans had been so eager to leave.

  “They’ll find us eventually,” Papa said.

  “Have there been a lot of changes in Leiden?” Mama asked.

  “Everywhere you look it’s obvious that we’re under enemy occupation. Yet some people think everything will be fine, and life will be just as it was before, so let’s all go back to work or to school. They think nothing has changed except for the handful of people at the top who are in power.”

  “We’ve heard their propaganda too,” Opa said. “They say, ‘Come under the protection
of the Reich. Don’t be afraid. The Dutch are fellow members of the Aryan race.’”

  “They’re tempting a lot of people to trust them,” Mama said. “The war unnerved them, and people want to believe the lies. They want to go back to how it was before. After all, there aren’t any signs out here in the country that we’ve lost our freedom.” She passed the bowl of potatoes to Opa, but he held up his hand and shook his head.

  “There’s a story in the Old Testament,” he said, “about a time when the Assyrian army laid siege to Jerusalem. They surrounded the city with their superior forces and demanded that the king surrender. The enemy leader shouted to King Hezekiah and the people who were watching from the top of the wall, saying, ‘Make peace with us and come out to us. Then you’ll be able to eat from your own vines and fig trees.’ But King Hezekiah placed his trust in God and stood firm. His tiny nation was outnumbered, just like ours, but he refused to surrender.”

  Papa frowned and pointed upward. “I don’t think Hezekiah’s enemies had airplanes dropping bombs.”

  Opa tilted his head, acknowledging Papa’s point. “But God performed a miracle,” he continued, “sending the angel of the Lord and killing 185,000 enemy soldiers with a plague in a single night.”

  Papa’s frown deepened. “The time to perform a miracle would have been before the Nazis bombed Rotterdam or while we were still fighting for our freedom.” His face flushed a deeper bronze, a signal of his growing anger.

  Ans had rarely seen Papa lose his temper. He usually would simply walk away. She knew he wasn’t angry with Opa, but with the Nazis. Or perhaps with God.

  “I watched men die,” he said.

  “Pieter . . . the children . . . ,” Mama whispered.

  “No, Pieter made a good point,” Opa said. “A timely miracle would have been welcomed by all of us. But the point of my sermon isn’t going to be the miracle.”

  “Is this your Sunday sermon?” Ans asked.

  “It will be.” He pushed his chair back from the table as if to give himself room to gesture when he spoke. “Right now, we’re all standing where King Hezekiah and his people stood. The enemy says, ‘Trust us. Join us. All will be well.’ But we each face three choices.” He ticked them off on his fingers, one by one. “We can lie low, mind our own business, and simply adjust to Nazi rule. Or if we like the way they’re doing things and we want to get ahead, we can collaborate with them, join the Dutch Nazi Party, and help them usher in their new Reich. Or, like Hezekiah, we can resist, refusing to surrender and assimilate.”

  Ans thought of Eloise and her determination, at first, to fight back against her enemy. News of Allied defeats had destroyed her will to resist. Depression had pulled her down into a pit like quicksand.

  “And will you be telling our congregation to resist?” Mama asked. Ans saw new lines in her face too.

  “I will be telling our people that we need to make a conscious choice. To do nothing is to choose the enemy’s side. So there are really only two choices in the end—give in or fight back.”

  “Do you think that’s wise, Papa? Please don’t put yourself in danger.”

  “Engelena, it would be much more dangerous for me to face God at the end of my days and explain why I did nothing.”

  “Your father is right,” Papa said. “I may have been sent home from the battlefield, but I’m going to continue to fight. Any nation that would bomb an unwary city and kill a thousand innocent civilians must be stopped.” His words and the urgency in his voice made Ans’s heart speed up. Was this her calm, quiet papa?

  Mama was biting her lip, struggling against tears. “But, Pieter . . . our family . . .”

  “I know. But what will their lives be like if they grow up under Nazi rule, learning their values and imitating their hatred?”

  Ans understood Mama’s fear. She also knew that what Papa and Opa said was true. She thought about their words as she bicycled back to Leiden the following day, and about the question Eloise had asked when she’d first made up her mind to fight back: “Are you with me, Ans?” If so, Ans knew she would need to learn what it meant to fully trust God.

  Erik came to the town house the day after Ans returned home, looking as handsome as ever, yet in some ways older and more hardened. His wheat-colored hair had been shorn when he first joined the army, but it had grown back while he’d been a prisoner and was as thick and tousled-looking as before. She had almost forgotten how wonderful it was to feel his arms around her and to enjoy his soft kisses when they were alone. She reveled in the knowledge that she belonged to him, that he was watching out for her as they walked hand in hand, passing the ever-present Nazi soldiers.

  Ans knew her parents belonged together; Professor Huizenga and Eloise seemed made for each other; Miriam seemed more whole and fully herself now that Avraham was beside her. And with every moment that Ans spent with Erik, she grew more and more convinced that he was the perfect partner for her, and she for him. They balanced each other—she the impulsive and adventurous one, he steady and cautious. His letters had revealed so much more about him as he’d talked about his childhood in Java and what he thought about the war and what his hopes and dreams were for the future. Ans was thrilled to read that he included her in those dreams.

  They sat side by side on a bench, their hands entwined, watching a pair of swans in the canal. “What’s next for you, Erik?”

  “They said my job on the police force is waiting if I want it back.”

  “I could never work for the Nazis. They disgust me.”

  “Ans . . . shh . . . ,” he whispered, looking all around. “You can get into a lot of trouble for talking like that.”

  There were other people in the park, couples reunited, strolling the paths, watching the swans and ducks on the Steenschuur. Ans lowered her voice for Erik’s sake. “Don’t you feel the same about them after the way they brutally attacked our country? How can you work for them?”

  “I’m not working for them. I’m working for the people of Leiden. Protecting them. And you.” He glanced around again as if to see whether anyone was listening, then continued in a soft voice. “Isn’t it better for us to keep order and police our own streets instead of letting the Nazis do it? Because if we don’t, they will—and their policing will be brutal.”

  “I believe you. But aren’t you afraid they’ll demand you take an oath to Hitler or the Reich?”

  He looked away for a moment as if he couldn’t face her.

  “What? Tell me, Erik.”

  “There are rumors that we may need to become members of the NSB if we want to stay on the police force.”

  “The Dutch Nazi Party? Oh, Erik!”

  “It would be in name only. I don’t agree with anything they stand for. But the police chief is being pressured to give preference to party members when deciding who gets hired. And if I lose my job—if any man loses his job—we’ll be sent east to work in German factories. We’ll be slave laborers.”

  “Do you think my Jewish friends will be persecuted here the way they were in Germany?”

  Erik shrugged. “Who knows? So far, they’re saying the Jews won’t be bothered here. The Nazis have promised that if our people cooperate, things will return to normal.”

  “Do you believe them?”

  “What choice do we have?”

  Ans stood again and walked toward the water. She was weary of hearing that everything would be all right when the mere sight of the two Nazi soldiers strutting down the street across the canal made everything all wrong.

  She recalled her family’s conversation at the dinner table and wondered if she should share her grandfather’s assessment with Erik. Surely he would agree that the only two options were to cooperate or resist. Yet it seemed that, at least on the surface, Erik had chosen to adjust to Nazi rule and float with the tide. And if he joined the NSB, wouldn’t that be considered collaboration? But how could she blame him if the alternative was to be sent to a labor camp?

  Ans’s stomach turned at the th
ought of Erik becoming a Nazi puppet. He’d been forced to choose the lesser of two evils, but she didn’t like either choice. “If only we hadn’t lost the war,” she murmured.

  Erik had come alongside her, and he wrapped his arm around her waist. “We fought hard, Ans. Remember my roommate Bram, Jansje’s fiancé? He was killed on the first day of the invasion.”

  Ans closed her eyes, thanking God that it hadn’t been Erik. Or Papa.

  They walked home together, clinging to each other.

  In mid-June, Hitler marched triumphantly into Paris. Eloise’s mood spiraled even lower. As the days passed, she slept too much, ate too little, and stared into space as if her body and mind were vacant. Ans tried to get her to talk, wondering if she was reliving the past, which seemed to be merging with the present in a terrifying way.

  One warm afternoon, Ans managed to convince Eloise to walk with her to nearby Van der Werff Park. As they strolled down one of the paths, a young woman strode toward them as if in a hurry. Her hand suddenly reached out as she marched past, and she thrust a piece of paper into Eloise’s hand. She halted to read it.

  The flyer urged people all across the country to take part in patriotic demonstrations on June 29 by celebrating the birthday of Queen Wilhelmina’s son-in-law, Prince Bernhard. “Here’s our chance to fight back,” Eloise said. “We’re going to do this!”

  Ans heard life in her voice for the first time in weeks. She read the details of the peaceful demonstration again and couldn’t see any harm in going, especially if it lifted Eloise’s spirits. “But let’s see what Professor Huizenga thinks first,” she said.

  Eloise showed him the flyer at the dinner table that evening. “Ans and I are planning to go,” she told him.

  “Absolutely not!”

  “But, Herman, why not?”

  “Because this is certain to provoke the Nazis. How can I keep you safe if you go about provoking our enemy?”

  “But it’s a peaceful demonstration. All we’re going to do is wear something orange in support of the queen and the House of Orange and carry one of those white carnations that the prince so famously wears.”