Chasing Shadows Read online

  “That’s all?” His voice rose in alarm.

  Eloise smiled and ran her hand down his arm, then clasped his fingers. “Maybe we’ll wave a few pictures of Prince Bernhard and the royal family too. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

  “My dear, I know you aren’t that naive.”

  “It’s just a birthday celebration. And the prince himself is German.”

  “It’s a political protest against Nazi rule. The prince has publicly denounced the Nazis.” His gaze was stern.

  Eloise’s smile faded. “I have to do something,” she said softly.

  “Remember how worried you were for my safety when I was trapped in Den Haag after the invasion? Do you understand how much I would worry about you if you went to this demonstration?”

  “But I will go mad if I don’t do something to fight back! I can’t stay hidden away at home all day. Do you want me to end up in the asylum again? Let me stand up and protest. It’s the very least I can do.”

  The professor looked at Ans, pleading for help. Ans had seen the positive change in Eloise today and believed that fighting back would be good for her. She decided to take a chance and defend her. “We have so little hope at the moment, Professor. To be honest, I would like to fight back, as well.”

  “See, Herman? Think of the proud history of your ancestors here in Leiden. They defended the city against Spanish rule and refused to surrender. Leiden was besieged for more than six months, and even though people were starving, they didn’t give up. After the siege lifted, the House of Orange rewarded the citizens of Leiden by founding the very university where you’re a professor.” She punctuated each of her last dozen words with a poke in the center of her husband’s chest.

  He gave her a gentle smile. “I know my city’s history, darling. But listen—”

  “What’s the worst that can happen to me—prison? Any prison the Nazis put me in would be no worse than the prison of fear that held me captive during the last war.”

  He didn’t reply. His love for her was so tender, so touching. He must be relieved to see his wife happy and animated again. Yet Ans sensed his internal struggle.

  “When is the demonstration? Perhaps I’ll come with you.”

  “On June 29. It’s a Saturday. Will you come, too, Ans? You don’t have to, you know.”

  “I want to come.”

  “Then it’s settled.”

  A huge crowd gathered in the park by the fortress on Saturday, most wearing articles of orange clothing and sporting white carnations. Dutch flags had been forbidden, but people held up pictures of Prince Bernhard and the royal family, a sign of patriotism that the Nazis couldn’t miss. The Dutch people weren’t giving up or switching loyalties as the Nazis had hoped. Ans felt proud and unafraid as she stood chanting with the others, “So there!” and “Orange will triumph!”

  Professor Huizenga seemed nervous and kept his wife close to his side. But Eloise was positively beaming.

  Then the police arrived, flanked by Nazi troops. Ans’s happiness vanished when she saw Erik among them, alert and vigilant as if anticipating trouble. The demonstrators were ordered to break up and go home or face arrest.

  Ans tensed as she heard angry shouts from the middle of the crowd. She watched Erik, wondering if he’d seen her among the demonstrators.

  After a few anxious minutes, people slowly began to leave the park, still chanting as they laid their carnations and their pictures of the royal family against the fortress wall like a memorial. Ans tossed her white carnation onto the pile along with everyone else. She and the professor and Eloise turned toward home.

  Eloise seemed happier than she’d been in months that evening as they listened to the radio, even though the news was as hopeless as usual. Ans said good night and went upstairs to her bedroom early. She tried to read a book but couldn’t concentrate. She turned out the light and stared at the ceiling for a long time, unable to sleep, unable to forget that she and Erik had stood on opposing sides.

  CHAPTER 20

  Sweat ran down Lena’s face and into her eyes as she attacked the weeds in her kitchen garden with a hoe. Prayer had taken on a new urgency these past few months, and she’d developed the habit of pleading silently with the Almighty while she worked. Today she prayed that she would remain strong for her children. She prayed for courage to fight against the enemy and that God would show her when and how to do that. At times, she found it difficult to continue with her regular farm chores as if nothing had changed, while the Nazis proclaimed victory after victory. Her nation had depended on the British and French armies for help, but they’d suffered devastating defeats. The Fascist dictator of Italy had now joined forces with Hitler.

  Lena paused when she reached the end of the row and removed the kerchief to wipe sweat from her eyes. “How are you doing, Maaike?” she called to her daughter. “Are you getting many blackberries?”

  “Some . . . ,” she said, holding up the bowl she carried. “They’re so prickly, Mama!”

  Lena smiled, suspecting that more berries were going into Maaike’s mouth than into her bowl. Lena had always loved her life in the countryside, far from the hectic pace of Amsterdam and Leiden. But ever since the Nazis took control of the radio broadcasts and newspapers, she’d felt cut off from the world with no way of knowing what was truly happening. Then word had whispered around the village to tune into the British BBC station in the evenings, which had begun a special broadcast of Radio Orange in Dutch. Last night, Queen Wilhelmina herself had spoken to her fellow citizens, offering words of encouragement, urging them not to give up. Her speech had brought tears to Lena’s eyes and renewed her courage.

  She was about to attack the next row of weeds when she heard engines rumbling in the distance. She cocked her head to listen. They weren’t airplanes. The droning was much closer and traveling on the ground, not in the air. The sound grew louder, approaching. “Maaike, come here,” she called. “Right now.”

  Maaike plucked one last blackberry and popped it into her mouth before making her way toward Lena. “What’s that sound, Mama?”

  Lena didn’t reply. She put down her hoe and grabbed Maaike’s hand, hurrying inside through the back door, then continuing through the door into the barn to look for Pieter. He and Wim had been spraying trees in the orchard, but he must have heard the approaching engines too. He was striding toward the barn with Wim beside him. A dust cloud plumed in the distance, accompanying the sound. A car was coming up the road, followed by two motorcycles. Nazi flags fluttered from the car’s antennae. Lena stood close to her husband, gripping Maaike’s hand.

  “What do they want, Papa?” Wim asked. “Do you think they’ve come to make sure we’ve turned in all of our copper?” There had been rumors about such searches.

  “It’s possible,” Pieter replied.

  Good thing we buried it. Lena didn’t say the words aloud, not wanting the children to hear. The Nazis had ordered that all metal be turned in to the authorities—especially copper, which was needed for bullets. They kept careful records, making sure everyone in the village and surrounding farms had complied. Pieter had turned in some of their things so they wouldn’t attract suspicion, then Lena had helped him bury the rest in her kitchen garden after dark so the children wouldn’t know.

  The motorcade came to a rumbling halt. Lena’s knees trembled, not with fear so much as anger. “They have no right!” she said through clenched teeth.

  “Hush, Lena. We need to remain calm. Wim, take your sister into the house. Stay there until I say so.” Wim obeyed, but he walked backwards all the way as if unable to take his eyes off the motorcycles. He hadn’t seen a Nazi soldier before. The children disappeared inside, and a moment later, Lena saw the lace curtains part in the front room and Wim and Maaike peeking out. She turned her attention to the vehicles again as the motors switched off. Her heart pounded faster than the ticking car engine as it cooled.

  Pieter leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Don’t let them know you
understand German.”

  She nodded in agreement.

  The soldiers dismounted their motorcycles and removed their goggles. They wore pistols in holsters at their sides. The car door opened and a Nazi officer stepped out, smoothing the front of his uniform. Lena heard him issuing orders to the others, telling the soldiers to begin the inventory of her farm. A second man in uniform stepped from the car, older than the others and stoop-shouldered, lacking the bearing and authority of a soldier. “Tell them we’ve come to take inventory,” the officer told the man in German.

  The little man stepped forward. “We must make lists of your farm,” he said in clumsy Dutch. He mimicked writing on his hand as if it were a tablet. “A record of all animals. The crops. Everything.” He swept his arm wide to encompass the barn and fields and pastures. Lena stared at him as if she didn’t understand, but she did. And it made her furious. They were going to inventory the farm so they could steal everything from them. Conquering armies always did. It was summer, and the pigs and cows had growing offspring. The hay had been mowed and stored away. Sugar beets, cabbages, and potatoes grew in neat rows in the fields. Fruit ripened on the trees. Everything they’d worked so hard for would go to feed the Nazis.

  “They have no right,” she whispered again.

  “They believe that ‘might makes right,’ Lena.”

  The interpreter gestured to Pieter. “You must come and show us.” Lena had no intention of leaving Pieter’s side. Together, they followed the officer around the farm, answering the questions he asked through the translator. Lena heard them first in German, then in Dutch. The soldiers made notes in their ledgers. They even tromped around to Lena’s kitchen garden, writing everything down. They counted piglets and cows and chickens, demanding to know how many gallons of milk the farm produced each day, how many eggs the chickens laid. They inspected the tractor and the farm truck and made note of Lena’s bicycle, the children’s bicycles. They pointed to the windmill and asked how many bags of grain it could grind. Pieter tried to explain that it was used to pump water for irrigation, but Lena wasn’t sure from the interpreter’s translation that he’d understood.

  The inspection ended with what the officer probably thought was a stirring speech. “We hope for your cooperation,” he said. “Other nations are populated with inferior races, but we consider the Dutch to be our brothers, members of the Aryan race. Our victories are your victories. When we prosper, you will also prosper. Working together, we will build the great Third Reich.”

  Lena longed to shout, Never! How could he expect her people to forget what the Nazis had done to Rotterdam?

  Pieter remained silent after the translator finished. He seemed to sense that she was about to explode and he took her hand, signaling her to be quiet. “Tell your captain,” he said at last, “that I think you will find it impossible to befriend a country and a people who were subdued by brute force. You’re like a bully who marches onto the playground in the middle of a friendly children’s game and grabs the ball, threatens all the other children, and then demands that they play with him. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  The interpreter turned to the captain and mumbled a few words, but he didn’t repeat Pieter’s reply, which was probably for the better.

  Two hours after they arrived, the Nazis returned to their vehicles. “Good thing our farm is on a dead-end road,” Pieter said as the roar of motorcycles faded and the dust cloud settled. “We’ll always hear them coming.”

  “What’s going to happen to us, Pieter? To our family and our village? I’m glad Wim and Maaike are on summer break, but oh, how I wish Ans was home!” Having the Nazis nearby was like knowing a dangerous beast was on the prowl, and she longed to hold her children close where she could see them and protect them. But as Pieter had once told her, the illusion that she was in control was just that—an illusion. A foreign army occupied her country. The Netherlands was no longer free.

  Lena went into the barn to fetch her bicycle. “I’m going into town,” she told Pieter.

  “Now? What for?”

  “I need to find out what’s going on, where the Nazis are staying.”

  “There’s nothing you can do, Lena.”

  “And I want to talk with my father. I won’t be long.” She hopped onto her bicycle and hurried off. Lena found her father in his office in the manse, standing by the window that looked out on the market square. His Bible lay open on his desk. Several crumpled sheets of paper littered his desk and the floor. “Are you writing your sermon, Papa?”

  “I’m trying to.” He kissed both her cheeks, then sat down on the edge of his desk. “I’ve been writing sermons all my life, but the task has taken on a new urgency in these precarious days. I see what our country and our community are going through, and it brings me to my knees, asking God what He would have me tell them.” He gestured to the open Bible. “I’m still waiting for His reply.”

  “Nazi soldiers came to our farm today. Two on motorcycles and two in a car. They took an inventory of everything we have so they can steal it from us.”

  “I saw them in town. They’ve spent the past few days here, looking everything over. I think they went to a couple of other farms besides yours.”

  “I feel so violated!”

  “I understand. When I saw the motorcycles, my first thought was to thank the Lord that He took your mother home before all of this happened. She was such a gentle, sensitive soul. This would have hurt her deeply.”

  “I miss her so much. But she was stronger than everyone thought she was, Papa. I think her response to the invasion would have surprised us.”

  “And you’re also much stronger than you think. I know you’re struggling with a great deal of worry and fear right now, and naturally so. Offer it to the Lord, Lena. Let Him be the source of your courage.”

  She nodded, her throat tight with emotion. She waited until she could speak. “So what will you be telling us this week, Papa? I’ve never seen our church as packed as it’s been every Sunday.”

  “I’m not sure yet.” He paused for a moment. “The Nazis preach a doctrine of hatred, and I’ve always believed it’s wrong to hate. But Proverbs says that to fear the Lord is to hate evil. And Romans says we are to hate what is evil and cling to what is good.”

  “Aren’t you afraid people will misunderstand what you’re saying? Pieter thinks there may be Nazi sympathizers among us.”

  “I’m sure both things are entirely possible. Time will tell. But I think we can all agree that what the Nazis have done—invading a nation at peace, killing our young men, bombing and slaughtering innocent civilians—that these actions are wicked and evil. God asks in the words of the psalmist, ‘Who will rise up for me against the wicked? Who will take a stand for me against evildoers?’ Each of us must decide how we will respond.”

  “Please be careful, Papa.”

  He straightened and reached out to embrace her. “Don’t worry about me, Engelena. I must learn to fear God more than I fear men. He is the One I must answer to.”

  CHAPTER 21

  NOVEMBER 1940

  Miriam found Ans and Eloise waiting at the café for her when she arrived. Ever since the Nazi invasion six months ago, Eloise’s emotional struggles meant she and Ans were unable to leave the town house to meet with Miriam as often. This lovely fall day seemed to be one of her better ones. Miriam savored the rich aroma of coffee as the waitress set the cup in front of her. “That smells wonderful,” she said, glad to be free of the nausea that had plagued her these past months.

  Eloise poured tea from a little pot into her cup. “I wonder how much longer we’ll be able to enjoy such luxuries as coffee and tea. In the last war—”

  “Let’s not spoil the day by talking about the war,” Ans interrupted. “We haven’t seen Miriam in weeks.”

  “Yes, and I have exciting news to share,” Miriam hurried to say. “Avi and I are expecting a baby.”

  Ans leaned close to hug her. “I’m so thrilled for you! When?
”

  “Sometime next year. In early March, I think.”

  “You and Avi must be overjoyed,” Eloise said. “Naturally, you’ll need a bigger apartment. And we’ll need to go shopping with you for baby clothes and diapers and—”

  “We’ll have plenty of time for all of that,” Miriam said, laughing. “Our current apartment fits us just fine for now. Our landlady, Mrs. Spielman, has become a second mother to me, teaching me how to cook and bake, and she would be heartbroken if we moved.”

  “Have you heard from your mother or the rest of your family in Germany?” Eloise asked.

  Miriam shook her head, looking down at her coffee as she blinked away tears. How quickly her moods bounced from joy to sorrow these days. She thought she understood how Eloise’s painful past could bring so many ups and downs.

  “I understand that Avi has found work?” Ans asked.

  “He’s doing odd jobs for Abba’s friend from the synagogue. It’s not ideal, but he’s glad to be working. And Abba is happy to be back in the classroom, lecturing to his students. He loves to teach.”

  “I’m so happy for all of you,” Ans said. “Let us know what we can do to help you prepare for the baby.”

  “Thank you. I will.” Miriam gazed at these friends who’d become so dear, wishing she could express her thoughts better. “At times this past year I thought I would never be happy again, but—”

  “It’s nearly impossible to be happy with this terrible war ruining our lives,” Eloise interrupted.

  Miriam drew a deep breath and exhaled. “Avi and I decided that we would live one day at a time. We both know better than anyone what could happen. But until it does, we will be happy every single day.”

  Eloise rested her hand on Miriam’s. “Dear little Miriam. I wouldn’t dim your happiness for all the world . . . but I’ve experienced the terrible things that modern warfare brings. Life in Leiden seems untouched at the moment, but the war will catch up with us one of these days. We’re already beginning to feel the effects now that the Nazis’ Reichskommissar for the Netherlands has been passing these new laws.”