Chasing Shadows Page 19

When church bells tolled across Leiden on Sunday morning, Miriam left her little home for the last time, wearing white gloves and a summer dress without a yellow star. A flowered straw hat covered her head, which felt lighter without her long hair. Ans had cut it for her, declaring her new style a fashion success. Avi said he liked it too.

  Elisheva had stared in confusion at her father and grandfather, as if not recognizing them without their beards, but then Avi had laughed and tickled her and all was well. Miriam would have laughed at how different Avi looked too, with his bare face and strange tie and even stranger hat, but she was much too nervous as they prepared to leave for church to think anything was humorous.

  She walked down the apartment stairs and propped Elisheva in her baby carriage. They had already said a tearful goodbye to Mrs. Spielman last night. She would go with the authorities to Amsterdam, she’d said. She would live with her sons and grandchildren in the resettlement camp.

  Abba had acted oddly all morning, staring at Miriam and Avi and the baby as if memorizing their faces. When he halted in the downstairs doorway instead of continuing forward, dread suddenly filled her. “Come on, Abba. The church bells are ringing. We need to go.”

  “I’m not going with you, Miriam. You and Avi and Elisheva will be safe with the Huizengas.”

  “Abba, no!”

  “When the authorities come, I will tell them you already moved to Amsterdam so Avi could find work. I’ll give them an address there.”

  “Abba! No! You can’t do this! I won’t let you! You have to come with us!”

  “Shh . . . shh . . . you mustn’t make a fuss. Someone will hear.”

  “Why won’t you come? Please! They’ll hide you, too.”

  “Because I know we won’t be able to hide there forever. There are too many of us. The three of you will stand a better chance without me. The baby is the most important one of all of us. She is the future.”

  “But you’re a renowned physicist! Your research—!”

  “It’s safe.” Miriam remembered how he’d given it to Ans yesterday and realized he had never intended to come at all.

  “Don’t do this, Abba! Remember how Mama refused to come? Remember how much it hurt us?”

  He cupped Miriam’s face in his hands and looked into her eyes. “I’m tired of running, dear one. If I know that the three of you are safe, it will be enough for me. Who knows? Maybe I’ll find your mother in the resettlement camp.”

  “Abba, please listen—”

  “This is what I want. Mrs. Spielman won’t have to go to Amsterdam on the transports alone. I promised I would go with her.” He held Miriam close and kissed her forehead. “I love you, Miriam. Dry your tears now.” He looked at Avi. “Take good care of them, Avraham.”

  Miriam whirled to face her husband. He hadn’t said a word to try to dissuade her father. “You knew about this?” she asked. “You knew he was staying behind and you didn’t talk him out of it?”

  “I tried! I begged him to come!” Avi’s tears were overflowing as well.

  “Nothing Avi said would have changed my mind.”

  The church bells were so loud. Nagging, clamoring, as if to say, Hurry, hurry! One of them was a deep bass note that pounded in the pit of Miriam’s stomach.

  Avi encircled her shoulders and tried to move her and the baby carriage forward. “We have to leave, Miriam. Come.”

  “No, I can’t! I won’t leave you, Abba!” She stretched out her hand to her father, but he wouldn’t take it.

  “You must go,” he said. “And God go with you.” He turned his back and went inside, closing the door behind him.

  CHAPTER 28

  The trauma they’d endured in the past few days made everyone in the town house sick at heart. Ans didn’t know how to comfort any of them. Miriam and Avi mourned for her father, enduring yet another loss after suffering so many others. “Why wouldn’t he come with us?” Miriam asked again and again. “He should have come with us.” Professor Huizenga mourned the loss of his friend and colleague, saying he didn’t understand it either. Eloise continued to insist that she didn’t want to live in a world with so much evil and hatred, and Ans could hardly blame her. Eloise had to be coaxed to leave her room, and when she did, she stared through vacant eyes as if afraid to look at anyone, fearing she would lose all the people she loved. Ans hadn’t seen or spoken to Erik in more than a week, and she thought she knew why. In spite of the many protests, the Gestapo and local police were systematically rounding up Leiden’s Jews and transporting them to Amsterdam. Everyone wondered if Professor Jacobs was among them.

  “I’m going over to your old apartment to see what’s happening,” Ans told Miriam and Avi when she could no longer stand waiting. She didn’t know if facing the truth would change anything, but at least she would be doing something.

  “Please be careful,” Professor Huizenga said.

  “I will.” She thought about concocting an excuse for why she was in the Jewish neighborhood in case anyone stopped her but decided it didn’t matter. She had her identity card. She didn’t need a reason to walk Leiden’s streets in daylight.

  The area around the synagogue and Jewish shops seemed silent and deserted. Ans pressed the apartment’s doorbell and heard it ring inside. No one answered. She remembered finding this apartment for Miriam and her father nearly three years ago. They’d lived happily here, working hard, putting down roots, building a family and a new life together. How could they and an entire community of innocent people be targeted this way? What was the root of such hatred? And what could she do to fix it and make it right? There were no answers. She stood in the street, looking up at the vacant building through her tears, and understood Eloise’s sadness and despair.

  Ans was about to leave when something rustled in the bushes beside the door. She backed up a step, then saw that it was a cat—Mrs. Spielman’s cat. It mewed when Ans crouched to pet it. “You poor thing. You were left here all alone.”

  She heard heavy footsteps on the cobblestones behind her and turned to see a man striding toward her. The cat disappeared into the bushes again. The figure drew closer.

  Erik.

  She stood, ready to run into his arms and let him comfort her, then stopped. He was in his uniform. He wasn’t smiling. Nor did he reach to embrace her.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked in a tight voice. “You’re not supposed to associate with Jews. You’ll be in a lot of trouble.”

  “What Jews?” she asked angrily. “They’re all gone! And what are you doing here—arresting them?”

  “We’ve been ordered to watch this apartment and several others. Two of the Jews who lived here are missing.”

  “Those two Jews are my friends, Miriam and Avi Leopold. They moved to Amsterdam to find work. I suppose you and your Nazi friends have already taken Miriam’s father, Professor Jacobs, and their landlady, Mrs. Spielman.” She wanted Erik to hear their names, to know that they were real people. “Do you know where they took them?”

  “Amsterdam, I think.”

  “And then what? From Amsterdam they’ll go to Westerbork—and then where? What happens to them after that?”

  Erik looked away. “They’ll go to resettlement camps.”

  “How can you do this, Erik? How can you help the Nazis destroy innocent people’s lives?”

  “I don’t have a choice!”

  “You keep saying that, using it as an excuse—”

  Erik moved closer, lowering his voice. “You promised me you wouldn’t get involved.”

  “I’m involved because they’re my friends. I heard there were roundups in Leiden, and I came to see if Professor Jacobs was still here. He isn’t. This is his landlady’s cat.” It had reappeared from beneath the bush and was rubbing its head against her leg.

  “You’re not hiding your friends, are you?” She didn’t reply. “Please, Ans. You’ll be in terrible danger if you are. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “I told you. They already moved to
Amsterdam. Now, unless it’s against the law, I’m going to take Mrs. Spielman’s cat home so it doesn’t starve to death.” She bent to pick it up and it clung to her, its claws sharp, its motor purring. She walked away from Erik without another word. She loved him. But she hated what he was doing.

  “The police are looking for you and Miriam,” she told Avi when she returned. The rage she felt was beyond any anger she’d ever known. “They know you’re missing and they’re watching your apartment. We need to create a hiding place here, in case the Nazis come to search.”

  “Would they do that?”

  “Yes. They would.”

  They decided that the Leopolds would sleep on the third floor at night but keep their meager belongings in the attic, stowed in an old dresser and in a decrepit trunk that was falling apart. It was much too hot in the attic to stay up there for any length of time. The baby’s diapers were the hardest things to hide. Several of them always needed to be hung on a rope in the attic to dry. Miriam and Avi kept their bedroom neat, sitting on the floor and keeping the bed made so it appeared unused. The curtains on all three floors remained closed so no one could see inside from the street, making the house as dark and gloomy as they all felt.

  Ans held drills so they could practice hiding in the attic quickly, without making noise. She timed how long it took them, practicing until they could do it in under two minutes. They also practiced climbing through the dormer window and crouching on the flat, narrow ledge beneath it, where Eloise and Ans had stood watching the bombs fall during the Nazi invasion. The baby didn’t like the drills and would cry as if sensing everyone’s anxiety. The Huizengas shared a wall with neighbors on both sides, and everyone worried that they would report the baby crying. The cook and housekeeper had been dismissed.

  A week after the Leopolds arrived, Ans was sitting in the parlor one evening with the cat curled on her lap, listening to the radio with the Huizengas, when someone pounded furiously on the front door as if intending to break it down. They pressed the doorbell relentlessly. The cat bolted when Ans sprang to her feet. The color drained from Eloise’s face.

  “Go warn them,” Professor Huizenga whispered. “Quickly!”

  Ans sprinted up the stairs, two at a time. By the time she reached the third floor, the Leopolds were already crawling through the little door to the attic. “Is it the Nazis?” Avi asked.

  “I didn’t wait to see. Hurry!”

  They crossed the attic, balancing on the joists as they had practiced, yanking the diapers off the clothesline as they went. Avi climbed onto the crate and opened the window, letting Miriam climb out onto the ledge first. He handed her the baby, then climbed out behind her. Ans closed the window again, praying that Elisheva would be accustomed to the drills by now and wouldn’t cry. Ans moved the crate away from the window without making any noise, then hurried back to the attic door. With every careful, hurried step, her fear and anger mounted. Had Erik sent the Nazis here? Had he betrayed her? Her anger and suspicion soared by the minute. What part had he played?

  She was out of breath by the time she reached the doorway leading out to the third floor. She closed it behind her quietly and paused to listen, trying to catch her breath, her heart somersaulting. The Gestapo moved swiftly through the house, tromping in their heavy boots, shouting to each other in German. They were already on the second floor, searching the Huizengas’ bedroom. Ans hurried to the third-floor bedroom that the Leopolds had used and made sure it looked untouched. Then she ducked into Eloise’s office and switched on the lamp. The soldiers were right below her now, searching her bedroom. The workroom was strewn with Eloise’s papers. Would the soldiers read them and see what she’d been typing? Ans spotted a copy of the underground newspaper beside the typewriter and her heart leaped into her throat. She snatched it up and thrust it under her blouse, then tucked her blouse into her slacks. They would need to be more careful next time. Would there be a next time? She stood in the doorway as if she’d been working and had been startled by the commotion downstairs.

  Moments later, two soldiers thundered up to the third floor, demanding to know who she was and what she was doing here. She shrugged and spread her shaking hands, pretending she didn’t understand. They searched both third-floor bedrooms, flinging open the closet doors, pounding on the walls as if looking for secret compartments. Ans watched to see how thoroughly they searched so she could write a newspaper report about it. When they finished, the soldiers opened the attic door and climbed the steep steps. Ans and her friends had practiced moving around on the narrow joists, but she didn’t think the soldiers could balance their way to the attic window in their heavy boots.

  She waited, barely breathing, until they came out again. She got a good look at the two men and saw how young they were, no older than Erik. She longed to ask them how they could do this terrible work and if they missed their families and their homes in Germany. Were they so committed to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich that they were willing to sacrifice their humanity? She didn’t want to hate them, knowing it was wrong to hate, but she couldn’t help it.

  After the Gestapo left, Ans hurried downstairs to console Eloise. She sat frozen on the sofa as if she wanted to disappear into the cushions, while her husband knelt on the floor in front of her, holding her hands. She was trembling from head to toe, staring into the past.

  “Eloise! Look at me,” her husband said. He waited until she did. “You’re all right, darling. They’re gone. The soldiers are gone.”

  “But those dear people . . . Did the soldiers find them?” she whispered.

  “No. They’re safe. All three of them.”

  “They can’t live this way, Herman. Sooner or later the baby will cry at the wrong time and—”

  “But she didn’t cry. They’re safe.”

  Ans sat down on the sofa beside her. She needed to penetrate Eloise’s fear and get her to do something so she would feel in control again, fighting back against this obscene invasion of her home. “I watched how they searched the house, Eloise, and listened to what they were saying. We need to write an article about it for the newspaper. We can warn others what to expect.”

  Eloise turned to face her. “We could hide more people here. There may be others we can help.” She was back with them again.

  “Yes. And we will help others,” her husband said.

  None of them wanted to go to bed, still feeling vulnerable. They waited an hour, then Ans went up to the attic to let Miriam and Avi back inside through the window. Like Eloise, Miriam was pale and trembling from head to toe. The baby was asleep, but Miriam refused to let go of her. “We’re going to sleep up here in the attic tonight,” Avi said.

  Ans didn’t sleep at all. As soon as curfew ended the next morning, she ran to Erik’s apartment to confront him. She pounded on his door the same way the Nazis had. Erik had been shaving and he answered with half his chin covered with lather. “Ans—?”

  She pushed her way inside and closed the door. “The Gestapo came last night and searched our town house. Did you tell them where I lived? Did you send them there to look for my friends Miriam and Avraham? Tell me the truth!”

  “No! I don’t know anything about it. Are you accusing me—?”

  “Why did they search our house then?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because your boss was the one who sponsored your friends. Didn’t they live with you in the beginning?” Her anger slowly faded. He picked up a towel and wiped off his face.

  “I’m sorry, Erik. I shouldn’t have assumed . . . But it was terrifying to have them pound on our door, then barge in and search our house that way.”

  “Do you believe me now when I say you’re in danger? If you had been hiding them and you were caught, you’d go to prison!”

  She looked away, closing her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw the small table by the door where he always tossed his keys and police badge when he came home. She also saw a brochure from the Dutch Nazi Party with a swastika on the front a
nd an exaggerated caricature of a Jewish man with a hooked nose. To see it here, in Erik’s apartment, turned her stomach. She swallowed bile and looked up at him again.

  “I don’t want to be on opposites sides of this war. Don’t you have any compassion at all for the Jewish people?”

  “Yes, of course I do, but—”

  “You’re supposed to catch criminals, Erik. These are innocent people!”

  “The Jews will all be together in the resettlement camps. It can’t be as bad there as everyone imagines.”

  “What if it’s worse?”

  Erik was silent for a moment. Then his gaze met hers. “I love you, Ans. I want both of us to survive. I want a future with you. The Americans are in this war now, and that gives us hope. In the meantime, promise me you won’t defy the Nazis or hide any Jews. It’s either our lives or theirs.”

  “Do you believe in God?” she asked.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “We both answer to a higher authority. For now, you answer to the Nazis, but my higher authority is God. He’s the One I must obey. If God asks me to disobey the Nazis, I have to obey Him. Just like you have to obey the authorities over you.”

  “That makes no sense. What kind of a God would ask you to risk your life for someone else?”

  A Bible verse suddenly sprang to Ans’s mind: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

  Ans understood those words now. She understood what Jesus did for her. During all the years she’d spent sitting in church and hearing Papa read Scripture every night, the Bible had merely been nice words and inspiring stories that didn’t apply to her life. Now they were real. God’s love for her was real. And the love she felt for her friends was just a small taste of God’s love. Yes, Ans would risk her life for them. She remembered another verse she’d memorized in Sunday school: “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

  “Erik, the God who would ask me to risk my life is the same God who gave His own life for us. Because He loves us.”