The Dutch Orphan, page 18
When the conversation began to die, oom Cor pulled out the evening newspaper and cleared his throat.
“That’s my signal,” Gerrit said. He grabbed his bicycle from the back entrance and carted it into the room, setting it up on the stationary bicycle stand. He hopped on and started pedaling like a maniac, until the mechanical bicycle lamp kicked in and cast a yellowish glow across the floor. Oom Cor sat down on the rug next to the bicycle and started poring over the latest dispatches from Sicily. Liesbeth laughed at the sight: two grown men ogling the paper, debating the likelihood of the Italian surrender.
Tante Rika snipped out ration coupons for the pair of brown leather shoes she was saving up for, while Liesbeth opened her mother’s old sewing box. There wasn’t a shred of decent fabric left in the house, but she’d resolved to fashion a dress from tante Rika’s old flour sacks. She didn’t get far, the dim light making it hard to see her stitches.
When the candles had burned to stubs, everyone tidied up and went to sleep. Liesbeth lay in bed and listened as, across the room, Gerrit’s breathing turned into snores. When they were little, the siblings used to all pile into one bed and stay up giggling until tante Rika told them to go to sleep. Looking back, she wondered if this had been their way of coping with the long, empty nights after the loss of their parents. But that evening, Liesbeth lay by herself and stared at the ceiling, thinking of the two men in her life and feeling very alone.
* * *
In the middle of the night, she woke up. Someone was pounding at the front door. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, trying to make sense of it. A barked order followed. “Aufmachen, schnell!”
Order Police.
Liesbeth hissed her brother’s name. As her eyes adjusted to the shadows, she heard a shuffling, the sound of something clicking into place. Gerrit had vanished.
Downstairs, more yelling. “Aufmachen!” The sound of the door creaking open, her aunt’s and uncle’s muffled voices. The Order Police were asking about the bicycle in the middle of the room. Liesbeth glanced at the two messy beds. She yanked the quilt back over her own bed, straightening it as best she could, placing her childhood dolls on the pillow. Boots clumped on the staircase. Adrenaline rushed through her as she tiptoed across the room and clambered into Gerrit’s bed, which was still warm with the imprint of his body. She curled up, burying her head into the pillow to feign sleep.
A second later, two Order Policemen burst into the bedroom. “You, get up!” Their faces looked angry and mottled with drink. Her hands trembled as she pulled back the covers. Tante Rika appeared behind the men to pass her a robe. Liesbeth made a noisy show of putting it on over her nightgown, drawing her arms through the sleeves in big, disruptive movements while the Germans scoured the room. They held up a framed photograph of Gerrit, a snapshot of him showing off the medal he’d won for the regional swim meet. They shoved it toward her. “Where’s your brother?”
“We haven’t seen him in months.” She tried her best to match their stare but inside she was terrified. She weighed every pause, afraid the sound of Gerrit’s nervous breaths would drift up through the floorboards. The rug beneath the bed lay askew. Would they notice? While her aunt and uncle waited anxiously in the corner, the men rifled through the cupboards, discarding the contents on the floor. They looked so certain of what they’d find, like they’d had a good reason to come looking for Gerrit in the middle of the night. Had he done something? After all, by being in hiding, he had already broken the law. She took a step back, trying to push the thought away, appalled she could think such a thing. Of course the Germans weren’t justified in their search, not at all.
One of the men yanked open the bottom drawer of the wardrobe, turning it on its side. She saw her chance to distract them. “Oh, please be careful with those papers. Those are some of my drawings, fashion sketches. I’ve had them for years.” She babbled on, coating her words with cheerfulness. One of the men flicked through the papers, turning them over to glance at the sketches before tossing them aside.
The Order Police moved on to her aunt and uncle’s bedroom. Liesbeth stood there in the hall, clutching tante Rika’s arm, silently begging them to leave. Once they had pulled the clothes from the shelves, knocked over the vase on the bedside table, and ground the yellow blossoms into the fibers of the rug, they retreated downstairs. Liesbeth watched from the bedroom window while the men left the house frustrated and empty-handed. One of them swore and kicked the bucket next to the chicken coop, sending feed scattering across the yard. The chickens awoke in a flurry of squawking and flapping wings.
In the next breath, the men were gone. When fifteen minutes had passed and they hadn’t returned, Gerrit climbed out of the crawl space beneath the floorboards. His face was as white and stiff as starched linen. He hugged tante Rika, rubbing her back and promising everything was over.
He turned to Liesbeth with a plastered smile. “Look at you, talking their ears off like that. Forget the sewing; you’d make an ace actress!”
That rush of shame returned, how, for a second, she’d questioned her own brother, believing the Nazis correct for enforcing the rules. How could she possibly think that?
“Don’t you dare laugh this one off,” she said. “For goodness’ sake, don’t set one foot off that farm, you hear me?”
He clicked his heels and shot up his arm in a salute. “Jawohl, liebe Schwester!”
The two of them stayed up for a long time, huddling together in the darkness, each of them replaying the events of the night. Liesbeth took a Pervitin to soothe her nerves, but all it did was keep her awake. She flinched at every sound outside, the branches scraping the windowpane, certain the Germans would return. When Gerrit fell asleep, his chest rising and falling in a soft, gentle rhythm, Liesbeth stayed there beside him, her hand on his shoulder. For the first time, she understood the real stakes of the war, how much she stood to lose.
Twenty-Eight
Johanna Vos
September 3, 1943
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Aletta looked up at me when I turned onto the wide street that led into Jakob and Ida’s house. Since the arrests at mevrouw Dijkstra’s, I hadn’t dared to venture out with Aletta. Whenever I thought of those poor children alone in some camp—or worse—I shriveled up inside. Plus I’d put Aletta in harm’s way. Who knows what might have happened if we hadn’t left when we did.
I couldn’t stand by and watch the bounty hunters pick off more Dutch children. Someone close to us was involved in the arrests, someone with intimate access to our network. How else could you explain the way the artists and the good people who hid them kept disappearing after our zwarte avonden, plucked like chestnuts from low-hanging branches? I’d scanned the concert guest lists, searching for names I didn’t recognize. What about the dour-faced lawyer who’d sat in the back two concerts in a row, or the spice merchant who’d grumbled about his business losses? Would one of them make some phone calls in exchange for a handful of guilders per head? However, the concert hosts vetted the lists before Jakob and I saw them, ensuring that everyone who entered their homes were familiar faces. And so, I circled back to that same question: Whom could we truly trust?
I hoped Jakob would help me go through the lists, since he knew the Jewish network much better than I did. He and Ida lived on the fringes of the Jewish quarter, not far from the zoo. I was struck by the emptiness of the neighborhood. One of those telltale moving trucks glided down the road like an omen of death, stopping in front of a gabled canal house. The movers would strip the home of its possessions—the cuckoo clock the family had bought on a trip to the Alps, the rolltop desk where the husband had written love letters to his wife—whitewashing the memories of the occupants on the pretense of “relocation” and “temporary resettlement.”
I crossed at the intersection to avoid the moving truck and checked on Aletta, savoring the little gurgles she made as she stared up at me. I adjusted the fabric of the carrier to shield her from the breeze. The wind had blown all night, carrying gusts of desert sand up from the Sahara that coated the parked automobiles and the shop windows in a grainy film. While passing the bookstore, I glanced inside. A woman in the back of the shop caught my attention, her pregnant profile visible beneath a beautiful blue coat. Her head was turned, but I could have sworn it was Ida. She plucked a book from the shelf, a leather-bound volume with a red spine. She opened it and slipped something into the spine of the book, but, before I saw her face, she disappeared farther into the back of the bookshop.
A few minutes later, Aletta and I arrived at Jakob’s doorstep. We stood there a long time before he answered the bell.
“Were you spying from upstairs?” I asked.
“Well, I was grumbling about having to entertain another visit with you, but I changed my mind at the sight of this little monkey.” He invited us in. Once I had unwrapped Aletta from the sling, he lifted her up above his head and she let out a giggle.
“We need to talk about these disappearances,” I said. He led me into the sitting room, and I settled in a chair between the piano and Jakob’s contrabass. We were interrupted by the sound of Ida returning home. She appeared a minute later wearing a long-sleeved dress that seemed fit for a funeral, an outfit Liesbeth could have spent hours picking apart.
Ida’s face brightened at the sight of Aletta on my lap. “Why, hello, little princess.”
Jakob smirked. “Don’t let Jo hear you say that.”
“No princesses here,” I said. “Explorer, medical pioneer, philanthropist, all-around good person—any of those alternatives would do.”
“I shouldn’t expect anything less from your daughter,” Ida said.
I smiled. Aside from the doctor at the house concert, Jakob and Ida were the only ones—alive, anyway—who knew Aletta’s real identity, yet Ida spoke of the girl like she was my blood. It was almost as if she had forgotten how Aletta had come to join our family. Or perhaps now that she was expecting, she understood the need to feel like a proper mother.
“I saw you just now,” I said. “Did you pick up anything of interest?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“At the bookshop.”
“You must be mistaken. That wasn’t me.”
“Well then, I suppose you have a doppelgänger.” I paused to unhook the sleeve of my blouse from Aletta’s grasp, before glancing back at Ida. The skin at her temples pulsed, stretched taught from her chignon while she busied herself with something in her handbag. I motioned for her to join us. “I was telling Jakob that I want to get to the bottom of these disappearances. We have a traitor in our midst.”
Ida hesitated before taking a seat next to her husband. “You two are the brains here.”
With my free hand, I retrieved the lists I’d drawn up. “The timing between each concert and the disappearances is uncanny. They must be gleaning information from the concerts about everyone’s whereabouts.”
I passed the documents to Jakob, who unfolded them across the coffee table. Ida leaned over his shoulder to scan the lists. “So you think we’ve had a bounty hunter at our music salons?”
“Or an informant,” Jakob said.
“Who knew that the Dijkstras were hiding those children,” I asked, “aside from the three of us?”
Jakob rubbed his chin. “Marijke de Graaf, for one, but that doesn’t help us. Probably a few other members of the orchestra.” We spent a few minutes compiling names, trying to figure out who had the best motives, whom we trusted.
“All this speculating,” Ida said, “we could be here all day and not get any closer. What would you even do if you solved this riddle?”
I looked at Jakob. “I have a revolver.”
“Johanna!” Ida wrapped her arm around her belly. “You wouldn’t want Aletta to lose another mother, would you? Would you risk everything for revenge?”
“Now,” Jakob said, “there’s no need for talk like that.”
Ida ignored him. “Maybe this is exactly what she needs to hear. These are powerful men, men who don’t blink an eye about betraying their countrymen. If she goes looking for them, she’s putting everything we’ve worked to safeguard at risk.”
“At least I understand kind words aren’t enough to save lives,” I said.
Jakob waved his hand as if to clear the air. “Enough, ladies. What’s the point in arguing?” He walked over to the piano. “We have the information in front of us. Now it’s a case of seeing how things fit together.” He sat down at the piano bench and ran his fingers across the ivory, stopping to play a few notes, a piece from Rachmaninoff in C Minor. He turned to me. “What about your brother-in-law?”
“What about him? Maurits doesn’t know about the concerts.”
“He gave you the insulin. Maybe he was trying to set you up.”
Ida touched the high collar of her dress. “I told you I had an uneasy feeling about that.”
“You might have a point,” I said. For months, I’d suspected that Maurits was in deeper than Liesbeth had let on. “Think of all the addresses and information he can access, knowing all the ins and outs of people’s medical needs.”
Aletta began to cry on my lap. She was getting hungry. I told Jakob and Ida I had to go but that I would investigate our suspicions. Maurits was exactly the sort of person who might let a few names slip if it meant securing his own fortunes.
As I got up to leave, Ida took my hands. “Promise me you won’t make any hasty decisions, dear. Men will say anything when they’re feeling cornered.”
I nodded and assured them I wouldn’t, but I could already feel my pulse quickening. I tucked Aletta back into the baby carriage and said my goodbyes. As I closed the door behind me, I glimpsed Ida’s coat hanging in the hall closet. A bright, beautiful blue.
On my way home, I passed by the bookshop. The shopkeeper was about to close for lunch. “Be quick,” he told me. I hesitated, trying to recall where she’d stood, and I leaned forward, Aletta gurgling at my chest, while I scanned the shelves. Tucked beside The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo was a thin, leather-bound volume with a red spine. The Black Tulip. I paused, thinking of the black silk tulip that we used to mark the house concerts. I opened the book and cracked the spine until I could see straight through it to the floor. Nothing fell out. I left the store no further ahead, mulling over the coincidence, questioning Ida’s strange behavior. But soon my thoughts returned to Maurits, my need to confront him. I had bigger things on my mind.
Twenty-Nine
Liesbeth de Wit
September 4, 1943
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
“You know,” Liesbeth said, while Dirk caressed her hair, “they say this is the same sound silkworms make.”
“What do you mean?”
She pointed to the window of his attic bedroom, and they listened to the raindrops pattering against the glass. They lay naked, their limbs twisted in the sheets, her head resting on his chest. The gas had gone out, so she curled into him until his breath warmed her neck.
“It’s the same sound?” he asked, and although she couldn’t see his face, she heard the amusement in his question. “Tell me more.”
“For years, the Chinese fiercely guarded the secret of how to make silk. But legend has it that it leaked out when a princess was married off. She couldn’t bear to be without her precious silks, so she smuggled cocoons of silk moths and seeds from the mulberry tree out of China.”
“How did she do that?”
“By hiding them in her hairpiece, naturally.”
Dirk sat up. “Sounds like something you would do.”
Liesbeth laughed, but she didn’t tell him how wrong he was. She couldn’t imagine risking her life over something so trivial. Seeing Dirk, being in bed with him, was the most daring thing she’d ever done. She balked at her boldness, the shame she felt, pooling in the backdrop. Maurits had left town for two days. An uncle of his had passed away, and he’d offered to go to Rotterdam to sort out the man’s affairs. Maurits had invited Liesbeth along, trying to appeal to her desire for fun and distraction. “We’ll treat it like a holiday,” he said. “I’ll book a hotel. We can see the sights, wander along the harbor, maybe visit a dress shop.” But Liesbeth knew how it would go: she would end up spending the days packing up musty old items, possessions of an in-law she’d never met. Besides, the Nazis had practically flattened Rotterdam at the start of the occupation—what was there left to enjoy? No, she’d told him, it was better she stay home and rest.
Two whole glorious days, and this was how she was spending it. Dirk had ample time for her. His work was slowing down, so he often could leave early in the afternoons. He said the job might end soon. She found it odd that a position at a bank could wrap up like that, but she didn’t dwell on this. Bigger things were afoot, and while they lay there together, the afterglow from their lovemaking fading to a languid daze, she found herself in troubled thought, worrying about her family.
Dirk reached for his tobacco tin. He took a pinch of real tobacco and mixed it in with the surrogate and began filling his pipe. He fumbled for a match, glancing sidelong at her. “Something’s bothering you; it’s all over your face.”
She reached for her Pervitin, unsure how to reply. She avoided talk of the war with Dirk; it was all she ever heard at home anymore. What they had—their affair, she supposed she ought to call it—existed on neutral territory, and any reminder of his allegiances only clouded her mood and reminded her of her guilty conscience.
“It’s my aunt and uncle,” Liesbeth said. “They may have to leave Zierikzee in the next few months.”
“Ah, so the Germans are making preparations.”
She nodded, knowing that if she spoke he would hear the tremor in her voice. Rumors had started circulating that the Allies were planning to attack somewhere along the Atlantic coast. She couldn’t imagine they would zero in on Zeeland—she hoped with all her heart that wasn’t the case—but there was a chance the Nazis would flood the islands to thwart any Allied invasion. If so, her aunt and uncle would have to pack their life into a couple of suitcases, unsure of when they would be able to return home, if there would be a home left for them.
