The Dutch Orphan, page 19
“You must be very worried,” he said. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Will they live with you and Maurits for the time being?”
Dirk never had any qualms about mentioning her husband. He accepted the strange reality of their affair without reservations, which both soothed and unsettled her.
“No, they’d like to stay nearby. We have relatives in Brabant.” She didn’t tell him the real reason—they wanted to stay near Gerrit. He couldn’t travel all the way to Amsterdam, nor could she expect Maurits to welcome her fugitive brother with open arms. By staying on farms in the vicinity, Gerrit could still be protected.
Dirk reached for her hand. “I’m sorry. This war has torn apart so many lives. If only we’d known in the beginning what a long slog lay ahead.”
“I should be there to help them. Every week I hear something in the news or receive a letter that puts me on edge, wondering what’s yet to come.”
“Are they still letting visitors into Zeeland?”
“It’s almost impossible, but I need to find a way to help.”
“Selfless to the core,” he said, “that’s admirable of you.”
“No, that’s Jo,” she said, more to herself than to him. “She’s the one out saving the world, every week a different cause.”
“How are her house concerts going? Have you attended any?”
“How do you know about those?”
“You mentioned them at some point.”
She was almost certain she hadn’t, given that she barely knew the truth herself. His comment gave her an uneasy feeling, something she couldn’t pin down. He cocked his head like he wanted her to go on. When she didn’t, he tapped the ash from his pipe and ran his hand up her thigh. “You’re so worried about everyone all the time—Maurits, your sister, your aunt and uncle—why don’t we focus on you for now?” His lips moved to her neck, trailed down her collarbone. She tried to relax and let him please her but the images remained in her head: the Nazis blowing up the dikes, water lapping at the door of the family home, flooding the yard with its orchard and the chicken coop, flooding the cemetery down the lane.
She thought of her parents’ graves, no one there to tend them, to pluck the weeds and trim the grass and lay the fresh flowers every week. The water would rise up, obscuring the headstones, eroding the soil, disturbing their peace.
Dirk touched her elbow. “Liesbeth, what’s wrong?”
She looked at him blankly.
“You’re pulling away from me.”
She gathered the sheets around herself, pressing them to her naked chest, and avoided his stare.
“Look at me,” he said, more of a question than an order.
When she raised her gaze, she saw genuine concern.
“You can talk to me, whatever it is.”
If only it were that simple. Gerrit was the only one in the family who ever spoke of the accident. Whenever her aunt and uncle mentioned her parents, they stuck to fond memories, speaking of them with the casual air of someone who had gone off on some errands, who might return at any moment.
Liesbeth chewed her lip and looked down at the sheets. “I don’t want them to be left there all alone.”
“Who?”
“My parents.”
He waited for her to continue.
“It was my fault they died. For weeks, I’d been whining, begging them to bring me to visit a cousin who had moved across the islands. They had just dropped me off when their boat crashed, right into the ferry. If I hadn’t been so insistent, they never would have been out on the water.”
Dirk brushed a tear from her cheek. “An accident like that could happen at any time.”
“But I insisted. They wanted me to wait until the weather was calmer, but I wouldn’t let it go.”
“How old were you?”
“Seven.”
“Exactly.”
“I robbed them of so much.” She paused, noticing in the silence that the rain had stopped. The only sound was the hum of the bedside lamp. “They never got to see their children grow up, never got to see their first granddaughter.”
“You can’t cling to what-ifs. Who knows what else might have happened, what the war would have made of them.”
Liesbeth nodded and thought of Gerrit, stuck in hiding. Dirk had a point. These past few years, everyone’s fate seemed as uncertain as a coin midtoss. “I suppose you’re right. Still, I can’t help but wonder what kind of life our family would have built together if it hadn’t been for me.”
Dirk got up out of bed and put on some trousers. He passed Liesbeth one of his long button-down shirts before leading her downstairs, where they opened a bottle of jenever. He motioned for her to join him on the divan and held out a glass. “My last bottle. This seems like a good time.”
Liesbeth snuggled up to him, tucking her feet up beneath her. As he poured the drink, she felt a sense of relief. He hadn’t judged her for her shame about her parents’ deaths; she felt like she could tell him anything. He kissed her on the forehead and clinked his glass to hers. “You’re a sweetheart. Maybe too sweet. Don’t let anyone take advantage of that.”
* * *
Music blared from the gramophone, competing with the laughter and murmur of voices that filled Dirk’s house. The day before, Liesbeth and Dirk had had the place to themselves, but now she leaned against the sitting-room windowsill, observing the guests at his housewarming party. By now, she was beginning to know the corners of Dirk’s house intimately: how dappled afternoon sunlight streaked through the curtains, the trick to flushing the toilet, the way the floorboards shifted as you approached the piano. It felt strange to her now, pretending it was her first visit to his new home, admiring the artwork on the walls with the curiosity of a newcomer.
Still, it forced her to take a step back and marvel at the place. In preparation for the party, Dirk had hired a cleaner, so the house was tidier than she’d ever seen, which allowed her to appreciate the furnishings. He had welcomed her into his house without much explanation—to be blunt, she’d hardly noticed the decor when he’d first led her by the hand up the stairs to his bedroom. But the house was huge. Two floors, with ornate rugs and polished wooden cabinets and moody landscape paintings of Dutch fields and windmills. Now that she could look past the disarray and clutter, it struck her how unlike Dirk this house was, as if he’d inherited the furniture from a wealthy aunt. Since when did he play the piano?
She wished he would come over and talk to her. Surely, he could think up an excuse for some innocent conversation. However, he’d been chatting with a trio of women in the hall for over twenty minutes. He had caught her briefly as she went to powder her nose, his hand brushing her wrist when he’d turned to wink at her. “Always so stuffy, these parties,” he’d said, “aren’t they?”
A group of women had edged toward the windowsill, their drinks sloshing on the floor as they swapped gossip. Liesbeth searched around for a familiar face. She was relieved to see Maurits approaching with two glasses of beer in his hands.
“Quite the place, isn’t it?” he said, lifting his glass to cheers her.
“It doesn’t suit him,” she said. “I would have expected something a little more modest.”
Maurits chuckled and leaned in, the stubble on his chin tickling her ear. “Oh, darling,” he said, “you’re adorable. You do know how he got this house, don’t you?”
“He said he acquired it through his position at the bank. Isn’t that true?” But as she said this, she heard her own naivete. She watched Dirk across the room, debating whether she was prepared to hear the truth. Just then, he clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention, and the chatter died down.
“Ladies, gentlemen,” he said, “you’re in for a treat.” He stepped aside to reveal a bulky device perched atop a table, the sort of thing you’d see in a cinema.
“It’s a projector,” Maurits told her.
Dirk motioned for some of the guests to move aside, clearing a space in front of a wall, where a large white sheet hung. He passed around a box of cigars, and she knew from Maurits’s nod of appraisal that they were expensive and hard to come by.
“Everyone, gather round,” Dirk said, fiddling with the projector.
Liesbeth hooked her arm through her husband’s. “His own private cinema. Can you imagine?” She was surprised Dirk hadn’t shown it to her on her visits, hadn’t mentioned anything about the house or its former owners. But she was beginning to realize the truth and it was a bitter tincture, hard to swallow.
Maurits lit his cigar. “You wait, darling, one day we’ll be on the inside looking out.”
Dirk called for someone to dim the lights. The guests dragged the chairs and the divan to face the hanging sheet, but Liesbeth and Maurits stood in the back, next to a large potted plant that was wilting and crisp at the edges.
The film projector crackled on, shooting a thick beam of light across the room. The guests cheered and clinked glasses when the sheet came to life with moving images. Liesbeth tilted her head, trying to make sense of the scene that was playing out. A long, panning shot of a coastline: a sailboat, a sandy beach, lounge chairs. Five people lounging under a striped parasol—a family. A mother in a sun hat, flirting with the camera as she bounced a baby on her lap. Next to her, two young children sat in the sand, filling buckets and tipping them over into castle turrets. The little girl grinned and sucked on a licorice stick.
Liesbeth watched, dumbfounded, while the children raced into the crashing waves. “They’re Jews,” she whispered.
“Mmm-hmm,” Maurits said, “looks like the French Riviera.”
Liesbeth looked around, appalled. The other guests were either refilling their drinks or watching enraptured, oohing and ahing at the novelty of the film. She glanced back at the movie, at the Jewish family who had privately filmed their summer getaway. Had those children played with toy locomotives on the very floorboards on which she stood? Had their mother done her embroidery in the same alcove where two bawdy women now perched? Had their father watched in horror as the Order Police marched the family out of this very house, handing it over to the bank? And what about the bed where she and Dirk made love?
The children on the screen doubled over, splashing each other silly. Liesbeth wriggled free of Maurits’s arm. She had to get out of there.
“Where are you going?” he asked, without taking his eyes off the film.
She didn’t answer. She rushed out, past the bawdy women, past the cloud of cigar smoke, past Dirk. She opened the door to the balcony and stumbled outside. The night air was crisp, and bright stars twinkled in the darkness. She stared out at the rooftops and closed her eyes. Dirk was living in a stolen house, and she had lain intertwined with him in another couple’s bed. Everything she believed about him had changed. But how was this any different, she wondered, from taking over another man’s pharmacy?
Thirty
Johanna Vos
September 4, 1943
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Willem and I sprawled out on a blanket in the middle of the Vondelpark, taking in the last remnants of summer. Between us, Aletta let out a happy babble while she rolled onto her tummy and tried to grab at the picnic basket we’d brought along. I watched her, feeling that my whole universe could be contained within those four corners of the blanket—so why did I feel the constant need to focus outward, to busy myself with problems that played out away from my loving family?
Willem reached over and lazily rubbed my knee. “What’s on your mind, dear?”
“Nothing,” I said, “and everything.”
Aletta tried to push herself up. Wim picked her up. “Baby orangutan, is it jungle time?” He swung her through the air, like she was swinging from vine to vine, and my heart wanted to burst with love. I began to sing to her, a silly ditty Wim and I had made up, about the many other types of animals she would meet on life’s adventures. All the other animals, that is, if the Nazis didn’t try to poach them all.
Wim set her back on the blanket, propping her into a sitting position so she could look around. I let her wrap her fist around my pointer finger and turned to Wim. “Do you ever wonder about her real parents?”
“Constantly,” he said. “I try to imagine what type of people they were, if they’d approve of the way we’re raising her.”
We watched Aletta spread out her hands, transfixed by the discovery of her fingers.
“Jakob and Ida and I have a suspicion about who could be behind the arrests,” I said. “We think Maurits could be involved.”
“What gives you that impression?”
“Think about it. He has access to plenty of information: names, addresses, people’s medical history. He would notice patterns when things change. And isn’t it a bit too coincidental that he made a show of sending us medical supplies?”
“What does that have to do with the house concerts?”
“Lies knows about them. I tried to keep it from her, but she figured out something is going on. Who knows what she told Maurits.”
Willem looked unconvinced. “Liesbeth wouldn’t do anything to hurt us.”
“Not intentionally, but Maurits would.”
“He was my friend. I’ll be the first to say he’s made some terrible decisions, but I doubt he would take it so far as to have innocent people arrested.”
“Never question how far a man will go in pursuit of power and status,” I said. “I’m going to ask Lies about it.”
Willem chuckled. “And you think she’ll be willing to tell you the truth?”
“We are sisters.”
“You haven’t been acting like it.”
His remark hurt, although it rang true. The only times I spoke to her was when I needed help with Aletta, and surely she sensed my reasons for getting in touch were selfish. I felt I barely knew her anymore.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” Wim said. “Things are getting trickier at work. The director has tried his best to spare us from the labor call-ups, but the Germans are rejecting more and more exemption requests. I’m not sure how much longer he can protect us.”
“What does that mean?”
“There’s a chance that I would need to go into hiding.”
I bit my lip. It was hard enough managing with Aletta in these circumstances already, and to be without Wim—I couldn’t imagine not seeing him every day.
“Where would you go?”
“Hiding in plain sight,” he said, referring to the young Jewish lady drawing at the zoo. I tried to imagine him scrunched up between the monkey enclosures, but I found it too hard to picture him anywhere but at my side.
“Let’s hope it never comes to that.” That prickly sense of injustice came back stronger than ever. I wanted to put a stop to it all before anyone else got hurt. “I’m going to speak to Liesbeth. If I’m correct about Maurits, we need to know. That’s one thing that’s still somehow in our control.”
“If you insist. But please, be careful. Reckless accusations leave behind septic wounds.”
I nodded and looked once more at Aletta, her content smile. Once we got up to go home, the universe would expand beyond our little trio. But for a few more hours, we could stay there together on that blanket, pretending we were safe, that everything would turn out all right.
* * *
I set off for Liesbeth’s midmorning on a Monday, after Maurits had left for work. The more I thought about it, the clearer the connection seemed to be. If the occupation had taught me one thing, it was that most people were preoccupied with saving their own skins. People stole, bartered, lied, and cheated. For so long I’d believed morals would persist in these dark hours, but that was a lie.
Liesbeth answered the door with the pin curls still setting in her hair. Seeing Aletta in my arms, she lit up but her glee faded when she registered my mood. “Is something wrong?” she asked.
“You’ll have to tell me.” I carried Aletta into the sitting room while Liesbeth prepared the coffee. A collection of baby toys and crocheted blankets lay piled in a basket on the floor, awaiting Aletta’s visits. I rummaged through the basket for a rattle, trying to suppress that uneasy feeling, the reminder that Lies had never been anything but loving and pure toward my daughter.
Liesbeth brought in a pot of imitation coffee and two biscuits. “I made the flour from tulip bulbs,” she said, gesturing to the biscuits, “not my best experiment.”
She sat down and I waited until she’d poured the coffee before speaking. “Lies,” I began, “we haven’t been very open with one another about our activities during the war, but what I want to ask you is of critical importance.”
“Of course. There are no secrets between us.” She fidgeted in her seat and I could practically see the NSB uniforms marching through her mind, all the glitzy dinner parties she’d failed to mention.
“People we are trying to help keep disappearing. Jakob’s entire family has been taken. His parents, his brothers, even their toddlers.”
“Those poor children. How can the Nazis push things so far?”
“Not just the Nazis. Someone is betraying these families, someone close to us.”
“Surely you don’t believe that?”
“No? What about an ambitious man, someone who wants to gain favor with the Germans?”
Liesbeth glowered at me. “Well, come out and say it then. Ask me what I know, and I can tell you with full honesty that my husband may have his flaws, but he’s no executioner.”
“He wouldn’t need to be. All it takes is a few phone calls and then he can go home to his darling wife without ever getting his hands dirty. And all the while he can play it off like he’s had a change of heart and is helping the Resistance. I’m describing him to a T, aren’t I?”
She frowned, considering what I’d said. She started fiddling with a necklace at her collarbone, one I’d never seen her wear before. Her fingers passed over the hexagonal pendant, rubbing the red stone set in the center. Something about it looked familiar.
