Page 10

For two nights, Zoe woke with vivid nightmares, reliving the bus ride home from Enschede – the brutality of the Nazis boarding, the pistol trained on her face.

On top of that, the air raids had been increasing – whether because the Allies were getting close or because they were being repelled, she did not know.

In any case, she felt as if something in her was slowly turning to steel .

She dressed quickly, nibbled around a half-rotted apple, and locked her apartment door behind her. She would make the time this morning to talk with Daan.

With the power out for much of the day, the hours and services at the pet kliniek were necessarily being cut.

Medications were hard to come by, surgery by daylight alone was difficult if not impossible, and it took electricity to power the X-ray machine and the autoclave where their surgical instruments were sanitized.

She was turning her key in the lock to the office when Lise came up behind her, and by the time she shed her coat and scarf and donned her white coat, she heard Daan speaking to the receptionist.

“Zoe, goedemorgen ,” he said, smiling when he saw her, but it seemed to Zoe that the vigor was gone from his voice.

She peered at him. “ Goedemorgen , Daan. Can we make some time today to talk?”

“Of course. Yes. My office at noon. Now, if I may, a short meeting about what we must do here at the kliniek …”

It took less than ten minutes to review their appointments, charge Lise with cancelling those they could not accommodate, and get on with the business at hand.

Zoe dressed a couple of post-surgical wounds, inoculated a four-month-old schnauzer, and took fluids to process from a listless little pup with a fever. By then, it was getting close to noon.

She knocked lightly on Daan’s closed door, entered at his murmured, “Come in.”

The stress in his face was unmistakable.

“Are you alright, Daan?”

His voice was quiet. “As much as I can be, I suppose. Lack of sleep. Not enough to eat. You heard the air strikes last night?”

“Of course.”

Daan sighed. “I am keeping Lise on for as long as I can pay her. With business this slow, I do not know how long that might be.”

Zoe nodded.

“ Verdoemde Germans… ”

She took a seat in front of the desk. “I had my own brush with the Gestapo on the bus coming back from Enschede.” She shivered. “There is nothing more motivating than a pistol in your face to put some steel in your spine.”

Daan’s lips pursed. “We will need all the steel we can muster, Zoe. “Those grenades we heard last night were clearly targeted…and they did not miss their mark. The football club stadium was fully demolished, and what was left of the Haarlem Synagogue.”

Zoe closed her eyes.

“And that is not the worst of it.” Daan ran a hand though his thinning hair. “The Germans are building a new defensive line, cutting through the north of the city. We think they are preparing to protect against the Allied invasion.”

She blinked. “Does that mean –”

“We cannot be sure, Zoe. “We can only guess when the Allies will push through. But we do know the Germans are grabbing up land. Dozens of families are being forced out of their homes, including some who have been hiding Jewish children for many months.”

It hurt Zoe’s heart that so many German-Jewish parents, in the years since Hitler’s rise to power, had been forced to make the wrenching decision to send their children to those who would take them in the hope of keeping them alive.

“ Lieve god ,” she breathed. “Where will these families go?”

“That is the issue we are facing, Zoe. There are few places they can go. To other family members, for a while, perhaps, some to the homes of friends. But even that may not be a long- term solution – not when food is already scarce and winter is coming on fast.”

Zoe waited for what she knew was coming.

“We need to find places to house the families who are being forced out of their homes. There must be someplace they can go to have a chance of survival. ”

MILA

Evi’s pretty face, as Mila examined it in the small bathroom mirror of the barge, was perfectly made up for the mission. Her lightly rouged cheeks and heavily-lined eyes, her blonde hair smooth and sleek around her shoulders, gave her an air of sophistication.

She was dressed in one of Mila’s revealing black sheath dresses, but there was no mistaking her youthful innocence – and that, Mila thought, was what would help to draw her prey.

Evi’s gaze was fastened on her image in the glass, as though she did not recognize the face she saw.

“They are not stupid, these German officers,” Mila told her for the tenth time, demanding Evi’s full attention. “They will want to bed you, but only if they are confident that you are who you say you are, and that you are as eager as they are.”

“Yes, we’ve been over this again and again.

” Evi met Mila’s gaze in the mirror. “I am nineteen years old. My parents are dead. I live with my little pussycat, Arabella, in a small house in the woods, and my boyfriend has just left me. I am so very tired of young boys. How very nice it is to be with a man.”

“Yes, but you will likely have a choice of German officers to target. Choose someone who is already a bit drunk,” Mila said, “and spin your story slowly. Gain his confidence, and do not rush the moment. Let the German take the lead. Flirt with your eyes – yes, like that!”

She showed the girl how to hunch her shoulders to make the most of her cleavage.

“Play a little with the hairs on his hand,” she said. “Push out your lower lip – yes, like that. But do not invite him to come home with you until you sense that his – his lust to bed you is stronger than his sense of caution. ”

Mila felt a pang of uncertainty. How do you teach an innocent girl to recognize the urgency of a man’s desire – or was it something she would naturally understand?

“You worry too much, Mila,” Evi said, as though she read her thoughts. “I will know what to do and when to do it.”

...

In the small living area, Lotte sat stiffly, drumming the fingers of one hand on the frayed arm of her chair.

Evi took her hand. “Mam, please try not to worry. Resistance men will be on guard, and I know precisely what to do. I will be home before you know it, I promise.”

Mila watched her young charge, who looked cool and confident in the low-necked dress she had chosen for her.

Evi was far from big-bosomed, but the right brassiere and the right moves teased just enough to be enticing.

In all, she looked older than her not-yet-seventeen – and Mila felt confident she had done everything in her power to prepare her for her assignment.

EVI

The tavern sat in a wooded area on the outskirts of the city, a dimly lit building between a shuttered grocery store and a row of dark and silent houses. Evi wrapped her shawl around herself, trembling as much from anticipation as from the cold.

They had arrived, to her complete astonishment, in a Royal Dutch Police vehicle driven by an officer who left them half a kilometer from their destination – a marechaussee , she thought.

She did not see his face, but perhaps it was Lukas.

She wanted so much to share that with Sophie, but she knew she dared not do so .

Behind her, two burly Resistance volunteers retreated into the woods, just out of sight of the tavern. Mila stood in the shadow of a giant fir tree. Evi waited for her signal.

Finally, in the silence, Mila held up a hand. Evi took a deep breath and moved toward the darkened back door.

It was smoky inside, and dimly lit, and Evi heard laughter and booming voices.

She made her way to the curved bar, where there were several open bar stools.

She chose one near the end, hopped up on the stool, and waved to get the attention of the pot-bellied bartender who was chatting with someone she could not see.

Taking a lipstick out of her purse, she went through the motions of applying it, willing herself to look down the length of the bar at the customers chatting each other up.

As Mila had promised, there were more than a few German officers laughing, toasting, and drinking. They were loud and brash, and mostly big, a few not much older than she. What if they paid her no mind ?

The bartender appeared, narrowing his eyes, scrutinizing every part of her upper body. He wavered for a moment, his moustache twitching. She was terrified he would hear her thrumming heartbeat.

Hoping she looked calmer than she felt, she popped the lipstick back into her purse and looked directly at him. Finally, nodding as though he had made up his mind, the bartender spoke.

“ Goedenavond, young madame. I have not seen you here before.”

She took the moment, sat tall in her seat, gave him her most convincing smile. “Alas, I am forced to try someplace new this evening. I will never go back to the tavern near the stadtsplein where I went with my cheating boyfriend.”

The bartender seemed to appraise her again. “Ahh…and what is your name, behagen ?”

Her name! It was something she and Mila had not discussed. “Emma,” she blurted. “My name is Emma.”

The twitch of moustache. “ Welkom , then Emma. You will perhaps make some happier friendships here. What may I serve you tonight? ”

For that, she had been well prepared. “Amstel, behagen. ” It rolled off her tongue. She smiled.

...

She was not prepared for the bitter taste of the beer, and it took every bit of will she had to choke it down without gagging. She ordered a second, and was fingering the glass, trying to figure out how to drink without swallowing when she felt a heavy presence behind her.

She turned to see a ruddy male face attached to a broad-shouldered body looming over her shoulder. He was dressed in uniform, but without his tie, an SS insignia on his collar. Evi forced a smile.

“ Goedeavond , Fraulein ,” he said in a mix of Dutch and German. “Is a beautiful girl like yourself unaccompanied?”

“Ja,” she said sadly, inclining her head, trying to determine his rank.

He saved her the trouble. “ Untersturmführer Hans Vogelmann , fraulein . May I sit with you?”

Again, Evi shyly inclined her head. “ Ya , b itte ,” she said, pleased to toss off one of the dozen German phrases Mila had drummed into her.

The brute smiled, slipped onto the stool next to her, and placed his cap on the bar. His face was flushed, and she was startled to see sweat beading on his broad brow in spite of the cold in the tavern.

Steeling herself, Evi played out every nuance of the script Mila had prepared for her. She told her sad story, flirted outrageously, pretended to sip from her stein of beer. By the time the SS underling ordered his fifth beer, and another for the beautiful fraulein , he was half-sitting in her lap.

“Untersturmführer,” she murmured, taking his big hand in hers. “I think that perhaps you like me a bit, ja , and I like you, too. Perhaps you would like to walk with me to my lonely little house just near here?”

Leaning in, he planted a sloppy wet kiss on her cheek, tossed some guilders on the bar as he slipped off the stool, steadied himself, and clapped his cap on his head. “ Ya , beautiful fraulein. It would be my pleasure. ”

Evi’s heart hammered, but she hung onto the German’s arm as he crashed through the tavern’s back door, clearly so drunk that he had trouble navigating on his own.

With his arm heavy across the back of her neck, she struggled to remain upright, but she murmured softly into his ear as she led him toward the dark of the woods.

When they arrived at the clearing Evi had been shown, she moved to untangle herself from his grasp. The big man stumbled and fell, and tried to right himself, but it did not matter because the moment Evi was clear of him, she heard the pop of a pistol.

The German lay sprawled on the leaf-strewn groundcover, eerily still, silent. Evi was horrified, fixed on his body, hypnotized as blood pooled under his head.

Before she could respond, big hands reached out to grab her, and Mila appeared at her side.

“Good girl, Evi,” Mila whispered, holding her close. “You are good?

Evi nodded stiffly in the darkness, looking into Mila’s face.

“Good” Mila smiled. “You did well, Evi. You are a very brave girl. Come. We will take you home at once.”