Page 11

HAARLEM, THE NETHERLANDS

ZOE

November slipped soundlessly into December, the days short, the nights pierced with pangs of hunger and the sounds of Luftwaffe air raids.

In the midst of a sleepless night, Zoe began to wonder how many innocent Dutch had been already sacrificed to Hitler’s war – how many brave men lay, maimed, in hospital on this very night.

The idle thought made her sit up in bed, suddenly inspired and counting the hours until first light.

Telephone service was at the whim of the Germans, but she was able to reach Daan at home that morning, telling him only that she would not be at the kliniek until noon.

She debated trying to call her cousin in Heemstede, but decided that an in-person visit was safer and more practical for her purpose. She was dressed, her face and tawny curls half obscured by a woolen scarf, and out the door before eight.

She could easily walk the few kilometers from Haarlem to Heemstede, she thought – another reason why her plan could work. But the commuter bus was still running. It would save her some time, and there was less chance she would find herself walking into a Nazi roadblock.

She sat sipping ersatz coffee in the depot until she could board the bus.

There were Germans everywhere, imposing, watchful, even on this daily commuter run.

Zoe shivered, that pistol in her face forever etched into memory, then boarded the bus, withdrew into her scarf, and passed the time with her eyes closed, a worn paperback novel in her lap.

There were two short stops, passengers out, passengers in, nothing out of the ordinary. Zoe was one of the first to get off the bus when the Heemstede stop was called.

...

It was an old hospital, brown-bricked, five stories tall, overlooking a post office and a shuttered glass factory. Zoe went to the front desk and asked for Dr. Gerrit Visser. To her vast relief, she was summoned almost immediately to his office on the second floor.

An airbrush of cheeks, a quick hug. “Zoe! What a surprise! You are well?”

Gerrit, like everyone, had lost some weight, and his posture was slightly bent. His hairline, like his father’s, was receding early, making him look older than his years. But his brown eyes were as warm as ever, his short beard neatly trimmed.

“I am well, cousin, yes , dank u !,”

He settled her in a chair across from his desk and took a seat behind it.

“So, Gerrit,” Zoe began. “My mother has kept me informed over the years. But tell me, how does a shy little boy from Enschede become the head of a hospital in Heemstede?”

Gerrit laughed. “He muddles his way through school, grows a dapper little beard, and somehow, he manages to fool people smarter than he into thinking he is a brilliant administrator. And you, Zoe? You are a veterinarian, yes? In Haarlem? ”

“Yes, and yes. It is a perfect job for me. My patients never question my diagnoses.”

Gerrit chuckled.

The two had lived kilometers apart in the first ten years of their lives, playing in the park nearly every afternoon, learning to swim, to skate. They had not seen one another for nearly as many years, but she was happy to feel that there was still an easiness between them.

“You are well, Gerrit?”

“Mostly. Like everyone.” He paused. “Do you remember Jaan Voelker?”

“Of course. He used to play soccer with us.”

Gerrit sighed. “He was killed last month in a German bomb strike. He was working to repair a blocked sewer line at the time. Wrong time, wrong place…an innocent – “

“Oh Gerrit, I am so sorry.”

She told him about her encounter with the Gestapo on the way home from visiting her parents – the blatant cruelty, the pistol inches from her face. “It is the reason why I work for the Resistance, Gerrit. We all must do what we can.”

He nodded sadly, and it was time, she knew, to tell him the reason for her visit.

She repeated Daan’s concern for the Haarlem families losing their homes to the German outpost.

“Think about this, please Gerrit,” she said. “Several of these families are hiding Jewish children. Now they have no place to go.”

She paused. “This is a public hospital, cousin, an established hospital, and not one the Germans are apt to search without reason. Do you think you could find a way to house these people here?”

Gerrit met her gaze. When he spoke, his voice was quiet.

“We are at this moment, Zoe, hiding more than a few Jewish doctors in this hospital, as well as three downed Allied airmen who were grabbed by sympathizers and brought here for care so they would not be found by the Germans. They are posing here as hospital patients and medical personnel. We are hiding them, as they say, in plain sight..”

Zoe brought her hands to her face. “Oh, Gerrit…”

“But whole families, Zoe – and children…I don’t see how…”

“We are skilled at moving people, Gerrit.” She leaned forward. “We can bring them here in small groups, take circuitous routes so as not to draw attention. Only as many as you can manage to accommodate, cousin…It is urgente . These people are desperate.”

Gerritt rubbed the back of his neck. “I know.”

He got up and paced across his office. “Perhaps the basement. It is where our morgue is housed. But there is not much light or open space down there. It would not be a decent space for children…”

He paced a moment more, then turned to face her, his hands resting on his desk. “Waits…I have another idea….”

He sat. “Before the war began, we had started to renovate the top floor of the hospital. Our hope was to create a ward expressly for cancer patients – and a research lab to …well, no matter. We abandoned the project when the funds ran dry after the German occupation. Part of the floor is still unusable because it is only half-renovated.”

Zoe leaned forward. “If we could insulate it, Gerrit – keep it masked from entry as though it still being renovated…”

“I don’t know…”

“We could dress some of the men in work clothes, cousin.” Zoe leaned forward. “Give them paint and some building materials they could pretend to use if they needed to…”

Gerrit stood, resumed his pacing. “Yes, but even if we could manage it, Zoe, I’m not sure how we could feed these people. Our kitchen is struggling now to feed our patients.”

“ Lieve god , Gerrit, we are all hungry. We hear rumors that tulip growers are plowing over their fields and eating the bulbs... “

She touched her cousin’s shoulder. “I can promise you the Resistance Council will do its best to find food for these people. But first we must keep them off the streets.”

Gerrit ran a hand through his beard. “All right” he said at last. “We will find a way.”

Zoe allowed herself to feel excited on the short bus ride home. Moving numbers of people into the hospital unnoticed would present its own challenge. But the prospect of protecting all those families and children would make it more than worth the risk.

She thought of the two Jewish orphans Lotte Strobel was reluctant to harbor because they could not be left alone in the hold of the barge. At the hospital, there would be daylight and space to move around, and plenty of people to look after all the children.

She burst into Daan’s office at the kliniek without bothering to knock.

He was bent over a ledger, pen in hand.

“Daan, you will never guess what happened.” She closed the door behind her, took a seat in front of him. “I have truly wonderful news.”

She told him of Gerrit’s agreement to mask off a floor of the hospital in Heemstede, to hide as many families as they could manage.

Daan pounded a fist on his desk. “Brilliant, Zoe, I do not know how you made this happen, but may God bless you – and your cousin! There is already panic, especially among the hiding families who have only days to evacuate.”

He reached for the telephone. “I will let Pieter know at once. How soon can we begin the transfers?”

Zoe thought. Increasingly, the Germans were withholding food to keep the Dutch in line. Even with rations, most of the country relied mostly on bread and root vegetables – boiling potato peels for soup to fill their bellies .

“There is an issue, Daan,” she said. “I promised Gerrit we would find a way to provide food.”

Daan did not appear to be deterred.

“Not all the news is bad, Zoe. One or two of our civic-minded public servants are embezzling the occasional batch of ration cards. It is a risk, but you can tell your cousin not to fear. We will keep them supplied with food.”

MILA

For Mila, it was a fait accompli. Evi had been brilliant, all had gone as planned, and a Nazi pig was in a shallow grave, his uniform and papers commandeered to help save innocent lives.

She was less sure when – or whether – Evi might agree to a repeat performance. The girl had been quiet on the way home, understandably anxious, and Mila had not pushed, only praised her for being so brave, and allowing her to gather her thoughts.

Tomorrow, she would pay another visit to the barge. Today, she had other things to do.

She brushed her hair, let it fall into place, caught up one side with a gold barrette.

Strange as it seemed, in the year she had been repeating German dinner talks to Pieter from the privacy of her bedroom, she had never met him face to face.

She expected he had a very good reason for wanting to meet with her now.

In the kitchen, she refused to eat the sausages her father’s Nazi guests had brought, instead making do with a chunk of bread and a cup of tea.

“You are wasting away, Mila,” Reit admonished.

“As are we all,” Mila said. “Tell Mother I will be home in time for dinner – and if there is more food than you need for the table tonight, Reit, please take some to the Dans Hal, where it will help feed those who need it more than we do.”

Riet would grumble, but she would comply, Mila knew, and it gave her no end of pleasure to know that the Nazis who came to her father’s table were inadvertently feeding the people for whom they held such contempt.

...