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Perhaps Mam would bring home something besides root vegetables and tulip bulbs. She sometimes woke herself in the night dreaming of beef, or sausages, her tastebuds salivating, and cried soundlessly into her pillow, pressing her hands against her stomach to ease the near-constant hunger pangs...

...

She could turn off at the old school road and visit Sophie, she thought. She had not seen her since that last day of school. It seemed so long ago. Had Sophie seen or heard from Lukas Jensen since he joined the Resistance?

She could head to the pet kliniek and look for Zoe, or try to find out where Mila lived and plead her case for shooting lessons.

But she kept pedaling along the main road, eyes stinging in the unforgiving wind.

All at once, she found herself at the tavern where she had nearly been raped. She stared at the squat brick building now, drab and deserted in the daylight, and it came to her in a rush that she had never had the chance to properly thank the American who saved her.

She narrowed her eyes against the wind and looked around. She had no idea where the Beekhof farm was, but it must not be too far, she though, from the tavern where the American had come upon them.

Squinting, she saw perhaps half a kilometer ahead a road sign indicating a crossroad. She pedaled until she reached it, then hesitated. Left, or right?

She tossed a mental coin and turned right, pedaled a full kilometer before she saw the first sign of life – an empty pen, perhaps for sheep, far back from the road, and beyond it a farmhouse badly in need of paint, surrounded by fir trees, and seemingly deserted .

She pedaled closer, read the name on the mailbox – Van de Berg, with a slash of black paint crossed through it. Evi’s shoulders slumped. What had become of the Van de Bergs?

These were large tracts, she discovered as she moved on, separated by lengths of rundown fencing, mostly withered acreage, and no sign of a working farm.

Pulling up short, she turned around and pedaled in the other direction, crossing over the main road with fading expectation. She had not gone more than two kilometers when a silo loomed into view, set far back from the road.

She pedaled faster until she came upon a break in the roadside foliage, a narrow dirt road that could be a driveway. Had she not noticed the battered mail box nearly hidden in a bank of overgrown ivy, she would have missed it altogether. She pushed the brush aside. Beekhof.

Hesitating, she sat there for a moment, then made her way up the dirt road, her tires spitting dirt.

Eventually, the dirt road turned to gravel.

She heard a dog barking as she came upon a pen with a few squealing pigs, a single horse grazing beyond a picket fence.

A big German Shepherd loomed in front of her, barking furiously, racing at her side to the weathered porch.

She took in the two-story white frame farmhouse, its black trim peeling in places, and rang the doorbell. There was no answer. The dog danced around her, barking. She glanced at the windows, covered by curtains, and rang the doorbell again.

“Nice dog,” she said, shading her eyes against the bleak winter sun. “I don’t mean anyone any harm.” She pedaled backward, looking for movement behind the upstairs windows.

She was about to give up, when the door was opened little more than a crack. A boy of perhaps fourteen or fifteen peered out. He wore denim overalls, a worn plaid shirt, and a decidedly wary expression. The Shepherd barked.

“Hush, Otto. ”

“Hallo,” she said quickly. “My name is Evi Strobel. I hope I have come to the right place. I am looking for Jacob Reese.”

The boy retreated, began to close the door. “There is nobody here by that name.”

“Please!” Evi held a hand against the door. “Please, wait! The American airman saved my life.”

The boy peered out again, eyes narrowed. “There is no American here.”

He started to shut the door, but Evi was faster. “Wait! I am telling the truth. Jacob Reese saved my life! I want to thank him.”

The boy stared through the narrow opening. “Why did your life need saving?”

“I was – I was in a very dangerous situation,” she blurted, a hand still on the door. “Someone was trying to – hurt me, and the American came from out of nowhere and shot him.”

A pause. “Where did this happen?”

She blinked. “At the tavern, just down the road.”

The boy took a long moment. “Wait here.”

Evi peered at the Shepherd. “Otto, is it? Hallo, Otto. My name is Evi.”

The dog peered back, his tail wagging. “Good boy, Otto.” She rubbed her hands together, swaying in the cold.

Finally, the boy reappeared in the doorway. “It is cold,” he opened the door a bit wider. “Come in. Jacob is out in the field with my father. You can wait inside.”

ZOE

Piercing sirens for most of the night made sleep impossible. Zoe tossed and turned, reliving the flash and fury of the exploding train, haunted by the fear that not all of the volunteers had made it safely home.

She was up and pacing before first light, and from the moment she emerged from her small apartment, she felt the tension in the air .

Word of the train explosion was likely everywhere by now, and if the liberated food was an unexpected windfall, there was little doubt the Germans would find a way to unleash new furies in revenge.

Daan was waiting for her at the kliniek . He motioned her into his office and closed the door.

“If I close my eyes,” she said, “I can still feel the force of the blast.”

Daan nodded. “Mission accomplished.”

She did not wait for him to ask. “Wagons full of food were unloaded at the hospital, Daan, but German checkpoints popped up quickly. I ran into one myself, and Godjizdank I was not transporting food, or I might not even be here this morning.”

She shivered at the memory of the cold-eyed German guards and prayed, once again, that there was nothing in her purloined shoulder bag that could be of any value to the Reich.

Daan’s voice was soft. “We have managed two huge offensives in as many days, Zoe – the train explosion and a great blast at the Cinema building. The Germans are beyond furious. They are on high alert, and no doubt we will feel the repercussions.”

He sighed. “But years of oppression have toughened us, Zoe. We all know the risks we take.”

“Ja,” said Zoe, still anxious to know if all the volunteer farmers were safely home. “But some of us bear the burden of putting others in harm’s way.”

“And so it must be, Zoe,” Dan leaned toward her. “If we did not, there would be no resistance at all and Hitler would long ago have had his way.”

That much it true , Zoe realized. But it did little to calm her fear.

She sighed. “I need to go to the Dans Hal to see if everyone is accounted for – but the tires on my bicycle are wearing thin.”

“Go, “he said. “Take my bicycle. It is just behind the building – and let me have a look at yours. Some have been repairing their worn tires with sections cut from garden hose. Let me see what I can do. ”

MILA

She must have blacked out when the force of the blast sent her flying, because the last thing she remembered clearly was depressing the device in her coat pocket.

Curled up in bed in her spacious bedroom, blinds closed, Hondje’s warm body pressed against her left hip, Mila tried to bring it into focus. She felt – exhausted, triumphant, humiliated, and lucky to be alive. How was it possible to feel all those things at once?

She had been unprepared for the force of the blast, the noise, the smell, the rush of flames leaping in burning fingers from the Cinema building into the night sky.

So sudden and powerful was the red-hot conflagration that it had tossed her into the air, and the next thing she knew, a pair of beefy hands had scooped her up and carried her away.

She had hardly heard the voice at her ear, so intent was she on the blaze, the screams, the stampeding feet, the brilliance of the night sky.

Then she had looked toward the source of the voice, and recognized the face of one of her father’s more frequent German dinner guests, though she could not bring his name to mind.

“Mila?” His florid face was inches from hers. “Mila Brouwer, ja? Geht es dir gut ? Are you alright?”

Fear snaked down her spine, and she did not recall answering, but he scooped her up, lifting her as though she were weightless, and carried her to an SS van. Ignoring her pleas, he had lowered her into the back seat, slammed the doors, and sped off into the night.

She could only think he was taking her to German headquarters, and she wavered between terror and resolve.

Slowly, the chaos and the unholy light receded, and the next thing she knew, the man was steadying her gently on the front porch of her home and reaching out to ring the door chime .

She remembered the confusion in her father’s face, the narrowed eyes, the creased forehead, the question not yet formed on his lips.

“Herr Brouwer,” the German was the first to speak. “There was an accident – a great explosion at the Cinema. Your daughter was nearby, but mostly unhurt, I think. It was fortunate that it was I who came upon her.”

EVI

The room was worn but homey – chintz-covered furniture, a bookcase full of books and a slow fire burning in the hearth. Evi loosened her coat and took off her woolen scarf.

She was warming her hands, bent over the fire, when she heard the voice behind her. “Well, hey, so it is you! Hello there.”

She turned to face the tall American, slim and broad shouldered in blue jeans and a too-tight flannel shirt, and younger than he had seemed to be in the dark of night. Suddenly, she found herself speechless.

He smiled. “You must have a name.”

“Evi,” she forced the syllables out. “My name is Evi Strobel. I – came here to thank you. I must thank you. If not for you, I do not know what might have happened to me that night...”

“I don’t know about that. You had two big bodyguards there, ready to shoot the bastard. I just happened to get there first.”