Page 22

Haarlem, the Netherlands

ZOE

There were no patients scheduled at the kliniek on this third day of January, and Zoe expected there would be few in the wake of the German crackdown.

She sat at her desk updating files, wondering how long the pet kliniek could survive without a steady, if diminishing, stream of income.

Already, they had had to let Lise go, and only days before Christmas. Daan had been heartbroken given the season, but Zoe had agreed to a cut in pay, and she knew that Daan had not had taken a salary for weeks.

She looked at the clock. It was after ten. Unusual for Daan to be this late. She busied herself reviewing professional dissertations that had been piling up for months – the first one dull enough to have her on the edge of nodding off.

She was sitting at the desk in a half-wakeful state, lulled by the rhythmic ticking of the clock, when the outer door crashed open.

“They’ve taken him! ”

Zoe jumped up, her stupor shattered, recognizing the voice of Daan’s wife. She ran to the outer office.

Ilke’s face was white with fright, her blonde hair askew, her coat opened over a blue flannel nightgown.

“They beat down the door, Zoe. They dragged him away!” She clutched at Zoe’s white coat.

Zoe blinked, grabbed for Ilke’s hands, tried to lead her to a seat. But Ilke was too distraught to follow.

“They dragged him out of the door, Zoe, two big Gestapo bruisers. They never even told us why, just hauled him off without saying a word – hauled him down the stairs like a sack of laundry…”

“ Lieve god ,” Zoe murmured, heartbeat thrumming. “Please, Ilke, sit.”

Ilke burst into tears and folded into herself. Zoe led her to a chair.

“Daan tried to reason with them,” Ilke wailed. “He tried, but the beasts would not listen.”

Zoe sat in the chair next to Ilke, holding her shaking hands. “When did this happen, Ilke?”

“I cannot be certain…half an hour ago, perhaps…” Ilke drew a shuddering breath, her lovely blue eyes red-rimmed. “We were sitting at the breakfast table, drinking tea. Daan was preparing to go to work…”

She closed her eyes, sat back in her seat. “ Lieve god , will I see him again…?”

Zoe wanted to assure her that she would, but the thought rang hollow, even to her. In her heart, she feared Dan’s involvement in the train blast had put him in the line of fire. She panicked once again about what might have been in the shoulder bag the Nazis had wrested from her at the checkpoint.

“Ilke, let me talk to Pieter. Perhaps he can learn where they are holding him…perhaps there is something we can do…”

“What, Zoe?”

“I do not know…a trade, perhaps…something the Germans may want in exchange for Daan’s return… ”

Ilke’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Zoe, do you think so?”

Zoe took a breath, squeezed Ilke’s hands. “We can try.”

Something occurred to her.

“The Germans must know you do not work for the Resistance, Ilke – else, they would have taken you, too. But you cannot be alone, and I must talk to Pieter. Is there someone I can call who can stay with you?”

Ilke sniffled, her face chalk-white. She looked wilted, like a sail with the wind knocked out of it.

“I do not know,” Ilke murmured. “My sister, perhaps…I do not know…”

Daan Mulder’s wife leaned back in her chair, silent tears running down her cheeks.

Zoe’s mind was racing.

MILA

“I have been desperate to hear from you,” Pieter said when Mila finally reached him from her wireless. “Are you alright?”

She had half-thought her father might order her from the house after their bitter confrontation. But he had only flushed and waved her away, as though she were a failed employee – and she had been happy to flee.

“Yes, Pieter. I am unhurt.”

A short pause. “My office – this afternoon, if you are able.”

She concealed the wireless, and returned to the bedroom, scooping Hondje up from the rug and depositing him on the unmade bed. “Poor baby,” she murmured into his softness. “Your mam has been fretfully neglectful. I promise when I return this evening, we will go for a long walk.”

Ruffling his topknot, she strode back to the closet and chose a pair of black wool trousers, one of two pair sent to her by her dressmaker for approval, and a loose-fitting, pale blue sweater .

There seemed to her to be a wariness in the streets, an almost palpable sense of doom. People walked quickly, wrapped in their scarves and woolen coats, looking down at the sidewalk as though to make themselves invisible.

SS officers and Gestapo were everywhere, standing in doorways, observing at crosswalks, looming seemingly out of nowhere.

Mila kept her head down and her face obscured lest she be recognized by one of her father’s Nazi thugs, and traversed the few kilometers to Pieter’s office as quickly as she dared.

...

Pieter’s expression, when he looked up and saw her, changed from studied concentration to relief. He rose, his green eyes examining her from head to toe. He seemed to wrestle with himself as he came toward her. In the end, he only smiled. “Mila, please sit.”

She did, and he sat back in his chair and regarded her. “You are truly fine, Mila. You were not hurt?”

She shook her head. “The blast knocked me off my feet. I think I must have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing I knew, a German officer was shaking me awake.”

Pieter’s eyes narrowed.

“Fortunately, he recognized me as Frederik Brouwer’s daughter. He spirited me away from all the chaos and delivered me to my father’s front door.”

Pieter nodded slowly. “No suspicion of your involvement?”

“Apparently not.”

And then?”

Mila sighed. “When I was quite recovered, my father confronted me. We had some unpleasant words. He did not disown me, but neither does he believe me. He knows full well, I fear, that I am working on the side of the Resistance.”

“That will make it difficult. My sincerest apologies for putting you in so much danger. ”

Mila closed her eyes for a moment, then leaned across the desk.

“I hope the Allies come soon, Pieter, because I cannot do this kind of thing again – not here in Haarlem, anyway – and not just because of my father’s watchfulness.

Too many German officers here have sat at our table.

If I am to continue doing the work of the Resistance, it must be where I cannot be recognized. ”

He smiled sadly. “For what it is worth, Mila, your work was flawless. But your comment is duly noted.”

“I have no wish to abandon the work, Pieter. But I –”

She was interrupted by a pounding at the door. Before they could react, a young woman burst into the office, coat askew, and fright in her eyes.

“Pieter,” the woman paused, paying no mind to Mila.

“Zoe.” He stood. “What is it?”

“I dared not tell you by telephone,” she panted. “It is Daan. He was grabbed by the Germans and dragged bodily from his home.”

“When?”

“This morning. Ilke is frantic.”

“ Lieve god ,” Mila whispered.

Pieter drummed a fist on his desk. “We cannot assume anything yet. It may be a play for information. Did they search his home, his office?”

“Ilke said only that they barged in and took him…she said nothing of a search. And the Germans have not turned up at the kliniek , at least not before I left.”

Pieter sighed. “Dr. Zoe Visser, this is Mila Brouwer. I do not know if the two of you have met, but you are both vital to the Resistance.”

He paused, but only briefly

“Go back to the kliniek at once, Zoe. Do not enter until you are certain you are alone. Then search Daan’s office for anything that might tie him to the Resistance – anything that could implicate anyone else or divulge any sensitive information. ”

“Yes, of course.” Zoe ran a hand through her hair. “But Daan knows better than that. He keeps things in his head. He writes nothing down – no names, telephone numbers, nothing.”

Pieter nodded. “I hope you are correct. But we cannot afford to take the chance.”

Zoe’s burden poured out of her. “Pieter, the night of the train explosion. My bag was grabbed at a check point. I do not – I would die if something in it might have led the Germans to Daan.”

“Do not beat yourself up, Zoe. Things happen. We all take chances.

He paused. “The farmer, Jozef Haan. He is still missing, yes?

Zoe looked at him. “Yes.”

Pieter’s face was grave. “It is a common tactic in warfare. Most people can only withstand so much torture before they break down and tell what they know. There is no way to know where the leak came from. We will do our best to find them both.”

Mila saw the tears pool in Zoe’s eyes. She rose and put her arms around her.

“One thing is certain,” Peiter said. “Daan is stronger than most. I know in my heart he will reveal nothing. Not even…”

He did not have to finish the thought. Not even under pain of death…

EVI

Evi drank a cup of weak tea. She felt jumpy, stifled, irritated.

With Mam called to work a shift at the pharmacy, it was Evi who had stood in the ration line this morning, snaking slowly forward for more than an hour only to come away with a loaf of stale bread, a bunch of wilted carrots, and a small sack of oats.

The Germans were cracking down harder than ever since the two Resistance offensives, cutting power, disrupting phone lines, holding hunger over their heads with impossibly meager rations – and shooting people in the streets for the flimsiest of reasons, Radio Oranje reported .

Mam refused to discuss the increased danger.

She continued her runs to bring back tulip bulbs and root vegetables with little regard for her safety.

But all the while Evi worried for her, she found her own resolve strengthened.

The Allies would prevail, she told herself, and until then, she would stay in the fight.

She had not heard from Mila since her last aborted tryst. Nor had she heard from Zoe about shooting lessons.