Page 49 of Winter’s End

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.”