Page 55 of Winter’s End

The German’s face was inches from hers, ruddy, angry, insistent. “Papers!” He backed her toward the wall.

Zoe found her voice, tearing her gaze from the rifle at his side. “In there,” she pointed. “In my office.”

“Geh mit irh,”he shouted, turning on his heel to his companion. “Follow her.”

Easing out from behind the German’s bulk, Zoe left the room, aware of heavy footsteps right behind her. Fumbling, her heartbeat loud in her ears, she searched the office for her bag and reached for it.

“Halt!” her pursuer raised his pistol.

Zoe backed off, watched as the younger Nazi rummaged through the bag. He tossed it back to her. “Papers!”

She withdrew her identification papers from a zippered section in the bag, silently handed them over. She could hear a commotion coming from Daan’s office, the thump of objects being tossed about, what sounded like desk drawers crashing to the floor.

There was nothing there to connect Daan to Pieter or the Resistance, she was certain, but these German brutes would not give up until they had combed through every inch of his possessions.

Poor Ilke.Zoe guessed the Mulder home had by now been thoroughly scavenged.

The square-jawed officer, his mouth a thin line, inspected Zoe’s ID papers, looked up twice, comparing her photo to her face.

She recalled instantly the night of the train explosion, the bag she had been forced to leave behind. Once again, her stomach roiled. She prayed silently there had been nothing revealing in its contents.

The German’s harsh voice cut through her reverie. “What is your business here?” he barked in surprisingly good Dutch.

“I work here,” she kept her voice even. “I am a licensed veterinarian.”

“You know this man, Daan Mulder.”

“He is my employer.”

“He is an enemy of the Reich,” the German spat. “You work with him for the Resistance.”

It was a statement, not a question. Zoe stiffened. “I am a veterinarian…an animal doctor. I work here at thekliniek. That is all.”

The older Nazi strode into her office, exchanged words in German with his companion.

The younger man brushed Zoe aside, began pulling drawers from her desk.

“You,” the older German directed her to the reception desk. “Sit.”

Zoe sat, working to keep her anxiety under control as the two Gestapo officers rampaged through her office, ripping files from the cabinet, scanning reports on her desk, rifling through every book in her bookcase and roughly tossing them aside.

When they finished in her office, they attacked the reception area, flinging aside supplies and equipment yanked from the desk, from the rows of neatly marked small storage bins.

By the time they were finished, the place was a shambles, but finding nothing of import seemed only to make the Germans angrier.

“You work for the Resistance!” the older one insisted.

“I work in thekliniek,” she said again, working to keep control of her voice. “I am a veterinarian. I treat dogs and cats when they are sick.”

The man narrowed steel blue eyes. “Do you know you are working for an enemy of the Reich?”

Zoe fought against the trembling inside. “Daan Mulder is my employer at thekliniek. That is all that I know of him.”

...

In the end, they left with the same swiftness with which they had smashed their way in. To her relief, they had asked her nothing about her family, nothing about the train explosion, nothing about the food and supplies pilfered from the mangled train wreck. They only warned her to stay within their sights, to be a visibly compliant Dutch citizen.

They never asked her where Daan was. But of course, they already knew. She closed her eyes, as close to prayer as she could muster, willing him, with every fiber of her being, to be alive, to stay strong.