Page 80 of Winter’s End

“My name is Evi…Evi Strobel,” she sobbed. “We were coming from Haarlem. That is where we live…on the Spaarne…”

Alette nodded. “Do you have family here?’

Evi shook her head. “No.”

“In Haarlem then. Friends, perhaps.”

She hesitated.Mila, perhaps? Zoe?

“There is a train to Haarlem from Rotterdam,” Alette said. “But better, I think, if someone could come for you and take you there.”

Evi drew a shaky breath.

Alette rose to her feet, wiped her hands on her striped apron, buttoned her coat to the collar. “I will take you to my home,kleintjeIt is not far away. There, I have a telephone – if there is service.”

ZOE

She was cleaning the holding cages when the telephone shrilled. She ran to answer it. “Mulder Petkliniek. How can I –”

She stopped.

What she heard was an agonized sob.

She tried again. “This is Dr. Visser. Who is this?”

“Z- Zoe,- “ She did not recognize the voice. “It is Evi…”

A pause. “Evi? Evi Strobel?

“Ja…” Zoe heard the quiver in her voice. “Mam is gone, Zoe. Dead. The Germans murdered her. I jumped from the barge. I am in Vlaardingen…”

Zoe struggled to make sense of what she heard.Vlaardingen…Lotte dead?“Evi, when did this happen?”

“Early today. We were on our way to Middleburg with baby Jacob- Oh, lieve god…” The girl broke into anguished sobs.

Baby Jacob?

Zoe let Evi cry for a moment. Her voice, when she spoke, was gentle. “Evi,alstublieft.Please…You are going to be fine. Is there someone there with you in Vlaardingen?”

In a moment, a new voice came on the line. Evi sobbed in the background.

“Hallo?”

“Ja,I am here. My name is Zoe Visser - Doctor Zoe Visser. And you?”

“I am Alette Spierhoven. I am here with your young friend in Vlaardingen. She is very sad, and barely coping. She needs to get home. Can you help?”

Zoe struggled to make sense of what she heard. Then her brain sprang into action. “Ja, ja, natuurlijk.. Can you tell me exactly where you are?”

...

She paced for a moment in the emptykliniek. A train, perhaps, to Rotterdam. She did not have access to an automobile – and even if she did, there was no petrol.

A thought surfaced. She picked up the phone, quickly dialed a number.

“Plumbing company.”

“Pieter, it is Zoe. I am at thekliniek.” Quickly, she told him what she knew, about Lotte’s murder at the hands of the Germans, about Evi, impossibly stranded somehow, in a small village near Rotterdam.