Page 92 of Winter’s End

She jumped at the sound of her name. “No, Father, I have many lovely dresses,” she replied. “And I doubt theobersturmfuhrer is a connoisseur of women’s fashion.”

“Nevertheless, my dear, he occupies a special place in the Reich hierarchy. He will expect you to look elegant on his arm.”

And what else will the obersturmfuhrer expect,she wondered, suddenly on the verge of bringing up the few bites of food she had swallowed. Was her proud father willing to offer up his daughter as nonchalantly as he offered up his shipping routes?

Feeling ill, she tossed her napkin on the table. “Excuse me, Father. I am feeling tired.”

“But you haven’t had dessert,” her father said blandly. “Reit has prepared a toffee pudding.”

Mila forced a smile. “But we wouldn’t want my dress to be too tight around my hips,” now would we?”

EVI

The kitchen windows were so heavy with steam that she could see nothing beyond them. Inside, it felt warm and comfortably moist. She mopped her face with the hem of her apron.

“I am ready for those jars, Evi”MevreouwBeekhof said.

Evi jumped to pick up a pair of metal tongs and fish the jars, one by one, out of the boiling water, setting them on towels on the kitchen counter.

She watched, fascinated, asMevrouwfilled the jars with a small crop of rhubarb that had somehow survived the cold, and which she had diced and stewed with the last of her stock of honey.

Mam had been a passable cook in the years before the war, but never in Evi’s memory had she canned vegetables asMevrouwwas doing now.

“There,”Mevrouwsaid, wiping down the jars with a clean cloth. “We will leave them to cool and eat some for supper, and the rest we will put aside in the cellar to be there for us on another hungry day.”

She put the kettle on. “Sit, Evi. I will make us a cup of tea.”

The men, as usual, were working in the field, and although she would have liked to be nearer to Jacob, Evi relished this time withMevreouw. It made her feel as though she were wrapped in cotton batting, as though she were safe and protected from having to think about that day off the coast of Rotterdam.

In a strange way, although she had turned seventeen, she felt more vulnerable, more defenseless now than she had before the day she had dressed like a harlot and lured that first Nazi to his death.

“Evi,”Mevrouwpoured the tea and sat. “There is something you need to know…”

Evi sat up straighter.

“We had a visitor yesterday, while you had target practice with Jake,”Mvreouwbegan, a softness in the planes of her face. “It was a man named Johan Steegen. Do you know him?”

Evi shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Well. He is a friend of your friend, Mila Brouwer. It seems that he was able to locate your Mam’s barge, still afloat in the sea near Rotterdam, and bring it back to Haarlem.”

Evi’s eyes widened.

“The barge is back, Evi, in the same berth alongside the Spaarne where it has always been.Meneer Steegen says it is still in fair condition and does not appear to have been ransacked.”

Evi thoughts flew to baby Jacob, butMevrouwclosed her eyes and shook her head. “There was no baby, Evi, no one living or dead on board the barge…But everything else – your clothing, pots and pans…everything seems to be the way it was left.”

Mvreouwpaused. “It is your home, Evi,” she said finally. “You are able to return to it if you wish.”

Tears sprang, faster than fireflies on a summer night, and Evi let them flow. She shook her head. “I cannot return…not now, not yet…”

Mevreouwcovered the space between them and took her into her arms. “It is all right, Evi. I understand.Behagen, you may stay here as long you like…it is only that you needed to know…”

ZOE

The phone was ringing as Zoe fit the key into the lock of her apartment. It was past nine, the end of another long day helping Gerrit deal with the trials of too many people in too little space, and fearful of Gestapo intrusion.

She was tired to the core, but the phone still shrilled. She sloughed off her coat and reached for it.