You had better pray that Johan returns by the time I get back from the tsjerke.” With those words, Cornelia slammed the front door, leaving Gerrit and the house in absolute silence.
She didn’t give him a chance to tell her he had been doing just that.
Once he finished praying, he had time to assess his surroundings. The front room’s peeling red paper transported him to another era. Across from the bedstee, a faded blue sofa dominated the wall. Cornelia’s rocker sat next to it in the far corner beside the small but elaborate iron stove. Then he saw it—the photograph on the wall where she could see it from her chair, next to a schoolhouse clock and a picture of the queen.
A young man, full of joy and life, dressed in a dark suit coat and a loosely knotted tie, looked at him, his back straight and proud. Who was he? Not Johan. And much too recent to be her father. He recalled her once or twice mentioning Hans. Was this him? And who was he? When she came back, he would ask her.
How long before he could be up and around? He had been a little boy very sick with scarlet fever the last time he had to stay in bed this long.
For the past year or eighteen months, he had been so busy with Resistance work, he had little chance to rest and catch his breath, constantly moving from place to place, always carrying either stolen or forged ration cards and fake identity cards. While getting shot wasn’t the way to go about it, he tried to welcome the rest. Maarten would come soon and Gerrit could get back to work.
He dozed. Through his dreams of home, he heard a persistent knocking on the door. He came fully awake.
“Open up. Schnell.”
The pounding continued for a moment before he heard the door being kicked in and soldiers entering the house. “Search everything. Don’t miss a thing. He is here. I can smell him.” The voice reverberated through the small dwelling.
Though the movement caused heat to spread from his wound throughout his entire torso, Gerrit reached up and shut the cupboard doors. He prayed Johan wouldn’t return just now and meet up with the soldiers.
The near total darkness enveloped Gerrit. He struggled to remain calm. He would never make it into the hiding place in time. Instead, he curled into a ball in the corner.
The thud of jackboots marched nearer to him.
He pulled the soft blue blanket over himself. When they discovered him here, he would have to hide the wound that would scream his identity.
Please, Lord, protect me.
He breathed in and out silently, but forced himself to maintain a slow, steady rhythm. He bit his tongue to halt the building scream.
Moments later light flared into his cubbyhole. He lay with his back to the soldier. With the butt of his gun, the Nazi turned him over. The Gestapo officer jabbed Gerrit’s side with the barrel of the gun. Gerrit moaned and observed the man.
His heart catapulted to his throat.
He would never forget the cobalt-blue eyes that stared at him.
Looking back at him was the face of the officer who had attempted to execute him.
Silence covered Gerrit. His awareness of the other Nazis in the house faded.
His breathing ceased.
His heart arrested.
Lord, save me.
White-blond eyelashes blinked at him. Disbelief widened those unforgettable blue eyes. The soldier squeezed his gun’s barrel.
Indecision worked his face. His jaw muscle twitched and his lips scrunched. He lifted the blanket. Gerrit wore Johan’s clothes that hid his wounds. The soldier didn’t probe.
He dropped the blanket and gave Gerrit a few good jabs to the ribs with the butt of his gun. “What a drunkard. A useless excuse for a human being.” He shut the bedstee doors.
The commander called from the front room’s doorway, “What did you find, Neumann?”
“A lazy old drunkard sleeping off his Saturday night binge.”
“Strange, we didn’t find any liquor bottles.”
“Who knows where he got the spirits. But he is as drunk as any I have ever seen.”
“Are you sure it’s not Aartsma? If the man can escape death by firing squad, he can pretend to be drunk.” The domineering officer’s words caused Gerrit to flinch.
“Nein. He reeked of alcohol. I checked for wounds but I found none. It’s not him. He is that woman’s brother-in-law.”
“Maybe I should check.” Heavy footfalls stepped toward Gerrit.
Lord, turn him away.
“Sir, that’s not necessary. I conducted a thorough investigation. This isn’t Jan Aartsma. It is Piet Dykstra. And he has an ausweis.”
The steps ceased. Gerrit’s vital signs stilled.
Cornelia’s knitting needles clanked to the floor and one rolled close to Gerrit. From the kitchen, pots and pans clanged and dishes clinked against each other as the men searched the kitchen cupboards. They stomped upstairs and thumps came as items were tossed to the floor. The men shouted things to each other in the guttural language he couldn’t make out behind the bedstee doors. After a few more minutes, the boots marched to the front door. Cold air seeped in as the Gestapo left.
Gerrit wilted.
CORNELIA STROLLED OVER the bridge, almost home from morning services. The light rain had stopped and now she could put away the calm facade she had adopted while at the tsjerke. A burning sensation gnawed at her stomach. A strong foreboding had accompanied her all morning. She prayed she would walk through that door and see both Johan and Gerrit, safe and sound.
Her apprehension magnified. Her front door hung open, swinging to and fro on the wind.
The Gestapo had been back.
Gerrit lay helpless in there. And what about Johan? Had he returned? He could have walked straight into their open arms, hungry for a Dutch workforce.
She commanded her legs to hold her and keep the same pace up the path and over the canal to her house.
She glanced in all directions. No soldiers watched the bridge. She willed herself to breathe. They waited inside, not wanting to tip her off, not giving her a chance to flee.
Should she run? That’s what she wanted to do. Run as fast and as far as she could. But she had to know about Gerrit and Johan.
Or maybe Johan had come to get Gerrit and take him to the Resistance safe house. They had left and forgot to shut the door. She always imagined the worst. Mem had told her she had a vivid imagination. Very likely things weren’t as ominous as she envisioned.
Should she take the chance and walk straight into the house? She would look silly if she slunk around only to find Johan sitting at the table sipping his ersatz coffee. Then again, she would be downright foolish to strut inside to meet a German battalion waiting for her.
She would rather appear crazy than stupid. She and Johan would have a good laugh about it. Gerrit wouldn’t be there. A wave of something—regret or maybe sorrow—washed over her.
Shaking off the emotions, she crept around to the kitchen window in back and peered through the parted curtains.
She covered her mouth to seal off a gasp. Cupboard doors hung open and pots and pans and silverware littered the floor. Her small table had been overturned, and the papers with the notes she had taken during devotions were scattered.
Her heart threatened to defect from her body.
The Gestapo had been here. And she saw no sign of Gerrit or Johan.
Not a single soldier roamed the place. But they would return. For her.
With her blood pounding in her ears, she decided to grab a few things and escape.
She sprinted inside and slammed the door, bolting it. First thing, she had to know about Gerrit and Johan. As she scurried to the front room, she wondered if they would be here or if they had eluded the Gestapo.
Maybe the soldiers shot them on the spot.
She steeled herself, then grasped the bedstee’s hand-smoothed knobs and pulled the doors open.
Gerrit lay against the pillows, his yellow curls mussed, pale but alive. “I’m glad you are home.” A dimple creased his right cheek.
“They were here.”
“Ja.”
“How did you . . . ? They believed your story?”
“You will never guess what happened.”
“What about Johan? Is it safe for him to come out now?”
“He is not here.”
She swayed. “Shouldn’t he be back? It shouldn’t take that long to deliver a message.”
Gerrit’s face remained calm. “He may have decided to wait to come until nightfall, under the cover of darkness.”
His words made sense and she steadied.
“If you fix me a little lunch, I’ll tell you everything.”
With a great deal of speed, she straightened the house. She cut the last of her bread into thin slices, glad she didn’t have any milk or cheese in the house from her employer’s farm. They could have been in a great deal of trouble for withholding the milk from the Nazis.
In the days before the war, her family would gather for a big dinner each Sunday, with a roast and mashed potatoes. The smell would make her mouth water. If a person could travel backward, she would return to those times and cherish them.
She assisted Gerrit in sitting against the pillows. Beneath his soft cotton shirt, his muscles rippled. Emotions swept over her, recollections of another man and his sculpted arms and chest beneath her fingers. Her heart betrayed her.
She dropped him back and he winced. Feelings were dangerous things. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “I’m fine.” He nibbled at the puny slice of unbuttered bread and filled her in on what had transpired.
“You’re saying the man who shot you was here?”
Gerrit nodded. “In this very room, looking straight at me.”
“Perhaps he didn’t recognize you.”
“He recognized me.”
“Why would he protect you?”
“I don’t know. If any of the other soldiers had discovered me, I would have been arrested or, more likely, shot without delay. But God led that particular soldier to me. Not another one, but the one whose sympathy I earned.”
Cornelia fingered the edge of the blanket. “Amazing.”
Gerrit’s mouth, usually hooked a little downward, curved upward like a horseshoe. “God’s fingerprints are over everything that is happening.” He reached out and brushed the back of her hand.
His touch, his words, stirred feelings in her. Beautiful, awful feelings. What he awoke in her had died more than four years ago. She fought the emotions, not wanting to experience them, ever. Never again would she give her heart so freely it could splinter. It belonged to someone else. It always would.
She stood to adjust the blanket that had slipped from his shoulder. With his left hand, he stroked her cheek and his eyes drifted shut. She left his bedside, her gaze fixated on the opposite wall. The picture, as sharp and clear as her recollections, hung there, encased in a silver frame. A young man stared back at her, his straight, dark blond hair slicked back, his joy and love of life evident in his wide grin.
“Why, Hans, why? Why you?”
WHEN GERRIT AWOKE from his nap, as the light slipped from the sky, Cornelia brought him another bowl of warm vegetable soup. She wished for a little meat to help him regain his strength. Perhaps tomorrow, when she went to work at Frou de Bruin’s farm, she would be able to get a little pork.
She sat in the corner, in her rocker near the bedstee, absorbed in her thoughts about Hans and her prayers for Johan. The schoolhouse clock, which hung on the wall between the pictures of Hans and Queen Wilhelmina, ticked away the moments.
“Do you like to sing?” Gerrit’s question broke her reflections and caught her off guard.
“Ja. I used to sing with the church choir, but I don’t sing much these days.”
“Why not?”
“There isn’t much to sing about.”
“We can’t allow those Nazis to steal our reason to sing. If we do, they have won the war. Don’t you ever defy them? Ever?”
“Of course I do. I hide Johan here, among many other things.” She slid forward in her chair. “I don’t speak German and I take yogurt and cheese and milk from Frou de Bruin, you know. But in a way, they have won the war by taking irreplaceable things from me. And that is why I have lost the will to sing. Perhaps on our liberation day, I will break into song. Not now.”
“Be a little daring. Sing a song for me. A hymn. Maybe ‘We Gather Together’?”
“Nee, I won’t. Those words are almost rebellious.”
“My mother used to sing that song to me. I miss hearing her voice. I miss being able to worship each Sunday with God’s people. Won’t you please sing for me?”
“Throw your mother in there to gain my sympathy. Did you think it would work?” She shook her head and a small smile tugged at her lips.
He shrugged. “Did it?”
“It has been so long.”
“Then there is no better time than now. I would like to hear your voice.”
He wore away her resistance like rain wears away the snow. “I don’t sing that well.”
“You sang in the church choir, so you must have a decent enough voice. Please.”
“Only if you will sing with me.”
He nodded.
We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known;
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing,
Sing praises to His name: He forgets not His own.
His weak but rich baritone joined her soprano. She moved from the rocker to his bedside, sitting on the edge of the mattress as the long-buried song washed over her.
Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, wast at our side, all glory be Thine!
We all do extol Thee, Thou Leader triumphant,
And pray that Thou still our Defender wilt be.
Let thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!
Something happened in that moment, something Cornelia couldn’t express in words. These shared experiences bound her and Gerrit together.
Like she had been bound to Hans.
CORNELIA’S CLEAR, BEAUTIFUL soprano broke on the last line of the third verse.
He didn’t want to hurt her. “What’s wrong? Have I upset you in some way?”
“Nee, nee, not at all. Not really, anyway. It’s not you.”
All the women he knew said that. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
She shook her head and covered her mouth. Then a flash of gold caught his attention. A plain, thin band encircled the third finger of her right hand.
A wedding ring. He hadn’t paid attention to it before. Maybe she didn’t wear it all the time or maybe he had been in too much pain to see it.
Cornelia was married.
But where was her husband?
Did he work for the Resistance, or had he escaped to England in the early days of the war to fight with the British? Perhaps he had been detained by the Germans.
In the end, it didn’t matter where the man might be. What did matter was that Cornelia was married. Likely the war separated them and they would be reunited once the Allies liberated them.
He had no right to be attracted to her. From now on, he would have to watch himself. And not watch her. He would have to restrain himself and not let his budding feelings bloom.
Men in the Resistance were taught to control their emotions. If they showed any signs of weakness—any fear, any love, any sadness—it made their jobs much more difficult. And dangerous.
Cornelia sniffled. “You’re quiet.”
“Am I?” He stared into her hazel eyes, the color of the fields in late summer.
“Ja,” she whispered, looking right back at him.
The tender moment stole all rational thought from his brain.
The day’s last ray of sunshine caught her hair, setting the muted auburn on fire.
“Cornelia.”
She clutched her middle and stood, her rocker banging against the wall. “I’m going for a walk. You should rest awhile.”
After she halted the motion of the chair, she left the house without even grabbing a sweater.