Gerrit stood in the attic with Cornelia, cardboard boxes and old leather trunks scattered around the finished room. They had stashed Johan in his hiding place and now Gerrit’s turn had come. He flexed his shoulder. This wouldn’t be painless, but at least he didn’t have to be underground like her brother.
She wrung her apron. Her gaze darted around the perimeter of the room. She looked like a child lost on the street.
Gerrit’s heart broke for her. Not able to help himself, not sure if he would ever get another chance, he swept her into his arms, pulling her close until her heart beat against his ribs. He inhaled her scent. How could she smell like roses when there wasn’t perfumed soap with which to wash?
She quivered under his touch as he played with the small tendrils of hair not caught in her pins.
“Shh,” he whispered against her neck.
She clung to him and he etched this memory into his brain, forever seared in his recollections as one of the loveliest moments of his life. He didn’t want to leave her.
“Cornelia.” The name swirled on his tongue, sweet as the sugar on olliebollen.
She touched his lips with the tip of her finger. “Don’t say it.”
Fire surged through him. “What if this is our only chance?”
“Then it won’t hurt so much.”
He let go. “God be with you.”
“And with you.”
He wanted to hold her forever. Outside, a truck with a loudspeaker traveled the road beside the canal. “Men seventeen to forty-five, report or face arrest. All others must remain indoors.”
Cornelia’s eyes widened. “Hurry, please hurry.”
Gerrit scrambled for his secret place in the attic, a niche he had fashioned between the wall and the rafters. Cornelia’s breakfast settled in his stomach like a rock at the bottom of a canal.
He attempted to inhale as much fresh air as possible before he crawled in. He wouldn’t be able to breathe down in that dark, cramped space. They heard the squeal of brakes as a truck stopped near the bridge. The sound of German boots reverberated on the street.
“Cornelia, I—”
“Get in there,” she hissed.
He liked this rush of spunk. He wiggled in, then huddled in a ball. It was dusty and smelled musty, and he hoped that since it was only mid-March, there wouldn’t be many spiders sharing this spot with him.
Closing his eyes, he fought for breath and willed his wheezing to stop.
Her footsteps faded and she banged the attic door shut.
CORNELIA PEERED OUT of the lacy white curtains at the same window where she had seen the men marching toward their executions. Another green truck with a canvas top screeched to a stop at the foot of the bridge, opposite the house. Soldiers stood at attention, their machine guns pointed down the street.
She dropped the curtain and tried to sit and knit, as if this were any other day. But she couldn’t concentrate and kept dropping stitches. It didn’t matter. With the yarn shortage, this was the third or fourth time she’d knitted the same scarf. Anything to keep busy.
She set the work aside, her entire body pulsing with fear and . . .
And what? She shivered when she thought about the passion rushing through her. For the first time since her terrible loss, she awakened, like her endless night of sleep had ended. She had wanted that moment in the attic to continue forever.
Nee. Love could be exquisite.
And exquisitely painful.
Love could be taken away at any second. She thought she would have Hans forever. She only had him for one night.
The soldiers’ footsteps grew louder. When she had looked out the window, she saw two men at the neighbors’ front doors, their rucksacks slung over their shoulders, but most stoops stood empty.
They pounded on the neighbor’s door across the canal where Maria and her husband lived. Cornelia’s heart pounded along with them. She prayed he had hidden well.
Curiosity overcame her and she dared to spy out the window.
“Open up, open up,” the soldiers yelled.
Maria stepped over the threshold, playing with the tassel on her cream-colored shawl, not looking the Germans in the eye as they questioned her. Unsatisfied with whatever answers she gave, they barged past her, knocking her to the ground. Cornelia pressed her nose against the windowpane.
A few minutes passed. Maria screamed as they dragged her husband out the door. She tried to hold on to him, but they pushed her inside. Cornelia dropped the curtain and stood still, feet frozen to the floor. Her breath came in short gasps.
In the recesses of her mind, she recalled the bliss of being held in Hans’s arms, loving him all through the night in the hotel in the town of Nijmegen, near the German border. As morning neared, off in the distance something had boomed and the ground had shaken.
Hans sat up in bed. She pulled him down on his side, facing her. “Darling, it’s only thunder.”
The muscles in his bare back tightened as she ran her hands over them. More explosions sounded. Cornelia willed them away. She couldn’t believe war had come. She didn’t want to believe it had come.
He switched on the light and reached for his pants. “I need to go. We are under attack.”
She laughed. “Didn’t the bellboy tell us about Hitler’s speech last night? He promised to respect our neutrality. It must be something else.”
“Hitler has proven in the past that his word means nothing.”
He spoke the truth, but she continued in her denial. The predawn sky flashed red and orange and yellow.
She tugged on his arm. “Please don’t go.”
“It is my duty as a Dutch soldier to protect our country and our queen.”
“It is our wedding night. Surely they don’t expect you to report when you have been married for mere hours.”
He stroked her hair from her face. “I have to do what is required of me.”
“What is required of you is to stay with your wife.”
He sat beside her and held her hand. “What is required of me is to fight for our liberty, so you and I and our children can live in freedom.”
The hotel shook with another, much louder reverberation.
The Germans had come.
They were at war.
She cried, “Please, Hans, please.” She could barely force the words around the swelling in her throat. “I am begging you.”
He drew her to her feet and pressed her into him. Through her lacy nightie, she was aware of his every muscle and sinew. He crushed her, trembling, in his embrace as she soaked his chest with her tears.
He drew away far too soon. “I love you. I will always love you.”
“I love you too.” She kissed him, hard and long, hoping the passion behind it would convince him to stay.
It hadn’t.
GERRIT SAT CRAMPED in the dark, cold recess of the wall, trying to make himself as small as possible. The soldiers had been known to poke bayonets through the plaster, searching for anyone hidden within. Please, Lord, make them miss.
Darkness closed in on him like a cloak. Shivering, he told himself over and over that the walls weren’t caving in, that he had plenty of air, that he wouldn’t be crushed to death.
He would rather be out there, taking his chances with the Gestapo, concocting some wild yarn about why they shouldn’t haul him away to Germany. But he stayed put, unwilling to leave Cornelia.
Instead of plaster and studs surrounding him, he imagined her arms around him. She had felt so good, so right inside his embrace. But the walls were cold in the unheated attic, not like the warmth of her trembling body. He shivered.
His favorite Bible passage, Psalm 56, came to mind. His dominee preached on that passage at the beginning of the war, and the Lord’s words touched him so much he had memorized the entire chapter.
Be merciful unto me, O God: for man would swallow me up; he fighting daily oppresseth me.
Mine enemies would daily swallow me up: for they be many that fight against me, O thou most High.
What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.
Almost imperceptible at first, warmth seeped through him, but his release from this prison couldn’t come soon enough.
He heard a scream. Cornelia? Nee, it didn’t sound like her and it came from too far away.
A while passed. He forced himself to breathe in and out with a regular, steady rhythm.
The soldiers yelled for Cornelia to let them inside. Please, Lord, help her remain calm. End this search soon.
He heard furniture scraping against the floor, pots and pans crashing. After a time, they climbed the stairs to the attic. The door banged open and boots marched across the wooden floor. He held his breath, convinced the men could hear him exhale. He heard them poke bayonets into the wall. One came within centimeters of his foot.
“Did you find anything?” One soldier spoke in a deep voice.
“Nein. No one here. We should move on.”
The first one with a deep voice wasn’t convinced and spoke in Dutch. “Where is your brother, Frou de Vries? We have records of a boy living here who has never reported for his labor detail.”
“He died of influenza along with my parents during the second winter of the war.”
“We have no record of that.”
“Someone must have overlooked recording it, because he has been gone for over three years now.” The tears in her voice made her sound convincing.
“Let’s move on. There is no one here.”
Gerrit wanted to cry with relief. They had survived this raid.
He let out the air he had been holding, then inhaled. Along with oxygen, he breathed in a good amount of dust that tickled his nose, throat, and lungs. He worked not to release the explosion building behind his clenched lips. Tears watered in his eyes.
Then he coughed.