Gerrit pulled the hood of his jacket over his head, wearing the old man disguise he had used in the past. He called to Frou de Bruin, “I am going out for a while.”
She emerged from her bedroom as fresh as if she had slept for ten years. She narrowed her eyes in the annoying habit she had and glared at him, hands on her hips. “Where do you think you might be going?”
How could he explain when he didn’t understand himself? “A woman came to me for help. I have to go into town.”
“I hid ten English pilots during the course of the war, and none of them were as stubborn as you. You are incapable of staying in one place. What about when Frou de Vries comes and wonders where you are? What should I tell your girlfriend?”
Gerrit couldn’t help but smile at the term. If you asked him, he liked the word wife better. Ah, maybe someday. “I shouldn’t be gone long. Tell her to wait if she gets here before me and I will be back soon.” He planted a kiss on her wrinkled cheek. A wide-eyed look of surprise crossed her faded face. “My mother always called me a rogue.”
“Young and reckless is what you are. One of these days you will settle down. When you have a wife and a family of your own, you will think twice about taking these kinds of chances.”
“When I have a wife and family of my own, I promise to settle down.” He slipped out before she could open her mouth again.
He hadn’t gone more than half a kilometer before he got the feeling of being followed once more. He kept his head down and leaned on Hear de Bruin’s cane. A fleet of eastbound German trucks passed him but paid little attention to him. His old man disguise fooled them at least. But with each passing second, a sense of impending doom bore down on him.
DIRT SPRAYED AT Cornelia’s feet.
Bullets whizzed past her ears.
Airplanes swooped so low she saw the pilots in the cockpits.
They were trying to kill her!
She came alive. She swiveled her head in both directions and dove for a ditch on the left side of the road. The pilots continued to shoot, rocks stinging the backs of her legs. As the pain grew worse, she prayed they weren’t bullets.
Her heart leaped to her mouth and pounded there. This had to be happening to someone else. She wanted to scream but bit her hand. Funny, really, because the planes made so much noise, no one would hear her.
She lay there, her face in the grass, the tender young blades tickling her nose. She worked for each breath she drew.
She was going to die.
In a matter of moments, she would stand in the Lord’s presence.
Her entire body shook. Would it hurt much? Her screams erupted then, a flow she couldn’t stop. “God, help me! Help me!”
Planes swooped low. She pressed her body against the ground. An eternity passed as she lay there. Any moment she expected brilliant, shining light.
She closed her eyes. An explosion shook the ground. She had never been in an earthquake, but she imagined it must be like this.
Oh, that the end might come quickly. Her heart had already stopped beating. “God, where are You?”
“When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me.” There was more she couldn’t remember. Then a snippet came to her mind. “I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.”
The planes continued to screech overhead.
“I am crying to You, Lord. Please, please help me. Turn back those who are trying to take my life. I trust You, Lord. Please save me. I beseech You, Father, may it be Your will that I live. I praise You for the way You have cared for me.”
All the fear drained from her body.
No matter what happened, God had this situation in His control. If she died, she would be with her Lord forever. If she lived . . .
Well, if she lived, she would live. Truly, fully, completely.
The planes climbed in the sky. Another explosion rocked the ground around her. One less German truck now, she supposed. She didn’t dare look.
Time passed. No more men shouted or screamed. Perhaps they were all dead.
If she lived, she would take whatever time she had with Gerrit. She refused to let fear rob her of the days or months or years the Lord might give them.
As the acrid smell of burning tires stung her nostrils, she cried.
Not in sorrow.
Not in fear.
In joy.
ANKI LONGED TO hear another voice in the house besides her own. The emptiness echoed around her. Her child fluttered like the brush of fish fins inside her stomach. She cupped her hand over the swelling in her belly. Hunger reminded her it was time to eat. Only because of her child did she even try to force a little food down her throat.
The depth of her loneliness surprised her. She had spent most days alone while Piet had been working. She thought life would continue much as it did at those times. Maybe knowing he wouldn’t come home for dinner and wouldn’t share her bed at night made things different. She hated sitting in her chair hour after hour. Because of morning sickness, she didn’t feel well enough to do much cleaning, and one person alone didn’t create much dirt.
She needed to get out of the house and be among people. Services on Sunday and the brief social time they afforded only increased her loneliness. The other six days of the week stretched into infinity in front of her.
After a quick lunch, she combed her hair, not caring much how it looked, and slipped a fresh dress over her head. The thin cotton material strained across her middle. With the war ending, she hoped she would be able to buy new clothes soon.
Stepping onto the front stoop, she raised her head and let the wind flow over her, lifting her spirits. She had eaten the last of her bread and needed to stop at the bakery tomorrow. Today she decided to go see Johan. Perhaps he would know why Cornelia hadn’t been in tsjerke this morning.
Against the horizon, Allied planes swooped and rose like eagles in the sky. Today they flocked in the opposite direction of Frou de Bruin’s house. Cornelia would be glad they stayed far away.
The fresh, balmy air revived her so much that she decided to take the long way through town. The expectant tulip buds would burst open any day now, and she wanted to see if any early comers had bloomed in the window boxes. Nothing was more beautiful than the bright flowers bobbing their heads in all the window boxes up and down the streets. The town came alive then.
She wandered, not paying much attention to where she was going. She couldn’t get lost. The exercise and fresh air helped her feel better than she had in days.
She turned one corner and ran into a crowd. A drab green Nazi truck with a canvas top idled in front of a house. People milled about while soldiers shouted. Through a gap in the crowd, she saw a man being led from the house, the long barrel of a gun in his back.
She knew that man, the hunch of his shoulders, his dark head. Not many men in Friesland had hair that color.
Maarten.
Gerrit’s friend in the Resistance. He had been at Corrie’s house once when she had stopped by. She wasn’t supposed to know the man’s identity, but Corrie slipped and made her vow never to tell who he was.
The Gestapo dragged him to the street, kicked him, and threw him into the back of the truck.
The baby inside of her fluttered wildly and she placed her hand over him, trying to calm him. She watched a moment more. A tall soldier shook his head as he spoke with another. “Nein, there are more inside. We are not leaving until we have them all. Keep searching. And there is one more coming.”
One more coming. Gerrit didn’t stay at this house. Could they be speaking of him?
She had to talk to Cornelia.
Anki turned and jogged past brick houses and silent businesses to her sister’s house, all the while her blood pounding in her ears. Corrie couldn’t stand another loss. She had been crazy to urge her sister to fall in love again. If something happened to Gerrit, her sister would not survive.
She spied the cheery house on the other side of the canal and trotted across the bridge. Breathless, she pounded on the door. No one answered. Her heart raced like a skater across a frozen canal.
SILENCE ROARED IN Cornelia’s ears. No more planes cased the sky. No more trucks or tanks thundered down the road. No more men screamed.
She dared to lift her head. Nothing moved.
She sat up and scanned her surroundings. About thirty meters behind her lay the skeletons of trucks, blackened and smoking.
The back of her leg throbbed and pain shot up to her thigh and down to her foot as she stood and attempted to brush the mud from her damp dress. She bent to examine the cause and discovered a large gash in her calf. A rock or a bullet had struck her and the injury burned. A trickle of blood seeped down her leg.
She could do nothing about it at this time but ignore the discomfort. The crinkle of the ration cards under her shirt reminded her of her mission. No matter what happened to her, people still depended on these. She had to get them where they needed to go. Besides, she couldn’t sit along the side of the road waiting for help. The next people past might be more Germans or another squadron of Allied planes. She scanned the area to get her bearings and remember which way she needed to go.
A groan from the side of the road stopped her. She must have imagined it. She took a step toward her next destination, but the groan came again.
The planes hadn’t killed all of the soldiers.
One of them, dressed in a gray uniform, writhed and moaned.
He tried to move and moaned again. Blood spattered his chest. “Help.”
She touched her midsection, the ration cards crinkling under her fingers.
Off in the distance, planes whined.
Her legs urged her to run. Her heart urged her to stay.