Stella walked into the Hotel Krasnapolsky laden with packages and gratefully handed them over to the concierge on duty, Johannes, not Ludwik, before going to the café under the guise of having lunch. She was terribly hungry after hours of following the exceedingly dull Jan Bikker and his ridiculous wife, but she had another purpose as well.
The day started out dull and it stayed that way. Bikker left his house bang on time and went to his hotel where he stayed for thirty minutes. Then he went to an accounting firm, two separate importers, a doctor, and a flower shop, where, oddly, he bought no flowers. All the names were typically Dutch, but Stella took note of every single one. All morning he went in with nothing and came out with nothing. None of the visits took very long, thirty minutes at most, and it seemed to Stella that these were the kind of errands that could be accomplished with a phone call or, at least, a flunky could’ve gone.
To Stella’s relief, he then went back to the hotel, where he stayed put and Stella got to have a cup of coffee and rest her feet. It was a lot of walking and she didn’t appreciate it.
When Bikker didn’t reappear after an hour, Stella decided to return to his house and see if she could get something going there. On the walk, she worked up a reason to knock on the door. Going to the baron’s party. Need help. So well-known in Amsterdam. Blah. Blah. Blah. Stella seriously doubted Anna would be the least bit interested in mentoring her, but it was a way in. If she was going to have definitive answers for Oliver by the end of the weekend, she had to use whatever she had. At the very least she could get in the door and take a look around. She didn’t expect to see Nazi paraphernalia on the walls, but you never know.
It seemed like a good idea, but it never got off the ground. Just as Stella was heading up to the house, Anna emerged, looking just as garish as before, if not more so. She wore an ankle-length red fox fur coat, even though it was fairly warm out, and topped that off with a gold lame turban. The turban had a ton of peacock feathers sprouting out of the front. Peacock feathers. Stella didn’t consider herself to be a fashion genius, like Madam Milla, but that hat was painful to behold. It did, however, make it easy to follow Anna and it was fun to watch other people’s reaction to her getup. She walked along the canal like she owned everything she saw, oblivious to the looks of consternation or outright laughter.
Stella expected her to go back to the Hotel Krasnapolsky to see Elek. That seemed like the kind of thing Anna would wear to meet her lover, but she went instead to a salon for hair styling. There were no windows and Stella couldn’t see in, but her curiosity at what in the world Anna Bikker would do to her hair almost got her to stay for the duration, but exhaustion won out and she went back to the hotel to get on with her other focus for the day. Marga Kübler and the girl did not disappoint. Well, she didn’t disappoint Stella. Her employers were, no doubt, a different story.
Stella sat down at her favorite table where she had a good view and watched Marga drag her feet around the café, occasionally rolling her eyes and sighing. Dirk came out from the back to prod her into action, but the effect was short lived. There weren’t many customers, but Marga was so slow to wait on anyone. So slow that Dirk sent another waitress out from the back. It was Ester, the other girl that had sold out Cornelia’s friend Yannj at the Bikker hotel.
Dirk pointed out Stella waiting at her table and Ester walked over, faster than her friend, but her feet weren’t on fire. “What will you have?” she asked.
“A menu,” said Stella, wondering if the girl would recognize her from the café with Cornelia, but she wasn’t really looking.
“Don’t you have a menu?”
“I wouldn’t ask for one if I did.”
Ester looked down with surprise. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll get one.”
The girl hoofed it into the back and returned within three minutes. Stella had settled in to wait for at least fifteen, but there she was and with a smile, too.
“Here you are. I apologize for the wait. Can I get you a coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
Ester hurried off and Stella watched Marga amble around giving people the napkins she forgot and dropping silverware. If she hadn’t talked to her before, she’d have thought she was dimwitted, but she was more lazy than stupid. Mostly, Marga Kübler didn’t care. Stella couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to her. She’d had little experience with the working class before Vienna, counting Mavis as her only friend in that category, but in Berlin she’d gotten a good taste of the working life. The girls at Valkyrie worked incredibly hard. Stella was tired at that very moment, but she reminded herself that it was nothing like working all night at a club.
Marga didn’t seem to have any of the work ethic that the Berlin girls and Mavis displayed. Ester was better and not a thief as far as Stella knew, but neither girl would’ve lasted at Valkyrie, despite their pretty faces. There had to be a way to get what Stella needed out of them. She’d used money in several instances in the recent past, but those girls couldn’t be trusted to keep their mouths shut for more than five minutes.
Friendly sympathy. It’s worked before.
Ester brought her coffee, putting the cup down roughly so that it spilled.
“Do you know what you want?” she asked.
Stella ordered a boterham with ham and cheese.
“That’s all?”
“For now,” said Stella. “You must be so tired. On your feet all day?”
“Yes. I get so tired.” Ester glanced over her shoulder. “He won’t let us sit down at all.”
“That’s very mean. Girls get tired, just like men.”
Ester’s face became superior and she tossed back her light brown curls. “We work harder than him and he sits all the time.”
“I heard that from Marga,” said Stella conspiratorially.
“You know Marga?”
“She’s served me before. I like her and I told him so.”
“Did you really?” Ester asked. “That’s nice.”
“She was about to get in trouble, but I couldn’t let that happen. She was cheering me up with some stories and I like to help where I can.”
Ester came in closer. “Stories.”
“Oh, you know. Just a little fun gossip. You should ask her.”
She grinned. “I will. Be back in a moment.”
Stella’s boterham arrived in record time with Ester and Marga, looking very curious.
“I do remember you,” said Marga.
Stella wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but she went with it. “I hope Dirk didn’t give you any more trouble after I talked to him.”
Marga giggled and Ester joined in. “He didn’t, but he wanted to know how I amused you.”
Stella smiled and whispered, “What did you tell him?”
The girl hadn’t a clue and she shrugged. “Just jokes, I guess.”
“I saw him,” said Stella, lowering her voice. “I see what you mean about him.”
The girls were blank.
“Mr. Elek. I met him. Oh la la.”
The girls giggled again and elbowed each other. Behind them, Dirk was hovering but unwilling to interrupt a conversation that a long-time guest was enjoying.
“He’s very nice, too,” said Marga. “I thought he might like me.”
“He does,” said Ester.
“Or you.”
“Maybe.”
Stella sipped her coffee as the girls went back and forth about who might’ve attracted the attention of the handsome Mr. Elek. From Madam Milla’s description, Stella would’ve said neither featherbrain stood a chance, but he was sleeping with Anna Bikker, so one never knew.
“I thought you said Mr. Elek knew Anna Bikker,” said Stella when there was a break in the chatter.
Both girls sneered in unison and Marga launched into her tale of woe again, but Stella hadn’t the patience for it. “What an awful woman and so tacky. I saw her wearing a gold lame turban today. It was the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen. What does he see in her? Both of you are much prettier and younger, too.”
Marga pulled out a chair and sat down. It was almost too much for Dirk. The man was wringing his hands in indecision. She’d better hurry it up.
“Well, I shouldn’t really say, but—”
Ester pinched her shoulder with a look of panic on her face. Not so dimwitted as her friend. “Marga, don’t.”
“It’s okay. Who would she tell?” Marga asked with a kind of condescending authority that made Stella clench a fist in her lap. As if being middle-aged and unattractive took away every power a woman might have including speech. How did Cornelia put up with it without smacking people on a daily basis?
“I’ve no one to tell and I’ll be leaving town soon anyway,” Stella confirmed although it pained her immensely.
“See,” said Marga. “I told you.”
Ester tried to intervene again, two bright spots of pink on her cheeks making her even prettier. “No, we could get in trouble and I need this—”
“I heard that they grew up together and that’s why he likes her,” said Marga. “They were sweethearts until she married that nasty bastard Bikker for the money.”
“Where did you hear that?” Ester asked breathlessly, her fear forgotten.
“You know.”
“No, I don’t.”
Marga widened her eyes at her friend and Ester got it. “Oh, right.”
“Who told you?” Stella asked.
“Nobody.”
“It must be somebody very interesting.”
Ester shook her head. “No, no. Just somebody. Nobody really.”
“Is this a good story, too?” Stella asked.
“Well,” said Marga.
Ester pinched her hard on the shoulder and Marga yelped in protest. This was finally too much for Dirk. He rushed over and said, “Girls, don’t be bothering the customers with your chatter.”
The girls looked at her expectantly and Stella had to hide her frustration. “Oh, they’re not bothering me. They’re sweet and amusing.”
Dirk frowned in disbelief, but he let the girls off without a reprimand. “Micheline, they can’t be amusing to you. You’re a woman of business and they’re…”
“Young and silly?” Stella suggested.
He sighed. “I hope that’s all they are. I wouldn’t trust them, if I were you. I was told to hire them because of their pretty faces. The management thought it would bring customers in.”
“It hasn’t.”
“Oh, no, it does, but they can’t be made to work. I don’t understand it. I’ve heard some…not very good things about them from colleagues at other hotels. They should be grateful for their jobs.”
“They’re young,” said Stella.
“I hope they didn’t trouble you with too much nonsense.”
Not enough nonsense unfortunately.
“Not at all,” she said. “Let me tell you a little secret.”
Dirk leaned over and it was a fair way to go, being fully Dutch and over six feet tall. “Yes?”
“I’m thinking of writing a book and I need characters.”
“Those two for characters?” he asked.
“One must have some humor and they inspire humor,” said Stella.
He chuckled. “They inspire irritation for me.”
“But you’re trying to manage a café and I’m trying to find a plot.”
“You have the better bargain.”
“With those two, yes,” said Stella, “absolutely.”
He left her to eat and finish her coffee. She tried a couple more times to entice Ester into giving up who told her about Elek and Anna, but the girl was definitely the smarter of the duo and wouldn’t go near it.
With regret, Stella finished and instead of doing what she wanted, going up for a nap before the party, she did what she had to, find the information the hard way or at least the long way.
Flore answered the door after the fifth knock and Stella feared that she’d forced the old lady up out of a deep sleep.
“Oh, no,” Stella exclaimed. “I’ve woken you.”
Flore threw up her hands. “Micheline! No, no. I was just closing my eyes for a minute or two. Please come in.”
“I wouldn’t want to bother you.”
“I love visitors. You know that.” Flore opened the door wide and ushered Stella into the small sitting room where there was a little fire in the grate and a cold cup of tea on the footstool. Flore hurried to take the cup away and said, “Would you like some nice hot tea? It’s getting chilly out there.”
“Speaking of tea.” Stella got packets of butter, tea, and a very nice ham out of her basket. “I didn’t want to come empty-handed like last time.”
Flore flushed with pleasure. “You didn’t need to, but it’s very nice that you did.” She went to the kitchen to put the kettle on and Stella took off her coat. She sat by the fire and listened to Flore whistling a little tune she didn’t recognize. Happiness pervaded the little house and Stella didn’t get to experience that much anymore. Most houses were frightened and for good reason. Flore’s was a break from all that and it reminded Stella of her grandmother’s house Prie Dieu, not that they were alike on the surface at all, but Flore did remind her of her imperious grandmother. She wasn’t severely fashionable like Evangeline Bled or as tough, but there was the same generosity, good intentions, and warmth in both women and their homes. Evangeline hid her kinder qualities so that some couldn’t see them at all, but Stella knew the truth and always found a comforting hot chocolate at Prie Dieu when her mother’s criticism had been too much to cope with. Grandmother understood. She’d raised Uncle Josiah and lived to tell the tale. A daughter more interested in brewing beer than coming out parties met with her approval. Uncle Josiah had been very interested in coming out parties and he ruined quite a few of them.
“Here we go.” Flore came in with a pot of tea and a selection of cookies. “You look like you could use a treat.”
Stella couldn’t speak for a moment.
“Micheline? Did I say something wrong?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s just that my grandmother used to say that to me when I turned up at her house out of the blue.”
“You miss her,” said Flore.
“I do. Sometimes I forget that, but I do.”
Flore poured the tea and asked, “So what have you been up to?”
“Well,” said Stella with a smile, “I have news on my quest to sell to Anna Bikker.”
“Tell me you got paste diamonds to sell her,” said Flore with a wicked glint in her eye.
“Sorry no, but I do have an invitation to Baron Joost Van Heeckeren’s party tonight and she’ll be there.”
Flore clasped her hands together and exclaimed, “Wonderful. Cornelia did that, didn’t she?”
“She did. She is a miracle worker,” said Stella.
“I hope you have some very gaudy things to sell to that horrid Anna. She’s so stupid the more horrid the better.”
Stella grimaced. “I have seen her a couple of times. Her clothes and hats…”
“I know. She never did have any taste at all. Just because something has a shine doesn’t mean it’s a jewel.”
“Jan Bikker certainly didn’t know that.”
Flore laughed out loud. “Serves him right.”
Stella sipped her tea and leaned forward, “I did happen upon a little information that might serve him right, too.”
“I do love a good gossip. What has that Anna done?”
“Well, I was in the café at my hotel and a girl there told me that Anna’s having an affair with someone there.”
Flore drew back. “No. Surely not. If Bikker found out, he would…well he’d divorce her, that’s what, and she’d have nothing.”
“I think it’s true. I saw her there and she stayed for a long time. Why else does a woman who owns a hotel go to another hotel?”
The old lady ate a delicate little butter cookie and thought it over. “I can’t think of a reason, but who would have her. Most men aren’t as easily fooled as Jan Bikker. Who has she entrapped this time?”
“A man called Mr. Elek.” Stella watched as Flore’s face lit up with recognition and then consternation. “What?”
“Oh, I…who is this Elek?”
“An assistant manager at the hotel. Do you know him?”
“I knew a family called Elek, but they’ve moved away,” said Flore.
“All of them?”
The old lady didn’t answer, but asked, “What was the man’s first name?”
“Willem, I believe,” said Stella.
She relaxed back in her chair and sighed. “Well, it’s not him then.”
“Who did you think it was?”
“Oh, no one. It’s not him.”
Stella poured Flore some more tea and gave her an innocent expression as she asked, “How do you know it’s not for sure?”
“The man I’m thinking of is called Béla Elek, not Willem.”
“Well, I saw Willem Elek and was he handsome. I can see why Anna Bikker would like him,” said Stella.
“Handsome you say?”
“Very and tall with this dark wavy hair. He could be a film star.”
Flore’s forehead puckered. “You think Anna Bikker went to see him at your hotel?”
“I know she did and apparently it happens a lot. The other man in the office leaves when she comes or so the girl told me, but it’s probably not the Elek you’re thinking of. I couldn’t see why such a handsome intelligent man would be interested in a married woman, especially Anna Bikker. The girl told me they grew up together. She didn’t tell me where, but oh…that would mean here on your street.”
Flore had grown quite pale and Stella started to regret asking her, but it was just an affair. As bad as those could turn out, why would Flore be so concerned?
“Are you all right?” Stella asked. “Do you need to lie down?”
“Tell me what he looks like again,” she said.
Stella described Willem Elek in much more detail and then Flore asked her to get an album on the bookshelf. Stella pried it off a shelf stuffed full of books and brought over the fat album with its well-thumbed pages and put it on Flore’s lap.
“What are you looking for?” Stella asked as the old lady bent over to go through the pages.
“I think I have a photo from when they were children. We had a street fair and I organized a treasure hunt.”
“A picture of Anna and Béla Elek?”
“Here it is.”
Stella knelt beside Flore’s armchair and looked at the black and white photo. A group of children were gathered in the middle of the street wearing broad grins and gesturing to a boy, about fourteen, at the center. He held a tin cup trophy aloft with a huge smile of triumph on his face. It was Willem Elek.
“Is…that him?” Flore asked, pointing at the boy.
“Yes, absolutely, but his name is Willem now.”
“I thought he left with his family.”
“Where did they go?”
“England,” said Flore. “His father lost his job and had a hard time getting another one. The girls got harassed on the street and they became afraid when the Nazis took Austria and then Poland, so they left.”
“Are you saying that the Eleks are Jews?” Stella asked.
“Yes, they were. They are. That’s why they left. Béla was going, too. I’m sure he was,” she said.
“They got visas for the whole family? I thought that was hard to do,” said Stella.
“It wasn’t so hard for England, because they have quite a bit of family there. Béla’s uncle is a physician in London and several aunts live in Hastings.”
They looked down at the photo and Stella searched for Anna.
“There she is,” said Flore without being asked to point her out.
Unlike Willem Elek, Anna was pretty hard to recognize. She had dark hair and was plump with knobby knees and a genuine smile on her face. Nothing like the Anna Stella had been watching. She was pretty in a clean, fresh way and had her head tilted toward Willem slightly as she stood next to him with both her hands fastened on his arm, sharing the win.
“She looks so different,” said Stella.
“Yes, this was before she started doing little jobs so she could buy what she thought were fancy clothes, but she was always putting on airs and saying things, even then.”
“Saying what?”
“Oh, she’d tell people that she had rich relatives in Paris. Once she told a neighbor who told her to pick up her trash that she didn’t have to do such things because she had royal blood.”
Stella wrinkled her nose. “Really?”
“Yes, it embarrassed her parents. Her mother would tell everyone that she just had a good imagination.” Flore slammed the book shut and slapped her hands down on the cover. “This is her doing. It has to be.”
“Béla staying?”
“Yes. I never imagined…it was a childhood fancy and now you say they are having an affair?”
“It looks that way. They were an item back then?”
Béla and Anna had known each other since they were small and were always in a big group of kids that ran together. About the time of Flore’s photo, it changed and they became something more, but Anna’s father had joined the NSB and the Eleks, while not particularly religious, were Jewish and weren’t keen to change that.
“So, the parents broke them up?” Stella asked.
“I thought so. Neither family was happy about it and then I stopped seeing them together. They’d turn their faces away from each other in the street.”
“If her father was in the NSB, he must’ve been very adamant.”
Flore shook her head. “He was, but it’s not what you think. Paul Hartman was a nice man, but he was a metalworker and had arthritis. He needed to move out of that work. He joined the NSB so he could get an office job.”
“Did he?”
“Yes and he moved up fast.” She paused and thought about it. “Maybe that’s where Anna gets it. Paul always knew just what to say to get what he needed. He told a neighbor that the NSB was easy if you give them what they want.”
Interesting twist.
“So, he wasn’t really a fascist?”
“He was, but it was more a matter of convenience. If the communists had offered more to Paul, he’d have been a communist.”
In a way, that seemed worse to Stella than being a true believer. Fascist for money or was it really that straightforward?
“He didn’t want his daughter with a Jew,” said Stella. “What would he have done, if she didn’t give him up.”
“Paul was never one to spare the rod,” said Flore with a deep frown. “I can’t believe Anna did this. Her father got worse about the Jews as he went up the ladder. It helped his career.”
“Well, she married Bikker. How did the Hartmans like that?”
“Paul was quite pleased. He told everyone how he would be moving up and maybe working at the hotel in a suit and tie.”
Stella put the album back on the shelf and warmed up Flore’s tea. “That didn’t work out for him.”
“Not a bit and off they went. No big job. No advancement,” said Flore. “I just can’t believe Anna and Béla would have an affair. It’s so dangerous for the both of them.”
“Maybe they thought no one would find out,” said Stella.
“You did and you weren’t even trying.”
Well…
“I am interested in selling to Anna, so I had a vested interest in what she was up to.”
Flore scowled. “Up to. Right. This was her doing.”
“Béla not going to England? How could she do that?”
“She got him a job at the Bikker hotel after she got married, but they don’t hire Jews. She had money. She must’ve gotten the false papers and made him change his name.”
Stella didn’t point out that Béla Elek was a grown man who was intelligent and capable. Anna Bikker didn’t make him do anything. He wanted to. He must love her. Why else would anyone go against their family in the way he had? And Anna was going against her family too and risking the marriage she’d worked for as well. Love? It must be. Stella fell in love with Nicky instantly and without reservation and he with her. What would they have done if their families had forbidden it? Give each other up? Fat chance.
“She’s more complicated than I thought,” Stella mused almost to herself.
“This is a problem for you?” Flore asked.
“I had planned to do as you said and tell her that I got the jewels from Jews that took them from good Germans, but now, I don’t know.”
“The affair doesn’t make a difference.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“I think Anna is like Paul, an opportunist. She will want what you have if you sell it right,” said Flore.
“But what is right? She loves a Jew,” said Stella, feeling more sure of that by the moment. “Can she love a Jew and hate Jews at the same time?”
Flore made a face. “Love. What does she know about anything but her own wants? If she loved him, she’d want him far away from here, safe with his family. Not where the Nazis could come any minute.”
An unexpected blossom of sympathy bloomed in Stella’s chest. Love wasn’t so easy or clear cut. Love burst through barriers. Love thought it could change what was unchangeable. Love was, in many ways, just hope by another name.
“She tried to conceal him by making him Willem,” said Stella.
It was Flore’s turn to warm Stella’s tea. “I suppose that’s something. What is it about her that the boy I knew would become someone else to be with her?”
“I couldn’t say, but maybe tonight I will find out.”
“Who cares?” Flore waved that thought away. “Just sell her the most gaudy things you have and go home. Profit. Worry about that.”
There are all kinds of profit.
“I am, believe me,” said Stella. “I wonder if you found the name of the American diplomat that helped Yannj get her visa through so quickly.”
Flore’s eyes widened. “Oh, my goodness. I completely forgot about that.”
“Profit made me think of it.”
“Profit?”
She smiled at the old lady. “I sell to Americans. He might be in the market for a few nice pieces that I happen to have on hand.”
“Yes, of course. This is good business. You know someone who knows someone. I understand.”
“So did you find it?” Stella asked.
Flore sighed and said apologetically, “No, I’m sorry. Dear Yannj didn’t write about him, but I did write her and ask.”
Stella wanted to howl in frustration. A letter to the States and back? That would take forever and a day.
“Thank you and don’t worry. There are more Americans where he came from. Now I just have to figure out what Anna wants most.”
“Oh,” said Flore. “That’s easy.”
“Is it? When I came here, I thought she was one thing and now she’s another.”
“Little Anna Hartman always wanted to be better than everyone else.”
“I should offer to make her better?” Stella asked with a smile. “I can do that.”
Flore winked at her. “I know you can.”