The trouble began before they even cleared Amsterdam. Uncle Josiah might’ve mentioned roadblocks, but she didn’t remember anything specific, much less how he got through them.
Wolfgang leaned over the front seat. “They’ve got guns.”
“Yes, they do.” Stella gripped the steering wheel and watched the Dutch soldiers approach the cars ahead. She couldn’t see what was going on, but from the expressions on the weary soldiers faces, there was probably a lot of yelling and it wasn’t working. Cars were being turned around. A couple got through and when they did, papers were read and handed back. Papers. She needed papers.
“Truus would’ve gone this way,” she said.
“What?” Wolfgang and Gisela asked together.
“There’ve been no buses coming back. Tante Truus had buses. She got through. How’d she get through? How’d she get through?”
“She had papers?” Gisela asked. “But we don’t have any papers?”
“The garrison commander called her,” said Stella. “Do you have any paper?”
“I have my school notebooks,” said Wolfgang.
“Let me see one.”
The boy got a notebook out of his suitcase while his sister groused about leaving her dolls behind when he packed stupid schoolwork that no one was going to make him do.
“Let me see.” Stella leafed through to a blank sheet in the back. Not great, but better than nothing. She ripped out a paper and got out her fountain pen.
“Hey!” Wolfgang protested.
“Quiet!” Stella wrote a note to herself as Charlotte Sedgewick from Truus and naming the garrison commander and the ship. Being British was essential. They inched forward in the line and she folded and then crumpled the page like it had been through a bit of a war itself.
Here goes everything.
Stella whipped off her wig and shook out her hair. The children gasped, all except Ezra who was too busy sucking his fingers.
“Who are you?” Wolfgang demanded. “Are you a spy?”
Very astute.
“I’m Charlotte Sedgwick and I was in disguise so I could help Tante Truus.”
“You’re…not German, are you?” Gisela asked.
Stella slipped into her best upper-class British accent and said, “Certainly not. I’m a British citizen and my job is to get Jewish children out of the Reich’s power.” She exchanged her Micheline papers for Charlotte’s and grabbed her handkerchief to scrub the makeup off her face, neck, and hands.
Wolfgang watched with fascination and asked, “Why did you have to be so old and ugly?”
“I was neither, thank you very much,” she retorted.
“But…”
“I blend better when I look older and less myself,” she said. “Gisela, do you have any lipstick?”
“She’s twelve!” exclaimed Wolfgang.
Three more cars got turned around and they were almost to the soldiers.
“She’s a girl,” said Stella. “Gisela?”
“I…I took Mama’s lipstick, her favorite,” the girl said, tearfully. “I stole it.”
“Why, Gisela?” Wolfgang asked. “Mama won’t like it. She’ll be mad.”
“She always wears it. It looks like her.”
“Can I borrow it?” Stella asked. “I’ll only use a little.”
“Why?” the girl asked.
“It will help us. Trust me.”
“You lied to us,” said Wolfgang. “I don’t trust you. I want to get out.”
“You are getting out, out of this country, like your mother wants,” said Stella. “Gisela, the lipstick.”
Gisela opened her little suitcase and handed Stella the precious lipstick, a very nice one indeed in a silver engraved tube. Stella applied it heavily and rolled her lips. A little touchup and it was back, her cupid’s bow. Then she dabbed a little on her finger and rouged her cheeks. It was too bad she hadn’t any mascara or shadow but combined with the long loose waves of hair cascading over her shoulders Stella once again became the girl who made the elusive Nicky Lawrence fall head over heels and entranced Nazis in Berlin. Would it work on the Dutch? She didn’t know. She’d never tried it, but young and pretty tended to win out.
Gisela stood up and leaned over the front seat to get a look. “Why’d you put it on your cheeks? Mama doesn’t do that.”
Stella handed her the precious lipstick and shifted in her seat to beam at the children. “It gives me rosy, happy cheeks.”
Lonia, who had been looking quite frightened, smiled and clapped her hands. “You’re so pretty, like my mama.”
“And mine,” said Gisela.
Stella tweaked her chin. “I can tell you have a pretty mama.”
The girl smiled in return and Stella turned her attention to Wolfgang. He was the fly in the ointment, if there was to be one. “Well, how do I look?”
“I…well…”
“Good enough for soldiers?” she asked.
He nodded and blushed before saying, “It’s our turn.”
Stella drove forward and said, “My name is Charlotte and I’m taking you to Tante Truus. I want you all to be loud about it. You want on the ship. You want Tante Truus.”
The children agreed as the soldier tapped on her window. Stella rolled it down and beamed up at him. “We are going to IJmuiden to meet Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer,” said Stella in strongly-accented Dutch.
“You are…”
“English.” Stella stuck out her hand for him to shake, smiling and batting her eyes for good measure. “Charlotte Sedgwick. Do you want to see my papers?”
The soldier looked down at her and paused. Stella didn’t know if he was just so exhausted he couldn’t think what to do or was transfixed by her face. Either way worked for her.
“What’s the hold up?” Another soldier, a gruff older man with blood on his uniform and bandages on his neck and hands.
“She’s English,” said the first soldier.
The older soldier scoffed. “We’ve heard that before.” Then he looked down at Stella with her not-remotely Dutch face and raised his brows. “You’re English?”
“I am. Charlotte Sedgwick.”
“Then you can speak English,” he said, dripping with doubt.
Stella beamed at him and said in perfect English, “Of course. I worked for the Barbier family in France and I’ve been trying to get home. You know how hard it is. I’ve been traveling for days and days. Then I met Tante Truus. My employer, who knows her, said she could use my help, so here I am, taking these children to IJmuiden.”
The men looked at her blankly and she said in Dutch, “Did you understand me?”
Embarrassed, they shuffled their feet and she repeated the entire thing in Dutch, still smiling, and handed her Charlotte papers to the older soldier. He scrutinized her papers, but he wasn’t really doubting her. She could tell.
“I have a note,” she said helpfully.
“A note?”
“From Truus.” She unfolded it and handed it out the window. The soldiers exchanged a look and the younger one said, “She just went through with a bunch of children.”
“This Geertruida person did?” asked the older one. “Who let her?”
“The commander.”
“Navy?”
“Yes, sir,” said the younger with a glance at Stella, which earned him a glowing smile.
The older one leaned down and looked at the children. “Where are you going?”
Ezra unexpectedly yelled, making the others jump, “Tante Truus!” Stella didn’t know three-year-olds could be so obnoxious and useful at the same time.
The others chimed in pelting the soldiers with questions about how long it would take to get there and why did they have to stop when their ship was waiting.
“You will let us go, won’t you?” Stella asked, giving him the big eyes. “I just want to go home. There’s no reason for me to stay here. Please.”
The soldier relented and gave back her papers. “Fine, but are there any more of you?”
She grinned up at him. “There’s nobody like me. I don’t even have a sister.”
He chuckled and said, “That’s a shame.”
His attitude had changed so completely that inspiration struck and Stella held out her fake Truus note and said, “Would you please write something so I can get through? There are going to be other roadblocks, aren’t there?”
“Yes, but—”
“Please, it will save so much time for everyone. I’d hate to waste anyone’s time with them coming,” Stella said with a plaintive plea in her voice.
“Oh, all right, but I bet you were nothing but trouble to your father.” He pulled out a pencil and wrote a quick note for her.
“I am his favorite, if that’s what you mean,” she said.
He chuckled again. “I bet you are. Move along, Miss Sedgwick, and good luck.”
Stella thanked him sweetly and hit the gas.
“You did it,” said Wolfgang in amazement.
“Soldiers like pretty girls and papers. It’s a fact,” she said.
“We’re going to the ship?” Lonia asked.
Stella smiled in the rearview. “Absolutely. You all did very well, especially you, Ezra.”
“I’m a good boy,” he announced and went back to sucking his fingers.
Definitely a good boy.
The note worked and it was scrutinized by soldiers at five more roadblocks and sometimes they got stopped for no reason at all other than they were driving. Stella would’ve thought with all the hassle that the roads would’ve been empty, but they weren’t. They were joined by cars, trucks, wagons and even the occasional donkey cart. People were walking to the port, pulling handcarts with their belongings piled high behind them.
Stella didn’t know what was going on, but the faces she saw were certainly grim. She asked what the news was at a couple of roadblocks, but the men just looked away and waved her through. That was good but unsettling. Maybe they had surrendered and couldn’t bring themselves to say it.
“Are we there yet?” Lonia asked. “I’m hungry.”
“Almost,” said Stella automatically as she’d heard Florence do with Myrtle and Millicent. Luckily, Lonia was less persistent than her little cousins, who could not be fobbed off so easily, especially after nearly three hours in the cab. Stella never would’ve imagined it would take so long. It should’ve taken an hour and a half. Three was a nightmare. The children were hungry and they had to pee. Both Lonia and Ezra broke down and cried at several points, causing Wolfgang to threaten to walk, which he did. They were going that slow.
“Is that it?” Gisela asked, pointing past Stella at a city in the distance.
“Yes, thank goodness.” Stella had gotten so tired, she’d considered having Wolfgang drive, but when she went in that direction, the boy’s eyes had turned into saucers and she thought better of it.
Lonia stood up and threw her arms around Stella’s neck. “Will they have ice cream?”
“Who?”
“The ship.”
The older kids laughed and teased her, saying there wouldn’t be any ice cream until England. England had lots of ice cream. Stella didn’t know where they got that from. She’d had it at the Savoy, but it wasn’t common, especially with the rationing, but she saw no need to disillusion them. They had a crossing to face, after all, and it was better to think of ice cream at the end of it.
“I want to get there now,” whined Lonia.
“What flavors do you like?” Stella asked and they discussed the varieties as they inched toward IJmuiden. When they actually got in the city, the traffic was worse and they were low on gas. The needle was on E and the engine was beginning to sputter. They’d never make it to the dock; even if they had enough gas, it would take too long to get there.
“What are you doing?” Wolfgang asked.
“Parking. We’re out of gas.”
“Not yet.”
She looked back at him sternly and the boy could take a hint. “Walking will be faster anyway.”
“Yes, exactly,” said Stella. “Everyone out.”
Wolfgang took charge and got the others going and then took Ezra over to have a pee in the alley while the girls expressed disgust and just a little bit of envy. They weren’t peeing in any alley though and simply crossed their legs. Stella stowed her Micheline wig under the seat along with the handkerchief smudged with makeup. Then she got out and locked the cab. She’d be back for it, if she could find some gas.
“Everyone ready to find the ship?” she asked cheerfully, and the kids smiled and cheered.
“Mama’s going to be so proud of us,” said Gisela.
Wolfgang picked up Ezra and a suitcase. “She already was.”
“Our mama’s proud of us, too,” said Lonia, taking Stella’s hand.
“I know she is. You’ll write her from England and tell her all about your adventures.”
The children started drafting their letters as they joined the people heading to the docks. Darkness had fallen, but the streetlamps were lit. It seemed so bizarre with planes going overhead. Any one of them could’ve obliterated them. There was no blackout. The Dutch hadn’t planned for that. They didn’t think they’d need it. Now the small city of IJmuiden was lit up and sparkly with a nice You’re Welcome to Bomb Us signal.
Stop thinking about that.
“Where do you think you’d like to live in England?” she asked to distract herself as much as the children and that started a discussion of town versus city. Farm versus shop.
The suitcase was heavy and Lonia’s hand grew sweaty the closer they got to the dock. The little girl got quiet and kept glancing up at Stella. They worked through the crowd and Stella found a couple who seemed to know where they were going. They followed them to the docks, moving in a surge of people. With every block, Stella got more and more nervous. So many people and all so desperate and afraid. They came from all walks of life, rich, poor, Jews, gentiles, Dutch, Belgians, and beyond. Not everyone would get on a ship. Very few would and she hated to think about what would happen to them. Would it be like Poland? Brutal and unrelenting. Or Austria? Quiet and cruel.
Wolfgang pointed. “I see a mast.”
They came out from between two buildings so old that they leaned toward each other like lovers longing to touch and saw IJmuiden’s small port laid out before them. It looked untouched by the battles raging around the country but was unbelievably crowded.
“Look for the Bodegraven,” said Stella.
“What does it look like?” Wolfgang asked, ever the practical one.
“I have no idea.” She grinned at him. “A ship.”
He laughed and called out, “Bodegraven! Where are you, Bodegraven?”
A man turned around and asked, “Is that your ship?”
“Yes,” said Stella. “It’s the children’s ship.”
“Do they have tickets? How did they get them?”
“I don’t know. I’m just bringing them.”
His face fell. “We have to get out. We are…desperate.”
Stella looked at the man and his wife and felt the heavy weight of their fear in her chest. It was worse than pneumonia. It was worse than most anything.
“I know. We all are.” She hustled the children past them and started asking people where the Bodegraven was. On the fifth try, she got a direction and they squeezed through a crowd worse than any before. The smell of rank sweat and fear filled their noses. Suitcases knocked into the children. Lonia got a bloody nose and Stella had to pick her up to get her out of the crush.
“There it is!” She pointed a bloodstained handkerchief at a long ship with a black hull, two masts, and one steam funnel. Not an elegant way to travel, but it would definitely do.
With new energy, Stella shoved her way through the crowd, using her elbows and the suitcase. She was quite merciless, but she didn’t regret it. Steam was coming out of the funnel. Something was happening.
Ships officers and dock workers had cordoned off the gangplank and Stella almost tipped over the rope in her rush to get there. A starchy uniformed man shoved her back. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“The ship. The children have passage.”
“And I suppose you do, too, like all of these people yelling at us,” he said, turning away.
“No, I don’t. I’m just bringing them.” Stella dropped the suitcase and grabbed his arm.
“Hey!”
“They’re going with the children from the Burgerweehuis in Amsterdam. They’re Tante Truus children.”
“We already have seventy-four fracking orphans to look after. That’s enough.” He yanked his arm away, but she snatched it back again.
“Now you have seventy-eight. It’s all arranged. They’re part of the group,” said Stella, trying to think of what would work. Money? Smiles? Begging? All that was happening around her to no avail.
“We’re leaving.”
“Then we’re just in time.”
“You don’t have—”
Stella dropped Lonia and got out the note. “They have permission. Look here from the garrison commander and Truus sent me.”
“She’s a huge pain in the ass. All those kids, crying.”
“Another officer signed it.” She pointed at the note from the soldier. “He told us to come. He sent us.”
He peered at the note and then spat on the ground. “They’re too little.”
Stella grabbed Wolfgang. “He’ll take care of the little ones. He’s big. Fourteen and Gisela, she’s twelve. Lonia’s no trouble.” Stella pushed Lonia forward and squeezed her shoulders. “You’ll be good, won’t you, sweetheart?”
“I’ll be very good,” she said on cue.
“Ack, Poles?”
“Yes, and you know what happens to Poles,” said Stella. “Please, I beg you.”
“Maybe the big ones.”
“Sir,” said Wolfgang puffed up. “I will take care of them. You won’t hear a peep and Ezra here he’s so smart, you’ll be pleased to have him.”
“Ah, Jesus,” he said. “Let me see that letter.”
He read it again and the ship’s horn blasted, causing a surge in the people behind them, pressing forward in desperation. “We’re leaving right now. We have to go or we won’t be going at all.”
“Yes, yes. Fine,” said Stella.
“They’re ready?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“You can’t go on to settle them,” he said.
“I don’t need to.”
“But Micheline,” wailed Lonia.
His eyebrows shot up. “Who’s Micheline?”
Stella bent over to her. “Shush! Micheline can’t come.”
Lonia’s eyes flew open. “I’m sorry. I love Micheline.”
Stella hugged her. “I know you do and she loves you, too.”
“Are they coming?” the officer asked.
Stella pushed Lonia under the rope and then helped Wolfgang and Gisela, too. Wolfgang held Ezra out to Stella and she kissed his plump cheeks. “Be good and write as soon as you can.”
“Lonia,” Stella called out as she pulled out Weronika’s letter. “Here. Give this to Tante Truus.”
Lonia took the letter, grinned at Stella, and then led the way to the gangplank. A sailor stood there anxiously fiddling with a rope and looking at the sky. Lonia tugged on his uniform and when he looked down, she saluted him, garnering her a rare smile on such a day. Then she dashed up the shifting bridge to the ship. At the top, a matronly woman appeared. Underneath her big floppy hat, her round face held another smile. She opened her arms and Lonia ran right into them. Tante Truus. Love personified. Lonia waved wildly at Stella and then disappeared. Gisela was next and her tentative nature showed. She walked carefully and held tight to the ropes. Gisela got a wonderful smile but no hug. Truus knew who she was before she spoke, so she gave the young girl a handshake and a pat on the back. Gisela turned for a last wave when Wolfgang was halfway up. He had a hard time with Ezra and the two suitcases he had, one in his hand and the other under his arm. Truus came down the gangplank and relieved him of Ezra and he made his way quickly after that. Truus kissed his fat cheeks and turned him toward Stella for a last wave. The chubby little guy waved at everyone and then sucked his fingers. Wolfgang took him from Truus and the officers ran up the gangplank. There was shouting, but Stella couldn’t make it out. A murmur went through the crowd and Truus had a tense discussion with one of the officers on the ship. She shook her head and then waved to the children before coming back down as quickly as her rotund form would allow. As soon as her feet hit the wood, the dockworkers sprang into action. The moorings were thrown off, anchor up, and bells clanged wildly.
“They could’ve taken more,” said a woman bitterly.
“What’s happening?”
“They weren’t due to leave yet. Why can’t we get on?”
The crowd on the dock yelled and begged, but it was too late. The big ship belched smoke and began moving from the dock. People began to cry and Stella was one of them. She probably could’ve gotten on and gotten out. It was like watching Nicky sail away with the children waving furiously at them from the deck. She was happy for them and brokenhearted all the same.
A woman sobbed behind her and a man said, “Don’t worry, darling. There’ll be other ships.”
“No there won’t,” said a man sadly.
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve surrendered.”
A gasp went through the crowd, followed by denials and curses. Stella wiped her eyes and looked up to see Truus’ eyes searching the crowd, looking for her. Stella could’ve spoken to her. She could be trusted more than anyone else probably, but Stella didn’t want to speak to her or anyone. She melted back into the crowd and the life she had chosen.