But I wasn't ready to go back to Isaak's room. I rode down the back alley to my uncle's shop, pulled over, and got off my bicycle for a minute. I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through the window. The darkness inside was deep and still here also, as if it had been pooling all week; my uncle hadn't been back either. As I drew away to leave, I caught a movement reflected in the darkened glass. Then a gloved hand over my mouth; an arm across my neck; the scent of motor oil, familiar too late, now mixed with stale beer and cigars.
"You bitch!" the Oberschütze hissed into my ear. The time that had passed had only fed his fury. I screamed and tried to twist away, but he grabbed my hair and jerked my head around to him, then he backhanded my jaw. I felt my lip split.
He dragged me into the alley beside the shop, shoved me to the ground, and pinned me there with a knee to my chest and one hand on my throat. For a second, I thought only of the letter in my pocket, but then I thought of the baby I might be carrying. I fought. But he ignored my screams and fists, and with his teeth, he tore the heavy leather glove from his other hand. The hatred in his eyes terrified me.
I clawed his face. He struck like a viper, jammed the glove into my mouth. I struggled harder, but he shoved the glove down my throat until I gagged. He grabbed my jaw in the vise of his fist and he held me that way, with his knuckles and the glove in my mouth and his thumb digging into the skin beneath my chin, while he ripped open his trousers. In a second he was between my legs, a knee crushing my thigh now, his weight on his knuckles in my throat. I beat at his chest and clenched myself closed, but he cleaved me open as if I weren't resisting at all, like an ax to a peach. He drove himself into me fiercely, as if the object of his rage was at my core.
He wants to kill me from inside, I thought.
And then all I thought was ... air.
I heard myself wheezing, gasping for gulps of air but barely drawing in a thread. With each breath I couldn't take, the world narrowed. The trooper's battering grew more distant as my heart hammered harder and harder, like a fist. The sounds of his attack and even the sounds of my own suffocation grew fainter until all I heard was the roar of my blood pounding in outrage through my head. I panicked and the night turned red, as if my eyes had burst. Then the red world blackened and I felt myself sink away, slack. It felt like mercy washing over me.
At first, all I was aware of was the miracle of cool air filling my sore throat, my aching chest. I drew it into my lungs in great waves, tides, of breath. I tasted blood and leather and I spat it out and then I remembered. I froze. The thud of his boots on the street rang in the darkness. He was leaving. It was over.
But it wasn't. He came back and bent over me with an anger that seethed like heat. He grabbed his glove from beside my neck, wiped it against his thigh, and pulled it on, snapping it hard over his wrist, all the while glaring down at me with the purest hatred I had ever seen. He leaned closer, curled his lips back, and spat in my face.
Then he left. He walked into the street and stopped there to light a cigarette. Then he crossed and disappeared between two buildings. I heard a door open and then close and still I lay there, frozen. I waited until the night was silent again before I wiped the spit off my cheek and crawled to my knees.
I felt in my pocket. There were the two photographs, the small box with my mother's wedding ring and barrette. An earring—but one of Anneke's earrings was missing. Also gone was my father's letter. I crawled around in the dirty alleyway, sweeping the ground with shaking hands, and I found first the earring and then, against the wall, the letter.
It brings me great comfort to know that you are safe, too.
TWENTY-FIVE
"Where have you been? Someone could have seen you! Do you know how foolish—"
Isaak looked at my face. The anger in his eyes softened with worry, but only a shade. He reached out for my mouth. I put my hand over the place where my lip had split, and when Isaak pulled it away there was a small heart of blood on my palm.
The warmth and the brightness of the room made me dizzy. I sank to the cot and stared at the mark, confused. I felt Anneke beside me, kissing my palm with her dark lipstick. What had she said? That we would each have ten children and live to be a hundred and be happy forever? I had a sudden image of her buried deep under the earth—dirt in her pretty hair, dirt in her pretty teeth, even and white as sugar cubes. Dirt filling her nostrils so she couldn't catch a breath. Anneke had stopped struggling, too. I looked up at Isaak and he seemed to be trembling in front of me, but it was just that tears had welled.
"What? What happened to you?"
"I couldn't breathe," I heard myself say. I turned away.
"What do you mean? When?" He reached out to my chin to turn my face to him. I winced. "What happened?" he asked again. He lifted my jaw. "You have a mark here. And on your neck." He bent and brushed the grit from my knees. "Did you fall off the bicycle?"
I held my hands up to him, saw they were shaking, and dropped them. "I need to wash." I couldn't tell Isaak what had happened; I was afraid, yes, that he would go after the soldier. But I was more afraid that he wouldn't. I shrank away from him. "I need to wash."
There was a knock at the door. Isaak started for it, but it opened before he could get there. Rabbi Geron stood in the doorway. He didn't say anything about my being there, only looked at me for a moment, questioning, then told Isaak he had a phone call.
Isaak followed him out and I took Isaak's towels to the bathroom. I turned the tap on as hot as it could go, and while the tub filled, I wet a towel and began to scrub the soldier out of me. Away from my baby. Out of us.
I got in and sank below the surface until the weight of the water was a gloved hand over my face and I couldn't breathe and then I burst up into the air again, gasping. I scrubbed myself with the rough washcloth and the gritty soap until my cuts stung and my bruises throbbed and all the parts of my body the soldier had touched were scoured raw.
But it was no use.
When I came back into the room, I knew by his face that Isaak knew.
"That was the man I had watching the shop."
I shut the door behind me and leaned against it. "He saw?"
"He saw."
"But he didn't—"
"What could he do? You should never have—"
"Stop! Don't. Don't you dare!"
Isaak stared at me for a long time. I saw him work through the things he wanted to say. The things he couldn't.
"Do you need a doctor?" he asked at last.
"No." And I realized: It was not the day on the roof that would divide my life in two, into before and after. It was this day. Starting tomorrow, though, it was not my own life I would be living. And what happened to me tonight did not happen to the person whose life I was about to steal. "What I want is a needle."
"Are you all right—"
I warned him away with my palms. "Just get one."
He looked puzzled, but he left and came back a few moments later with a needle and some black thread. I put the thread down on the bed and gave the needle back to him, then I reached into my pocket and handed him Anneke's earrings.
"It will hurt," he warned.
"I want it to."
Isaak lit a match and held the needle to its flame, and then the earrings. "This one's broken," he said. "I think it's ruined."
I lifted the little earring he held to me. The stone was missing and the gold filigree around the setting had been crushed. "It's broken. It's not ruined." I gave it back to him and when Isaak plunged the hot needle into my earlobe I didn't feel anything.
I barely slept. Over and over I reminded myself I was already pregnant. I had known it. When dawn lightened the room, I crept out of bed and sat on the windowsill with the square of velvet I had saved from the rooftop. That day seemed years behind me. I stitched the velvet into a crude bag and made a drawstring from the twine Anneke's papers had been tied with. I took out everything from the coat pocket: Anneke's nail polish and handkerchief, my mother's jewe
lry and barrette, my father's letter. The envelope was creased and marked now with a heavy boot tread; I tore it up and threw it away, then folded the letter into quarters and put everything into the bag. I took a drawing pencil from Isaak's desk and slipped that in, too, and then I hung the bag around my neck and dressed. After almost twenty years, these were all the things of value I had.
Isaak awoke and came over to me.
"Are you all right?"
I looked at him, too bitter to answer.
"I mean ... can you travel?"
I nodded and pressed the backs of my fists to my eyes. Then I turned away, splashed water from the pitcher on my face and burning earlobes, and packed my nightclothes into the suitcase my aunt had prepared for me. Isaak tried to talk with me about little things, details I must remember, how the day would go. I stopped him. Whatever would happen now was out of my control, or his. "Just come for me," I said.
I left before it was fully light and walked to the tram stop, then rode into Scheveningen. There were soldiers on the tram, and whenever I caught sight of one, I smelled motor oil and I couldn't fill my lungs. I rode with my eyes closed and my hands clenching the velvet bag against my chest.
Isaak was at the station with my suitcase. We didn't acknowledge each other. Just before the train to Nijmegen was due to leave, he walked up to me casually and dropped the bag at my feet.
"Go with God," he said. "I will come for you soon. Remember: You'll get a letter, and then I'll meet you."
I didn't answer because my lips suddenly longed to kiss him, and I didn't move because my arms wanted to pull him to me forever.
"I'll come for you soon. I promise," he repeated.
I picked up my bag and boarded, choosing a seat on the far side of the train so I couldn't look back to see if Isaak stayed to watch. I leaned against the window and stared ahead. Gray clouds sagged along the horizon, aching with rain.
TWENTY-SIX
It rained the whole way. Beside the tracks, ditches and bomb craters filled with brown water—a muddy Morse code of dots and dashes slipping by the grimy train windows. In the station, I sat on a bench looking out at the flooded fields, thinking there was nothing sadder than rain at a train station. But I sat dry-eyed. What was the use of tears?
When two German soldiers arrived, my hand flew to my cut lower lip and I went rigid. But of course it wouldn't be that one. I would never see that one—the Oberschütze—again. These were sergeants. They spotted me and came over—a good sign, at least: I had passed this first test.
"Anneke Van der Berg?" one asked.
"Yes," I said, finding the lie a relief.
He looked at my waist doubtfully, but he took my papers and the other one, taller with a narrow face, picked up my bag. I followed them out to their car and sat in the back with my suitcase; in front of me the soldiers talked of new tires coming. Or rather the driver talked—the other one, the taller one, just nodded or agreed with him, although they were the same rank. I listened to them, still wary, trying to tell myself that I was Anneke now: Grace surrounded me now, not danger.
But I didn't believe it.
The trees passed by in a blur of browning leaves, sheeting with pewter rain. Winter was coming. But I would be safely away by then; this was only for a few weeks. Still, my breathing grew shallower. After about fifteen minutes, I noticed a sign for the border.
"Excuse me," I interrupted the soldiers. They looked at me as if surprised to find me still with them. "We've left Nijmegen."
The driver glanced at me in the mirror then shrugged.
"We've left Nijmegen! Where are you going?"
"Steinhöring. Outside Munich." He said it as if he expected me to know this.
"No. There's been a mistake. I'm entering the home in Nijmegen."
The other one turned to me. "What home in Nijmegen?"
"The home in Nijmegen! I'm due there today."
He shook his head and laughed. "There's no home there. There's one planned, but there's nothing there now. Who told you this?"
"My ... my father. Please turn around. There's been a mistake."
The soldier picked up a packet of papers from the seat beside him and waved it at me. "Steinhöring. No mistake."
My heart began to pound so hard I was sure it could be heard if it weren't for the rumble of the engine. "But it's so far. I can't leave Holland," I said and heard the desperate illogic. "My family," I tried again. "No one will know where I am...."
"You can write," he said.
But we had all agreed: no letters. Isaak's address wasn't safe, and my aunt didn't know how long she'd be gone or when my uncle might return.
"No, turn back! I've changed my mind!"
The taller soldier twisted around again. He laid his arm along the back window beside me, so close I could see the hairs on the back of his hand and a thin white scar across his thumb. I shrank away.
"We have orders to deliver you to Steinhöring. That's what we're going to do." The warning in his voice alerted the driver. They exchanged looks.
"We'll be driving straight through," the driver said. "There's a basket in the back. It's better food than we get." Then he sped up. For a second I thought about opening the door—throwing myself out and taking my chances—but we were on a main road now.
Why had my uncle told Anneke she would go to Nijmegen? Had the Germans lied to him? Or ... could a father really be so angry with his daughter that he would banish her from her own country?
My questions rushed by with the landscape.
Too quickly, we reached the border. We stopped for only a moment, while a guard in a mud-brown uniform leaned into the car, said a few words, and checked our papers. I wished I had picked up something from Schiedam—a stone, a twig, anything. I would press it into my palm now as an amulet until it disappeared into my flesh.
I was in Germany. And Isaak didn't know.
We headed south, faster and faster. The land rose up from the soggy fields that were my last sight of Holland, but as we climbed, I felt I was plummeting. Everywhere on the roads were convoys of trucks and jeeps, lines of slow-moving tanks. No civilians were out, not even on bicycles, not even on foot. Only military—a country of soldiers. I could only watch as I hurtled into my enemy's heart, frozen and helpless.
No. I fingered the little moonstone earring in my sore earlobe.
"It was a good idea." I leaned forward between the two men and forced a smile, my voice contrite. "I could write to my family. Would you have a pen and some paper? I'd like to do it now, so I can post it as soon as possible."
The driver handed a pen back to me. The other one reached under his seat and pulled out a pad of paper, ripped off a sheet. "You can use the back."
I thanked them and pulled my suitcase over beside me to use as a desk. Dear Mother and Father, I wrote, in letters big enough for the soldiers to read if they glanced back. There has been a change of plans. And then, in tiny lettering underneath: Checkpoint at Beek. E, SE, then E. Through Essen. To the Rhine.
I ate some of the food from the basket, wrapped the rest, and tucked it into my pocket. We pulled off the highway once, so the soldiers could relieve themselves. "Get out if you'd like. There are some hedges," they offered. I considered running, but beyond the hedges stretched open fields on all sides, and I had seen a gun flash at the driver's hip. Besides, even if I could get away, where would I go with only a few guilders in my pocket? I shook my head and we got back on the highway.
We followed the Rhine. The mountains folded along both sides grew steeper and the sun came out, lighting the snowcapped peaks in the distance. The landscape was beautiful, more stunning than any of my geography books had conveyed, but harsh, not soft like Holland. The river was soft though, its rising mist hazing the vineyards and villages that tumbled down to its banks. The Rhine flowed through the Netherlands, too, and so its presence comforted me a little each time it curled into view below, like a silver thread from my home. Except once, when the river widened and an island appeare
d, parting its current. From its center, like an illustration from a fairy tale, rose a stone castle. I stared as we passed along beside it, the feeling of comfort suddenly a terrible dread. Fairy tales always held great evil. Great danger.
Bonn, due East. Koblenz. Gretel dropping her bread crumbs.
Toward the middle of the afternoon, the soldiers talked of stopping. There was to be a new Lebensborn home in Wiesbaden; they'd been there before to do some preliminary work, they knew of a restaurant.
We parked in front of a tavern but before we went in the driver pointed across the street to a tobacco store. They would get some cigarettes first. We stepped into the street, me between my guardians, and that was when I saw them.
Blooming on the left sides of coats with the suddenness of daffodils—at first that's what I thought they were: daffodils tucked jauntily into breast pockets. A sign of hope or defiance against the realities of war. But as we approached an elderly couple, I saw the cheap shine of the material, the color too garish for nature, and then the chunky Gothic letters, JUDE, in the center. Isaak had told me about the stars—people would be wearing them in Schiedam soon. The couple huddled against a doorway as we passed by, their eyes cast down, and the left side of my chest began to burn.
"What is it?" the taller soldier asked. He had stopped and was staring at me and I realized I was clutching my heart.
"Nothing, nothing." I forced my hands to my side, amazed that the fabric of my coat did not burst into flame.
In the restaurant, I left to use the washroom. I drank cold water from my hand, then I bent over, gripping the sink, staring at my face in the mirror. My half-Jewish face. "No one knows. No one knows." I stood there, shaking, until I was startled by a knock on the door.
The driver. "Are you all right? The meal is here."