Amsterdam 2020 (Amsterdam Series Book 2) (13 page)

Gerda blinks slowly, realizing my mistake, but lets it pass.  “You can never tell anyone.  You know that.” 

“Of course.”

She looks at me coolly.  “Are you sure about this?”

Part of me almost hopes I won't make it.  At least I wouldn't have to marry.  But more than that, I don't want to give up what I'm best at.  “Yes.  I can do it.”

“Very well, then.  Get your new documents.”  She looks over at Hansen, who stands and joins her again over the map.  I have been dismissed.

Eight, September 2017

Sweet Sixteen

On Salima's last day of school, there is no diploma.  No long boring speeches about young men and women facing their bright futures.  No yearbooks.  But there is birthday cake.

At sixteen, she is no longer allowed to attend madrassah.  A good Muslim woman does not need to be educated.

The girls push aside their desks and gather around the cake.  A
magnificent tower, called an opera cake, made with almond sponge cake, soaked in coffee syrup, layered with ganache and coffee butter-cream, and covered in a chocolate glaze.  From Nazar's, of course.

Nazar's is Amsterdam's only surviving French bakery, run by a French Moroccan, who trained at Ladurée, the famous pâtisserie on Rue Bonaparte in Paris.  Niko Nazar makes it all: brioche, croissant, éclair, madeleine, pain au chocolat, petit four, tuile, religieuse, profiteroles, apple tarts, mille-feuille, clafouti,
ladyfingers, and truly magnificent spongecake.  T
he Islamists are huge fans.  Sugar is one of the few indulgences not banned by Islamic teaching, rescued only because Arabs didn't develop sugar production techniques until after the conquest of Persia in 641 AD, a decade after Mohammed's death.  They cling to the vice.  The more fanatical their religious beliefs, the more obsessed they are with Nazar's treats.  Walking out of the bakery with their bags of madeleines or Napoleons, they barely turn the corner before pulling them out of the bag and sinking their teeth into them.  Right there in public, pedestrians bumping their elbows, bicyclists ringing their bells.  Their eyes roll back in their heads.

For a moment, they are human.

The Islamic Council is one of Niko's best customers, ordering large trays of pastries for its meetings.  When there are food shortages, the Islamic Council makes sure Niko does not run out of butter and sugar.

The opera cake is cut into slices and passed around, the girls falling into religious silence as they slowly savor the decadent sweetness.

“Where is Joury?” asks Salima, disappointed.  Joury had promised to come to her birthday party, even though she no longer went to madrassah.  She turned sixteen three months ago.

“Maybe her father wouldn't let her come,” suggests one of the girls.

Salima exhales softly.  Joury has been fighting with her father about her wedding, but he will not budge.  She is unhappy and angry.  Salima worries what she might do.

“What are your plans?” the teacher asks Salima cheerfully.  “Have your parents arranged a marriage for you?”

“No.  My father says I don't have to marry if I don't want to.”

“Lucky you,” blurts one girl, before catching a reprimanding look from the adult in the room.

“You can be a teacher, like me,” says the teacher, “or a nurse.  They allow women to practice medicine now, but you'd have to get trained in Switzerland or Sweden.”

“I have a job—delivering vegetables for my uncle.”

“That is not appropriate for a young woman of standing.”

“I like it,” Salima says.  She knows how lucky she is.  Joury's father would never let her work.  But you can't keep a spirited girl like Joury inside all day without screaming tantrums, which is exactly what her mother is enduring.  She often sneaks out and meets Salima after school.  

Salima leaves feeling both liberated and disappointed.  Liberated from daily recitations of the Quran, and endless lessons of what she is not allowed to do.  Disappointed in that she has nothing to look forward to.  Nothing is clear.  In a way, she feels her life is over. 

She walks home to change out of her school uniform and burka into a
shalwar kameez
.  With a black ribbon, she ties up the pant leg of her right leg so it doesn't catch in the bicycle chain.  She unlocks her bike in the courtyard and rides into the street.

It is her mother's bike, with a big basket on the handlebars and two large saddlebags mounted on the rear fender.  A tank of a bike.  The wheels are large, and she stands on the peddles to get it moving.  Once in motion, it is surprisingly easy to peddle.

She bikes up Prinsengracht, over Brouwersgracht to Haarlemmerstraat where Uncle Sander has his main store, Freyja Natuur Winkel, named after the Norse fertility goddess.  He has four stores in Amsterdam.  His organic farm north in Waterland supplies fresh produce daily. 

Before the Occupation, door-to-door delivery was rare.  Houses were not homes, but empty shells, with no one to receive milk or produce.  Your apartment was a stopping place to sleep and clean up before you went out to work or play.  There was no reason to linger.  Your parents had retired to Spain or the south of France.  No one waited up for you.  Or made dinner for you.  If you cooked for yourself, you shopped once a week and stored everything in your refrigerator, where it became tasteless and soft from neglect.  Now families stay close, taking in homeless relatives and friends.  People are frightened to go outside.  Electricity is unreliable, so storing a week's worth of perishable food in your refrigerator is unwise.

Home delivery has made a comeback.  Fruit vendors, milk and dairy vendors, bread vendors, even herring vendors will deliver to your door. 

Salima rides her bike right into the store, and leans it against a bin of squash.  She loves the woodsy smell of mushrooms and dirt, onions and straw.  In the fall it smells of apples and cider. 

No customers.  No males.  She pulls off her veil.
  

“Hello, Salima.  How is my birthday girl?”  Uncle Sander calls boisterously, throwing down a 20 kilo bag of potatoes to give her a hug.

“
Prima, dankjewel
.”  She wants no fuss, given her ambivalence about turning sixteen.  After giving her uncle a peck on the cheek, she takes her list from a clipboard hanging on a nail in the wall. 

“Ha!  What's you're hurry?  You have some place to go?  Birthday plans? 
Een vriendje?”
He grins, knowing perfectly well she can't date.  “I gave you a short list today.”

“You didn't need to do that.  It's just a birthday.”

“Indulge me.  I like to give thanks to Freyja that you were born.”

“Don't let the Islamic Council hear you.”

He waves his hand dismissively.  “I have a present for you.”  He hands her a small box, which she opens.  Inside is a silver necklace of a sailboat.

“It's beautiful.
”
Her voice is soft and oddly flat.  It's been so long since she's thought about sailing.  A warm wash of emotion suddenly flows through her, and she stumbles against her uncle, hiding her face as she hugs him.

He pats her hair gently, then puts the necklace around her neck.  She tucks it underneath her black garment.  A flashy piece of jewelry is enough to get stopped by a
matuwa
.  “Salima, I wanted to ask you—now that you don't have school, would you like to work in the mornings, too?”

“I hadn't thought about it.”  Suddenly famished, she selects a plum from a stack of fruit, and sinks in her teeth.  Juices drip down her chin.

“You should ask your mother first.  I sure could use your help.”  He motions to a woman who is carefully wrapping pears in newspaper.  “I have a lot of deliveries.”

The way he says this makes Salima tilt her head. 
What is he suggesting?

“Here we go.”  He fills her baskets with crisp brown paper bags.  Each bag is numbered, corresponding to a name on her list.  “There's a couple of new addresses.”

“Yes, I see.”  She rolls her bike outside.  With the weight of the groceries, she wobbles a bit, standing up to gain momentum.  “
Tot ziens,”
she calls, waving to her uncle.

Salima's client list lives mostly in Jordan within the canal ring.  She delivers the packages Sander put on top first, those closest, riding up and down the streets between Lijnbaansgracht and Prinsengracht.  She catches a glimpse of a band of
Bloed van God
—four young men harassing a restaurant owner—and makes a quick turn before they see her.  Then up and over a canal.

The Islamic Council banned cafés because they don't like places where people can hang out.  A pleasant atmosphere conducive to conversation is considered dangerous.  So café owners changed their marques, and began offering sandwiches and salads, making them restaurants.  Then the Islamic Council passed a law that coffee was not permitted in restaurants.  The restaurants changed the menu to offer herbal teas.  People lingered still, and the Islamic Council made the rounds harassing restaurant owners with ever-changing petty zoning laws—the distance between tables, number of chairs, length of time patrons could stay.  Café owners are always one step ahead of them.

Salima gets to the bottom of her basket, and finds the new addresses Sander gave her on Leidschegracht. 

She rings the doorbell.  A man opens the door and yanks her inside.  She gasps as he pushes her face against a wall of blue Delft tiles.

“Who are you?”  He turns her around and yanks down her veil.  He holds her against the tile, squeezing her triceps, hurting her.  “What are you doing here?”

“I'm delivering groceries . . . from Freyja Natuur Winkel.”

He opens the door off the foyer into a house, shoves her in, and closes the door, his grip still tight around her arm.  “Don't move.”  He grabs the brown paper bag and tosses it to a young black woman walking toward the front of the house.  She opens it, looks inside, and crinkles it closed.  “Let her go,” she commands. 

Salima notices three professorial-looking men awkwardly getting up from a table, alarmed, clearly confused, wearing turtlenecks and tweed.

“Didn't you see them, you fool?” the man hisses as he releases her.  “They're right next door.”

“Who?”

“The bloody Landweer, that's who.  With a bunch of
Kroots.
  They're doing a neighborhood sweep.”

Salima didn't need to ask for what.  The Landweer
could burst into anyone's house looking for anything contraband—a banned book, alcohol, contraceptives, make-up, guns, radios, computers.  Some could be bribed not to tear up the place.  Others, frustrated at not finding something, seemed to enjoy making a mess.  They could arrest you or hand you a warning, depending on their mood.  If they were lucky, they found you harboring refugees.

“Get out of here.  Fast,” the man commands, pushing Salima toward the door.

“Wait,” says the woman.  “Maybe she can help.”

He gives Salima a skeptical look.  “How?”

The black woman comes up to Salima and takes her hand.  “How good of an actress are you?  You think you could pretend to have a broken foot?”

“I think so.”  Salima figures the three professorial men are refugees.  They can't be found there.  Her heart pounds, excited, anxious to help.

“Here's the deal,” says the man.  “Bike around back and fall from your bike.  Nasira will run out of the house, and ask the Landweer
for help.”

Salima nods, figuring that Nasira must be the black woman.  She scampers down the steps.  She checks her basket.  One bag left.  She unstaples the top and pulls apart the brown paper.  Cherries.  Perfect.  She straddles the bike, pushes off, and wobbles around the corner.  Two Landweer
officers sit in a car, watching the alley to make sure no one tries to escape from the back. 

The front tire of her bike bounces over a curb and twists.  She falls, elbows and head slamming into the brick pavement.  She doesn't have to pretend it hurts.  Nasira dashes down the back steps to her side, stepping all over the spilled cherries.  “Allah protect us.  Oh, you poor child.  Are you hurt?”

Salima groans, masticated red cherries seeping out of the corners of her mouth.  Nasira screams and runs across the street to the Landweer
. 
“Please help.  I need to get her to the hospital.  I think she's punctured a lung.”  The men slowly get out of their car, unconcerned, until they see the pavement covered with red.  One dashes to Salima's side, his eyes widening with pleasure at catching a beautiful young girl unveiled.

In an instant, the same man, whose job it is to torment and spread misery, desires to be a hero.  He yells to the other man, sending him to the house where the other Landweer officers are conducting a raid.  The Landweer scramble outside, see the maroon red pavement, and rush to her side.  Everyone is yelling and running in circles.  Arguing about whether to replace her veil—“She is indecent”—or give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation—“She is dying and all you care about is her fucking veil?”

Out the front, three slightly arthritic professors and one young Resistant sneak across the street and around the corner into a van, which slowly drives in the other direction.

Salima's knight in shining armor apparently has taken a course in CPR.  While the others radio for an ambulance, and make sure no one sees her unveiled face, he clears her mouth of clotted blood and gives her mouth-to-mouth. 

Only to taste sweet cherries. 

She recovers quickly after that, and they send her on her way with a warning not to eat in public.

It is Salima's first kiss. 

Padded Room