Hunger Journeys (22 page)

Lena stiffened.

So did Vrouw Wijman. “Taking our food again, are they? They’ve got all our young men. And now they’ve got to have our
food.” She looked at her husband, fury and contempt competing for dominance in her expression. “And I suppose you gave them a nice cow or two.”

Annie looked up, her long hair skidding across her plate as she did so. “What do you expect him to do, Mother?” she said. “Hide the cows? Offer himself up instead?”

Wijman reached out and cuffed Annie on the side of her head. She glared at him and went back to eating.

His voice was tired when he said, “Actually, they took six cows, one with calf. Not many left.”

“Well, eat up, then. Enjoy!” Vrouw Wijman said. “There won’t be much more where this came from!”

Her voice was bright now, falsely merry. Lena shuddered.

All afternoon she played with Bennie. She changed him and put him down for his nap. She took him out for a walk, exploring the neighbourhood. The train station was quite a few blocks away, and she had to carry Bennie almost the whole distance, back through the long square and onto the long, straight road. If she was going to find the station in the dark, though, she needed to make sure she knew the route. The last thing she wanted was Sofie and Albert and Uli showing up at the Wijmans’ looking for her.

She walked up the station steps and peered in the door. Then she moved back, out of view. The train was still there. German soldiers milled around. She was turning to pull Bennie into her arms and retreat when a voice spoke softly. “There you are!” It was Uli. He stood inside, out of sight of the street. “Where is Sofie?” he asked, his voice urgent.

Lena looked up at him and back out the door. “She’s with a family,” she whispered, “down that street there.” She gestured in the right direction.

“We’ll see you tonight.” He made it a statement and Lena bridled, fear stirring her insides.

“I don’t know,” she said.

He stepped toward her.

“Yes,” she said quickly. “We will try.”

“You must do more than try,” he said. “I …”

Lena didn’t need to hear what he would say next. She must not be seen here, on German territory, chatting with the enemy.

“Bang, bang,” Bennie said over Lena’s shoulder as she stumbled down the steps with him in her arms. “Bad guy!”

And he kept on like that once they were home, marching around the living room, shouting things he had probably heard his parents say. It took Lena the better part of an hour to distract him.

Ten o’clock. Sofie expected Lena at the station at ten o’clock. And Lena wouldn’t put it past Sofie to come knocking on the window if she stood her up. With her feet back on solid ground, a couple of good meals in her belly and a handsome man waiting for her, Sofie would have her old confidence back. Enough for both of us, Lena thought, or hoped. Or hoped not. She wasn’t sure.

The alcove was tiny, but once the family had retreated upstairs to bed, Lena was alone. Truly and completely alone. Light was precious even here, so bedtime was early. By eight thirty, the house was silent. Lena sat on her narrow cot, which she had made up with crisp white sheets and two thick wool blankets. She stroked her pillow. It was soft and inviting. A single candle burned on the tiny bedside table, but it would not last
long. Lena knelt to slide her satchel under the bed and paused. The cologne. She had decided to throw it away. She snapped open the latch on her bag, eased up the lid, leaned her forehead against it and gazed inside.

An idea occurred to her. She could give the cologne to her hostess as a little gift. Lena’s mother had taught her few rules of good conduct, but in the books she read, guests always came bearing gifts. She rooted around in her bag, in search of the tiny bottle, and as she rooted, she remembered: the snow, the view, the cold, Albert’s coat warming her, Albert holding her mittens while she discovered his small offering.

Abruptly, she pulled her hands free, snapped the bag shut and shoved it beneath the bed. Vrouw Wijman would have to take her gift in peeled potatoes and babysitting. The cologne was staying right where it was.

She ran her hands over her skirt and sweater. Vrouw Wijman had looked at her clothes with distaste. “Tomorrow you will give me all your clothes. You can wear something of mine for the day.” Lena couldn’t help it: her eyes flicked down to Vrouw Wijman’s large body and her tent-like dress. Vrouw Wijman gave a small huff of annoyance. “Yes, I know they will be too big for you, but you can stay in for the day. By the next day, your clothes will be dry.” She paused. “And you will bathe.”

Lena wasn’t sure why she couldn’t have bathed today. She had slept in straw for two nights. She had crouched on damp, snowy ground. She had huddled up to a fire. She had sweated terror. Her hair was heavy with grease. It smelled sour.

Vrouw Wijman did allow her to take a basin of warm water into the lean-to with a sliver of soap, a worn washcloth and towel, a comb and a bit of soda to use on her teeth. Lena had done what she could, afraid to remove her clothes in case someone
came in, as the door to the outside did not lock. And it was cold in the lean-to, the stove black and empty.

Now, in her grubby clothes, Lena was not going to get between the sheets, but she longed to close her eyes, just to rest for a moment before the ordeal to come. She pulled out one of the blankets Albert had given her on the train, spread it over the bed, lay down on top and pulled it around her. The bed supported her all the way along her body. She listened. Silence. When had she ever been alone like this? No one near? It was exquisite. She closed her eyes and immediately began to drift, softly, into a world of delights. There were people there—people she loved, people she had left—but they gazed at her in silence, smiling. All is well, they seemed to say, and she felt it too. All was well. She spiralled deeper. Rest had never felt this good.

Deeper. Faces faded away and sleep took their place.

She started awake to pitch blackness. The candle had burned itself out. Now that wasn’t safe, was it? She should have blown that candle out before she lay down.

Then the clock struck the quarter hour. Time. She hadn’t meant to go to sleep because she—Time. She was supposed to—Time. She was supposed to meet Sofie. Ten o’clock. Lena crept from her bed, pushed aside the lace curtain and thrust her face close to the grandmother clock on the kitchen wall. Ten fifteen. It was ten fifteen! Her coat and her shoes were by the front door. Fearful of creaks, she made her way down the hall, even more fearful that any second Sofie was going to knock. She reached the door, pulled her coat off a hook and pushed her feet into her shoes. The door was locked. She had wondered earlier if the door would lock with a key Wijman kept with him. It was a bad plan in case of fire, but many a man liked to keep his family secure in that way, risk or no.

The key was in the lock. She turned it, but the door would not give. Lena looked up toward the top of the door and found the bar, an extra level of security almost beyond her reach. She stretched up and grabbed the small knob that secured it. She had trouble turning the knob from that angle, but dragging a chair down the hall would make a racket. If she could just push … She stretched a little higher, concentrated on the muscles in her forearm and pushed again. It gave. A moment later, she had pulled the bar free. She pushed the door open a crack, peering out. If she was caught by the Germans during curfew, she had no idea what the penalty would be.

She heard a rustle and another sound. A giggle. She pushed the door open the rest of the way, her heart pounding. Please don’t let them be … But they were. Sofie and Uli and Albert were right there, in front of the shop window, jostling one another like a trio of teenagers playing a prank. Right above their heads was the Wijmans’ bedroom window. Lena had seen it from the inside when she was putting Bennie to bed. She gave thanks for blackout paper and hoped theirs was extra thick. Closing the door firmly behind her without looking at any of them, she marched off down the street toward the station.

Albert came into step beside her. “Lena, I am glad to see you,” he whispered.

She ignored him.

“We turn here,” he said as the square opened up in front of them.

“I know,” Lena said, without meeting his eyes. Behind her she could hear the lovers’ scuffling steps and quiet voices. Her fury mounted.

As they approached the far side of the square, Albert led them off to the right, to a row of buildings facing the canal. They
stopped at a doorway just as dark as all the others, though it had the look of a restaurant or a pub from bygone days. The sign was gone, but Lena could see where it had been attached above the door. Uli stepped past them, turned the handle and ushered them in. The space they entered was dark and cramped, but they found the inner door easily enough. Checking that the outer door was closed behind them, Albert opened the second door. Warm light, real tobacco smoke, music and excited conversation poured over them.

Even though the room was full of men in German uniforms, and Lena had spent little time in pubs, she immediately felt as if she had entered an earlier time in her life, a happier time. The room was crowded with tables, each enjoying its own small circle of candlelight. The tables were crowded with men and covered in glasses. Smoke from cigarettes and cigars burning in dozens of hands clouded (and scented) the air. At the far side of the room, the bar glowed. Made from wood and backed with a mirrored wall, it reflected light. Bottles lined the shelves, empty—beer seemed to be the only available beverage—but still filled with promise.

Lena looked more closely at the people in the room. There were women. Several women were waiting on the tables. Older women, it looked like; Dutch women, certainly. A large man worked behind the bar, filling glasses with pale beer. And there were women at the tables. Lena saw four at first count. A pair at one table with three men, and single women at two others. One young woman at a nearby table met Lena’s eyes. Instinctively, Lena looked away. She drew a deep breath. At least she and Sofie weren’t the only ones.

“Hey,” shouted a man from the back of the room, “it’s Uli and Albert with their stowaways!”

Many of these were the men from the train. Of course they were. Three men called more insistently than the rest, pulling up extra chairs, waving for more beer, and Lena found herself quickly seated, separated from Sofie, who was practically in Uli’s lap on the other side of the table. Albert leaned in close. “I’m so glad to have this time with you, Lena,” he said. “I’m sorry that we surprised you back there. We were afraid that you were asleep, that we would miss you.”

Hearing her name on his lips melted her heart just a little, and the fact that they had made it safely to their destination stilled her fears, but Lena was not going to let Albert off as easily as that. “And what were you going to do about it?” she said fiercely. “Knock on the door and ask my hosts to wake me?”

“Oh, no. I … we …”

“You didn’t have a plan. You just marched down the street and giggled outside my door.” Lena looked at Albert properly for the first time that night, and what she saw in his face melted what resistance remained. It would not have been his idea to gather outside the Wijmans’ door. She allowed her lips to curl into a smile.

Albert gasped with relief and grinned. “We are safe here,” he said. “And I am so glad to set eyes on you again!”

Lena wrapped her fingers around her glass and raised it, gesturing in his direction. He quickly reciprocated, and soon all the glasses at the table were clanking against one another high in the air. “To the end of this war,” Lena said, and everyone, it seemed, could drink to that.

As time passed and Lena grew accustomed to her surroundings, she began to observe the mood more closely. What had seemed jovial began to take on an edge of desperation. The drink and the camaraderie were holding at bay a terrible darkness,
a darkness that if given the mere whiff of a chance, threatened to overwhelm the room, the people in it, the nation, the continent, the world. Lena could feel it pressing on them right there, right then. The darkness, she thought, had a human form, or a human presence, at its helm.

Lena tuned in to the conversation again. An older man was speaking, his words slurred. “It seemed right and good, you know, before, but now it’s been years, and Berlin destroyed and most of the world against us. How can we win?”

“And so many dead. What do we have to go home to?” said another.

Uli looked at Lena and Sofie. “We take your food,” he said. “We know that the Dutch in the west are starving. But in Germany it is not good either. The need is great everywhere.”

Lena opened her mouth to ask whose fault that was, but different words came out of her. “If I could get my hands on that Hitler of yours,” she said, her words clear, confident, with lashings of bitter humour, “I would scratch his eyes out.”

Silence descended on the table. Six sets of eyes stared. Six fists froze on damp glasses. Lena stared back. What had she done? Where had those words come from? Then the older man tipped back his head and roared. It was a sound of furious delight. And it spread. Soon the whole table was revelling in the glorious wickedness of Lena’s words. Albert’s arm snaked around her and squeezed. He leaned over and kissed her cheek.