The Tulip Eaters (20 page)

40

Nora was so excited about Nico’s news that she threw her arms around him. “I can’t thank you enough,” she whispered. Sobs of relief racked her.

“Ach, lieveling,”
he murmured. He held her in a tight embrace until her crying subsided. She reveled in the safety of his arms. She buried her face in his neck, overwhelmed that this man she had loved would help her despite how she had left him, despite his marriage to another woman and despite the bitterness he must still have toward her.

She felt as if she were falling back into the past. There was no ending to their bodies when they were this close. It had always been that way. They just—fit. As her trembling subsided, she inhaled the soaped leather scent that was his alone. It affected her like opium. She felt herself give in, give way, give up as she lifted her lips to be kissed. His warm, kind hands held her face, his mouth so close to hers. At that moment, she opened her eyes. Nico gazed at her, his lips a moment from hers, his eyes searching hers. She drew a shaky breath as the moment hung between them, then pulled back.

“Nico,” she whispered. “I don’t want to hurt you like I did last time—or your wife.”

Nico raised his hand and placed two gentle fingers on her lips.
“Nee,”
he said softly. Nora kissed them, not wanting the moment to end. “I want you to answer a question.”

She nodded. “Anything.”

“Other than the horrible things that have happened, are you happy with your life?”

How to answer?
Words first caught in her throat. “With Rose,” she murmured, “I am as happy as I can be.”

Nico took her right hand and held it up. “You still wear my ring,” he said. “May I ask why?”

Nora knew she should pull her hand away, but it lay in his, an egg in its nest. “I don’t know.”

He turned her hand over and kissed her palm. “Don’t you?” he whispered.

“Nico, please don’t,” she said softly. “You’re married. It isn’t right.”

“Since you came back, nothing is right.”

“I don’t want to interfere with your life.”

“It’s too late for that,” he said quietly. “I have a daughter. That changes everything.”

“Oh, Nico—”

“You are going to let me be involved in her life?”

“Of course, if that’s what you want.” Relief filled her until reality hit. “But what about your wife? Wouldn’t she mind that you’re kissing my hand?”

“I’m sure she would mind terribly.”

“Then how can you be here with me?”

Nico eyes looked sad. “My wife and I lived together for a year after you left. I was in such terrible shape that I let myself begin a relationship when I shouldn’t have. My wife had just divorced her husband, who cheated on her. Both of us were on the rebound. I did her a great disservice. She is a very good woman.” He sighed. “She knew about you, but thought I’d get over it. We both did. Obviously I haven’t. Then when we got married, everything went downhill fast. We’ve been separated for two months. She filed for divorce almost immediately.”

“Have you told her about Rose?”

“Not yet. I don’t think it would make a difference. The marriage is over.”

Nora looked away as the old pain coursed through her. “We had our chance,” she whispered. “And we ruined it. It’s too late.”

He clasped her to him. “It is never too late.”

A long moment passed. Nora stood and motioned for him to do the same. She took his hand and led him upstairs to the bedroom.

41

Nora sat in the train on one of the red seats with a view out the window. Dark rain whipped against the glass. Wet, green blocks of land fled by, taking her farther and farther from Amsterdam. She looked around, saw a few older passengers eating sandwiches, their heavy luggage on the overhead racks. The morning crush of people going to work had emptied as the train chugged farther north to Friesland.

She looked at the slim diary she had finished during the train trip. It had been more of the same. Miep’s sick adoration of her brother, concerts she had attended, a fur Joop had bought for her. Only snippets about Anneke. The NSB functions Anneke attended, their pride at Joop’s induction as an SS officer, Miep’s fervent hope that Anneke would marry the SS soldier she had continued to date. It made Nora feel sick.

She glanced at her watch. She had been to Schiermonnikoog with Nico one winter and the journey felt familiar. In an hour, the train would pull into Leeuwarden,
where she would take a bus to Lauwersoog, then hop on the ferry to the island of Schiermonnikoog. The trip would be a long one—about five hours.

Nora nestled back into her seat and closed her eyes. She could still feel Nico’s warm lips upon hers. They had not spoken as they held each other close, their bodies entwined. It was as if they had never been apart. The naturalness of their coming together felt to her as if the pain of the past had disappeared. They were one, murmuring as their bodies spoke to one another. It was as it always had been. Sitting in the train, she could still feel his body over hers. Their love was still there—always new, always old, always forever.

After their first time, Nora had sobbed quietly as Nico held her. Her tears were not from the pain that had gripped her during the past weeks, but tears of coming home to her place in his heart. Last night she had reclaimed it—and him. Whatever happened next, she could live knowing that she had loved and been loved.

Nico had awakened early that morning and gone to the office. He had an important conference with members of the Cabinet that afternoon regarding measures that were under consideration involving the neo-Nazi movement. It could not be rescheduled and he had no idea how long it would last. The trains to Schiermonnikoog were infrequent and he had wanted Nora to wait for him so they could go together. He had reminded her that she had been attacked twice now and that he couldn’t let her risk it happening again. She needed protection.

But Nora had been too nervous to wait. She had finally convinced him that she would take the early train and that if all went well, Nico would join her that evening. If he couldn’t get away, they would be apart for only one night. When she promised that she would alert the railway guards if she saw any strange characters and then go straight to the hotel, he had finally agreed.

When she told Marijke what had happened, her friend had offered to come, but Nora knew that she was scheduled to be in Germany for the next two days. Marijke had made her promise to call when she arrived and said that if Nora needed her, she would hop on the next train.

Nora was stirred from her reverie by the clacking of the coffee cart rolling down the aisle. She nodded at the sour-looking man, handed him five guilders for a cup of coffee and then waved him off when he tried to give her change. She clasped the cup as it warmed her cold hands and the hot liquid slithered deliciously down her throat.
Dutch coffee. The best.

“Leeuwarden,”
the conductor announced in a gravelly voice. Nora picked up her purse and small overnight bag, stepped down and walked out of the station. She had a ten-minute wait for the bus to Lauwersoog. After she reached the ferry terminal and boarded, she felt her impatience grow, continuously checking her watch during the forty-five minute journey to Schiermonnikoog. She so wanted to be there, to talk to Saartje.
There has to be so much she can tell me!

She imagined Richards’s desk piled high with thick files, Rose’s shoved underneath, where it would disappear, unsolved.
No!
Richards would not stop trying. Nora wiped tears from her cold cheeks.
So what if her parents were Nazis?
All she wanted was her darling back in her arms. Saartje had to be the link that would bring her to Rose. The alternative was unthinkable.

42

Amarisa slammed the door behind Dirk.
Friesland!
The whole thing was getting out of hand. She sat, looking out her window into the sunlight. Maybe he’d still pull it off and that woman would no longer be a threat.

Then a thought struck her. She grabbed the phone book from her desk, picked up the receiver and dialed.

“Rijksinstituut, central operator. May I help you?”

“Yes, this is Nora de Jong. I would like to leave a message for Nico Meijer.”

“I believe he is in his office—”

“No, thank you,” said Amarisa quickly. “I am in a terrible hurry. Please tell him I’m going back to the States today. That my daughter has been found. I’ll call when I arrive.”

“Then could you please give me the flight information and a number where he can reach you?”

“Just give him the message,” she snapped, and hung up.

Ha! That should keep this Nico, whoever he was, out of the picture for a while.

43

Nico stared at the message his secretary handed him. He closed his eyes, feeling miserable. While he knew he should feel thrilled that Rose had been found, he felt scared.
Would Nora be out of his life now? He wondered what last night meant to her. Perhaps she would she go back to Houston and never return, and he would never get to know his daughter.

He crumpled the message and threw it in the wastebasket.
Was he now supposed to wait until she called from Houston? He couldn’t bear it.
He buzzed his secretary. “Book me on the next flight to Houston, Texas.”

A few moments later, she buzzed back. “All of the flights to Houston are already booked. I can get you out early tomorrow morning.”

Verdomme.
“Keep trying. Maybe there will be a cancellation. I need to get there right away.” He turned to stare at the muddy water of the
Herengracht.
This time he would not let her go. He would fight for her and for his daughter.

44

Ariel stood at the platform and glanced at his watch. He had ten minutes to make the six-o’clock train. He found a phone booth and called Leah. “Leah, Rose’s mother is on her way to Schiermonnikoog.”

“How do you know?”

“Amarisa called me. Told me to follow her.”

“But why would she go to Friesland!”

“I don’t know.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ve got to warn her.”
The murder, Rose, the hiding, the terror. He couldn’t take it anymore.

“What?”

“Remember when Amarisa told me she’d hired a ‘professional’? I’m afraid Nora’s going to get hurt—or even killed. Amarisa is crazy enough to do it.”

“Have you lost your mind? Amarisa will turn you in. You’ll be arrested! And we’ll never see Rose again.”

Ariel felt a sharp pang. “Sweetheart, you must know now that Amarisa will probably never give her back to us, don’t you?”

He heard her choked sob. “Oh, Ariel. It’s just so hard to let her go.”

“We have to. It’s the only way to set things right. My father killed her mother and I stole her daughter. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to her, too.” He heard her crying. “Listen, the train leaves in a minute. I’m going to find Nora and find a way to tell her where Rose is and warn her about Amarisa.”

“But how? Once you tell her, she’ll scream for help and you’ll be arrested!”

“No, I won’t let anyone see me. I don’t arrive until eleven tonight, assuming the train is on time. I’ll wait until morning and then tell her when she’s alone.”

“Ariel, it’s so dangerous!”

“I know. But I have to. She isn’t just Rose’s mother, she’s my cousin.”

“Please be careful!”

“Listen, ask Amarisa to let you keep Rose for the night. Then maybe we can tell Nora where she is without Amarisa knowing.”

“She’ll never do it.”

“Just do your best.” Exhausted now, he hung up and joined the queue for the train. He found a seat next to the window on the last row. He pulled his hat over his face and slumped down as if asleep. He felt like crying, but the relief was overwhelming. Finally he was doing the right thing.

45

Nora looked at the shuttered gift shops in front of the station as she waited for the shuttle that would take her to the
Hotel van der Werff.
When she and Nico had gone to Schiermonnikoog, it was in the dead of winter. It was hard to imagine that it was boiling in Houston. She pulled her jacket tighter to ward off the icy wind.

Schiermonnikoog,
she knew, was one of a necklace of islands on the Netherlands’s northern coast. When she and Nico had spent a weekend there, he had told her that it was only ten miles long and three miles wide, the smallest of the inhabited islands in the Wadden Sea. She had been amazed at low tide. In winter the shallow sea actually disappeared and one could walk all the way to the next island.

Nora shivered. Schiermonnikoog certainly was not a winter resort. In summer, tourists came to engage in
wadlopen,
mud hiking, where they plodded through soggy flats and observed wildlife—worms, shrimp, crabs and fish. It was a dangerous sport and, under Dutch law, required accompaniment by trained guides. It wasn’t just the precarious plodding through the deep, slippery sludge, but also involved forging through chest-deep water.

She and Nico had taken long walks on miles and miles of sand, holding hands, sharing cold lips and warm embraces. They had watched gulls, spoonbills and herons. Once they even saw a seal sunning itself on a large rock.

A small van pulled up. She climbed aboard with two other passengers, feeling excited.
She had made an appointment for ten the next morning. Would Saartje have something important to tell her? Tomorrow she would know something, she just felt it!

After the short trip, she walked up to the old stone building. It loomed large and dark. Icy rain slammed her as she hurried to the entryway, clutching her small bag and purse.

She walked into an enormous lobby, her footsteps muted by thick carpet, twelve-foot ceilings and dark wood paneling that shone from the floor up to an elaborate crown molding. A sense of déjà vu filled her. Everything was exactly the same. The musty smell and deep burgundy of the chairs in the lounge, the view of the misty beach from the window, the fire roaring in the bar.

The desk clerk eyed her small bag when she told him that she was there only for one night, two at the most. No one came to Schiermonnikoog for just one night. The journey was considered to be an intercontinental one for the Dutch, who packed fruit and sandwiches for any train ride over an hour.

Nora checked in and went upstairs. It was the same room she and Nico had shared. A good omen. She put her things on the bed and walked to the window. Although it was only three in the afternoon, the beating of the rain on the leaded glass made it gloomy. She wished that Nico was with her, but he had probably been unable to get away. Oh, well, she thought, he will be here tomorrow. And she would rather see Saartje alone. Perhaps she would open up to Nora more than if Nico came along.

She looked at the beach but could barely make out the thin, gray strip where sand met sea. It seemed as if the shoreline went on forever, that the sea was simply a sailor’s mirage, a siren song.

Exhausted by the trip and the roller coaster of her reunion with Nico, Nora lay down. She fell into a dreamless sleep. When she awoke, the room was dark. She turned to the clock on the night table.
Six thirty-five.
She groaned and sat up. Hunger pangs reminded her that she had not eaten since a roll at the station in Amsterdam. She went to the washbasin and looked into the mirror. Black smudges seemed embedded under her eyes, her face sickly and pale, her hair tangled. She turned on the tap and splashed icy water on her face. It left her breathless but woke her up.

Downstairs, Nora walked into the hotel restaurant, seeking a modest meal. She couldn’t handle more than that. She looked around. A few tables were occupied, more than she would have expected this time of year. She noticed the bartender polishing a few glasses and chatting with a man at the bar.

A waiter appeared and led her to a table, where she sank into a leather chair and asked for a Bordeaux. She ordered fish and then sat back, taking a long sip of wine. She felt it flood and rejuvenate her. This was the closest she had come to relaxing since Rose disappeared. She immediately felt guilty.
How could she relax even for a moment without Rose?

The waiter appeared with her meal. She took a few bites of her grilled fish and put down her fork. She knew by the aroma that the food had to be delicious, but somehow it tasted like burned paper. She pushed away her plate and drank another glass of wine. As exhausted now as she was before her nap, she stood and walked up the one flight to her room. Once inside, she took a steamy, hot bath and crawled into bed. A sliver of hope glimmered in her before she fell asleep.