Hunger Winter

by Rob Currie

  “Uh-huh. But how will you get to Oma and Opa’s?” She squinted at him, studying his expression.

  “I’ll . . . uh . . . have to find a different way to their house.” He looked away. Or maybe I’ll never see you again.

  He led Anna to a stall. “You need to hide here until I come back for you.”

  She hugged him hard.

  “It will be all right,” he said, trying to convince both himself and Anna before he walked toward the back door of the farmhouse. When he looked back at the barn, Anna was standing in the doorway of the stall, so he motioned for her to move out of sight. He slowly climbed the porch steps. What would the farmer say? What if something went wrong? He knocked and waited, heart pounding.

  The door swung open, and Dirk looked into the face of an elderly Dutch farmer. His face and hands were weathered by the sun, and his hair was silver.

  “Who are you?” the man asked, grim faced.

  “My name’s Dirk. We, I mean, I escaped from the Germans.” He pointed at his uniform. “Will you help me get to my oma and opa’s house?”

  The farmer waved his hands and mouthed a few words.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t help you,” the farmer whispered and started to close the door.

  “Tell him to come in,” a deep male voice inside the house ordered. The farmer hesitated. “Tell him to come in,” the voice demanded. The farmer weakly motioned for Dirk to enter. Dirk stepped into the kitchen, and his eyes grew wide. A tall uniformed German officer stood next to the kitchen sink. Dirk edged toward the door.

  “Don’t move,” the officer ordered.

  Dirk froze.

  “Who’s the boy?” the officer asked.

  “I don’t know,” the farmer said.

  “I will deal with him later. But I believe that you are helping the Resistance.”

  “That isn’t true,” the farmer said.

  The officer glared at him, then nodded at Dirk. “Then why did an escapee come here? Someone sent him.”

  “I don’t work for the Resistance,” the farmer said.

  Oh no! Anna was right. Dirk shifted his eyes back and forth between the two men.

  A woman who appeared to be a few years younger than the farmer entered the room and rushed to the farmer’s side. She was short and plump, with short brown hair.

  “Prove you do not help the Resistance,” the officer said as he rested his right hand on the Luger in its holster.

  Dirk’s eyes darted around the room. He was too far away from the door to escape. The same thing for both windows.

  “It’s all I can do to survive with what little we have left,” the man answered. “I can’t help the Resistance or anyone else.”

  Does that include Anna and me?

  “Prove it!” the German demanded.

  “I can’t. I can’t prove something I haven’t done.” The farmer’s nostrils flared. “You might as well ask me to show you the horses and cows your army stole from me,” he said. “And you might as well ask me for crops, even though my fields were stripped bare to feed your soldiers.”

  Don’t make him mad! Dirk shifted his stance. For a moment the officer glared at him and then turned his attention back to the farmer’s wife. He stared at her for a few moments, stone faced.

  What’s he going to do? Dirk’s palms were sweaty.

  As the officer pulled the pistol from its holster, Dirk’s breathing became shallow. His eyes darted around the room. There was no furniture close enough to dive behind if the Nazi started shooting. What should he do? Papa would know. Seconds dragged by.

  The officer returned the gun to its holster. “I had to threaten you like that to know for sure if you were collaborators,” the officer said. “If you were, you would have told me when I accused you of working with the Resistance.” He shook his head. “I could not risk you reporting me to the German army.”

  Dirk studied him. What kind of man would pull a gun on an innocent farmer and his wife just to be sure of his own safety?

  The farmer put his arm around his wife, who stared with wide eyes at the officer.

  “As you know, the American army is in Nijmegen. When they renew their offensive, I will surrender to them,” the officer said. “Until then, I will stay in your home. You will give me food and shelter. Understand?”

  The farmer’s wife shot a frightened look at her husband. He wiped perspiration from his forehead with his handkerchief. He nodded.

  “What about me?” Dirk asked the farmer. “You said you couldn’t help anyone. W-w-will you help me get to my grandparents’ house?”

  The farmer looked at the officer but didn’t respond.

  “Please?” Dirk added.

  “Where do they live?” the farmer asked.

  “In Nijmegen,” Dirk said.

  “That’s not very far away. When the Americans come, we’ll ask them to take you there.”

  No more running and no more hiding! We’re safe! And now they had a chance at finding Papa and rescuing Els. “My sister’s in the barn. I waited to tell you until I knew you would help us.”

  The German nodded. “It’s hard to know who you can trust in wartime.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  DIRK RAN to the barn. “Anna, it’s safe to come to the house.”

  His sister peeked out of the stall where he’d told her to hide. Tears poured down her face.

  “Why are you crying?” he asked.

  “You were gone so long. I thought something bad happened to you.” She buried her face in his chest.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “I was so scared,” she said.

  He bent down and looked her in the eye. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, hugging her. “There’s a German officer, but he said he left the army. We’re going to be all right.” Telling her about how the man had threatened the farmer’s wife would do her no good. Once again it would be up to Dirk to protect Anna because he knew more about the possible danger.

  Anna dried her tears on her sleeve, and they walked to the house.

  “You’re still wearing your uniforms from the gun factory,” the farmer said. “If anyone sees you, there’ll be big trouble for you and us. We don’t have the right size clothes for you or your sister. We’ll have to see what we can come up with.”

  That evening the farmer, his wife, Dirk, Anna, and the German officer shared a meal. The farmer and his wife were Mr. and Mrs. ten Haken, and the German officer was Colonel Fleischer. The hot food tasted good—not like the dry, stale biscuits the Nazis had fed them at the work camp. Dirk should have thoroughly enjoyed having enough to eat, but something bothered him about Colonel Fleischer, and he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  That night, Dirk and Anna climbed the stairs to a bedroom on the third floor. “A real bed with sheets,” she said. “And we’re going to see Oma and Opa, right?”

  “I think so. I mean, yes. That’s what Mr. ten Haken said.”

  “I want you to pray with me, Dirk. Like Els always did.”

  But Dirk’s mind was on other things. What awful things had the Nazis done to Els by now? Could Dirk find Papa in time to rescue her?

  “Come on, Dirk. Papa and Els always said to keep your hopes up and your prayers strong. You have to.”

  He hesitated. It was hard to pray after all that had happened. But Anna had been through a horrible experience at the gun factory, was still separated from her sister and father, and now she was asking him for just a small favor.

  “Pray for Papa and for Els to be safe and pray that—”

  “Okay, okay.” He smiled. “I get the idea.” He cleared his throat and bowed his head. “Keep us safe, and protect Papa and Els. And help us find Papa. Amen.”

  “You forgot Tante Cora.”

  “And help Tante Cora, too. Amen,” he said.

  Anna put her arms around his neck and squeezed tight. Dirk returned the hug and handed her the orange ribbon. “I want a story,” she said in a drowsy mumble.

 
; “All right. Once upon a time there was a princess named Anna,” he whispered slowly. “She had a beautiful petticoat that was her favorite.”

  “Make it orange this time,” she said.

  “She had many petticoats, but she loved her orange one best of all.”

  Anna’s hand relaxed, and the ribbon slipped out of her grasp.

  Dirk lowered his voice. “One day she went for a walk in the forest, and when she found a dark path—” He looked at his sleeping sister. “She wasn’t afraid,” he continued, “because she knew her big brother would do anything to protect her. Anything.”

  He stood slowly and pulled a blanket up to her chin. “I kept my promise, Mama. I kept Anna safe.”

  Shortly after midnight, Dirk dreamed that a figure stood in the doorway of the bedroom where he and Anna slept. Moonlight leaked around the edges of the window shade, dimly lighting the visitor. At first there was no sound, but when the figure stepped into the room, the floor creaked. A coat with a large hood concealed the visitor’s face until she threw back the hood, revealing a gentle smile.

  Mama! Dirk tried to reach his hand toward her, but he couldn’t move.

  It couldn’t be her. As much as he longed for it to be her, it couldn’t be.

  But it was her. He tried to speak, but his voice was as useless as his limbs. Mama held a finger to her lips and smiled.

  “Don’t tell them who you are, Dirk.”

  He furrowed his brow. Don’t tell who? He listened intently.

  “Don’t tell them who you are or who Papa is.”

  He tried to ask her why, but he still couldn’t speak.

  “I have to go, but promise me you won’t let them find out. I love you, Dirk.” She turned away and vanished. Then he woke.

  “Mama!” he finally called out. She had looked so real and alive.

  “Who was she warning me about?” he whispered. He sat up. Papa had told him stories of people in the Bible who were warned by dreams. Dirk rubbed his chin. Was this dream a warning? Why did he have to figure this out by himself? If only he could ask Papa.

  The dream couldn’t be a warning about the farmer. He was helping them. Dirk fiddled with the edge of the blanket. It had to be the German officer. “He’ll try to make us talk,” he said under his breath. He got out of bed and walked back and forth. “That’s why Mama warned me.” He turned toward the closed bedroom door and imagined addressing the man who claimed he was no longer the enemy. “You’re not getting anything out of me or Anna,” he hissed. He pushed his hand in his pocket and felt the stone from Papa. His fingers lingered over its smooth surfaces. “I won’t tell him anything about you, Papa.”

  Papa and Els always said, “Keep your hopes up and your prayers strong.” I miss you, Papa.

  Dirk thought back to a conversation he’d overheard months earlier. He had woken up hungry in the middle of the night and walked downstairs to get something to eat. But he had stopped halfway down when he heard voices in the kitchen. Mama was still alive then, and he recognized her voice, but not the other two. He edged down another step or two and cupped his hands behind his ears.

  He caught only parts of sentences. “That’s going to be dangerous for the Dutch Resistance Movement . . . help the underdivers and the Jews . . . Allied pilots shot down,” a man’s voice said. “. . . get back to England . . . very dangerous . . . Gestapo raids,” replied a woman’s voice.

  Dirk tried to recognize the voices. One was Mama’s, and another sounded like their neighbor Mr. van Nort, but he couldn’t be sure.

  The third person said something that Dirk couldn’t make out. He peeked around the corner of the stairway and saw three figures huddled around a small light in the center of the kitchen table. That little candle would compromise their night vision, so they wouldn’t see him in the darkness on the steps. Papa had taught him that.

  Mama was at the kitchen table, and so was Mr. van Nort, but who was the other person? And what were underdivers? Over the next several minutes, Dirk overheard just a few more phrases. Then the kitchen went dark, the front door creaked, and footsteps came toward him. He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep, leaning against the wall.

  “I know you’re awake,” Mama said as she sat on the stairs next to him. “How long did you listen to our conversation?”

  “I was hungry, Mama, and I came down to get something to eat.”

  “How much did you hear?” She put her face in front of his, holding his gaze.

  “I . . . I couldn’t help it. I heard a little, and I was curious.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “What’s an underdiver?” He watched her closely.

  She pressed her lips together. “The underdivers are the Jews and other people who hide from the Nazis.”

  “Oh.”

  “The less you know, the safer you’ll be. And don’t tell anyone what you heard, or what you think you heard.”

  “I won’t, Mama. Do Anna and Els know?”

  “Anna doesn’t, and don’t tell her. Els knows some things.” Mama waved her index finger at him. “But don’t discuss this with her either.”

  “I won’t, but who were you talking to in the kitchen? Mr. van Nort and who else? You’re all in the Resistance, aren’t you?”

  She hesitated and put her hand on his shoulder.

  “If anything happens to me,” she said, “Els will be in charge of you and Anna. And if anything happens to Els, you’ll be in charge of Anna. Then you should take Anna to Tante Cora’s. Understand?”

  “Yes,” Dirk said.

  Mama hugged him tightly.

  “What do you mean? What could happen to you?”

  “You came down here because you were hungry. Eat something and go back to bed.”

  She waited as he spread two slices of bread with butter and ate them. As he settled back into bed, he stared at the ceiling in the dark. Papa was a Resistance fighter. Why else would Mama forbid Dirk to tell anyone what he had heard?

  Now, months after that incident, Dirk lay awake in bed again. So much had changed since then, but the moffen were still the enemy. “I won’t tell them who we are, Mama.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  NOVEMBER 23

  “DIRK! WAKE UP! Come downstairs with me.” Anna stood by Dirk’s bed, shaking him.

  He groaned. “Just go back to sleep.” He kept his eyes shut.

  “But I’m hungry, and the sun’s up!”

  “Not so loud.” He covered his ears with his hands.

  She shook his arm as hard as she could. “Wake up!”

  “In a little bit,” he mumbled. He rolled over and pulled the blanket over his head.

  A few minutes later, a pounding noise from outside woke Dirk. Agh! He shuffled to the window and pushed the drapes aside. The noise seemed to come from the barn. He rubbed his eyes, yawned, and turned around.

  Anna’s bed was empty. No! She’s probably downstairs blabbing to—

  He took the stairs two at a time, burst into the kitchen, and nearly bumped into the table. Anna was eating breakfast across the table from Colonel Fleischer. Dirk’s eyes grew wide.

  “Our papa is gone, but his name is—”

  “Anna!” Dirk shouted.

  “I was just talking to Colonel Fleischer.”

  Dirk’s blood ran cold. He realized what had bothered him when they were introduced to Fleischer. Fleischer was the German word for “butcher”!

  “Don’t talk to people you don’t know unless I’m with you,” he said to Anna. “Are you done eating?”

  “Uh-huh. Aren’t you going to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry right now. Let’s go back to our room.”

  Colonel Fleischer set down his spoon. “You have nothing to fear from me, Dirk,” he said with a tinge of irritation. “I am done fighting the war, and you have my word that I will do nothing to harm you. A German officer always keeps his word.”

  “Come upstairs,” Dirk said to Anna, ignoring Fleischer. After they reached the bedroom, he
closed the door. “Anna!” he scolded. “He said he keeps his word, but the Germans promised not to invade the Netherlands. So don’t tell him anything about us or our family.”

  “Why? He’s very nice, and he gave me chocolate.” She smiled and revealed chocolate stains on her teeth.

  “Agh! He’s bribing you so you’ll talk,” Dirk said. It’s no wonder Mama warned me about him. “It’s really hard to know who you can trust during a war,” he told Anna. Oh! That’s what Fleischer said yesterday. “But you know you can trust me, and Els left me in charge of you. So don’t talk to him unless I’m right by you,” he ordered. “Understand?”

  “Uh-huh. But if I don’t talk to him, how will I get more chocolate?”

  “Just don’t talk to him,” Dirk said.

  A few minutes later, someone knocked on their bedroom door.

  Dirk looked at Anna. “Remember what I told you.”

  “Okay.”

  When Dirk opened the door, Fleischer stood in the doorway with a pair of binoculars.

  “What do you want?” Dirk asked.

  The German brushed past Dirk and strode to the windows.

  “I said, what do you want?”

  He glared at Fleischer while the man scanned the roads with the binoculars. Then Fleischer strode to the window on the adjoining wall and did it again.

  “As I told you, Dirk, I am done fighting the war,” he finally said. “But the war is not over, and this house is in a strategic location. Because it is the only three-story building in this area, it gives an excellent vantage point for the German army to look toward the position of the Allied forces.”

  Uh-oh.

  “There is a very good chance the German army will seize this house to use for their purposes.” Fleischer rubbed his chin. “They could come as soon as tomorrow.”

  Dirk sat hard on the bed, as if pushed down by the weight of Fleischer’s words. He’d thought the dangers were all behind him. Had he made a terrible mistake by choosing this farmhouse?