Madonna On the Bridge

by Bert C. Wouters

  “We will not kill you before we have caused maximum pain in retaliation for the suffering you have brought to the German Armed Forces in Holland!” the commander yelled over the sounds of Arie’s groans. The blows came faster and faster until one of them hit him in the eye, which fell shut. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. The agent sneaked up behind Arie and forced a dirty rag over both eyes. He tied it around his head, causing excruciating pain. Blood trickled from his nose and ears as he fell unconscious. He no longer felt pain. He couldn’t hear or see what was going on. The commander ordered the detonator placed in front of Arie.

  “Why are you waiting? Slam his head into the red button! Fire!” In a flash, the lieutenant smashed Arie’s head into the red button. In a split second, the explosion rocked the bridge on its pilings, causing an inferno of obliteration and destruction in the water. Body parts started to float, creating a bloodstained river. The shock from the blasts lifted the block hut from its foundation and broke the glass in the windows.

  The commander looked at Arie’s motionless body slumped on the wooden table, his face turned towards one side, one eye closed.

  “Throw this despicable agent on the bridge … we will give the Canadian tanks the opportunity to crush him to death. Killing a Gestapo agent violates our military code.” He paused, and then continued, “On the other hand, delivering this double agent may help us in case we are captured and tried for war crimes.”

  Two SS guards dragged the lifeless body outside and dumped him in the middle of the road to the bridge. When his head hit the pavement, the suicide capsule popped out of his mouth and rolled down the bridge.

  Just then, an artillery shell made a direct hit on the block hut, killing the commander and everyone inside. The two guards on the bridge fled in their vehicle, undamaged in the explosion. In the little chapel on the bridge, Danya hunkered down behind the statue of the Virgin Mary, praying for protection from mayhem. The explosion underneath the bridge shook the little chapel. Miraculously, the statue of the Virgin was not damaged. She retrieved the silk scroll with critical military data from her satchel and readied herself to hand deliver it to the Canadians. She listened for a lull in the shelling. Suddenly, it was quiet when she peeked through the chapel door to see where the Germans had gone. She saw that there was nothing left of the control post. When she approached the structure in ruin, she noticed four SS lying motionless in the rubble. She ran to the roadway in the bridge where she saw a human figure lying in a crumpled position. She had no idea who this person might be.

  Noticing the tattered Gestapo uniform and not knowing who the officer was, she approached him cautiously. She knelt beside him and turned toward his bloodied face. With the orange-colored cloth she had found in the chapel, she wiped his face clean. Abruptly, she backed off, startled. “Arie!” Unsure whether he was alive, she whispered in his bloody ear. “It is me, Danya.” He failed to react.

  The shelling from the Canadian tanks overhead resumed in full fury, chasing the German Army in the direction of Germany. She must stop the Canadian tanks trundling over the bridge, four abreast. The tanks spewed fire from all guns, sending shell after shell over Danya’s head. The massive whooshing noise was like a firestorm killing an enemy that could no longer resist.

  In the chaos, Danya mustered the courage to jump up and run straight into the on-rushing tank phalanx. She must stop them from rolling over Arie. Above her head, she frantically waved the bloodied strip of orange cloth. As if by miracle, the tanks stopped the shelling and came to a halt. Through his binoculars, the tank commander saw this diminutive figure energetically brandishing her banner. Not sure what to make of the situation, he climbed out of the tank with his pistol at the ready. Danya held her position in the middle of the bridge while signaling for them to stop. He looked at his lieutenant.

  “You want to see real courage? Look at that girl. Who is she? Who would have the courage to stop our tanks? Does she not have any regard for her life? Or is her cause so great she is willing to sacrifice her life?”

  “Stop! Stop the tanks! Help him!” Danya screamed at the approaching Canadian officers, desperately pointing to the body in the road. “You must help him! Save his life!” With his pistol at the ready, the officer demanded to know who he was.

  “He is Gestapo. Who is he?” Together, they walked up to Arie.

  “Please hurry! We must help him!” Danya said in a worried voice. “If I tell you his war name, you will understand.”

  “Do tell us right now,” he urged.

  “Schorseneel is his nom de guerre in the Dutch Resistance. In London, they will recognize him right away at MI-6. The reason for his Gestapo uniform is he is a Dutch Resistance double agent. An hour ago, the SS in the block hut on the bridge tried to kill him. They threw him on the bridge. Hurry! He is bleeding to death!” Her words were enough for the commander to signal a field ambulance to transport Arie to a hospital. Danya watched the ambulance disappear to the rear of the tank formation.

  The tank commander thanked her for the rescue, and when she handed him the silk scroll with the encrypted message containing vital information about the German troops’ movements, he saluted her. A cold rain started to fall. Danya sought refuge in the chapel. She knelt at the little bench in front of the statue of Mary and said a prayer of thanks. Raindrops falling from cracks in the ceiling of the small chapel mingled with her tears.

  With a thunderous noise, the tanks rattled down the bridge towards Germany. When they came closer, the commander raised his arm to halt the tank phalanx one more time. He opened the hatchet in the gun turret and faced the girl who stood on the steps watching the tanks parade by her.

  “I salute you as a true war hero of the highest order,” the commander addressed Danya. “You have fulfilled your mission of delivering important information to rid Holland of the Nazis. We needed this intelligence to organize our strategies and defeat the enemy, liberating Holland from the curse of famine.”

  As the tanks rolled by, Danya waved the blood-stained banner in one hand and held the tulips in the other. Her tears mingled with the raindrops, as she murmured, “Free at last at such a high price.” She took one last look at the beautiful flowers and walked towards the bridge. She looked down over the railing into the blood-stained waters of the Rhine River, where an hour earlier, 150 prisoners had perished in the explosions. She saw the bodies of her resistance comrades floating down the river as she wept and tossed the tulips in the Rhine.

  “These are the last Rembrandt tulips the world will ever see,” she said. “It only fits that they join the remains of these true heroes who sacrificed their lives for the Dutch Resistance.”

  Epilogue

  The End of the War

  The townspeople raised their eyes to the church tower, waiting for the church bells to toll, celebrating the surrender of the German Army in Holland. The familiar ringing of church bells on Sunday mornings never came. Years ago, the Germans had removed the bells and shipped them to Germany where they melted them into cannons. The bronze from the bells in their churches had killed so many. Now the survivors looked up to the heavens for their ringing once more. The silence was deafening, a reminder of the five years of war under the repressive regime of the Nazis.

  The war in Europe had finally ended, but in the little towns, the effects of the war were still evident. In Holland, the surrender came five days after Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker. Despite his demise, hundreds perished during this five-day period. The Dutch wondered why it took five more days of killing before General Blaskowitz signed the surrender agreement on May 5, 1945, at a meeting in Wageningen. Holland was the last nation where Germany officially surrendered.

  The Hunger Winter had weakened the Dutch people to such a degree that there was no energy left for celebrations. With coupons in hand, they stood in line with the hope of getting a scrap of food. The shelves in the food stores were mostly empty. A
Canadian military truck entered the town with dried food provisions, dropped from the air in a field outside of town. Finally, word reached London about the desperate food shortages, so severe that people were collapsing in the streets. So far, the Hunger Winter had claimed 300,000 lives.

  Danya had become anxious to find out what had happened to her parents. She returned to Belgium, her homeland, to search for them. On the train to Antwerp, Danya felt lonely, exhausted, and empty, awash with self-doubt about her future. She knew she must let go of bygones, unburdening herself of the weight of the past. It was difficult to convince herself that something new and beautiful was on the horizon. Returning to her birthplace, she prepared herself for a new chapter in her young life.

  In Antwerp, trams to the suburbs started to run again in November, soon after the liberation of the city. Victoria Place was now the new name for Central Square. Music streamed from the restaurants, where the menus resembled again what they had offered before the war: Pommes Frites and Mussels, Trout a la Meunière, Riz de Veau and Belgian Waffles, Coupe Glacée for dessert. Danya had no money to spend on food. At Victoria Place, she found tram #63 to Brasschaat.

  The closer the tram arrived to her birthplace, the more frightened she became. Overwhelmed by fear, not knowing whether her parents had survived the war, she struggled to find inner peace. They had been out of touch since she had joined the resistance three years ago.

  What would await her in Brasschaat? She had another half hour to go before she would reach her destination. She reached into her satchel and found the weathered copy of the poem her father had composed ten years earlier. She started to read: “The moment I laid eyes on you and crowned you with your name, I knew my life would never be the same.”

  Her father could not have known how much the circumstances of war would change their lives. She re-read the last line in the poem: “But the end was just a beginning.”

  Had she arrived at the threshold of a new beginning? The thought of her parents’ mansion in Brasschaat brought back memories of yesterday. It was here in her father’s study that she had listened to the sacred words of Satanaya, Queen of Circassia. Her words of wisdom that foretold the end of the war: “I will be by your side to give you strength; you will witness war and famine, maiming and killing. You will be victorious; you will be hailed for your heroic deeds by the liberating forces. In the end, your prince for life will arrive. Remember, as a child of the Nation of Circassia; you will have the strength to reach your destiny.” Satanaya’s words had always given her a ray of hope.

  Arriving in her hometown, Danya immediately went to the Rubens Restaurant, where she hoped to find someone who might know the whereabouts of her parents. Years ago, she had joined her father at this restaurant to meet the representative of the King of Belgium to discuss the diamonds for Queen Astrid’s necklace. The restaurateur had aged during the war. His hair was now shoulder length, and his eyes glazed over; he looked famished. He held the daily menu card in his trembling hand. He could no longer get the special foods that made the elite in town come to his establishment.

  “How can I be of help?” he asked Danya in a broken voice.

  “You may not remember me,” she began. “I came here with my father for an important meeting. I am Danya, daughter of Kadir Mandraskit.” His eyes lit up as he reconnected with the past.

  “Mandraskit? You are Danya?” he asked.

  “I am looking for news about my parents.”

  “Two months ago, they were here asking about you. The last time they heard of your whereabouts, you were living in Holland. After that, they lost track of you.”

  “Where are they staying now?” she asked eagerly.

  “Go to the Winkel Straat, where the Red Cross has set up the Refugee and Recovery Center.” Danya’s eyes widened with joy. She thanked him and rushed to the Red Cross center a few blocks away. At one time, Brasschaat was one of the most beautiful suburbs of Antwerp, where the rich and famous lived in their mansions. Heavily damaged as the result of bombardments, the homes now lay in ruin. Military equipment of all sorts was left abandoned in the front yards, what used to be landscaped lawns and flowerbeds. It was all so different from what she remembered.

  She had feared this moment. Finally, she turned into the avenue where her parents had lived. With trepidation, she glanced through the lane of trees to catch a quick glimpse of their mansion. At the entrance to their domain, the wrought iron sign with the old Circassian name: “Adyghe” lay rusting in the tall grass. When she reached the mansion, horror struck her; their property had not escaped the ransacking by the fleeing Germans. She recognized a broken chair in the pond and saw their antique grandfather clock stuck upside down in the murky water. Where there had been a manicured lawn, weeds grew waist deep. At first, she did not dare enter the mansion. When she entered the opening where the front door had been, she saw the familiar birdcage. With the cage door wide open, she wondered what had happened to her beloved canary. Had someone let it fly away to be free? Did it die from starvation?

  When she arrived at the Red Cross, large crowds stood around, some silently weeping, some rejoicing. Here, one would find out about relatives. Feeling alone and frightened, she entered the large hall, where she noticed all four walls covered with handwritten names. Unsure where to start, one list caught her attention: “Returnees from Concentration Camps.” She panicked, wondering if she would find her parents’ names here. Her family name was not there. She checked another list. Nothing. In the corner, she noticed a list of “Missing in War.” Horror struck her when she saw her name: Danya Mandraskit. She was not sure how to react to this announcement. Had her parents listed her as missing? In anguish, she ran to the desk where volunteer workers were busy helping others. She had to wait in line like everyone else. Then her turn came.

  “I saw my name on the list in the corner. Can you tell me who asked for me?” she asked. The worker took the dossier of Missing Persons, and when she found Danya Mandraskit, she pointed to her father’s name: Kadir Mandraskit.

  “Your father was here two weeks ago to register you as missing,” the worker said. “It says in the register that they are staying at Calixberg Castle.” Danya knew this property well, located seven blocks from where her parents used to live.

  When she opened the heavy oak door to the castle, Gerda immediately recognized Danya. She was a former schoolmate. They embraced and looked at each other, as if to say, “We made it through this horrible time!”

  “Come in! I am so happy to see you! You will make someone even happier. I have a surprise for you!” she smiled. Danya heard shuffling footsteps coming from the darkened hallway. He walked slightly stooping with a limp. He stretched his arms to embrace his girl. Danya wondered if this man was her father. The once proud Circassian patriarch of the Mandraskit family had turned into a ghost-like figure. He turned his head to see if his wife had followed him; she was not there. She was unaware of the goings on upfront; she had lost her hearing. Gerda went to gather her from the foyer where she spent her days recovering from prison life. She led her by the arm and moved her to where Danya was standing. A single tear rolled down her cheek as she laid her daughter’s hands in hers, her face radiating the joy of a mother meeting her daughter, missed for such a long time. She was lost for words, gently stroking her cheek and touching Danya’s raven black curls. She took a second look at her, pausing to admire her, unblemished by the war, still a Circassian beauty.

  “I am so relieved that we are together.” Her father looked Danya in the eyes. “Our Circassian spirit gave us the courage we needed to survive. The Germans tried to destroy us but to no avail. Our determination made us survive, and now we are together to rebuild our family tradition, in the spirit of our ancestors.”

  He was short of breath. Little by little, they did their best to share war stories. Danya decided to leave out the time she spent in jail in Wewelsburg and the verdict of the Lebensborn Program in e
xchange for her death sentence. During a pause in recounting their war stories, Kadir got up from his chair and shuffled to another room, leaving Danya with her mother. He needed time alone, reflecting on his role as a Circassian patriarch.

  “I prayed for this moment for the longest time,” her mother told her in this solitary moment. “We worried so much about you.”

  “I will be fine. I look forward to my future.” Her mother slowly raised her eyes and smiled. With a wink, she inquired, “Did the fragrance bottle I gave you on your birthday survive the war?” Danya grabbed her satchel that she had kept with her during the war. She reached inside for the wooden box and opened it to show the perfume flask. A glow of happiness came over her mother’s face. They looked at each other in silence. Proud of her daughter that she had kept her promise not to open it until the time had arrived, her mother reached for the flask. She still found the energy to uncork it and place a dab of the sweet-smelling cologne on her fingertip. She let Danya take a whiff, like a rite of passage. They took pleasure in the exquisite essence, known in Circassian circles as the “Fragrance of the Temptress.”

  “My girl, I feel that your time has come to meet your prince for life,” her mother said.

  It was early afternoon when Danya retired to her room. She placed a few dabs of the perfume behind her ears, relishing the bouquet of the mixture of three exotic scents. She recalled the words in the Nart Sagas: “The Circassian women were not only beautiful, but they applied the fragrance of the temptress as an aphrodisiac.” For centuries, it was a secret kept strictly within the sorority of Circassian beauties.

  She looked out the window where she saw the house cat stalking a field mouse in the rose bushes. Before leaving on her walk in the forest, she followed the Circassian tradition to light a candle in the candleholder. A yearning spread in her. It made her relaxed and playful.