Leeway Cottage

by Beth Gutcheon

  Tuesday morning, Nina takes a call at home. She has been out of the apartment most of the weekend begging money to help pay for transports; two of her friends collected a million kroner simply by riding their bikes from one estate to the next and knocking on doors. At one rich farm they interrupted a dinner party; they went from guest to guest, asking the ladies to empty their evening bags and the men their pockets to help the Jews escape, and came away with a fortune. Nina herself is so tired and frightened and elated that she has hardly slept since she said goodbye to her parents. In the fury of the first aborted roundup, the Germans hauled off almost anyone in a Jewish household who opened the door. Since then, though, they have announced they will not take half-Jews and have even released some Jews married to Christians. No one knows how long that will last…

  “Nina Moss?” says the voice.

  “Who is speaking, please?” she asks after a hesitation. It’s a man, the voice not familiar. Her emotions are so unstable at this point she feels for a moment she may faint. There are so many kinds of bad news that could be about to change her world forever.

  “It’s a friend from the coast. I’ve just had word that your potatoes arrived.”

  And she starts to cry.

  “Do you understand?” the voice asks.

  “Yes, thank you. All of them?”

  “Three bushels, all in good order.”

  “Thank you,” she says. She hangs up and leaves the kitchen. She goes to her parents’ bedroom and puts on her mother’s blue sweater. Then she lies down on their bed with the down quilt over her and cries till she falls asleep in the sunshine.

  The caller was Per Bennike. It was a call he needed to make, to give somebody good news, because he himself is feeling raddled with guilt and grief. He who has taken no care of anybody, including himself, for about ten years, is suddenly running lives over his hands and between his fingers like a shower of coins of untold value, and he has just had his first lesson in what the price of this may be to him. The rowboat bearing the Saloman family and Flemming Fischermann was run down in the dark by a Swedish patrol boat. All five of them are presumed drowned, although only Hanne’s body has come ashore. He feels it is his fault. He doesn’t know how it could be, but he feels this anyway.

  When Nina wakes, the phone is ringing again.

  Another male voice. “Hello! Is that Nina Moss, please?”

  “Who is speaking?” This time she is not frightened. The voice is familiar, though she doesn’t place it at once. Her parents and aunt are safe. She has no fears for herself, at least not yet.

  “It’s Mogens Wessel here. Is that you, Nina?”

  “Mr. Wessel!” The father of the children she cared for in Jutland for two summers.

  “Are your parents at home?”

  “They—no, they are not. Are you here? In Copenhagen?”

  “Quite close by. I’m sorry to miss your parents, but may I come to tea?”

  “Of course!”

  “I’ll be bringing some friends. We’ll see you soon.”

  Mogens Wessel arrives with a family of six named Katz, a young couple and four children, including a baby of six months.

  “These are our neighbors in Haderslev. There was no safe place for them there,” he says to her briefly, as they greet each other. “May they stay with you?”

  Nina feels that he wouldn’t ask this of her if it were not right and necessary. She says, “Certainly.”

  “Thank you. Mrs. Wessel sends you this.” He hands her a small soft package wrapped in fabric with a ribbon tied around it. Mrs. Wessel has a special gift for making even the simplest things look pretty. Nina opens the bundle and finds about a handful of fragrant dried black tea leaves.

  “She says it is your favorite blend. The children miss you.”

  Nina inhales the spicy bergamot smell of Earl Grey, and thinks of drinking tea and playing dominoes with Mrs. Wessel while the children have their naps. She fears she may cry for the second time today.

  “Now—if you’re all right here, I must go down to Christianshavn to see what can be arranged.”

  In Helsingborg, Sweden, Henrik and Ditte have been taken to the home of two ladies, schoolteachers. They have had a hot breakfast and a long nap. The first thing they do when they have bathed and dressed is to go to a bank to change their Danish kroner for Swedish. The second is to go to the post office to send a telegram.

  Laurus is at his desk in Baker Street. He knows about the Wartheland, he knows Adolf Eichmann is in Copenhagen. How many Danish Jews have been caught he does not know but he knows it is in the hundreds. They have had coded messages from their radio men on Zealand and Fyn, and they have heard from Resistance leaders in Stockholm that there are escapes across the sound every night, but nobody knows how many have come or how many more are in hiding with no way to cross. He is reading a newsy letter from Sydney about the baby’s teeth, when the phone rings.

  “Moss speaking,” he says.

  “An international cable for you, sir.”

  Sydney, he thinks.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Dateline: Helsingborg, Sweden.”

  Suddenly he is near tears. Please, God, good news…please, please, please.

  “Message: ‘Mama Tofa and I all safe. Going to Stockholm tonight. Address to follow. Love, Papa.’”

  They will live to see their grandchild. Grandchildren, Laurus hopes. Suddenly he is overwhelmed with missing his family. He wants to kiss his wife and hold his daughter, he wants to put his hand on the bald spot on the back of his father’s curly head, he wants to hear Mama and Tofa tease each other while playing duets. For a while after this message he simply sits at his desk, awash in gratitude and longing.

  In Helsingborg, Henrik and Ditte decide to go into a restaurant for lunch, to celebrate. (Tofa is staying with a family outside town but will meet Henrik and Ditte at the train.) They explain to the café owner why they have no Swedish ration books. He brings them lunch and will take no money. Instead he brings a bottle of akvavit to the table and pours three glasses. Skål, he says. And again, the words that sound like a blessing: “Ni är välkomna till Sverige.” Welcome to Sweden.

  After lunch they go to the police station to ask what they should do about making themselves legal. The officer does not know anything about Flemming Fischermann. But he was not on duty the day before.

  By ten o’clock that night they are in Stockholm, met at the station by the violinist Lindemann and his wife, with smiles and embraces. As they are arriving, an RAF Mosquito is once again leaving Stockholm with Niels Bohr in the bomb bay instead of a bomb. To Captain Gyth’s relief, Bohr is now the responsibility of the British. Every minute of the flight it is in danger, especially as it crosses the Kattegat and occupied Denmark. When at last the pilots come to earth at the closest possible point, a base in Scotland, they learn that either Bohr’s mask malfunctioned or he was too nervous to remember how to use it right; in any case their precious cargo has been out cold from lack of oxygen most of the flight. The pilots picture having to report to Mr. Churchill, “We got him here—we lowered his IQ a hundred points, though. Is that okay?”

  In the small hours of that night, Nina Moss is hiding with the Katz family in a darkened warehouse on Wilder Square, in the south harbor of Copenhagen. Crouching with her in the dark are two other families wearing their overcoats, clutching small bundles, waiting. Mrs. Katz is so tense that she upsets the baby when she holds him, so Nina has taken him. When Nina rocks him and softly hums into the sweet-smelling downy top of his head, he quiets. She feels something move in her heart, as if the simple act of holding a baby has released a mothering urge. She suddenly knows that the next stage of life, if there is one for her, must be to have a baby of her own. For now, Hans Katz is her baby. She feels she has aged ten years in the space of a weekend.

  There are four children in the warehouse in addition to the Katzes’, mostly puzzled and frightened. A little boy keeps saying that they have to go to the boat now, he can�
��t wait any longer. His mother tells him he must. But he can’t, he says simply. A little girl cries because she has to use the bucket in the corner and she can’t with all these people.

  A young woman comes in with an older man. She comes to where Nina sits with the Katzes. “This doctor has medicine for the little ones, so they won’t cry.”

  “I don’t—” Mr. Katz begins.

  “I’m sorry, we must. Any noise could endanger everyone. It is quite safe,” the girl says. Actually, neither she nor the doctor know for sure that it is safe, but they know that the alternative is not. The doctor starts with the smallest, Nina’s baby. He prepares a needle and delivers an injection into the fat little arm. The baby struggles as Nina comforts him. His cries are not loud, even when he is really trying to make a big noise. He is so small. The doctor moves quickly to the next youngest two. They take their medicine well and are praised. When he comes to the eight-year-old, the girl in charge says, “This is your child too?” The Katzes simply look at her. “One child per adult, no more,” says the girl. “She’ll have to wait. We’ll try to send her tomorrow night.”

  Mrs. Katz had been told this earlier, but she hoped it would go away. “Please…” whispers her husband, helplessly.

  Mrs. Katz pleads, “She’ll be quiet. She understands.” The little girl stares, with huge eyes. It is impossible to tell if she does understand, or is old enough to control herself. But the girl in charge, who is not much older than Nina, is not taking these risks because she enjoys playing the villain. She relents.

  By the time all the small children have had their shots, Nina’s baby seems to be dead. His body is slack and heavy and his eyes, which are partly open, have rolled back in his head. Nina wants to cry, this frightens her so much, and she is suddenly, fiercely, personally, angry at the Germans.

  The girl in charge is watching the street now. Outside the quai is brightly lit and patrolled by two German soldiers. The boat they must get to is only a few yards away, across the quai, but the officers in their green uniforms march up and down like inhuman things. They start from opposite ends of the quai, one at the landing, the other out in the harbor, and march impassively toward each other. When they meet in the middle they turn smartly on their heels, stand back to back, and march apart again. This turning maneuver takes place almost directly before the door of the warehouse.

  The girl turns to Nina and the Katzes. “Two minutes,” she says softly. Each parent lifts an unconscious child, and the girl takes the eight-year-old by the hand. They all move to the door, Nina with them with her dead-feeling baby in her arms. Her heart is stuck in her throat, beating there. How can they go out with those soldiers? How could the doctor tell how much drug to give a tiny baby, what if he’s killed him?

  The soldiers outside the door come face-to-face. Mechanically they turn on their heels and march apart again. When they are about ten yards away, the girl in charge whispers, “Now. Run!,” and leading the eight-year-old she darts across the quai and down the hatch into the waiting boat. As soundlessly as possible they follow, one by one, lugging their heavy unconscious children. Nina’s heart goes like a hammer as she reaches the deck, the hatch, the gangway, the hold. The rest come piling across and down, quickly, quietly, so frightened…and they’ve done it…they’ve all gotten on board. (How can it be? Could they really have been so quiet?) The soldiers march stolidly, eyes front, never turning, until they reach the ends of the quai. Stamp. Swish—they wheel around and start back. As they march between the warehouse on one side and the boat on the other, Nina puts her lips to the warm head of her baby. Mrs. Katz shifts the small unconscious child from her arms to those of her husband, who sits now with two bodies on his lap, and the eight-yearold pressed beside him. Mrs. Katz takes the tiny one from Nina, then impulsively kisses Nina’s cheek. A few feet away, the marching feet come toward them from two directions. Tramp, tramp tramp, stomp. Stomp. And the feet march away again. The girl in charge touches Nina’s shoulder. Then she’s up and out of the hold, and away. In a flash Nina follows, across the quai and into the warehouse.

  They look at each other in the darkness. Then the girl in charge puts her hands together before her in a position of prayer. Nina matches the gesture and they look into each other’s eyes. Each sees in the other the helplessness, the fear they both feel for the souls now trapped in the little boat. Now they have only prayers with which to help them.

  They wait and watch. Just after dawn, the crew of the boat, four seamen, come up the quai to make ready for the day’s trip out to the Dragør lighthouse. One of them cocks his head toward the warehouse, and the girl with Nina gives him a sign. The men pile lines and gear on top of the hatch over the hold, and when a German soldier arrives to inspect the boat before it sails, they greet him with jokes and offer a “good morning” beer. The soldier drinks, with his foot on the rail, and Nina prays, watching him.

  When the German leaves, the sailors cast off and the boat glides in the morning light out onto the canal that will take them toward the Øresund. When the guards on duty change, Nina and the other girl leave a couple of minutes apart. The Germans pay them no attention.

  At Kaj’s hospital, the wards are full of Jews. So are the chapel, the basement corridors, and the nurses’ quarters. Sunday, students found some forty people, too frightened to stay at home but with nowhere else to go, hiding in Ørsted Park in the rain. (This is terrifying in itself; Ørsted Park is not large and there is not enough cover there for a good game of hide-and-seek.) They had them brought in by ambulance. But the word has spread that the hospitals are safe havens, and now more Jews arrive in groups, throughout each day, carrying flowers as if to visit a patient. For several nights they have been taken in Falck vehicles and taxis to Christianshavn, where there are several different escape routes set up. A girl in a red beret runs a rescue transport out of the North Harbor. Another is the Dragør lighthouse boat. Another has been set up leaving Dragør itself, just to the south, and there are more down the coast sailing from Køge and Strøby and various beaches in Stevns, to Malmö in Sweden.

  But someone has told the Germans about the hospitals, and since last night, Kaj’s is surrounded by Wehrmacht soldiers. The doctors meet in an anxious huddle; they are all in danger now if a search is begun, as they are sure it will be. Someone has an idea. Very early in the morning, before the officials can arrive for the day at Dagmarhus and order Gestapo troops to the hospital, a funeral cortege leaves the grounds. The hearse is packed with Jews, as are the thirty hired cars that follow in stately order. The “mourners” clutch their bunches of flowers and pass unchecked through the line of soldiers. They drive to Lyngby, a northern suburb, where by now there is a group ready to house them and feed them until boats can be found to take them across.

  Several more hospitals use the funeral trick that day and the next. But in Gilleleje, Gestapo Juhl has sealed the harbor. The Jews who have heard of the schooner and come to that village are smuggled out to the countryside to hide in barns and farmyards as Gestapo men arrive to search the town. When the Germans have gone and night falls, the Jews are brought back and hidden again in the church attic and in the parish hall; no one knows what else to do. It’s cold in the attic. Someone delivers soup and meat but it’s so dark they can’t distribute the food or eat it without talking. The pastor comes up to pray with them and bless them, but he is free afterward to go back to his house. When the trapdoor opens again at last, it shows them the thing they fear most. German helmets.

  A Gestapo man, with another right behind him, pushes head and shoulders into the attic space, holding a lantern aloft. The light finds the uneaten food, and the buckets, and the eighty pairs of frightened eyes.

  Gestapo Juhl claims he found the hiding place himself, but in the village it is said that he had help from a Danish woman whose boyfriend is a German. Instead of a schooner to freedom, the captured are loaded into vans and taken to Horserød prison. Within a week they will be on their way to Theresienstadt, in Czechoslovakia.


  It is said that no two children have the same parents. Certainly Eleanor Moss got the best of her mother during the war years, when it was just the two of them and they were young together. It was a beautiful October in New York in 1943. Sydney had a seat put on the back of her bicycle and on weekends would ride with Eleanor all the way up Sixth Avenue to Central Park. They went to the zoo, they went to the carousel, they watched people flying kites on the Sheep Meadow and rowing boats on the lake. It was an idyll.

  On weekday afternoons, if it was warm enough, Sydney would take the baby to Washington Square to the sandbox, or to the charming vest-pocket park at Abingdon Square. There she would chat with the other mothers while babies sat, planted on their bottoms, and did things to sand. She was at the park one afternoon soon after she got back from Cleveland, knitting away while Eleanor slept in her pram, when one of the other mothers passed her a page of the New York Times.

  “Look—your husband is Danish, isn’t he?”

  SCIENTIST REACHES LONDON

  DR . N.H.D. BOHR , DANE , HAS

  A NEW ATOMIC BLAST INVENTION .

  London, October 8 (AP)—Dr. Niels H. D. Bohr, refugee Danish scientist and Nobel Prize winner for atomic research, reached London from Sweden today bearing what a Dane in Stockholm said were plans for a new invention involving atomic explosions.

  “I wonder if Laurus knows him,” Sydney said. “I bet he does, he’s a musician. He’s met everyone. And, I mean, it’s a small country.”

  In point of fact, Laurus was the person from SOE detailed to greet Bohr at Croydon Airport and install him at the Savoy Hotel. He escorted him to his meetings with King Haakon of Norway, and with Christmas Møller. But in his letters home, Laurus wrote only of his health, of performances, of his hopes for them all for after the war. He liked keeping Sydney as innocent of the war as he could. It was good, he thought, that someone be innocent.