A View Across the Rooftops: An epic, heart-wrenching and gripping World War Two historical novel
Page 1
A View Across the Rooftops
An epic, heart-wrenching and gripping World War Two historical novel
Suzanne Kelman
Contents
Prologue
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Part II
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Part III
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Hear More from Suzanne
A Letter from Suzanne
The Story Behind A View Across the Rooftops
Acknowledgements
Research
Dedicated to all the unsung heroes of Holland, who risked their lives during World War Two by hiding 30,000 Jewish people, the onderduikers, in their barns, attics, and basements. We may never know your names, but the legacy of your bravery will live on forever.
I looked out of the open window, over a large area of Amsterdam, over all the roofs and on to the horizon, which was such a pale blue that it was hard to see the dividing line. As long as this exists, I thought, and I may live to see it, this sunshine, these cloudless skies, while this lasts I cannot be unhappy.
—Anne Frank
Prologue
Holland, April 1921
Elegant white clouds floated in a perfect blue sky, casting shadows over fields of scarlet and gold tulips. A rippling wind moved through the fields, the only thing daring to intrude on perfect stillness. Its fearlessness caused the flowers to bob and weave like maids in a row. In the distance, along a well-worn path, an ancient windmill stood solemnly guarding the field. It towered above its budding subjects, its brown clapboard walls strong but worn, peeling and relentless against the passage of time. The red sails, now faded to time-worn pink, caught the wind and groaned a rhythmic chant as they creaked and toiled.
Bounding toward the windmill, a new bride ran ahead in playful chase away from her bridegroom through the rows of nodding tulips. Sarah, barely twenty-two, was already dressed for her honeymoon. A simple cream-colored cotton dress hung loosely from her delicate shoulders. Cream sandals emphasized her shapely ankles and her long legs, kissed generously by the early spring sun as she sprinted ahead of her husband.
Just a few short hours since exchanging vows, much of Sarah’s wedding finery had already been carefully packed away in sheets of soft, white tissue paper. The satin shoes that buckled at the ankle, along with her dropped-waist, calf-length, silk dress, had been reverently tucked and folded by elderly female relatives and young unmarried friends. It was all nestled now in her mahogany chest, ready to delight the expected stream of family brides ahead of her.
Everything put away except the one thing she couldn’t yet bear to surrender. Apart from the gold wedding band on her left hand, the only thing distinguishing her as a newly married woman streamed out behind her, waltzing on the wind—an antique lace veil, trimmed by her grandmother’s aged and gnarled fingers, the exquisite fabric a bouquet of intricate daisy-chain stitches and miniature cream pearls.
As she ran along the colorful path, the wind picked up, a foil in the young couple’s romp. All at once, a mischievous gust bridled her, tugging at the train and twisting it into a carefree, corkscrewed spiral that danced up into the sky. Josef caught up, through the lines of flowery guards, and leaped out in front of her. He was dressed in pleated linen trousers, and a blue linen shirt rolled to the elbows, exposing long, athletic forearms. His body was willowy but strong, and a shock of raven hair framed a face with piercing, expectant blue eyes.
He reached out, grabbing her around the waist, and pulled her toward him, playfully pinning her arms behind her back to gather her even closer. Her hot breath came in sharp, short gasps that warmed his cheek.
“Finally,” he said triumphantly.
Sarah responded by giggling and trying to wriggle free as Josef attempted to unpin her veil. “I’m not giving it up, Josef. I plan on wearing it through the whole of my first year of marriage!”
Josef’s eyes widened in amusement. “My mother would be horrified, since she already has plans to use it to trim our children’s baptismal gowns.”
“Children?” Sarah echoed. “We’ve only been married for four hours.”
“Well, then,” he said, in a decisive tone. “There is no time to lose!” Releasing her hand, he cupped her face, kissing her eyes, lips, and neck as she giggled in an attempt to squirm away from his advances.
“Not my neck, Josef. You know what that does to me.”
Flashing her an all-knowing smile, he wrapped his arms around her, his mouth finding hers in a passionate kiss. In the distance, a voice called for them.
Sarah grabbed Josef by his shirt collars and pulled him down into a dip among the tulips as the long veil, whipped up by the wind, entwined the pair of them.
“Shhh,” she whispered. “If we stay still and out of sight, Mama will not find us.”
“I’m not complaining,” Josef whispered, pulling down the billowing fabric that had encircled his face. He adjusted their position, laying an arm beneath her to protect her head from the stony earth.
They lay facing one another, waiting wordlessly for the footsteps to fade, their breath slowing into a unified rhythm. Deep in the heart of the field, the scent from the tulips was intoxicating. Sarah rose on one elbow and looked down at Josef with thoughtful eyes.
“I loved your father’s gift,” she whispered.
Josef shook his head and smiled. “My father is a romantic and always has been. He puts all his faith in the power of words of love.” Josef rolled onto his back and interlinked his hands behind his head, looking up toward the wispy clouds. “I can’t believe he read poems at our wedding. When I’m a mathematician! What do I need with such things? I think he holds out hope that one day, somehow, his precious poetry will find room in my heart. Even now at the age of twenty-eight.”
Sarah pressed her lips together and thrust out her chin. “How can you say that? What is life without art, music, or poetry? It helps us know how to feel, love, and live!” S
he rolled onto her back and focused on a cloud that looked like a cantering pony. Coyly, she added, “I started to fall a little bit in love with your father as I watched him reciting. The way he looked at your mother showed all the love they’d shared for so long.”
A look of real surprise crossed Josef’s face.
Sarah continued, sighing, “I’m not sure how long our love will last if you don’t know how to keep love alive like that. I can’t see mathematical equations making me feel quite the same way.”
Rolling toward her, he brushed aside an auburn curl from her heart-shaped face. “What do you mean? Mathematics can be beautiful. Euler’s Identity is said to be the most beautiful equation in the world.” He continued with intense romantic emphasis, “eiπ + 1 = 0.”
Sarah closed her eyes and wrinkled up her nose as she shook her head, flicking her copper curls to flash her displeasure.
He pulled her in close again and whispered into her ear, “How shall I keep my soul from touching yours? How shall I lift it out beyond you toward other things?”
Opening her eyes fully, Sarah broke into a broad smile as he continued to recite the poem “Love Song” by the contemporary poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. She showed her appreciation by covering his face with tiny birdlike kisses and then slowly unbuttoning his shirt.
He continued to whisper the words of the poem as he nuzzled her neck and caressed her body.
“All right,” she whispered, “you can have the veil. What shall we call our son?”
He looked deep into her eyes before answering. “Sarah.” He smiled assuredly. “It will be a daughter and we will call her Sarah.”
She started to protest before he silenced her by covering her mouth with a lingering kiss. As their lovemaking fell into a gentle rhythm, all that could be heard was the soft creaking of the windmill as its sails lifted toward the darkening sunset sky.
Part I
Chapter 1
His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, “The Panther”
Amsterdam, February 1941
Relentless, biting snow fell in icy sheets upon the war-torn streets of occupied Holland, forging heaps of gritty gray slush, suffocating a town already stripped of its humanity. The steely mounds of snow were pockmarked by ugly splatters accumulated from a week of frigid temperatures, dirty roads, and ricocheting stones splayed by hapless drivers. Gray snow on gray streets smothered by a bilious sky of the same dispiriting color. To the Dutch, this bleak weather reflected a world that felt the same.
Down a dark residential street came the hollow echo of hobnailed boots, the now-familiar sound of a column of marching Nazis. As the feet pounded the roadway, the cadence grew ominous in its rhythmical element, each hammered step casting forth a web of piercing foreboding, like a pound of steel nails shaken aggressively in a tin box. In the nine months of occupation, the Third Reich had already proven itself an evil beast not to be trifled with, a bloodthirsty jackal, primed and alert, ready to take down and devour whatever stood between it and conquering for the Führer.
Amsterdam, once lively and carefree, with an opulent brilliance, the apple of the Netherlands’ eye, had high hopes of defeating the invading forces, but instead, as the rest of Holland, fell to German Blitzkrieg in just four days. Its heart now stood wrenched open and forever wounded. Its previously unblemished optimism, not unlike the heaps of ice on the ground, forever tarnished, pebble-dashed and smothered by the dark forces of evil that had also arrived in gray.
As the sound became deafening on the quiet city street, behind locked doors and shuttered windows, fearful faces froze, eyes closed in silent prayer. Chilled souls hoping that their one defiant act of un-parted curtains would signal their united scream of resistance, allowing them to hang onto the last strands of their civility. The footfalls faded, but the fear lingered much longer than the echoes. Only once there was total silence did they allow themselves the luxury to breathe and return to the business of surviving. Thanking God once again—not this street, not this day.
Across town, a ticking clock matched the rhythm of the marching feet. Professor Josef Held stared at its white face and sharp, black hands, unaware of the dangerous rhythm it marked time with. The clock hung high on a wall, watching over a large classroom filled with rows of students. A high ceiling held aloft by ornate limestone cornices gave way on one side to dusty but ordered bookcases, and on the other to an elegant bank of windows.
Professor Held worked wordlessly, grading papers at his desk. An awkward middle-aged man of forty-seven, seemingly uncomfortable in his own skin, he rarely looked up. When he did, a ghost of handsomeness lingered about him. It seeped out through his perfect blue eyes and striking black hair, only beginning to gray at the temples. And even though he had spent his life bent over this one desk, somehow his body managed to retain a semblance of youthful tautness more suited to a retired athlete than an unassuming mathematics professor.
In his classroom, the regime of marching soldiers seemed far away as diligent students set their minds to work, with shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows and heads bent over heavy oak desks. Other than the ticking of the clock, there was nothing to hear except the occasional hushed cough or a busy pencil scratching dry paper. The room seemed timeless, and the hours endless. As the hands of the clock finally met at the midday hour, a weak sun fought its way through the hopeless slate sky and grazed the high windows.
Held exchanged one math paper for another, and stopped. Upon the sheet in front of him there was no math, no answers to the numbered problems. Instead the page was covered with a poem, “Panther,” written by Rilke, his late wife’s favourite poet. Shaking his head, he sighed, exasperated, not wanting to think about Sarah today. He took off the silver-rimmed glasses that were a well-chosen prop for a man who wanted to buffer himself from the outside world. Gently he placed them on the desk and rubbed his eyes before replacing them, one loop of hooked wire at a time, back on his face. He looked at the clock and cleared his throat. “Class dismissed. Mr. Blum, I need a moment of your time.”
University students quietly filed out the door, escaping the stifled silence of the room. One student, Elke Dirksen, her lovely eyes filled with concern, lingered in the doorway as she watched Michael Blum stride toward the front. With his good looks, Michael seemed like the best of what youth could offer. Twenty-two years old, vibrant, and with a restless charisma. Michael’s eyes sparkled with defiant humor as he winked at Elke in the corridor.
Professor Held waited at his desk for the classroom to empty while he stacked his papers into an orderly pile. As the room grew silent and the door closed, he pulled Michael’s paper to the top. He spoke directly to him without looking up. “You are aware, Mr. Blum, that this is an advanced mathematics course.”
Michael laughed.
After many years of teaching, Held was unaffected by insolence. “This is not the first time we have had this discussion. You have written on your assignment again rather than solving the formula as requested.”
Michael balked. “What? You don’t like Rilke?”
Professor Held continued, “That has nothing to do with it. Poetry belongs in books, not on mathematics papers.”
A sharp intake of breath from Michael lasted a split second before it dissolved into a tone of controlled bitterness that brimmed just under his words. “It’s no longer so easy for me to just buy… books. Do you even know who he is?”
For the first time, the older man looked up. “I beg your pardon?”
Michael became animated, enthusiastic even. “Rainer Maria Rilke. The poet? He is considered one of the most romantic—”
Professor Held tried to stop Michael short with a raised hand.
Michael’s face registered angry frustration. Then he continued, “Look, none of this matters anyway, because t
oday is my last day.”
Professor Held lowered his eyes and dragged a new pile of papers toward himself. As he did, he pushed Michael’s paper across his orderly desk. “Please complete the assignment.”
Michael shook his head. “Today. Is. My. Last. Day. I am not going to sit here waiting for them to come after me. And I will not be forced into the Arbeitseinsatz.”
Held looked up briefly. So many of the young men were being forced into working in German factories; resisting could be dangerous. He wanted to say as much, but instead he retreated back behind the safety of his wall.
“Still, you need to complete this assignment.”
Michael snatched up the paper. As he leaned forward, a flyer fell out of his satchel onto the desk. The corner was torn off. Michael had obviously ripped it down, probably in anger. It was instructions ordering all the Jewish people to register. Both men stared at it and froze. The ticking clock and muffled sounds in the hallway filled the deafening space between them. Held realized all at once that Michael was Jewish, and he felt helpless, wordless. Wanted to take back his severe manner, but before he could say anything, Michael picked up the math paper and slowly and defiantly crumpled it into a ball and dropped it on the professor’s desk.