“Wool for your mama,” Mrs. Oberon said with a full gummy smile, thrusting out the parcel. “I would take it myself, but I have stew boiling on the stove.”
Hannah took it and and bent down to hug the woman. “Thank you, Mrs. Oberon. You shouldn’t have. She’ll be so grateful.”
Oma shook off the thanks with a flick of her hand. “Clara has done so much for me over the years, especially when my husband died. It’s the least I could do. Besides, I had to wait in line anyway.”
She kissed Hannah warmly on both cheeks. As Hannah moved off down the road, Oma shouted after her, “Give her my love.”
Hannah waved back her response.
As she stood waiting to cross the street, a truck pulled in front of her and came to an abrupt stop in traffic. Sooty, angry smoke and the putrid smell of gasoline fumes caused Hannah to take a step back as the idling truck rocked in front of her. It was German. Heaped in the back were piles of bicycles.
Hannah sighed as she thought of the waste. The metal and rubber were apparently needed for the war effort, but everyone knew it was just another ruse the Germans were using to suppress them and take away every aspect of their independence and freedom.
As the truck pulled away, something flew off the back and clattered to the ground. It was a pedal that had worked itself loose from an overhanging bicycle. Instinctively, Hannah reached down and picked it up. She slipped it into her pocket and continued down the street to her door.
Walking up the path, she admired the indomitable boldness of crocuses springing up either side, fighting their way up through the frozen earth. Beside her door, a red-and-blue painted milk jug had been turned into a home for a nest of daffodils.
She placed the key in the lock, and her cheery, warm home was a welcoming sight to her as she stepped inside. Her paneled hallway was painted a soft, muted lemon, and hand-painted blue plates were displayed with honor on high shelves. As she closed the door behind her, the mahogany grandfather clock that dominated the hallway pounded the five o’clock hour in deep dulcet tones, wrapping its familiar arms around her to welcome her home.
From the sitting room, a strained, older voice called out to her, “Hello, dear.”
Hannah took off her coat and hung it on a wooden peg. “Hello, Mama,” she sang back.
She found her mother in her usual chair in the sitting room, bent over her latest knitting project. Her hair, like fluffy cotton wool, framed her wrinkled face, which broke into a broad smile, not unlike her daughter’s. She looked up to her with pensive eyes reflecting the same shade of blue.
“Still so cold,” she said, shaking her head.
“Yes, it is.” Hannah nodded as she picked up the thick woollen shawl that had slipped to the floor and placed it around her mother’s shoulders. Then she added wood to their fire.
“Did you get anything new today?” asked Clara, spotting the package Hannah had temporarily laid at her feet while she fixed the fire.
“Yes, I have something for you from Mrs. Oberon.”
Clara dropped her knitting needles to her lap and her eyes danced with anticipation. Hannah loved to see her mama so excited.
“Well,” said Clara, impatiently, “do I get to see it?”
Hannah moved across the room and dropped the wrapped bundle into Clara’s upstretched arms. Even though they were twisted with arthritis, her mother’s hands still managed, somehow, to undo the package in record time. Then she clasped them together with joy.
“Green. Perfect. It will do so well for a new hat for Pieter, if I can get that scoundrel to keep a hat on!”
Hannah looked down at the soft skeins of forest-colored wool as Clara’s artful fingers smoothed them out on her lap. “Mama,” she laughed, “are there any Dutch children left in Holland who aren’t wearing one of your creations?”
Clara chuckled to herself and returned to her discarded project. “It’s my own personal act of resistance,” she confessed. “I plan to keep all the young boys in Holland warm even if I can’t keep them safe.”
Hannah shook her head and moved to the kitchen to place the kettle on the stove. As she returned to the sitting room, she noticed her mother’s hands gripping the chair arms.
“I need to stand, I’m getting stiff,” she announced, shooing away her daughter’s attempts to help her as she slowly pulled herself up. Her body took a few moments to uncurl, and she hobbled her first few steps. Then she straightened and walked stiffly on her cane toward the window. “How was the university, dear?”
Hannah was pensive; she wondered how much to tell her mother. She settled on, “More of the same. Fewer students, more rules.”
As Clara tugged at the curtains, she looked out into the twilight and became thoughtful. “It’s hard for anyone to breathe in all of that, so much sadness in the air. Sometimes I’m glad I’m housebound. I’m not sure I could take it. I’m sure if I ever get out I’d be locked up in a cell the very first day for selling secrets to the British or knocking down one of those German soldiers with my cane.”
Hannah smiled as she moved about the room, straightening things. “You would be Amsterdam’s greatest secret weapon for sure, Mama. Who would expect a white-haired knitter of espionage? I don’t doubt you’d take out the whole German Army single-handedly if you had the chance.”
Clara agreed by waving her cane in the air. She made her way to the other curtain and steadily pulled it closed.
Hannah removed the kettle from the boil and steeped tea, then unwrapped a thin sliver of meat from brown paper and added dark bread and fruit, for their dinner. After they finished eating by the fire, Hannah went into the hallway to retrieve the Underground newspaper Het Parool from her satchel, which one of the teachers had given her at work so Clara could read it. As she fished in her coat pocket for a pen, in case her mother wanted to circle articles for Hannah to read later, she found the pedal she’d slipped in there. Picking it up had been instinctive, like taking something back from the Germans, something that belonged to them. But now as she looked at it, a thought struck her.
“I’m just going out to Poppa’s shed,” she shouted over her shoulder after she’d delivered the newspaper to her mother’s eager hand. Clara now hunched even closer to the fire, nodded as she started to scan the headlines.
Pulling on a coat, Hannah went through her back door and down a narrow stone path to the bottom of their tiny garden. It was unusual for Dutch homes to have back gardens, but their house edged onto a small area of woodland and her father had negotiated a deal for a tiny lot when he’d bought it. Opening the two large wooden doors to her father’s workshop, she was transported back in time. The smell of oil and dust greeted her as it had ever since she was a little girl. Reaching up, she pulled on a light just inside the door. A single light bulb swung back and forth, clanging against its own metal chain as it illuminated the whole room. A wayward moth flew inside, drawn toward the light, and its wings brushed against the bulb, creating a crisp, ruffling sound. She looked around, breathing in deeply, allowing the memories that cradled her to fill her with the awe she always felt every time she walked inside. Her father’s presence, large and looming, still felt as if it occupied all this space. She looked down at her hands then opened her fingers one at a time to offer up the pedal to the room itself.
She was surprised to feel tears run down her cheeks. The time they were in right now, this war, could do that to her with memories of her late husband and her father. It was like her feelings were always just beneath the surface.
She closed her eyes and imagined her father’s large bear-like hand reaching forward and taking the pedal from her, his thick dark eyebrows knotting as he peered over his reading glasses to see what she’d given him. His deep rolling voice would say, “What do you have here for me, Hannah Bear?” Carefully he would have rolled it around in his considerable hand, inspecting it as if she’d brought him a treasure from a far-off place. Then, no matter how insignificant the gift, he would have placed both his hands around hers, s
aying, “Thank you, darling.”
Hannah swept away the tears and made her way farther into the shed, to the workbench that had been left just the same as when he had died. She placed the pedal on the desk next to the last project he’d ever worked on, a tricycle for one of the children down the street.
As she walked around surveying all the workshop had to offer, she shivered and pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders. Her father had been a bicycle enthusiast. There were chains and deflated, flabby inner tubes hanging on the walls, spoked wheels and discarded leather seats stacked in one corner. Yellowing posters of bicycle events and advertisements covered every available wall. Rickety, dark-green shelves overflowed with cans of paint, lubricating oils, and saddle glue.
As she continued to circle the room, she became transfixed by a bright-colored poster of a heavily-mustached man in knickerbockers and a bowler hat balanced precariously astride an elegant penny-farthing bicycle. As she read the words—Just what he needs!—under the advertisement, she was struck with an idea, the thrill of it taking hold of her all at once.
She moved over to her father’s dusty, but ordered, bookshelves and looked for the book she wanted. Smiling to herself, she pulled it down from the shelf, rubbing the dusty cover with satisfaction. Turning on her heels, she left the shed and turned out the light. Maybe there was something she could do with all this sadness.
Chapter 4
Held left his house the next day, on Saturday morning, locked the door, and made his way to the centre of Amsterdam. Every weekend, he met his niece, Ingrid, for lunch. The only daughter of his late brother, Marcus, he felt he owed it to him to be involved in Ingrid’s life. She had been through so many hardships. Losing both parents to influenza at a young age had been a devastating blow for her. She’d been sent by her mother’s well-meaning relatives to well-chosen schools, only to be told she wasn’t quite the right fit when she habitually didn’t complete her studies, having no care for her education in the least. She had struggled to make friends and to find her place in the world all through her turbulent childhood. Now in her twenties, all of that rejection had built up inside her and left a harsh, toughened exterior. But Josef still had a hope that one day she would soften into a sweeter person, more like his dear, mild-mannered brother.
His walk through Jodenbuurt revealed that the line for the bakery was long this morning. Downcast women huddled, wearing tightly wrapped headscarves and shawls, and clinging to empty shopping baskets as they talked in hushed, solemn tones. He turned the corner and walked past a blackened building that used to house the kosher butcher. The shop was boarded up after it had been abandoned and then set on fire. Newly splashed across the wooden front in black paint was the word “Juden.” Held sighed. He missed the jolly butcher, Mr. Wolff. He’d been a large, happy man with a buxom wife and two lovely daughters. He would whistle while he separated generous beef shanks from their bones before carving them expertly with long, sharp blades, and entertain his customers with one more re-telling of his latest joke while he filled his immense scales with chunks of red flesh.
Held wondered where Wolff and his family were now. He tried not to think the worst or to believe the rumors. He preferred to believe the pleasant man was telling his jokes to a new crowd, in a safe place called Manhattan or maybe Cincinnati.
Turning into Amstelstraat toward Café Schiller, he noticed that the grubby piles of ice along the roadways were finally starting to melt. The weather must have climbed a few degrees higher. Though as he blew out thick, icy breath, the chill that set hard in his cheeks seemed to disagree.
When he arrived at the blue-and-white awning of the café, he looked through the window. Ingrid was already inside, with a cigarette held high in one hand, one leg crossed seductively over the other, which allowed her skirt to ride up more than was necessary. She sat posed at a table, thick blonde hair in a fashionable wave. Her overly made-up face made her stand out among the rest of the bleak, miserable clientele.
When he entered, she jumped up to meet him and kissed him on his cheek. “Uncle Josef!” She then flashed her eyes at two young German soldiers who had arrived behind him.
Held automatically pulled a clean handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket to wipe away the red lipstick mark he knew would be there.
They sat, and she dived straight into a conversation about her life and the new job she had just got. Changing jobs was not unusual for Ingrid, who never settled and somehow seemed to upset people wherever she went. Held listened as a dreary-looking woman brought him a glass of water and his usual sandwich.
As she trilled on, Ingrid’s enthusiasm about her latest job was unmistakable. “I have my own office and everyone, especially Major Heinrich von Strauss, has been so nice to me.”
Held, who had only been half-listening until that moment, stopped eating. When she took a second to draw from her cigarette, he broached his worst fear. “Ingrid, are you working for… them?”
She blew out a blue plume, responding indignantly, “Oh for heaven’s sake. There’s no ‘us’ and ‘them’ anymore. And don’t tell me you’ve been listening to all the rumors and gossip. You are a professor, and I thought you’d have more sense. These are just ordinary people. Besides, they like the Dutch, and we’re just like them.”
The two German soldiers who had seated themselves close by laughed loudly, and Held shifted in his chair. Ingrid glanced across at them and flashed a bright smile.
He took a minute to steady himself. He looked out the window and observed a young family with heads downcast, who he pondered may well be Jewish, were obviously trying to not draw attention as they made their slow amble down the street. What would Marcus tell his daughter if he were still alive? Held knew she had a strong will and could be very stubborn. If he wasn’t careful, he could push her in the wrong direction if he attempted to control her. Closing his eyes, the voice of the screaming Jewish woman from the day before came back to haunt him. No, he had to say something. Lowering his tone and looking directly at her, he nodded toward the young family.
“How can you condone this?”
She batted away smoke from her face. “Uncle Josef! It’s all going to be all right! I’m thinking of joining the party myself. If we all just do what they want, everything will be fine. Heinrich told me so.”
Held continued with concern, knowing how gullible his niece could be. “Jewish students are unable to go to school.”
Ingrid became defensive. “Heinrich says they have their own separate schools.”
Held was mute.
Ingrid took a sip of her own tea and pouted. They sat for a long moment. Then to break the awkward silence between them, she added, “We have nothing to worry about. You have nothing to worry about. You are not,” she lowered her voice, “one of them.”
Held tried to understand. “I’m not one of them?”
Ingrid’s tone became tiresome; she continued as if talking to a small child. “Our heritage is clean! We are pure! We are not vermin.”
Held could hardly believe what he was hearing, and his concern shifted to anger. “Vermin? People like my neighbor… a kind woman… a piano teacher… Why would anyone think someone like her was vermin?”
Ingrid crushed her cigarette into a battered metal ashtray and automatically lit another one as she became interested. “She is Jewish? And still living in your neighborhood? Has she registered? She could go to prison or worse if she hasn’t.”
Held felt his anger move suddenly to fear. As he lifted the glass of water to his lips, his hand trembled slightly. He allowed himself a second to answer, watching a wayward fly land between them on the table and start to rub its back legs together. He added, quietly, “She teaches music to local children. She has an illness that means she is afraid to leave her home, afraid of the outside world.”
Ingrid screwed up her eyes in thought. “Still, she should have been moved by now.”
Held desperately wanted to change the subject. “I don’t know anything about tha
t.”
Ingrid took on a condescending air. “Well, why would you?” she bristled. Then, catching the attention of the German soldiers, she blew smoke in their direction and one winked at her in return.
Held pushed his uneaten plate of food away in quiet disgust. He suddenly felt sick and hot, as if the walls of the café were closing in on him. He should say something more about Mrs. Epstein, but he didn’t know what. He could tell Ingrid that he had made a mistake, but he was a terrible liar, and she would surely know. Besides, that would bring more attention to their conversation. He looked at her warily; she was preoccupied, flirting with the soldiers. She was flighty and would probably forget what they had spoken of. Besides, he was sure Ingrid wouldn’t say anything to anyone. She wasn’t callous after all. She was Dutch, like they all were. Naïve, perhaps but not cruel.
He stood up. “I must go.”
Ingrid seemed relieved and smiled in a placating kind of a way. “Oh, Uncle Josef! I wish you’d found someone to take care of you since Aunt Sarah died. Remember, just keep your head down, as you always do, and stay cheerful. I think if you give it a chance, you’ll like the new Amsterdam.”
Held placed money on the table. The continued searing heat coursing through his veins made his overcoat unusually heavy as he pulled it on and his mouth bone dry.
Ingrid jumped up and kissed him on the cheek, apparently leaving another bright red lipstick mark because she giggled at her handiwork. “I better wash that off, or someone might think you have a girlfriend!” She took a napkin, licked it, and scrubbed his cheek to his significant discomfort, but Held stood there somberly, reeling from the conversation and utterly demoralized.
A View Across the Rooftops: An epic, heart-wrenching and gripping World War Two historical novel Page 3