A View Across the Rooftops: An epic, heart-wrenching and gripping World War Two historical novel

by Suzanne Kelman

  “I refuse to be intimidated,” she said tenaciously, combing her hand through her silky black curls. “It’s bad enough being Dutch without having to stoop to their level. I’m not going to hide in the shadows. One day we will have destroyed the Resistance, and then we’ll do and say whatever we want.”

  They walked back to the office arm-in-arm, and for the first time in a long time, Ingrid had a friend, someone she could talk to, and that felt really good.

  Chapter 27

  Watching her mother with concern, Hannah dried teacups with a tea towel in the kitchen. Clara had that faraway look again. Outwardly, she continued to function—knitting, reading, working on a jigsaw puzzle—but ever since Eva had been taken from Amsterdam, her mother had emotional lapses and would stop and stare out into space for hours, the intense pain and acute loss on her face. It was as if, as well as losing Eva, she had surrendered her hope, just given up, and little by little, moment by moment, Hannah was losing her mother.

  As Hannah stared blankly out into the waning afternoon light, her thoughts again on the crushing loss in September the year before, and it was as if her heart remembered the sheer weight of the pain.

  Hannah could remember that day like it was yesterday.

  When she’d seen Mrs. Oberon’s frantic face at the university welcome desk, it had been shocking. The older lady had never come to the university, never been to visit her there before, and Hannah knew that something was terribly wrong.

  In fright, her hand had jumped to her throat, and she had managed only one word, the thing she feared the most. “Mamma?”

  Mrs. Oberon shook her head. “Eva and her mother,” she responded in a breathless rasp.

  All at once Hannah had felt relieved about Clara, but grief-stricken for her friends.

  “I went to your house, but you weren’t there,” Mrs. Oberon panted, wringing her hands together. “They have come for their family. All of them. They’re taking all of the Jewish people from the ghetto. There will not be one of them left.”

  Dashing straight out of the university doors without even telling anyone where she was going, Hannah left, heading for the city with Mrs. Oberon wobbling behind her. She had to save her friends. She had raced through the streets of Amsterdam, her heart almost pounding out of her chest as she sucked hot, sticky air in and out of her lungs, her throat burning as she tried desperately to gasp for breath. No matter how she felt, she knew she couldn’t stop. Must keep going, time was of the essence. Needed to know they were safe, needed to know it wasn’t true.

  Hannah’s fear was heightened when she saw no guards on the gates into Jodenbuurt and she was able to slip in easily. She arrived at Eva’s home, a place she hadn’t visited since the section had been fenced off from the rest of Amsterdam. Shaking with fatigue as she grappled with the front gate, sweat poured down her face and her neck and ran between her breasts. Clinging to the gatepost, her trembling hand fumbled to operate the catch. Finally forcing it, she bounded up the pathway and banged on the front door. There was no reply, no sound. Just a deathly silence.

  She knocked again, harder, and the door swung open with the force of her blows. Stepping inside, Hannah called out, but her voice returned as a hollow, futile echo bouncing off the walls.

  The silence was startling. Gone was the usual happy hubbub of a house full of children or the sound of Greta at her sewing machine or dirty dishes clattering in the sink. All the cheerful sounds of homemaking that had always greeted Hannah at this door before the war.

  As she rushed from room to room, she assured herself they would be hiding. They had to be hiding. She had a sudden idea, one she had thought of before but hadn’t had a chance to share with her friends. She would find them and take them home with her, the whole family. Maybe they could live in the workshop. Yes, she thought, suddenly optimistic, they could hide in her poppa’s shed and she would find a way to get them out, just like she’d found a way to get the airman out.

  She felt a sense of optimism as she desperately searched, calling their names. “Eva. Eva. Greta. Willem. Eva.”

  But the rooms were silent.

  Her heart sank. In her frantic haste to find them, she had not seen the obvious. Beds were unmade, toys were thrown about, and clothes were strewn on the floor. Greta was always meticulous. Something awful had happened.

  Downstairs, the kettle rattled on the stove, boiling dry, and a chill gripped her again. She turned off the stove and stared out the window as tears brimmed.

  Mrs. Oberon was right. They had been taken.

  She raced back out of the house, down the street, stopping people to frantically ask them if they’d seen Eva’s family. But everyone she met appeared to be in profound shock. They just sobbed and cried and shook their heads.

  Finally, one elderly man grabbed Hannah’s arm and pointed to the corner of the street. “They are all down there. They’re taking them, now.”

  She hastened down the road but was stopped halfway down as she saw her mother hobbling uncomfortably in front of her. She cried out, “Mama, what are you doing?”

  The grim determination was evident on Clara’s face. “I’m going to get Eva,” she snapped through stilted breath. “I’m going to get Eva and Greta and their family.” She winced with every step, limping so hard on her right hip, her breathing ragged and labored.

  “How did you get here?” Hannah asked incredulously. Her mother hadn’t left the house in ten years. “Mama, you have to stop. You’ll be ill.”

  “I must get Eva,” she growled through gritted teeth.

  Hannah took hold of her mother by the shoulders. “Please, Mama, wait here. I will get her. You wait here.”

  Clara ground to a halt. All the fight left her face, and she nodded as she leaned heavily against a brick wall.

  Hannah continued running to the end of the road, and as she turned the corner, she saw them. Hordes of people lined up, cases in pale white hands, bags slung across their backs, wrapped like scared mice in thick knit shawls, warm overcoats, and heavy shoes, even though it was only September. German trucks lined the road, hostile soldiers accompanying them and shouting angry orders as they forced families into the vehicles. Hannah pushed her way through the heaving crowd, looking frantically at the faces.

  “Herzenbergs? Has anyone seen the Herzenbergs? Herzenbergs! Has anyone seen the Herzenbergs?”

  People numb and dispirited looked up at her blankly, not even understanding what she was saying. Lines of startled-looking men hanging onto their wives, young women gripping bundles of clothes, sobbing, frightened children clinging to their dolls.

  Hannah continued to push her way through the throng until, suddenly, she spotted Eva, her silky, black braids hanging long down her back, shining in the sunshine as a soldier lifted her roughly onto a truck.

  Hannah screamed out, “Eva! Eva!” But the noise of the clamoring crowds and the revving trucks caused her voice to stop stagnant in the air, impotent and silenced.

  Summoning up all of her strength, she raced to the vehicle and called again. Eva turned, her wild brown eyes afraid and full, pale white face scanning the crowd, looking for the source of the voice. Pushing with all her might, Hannah reached the front of the masses and caught hold of the corner of Eva’s coat.

  Eva turned and saw her and burst into tears. “Hannah! Hannah! Help us, Hannah! Please help us! They are taking us away!”

  By Eva’s side, Greta’s frantic face gazed back as she clung onto her toddler. Locked around her waist, her other son clasped on desperately. Through his mother’s skirts, he peered at Hannah, quiet and somber, wearing the little woolen hat his sister had knitted, his gray coat buttoned haphazardly.

  Suddenly, Hannah was yanked backwards and her hand was ripped away from her young friend.

  Inches from her face was a German, angry words spat at her. “Get back! Get back there! Do not touch anyone in the truck.”

  Hannah spluttered in German to him. “These are my friends. What are you doing? These are chil
dren. Where are they going?”

  But the soldier ignored her and shoved her hard in the chest. “Move back now! Move back!” He was blind and deaf to her pleas. A Nazi robot, conditioned to do his superiors’ bidding, insensitive to the cries of anguish all around him.

  In desperation, Hannah looked at Eva again, saw the tears streaming down her young friend’s face. Suddenly a steady hand was upon Hannah’s shoulder. It was her mother. She had managed to limp the rest of the way, her breath coming in thick, heavy spurts.

  Through the crazed, manic energy, she boomed out to Eva in a calm, reassuring tone, “You be strong for us, Eva. Do not forget who you are and what you are. We will not forget you. I will keep your knitting until you come back. You will be back soon. Do you understand me? You need to be the strong one for your family. You need to support your momma.”

  Hannah took hold of her mother’s arm and tried to absorb some of her strength.

  Eva’s face took on a new boldness. “I will! I will take care of my momma, and I will find wool and knit wherever I am.”

  “That’s a good girl, Eva,” encouraged Clara. “Keep yourself busy, that’s a good girl. We will keep you in our hearts and prayers until we see you again.”

  The back of the truck was slammed shut and the engine came to life, and as it lurched forward, Eva was thrown down into her seat. Suddenly, her porcelain cheeks were alight as she jumped back up to her feet.

  “My music box!” she cried out on the air.

  “It will be here,” Clara shouted back over the growl of the angry engine. “When you get back. We will keep it for you, as I promised.”

  The young girl nodded. Through a face of dirt-smeared tears, she smiled and waved. “I will see you both soon,” she said, trying to sound brave. And then, in a plume of rancid, choking blue smoke, she was gone.

  Hannah and Clara stood gripping one another, staring down the street for a long time after the truck had gone, both of them unable to move. They stood there until Mrs. Oberon appeared by their side, puffing and panting. Gently, Mrs. Oberon took Clara’s other arm, and between the three of them, they made their way back to their houses, quietly sobbing their way home.

  Back at the kitchen window, leaving the memory behind, tears sprang to Hannah’s eyes as she once again remembered that long journey home. There was no doubt that the cost had been significant. It had been heartbreaking for all of them, and their town felt decimated. But for Clara, at her age, it was overwhelming, just too much to bear. It had settled deep into her bones, forcing open a gaping void in her heart that Hannah was unable to traverse.

  Hannah had gone back to Greta’s house the day after they had been taken. With Greta’s entire family being Jewish, there was no one left in Amsterdam to take care of the family’s belongings. Reverently, she’d folded and tucked away precious possessions: well-read children’s books, beloved threadbare stuffed animals, Eva’s favorite sweater, Greta’s wedding photographs. She’d made beds, tidied rooms, and swept the entire house; it had been therapeutic. It had to be perfect, just the way Greta liked it, clean and ready for when she brought her young family home again.

  They would return, Hannah had decided, because the alternative was just too hard to bear. Lovingly packing everything into boxes, she had brought their memories home and stored them in her workshop.

  Within days, the Nazis were proud to announce the Jewish ‘problem’ had been solved. Their pomp purposefully deaf to the cries of the eerie neighborhood streets that ached with the desolation. Joyous to be rid of their vermin, they had stripped then boarded up whole neighborhoods. Gratified to have extinguished the light of so many lives. Generations of Dutch families, their echoes of joy, love, and laughter now suffocated behind neat rows of silver nails and vast sheets of darkened wood.

  For the rest of them, there was no such swift solution. Hannah had gone out of her way to buy her mother’s favorite yarns and any craft project she thought she would enjoy tackling. Some of these had helped for short spells, but increasingly felt like futile acts that were no more than a different set of shiny nails and wooden boards. Because nothing was able to cover the aching, exposed emptiness ravished and beggared behind her mother’s eyes.

  As Hannah continued to look out of the kitchen window, a robin hopped along the icy ground in front of her, pecking the brittle earth furiously with its beak until, after many a try, it was rewarded with a juicy worm and gleefully flew away. It was going to be Christmas soon, she noted, putting her teacups away. Another Christmas under the occupation. At least they had a little extra food. Mrs. Oberon had received a Red Cross parcel and had insisted on sharing it with Hannah and Clara. Tucking flour, powdered eggs, and chocolate into Hannah’s grateful hands, Oma had said, “Make something special for your mama.” Having acquired a little almond paste Hannah had decided to make banketstaaf, her mother’s preferred Christmas pastry, or a version of it.

  She also had a plan, one that might cheer up Clara if she could make it happen.

  Chapter 28

  The day before St. Nicholas Eve, Elke stood on Helmut’s doorstep by Mr. Van den Berg’s side, shivering despite being bundled up in a warm coat. The wind howled around the doorway, freezing her ears and nose, and she stomped her feet to keep warm. As her teeth chattered, she was grateful that her boss had decided to use some of his fuel coupons to drive them to the party this evening.

  The door opened, and the warmth and good cheer stretched out into the cold night air to greet them both.

  “Welcome,” enthused Helmut, his arms outstretched, his eyes wild and glazed, confirming he had already started drinking. Wrapping his arms warmly around Elke, he whispered into her hair, “Thank you for coming,” before heartily shaking Mr. Van den Berg’s hand.

  In the hallway, he took their coats, and as he hung them in his cloakroom, she glanced down to check and straighten her clothes and to smooth out her tousled hair. She wasn’t sure why that mattered but still found herself somewhat self-conscious about how she looked around Helmut.

  The apartment inside was aglow with warm and happy people. There was the glorious sight of a string of Christmas lights and tasteful decorations, along with, unbelievably, the delicious smell of food emanating from Helmut’s well-appointed kitchen. How it was possible when food was in such short supply she had no idea, it was almost as if there wasn’t a war going on.

  As Helmut introduced her to his friends, she felt his reassuring hand on her arm, and even though they weren’t a couple, it felt nice to have the adoring attention of such a good-looking man.

  Some of the people Elke already knew. These were people in the art world—dealers, artists, other gallery owners. Mr. Van den Berg quickly found an old friend and entered into a lively conversation. She mingled for a while before taking a moment to wander around the apartment looking at the artwork. Nearly every piece that hung on the wall had once hung in their gallery. She pondered the collection, still not really understanding how this man ticked.

  All at once, he was by her side, offering her a glass of warm Christmas punch.

  “I was just admiring The Rain,” she remarked, referring to the picture by a new, young Dutch artist.

  Helmut took in the painting as if he’d never really seen it before and nodded. “Yes. It’s got nice… um… gray colors.” He took a long swig of his drink.

  She shook her head. He really had no appreciation of art. How he worked within his field, she didn’t know. His father had been an incredibly popular and successful art dealer since before the war, and Helmut was maintaining that business here in Holland. But all this money… She just wasn’t sure how he had managed to make anything during this time.

  She changed the subject. “It’s a beautiful apartment.”

  “There’s so much of it you have not seen,” he responded. “Remember the last time you were here? I was considering converting a room to accommodate a painting studio. Do you remember?”

  Elke nodded. She had her suspicions that he hoped she w
ould come and paint there since she had told him her last studio had been destroyed in a bombing raid.

  “Come on. I will show it to you.”

  He took her down a long corridor and opened the door to a room that overlooked the canal. It was a very pleasant space, with high, vaulted ceilings and old wooden beams. Along one wall there were stacked easels and a table with paints and new brushes. Elke walked to the large picture window and looked out.

  “Very nice,” she muttered.

  He joined her at the window. “I think it would be perfect for you to come and paint here.”

  She nodded, not committing herself either way.

  “How are you spending the holiday? Maybe with the mysterious boyfriend?” he enquired, taking another swig of his drink.

  “There’s no mysterious boyfriend,” she answered flatly.

  “Then with who?”

  “If you must know, with my sister and her two children, who are adorable. They are so unaware of what is happening.” She gazed out at the water shimmering under a full moon. “And St. Nicholas still needs to come, no matter if there is a war on or not.”

  “Do they like art?” asked Helmut. “I could give you a couple of pieces.”

  She shook her head and laughed.

  “What about Christmas or New Year? Do you have any time for us to get together to celebrate, perhaps? Just as friends,” he added, qualifying an intention that sounded far from the truth.

  Elke took a deep breath. “I’m really busy with my family.”

  His hand found her back, and he gently rubbed her shoulders. His touch felt good. Her whole body hungered to be held and loved, but she knew she couldn’t lead him on. So, to stop the fact he was sending shivers down her spine, she turned and offered him her empty glass.

  “Is the bathroom near here?” she asked.

  Helmut moved his hand. “There’s one downstairs. But there’s another you can use up here, adjoined to my bedroom.” There was a glint in his eye.