The Time Between

by Bryna Hellmann-Gillson

  She knew too many poems about death. Studying English, she had the wonderful music of their poetry in her mind and, more than any Dutch poetry she knew, they spoke directly to her. What had that poet written to his beloved? ‘The grave’s a fine and private place, but none, I think, do there embrace.’ That was it. ‘Hurry up,’ he told her, ‘we haven’t any time to waste.’

  That was what Adrian thought about Hannah. He wanted somebody to love him, now, before it was too late. Would she ever dare to love somebody? She didn’t think so, and certainly not if something happened to Adrian or Teddie. When a door slammed, waking her, it was past midnight. She jumped up and went into the hall, rubbing her eyes. Ted was standing there. ‘You’re still here?’

  ‘I fell asleep and missed the curfew,’ she said. ‘Are you all right? Adrian isn’t back yet.’ He was still in his coat. ‘Are you going out again?’

  He shook his head, shrugged out of his coat and threw it on a chair. ‘I’m hungry. Do we have anything? Maybe just tea if there’s nothing else. I want to wait up for him.’ He came into the kitchen and dropped into a chair, coughing and thumbing his eyes as if they hurt.

  ‘What is it?’ When he didn’t answer, she said, ‘I’ll wait with you.’ She cut bread and paper-thin slices from a small triangle of cheese, made some tea and watched him eat. In the living room, he lay on the sofa, and she sat opposite him pretending to read. It was almost three o’clock when they heard Adrian stumbling into the hall. He stood with his back to the door, his face and hands dirty, one sleeve of his black shirt torn at the shoulder, but he was laughing.

  ‘Hello, my dears,’ he greeted them. ‘Were you waiting up for me? Here I am!’ He saluted sharply and then put his hand up over his head. ‘Where is the laurel wreath?’

  ‘Did it work?’ Ted asked.

  ‘Oh absolutely, absolutely, it worked!’

  ‘Everyone’s safe?’

  ‘Everyone!’ He sat down suddenly and began to unbutton his shirt. Pulling his arms out of the sleeves, he jumped up again and went into his bedroom, calling over his shoulder, ‘I need to get out of these clothes. They stink! Wait for me, don’t go away!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Ted said, ‘he’ll calm down. Make some fresh tea, Pam, will you?’

  ‘I want to hear what he’s going to say.’

  ‘I’ll bring him into the kitchen. Go ahead, and find something for him to eat.’

  She made tea and put the heel of the bread and the last bit of cheese on a plate. When the twins came in, Adrian sat down and shook his head at the food. Ted and Pam waited, and finally he said, ‘It went just as we planned. No-one got hurt, and we were well away before the bombs went off. I heard them, all five of them. Boom, boom, boom! We did it, my darlings! Boom, boom, and then we heard the fire engines going in the wrong direction! I think they didn’t want to get to the fire too soon. Isn’t that wonderful? That building is out of commission, gone!’

  He leaned back and crossed his arms, looking so triumphant and satisfied that they began to laugh. Then he yawned. ‘God, I’m tired! Can one of you get rid of those clothes for me? I dumped the jacket in a canal as soon as I could, but I couldn’t strip off my trousers. I’d have been arrested for indecent exposure.’ He laughed again in the breathless way he had before, took a deep breath, drank his cup of tea and let Pam refill it. ‘Let’s drink to our success. No-one resisted, no-one died. Hans’s needles did the trick, we dragged the guards out to the garden, and they slept all through it. We had plenty of time to throw most of the files on the floor and set fire to them.’

  ‘Are you sure no-one saw you?’

  ‘What would they have seen? We were in uniform when we went in, and we left everything behind, ropes, needles, crowbars, everything went up in smoke. It was the best damned plan ever.’ He stretched and laughed. ‘And now I’m going to bed for a day or two.’

  Pam followed the twins, turning out lights as she went. It was too early in the morning to go back to the nursery, she would sleep until the curfew ended. Adrian was home, he was safe. This time. But she knew him, he thought he was immortal. They all believed that, the men. They had to, to fight the way they did. If Adrian were caught, there’d be Teddie and then Hans, and then Jo and Mrs P and herself. It would end with all of them in their graves.

  She pulled a book from the pile on her desk, there was a scrap of paper marking the page she wanted. There it was,

  ‘And yonder all before us lie

  deserts of vast eternity.

  Thy beauty shall no more be found,

  nor in thy marble vault shall sound

  my echoing song; then worms shall try

  that long preserv'd virginity,

  and your quaint honour turn to dust,

  and into ashes all my lust.’

  Drying her eyes with a finger, she wondered why there were so many poems about death, so many young men to mourn. ‘Tell me something comforting,’ she asked, though she didn't know who could. ‘Tell me that, if I love somebody, I can keep him safe.’

  17 Jo, June 1943

  ‘We are going to murder someone today, and we may die in the doing of it,’ she wrote. She put down her pen and looked at what she had written. Yes, she liked it. It had a serious sound that was right, appropriate. She rolled the pen back and forth and then picked it up and went on. ‘I will be with Adrian, so that will be all right.’ She crossed the word ‘all’ out, then put it in again. From the kitchen she could hear Elsie singing and water running. She knew she ought to eat, but she couldn’t, she was too nervous. Shouldn’t she write about that? It wouldn’t be honest not to admit she was nervous, as if she were a wonderful person like Joan of Arc. Was Joan ever nervous? She must have been, but nervous was not the same as frightened.

  ‘I didn’t sleep well last night,’ she wrote. ‘When I did, I dreamed that I was a little girl again. I was wearing a long white dress and a wide-brimmed white straw hat with ribbons hanging down the back. I was walking between my father and mother down an allée, a wide pathway between beautiful trees, and with black stone statues of famous men on both sides.

  ‘I don't remember the whole dream, but one thing is still very clear to me. My father stopped walking and turned me towards one of the statues. It was a young woman with someone in her arms. Her head was bent to look down at the young man she was holding. One of his arms hung down over her skirt, and his long beautiful legs fell lifeless to the pedestal she sat on. “Do you see what you’ve done,” my father said sadly. “Do you see that you killed him?”

  ‘I began to cry and my mother kneeled down and wiped my eyes. “It’s not your fault,” she murmured, but I knew it was. Mama would say that even if it weren’t true.’

  Jo leaned back and looked down at her notebook. She closed her eyes and tried to see what she’d dreamt. She could picture the sun on the grass between herself and the statue, the trees behind it lacy with spring-green leaves. But the figures were just shadows, and they faded slowly away. What had she done?

  If she was going to write about it, she had to try to understand what the dream meant. She would be guessing, but it could be the truth. That happened a lot to writers. She had read an essay once by a famous author, an English woman, who believed that what you imagine is what you already know, but you didn’t know you knew it until your hand put it down.

  Jo wrote, ‘The dream was about what we are going to do tonight. If I do the wrong thing, I will put both of us in danger. I think the dream warned me to be very careful and to do exactly what Adrian tells me to do. Then it will not come true.’ The idea that she might be stupid and get them killed made her feel a little sick.

  Closing the notebook, she put it into a drawer under some schoolbooks. Her parents or Elsie would find her notebook if she didn’t come back. She wondered what they would think when they read about her helping to help children disappear and about tonight’s mission. Elsie wouldn’t like to read that she’d twice taken a child to Kris’s farm without telling her first, and her
parents would be angry at Adrian for taking her with him to murder a collaborator.

  She must remember tomorrow to write that she was never really seriously frightened, but that her parents always were. That was interesting. They didn’t want her to do anything that was forbidden, because she might get arrested or killed. It happened to other people, she knew that, they were betrayed or didn’t pay attention when people warned them, but why should it happen to her? If she were careful?

  Anyway, suppose she did die, was that so terrible? If it happened while she was doing something important and brave, wasn’t that the best way to die? Mama and Papa would be unhappy, of course, because she was all they had except each other. And because they didn’t understand that the best way to die was for something you believe in. She wished she could explain it to them, but there were things that couldn’t be said.

  She stood and went to the mirror, pinned back her corkscrew curls and tied a bandanna around them so that only a few wisps fell over her forehead. Her hair was too noticeable, soldiers grinned at her when she walked by or whistled softly. It was better to be invisible. She thought, ‘I’m not afraid of dying, but I’m afraid I’m going to do something foolish. Something to make tonight a failure. He wanted me to go with him, not Hannah, he didn’t ask her.’

  Elsie’s oatmeal was just what she needed, baby food, hot and soft. There was a little milk to pour over the top, and Elsie surprised her with a small clump of butter. ‘Go on,’ she said, ‘eat it. It’s good for your bones. And, say, are you growing? I think you’re taller than I am now, a regular young lady!’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, yes, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re in love!’

  Jo blushed and Elsie laughed and patted her shoulder. ‘Do you want to know why I think so? Well, for one thing, you’ve been very quiet and dreamy lately. Half the time you don’t hear a thing anybody says to you.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean I’m in love!’

  ‘Well, maybe not, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Come on, finish that and let me get on with cleaning up. Where are you going today?’

  ‘To the nursery to see if Mrs Pimentel needs anything.’ Elsie thought she meant doing the shopping or running errands, she didn’t know about smuggling the children out. She didn’t need another thing to worry about.

  ‘Here’s your parents’ breakfast and tell them to come down for tea later. Somebody gave me a jar of jam yesterday. Can you believe we still have such friends?’

  Bowls of hot oatmeal in her hands, Jo climbed the stairs to the attic. Her father was just adjusting his suspenders over his shirt and turned to smile at her. ‘Here’s my angel,’ he said, ‘bringing ambrosia from the gods downstairs.’ He took the bowls from her and put them on the table, where two shriveled apples lay.

  ‘Elsie says come down for tea later. She has a surprise.’

  ‘A surprise?’ Jacoba looked doubtful. She felt safe in the attic, but the rest of the world, even Elsie’s kitchen with its one window onto their private garden, was still a place where anything might happen. And anything could be dangerous.

  ‘A pot of jam,’ Jo assured her. Her mother smiled at that. ‘I’ve had mine,’ she told her father, who was putting a third bowl out for her. ‘And I have to get going. I promised to help at the nursery today.’

  ‘You will be back for supper?’ David asked. ‘We can talk then? You know what we are celebrating?’ Nobody could tell them the exact date of the holiday, but it was the beginning of June, time to celebrate Shavuot and to read Jo’s favorite story. ‘We can read about Ruth together, you and Mama and I.’

  ‘I’ll try.’ She wouldn’t, but it was the only lie she could think of. She hugged them both, kissed her mother and left. How much did they talk to each other after so many months alone? Mama slept, Papa read. She should spend more time with them, but downstairs was where real life was.

  When she got to the creche, Pam opened the door. ‘I hope you aren’t planning to take anybody today,’ she whispered. ‘Three of them have running noses, and I’m afraid they’ll all be in bed with the flu tomorrow. And it’s so cold out there! Is it June or isn’t it?’

  It wasn’t much warmer inside, but Mrs P had a pot of tea on her desk and poured Jo a cup. ‘How are you, Jo? Did someone ask you to come by? I don’t have anything for you.’

  ‘I thought you might need another pair of hands. Or I could go shopping for you.’

  ‘No, we're all right as we are, but you can stay for lunch. We can feed one more mouth.’

  ‘Thank you, no. I’ve got a school friend I haven’t seen in a long time. Maybe I’ll go by and see if she’s home. And I’ve got to be someplace later on. ’ She stood up, buttoned her coat and said, ‘Goodness, it’s nice to have a day off!’

  Mrs P went into the hall with her. ‘Jo, whatever you’re doing today, good luck. There aren’t many girls your age as brave as you are, or as smart. You’ll be all right, just be careful.’

  ‘That’s what I think too,’ Jo said. ‘I just have to be careful.’

  Lysbet’s parents lived a few streets away, on a narrow canal that bordered one side of the Hortus Botanicus. For 300 years people had brought plants and seeds from all over the world to Amsterdam and now, someone had told her, there were 4,000 different plants there. Jo loved the place and wished she could remember the names of the flowers and trees, but she’d never learned Latin. If she ever wrote a story about Adam and Eve, she would be able to describe the Garden of Eden. She would leave out the glasshouses, of course, and the butterfly house and the terrace where you had once been able to sit outside, under the low branches of a huge old tree, to have ice cream. There would have to be some way to describe the smell of the place, the wonderfully fresh stinging smell of wet earth and the sweet and spicy scent of the flowers.

  Lysbet put her head out the window when she heard the bell. ‘Oh it’s you! Wait a minute!’ The buzzer sounded, and Jo pushed open the door and climbed to the first floor. Lysbet was standing at the top of the stairs, and she flung her arms around Jo and pulled her inside. ‘Where have you been? I haven’t seen you for weeks!’

  ‘I’ve been around,’ Jo said. Lybet knew she shouldn’t ask and shouldn’t expect more of an answer.

  ‘Come sit down and let me look at you. Mama?’ she called, ‘Jo’s here!’ A voice called out hello, and a door was shut. ‘I’ve got her well-trained,’ Lysbet said. ‘It took forever for her and Papa to see I have a life of my own.’

  ‘I don’t tell mine everything either, and they don’t ask.’

  ‘What is there to tell?’ A rhetorical question that made them both laugh.

  ‘Tell me about the university. It must be lovely to be there.’

  ‘No, it’s not. I thought I’d meet some interesting people, but there are only those awful Storm Maidens. They’re not there to learn anything, just to flirt with the boys and the professors. And they have the most awful fat legs!’ Jo laughed. ‘No, really, Jo, they all play volleyball and run races. They’re trying to get big and strong so they can marry big strong German officers and have a lot of big strong German babies.’

  By this time Jo was laughing so hard that she fell back against the cushions. Lysbet hated anything like games, and she was sitting there now, looking approvingly at her own long slender legs, elegant even in stockings that had been mended in three places and shoes that were hopelessly scuffed. ‘What's happening?’ she asked. ‘Have you seen Adrian and Tommy and the others? Is everyone all right?’

  What could she tell her? What not? She’d been out of the group for weeks. Lysbet was looking at her, waiting for an answer, and when Jo didn’t answer, she said, ‘Well, what are you doing these days? Working? Just hanging around?’

  ‘I’m working at the nursery across from the old theater, that’s all, but it’s useful and I’m glad I can help.’

  ‘Cleaning and things like that?’

  ‘Yes, like that.’ So that was all right, and she got Lysbet to tell her abo
ut the courses she was taking and the professors she liked. The rain stopped, the sun came out, Lysbet made sandwiches, Jo leafed enviously through her books and half-listened to stories about people she’d never meet, and then it began to get dark and she had to go. Putting on her coat, she explained, ‘I’m meeting somebody at the station who has some baby clothes for us. I mustn’t miss him, he’s being so generous and not asking for stamps.’ She was good at making up stories, but Lysbet had been her best friend and lying to her would never feel right.

  By the time she got to the station, the sun had disappeared behind the nearest buildings. She went through the hall and out the back toward the river. Boats were tied up at all the piers, there were no lights, and it took her a few minutes to see Adrian and Jan leaning against the station wall in the shadows. They met at the pier, and Adrian helped her into the boat. ‘There’s a strong steady wind,’ he said. ‘We’ll make good time. I want to get past Muiden before it’s completely dark. Jo, can you recognize Van Elk’s farm from the water?’

  ‘There’s a field between the house and the river and, at the far end, there’s a big red barn. I’ll recognize it.’

  ‘Good girl. The house we want is farther upstream, but not much. We’ll walk there.’ He turned to Jan, who was busy at the tiller, trying to keep them as close to the shore and out of sight as he could, and shouted, ‘You’ll wait for us at the farm?’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Ah,’ Adrian said, ‘how long?’ He looked at Jo. ‘He can’t wait all night. Can we sleep at Van Elk’s if we have to?’ When she nodded, he leaned closer to Jan and said, ‘An hour, no more, and then you go home, agreed? We’ll be all right. If we miss you, we’ll stay there until morning.’