But then she thought of the attic. She hadn’t been up there since she was a small girl, playing hide-and-seek with Hans. She went into the hallway and looked up at the trapdoor, its worn rope dangling from the ceiling. Despite Nora’s height, it took her two attempts to grab it and yank it down. The old wooden stairs finally released and lowered, groaning as dust and dirt fell onto her head.
Nora wiped her eyes, stared up into the dusty abyss and then went into the kitchen. She opened the drawer where her father had always kept the flashlight and then walked back to the rickety ladder that hung with an air of crooked despondency. She picked her way carefully up, waving the flashlight back and forth as soon as she entered the murkiness of the attic.
The light traveled over rose-colored insulation and, through dust motes, the fetid air clutched at Nora’s throat. Almost immediately, rivulets of sweat ran down her face. It must be over a hundred up here! Once her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she spotted a row of old cardboard boxes. She opened every one, sneezing at the dust that rose from them.
Their contents were unremarkable. Her grade school records, baby clothes and photos of her with her parents in Galveston in summer. Her heart lurched as she saw the happiness on both their faces. Gone, gone.
When she closed the last box, she stared at her filthy hands as sweat streamed down her back. Weary and disappointed, she took another look around. She saw nothing other than the boxes she had already opened. In typical Dutch fashion, her mother had stacked them neatly against the wall, had even organized them chronologically.
She took a final glance at the marshaled nothingness around her. This was getting her nowhere. And the attic had been her last resort. Surely this was where secrets would have been hidden if they existed at all?
She swept the dim light around one last time. It fell upon a broken chair, an old broom and a pair of heavy work shoes, the kind favored by her father. She pointed the faint beam into every corner, but saw nothing except disabled toys, crippled furniture, old mattresses and torn boxes that revealed their useless contents with an almost defiant air.
She knew why her mother had saved these things. It was the Dutch way—the conviction that the moment anything was thrown away, it would be needed again. Well, it was all just junk.
She turned to go back downstairs. Her feet felt leaden, her mind reduced to dull panic. At ground level, she would call to Marijke, only to learn that she, too, had found nothing. And then she would fall into her bed and try, try, try, to make another plan—no matter how crazy—to do something to find Rose.
Thoughts tumbled over in her mind like laundry in a dryer. Why hadn’t she found even a hint of why this son of a bitch had come? Surely there had to be something that would give a clue as to what she should do next!
She again pointed the beam into every corner, but saw nothing. She had turned to go back down when the flashlight shifted in her hand and reflected something metallic in the far corner. She pushed aside a few empty boxes and looked. On the dusty floor was a small container about the size of a toolbox. She wiped the dirt off of the label. Blank. Probably empty. She picked it up. It rattled.
She sat on the broken chair. It wobbled, but held her weight. She put the metal box on her lap. Its clasp was broken, as if it had been smashed long ago. She struggled to breathe as she pulled back the lid and aimed the wavering light at its contents.
Nora stared into it, afraid of what she might find. Could this be it? Could it contain the clue that would connect the dots to these horrible events?
Hands shaking, she cradled the box in her lap and aimed the light down. A sheaf of papers—yellowed onionskin with battered edges bound by a green ribbon. She untied it and spread the papers on her lap. She realized she was holding her breath. She stared at the green ribbon as it fell to the floor, a satin spiral. Would it be a clue, a Pandora’s box, or worse—nothing?
She took a breath, picked up the flashlight and pointed it at the first page. It was thick paper that seemed to be an identification document. The name at the top was “Anneke Brouwer.” A small black-and-white photograph of her mother stared back, unsmiling. Nora felt almost dizzy. Her mother’s maiden name, as far as she knew, was de Bruin. Moving her index finger slowly down, she peered at the card more closely.
“Damn!” Her hands shook so that the beam of light skittered wildly. She gripped it tighter and looked again. The card was dated July 1945 and stated that Anneke was born in 1920. It had an arresting illustration at the top, a black-and-red flag with a triangle in the center. The emblem of the Dutch lion with sword and arrows stood in front of a blue-and-white shield. Nora felt confused. She knew what the Dutch flag looked like, and this was not it. But it was the words in flamboyant print underneath that caused her to gasp. “Nationale-Socialistische Beweging.”
“What?” she whispered. “The NSB?” She knew enough Dutch history to know that during the war, this was the reviled organization of the Dutch Nazis. “No!” she cried out. “It can’t be!” She dropped the stack of papers as if they were coiled rattlesnakes.
Her mother an NSB-er? A Dutch Nazi? The one thing Anneke had told Nora when she had asked about the war was that she had fought for the resistance. Nora strained to process this new information, to see where its edges might fit into the puzzle about Anneke’s murder and Rose’s kidnapping.
She snatched up the documents and peered at the card again. It was incomprehensible! The print before her eyes shimmered and rippled, a mirage in the desert. Dizziness filled her head as she felt the flashlight slip. Her sweaty forehead fell into her filthy hands.
She sat back and stared at the brown dust that had sprinkled over the documents, the lockbox and her hands. What did all this mean? Who was her mother? A hero fighting the Germans or a fanatic Dutch Nazi carrying out Hitler’s version of the New Order?
Moments later, she raised her head. She had to go on. With shaky hands, she laid the first page on the floor and picked up the second. It bore an ornate wax stamp. She picked up the flashlight and examined it, some kind of legal document so translucent and brittle it could have been an ancient scroll. The bloodred seal cracked in two as she raised the paper into the watery beam of light. A small photo of her father as a young man was stapled to the right corner. Unaccustomed to the legalistic Dutch, it took her a while to make out the gist of it.
In the Name of Her Royal Highness
Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands,
This action is hereby brought against the Dutch Citizen hereinafter named
HANS ALBERTUS MARTINUS MOERVELD
For the Murder of
ABRAM DAVID ROSEN
By virtue of the Complaint sworn to before
The Royal Court on this
Sixteenth Day of September
In the Year
Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Five
* * *
Nora gasped. Her eyes flew to the middle of the page, where the charge was stated in bold print, along with the Oordeel, the Court’s decision. Only two words.
WAR CRIMINAL
And the Vonnis, the sentence.
DEATH.
8
Nora stared at the paper, the words blurred. Finally, she calmed herself enough to focus. Her father’s real surname must have been Moerveld. And the paper stated he had been tried in absentia for murder. Tears of disbelief fell onto her cheeks. Her father—a murderer? Of a Jewish man during wartime?
“No, Papa, no!” she whispered. It couldn’t be. Imagining him, she saw a gentle smile on his face as she sang “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” for her first-grade class at Poe Elementary; felt his strong arms pick up her bruised body from the street the first time he tried to teach her to ride a two-wheeler; the cozy comfort as she sat on his lap as he read La Fontaine to her. Whoever the man described in this document, it was not—could not—be her fath
er.
And Abram Rosen, who was he, and why would Papa be accused of killing him? The attic air choked her. No, no, no! She could not accept this. Wiping her eyes, she looked at the last line of the document and that one, black, irrevocable word: Death.
She glanced through the remaining papers and then folded them into a clumsy parcel. She would take them downstairs to Marijke. She felt a new stab at their import, but also something electric. This had to be the “something else.”
As she started to put the papers back into the metal box, she peered into it. Something was stuck to its metal side. She scrabbled her fingernails against it until it came free. A small booklet, a Dutch passport. A stern, younger version of her father stared back at her. Underneath was the name “Hans Moerveld.”
Why had he changed his name to “de Jong”? And when had he and Mama decided to abandon their true identities? If the documents were true—and how could she dispute them—then they both had urgent reasons to flee. Papa must have whisked Anneke away to avoid arrest.
Nora thought back to her college days, when she had embarked on a self-made path to learn about her parents’ lives during the war. Neither would speak of it. They each insisted that she not ask more questions. Their admonition had, of course, fueled her intention to do precisely that.
She’d learned that after Dutch liberation day on May 5, 1945, known NSB-ers—men and women—had been dragged down the streets and jeered at by their neighbors and countrymen. Many were paraded around with shaved heads to further demonstrate how reviled they were. Some were pelted with rotten fruit, tied up and beaten.
Could that be why the killer had hacked off clumps of Anneke’s hair? God, what other reason could there be? Her mother a Nazi and her father a murderer?
And this killer—whoever he was—maybe he had come back for revenge. Maybe he’d also meant to kill Papa but didn’t know he was already dead.
Nora’s head spun. But why did this bastard wait thirty years? And even if Mama had been an NSB-er, what could she have done that would warrant such a long-held hatred and brutal death?
9
Clutching the metal box, she clambered down the folding attic stairs and ran into the living room. “Marijke!” she cried. “Come quick!”
Marijke hurried in from the garage with a sheaf of papers in her arms. “Wat is er? Are you all right?”
Nora grabbed her arm. The papers Marijke held fell as Nora pulled her down onto the couch next to her. Hands shaking, she put the metal box onto Marijke’s lap.
“What is it?”
“It’s insane! It’s about my parents, the NSB...during the war, my mother, their names—” She tried to catch her breath. “Everything I ever knew about them was a lie!”
Nora saw Marijke’s eyes widen as she stared at the box. “What do you mean? Where did you find this?”
“In the attic, in a corner. It doesn’t matter. Read!”
“Okay, okay, I will!” Marijke pulled the sheaf out of the box, placed it on the floor and stacked the papers on her lap.
“For God’s sake, Marijke, hurry up! It’s so awful, I can’t stand it!”
Marijke held up her hand. “Wacht even, Nora. I want to read these carefully.” Minutes dragged like hours. Nora felt like jumping up and pacing, but she didn’t want to miss the moment when Marijke finished reading. Other than her widened eyes, Marijke didn’t say a word. When she finished, she sighed and turned to Nora. “You had no idea about this? They never mentioned any of it?”
Nora gave a harsh laugh. “Would you tell your daughter that you were a Dutch Nazi? Or that you killed a Jewish man and were wanted for murder? That you fled the country and changed your name?” She raised her hands. “Of course they didn’t tell me!”
“But what could all this mean?” asked Marijke. “For your mother’s murder? For Rose’s kidnapping?”
Nora rose and paced, clenching her hands into fists. “I don’t know, but it’s all connected. I’m sure of it. What if this killer was related to this Abram Rosen?” She suddenly stopped. “But that doesn’t make sense, either. If Papa killed this man, then why did the murderer kill my mother? What had she ever done to this Rosen? And if Mama was a Dutch Nazi—” she turned to Marijke as she felt a hot flush on her face “—which I still can’t get my head around, then what role could she have played in all of this?”
“Nora, stop pacing, for God’s sake. You’re driving me nuts. Sit down and let’s try to think this through.”
Nora let herself drop into a chair. Nazis, NSB, murderers and kidnappers raced crazily around in her mind. What if it was all true? “Tell me what you think. I can’t connect the dots.”
Marijke sat back and took out a cigarette. She lit it and inhaled. Nora watched blue smoke escape her lips and spiral away.
“Okay. Let’s assume everything you found in that box is true. We’ll start with your father. His papers show he changed his name before he came here, so I think we can assume he fled either because he killed this man or there was enough evidence to accuse him.”
“I don’t believe it. He would never kill anyone!”
“Nora, we have to take these papers at face value so we can try to link them to your mother’s murder and Rose’s kidnapping.”
“Okay, okay.”
“So,” continued Marijke. “It seems logical that someone has taken revenge.”
“But why would that bastard wait over thirty years? That’s crazy!”
“Crazy, but not impossible.”
“What if the killer couldn’t find my father?” she asked. “He’d changed his name and covered his tracks. There had to be a lot of confusion after the war. No easy way of tracking him. But wasn’t it hard to enter the U.S. back then? Didn’t you have to have a sponsor? A job?”
“Then how did he do it?”
“No idea.”
“And how would Anneke figure into this?” asked Marijke.
Nora drew a deep breath. “The only document of Mama’s shows that she was an NSB-er. So no matter how badly I don’t want to believe it, the fact remains that along with Papa, she changed her name and ran away after Liberation Day. And you know what happened to those women after the war. It would explain why her hair was shorn.”
Marijke nodded, her face grim.
Nora rose and began pacing again. “Okay. So he’s accused of murder, whether he did it or not, and she’s an NSB-er who will surely be arrested. They change their names and somehow end up in Houston.”
She saw Marijke tap her cigarette against the side of the blue ashtray that had been Papa’s and watched the ashes flutter. “So after they moved here, they somehow got jobs and left everything—their families and friends—behind.”
“And then they had me,” said Nora bitterly. “Whoever I am.” She held out her hand in silent request for the sheaf of damning papers.
She saw worry on Marijke’s face as she handed them over. “But we still come back to the same question. What could any of this have to do with Rose?”
“I don’t know.” Would she ever?
10
Ariel Rosen sat in a cramped motel room near Houston Intercontinental and stared out the window. Darkness had finally settled over this strange city. He checked his watch and gazed at the sleeping infant. How could this morning ever have happened? Murder, his father dead!
She lay next to him, swaddled in his jacket. He had managed to tuck her into its warm lining and zip it up so that it formed a crude but soft sleeping bag. Just her small head peeked out. Her calm face belied the hours of wailing that had racked her tiny body. Only faint tracks remained of the tears that had streamed down her face when he’d run out of the house and roared off in his father’s rental car.
Panic struck him. Did Isaac use a fake passport before Ariel flew to America to find him? But what a
bout the rental car, and a driver’s license? If he had stayed in a hotel, the clerk would have insisted he provide a license plate number. Surely the police were already checking all the rental companies and hotels in town! Ariel calmed himself. Isaac had certainly forged the passport and license before he had left Amsterdam. His father was no fool. A customs agent for years, he knew all about forgeries. Besides, he had obviously planned this for over thirty years.
He took a deep breath. Houston was enormous. Even if the police eventually traced Isaac’s passport to the rental company or a hotel, it would take time to discover that it had been forged. By then Ariel would be long gone.
He walked to the small sink, wet a washcloth with warm water, sat down and patted away the traces from the baby’s soft, pink cheeks. Rose. She was aptly named.
He shut his eyes tightly as his mind replayed the past twenty-four hours with cruel clarity: the awful murder, his crazy, crazy father collapsing and dying, and now the bizarre fact that he had kidnapped a tiny, defenseless child. He felt wetness on his face, not realizing that he had been crying.
What could he have done to prevent this? He thought of the evening he had seen Isaac in his Amsterdam apartment before the murder. It was the last real conversation they ever had.
* * *
Isaac sat on his worn couch and stared at the carpet, as if lost in another world. Ariel studied his father’s clenched, veined hands, rutted face, angry eyes. When Papa spoke, his words were rough river stones brought out again and again, rubbed, polished and then carefully put away—until the next time. Papa drew a ragged breath and began.
“It was during the war,” he said. “It started in 1940. It took the Germans only five days to conquer our Dutch army, such as it was.”
The Tulip Eaters Page 7