After the bus ride, the train finally ground its way out of the Leeuwarden station. Nora nodded to an older train guard who looked like a heavy-jowled bulldog. He seemed irritated but nodded back. A real Dutchman, she thought. Not much for small talk. Probably thrilled to have drawn the lucky bean to babysit her during the five-hour trip to Amsterdam. She didn’t know if he was armed or not, nor did she ask.
She felt haunted knowing that she was onto something important enough to be killed for. She stared at the box in her lap. Surely it could only hold a few family photos, perhaps one of her mother in her NSB costume. Could she bear seeing that?
Sighing, she untied the burgundy ribbon and lifted the lid. She sifted through the stuff, its contents unremarkable. A photograph of a young Saartje in a wedding gown, smiling up at a blond man who must have been Gert. Two photographs of Anneke, both as a child. Nora sighed. She had been right to try to keep her hopes in check. She didn’t feel anything. It must be how oncologists dealt with deaths of their patients, she reasoned. As a young doctor, each death destroyed you. When it happened time after time, you just became numb.
She was about to put the cover back when she saw something stuck to the bottom. She pried it off. It was a sealed envelope, but the yellowed adhesive was so old it had cracked. Inside was a thick piece of paper embossed with the words Juliana van Stolberg Ziekenhuis.
She glanced at it. Mother: Anneke Brouwer.
What? Did Mama have a child before me? Her eyes raced down the page.
Child: Nora Brouwer! Stunned, she pored over the document. Date: May 1, 1945. That wasn’t even her birthday. The birth certificate her parents had given her showed that she had been born on May 15, 1945—in Houston, not Amsterdam. Why would they have falsified this? Her eyes skipped down to the box underneath her name.
Father: Unknown.
Nora stared at it. It made no sense. Why wasn’t her father’s name in the box? Then the reason shot through her. Because Hans must have murdered Abram Rosen. Anneke couldn’t risk listing his name as the father. It seemed to confirm what she had suspected. Anneke must have delivered her just before they fled to the States. Which must mean that her father was, indeed, a murderer.
She felt frozen as she put the paper back into the box and tied the ribbon around it. Her entire life had been a lie, all lies.
She stared out and listened to the clacking of the wheels. She was weary and bereft. And nothing had gotten her even a step closer to finding Rose.
So what now? Nothing came to mind. Whoever the madman was, he had escaped. Hired by someone who had Rose and threatened to kill her. The throbbing pain in her temple returned as she drifted off to sleep.
58
“Amsterdam CS!”
Nora woke with a start. She looked groggily out as the train slowly pulled into the station. She felt as if every bone in her body ached. The old guard who’d come to protect her stirred and nodded to her as Nora gathered her things. She was lucky no one had tried to harm her again. The old man would have slept straight through it. He stood and mumbled a question. Did she want him to walk her home? She shook her head. Nico knew what time her train was to arrive and was probably already outside the station. Besides, she felt safe surrounded by the throng of commuters.
She walked to the doors. When they opened, a gust of cold greeted her. Shivering, she stepped down onto the concrete platform and pulled her jacket tighter around her. The old man followed and then disappeared into the crowd. As she walked to the exit, she heard her name called out over the loudspeaker.
“Mevrouw de Jong. Calling Mevrouw de Jong. Report to the ticket office as soon as possible. You have an emergency message.”
Her first thought was that it had to be Nico. She rushed to the ticket office and waited impatiently in line until a surly man handed her the message.
I have information about your daughter. Go outside the station and look for a young blonde woman in a red hat.
Nora dashed to the exit and stood outside amid the crowd on the plaza. Where was Nico? She looked wildly around. No Nico and no woman in a red hat. She walked quickly back and forth through the crowd, craning her neck.
As she made a third pass, someone bumped her from behind. An older woman carrying a large package seemed to have lost her balance as her box fell to the ground.
“Please help me!” she cried. “It’s a birthday gift for my niece and I’m afraid it will be trampled.”
As Nora bent down, the woman knelt next to her. Picking up the package, Nora felt the woman grab and yank down the collar of her coat. At the same moment, someone jostled the woman and she hit the ground, moaning. “My leg!” A young man helped her to her feet.
Nora rushed over. “Are you all right?” The woman gave her an odd look and rushed off.
Still holding the package, Nora cried out for her, but she had disappeared into the crowd. As Nora turned, something crushed under her heel. She bent down to pick it up. It was a syringe. A yellow liquid had splattered on the concrete. What in hell was going on? Who was that woman?
Confused, Nora realized that she still held the package. She undid the ribbons and opened the box. It was empty. She threw the syringe into it and kept searching the crowd as it flowed in and out of the station.
There was no one in a red hat.
59
“Nora!”
Still grasping the package, she whirled around. It was Nico running toward her. She fell into his arms, her heart racing wildly. “Nico!”
He held her tightly. “Everything is all right,” he whispered. “It’s just me.”
Nora let him hold her until she felt her breath return. She raised her face as he released her, his piercing eyes searching hers. “What is it?” he asked. “Did someone try to attack you again?”
“I think so.” Her hands shook as she told him about the emergency page, the woman in the red hat, the old woman and the syringe. She handed Nico the package with the damaged syringe. “It’s empty. I think she was trying to stab me with that needle.”
“Who could she be?”
“No idea.”
“You’ve never seen her before?”
“No.”
Nico stared at her. “I bet it was the same woman who called me at the Instituut. The one who left a message that Rose had been found and you had already gone to the States.”
Nora suddenly felt dizzy and her knees buckled. Nico caught her. “Nora, what is it?”
“Please,” she whispered. “I have to sit.”
He led her into a small café a few steps from the station. She sat while Nico brought her a paper coffee cup and then wrapped her cold hands around it.
“Goddamn it, Nora, I’m calling the police! This has gone too far.”
She grabbed his arm. “No! If you do, they’ll get involved, tell me to go home, and those bastards will take Rose away forever! I’m so close—you know that! That’s why whoever these maniacs are, they want me dead.”
“But you need protection!”
Nora shook her head. “I have you now.”
He took her hand. “Okay, let’s change the subject. What did they find in Schiermonnikoog?”
“Another reason not to call the police,” she muttered. “All they do is fuck things up.”
“They have no idea who the man was?”
“He got away. On the ferry.”
“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”
She felt comforted by his tenderness. For the first time in days, she didn’t feel so desperately alone.
“I did find something.”
“What?” She saw his eagerness. She pulled Saartje’s box out of her overnight bag, opened it and handed the birth certificate to Nico. He read it quickly and looked at her.
“You know what this means,” she said. “My fat
her had to have killed Abram Rosen. He didn’t even dare put his name on my birth certificate.
Nico shook his head. “You don’t know that.”
“Well, I’ll never know now. They’re all dead.”
Nico clasped her hands and gave her an excited look. “But I found something, too.”
“What?”
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a document.
She read it quickly and gave it back to him. “It’s the murder judgment against my father. So what?”
Nico unfolded it farther and pointed to the bottom of it. “Look!”
She saw a line with a scrawled signature above it and shrugged. “It’s probably just the name of the court clerk who filed it.”
“No, read the name!”
Nora squinted at it, a chicken scratch. All she could make out was a capital H. She shook her head. “I can’t read it. It’s too small.”
Nico reached into his jacket. “Which is why I looked at it with this.” He handed her a magnifying glass.
She placed it over the signature. Now she could make it out. Her hands began to tremble. She looked up at Nico. “I don’t believe it,” she whispered.
“It’s the signature of the complainant.”
“Henny Rosen.” She turned to Nico. “Who is she? A relative of Abram’s?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out tomorrow.”
Nora felt confusion rise in her. “Do you have her number?”
“Unlisted.”
“But you know where she lives?”
Nico nodded. “Den Haag. I have her address.”
60
Nora tugged the hood of her raincoat over her head. It was not the light motregen that made her shiver. She and Nico had taken the next train from Amsterdam to Den Haag. They had decided that it would be best if she spoke to Henny alone. If they both showed up at her door, Nora worried that Henny would feel overwhelmed and less inclined to speak to her. Who was she, anyway? Nora wondered. A cousin, aunt, wife?
And another troubling question. Whoever Henny was, should Nora tell her that Hans was her father? As a complainant against Hans, she must have believed he had killed Abram. If Nora revealed who she was, would Henny slam the door in her face? Nico had advised her to play it by ear.
On the train, Nico told her that he had seen his wife the night before and had explained about Rose. Nora wanted to question him, but when she started to speak, he just shook his head. Nora felt it best not to press him.
As they left the Den Haag station, Nora felt his love again as she walked with her hand in his. It made her feel secure. As they made their way down the Laan van Meerdervoort, the longest street in The Hague, all she saw was an endless row of identical apartment buildings, a conglomeration of colorless bricks five stories high. Finally they stood in front of number 354, which, thank God, was on the ground floor.
Nico gave her a quick kiss as he headed for a café near the corner. He would stay there in case she needed him and would be there when she came out.
Nora shivered before the door to Henny’s flat, her finger raised to ring the doorbell. This could be it. Where she learned who took Rose. She had tried to keep her hopes in check. This could as easily be another dead end.
She took a deep breath and pressed the buzzer. No response. She cupped her hands against the cold glass of the plain white door and stepped back on the stoep. It had the obligatory decorative tiles of so many Dutch homes. She rang the buzzer again, this time holding it down longer than considered polite by the Dutch. Desperation made her tremble. Someone had to be there. But she heard no sound.
Nora stood. What to do? The rain was heavier now. She looked around. She could go back to find Nico—and then what? She checked her watch—8:50 a.m. Maybe Henny Rosen worked and had gone out long ago. But surely she was too old. Nora calculated. If she was twenty in 1940, she would be sixty now. Or older. Or younger. Maybe she should come back after five. No Dutchman or woman of that generation would fail to be home aan tafel by six o’clock sharp. Beef, potatoes and overcooked vegetables. De rigueur.
Crushed, she turned to go. A scratching sound made her stop. She held up a hand to shield her eyes from the rain. She heard a latch being pulled back and saw the door open a crack. Nora stepped closer. She could see a blur behind the glass. Blue and white. The blur spoke.
“Wie is er?” The Dutch was terse, clipped. Definitely the voice of an older woman.
Nora stepped up, still straining to see the person behind the voice. She put her hand tentatively on the door handle.
“Blijf af!” Go away!
Nora released her grasp. This was not someone who would open to strangers, not even if the stranger were a thin, wet woman with no obvious harmful intent. She spoke slowly in Dutch. “Please, Mevrouw, let me introduce myself. My name is Nora de Jong.”
“De Jong?” Her voice was brusque. “Ik ken niemand die de Jong heet.” I don’t know anyone by that name.
“I have come here all the way from America on urgent business.”
“America?” she said in broken English. “I don’t know anyone in America. You are mistaken.”
Nora’s hand shot out and grabbed the knob. The blur moved as the door opened. An angry woman with a shock of white hair and intense brown eyes stood planted in the doorway, cheeks flushed. She wore an old-fashioned blue-and-white dress, black, sensible shoes and thick hose. She continued to stare at Nora, her mouth turned down. “Stop!”
Nora tried to smile. “Mevrouw Rosen, please just let me come in for a moment. I am here on a very important personal matter. I think it will be just as important to you as it is to me.”
The woman tried to push the door shut, but Nora held it open. She spoke in stilted, staccato English, her voice raised a notch. “You have no business with me. I do not know you. Go away!”
Nora took her hand from the door. During the split second it remained open, she uttered these words. “Het gaat om Abram.” It is about Abram.
The door stopped. A blue-veined hand clutched the wood and seemed suspended there. Nora waited. Slowly, the door opened. Nora let out her breath and then pulled back the hood of her raincoat, which had obscured her face. The old woman stepped back and clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Mijn God—Anneke?”
Nora walked slowly in. Mevrouw Rosen stepped back, her eyes wide in fear or shock, Nora couldn’t tell which. Her blue-veined hands clutched her chest as she sagged against the wall. Nora quickly put her arms around her. She felt as light as a sparrow and smelled of 4711 Eau de Cologne, the same scent her mother always wore.
Nora spoke Dutch in low, crooning tones. “It’s all right. Let’s go inside. I know this must be a terrible shock for you.”
“Ik snap er niks van... I don’t understand—who are you?” Her voice was thready, but she let Nora help her to a couch in a tiny sitting room. The sofa was covered with lace doilies, the room surrounded by familiar Dutch accoutrement—a few pieces of fine Delft, a pair of wooden shoes by the hearth, a set of tarnished teaspoons. Then Nora saw a simple silver menorah on the dining room table.
Nora sat slowly next to the woman and held her hand. “I’m so sorry I didn’t call first to introduce myself...and to make an appointment to see you,” she said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have your telephone number and I have so little time.”
The old woman pulled her hand back. Her brown eyes were clear now. “You must be Anneke’s daughter. You look exactly like her. Even your voice is the same.”
Nora nodded. “So I am told.”
“How is this possible?”
“I know it is strange, but can you first tell me, are you related to Abram Rosen?”
The woman gave her a bitter smile. “I am his sister, Henny.” Her eyes lit up. “But Anneke, how is she?
Why hasn’t she contacted me in all these years?”
“She’s...dead.”
Pained eyes looked up at Nora’s. “When?”
“A few weeks ago.”
Henny wiped tears from her crinkled eyes. “Cancer?”
Nora hated to tell this fragile creature the truth, but she had to. “She was murdered.”
Henny gasped. “Murdered? Who would do such a thing!”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m here.”
Henny clutched at her throat, her face paper-white. “No,” she moaned. “My poor Anneke. I can’t believe it!”
Nora moved closer and took her hand. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you like this. But my baby, my Rose—” Her voice broke. “I have to get her back.”
“Baby?” The woman’s eyes clouded as she trembled. She squeezed Nora’s hand. “You poor child. Where was this? Do the police have any idea who did it?”
“We live in Houston, Texas. All the police know is that my mother’s killer was found at the scene, dead. And whoever was with him kidnapped my baby, Rose.”
“Oh, God! I can’t—” Suddenly she collapsed against the couch, her breathing gasping and labored. “My pills—there.” She pointed a shaking finger to a bottle on the coffee table.
Nora grabbed it. Henny put two tablets under her tongue and closed her eyes.
“Will you be all right?”
She nodded. “Heart. Give me a moment.” When some color returned to her cheeks, she looked straight at Nora. “Who was the dead man?”
“We don’t know. We believe he was Dutch. He had guilders in his pocket and a fake passport.” Nora could see her trying to process this.
“But what does this have to do with me?”
“Whoever the killer is shot my mother in the head and hacked off her hair, just like they did to NSB-ers after the war.”
Henny shook her head. “But I still don’t—” She froze. Then she stood, avoiding Nora’s eyes. “I need to think. Perhaps you would like coffee or tea?” Dutch manners mandated that refreshments be offered within the first few moments of a visit. If a government official had appeared and told Mevrouw Rosen that she was being evicted, she would first offer him coffee or tea, and he would accept.
The Tulip Eaters Page 23