by Lynn Austin
“I’ve loved driving since the first day Williams let me try it.”
“If I recall, my first driving lesson was under very different circumstances.”
“That’s right!” Eve said with a laugh. “I made you drive home from Dover, with Army roadblocks and no signposts or headlamps. But you did great once you got the hang of it. Want to drive now? I’ll pull over. This is your car, after all.”
“Not on your life! They drive on the wrong side of the road over here. I’ll need a bit of practice before I’m ready to give it a go.”
“Remember driving in the blackout? We would study the map to see all the possible routes, but once we started off, we could only see what was right in front of us.”
“It’s a bit like life, don’t you think? We make plans, but we really can only see a little way ahead. The thing was, we had a purpose back then. A goal to accomplish. Ever since the war ended, I’ve been fooled into thinking that life was like a voyage on an ocean liner, and the seas should always be smooth. Whenever a storm hit, I wanted to hunker down and wait until it blew over and everything was calm again. Wellingford Hall became my refuge. But ships have destinations, Eve. They’re going somewhere, and storms are part of the journey. I haven’t had a purpose since the war ended.”
“I know what you mean. We fought the war and helped save England. We accomplished something big, and now . . .”
“Let’s find a new purpose, Eve!”
The notion excited Eve. Something had been missing in her life for the past four years, in spite of how comfortable it had been. “Right, then! We’re off!” She pressed down on the accelerator and the car sped up.
“Where are we going, Mommy?” Robbie asked.
“We’re off to find the future. You boys keep an eye out for it, okay?”
“What does it look like?” Bobby asked.
Audrey laughed and leaned toward Eve. “He thinks we’re talking about an animal he can spot like a cow or a sheep. . . . I don’t know what it looks like, Bobby,” she called back to him. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
Eve grinned. “But I’m sure we’ll know it when we find it!”
Prologue
THE NETHERLANDS, MAY 1945
Every sound in the coal-black night seemed magnified as Lena lay awake in bed, waiting. She heard the quiet rustlings of the shadow people as they crept through the darkness downstairs in her farmhouse. The creak of the barn door and whisper of hay as they moved through her barn on this moonless night. The shadow people were also waiting. Did they hate it as much as she did?
The war had taught Lena DeVries to do many things. Hard, impossible things. She had learned to be courageous, propelled by adrenaline and faith. She’d even learned to face death, gripping the Savior’s hand. But waiting was the hardest lesson of all. Every minute seemed like an hour. Every hour stretched endlessly. The sun stood still in the sky during the day then took its time dawning after each endless night—a night like this one. Sometimes she would hold her breath without realizing it. Other times, she would find herself hoping against all reason that her husband, Pieter, was alive and would come home and she could hold him in her arms. Or hoping that her daughter Ans and son Wim were still alive and would return. She knew that if one of them walked through her door, her joy would swallow up the long months of waiting. If they ever did return.
The past seven days had been the longest week in all of Lena’s forty-five years. Tonight, her imagination partnered with fear, squeezing her heart dry, extinguishing hope. She released her breath with a sigh and rolled over in bed, whispering a silent prayer for Pieter and Ans and Wim. And for all the shadow people who waited in the darkness with her.
Sleep was impossible. She hadn’t slept soundly since the Nazis invaded five years ago. She rose from her bed, careful not to awaken her daughters Maaike and Bep, asleep in the bed beside her where Pieter should be. Lena kept her girls close to her side these days. She pulled a sweater over her nightgown and felt her way downstairs, familiar with every narrow step on the steep, angled stairs. She halted at the bottom. A shadow moved around her kitchen as if searching for something. Her heart leaped. “Pieter?” she whispered.
The shadow turned. It was Wolf, her contact in the Dutch Resistance. She didn’t know his real name. It was safer that way. “Did I wake you?” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I was looking for a pencil. I wanted to leave you a note.”
“Do you have news of my husband?”
“No. I’m sorry. But I do have good news. Allied troops are in Holland. Canadian tanks have liberated some of the towns. Here’s the latest newspaper.” He pulled the flimsy underground newssheet from his pocket and handed it to Lena. She glanced at it, then instinctively rolled it up so it would fit inside her bicycle frame. She would hide it there from the Nazis and deliver it to her friends in the village.
“But the Allies haven’t come this far yet?” she asked.
“Soon. I came to tell you and the others that it won’t be long. Maybe even tomorrow.”
Three more shadows slipped into the kitchen as Lena and Wolf talked. They left their hiding places only at night and had to disappear before dawn. How they must long to feel the sun on their faces again.
“This isn’t another false alarm like last fall, is it?” one of the shadows whispered. Lena remembered “Mad Tuesday,” when rumors of liberation had swept the country. There had been panic among the Nazis and rejoicing among the Dutch people. Many Nazi occupiers and their collaborators had fled east. When it proved to be a false alarm, they returned. Hope withered.
“This time it’s true,” Wolf said. “I saw the Canadian tanks myself.”
Lena closed her eyes for a moment. Would the waiting truly be over?
“How will we know when it’s safe to come out?” another shadow asked.
“They’ll ring the church bells in town. . . . I have to go,” Wolf said, backing toward the door. “I need to tell the others.”
“Wait,” Lena said. “Are you hungry? Have you eaten?” Wolf was shadow-thin. The deep hollows on the planes of his face made him appear skeletal in the darkness. Thousands of people who were trapped in the cities were dying of starvation every day. Cities like Leiden, where Lena’s daughter Ans had lived.
Wolf shook his head. “You already have so many mouths to feed.”
“Then one more won’t make a difference.” She opened the warming oven above the stove and pulled out a baked potato, wrapped in a cloth to keep it warm. “Here.” She pushed it into his hands. “I only wish I had more to offer you.” The potato was small and shriveled, one of the last ones from her depleted root cellar. “Thank you for coming, Wolf. I’ll spread the news.” He had given Lena hope. And hope would make waiting harder still.
She sat down at the kitchen table with the shadow people after Wolf left, talking about the war and reading the underground newspaper to them while they each ate a potato and a little boiled cabbage. She knew only their false names—Max and his wife, Ina—and that they were Jewish. Max forged false ID cards for the Resistance during the night, down in Lena’s root cellar.
When it was light enough to see, Lena helped the family crawl back into their hiding place behind the piano in her front room. Pieter had boarded up a closet on the other side of the wall as if it had never been there, then built a secret door leading into it through the lower panel of their upright piano. The bass keys no longer worked, but the rest of the piano keys did. Few people knew about the secret place, including Lena’s two younger daughters, or that this Jewish couple had lived there for more than a year.
Lena put the rest of the baked potatoes and a half loaf of bread she’d been saving in a basket, and carried it through the door that led from the kitchen into the barn. She never knew how many shadows were hiding in her barn or how long they would stay. More were hidden at the very top of the old windmill that pumped water for their fields. The Resistance would position the windmill blades to signal when it was safe for the shadow people to h
ide on her farm. Again, it was better for Lena not to know too much. She simply cooked whatever food she had and took it to them, asking the Lord to multiply it like the loaves and fishes.
Six men of various ages crept out of their hiding places in the barn as Lena sang a verse of the hymn that served as a signal. She read Wolf’s newspaper to them as they ate. Four of the shadows were in their late teens—her son Wim’s age. The other two looked like ordinary husbands and fathers. They were onderduikers, men who’d been forced to “dive under” to avoid being sent to German slave-labor camps. Some might be railroad workers who’d been ordered by the exiled Dutch government to go on strike to hinder the Nazis. The slender young man with wire-rimmed glasses and ebony hair was undoubtedly Jewish.
“What’s the first thing you want to do once the Allies arrive and Holland is free?” she asked them.
“Go home” was their unanimous reply. The shadow men talked about the other things they missed as they finished their bread and potatoes, and about the food they hungered for.
“I heard that the Allies are giving out cigarettes,” one of them said. “I’d give anything for a smoke.”
At dawn, one of the shadow men offered to milk Lena’s cow for her. “I grew up on a farm in Friesland,” he said. “Milking her reminds me of home.” He stroked the cow’s shoulder as if greeting an old friend before straddling the milking stool. “Shall I let her out to graze when I’m finished?” he asked.
“No, she has to stay inside the barn again today. Three cows were killed in a neighboring village by a stray Nazi rocket. And with the Allies moving closer, there’s always the danger of falling shrapnel from aerial battles overhead.”
“Someone might steal your cow for food, too,” another shadow said.
“Yes, there is that.”
Lena gave her daughters some of the milk to drink with their breakfast. They looked thin and shadowlike, too. Wim and Ans had been plump and rosy-cheeked when they were their age. Before the war. When life was gentle and good. When food was plentiful. “I think we’ll take the rest of the milk into town this morning,” she told the girls, “and see what we can trade it for.”
Little Elizabeth, whom they’d nicknamed Bep, bounced with excitement at the prospect of a trip into the village. She was four years old and full of life and energy. “May I wear a bow in my hair?” she asked.
“Yes, why not? You’ll look so pretty.” Lena brushed Bep’s long, dark hair after breakfast and tied a bright bow in it. It fell naturally into thick curls. “Do you want one, too?” she asked Maaike.
She shook her head. At eleven years old she was no longer interested in girlish bows. Lena braided Maaike’s straw-blonde hair—the same color as her own—into a thick braid that fell nearly to her waist.
When it was time to go, Lena fetched her broken-down bicycle from the barn. The rubber tires were long gone, replaced with clunky wooden wheels that Pieter had made. In peacetime her bicycle would be considered a piece of junk—and it was—but at least the Nazis wouldn’t confiscate it. She lifted little Bep onto the handlebars, and Maaike climbed onto the board Pieter had attached to the rear fender. Lena tied the two containers of milk to her body, hidden beneath her sweater and apron, and set off on the three-mile trip into the village.
The pastures between her farm and the town looked tired and pale this morning, like an invalid who’d lain in bed too long. More fenceposts were missing, and several more trees had disappeared, chopped down for fuel this past winter. They were calling that long, endless season the “Hunger Winter.” With the railroad workers on strike, food had become so scarce in the cities that hundreds of starving people had staggered out to Lena’s farm every week from Leiden or even Den Hague to beg for food. Her little nation would have much rebuilding to do once the war finally ended. But Lena suspected that the hardest task would be repairing the discord and mistrust among neighbors and even families. For the past five years, no one had known whom they could trust or who might sell their secrets to the Nazis to feed their starving children. She and Pieter had known, when they’d hidden Jews and onderduikers, that if they were discovered, they would be arrested and imprisoned.
Lena was nearly to town when she heard the glorious cacophony of church bells ringing in the distance. She slowed to a halt as joy leaped in her heart. “Listen, girls! Do you hear the bells?”
“But it isn’t Sunday, Mama,” Bep said.
“I know. It means the Netherlands is free! We’re free!” Her breath caught in her throat. She was saying the words but could barely comprehend that they were true.
“Does that mean the soldiers will go away?” Maaike asked.
“Yes, they will be gone for good. The Netherlands will be free again!” She couldn’t imagine it. Lena wondered if Maaike even remembered a time when Nazi soldiers and their roaring motorcycles weren’t a common sight. She had been six years old when they’d invaded the Netherlands. Little Bep was too young to remember freedom at all.
Lena picked up her pace as she pedaled the last mile into town. The village square and the street in front of her father’s church were packed with rejoicing people as if it were Easter Sunday. The church bells clamored so loudly they could probably be heard all the way out to her farm. Lena’s friends and the neighbors she had known all her life were laughing and embracing each other, their faces streaming with tears of joy. Her cousin Truus pushed through the crowd and hugged Lena tightly, the milk cans clanking as the women rocked in place. “Isn’t it wonderful, Lena? We’re free! The Nazis are gone at last!”
“And look at all these people who must have been hidden,” Lena said when Truus released her again. Crowded among the people she knew were strangers Lena had never seen before. Their milk-white skin and frail bodies told her they were shadow people. “I had no idea so many of them were hiding right here in the village!”
“And do you notice who isn’t here?” her cousin asked. “The filthy collaborators have all fled.”
“What a relief.” Lena wondered if they would face justice for what they’d done. They had much to atone for.
Lena had known these villagers all her life, had worshiped beside them in church every Sunday, and she knew that the war had brought tragedy into every life, every home. Now they were cheering and hugging each other, and asking, “Is it really over? Are they finally gone?” One of the elders from her father’s church burst into song, and everyone joined in singing the words to the psalm: “‘O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come; our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home.’” Lena gripped Bep’s hand and wiped tears as she sang. If only Lena’s husband and father were here to see this. She needed to hurry home and tell her own shadow people the good news. Max and Ina could come out from behind the piano. The onderduikers could go home to their families. Maybe Pieter and Ans and Wim were on their way home right now.
She traded the milk for some cheese and a loaf of bread from the bakery. “You can carry these for me on the way home,” she told her daughters. “There’s no need to hide them anymore.” Joy and hope warmed her like spring sunshine as she pedaled. The fields looked greener now than they had on the way into town. “You can come out! It’s safe!” she called as she parked her bicycle in the barn. “The Netherlands is free!”
“You’re sure?” a voice called.
“Very sure! Quick! Run over to the windmill and tell the others.” Lena’s daughters hovered close to her as shadows emerged from every corner of the barn. Maaike and Bep would have no idea who these men were. Lena laughed and motioned for them to follow her through the passageway to the kitchen, then into the front room. She bent down and rapped on the lower panel on the piano. “It’s safe to come out! The Netherlands is liberated! We’re free!” The girls watched in astonishment as the panel opened and Max and Ina emerged as if in a daze. Lena flung the front door wide for them and said, “Look! It’s a glorious day! You can go outside at last!” They moved as if in a dream as they joined the other shadow peop
le outside in the barnyard. Like the villagers, they gazed around in wonder, laughing and rejoicing. Ina dropped to her knees, her face hidden in her hands as she wept. Across the field, several men stood on the windmill’s upper deck, cheering and lifting their faces to the sun. She waved to them from her front door.
“Who are all these people, Mama?” Maaike asked. She stood in the doorway beside Lena. “What are they doing here?”
“They were hiding from the Nazis. Papa said they could stay here with us, where it’s safe. But they don’t need to hide anymore.” She looked around for Bep and saw her crouching down to peek beneath the piano.
“Look, Maaike!” Bep said. “There’s a little room inside the piano, with blankets and a bookshelf and everything! Come and see!”
As Maaike went over to take a peek, Lena spotted the studio photograph of her family on top of the piano. She lifted it down to study her loved ones’ faces. The photo had been taken in 1939 during a trip to Leiden, a year before the Nazi invasion, before any of them ever imagined they would be engulfed in a war. Her oldest daughter, Ans, had been eighteen—so beautiful with her pale-blonde hair and slender frame. Her bold smile and confident stance revealed her strong will. Wim stood beside his sister, already as tall as she was, his fair hair bleached nearly white by the sun. He’d been a curious eleven-year-old boy before the invasion, who loved to swim in the canals and tease his sisters. The war had forced Wim to become a man before his time. Five-year-old Maaike nestled on Lena’s lap in the picture, her little surprise baby, born when Lena was thirty-four. Lena had convinced her father to pose with them for the family portrait too. He stood behind Wim and Ans, looking every inch the stern pastor. Or maybe he had simply been grieving the loss of Lena’s mother, who had died a few months earlier. Pieter, the love of Lena’s life, stood behind her with his hands resting on the back of her chair—his strong, calloused, sun-browned hands. Would she ever take those hands in hers again? Out of the six people in the photograph, only Lena and Maaike were left.