Page 20 of Winter's End
“Zoe,goedemorgen,” he said, smiling when he saw her, but it seemed to Zoe that the vigor was gone from his voice.
She peered at him. “Goedemorgen, Daan. Can we make some time today to talk?”
“Of course. Yes. My office at noon. Now, if I may, a short meeting about what we must do here at thekliniek…”
It took less than ten minutes to review their appointments, charge Lise with cancelling those they could not accommodate, and get on with the business at hand.
Zoe dressed a couple of post-surgical wounds, inoculated a four-month-old schnauzer, and took fluids to process from a listless little pup with a fever. By then, it was getting close to noon.
She knocked lightly on Daan’s closed door, entered at his murmured, “Come in.”
The stress in his face was unmistakable.
“Are you alright, Daan?”
His voice was quiet. “As much as I can be, I suppose. Lack of sleep. Not enough to eat. You heard the air strikes last night?”
“Of course.”
Daan sighed. “I am keeping Lise on for as long as I can pay her. With business this slow, I do not know how long that might be.”
Zoe nodded.
“VerdoemdeGermans…”
She took a seat in front of the desk. “I had my own brush with the Gestapo on the bus coming back from Enschede.” She shivered. “There is nothing more motivating than a pistol in your face to put some steel in your spine.”
Daan’s lips pursed. “We will need all the steel we can muster, Zoe. “Those grenades we heard last night were clearly targeted…and they did not miss their mark. The football club stadium was fully demolished, and what was left of the Haarlem Synagogue.”
Zoe closed her eyes.
“And that is not the worst of it.” Daan ran a hand though his thinning hair. “The Germans are building a new defensive line, cutting through the north of the city. We think they are preparing to protect against the Allied invasion.”
She blinked. “Does that mean –”
“We cannot be sure, Zoe. “We can only guess when the Allies will push through. But we do know the Germans are grabbing up land. Dozens of families are being forced out of their homes, including some who have been hiding Jewish children for many months.”
It hurt Zoe’s heart that so many German-Jewish parents, in the years since Hitler’s rise to power, had been forced to make the wrenching decision to send their children to those who would take them in the hope of keeping them alive.
“Lieve god,” she breathed. “Where will these families go?”
“That is the issue we are facing, Zoe. There are few places theycango. To other family members, for a while, perhaps, some to the homes of friends. But even that may not be a long- term solution – not when food is already scarce and winter is coming on fast.”
Zoe waited for what she knew was coming.
“We need to find places to house the families who are being forced out of their homes. There must be someplace they can go to have a chance of survival.”
MILA
Evi’s pretty face, as Mila examined it in the small bathroom mirror of the barge, was perfectly made up for the mission. Her lightly rouged cheeks and heavily-lined eyes, her blonde hair smooth and sleek around her shoulders, gave her an air of sophistication.
She was dressed in one of Mila’s revealing black sheath dresses, but there was no mistaking her youthful innocence – and that, Mila thought, was what would help to draw her prey.
Evi’s gaze was fastened on her image in the glass, as though she did not recognize the face she saw.
“They are not stupid, these German officers,” Mila told her for the tenth time, demanding Evi’s full attention. “They will want to bed you, but only if they are confident that you are who you say you are, and that you are as eager as they are.”
“Yes, we’ve been over this again and again.” Evi met Mila’s gaze in the mirror. “I am nineteen years old. My parents are dead. I live with my little pussycat, Arabella, in a small house in the woods, and my boyfriend has just left me. I am so very tired of young boys. How very nice it is to be with a man.”
