Page 61 of Winter's End
MILA
Mila sipped her wine. The dining room table was laden with food, a roasted pork loin with apples, potatoes and currants, but she could barely abide the rich aroma, never mind the taste of it.
Her mother, sick with one of her convenient headaches and despite her father’s clear misgivings, had left the job of hostess to her. She arranged the folds of her grey silk skirt, then slowly twirled the stem of her glass.
The conversation had been less than useful. But her pulse quickened as the hawk-nosedObershtumfuhrerseated across from her began talking about the explosion at the Haarlem Cinema.
“Dozens of loyal German officers dead,” he growled. “Almost as many injured, many gravely. I was very nearly caught in the flames myself.”
Her father listened, a stern expression on his face. He did not look at Mila.
“The source of the blast is still being traced,” the German said. “But we know the Dutch Resistance was behind it. Herr Hitler himself is enraged.”
“I do not doubt it,” her father said.”
“We have already begun to exact revenge, beginning with another cut in Dutch rations. We feel certain that somewhere, someone with a starving family will come forward with information about the perpetrators.”
“And if not?” her father asked.
The German cut into the slab of meat on his plate and shrugged. “Then Herr Hitler has given us our marching orders. We will begin to eliminate two Dutch citizens for every German murdered until the debt is paid.”
Mila blinked. To her knowledge, there were only three people who knew the origin of the Cinema blast – Johan Steegen, Pieter, and herself. Nobody else had information to share…but her heart sunk to realize how many innocent Dutch would pay the price.
She cleared her throat, and leaned forward, exposing the cleavage in the deep neckline of her dress.
“How tiresome, all this talk of death and destruction,” she purred, ignoring her father’s searing look. “What I long to know, my dearObersturmfuhrer, is what is happening on the German stage these days!”
She raised a glass. “Nobody, after all, does music like the Germans. I would give anything to own a recording of Marlene Deitrich’s “Lili Marleen!”
“Ach,” the German beamed, clearly pleased to find common ground. “I heard the song played just yesterday on OSS Radio. Glorious, is it not? It is said even the Americans are making much of it, though I cannot for an instant think why!”
He leaned across the table.” Did you know, Fraulein Brouwer, that the words to that song were written some thirty years ago by a German school teacher from Hamburg?”
Mila smiled and shrugged deeply, again baring her cleavage. “I did not know that,Obershtumfuhrer!! How very clever you are!”
The German leaned forward, looking pleased with himself, she thought, and openly admiring the view. He mopped his brow with a linen cloth. “I will personally see that a copy ofzisrecording is delivered to the lovelyfraulein.”
Mila sat back as Riet brought in a sugared apple tart.
“Wonderbaarlijk!” She smiled at their guest. “May I serve?”
...
“When you play with fire, Mila” her father told her when his Nazi dinner guest had gone, “you will almost certainly be burned.”
Mila did not respond and her father did not persist. She went to the kitchen, instructed Riet to pack up the dinner’s considerable leftovers and deliver them to the Dans Hal in the morning. They would feed more than one hungry family, she thought with satisfaction.
In her bedroom, she settled Hondje with a few bits of the pork, then closed the door of her clothes closet behind her.
“It appears,Godjizdank,” she reported to Pieter, “that the enemy still has no idea who originated the Cinema blast – except, of course, that it was a Resistance operation.”
She could envision Pieter, drumming his fingers on his desk as he listened.
“If right is on our side, they never will know,” he said. “But they are inflamed, and more alert than ever, especially since it came on the heels of the train explosion and the loss of all that cargo.”
“Hitler, himself, is enraged, we were told. In addition to cutting rations again, the rank and file has direct orders to retaliate at their discretion – eliminating two Dutchmen for every German lost, if starvation doesn’t kill us first.”
She could hear Pieter’s sigh. “No doubt they will exact their pound of flesh in any way that suits their purpose.”
