Page 8 of Winter's End
Evi slumped in her chair. With the universities long since shuttered, too many students with time on their hands became the targets of Gestapo scrutiny.
“Six months,” Lotte murmured, stowing the radio in an empty cereal box in the cupboard. “Six months since the Allies landed at Normandy, and still, God knows if we will survive long enough to see liberation.”
Evi sat straighter in the worn wooden chair. This was, perhaps, a good time to take advantage of the moment.
“Mam,” she began. “I am nearly seventeen. I want to do more for the Resistance.”
She looked into her mother’s face, thinner than she remembered, and creased with lines Evi had been slow to notice. “I’m not a child. Ican do more than pass out leaflets and transport paperwork. I want to do something that matters.”
Lotte ran a hand across her face. “Lieveling, everything you do matters. The papers you transport are saving lives.”
“But Mam, I am smart, you know I am, and careful,” Evi persisted. “I know my way around all of Haarlem, and I know how to get by without attracting attention. There must be something more I can do – some sort of reconnaissance, perhaps.”
Her mother looked at her. “Reconnaissance, Evi? Do you even know what that is?”
“Of course, I do. It’s observation. I can bicycle around the city, perhaps, and watch for German troop movement.”
“And then what, Evi? To whom will you report this – troop movement?
“I do not know for certain, but I know people do this, to help our own soldiers plan their strategy.”
Her mother sighed audibly.
Evi knew as well as Mam that the Dutch Army had been ill-prepared against the Germans from the start, clinging to some idea of neutrality and taking orders from the queen who fled to London the day after the Germans breached their border.
“I don’t think so, Evi,” Mam said. “The Dutch army does not need or want your service.”
“The police then.”
Mam threw up her hands. “Evi, half the Dutch police force is collaborating with the Germans. You know that. That is how they survive.”
“Not all of them,” she argued, though of course it was impossible to know which half could be trusted.
Silence.
Evi tried her most persuasive voice. “Mam, I’m young. I’m healthy. I learn fast. There must be more I can do.”
Lotte reached for her. “We will see, Evi. Let me think about it. For now, pray this will be over soon, that the Allies are near to ending it…”
If only, Evi thought. Mam was right. Ever since Normandy, there had been constant speculation that liberation would come soon. But the months rolled by, and hope along with them, and still it was at best a dream.
“There is tea,” Mam said into the silence, a hand on Evi’s cheek. “I found some in the market place at Leiden when I delivered theHet Parool. “
Evi sighed, reminded of the Germanschnellboats –afraid to think what might happen to Mam if they found stacks of theverbodennewspapers onboard the barge.
Before she could answer, Mam leaned toward her and put a finger to her lips. “I will give some thought to what you might do for the Council. Meanwhile, if all goes well, aguestwill be delivered tonight for safekeeping.”
Evi turned and went back to her homework, but the algebra equations swam before her eyes. She put her hands under her arms to warm them. It was cold on the barge, even before the cutback of power had rendered the heater mostly useless. She pulled one of Mam’s crocheted blankets across her lap.
How she missed the house they had lived in before the Germans came – the spacious rooms, the big porcelain bathtub, the brick fireplace smudged a deep, smoky black in the winter time. Another blow dealt by this war, the move to the barge after Papa left.
Cheaper to live in, Mam had said, with a hold big enough for hiding refugees and reason to be navigating up and down the coast when she needed to.
Evi studied the worn-thin braided rug that lay under the coffee table and over the hatch in the floorboards.
Once, she recalled, they had harbored a whole family in the hold – an anxious young mam, a dark-bearded papa, and their child, a thin little boy with huge blue eyes who had been well-schooled in the need for quiet.
She remembered the day she came home from school with a small packet of candy corn – a rare prize she had won in a spellingcompetition. She had clambered down the narrow ladder to share the sweets with little Johann, only to find the hold empty of all of them.
