Page 35 of Winter's End
“We need to get this girl home,” his companion said. “If you have any sense, Jake Reese, you will return straightaway to the Beekhof farm. In these dangerous times, it takes more than luck to survive.”
...
Mam had been wide-eyed with fright by the time Evi slipped through the door of the barge – the more so when she saw the dirty smudges on her skirt.
“Evi,lieve god, are you alright?”
Evi had taken her mother’s hands. “I’m fine, Mam.”
“I was frantic, Evi. What happened?
“Everything was good,” she said, skirting the truth. “We buried another German.”
Mam examined the folds of her skirt.
“I took a little fall, that is all. It is dark out there in the woods.”
Mam had looked deep into her eyes. When Evi said nothing, she sighed. “Evi, this is not a good idea. I think you should reconsider.”
“I will not reconsider. The Germans are starving us, beating us in the streets. If this is the way I can make them pay, I will do that.”
She wanted to say more – to tell Mam she had decided she would learn to shoot, not only for her own protection, but to kill Germans whenever she had the chance.
But this was not the time, she knew. Instead, she had smiled at her mother.
“Trust me, Mam, please. I do not do this alone. I have two big bodyguards who will not hesitate to shoot if I am ever in danger – and that is more than you can say when you are in danger of being caughtevery time you transport a Jewish refugee in the barge or go off to pick up a load of beets or – or tulip bulbs.”
Mam stood straighter. “The beets and the tulip bulbs I bring home are keeping us, and many others, from starvation.”
“Yes, but what if you are stopped by the Gestapo?”
“I am a Dutch citizen, Evi. I have my papers. I live on this barge. I have the right to be on the river.”
Now Evi sighed. “On the river, perhaps. But not when you are moving refugees and contraband under the noses of the Germans.”
Now there was nothing more for Mam to go.
Evi reached out to hug her mother. “Is there tea?”
“Yes.”
Would you like some?”
“I would.”
Evi moved into the kitchen and put the pot on to boil. She waited until the tea was poured.
“Mam,” she asked, as though it were an afterthought, “Do you know a family called the Beekhofs? I think they have a farm outside the city.”
Mam had knit her brows together. “Beekhof. I do not think so. Why?”
Evi had shrugged. “No reason. Someone mentioned them…that is all.”
ZOE
Zoe was among the first to hear the bad news – largely because Daan Mulder, like the other Resistance leaders in Haarlem, had been advised of it almost as quickly as it began in the bitter days of mid-December. The German army was launching a major offensive against the Allied forces, striking once again, as they had done unsuccessfully nearly five years earlier, in the dense woods of the Ardennes Forest.
Because of the sheer number of troops bulking up, and the number of tanks lining up to support them,Radio Oranjeand news outlets all over the free world were calling it the Battle of the Bulge.
