Page 77 of Winter's End
“No,” he said. “There is nothing more to be done here now. We will know de Boer’s condition by morning.”
...
It was after eleven when the Renault drew up in front of the Brouwer estate. There were lights on in the imposing entryway, but the windows were mostly dark.
“Mila –” he said, turning toward her.
“You know I am glad to have done my part, Pieter. I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
“You are brave and beautiful, Mila. The more I know of you, the more I want to know. If only –”
“What?”
“If only we lived in a time when life was…predictable.”
She shrugged. “Life is not predictable ever, Peter. We can only plan…and hope.”
He turned off the engine, opened his door. “Come. I will see you to your door.”
He took her hand to help her out of the car, and held it as they walked up the driveway. At the door, he turned to her and without a word, drew her face toward his.
EVI
She had no idea how long she stood on that knoll, screaming, crying, stomping the ground beneath her feet as though a tantrum might somehow will Mam back into her sight.
But soon enough, the German e-boat sped off, and the barge began to drift, unmoored and unmanned, and it was not until she had cried until there were no more tears that Evi remembered the baby.
Baby Jacob. Lieve god, where was the baby? Had the Germans killed him, too?
Frantic, freezing in the thin sweater she wore, she wrapped her arms around herself and rocked, grappling with what to do next.
She could try to swim. It was not that far to the drifting barge. But the freezing water might kill her, too, and what could she do even if she reached it? She had never once taken the helm – and even if she could figure out how to do so, it would not bring Mam back…or baby Jacob.
In the end, with no more tears to shed, she remembered what Mam had screamed at her:Find your way back to Haarlem.
With a last piercing glance at the yellow barge, and the choppy water beneath, she clambered to the next knoll, then farther up the slope, gasping for breath between her tears, and fighting the wind until she reached what appeared to be a packed dirt roadway.
From this distance, looking back, the drifting barge was no more than a dot on the horizon. Finding, from somewhere deep inside, a new reserve of tears, she sat in the roadway, pulled her sweater around her, and cried until her face was wet with tears and mucus.
Then, spent, she wiped her face with her sleeve, rose to her feet, and began the trudge to look for civilization.
ZOE
Zoe used a warm, wet washcloth to wipe the discharge from the Schnauzer’s left eye, then carefully flushed the eye with saline solution and took a closer look.
“I think you’re going to be just fine, little Fritzi,” she said, smoothing the dog’s coarse, wiry coat. “A bit of an infection, that is all this is.”
She filled a syringe with the last of the antibiotic solution and deftly, holding the animal still and its eyelid wide open, approached from behind and applied it directly into the eye.
“There,” she steadied the pup on the table as it blinked and tried to squirm away. She smiled, looking directly into the questioning chocolate eyes. “As I told you, little one,” she repeated softly, “you are going to be just fine.”
Coaching the animal to rise to its feet, Zoe attached a lease to the collar and walked it out to the waiting room, dispatching its anxious young owner and her father with instructions for aftercare and a packet from the shrinking supply of oral antibiotics.
She sighed, watching the trio exit. It felt good to be doing what she was trained to do. She missed the busy days, the succession of animals needing her care. Mostly, she missed Daan…and she worried.
Just this morning, she had heard on a BBC broadcast that Canadian infantries had been successful in clearing German forces from the east side of the German/Dutch frontier – and that the assault, part of the American General Eisenhower’s strategy, was helping the Allies toadvance. At the same time, the Soviets had taken most of Poland and were advancing their own march into Germany.
It was cheering news. On the face of it, as a mostly clear February hinted at an end to the long winter, there was reason to hope for a German surrender.
