Hunger Journeys (25 page)

“No,” Sofie said shortly. She drew breath. “Oh, don’t be angry with me, Lena. Uli came back on a train headed west this time, but he was alone. He said that Albert had been sent somewhere else; he didn’t know where. Anyway, the train’s been gone now for two days. And Uli didn’t know when he would be back.”

Lena stood up stiffly. “Thank you for telling me,” she said, sarcasm hardening her words, belying them. She smoothed the folded bit of paper in her pocket. “You’re welcome to visit anytime.” And she walked away to her bicycle leaning by the gate.

The house was quiet when she arrived, mother and son still sleeping, father and daughter still away.

Vrouw Wijman, Annie and Bennie went to church the day after that. Annie complained that it would be cold, but the neighbour’s baby was going to be baptized, and Vrouw Wijman was
determined. Wijman was off with his brother and the few cows that were left.

“No need for you to come,” Vrouw Wijman said to Lena at the breakfast table. “You can stay here and clean up the breakfast things. And wash this floor.”

Lena thought about mentioning not working on the Sabbath, but she would rather stay home anyway. She would be alone, blissfully alone.

As soon as the front door had clicked shut behind them, Lena got to work. Moments later, the clock struck nine thirty. She suspected that church would run until eleven, in the huge, frigid stone building a few blocks away. Then they would have to walk back, plus allow for any visiting they might do. She probably had two hours. If she could only be sure that Wijman would stay away, she could bathe. She still felt tainted by that cow’s blood.

By ten, the kitchen floor was spotless, or close enough, and the breakfast dishes were clean, dry and back in their places. She looked at the big metal tub on the floor in the corner, but she didn’t dare. She would have to settle for a sponge bath. She could do that with little risk of embarrassment. A mixing bowl half-filled with soapy hot water and another with clear water, a washcloth and a towel and she began, starting with her face. She held the hot washcloth against her skin and let the heat soak right in. Then her neck. It was an awkward process, since she stayed fully dressed throughout, but by wringing the cloth out thoroughly and following it up with the towel right away so as not to get her blouse or her skirt too wet, she managed. She did take off her stockings, though, so she was standing at the kitchen sink barefoot, damp hair sticking to her cheeks and her neck, when the door from the lean-to opened.

She turned in time to see Wijman’s eyes rake her body and settle on those bare calves. “What are you up to, girl, all alone in my house?” he asked.

“I … I’m just cleaning up,” Lena said, trying to make her voice strong.

He crossed the kitchen in three strides, and this time there was no gentle laying-on of hands. He grabbed her and thrust her up against the sink. “No more games,” he grunted into her ear.

For once, Lena didn’t freeze. She pulled all her strength together and shoved, making him stumble back. “No!” she shouted. “You mustn’t.”

He stood facing her from halfway across the room. He walked back, and this time he took her shoulders. His face was fierce and eager at the same time.

“What about your wife?” Lena said. “I’ll tell.” Even as she said it, she knew that it wouldn’t matter. His wife already knew.

He pulled a hand back to slap her then, but seemed to think better of it.

“I said I’ll tell,” Lena said again, somehow emboldened by his anger. Could it be that telling mattered still? Yes, she thought. And she said again, “I’ll tell,” and then added, “and she’ll send me away.”

Wijman stared at her, his hands in fists at his sides.

Lena shook; her teeth chattered. She moved her head slowly from side to side. “Please, meneer.” He flinched at the title and lowered his eyes. “I can’t do that. It would be wrong. I … I can’t.” And she turned, walked to her alcove and pulled the curtain across the opening. For long moments, the kitchen was silent.

Then a voice. “This is not over,” it said. “When a pretty young girl leaves home and places herself with strangers, she’d better expect to pay her way.” Silence again.

For a long time, Lena strained for the sound of footsteps, watched to see a hand on the curtain. Instead, after more moments than she could bear, she heard the door to the lean-to click closed.

Lena sat on her bed, knees pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped tight around her legs. What she had left behind in Amsterdam was bad, but this was worse, much worse. She might have been hungry, but she had never felt in danger in her own home. Here she could eat great slabs of liver and bowls of stew, but she wasn’t safe. She had lost her friend. The one girl in the house was silent and furious. Bennie. She thought of him, and then Bep wandered into her mind, smiling, holding out a small drawing for her comment, asking her to come skip in the courtyard, showing up by her bed to keep her company when Margriet was gone. Lena’s heart constricted. She had left Bep all alone.

And Nynke. A tiny baby. Hungry. And Piet. He had left her first, really, but what if he needed her? She had always been there for him before.

She shook her head, lay back down and stretched her legs out. The fear was gone for the moment, but Wijman could come back at any time. He did not want her to tell. Even though they both knew that his wife suspected his desire for her, he still did not want her to tell. That was what had stopped him. That was what would keep his hands off her. For how long, though? What did the words
this is not over
mean?

Next thing she knew, the clock was striking noon, and Vrouw Wijman was rousing her from her bed, enraged by the sloppy kitchen, the stockings and damp towel on the table, and the dopy, bare-legged girl looking blankly at her from the unmade bed.

Wijman stayed away the rest of that day, and at breakfast the next morning, he was silent. He met Lena’s eyes once, and she looked right back, willing all her strength into her gaze, before returning to her bread and cheese.

Vrouw Wijman seemed to be done with Lena’s sloth of the previous day. She was full of instructions for the morning.

Lena worked hard, concentrating on the tasks at hand, on keeping Bennie quiet and on holding at bay the memory of Wijman’s eyes and hands. She worked hard and watched for the right moment to remind Vrouw Wijman that this was the day of the food packet. Possible conversations ran through her mind, all of them resulting in an angry snub. Vrouw Wijman had agreed to send food to Amsterdam only because of her husband, and Lena was desperate not to involve him.

Eventually, she ran out of time. The morning was wearing down, the table already laid for the noon meal. Wijman could walk through that door at any moment. And Bennie was down for a rare snooze on Lena’s bed in the alcove.

If she did not ask now, the day might not present another opportunity. Vrouw Wijman was standing at the stove, tasting
the soup, seeming just about as calm as she ever got.

Lena positioned herself respectfully off to one side. “Ma’am?” she said.

Vrouw Wijman’s head whipped around, alert, brows knit, soup spoon forgotten in midair.

Lena swallowed.

“What is it, girl? What are you ma’am-ing me about?”

“I’m sorry”—Lena bit her tongue; she had almost said
Ma’am
again!—“ah, Vrouw Wijman. Today’s the day I’m to send a food packet to my mother in Amsterdam.”

Vrouw Wijman lowered the spoon to the counter and frowned. “I thought you had forgotten about that foolishness,” she said.

“It’s … it’s not foolishness. My family in Amsterdam is starving. The baby, Nynke. My little sister Bep …” she tailed off and watched Vrouw Wijman’s face, which she thought had softened slightly at the mention of the baby.

They both heard the door from the alley to the lean-to open then, and Vrouw Wijman actually jumped. Her expression turned fierce again.

“Fine,” she said. “You’ll get your food. We’ll send it today. But I don’t want you whining about it in front of him. Understand?”

Lena was nodding her head when Wijman entered the kitchen. He looked from her to his wife and back, shrugged and pulled out his chair.

As soon as the meal was over and the man had departed, Vrouw Wijman started piling food on the table. Lena cleaned up around her, flinching every time a packet hit the wood. The woman seemed to be expressing some sort of furious, self-sacrificing generosity. A jar of butter. A canvas sack of flour.
A wedge of cheese. Half a dozen potatoes. And a piece of meat with lots of fat attached. Lena gave thanks for the cool temperatures of early March, which would keep the food fresh on what might be a long journey.

“Fetch a small box from the shed,” Vrouw Wijman said.

And in minutes more, the box was packed, and Lena was taking it down the lane and thanking Bosse over and over and over. Bosse was past fifty, too old, he said, to fear being rounded up by the Germans, and his mother had refused to leave the city. He was taking food to her and would be happy to tuck Lena’s box in the corner of his small cart.

“I can take another in two weeks,” he said.

Lena thanked him once again and wandered back out into the lane, feeling lighter than she had in some time.

The sun shone on the early March afternoon, and the orange-tiled roofs of the nearby mansion, Almelo House, gleamed. She had seen the grounds in passing once or twice, and though the Germans had taken the house over as their local headquarters, local people still walked the paths.

I’ve been here for a month, Lena thought, and I’ve been a drudge. Nothing more than a drudge.

“I think I’ll take Bennie out for a walk,” she said as she strode into the kitchen.

Vrouw Wijman turned and looked at her, her gaze sharp. Lena looked back, keeping her face clear.

And so it was that half an hour later, the girl and the small boy set off.

As they walked down the lane in the afternoon sunshine, Bennie chattered. Lena responded absently and gazed at the world around her. She felt like she was seeing it, really seeing it, for the first time in weeks. Months. Maybe years.

Quickly they reached the Almelo House grounds. Bulbs pushed green stalks up through the grass, and they stopped to look at them. Bennie busied himself pushing grass aside and shouting in triumph each time his efforts revealed a new shoot. Lena sat right down beside him, cross-legged, inhaling the smell of damp spring earth, ignoring the wet seeping through her skirt. A light breeze rustled the world above their heads, and birds rushed about in a frenzy of nest-building. Lena pointed them out to Bennie, and they talked about the eggs the birds would lay and the babies they would have. No war for them, Lena thought, though she suspected that the war did take its toll even on the birds.

Some trees showed the faintest flush of green; others were almost in bloom. The spot they had found was sheltered from humans of both kinds, soldier and civilian, except for themselves.

After an hour, they went home, damp, chilled and grass-stained but refreshed.

The next Sunday, once church and the noon meal were over, Lena prepared to take Bennie out again. “It’s a beautiful day,” she said to no one in particular. Then, to the small boy playing in the corner, “Would you like to go for a walk?” and he bounded up like a puppy. Vrouw Wijman was scrubbing away at something in the dark, cold living room and seemed indifferent to their plans.

Annie looked up from her book and smiled at her brother. “I could go too,” she said, startling Lena and bringing an extra grin from Bennie.

This time, Lena pulled the little wagon that usually sat in the corner of the lean-to, though Bennie refused to ride in it at first. She had a longer walk in mind.

“I would like to visit my friend Sofie,” she told Annie as the wagon bumped down the rutted lane.

Annie was inscrutable as always. “All right,” she said, shrugging slightly. “I know a good way to de Wierdensestraat.”

“Come, Bennie,” Lena said. “We’re going on an adventure.”

And they began. Trees sheltered the three of them as they made their way along the canal that bordered the Almelo House property. They had to stop to show Annie all the sights and sounds and smells they had discovered the week before, but eventually they reached the point where the canal met up with the tiny, almost creek-like River Aa.