Girl in the Blue Coat(21)

My mind only snaps back to attention when I hear the end of one of Judith’s sentences: “…and then bring the cards to the Schouwburg.”

“To the theater?” I interrupt, wondering what I’ve missed of the conversation. “Why would the cards go there?”

“You don’t know about the Hollandsche Schouwburg?” It’s the first time Ollie has addressed me in the meeting, and he seems disappointed.

Of course I do. I’ve been there with him, even if he doesn’t remember it. The winter I was fifteen, the Van de Kamps invited me to go see the Christmas premiere with them at the Schouwburg, an old playhouse that Mama let me wear her pearls to visit. Their whole family went. I sat next to Ollie, actually, holding hands with Bas on the other side. Ollie had only just started university; he was wearing new spectacles, serious and important.

“It’s a theater,” I say. “Or was. It’s closed now, isn’t it?”

Ollie nods. “It was a theater. They’ve renamed it the Jewish Theater, and now it’s a deportation center. Jews are rounded up around the city and brought to the Schouwburg, kept for several days, and then transported—to Westerbork mostly, but sometimes other transit camps.”

The dignified theater with velvet curtains is now a massive holding cell for German prisoners. I have clients who live right in that neighborhood. It’s disgusting, the way the Germans take our lovely things and poison them.

“I didn’t know,” I say.

“Where did you think Jewish people were sent?” Judith asks.

“To work camps, or to be resettled in another country. I’m not ignorant,” I say. Work camps is what we’ve always been told. I just never thought about how, exactly, the Jewish prisoners would get to them.

“‘Work camps’?” Judith scoffs at my description. “You make it sound as if Jews are just going to a job. You have no idea, the sadistic things we’ve heard about those camps.”

Before I can ask her to explain more, Sanne jumps in, peacemaking. “It makes sense that you wouldn’t know more,” she tells me. “The Nazis try to hide everything they’re doing. At the Schouwburg, they make everyone stay inside until it’s time for their transport. The Council arranges food and blankets, and that’s about all they can do. Judith volunteers there a few times a week, and her cousin works in the crèche.”

“There’s a nursery?”

Judith makes a face. “Because the Nazis thought it would be too disorderly, to have the children in the theater with their parents. The toddlers and smaller children wait in the crèche until it’s time for their families to depart.”

I don’t know what to say to that, and I don’t have to. Ollie clears his throat again, to regain control of his meeting. “So Willem will talk to Utrecht,” Ollie says. “When do you think you can talk to them, Willem?”

“Wait,” I say.

“And then, after Willem and Judith consult with—” Leo begins.

“Wait.” Everyone stops talking then and looks at me. “The Schouwburg. Is that where everybody goes, or only the people who were asked to report?”

Leo looks confused. “What do you mean?”

“If someone wasn’t actually scheduled for deportation, and they were just found on the street, but they had Jewish papers, would they be brought to the theater, or to another prison somewhere?”

Ollie’s voice is neutral as he answers my question. “There are a few smaller deportation centers in other parts of the city. But for the most part, yes. There’s a good chance that a Jewish person who wasn’t where she was supposed to be would be brought to the Schouwburg.”

I notice his use of she, acknowledging that I’m not merely curious about procedure in general but about one person in particular. This discussion about taking ration cards to the theater has inadvertently led back to my reason for being here tonight. “Mirjam could be there?” I ask. “Right now?”

Judith and Ollie look at each other. “Theoretically,” Ollie says carefully.

“How do I find out if she is?”

“It’s difficult.”

“How difficult?”

Ollie sighs. “The Jewish man who was assigned to run the Schouwburg, we rely on him for a lot of things. I can’t approach him with a personal favor. We have to use our resources strategically. We have to think about what actions will be best for the largest group of people, for the movement as a whole.”

“But maybe if I could just get a message to her. That would be possible, wouldn’t it?”

He rubs his hands over his eyes. “Can we finish the business on our agenda? And then talk about this at the end of the night?”

“Your agenda?”

If I were an outsider watching this conversation, I would tell myself to stop pushing, that no one wants to help someone behaving childishly. But in this moment, I can’t help it. Ollie brought me here under a false pretense, and I’ve finally learned a piece of information that could be useful, but he’s told me help is impossible without really explaining why.

The others resume talking, about the ration-card bottleneck and fake identification papers. None of this helps me with Mirjam. She’s fifteen. How would she know to find a fake ID through the resistance? How would she know how to do anything? She’s probably alone and afraid, and she’s been missing for forty-eight hours now. Could a fifteen-year-old girl manage to elude capture on the streets for forty-eight hours?