Girl in the Blue Coat(24)
“What are you talking about, Ollie?”
“I’m talking about that’s why. That’s why I brought you. Because despite your insistence that you don’t want to get involved, you know that what’s happening in this country is wrong, and you’re already in a position to help us.”
“None of that means I’m ready to risk my life. I already take care of my parents, and they would starve if something happened to me. I’m already looking for a missing girl. That’s how I’m resisting. I keep people fed, and I’m going to find a girl I was asked to find. Isn’t that enough, for one person to save one life? What you want from me is too much. I’m not ready to do more, and it’s not fair for you to ask.”
Ollie’s voice softens and so do his eyes, quiet and blue. “I think you are willing to risk your life. You’ve felt this is wrong for a very long time. You were fourteen and you were already talking about how evil Adolf Hitler was. Remember the dinner?”
I can’t look away from him. I know what he’s referring to. A dinner conversation from four years ago, at the Van de Kamps’. I was talking and talking about Hitler, while Mrs. Van de Kamp tried to distract me by passing the peas and then the rolls, and then finally she came out and told me that polite people didn’t discuss politics at the table. Bas hadn’t even been paying attention. Ollie was listening, though. I think he was even nodding along. But that was years ago. That was a lifetime ago. Ollie knows nothing about me now, certainly not enough to make these grand, sweeping speeches. He doesn’t know that Bas is dead because of—
Ollie gives my shoulders a final shake, and then releases them, raking his fingers through his hair. “We’re losing, Hanneke,” he says softly. “People are disappearing faster and faster, and being sent into God only knows what hell. One of the earlier transports? The families of deported men received postcards from their sons and brothers saying they were being treated well. Then the families received notices from the Gestapo, saying the men had all died of disease. Does that make any sense to you? Healthy young men—first they send postcards saying they’re fine, and then suddenly they’re dead? And now nobody sends back any postcards at all.”
“Do you think all the Jews are being killed?” I ask.
“I’m saying we don’t know what to think, or what’s true. All we know is that farms and attics are busting at the seams with onderduikers. The country is running out of places to hide people who desperately need to be hidden. We need help, more help, quickly, from people in strategic positions like you.”
“You don’t know me,” I whisper. “There are things about me where if you knew them, you wouldn’t—”
“Shhh.” He cuts me off.
I start to protest, but he presses a finger to his lips. His whole body has gone stiff, and his ear is cocked as he listens to something. We’re both frozen now that I hear it, too: German shouting, in the distance but growing closer. Muffled crying, and unorganized feet on cobblestones. These days, the sounds only mean one thing.
Ollie realizes it at the same time. “A roundup.”
The sounds are getting closer. My eyes meet Ollie’s, our argument immediately forgotten. He raises his wrist and frantically peels back his coat sleeve. I don’t understand what he’s doing, until he taps his watch and shows me the time. We spent so long arguing in the street that now we’re about to miss curfew. Both of us are on foot today, and we’re still a mile from my house.
We can’t be found, not in the middle of a roundup, when soldiers are already dangerously engorged with power.
“This way!” a soldier barks. His voice echoes off the cobblestones. “Move!” The voice is just around the corner. The soldier and prisoners will be on our street any minute.
“We need to—” Ollie starts.
“Follow me.” I reflexively grab his hand, pulling him toward a small side street. We walk quickly down that one, and then turn onto another side street, and then another. For once, I am grateful for Amsterdam’s winding street plan.
Beside me, Ollie’s gait is relaxed, but his upper body looks tense, and we speak to each other in gestures while ignoring the shouting I can still hear from a few blocks over. Both of our palms are sweating. I don’t want to have to see the people the soldiers are taking away. It’s cowardly, but I don’t want to be reminded that because I have blond hair and the right last name, they’re not taking me.
The street we’re on now is barely more than an alley, so narrow that I could nearly touch the buildings on either side with my outstretched arms. It’s safer than a main road because there’s less chance of being seen; it’s more dangerous than a main road because if someone does see you, there’s no way to run. I’m clutching Ollie’s hand so hard we’ll both have bruises tomorrow.
Our surroundings are beginning to look familiar. We pass a bookstore, closed for the night, whose owner I find coffee for sometimes, and an optometrist, and a cobbler who is willing to trade shoes for beer. I know where this street ends: near a dancing studio where Elsbeth and I were forced to take horrible waltzing lessons.
From there, it’s only a short walk home. If Ollie and I needed to, we could knock on a neighbor’s door, pretending to borrow an egg, and one of them would probably let us in. We’re almost safe. In the distance, I can still hear the cries from the raid. I quicken my pace to put more space between myself and that fear. Suddenly Ollie squeezes my hand even harder.