Girl in the Blue Coat(38)

She’s not dead, I tell myself.

After I’ve been at the crèche only a few minutes, Judith calls to discuss business with Mina.

“I’ve saved up two pounds of ersatz coffee,” Mina tells her on the telephone. “I was thinking of having a little party, if you know of any friends who are free this evening.”

“Everyone I know is in the mood for tea these days,” I hear Judith say on the other end of the line. “Nobody wants coffee.”

Mina explained the telephone code to me already. Tea is light-complexioned children, who look more ethnically Dutch, and coffee is those with darker features. Families want blond toddlers, whose presence can easily be explained away.

I should go, I mouth finally. I have time to visit one more dentist.

Mina cups her hand over the phone receiver. “Judith is telling me there’s a gathering at Leo’s tonight. She wants me to invite you.”

“I’ll think about it,” I say. And I will. I have been. I know they need my help, but I need to find Mirjam first.

“I wish I could go. I would if I were older,” Mina says.

“Maybe.”

“She says maybe,” Mina tells Judith. “I know, I know, but that’s all she’ll say.” I can imagine what Judith is thinking on the other end of the line: that she and Mina are Jewish, with Jewish names and Stars of David sewn onto their clothes, and they still risk their lives every day. I am blond-haired and green-eyed with pristine papers, and I still haven’t agreed to help them. She’ll think that, and it’s true, because everyone is running out of time. I’m just not ready yet. Not quite.

Mina hangs up the receiver and looks slightly embarrassed. “Judith implied that if you don’t go tonight, she’s not going to use her contacts in the theater to ask about Mirjam again. She says the group has too much important work to spend time helping people who don’t offer anything in return.”

“I’ll go.”





Earlier this morning I told Mr. Kreuk I needed to miss work to go to the dentist. And then I went to six of them. One after the other, pretending to have an aching tooth, asking at each one for Dr. Rosen. I started with the two nearest the Jewish neighborhoods, then spiraled farther out. This afternoon I’d already arranged to meet with a prospective contact, a baker in North Amsterdam, so I cross the river by ferry and, after meeting the baker, go to a dental office in a tidy residential neighborhood. Inside, the receptionist is already wearing her coat. “The doctor was about to leave,” she says. “It’s nearly five.”

“My tooth really hurts. Doesn’t Dr. Rosen have just a few minutes?” I wait for her to tell me that there is no Dr. Rosen, which is what has happened at every office so far.

She sighs. “Dr. Rosen is out sick. You would have to see his partner instead, Dr. Zimmer.”

“His—what?”

“Dr. Rosen is sick. But I’ll get Dr. Zimmer for you. If you’re sure it’s an emergency?”

As soon as she disappears from view, I slink behind her desk. A large appointment book lies open on top. Off to one side, a wire mail holder, filled with bills. I flip through them quickly, hoping to find one with Dr. Rosen’s home address, as I listen with one ear to the receptionist in the next room. No home addresses. Everything is addressed to the clinic. My eyes move up to the walls behind the desk, scanning diplomas and certificates. One corner has photographs: a dark-haired couple, who I assume are the Rosens, standing with—I step closer to make sure I’m seeing correctly. The boy with the round face who winked at me at the Lyceum. The cheeky, nervy boy who reminded me of Bas. Tobias.

“What are you doing?” The receptionist glares at me from the doorway.

“Do you have a spare handkerchief? I’m a receptionist, too. Sometimes I keep them in my desk.”

She frowns and plucks me one from her pocket. “Dr. Zimmer can’t see you today. He has a personal engagement after work. He told me to make you an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. He doesn’t usually do Saturday appointments, but you can come in at one.”

“What about—” I’m inventing as I go. “Maybe Dr. Rosen could see me at his house. Do you have the address?”

I’ve gone too far; she looks really suspicious now. I put my hand to my heart. “Goodness, I don’t know what came over me, asking for Dr. Rosen’s home address. I guess people will do anything when they have a sore tooth. Tomorrow, one o’clock.”

A ferry is just arriving as I bicycle up to the port. The disembarking passengers are mostly businessmen coming home from work, but also young couples and mothers with small children. A crowd of young people waits near me to board the ferry, joking and jostling each other about school and movies and some farmer they must have passed on their outing. Maybe I should have stayed at Dr. Rosen’s office. Maybe I should have been honest with Dr. Zimmer’s secretary, or pretended to be concerned about the ailing Rosen family and asked where I could deliver a pot of soup.

Wait. I recognize one of the voices from the crowd of young people. I scan the group until I pick out the familiar blond head. It’s Mrs. Janssen’s errand boy, the one who sold her opklapbed on the day she asked me to find Mirjam.

“Christoffel!”

He turns and his face flushes red when he recognizes me. “Hanneke, right?”