Girl in the Blue Coat(44)

“I have some bad news,” he says. “I think we should find a place to sit.”

“I don’t want to find a place to sit. I discovered something today. We don’t have time to sit.” I force a laugh, like he’s being funny. “Ollie, catch your breath, and let’s go.”

“No, Hanneke. Something happened.”

“Something did happen. I know where Mirjam is. Let’s go.”

He doesn’t follow me. He doesn’t try to convince me again, either. He just stands there, letting me get all these protests out of my system, letting me feel how heavy the air around us has grown. “I can take you back to your parents, if you want. Or we can go to my house.”

“What is it, Ollie? Is it—” Even now, I pause, because until I say the words, they’re not true. “Is it Judith? Did something happen on the way to her hiding place?”

“Judith is still at my house. It’s not Judith.”

“Is it Willem?” I’ll rip their names off like a bandage, starting with the ones that would hurt the most. Let it be Leo, I think. Let it be the person I know least well of all. There’s something wrong with me for thinking like this, for wishing bad luck to Leo, but I know everything in life has to have a trade.

“Hanneke. Listen to me. I went to the theater to try to talk to Judith’s uncle. And it’s happened, Hanneke. Last night Mirjam was brought to the Hollandsche Schouwburg.”





EIGHTEEN




What?” I push Ollie away from me, repelling everything he just said. “You’re wrong.”

Of course he is wrong. Mirjam is not in the Schouwburg. My arms flail out at him, wanting to make him take it back.

“Hanneke, there was a big roundup late last night.” He catches my wrists in his and holds them against his chest. “They were looking for people whose names were on their list, but when they couldn’t fill their quotas, they started taking anyone they found who had Jewish papers. Dozens of people were brought in who weren’t scheduled to be deported yet. One of the names on the list is M. Roodveldt. Mirjam is at the theater and she’s scheduled to be transported in two days.”

“But I know where she’s going now,” I insist. “She went to Den Haag. They couldn’t have caught her, because she wouldn’t still be in Amsterdam. She wouldn’t—”

“Maybe she got out of the city, but she was captured and brought back in. Or maybe her temporary hiding place was raided before she got out. A lot of things could have happened. All we know is that someone with her name is there.”

Roundup. Raided. Roodveldt. His words float above me, but none of them make sense. Ollie’s heart beats beneath my hands. “We’ll need to figure out what to do next, then,” I say finally. “To start, we have to go to the theater. You’ll distract the guards. We have to go and get her out right now.”

“Hanneke. Listen to yourself.”

“You’re right. First we’ll get Judith’s uncle to help us. He’ll—”

Ollie presses down on my hands. “No.”

“Let go. You don’t have to come with me, but you have to let me go.”

“No,” he says. “Hanneke, do you want people to be killed? You cannot risk the network that we have spent a year building, just to go back and ask questions about one girl. We don’t have anyone left on the inside now. Judith and Mina are out. Judith’s uncle won’t help us. He’s terrified for his own life; the Council doesn’t have any of the sway we thought it did. If you storm in now without knowing anything, you’re putting the whole operation at risk.”

“But—”

“No.”

He’s right. Even through my anger and frustration, I understand he’s right. It’s a logical argument that I might make myself if this were about any person other than the one I’ve been trying so hard to find. Why wasn’t I at the Schouwburg last night? I was congratulating myself for tracking down Tobias’s father, and I should have gone to the Schouwburg instead.

“Everything I’ve done is a waste. All of this—visiting dentists, talking to school friends—I should have just planted myself outside the theater the second you told me about it. Maybe I would have seen her go in and been able to help her.”

Ollie takes his hands from mine and cups my face, holding my eyes steady. “You didn’t know what the right thing to do was. Amsterdam is a big city, and Mirjam could have been anywhere.”

“But, Ollie, what if it’s not her in the theater?”

“Hanneke, I wish it wasn’t her, but it is.”

“No, listen. M. Roodveldt? Maybe it’s a different name. Margot or Mozes, or… lots of names start with M, Ollie. Is there anybody in the theater who saw her or talked to her, who can say for sure?”

“I can’t find out without asking questions that will give us away. We’ve decided we need to pause and regroup, now that they’re deporting the Council’s families.”

Think, I instruct myself. Think rationally. If I can’t get into the theater, how else can I find information? “Maybe if I found someone who lives across the street, or works nearby. Maybe they would have seen her go in.”

Ollie’s mouth opens, a quick movement he tries to cover up.