Girl in the Blue Coat(62)

“Walk, Hanneke,” he instructs me. “You have to walk.”

I can’t see where he’s leading me, because I’m crying. Sobs wrack my body, the first tears I’ve cried since Bas died. They blind me and taste salty and unfamiliar on my lips.

I’m crying for Mirjam, the girl I was supposed to save but couldn’t, and didn’t even know. And for the mother who was shushing her son, and the man who begged me to stop talking. I’m crying for Mrs. Janssen, who has no one and who I told I would help and who trusted me and who I failed. I’m crying for Bas. I’m crying for Elsbeth and the German soldier she chose over her best friend, and for Ollie, who can’t be with Willem, and for all the people in my whole country who saw the tanks roll in at the start of the occupation and have yet to see them roll out again.





TWENTY-SEVEN




Ollie leads me down back alleys and dark streets. I can’t even tell if the path he’s choosing is safe, if we’re making our way toward Willem. I don’t know if anyone else knows what happened, or if everyone is still waiting for us to return, thinking the plan has worked as it should. My feet move mechanically beside his. Finally he leads me down a short flight of stairs, and I realize we’re in what must be his and Willem’s apartment.

“Tea?” he says shortly.

It’s the first phrase he’s spoken. His hands shake as he opens cupboard doors and bangs them shut, forgetting where he keeps the cups. He looks toward the door, again and again. Willem is out there. Willem and Mirjam.

“Willem is still—” I start to say.

“I know,” Ollie cuts me off, and from the way his eyes flash, I can tell he doesn’t want to talk about it. Finally, he stops going through the cupboards, leaning against the counter and gripping its edges so tightly his knuckles turn white. “You’re okay?” he asks, his back still to me.

I don’t answer. How am I supposed to answer? Ollie slams his hands against the counter; I jolt at the noise. “Dammit. Dammit.”

“What are you doing?” I ask as he starts to head back to the door.

“I have to make sure Willem is okay.”

“Ollie, you don’t know where he is.”

He pulls on his coat, buttoning it up to cover the Gestapo uniform. “I’m not just going to stay here. I’m not going to leave him. I have to go find Willem.”

“I’ll come with you.” I stand clumsily. “I can’t leave Mirjam, either. I can’t leave her body.”

“No.” His hand is already on the doorknob. “You can’t go back. You were just spotted being escorted away by a member of the Gestapo.”

“But I promised I would find her. She’s out there all alone. I can bring her to Mr. Kreuk’s. I have a key. I’ll take her there.” My voice is loose and out of control and doesn’t even sound like me.

Ollie leans his forehead against the door, his back to me. His shoulders move up and down. “I’ll get her,” he says quietly. “Willem and I will.”

“But why would you do that?” My eyes again fill with tears. “I was reckless and selfish. Why would you ever do this for me?”

He puts his hand beside his head on the door. “Because when she fell on the bridge—we never got to see Bas after he died. We never got to see him at all.”

There is no possible way for me to respond to such kindness. “Be careful,” I say. “Be safe.”

“Give me your key,” he says, and then once he has it: “Wait here. Don’t leave.”

“I won’t,” I say.

I wait a long time.





Tuesday


I wake up, and I’m not on Ollie’s sofa, which is the last place I remember sitting. Instead, I’m in a bed, and sun is streaming in through the windows, and Ollie sits across the room in an armchair. I jolt upright. I don’t recall falling asleep, and I hate my body for letting it happen. I must have shut down, from worry, sadness, and exhaustion, while Ollie was stealing back into the night.

“Ollie,” I whisper. My throat burns from all the crying last night.

“Good morning.”

“What happened? Where’s Willem?”

My panic clears when Willem appears in the doorway.

“I’m here; I’m safe.”

Safe. No more deaths last night except for Mirjam. She’s not safe and never will be. “Did you get—” I don’t know how to finish that sentence. Did you manage to get Mirjam off the bridge?

“It’s done,” Ollie says. “It wasn’t easy. But it’s done.”

“She’s at Mr. Kreuk’s?”

“Yes. And Mrs. de Vries knows what happened. And all the Nazis know, we think, is that two girls tried to run, and they shot one and caught the other.”

I look around at the room I’m lying in, with two bureaus, one of which has a picture of Ollie’s parents. “You gave me your bed.”

“Willem carried you in,” Ollie says. “We slept on the floor.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you had to get Mirjam. I’m sorry for not running when I should have. I’m—” There’s so much more I should apologize for: my thoughtlessness, the way I lost my mind and tried to drag everyone with me.