Girl in the Blue Coat(67)

He gives me a funny look. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I say, stifling another laugh.

“Well, press this down,” he instructs me, handing me the handkerchief. “It doesn’t look too deep. Except for that rock, the rest is just scratches. You’ll probably have a little scar. If we tie up your leg with the handkerchief, do you think you’ll still be able to pedal home?”

Once I’m bandaged up, I accept Willem’s and Ollie’s outstretched hands, rising to my feet, and watch as Ollie drags my bicycle back up to the road. He hops onto it himself, riding in a few circles to make sure everything functions like it’s supposed to. I look down at my now-expertly bandaged knee. Bending it sends shots of pain down to my ankle, but it’s manageable pain.

“You’re sure everything’s okay?”

“Yes.” But as I climb back on the bicycle, I realize I’m not sure. And it’s not the pain. It’s that something is bothering me, and I can’t put my finger on it.

“We don’t have to go fast,” Ollie says. “If you want, one of us could ride ahead and try to find someone with a car to take you.”

What is it that’s bothering me? I pedal slowly, a rotating dull pain and sharp pain depending on which of my knees is bent. What’s bothering me? It’s right on the tip of my brain.

“Or you could ride on the back of one of ours, and we could come back later for your bicycle,” Willem offers.

“I can ride.”

My knee. My newly scraped, soon-to-be-scarred knee.

Mirjam’s knees. The bare white legs I saw while putting on her shoes and socks.

“Hanneke?” Willem asks. “I asked if you wanted to go first or last? Hanneke?”

Judith remembered when Mirjam got her beautiful blue coat. It wasn’t just a present, but a present she received because she’d torn her other coat beyond repair, mangling her knee, leaving a permanent scar.

Those knees in Mr. Kreuk’s basement room had no scars; they were smooth and white and knobby.

Ollie cycles in front of me, weaving side to side and looking back to make sure I haven’t fallen again. “Ollie,” I ask. “Were you going to check in on Judith today?”

He slows to a stop. “Why?”

“If you do, could you ask her to tell you about the birthmark on Mirjam’s chin? Ask her… No, that’s all. Just ask her to tell you about it.”

Now he and Willem are looking at each other. “Hanneke, maybe you should wait here with Willem while I ride ahead and find a doctor,” Ollie suggests.

I shake my head. Something is wrong, but it’s not what Ollie thinks it is.

“I need to get back, right now. If you talk to her, come and find me. I’ll be—” I think, trying to plot out where I’ll be, and where it will be safe for him to find me. “Call me at Mrs. de Vries’s; she still has a phone.”

“What are you talking about? Hanneke, stop.”

My legs burn, but I force them to pedal, harder, until I pass Ollie and head back down the gravel road toward the ferry. Ollie and Willem stand astride their bicycles, trying to decide whether to follow me. I can’t waste the time to explain any more.

I know what I saw. I know everything I saw, when I dressed Mirjam on the table yesterday. I know her knees were smooth.

It’s getting hard to breathe, but I don’t think that it has anything to do with how hard I’m pedaling, or with the cold air, or with my fall.

The ferry is in sight now. Passengers are trickling off. My knee stings, but I can’t focus on the pain at all. Right now, in this world crumbling before my eyes, there’s only one thing I can really focus on: the body I dressed yesterday. The body I cried over. I can only think of it like that now: the body. Because whomever I dressed—whoever that person was, it wasn’t Mirjam Roodveldt.





THIRTY




How could the girl on the table not be Mirjam Roodveldt?

Was there a different girl in a sky-blue coat leaving the Schouwburg, one I just didn’t see? Was I trying to help the wrong girl escape?

By the time I get to Mrs. de Vries’s, I’ve run out of new questions to ask, and the same old ones keep cycling through my brain. Mrs. de Vries doesn’t answer, but I know Mina must be here. After three knocks, I finally call through the door softly that it’s me and I’m alone.

“What’s wrong?” Mina asks from behind the door as she opens it just wide enough for me to get through. “You know I shouldn’t be answering the door—a neighbor could see me.”

“Where’s Mrs. de Vries?”

“At her mother’s with the boys.”

“And the Cohens?”

“Taking a nap, in the guest room. What’s wrong?”

I keep my voice low, taking Mina’s arm and guiding her back toward Mr. de Vries’s study, where we sat together just a few nights ago. “I need to see your slides. The ones from last week. Please don’t ask me what’s wrong again,” I beg, anticipating what she’s going to say by the round, puckered O of her mouth.

“You… what?”

“From the Hollandsche Schouwburg. Did Mrs. de Vries’s friend ever bring his projector?”

“He did,” she says uncertainly. “Just yesterday. We haven’t set it up yet.”