My aunt heard the kitchen door and came down. She looked worse than when I left, only a few hours before—on top of her grief, she had been worried about me. Hot and still breathless from Isaak's kiss, I felt ashamed. So I told her right away what she wanted to hear: Isaak agreed with her plan and would help us, and I wouldn't oppose it.
She nodded in relief. "I've moved your things into the attic bedroom. You can stay there. No one can know you're here."
"I understand," I told her. "Tante Mies, are there ... have you made arrangements?"
She turned to the sink and braced herself, her fingers whitening around the porcelain edge. It hurt that she didn't want me to see her cry. She turned back to me and wiped her face. The skin under her eyes was chafed raw, as if she had been trying to scrub away something deeper than tears. She pressed her lips together and took a breath.
"I'll call the funeral home tomorrow and arrange for the burial to be in Apeldoorn. I've told everyone you had relatives there, and that Pieter and Anneke are there already, so ... What else can I do? If I bury her here, everyone will come. They'll expect to see Anneke."
"But no! She'll be so far away! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Tante Mies. Don't do this. It's not too late, we'll just explain—"
"No. No, that would be worse. I will see you safe. If I can't do that..." She straightened and smiled, but it was just her lips stretched tight. "I know a woman in Apeldoorn. A childhood friend. Your mother knew her, too. I'll look her up, and perhaps I can stay with her. I don't think I'll want to come back here for a while."
The thought of her house empty was the one that undid her. Anneke was our home.
SIXTEEN
The next morning, I awoke with Isaak already in my mind, as if he'd lain beside me through the night. He would not have been welcomed here, though, I thought as I looked around the room Anneke's grandmother had lived in. She'd been my grandmother, too, but I had never known her because she had disowned my mother for marrying my Jewish father. I didn't exist for her.
When I went downstairs, I wondered if my aunt had slept at all: The kitchen curtains were hanging on the line bleaching in the sun and apple syrup was simmering on the stove, which gleamed as if she had just pulled it apart and cleaned it. She was holding a blue bowl, and when I walked in, she turned away and began to beat a batter fiercely. In grim silence she cracked eggs into a skillet and made my favorite pancakes with plum jam. I knew not to argue. I hadn't eaten for two days, and it was as if I'd never tasted before: The yolk was hot and runny in my mouth, the butter rich and smooth, and the jam so sweet it stung my cheeks. It was all an assault, though, and it hurt to swallow in the silent kitchen: Anneke would never taste food again.
She was dead. Each time, this fact stunned me, slammed into me like a kick to the chest. Each time, I had to remind myself to breathe again. When my aunt leaned over to pour my tea, she rested her trembling hand on my shoulder, and I felt lonelier than before. She was trying to fill an empty space with her busyness. I had Isaak to fill mine. I wondered what my uncle had.
After breakfast I ran a bath and poured in the gardenia-scented salts I saved for special occasions. My throat closed when I slipped into the fragrant water: Anneke had given me the salts on my last birthday. I fell into silent sobs, until I felt I was floating in my hot tears. Had I ever cried this much?
But I didn't want to stop. I wanted to keep Anneke with me always, to think of her every day, even if it meant opening the wound over and over again. I forced myself to imagine what she might say if she were here right now, if she knew what Isaak and I were about to do. The answer made me smile a little: She would have told me to do just this, to use the gardenia-scented bath salts. She always prepared like this before she was going to see Karl, as though her body were a gift and she wanted even its wrapping to give him pleasure.
Although it felt like betraying Anneke, I allowed myself to think of Isaak's hands as I soaped my body, how they might feel on my breasts, on my belly. How I might feel to him. Everywhere I touched, I felt the heat rise. I imagined the thrill he might feel entering me. Imagining him filling me nearly made me faint.
I washed my hair and was rinsing it under the tap when my aunt knocked.
"Cyrla!" she whispered, coming in. She looked wild, with her one bloodshot eye. "Mrs. Bakker is at the door again!" The bathroom was in the hall underneath the stairs. She wrapped a towel around my hair. "I'll try to get her to leave. But go upstairs. Hurry."
I ran up and hid again in the bedroom. My aunt opened the door and tried to send our neighbor away. "I was just going out," she said. "So many things to do."
But Mrs. Bakker entered anyway. "Perhaps I can help?"
"No, well ... it's very kind of you. But I should leave now."
There was a pause and I held my breath. I could almost see Mrs. Bakker sniffing the gardenia steam, eyes narrowed like a prowling cat. Then I heard her voice again, and in it was the sly tone that had frightened me on the steps a few mornings ago. "Your floor is wet, Mies. You've spilled something."
"Oh ... I was running a bath. I was just about to step into the bath. That's all." She was a poor liar.
"I thought you were going out?"
"Well, yes. I mean, I was going out after my bath. Really, I'll be very late if I don't hurry now, so I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to—"
Mrs. Bakker left, but I knew she'd be back. It would be difficult living in my own home without anyone knowing.
I stood at the open window drying my hair in the sun. The rain had washed down so many leaves that I could see the horse chestnuts gleaming in buttery pools of light on the cobbled streets. The air itself seemed rinsed clean. The thought struck me that I would never again walk along Tielman Oemstraat and greet my neighbors, stop to chat with them. The telephone rang three or four times, and I heard my aunt tell the lie about what had happened in our family. With each repetition, I felt less solid, as if I had really died.
A pair of crows landed on the elm branch nearest the window and looked in at me with their bad-omen eyes. I rushed at them, waving my arms, but because I couldn't make a noise, they ignored me, shifting their wings lazily. My hair still damp, I turned and went up to the attic room.
My aunt had brought everything I owned up there, and I saw how easily all traces of my life could be packed away. Had I made any mark at all? But today, I reminded myself, I wanted to leave this house. I dressed carefully, the way Anneke would have. I chose a champagne satin slip she'd insisted I buy a few years ago—Jean Harlow had worn one just like it. It was the only truly beautiful thing I owned, and I'd never worn it. The satin poured over my shoulders like cream. Then I put on an ivory blouse with pearl buttons and tiny darts all along the waist, and a black skirt, flared through the hips and slit in the back. It had been Anneke's, but she had given it to me; she said it fit me better because my hips were wider than hers, although my waist was narrower.
My cousin was everywhere, and everything made me wince. I could almost see her sitting on the bed, tilting her head to gravely consider each piece of my outfit. "It doesn't matter," I would tell her if she were really here. "Isaak never notices what I wear."
"It does matter," I heard her reply. "You'll know what you're wearing. Now, put on some lipstick," she surely would have encouraged me next. "And leave your hair down."
No, that I wouldn't do. I wasn't a girl who wore lipstick and loose hair.
Although maybe that was who I was about to become.
Then I remembered something Anneke and I had talked about before I left for Amsterdam: how I might be changed after making love. She'd told me I would begin to live through my body more, and learn to trust the things it told me. And she had talked about courage: "You have to be brave to be in love," she'd said. I still couldn't remember our last words, though.
Downstairs, my aunt was still in the kitchen, ironing dish towels that already looked stiff with starch. She looked up when she heard me, and for an instant I saw hope bloom on her face and then wither.
It was only me.
"Where are you going? You can't go anywhere."
I raised my hands helplessly. "I'm going to Isaak."
Somehow she understood. "Oh ... oh." I could see she wanted to object, or at least felt that she should. But the effort was too great. She sank to the window seat and then straightened herself and drew in a breath through clenched teeth. She'd probably done that a hundred times already today. It was the cost of not drowning in the river of loss. "Be careful," she said. "Be careful."
"We're meeting at the shop. I'll wear your coat and hat and bring the lunch basket. The neighbors are used to seeing that."
She nodded and I went over to hug her, but she stiffened and pulled away.
When I came back down at noon, my aunt seemed better. She had packed a basket with tomato sandwiches on rye bread, pears, and cheese. I put a book of poetry in the basket to read while I waited for Isaak.
She sat beside me and began to braid my hair. "You look so much like your mother when she was your age. That's when she met your father, you know."
My spine arched at the mention of my mother. Sometimes I could think of her, but sometimes not. I relaxed and asked my aunt to tell me the story, although I knew it well. My parents were both studying music in Vienna, both lonely from having left their homes in other countries. My father heard my mother playing a Mozart sonata in a practice room one day, and fell in love with the pianist inside.
"He knew only her name, which was posted outside the door on the schedule," my aunt said. Remembering her sister seemed to bring her pleasure and only a little sadness; would we ever feel this way about Anneke? "He went every day at that hour, even if it meant missing his own classes. But he was too shy to stay and introduce himself. Finally, he slipped a note under the door one day and asked her to meet him later. She did, and I don't think they spent a day apart after that. And Cyrla..."
There was a look on her face I didn't understand. She patted my cheek and smiled. "Cyrla. Your parents were married in July. You were born in December. I think your mother would have told you this today."
I stared at her for the moment it took to understand. I hugged her for the generosity of her gift, then set out.
My heart raced, but at my center I felt a calm. I had changed already.
SEVENTEEN
I clutched my aunt's hat to my head as if the wind were trying to blow it away, and hurried to the shop. No one saw me. At least no one I noticed.
The shop was empty, the air thick with the stale damp smell of boiled wool. It was the wrong place for Isaak and me to be together. I remembered the roof and ran up. Yes, here. But there was only gravel to lie on.
I went back downstairs to find something. But except for the Germans' brown wool, the shelves were nearly empty; my uncle hadn't been able to buy new material for months. There were odds and ends of old orders, and some useless scraps in boxes on the floor.
I almost missed it. Behind the piles of brown wool was half a bolt of heavy velvet, blue so dark it was nearly indigo. The yardage left over from an order of a year ago: The wife of a hotel owner in Scheveningen had ordered drapes for her dining room, but had been unable to pay for them after the Nazis confiscated the hotel for their headquarters.
"Were they for the hotel dining room?" my uncle had asked when she came to explain.
"No. They were for our home. But now there's no work. No money."
"As long as the Germans won't use them, take them anyway," my uncle insisted. "What am I going to do with them, after all?"
First I brought two bolts of the Germans' fabric to the rooftop. I walked around to find which corner caught the warmest sunspill, and there I arranged the thick wool to make a nest. Then I went back down for the velvet. I spread the blue plush over the blanket fabric, tucking it in so none of the wool showed, so nothing with a Nazi taint would touch our skin. For the same reason, I took off my legitimization card and hid it in my basket. Then I stood back to see what I had made and I smiled at the way the sun lit the velvet to the color of sapphires. Anneke had told me to listen to my senses. She would have approved.
Anneke. A rush of tears besieged me—how much I wanted her! I wiped them away and walked to the edge of the roof and took a deep breath. The scent of windfall apples hung in the air. There was train smoke, as always, and faintly, the earthy smell of bricks baking in the sun. The noon sunlight sparkled on the canal and burnished the September landscape below—this world looked so peaceful. As if it weren't going to collapse on me in a week.
Then I took the poetry book from the basket and sat with it to wait, beside the bed, not on it. The bed would be for the two of us only. I searched for just the right poem, and found a title by Boutens I had never read: "Kissing."
After last night, but not before, I could have written that poem.
I wanted to kiss Isaak again. But I grew nervous thinking about what would happen after that. I wasn't ready. What had I been thinking? But Rilke's "Autumn Day" ran through my head, and wouldn't leave. "He who is alone now, will remain alone." I had been alone long enough. Terrible things happened to people who were alone. So when Isaak knocked below I told myself I was ready enough.
I let him in and we climbed to the roof. We searched each other's eyes, and then looked away.
"Well," I said.
"Well."
We were the closest of friends, yet we stood beside each other awkwardly and gazed out at the roofs of our city, our closeness between us now. There was nothing to say, as if we were finished speaking through words. I took his hand and led him to the bed I had made, and then I lay down.
My heart beat so hard I thought Isaak would see it jump through my skin. I remembered my trick for being brave: Take only the first small step. I lifted my fingers to my throat and unbuttoned a single button.
Isaak fell to his knees beside me.
Carefully, deliberately, as he did everything, he unbuttoned my blouse. I took his hand and led it under my slip, onto the bare skin of my breast. I gasped at the touch and Isaak pulled away, as if he had hurt me. He pulled the velvet over us, and then he lay down beside me and worked my clothes off under my skirt. My skin chilled in the surprise of cool air, but burned where it met his. He spread my legs apart and rolled between them and began to push against me.
Anneke had been wrong, that our bodies would know what to do. Then I remembered. "Wait, wait..." I whispered. I found his mouth and kissed him. I could have done that forever. But he broke away and buried his face in my neck and began to press against me again.
I stopped him. I took off my slip and opened his shirt, ran my palms down his chest, then pulled him to me to feel our hearts beat together. But when I reached lower, he pushed my hand away and grunted. And then I felt him inside me and I cried out at the deep, sweet shock of it.
And then, finally, it was the way Anneke had promised. We pressed our bodies closer because we couldn't pull them apart. We moved in a rhythm that was the only one that had ever existed. It had always been inside us. But suddenly Isaak shuddered and cried out, then crumpled and fell beside me.
He rolled away and reached for his shirt. I tried to pull him back. "Stay."
He tensed and raised his head.
"Listen!"
It took me a moment, as if I were struggling to the surface after a deep dive. The blood rushing in my own head was all I heard at first. Isaak rose and crept along the wall. I took my blouse to cover myself, and followed. The words were German, and angry.
I crouched beside Isaak and peered over the edge down upon the shoulders of two men. Soldiers.
"The second day," I caught, and murmured curses.
And then: "Break it down."
EIGHTEEN
I gathered my things.
"Stay calm," Isaak said. But he was dressing quickly also. "Maybe they won't look here."
But maybe they would. The door to the stairwell was in the back room, and I couldn't remember if I had closed it, or left anything out that might lead them up her
e.
Glass shattered on the pavement.
"I'm going down," I said.
Isaak held my arm. "No! We'll stay still up here until they leave."
I heard more glass—the splintering of wood. "You stay. I'll send them away." I twisted away from him, grabbed my blouse, and ran down the stairs, buttoning as I went.
They were inside already. I tried to sound angry as I walked out of the storeroom. "What do you want?"
They were SS, not Wehrmacht, and their uniforms told me they were a Kapitan and a trooper, an Oberschütze. They had smashed the window beside the door and the trooper was behind the counter, pulling papers from a drawer.
"We have business with Pieter Van der Berg. Where is he?" The officer tried to enter the storeroom, but I stepped in front of him. My uncle kept money back there, hidden in an empty sewing-machine housing.
"He's not here. He's away."
Too late I realized how I was dressed—my blouse half-undone, no slip, and no stockings. I crossed my arms over my chest, but the Oberschütze was staring. He was wide-shouldered and powerful looking, with bristly hair so short it looked almost shaved and a face flat and red as a cut of meat. His look frightened me, as if I were a prostitute sitting in a window in Amsterdam. I took a step away.
"When will he be back?" the captain asked.
"Oh, tomorrow," I lied.
And then the worst thing happened. I felt a wetness between my legs. Hot at first, then sliding down between my bare thighs and cooling. When I realized what it was tears sprang to my eyes, but I bit them back.
"Come back tomorrow," I urged him.
"We have an order here for six hundred blankets. Are they ready?"
The wetness slid farther down my legs. How much did a man leave inside a woman? Enough to give Isaak away? "He's gone to get a part for the machine. For your order. I'll tell him you were here."
The officer pushed past me and the trooper followed. I didn't try to stop them now. They suspected my uncle had taken their fabric to sell on the black market, and I thought if they saw it was still here, they would be satisfied.