Hunger Journeys (30 page)

She called them
things
in her mind, not
arms.
It was not possible that Lena Berg was going to risk her life carrying guns
and grenades on a clandestine nighttime journey. No, Elsa Holst, young nurse, was going to take a few things with her to a woman outside of town who was giving birth. After all, she (Lena, that is) had helped at a birth before—a difficult but successful birth.

Lena never did come up with an acceptable excuse for leaving the house that night, so when the time came, she gave none. When Vrouw Wijman sat down to supper with her husband, Lena took Bennie by the hand and led him across the room to where Annie hid, as usual, behind her book. “Annie,” she said, her voice quiet but not a whisper. “Will you watch Bennie for a few minutes?”

Annie met her eyes, and then smiled at the little boy. “Shall I tell you a story, Bennie?” she said.

Lena released his hand, turned and walked toward the door to the lean-to. Sofie looked up from the sink. Vrouw Wijman looked up from the table. Both began to speak at once. “Where are you …?”

Lena half turned toward them and waved a hand vaguely. “I … I’ll just be a moment. It’s not quite curfew.” And she was gone. She had the whole journey to think up an excuse for her long absence.

The heavy rain of the afternoon had let up a bit, and the evening was drizzly and not quite dark. The moon, which had been full just a few days before, showed through a gap in the clouds, so there would be light even once daylight was completely gone. Lena rode through town quickly. She needed to be in the country, alone, before curfew. And she was. The road by the canal looked different in the damp night, but it was straight and easy to follow, even with little light. She found her copse of trees and rode right in among them without looking behind
her. Confidence, she had decided, was key. She must show confidence at all times, even if no one was about.

Five minutes later, a young nurse wheeled her bicycle out of the trees and onto the deserted road. On she pedalled in her new guise, her chest booming with the beating of her heart. It took another twenty minutes to reach the spot where the well was supposed to be. She crossed the canal, as instructed, turned onto the fourth small road and stopped where a long line of poplars began. She worked at catching her breath as she pushed her hood back from her head. A drop of water ran down her neck, but the drizzle had almost ceased, and the clouds had pulled back a bit from the moon.

By the light of the moon, she gazed at the trees and the looming clouds, at the grey-and-black world that surrounded her. The world smelled of earth and leaves, of spring. After all, April had begun. Somewhere near here, Resistance workers had dug an enormous hole, called a well. It was big enough, she understood, for men to sleep in if they needed to, and its entrance was covered, thoroughly disguised. She was not to see it. A man would meet her here.

A rustle and there he was. What he gave her was wrapped, and she was glad that she didn’t have to see what it was. She could stick to her fantasy. The two barely spoke to each other before she was on her way again, her load a good bit heavier with the packages, the “things,” tucked into her saddlebags. The drizzle turned suddenly to rain, and she was thankful for the hood on her nurse’s cape. Still, through a break in the clouds, the moon cast a little light, and the way was easy to follow: a long road, almost straight.

She passed Wierden on her left, and for a few short minutes rode the same path she had walked some weeks before. But
where she and Sofie had then turned left together, tonight she rode straight on alone.

Another twenty minutes, and she could drop off her package and go home. Ten of those minutes passed. The moon still helped her pick her way, though the rain fell a little harder now. Then, without warning, darkness—pitch darkness. A cloud had covered her small sliver of light. Lena rode on cautiously. She had seen the road ahead, and it was straight, she was sure. She could keep going just a little farther.

She felt a small rise and then the ground beneath her wheels changed, grew rougher. She put down her foot to bring the bicycle to a stop and found herself in the air. She just had time to realize that she was flying before she was under water, still astride her bicycle and entwined in her nurse’s cape. A canal. Either the road had not been as straight as it looked, or she had not been keeping to a straight line. It hardly mattered now. The water was cold and deep enough that she could not feel the bottom. She thrashed about, felt her head break the surface and drew an enormous breath before the bicycle and the weight of her clothes and shoes pulled her under again.

The water was cold, astonishingly cold, and dark. When she opened her eyes under water, she thought the cloak in her face was blocking her view until she shoved it back and still saw nothing but black. Panic welled up in her then, and with it came the air she had been holding in her lungs, out in a string of bubbles followed by the start of an indrawn breath. Water filled her mouth, and she inhaled just a bit before she realized what she was doing: drawing death into her body. It took only that, and the accompanying realization that she wanted to live, and everything changed.

She had managed to push back the hood on her cape; now she unwound herself from its fabric and set herself free from that
at least. The bicycle was more complicated. A cape, she could abandon; a bicycle, she could not. Without the bicycle, she would have a long walk in her wet clothes. She would likely get picked up long before she made it home. And she would be losing one of the Wijmans’ most precious possessions. It could be years before they were able to replace it. Then there was its cargo. She didn’t know if wet guns and grenades were of any use to anyone, but it wasn’t her job to guess about that. It was her job to deliver them. She unhooked her leg from the crossbar of the bicycle, held on to the saddle and burst once more from the water to breathe. This time, she was able to keep to the surface, but stare though she might into the blackness, the shore was nowhere to be seen.

Well, if she swam in one direction, chances were she would get to the edge, she thought. Which edge, though? She might end up in a muddy field on the other side of the canal from the road, with no idea which way to go. She treaded water, trying to fight down panic and set her mind on a course of action.

Chill night air struck her face. That’s all I need, she thought. Wind, to go with the cold.

And wind, it turned out, was exactly what she needed. That chill wind blew the clouds aside, and she could see. There was the shore, no more than a few strokes away. Legs kicking, free arm stroking, teeth chattering, she managed to get there and to get enough purchase with her feet on the muddy bank to shove her bicycle partway out of the water, far enough that it would stay put for a minute at least. Then she made her own slippery journey out. Finally, flat on her belly, every muscle engaged and many bruises incurred, she was tangled with her bicycle again, but this time on the bank, not in the water.

She disentangled herself once more, stood and took stock. The canal was wider than she had imagined. If she had struck
off in the wrong direction, she couldn’t say if she would have made it. She shivered violently. She was completely soaked, very muddy and missing her cloak. The bags were still attached to the bicycle’s rear carrier, but she decided not to look inside. She picked some reeds out of the front tire of the bicycle, wheeled it back onto the road and looked up at the sky. The clouds were well out of the way now, and the moon was doing its best to light her path.

Lena felt tears rise in her, much as the panic had a few minutes before. She breathed—air this time—and ignored those tears. Pedalling warmed her slightly, although the breeze she created cooled her at the same time. By the time she reached her destination, she was afraid her dip in the canal might still be the death of her, but she did her best to let the cold and her fear and the steady tears be.

“I was starting to think something had happened to you,” the man said as she drew to a stop where he stood in the shadow cast by few trees. She had almost ridden past, so well hidden was he until he stepped forward at the last moment. When he reached her, he stopped and stared. “And it looks as if something did!”

“I … I … I fell in a canal. I hope it didn’t ruin the … the things,” she managed.

He seemed to pay no attention to her explanation, rummaging in her bags, pulling out the packages one by one. “Well, let’s hope they’re well wrapped,” he said. “It is oilcloth, after all.” His voice was brisk. He pulled out the bulky cloth sack containing her clothes, saw what it was and put it back.

Lena’s tears began to flow a little more freely. She hiccupped through her chattering teeth.

He looked from her to the collection of parcels in his arms and sighed. Bending down, he deposited the “things” at his feet,
removed his jacket and placed it on top of them. Then he unbuttoned his sweater and placed it around her shoulders. “Put your arms in,” he said, as if she were a small child. And he buttoned his sweater back up. “Now, off with you. I want you back in your own bed within half an hour. And be sure no one at home sees that uniform.”

The sweater was wool and must have helped a little, though Lena could not imagine being colder or more miserable as she pedalled toward home. She was aware that she was in danger, even though she no longer carried guns. She was wearing a wet uniform with a dry sweater over it, and she had her civilian clothes in her bag. What possible explanation could she have for that? And it was now well past curfew. Still, all she could do was ride on, shivering, crying, and just to pile humiliation on top of misery, hiccupping as well.

Well, she had been helping with a birth, and she had fallen in a canal on her way home, and a man had pulled her out and given her his sweater. The clothes in her bag were a gift, a sort of thank-you for her assistance at the birth. A girl, small but healthy.

She thought about stopping close to home, changing clothes and abandoning the uniform, but she was more afraid of the Germans than of the Wijmans. Besides, she was worried that any extra delay, especially one that involved stripping off her clothes outdoors, might just kill her. She decided to keep the uniform on.

Puzzling out the story passed the first part of that last frigid half-hour. Imagining Nynke on her first day of life got her through the second part: the dark streets of Almelo. She came out of the fantasy when she crossed the railway, well south of where she had crossed it on foot with Sofie and Meneer Klaassen,
but she re-entered the fantasy immediately. What might Nynke be like when she got home? Would she be crawling? Would she smile at her?

The moon cast its cool light. The road stretched ahead, eerie and empty; houses loomed on either side. She crossed the tiny River Aa and glimpsed the big church, the Grote Kerk, in the distance. There she stopped, put down the kickstand, retrieved her dripping coat from the cloth sack and hung the sack from her handlebars so she could easily grab it and slip it out of sight under her coat once she got home. The coat reached her knees and should obscure both the uniform and the sweater. On she went. Moments later, she turned into the lane. She was home.

And the lean-to door was locked against her.

Were they sitting inside waiting? What would they do with her? Turn her over to the Gestapo? Or merely turn her out into the street? A spasm shook her, and she leaned her forehead against the cold, wet locked door.

She heard a sound on the other side; the door opened a crack, no more, and a face peered out. Sofie! Sofie opened the door farther and pulled Lena and her bicycle inside. Lena stepped through the doorway and stood while Sofie closed it. Tears threatened then, but she couldn’t cry, not yet. She had to think. Sofie must not see the uniform or the bag of clothes under her coat, nor should she realize that Annie might not be in the house.

“You can wear my nightdress,” Sofie said in the kitchen. “It’s on the bed. I’ve been keeping the fire going so I could make you some tea and warm you a brick.”

Lena’s stocking feet made squelching noises on the floor as she walked through the kitchen, swearing to herself that she would never think badly of Sofie, ever again. In the alcove, she
pulled the curtain to behind her and went to work in the dark space. In a flash, her own wet clothes were in a heap on the floor, and the uniform and the sweater were shoved into the sack and pushed into the far back corner under the cot. Naked and shivering violently, she felt around on the bed until the found the nightdress. She yanked it over her head and collapsed onto the bed. That was when the tears came, once and for all. She did manage to make them quiet tears. If the Wijmans were asleep, she had no wish to wake them.

When Sofie came in with a stub of a candle, a cup of tea and a hot brick wrapped in a towel all on a tray, Lena was crying freely, with all of Sofie’s blankets wrapped around her.

“Have you gone mad, Lena?” Sofie asked then. “Where have you been?”

“I fell in a canal,” Lena said, incredulous still. “Rode right in. And it was so dark!”

“Yes, I can see that. But what were you doing? Why?”

Lena had not been certain that she was going to lie to Sofie. She knew that she should, but she hadn’t been sure that she would until she did. “I was kind of frustrated with everything here,” she said. “All of a sudden, I just had to get out. I thought I would just ride around a bit before curfew. I knew that it would make them angry, but I can’t stand it here, the way Wijman looks at me. And Bennie reminds me of Bep and Nynke. I want to go home, Sofie! I want to go home.” The tears that had only recently subsided threatened to start up again. Maybe she wasn’t lying after all.

“But curfew was hours ago.”

“I know. I took a wrong turn and ended up in the country, and then I took a really wrong turn and ended up in the canal!” She looked at Sofie and smiled wryly. Her teeth clanked loudly
together, and Sofie reached out and rubbed her back through all the blankets. “What did they say after I left?” Lena asked.