Hunger Journeys (2 page)

Piet felt no such fear, apparently, for soon he was deep in conversation with a young couple, and Lena soothed herself by listening. She was greatly bolstered by what she heard. Last night, late, on the BBC, according to the young woman, it had been reported again: Breda, a Dutch town just north of the Belgian border and about seventy kilometres due south of Amsterdam, was liberated. German resistance was rapidly collapsing.

As Lena listened, her fear diminished and the sky lightened.
The joy in the streets grew and grew, nourished by the strengthening rays of sunshine as dawn turned to morning. Where all the flowers, marigolds and others—many in the Dutch colour, orange—came from, Lena never knew. But when smiling stranger after smiling stranger bestowed small clutches of blossoms upon her, she collected them eagerly and did not let one drop in all the hours of that strange and fateful day.

They walked in the street, making their way south and then east, over the broad, straight canal that led north to Amsterdam’s harbour and alongside the ruins of the once beautiful Vondelpark. Lena pushed aside the memory the devastated park tried to force upon her and marched on, relieved that they didn’t have to enter the park itself. Eventually, they reached the Singelgracht, the southernmost of the five canals that ringed central Amsterdam. They would follow that canal to the Amstel River. Many, too weak and tired to make the journey themselves, leaned out their windows and gathered in their doorways to watch the procession go by.

They passed German vehicles too, and soldiers, lots of them.

The first time, Lena froze in shock. Three men in grey uniforms were bundling two women and a small boy into a car, one of the strange ones with a wood-burning generator mounted on the back. Every part of the car was laden, with bags tied onto the top and even attached to the tank behind. The crowd moved aside to let it lumber down the street, crossing their route, barely containing the six humans and all their possessions.

Those were Germans. Next they saw a group from the Dutch Nazi Party—the NSB, collaborators with the enemy—hustling wives and children ahead of them down a side street. They were on foot but also laden. Lena tossed a marigold in the
air and caught it again, revelling in its orange beauty. The enemy armies were fleeing! They were taking their families and fleeing!

The route they chose took them well south of the central station. At every cross street, they were caught in a tangle with enemy men and their families pouring north toward the trains, using every conveyance imaginable, including their own feet, and laden with suitcases, parcels and odd collections of household possessions, just as the first groups had been.

“They’ve all gone mad,” Piet said, echoing the words of the crowd. Lena tensed. What if violence broke out between the Dutch celebrating their freedom and the Germans and their supporters running from what that same freedom might mean for them? She need not have worried; each group continued toward its destination in joy or fear, as suited its circumstances.

Once they reached the Amstel, the Dutch crowd turned to follow the river’s west bank to the southern reaches of the city, where everyone seemed sure the British army would arrive. It was a long journey, and as the hours passed, people began to wilt. Fathers and brothers hoisted toddlers to their shoulders; flowers were trampled underfoot. Hunger set in. Still, Lena saw no one turn aside. And while most voices fell silent, hope prevailed.

On Lena and Piet walked.

As they drew closer to their goal, the crowd swelled. Local residents, already filling the streets, happily absorbed the thousands upon thousands who poured in from the rest of the city. At last, the river curved to the right, and a wide bridge spanned it. They had arrived at the vantage point from which they could await the troops. The crowd surged onto the bridge, filling it from end to end and overflowing onto the road behind and beyond.

They settled in to wait. Those at the highest point of the bridge could see south some distance. Amsterdam was behind them. The long road stretched ahead, thirty kilometres straight to Utrecht and from there another forty to Breda—surely the route the armies would take. As soon as the first tanks were spotted, word would spread through the crowd.

It was eleven o’clock in the morning, almost six hours since they had closed their door behind them. All they had to do was wait.

Lena spent the hours in silence, staring into the distance, filled with hope and wonder at what it meant to be a part of this enormous gathering and this terrible war. Piet turned to a pair of boys who were more talkative than his sister. The hours passed.

Two o’clock. Still waiting.

Three thirty. And the mood changed. Lena saw the news make its way through the crowd. Faces turned from south to north. Bodies turned from hope to hopeless; children clambered down from shoulders.

She turned to her shorter brother, wishing she didn’t have to be the bearer of this news. “It’s over,” she said. “Word is spreading now.”

It took a long time, though, for the tangle of bodies to unite in the desire to go home, and for those on the northern outskirts of the crowd—and the last to have their hopes dashed—to make way for those in the centre, and they for those in the south. Exhaustion slowed the process even more. Exhaustion and despair.

The details reached Lena and Piet at last. “They knocked on doors and found someone with a phone,” a man said. Lena stared at the tracks that tears had made on the dusty sagging skin
of his cheeks. “He called Breda. It’s not free. The British never came. Belgium, yes. The Netherlands, no.”

Lena wanted to sink to the ground and weep. Her chest tightened, and her eyes stung. They had all endured more than four years of German occupation; they had all suffered hunger and loss, fear and frustration.

And the people of Amsterdam had left their homes that morning sure that it was over. They had waited on the bridge for five long hours to see a line of British tanks approaching.

Now they had to turn back from that hope and return to their miserable lives.

The journey home was long.

Piet turned away from his newfound friends, and he and Lena left the river almost immediately, seeking smaller roads where the crowd was thinner.

An hour into their walk, Piet stopped in the middle of a barren park. “Let’s take a detour,” he said. “Let’s go see what happened to all the people we saw fleeing this morning. They must have been going to the station.”

Lena drew in a breath. Where did he find his spirit of inquiry after their recent crushing disappointment? Her legs were ready to collapse under her. Her feet, in their shoddily repaired, hand-me-down shoes, were pinched and aching. Her head was heavy with misery. And he was suggesting as much as an extra two hours of walking.

Then a thought came to her unbidden. When did she ever get to do anything like this? She reached out and put her hand
on a lone tree trunk in the middle of the park. I am here, she thought, and she felt the bark, grubby but alive beneath her palm. Really felt it. I am beyond their reach. All of them.

Soon enough she would be back in her proper place as student of the sixth class and Mother’s captive potato peeler, but now, this minute, even without the British army, she was free. Sort of.

“Yes,” she said. “Let’s!”

It took them another hour to reach the station, but Lena soon forgot her tired legs, so stunned was she by what she saw. She had not been into the city’s centre since early in the war, and the destruction and the misery shocked her. People were poorer here, and the war had hit them hard. She saw more buildings in disrepair, more signs of German occupation, more men and women in rags. A young boy had bare feet and stick-thin legs protruding from shorts that must have grown shorter over the years. It was early September, but it still felt cold for bare feet, and the streets were filled with hazards—broken glass, twisted metal, sharp stones—that called for wood or thick leather, not naked skin.

Lena had no food or anything else of value to offer, but she handed out her marigolds, one by one. They were not edible, but they were as Dutch as Dutch could be. Even the starving boy seemed to appreciate his. He tucked the bright orange flower behind his ear, and his cracked lips formed a small smile.

Then they passed the Jewish Quarter. Lena knew what it was, even though she had not been there when thousands of Jews were crowded into it behind a wire fence, more than two years before. The wire fence had tumbled now, and many of the buildings were in use, but Lena averted her gaze. She hurried to
catch up with Piet, who was walking much more quickly all of a sudden.

Shame washed over her, but it was too late for that. Much too late.

She squeezed her eyes tight shut, opened them again and made her legs pump faster in pursuit of her brother. She did not want to think about Sarah right now, though she was sure Piet would be.

Nearing the station, they were both distracted from their memories by the growing crowd, a crowd that slowed and stopped as they reached the large open space in front of the station entrance. Excited murmurs rippled back to them. Lena fought forward on her brother’s heels, eager to see, to hear, to shove the Jewish Quarter and what it meant out of her mind and heart. At the edge of the jostling bodies, they stopped short. The space in front of them was filled with a jumble that should have convinced them they had all gone mad.

Lena didn’t know what to look at first. A sewing machine. Prams, lots of prams. She counted three … no, four … no, many more than that. Typewriters. An antique writing desk. A large bird cage, its door open, bird flown. Out of the corner of her eye, Lena saw a woman dart forward and grasp something. A chicken. A live chicken! There were several small chicken coops, she saw then, one of them still holding three chickens. And there were bicycles. Heaps of bicycles.

The fleeing Germans and NSBers had taken what they could and abandoned the rest. The pitch of the crowd’s response rose. A man ran to the edge of the mound and tugged a bicycle free.

“They stole from us. Let’s take it back!” he shouted. “Freedom or no.”

Bodies forced past Lena and Piet. Lena grabbed Piet’s arm and held on tight. Piet pulled forward. She pulled back, filled with certainty and strength for once. “We must go,” she said. “We do not want to be a part of this.”

“But they took our bicycles,” Piet said. “I really need …”

“The British didn’t come, Piet. They didn’t come! How do you think the Germans are feeling right now? At any moment they might arrive here. Some may have fled, but those who are left will not stand by and watch a mob pick over their possessions.” Urgency took hold of her. “Come!”

Piet stared up at her, surprise in his eyes. But he came, lagging a bit, peering over his shoulder every few moments. It was hard getting through the crush. Fear stirred in Lena as she urged her brother on. The crowd, peaceful through the whole day, was turning into a mob.

Much later, but without further incident, they stopped outside their door. It was growing dark, and the door was locked. Piet knocked smartly, no apology in his fist’s connecting with the wood.

Mother let them in and led them to the kitchen, where she dished up some stew that had been waiting on the stove for hours. Blackout paper covered the window, and the single bulb that hung from the ceiling cast a harsh light. Lena chewed and swallowed. Chewed and swallowed. The meal was mushy and gritty, its ingredients unidentifiable. Mother had been a poor cook when food was plentiful, and growing scarcity had not improved her skill in the kitchen.

She stood over them as they ate, one hand gripping the edge of the table, the other pressing her apron to her body. “I’ve got enough to worry about without you two off who knows
where,” she said. But she did not seem to expect a response, nor did she seem interested in where they had been.

Lena paused mid-chew. Before the war, Mother had taken pleasure in feeding them, she remembered, and in hearing about their exploits. Sometimes, if Father wasn’t home, they had laughed over meals at the kitchen table. Sometimes the food had even been tasty! She stared into her bowl, shoulders taut under Mother’s cold gaze. That pre-war mother had deserted them years ago.

Without further words, Lena and Piet finished eating and went to bed.

Four days had passed since their hopeful journey, and Amsterdam had settled back into its dreary pattern of waiting in both hope and despair while scrambling to survive.

On Saturday morning, Lena crawled out of bed while Margriet was still sleeping and tapped on her brother’s door, waking him for their regular journey in search of wood. The two slipped out together into the dawn, light seeping into the battered streets and warming the tumbled brick and stone, the torn pavement, almost giving the illusion of spring.

The sky, the sun, the seasons were not touched by war. A thin beam of sunlight found its way into the road, and Lena reached out and grasped Piet’s arm.

“Let us find more wood than ever before,” she said, her voice quiet but glad, just a little bit glad.