Hunger Journeys (27 page)

“You have to make them let me stay.”

Sofie’s words were whispered, rushed, desperate. Lena had to play them again to herself in order to hear what Sofie had said. She looked up then and saw Vrouw Wijman sitting at the kitchen table, staring, her face hard.

“Come,” Lena said. And then, more loudly, “We’re going outside for a moment.” Vrouw Wijman half rose at that, and her lips parted, but Lena did not wait. “Come,” she said again, and they were in the lean-to, at the door to outside. Sofie was shoving her feet into a pair of oversized wooden shoes; Lena was ignoring the
flopping laces on her own shoes and the fact that she had already discarded her coat.

“Lena!” They both heard behind them, but they were out; the door was closing behind them, and they were away.

Lena led Sofie back to the Almelo House grounds, to the same spot where she and Bennie had enjoyed the new shoots and the birds. The grass was dry now, and the two girls sat, shivering slightly, and looked at each other.

Sofie was fatter than she had been, but her clothes were dirty, her hair uncombed, and Lena could see remnants of sleep in the corners of her eyes.

“She said you’ve been gone three days,” Lena said. “Where have you been?”

“What do you mean, ‘she’?” Sofie said back, defiance hardening her expression.

“I went to see you this morning,” Lena said, “and you were gone. Mevrouw Klaassen has nothing good to say about you.” She did her best to smile.

“They acted so nice,” Sofie said then. “They said I was like the daughter they never had. They loved me. I helped them bear the pain of missing their sons. She made me call her Janneke. She taught me to bake. She sent packets to my mother in Amsterdam. Two within three weeks! I met all their friends. It was like I had come home. They said I could stay with them even after the war. And I thought I might. I really did.”

She stopped. Lena had seen her features soften as she spoke, and she understood. Sofie had thought she’d found a new family, a simpler, kinder, more loving one. The silence stretched on. Sofie’s eyes were downcast, her lips soft. Lena hated to bring her back to herself, but at last she said, “And …?”

The eyes snapped up. The lips parted, thinned. “Uli came
back this week,” she said. “The first time, the time I told you about, he snuck away to the Klaassens’ and threw a pebble at my window. Just as they do in stories,” she said, and her face was soft again, “and I went with him. All three nights the train was here. It was so perfect. Everything was so perfect! I mean almost. They did catch me coming in late twice, like Mevrouw Klaassen said when you were there. Hours after curfew. They didn’t like that. They worried and made me promise I wouldn’t do it again. But then I did.” She paused. “I had to, didn’t I?”

She looked at Lena and went on. “But when he came this last time, I went too far. The Klaassens sleep at the front of the house, and I was at the back. I thought I could sneak him in, just once. It was cold outside, always cold. And we both thought what it would be like to be together in a bed. A real bed, like we’ll have when we’re married. And so I snuck him in. And Meneer Klaassen caught us on the stairs.”

Her face darkened.

“Well, forget about love. Forget about family. In one second, I went from their daughter to a mof lover and a traitor, like the soldiers who practically tore their younger son right out of their arms. In another second, Uli and I were out on the street. They didn’t let me get my things. I have nothing. The train was in town until yesterday, and we stayed together in the straw. He tried to convince me to stow away again, to come with him, but the train was going west, not east. I knew it wasn’t safe. And I wanted to see you. I … I couldn’t just go off like that.”

“Where did you sleep last night?” Lena asked.

“In a garden shed,” Sofie replied. “I have never been so cold.”

Lena had pulled a tuft of grass and was shredding it, blade by blade. She would have to look up soon, look up and meet
Sofie’s eyes, but she felt the judgment in her own and kept them on the ground.

At last, Sofie broke the silence. “Oh, Lena, I’m not so bad you can’t even look at me. Uli is the one really good thing in my life, and I am not giving him up. I’m not.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a few sheets of paper, just as she had done the last time they met. Lena stared at her hand. “We’re just waiting for this blasted war to end,” Sofie said, “and we’ll be together. I’ve got his address right here. Minden. His parents live in Minden now, since Düsseldorf was bombed last year.”

But Lena hardly heard what Sofie said. “Was Albert here too this week?” she asked.

Sofie’s eyes flickered and delight stole over her face. “Ah, if they only knew that good little Lena is a mof lover too!” she said.

“He’s not my lover,” Lena said. “You know he’s not. But have you seen him?” She wasn’t sure what she wanted the answer to be. If Sofie had seen him, why hadn’t he sought her, Lena, out? Why hadn’t he sent word somehow? He could at least have sent word through Sofie. She quailed at her own hypocrisy, but she wondered just the same.

“Well, Miss Good Girl Lena—who never longed for any man, let alone a dirty mof …” Her expression turned serious. “No, Lena, I haven’t seen Albert again since that last time. But five days ago, when Uli arrived, he gave me this.” Sofie had pulled a small envelope from among the mess of paper in her hand. She offered it without ceremony. “It is for you.”

Lena snatched it. Like last time, anger surged inside her. How dared Sofie keep a letter meant for her? Had she read it? Then she noted the sealed envelope and Sofie’s hurt stare. The darkness inside her was washed away by a rush of excitement. She turned her attention to the bit of paper in her hand.

My dearest Lena,

I know that you might not have wished it, but I was going to come for you. I was going to send Sofie and wait nearby or something—anything to see you again. But now I am to go far away. I hope to see Uli once more before I go so I can give him this little slip of paper to tell you that you are not forgotten.

Perhaps one day when this war is all behind us, you will send me a word. One word and I will come to you then, wherever you are. I know I am not good with language, and if you were not as good and kind as you are, you might laugh at this little note. But you have brought light and joy into my life, and I pray for your safety and your happiness.

Albert

Lena struggled a little with the German, but Albert had kept his language simple and she understood well enough. She wanted to pore over the note, the handwriting, the paper, the envelope, so meticulously folded and glued, but she did not want Sofie to see how much it mattered to her.

She folded the note, replaced it in its envelope and tucked it away.

Sofie had watched her throughout.

“It was nice of him to write,” Lena said grudgingly, trying to make her voice casual. What did it mean that she was beside herself with joy over this little note? Then she noticed that Sofie’s gaze had lifted. She was looking beyond Lena rather than at her.

Annie was striding toward them across the grass. “You’re wanted at the house,” she said. “Mother says if you don’t come now, she’ll come after you herself.”

The scene that followed was dreadful. They started by sitting down at the kitchen table, like civilized people, but that was as far as the civility went. Sofie’s answers to Vrouw Wijman’s questions did not satisfy. And Vrouw Wijman was not interested in Lena’s contributions.

“The Klaassens are respectable citizens,” Vrouw Wijman said, more than once. “Why would they turn a girl out onto the street if she didn’t deserve it? And why would we take such a girl in?”

“Please, Vrouw Wijman,” Sofie said, all her charm on display, “it was just a misunderstanding. They are good people, but I never meant any harm. Please, please, can’t I stay here with you?”

“She can share my bed,” Lena said. “She’ll work.”

“You stayed with us once before, young lady, if you remember,” Vrouw Wijman said. “You were a child, but your mother was not. When I saw you on my doorstep those few weeks ago, I thought, There walks her mother’s daughter. And that, my dear, is not a compliment. It is not a compliment, and I suspect that you have proven the truth of it.”

Sofie’s shoulders had collapsed at this speech. Her eyes were cast down. Lena, however, felt as if a light had turned on inside her head. So that was why Sofie hadn’t wanted to stay here! Why she had suggested Almelo at all was a whole other question. It was probably the only place she knew. So Sofie’s mother and Annie’s father … That was what it sounded like. Something terrible had happened. And Vrouw Wijman knew.

“Vrouw Wijman,” Lena said, making her voice firm, “Sofie is not a bad girl. Truly, she is not. Please don’t turn her out in the middle of a war. She could be hurt. Raped.”

Vrouw Wijman looked at Lena. “I’ve a good mind to turn you both out,” she said. “You made your own way here. You can make your own way home.” But she looked at Bennie, snug in Lena’s lap, as she spoke.

She would miss me, Lena thought. Not for me, but for the work. She snuggled Bennie a little closer. And I would miss him, she realized. I would miss him a lot. For the second time that day, Nynke and Bep flitted into her mind. Firmly, she ordered them out, inhaling the scent of Bennie’s little-boy hair as she did so.

The door from the lean-to opened, startling everyone. Bennie slithered off Lena’s lap and ran into his father’s arms. Annie bit her pigtail. Sofie hunched deeper, if that were possible. And Lena gripped the edge of the table.

“So it’s true,” Wijman said. He didn’t shout. He lifted Bennie off the ground, swung him through the air and put him down, his attention on the desperate girl hunkered down at the table. “Meneer Klaassen came looking for me at Bert’s. He wanted to be sure I knew what that girl there’s been up to.” He turned his gaze full on his wife. “I told him I did not know that she was in Almelo at all. You,” and he bore down on her as he spoke, “have been keeping little secrets.”

Vrouw Wijman was on her feet, ready for him. “And why do you think I didn’t want to mention the Vogel girl to you? Could it be because of the Vogel woman?” She squared her shoulders. “Now step away from me.”

And he did, but his fury did not diminish. Instead it looked for a new target. “He said I should keep an eye on you too,” he said to Lena, “and I expect he’s right. None but me saw you parading around all damp and bare-legged that day. Now who were you putting that show on for? I wonder.”

Bennie was crying by then, backed against Lena’s apparently offensive legs. Sofie had bent right over, arms wrapped around her head as if she thought someone might hit her. Vrouw Wijman sank back onto her chair, the soft flesh of her face and neck slack, the fight gone out of her for the moment.

Lena looked at her accuser, shock and nausea like oil and water in her belly. It was sickening to be accused like that, especially by a man who had trouble keeping his hands to himself, a man who had apparently seduced Sofie’s mother seven years before. Or had the seduction gone the other way? Or had it not been a seduction at all? Had force been involved? Lena’s head reeled while her body recoiled.

Wijman was not done. “You’ll be glad to hear that I didn’t mention your display. I told him that our Lena is a good girl and a hard worker. I also told him that I know the Vogels, that they were once our guests before the war.”

Vrouw Wijman’s head came up again, neck stretched taut.

“So, young lady, you can stay in our house. You will share Lena’s bed. You will not set foot outside or show yourself to anyone. I will give you two days. Then, Lena, you can decide if you wish to stay with us or leave with your young friend here, despite her poor judgment and wicked ways.”

And with those words, he turned and was out of the house, his work for the day not done.

Vrouw Wijman was on her feet, her breath coming in furious gasps. Ignoring her son and her daughter, she came at Sofie with the force of a tank, gripped her arm and yanked her to her feet. “You,” she spat, “will not do to me what your slut of a mother did. Do you understand?”

Sofie’s chin remained in firm contact with her chest as she nodded.

“If I see you within three paces of my husband, I’ll have you out in the street, barefoot and in your shift. And that is after I take the broom to you.”

Bennie whimpered, and Lena pulled him into her arms. “It’s all right,” she whispered lamely. “She doesn’t mean it.” But it was clear to all of them that she did.

Lena took one arm from around the little boy and reached out and touched Vrouw Wijman’s shoulder. The woman flinched and turned her head. Two wet lines marked her face, eyes to chin.

“Sofie won’t do anything wrong,” Lena said. “I’ll see to it.”

At that, Sofie met her eyes. Her voice was not strong, but her words were. “I won’t do anything wrong,” she said, “because I don’t want to. I don’t know what my mother did, but I’m not like that. I love one man.” Her voice grew louder, defiant, angry. “One man. Yes, he is one of the enemy, but he is the man I love. His name is Ulrich. Ulrich Rauch.”