Hunger Journeys (34 page)

She left through the lean-to and wandered alone to the Almelo House grounds. Excitement was everywhere, people rejoicing at freedom for their nation and for the world. May had arrived, bringing warmth and sunshine. Everywhere was a riot of flowers, the earth itself in celebration.

Lena lay down on a warm, grassy slope and thought. She must return home. She longed to see Piet and Margriet and especially Bep and Nynke. Surely the food parcels had arrived safely and her family had all survived.

But what was Sofie to do, marked by the stubbly growth on her head, pregnant, longing for her German soldier? What was Lena to do about Sofie?

Minden, Sofie had said. That was where Uli’s parents were. It had not been bombed like Düsseldorf. If Uli did not come for her, Sofie was determined to go to Minden. But how? The Allies were taking control of all of Germany. Minden might not have
been hit directly, but the whole country was in ruins, with everyone starving, desperate. They had just lost a war.

Sarah flashed into Lena’s mind. Lena sat up abruptly and hunched over, her hands knotted between her knees. She could not hold Sarah and Sofie together in her mind. Was she supposed to accompany Sofie to Germany where Sarah and her family likely died? To stay in hiding with her here? Or should she drag her, kicking and screaming, back to Amsterdam?

She smiled wryly through her tears. Sofie was beginning to feel more like a millstone than a friend! Lena hoisted herself to her feet and set off for the shed. One decision had mostly settled itself in her mind: she was returning to Amsterdam, with or without her millstone.

Lena stared at Sofie. They had opened the shed door and ventured out into the sunshine, just out of sight of the road, where they sat, side by side, backs against a stone wall.

Sofie, it seemed, had it all worked out! “It’s not so far, Minden. Straight east. There’s been bombing near there, Uli told me, but not the town itself. I’m to go to his parents, he said, and he’ll meet me there when he can.”

“Sofie, you have no idea. They’ve just lost a war! Minden could have been bombed since you saw Uli. There’s been a lot more bombing since then. Haven’t you heard the planes?” Lena said.

Sofie paused. “I know,” she said. “I know. But it isn’t far, and his parents know I’m coming.”

She was gearing up to start babbling again, Lena could see. “You don’t even know if they’ll let you across the border,” she said.

“I’ll show them Uli’s letter. He wrote it all down for me, you know. I … I’ll just keep trying. Or I’ll sneak across. I’m just one girl. There’ve got to be lots and lots of people on the move now. Don’t you think?”

“I don’t know, Sofie. I don’t even know what it will be like to travel back to Amsterdam!”

Lena thought about Albert for a moment. She tried to imagine going east into the unknown, the defeated country of their enemy, on the chance that she would be able to find him and build a life with him. Her memory of Albert was warm, and she thought it might be nice to hear from him one day. But she did not feel the burning passion that drove her friend. Sofie might weep and whine a lot, and she didn’t think about others much, but she did have courage—courage and commitment.

At the moment, Lena was most excited at the likelihood (she hoped it was a likelihood!) that she would soon see Bep and Nynke. Every moment she spent with Bennie had made her long for the chance to show the two of them just how much she loved them. Romance would have to wait.

“Well, if you must, you must,” she told Sofie, just as Annie came pelting around the corner and hunkered down beside them.

“What are you planning?” she said, gasping for breath as she spoke.

“I think a parting,” Lena said quietly.

Sofie stopped breathing for a moment. “A parting,” she echoed.

Annie nodded. “I can help,” she said, “with bicycles. One for each of you. It turns out that bicycle you pulled out of the drink is going to come in very handy for you!”

Lena choked on a sob. “Oh, Annie, I’ll miss you,” she said.

“Well,” Annie said brightly, “I may be only fifteen, but you never know when I might show up in Amsterdam! And Sofie,” she went on, “I do believe that I can lay my hands on a map for you.”

Lena looked from one to the other. “We can all write,” she said. “At least, I know you can, Sofie. When Uli gets home, he’s going to have to read for a week just to catch up!”

She thought for a moment about the next morning: Bennie staring at his wooden toys on the kitchen floor, struggling to understand why the most loving person ever to enter his life had just given him a big, damp hug and gone away; Annie grumbling as she washed the breakfast dishes and watched over him, maybe laying a hand on his baffled head and blinking a tear or two out of her eyes; and Lena and Sofie setting off on laden bicycles, together only to the nearby square, where one would turn east and the other west. Maybe, just maybe, Sofie would carry a note in her pocket, a sweet little note for a certain young German who made his living pasting pretty paper onto people’s walls.

At the moment, grief at parting eclipsed fear of the dangers of the road, which Lena imagined would be plentiful, especially for Sofie. Then something eclipsed even that.

When she was younger, Lena had not been a good friend. She knew that. And though she would try, once she got home, she would never learn Sarah’s fate, and she would never forget her own terror and how it had made her turn her back on her first real friend.

Now, though, with warm stone at her back, and a girl on either side, Lena realized that she had changed. Sarah had not been able to count on her. But Annie and Sofie could.

And best of all, she could count on herself. Imminent parting or no, that was something she could hold on to.

MAY, 1946

The magnolia was in full bloom.

Sunlight streamed through the massive white blossoms and cast dappled shade on three young people who sat together on a wooden bench in a courtyard, breathing in the sweet scent. At their feet, a toddler busily gathered thick white flower petals into the bowl of her skirt. The eldest of the three young people, a tall woman with blonde hair, held a letter in her hand. A boy, almost as tall as she was, sat close beside her, and a girl of perhaps eleven nestled under her arm on the other side.

They were happy, those three, glad to be together, and they were glad to learn that another girl, the eldest one’s friend and writer of the letter, was safe. Her husband was a prisoner of war, but his parents were kind to her (though there was little to eat and she had to work hard) and her baby was healthy. She had named the baby Lena. That made all the young people smile.

The eldest was smiling for a more private reason as well. Deep in the pocket of her skirt was another letter from a different prisoner of war.

She would read that letter later, when she was alone.

Many people helped in the research for this book and gave me invaluable feedback on it once it was done. My thanks to the following:

Lin Stevens, who shared her story with me, answered all my questions willingly, and listened and responded when I read parts of early drafts aloud, while accepting with grace the deviations between the fictional story and the real one.

My father, Jan de Vries, who shared maps and information about the major events of the Second World War, went through old family papers and shared those with me and put me in touch with Jan and Iny Slomp.

Clea Parfitt, who travelled with me to the Netherlands and walked, rode trains and pedalled bicycles with me, seeking out the sites and information I needed to move forward in my writing.

Jan and Iny Slomp, who welcomed Clea and me into their home in Leusden and shared Jan’s father’s story. The Reverend Frits Slomp was a key figure in the Dutch Resistance, and his story provided useful background for me. The Slomps also lent me an
important book:
To Save a Life: Memoirs of a Dutch Resistance Courier
by Elsa Caspers.

A family friend, Ria Orr, who lent me books of photographs and other material.

The research librarians at the Vancouver Public Library, who went out of their way to support me in my first research for this story when I was writer-in-residence there in 2005. They put into my hands a book I read over and over:
The Hunger Winter: Occupied Holland 1944–1945
by Henri A. van der Zee.

Lynne Missen, my editor, who saw promise in the story I submitted to her and guided me through major revisions, without which
Hunger Journeys
would be a mere shadow of itself.

And all the others at HarperCollins who worked on this book: Sarah Howden, whose insights made their way to me through Lynne; the designers who created the beautiful cover; Noelle Zitzer, Janice Weaver and Debbie Viets, who refined my words and caught my errors; Inge Siemens, sales rep for BC and Alberta, whose keen enthusiasm for this story bolstered my confidence; and everyone else who worked the miracle of turning my imaginings into a real book.

Any errors that remain are, of course, my responsibility alone.

I gratefully acknowledge the British Columbia Arts Council for a grant that assisted in the writing of this book.