Hunger Journeys Read online

  HUNGER JOURNEYS

  A NOVEL

  MAGGIE DE VRIES

  To Lin, my mother-in-law: your story inspired this one

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFITEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  FEBRUARY 5, 1945

  UTRECHT TRAIN STATION

  OCCUPIED NETHERLANDS

  The two girls froze. The area had been deserted when they came up, but suddenly the train platform was alive with German voices and stomping boots.

  “Have you checked the cars?” said a voice, almost right beside Lena’s and Sofie’s heads.

  “Schultz and Biermann started at the other end. I’ll do these three. Here, jump up with me,” a deeper voice replied.

  A grunt of frustration. “Can’t get this door open. Hey, help me, will you?”

  Lena gripped Sofie’s neck and leaned to speak into her ear. “They’re searching the cars. We’ve got to find our bags and dig right to the back.” She felt Sofie nod just as the door to the next car opened with a loud creak.

  “You take the far end, Rauch, and dig deep. I’ll start here. Any hideaways in here, we’ll flush them out like rats.”

  Lena’s body went rigid. They know we’re here, she thought. Of course they do.

  CHAPTER ONE

  SEPTEMBER 4, 1944. AMSTERDAM.

  “Lena! Lena, come!”

  Lena turned from the basin of lukewarm grubby water, dirty plates and knives and spoons forgotten. Her brother stood just inside the kitchen doorway, his face alight.

  “Come,” he said again, stepping forward and grasping her wrist. Lena felt a rare smile take hold of her face. She followed.

  Piet did not speak again until they stood outside, with the front door of their apartment building closed behind them, parents and siblings shut away inside, and a bit of wartorn Amsterdam open to their gaze. “The British must be coming,” he said at last. “Look!”

  But Lena had already seen: people clustered all down the length of the street, doors standing open, German soldiers ignored. And the buzz. Somehow, even though voices were muted and no one was close, the air hummed with energy. Two soldiers on the boulevard actually looked nervous, speaking into each other’s ears and glancing over their shoulders.

  Lena almost danced on the spot. Could it be true? Could British armies be crossing the border into the Netherlands right at that moment? More than four years had passed since the Germans occupied her country. Food grew scarcer by the month, and the war just went on and on. Could all that be about to change?

  Piet’s voice was low. “I told you about the rumours last night. I heard it all on the radio.”

  Lena glanced around at the word radio to be sure no one was listening. Radios had been illegal for years, but Piet went to his friend’s house every day and listened to the broadcasts from the exiled Dutch government. Radio Orange from London. She felt a familiar rush of fear. If he was ever caught …

  “And Prince Bernhard is our new commander,” Piet continued. “Do you know what that means? He’s the new leader of the Resistance. He said the Dutch soldiers should ‘restrain themselves … even if the hour of liberation is near.’ That’s what he said. ‘The hour of liberation is near’! And now rumours are flying fast.”

  “You’re babbling, Piet,” Lena said, but her fear evaporated and her smile turned into a grin. What could be better than her younger brother’s bubbly chatter joining the buzz that ran the length of the street and surely the length of Amsterdam as well—even of the Netherlands?

  She had felt this same excitement not long ago: the landings on the Normandy beaches, just three months earlier, in June. As she thought back to that time, doubt clouded her mind. Back then, she’d felt certain the Allies were coming. She had taken the old school atlas from its spot at the back of her classroom and peered at the map of Europe, tracing with her finger the path from those French beaches to Amsterdam. Later, she and Piet had imagined the troops, marching steadily onward, dispensing freedom as they came. Surely the tide had turned, they’d thought, and it would be only a matter of days or weeks before the German occupation ended.

  But days and weeks had turned to months. Lena had lost interest in maps and gone back to her daily labour of preparing heaps and heaps of potatoes—that and trying to ignore the mounting misery in her own household.

  “Maybe I’ll bring more news,” Piet said, breaking into Lena’s thoughts. She tried to rally the grin, but it dropped from her face. He was already halfway down the steps, abandoning her once again.

  Lena knew where he was going: down the street to see the man with the radio. Meneer Walstra had lived on the Hoofdweg, a wide boulevard in the western part of Amsterdam, as long as they had, which was forever. They had not had much to do with him in the past, but Piet had spent half of this most recent summer over there, and he had invited Lena to go with him only once. Mother had kept her home that time, deep in her kitchen drudgery, and Piet had seemed happy enough running off on his own. He had never asked her to join him again. Lena was glad that he came back with news, but lately, with his mentions of the Dutch Resistance, she had begun to wonder what he was up to.

  She had begun to worry.

  Resistance was all very well. Someone needed to do something about the occupation—the Dutch army could not fight openly, like the armies of the unoccupied Allied nations, but there was much they could do underground, in secret. Lena agreed with all that, but she did not agree with encouraging a fifteen-year-old boy to get involved, especially when that boy was her own brother—her only brother.

  She took a deep breath. Maybe she need worry no more. Maybe today the British troops would put all her worries to rest.

  Piet strode off down the street, and Lena wandered back inside, finished the supper dishes and collapsed on a kitchen chair, an unread book clasped in her hand; even from the back of the apartment, she could hear the excited sounds from the street. They washed over her. She had no idea how much time passed before Piet slipped back into the room with none of his earlier ruckus. Lena started out of a doze and sat up abruptly. She had been sitting there waiting for him, she realized—for his news.

  No one else in the house seemed to be all that affected by the mayhem in the streets. Lena’s older sister, Margriet, was putting Bep to bed in the big bedroom. From the kitchen, Lena could hear the rise and fall of her voice as she told their little sister a story. Father was out, as he so often was. Mother was in the dim study, unravelling an old sweater in her endless, and largely futile, attempt to keep her family decently clothed. Lena was glad they were all out of the way. She jumped to her feet and, for the second time that day, slipped outside after her brother. Slipped outside and stopped. Doors on either side of her stood wide open, and people—the men hatless and jacketless, the women still aproned and in house shoes—crowded into the street, shouting and laughing. The city that earlier had buzzed with excitement now sang with joy.

  A big bubble of hope lodged in Lena’s throat. She swallowed hard and looked to Piet for an explanation. “‘The hour of liberation is here,’” he shouted at her. “That’s what he said. The prince. Our prime minister. From London. On Radio Orange. ‘The hour
of liberation is here’!” Then he stood back and looked at her.

  The hour of liberation is near. The hour of liberation is here, Lena thought, her grin as wide as her brother’s. She made no attempt to speak. There was no need. What a glorious journey it was for a day: from “near” to “here”!

  “And in the morning,” Piet went on, his mouth back beside her ear, “we will go to welcome them. To welcome the troops!”

  They made their way out of the crowd and back to their own steps, where they could speak more easily. “Mother and Father will say no, Piet,” Lena said, hating the meekness of the words even as she spoke them. “What about school?”

  Piet glared at her. “Oh, Lena! There’ll be plenty of time for school later. But if we miss this, we’ve missed it forever.” His voice was edged with anger. “We’ll just go. We’ll be gone before they’re up. No matter what happens after, it will be a day to remember. Are you going to let them take that away from you along with everything else?”

  Lena flinched as she met his eyes. She was almost seventeen years old, and he, though barely fifteen, was so strong and determined. She lifted her chin a tiny bit. “Yes,” she said. “We’ll just go.”

  Light came early on that fifth day of September in 1944, war or no war, but Lena and Piet rose earlier. Lena slid out of bed, leaving Margriet snoring gently, and dressed in the dark without making a sound. Then she settled in to wait. Long before dawn, Piet tapped on her door, and she picked up her shoes and her coat and shadowed him down the hall. The front door greeted them, solid and locked. Lena held her breath while her brother fiddled. She twitched at each click and clenched her teeth as he eased the door open.

  Leaving it unlocked behind them, they paused on the stoop to slide their feet into their shoes and shrug their shoulders into their coats; then they looked up and took in the goings-on, more through their ears than their eyes. The street was dark: no streetlights in wartime; every window blacked out. Stars glittered in the moonless sky, and the street was thronged with moving shadows, at least as many as the night before.

  Walking down the steps and entering that ghostly multitude frightened Lena. Despite their energy and excitement, the bodies didn’t feel quite real to her. She held tight to Piet’s arm. At any moment, she could lose him entirely. German trucks or guns could tear into them from either side; a child could lose her way and plunge into a canal.

  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 o
ccupation; 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.