Hunger Journeys Read online

  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.

  CHAPTER TWO

  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.

  Piet looked at her and grinned. “Yes, let’s,” he said. “Vondel-park, here we come!”

  Vondelpark. Lena’s joy slipped a little. Couldn’t they go west instead, to the fields? No. It was all right. She could go there. The park was only a few blocks away, and the streets were almost completely deserted. They saw several people out scrounging like they were, but no soldiers, which was a good thing, because collecting wood was forbidden. Since Tuesday’s mad panic, the soldiers’ presence had not been quite as strong as before. Lena couldn’t help hoping. Surely the British had to come soon.

  She tugged on her brother’s arm and smiled a hopeful smile at him as they crossed the broad canal. Minutes later, they were there, facing the sign that announced, as similar signs did on all entrances to all parks in the Netherlands, For Jews Forbidden. The sign had been new just three years before, but now it hung crooked and faded.

  There, the excitement and determination Lena had been clinging to evaporated, replaced with a sickness in the back of her throat. She let go of her brother and tried to fight down the nausea, along with the memory that had brought it upon her.

  She did not succeed.

  The war had taken so much, but the worst thing, Lena thought—the very worst—was what the war had done to her one and only friendship.

  Lena had not been blessed with friends in her life. Until Sarah. Sarah had come to Amsterdam partway through the last year of elementary school, almost six years ago. Her family had moved from Germany. Lena had given that no thought at first, but soon she understood. Germany had become a bad place for Jews by then. Many Jewish families had fled, and Sarah’s was one of them.

  Sarah had been assigned a seat next to Lena’s. Lena helped Sarah with her Dutch, Sarah helped Lena with her math, and the two girls became friends. Sarah, her father, mother and sisters lived with a cousin’s family in a three-bedroom apartment much like Lena’s own. Even in that crowded environment, Lena remembered the warmth of Sarah’s mother’s welcome after school, the delicious snacks, the laughter over homework and games, and the delight of lying in the sun in the park on weekend afternoons, talking and talking and talking.

  Pushing aside the memory of what happened later at the entrance to that same park, Lena thought back to the shock she received the one time she had brought Sarah to her own home.

  She had not expected her own parents to be as welcoming as Mevrouw Cohen, but neither had she expected rudeness. Mother and Father were both in the kitchen drinking tea when the two girls arrived. Lena had known Sarah only a few days, and she had not yet told her parents about her new friend.

  “Mother, Father, this is Sarah Cohen,” she said, smiling as she introduced a real friend to her parents for the first time in her life. Her smile froze as she watched their eyes, all four eyes—could that be fear she saw in them?—travel over Sarah’s body, while their lips set in thin lines.

  Mother managed to speak first, twi
sting those thin lips into a shadow of a smile. “Hello, Sarah,” she said, but she looked at her husband as she spoke.

  “Hello, Mevrouw Berg,” Sarah said.

  Lena watched in horror as tears formed in the corners of Sarah’s eyes.

  “Ah,” Father said, “a German accent. Have you only just arrived in Nederland?”

  “Yes,” Sarah said. “I … I …” She turned to Lena. “I’m sorry, Lena. I forgot. I’m expected at home.” And she almost ran from the room. A moment later, Lena heard the front door close.

  Lena turned to follow, but Father grasped her arm. “It’s best if she goes, Lena,” he said. “You don’t want Jewish friends right now, especially not those who can’t even stay in their own country. Nederland’s got enough Jews of its own.”

  Lena stared at her father. He had made a comment or two about Jews before, but never anything like this. “But, Father, she’s not—”

  “There are a lot of problems in Europe right now,” Father said, “and the Jews are no small part of it.”

  Lena turned to Mother, only to catch her nodding. “It’s not good for our family to be mixed up with them,” she said.

  At that, Lena ran into her room and slammed the door. Father wrenched the door open instantly and ordered her out again. Pretending meekness, she walked back into her room and left the door ajar, as instructed. No children behind closed doors in Father’s house. Lena curled up on her bed, huddled against the wall and wept.

  Lena pushed the memory from her mind, straightened her body and followed her brother past the dangling sign and into the travesty that Vondelpark had become.

  The ground was beaten down by countless feet, by truck tires, by years of occupation and neglect. Ponds and waterways were dried up or scummy with rotting vegetation. Not a swan or a duck to be seen. Dinner for someone, Lena thought, and saliva rushed into her mouth as she thought of a roasted duck on the table.

  Some trees remained, but matted brown grass and scuffed-up dirt were all that was left where flowers should have grown. A city’s rubble might receive a moment’s grace from the first light of day, but that same light revealed the park as it truly was: stark and dying.

  Lena and Piet did not speak of it. They did not meet each other’s eyes. They passed that first site of devastation and made their way deeper into the park. It took them half an hour to collect a small armload of wood each, taking low branches that they convinced themselves had no more life in them and part of a tumbledown fence.

  Sweaty, filthy and exhausted, they stopped for a rest once they had their wood in a heap, and Piet chose that moment to share his latest news.

  “The Germans launched a new weapon yesterday.”

  Lena looked at him. What was this? He seemed excited somehow, as if he were telling her something good. “What sort of weapon?” she asked.

  “A rocket. There’s never been anything like it before. I heard it on the radio last night. They can shoot it all the way to England!”

  Lena tried to ignore his expression. “Where do they shoot it from?”

  “The west. From the dunes near The Hague. The rockets are huge. They carry them on train cars.”

  “Piet,” Lena said slowly, searching for the right words, “they sound like terrible things, these rockets. I thought we were about to win this war, and now you say the Germans have new weapons that come straight out of comic books. And”—she paused—“you seem excited, somehow.”

  Piet’s voice rose. “How could I be excited? These rockets are killing machines, and the Germans are happy to use them. How can you say that to me?”

  Lena didn’t answer, but she felt a small tug of satisfaction. Her brother was not so perfect. Typical boy—obsessed with the enemy’s weapons, no matter the destruction they caused! She breathed deeply. “Let’s go home, Piet,” she said.

  They emerged from the park, walking well apart, one behind the other, dawn now past. The city was coming to life. They were almost over the canal and about to turn north toward home when the alarm sounded.

  “Halt!” a voice shouted. A German voice.

  Lena glanced back and saw the soldier. He was close enough that she could make out his face, distorted with anger. He broke into a run.

  But Lena and Piet were already running. Even as she was turning to look behind her, her legs were pumping. Wood clutched to her chest, she took off, with Piet matching her stride for stride.

  “Halt!” the soldier shouted again, this time breathlessly.

  People on the sidewalk stepped aside to let Piet and Lena pass, ignoring the soldier’s shouted order to “Stop them!” Moments later they skidded around the curve to the right and stopped. They were in their own street now: the Hoofdweg. Wide and bare, it offered nowhere to hide.

  “Here,” a voice called, quietly, urgently. A door was open, and a man beckoned. Feet pounded behind them, just out of sight around the corner.

  Lena almost fell over her brother as she pushed to get the door closed behind her in time. All three froze in a strange tableau: waiting, listening. A moment passed, no more, before they heard the soldier’s boots pound round the corner. Another moment and the feet, soldier attached, had passed them by.

  Deep breaths all round.

  The man was kind but nervous, with a scraggly face and a sweater full of holes. He smiled and offered them bread. Piet shook his head fiercely at that, then tried to give the man their biggest piece of wood. The man shook his head right back, though not as fiercely, and pushed the wood into Piet’s arms. As soon as they were sure the soldier was gone, Piet and Lena thanked him again and made their way home.

  They did not tell Father or Mother about the German soldier, but they received angry words nonetheless for coming home in broad daylight with arms full of illegal wood. What were they trying to do—get the whole family arrested?

  Piet disappeared out the door soon after, and Lena settled down to steal an hour with a book before someone claimed her. Had she and Piet returned bonded by the chase, she wondered, or pushed apart by their strange conversation about those terrible rockets? She could not tell. She hoped they would not have to return to that particular park for a long, long time.

  Lena had Sunday dinner on the table at the stroke of six, just as she was supposed to. She had hardly set eyes on her brother since their dash home the day before. Now, her jaw clenched and her shoulders raised themselves up around her ears as she waited for him to come through the door and join them for the most important meal of the week.

  “God bless this food and drink,” Father said, without warning as usual, and everyone’s heads tilted forward obediently, eyes squeezed shut, hands clasped.

  The front door clicked open and then closed. Lena breathed a sigh of relief as Piet slid into his chair just as Father firmly voiced the next line of the prayer. Peeking through her lashes, she saw Father’s eyes snap open and glare for an instant at his son, while Mother’s worried gaze fixed on her husband. Piet’s eyes remained closed. He looked calm as calm. Lena admired that, but she hated it too. Maybe it was all right that he didn’t care about Father, but what about her? What about what his absence had put her through? Didn’t he care about that? She knew exactly what he was thinking: that he was going to help save people—he and Mr. Walstra. What did a missed prayer matter to him?

  Lena opened her eyes again to find Piet looking at her. He smiled. She snatched her eyes away.

  “How do you manage to cook food so it’s raw and burnt at the same time?” Margriet said.

  Tears pricked at Lena’s eyes. When had her older sister grown so mean?

  “I think it’s tasty,” Bep said, reaching for Lena’s hand.

  It was all Lena could do to hold still and let Bep’s fingers rest on top of hers. She looked over at her little sister and managed a small smile.

  Despite the crunchy bits, Father ate eagerly as always. Greedily, Lena thought. She fixed her eyes on her own bowl and tried not to flinch as he slurped at each spoonful. She fought to stop her
teeth from gritting as she listened to her father mash his dinner around in his mouth.

  “Your mother’s got news for you all,” Father said between bites.

  Mother’s head reared up and she stared at her husband. “I don’t …” she said to him. “I didn’t …”

  “You do,” Father said. “And you did.” His words were mysterious, and his voice had a tone to it that Lena had never heard before. She did not like it.

  Mother’s knife made a sharp click as she put it down. She laid the hand that had held it flat on the table, fingers splayed. Her other hand went to her belly. Lena knew before her mother spoke what she would say.

  “I’m going to have a baby,” Mother said. Her eyes slid up from the table and rested one by one on each of her children before coming to a stop on Father. “There,” she said then. “Now they know.”

  “A baby!” Bep’s face had opened up with joy. She was out of her seat, leaning up against Mother, her hand on that pregnant belly. “A baby sister for me!”

  “Or a brother,” Father said.

  Margriet and Piet, side by side, both looked serious. “There’s not enough food,” Piet said, his voice low. “The war …”

  Mother had her arm around Bep, and they were whispering together.

  “Well, this war can’t go on forever,” Father said. “The baby’s not going to be born tomorrow.” He paused. “He’s not due till February or March, actually. And there will always be food in the country, even if it runs out in the city.”

  “What good is food in the country going to do us?” Piet said. “Besides, who knows what the Nazis will do next. All they have to do is burst a dike here and there, and … no more farms.”