Amsterdam 2020 (Amsterdam Series Book 2) (10 page)

When she gets home, she turns the key, fingers on the cold brass knob.  She opens the door to safety.

#

She sees Joury at mosque the next day.  Nothing horrible happened at the party. 

“Why did you panic?  You looked like you saw a ghost.  You're such a sissy.  It was just a party.”  Joury laughs at her.  That is when Joury tells her that her father has arranged a marriage for her.  “He's fifty-two.  I will be his third wife.”

“Why does he want another wife?  A fifteen-year-old?  What a pervert!”

Joury shrugs.  “It's political.  My father wants a contact in Rotterdam.  That's where the power is.”

“So he's selling his daughter?”

“Daughters don't matter.  But—” she gives Salima a wink, and hands her a cigarette “—until I get married, I plan to have some fun.  You game?”

“What if you get caught?”

“Fuck, I don't care.  The work camps can't be any worse than fucking an old man.”

The sudden indifference in her voice worries Salima most.  Beyond desperation.  As if nothing matters. 

Seven, 18 March 2020

A Day on the Train

The next morning I dash out of the house as if on borrowed time.

I take a bus to the Red Light District and pick up the Syrian family at the theater.  They look rested.  Spook has provided a breakfast of bread, jam, and cheese, for which I am grateful.  He's even managed eggs for the girls.  He has given them the first two proper meals they've had in a week and their cheeks already have more color. 

I thank Spook, and the five of us slip into the alley.  The day is sunny.  Puddles from last night's storm dot the road.  Overnight the trees have started to sprout leaves, a misty web of green over the gray branches. 

I walk ahead, pretending not to know them, carrying one of their bags under my burka.  They follow.

We take a short bus ride to Central Station.  I go to the ticket window and buy five round-trip tickets.  The family is only traveling one way, but a one-way ticket looks suspicious.  If questioned, they are to say they are visiting relatives in the countryside. 

I quickly hand them their tickets, and we stand on a platform waiting for a train to take us north. 

The train station is never a safe place, full of hard stares and quick side glances.  Any burka
could be a spy, any man behind a newspaper.  Every raised voice, every running footstep puts me on edge.  I force myself to relax, stroking the hair of one of the girls, playing the part of a doting aunt.

When we board the train, we see several IRH soldiers in the first compartment.  They are playing cards and look bored, not on duty.  I don't think they'll bother us.  We wobble down the corridor and find a compartment with two women in burkas
,
sitting by the window
. 
As soon as the girls settle in, the women open the baskets on their laps and give them fresh sweet rolls.  Wide-eyed and hesitant, the girls wait for their mother to nod that it's okay.  They thank the women, and silently nibble their bread.

Suddenly an IRH officer opens the door of the compartment and shouts “ID,
alstublieft
!”  We pull out our ID cards.  He looks at them and at us, comparing the photos with our faces, looking again.  The women by the window lift their veils.  They are old and very Dutch looking.  He studies each of us hard, as if deciding whether to arrest us or not.  Perhaps waiting for one of us to point an accusing finger.  Finally he hands back our IDs and says, “
Bedankt.  Hebe een goede reis
.”  

We sit in nervous anticipation, waiting for the train to start, four women, a man, and two young girls.  It is improper for me to look at a man I am not related to, so I look at the children.  They are small boned, like their parents, long torsos with short legs.  Their skin is grayish, their faces exquisite with huge eyes, long delicate noses, full lips.  Their hair, dark brown and wavy, is cut below their shoulders.  Even in a country such as Holland, which claims almost every nationality for citizens, they look different.  So similar to each other, so different from the rest of us.  Obviously far from home. 

I imagine them in their village in Syria, an arid rolling landscape of olive trees and vineyards, of white stucco cottages, ancient stone walls, and fierce red sunsets.  Men squatting in clusters, drinking tea and smoking, while the women do chores, and children scamper about making up games.  I imagine them happy.

As the train rattles alive, the older women chat with each other.  Senora Caputi sits on my right.  She watches me watch the girls.  She leans close and asks me if I have children.  Her question surprises me—she has seen me without my veil, and knows my approximate age.  Then I realize in her village, women probably married very young.

“No,” I answer, wondering if I will live long enough to have children.  Would I want to bring children into this world?

She takes my hand, leans in close, and whispers her story to me.  I feel the dampness of her breath on my cheek, and the movement of her veil gently fluttering against my veil.  Curtains in a gentle summer breeze.  

It is dangerous for me to hear her story, but I know she needs to tell it.  In case something should happen to her.  She wants me to know why I am risking my life.  It is all she has to give me in return. 

She tells me her family had lived in the ancestral province of Deir al-Zour in northeastern Syria for hundreds of years, the
oldest Christian community in the world.  Even before the UNI army invaded from Iraq, rebel troops were fighting President Bashar al-Assad's regime, al Qaeda, and ISIS.  Armed Arabs flowed in from Saudi Arabia and Yemen.  All fighting for power, targeting Christians for sport.  It started with kidnappings and forced conversions.  Daughters stolen and made into sex slaves.  Soon their towns became war zones.  They packed all of their possessions on the rooftop of a truck and fled to Turkey, where they tried to keep ahead of the UNI army.  They lost everything to bandits in a refugee camp.  They have been running for eight months.

“I miss my home so much,” she says, her voice trembling.  “I know it is not modern to be so attached to the land.  People move all the time, sell everything they have, leave their houses and land as if driving away from a hotel.  But our land is a person, our trees are family.  God will protect and provide for us, I know.  But without our home, without the sun as it rises over the mountains, I feel like a ghost.  The air has no oxygen.  The sun doesn't even feel like the same sun.”

A crushing pressure squeezes my heart—there is nothing to say.  My lips kiss the hair of the eldest daughter. 
Signora Caputi slumps, breathing softly, grateful. 

Her misery is shared.  Confided.  Understood.  It is the least I can do.

The train chugs past the windmills of Zaandam and into the farmland of Purmerend. 
Miles of grassy green fields framed by narrow canals.  Tidy neat blocks of forest, alleys of plane trees. 

Cows and sheep graze, swishing their tails contentedly. 

#

As a child I read about the underground railroad during the United States Civil War, and imagined it was like a subway, running underneath plantations and cotton fields, burrowed beneath the cities.  I wondered how so many tunnels could be dug and not be detected?  All that dirt!  How did they dispose of it?  How did they keep the tunnels from flooding?  How many years did it take?  I imagined half-naked slaves crouching low and scampering through endless, dimly lit tunnels—light bulbs hanging from moist dripping roofs, flickering, the sound of canons and musket fire above—then boarding a train, which I imagined to be something like a string of box cars in a coal mine.

Then I was told the underground railroad was neither underground nor a railroad, but a network of safe houses, barns, attics, and empty warehouses.  Composed of people who risked their lives to help other people escape.  That seemed even more complex and impossible.  Who could possibly organize such a thing?

Even as a young girl, I was impressed.  It seemed like important work.  Exciting work.  I never imagined it would be my life.

#

After an hour, brakes screech and the train jerks to a stop in the middle of farm land.  IRH soldiers charge up and down outside hollering commands, swinging enormous flashlights under the train.  I pretend to be calm, but my heart is beating madly.  Signora Caputi looks terrified. 

I lean close, pressing my lips to where I think her ear is.  “They are looking for smugglers,” I say.  “You are on holiday, and are a little annoyed that your sister will be kept waiting.  You can hardly wait to see her and all the improvements on the farm that she's written to you about.”  I point out the window at the straight rows of vegetables, a windmill in the distance.  “Your sister is pregnant with her first child, and you are bringing her two presents—a jacket you've knitted for the baby, and a family heirloom, a rattle your grandfather made long ago in Napoli out of wood from his olive orchard.”

This imaginary scenario immediately relaxes her eyes.  Sudden crow's feet mean she's smiling.  She squeezes my hand gratefully. 

The soldiers bang their palms on the side of the train, ordering everyone to get out.  They check IDs while the whole train is searched.  In twenty minutes we climb aboard again.  The soldiers don't find anything.

We finally reach Enkhuizen. 
Adjacent lots are crammed with thousands of bikes, toppled over one another.  It is easy to think things have not changed. 

We head to the waterfront. 
A chilling wind blows hard, and we hold onto our garments, trying to blend in with the farmers and their families with their baskets of chickens and produce.  I buy a plastic mesh bag, and fill it with a chicken and apples.  We would stand out without a bag of purchases.

The ferry pulls in.  It is painted yellow, green, and white, with two decks, and two glassed-in cabins with bench seating.  The upper deck is for viewing on a fine day.  It's empty.

We settle in on the ferry, not together, but within sight of each other.  The girls take out their half-eaten rolls and nibble at the edges, trying to make them last as long as possible.

The ferry pulls out into the IJsselmeer.  White caps slam against the hull, spray douses the windows.  The girls grab onto one another, wide-eyed.  It's probably their first water ride. 

I leave the family and walk to the deck outside.  I close my eyes, cold salt air moist on my face, and I am eleven again, sailing on the
Allegro
with my father off the coast of Zeeland.  White sails whip in a brisk wind, the hull pounding through the surf.  Above, a cotton field of clouds breaks open, the sun warm on my face.  Pieter grins—utterly fearless—at the wheel, his red windbreaker blowing flat against his chest.  I hank the jib, hair blowing, feet slipping, with only a single line and the momentum of the boat to keep me from falling into the sea.  On the brink of terror and absolute freedom. 

How alive I felt.  How free.

Cold spray flagellates my face, punishing me for my memories.  I couldn't have saved him, but that doesn't matter.  It's something I live with. 

Chilled, I return to the cabin.

When we reach Urk, I slip a vacation brochure out of my bag, and whisper to Signora Caputi to follow me and to move as if she knows where she's going.  IRH soldiers watch us closely as we step ashore into a small waiting room. 

No one looks like our contact, but I sense no danger.  We walk outside to the lot where people lock their bikes.  I notice a young man in a blue scarf and red gloves.  I wear a red scarf and blue mittens.

He smiles and comes up to us and taps my brochure.  “Hello.  It's so wonderful to see you again.  How was your trip?”

I know Resistants
meet these boats every day.  They must've heard we missed the first ferry, and sent someone around again.  I say the pass words.  “Rough seas are followed by calm waters.”

“And the sun comes out after it rains.  Come,” he says, “everyone can hardly wait to see you.  What?  A chicken?  You are too kind.  Ada will be so pleased.”  He kisses the girls, shakes the husband's hand vigorously, and carries the bags to a car.  We all get in.

The young man drives through town, circles around a building, then lets me out.  I walk back to a little restaurant across from the ferry boat.  I sit and drink coffee until just before the ferry leaves.  I cross the street and get on. 

Two hours and I'll be back in Amsterdam.  Just before curfew.

Homework

As soon as the train pulls in, I unlock one of the several bikes our group keeps at Central Station, and peddle over to Pim's.  “What happened after you left us?” I demand breathlessly, as I hang up my burka to dry.

“When I went back to get the van, two more Landweer Tourans showed up.”  Pim leans on his elbows, eating
roggebrood
and
hagelslag
for breakfast.  I smile, amused at how grown Dutch men love to smother their toast with chocolate sprinkles.  “They were going door-to-door looking for witnesses, but it was raining so hard, I doubt anyone saw much.  After a while, the two backup cars left with the third man, who seemed to be in charge.”

“The guy who was in the back seat and took a shot at you?”

Pim nods.  “The two other guys went into the dockside restaurant to wait for the tow truck, just like I figured.  I waited ten minutes, then slid into the van and took off.  When I got back to
De Waarheit,
I parked the van and told our guys to be prepared for a raid.”

“You don't think it was a coincidence, do you, the Landweer
showing up?  They don't go on patrol.  They only show up if someone gives them a tip.”

“True, but the Landweer didn't charge the van.  And they didn't have backup.  It's possible they were just cruising the area.”

I don't believe in coincidences.  “What did they say to you when they first walked up to you?”

“They demanded my ID.  Then asked why I was delivering papers so early.”

“What did you say?”

“That I was getting my load out early so I could meet my girl.  They asked me to open the back, and I told them I had to get the key out of the glove compartment.  Then I dove for the passenger door.”