Hunger Journeys (6 page)

Piet looked from one to the other, made a scoffing sound in his throat and stalked off. Father rested a hand on Lena’s shoulder briefly and then retreated to his study.

I will go, Lena thought. Tomorrow. I’ll tell Piet tomorrow.

But tomorrow came, and she did not say a word to her brother. She did not go.

And after that, Piet did mind his own business. He shared news of the war with Lena sometimes, but he said nothing when the deportations started. The Jewish Quarter was almost empty by September, the start of the fourth class, and Lena realized that there would be no school for Sarah, segregated or otherwise. By then, the Cohens had probably been gone for some time.

Where? She didn’t know.

When thoughts of Sarah bubbled up, she pushed them down as deep as she could. She just hoped she was safe. That was all.

Now, on the street outside the school, Lena quickly learned that the new girl, Sofie, lived north of her house. They could walk together. They walked slowly, lingering over the short distance, the first moments of getting to know a new friend. Lena deliberately banished Sarah from her mind. She was not quite
as successful at banishing the queasy feeling of disloyalty that followed.

When they got to Lena’s house, Sofie followed her inside. Lena had stopped at the sidewalk to say goodbye, but Sofie seemed so expectant that she just had to lead the way up the steps and through the big, heavy door. Her heart raced. She had been hungry moments before, but now she felt sick. They so rarely brought anyone home.

She breathed deep and turned in to the kitchen. Mother was fussing over the stove. Without looking behind her, she said, “They’re saying we’re almost out of potatoes here in the west. Well, I’m saying that I could live a century more and not see another potato, and it would be just fine with me.”

“Mother,” Lena choked out.

Her mother swung around from the stove. Sofie popped through the doorway and planted herself in front of Lena. “Hi, Mevrouw Berg. I’m Sofie Vogel. I’m in Lena’s class now.”

Lena’s mother looked her up and down. “Well, it’s been a while since Lena has brought anyone home, my dear. She knows that she has chores to do after school, and if your mother has any sense, you do as well. Perhaps you’ll drop by another time.” Her voice was smooth, unreal somehow, as if she just didn’t know what to do with a human being who wasn’t related to her.

The two girls walked back down the hallway. Sofie stopped on the top step outside and looked at Lena. Lena looked at her. She wanted to apologize, to somehow excuse her mother, but neither girl seemed to have a word in her.

Sofie managed a small smile. Forlorn, Lena thought later. That smile had been forlorn.

The next morning, when Lena stepped out her front door, there was Sofie, grinning from the sidewalk. She was keeping her distance, Lena noticed, but she was there. Lena was glad of both, really. No more family fuss, and Sofie belonged to her.

In the classroom, Sofie made faces; she made jokes; she handed in sloppy work. Then, when a particular teacher was at the breaking point, she wrote an elegant bit of prose or answered a question that stumped the rest of the class, and the teacher would pause and look at her without comment.

Sofie ignored the boys. She was polite to the girls, but Lena was the chosen one, her friend. On the way home on the second day, Lena dared to ask one of the questions that burned within her.

“Why do you come to school if you just want to play around?” she asked, tense but desperately curious.

“What else is there to do in the middle of this horrible war?” Sofie asked. “And my family is awful. It was bad before, but you know what? War brings out the worst in people.”

Lena opened her mouth, and Sofie went on, “Yes, yes, I know. Or the best. I’ve seen that too—just not in my house. Anyway, school is fun. And I ask you, where am I supposed to meet boys if I don’t come to school? I’m seventeen. I need boys!”

Lena opened her mouth again, and this time Sofie let her speak. “But … but you ignore them. Willem invited you to walk with them, and you said no. You barely looked at him.”

“Willem? When I said boys, I didn’t mean Willem! He’s so short that if I danced with him, he’d have his face right in my boobs. If I had any, that is. And anyway, Lena, you don’t get boys by paying attention to them.”

An awful thought occurred to Lena. “Is that why …?” She couldn’t finish.

“Is that why what?” Sofie stared at her, at the misery on Lena’s face. “Ohhh. No, you silly idiot! I’m not spending time with you just to get boys to pay attention to me. I’m ignoring them to get them to pay attention to me—if I decide I want attention from any of them, that is. I’m spending time with you because I like you. The two are not connected.”

Lena’s smile was small and tentative, but she found she believed the other girl. She longed to ask Sofie why she was walking home with her, Lena, when she could have chosen any girl in the class, but you just didn’t ask that sort of question. You just didn’t.

The fun continued for almost a month. Later it seemed amazing to Lena that a month was all it had been. The walks to and from school, the constant holding in of giggles as she watched Sofie’s antics in the classroom, the way neither Mother’s demands nor Father’s jabs found purchase—it all seemed a permanent state. Almost immediately, Lena felt as if she and Sofie had always been friends, as if her three friendless years had never been. Then they arrived at school on a Thursday morning in the middle of October and found everyone milling around outside.

The day before, Lena, her mind elsewhere, had dumped a heap of potatoes into a pot of water, turned the knob on the stove, lit a match and stood waiting for the crackle of flames.

“Ouch!” she cried. The match’s flame had reached her fingertips. She gave the match a sharp shake, paying attention at last. The stove was still out.

“What’s going on in here?” Margriet said, striding into the room, the broom in one hand and a full dustpan in the other. “Cut off your finger, did you?”

“No,” Lena said slowly as she opened the oven door and peered inside. “The pilot light is out.”

“Well, let’s get it lit again before we inhale any more fumes,” Margriet said, and she reached out and flipped the light switch on the wall.

Nothing happened.

“I don’t smell gas,” Lena said.

And it dawned on them both together. No gas. No electricity. They ran through the house, flipping switches.

Behind them, the front door slammed. Lena expected Piet, but it was Father. “All of Amsterdam’s been cut off,” he said. “Except for where they need electricity for themselves.” He paused. “Damned Nazis.”

“The gas is off too,” Margriet said.

“Yes,” said Father. “We’ll be getting ninety minutes each day.”

“Which ninety minutes?” she asked.

“They didn’t say,” Father replied.

Now, Lena and Sofie joined the crowd in front of the school, only to be sent home. There could be no school without light and heat.

Lena and Sofie walked slowly, automatically, toward home. Then Sofie said, “No, wait! It’s early morning. No one knows this has happened.”

Lena felt something expand inside her. She looked at Sofie and waited.

“We’re free,” Sofie went on. “Right now, everyone thinks we’re in school. We can do whatever we want! We’re free!”

Five minutes later, they were tucked up against a tree in Vondelpark. The ground, thick with mouldering leaves, was damp, and they shivered a little, but the park was deserted, and for the first time since discovering the terrible sign at its entrance, Lena was glad to be there. Once again, she pushed thoughts of Sarah aside and welcomed this new opportunity with Sofie.

At first, quiet settled between them. They were angled away from each other, backs against the trunk. Lena picked up a leaf, recently fallen and perfectly intact, and began to shred it. Beside her, Sofie tipped her head back and gazed into the branches that spread above them, almost bare. Lena inhaled. The rich, rotting smell of fall with its crisp, breezy edges filled her lungs.

“I can’t stand much more of this,” Sofie said at last. “And now, without school …”

“More of what?” Lena said. “The war?”

Sofie didn’t speak for a long time. Then she said, “No, but the war makes it worse, you know? At home.”

Lena didn’t know what to say to that. She waited.

“I always knew I’d leave the minute school was over,” Sofie said. “The second it was over …”

Again, a long silence, this time expectant on Sofie’s part, but Lena was still at a loss.

“Well,” Sofie said, “now it’s over.”

Lena pulled away from the tree and turned toward the other girl. Panic reached the tips of her fingers. “You can’t leave now!” she said.

“Why not?” Sofie replied.

“You … you just can’t. Where would you go?”

“Lena, you know that people are leaving every day. On hunger journeys. City people are going to the country to get food.”

Lena gave her head a shake. Yes, she knew, but she hated the thought of it. “They come back,” she said, “if they can. And they don’t go because they want to. They
have
to!”

“Maybe. But they brave the dangers. They don’t mind the soldiers or the barricades or the flooded land.”

“I expect they mind very much,” Lena said. “I know I would!”

Sofie smiled. “Well, it’s true that I’m not dreaming of barricades or floods. I’ll think of somewhere wonderful!” She grinned, reached out and shoved Lena in the shoulder. “Want to come?”

Lena laughed, relieved, sure now that Sofie was joking. And indeed, Sofie’s grin turned to a laugh, and she switched to a favourite topic. “Where would you like to go when this blasted war is over?” she said. “I think South America could be exciting. Think of the men we could meet! There’s music there, you know, and dancing. Lots and lots of dancing.”

Lena’s imagination soared. She knew almost nothing about South America, but she imagined a warm evening on an outdoor patio overlooking the sea, women in swirling dresses with bare shoulders, men in crisp grey suits, drinks in fancy glasses—cocktails, they were called, weren’t they?—and one special man’s hand on her waist …

Sofie was still talking. “Or India. The Ganges, you know. A
rajah!
Or maybe even Australia. The Outback. A cowboy! I’ll take them all.”

But Lena wasn’t interested in sacred rivers or bleak landscapes—or Indian princes or men on horses, for that matter. She closed her eyes. Her man was sinking to one knee and slipping a small velvet case from his jacket pocket.

Then Sofie was poking her. “Oh, Lena, has he proposed to you yet?”

Lena’s eyes fluttered open.

“You’re just plain dull, you know. No fun at all!” Sofie added, her smile sly.

Lena glared at the other girl. How did Sofie know what she was thinking? “I just liked the thought of South America,” Lena said. “Going there. You know.”

“Liar! You can’t have any fun without a marriage proposal in it. Are you afraid a man might kiss you without putting a ring on your finger first?”

“No, I …”

“Yes! Even your fantasy man would have to propose to you before you’d think of flashing him a boob!”