No Greater Love (14 page)

He frowned, turning the glass in his hand. “Of course we were wrong. What a price we paid! Without even declaring war, Germany bombed us. They bombed Rotterdam. They bombed the city after it had surrendered to them!” His voice shook with rage. “We had no way to defend our country. We capitulated hoping to save lives. Then we had to endure four and a half years of German occupation.” He shuddered, slumping against the back of his chair. “At the end, there was no food, no fuel of any kind, and no medical care. But I am getting ahead of myself.”

He straightened his shoulders and sat erect. “In the spring of 1939, after I graduated from Leiden University, my father sent me to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies.” He added quickly, “You would know it as Jakarta, Indonesia. I was to develop a plan for protecting the family’s rubber plantations if the Japanese attacked.” He set his empty glass down. “Japan had already invaded China in 1937 to get the iron and coal that they needed. My father thought the Dutch East Indies would be next.” He groaned. “Everyone knew that Japan would need rubber and oil for their army but no one did anything to stop them.”

Stunned by the implication of his words, Pieter asked bluntly, “How old were you?”

“A little over 22,” Maarten answered with a quick grin. “When you are 22 years old, you fear nothing. Life is all an exciting adventure.” He grew serious again. “I was fascinated by Indonesia and life there. It was so beautiful.” His voice softened. “And I met the love of my life there, my lady, Mei Ling. She was enchanting beyond words, a Eurasian of French and Indonesian descent.” He motioned to Pieter to add some Jenever to his glass. “She was a student at the Geneeskundige Hogeschool. The Dutch East Indies government had set up the school to train medical doctors.” He stared into space. “One afternoon, I went to the school to meet one of my father’s friends who was teaching there and he introduced us. I knew as we shook hands that I had met my destiny—my lovely, gently Mei Ling. She held my world in her hands.” He stared at Pieter. “You understand how that can be?”

“Yes,” Pieter answered in a low voice, “I know how that can be.”

“By the end of that wonderful summer, our magical summer of 1939, Germany had invaded Poland and the world was on the brink of war.” He cleared his throat. “My father wrote to me that he was worried. There was talk about Germany’s plans to attack The Netherlands to open a route to France. He said that there were also rumors that the Japanese would attack the Dutch East Indies for supplies.” He held his glass in both hands to steady it as he took a sip. “He sent a message for me to return home immediately. I was to stop for nothing.”

“What happened?” A sense of foreboding made Pieter stiffen in his chair.

“I could not leave Mei Ling behind.” Maarten drained his glass before leaning toward Pieter. “We were married in Jakarta the day I received my father’s letter and left for The Netherlands the same day.”

Pieter was silent. He knew from what his mother had told him that his great-grandfather and great-grandmother had taken immense pride in being part of the Old Dutch nobility. Maarten was their oldest son. He would be expected to marry someone from the same circle. He and his sons would carry on the family’s honorary title. Pieter took a sip of Jenever dreading what he feared would come.

“They refused to receive Mei Ling.” His voice shook with outrage. “My father and mother would not meet my beautiful wife. My younger brother and his wife, your
sainted
grandparents, did not call on her.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the tears that were sliding down his sunken cheeks. “I loved her so much but there was nothing I could do to shield her.” His body trembled with his despair. “Every afternoon she would wait for callers. Carl’s mother came to visit from time to time, but no one from the family ever came.” He was silent for a long moment. “And when our son, Philip, was born, no one from the family acknowledged him. Not his birth and not his death six weeks later.”

Pieter slid onto the ottoman beside his uncle’s chair and took his hands in his. “I am so sorry,” he said, realizing that he had never felt so useless in his life. What could he possibly say to easy his uncle’s pain, a pain that was still excruciating 70 years later? He bowed his head. “May I go to visit their graves with you?”

“Carl said that you were a good boy.” Maarten’s voice was rough. “I go every Sunday morning. Ten o’clock.” He straightened in his chair, his voice firmer. “We’ll go together.”

Pieter glanced at the door.
Was it time to leave? Was this why his uncle had asked him to come or was there more?

“I’m not going to let your mother hurt your lady like your grandmother did mine.”

“I’ve moved out of my mother’s home,” Pieter said brusquely as he moved back to his chair.

“Yes, I know.”

“It has only been a few days. How did you learn about it?”

“My Saskia and your mother’s Mies are cousins.” He laughed at Pieter’s look of surprise. “Housekeepers know everything. Mies was so upset when she realized that you were leaving that she came to see Saskia.”

“I couldn’t stand to be there another moment,” Pieter said in a tortured voice. “I’ll never forgive my mother for what she did.”

“I can understand that but what are you going to do about your lady? Your children?”

Pieter jumped to his feet and started pacing. “I lost my lady and I never had my children.” He shook with barely contained fury. “Carl has them.” His voice broke. “My children will have his name.”

“Don’t be a
klootzak.
”

Pieter’s head snapped up and he stopped pacing. For the second time in his life he had been called an asshole. “Don’t you see? Carl took everything I struggled to stay alive for—all that chemotherapy, months of protective isolation, and hours of vomiting my guts out—all for nothing.”

“No. Carl did not take them from you, he saved them for you.” His uncle motioned for him to be seated. “When Carl called me to help him with certain things, he said that Janan had been having problems early in her pregnancy and then her health problems became urgent. To save the lives of the babies, she had to stop working, and when she did, she had no income and no health insurance.” He continued in a steady voice. “Carl said that Janan refused to reveal the father’s name. On his own, he tried to contact you.” He rubbed his chin and then said, “Knowing your mother, I suspect that she did not give you his letters or tell you about his phone calls.” He added softly, “You have to accept that Carl probably saved your children’s lives.”

“My mother said I was too ill,” he ground out from between clenched teeth as he remembered the burning rage he had felt when she tried to justify what she had done. “I was still breathing, still able to make decisions.” He jumped up and began to pace in front of the fireplace. “She had no right not to tell me.” He groaned. “At least she could have told me later, when I was stronger.”

“Perhaps she was worried about your health but your mother is very like my mother in some ways, bigoted and self-centered. My mother would not welcome a Eurasian into her family and your mother would not have welcomed a young woman from Anatolia into her family.”

“I can never forgive her. I lost everything that I loved.” His shoulders sagged as he turned away from his uncle. “Every time I think of Janan and those beautiful babies it is as though my insides were being scraped with a knife.”

Maarten pointed to the chair and waited for Pieter to sit down again. “Carl and I are two very old men and old men see the world as it is, not as we’d want it to be.” His uncle’s words came softly. “Carl has struggled with heart problems most of his life. He knows that his health is failing, that he has little time left. You have to understand that his goal was to safe-guard what is yours until you could claim them. He did it to help you, not hurt you.” The tone of his voice changed. “He talked with me about the future. He’s worried about Janan being left alone in a strange country with no family and no friends. He does not want her trapped in a long period of mourning.” He stopped and then, after a moment, said flatly, “He told me that he hoped you and Janan would marry soon after his death.”

Startled by Maarten’s words and at the same time feeling a flash of hope, Pieter mumbled, “She probably hates me for not being there when she needed me. She should hate me,” he ground out. “No matter how ill I was, I should have found out about the babies.” He shook his head. “I was such an arrogant fool. All I could think of was remission. I dreamed of going to her as a well man and asking her to marry me.”

“I doubt that she hates you,” Maarten said dryly. “A woman is a miraculous creature. When she loves, she loves forever, no matter what her man does.”

“I am not sure I am her man. She is young, beautiful.” His face twisted with misery. “She could have any man she wants.”

“Yes, but she chose you, didn’t she?”

“What do you mean?” Pieter stared at his uncle.

“Well, am I right in assuming that you did not force yourself upon her?” Maarten’s quaint words held a definite sting.

For a moment Pieter lost himself in the memory of Janan’s first tentative kiss. “No, I didn't force myself upon her.” At his uncle’s growled humph, he hurried to change the subject. “You said that we have work to do. I’m afraid I don’t understand what work you have in mind.”

“You and I face two tasks, one easy and one hard.” Maarten picked up a thick folder from the table by his side and handed it to Pieter. “Let me explain. I have named you my heir. You now own this house and all my business interests in the Bentinck Foundation.” A faint smile crossed his face. “I don’t know if you are aware that all of the family assets are held by the Bentinck Foundation, including your mother’s.” His eyes twinkled from beneath his heavy brows. “I’ve already deeded the house to you and notified the board of directors that you’ll be replacing me on the board immediately.”

“Why are you doing this?” Pieter asked, bewildered by his uncle’s disclosure. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“I’m doing it for Mei Ling. When Carl told me what your mother had done, I knew that I had to do it . . . for Mei Ling.” His eyes glistened. “You will move here at once.” He thumped his cane on the floor. “Unthinkable, my nephew living in rented quarters.”

“Was that the easy or the hard task?”

“The easy one.” His hand was shaky as he reached for his glasses. “Carl asked me to do some things for him and I will need your help.”

Pieter had stiffened and turned away at his uncle’s words. “You will have to excuse me from that task,” he said in a forbidding voice.

“Don’t be a
domkop
,” Maarten continued brusquely. “What we must do will help Janan when the time comes. Otherwise she will be alone trying to arrange everything. Is that what you want for her?”

“No.” His voice was husky as he thought of Janan alone in the forbidding, old house in Leiden with a housekeeper who probably disapproved of her and two infants. “I will help you in any way I can.”

“Good. This is what we have to do.” Maarten pulled a notebook from his coat pocket and turned several pages. “Ah, here we are. I made notes of what Carl wanted: make the arrangements for his funeral and secure a burial plot.” He looked up at Pieter’s shocked,
“
What
?”

“He had planned to do it himself but his health problems have worsened and he has asked me to help him.” He glared at Pieter sternly. “He wants his funeral services to be at the Synagogue at 16 Levendaal in Leiden. He said that he realizes that he has no family and no friends here but he wants to do it to honor his family even if the synagogue is empty.”

“I don’t know what the customs are.”

“Well, I know that his father was Jewish but I don’t know about his mother. The Germans considered his whole family to be Jewish when they sent them to the camps.” He scowled at his notes. “That should be good enough authentication.”

“Carl was sent to the U.S. when he was only five years old. Perhaps he was raised in another religion?”

“He made that point clear. He never practiced the Jewish religion but he never practiced any other religion either.” He looked pointedly at Pieter. “I think we need to make an appointment to meet with the rabbi of the Leiden Synagogue.”

“Do you know him?”

“Yes, we’ve worked together in the past.” He paused then mumbled, “I have a little trouble getting around and I need you to take me to meet with him.”

“I will be glad to help you. Do you have a folding wheelchair?” Pieter asked matter-of-factly.

“No! Of course not!” Maarten snarled. “I do not need a wheelchair.”

“If we are going to do what you want to do, you must let me find an appropriate travel-chair. There are some Dutch ones that are well designed for tall men,” he added diplomatically.

Maarten waved his hand in agreement. “I’ll leave those tiresome details to you.” He examined his notes again. “We have to find out if there is a family plot in the Katwijk Cemetery. It’s likely that Carl’s father’s family would have been buried there.”

Pieter took his notebook and pen from his pocket. “I think we have to find out two things: if he is eligible to be buried there and if there is available space.”

“I know that the cemetery was placed on the Dutch National List of Protected Monuments.” He nodded confidently. “I’m still on their board. We can start our inquiries there.” He stared at his notes again.

“Anything else?” Pieter asked in a guarded voice.

“Not specifically.” He rubbed his chin. “Carl said that he feared that his great-nephew, Arnold, might try to claim the house.”

“I assume that Carl has a will?”

“Yes, I am sure that his solicitor insisted on that, but, even with a will, Arnold could cause a lot of problems.” Maarten stared at the floor. “Then here is the problem of heirs . . .”

“What problem?” Pieter bristled.

“Under the retribution process, heirs are considered to be children and grandchildren of those murdered in the German concentration camps.” He waited for Pieter to understand his meaning.

“No!” Pieter’s face was ashen as he shot to his feet. “They are not his children.” He shuddered. “Is there no way out of this nightmare?”