The Tulip Eaters (29 page)

70

Nora and Nico walked to where Leah and Ariel now stood. They were no longer sobbing, but both faces showed tracks of their tears.

“I’m going to take Rose home now,” she said softly.

Ariel nodded. “You can call the police. I won’t resist.”

“I am not going to press charges.”

Shock filled his eyes. “How can you do that! I took your daughter and caused you immeasurable pain. My father killed your mother.”

Nora studied him. His black eyes were so like her own. “Because I didn’t choose to be Abram’s daughter and you didn’t choose to have a father who was a murderer. Because I don’t know what role my parents played in all of this long ago.”

Ariel tried to speak, but couldn’t. Leah collapsed onto the couch.

Nora pointed at Amarisa, still wailing on the floor, and at Dirk, just now able to sit up. “They’re your problem.” With Rose in her arms, she motioned to Nico that it was time to go.

Ariel walked to Nora. “What can I say? I don’t know how you can do this, but I thank you with all my heart.”

Nora now looked into the face so similar to her own. “Because you are my cousin. And because enough harm has been done. It ends here. Putting you in jail won’t bring my mother back.” She looked down at her sleeping baby. “And because everything I have ever wanted is right here.”

Ariel nodded and gently touched one of Rose’s plump fingers. “Goodbye, my darling,” he whispered.

Nora followed Nico to the front door. She and Nico left the house. They didn’t look back.

71

Nora walked through the empty rooms of her mother’s house, remembering Anneke’s smile and the quiet, warm look her father always gave her. Rose lay in the bassinet Anneke had given her, sleeping peacefully. It was almost as if she felt her grandmother’s presence and love, so deep was her sleep.

It had now been almost a year and a half since she had gotten Rose back. The house had finally sold. Reluctantly, Nora had come back to make sure the movers had cleaned out the place. Everything had been boxed up and put into storage months ago. Nora would return sometime later to sift through the remains.

Nico’s divorce was final and they had begun their new life together by buying a house near the
Vondelpark.
For now, Nora just wanted to leave Houston behind forever and go back to Nico. She and Rose would be returning to Amsterdam tomorrow. She had an interview with a hospital for a position—recommended by her old boss. She felt excited at the prospect.

She took a slow turn through her childhood bedroom, the tiny bathroom and her parents’ room—all empty. Her footsteps echoed on the wooden floors, already dusty. There was nothing so sad as a house abandoned. She walked into the kitchen and noticed a note on the counter. From the movers. They didn’t know what to do with the items in the recessed cabinet in the master closet.

What did that mean?
She walked to her parents’ closet and flicked on the lights. It was bare. Only a few hangers hung on the wooden bars. She went to her mother’s side, where she had kept her evening wear, seldom used. A discrepancy in the wall caught her eye. A crack, a thin black line, seemed to take on an odd depth as she surveyed it. She looked closer. A knob protruded from the woodwork. She gripped it and pulled. A panel swung open.

Deep red velvet lined shallow, recessed drawers, each divided into compartments. It would have been entirely hidden by Anneke’s hanging clothes.
Another secret place. Another private world.
Slowly, Nora opened the panel as far as it would go, afraid of what she would find. But she knew instantly. They stood side by side, sunk in rich coronation velvet. Silver orbs.

Nora lifted the first gently from its nest. An intricate
A
inscribed on the front. She ran her finger over the detailed work. She knew what would be on the back. As she turned it over, the cool of the metal warmed to the curve of her palm. An identical
A. Abram en Anneke.
She unfastened the silver clasp from her neck and lifted her mother’s locket to compare them. They were the same.

Nora pulled the drawers open. Thirty-four identical silver globes glowed softly, burnished flares against the claret velvet. A holy shrine—Anneke’s hallowed place, her final reliquary. Pieces of Anneke’s heart commemorating each year she had survived without Abram. Nora imagined her mother, year after year, holding the silver stones, warming them in her hands, never losing the touch of his hand, the love of so long ago.

Nora sensed the intrusion of her presence. She was never meant to see this. She closed the secret panel. She would come for them later.

She walked back into her parents’ bedroom and glanced around.
Was there anything else she had missed?
She turned to go and then realized that she had almost forgotten the shadow box on the wall. It had always hung there and, after time, had become part of the room, like furniture one never noticed.

Nora walked over and studied it.
The Anneke Rose.
That was what her father had called it. Anneke had cultivated it in her beloved greenhouse, her one passion. There she was happy, her hands in the rich earth, nursing cuttings, singing softly to herself.

Hans had built her a small room off the greenhouse. While Anneke gardened, Nora would lie on a mattress in her nook, reading and sleeping; sleeping and dreaming. Many summers were spent this way, the two of them in companionable silence.

Each summer morning, Anneke would clip a tiny pink rosebud and lay it on Nora’s pillow. And every morning, Nora would take her book and curl up on the bed, the rose a scented bookmark, a daily token of love and thoughtfulness.

Nora stared at the intricately embroidered rose in the shadow box. Pink—a soft, baby-breath blush of a rose. It seemed so real that Nora could almost smell its pure, childlike scent.

She lifted it from the wall and walked toward the door. Then she heard something flutter onto the carpet. An envelope. Nora stared at it. Probably a bill from the framer, taped onto the back of the shadow box. She laid the box on the bed, sat and opened the envelope. She shook it upside down. A dried pink rose fell onto Nora’s lap. Inside was a letter dated two months after Rose’s birth.

My darling Nora,

How strange it is that I must write a letter to you instead of telling you these things as you sit in the other room, peacefully nursing my grandchild. I hope when you read this that you will not blame me for keeping my secrets from you, knowing I love you more than you can imagine.

I will not tell you the details of my life during the war. It was a time of hate, death and loss. What is important for you to know is your true heritage. I have struggled all these years trying to decide whether to tell you this at all, but as my daughter, I feel you have the right to know.

During the war, both Hans and I fought in the resistance. It was a terrible, terrifying, yet exciting time. I met another resistance fighter, a Jewish man named Abram Rosen. He was the love of my life, Nora. I know it must hurt you to know that Hans was not. He was a fine man who loved me. And you were the light of his life.

A shameful fact of my life is that my father was a Dutch Nazi, a cruel, brutal man. I pretended to be one to hide my resistance activities. In 1942, Abram was forced into hiding. I moved him constantly, terrified that he would be discovered. In April of 1945, just one month before the liberation, I discovered I was pregnant. Abram was thrilled about the baby. He just knew he would make it, that we three would make it–to freedom.

I had tried to keep my relationship with Abram secret from Hans, who was a childhood friend. He was horribly jealous. One night Hans and I had an argument about Abram. I told him I was pregnant and he went into a rage. I didn’t know that he had been following me to the house where Abram was hiding. He ran out and I ran after him, knowing he would go there, terrified at what he might do.

Then it happened all at once. Hans and Abram fighting outside the safe house, the Dutch police running up behind me, my pulling Hans away from Abram. And then an officer shot Abram. Between the eyes. His last look was at me. I shall never wipe that from my mind.

Hans was blamed for killing Abram. He did not. I was blamed for leading the police to Abram. I did not. I learned only after Liberation Day who had betrayed my darling Abram. The killer told me himself.

My father.

He was suspicious of my absences late at night and had me followed. I never knew how he did it, but on that horrible night, he had the
Groene Politie
track me to Abram’s safe house. Then the fight. The shot.

I was pregnant. My lover was dead. Life was over for me. I didn’t care where I went, what I did. Everything was hopeless, lost, destroyed. I had a difficult pregnancy. After you were born, it was Hans who persuaded me to come to America. He knew he would be blamed for Abram’s murder and that, as an NSB-er, I would be arrested, jailed.

Hans and I tried to make a good life for you. I hope we have. Now you have your own daughter to love. My only wish for you is that you find your Abram. If you do, never let him go.

I leave you this rose I made for you. I leave you the love that is here in my heart, as perfect as yours for Rose. Never mourn me. You are the child of a great love. Live your life as one.

EPILOGUE

Nora walked to the
Leidseplein
on a beautiful summer day. She saw Nico sitting with Rose at an outdoor café. She grasped the locket around her neck. She knew what was inside. She had placed photographs of her and Nico into the two oval spaces. Beneath them were the old pictures of Anneke and Abram.

Nico saw her and waved. Rose came running toward her, red curls bouncing, her mouth open in laughter. She walked to them, her hand molded gently around the new life that grew inside her. She walked to the man she loved, her daughter and a life filled with promise and joy.

It was as Anneke and Abram would have wished. Their love lived on.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from SAVING MAX by Antoinette van Heugten.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For my first editor, who is forced to live with me as I go through the tortured rituals that precede every novel and who reads every line of every revision. Without his unqualified love and encouragement, I would still be staring at a blank page. Thank you, my darling Bill.

For my family, for always being there.

For my brilliant agent, Al Zuckerman, and the agony he puts me through with every novel, pushing me to make every word, scene and chapter the very best it can be. I cannot imagine writing without you!

For Glenn Cambor, without whom I would never have become a writer and who has saved my life in so many ways.

For Beverly Swerling and her steadfast support and encouragement.

For my professor and mentor, Francis Bulhof, who long ago taught me Dutch and who patiently shepherded a naive girl through the scholarship maze that led her to the Netherlands.

Deep appreciation for my dear friend Marijke Clerx, my cousin, Liesbeth van Loon, and her husband, Yvo, for reading the manuscript and correcting my most flagrant errors in language and history. Thanks to Prof. A.G.H. Anbeek for his course in Dutch culture.

For my editor, Susan Swinwood, and the entire MIRA group, for their continued support. I take full responsibility for any historical errors regarding events depicted in the Netherlands during the war. My research was conducted over thirty years ago, when I spent a year in the carrels of NIOD
(Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie).
I was fortunate to meet its founder, Loe de Jong, and to be assisted by the Institute’s wonderful staff, who helped me comb through stacks of diaries donated by Dutch citizens after the war. Any errors in the Dutch language are mine, as it has been decades since I spoke with any fluency.

Finally, deep gratitude to my readers for their enthusiastic response to my first novel,
Saving Max.
I hope you enjoy this one, as well.

Deeply Moving
Thought Provoking
Powerful Storytelling

They have nothing in common except one powerful bond: the men they love are fighting in a war a world away from home...

A remarkable tale about finding hope in a time of turmoil and about the transcendent and transformative power of friendship.

“With lyrical prose and exquisite detail, Shona Patel’s novel brings to life the rich and rugged landscape of India’s tea plantations, harboring a sweet love story at its core.”
—Shilpi Somaya Gowda,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Secret Daughter

In a riveting exploration of the power the past wields over the present, Antoinette van Heugten writes the story of a woman who must confront the roots of her family’s troubled history in the dark days of World War II in order to save her child.

Find your copies wherever ebooks are sold!