Chapter 6
chapter
St. Helier
A breeze flipped the curled ends of Ivy’s hair as she walked down Hill Street with Fern and Charlie to church on Sunday. The one day a week she let herself don a pretty floral dress and wear her hair down.
The one day a week she didn’t need to convince everyone she was actually a doctor.
Fern’s shoes clicked on the flagstones as they passed the Town Hall, the elegant pale pink Victorian building bloodied by the swastika flag. “I’ve come up with a solution for your rounds.”
“Oh?” Ivy didn’t want to talk about work on a warm sunny day.
Fern’s smile tipped toward her high cheekbones. “I run the morning surgery like clockwork.”
“Yes, you do.” She moved patients in and out of the examination room faster than Ivy liked, but the waiting room never over-flowed.
“However, when you go on rounds, I lose all control.”
Charlie peeked around from Fern’s other side and grinned. “Lucky Ivy.”
“Oh, you.” Fern chuckled and elbowed their little brother. “For the past few weeks, I’ve analyzed your rounds. Every day, you travel all over the island in a most inefficient manner.”
“It can’t be helped,” Ivy said as they turned onto Church Street.
“That was fine when you had plenty of petrol, but not on bicycle. I’ve divided the island into five sectors and designed five routes. Each day you’ll take one route.”
Ivy shook her head. “Some patients need to be seen more than once a week.”
“If you follow the route, you’ll finish in late afternoon and have an hour or two to visit patients on other routes. But to do so, you must be disciplined. No more than twenty minutes per patient, and no dawdling to sketch on the way.”
A breeze swept through, and Charlie grasped the brim of his homburg, formerly Dad’s homburg. “Ivy’s watch is broken. How can she keep time?”
Fern frowned. “It’s obvious when twenty minutes have passed.”
Obvious to Fern, but not Ivy. And though parts of Fern’s plan made sense, others didn’t. However, a pleased look brightened Fern’s face, so Ivy smiled at her. “I’ll do my best.”
“You will.” Fern looped her arm through Ivy’s. “And now that you’ll no longer sketch on your rounds, I know you can keep this schedule.”
With effort, Ivy held her smile aloft. The day before, Fern had plucked Ivy’s sketch pad out of her medical bag and declared it unnecessary equipment.
They passed through the wrought iron gate surrounding the red granite Parish Church of St. Helier. Inside the church, organ music and colorful stained glass windows enlivened the whitewashed interior.
Thelma Galais sat on the left near the front, wearing a gray hat above her low silver chignon.
Ivy slid into the pew beside her, with Fern and Charlie following. Sitting with a family friend eased some of the pain of not sitting with her own parents. “Good morning, Mrs. Galais. How are you?”
Mrs. Galais had good color in her round cheeks and a light in her hazel eyes. “You precious girl. Don’t you look pretty?”
“You look pretty too. Any word from . . .” No, it was far too early.
The light faded. “Edna and Frank? No.”
Ivy murmured in sympathy. Over the past few days, over six hundred people had been shipped from Jersey to Germany, and several hundred more still awaited deportation.
Rumors said the deportees would be subject to forced labor, but the Germans said they were being sent to internment camps, just as German subjects had been interned in England.
“The Lord is good.” Mrs. Galais smiled and restored some of the light. “He will sustain Edna and Frank, and he will sustain me.”
If the Lord was good, why did he allow innocents to be ripped from their homes? Ivy winced. A horrible thought to have, especially in church.
Many of the deportees had lived in St. Helier, and holes darkened the pews. The Carters, who always sat in the second row on the left. The Yorks, who always sat in the same row as the Picots on the right.
Behind the Yorks’ customary pew, Doris des Forges Mollet met Ivy’s gaze, gave her a polite nod, and turned to her husband and children.
Ivy’s chest sank in. Doris and Dulcie des Forges had been Ivy’s best friends—until diphtheria struck. Ivy and Dulcie had been quarantined together, both deathly ill. But Ivy alone had survived.
A sense of being watched, and Ivy glanced back to find the source.
Three rows behind her sat a young man with golden-blond hair, his face framed between the hats of the ladies in the row before him.
Not quite a handsome face, but his gaze held hers, full of gentle strength, of kindly intelligence, and her gaze entwined with his, knit with his, and she saw . . . she knew . . . knew she was meant to spend her life with him.
Ivy sucked in a breath and spun to face the altar, severing the cord of connection.
She struggled to breathe. She’d never met the man, never seen him before.
The rector of the church, the Very Reverend Matthew Le Marinel, stood at the pulpit, and Ivy rose with the congregation. She fumbled to help Mrs. Galais hold the hymnal, forced herself to sing.
She’d heard of love at first sight, but this was different. Not love. Just knowing. What was she to do with it?
Dizziness swept through her, and she gripped the pew in front of her with her free hand.
Finally, the rector began his message, and Ivy pulled her little notepad from her purse to sketch as she always did, a quirk the congregation had come to accept from her. But this time she sketched the golden-haired man.
Who was he? Was this simply a silly longing from her lonely heart? And what on earth should she do after the service?
The image filled in, her pencil shading in dimension, capturing the bend of his mouth, the curve of his hairline, the radiance in his eyes.
At the end of the message, Ivy stuffed her notepad in her purse, and she bumbled her way through the closing hymn. But now what? The thought of seeing him again . . .
Instead, she faced Mrs. Galais and asked about her plans for the day. Mrs. Galais chatted about having dinner with Mrs. Le Huquet, and Fern slipped into the aisle to talk to a friend. Ivy simply needed to stay in the pew long enough for the golden-haired man to leave.
“Good morning, Mr. Picot,” a man said from the aisle.
Mr. Picot? Charlie was only fifteen.
Ivy glanced behind her. Over Charlie’s shoulder, she saw a man with white-blond hair. And beside him . . . her golden-haired man.
His gaze pulled her closer. His eyes shimmered in the most arresting shade of aquamarine, the same shade as the waters in St. Aubin’s Bay, not far from shore.
How often had she tried to capture that color but failed?
She could duplicate the shade, but not the luminous translucence.
Now that same color shone in this man’s eyes.
Charlie was talking to the two men, but the words slipped by. Then Charlie glanced back at her. “Ivy, I’d like you to meet Bernardus Kroon and Gerrit van der Zee.”
Gerrit was his name. Gerrit, and the cord entwined once more.
“Gentlemen, this is my sister, Dr. Ivy Picot.” Charlie stepped into the aisle to allow the shaking of hands.
Gerrit van der Zee wore a uniform. A brown uniform with a khaki shirt and a black tie and a black belt. With black shoulder straps piped in red.
With a red swastika armband and another armband below it that read “Org. Todt.”
The organization that enslaved and beat and starved its workers.
The cord of connection snapped, recoiled, tangled into a knot. Ivy stifled a gasp. The sting of it.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” The first man extended a hand to her.
Something sad swam in the sea of Gerrit’s eyes, and he did not reach out to her. “It is indeed a pleasure, Dr. Picot.”
Ivy hated to be rude, but she refused to shake hands with German soldiers. She gave them a tight-lipped hint of a smile. “Come along, Charlie.”
“But Fern isn’t—”
“We’ll meet her at home.” She gripped Charlie’s arm and steered him past the two Nazis.
“Ivy, what are you doing? Don’t be rude.”
“They’re Germans,” she muttered.
“They’re Dutch.”
In the clear air outside, Ivy hauled in long breaths to cleanse her mind. Yes, van der Zee sounded Dutch. She continued her march home. “They wear German uniforms. You shouldn’t talk to them.”
Charlie wrested his arm free. “They come to my boat for inspections. I like them. They aren’t like the others.”
“No.” Ivy gave her head a series of tiny shakes to dislodge the stubborn sensation of connection. “No, they’re worse. Only volunteers are allowed to wear German uniforms. They’re collaborating with the enemy that occupied their country—and ours. Worse than collaborators. They’re traitors.”
“They’re not like—”
“I don’t want to hear another word about them.” Her voice sounded shrill. “You mustn’t talk to them unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“I’m not a little boy.” His upper lip curled.
Ivy took slow breaths to calm down, to tease out her emotions from Charlie’s situation. “No, you aren’t. You’re a young man, and young men must be extra careful.”
“I understand.” Charlie’s expression melted into rueful resignation. “If I’m seen as a friend to them, the Picots will be seen as collaborators. That would be bad for the practice.”
“Oh, Charlie.” Ivy gripped his arm again, with affection rather than alarm. “The practice concerns me far less than your safety. You know how many people have been sentenced to prison simply for making jokes about the Germans, for insulting them. You mustn’t let your guard down around those men.”
Charlie sighed and glanced away.
Ivy steadied her breath. Whatever attraction she’d felt, she could never associate with a man who had betrayed his country, a man who condoned the abuse of his fellow man.
She mustn’t let her guard down either.