Chapter 13
chapter
St. Helier
Gerrit paused on the doorstep holding the box of Dutch chocolates his mother had sent him. The bright blue door signaled welcome, but only two-thirds of the home’s inhabitants would actually welcome him.
Bernardus would have no qualms ringing the bell, but Bernardus had caught the flu.
Only Charlie’s insistence that Ivy Picot was celebrating Christmas with Mrs. Galais had persuaded Gerrit and Bernardus to accept the invitation. That and the anticipation of spending the day with their bright young friend.
Their courier.
Gerrit had used every drop of lemon juice to draw a map, and over the course of two weeks, Bernardus had sent sections of that map to his contacts, folded inside Charlie’s shoes. Charlie had promised to be discreet over Christmas dinner, and Gerrit trusted him.
But what if the sweet-faced physician learned Gerrit had entered her home?
He stepped back down to the street. He’d leave the chocolates on the stoop and join the OT men in the hotel dining room.
The blue door flew open, and Charlie grinned at him, wearing a dark gray suit. “Gerrit! Thank you for coming. Where’s Bernardus?”
The decision had been made for him. “I’m afraid he’s ill. He sends his regrets. I brought chocolates from the Netherlands. Happy Christmas.”
“Smashing.” Charlie took the box. “Come on through.”
Behind Charlie, Fern Le Corre greeted Gerrit in a dark red dress and a smile that would liquify the knees of most men.
Gerrit’s knees held firm as he crossed the threshold and removed his cap. “Happy Christmas, Mrs. Le Corre. Thank you for inviting me.”
“We’re honored to have a dear friend of Charlie’s in our home. But since we’ll be spending Christmas together, you must call me Fern. And you’re Gerrit, yes?”
“Yes.” Gerrit hung his greatcoat where indicated and followed his hosts past an office, a waiting room, and examination rooms.
Fern led him up a narrow staircase. “The surgery’s on the ground floor. The family quarters are upstairs on the first and second floors.”
“I see.” On the stairway wall hung framed pencil sketches highlighted with splashes of watercolor. Several of Fern and Charlie, of two older adults—their parents, most likely—and of two little boys with Fern’s looks.
“This is Ivy’s art,” Charlie said.
“I thought it might be.” Gerrit smiled at the drawings. Upstairs, more of her art graced the hallway—rabbits and kestrels and toads and wildflowers—as well as family photographs.
The dining room was decorated with conventional oil paintings of seascapes and sailing ships, but Gerrit preferred the intimate charm of Ivy’s art.
At one end of the table, Fern swept her hand to her right, toward a bank of windows overlooking the street. “You’ll sit here, Gerrit. And, Charlie, as the man of the house . . .” She motioned to the head of the table.
In one instant, Charlie transitioned to that man, standing taller, his chest fuller, and he stroked the back of the dark wood chair.
Gerrit pulled out Fern’s chair for her and took his own seat. One empty chair stood to his right and two across the table. “Who else is coming?”
A soft thud downstairs as the front door shut.
Fern grinned. “That will be them now.”
Charlie chuckled. “Fern won’t tell me who the other guests are.”
“Surprises are such fun.” Fern clasped her hands in front of her chest.
Gerrit murmured his agreement out of politeness, but he’d never been fond of surprises. They were too . . . surprising.
Why wasn’t Fern rushing downstairs to greet her guests? Two feminine voices floated up the stairs and down the hall, laughing and familiar.
“Fern!” Charlie glared down the table at his sister. “You told me—”
“Hush, now.” Fern rose and fixed a smile on the door.
Gerrit rose too, even as a dark pit formed in his stomach. What had he done?
Mrs. Galais entered the dining room—with Ivy. “Gerrit!” Mrs. Galais beamed at him. “You darling boy. What a lovely surprise. Ivy didn’t tell me you’d be here.”
Because Ivy didn’t know, but Gerrit wrestled up a smile for the elderly woman. “Happy Christmas, Mrs. Galais.”
“What is the meaning of this?” Ivy’s voice wavered, dark and low.
“I’m sorry.” Charlie stretched a hand toward Ivy, his face agitated. “Fern told me to invite Gerrit and Bernardus. I never would have done, but she said you were dining with Mrs. Galais.”
“Dear, oh dear.” Fern pressed a hand to her chest. “I said Ivy was bringing Mrs. Galais. You must listen with more care. Please have a seat, Mrs. Galais, right here next to me.”
Ivy still stood, her hands in stiff knobs at her sides.
Gerrit’s insides contracted to a writhing lump. “I apologize, Dr. Picot. I wouldn’t have accepted the invitation if I’d known.”
Charlie’s face approached the shade of Fern’s dress. “I promise, I didn’t—”
“I know, Charlie.” Ivy didn’t remove her stony gaze from her sister’s face.
Charlie huffed. “Fern, why would you do such a—”
“Oh dear.” Fern lowered herself to her chair with a flat smile. “We mustn’t argue in front of guests, Charlie. Please do be seated.”
What had Gerrit walked into? Had Fern arranged this behind her sister’s back? For what reason? Well, he wouldn’t be a part of it.
He directed a polite smile to his hostess. “Thank you again for the invitation, but I must decline.”
“Nonsense.” Fern patted the table. “Charlie is allowed to invite his friends, isn’t he, Ivy? Dad and Mum loved to show hospitality to strangers, and we couldn’t turn away a guest on Christmas Day. Poor Gerrit has nowhere else to go.”
Gerrit’s left foot edged toward the door. “Actually, I could—”
“Please be seated, Gerrit.” Fern patted the table again. “Ivy, doesn’t the rector say we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us?”
Gerrit winced and stiffened.
Ivy’s mouth formed a taut little circle, and spots of red darkened her round cheeks. A quick intake of air, and she thumped down into her chair.
For months, Gerrit had longed to spend time with Ivy. But not like this.
He sat, but inside he erected a wall facing Fern Le Corre, a woman who bent words and people. He’d been bent and so had Charlie, but something told him Ivy was the intended target.
“Please excuse the informality. Charlie, would you please pass the roast pork?” Fern picked up a bowl of parsnips and carrots.
“I’m afraid this is simple fare. Although I was able to purchase the traditional pork, I couldn’t make the podin d’Noué—the Christmas pudding.
However, I made a rather nice blancmange. ”
When the dishes came Gerrit’s way, he took small portions. The islanders faced strict rationing, while he was fed well at his billet. Besides, the fuming tension in the room stole his appetite.
After Charlie spoke a blessing, Mrs. Galais sliced her pork and sent Gerrit a sweet smile. “I am glad you’re here, dear Gerrit. I’ve wanted to become better acquainted, but Sunday mornings fly by.”
“They do.” He didn’t have to force a smile. Mrs. Galais and Bernardus were the only people on this island who made him feel like his old self. Not the resistance warrior Charlie saw, nor the dutiful Nazi the OT men saw, nor the slimy collaborator everyone else saw. Just himself.
“Where are you from in the Netherlands?” Mrs. Galais asked. “Do you have family?”
Gerrit swallowed a bite of potato, appropriately salted, even though salt was rationed. “Amsterdam. My parents live there with my two younger sisters. Fine girls. I miss them.”
“I can see.” Mrs. Galais wore her silver hair back in a knot. “Do you have a wife? Children? A sweetheart?”
“None, I’m afraid.” That wouldn’t change anytime soon, if ever, and he sliced his pork with more vigor than required. “How about you, Mrs. Galais? Have you always lived in Jersey?”
“Oh yes. Like the Picots, I come from old Norman stock.”
“And your family?”
“My precious husband passed away ten years ago. I have one daughter, Edna, and two grandsons. They’re away fighting for England.”
“You must be proud.” Gerrit lifted a forkful of parsnip and paused. He hadn’t seen Mrs. Galais with a woman Edna’s age. “Does your daughter live in Jersey?”
A shadow passed over Mrs. Galais’s hazel eyes. “I’m afraid she and her husband were deported to Germany in September. Frank was born in England.”
“Oh no. I’m sorry to hear that.” Silence pressed hard over the table, and Gerrit didn’t know how to lift it.
“I have a question, Mr. van der Zee.” Ivy had spoken. To him. Although her gaze was intent on the rhythm of fork and knife on her plate.
Gerrit lowered his fork so he wouldn’t drop it. “Yes, Dr. Picot?”
Fern chuckled. “Such formality on Christmas Day. That’ll never do. Ivy, you shall call him Gerrit. Gerrit, please call her Ivy.”
He’d do no such thing. For the sake of peace, he wouldn’t call her Dr. Picot. But out of respect, he wouldn’t call her Ivy. “What is your question?”
Ivy kept slicing, and her tiny chin jutted forward. “As a Dutchman, how can you work for the nation that invaded your country? And build military installations for them?”
Gasps sprang from both ends of the table, objecting to such a question—of a guest!—on Christmas!
“No, no.” Gerrit raised a hand and his voice. “It’s all right.”
Fern and Charlie quieted.
Ivy stilled her knife, and a blush flooded her cheeks. Quite becomingly.
“It’s a good question, a fair question.” If only he could give a full and honest answer.
“In the Netherlands, men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three must register for labor. But the German labor shortage only worsens. They’ve called for volunteers throughout the Netherlands, France, even in the Channel Islands, yes? ”
“Yes,” Charlie said. “But few volunteer.”
“It’s only a matter of time until the Germans conscript men my age as well. Now, I am a civil engineer and Bernardus a geologist. We’d rather work in our professions than be forced to dig ditches here in Jersey or to assemble weapons in a German factory under Allied bombardment.”
Charlie clucked his tongue. “It’s more than—”
Gerrit shot him a quick sidelong glance. Better to be thought a collaborator than to endanger the resistance network, which now included young Charlie.
“Well.” Charlie straightened his necktie. “I would do the same thing.”
Ivy met Gerrit’s gaze for the first time, her eyes as hard as onyx. “I wouldn’t. And if conscripted, I’d refuse.”
Gerrit gave her a slow nod. “Then you are braver than I. But it’s easy to know what you’d do when you aren’t actually faced with that choice.”
Something gray smudged Ivy’s gaze.
And something strange bubbled in Gerrit’s throat.
Words he’d never dream of saying to a woman with such a gentle spirit.
Yet he released them. “The Dutch resistance publishes underground newspapers. They sabotage railways and telephone lines. They smuggle military intelligence to the Allies. Dozens in the resistance have been executed. If a member of the Dutch resistance came here, he might wonder why the people of Jersey don’t do the same. ”
A gasp from Charlie. “We do—”
“You do what you can, yes.” He held up a hand to silence Charlie, while never moving his gaze from his sister.
“But what would he see here? Schoolboy pranks. People hiding wireless sets so they can listen to the BBC. Sheltering escaped Todt workers. Nothing to truly harm the German war effort, not like we see in the Netherlands. But would that Dutchman be right to say the people of Jersey are complacent? Cowardly?”
“We aren’t cowardly.” Indignation colored Charlie’s voice.
The same protest twitched around Ivy’s dark eyes.
“I agree,” Gerrit said. “You are not. Your island is small, and everyone knows everyone. You have no mountains to hide in, no forests, no large anonymous cities. The ratio of German soldiers to locals is far higher than in any other occupied land. To resist would be to die. So the assumption the Dutchman made would be incomplete.”
Fern laughed, light and airy. “One can tell from your speech that you’re an engineer. So much logic. Oh my. How did you come to be an engineer?”
Gerrit couldn’t break his gaze with Ivy, nor did he want to.
Her eyelids fluttered, and her mouth relaxed. “I do not agree with your decision, but—but I do see it may not be as simple as I thought.”
Gerrit gave a single nod in gratitude.
Fern gestured to Gerrit’s plate. “How did you come to be an engineer?”
Gerrit shrugged and lifted his fork of vegetables again. “My father and uncles own an engineering firm, and I’ve always loved to build. Not terribly exciting. I’m more interested in hearing how an artistic Jersey girl became a physician.”
Ivy fiddled with her fork for a long moment. “I come from a long line of physicians, and I’ve always wanted to heal.” Some of the chill left her voice.
“She’s good.” Charlie leaned his elbows on the table in a way that would have excited parental protests, had parents been present. “She simply senses when someone is ill or in pain.”
“Oh yes.” Mrs. Galais patted her belly. “A few years ago, Ivy knew I needed my gallbladder removed when I thought I had only mild indigestion.”
“It isn’t that unusual of a skill.” Ivy swirled a potato in a circle on her plate. “I could tell by the way you moved, the way you held yourself.”
“Dad always said it was a gift.” Charlie hefted his chin with brotherly pride. “You see beyond the seen.”
Fern tutted. “We’re embarrassing our Ivy. Tell me, Gerrit. What do you think of our island?”
“It’s lovely.” And the embarrassed, sensitive, talented healer sitting across from him was the loveliest sight of all.