Chapter 15
chapter
St. Helier
Shielded with tissue paper to satisfy blackout regulations, Ivy’s torch cast a faint cone of light onto the damp pavement as she walked along The Parade toward Jersey General Hospital for the medical society meeting.
The doctors always talked over her and looked through her, but if they had heard about Fern’s new job, Ivy might be cast out. Then how would she stay abreast of news about public health?
She adjusted the heavy load in her arms. Were her gifts a means of buying their respect? Or was she being honest with herself in saying she was donating for the welfare of the island?
Across the square, a dark silhouette of a man rounded the granite pillar of the Cenotaph. He shined a torch with one arm and braced the other arm over his midsection. A man with an injured hand.
“Dr. Picot?” the man asked.
Ivy’s torch illuminated the smiling face of Gerrit van der Zee, and her step hitched. She couldn’t avoid him, but she could keep the encounter short.
“You’re out late,” he said. “On rounds?”
“A medical society meeting at the hospital.” She resumed walking. “Good night.”
“The hospital? I’ve been trying to find it. Quite lost.”
Ivy winced, but good manners—and medical training—prevailed. “Are you injured?”
“I’m afraid I’m not the most athletic of men. I hit a rough patch of pavement and took a tumble from my bicycle. I didn’t think much of it, but my hand is swelling. I broke it as a boy.”
Something tender in her moved her feet closer. He had long fingers with square tips, and he held them slightly apart in a rounded position that spoke of pain.
The arm he cradled bore the brassard of Organisation Todt, and she stopped short.
But the man was hurting. To deny him care because of his political ideology would be as wrong as the Germans denying care to the Soviets because of theirs.
Gerrit stood only two feet away, the closest she’d stood to him, his gaze soft in the muted light.
She hauled in a breath and turned west. “I’ll show you the way.”
“Thank you.” He fell in beside her. “If it weren’t for my injury, I’d offer to carry your books. Notebooks?”
“Sketch pads.” Almost three dozen of them.
“Art night at the medical society?” he said in a humorous tone.
Her lips betrayed her and smiled. She wrestled them into a neutral expression. “We have a serious paper shortage in Jersey. Doctors need paper for patient charts, our notes, even prescriptions. And I have more than my share.”
Gerrit nodded toward the stack in her arms. “That’s quite a lot of sketch pads.”
Ivy didn’t want to converse, and she sighed. “When I left Oxford, I ordered six sketch pads from my favorite art shop. The clerk misunderstood me and ordered sixty. The shop owner was furious, and he would have fired the poor girl, so I said I had wanted sixty after all.”
Gerrit’s smile radiated warmth, as always. “How thoughtful of you.”
She shifted her gaze to the park grounds on her right, dark in the moonless night. “A fortuitous mistake, since I haven’t been able to buy any during the occupation.”
“You’re giving them away.” His voice lowered in concern. “How many will you have left?”
“Two for my medical practice—same as I’m giving the other doctors, two each. And—and one for drawing.” Her throat tightened.
“Only one? That won’t last long.”
No, it wouldn’t, and she couldn’t speak.
“You must keep more.” Indignation lifted Gerrit’s voice, and he circled his injured arm, almost bumping her.
“I draw too, but as a draftsman. I draw buildings and machines, things without life. But you—I saw your art at Christmas—you draw things with life. You draw with life. To do so, it must bring you life too, yes? Like food for your mind, your soul.”
Never had someone voiced it in such a way. It was true. Drawing nourished her, and when Fern had deprived her of sketching, she’d felt famished.
Her feet slowed and stopped.
Gerrit stopped too, and his gaze settled down on her, earnest, understanding, alive for what made her feel alive.
“Yes.” The word tumbled out, laying a bridge between them.
A bridge she couldn’t allow.
She whipped her gaze around. They stood at the corner of Gloucester Street. Across the way rose the stately gray hospital.
“Right now,” she said, “about two dozen men and women are lying in hospital, dying from diabetes because we have no insulin. Children and adults are dying from diphtheria because we have no antitoxin. Elderly people like Thelma Galais grow weaker due to a lack of food. Sacrificing my sketch pads for the sake of the medical community—well, it’s no sacrifice. It’s a mere inconvenience.”
“I’m sorry.” Gerrit’s voice dived low in sympathy—not only for her inconvenience but for the suffering of the islanders.
The bridge remained intact.
“Good evening, Dr. Picot.” A man passed—a physician—and he eyed Gerrit.
“Is that the hospital, miss?” Gerrit asked. “Thank you for showing me the way.”
He was helping her save face, and she lifted her eyebrows at him.
Gerrit glanced over Ivy’s shoulder for a moment, then leaned closer. “You shouldn’t be seen talking with me, especially with what your sister’s done. Charlie told me.”
Ivy’s mouth pursed. She’d need to talk to Charlie about discussing private family matters. Except Fern’s actions were hardly private.
“This way.” She strode toward the hospital, where the Germans had requisitioned the best of the facilities.
“Charlie is quite unhappy about it.” Gerrit caught up with her. “How are you managing without Fern? Isn’t she your receptionist?”
Wasn’t he worried about her being seen talking with him? Yet, sympathy had a strong appeal. “She hired a new girl, but the girl left after only one week.” The poor thing didn’t understand how to take a telephone message much less handle the appointment book.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
The arched doorway to the hospital neared. “My Aunt Ruby is helping more, and we have adverts in the Evening Post—when they have enough paper to print, that is.”
“I hope you find someone soon.”
“Thank you. And I hope your hand feels better soon. The German clinic is on the ground floor.” She pointed the way.
Gerrit gave her a slight smile, a slight bow. “Thank you for your help, Fr?ulein.”
Sure enough, another physician was right behind her.
Ivy spun away and marched inside toward the stairs.
Gerrit’s understanding was sweet on the tongue, soothing in the belly, warm in the veins. It . . . nourished.
She wriggled and groaned. She had to rid herself of the sensation. Even if his character were as it appeared, friendship would be wrong and ruinous.
And his lack of honor in joining Organisation Todt cast a dark shadow on that character.
St. Helier
Saturday, February 27, 1943
Drawing maps on silk in secret ink sounded great until Gerrit tried to do it.
Silk, being silky, wanted to slip. And secret ink, being invisible, made marking his position difficult.
This afternoon, he’d furtively borrowed a detailed map of Jersey from OT Headquarters in St. Helier, to be furtively returned tomorrow morning.
Clamps and weights braced the paper map and a piece of parachute silk on a pane of glass. On his desk in the hotel room he shared with Bernardus, he’d elevated the glass on books and boxes and laid his desk lamp on its side underneath, all to illuminate the lines on the map through the silk.
Holding a pin from his mending kit to where his last pen stroke ended, Gerrit dipped the brass nib in the secret ink and resumed tracing. This master map of the island, marked in a numbered grid, would be used to orient the Allies to future smaller-scale maps of various grid sectors.
Gerrit needed to finish in one sitting, since perfectly realigning the silk over the paper map would be impossible.
The OT men had gone to see a film at the Forum theater and to visit the pubs, and Bernardus had accompanied them to maintain the appearance of loyalty. Without interruptions, Gerrit could finish by eleven o’clock when the electricity in Jersey was cut off each night.
His pen dragged as the ink ran low. With his right hand, he marked his position with the sewing pin, and he took a moment to stretch out the soreness in his left hand. It had never quite healed from his boyhood injury, and the sprain almost three weeks ago had increased the soreness.
Warmth filled his chest from the memory of Ivy’s upturned face in the dim light and from the evidence of her generosity, her thoughtfulness, and her spirit.
In different times, he would have done everything possible to spend more time with her. Instead, he avoided her company to protect her reputation.
With great restraint, he had waited a full week before sending Charlie home with a ream of paper from OT Headquarters and with strict instructions not to tell Ivy the source.
The glass grew warm in the northwest sector of the map, so Gerrit slid the lamp to the southeast, dipped his pen in the ink, and guided the nib around the smooth curve of St. Ouen’s Bay on the west coast, a shoreline teeming with guns to prevent an Allied landing.
Time pressed, not only on the clock but on the calendar. Spring and any Allied operations loomed before him. The more information he could provide the Allies, the better.
Tomorrow after church, he’d pass this map to Charlie.
Discretion was more vital than ever. Schmeling had said the German secret field police were screening mail arriving in Jersey, especially mail to foreign workers, as they suspected the presence of the French resistance on the island.
Their suspicions were correct.
Gerrit gritted his teeth. Charlie’s cover story of buying the parachute silk from a Jersey farmer rang false. On a small and well-populated island, every farmer could be identified. Every downed plane or airman was accounted for. Every parachute.
His pen rounded the point at Corbière, his starting position. With great care not to disturb the layering of silk and paper and glass, he laid his T square along the first grid line running north to south. This part of the map would be easier, and his pen traced a clean line.
If only Charlie’s part were as easy. If only Gerrit could guide each step of the operation as cleanly.
He couldn’t. A fifteen-year-old boy, intelligent though he was, had to carry contraband past customs officials, inspectors, crewmen with unknown loyalties, and through the streets of Saint-Malo to his cutout, who might be tailed by the Gestapo.
Gerrit had no control over the results. Only God did. But if God controlled the results, why did things keep falling apart?
Gerrit grimaced and drew another vertical line. He could finally name his doubts. He doubted God’s faithfulness, and that made him squirm inside. Either God was faithful by nature, or he was not. If God was faithful, Gerrit had made serious errors in his thinking. Where had his logic failed?
After investing his talents, reputation, and life, was it wrong to want good results? It didn’t seem wrong.
Yet the squirming intensified. He didn’t simply want good results. He expected them.
Gerrit leaned back in his chair, and his gaze shifted from the brightness of the lamp to the dimness of the room around him.
He expected God to produce good results, but the Lord had never promised such a thing. That was where his logic had failed, where his faith had failed, where his trust had failed.
With a deep groan, Gerrit resumed his work and prayed for forgiveness and understanding and the courage to trust.
He finished the vertical grid lines, then the horizontal lines, and he penned “A1” in the first sector, “A2” in the second.
A knock on the door. “Van der Zee? Are you here?”
Willy Riedel? Gerrit sucked in a breath. Hadn’t he gone to the Forum?
The doorknob turned.
Gerrit had forgotten to lock his door?
He bolted across the room.
The door opened wider and wider, and Gerrit had to fill the space before Riedel could see his desk—his work—his crime.
Without showing panic.
He grabbed the inner doorknob, gripped the doorjamb, thrust his body into the gap, and schooled his expression to mild interest. Despite the flurry in his gut. “Good evening, Herr Bauführer. I thought you went to the Forum.”
“Stupid film, and I don’t want to go drinking tonight.” An expectant smile filled his broad face. “I thought I’d see what you were doing.”
Did Gerrit’s body block the view of his desk on the far wall under the window? Could he sound benign, as if he weren’t tracing maps of German military installations to send to their enemies? Gerrit tilted his head toward his desk. “Writing letters. My sister’s birthday is soon. Another time, ja?”
Hope filled Riedel’s brown eyes. A social creature, friendly, more refined than most of his OT comrades. “I found some cake in the kitchen. Come join me.”
“I’m sorry, but my mother promised bodily harm if I forgot my sister’s birthday. Another time?”
Riedel’s smile deflated. “Another time. Good night.”
“Good night.” Gerrit closed the door and leaned back against it.
His breath tumbled out.
The only light in the room came from his desk, under the configuration of glass and paper and silk and clamps. Obviously not for writing letters.
Had Riedel seen any of it?
Gerrit threw the lock and returned to his desk, but his heart raced and his hands jittered. He’d have to calm down before resuming work.
He jammed his hands back into his hair. What if Riedel had entered before Gerrit had reached the door?
A groan carved out a hollow in his belly.
Riedel might be friendly, but he was a Nazi.