Chapter 10
TEN
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Soft strokes from my pencil scratch against my sketch pad as I capture the glare of light striping the vase in the center of the kitchen table. Before I complete the outline of the shape, the lighting shifts. Something more than a cloud rolling in.
A thud from the living room startles me and I drop my pencil and pad. “Noah, are you all right?” I hurry around the corner from the kitchen to the living room, finding complete darkness along the way.
The strike of a match, the singe, and the glow of a candle carve a path to Noah. “I’m sorry.” He reaches for my hand. “The Nazis are marching down our street. We need to keep the room darkening curtains in place.”
I want to tell him the Nazis can’t see into our window from the street, not up on the third floor of the building, but he knows this.
“What else is happening that you aren’t telling me?”
He makes his way over to me and wraps his arms around me back, pulling me in close. “This is our safe place in a world that’s falling apart.”
“What about the kitchen window?”
“No one is passing down the back road yet. I know that’s your source of light for drawing.”
I didn’t realize the light from the living room was too. “It’s hard not to feel like the walls are beginning to close in on us,” I say. I mean it quite literally.
“I know.” He brushes his hand in a circle along my back.
“From what I’ve been hearing, and from the contacts Christoph’s been building in underground legal circles, Poland is foretelling of a future I would prefer to ignore, but I can’t.
” He pauses, the silence highlighting how dry his throat is as he swallows.
“They aren’t just restricting people. They’re prohibiting movement of goods…
Paper, grain, ink, and rail access. Governments don’t reorganize an entire economy unless a big and permanent shift is imminent. ”
“The walls really are closing in on us then,” I utter.
“I won’t let them, my love. I won’t. Trust me. That’s all you have to do. The two of us are smarter than those Nazi thugs. Remember that.”
Of course I trust him, but I know he will do anything to prevent me from living in fear too.
“The Reich has already banned us from most public places. You can’t work in a public profession, and now we have curfews.”
“It hasn’t stopped our lives. We have income from my private work, and I’d rather be in our flat with you at night, where I have you all to myself—my beautiful wife.” He brushes a soft kiss on my neck. “We can forget about the world outside this prison.”
“Do you think my parents know…what’s happening here?”
I pull away just enough to study his face, the expression under candlelight, the shadows of heaviness beneath his eyes—an unspoken fear he thinks he can hide from me forever. “I’m sure they do, and I’m sure they’re safe. And they know I’ll always take care of you.”
He releases his hands from me and steps to the side to tug the curtain away from the window for a quick peek. He sighs and releases the drape.
“Are the Nazis out there right now?”
“A couple of them are entertaining each other in front of our building. Must be long lost friends the way they’re laughing.” Noah sighs with more exhaustion than I’ve heard from him in a while.
“When this is over… I want to toss those hideous curtains away and never block out the sunlight again.”
“I’ll give you the sun if I can,” he says.
“A son, or the sun?” I tease, but I’m curious too.
He pulls me back. “Both.” The word whispers against my ear, sending a chill down my spine. “A son, and a daughter—one who is as beautiful as you.”
“What do you think we’ll name them?” I ask quietly.
“I’m willing to bet you have the answer to your own question, don’t you?” He chuckles.
A smile presses into my cheeks. “Perhaps.”
“I even bet there is deep meaning behind them,” he adds, coyly.
“You know me so well, don’t you?”
“Well, come on with it. What are the names of our future children?”
My cheeks grow warm and I pinch my bottom lip between my teeth. “Eve, and—”
“Should I guess at the boy’s name?” Noah tickles my side.
“No, it’s not Adam.” I say it before he does. “Actually, I only have a girl’s name.”
“Mother’s intuition?”
“Doubtful. We might need to come up with a boy’s name unless you like the name, Ark?”
“You promised,” he says with laughter.
I gently tap my finger against his nose. “No, I promised I would never call the arch of freckles on your nose Noah’s ark again,” I counter.
“So, instead you’ll name our firstborn son Ark?”
Noah slides his hands up my neck and onto my cheeks, closing the space between us. His lips move against mine as his stubble gently scratches my cheek.
A crash of broken glass echoes between buildings outside and a slew of German shouts follow.
Noah’s lips still on mine, our shared breath captured deep within.
Then the door to our building thrashes open, slamming into a wall. Two pairs of boots thud against the stairwell, and the old wood of the railing rattles against the wall.
One flight of stairs.
Noah spins us around, leaving me in the corner of our living room as he heads for the front door…but stops before turning the corner, balls his hands into fists and lunges for the door, securing the second deadbolt he installed a month ago.
My throat tightens. I can’t call out to him or ask him what he thinks. I take hesitant steps in his direction, not wanting to be this far from him.
Two flights of stairs.
If they take him now, my last memory will be the single quiver in his lips as fear coils around us.
The flicker of the candle catches my eye as it weakens and smoke spindles toward the ceiling.
The thudding steps stall on the second floor.
A woman’s shout travels up the walls. “My children aren’t home. It’s just me,” she cries out.
A trample of footsteps travels beneath us, moving deeper into the flat as furniture scrapes against the floor with vengeance, then something heavy crashes. A shrill scream from two little girls follows—the sound traveling back through the flat and into the stairwell.
I cup my hand around my mouth and move closer to Noah, unable to stand still through my panic. He presses a finger to his lips.
The screams fade into silence until the main door opens and closes.
A Jewish single mother with two little girls—gone, just like that.
Noah reaches for me and pulls my back into his chest as he slides down against the wall, curling me into his hold, his forehead pressing into my shoulder.
“This won’t be the last of the Nazi raids in our building.
” His heart pounds against my spine, trembling through my body.
“We’re out of time. We need to move our money. Then, I’ll handle the rest.”
I don’t want to ask what the rest means.
I’m afraid if he tells me, I might see the future in his eyes.