Finally, Mrs. de Vries answers, overdressed as usual in a blue silk dress and straight-seamed stockings. She’s in her thirties, with regal features, two irritating twins, and a husband who publishes a ladies’ magazine and spends so much time at work that I’ve met him only once.
“Hanneke, come in.” Mrs. de Vries waves me vaguely into her apartment but doesn’t bother to take her packages, or to thank me for coming out in a monsoon just to bring her some beef. “My neighbor and I were having tea. You don’t have anywhere to be, do you? You can wait in the kitchen until we’re finished.” She nods toward the older woman sitting on the sofa but makes no introductions. It’s clear she doesn’t mean to interrupt their conversation to tend to me. Mrs. de Vries is one of those people who behave as if the war is a nuisance happening in the periphery around her. Today I ignore her suggestion to wait in the kitchen, even though she obviously considered it an order. I don’t want to make it easy for her to forget that I’m here, so I set her packages on a table, stand in her foyer, and drip.
The neighbor in question, a gray-haired woman, arches one eyebrow at me and clears her throat before turning back to Mrs. de Vries. “As I was saying. Gone. I heard about it only this morning.”
“I don’t believe it,” Mrs. de Vries says. “Does anybody know where they went?”
“How would we? They stole off in the middle of the night.”
“Hanneke, would you get us some more biscuits from the kitchen?” Mrs. de Vries calls, picking up a crumb-filled plate and holding it aloft until I walk over and get it.
In the kitchen, a half-empty tin of store-bought buttery cookies sits on the table. I cram two of them in my mouth as I refill the plate. A pair of solemn eyes stare at me from around the corner. One of the twins. I can never remember their names or tell them apart; they’re equally spoiled. I could give him a cookie, but instead, I shove another one deliberately in my mouth and lick the crumbs off my lips.
“So you think they went into hiding, then?” Mrs. de Vries asks her neighbor. “They weren’t rounded up?”
“Certainly not rounded up. I should know. I have friends in the NSB. I’ve told them before, several times, that there was a Jewish family living in my building. If they’d been taken, I would know. The Cohens sneaked away like thieves in the middle of the night.”
I bring the cookies back into the sitting room, making as much rattling as I can to catch Mrs. de Vries’s attention. She sips her coffee. “I can’t believe nobody saw them! You’re sure?”
“I was hoping to at least get a look in their apartment. My son and his wife have been looking for a larger place—she’s expecting, you know—and it would be so nice to have them in the building.”
The neighbor is vile. They both are, with their oily, refined support of the Nazis. But also rich. I don’t think Mr. Kreuk considers morals when he chooses who to sell to. If they can pay, they can buy.
“Mrs. de Vries,” I finally break in, gesturing toward the window, where outside the sky is cloudy but not raining. “I’m sorry, but I really should go soon. It was pouring earlier, but it looks like there’s a break in the weather now. May I leave your things?”
If the nosy neighbor weren’t here, Mrs. de Vries would insist on inspecting the contents of the parcel. As it is, she just raises one eyebrow. “I didn’t realize your schedule was so important, Hanneke. Fetch my handbag from the hallway closet.”
She hands me a few bills, and I don’t even bother to count out her payment before putting it in my pocket and leaving, traipsing wet footprints over her parquet floors.
The Jewish Lyceum. Should I go there now? It’s a little after 3:00 PM, on a day that began with me delivering lipstick to a woman at her grandparents’ house and has become something very different, and all at once I am exhausted. I am exhausted by the enormity of the day. I am exhausted by the things I’m always exhausted by: the soldiers, the signs, the secrets and strategies and effort. I’m exhausted enough to know that I probably shouldn’t go to the Lyceum right now, because being exhausted means I won’t be thinking as quickly on my feet. I’ve learned that through working the black market.
On the other hand, now is the perfect time to sneak into a school. Classes will likely be dismissing for the day, with enough commotion that nobody would notice an out-of-place person walking the halls. The Lyceum is only a few blocks away; I’d practically have to ride past it on my way home. And when you’re trying to find things, it’s better to find them as quickly as possible, before someone else takes what you’re looking for. I’ve learned that through the black market, too.