Two silhouettes wait at the end of the street, with long shadows that I know are guns.
We have to keep walking. There’s no alternative. There never is. I know their uniforms are green, and so we have to keep walking. We have to pass them; it would look suspicious to turn and walk in the opposite direction. I wish Ollie weren’t with me. Nazis don’t like it when you wink at them while with another boy. It probably reminds them of what could be happening at home.
Their guns are pointed down. They’re talking with each other in German too fast for me to fully understand. One of them slaps the other on the shoulder and laughs. It doesn’t even look like they’ve come from the raid. They were just out on their regular patrol, and it was our misfortune that we chose the same street.
I fold myself in close to Ollie’s body, making sure there’s more than enough space for the soldiers to pass.
“Good evening,” Ollie says in German as we quietly squeeze through. I nod and smile.
We brush by, and my body begins to un-tense. We’ll be at the end of this alley in just a few seconds. Next to me, Ollie is doing the same things I am: keeping a measured pace, making it look like we’re in no hurry to be anywhere.
“Wait!”
We have no choice, so we stop and face them. Several meters behind us, one of the Green Police has turned around, starting in our direction. I glance briefly back to the end of the alley, but Ollie firmly tugs on my hand. Don’t try running, he’s saying. Not while they have guns.
“Wait,” he calls out again, closing the gap between us. “Wait, don’t I know you?” He leans in, inches from my face.
Does he? It’s hard to tell in this light. Where could he know me from? Is he one of the soldiers I’ve flirted with? Someone Mr. Kreuk has sent me to sell to, laughing at his bad jokes until the transaction is done? Or has he seen me more recently, going into the Jewish Lyceum?
A curtain flutters in a nearby house. Inhabitants all along this street are crouched in their living rooms, silently watching us.
“I do know you,” he guffaws.
“I don’t think so,” I murmur, keeping my voice friendly. “I’m sure I’d remember you.”
“Yes,” he says. “You’re the couple. The romantic couple!”
“We are!” It’s Ollie, next to me, who answers the soldier. He’s responding in German, talking more loudly than I’ve ever heard him. His accent is still impeccable, but he’s slurring his words like he, too, has been out for a night of drinking. “Rembrandt!”
“Rembrandt!” the German agrees, and now I recognize him: the one from the square last night.
Ollie slings one arm around me. “How is our good friend, the fellow art lover? My fiancée and I love Rembrandt, don’t we, darling?” He looks at me pointedly, and even though my heart is beating out of my chest, I reach up to Ollie’s hand and give it an affectionate squeeze.
“Our favorite,” I manage.
“If you come to Germany one day, we have magnificent art.”
“We will,” I promise, with what I hope is a friendly smile. “After it’s all over.”
His eyes narrow. “After what’s all over?”
After the war, is what I meant. After we all get to return to normal. I don’t think what I just said is offensive, but the soldier obviously didn’t like it. “After,” I say again, beginning to improvise an explanation.
“After our wedding!” Ollie exclaims. “After all the wedding madness!”
Bless you, Ollie, Laurence Olivier. I’m not used to other people being as fast on their feet as I am when it comes to dealing with Nazis.
“So nice to see a couple in love.” The soldier pinches my cheek with cold fingers. “It reminds me of my wife, back home, when we were young.”
“To your wife!” Ollie raises an imaginary glass in the air.
“To my wife!”
Ollie winks at me meaningfully, lasciviously. “Maybe we should get home, my soon-to-be wife.”
“To your wife!” the Green Police yells.
“To my wife!” says Ollie.
“Kiss her!” he says, and so Ollie does.
There, in the street, for the benefit of the German Green Police and the people who are cowering in their houses but peeking out from their curtains, Ollie cups my face in his hands and kisses me. His mouth is soft and full, his eyelashes brush against my cheek, and only he and I know that our lips are shivering in fear.
Things that have changed about me in the last two days: everything and nothing.
I’m still lying to my parents, they’re still worried about me, I still ride around a changed city on a used bicycle with a stubborn tire and feelings of perpetual numbness and fear warring in the pit of my belly.
But the things that I’m lying about are much bigger, the things I’m doing much more dangerous. I’m an accidental member of the resistance, and if I am caught, instead of slapping my wrist for black market beer, the Germans could kill me.
I also kissed my dead boyfriend’s brother.