“I got back an hour ago,” Mrs. de Vries explains. “But there were soldiers loitering on the corner. I didn’t think it was safe to walk past them, so I hid in an alley like a street beggar until they left.”
“I was already hiding in the alley across the street,” Ollie explains as Mina runs to hug him. “I could even see Mrs. de Vries in the shadows in her own alley, but I didn’t dare call out to her; it was completely absurd, like we were actors in a stage farce. I thought the soldiers would never leave.”
“Did you take Judith? Is she all right?” Mina asks.
Ollie nods. The farm where he’s taken her is crowded, he says, and it has six people hiding there already, sleeping in a barn. But it’s safe, with only a few soldiers assigned to patrol that region.
Mrs. de Vries removes her hat, smoothing her hand over her hair. “The children are in bed?”
“Sleeping,” Mrs. Cohen reassures her.
“Did you find him?” I ask. Now that she’s safe, I feel less guilty for asking her to go. “Your photographer friend?”
Mrs. de Vries pulls a small packet from her coat pocket. The envelope looks the wrong shape to contain photographs from an entire roll of film. “Slides,” she explains. “I understand that’s how this film works?” She raises an eyebrow at Mina, who nods. “I don’t have a projector. My husband’s coworker said he would lend us his, but obviously I wasn’t going to tow it through the streets tonight. You can at least look at the slides to see if you can find your friend.”
She doesn’t wait for a thank-you, instead murmuring that she needs a hot bath. The Cohens excuse themselves as well. It’s so late it’s almost light, and they’re both swaying in place. After everyone else has gone to bed, Mina and Ollie and I crowd around a desk in Mr. de Vries’s empty study and remove the slides from the envelope—translucent images, each just an inch wide. The squares are so small and the people are so many it’s going to be nearly impossible to pick out one in the crowd.
“If we hold them up to a lightbulb, we’ll be able to see the images a little better,” Mina suggests. She makes sure the blackout curtains are fully closed before turning on the lamp at Mr. de Vries’s desk. Gently, using only the tips of her fingers, she begins to pick up the slides one by one.
“They’re in color!” Ollie exclaims.
Mina nods proudly. “I already told Hanneke. My parents bought it off the black market. I can’t even imagine how much it cost.”
Nor can I. I’ve never been asked to find any, but it’s got to be outrageously expensive.
“Is this the right order?” I ask.
“Yes, that’s the order I took them, at least.”
Together, the three of us lean over the slides. The pictures don’t begin with Mirjam’s roundup, as I’d expected them to. Instead, the first image is from the summertime, of a public park, with grass, and flowers, and in the foreground, a row of men with yellow stars on their jackets and their hands in the air, and on their faces, terror, clear even in miniature.
“That was the first time I used my new camera,” Mina whispers. “That was the first razzia I saw, too. I passed it on the street. Someone told me later those men were executed.”
“Are all the photos you take like this?” I ask her.
“I ration the color because it’s so expensive,” she says. “But the black-and-white photographs are like this, too—they show the same things.”
Even though Mina already told me the film was in color, I couldn’t imagine how stunning the images would be. They show the corners of the war we aren’t supposed to talk about. A hungry child. Two soldiers jeering at a frightened Jewish man. A basement full of onderduikers, waving at the camera to show they’re all right. The color makes everything so saturated, so current, just like real life. When I look at black-and-white photos, it feels like I’m looking at something historical. But it’s not historical. It’s happening right now. Mina’s work makes sense to me now. Each image is her own small rebellion.
Finally, we reach the photographs from yesterday at the theater. They tell a miniature story: In the first, a tram has just arrived, a streetcar, repurposed for these transports. It’s full of people wearing Jodensters, carrying suitcases or cloth grocery bags. A woman with a rose-colored hat holds the arm of a man in a fawn-colored fedora. Two stooped ladies who could be sisters are dressed in matching lilac. The colors are beautiful and make my eyes ache.
In the second frame, everyone from the tram stands near the rear entrance of the theater. A soldier has his arm outstretched, obviously organizing them into rows. In the foreground, I can make out a teenage boy in a chocolate-brown coat sticking his tongue out at the soldier, in an unseen act of defiance.
We spend several minutes examining each frame. The story continues to unfold: A disorganized crowd of people become neat lines; couples cling to each other’s hands for support.