Most of the blood has been wiped from the photographs; only a few traces remain, making the corners of the pictures stick together when I peel them apart. I lay them one by one in front of me, a row stretching across the table, this gluey narrative of a family and life and death.
Here are Mr. and Mrs. Roodveldt, I presume, cradling a baby in a white dress, behind a table with a cake on it. A birthday. Here’s one from a few years earlier: Mrs. Roodveldt’s bridal portrait, her eyes lowered, a lace veil covering her hair and a small bouquet of lilacs in her hands.
The photographs skip back and forth in years, and the family marches across the kitchen table unstuck from time, beaming at me from their happiest moments. Parties. Holidays. A new apartment, a new baby, a different one from the first time.
And here is one with two teenage girls with their arms around each other. The girl on the left has dark curly hair, a faint birthmark on her chin, and long, lush eyelashes. Her eyes—which I’ve only really seen closed, on Mr. Kreuk’s table—are large and expressive.
The girl on the right is slightly taller, also with dark hair, her mouth open in laughter. She’s wearing a paper birthday crown. I’ve never seen her before.
With shaking hands, I turn the picture over: Amalia and Mirjam at Mirjam’s 14th birthday.
There are so many things I wish I could forget. The hard parts. The nasty injuries, beneath the scarred skin, the things I’d like to disappear by ignoring.
The last time I saw Elsbeth, before I sneaked into her house:
It was a few months after the day in my bedroom when I told her I wished Rolf were dead instead of Bas.
She came to my house again. She had two wedding invitations, one for me and one for my parents. She awkwardly accepted tea from my mother and answered questions about her dress and the flowers at the church. When my mother left us alone “so we could catch up,” Elsbeth turned to me.
“My mother said I should invite you,” she said finally. “She said weddings mend fences. But I’m guessing you won’t want to come.” I couldn’t figure out the emotion in her eyes: Hope? Anger? Was she wishing that I would come, or was she making it clear that she wanted my answer to be no?
“No,” I said. “I don’t expect I’ll come.”
“All right, then,” she said. “I guess this really probably is good-bye.”
It was so dignified. That was what made it so sad. To end a twelve-year friendship like this, while she sat in my kitchen with a wedding invitation in her hand. It was nearly unforgivable, and I’ve spent the past year wondering whether it was more or less unforgivable than the person Elsbeth wanted to marry, and which one of us should apologize to whom.
There are so many ways to kill things, it turns out. The Germans killed Bas with mortar. Elsbeth and I killed our friendship with words.
THIRTY-TWO
My heart has come loose from my chest.
Amalia. Amalia.
Amalia was the girl who Ollie brought to Mr. Kreuk’s in the quiet of night. Amalia is the girl who is dead in the ground. The girl I have been looking for this whole time. The photograph of the birthday party is sticky in my hand; without meaning to I’ve left fingerprints all over it, touching the faces of these dead and disappeared girls.
In the other room, I hear the front door open again, letting in a whistle of air. Mrs. Janssen? But I don’t hear the soft bump of her cane. It must be Tessa Koster again.
“I’m back here,” I call out. My voice is a croak.
“Mrs. Janssen?” a confused voice asks. “It’s Christoffel.”
“Oh, Christoffel, it’s Hanneke.” Reflexively, I sweep the photographs off the table, folding them back into the envelope they came in. I’ve just stuck the packet under the tea set when Christoffel enters the kitchen. He’s still wearing the formal clothes he wore to escort Mrs. Janssen to the funeral earlier today.
“Where’s Mrs. Janssen?” He uses his sleeve to wipe perspiration off his forehead. “When I stopped by a little bit ago, she said she needed me to take her somewhere. I told her I had to do another quick errand and I’d be right back.”
“Mrs. Janssen…” I trail off. I’m having a difficult time finishing my sentences. Was Amalia imprisoned in the Hollandsche Schouwburg? Amalia, Mirjam’s best friend? Amalia, who was supposed to be in Kijkduin? Vaguely, I realize Christoffel is still waiting for me to finish my sentence. “Mrs. Janssen was gone when I got here, too. Did she tell you where she wanted you to take her?”
He wrinkles his eyebrows. “She said she needed to go see you. But you’re here. It sounded urgent; she was upset when I told her I couldn’t go right away.”
“Right. Right. I guess she and I got a little mixed up about who was coming to see whom.” Dammit. I should have told Mrs. Janssen on the phone to stay put, no matter what. But I don’t know how she would have gone to see me; Mrs. Janssen doesn’t know where I live. I don’t even think she knows my last name. If Christoffel wasn’t here, I could go through the house to see if she left me a note somewhere, explaining more.