“I have money,” Else said.
“We—we have money too.” The wife’s brown eyes stretchedhuge. She’d set down her suitcase, and she held out a clenched fist. “That woman in the green hat—she stuffed something in my pocket when she passed. It—it’s several hundred kroner.”
Else’s vision blurred, and she blinked until it cleared.
The buff-colored tram stopped in front of them, marked with a blue 7 on a white square, and Else boarded with the family.
Their first step on a dangerous path.
41
VEDBÆK
SATURDAY, OCTOBER9, 1943
The young mother hunched over the baby in her lap, and a sob plummeted from her mouth. “She looks ... dead.”
Henrik gripped the doorjamb of his sister Kristiane’s bedroom. Sedating the children was vital to protect every soul on the boat, but the near-lifeless little bodies were a harrowing sight.
Cradling a limp little boy, Else knelt before the mother. “She’ll be fine, and your other children too. The Luminal will wear off in about eight hours, when you’re safely in Sweden or in Swedish waters.”
“Why do we have to do this to our children?” the mother said in her German accent, and her face contorted. “Why do we have to keep running and hiding?”
“I—I don’t know.” Else’s sweet voice warbled.
“Are you ready, Fru?” Henrik asked in his softest tone. “It’s time.”
A sharp nod, and she pushed herself up to standing.
The father carried a little girl about four years old, and the child’s head lolled to the side in her father’s arms.
Henrik’s heart burned inside him, and he picked up the suitcases and led the family downstairs. Why indeed did parents have to drug their children in order to save them? If he were a believerin Dante’s nine circles of hell, he would have consigned the Nazis to a tenth circle.
Henrik held open the door to the terrace for Else and the young family, and they headed out into the hazy night. Although the temperature flirted with freezing, no ice had formed in the Øresund.
Faint sounds came from the pier where the fishing boat had docked.
Henrik’s shoes swished through damp grasses. Almost two hundred people had been evacuated from his pier in the last week, including Laila’s family. Henrik had also rowed three refugees across in his scull.
Tonight’s load of twenty-three would empty the house. Only Laila remained, determined to aid future guests.
According to Else, the number of Jews hiding in Copenhagen had dwindled. Bispebjerg Hospital had sheltered over a thousand in patient beds and nurses’ quarters and had used ambulances and fake funeral processions to transport them to the coast.
On the pier, Henrik hoisted the suitcases onto the boat and climbed aboard. He took each child in turn, allowing the parents to board.
“Goodbye,” Else whispered. “I’ll never forget you.”
“Thank you,” the mother whispered back in a thick voice. “Thank you for everything.”
A crewman dropped through the hatch into the hold, and Henrik and the others handed the children to him. Then Henrik helped the parents down.
“Listen,” the crewman said to the passengers. “You must be completely silent until the captain says you can talk. No lights. No smoking. Use the bucket if you’re seasick. And if we’re boarded, make no sounds at all.”
“Have you—have you ever been boarded?” a woman said in a shaky voice.
“Not yet. Let’s keep it that way.” The crewman climbed up to the deck, closed the hatch, and scooted fishing nets over the hatch.
On the deck, the captain sprinkled powder, a mixture of dried blood and cocaine, developed by a Swedish scientist. If the Germansbrought police dogs on board, the compound would deaden the dogs’ sense of smell so they couldn’t detect the passengers below.
