WEDNESDAY, JUNE26, 1940
Aleida stroked Oli’s trunk twelve times. A perfect number.
She could still see little Theo cradling the elephant’s trunk around his cheek, and her eyes filled. What horrors had he endured? What fears?
With a strengthening breath, she positioned Oli precisely on her bureau. She hadn’t seen her son for forty-seven days.
Elephants might never forget, but little boys could.
Aleida pinned on the dove-gray hat that matched her suit, applied lipstick in a subtle shade of rose, and left for the Ministry of Health in Whitehall.
On the Piccadilly Line, she opened her notebook. On each page, she’d listed places Theo might be or places to inquire. She’d listed the worst possibilities in the back.
The worst—Bas had lied and abandoned Theo by the road. The English couple had abandoned him. The couple had been stranded on the continent.
Holding her pen in her right hand, she tapped her knuckles with her left index finger. One, two, three, four. Four, three, two, one.
She could do nothing about those possibilities. Besides, a couple wealthy enough to own a car had the means to return home, and anyone with half a heart wouldn’t abandon a child.
Her vision blurred. She glanced out the window and blinked until the circular red signs for Piccadilly cleared before her.
Aleida disembarked, switched to the Bakerloo Line, and took a seat.
She had to assume the couple had brought Theo to London. They could have left him at a refugee center or an orphanage or a hospital. She listed each institution she found in her notebook and checked them off with notes after she visited.
The Dutch Embassy had its own page. They’d promised to do what they could.
What if the couple had sent Theo to the country as many parents had done? The Ministry of Health oversaw the evacuation process.
Only sixteen more items to put on her list until she reached forty, the biblical number of trial and fulfillment. Forty years in the desert, then the Promised Land. Forty items on the list, then she’d find Theo.
At Trafalgar Square, she stepped outside to a blue sky streaked by plumes of clouds. Using Nelson’s Column to get her bearings, she headed down Whitehall past government buildings of cool gray stone.
Aleida entered the Ministry of Health and consulted a directory to find the correct department. Up stone steps smoothed by time, down a hallway, and Aleida entered an office.
At a desk behind the counter sat a young woman with rich brown skin and shiny black hair curling below her chin in a fashionable style.
“Good morning,” Aleida said. “Is this the department that oversees the evacuation of children?”
“Yes, ma’am. May I help you?”
Aleida took a deep breath. “My name is Mrs. Martens, and I fled from the Netherlands. On the road when I was sleeping, my husband—without my consent—gave our three-year-old son to an English couple who promised to bring him to London. My husband was killed the next morning before he could tell me their name or address.”
“Oh no.” Distress shivered in the woman’s large dark eyes. “Do you think your son arrived in London and was evacuated?”
Aleida gripped the edge of the counter. “I must believe the best.”
“Evacuationisthe right thing to do.” The woman tipped her head to a poster on the wall stating, “Children are safer in the country ... leave them there.”
Safer, yes. But “the country” meant many different places. “Do you have records of where the children are?”
The woman came to the counter. “Children are evacuated in three ways. Schoolchildren are sent with their school. Younger children are sent with their mothers—this department oversees those arrangements. And certain families, especially those with means, make private arrangements.”
Filing cabinets lined the wall behind the desk. “You have records for each child?”
The woman frowned. “We know which schools went to which towns. The other children are gathered at the train station. When they receive their billets in the country, they send a postcard home with their address. And we have no records of private arrangements.”
A bleak void opened inside her. The couple who had Theo had means.
