“I heard your sister too,” Gerrit said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything. I accept full responsibility.”
With long, slow breaths, she blew the blame away. “Did you tell Charlie to do this? Even suggest it?”
“No, but...”
Ivy stroked his hand on the table between them, so stiff and tense. “Charlie chose to escape without asking us, without informing us. He is responsible for his decision.”
Gerrit heaved out a sigh. “Yes, but if I hadn’t—”
“He still might have gone with his friends. He’s seventeen.” She pried Gerrit’s hand off the table and massaged it as if she could massage away his guilt. “If you must blame someone, blame the Germans. They came uninvited, they’ve caused hardship and suffering, and they refused to leave when they should have done. That’s why so many are trying to escape.”
Gerrit stayed silent. Stayed stiff. “You’re very kind, but I understand if you never want to see me again.”
Ivy studied the fingers she held, the fingers she stroked, the fingers she loved. “To sketch you, I have to see you, to look at you. Isn’t that what you told me? And I love sketching you.”
Gerrit said nothing, but he gathered her into his arms.
Her nervous chuckle ruffled his necktie. “You must think me rather odd.”
“Oh, mijn geliefde.” He kissed her forehead. “I think you’re a marvel.”
chapter
38
St. Helier
Gerrit stepped out of the hotel garage, where he’d parked his bicycle and changed back into uniform.
Corralling his thoughts along the way had been difficult due to his concerns for Charlie, the maps in German hands, the investigation of the Picot family—and due to Ivy’s forgiveness. But corralling those thoughts had been necessary to avoid violating any of the petty orders governing the island. If he’d been stopped along the way and asked for his papers, and he had presented his OT paybook while in civilian clothes, he would have been in grave trouble.
With his satchel over his shoulder, he straightened his rumpled uniform jacket and entered the hotel lobby.
Ernst Schmeling rose from a chair by the window. “Where have you been, van der Zee? We’ve been looking for you.”
Two other men rose as well, one in a German Army officer’s uniform and the other in a black civilian suit.
Something tilted inside him, threw him off-balance, and he took a step to the left. “Pardon me, Herr Oberbauführer. I was told I had no work today, so I bicycled around the island.”
“Come with us, Haupttruppführer.” The officer—a captain—gestured to the front door, to a car waiting outside.
“May I ask what this is about?”
“You do not ask questions. We do.” One more gesture, firmer this time.
Gerrit glanced toward Schmeling but received only steely silence. Organisation Todt would not be rising to his defense, not when the Nazi Reich was threatened.
“Ja, Herr Hauptmann.” Gerrit pulled himself tall, marched outside, and slid into the backseat, joined by the man in the civilian suit.
The car drove north into town, and Gerrit forced himself to keep calm, to think, to pray. Was he under arrest? Would he be tortured? Would he crack? He was a horrible liar, and the Nazis were experts at exposing lies.
The town flashed by outside, and Gerrit measured his breaths and prayed for wisdom to know when to speak and when to stay silent. Prayed for protection of those who could be hurt by what he knew.
If he were innocent, what would he know? He wouldn’t know Charlie had tried to escape or had been injured. He wouldn’t know about the raid on the Picot home. He certainly wouldn’t know anything about scraps of silk.
Hemmed in by granite walls, the road climbed a hill under a cloud-streaked sky.
Gerrit gripped the satchel in his lap. If only he’d left it in the garage. What if they searched his bag? How could he explain the civilian suit inside? OT regulations required wearing a uniform at all times, even on leave. And the map. Oh no. When he changed, he’d transferred the silk map from his boot to his civilian shoe. The map would match the ones in Charlie’s bag. Infractions of uniform codes paled in comparison to espionage.
