Bernardus’s fingers dug into Gerrit’s bicep. “What did you do to Dirk? Tell me.”
Gerrit lowered his head and yanked his arm free. “He told me he was going to confront that mob attacking the Jews. I told him not to. I said his work with the underground newspaper was too valuable to risk. He—he asked me to go with him. I refused.” His voice caught, and he jerked his head to the side. Away.
A deep groan from Bernardus. “What could you have done? You’re no fighter.”
“No.” Gerrit’s left hand ached, and he rubbed it. “But I might have been able to—”
“To what? Negotiate? With a violent Nazi mob?” Bernardus sank down to sit on a boulder. “You’re no more responsible for Dirk’s death than I am. I didn’t go with him either.”
No, he hadn’t, but Gerrit kept rubbing his hand.
“What about Cilla?” No sharpness remained in Bernardus’s tone.
“The day Dirk died—she saw him die, remember?—she asked me to help her escape to England. I told her it was impossible.”
“I’ll say. We didn’t have escape lines to help people flee back then. Even now, it’s dangerous and difficult.”
“I didn’t even try. Didn’t even investigate the possibility.” Gerrit waved his arm toward the sea, toward home. “I said her work was too important to the resistance group—the same group we dissolved only a few weeks later. And she—I don’t know what she did.”
“We’ll never know. But she did it. Not you.” Bernardus rose from the boulder and handed Gerrit the lemon. “Only you can make this decision. Charlie is willing to be a courier. I have the contacts, the knowledge of the resistance network. But only you can draw the diagrams.”
The lemon shone with freshness in Gerrit’s hand. “He’s so young.”
“So eager. A boy like that will find a way.”
Gerrit winced. If they turned Charlie away, he might find an even more perilous path. “So many ways for boys to die nowadays.”
“What about us? Dying a bit each day, building for the enemy, closing our eyes to suffering, our brave decision to join Organisation Todt in vain.” Echoing Gerrit’s own thoughts.
With the lemon in his right hand, Gerrit flexed his left hand over and over. They’d joined OT to send diagrams and maps to the Allies. Charlie had offered them a means to do just that, to make everything worthwhile. “If only I could know the maps would arrive in England.”
Bernardus’s eyes grew as gray as the clouds. “I was wrong to give you a guarantee before. Arrogant, even. Only God knows the future. We have to trust him.”
Gerrit sniffed.
Bernardus let out a wry chuckle. “Ah, that’s it, ja? You’re willing to risk your life, but trusting God? That takes far more courage.”
Gerrit wanted to trust again, needed to trust again, but how?
He frowned at the fruit in his hand. Somewhere in Spain,God had made the lemon. He’d guided it north to Saint-Malo, to Charlie Picot, and across the waters to Gerrit.
If God could orchestrate that—and he had.
And if God was good—and he was.
And if he knew the future—and he did.
Then Gerrit had to trust.
chapter
12
St. Helier
Wednesday, December 9, 1942
Ivy stroked Penny Surcouf’s little pink cheek. “Her color’s returned,” she said to Penny’s mother, “and her eyes are bright. She’s made a full recovery from the diphtheria.”
