The housekeeper had accidentally left out a bag of breakfast meal, and Ivy had found a long-tailed field mouse poking his littlebrown head from the bag. After sketching him, Ivy had shooed him from the house and given the oats to Uncle Arthur for his livestock.
“Isn’t he precious?” Thelma traced the penciled whiskers. “You have a gift. Most people see mice as pests, but you see beauty.”
All the frustration and grief and indignation of the past three years frothed inside. “The Germans—they destroy all the beauty in this world, and I—I can’t see God’s goodness.” A sob hiccupped, and she clapped her hand over her mouth, over her horrible words.
Thelma traced the ragged hole in the bag of meal. Her wavy silver hair, pulled in a low chignon, framed her lowered face, her flickering eyelids.
What must she think of Ivy?
Her hazel eyes lifted, shimmering with sadness. “Man’s ugliness may destroy the beauty of creation, but we cannot destroy the beauty of God himself. Man’s hatred can’t destroy God’s love. Man’s wickedness can’t destroy God’s goodness. Seeing the Lord amidst all this evil isn’t easy, but he’s here and he’sgood.” The word shook with force.
But why couldn’t the Lord give Thelma a few more years? Wait until Edna came home? “He’s letting youdie.” Ivy’s voice shook with the same force.
“And he is good.” A little smile curved. “He will take me home, which is the greatest good I can imagine, and whilst I wait, he will continue to show me his goodness.”
All her life, Ivy had seen beyond the seen—but not now.
The telephone rang, and Thelma scooted forward in her armchair.
“Let me.” Ivy sprang from her chair and to the telephone. “Galais residence.”
“Ivy?” Aunt Ruby said. “I’m glad you’re still there. Your Uncle Arthur hurt himself badly, and Opal can’t stop the bleeding.”
“Oh, dear. I’ll go straightaway.” She conserved her petrol ration for emergencies like this.
After saying goodbye to Thelma, Ivy ran down the street to La Bliue Brise and unlocked the garage. Ivy drove away, along roads pocked by overweight German lorries, past ancient walls clipped by those lorries, and along the coast spoiled by railways and barbed wire and concrete bunkers.
How could Thelma see God’s goodness? Ivy wanted to desperately. Even the purity of her former faith had been destroyed by German recklessness and cruelty.
She swiped another tear from her eye. That was why she couldn’t bear to destroy beauty in any form, even the apothecary jar from Gerrit van der Zee.
Everything about his gift was beautiful, especially the insulin. The jar itself was quite old, of white porcelain with intricate vines and flowers of brightest blue.
Considering the source, she didn’t want to keep the jar. But if she’d given it to Joan, she would have had to explain where it came from. So Ivy stashed it on the top shelf of the office bookcase. Dad had similar curios, and she hoped no one would notice the newcomer.
But Ivy did. It drew her eyes. Her attention. Her thoughts.
A man who destroyed gave her something beautiful. A man whose organization killed gave the gift of life.
When she arrived at the farm, Uncle Arthur opened the door and pulled her inside.
“Uncle Arthur? I thought you were—”
“Follow me. Hurry.” He trotted upstairs, not injured at all.
Ivy blinked and followed. “Is Aunt Opal...”
Aunt Opal marched down the upstairs hallway with a stack of linens. “This way.”
Uncle Arthur threw open the door to her cousins’ bedroom. A man sat on one of the two beds, leaning back against the headboard.
Ivy stopped short. A Russian worker—and she’d seen him before. The wheat-colored hair, the broad face with its distinctive scar.
“Ivy, meet Demyan Marchenko. Mr. Marchenko, this is our niece, Dr. Ivy Picot.”
“I believe we’ve met.” His smile twisted from pain. He was stripped to the waist, and the bandage around his arm was dark with blood.
“We have indeed met.” Ivy perched on the bed beside him and opened her bag. “What happened?”
