Free My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young Page A

once as the one Isaak had showed me in January that had been tacked to his door. They had been everywhere then.
     
JEWS MUST REGISTER WITH THE AUTHORITIES.
FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT
IN SERIOUS PENALTIES.
     
    "Where was this?" I asked in a voice so calm it couldn't have been my own. Last night had wrung me dry.
    "I found it this morning, slipped under the door."
    While we were upstairs losing everything, someone had been here, taking even more. In that one moment I lost all hope. But in its place poured relief. I'd been dreading this unspoken threat for too long and it was better to have it face me. I crumpled the notice and threw it onto the table. "Anneke—" I tried again.
    My aunt reached for the notice and flattened it out. "Not the
Wehrmacht;
they would have posted it on the door last winter, when the orders came. Mrs. Bakker, do you think?" she asked. She looked twenty years older than she had yesterday. "Maybe another neighbor, maybe she told someone else. Or maybe Karl."
    We searched each other's faces, neither of us able to speak my uncle's name.
    "Well. It doesn't matter today," I said.
    "You're right." My aunt's voice held a strange urgency. She left the kitchen and came back with another piece of paper.
    I felt the breath leave my body:
CERTIFICATE OF DEATH
.
    "She's gone? They came already?"
    My aunt pushed the certificate into my hand. "I've taken care of it." The way her eyes jumped warned me something was wrong. But of course everything was wrong.
    I looked at the certificate again and I reeled: my name.
    She led me to the window seat, still staring at the paper, and sat down next to me. "Yes. You died last night, not ... You're safe now—no one will know."
    I almost laughed, but I caught myself in time. My aunt's bloodshot eyes were too desperate. "You didn't really do this, did you? Tante Mies, did you sleep at all? You'd feel better—you'd see that this is wrong."
    "The Schaaps were just here." She nodded to a bouquet of asters and a loaf of bread on the table. "They saw the funeral cart. I'm sure they're telling the other neighbors now. People will be here soon. Go upstairs. You'll have to hide, just until I can take you to Nijmegen. No one will look for you there. It will give us time to——"
    I held up my hands. "Tante Mies, you're not making any sense. This is just wrong. When the others come we'll tell them there's been a mistake. But you need to sleep. I'm worried about you."
    My aunt leaned over and dug her fingers into my shoulders. "I've lost one child. I will not lose another." Her voice was steel wire, beginning to snap. I grew a little afraid. I understood she was frantic and had lost her reason. Where did reason fit when you have lost a child?
    "We'll talk about this later," I said gently. "After you've slept."
    The doorbell rang. My aunt rose and I followed her. She looked out the parlor window to see who it was.
    "Mrs. Bakker," she whispered. "Go upstairs now."
    "No, Tante Mies, let me help you ... please listen. You're not thinking right; you're so upset. But you can't say it again, that it was me, not Anneke. I'm going to get Mrs. Sietsma, we'll tell her everything, and then she'll help us. All right? I'll get her now."
    "Cyrla, go upstairs now! Let me handle this. I will
not
lose another child!"
    What could anyone say to those words? It seemed dangerous to argue with her now—like taking a hammer to glass. I didn't have the strength to face Mrs. Bakker yet, anyway. Another few minutes wouldn't matter.
    I hurried up the stairs and hid behind the door to my aunt and uncle's bedroom.
    My aunt opened the door and Mrs. Bakker invited herself in, filling the hall with her bustle. "My God, Mies! I've just heard. So terrible. Come, let's make you a cup of tea, such a sad thing! Such a young girl!"
    They went into the kitchen. I crept halfway down the stairs.
    "A miscarriage. Cyrla was ... we hadn't known.... "
    I listened, stunned. There was a moment's silence, or perhaps I couldn't hear