Free Tamar by Mal Peet Page B

scared indeed. I have not done this before.”
    Dart clasped the corners of the suitcase and stared at his hands. He did not know what to say. Fear was a whole country he did not want to visit. A place he wanted no signals from.
    Grotius said, “Have you done this before?”
    “No.”
    The little man was standing with his hands in his pockets, staring into the darkness. “It’s not myself I’m scared for.” He stopped, tried again. “No, that’s not true. I fear the Nazis and what they might do to me. They are . . . robots. They are puppets, and hate pulls their strings. They have lost control of themselves. I have seen them do terrible things, here, in this town. I have sat at night, in the workshop, painting smiles on dolls’ faces while hearing the screams from neighbouring streets. I have sat holding my breath, waiting for the sound of their boots to pass our door. But that isn’t it. Not really.”
    He turned and looked at Dart. “It’s Bibi that I am scared for. Truly scared for. She’s Jewish, you see.”
    “My God,” Dart said. “Jesus Christ, Pieter.”
    “Yes, quite. So you will be very, very careful, won’t you, my young friend? Look after us, please.”
    He turned to go, and when he reached the stairs, Dart said, “Pieter? Why did you agree to do this? You didn’t have to.”
    Grotius lifted his hand, and it was wearing the glove puppet. This time its voice was Winston Churchill’s. “There comes a time in human affairs,” it growled, “when even the smallest man must stand up and say, ‘Enough of this shit.’”
    Dart almost laughed. “Did Churchill really say that?”
    “No,” Pieter Grotius said. “I did.”
    The transmission that Dart made at ten fifty-nine was very brief, really just a signal test: his security checks, followed by a short sequence of letter groups that told London he was on station. When he’d finished, he switched to receive. He was startled when, through the wobbling static in the headphones, the acknowledgement he’d expected was followed by the code for
stand by
. He scrabbled in the medical bag for his notebook and pencil.
    When he went down to the parlour, Rosa was propped up in an armchair gurgling, fumbling at a cloth doll. Bibi Grotius stood at the window. When she saw Dart, she moved a houseplant to the other end of the sill.
    “There,” she said, “Trixie will know that you have finished your work now.” Without turning away from the window, she said, “When Pieter and I first came here, that square was packed, twice a week. Stalls and barrows selling cooked meats, cheeses, fish. There was a big fat lady who sold sweet pickled herring from a barrel. They were delicious. I can close my eyes and taste them, even now.” She did so, sighing. “I can’t tell whether dreaming about food makes it better or worse. Sometimes the dreams are so real that I feel as though I have actually eaten. At other times, well . . .” She stopped herself and looked at him, smiling. “Shame on you — isn’t that what you’re thinking, Dr. Lubbers? People are having to endure much worse than a craving for pickled herring.”
    “No,” Dart said, “I wasn’t thinking that at all. I hadn’t realized the rationing was so bad. I’ve already started to think about food a lot of the time myself.”
    Trixie was already back in the workshop when Dart came down. Pieter was at his bench, working on the little wooden torso with a fine chisel. He glanced up.
    “Everything okay? No problems?”
    “No, none. Thank you.”
    Dart took Trixie by the arm and led her to just inside the back door. “There was an incoming,” he told her quietly.
    “A what?”
    “A message from London. I wasn’t expecting it. I haven’t deciphered it, but the third group was the standard code for
urgent
. I know we’re going to the farm tomorrow, but . . .”
    Trixie drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. “All right. I’ll leave Rosa here. If I go now I’ll be able to get back