Hunger Journeys by Maggie De Vries

Author:Maggie De Vries [De Vries, Maggie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-4434-0430-3
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2010-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

Sometime later, the train creaked and groaned and roared into motion. Later still, Sofie giggled and Lena started back into herself. She listened to whispers, words she could not hear, rustling in the straw. Had Uli also sent people to their deaths?

Almost bodily, Lena shoved Albert’s story out of her mind and the feelings it stirred in her out of her heart. She had practical things to think about now.

She and Sofie could not arrive in this unknown town seeking the assistance of strangers with two German soldiers as escorts. It was easy to predict their reception. And what she had seen and heard meant she could no longer have anything to do with Albert anyway. These men had done bad things. They were part of something evil.

Now Albert’s sweet words to her, his lips pressed against hers, seemed more sinister than romantic. She had received her first kiss from a murderer. Received it and thrilled to it. No, Albert could not be part of her future. And she could not be part of his.

Sofie’s voice rose, loud and desperate in the quiet. “I will miss you so, Uli,” she cried. “How long will you stay, do you think?”

“Just two days,” Uli said. “But we must make the most of them!”

Sofie had had no trouble at all with her German accent or vocabulary since she met Uli. The language flowed from her as if it were her birthright. Lena’s bruised heart sank. “Sofie, you can’t see each other in Almelo,” she said in Dutch, sending her voice crashing through the car, breaking into their conversation. “What will your relatives think? You know what they’ll say. ‘Lover of Germans,’ they’ll call you. ‘Mof lover.’ They’ll run us out of town.”

Sofie scrambled out of the straw, brushing up against Lena. She heard Uli breathing behind Sofie in the darkness. “Well, I don’t exactly have relatives there. Just this family, these friends of my uncle’s—at least I think that was it. We were passing through once, and they said we should let them know if we were ever back this way.”

Lena sank back against the wall. She never should have placed all her faith in Sofie’s vague assertions, in Sofie’s shoddy fake papers, in Sofie’s on-again, off-again courage—or in a German soldier, come to that. But why hadn’t she pressed her friend for details? Sofie would have told her the truth long ago if she had just asked.

“I suppose the last time you saw them was before the war,” Lena said.

“The only time. Well, yes. Not much, though. Maybe in ‘38.”

“Seven years and a war. Five years, almost, of occupation. And you think these people will welcome us with open arms?”

“Well, it’s better than what we left behind,” Sofie said fiercely. “Even on this train, even in the freezing cold, with our own Allies firing at us, I’ve been happier and better fed than at home with my nearest and dearest and soup made from potato peels and sugar beets. And so have you.

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