Memories of Glass by Melanie Dobson

Author:Melanie Dobson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Christian / Historical, FICTION / Romance / Historical / 20th Century
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2019-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

ELIESE

AMSTERDAM

SEPTEMBER 1942

The boy and girl from Westerbork—their frightened eyes haunted Eliese all the way back to Amsterdam. What if the Nazis—Dutch or German—loaded Hein onto one of their trains traveling east? What if she had to watch him ride away, alone, with the other children?

Her father was right. She had to do more than keep her son out of sight. She had to find a place for him to hide.

When she returned that afternoon, hours after she usually arrived home from the theater, Papa was gone. She found Hein asleep in his crib as if her father had put him down for a nap before leaving the house. His cheeks were stained red, his blanket damp from tears, his stuffed lamb crushed against his chest.

How long had he been crying?

His breathing was slow, steady, as if he’d exhausted himself.

She brushed her fingers over Hein’s forehead, sweeping back a lock of his blond hair. More of it had fallen out on his collection of stuffed animals, leaving a brown patch above his left ear. A doctor should examine him, but there were no Jewish doctors left in Amsterdam and she refused to take him to one at Westerbork. They might have the tools to heal him, but not the power to save his life.

Instead of collapsing on her bed, Eliese ripped off the spread and a pillow, moving back across the corridor into Hein’s room and arranging a place to sleep beside his crib.

The other registrars had been dismissed weeks ago, she and Mr. Süskind the only ones left to register those brought to the theater. Working these nights for the past three months, her hours often bleeding into morning, had drained her. Or perhaps it was the burden of her work. How she hated herself for what she had to do.

She kissed her son’s cheek before covering herself with the quilt, terrified at the thought of those porters in Westerbork forcing him into a cattle car with other children. It was no longer safe for Hein to stay in their home, but she didn’t know where to hide him.

If only William were here to help her, he would know exactly what to do.

Her eyes closed, the lines of William’s handsome face etched in her mind, and she tried to escape with him to a happier place, back to their months together in London. He had captured her heart the first time she’d met him, when she was sixteen. He was a decade older and the most handsome man who’d ever expressed interest in spending time with her.

The next year William returned to Amsterdam and showered her with gifts from New York, including the turquoise ring she now wore on her hand. But it was more than the gifts that made her heart spin. He’d encouraged her with his words, charmed her with his smile, and then after weeks of working with her father, taking her to dinner each night, he’d asked her to join him in London, spending a few months with the Ziegler family.

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