The Nazi’s Daughter

By Tim Murgatroyd

The Netherlands, Spring 1943. When her glittering career as a ballerina is cut short by a dancing injury, Elise Van Thooft-Noman, rebellious daughter of a powerful Dutch Nazi, flees to an isolated island off the coast of Holland. Here she meets Pieter Goedhart, reluctant village schoolmaster and Resistance fighter. A dangerous affair is kindled between them. Meanwhile Elise’s Nazi family and the terrifying brutality of war are closing in, threatening to destroy all she holds dear... 
New York, September 2008. Uncomfortably overweight, single and scraping thirty, Jenni Malarkey is summoned to a mysterious party to celebrate her estranged grandmother’s glamorous life. Her journey through Elise’s secret history will force her to confront a legacy of guilt and shame... 
Past and present intersect, as unlikely hearts connect to seek love and redemption, in this haunting time-shift novel set in wartime Holland and contemporary New York.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Mar 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781788032445

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The Nazi’s Daughter

Tim Murgatroyd

Copyright © 2017 Tim Murgatroyd

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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ISBN 978 1788032 445

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Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

BY TIM MURGATROYD

NOVELS

Taming Poison Dragons

Breaking Bamboo

The Mandate of Heaven

The Nazi’s Daughter

Dust of the Earth

POETRY

The Stars are Apples

Lullaby

Drunk

Contents

The Prodigal Son

Easter Fires

New York, September 2008

Razzia

At the Van Thooft-Noman’s

SNAFU

New York, December 2008

A New World Order Arises

New Neighbours

NewYork, Winter 2008

The Folk Dance

Skating

New York, Spring 2009

St Nicholas’ Eve

Rites of Spring

New York, July 2009

The Second Front

New York, November 2009

Surfacing

Hunger Winter

RIP’S END

New York, Winter 2009

Author’s Note

About the Author

The Prodigal Son

The Netherlands, April 1943.

He carried a full suitcase to his father’s funeral. No time to drop it at the old house beside the dreamer dyke, the dunes running in high, grass-tussock waves to the sea. He arrived breathless, trousers and shoes mud-flecked, his best blue suit crumpled by overnight travel.

Hat pulled down low against spattering rain he opened the chapel door. A hundred faces turned. At first he met their collective stare boldly. But confusion soon bent his neck. Despite his status as chief mourner he slid awkwardly into an empty pew at the rear.

A hundred heads rotated back to face the low pulpit. For a moment the latecomer reprised a half-forgotten medley from childhood: refrains of defiance, hope, resentment. Then sorrow – unappeased and raw – simplified him. He grew calm like the grey, still surface of a frozen pond, as all who grieve from the muddy depths of their soul learn sorrow must freeze, in order to become bearable.

The congregation commenced the final hymn and he stayed mute. Only when the people rose did he realise he’d forgotten to remove his hat. Oh, there’d be whispers about that. Looked just like a gangster. Couldn’t be bothered to bare his head at his own father’s funeral. No respect even as a boy. Broke his father’s heart.

After the coffin was lowered and the first sods of peaty turf laid, the mourners drifted to homes and farmyards, fields and fishing nets. Some paused for a few stiff, curious words with the latecomer. Twelve years since he left the island as a boy of eighteen. Not once had he come back.

Now they saw a tall man with slightly hunched shoulders, eyes blue as a Frisian summer sky, a detached, hawk-like expression. Some pitied the stranger who resembled so closely his father, their village schoolmaster respected by three generations. Of course you heard about the son’s great loss, they whispered. Poor souls. God forgive us all.

He lingered a little way from the grave. At last he noticed that one mourner waited patiently, an old fellow in a threadbare postman’s uniform and cap: Ter Braak, the village mayor.

‘Well then, Pieter Goedhart,’ began the old man by way of greeting.

Pieter turned but said nothing.

‘Your father was a good man,’ declared Ter Braak. ‘A good friend to us all. He left us still needing him.’

‘Not everyone leaves so much,’ said Pieter.

They remained by the open grave, hat in hand. The breeze flapped a lock of white hair over Ter Braak’s mottled, bald forehead. Pieter’s own hair was blonde and thick. Crying gulls from the small harbour absorbed a dull, low boom.

‘They’ve set up a few bits of artillery and barbed wire at the end of the island,’ explained Ter Braak. ‘A barracks of old men and boys.’ He chuckled. ‘Not many but enough to steal our potatoes.’

Pieter looked round. ‘I expected Germans. The war hardly seems to have reached the village.’

The old man’s grin revealed teeth either black or missing. ‘There are more of them at the tip of the island. Besides, not everything is as it seems.’

Pieter picked up his suitcase.

‘I shall visit later,’ Ter Braak called after him. ‘You’ll find the key in the usual place.’

Only when Pieter was half way home did it strike him as odd the postman knew Father’s secret hiding place.

Even in wartime the old, steep-gabled house had stayed spruce and proper. Its garden adjoined a former sea dyke and was dotted with apple trees displaying masses of pink and white blossom. Pieter knew the blossom to be deceptive: the orchard planted by his mother forty years earlier bore sour fruit. She had lain in the spongy soil of the churchyard for twenty of those years. Of all her gifts to this earth just Pieter and a dozen gnarled trees survived.

Suitcase in hand, he stood like a nervous travelling salesman beside the front gate. The wind picked flakes of blossom from the apple trees. How little had changed! There’d been such alteration in his soul over twelve years of travel and reinvention, yet here? Home abashed him.

He retrieved the spare key from a loose brick inside the coalbunker. It turned in the lock with admirable smoothness. Pieter could just imagine Father methodically striding from lock to lock, oilcan in hand. Everything smooth and correct to the last.

The only letter on the mat bore Pieter’s own handwriting and was unopened. He had posted it in Amsterdam after receiving news of Father’s sudden seizure. Death reached the old man before his letter. Perversely, Pieter felt cheated. A great bending of pride had been necessary to compose that letter. And now its words were empty, lacking the heart and mind they were meant for.

Room by silent room he drifted through the ground floor. Again he marvelled at the absence of change. That ornament just where he last remembered it. That print of a sailing clipper tilting against the wind. The house had frozen on the day of Mother’s death when Pieter was eleven, Father insisting they must re-arrange nothing, not a single plate or rug, as though afraid of offending her ghost.

In the small, book-lined study he ran his finger along the spines. Religious works in Dutch and lots of German classics – Goethe, Heine, Storm. All Pieter’s own books were lost. Yet now he had inherited a new library. For the first time he grasped the extent of his inheritance: this house and its contents, Father’s savings accounts, every last sour apple in the orchard.

On impulse he lifted the piano lid and hammered down a minor chord. Another. The piano was out of tune. Its sound scattered, echoed round the still house like a flock of startled black birds.

Without warning, Pieter felt an icy certainty. He froze, fingers still pressed upon the keys as the reverberation faded.

‘Mother?’ he muttered. ‘Father?’ Did their ghosts watch their only son’s return? Had the piano awoken them to a sad, disapproving vigil upon the living?

Something creaked. Instinct drew his glance to the ceiling. Somebody other than himself had listened to those chords. But that must be nonsense. The house was deserted. Before he could disprove his fears there came a knock at the door.

His visitor was Ter Braak. Pieter boiled a kettle on the gas ring – it took twice as long as normal due to cuts in the gas supply – and rooting around he discovered a box of ersatz tea tablets to dissolve. The mayor grumbled about Germans and their Dutch Nazi stooges in the nearest town. It surprised Pieter the old man trusted him so readily.

‘Mr Ter Braak,’ he said, dryly, ‘are you testing my loyalty?’

‘I take your discretion – and loyalty – for granted. Are you not Michael Goedhart‘s son!’

‘It seems all I am allowed to be.’

Both sipped the terrible tea in silence.

‘I will ask my wife to send over a can of milk,’ said the old man. ‘It masks the flavour. They still allow us that much, at least.’

‘Fish, udders, rain, wind,’ said Pieter, with a faint smile. ‘Even the Germans can’t ration those on this island.’

‘Unless they steal the cows,’ pointed out Ter Braak.

Something thawed between them.

‘Now, Pieter, I heard what happened to you in Rotterdam. Your father told us the news. Terrible, terrible.’

The empty, bleak expression returned to the younger man. ‘I wrote to tell him,’ he said, dully. ‘He wrote back of accepting God’s will and judgement.’ Anger touched the cold blue eyes. ‘Between ourselves, Mr Ter Braak, I suspect he considered it God’s punishment for my heathen ways.’

‘Terrible, terrible,’ muttered Ter Braak. ‘This foolish war!’

He cleared his throat. ‘And after Rotterdam your father lost track of you. He worried you, too, had died. Where did you go then, Pieter?’

‘Amsterdam. I found a job in a hotel kitchen.’

‘A kitchen? An educated man like you?’

‘It was away from Rotterdam,’ said Pieter. ‘And my education is not so great.’

‘Yet in Amsterdam you were a teacher. Like your father.’

‘Only in a technical college, Mr Ter Braak. Training boys who wished to become chefs how not to poison their customers.’

‘Chefs indeed! And in a college, you say!’

Ter Braak had never dined in a restaurant in his life. The only chefs he had ever known were mother and wife. The old man seemed to consider something as he sipped the ersatz tea. Pieter felt inclined to pour his own down the toilet.

‘We have need of a teacher in the village now your father is gone,’ remarked Ter Braak. ‘And no money to pay for one. Not a gulden!’

He let the thought dangle.

‘That is a shame for the children,’ said Pieter.

‘A great shame. One day this war will be over. What then? Are they to not read and write? It was that way here in the last century when I was a boy.’

‘A shame,’ agreed Pieter.

‘You know how, as mayor, I have fought for our village school. Even farmers and fishermen should learn the names of the stars they labour under. But that is not exactly why I came here.’

The change in Ter Braak’s voice caught Pieter’s attention.

‘Have you heard strange noises in the house?’ asked the old man, slyly.

‘Yes. Something. I sensed... You will laugh at me, but I thought of ghosts.’

Pieter waited.

‘You haven’t looked in the attic?’

‘Evidently I should.’

‘You should come with me, Pieter Goedhart.’

The steep, whitewashed wooden stairs creaked beneath their collective weight. They passed miniature prints of religious scenes. At the top the old man paused. Four plain wooden doors, all closed, lined the passageway. Pieter was sure he detected a trace of stale cigarettes in the air – impossible, seeing Father had condemned smoking along with alcohol, playing cards, lewd songs and laughter on the Sabbath, as well as females in skimpy attire – and especially their bosoms.

Ter Braak led him into the box room. It was littered with trunks and furniture. He indicated a ladder.

‘It leads to the attic,’ said Pieter, helpfully.

‘Can you guess the rest?’

‘I’m beginning to.’

‘Climb the ladder and knock gently three times, like so,’ said Ter Braak. He tapped a rhythm on a dusty chest of drawers.

It crossed Pieter’s mind as he climbed that the people up there might have a gun. What if they panicked? Thought he was the Gestapo? At the top he paused. Listened carefully. Just the sound of gulls outside. He knocked three times. A shuffling was followed by a scraping of bolts.

‘Push!’ urged Ter Braak from below.

Pieter lifted the trap door and poked his head into a perpetual twilight. He smelt dust, stewed sweat, mould. Lingering scents of urine, shit. A shadow crawled into the light and took the form of a man.

His brown suit had wide, jaunty lapels and was loudly checked with red squares. The suit of a man who craves to be noticed. Incongruously, he wore a thick fisherman’s jumper underneath, far too big for him. A little man, around Pieter’s age, with a quick, nervous face.

‘No need to be afraid, my friend,’ said Pieter. ‘I am Mr Goedhart’s son.’ He smiled disarmingly. ‘Actually, I was worried you might have a gun.’

The little man blinked. A wry, puckish expression melted into a toothy grin. Pieter had the strange impression he had seen that grin before.

Impulsively, the little man held out his hand and overbalanced into the attic hatch – or appeared to. In fact he caught himself neatly and ended up with his hand outstretched.

‘Whoa there!’ laughed Pieter, wobbling on the ladder.

They shook. The little man’s hand was moist.

‘Salomon P. Toots!’ he declared. ‘At your service! But first let me offer my condolences for your great loss.’

‘Salomon Toots?’ asked Pieter, in wonder. ‘The Salomon Toots?’

‘What’s left of him,’ replied the little man, reprising the trademark toothy grin that had warmed a million girlish and maternal hearts.

Pieter stood with Ter Braak by the garden gate. Aeroplane engines droned somewhere out of sight.

‘So what are you going to do?’ asked the mayor.

‘About our friend in the attic?’

‘Among other things.’

‘I could ask him to perform a song and dance routine. Do you have a ukulele handy?’

‘Pieter, these are not joking matters.’

‘No. But they feel surreal.’

Ter Braak’s expression revealed he was unfamiliar with the word.

‘I shall go for a walk and decide,’ said Pieter.

‘Be sure to let me know your decision.’

‘I will.’

‘And don’t forget my offer!’

‘I won’t.’

Pushing up the peak of his postman’s cap, Ter Braak surveyed the horizon. ‘Ah, this war! Terrible, terrible.’

Pieter walked on a sandy strip of beach beneath the sea dyke then headed inland into the dunes. Prior to the westernmost tip of the island’s reclamation from the waves, the area of couch grass and sand had faced down the ocean. Now it was surrounded by fields and ditches.

Pieter climbed the tallest dune beside a shallow, reed-fringed pool. As a boy this thirty-foot mound of sand and grass seemed a magic mountain amidst the flatness of the island – most of which lay below sea level. On a clear day you could see for miles from up here. A dozen windmills dotted the horizon, pumping up water to drain the pastures and polders where cattle grazed and farmers grew whatever suited gritty, sandy soil. An old windmill rose without sails not far from Pieter’s house. Ter Braak had mentioned that an artist with plenty of money had converted it into a country retreat and studio a few years before the war. ‘An artist! Waste of a good windmill,’ grumbled Ter Braak. ‘Pump or drown, I say!’

Perched on the tall dune, Pieter struggled to drain confusion and weariness from his mind. So many things to decide. He had grown unused to decisions. For years drifting from day to day, waking to sleeping.

First the Jew, Salomon Toots. It didn’t surprise him Father’s stern conception of duty required the appalling risk of sheltering a Jew. Instant execution or a concentration camp were the usual penalties. Dangers many in Holland embraced. Tens of thousands were ‘underwater’ in attics or cellars to escape arrest: Resistance and Jews, men evading enforced labour service in the Reich, even German deserters.

Now Pieter had inherited his father’s personal fugitive along with the house. And what a fugitive! Strange twists of fate must have brought such a man to somewhere like the island. Salomon Toots had starred in half a dozen Dutch films before the war: singing, tap-dancing, grinning his toothy grin while strumming a ukulele like Holland’s answer to George Formby. It had never crossed Pieter’s mind Toots was a Jew.

Much as Pieter pitied his situation, what could he do? Ter Braak was clearly connected to the Resistance. If they wished to relocate Mr Toots, that was their affair.

He sighed, longing for a proper cigarette. All he had was the black market tobacco known as Little Stinker. Suck on it too hard and it consumed the hand-rolled cigarette like a flamethrower. Suck too cautiously and it wouldn’t burn.

Pieter hugged his knees and stared out to sea. A couple of small fishing boats were collecting mussels from the sunken village half a mile from the shore. In the distance a low, grey torpedo boat powered towards the south. Tough little spring flowers of purple and white poked between tussocks of sharp grass on the dune. Idly he picked one, watching gulls dip round the fishing boats.

Old Ter Braak had offered him a chance to escape his weary life in Amsterdam: ‘Follow your father as our village schoolmaster! We can offer no salary other than food – enough for yourself and your guest in the attic. You have my word you’ll eat as well as a farmer! Which is as good as anyone these days.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Pieter had replied.

Sat on his dune-castle, he thought hard. Should he return to the hotel kitchen in Amsterdam, its surly head chef and long hours of peeling, chopping, washing? The most menial of positions for a man with his education. Just to feed Germans he loathed, their giggling, unscrupulous girls, and Dutch Nazis in black and green uniforms waving wads of ration coupons – and spivs and paid informants and black marketeers; not to mention the ‘legitimate’ businessmen who always find ways to prosper.

He rose and half slid down the steep side of the dune to a pool of brown, peaty water. The breeze ruffled its surface, launching ripples of light. Here, as a boy, he had sailed fleets of driftwood boats.

Quite unexpectedly, like glimpsing a half-forgotten friend on the street after years of separation, Pieter felt an unfamiliar emotion. His throat tightened, eyes blurred with tears. It was hope he felt. Baffling as the first day of spring after a dark, cold winter. Cocooned by misery and cynicism for years, layer upon layer, simple hope tore his defences open with a merciless hand – and exposed a beating heart.

The breeze spread fresh ripples across the pool. Pieter Goedhart realised it would be Easter soon, always a high day in the village by the sea. And he thought, I shall stay here until Easter, at least.

Old Ter Braak had clapped him on the shoulder, saying: ‘You are your father’s son! No escaping that, my lad!’ Did that mean he must don his dead father’s entire life like a hand-me-down suit? From the moment Mother died they had quarrelled, first silently, then in the open. Until it grew forever too late to understand one another.

He thought I shall stay until the Easter Fires.

Easter Fires

The Netherlands, April 1943.

*

The long black car bumped along the country road, past dykes and ditches shining dully in the soft light of a mild, late spring afternoon. Ploughed fields showed green lines of beet or potato tops. Birds flitted between willows: robins, starlings, charms of finches.

On the bonnet of the car fluttered two pennants, blood red with a peculiar black cross modelled upon the swastika – the ‘wolf hook’ of the Dutch Nazi Party, the NSB – denoting that the vehicle’s passenger was a party bigwig. Most people took one glance at the long car and grew interested in their footwear. Few flung up the required stiff right arm in salute.

The car contained four travellers. Up front, a burly pair in black uniforms with shiny leather holsters. In the back, behind a glass screen to ensure privacy, a dapper young man wearing steel-rimmed spectacles. Beside him, a slender woman in her early twenties.

‘Cornelis,’ she began, ‘are those flags really necessary?’

The man she addressed wore the crisp black uniform and riding boots of a senior NSB officer. He seemed puzzled by the question. ‘Why on earth not, Elise?’

Her faintly up-turned nose was more expressive than unattractive. ‘I don’t want to alarm people in the village when I arrive. Is that so strange?’

Cornelis straightened the bright red lapels of his uniform jacket. ‘Your parents think it’s sensible for the people out here to understand exactly who you are.’

‘That’s why I wanted to take the train.’

‘Elise, please see it from your father’s point of view. How would it look for a state minister’s youngest daughter – the Secretary-General of Finance no less – to travel in a common train or tram?’ They swept past a horse and cart carrying a load of steaming manure. He smiled. ‘Unless you’d prefer a more local mode of transport. Did you see the fellow riding that thing? Some of the bumpkins on this island seem positively inbred.’ His smile narrowed a little. ‘But to return to the flags, no patriotic Dutchman could object to our proud banners.’ He shot her a look that might be defiant or mocking. As usual, she couldn’t tell.

Elise shrank deep into a corner of the seat and stared out of the window. Was Father trying to set her up with Cornelis? Unless it was one of Mother’s schemes to straighten her out. He was certainly handsome and clever. And unlike most members of the NSB, his family were true aristocrats like Mother’s family, instead of petty shopkeepers or thugs. Father dubbed him a rising star.

Perhaps she should feel flattered so important a man should chaperone her all the way to the island. Cornelis served in the Ministry of Culture, petitioned on a daily basis by artists and musicians and actors applying for a licence to perform. He also commissioned and directed propaganda films for the cinemas. Some of her artistic friends had begged her to arrange an introduction to him. Yet Elise found a little of his company went a long way.

Cornelis leaned towards her. She smelt expensive cologne. It was not unpleasant. ‘Elise,’ he said, ‘may I mention something on my mind? You know how deep an impression your dancing made on me in Paris. I have never forgotten it. As soon as you are in full health again, I have decided you must star in a special film on the history of our national ballet. Please promise you will agree.’

Unconsciously she flexed her left leg, tested the tendon to its limit. Smiled tightly to disguise the stab of pain. ‘You are too kind,’ she muttered. ‘Dancing seems a long way off.’

Elise fell to examining the flat pastures of the island through the car window. He regarded her languorously from the corner of his eye.

In this mood they arrived at the old fishing village by the sea. Dusk was gathering upon its single street of brick cottages and front gardens turned over to vegetables. Elise noticed they were driving directly west, towards the molten layers of a pink, silver, gold sunset. And without any clear reason, despite her longing to be back on stage at the Paris Opera Ballet before a rapt audience, shadows heaped and hoarded in her heart scattered. She marvelled at the feeling. Laughed out loud.

‘The windmill is supposed to be near the dunes!’ she cried. ‘Auguste told me it’s easy to find... But see, Cornelis! Something is happening.’

A large bonfire burned in a field by the churchyard. A crowd had gathered. Cornelis slid open the glass screen connecting to the driver. ‘Keep going, I don’t like the look... No, slow down!’ He had spotted a knot of men in black uniforms like his own, parked official cars, a military truck.

‘It’s a festival of some sort,’ said Elise. She looked appealingly to her chaperone. ‘Can’t we stop and see?’

Cornelis smiled indulgently. ‘Your wish is my command. But aren’t you in a frantic hurry to see this wonderful, romantic windmill of yours? No? Very well. Driver, pull up by those staff cars!’

*

They climbed out, stiff after their long journey from The Hague. Cornelis donned his officer’s cap, flicking specks of cigarette ash off his uniform.

People of all ages formed the crowd, some in clogs and traditional dress: bonnets and peaked caps, women in long striped skirts and white aprons and men in embroidered jackets. Most, however, wore modern clothes and overcoats. The bonfire burned merrily, releasing sparks and snaking ribbons of sooty grey smoke.

‘How jolly!’ Elise exclaimed. ‘I’d forgotten it is Easter Saturday! Don’t you think we’re lucky to see this?’

He smiled at her enthusiasm. ‘Very lucky. Especially me. But look over there.’ He indicated a short, stout man in the uniform of a senior NSB official. It was the island’s civilian District Commissioner. Behind him stood several German officers, sipping schnapps from hip flasks and conferring over cigarettes.

‘You should introduce yourself,’ suggested Elise.

Cornelis positively beamed at this first sign of interest in his career. ‘Despite protesting that politics bores you, I see you are very perceptive, my dear! If you will excuse me, I shall take your advice.’ He strolled over to the group of Germans. Arms raised all round.

Elise used the distraction to slip into the crowd. A higgledy band of brass instruments, fiddles and accordions began a popular dance tune. So modern a song sounded incongruous on instruments better suited to old folk melodies. Yet scores of couples circled on the new spring grass. Elise flexed her left leg, longing to join in. She noticed a tall, blonde man nearby. He seemed slightly older than her. At least, a distant, rueful quietness made him seem older as he watched the dancers shuffle. His midnight blue suit had known less crumpled days but hung well enough. She felt oddly provoked when his glance bypassed her and focussed on the crackling bonfire.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. He did not seem to hear above the music, talk and laughter. ‘Excuse me, sir!’

Now he noticed her.

‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘what is this gathering?’

The man indicated the NSB officials and Germans with a sideways nod. ‘The District Commissioner likes to encourage what he calls Aryan customs. The old Easter dances will be performed later.’

She brightened. ‘Old dances?’

‘Yes, I remember them from when I was a boy.’ His glance took in her finely tailored city clothes, her air – quite genuine – of privilege taken for granted. ‘People round here are fond of them. I’m sure you won’t recognise our humble hops and rustic turns.’

‘I might well!’

‘Oh?’

‘I’m familiar with lots of dances, humble or otherwise. You’d be surprised.’

‘Dance interests you?’

‘It has been said.’

The band was about to start a new tune. Word passed round the crowd: De Skotse Trije! De Skotse Trije!

‘What fun!’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you know that one?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Is it usual round here for gentlemen to ask ladies to join the dance?’ she asked.

He shrugged. ‘Round here things often work the other way round.’

She hesitated – not for long. The accordions were warming up. ‘Then I’ll be blunt. I’d like to dance and need a partner.’

Already several squares of dancers had formed up, two couples to each side. One was still a couple short. The guarded, distant look returned to his face.

‘I don’t care to dance,’ he said.

Elise blushed, regretting her liveliness with a stranger. Then he raised his head. Looked her full in the eye. His own were deep blue. ‘Why not?’ he asked as though thinking aloud. ‘Do you wish to dance?’

‘Yes! But we must be quick! This way!’ She led him to join the square just as the accordions and fiddles and cornets and trombones struck up.

Soon as the line stepped forward, the dancers holding hands, she understood the risk she was taking. Six months’ painful rest and recovery might be ruined in the space of a few silly choruses. But once begun it was not her style to stop – and she loved a homely polka. Infinite grace and dignity of carriage could flow through each modest slide and step.

The lines passed back and forth, women then men, before assuming the original square. Elise realised she was laughing for sheer pleasure. The war seemed far away. To dance De Skotse Trije beside the glowing Easter Fire felt natural as breathing. Never mind that her partner was graceless and left-footed. When the dance ended she applauded wildly. ‘How wonderful! Don’t you think a flickering bonfire is a better light for dancing than a ballroom chandelier?’

Her companion smiled. ‘I’ve only ever known the one. I’ll take your word for it.’

‘Oh, you really should!’

‘Dancing by the bonfire is an old tradition hereabouts,’ he said. With a sardonic glance at the District Commissioner in his black uniform, he added, ‘Our friend yonder is right about that at least. That’s the thing about tradition. All sides use the past for their own cause.’

Elise was thankful he had not seen her arrive in a car bearing NSB flags. ‘Is it a very old tradition?’ she asked, quickly.

‘My father told me the Saxons lit fires to aid spring’s victory over winter. To chase darkness away and lend the earth a little extra warmth. The ash from the bonfires was spread over the soil to bring fertility. Forgive me, I sound thoroughly like a pedantic professor.’

‘You only seem to be a thorough teacher,’ she replied, with a faint smile. ‘I notice your lesson does not mention the gentleman in a priest’s cassock over there. I bet he claims the Easter Fires for his traditions. I suspect you’re just as partial as the people you criticise.’

He acknowledged her argument. ‘Everyone finds a side in times like these. Even if it consists of keeping your head down.’

The next dance was announced. Oh, she didn’t want to take sides! Just dance and be free. She looked round for Cornelis but her chaperone was nodding gravely to an SS officer.

‘Oh, I do like De Hendriekske!’ she declared. ‘Shall I be blunt again?’

Once more they joined the dancers, this time forming a double ring, the men with their backs to the centre, women facing inward. The tune was fast and lively, ancient as a posy of freshly plucked flowers. The dancers clapped and stamped, warning their partners to take care with a wag of a playful forefinger, promenading right round to begin again. With the men’s hands on their partner’s waists and the women’s resting on their man’s shoulders, they skipped a polka.

As Elise and her partner applauded the dance’s end, they became aware of a third presence. Cornelis