Sixty Blades of Grass: A moving WWII drama based on true events

Rika’s Diary

My life lingered only in reality dreams.

Sometimes I feel I am too young for all of this, working in secret, terrified and yet exhilarated. I am a girl really, seventeen, and if I succeed, it’s because I focus so much, like an adult would, on all the tasks they give me. It’s a heady feeling to know that I may make a difference, but a brutal feeling to feel hunted, and I feel hunted so much of the time.

I guess I was lured by the romance of doing something bold and brave, something no one else could do, they said. At first, they asked me only to fetch refreshments for small meetings. I brought what I could buy with their meager funds; apples, bread, tea, beer filched from home. Once served, they let me stay, sitting on the floor, listening to them speak in passionate bursts about plans. In the dim light, I knew their voices more than their features. People came and went, bringing in documents, departing with others, no words of goodbye or farewell. No one used a name, and I didn’t offer mine. I sat and thought, soon there will be a job for me.

And then there was. We need to know about the transports. You, you are an artist. You paint! Put everything in code. Numbers are everything.

What do I do if I am caught?

Lie!

Part One

Chapter 1

Rika Paints

Rika

Amsterdam Central Train Station

The clouds tumble over and into themselves in the gray winter sky as I scurry through the rubble strewn field next to the rail yard. I am freezing. Cold gusts of wind find gaps in my coat and force loose strands of hair from my scarf, sending them waving around my face. One fine strand catches in the corner of my mouth and I try to work it free with my tongue, but it won’t go away and I have to stop and dig my finger around my cheeks, gagging, until the slender torment is gone, brushed away by my fingertips, carried by the wind. My shoes crunch on the hard ground and jar my teeth. I put my tongue between them, bruising it. Moments later, I catch my toe on the debris from the bombing and fall to my knees, my art supplies crashing down at my side, my knees stinging with scrapes. " Stront ," I mutter and get to my feet again.

At the top of a slight rise, I stop to catch my breath and survey the scene before me. It is one I have painted before. How many times will I need to paint it again?

I trip again over a loose brick, remnants of an explosion in the rail yard during the invasion. Fucking Germans. It feels good to swear, like a burp. I do it again, and with the burp, my stomach rises. I want to vomit, but I press on, to the location where I will get the best view.

I take a deep breath and grit my teeth. I just know I’m going to get caught one of these days. I just know it. It’s so obvious what I’m doing. For one thing, it’s too early in the morning for anyone to be here. Stupid Resistance. Only they could dream up a task like this. I am an idiot, a fool to accept this assignment. It’s going to get me killed.

I stop and turn around, slowly. Am I being watched? Does anyone suspect what I am about to do? My breath comes in bursts. My heart pounds. I can hear it in my ears.

To slow my racing heart, I rehearse my lie under my breath in a cadence with my footsteps. I am not spying. I am an artist. I practice my craft here, among the weeds and flowers of the abandoned rail yard. Of course the Germans will believe me! Why wouldn’t they?

But I am not convinced. Don’t make a wish a promise.

I stamp my feet hard to get the feeling back in my toes and search for the best vantage point. Breathe, Rika, I tell myself. I cannot shake this feeling of being watched.

This assignment never gets easier. It’s actually harder, every time I walk in here to paint. More dangerous. If someone spots me once, so what? But every week I am here, sometimes twice. The odds aren’t good. Someone is going to notice.

I catch a sob. Can’t someone else do it, just once? But no, it has to be me every time. I raise my fist to the sky and shake it. Fucking Germans and the Resistance!

I stop, freeze in my tracks. I can leave. Turn around, get out of this rail yard. What’s stopping me? I don’t need this. I’ll tell my Resistance group I am done. It’s too dangerous for me! Let someone else do it!

Then I hear the distant clank of a railcar. The sound drives deep in my bones. It’s a call to duty, a call to action. This is the reason I am here, in this godforsaken place. Fighting the Germans, the only way I can.

You have to do this, Rika. You know you do.

I square my shoulders, take a deep breath, and continue my march. Don’t give in to the fear now. Don’t you dare, I tell myself. Fear is a luxury. Get it done and get out of here.

I glance around again. There’s no one else in this section of the rail yard. Only me, alone, for today, for now. I teeter on a loose brick and march on.

Here’s the place. I drop my gear, bang my campstool down, rub my hands together. It’s time to begin.

Unscrewing the cap on the jar of water I have brought to rinse my brushes, I set the jar on a level spot on the ground. I sit down, wobble a little, curse, sit harder on the stool to drill the legs into the ground. I pick up cakes of paint and lay out the pans of color onto my molded pallet. From my rucksack I withdraw a sheet of paper, tape the corners to a stiff board to flatten it.

The paper is a disgrace. It won’t absorb the colors like it should. It’s nothing like the fine paper reams I used before the Germans invaded. I can’t get good paper anymore because of the Germans. Another reason to hate them.

I shrug. What does it matter? These paintings aren’t meant to be masterpieces.

I cup my stiff, cold hands together and blow to warm them in their gloves, the fingertips cut off to enable me to handle the brush better. I rest the board on my lap, take in the scene before me, select a brush, dip it in the water and choose a color. With a deep sigh that the wind carries away, I begin to paint.

The dried grasses, the wilted and frozen wildflowers, and fire nettles rustle all around. Above me, in the great stretch of Dutch sky, the clouds continue to churn, spitting occasional rain on my painting. Below the tumult, the train station bustles. I hear shouts, the screech of the wheels on the iron tracks, the roar of vans and buses, the murmur of moving people. I strain to see it all, counting to myself as I watch our Jews shuffle along in long lines, lugging large suitcases and clutching children’s hands, scrambling onto waiting trains. I recognize some of the soldiers by the way they move, the way they wield their guns. I catch my breath when I see the butt of a rifle brought down and a person fall. The shout and crack I hear a second later. I continue to paint, counting again and again the people and the number of trains.

My task is to document, in code, how many Jews are taken, and which direction the train takes, but I must convey more; I have to show that the violence is escalating, that the Jews are resisting the transport. I am possibly their last witness, the last person in Holland to see them. Their last voice. This painting is the last thing the Resistance may learn about their departure on this transport.

I sweep every detail I can onto the paper, but my paint on the canvas shows something altogether different. Blades of grass appear, clusters of withered wildflowers, pebbles, and soil. There is turmoil over the ground, swirling, dark, menacing clouds, not the cold gray ones that hang over me. These clouds document that there has been violence, the Germans are beating Jews into submission, but the captured Jews are resisting the relocation. The sun withers behind the clouds, the last rays of light illuminating the stalks of poppies and cornflowers amidst a sheen of new grass. The watercolors dry fast in the cold, dry wind.

I view the painting a moment and my heart hurts as I count hundreds of my captive Jewish countrymen, gone today. What are the Germans doing to them? Where are they going? Will we find them again? Can any of the information in these paintings save them?

More detail to add; I count the transport cars and soldiers. I note the time it took to load their prisoners. All goes on the canvas. A slash of orange means they used cattle cars on this transport. Cattle cars to transport human beings.

I glance at my watch. Almost time to hide the painting under a piece of rubble, mark it with a cake of paint. Another underground fighter will retrieve it later. My findings will be added to the information we have from other transport witnesses. Maybe all of it will lead us to these lost countrymen, so we can return them to Dutch soil, to their home again.

The whistle shrills, trains lurch, the cars clatter together, and I note the time with a few dots of rubble.

Farewell! I whisper to the passengers, my breath catching in my throat. Sadness descends on me, as it always does at this point in the assignment. I can’t move for a moment. The weight of what I have witnessed pushing me down onto the campstool. I breathe bastaards, and paint, on the left-hand side of the canvas, a golden leafless stem, bending as the train travels, to the east.

Then the rain, which has been spattering intermittently, starts in earnest. Time to hide the painting, go to Rachel’s house, my Jewish friend. She hasn’t answered any of my notes or calls. She might be gone on a transport already. Hurry, hurry, I tell myself, shaking off my lethargy and sadness. Get out of here. It’s time to see Rachel.

I fold the canvas, open the rucksack, and tuck away the damp brushes, the moist pans and paint spattered pallet. I pick up the jar and toss the dirty water behind me.

"ACHTUNG!"

Rika’s Diary

Rachel is my best friend. So what if she is Jewish? We Dutch don’t care, or most of us don’t. Rachel and her family are revered in Holland. Her father is a great surgeon, her mother from a great ancestral family, famous for her hospitality and generosity to causes.

Rachel is a musician, a violinist, really famous already.

It makes me furious, the way they’ve been treated. As if they’re a tasty tidbit for the Germans! The Germans are playing cat and mouse with them and have been since the occupation. Can’t Rachel and her family see it?

First, the German Reichskommissar, who controls all of Holland, assured them that due to their prominent standing, they were protected. But Papa didn’t believe it. He went to see them. Leave! he pleaded, standing on their threshold. He begged them: I can get you on a boat to England.

But they have stayed, even though their friends disappeared. Last month the Reichskommissar became elusive about their status, and still they stayed. Of course, they were all humiliated when Rachel’s fiancé, Rolf, called off the engagement because she is Jewish. And then Rachel’s instructor refused to teach her any longer, telling her he has time only for true artists, ones with promise, with a future – well, only then did Rachel understand that she has no future in Holland. But it is all too late. I cry for her, every night.

Chapter 2

Rachel and Rika

Rika

Amsterdam

I’ve run from the tram and need to catch my breath on the steps of Rachel’s house. Is she still here, or have the Germans come and taken her away? How stupid was I to come here? Will I be caught? I tremble and look up and down the avenue. Has the German officer who found me painting followed me? Damn! Have I led him to her?

Among the German soldiers in the rail yard was an officer; I could tell by his peaked hat. Blue eyes. Olive skin. I’d thrown the dirty paint water over his pants. How long had he been there watching me paint? What did he suspect?

I prayed he bought my story. After I apologized, again and again, for ruining his pants, the lie rose to my lips and I found myself explaining what had brought me to the rail yard. I gestured at the weeds and dried flowers on the ground, telling him some were rare, a challenge to paint. I unfolded the painting to show him, then crouched by the actual plant I’d rendered, fingering the brittle leaves. I babbled on about how my instructors always wanted me to find something unique in nature. The rail yard was undisturbed, I said, I could concentrate well there. My heart had pounded so hard I could barely hear what I said. I hoped my face looked as I had rehearsed – bland, innocent, open. Eyes wide. Behind my chatter I prayed he would believe me. He had to believe me.

Just before knocking, I look around the neighborhood.

This is the most elegant section of Amsterdam. I take in the varied stair railings made of finely wrought iron, the rare, imported facades of stone and brick, the soaring rooftops. On another day, in another time I would have strolled the avenue arm in arm with Rachel. We would have admired the architecture, the details on the doors and bricks. We would have waved to neighbors who stood at their windows and waved back. Now, with fear I peered into the windows, and I knew that fear looked out.

Three German soldiers loiter on the corner, pacing and looking back and forth. One bends his head, and cups his hand to light his cigarette. I do not see the flame, just the spring back when he inhales and the faint cloud of smoke that soars up into the wind. Monsters. What the hell are they doing here, in my country! Why are they at this corner, on this street, at this time? Their guns are slung onto their backs; I can see the shine of the barrels.

One more big gulp of air, I climb the stairs to the front door. My rucksack, heavy with my art supplies, digs into my shoulder. I readjust the strap by pulling it forward, which makes the long leather painting tube bat my head. Another twist, another knock in the head by the tube. I laugh and give up. The entire sack drops to my feet. It hits the granite steps with a muffled thud.

I raise my hand to knock on the varnished wood door, and stop. I can see my own reflection in the high shine. For a moment my hand seems like a salute; a raised fist of defiance. Ignoring the brass knocker, I rap on the bare wood.

There is a rustle at the window at the side of the door. The tip of a finger pulls the heavy curtain aside, then disappears. I pick up my rucksack and tube, ready to run if a German opens the door. I hear the locks click. The door opens. Rachel pulls me into the house, closing the door behind me.

Rika! She hugs me hard. For a moment, all is well. I press my face against hers and inhale.

A few strands of the glorious collection of curls and twists of Rachel’s hair find their way to my mouth. With my free hand, I pull them away. Oh Lord, it was good to see her.

Rachel, is it all right that I came to see you?

Of course, but I would have opened the door only for you.

You are still here.

In a small voice Rachel says, Perhaps not for long. We’ve been ordered to a transport.

A transport!

My breath catches in my throat. I’d known of a few people who had disappeared and had learned later they’d been taken away on the transports, but not anyone so close to me, like this. The thought of Rachel, my best friend, my confidant, leaving hits me hard, like a punch in the gut.

I know I can help her, but I also know I cannot be the one to tell her. How fast can I put things in motion? Is there time? I had to get to the university as soon as possible. There is a contact there: an underground contact. I would have her come and see Rachel immediately. With that plan in my head, I let myself look at her.

If I were a portrait artist, what a painting I would render of my best friend, this eighteen-year-old girl, who fusses with settling my painting materials on the floor! Only oils would capture her brown eyes, the glints of gold in her hair, the luster in her olive skin. I recall the serenity in her face when she played her violin, and I composed a portrait of her, playing, just like that. This may be the last time you look upon her, a voice inside my head says. Is it a premonition? A bad omen? Rachel turns to me and puts her hand to my hair, lightly touching the strands around my face. Has she heard the same voice?

Come in, come in! I didn’t know if I should try to get a message to you, but I wanted to see you, before… Her voice trails off. She grabs my hand and pulls me down the hall.

Everywhere in the long hallway are half-packed valises and scattered house furnishings. Rachel’s violin lay on a table on top of sheet music. Was she taking it? Would she be able to play it where ever she was sent?

Mama is beside herself, Rachel says, raking her fingers through her hair. She cannot decide what to take. There are moments she says she will not go. She gestures at all the furnishings. What will happen to our home?

I know the answer to that. The Germans will steal everything in it. The Germans will clear out anything of value, then turn the apartment over to the Dutch Nazis, the NSB. Those kuts, those traitors will live here in this splendor, in the best neighborhood in Amsterdam, and act as if they are entitled to it all. They will ignore the fact that all was stolen, that people had been sent away, perhaps to die, so they could have this place. It happens all the time. On any day of the week, on all the streets of Holland, you can see the Puls movers come to houses where families of Jews have been dragged away. The Germans, or the Nazi Dutch, the Green Police, move into a house as if nothing had been done. I am quiet. What’s the point in upsetting Rachel more?

Rachel leads me into the kitchen at the back of the house. I look around at the treasures they will leave behind for the Germans and the NSB. The tiled walls, the thick Turkish carpets. Delftware, Gouda pottery, rare linens and silverware clutter the counters. This kitchen had once rung with the laughter of all our friends, where we enjoyed smooth hot chocolate, buttery cookies and tangy fruits. It is now spoiled with clutter. A few dirty dishes in cloudy water sit in the sink.

I gave the maid the day off. What does it matter what the house looks like if the Germans come for us?

I nod, looking around, and bite my lip. Rachel’s calico cat slips into the room and rubs around and around my ankles in a figure eight. Rachel scoops it up and hugs it to herself, burying her face in its fluff. Oh, Toos, you old thing! She bends down and sets the cat free on the floor. I wish I could serve you something. It’s so hard to find food these days, and we have nothing sweet to offer you, even the tea is almost gone–

I interrupt her. I can’t stay long—I just had to see you.

Always so busy, Rika!

She glances at a calendar that hangs on a hook by the door. She reaches toward it and traces her finger around a date ringed in red. Aren’t you going to a special concert tonight? With Adriaan? she asks.

Yes, actually, I’m meeting him at the train station later. Aren’t you going, too? Didn’t Anders ask you? The Friesian organist–

I know. Rachel sighs. Anders cancelled our date because, well, I am Jewish. Rika, it’s not safe for me to go out in public, you know it isn’t. They’re taking people who look Jewish right off the street these days. We both shake our heads. What had happened to Holland that a citizen couldn’t walk the streets without being accosted?

Then her eyes spark at me. What’s going on with you and Adriaan now? She leans closer. Is this serious?

I smile and blush in spite of myself. The last time we talked, weeks earlier, I’d told her that I thought he would be the one I would marry. Just that, well, you know… I blush. He’s just so…

From above comes a high, reedy voice.

Was someone at the door, Rachel?

We walk back into the hallway and look up the long, curved staircase.

Mrs. Wein leans over the banister. Her hair is in wild disarray; she has mis-buttoned her dress and it gapes open in places. Her stockings sag on her legs.

It’s a shocking sight. She’s always been dignified and elegant, not a stitch out of place, soft spoken and careful in her words. Now she clutches the railing until the tendons of her hands and arms stand out. Her eyes bulge and she pants in short, harsh bursts.

It’s me, Mrs. Wein. Rika de Haven, I call up.

Who?

I look at Rachel, baffled. Mrs. Wein knows me! She has welcomed me in this house for years! Rachel shrugs. Her mother sways back and forth.

I am a friend from school.

Oh, she says. Well, you must go. I need Rachel.

Rachel motions for me to go back into the kitchen and climbs the stairs to her mother. As I back down the hall, I see her legs disappear up the carpeted steps.

Once in the kitchen, I sit. Above I can only make out murmurs. Then a door slams. Plates on the wall rattle on their hooks.

The cat finds me and nestles against my legs. It is cold here; the oven is out. The cat must miss its warm spot by the stove.

I hear a rustle in the hall. Rachel enters, carrying a bundle of rolled canvases. She draws in a deep breath and then presents them to me.

What is this? You have paintings?

Rachel nods. These are the paintings my ancestors have collected over the years. We have to go, but maybe these can be saved. Will you keep them for us?

I clear some clutter away and spread