Deception - WWII Resistance / Holocaust Novel

Chapter 3

'What took you so long?' I huffed in annoyance whilst buttoning up my dress and collecting my belongings.

'Sorry, I was enjoying the show,' Elek answered jokingly. He stepped out from behind the tree, the knife still clutched in his hand and dripping with blood.

I rolled my eyes at his comment, 'Next time, I'll kill the officer myself.'

'You would not have the bone to do it. You're a just a pretty face and that's what you're good at,' he mocked.

'Just help me undress him,' I replied in annoyance whilst beginning to remove the officer's uniform.

Elek had dark brown locks with a slight curl in it. He had a slim figure with traces a man who had lost his boyhood. He was only 22 years of age yet was bitter and resentful. The war had caused him to grow up too fast. He was an only child and had been the first of his family to be deported to Westerbork transit camp. Every week the cattle wagons departed for Auschwitz. Nobody knew what Auschwitz was, other than it was something to fear. Elek was sceptical of this so called labour camp. Miraculously he escaped and made it back on foot to Amsterdam, but by the time he had arrived his family had already been deported and a new family was living in his home. With no trace of where his parents had been sent, he sought refuge with a family friend who helped him to reach a safe house. Elek could have fled to Switzerland, he was granted the opportunity, but he refused. He had been with the resistance ever since.

'Mieke!' 'Elek!' A cue of voices called out. Palpable excitement buzzed through the room along with the sound of the tinkling of glass on glass as drinks were mixed on. Everyone was already seated around the large timber table, wearing infectious grins, patting one another on their backs and applauding as they exaggerated the deeds they had done in the pass week.

'You're late,' that familiar pretentious voice commented.

Ellis.

My sister.

She was older than I. She made sure I never forgot that. She had a domineering personality. For years I had lived in her shadow, longing to be as bold as her. She was strong-willed and I admired her for it. The only one of my family to have blue eyes like glaciers, ice-cold like they knew no warmth. And they worked to her advantage. She hid her emotions with ease. Many times her facial expressions were impossible to read. But she was beautiful in every way that a man craved a woman. Something radiated within her which made her irresistible. Ellis was well aware of her beauty, she flaunted it. Yet her beauty was also a disadvantage, too much attention could get you killed.

Years ago, soon after the invasion, Ellis had said she was going to visit a friend. She never returned home that day. My parents and I never knew what had happened to her, we had been left in the dark about her whereabouts. We had come to the conclusion she had run away for reasons unknown to us or dead, we refused to believe the latter. Ellis had gone to Britain to be trained into a spy. She was parachuted back in Holland to aid the resistance. She thrived on danger and the unknown. She could walk into a room filled with drunken German officers with fear at the back of her mind, they would not dare have their way with Ellis for it was her who was in power. She was highly practiced at seduction. She had a charm in her voice which would draw you in instantly, yearning for more.

Her duties included sending secret information back to Britain by radio of troop movements, supplies, bunker locations, and new weapons as well as mapping out safe drop points for agents and supplies. Ellis worked in secret majority of the time, most of her duties unknown to the rest of us.

After I had sort refuge with the resistance, our reconnection was bitter sweet. Ellis never regretted her decision although it hurt our family. Upon learning about the fate of our parents, her eyes only glistened for a second before turning back to its rock-hard stony blue.