Deception - WWII Resistance / Holocaust Novel

Chapter 4

The bakery was huddled between a tailor and the furniture merchant, both of them towering over the one storey shop. The windows were grimy and the shelves nearly all empty – no fresh cakes and the aroma of baked bread to beckon one in. The paint was somewhat peeling and the sign fading. It was all a façade. I watched from across the street as the 'closed' sign was flipped in the window. Lotte had made it in.

I had cycled an hour's worth of distance along with Lotte, but some distance apart. Lotte usually made the trip alone, but we had received word a new enormous supply of ration cards had arrived. The bakery owner's daughter worked in the distribution office, she had been stealing sheets of ration cards for months. They had built up a surplus and they gave them to other districts. With the both of us, we would be able to bring back double the amount of ration cards hidden in our baskets to be distributed among those in hiding.

I leaned my bicycle against the wall of a shop and pulled out the last cigarette from the box. I placed it between my lips and began searching for my lighter in my pockets when a black Mercedes 260D parked a few steps away caught my eye. One man in a trench coat sat in the front seat. My stomach shifts uneasily and I involuntarily bit down on the end of my cigarette. I realised I was not the only one watching the bakery. I had no idea how long he had been there. Perhaps it was not the first time.

I had to warn Lotte and the others, but I was not due to enter the bakery until Lotte had left the scene. Inevitably, I would be caught alongside Lotte. My eyes flicked between the 'death mobile' and the bakery, anxiously watching for Lotte's red head. Figures began to appear behind the mucky windows. The glass door began opening and he strained his neck to catch a look at Lotte's face. Without a second thought, I knocked the driver seat's window, making him jump in his seat and blocking his view of the bakery. Confusion and then annoyance washed over his face. I smiled despite his displeasure of my presence, 'Excuse me Sir. Do you perhaps have a lighter?'

'Oh, sure,' he hesitated before reaching into his pocket and flicking his lighter so that it ignited the cigarette between my lips. I stood up straight and inhaled slowly, whilst turning my body to face the bakery. Lotte was gone. I breathed a sigh of relief. But I could not risk going into the bakery, not with him around nor did I have any idea of who else was watching.

'Dank je,' I smiled before grabbing my bicycle and retreating in the opposite direction in which Lotte had left.

Lotte was already cutting and organising the sheets by the time I had made it back. I placed the basket on the table. Lotte stopped and opened the basket only to discover that it was empty.

'Where are the sheets?' she asked with a puzzled expression.

'I didn't get any,' I said flatly.

'I don't understand,' Lotte glances upward, her eyes searching mine for answers. Her mouth was pursed but slightly open and loose.

'There was a man in a black car watching the bakery. I did not know how long he had been there. I couldn't risk it.'

'Shit,' Lotte swore under her breath. 'I have to warn them for next time,' she said as she got up from her chair hurriedly, rushing to the next room to reach the phone.

'Mieke!' I looked up to see Sven standing at the frame of the door.

'Yes,' I answered whilst slowly rising from my seat. 'Is something the matter?'

'I have a job for you,' he motioned for me to follow him into the basement which was once solely used as a wine cellar. It smells musty of cheap beer and cigarettes. A single bare bulb dangles from the ceiling, providing a dim light from above the table. Elek is already slouched in his seat, taking small, slow draws of the cigarette perched between in two fingers. I take my seat beside him and Elek greets me with a nod and a mischievous grin.

Sven slaps a small black and white picture of a blonde haired woman on the table. She appears to be in her thirties, her hair is neatly pinned up back with two curls framing her thin face, her lips pursed in a thin line as she holds her head up high, exposing the gold necklace draped around her neck graced by the fur hung on her shoulders.

I arch a brow, 'Who is she?'

Since I had joined the resistance, my assignments had always concerned German officers or soldiers patrolling the area, but never a woman.

'Maria Hummel,' Sven replies. 'We have reasons to believe she has been working with the Sicherheitsdienst as an informer since the beginning of the war. She's had three Jewish families in hiding arrested last week alone,' Sven states with an ounce of sorrow in his tone. 'We've been observing her home for a month now. Every Monday, around midday, an officer arrives at her home to escort her to the SS headquarters.'

'Does she have a husband?' I inquire.

'Died during the invasion,' Sven replies. 'She lives with her son and a nanny.'

Elek puts out his cigarette in the ashtray and picks up the photo to have a closer look, 'So her husband dies to protect our fatherland and she decides to be a Nazi collaborator?' Elek laughs softly, 'These people make me sick.'

Elek tosses the photo back onto the table, 'Just tell when you want her dead,' he says coolly.

'Mieke will see to that,' states Sven.

I dragged the photograph towards me with my fingertips so that I got a better look, 'You want me to shoot her?'

I tried to mask the nervousness in my voice. It was true, I had never killed a person. I has never taken a life, at least, not directly by my own hands. That is why I had Elek. The others would not give a request to murder the Germans another thought for they had done it numerous times without sympathy. My job had always merely been to lure them into a trap.

'Yes,' Sven looks me squarely in the eye. 'Elek will need to pose as the driver so as to not draw any suspicion.'

'She's never shot a gun before,' Elek bites, obviously annoyed he won't be the one to execute the plan.

'Then you will show her!' Sven stands up. 'It may not be clear now, but my reasons behind this will be make sense in due time,' he turns to face me. 'Do you accept Mieke?'

I stare in Sven's eyes, it as though he is pleading for me to not let him down, as though I have something to prove, to prove that I am capable and that he is not wrong.

'Yes,' I nod.

'Goed.'

A/N Sorry for the rushed chapter, I felt the urge to rewrite this part and take the story in a different direction from what I originally intended. I've also started a new story The English Patient if anyone is interested in checking it out.