There Is No Coincidence

My mother, as well as my father, had all the symptoms that go with starvation. The deep set eyes, surrounded by dark facial outlines, would stare at me in blank despondency momentarily. She worried when she would say, "Jan, I don't understand. That cape is too light for so late in the evening. During the day you wear your heavy winter coat, why not at night?"

"But mama, I'm just going around the corner to talk to Kees for a while. If I had to stand in line for hours, I'd wear my heavy coat. I'm dying of boredom, it's so quiet in the house with nothing to do."

"You should not be out after curfew at all," she would advise as she was sitting there trying to darn some socks for the umpteenth time with wool she had pulled from one of her sweaters.

Occasionally, on a clear day, I would help her wring out the bedsheets that she'd swished around in the tub, filled with cold water. There was no soap, but the sun would bleach the sheets on the line. The skin on her arms was like the laundry on the line, hanging loosely over the bones.

I was itching to tell her what had happened to me a short time ago, but I couldn't.

She would pull out all stops and try to make me stop my dangerous work. But even if I stopped at that time, I would remain as vulnerable as before. Should either my mother or father be made to talk, they would have to acknowledge the fact that their son was involved in 'treachery'. They would then be shipped off to a concentration camp for not telling the Germans that they knew what I had been doing. I would be picked up, shot, or sent to Germany.

What I was itching to tell her was about the evening Jan, my neighbor, and I were late getting home. There had been a delay because for hours there had not been electricity to run the printing press. Racing against time...

We found the bridge closed to road traffic. Amsterdam has more bridges than Venice. So, there's always that chance that you either look at a section of road surface in a vertical position or, if you have to wait on the other side of the canal, you look at the heavy girders that support the bridge deck.

As far as the eye could see, to either side of the bridge, a string of flatboats was transporting airplane parts through the canal. It would be a long wait, because the only other bridge that would link us with the part of town we wanted to be in was also open for bridge traffic.

It was one of those dismal, dreary evenings when it was not even drizzling, but tiny droplets clung to all exposed surfaces and soaking them. The sleeve of the jacket you wanted to wipe your brow with was as wet as your face.

People were staring at us. We were standing in the middle of a long line of bikers who had not made it home before curfew time. We were the only ones with bicycle bags bulging with something.

I was wearing long trousers that evening because I had a pistol strapped to each leg, just like Jan. In the eerie quiet, I worried that you could see the outline against the trouser legs. Would one of those men follow us home, thinking the bags were full of food?

All at once the silence was torn to shreds by a shrieking siren. A loud motor announced the Green Police, a brutal and fanatic detachment of the German occupation forces. They derived their name from the green uniforms they wore. They raced to the bridge barricade and stopped with squealing tires.

Immediately a group of soldiers jumped out, splitting into two groups. There was no escape possible. One group started from the back and the other from the front. They demanded to see identification papers and poked at people and packages with their rifles.

I was so terrified that I was sure they could see it in my face although I leaned nonchalantly against my bike. My heart was pounding so that either it could be heard or seen against my coat.

From the cabin where the bridge could be manipulated electrically, the attendant had seen what was going on. From where he obtained the nerve I will never know, but he ran out his door, demanding to see the commanding officer.

"What is going on here, checking all those people? Of course most of them will not have suitable papers to be out after curfew. They have been waiting for more than half an hour for those stupid flatboats to go by. You go see for yourself."

The officer did... then, with his whistle, he recalled his men. In their brazen way they clambered back into the armored vehicle, turned around, raced off, siren blasting away.

Hours later I was still so shaky that I fumbled with the papers under my cape. I could not keep my fingers under control, nearly losing the whole bundle at one point.

Was it just luck, I pondered, that I was on the side of the canal where the bridge attendant could bluff the Green Police officer? That we were standing near the middle of the row of waiting bicycle riders? It was not until several decades later that I came up with some possible answers.

Jan Heytze has had various careers, serving in the Dutch Air Force, managing railroad dining cars throughout Europe, operating a truck stop in Montana, and teaching high school in southern Arizona. He has recently translated the Sugrue biography of Edgar Cayce, THERE IS A RIVER, into the Dutch language. At present, he is a practicing hypnotherapist and leads an Edgar Cayce study group.

The above excerpt from his autobiography, THE CURVE IN THE ROAD, describes some of his experiences with the Dutch Resistance in World War II. I am grateful to him for giving me permission to republish a portion of this important work here.