The Tulip Eaters
In a riveting exploration of the power the past wields over the present, critically acclaimed author Antoinette van Heugten writes the story of a woman whose child’s life hangs in the balance, forcing her to confront the roots of her family’s troubled history in the dark days of World War II…
It’s the stuff of nightmares: Nora de Jong returns home from work one ordinary day to find her mother has been murdered. Her infant daughter is missing. And the only clue is the body of an unknown man on the living-room floor, clutching a Luger in his cold, dead hand.
Frantic to find Rose, Nora puts aside her grief and frustration with the local police to start her own search. But the contents of a locked metal box she finds in her parents’ attic leave her with as many questions as answers—and suggest the killer was not a stranger. Saving her daughter means delving deeper into her family’s darkest history, leading Nora half a world away to Amsterdam, where her own unsettled past and memories of painful heartbreak rush back to haunt her.
As Nora feverishly pieces together the truth from an old family diary, she’s drawn back to a city under Nazi occupation, where her mother’s alliances may have long ago sealed her own—and Rose’s—fate.
The Tulip
Eaters
Antoinette Van Heugten
www.mirabooks.co.uk
This novel is dedicated to my parents, Frans and Lony van Heugten, who fought in the Dutch resistance during World War II.
In their early twenties, they risked their lives for what they believed in. Their spirit and courage has inspired me in every endeavor.
They will always be my heroes.
Contents
PREFACE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
EXCERPT
PREFACE
We have no milk, no bread, no potatoes—just rotten peels. The boys now have to go far into the fields to pull frozen tulip bulbs from the ground. We grind the pulp and make thin soup and watery porridges from them. They are bitter, practically inedible, but we choke them down because otherwise we will starve.
—Anonymous Dutch housewife, circa 1944
During the Hongerwinter in 1944, a railway strike was ordered by the exiled Dutch government to further Allied liberation efforts. The Germans retaliated by placing an embargo on all food transports. Gas and electricity were cut off during one of the harshest winters in history. Potatoes and vegetables were long gone. There was no meat, milk, butter, coffee or sugar and not enough bread to feed one person, let alone a family. There was only one thing left to them in the barren fields.
Tulips.
Four and a half million people were affected by the famine. Over 20,000 starved to death. This represents the nadir of the war—Dutchmen forced to forage and choke down their national flower to stave off starvation. It is one of the great ironies of the Dutch occupation.
1
November, 1980
Nora balanced the grocery bag on one hip and inserted her key into the lock of the door leading from the garage into the house. This was the best moment of every day. Rose. Her beautiful baby—almost six months now. Every little thing she did was a revelation. How she raised her tiny hand to Nora’s face as she held her. How her wide eyes, the deepest of blues, reacted to the slightest change of tenor in Nora’s voice. How the warmth of her small body nestled into Nora’s when she took her into her arms. When she held Rose, Nora didn’t know where her own body ended and her daughter’s began.
“Mom?” she called. No response, but that was normal. This was usually when her mother put Rose into her tiny, ruffled bathing suit and swirled her around in the pool. Moving back from Amsterdam to live with her mother had been a blessing. The thought of Anneke and Rose at home playing while she worked filled her with gratitude—and today was no exception. Contentment warmed her as she thought of the love she and Anneke shared in caring for Rose. Grandmother, mother and child. Life was perfect.
Nora shifted the groceries higher onto her hip and glanced at the pile of mail on the entryway table. Nothing interesting. The newspaper lay open. She scanned the headlines. Iranian Phantoms and F-5 Tiger IIs Attack Iraqi Airfields Near Basra. Nora shook her head. It was already 1980. Would the Middle East ever right itself? Her eyes flicked down the page. Los Angeles, Comedian Richard Pryor Badly Burned Freebasing Cocaine. Big surprise, she thought.
She looked through the living room window and caught a shimmer of water from the pool. Joy flooded her. She would take the groceries into the kitchen and then put on her bathing suit. She couldn’t wait to hold Rose in her arms. Every evening it felt the same—as if she had been gone for days. That first touch of baby skin revived her spirit, calmed her soul.
She stepped into the living room, still holding the groceries. She heard them crash to the floor and then her own scream. “Mom!”
Anneke lay prostrate on the thick white carpet, her beautiful hazel eyes gaping at the ceiling, a single bullet hole through her forehead.
“No!” screamed Nora. She ran into the living room, fell to her knees and feverishly searched for a pulse. Her fingers pressed again and again into the soft skin of her mother’s neck, but there was nothing, nothing! Darkness exploded within her as she stared into Anneke’s vacant eyes. Nora’s heart leaped when she heard ragged breathing, until she realized that it was her own. “Oh, God, Mom!” she moaned.
Nora bent and cupped her mother’s face with shaking hands. As she pressed Anneke’s cold cheek against her own, Nora felt her heart slamming against her ribs, her breath now in hoarse gasps. Moaning, she closed her eyes, hoping wildly that when she opened them, this would all be a nightmare. But when she looked again, all she could see was a sickening stream of dark, ugly blood that ran from the gaping hole in Anneke’s forehead in a jagged path down her pale cheek. Then she released her mother’s face and saw the same slick blood on her own palms. Vomit rose up, but she fought it down. She stared at this face she loved. “Mom,” she whispered, “please, please don’t leave me!”
Half-choking, she looked at the blood on her shaking hands. Then she smelled it—a metallic odor of copper and rust—one she recognized all too well from the operating room. Her own mother’s blood on her hands! Bile rose in her again.
She studied the bullet hole. Scarlet blood had stained her mom’s silver hair, turning it a grisly purple, the flesh around it charred and black. The odor made Nora gag when she realized it smelled like burnt pork.
Moaning, she sat and clutched Anneke’s limp body and rocked her back and forth. Anneke’s slight frame swayed with the movement. Then Nora noticed that her gorgeous gray hair had been hacked off in ugly clumps, leaving stark patches of white scalp. She looked wildly around. Tufts of silver hair all over the carpet—feathers from a bird shot from the sky. “Why?” she cried. “Why would anyone do this to you?”
She drew back to shift her mom’s body onto the carpet. Anneke’s head lolled to one side. Nora screamed. The bullet had blasted a large hole through the back of her head. Nora felt faint. Gray brain matter mixed with blood hung out of Anneke’s skull. Nora tried to push the gray lumps back into her mother’s skull. They felt like buttery worms and smelled like spoiled eggs.
“Mom! Oh, Mom!” Gasping, she saw nothing but the hideous remains of her mother’s head and the slippery blood and brain matter on her own hands. The monstrous sight gripped her. She struggled up onto all fours and heaved waves of green bile onto the white carpet. Then she knelt, taking huge breaths, trying not to pass out. The silence felt endless. She heard only the ticking of the grandfather clock across the room, a relentless metronome to the macabre scene before her.
She roused herself. Her next thought was an iron spike into her brain. “Rose!” she cried. “Where are you?” Adrenaline shot through her as she jumped up and ran to the bassinet. No Rose! She raced into the nursery. The room was dark, the crib empty. “No!” Panic surged within her.
She rushed back into the living room and ran past her mother, desperate to search the other rooms. Running toward her bedroom, her heel caught on the rug and she fell. Pain seared through her right ankle.
Sobbing, she rolled over and found herself face-to-face with a total stranger. A man lay on his stomach, his right arm outstretched. His head was twisted toward her, right cheek pressed into the carpet. She screamed and tried to move away, but her ankle felt on fire. His face was so close that she could have felt his breath on hers—if he were alive. His black eyes looked as dead and cold as her mother’s. Then she saw the gun, dark and sinister, inches away from his outstretched arm and gloved fingers. Nora gasped, her heart in her throat. Who was he? And where, oh God, where was Rose?
She got to her feet, wincing at the pain in her ankle, and rushed into each of the other rooms. “Rose!” she cried. “Rose!” She limped back and knelt by her mother, sobbing. “Where is Rose, Mom? Where is the baby?” She appealed to Anneke as if she could still give Nora an answer. Anneke’s blank, unholy stare never moved from the ceiling. What in God’s name had happened? She rose unsteadily, favoring her ankle. Her body still shook. Who was the dead man? Why had he killed her mother? And Rose? Why would anyone kidnap her baby?
Ignoring the pain in her ankle, she ran to the front door and flung it open. She saw no one in the street, no one in the neatly groomed front yards. “Rose!” she screamed, as if her darling could answer her. She slammed the door and went back inside. Something on the carpet now caught her eye. As she knelt down and picked it up, she moaned. It was Rose’s tiny yellow hair band. Its cheerful flower had been ripped off and lay a few feet away. Then she knew. Rose was really gone. She clutched the flower to her breast and sobbed. One thought now pierced her mind.
Was Rose still alive?
2
Nora limped into the kitchen. As she dialed the operator, her sobs strangled her. Ring. Ring. Ring. “Come on!” she shouted. “Answer the goddamned phone!”
“Operator, may I help you?”
“Yes—please! There’s been a murder, my baby is—”
“I’m putting you through to the police,” said a nasal female voice. “Please stay on the line.”
Nora felt as if an eternity passed before she heard a slow Texas drawl finally come through. “HPD—Brody.”
“Officer—my mother, my baby!” she cried.
“Hang on,” he said soothingly. “What’s the problem?”
“My mother—she’s been murdered!” Terror scrambled her words. “Dead man...on floor...my baby...kidnapped!”
“Slow down now,” he said quietly. “Is the perpetrator still in the house?”
Nora wished she could reach through the line and throttle him. “No!”
“Name?”
“Nora—Nora de Jong.”
“Address?”
“Four eleven Tangley. Get someone here—now! Rose could be anywhere—someone could have killed her....”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said quickly. “I’ll send an officer right over. You sit tight. Don’t touch anything, don’t do anything. You understand?”
Nora sobbed. “Yes, yes! Just please hurry!” She slammed down the receiver. God, what should she do? Call Marijke. Her Dutch girlfriend visiting from Amsterdam was giving a speech at Rice University on European economics. She would help! Nora scrabbled through the notepad on the kitchen counter, finally locating the number Marijke had written down that morning. Her hands trembled so she could barely punch the buttons. With every ring, Nora grew more frantic.
“Professor Sanford’s office,” said a bland female voice. “Miss Mitchell speaking.”
Nora took a deep breath. “I need to speak to Marijke van den Maas immediately.”
There was a pause and then she heard a rustling of paper. “Dr. van den Maas is giving a lecture now. I can’t interrupt her. Are you a student?”
“No, I’m not a student!” Nora could hear her own hysteria. “I’m a friend of Dr. van den Maas’s. This is an emergency!”
“Name?” The woman’s unruffled tone sounded as if students called with emergencies all the time. Stupid, asinine woman!
“Nora de Jong!” Another sob escaped her. “You have to find her and have her call me immediately. My—my mother has been murdered—”
“Oh, my God!” The wooden voice came to life. “Give me your number.”
“She has it,” Nora sobbed. “Hurry, please!”
“Don’t worry, she’s just across the quad. I’ll run over there right now.”
Nora now heard the hollow dial tone. She sat on the kitchen stool, stunned. She could not face going back into the living room. The silence was eerie, malevolent. As if she were in purgatory, suspended in agony. All she could think about was Rose. Rose.
She wrung her hands and struggled to breathe, trying to focus. If the dead man killed Anneke, then who took Rose? There had to have been someone with him. How would the police even begin to find him? Her thoughts darted to horrible scenarios. Rose clutched in the arms of a killer or madman racing down I-10—out of Houston, out of the U.S.—never to be seen again; Rose held for ransom and tortured to scream through the phone; Rose thrown into a Dumpster where she would be eaten by rats; Rose screaming and shaking, her tiny face turning blue while large hands strangled her.
“No!” she told herself fiercely. “Stop it! You don’t know anything. She’s fine, she has to be. They just want money. That’s it, that’s got to be it!” But her words sounded hollow. She shut her eyes to keep away the horrible visions.
After what felt like hours, the phone rang. Nora picked it up on the first ring. “Marijke?”
“What happened?” Nora heard the astonishment in Marijke’s voice. “Your mother—she’s dead?”
“Marijke,” she cried. “Please come home—now! It’s too terrible. My mother’s been murdered—” Then a strangled sob. “Someone took Rose! She’s gone—I can’t find her anywhere!”
Marijke’s voice came through clear and firm, a voice Nora had always trusted. “Listen to me. You have to calm down. Did you call the police?”
“Yes, but they’re not here yet.” She burst into tears.
“Okay, I’m going to talk to you until they get there and then I’ll come right away.”
Nora began sobbing so that her wailing was the only sound she heard.
“Nora?”
“Yes,” she said, feeling faint.
“I’m here,” said Marijke. “Just hang on until the police come.”
Nora took a deep breath. “You’re right. I have to keep it together, for Rose.”
The front doorbell clanged. “They’re here!” Nora dropped the phone and sprang to her feet, forgetting about her ankle. With a sharp cry, she ran to the door. Three officers stood there with grim faces. One stepped forward. He was fortyish, tall and square-jawed, with intense brown eyes and short-cropped hair. No wedding band, but the pale ring of flesh on his left hand showed it had not been long since it had been removed. With his blue suit, white shirt and polished black shoes, Nora thought he looked more like a politician than a policeman.
“Ms. de Jong?” he said. “I’m Lieutenant Richards.”
Nora flung the door wide-open. “Please...please help me!”
Richards nodded at the other two men and walked in. They followed.
“There!” She pointed at the living room. “My mother, that...man on the floor...the gun.” She tried to walk with them into the room, but Richards held her back with one of his large hands.
“I’m going to have to ask you to step aside, ma’am,” he said. “We have to keep the crime scene undisturbed.” He nodded to the two officers. “Gloves and footwear. No moving anything, no touching the bodies.”
Nora wrung her hands and sobbed. “My baby! Someone took her. She’s only six months old!”
Richards took Nora by the shoulders and focused his dark eyes upon hers. “Ms. de Jong, I have to ask you to calm down. I need to get as much information as I can, especially since your daughter appears to have been taken.”
Nora took a deep breath and forced herself to be still.
“That’s better,” he said softly. Nora noticed that he had a tic in his right eye. It distracted her. Was he nervous now or was it something he did all the time?
One of the officers walked over to them. “I radioed the station,” he said. “CSI and the M.E. are on their way.”
Richards nodded and turned back to Nora. “First, is there anyone I can call for you? Your husband? A friend or relative?”
Nora shook her head, her eyes tearing again. “No,” she whispered. “I’ve called my friend who’s visiting from Holland. She’ll be here soon.”
“What about your father?”
“Dead. Three years ago. Cancer.”
“No one else you’d like here with you?”
“No.” There was no one. Since she’d returned to Houston, she’d been swamped with her job and then Rose’s birth. The friends she’d had here had scattered to the winds during the two years she’d been in Amsterdam. Anneke had been her only friend—her best friend.
Richards put on latex gloves and pulled paper booties over his shoes. As he stepped into the living room, Nora saw Marijke walk into the foyer. She stopped and clapped her hands to her mouth as she took in Anneke’s mutilated body and the dead man on the floor. Nora rushed to her and Marijke threw her arms around her. Nora sobbed uncontrollably as she felt Marijke’s comforting grasp tighten. “Nee, nee,” she whispered, “het komt goed—echt waar.” No, thought Nora, it will never be all right! The lilt and accent of her voice sounded so much like Anneke’s that it made Nora cry even harder.
Nora saw Richards cross the room and nod a silent greeting to Marijke. His tic had stopped. “Ladies, I’m afraid you can’t come in here. We have to let the crime investigators do their work—search for evidence while the scene is still fresh.”
Marijke nodded at Richards and took Nora’s arm. “Come with me.”
“No, I have to know if they find anything!”
Richards shook his head at Marijke, who then tugged gently on Nora’s arm and led her through the kitchen to the nursery. Sweet baby smells assaulted Nora as she stepped into the room—the silken scent of baby powder, freshly laundered clothing, one yellow wall covered with photos of Rose.
Nora clutched the empty crib and fell into the rocking chair beside it, shaking. “Who is that monster?” she asked. “And why would he do such a thing?” She looked up at her friend, tears still streaming. “Oh, Marijke, none of this makes any sense! Who took Rose? What has he done with her?”
Marijke knelt in front of her and put her strong hands over Nora’s trembling ones. She looked steadily into her eyes. “Start from the beginning.”
When she finally managed to speak, Nora could hear the frenzy in her voice. “I came home from work and called for Mom— Oh, God...” Marijke squeezed Nora’s hands. “I went into the living room and there she was.” Nora stopped. Telling the story made it too real, but she had no choice. She forced herself to continue, making Marijke’s warm eyes her focal point. “There was blood everywhere. The back of her head, her brains. I...I tried to put them back....”
“Enough,” said Marijke softly. She stood and pulled Nora out of the chair, wrapped her in a warm embrace and let her cry.
When Nora had exhausted herself, she lifted her eyes. Gratitude filled her. “I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here.”
Marijke gave her a small smile. With a firm arm around Nora’s waist, she walked her to the bed. Nora stopped and put her hand in her pocket.
“What is it?” asked Marijke.
Nora handed her the bright yellow headband and its pitifully crumpled flower. Nora felt her stomach turn, rushed to the bathroom and vomited. Using the tiled counter for support, she watched Marijke grab a washcloth and run water over it. Nora closed her eyes and let Marijke gently wipe away her tears. The washcloth felt cold. Nora never wanted to move, never wanted to see what she had seen, never wanted to believe that Rose was gone. She walked back into the nursery, pacing. She spoke in Dutch. “Marijke, they’ve got to find her! I can’t bear it!”
Nora watched Marijke go to the couch and pat a place next to her. “Kom.”
Nora sat down and let Marijke still her trembling hands again. Nora felt some of her strength return. “I have to stop this,” she said firmly. “I can’t help my mother. All I can do is work with the police to find Rose.” She met Marijke’s brown eyes and felt fire in her own. “I just have to believe that Richards and his men will find her.”
Nora stood and stared at the corner of the room. The painting she had begun of Rose rested on an easel, half-finished. Her heart lurched. Would she ever see her again? She felt haunted by Rose’s luminous blue eyes, staring at her from the canvas—so happy, so trusting. She felt as if a limb had been ripped from her body. She smelled Rose’s baby smell, felt the delicious weight of Rose in her arms and the pull of her womb as Rose latched on to her breast. Would she ever feel those things again?
3
After what felt like hours, Richards came into the nursery. “Ms. de Jong? Could you come with me?”
She stood but felt dizzy and stumbled. He caught her. She felt his strong arms around her. When she steadied and he let her go, she yearned for someone she loved to hold her, to shelter her from this torment.
“You all right?” She nodded. He grasped her elbow and led her into the kitchen, avoiding the living room.
Marijke followed and patted Nora’s shoulder. “I’m going to make you a cup of tea,” she whispered.