Number the Stars - Lois Lowry [37]
But even that was not to be for Peter. The Nazis refused to return the bodies of the young men they shot at Ryvangen. They simply buried them there where they were killed, and marked the graves only with numbers.
Later, Annemarie had gone to the place with her parents and they had laid flowers there, on the bleak, numbered ground. That night, Annemarie's parents told her the truth about Lise's death at the beginning of the war.
"She was part of the Resistance, too," Papa had explained. "Part of the group that fought for our country in whatever ways they could."
"We didn't know," Mama added. "She didn't tell us. Peter told us after she died."
"Oh, Papa!" Annemarie cried. "Mama! They didn't shoot Lise, did they? The way they did Peter, in the public square, with people watching?" She wanted to know, wanted to know it all, but wasn't certain that she could bear the knowledge.
But Papa shook his head. "She was with Peter and others in a cellar where they held secret meetings to make plans. Somehow the Nazis found out, and they raided the place that evening. They all ran different ways, trying to escape.
"Some of them were shot," Mama told her sadly. "Peter was shot, in the arm. Do you remember that Peter's arm was bandaged, and in a sling, at Lise's funeral? He wore a coat over it so that no one would notice. And a hat, to hide his red hair. The Nazis were looking for him."
Annemarie didn't remember. She hadn't noticed. The whole day had been a blur of grief. "But what about Lise?" she asked. "If she wasn't shot, what happened?"
"From the military ear, they saw her running, and simply ran her down."
"So it was true, what you said, that she was hit by a ear."
"It was true," Papa told her.
"They were all so young," Mama said, shaking her head. She blinked, closed her eyes for a moment, and took a long, deep breath. "So very, very young. With so much hope."
Now, remembering Lise, Annemarie looked from the balcony down into the street. She saw that below, amid the music, singing, and. the sound of the churchbells, people were dancing. It brought back another memory, the memory of Lise so long ago, wearing the yellow dress, dancing with Peter on the night that they announced their engagement.
She turned and went to her bedroom, where the blue trunk still stood in the corner, as it had all these years. Opening it, Annemarie saw that the yellow dress had begun to fade; it was discolored at the edges where it had lain so long in folds.
Carefully she spread open the skirt of the dress and found the place where Ellen's necklace lay hidden in the pocket. The little Star of David still gleamed gold.
"Papa?" she said, returning to the balcony, where her father was standing with the others, watching the rejoicing crowd, She opened her hand and showed him the necklace. "Can you fix this? I have kept it all this long time. It was Ellen's."
Her father took it from her and examined the broken clasp. "Yes," he said. "I can fix it. When the Rosens come home, you can give it back to Ellen."
"Until then," Annemarie told him, "I will wear it myself."
Afterword
How much of Annemarie's story is true? I know I will be asked that. Let me try to tell you, here, where fact ends and fiction begins.
Annemarie Johansen is a child of my imagination, though she grew there from the stories told to me by my friend Annelise Platt, to whom this book is dedicated, who was herself a child in Copenhagen during the long years of the German occupation.
I had always been fascinated and moved by Annelise's descriptions not only of the personal deprivation that her family and their neighbors suffered during those years, and the sacrifices they made, but even more by the greater picture she drew for me of the courage and integrity of the Danish people under the leadership of the king they loved so much, Christian X.
So I created little Annemarie and her family, set them down in a Copenhagen apartment on a street where I have walked myself, and imagined their life there against the real events