“I can see that,” Anne answers flatly. But suddenly something’s off. Through the dizziness she sees that it’s not Margot helping her stand, it’s the boy with the straw-blond hair. “Can you walk?” he asks her.
“I don’t know. Yes, I think. Is my bicycle damaged?”
The lorry driver is a middle-aged Dutchman in a frayed cap, with callused hands and thick jowls. He lifts her bicycle to perform an examination. “Looks like the tire burst. And—I don’t know—fender’s a little bent. But it’s not hard to fix. If you’re not too bad off, I can put the bike in the rear of the lorry and take you to your house,” he volunteers. “Where do you live?”
“In the Jekerstraat,” says Anne. “But my father’s office is just around the corner in the Prinsengracht.”
“That’ll do. Hold on.” And as the driver makes room in the back of his lorry for the bicycle, Anne cannot help but be aware of the strength of the blond boy’s arms and the salty aroma of his sweat.
“I saw you standing by the canal,” she tells him.
“Did you? I saw you fall off your bicycle.”
“I’m sure I can walk,” she declares, though she’s not sure that she wants to. Not just yet. Her leg does hurt, that’s true. And maybe she’s not quite ready to give up the weightless feeling of her body hung in the boy’s half embrace.
“You smell nice,” the boy offers, and Anne looks up at him, surprised. There’s a kind of pale statement of fact in his eyes. The driver returns, yanking open the passenger door with a creak of hinges, and he and the boy load her into the passenger seat. The boy shuts the door behind her and steps away, hands stuffed back into his pockets.
The window is rolled down. Anne hooks her elbow over the door and leans her head out. “Your name is Raaf,” she tells him.
“And yours is Anne,” the boy answers.
“Why did you vanish?”
“I didn’t vanish. I’m standing right here.”
“But at the warehouse. You stopped showing up. Was it because of what I did?”
The boy almost grins. “Well. Usually when I wanna get bit, I steal a bone from a dog.”
“I’m sorry.”
The driver hops into the seat beside her and slams his door shut before revving the engine.
“Will you come back to work?” she asks the boy.
He shakes his head. “Nah. I got another job at a brewery house in the Lindengracht.”
“But don’t you miss the smell of the spices?”
“Never thought about it,” the boy replies.
“Still, you’re hanging about,” she says, surprised by her own desire to flirt. “There must be something you miss about the place,” Anne calls to him as the driver throttles the lorry into gear and shifts it forward. “I wonder what it could be?” she shouts out over the noise.
• • •
It’s one of the warehousemen who helps her up the leg-breaking stairs. He’s a short, stocky old snuiter whose name is Dekker, but the rest of the men call him “Duimen”—Thumbs—because he’s so well known for dropping everything he picks up. “Don’t you worry, though, little miss, I won’t drop you,” he tells Anne. He’s also known as a bit of a schapenkop, a sad sack. A Simple Simon with room in his noggin for only one thought at a time. His smile is full of gaps, and his breath stinks badly of shag tobacco, but Anne can tell that he is trying to be kind to her, and so she does her best to arrange her face in an appreciative expression. At the top of the stairs, he knocks respectfully at the office door before pushing it open and calling out, “Halloo!”
Miep is back, and she stands up suddenly from her desk. “Oh, my heavens, what’s happened?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing. Really, I’m fine,” Anne responds to the note of emergency.
“The little miss took a spill on her bicycle,” Duimen reports diligently.
Miep is already across the floor assisting him in the minor burden of Anne’s weight. “Let’s get her in the chair, please, Mr. Dekker.”
“Really, it’s just a scrape. Oww!” Anne yelps when she must bend her knee to sit.
At this point Mrs. Zuckert returns to the room. “And what’s happened here?” she demands blankly, a thick binder in her arms.
Miep pretends for a moment that she is deaf, inspecting the damage, leaving poor Duimen to respond, cap in his hands. “The little miss took a spill,” he repeats with a trickle of anxiety this time. “From her bicycle,” he adds, so as not to omit any significant detail.
Only now does Miep look up. “Mrs. Zuckert, there’s a first-aid kit in the kitchen. The top drawer just under the sink. Would you mind? I think a bandage and some iodine are in order.”
Mrs. Zuckert listens to this but remains where she is. “What about the bicycle?” she asks Duimen.
“Missus?”
“Is it badly damaged?”
“Oh, uh. No. I think it’s not. The fender maybe, but I’m sure I can hammer it back into shape without much of a fuss.”
“Good,” Mrs. Zuckert approves. “Bicycles are impossible to replace.” Only now does she turn back to Miep, who is sharing a glare of amazement with Anne. “Bandage and iodine. Top drawer under the sink,” Mrs. Zuckert repeats, and then exits the room.
“Incredible,” Anne whispers. “As long as the bicycle is fine, only then is it permitted to tend to my wound.”
“I’m not quite sure that this qualifies as a wound, Anne.” Miep is arranging a chair to act as a footstool. “More like a knee scrape. But you should keep it straight,” she instructs before turning to dismiss Duimen. “Thank you, Mr. Dekker,” she informs the man. “You’ve been very helpful.”
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Dekker,” Anne says, joining in, and Duimen is relieved to return to his toothless smile, giving a nod and flapping his cap back onto his bald head. “No trouble, miss,” he tells Anne. “You just be careful now,” he says, and out he goes, tromping noisily down the stairs.
“What exactly happened?” Miep wants to know.
“I’m not sure. My tire burst, and I slipped off the curb. Or maybe it was the other way around.”
“No, I don’t mean that,” Miep says, her voice dropping ever so slightly. “I mean here. With Mrs. Zuckert.”
Anne feels her jaw go rigid. “Why do you ask?”
“Because she says you threw a fit and stormed out when she tried to give you work.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Well, then, what did happen?”
But the words are suddenly stuck in Anne’s throat, and before she can possibly unstick them, Mrs. Zuckert has returned with the first-aid kit and a glass of something. “First-aid kit requisitioned,” she reports to Miep, and then extends the glass to Anne. “Here. Drink this.”