The Hiding Place

SAMPLE

I was running, past others like me and some who were total opposites, down the Damrak, hearing the heavy footsteps behind me.  They didn’t march in unison as such; they weren’t that well trained, but rather jogged in some sort of homogeny, heels clicking a hundred times per second, indistinct cloth and rough leather rustling as though entities of their own.  I ran and ran, searching not for salvation, but for an escape, hoping to live another day, to stay in this place and time and not be carted off to some puzzling terror that would make me forgotten; so much history.

I took a right and ran, nay, bolted for the canal which snaked its way from behind the train station and flowed silently onwards to its destination.  I had never seen so much of the grand city of Amsterdam as I had seen in these last few months.  The small side streets, the deserted café’s, the bustling ‘brown’ pubs were full of sympathisers and lovers of the invading forces.  But it was the streets that made me weep for what was happening to my homeland.  It was the emptiness of those faces I saw on my escapes that emphasised for me that those who were exempt from a normal life were those who had no choice.

I would have cried had I the time.

I took a swift right turn to the west of the city, heading away from the station where I’d been spotted, and ran past a butcher’s shop, empty and dusty with woodchips.  There was a grain store where surreptitious business was being conducted at a large mahogany counter and a café where the outside tables were bereft of patronage.  I found my hiding place, a sewer entrance where rats were usually my only companions, and slunk in.

That was when I came face to face with my first true enemy, and my first true friend.

“Get out of here.  This is my place.  Go.  Now”

I didn’t know what to say.  The woman who was stuffed deep within the sewer, and it was a woman by the voice, was down further than I had ever dared to hide.  She was down where the water bubbled and gurgled and the rats swam, and she was denying me refuge in my own hiding place, the place in which I had concealed myself so many times before.  I shuffled towards her, feeling the sludge and muck below my fingers grow deeper the further down I went.  The smell grew more pungent down here also, assaulting my sense of smell with something akin to rape.  I could feel myself gag, but refused to show even the slightest sign of weakness.  This was my place, after all, and in no way was I going to be chased out.

I moved closer and in the gloom, for there was only a small square of light this far down, I saw pale hands shoot out from the darkness and attempt to push me away.  Had I never smoked I don’t know what I would have done.

I pulled out my cigarette lighter from my coat pocket, the old fashioned kind that used fuel and a wick, and flicked it a few times to lighten the area around us.  Immediately the sewer lit up and the frightened face of the young woman came into focus, a pale moon against the black slime of the wall.

“You’ll get me caught,” she hissed and glared at me with eyes that were narrow and wicked.

I could tell by her features she was what the troops called ‘unclean’; small eyes, large nose, naturally dark hair, and I didn’t even have to look at the band decorated with the golden Star of David on her arm.  She was no older than twenty years of age, and I couldn’t help but wonder where her family was; parents, siblings; extended groups of cousins, aunts and uncles.  It was well known that their kind held the entire family in high regard and now that times were tough, to use an understatement, whole groups of them lived together, always in fear, always paused on the brink of running and hiding.

Why was she cowering here alone?

I dared not ask.

I pointed to the pink triangle on my lapel, the one I had been forced to wear by the invading forces.  I was ignorant to the fact that she would understand.

“I’m a friend, really,” I said as plaintive as I could.  But upon seeing my mark she hissed even more and retreated further into the shadows.  The lighter was growing hot in my hand, and as the marching outside grew louder I let the light go out.  Most of the soldiers were stupid, no more than farm boys drafted in to fight their masters cause, but some were cannier than given credit for and they often stuck their heads into dark and stinking places to seek out the frightened and weak.

“What’s your name?” I whispered.

At first she was silent, and I could almost feel the fear emanating from her body as the small square of light dimmed and flickered with the shadows of battered, leather boots.  The noise was unbearable, echoing around our tight enclosure like a portent of our secular doom, a hundred steps amplified a hundred times.

We froze, and in the darkness I wanted to reach out to her, to grasp her arm, not in kinship, but as a companion in fear.  If we shared one thing at that moment it was all-out terror.

Eventually she muttered something, and I thought, ‘what a beautiful name,’ before realising she was not being completely honest.  Apparently her name was Righteous.

And mine was Sin.