The Dutch Nurse

Mijn liefste Pieter,

The walls are cold and the food is thin, but I have your face in my memory and that is enough.

I am writing this in the dark, by the light of a crack under the door. They took my watch, my shoes, my hairpins. They did not take my mind. They did not take the sound of your voice. They did not take the memory of your hands on my skin. They can take my body, but they cannot take what is in here — and what is in here is you.

The guard is a weak man. I saw it in his eyes the moment he came for me: he is afraid. Not of me, but of himself. I gave him my wedding ring — the thin gold band you placed on my finger in the church on Keizersgracht. He said he would post the letter. I do not know if he will keep his word. But I had to try. I had to speak to you one last time.

They ask me questions every day. They want names. They want addresses. They want the location of the safehouses. I tell them nothing. I am a nurse. I have held dying men in my arms. I have seen blood and bone and the last breath leave a body. A German interrogation room does not frighten me. Only the thought of never seeing you again frightens me.

Do you remember the tulips in our garden? The red ones you planted the spring we met, and the white ones your mother gave us for the wedding? I think of them when I close my eyes. I imagine them swaying in the wind, their faces turned toward the sun. I imagine you kneeling in the dirt, your hands black with soil, your smile wide and warm.

If I do not come home, plant tulips every year. Red ones, for love. White ones, for peace.

I want you to live. I want you to find joy. I want you to walk through the Vondelpark on a Sunday morning and feel the sun on your face. I want you to drink coffee at that little café on the Prinsengracht and watch the boats pass. I want you to remember me, but not with sadness — with gratitude. We had a beautiful love. Brief, yes. But beautiful.

I am not afraid. I have done what I could. I loved you. I loved my country. I loved life. That is more than they can take from me.

When they told me I would be shot, something strange happened. I felt a kind of peace. Because I knew that every moment I lived, I lived fully. Every breath I took, I took for something good. Every person I helped — every airman I saved, every family I hid — carried a piece of my heart with them.

And you, Pieter, carried all of it.

I kiss you in my mind. I hold you in my heart. I wait for you in the place where the tulips bloom forever.

Yours,

Liesbeth

Alsjeblieft, vergeet me niet. But if you must, forgive yourself.