The Tulip Eaters. Antoinette van Heugten

behind him. Anneke jabbed the gun barrel into the back of his neck. “Run and I’ll kill you.”

      As they neared the foot of the stairs, suddenly Anneke heard the front door open and someone burst into the front hallway. “Papa! Papa, are you here? It’s Ariel!” a man called in Dutch.

      Anneke shoved the barrel into Isaac’s neck—hard. “Don’t move!” she said with deliberate calm. Isaac halted like a marionette whose string had been jerked.

      She heard this Ariel’s voice coming from the dining room. “Papa!”

      “Walk.” Anneke’s voice sounded like the slice of dueling swords as she prodded Isaac with the gun barrel. They crept farther down the back stairway in silent tandem. “Say one word and I’ll kill you both.” He gave her a deadly glare, but obeyed. At the bottom step, Rose slipped on Anneke’s hip and cried out. Isaac whirled around and managed to grab the baby and wrench the Luger out of Anneke’s hand.

      “Rose!” Anneke leaped forward to wrest away the baby, but Isaac grabbed the pistol and shoved her aside. Then he turned and pressed the black barrel into Rose’s pink cheek. The baby twisted and screamed, but Isaac held her fast. Now he smiled.

      “You! Walk here!” His voice was an evil whisper as he pointed the gun at her. “Slowly, very slowly.”

      Horror gripped her as she saw the black pistol sink farther into Rose’s cheek. Then she saw the younger man, Ariel he called himself, on the far side of the room. “Help us!” she pleaded.

      “Papa!” he cried. “Put down the gun!”

      Barely breathing, Anneke continued her careful approach, trying not to hurry, to alert Isaac. But when she was a few feet away, he pressed the barrel against Rose’s temple so hard that the baby screamed. “Stop!” he thundered.

      Anneke halted as he backed away from her. “Isaac!” she screamed. “Don’t!”

      Ariel rushed toward them but stumbled on a small rug. By the time he righted himself, Isaac was on the far side, away from him and Anneke. “Ariel, don’t move!” he shouted.

      “Papa, I can’t let you do this....”

      “Stop right there!” he bellowed, swinging the barrel from Anneke to Rose and back again. “Or pick which one you want to die.”

      “No!” he cried. “Neither!”

      Isaac gave him a hard look. “Why the hell are you here?”

      Out of the corner of her eye, Anneke saw Ariel inch closer to her. She felt a wild hope. Maybe he could stop him!

      “I went to your apartment and couldn’t find you,” he said. “Then I saw the plane reservations and I knew—”

      “Enough! Let me do what I have to do!” He clutched Rose tighter and pressed the barrel to her temple.

      Anneke fell to her knees, sobbing. “You can’t kill her!”

      “Now you will see what it is to watch a member of your family murdered.” His voice was a deadly whisper. “First her, then you.”

      “No, please!” She had to do something. And then it hit her. “Wait—you don’t know!”

      “Oh? And what don’t I know?”

      “The baby...” Anneke choked on her sobs.

      “Spit it out. It will be last thing you say before I kill you both.”

      “Rose, she’s—” Anneke, still choking, uttered her next words. “She’s Abram’s granddaughter.”

      “What?”

      Anneke, racked with sobs, collapsed onto the carpet. “I was pregnant before Abram died,” she whispered. “I had Nora, his daughter....”

      “Get up!” yelled Isaac. “This is just another one of your lies! You’d say anything to save her.”

      Anneke struggled to her feet and stood shaking. She looked at Rose, still writhing in Isaac’s arms. Doomed. My darling Rose is doomed—because of me! And Nora—how will she—

      Suddenly, Ariel sprang over the couch, but when he recovered his balance, Isaac had already taken aim at Anneke. The gunshot roared through the air. Anneke’s body jerked backward as blood spurted from her forehead.

      “No!” shouted Ariel. He ran to her, knelt and felt wildly for a pulse. Her blood sluiced his hands, slick and hot. He looked up at Isaac. “You killed her!”

      Isaac, still holding Rose, dropped the Luger as his knees buckled. Rose tumbled onto the white carpet, still wailing. Ariel saw Isaac’s eyes widen as he clutched at his throat and gasped for air. He fell to his knees, his face contorted.

      Ariel rushed to him and cradled his head, moaning. “Papa? Papa, no!”

      “My heart—” His voice was a strangled whisper. “Medicine...hotel.”

      Frantic, Ariel looked around and then saw the phone on the end table. “I’m going to call for help.” He started to stand.

      Isaac grabbed his son’s arm and pulled him down, spittle foaming at the corners of his mouth. His eyes were fading as color drained from them. “Too late for me,” he whispered. “The baby, take the baby!”

      Ariel sobbed, holding his father close. “Papa, please!”

      Isaac shook his head and held Ariel’s weeping face between his hands. His eyes struck Ariel like an army commander dying in battle. “She’s Abram’s...take her home, raise her Jewish. Promise me!”

      “I can’t do that, Papa!”

      “Yes, you can,” he said hoarsely. “You can and you must.”

      “Please don’t make me!”

      “Promise me!”

      Ariel sobbed. “All right—I promise. I promise!”

      Isaac nodded and dropped his hands from Ariel’s face. A half smile played upon his lips. “Abram...” he whispered.

      Ariel watched as he convulsed and then was still. Ariel thrust his fingers into Isaac’s neck, digging for a pulse. Nothing. “No, no,” he moaned. Ariel stared at him and at Anneke, horrified, until he realized that Rose was twisting on the carpet, howling. Softly sobbing, he picked her up.

      Then he heard the sound of a garage door churning. “Oh, God, what do I do?” He clutched Rose to his chest.

      Then ran as fast as he could.

      5

      Nora stood in the blistering Houston sun at Anneke’s freshly dug grave and watched as her coffin was lowered. The funeral ceremony had been a dreary blur. Her black blouse and skirt, damp and clammy, clung to her like wet leaves. Feeling suffocated, she only half listened as the priest recited the Catholic rite. The priest had never known Nora or her mother. She had had to provide him with the highlights of Anneke’s life so he would have something to say.

      After Hans died, Anneke had stopped going to church. Her mother had never told her why, nor did Nora ask. Nora had gone only for her father. He would have been crushed if she told him that she didn’t believe in the Pope. She still lit a candle for him at St. Anne’s—on his birthday and on the day he died. She tried to pray after lighting the candle. Just sitting in the silence, surrounded by the glow of stained glass that cast down prisms of color, she always felt restored.

      She stared at the coffin in the ground. More candles to light, another dead parent to pray for. Nora glanced around her. It was pitifully sad. She now realized how rarely her parents had strayed outside the world of two they had built and then guarded from outsiders. Other than Marijke, a few colleagues from the hospital stood awkwardly around the grave, telegraphing bleak looks in her direction showing that they were clueless about what to say. How do you comfort the