Germans, up there in the planes, caught in the fist of the giant evil loose in Germany. I looked at my sister kneeling beside me in the light of burning Holland. âOh Lord,â I whispered, âlisten to Betsie, not me, because I cannot pray for those men at all.â
And it was then that I had the dream. It couldnât have been a real dream because I was not asleep. But a scene was suddenly and unreasonably in my mind. I saw the Grote Markt, half a block away, as clearly as though I were standing there, saw the town hall and St. Bavoâs and the fish mart with its stair-stepped facade.
Then as I watched, a kind of odd, old farm wagonâold fashioned and out of place in the middle of a cityâcame lumbering across the square pulled by four enormous black horses. To my surprise I saw that I myself was sitting in the wagon. And Father too! And Betsie! There were many others, some strangers, some friends. I recognized Pickwick and Toos, Willem and young Peter. All together we were slowly being drawn across the square behind those horses. We couldnât get off the wagon, that was the terrible thing. It was taking us awayâfar away, I feltâbut we didnât want to go. . . .
âBetsie!â I cried, jumping up, pressing my hands to my eyes. âBetsie, Iâve had such an awful dream!â
I felt her arm around my shoulder. âWeâll go down to the kitchen where the light wonât show, and weâll make a pot of coffee.â
The booming of the bombs was less frequent and farther away as Betsie put on the water. Closer by was the wail of fire alarms and the beep of the hose trucks. Over coffee, standing at the stove, I told Betsie what I had seen.
âAm I imagining things because Iâm frightened? But it wasnât like that! It was real. Oh Betsie, was it a kind of vision?â
Betsieâs finger traced a pattern on the wooden sink worn smooth by generations of ten Booms. âI donât know,â she said softly. âBut if God has shown us bad times ahead, itâs enough for me that He knows about them. Thatâs why He sometimes shows us things, you knowâto tell us that this too is in His hands.â
F OR FIVE DAYS Holland held out against the invader. We kept the shop open, not because anyone was interested in watches, but because people wanted to see Father. Some wanted him to pray for husbands and sons stationed at the borders of the country. Others, it seemed to me, came just to see him sitting there behind his workbench as he had for sixty years and to hear in the ticking clocks a world of order and reason.
I never opened my workbench at all but joined Betsie making coffee and carrying it down. We brought down the portable radio, too, and set it up on the display case. Radio was Haarlemâs eyes and ears and very pulse-rate, for after that first night, although we often heard planes overhead, the bombing never came so close again.
The first morning over the radio came instructions that ground-floor windows must be taped. Up and down the Barteljorisstraat, shop owners were out on the sidewalk; there was an unaccustomed neighborhood feel as advice, rolls of adhesive, and tales of the nightâs terror passed from door to door. One store owner, an outspoken anti-Semite, was helping Weil the Jewish furrier put up boards where a pane of glass had shaken loose. The optician next door to us, a silent, withdrawn individual, came over and taped the top of our display window where Betsie and I could not reach.
A few nights later the radio carried the news we dreaded: the Queen had left. I had not cried the night of the invasion but I cried now, for our country was lost. In the morning the radio announced tanks advancing over the border.
And suddenly all of Haarlem was in the streets. Even Father, whose daily stroll was as predictable as his own clock chimes, broke his routine to go walking at the unheard-of hour of 10:00 a.m. It was as
And it was then that I had the dream. It couldnât have been a real dream because I was not asleep. But a scene was suddenly and unreasonably in my mind. I saw the Grote Markt, half a block away, as clearly as though I were standing there, saw the town hall and St. Bavoâs and the fish mart with its stair-stepped facade.
Then as I watched, a kind of odd, old farm wagonâold fashioned and out of place in the middle of a cityâcame lumbering across the square pulled by four enormous black horses. To my surprise I saw that I myself was sitting in the wagon. And Father too! And Betsie! There were many others, some strangers, some friends. I recognized Pickwick and Toos, Willem and young Peter. All together we were slowly being drawn across the square behind those horses. We couldnât get off the wagon, that was the terrible thing. It was taking us awayâfar away, I feltâbut we didnât want to go. . . .
âBetsie!â I cried, jumping up, pressing my hands to my eyes. âBetsie, Iâve had such an awful dream!â
I felt her arm around my shoulder. âWeâll go down to the kitchen where the light wonât show, and weâll make a pot of coffee.â
The booming of the bombs was less frequent and farther away as Betsie put on the water. Closer by was the wail of fire alarms and the beep of the hose trucks. Over coffee, standing at the stove, I told Betsie what I had seen.
âAm I imagining things because Iâm frightened? But it wasnât like that! It was real. Oh Betsie, was it a kind of vision?â
Betsieâs finger traced a pattern on the wooden sink worn smooth by generations of ten Booms. âI donât know,â she said softly. âBut if God has shown us bad times ahead, itâs enough for me that He knows about them. Thatâs why He sometimes shows us things, you knowâto tell us that this too is in His hands.â
F OR FIVE DAYS Holland held out against the invader. We kept the shop open, not because anyone was interested in watches, but because people wanted to see Father. Some wanted him to pray for husbands and sons stationed at the borders of the country. Others, it seemed to me, came just to see him sitting there behind his workbench as he had for sixty years and to hear in the ticking clocks a world of order and reason.
I never opened my workbench at all but joined Betsie making coffee and carrying it down. We brought down the portable radio, too, and set it up on the display case. Radio was Haarlemâs eyes and ears and very pulse-rate, for after that first night, although we often heard planes overhead, the bombing never came so close again.
The first morning over the radio came instructions that ground-floor windows must be taped. Up and down the Barteljorisstraat, shop owners were out on the sidewalk; there was an unaccustomed neighborhood feel as advice, rolls of adhesive, and tales of the nightâs terror passed from door to door. One store owner, an outspoken anti-Semite, was helping Weil the Jewish furrier put up boards where a pane of glass had shaken loose. The optician next door to us, a silent, withdrawn individual, came over and taped the top of our display window where Betsie and I could not reach.
A few nights later the radio carried the news we dreaded: the Queen had left. I had not cried the night of the invasion but I cried now, for our country was lost. In the morning the radio announced tanks advancing over the border.
And suddenly all of Haarlem was in the streets. Even Father, whose daily stroll was as predictable as his own clock chimes, broke his routine to go walking at the unheard-of hour of 10:00 a.m. It was as
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