No Greater Love (13 page)

“Yes,” she begged, clenching the edge of the bed as a powerful contraction swept over her.

He wiped her face with a wet washcloth and held a cup of ice chips to her dry lips. “Have you told your doctor that you want to have pain medication?”

“I did, but they don’t approve of it here. They say childbirth is a natural thing,” Janan croaked. As the next contraction, stronger and longer lasting, seized her, she cried out, “I don’t think I can do this.”

“I am going to help you turn on your side after this contraction ends and I will rub your back very hard. It will help.”

“I can’t turn.” She sobbed, trembling all over. “I can’t move.”

“You don’t have to do anything. I’ll help you.”

“Ah, that feels so good,” she murmured as she felt his hand pressing firmly against her lower back. “How do you know what to do?”

“Remember, I had an obstetrical rotation in Dallas.” He continued rubbing although his arms ached and his thoughts flashed back to the endless hours in steamy hot labor rooms.

As another powerful contraction seized her, Janan whispered a plea for her mother, “
Anne
.”

Pieter moved closer and said, “You are doing fine.” He hesitated, and then unable to help himself, he added softly, “
Iyi, Iyi, Sevgilim.”

Janan clung to his words. He had called her his darling.

Pieter took a thin ice cube between his fingers and held it to her dry lips as he said hoarsely, “The contractions are lasting almost 60 seconds and are less than three minutes apart. I’ve asked them to notify your doctor that you need the epidural. Now!”

As another contraction gripped her, Janan, trembling and her eyes dilated, sobbed, “I can’t do this, I can’t.”

Pieter put his arms around her. “Lean on me,
Askim
. Help will be here in a minute, and soon, it will be over.”

She let her head drop to his shoulder as she cradled his words to her heart,
Askim
, my love. For this fragile moment within the safety of the Turkish language, he had told her that he loved her. It would have to last her a lifetime.

After the anesthetist had given the epidural, the obstetrician glanced at Pieter and raised an eyebrow. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Pieter met his gaze without flinching. “I am Dr. Pieter Bentinck. She did not have a doula and I offered my help.”

With a noncommittal grunt, the obstetrician said, glancing at his team of assistants, “We’re about to deliver twins but you may stand at the head of the table if you like.”

Twins!
Pieter glanced at Janan for permission to stay, and when she nodded, he pulled a linen handkerchief from his pocket and wiped her forehead. “It will be over soon.”

As the obstetrician prepared to deliver the babies, Pieter was startled to hear Janan reminding the doctor that she had made arrangements to have the umbilical cord blood of both babies saved and frozen. His mind whirled.
Why was she insisting on having the cord blood frozen? Did she fear that the babies might need a stem cell transplant in the future?

Unable to help himself, Pieter slumped against the wall as he heard the doctor telling Janan that she had a beautiful baby girl and then a few minutes later that she had a fine son. He felt drained of all energy. He had given everything to help her and now it was over. He managed to push himself erect as the nurse approached the head of the table with a baby in her arms.

“Your daughter,” she said to Janan.

“Barina,” Janan murmured, holding the tiny body close. “Her name is Barina.

Unable to help himself, Pieter had moved to stand beside Janan and now was speechless, entranced by the tiny baby girl with the dark hair and eyelashes and the finely chiseled lips of her mother.

“Your son, Mevrouw,” the nurse said as she tucked a tiny baby into Janan’s other arm.

“Tomas,” she said firmly as she gazed at her son and then glanced up to meet Pieter’s eyes.

“This is Tomas.”

He nodded and turned to the other baby, with a broad forehead and square chin punctuated by a tiny cleft. He cleared his throat and said formally as he shrugged into his jacket, “My congratulations, Mevrouw, Janan. You have two beautiful children. I wish you all happiness.” He backed toward the door. The finality of her soft reply, “Thank you, Pieter Effendibey,” broke his heart.

Shaking with fatigue and drained of all emotion, Pieter drove to Carl’s home.
He would collect his mother, drive back to Amsterdam, and block out the memory of this night for all time. Janan was married, a mother. She was lost to him.

It was Carl who answered his knock on the door and, as soon as Pieter saw his long, narrow face with its pointed chin, a vision of the baby boy’s broad forehead and square chin with its tiny cleft flashed in his mind. In that moment he knew that the babies he had just seen were not Carl’s.

They were his!

Anguish burned through Pieter as he stared at his mother standing beside Carl. Without waiting for either of them to speak, he raged, “You’ve robbed me of my children. I’ll never forgive you.”

There was little traffic on the road as Pieter drove back to Amsterdam, his thoughts blacker than the night.
He had lost everything.
Was there any way out? Any way he could have Janan and his children? Could he ask her to leave Carl? Could he go to court to claim his children?
He clenched his teeth against the churning nausea threatening to overwhelm him.
Could he put Janan through such a painful process?
Another thought claimed him.
Janan had said that she had spent her early years taking care of her ill parents, that the caretaking had robbed her of part of her life. He might never achieve remission. If so, he faced a lengthy, debilitating illness.
As he edged the car into a parking slot in front of his mother’s house he knew that he could not put Janan through that, but there was one thing he could do. He could move out of his mother’s house, tonight.

Chapter 11

“You have a message from your uncle.”

The secretary’s words startled Pieter as he walked into his office. “My uncle?” He scowled, hanging up his hat and raincoat. “I don’t have an uncle.”

“He said that he was Maarten Bentinck, your uncle. He asked that you come as soon as possible.”

Pieter lowered himself into the chair behind his desk as his mind raced.
His grandfather’s older brother, Maarten Bentinck, the family recluse who had cut off all contact with the family nearly seventy years ago, had contacted him? But they had never even met. Why would he be contacting him now?
“Was that all of the message?”

“Yes. He left his phone number and asked me to write down his address.” She passed him a slip of paper with a faintly questioning look.

Of course she was curious. Why wouldn’t he know his uncle’s address?
“Thank you.” He glanced at his watch. He did not have any appointments until early afternoon. “I will be back by one.”

The timelessness of the old homes on the Leidsegracht Canal soothed Pieter as he walked slowly looking for his uncle’s home.
The houses had endured wars, ravagement, and tragedies, and yet they stood in stalwart tribute to their families’ tenacity, their will to survive.
He paused in front of an elegant four-story red brick house with beige stone rococo trim and a stepped-gable roof and checked the slip of paper again. Slowly he climbed the six wide, shallow steps leading up to the massive carved oak door with its large fanlight flanked by two tall windows on each side with similar fanlights. He squared his shoulders and rang the bell. When an elderly woman, wearing a gray dress with her hair in a neat bun, answered the door, he said, “I am Pieter Bentinck.”

“
Goedemorgen. Mijn Jonkheer
.” She opened the door as though he was expected and motioned for him to enter.

As he followed her into a black-and-white tiled hall with many doors opening off of it, he turned her words over in his mind. Vaguely, he recalled his grandfather saying that the family was part of the
Adel
, the Dutch nobility, but
Jonkheer
was a courtesy title used for the eldest son, and he was definitely not that.

She motioned for Pieter to give her his hat and coat and then, after tapping lightly on one of the doors, swung it open for him to enter a lofty library paneled in African mahogany that had aged to a deep brown with a reddish sheen. The walls were lined with glass-fronted bookcases. A heavy oak bulbous-legged library table covered with a vintage Turkish kilm and surrounded by sturdy oak armchairs with nail-studded brown leather seats occupied the center of the room. A massive blue-tiled fireplace dominated the wall facing the door. In front of the fireplace, a tall, gaunt man with sparse white hair and piercing dark-gray eyes sat erect in a black leather armchair, a gleaming cane of finest Sumatran Malacca at his side. He swept one quick appraising look over Pieter, nodded in satisfaction, and used the cane to motion him to a similar chair on the other side of the fireplace where a large, round iron fire-holder gave off a warming flow of heat.

“I am your Uncle Maarten.” He frowned as he corrected himself. “Your Great-Uncle Maarten.” He searched Pieter’s face from under heavy eyebrows. “You will call me Maarten. It’ll save time. Sit.” His words were accompanied by a dry cough as he settled more deeply into his chair with a sigh. “Saskia will bring us coffee and then we will talk.” He stared at his guest. “Carl says that you have been ill?”

Pieter chose to ignore the question. “How do you know Carl?”

“I knew his parents before . . . the war.” He shifted uneasily in his chair. “Later, Carl contacted me for any information I might have about his family and we’ve kept in touch over the years.”

Pieter’s eyes swept over his great-uncle in a professional assessment. His own grandfather, this frail, austere man’s younger brother, had died at 88. He judged his uncle’s age to be between 90 and 92. He waited until Saskia had arranged the coffee tray and left before answering his question.

“I have had some health problems.” Pieter coolly met his uncle’s eyes, trying to control his irritation at being so abruptly summoned by a man who had never acknowledged his existence. “I don’t think you asked me to meet with you to discuss my health.”

His uncle’s eyes crinkled and he gave a slight snort. “No.” He put his cup down and chose his words carefully. “I don’t know if you know why I became estranged from the family—my parents and my brother, your grandfather?” He waited for Pieter to answer.

Pieter thought over the bits of information he had heard over the years and tried to decide what to offer. “It is my understanding that, after the death of your wife, you preferred to be by yourself.” Even as he spoke the words, his mind told him that something was wrong. There had to be more to it than that.

“Death of my wife?” His voice was bitter. He flung up his head and glared at Pieter. “What about the death of my son?”

The words propelled Pieter from his chair and he knelt by his uncle’s side and bowed his head. “I am so sorry for the loss of your wife and your son.” He lifted his head to meet his uncle’s eyes. “Please accept my deepest condolences.”

Maarten placed a tremulous hand on Pieter’s shoulder. “You did not know.” He smiled shakily at him. “You were not even born.” He patted his shoulder awkwardly. “But I do appreciate hearing your words. No one else in the family has said them.” He clasped Pieter’s hand with both of his. “The family crucified my lady but I am not going to stand by and let them do it again, to your lady.” He motioned Pieter back to his chair.

“My lady?” Pieter’s face twisted in a bitter grimace. “I don’t have a lady.”

“Carl says differently.”

Pieter shot to his feet.
Carl, his old friend, had stolen his beloved Janan and his children. His beautiful babies would bear Carl’s name. He had stripped him of his manhood. He was nothing now. He could never forgive him
.
“Carl betrayed me,” he snarled as he moved toward the door.

“You’re wrong.” The old man glared at Pieter, waving him back to his chair with his cane. “Sit. We’ve got work to do, and I don’t have time to waste on foolish talk.”

Speechless, Pieter sat down again, staring at the old man he had met for the first time a few minutes ago
. He owed him nothing. What could they possibly have to work on?

“You are thinking that I have no right to talk to you like this, that you are a successful young man who doesn’t need the help of an old man you’ve never met.”

Pieter focused on the fireplace, refusing to be baited.

“We may not have met but I have followed you from the day you were born.” He chuckled softly at the surprised look on Pieter’s face. “You are the brightest of your father’s three sons. You are very well regarded in your field.” He threw up his hands in resignation. “And, like me, you have been designated the ‘dependable’ son.”

Pieter leaned forward in his chair and directed a piercing look at his great-uncle. “Why do you say the family crucified your lady?”

“First, we need something better than coffee to sustain us.” Maarten opened the cabinet beside his chair and lifted out two old tulip-shaped glasses and a half-f bottle of golden Jenever. He held the bottle up to the light so that the gold-colored gin glowed. “Pour us a glass while I decide how to begin.”

Pieter felt numb as he handed one of the glasses to his great uncle
. What could he have to say that would help him? Nothing could help him
. He thought for a moment of that night when he had held the world in his arms and now he had nothing, not even hope
.

“I was the oldest son. The serious, studious son. The dependable one.” He took a sip of his Jenever. “Your grandfather was two years younger, a handsome, charming young man from the day he was born.”

Pieter nodded, thinking of Dirk.
Was it genes that made him what he was or his placement in the family? Maybe it was the family’s expectations, or lack of them.

“My father, your great-grandfather, had business interests in the Dutch East Indies—coffee, tea, sugar, and spices—but, in 1938, he branched out into rubber.” The old man studied the gin in his glass. “There was talk of war. Germany was on the move but everyone ignored it. The Netherlands had been neutral in World War I and people thought that neutrality would protect us again.”