Mendelevski's Box

by Roger Swindells

  ‘You’re early today, it’s your day off, isn’t it?’

  ‘Good morning, yes, but I have lots to do. I am taking Irene to see her grandmother and grandfather, Jaap’s parents, in Utrecht this afternoon. It’s a last-minute decision really, I got a letter from them a couple of days ago. I’m leaving about lunchtime and I need to go shopping first. I want to take some food and things with me as I will be staying the night.’

  ‘I was hoping we could spend the day together tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m sorry, that would have been nice, but they haven’t seen Irene since Johan’s funeral in May. Another weekend, perhaps. I’m not sure what time I’ll be back on Sunday as the train service is still not very good and the trains themselves are awful.’

  ‘I can go to the market again if it helps.’

  ‘Thank you, but I need to go myself. Come along if you like, I’ll ask Maaike to have Irene just for an hour, it’ll be quicker if she stays here. I need to get some food in for you today and tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m at work for most of the day today but I’ll be here all day tomorrow.’

  She fried him two eggs and served them on the last of the bread. He had hoped to buy the food for her, but as she was going with him to the market he knew she wouldn’t let him and as she was going away the flowers idea was out too. Perhaps he could buy some later for her return on Sunday.

  Maaike answered the door still in her dressing gown. She agreed to look after Irene until they got back.

  On the way to the market he told her about Jos possibly finding someone who might know about his time in hiding. Like Maaike she questioned what he hoped to achieve, but said she understood that he needed to know exactly what had happened.

  ‘If you find out who betrayed you I hope they arrest the bastards and lock them up, there are still lots of NSB and collaborators detained in camps, you know. It’s ironic actually, there are hundreds of NSB in hiding now so they don’t get arrested and taken to the camps just like you were. Whoever told the Germans about you deserves to be there too, unless you kill them first.’

  ‘I have had thoughts like that but it’s not really me. It’s like all the Nazis who are committing suicide before they can be tried and hanged, it achieves nothing and it won’t bring my family back, will it?’

  They were back from the market by nine thirty. He had watched with amazement at her shopping and hard bargaining powers, so different to his amateur efforts of a week before.

  She wasn’t going to be around for the free fruit and vegetables at the end of the day, but she still managed to get them plus the bread, butter, cheese, eggs and ham at a very good price, and at least two stallholders looked relieved to agree her price simply to get rid of her. She also bought a chicken and some under-the-counter coffee to take to Utrecht.

  She collected Irene from Maaike and made coffee for them both.

  ‘My friend’s husband is coming around on Sunday morning to finish building your bed, just let him in. Now, you are going to be alright while I’m away, aren’t you Simon?’

  ‘Stop worrying, I’m a big boy now, the young lad you remember had to grow up fast.’

  ‘I’m sorry but I still worry about you, you’re alone and still look a bit, well, lost.’ She reached out and squeezed his arm. ‘Oh, by the way, your new underclothes are clean, dry and ironed in the kitchen. I can’t get the washing back until Monday so you can’t have the shirts and trousers yet. There’s still one clean shirt.’ She laughed and said, ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to manage in Jaap’s trousers a bit longer. Now off you go, get to work!’

  The bar was as busy as the previous Saturday, there were obviously a lot of men like Jos who knew how to lay their hands on more than the statutory ten guilders. Either that or a lot of his customers were prepared to pay extra for their beer in old money.

  Jos’s wife was behind the bar. She greeted him quite civilly and he immediately set to work in the cellar, changing a barrel without incident, stacking crates of empties and re-stocking the bar with bottled beers, jenever and some black market whisky and vodka. He also managed to keep up with clearing and washing empty glasses.

  Of Jos there was no sign, which meant his wife had to work most of the afternoon. It was obvious from her demeanour that she was getting increasingly angry at his absence.

  ‘Where the hell is he? Out drinking with some of his cronies, I bet. If he’s not getting pissed in our cellar he’s out spending money in other people’s bars.’

  She decided at about four that she had had enough and, obviously believing he could manage on his own, disappeared upstairs with a large glass of vodka in her hand.

  Thankfully the afternoon rush was over and to his surprise he managed alone, even totting up customers’ bills quickly and hopefully correctly. He noticed that Jos’s wife had been adding her own supplement to the bills, presumably expecting many to pay with old notes. He attempted to make the necessary adjustments if new currency was offered.

  He quite enjoyed himself, sitting behind the bar talking to the line of customers on the stools and taking the odd tray of drinks upstairs. There was a feeling of camaraderie among those sitting at the bar and he began to feel part of it. They all smoked, most rolling their own cigarettes with strong Dutch tobacco and consuming small glasses of beer.

  Jos arrived at about four thirty, appearing to be relatively sober. ‘On your own? The old bitch left you, did she? Bet I’m in the shit, have you managed alright?’

  Before he could answer Jos poured himself a large jenever and a beer and continued, ‘I’ve got some news for you, lad. I’ve traced someone who might know who was looking after you and your family while you were in hiding.’

  ‘That’s marvellous, what does he know? Who is he? I can’t wait, when can I see him?’

  ‘Steady, steady. Slow down. There’s a problem. His name’s Theo but I don’t know when he will be able to see you, he’s a crew member on a Rotterdam Lloyd ship and my friend didn’t know when he’ll be back in Amsterdam. I’ll go to the shipping office tomorrow, I know someone who works there, and find out what ship he’s on and where it is.’

  ‘How long do you think it might be?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, it depends what he’s on and where he is now with all the shit that’s going on in the Indies at the moment. They’ve let the Japs carry on running the place in the absence of a proper police force or any Dutch or British troops although the war’s over and they’ve actually surrendered. Plus, there are thousands of Dutch folks there waiting to be repatriated and now Sukarno has declared independence. We’ll have to send troops, there’ll be another bloody war, I reckon. If his ship gets sent there he could be gone for months.’

  ‘I see, but what do you think he knows, and how sure are you he knows anything?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask him yourself. He’ll want to be sure about who you are and that you were part of the family in Kromme Palmstraat before he tells you anything I suspect. I’m told a relative of his was involved. How I’m not sure. He himself might have been one of a group placing people in safe houses.’

  ‘I wonder if he is the one my father was paying, or worse, if he had anything to do with us getting caught.’

  ‘Absolutely not, I can tell you that for sure. No chance of that. He is one hundred percent as far as I am concerned plus he knew Jaap Blok, so that tells you something about what he did in the war. He was no collaborator, that’s for sure.’

  Jos joined him behind the bar, checking the till and the remaining unpaid tabs.

  ‘Can you manage here until Maaike arrives? I’m going to sit outside and have a smoke and another drink before I go up and see the dragon.’

  Just before five a man came in dressed in a long filthy overcoat and an old peaked cap. His face, pale and drawn, much like Simon’s own when he met Grietje, bore a huge scar totally covering the left side and affecting both his eye and his mouth.

  ‘Is Maaike de Vries here?’

  Jos had followed him in, no doubt
wary of him because of his appearance. ‘Who wants to know and why?’

  ‘I have a message from her father.’

  ‘Really? And who might you be?’

  ‘I’m Henk Claassen, I’ve come from Rotterdam with a message for Maaike de Vries.’

  ‘From her father?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is he on his way home?’

  ‘No. He won’t be coming home I’m afraid, he’s dead. I promised him when we were in hospital together that I would tell his daughter if he didn’t make it. He promised me the same about my wife.’

  ‘Shit! Who’s going to tell her Simon, you or me?’

  ‘You’ve known her longer, Jos.’

  ‘No, no, it has to be me, I promised her father and she needs to know what happened,’ Claassen interrupted.

  Jos sat him down with a beer and the story came out. Like Maaike’s father, he had been sent to Germany as forced labour and they had met in a factory in Dresden. They suffered three nights of Allied bombing in the middle of February, much of it with incendiaries, and their factory was hit. ‘There were no shelters for us, all the foreign workers had to take cover where they could, between their machines. Our workshop caught fire, it raced through the building, and many of us were trapped. Maaike’s father and I were badly burned but came out alive.’ He took off his cap revealing that virtually his whole scalp was horribly scarred and without hair. He removed his right hand from his pocket and held it up, showing it to be no more than a bright red, scarred, fingerless pad. ‘We got to one of the hospitals that wasn’t hit, but there were hundreds if not thousands already there. They say there were over sixty thousand refugees in the city fleeing west from the Russians in addition to the normal population. We were seen after four days; my burns were superficial compared to Kees’s. They eventually found places for us in some sort of overflow building, like a soldier’s hut. I was there for a week before they discharged me as they needed the bed. Then I slept rough on the streets with hundreds of others, they were clearing the rubble and removing the dead. I visited him every day. He died in agony after a month—his burns got infected. Before he died he made me promise to find his daughter.’

  Jos grimaced. ‘You can’t tell her all the details, she mustn’t hear all that.’ He got Claassen another drink. ‘So how did you get back here?’

  ‘I walked. I stayed in Dresden until the end of March. I had no papers, no belongings, nothing, just these old boots and this greatcoat that I got from a dead German soldier. The barracks we had been staying in were hit too so the few bits I owned were gone. We heard the Russians were very close, so I left with thousands of others, mainly German I think. I’ve heard they took the city in early April. I was in a DP camp in the British area until last month. They thought I was German at first. I haven’t been home yet, I came straight here.’

  ‘I’ll take Henk here up to that back table, it’s clear up there at the moment. Send Maaike up to us when she arrives. You look after the bar and get rid of anyone who’s left. Tell them we’re closing early.’

  The doors opened a few minutes later and Maaike came in. ‘Hello Simon, still very quiet in here.’ She called up to Jos, ‘Hello boss, how are you?’

  ‘He wants to talk to you, you’d better go up.’

  ‘What’s the matter, am I in trouble?’ She crutched smoothly up the steps and sat down next to Jos, laying her crutches on the floor beside her.

  Simon had turned away to usher the three remaining drinkers out of the door, ignoring their protests, when she screamed. He spun around to see her in Jos’s arms shouting hysterically. ‘No, no, no, Papa, no! Please, please, no!’

  Jos looked down at him. ‘Give Henk twenty guilders out of the till so he can get food and get home to his family, in the new coins mind, then get brandy for Maaike and a whisky for me.’

  Claassen took the coins in his good hand and gave him a lopsided smile. He looked back at Maaike and said, ‘I’m so sorry. Tell her I did what I could for her father and I kept my promise,’ and with that he left the bar.

  Simon locked the door and took the drinks up to Jos and Maaike. Just then the door to the private accommodation opened and Jos’s wife appeared. ‘What the hell is going on? What’s all the wailing about, why are we closed and where the hell were you all afternoon?’

  ‘Just go back upstairs, woman, Maaike has had bad news about her father. We’ll fight later, just go. Now!’

  His wife obviously sensed the venom in Jos’s voice and for once she did as she was told without protest, withdrawing her head and softly closing, rather than banging, the door.

  Maaike was still sobbing uncontrollably. At first she refused even a sip but Jos persuaded her to at least taste the brandy. She coughed, spluttered and nearly choked as the spirit hit her throat. ‘What am I going to do? I always believed he would come back, I suppose I was fooling myself. But he’s gone, I have no one. Thank God he was killed instantly and didn’t suffer.’

  Jos had obviously persuaded Claassen not to tell her the full awful truth. For that he was grateful, and he made a vow she must never know. He looked at Jos who winked and gave him a reassuring smile. ‘Take her home, Grietje Blok will look after her. Unless you want to stay here for the night of course, Maaike, you would be very welcome.’

  ‘Grietje is not there, she’s gone to Utrecht, but I’ll look after her, if you want to go home, that is, Maaike.’

  ‘Yes, please, take me home.’ She started to cry again. ‘I need to be there, that’s where I lived with my father and the last place I saw him before he went off to Germany.’

  The normally foul-mouthed ex-docker and bar owner looked at her benevolently with love and care in his eyes. ‘I don’t want to see you back here until you are ready, take as long as you need and if there is anything at all you want, or anything I can do, just tell Simon and he will let me know.’

  They walked home without speaking. Maaike cried quietly all the way. He wanted to put his arm around her and console her, but her crutches made that impossible.

  ‘Are you sure you’re going to be alright? I’m just upstairs, if you need me in the night, call me.’

  ‘Please come in and sit with me, it’s still very early. It’s going to be a long night and I don’t want to be alone yet.’

  ‘Of course, anything that helps you, I don’t know what I can say to you but I’m a good listener.’

  He warmed some milk as she still had no coffee while she changed into her nightgown with a dressing gown on top. He settled himself on the settee leaving the large chair for her but she came over and sat beside him.

  They drank their milk and sat in silence for what seemed like an age.

  ‘What am I going to do? I’m on my own, I have nobody. I know you are in the same position, but you are a fit young man and I’m still really just a girl, a girl with only one leg.’

  ‘Can’t you go back to Friesland to your family there? You said you had relatives.’

  ‘I do, cousins and an aunt too, I think. My father had a sister, oh dear, I’ll have to write to her to tell her he’s dead, won’t I? I haven’t seen them since before the war. I suppose my father told them mother had been killed but I don’t know whether he told them I had lost my leg.’

  ‘But that doesn’t matter surely, you’re family, they’ll help you.’

  ‘I’m not so sure, I hardly know them, I don’t know what they’d think if I turned up on their doorstep.’

  ‘You must tell them when you write.’

  ‘I don’t know how to put it. ‘Your brother’s dead, I had my leg off when I was thirteen and I want to come to live with you’—I don’t think that would sound right somehow.’

  ‘Then you must stay here. I’ll always look after you and I know Grietje will too. Jos loves you like a daughter and you will always have a job with him, you know that.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s all changed, I always believed father would come back one day.’ She started to cry again. ‘Now I feel totally alone, without
hope almost, after all I’ll probably never find anyone.’

  He put his arm around her and she moved close to him, resting her head on his shoulder.

  ‘You’re a very beautiful girl, someone somewhere will fall for you and love you.’

  ‘Like this? Who would want a cripple?’

  He stroked her hair. ‘You must look to the future now. It’s hard, I know that, and at times you’ll think it’s impossible. I learned that in the camp. You’ll come through it, really you will, believe me.’

  ‘You’re a kind man Simon but I can’t imagine life without my father. I know I’ve been without him for over two years, but I always felt he was out there somewhere thinking about me and watching over me somehow. Now I know he was lying dead in the ruins in Dresden—at least he wasn’t horribly burned like his friend.’

  Please God, don’t let her ever find out the truth, he thought to himself.

  ‘All I have of him are the few possessions he rescued from our house in Rotterdam, a photograph in a frame, a silver box, that’s about it.’

  They sat close together without speaking. It was by now very dark.

  ‘Come on, it must be very late, you need to rest, sleep if you can. I’ll be around all day tomorrow and Grietje will be back in the afternoon.’ He passed her the crutches and she went through the kitchen to the bedroom. He followed as she sat on the bed. She took off her robe and standing on her single leg she hopped towards him. He could see her breasts and her narrow waist through the thin material of her nightdress. He could also see her short, rounded stump swinging backwards and forwards as she tried to keep her balance.

  ‘Thank you, with your help I’ll get through this somehow.’

  She reached out and grabbed his shoulders, steadying herself against him, and gently kissed him on the lips.

  He was taken aback and pulled away, never having kissed a woman before. ‘I must go, please get into bed.’

  ‘Stay with me, don’t go, I need you with me tonight.’

  ‘I’ll sit with you until you fall asleep then I’ll go.’

  ‘No, I mean I need you to stay with me, I want you to hold me.’ She looked away, embarrassed or confused he didn’t know. ‘I mean in the bed.’ She threw back the covers. ‘Please, sleep here with me tonight.’ She finally fell asleep in the early hours and, taking care not to wake her, he disentangled himself and crept upstairs.