River in the Sea

by Tina Boscha

  “The hoend, you’re sure it’s dead?”

  “I had to bury it.”

  Pater lit another cigarette, taking a heavy drag. Mem walked over and without a word, took it from his hands. Pater lit another while Mem retreated away from the lantern. All Leen could see was the tip of the cigarette glowing bright and dying while her mother smoked it down rapidly. Leen fought the urge to slump over on the table. Her shoulders sagged under the blanket.

  “This is… This is not good,” Pater finally said. “Did you say your name?”

  “Nee,” she answered. “They never asked.” She didn’t say how if they had, she would’ve told them. She would have blurted it, repeated it even, until she realized, too late, that she should have given a false name.

  “And they let you go?” He laughed at himself a little. “You are here, of course they let you go.” He glanced at Mem. “Well then,” he said, standing up. “You are here, and it’s over then, right?”

  Leen exhaled. The worst hadn’t happened. She was here, in her own kitchen, just like Pater said. They didn’t have her name. It was over. “Yes,” she said, her voice a little stronger.

  “It’s time to eat,” Mem said abruptly. She dropped the cigarette into her teacup and it sizzled softly, then walked to the counter, where two pans rested on top of towels. Tine must have taken them off the stove, trying to keep them warm for Leen.

  Mem took the lids off. Steam corkscrewed into the air, releasing the rich smell of pork chops and fried potatoes, and Leen’s fatigue was matched with hunger. She wanted to grab the food with her hands and shove gobs of it into her mouth. She watched as Mem set plates on the table. The sudden movement of her footsteps and clanging silverware made Leen want to cover her ears. She could feel Pater examining her.

  “She needs a bath,” he said. “Aafke, go with her. I’ll take care of supper.” And he got up and did something Leen had never seen him do: set the table.

  Leen followed her mother to the bathroom. She dropped the blanket in a corner. She left her clothes on, the wetness and smell clammy on her skin, and she forced herself to help Mem heat the water. Mem didn’t look at her while they filled the tub using the copper kettles they used for washing, each of them hoisting a side, careful not to splash themselves. Although Mem had never worked in the fields, she was quite strong, and her hands were just as red as Pater’s, burned from water and soap and the rough bristled brushes used for scrubbing.

  Leen turned her back to undress. She wanted Mem to leave now. It was enough that Mem would notice her budding chest, perhaps ask her again if she’d bled yet. Now, Mem might ask her more questions about what happened, or worse, ask her nothing at all.

  Mem took the clothes out of Leen’s hands and piled them over her arm, careful to fold over the muddy parts, protecting her own faded gray shirt. Leen was forced to turn toward Mem to get in the steaming tub. “Your arm,” Mem said in a soft, hurt voice. Leen looked down and saw the new pinkish–blue bruise growing where the soldier had pinched her. The bottom of her legs were streaked and Leen flushed, remembering how she’d soiled herself, how she’d screamed.

  Finally, Mem turned her back to give Leen privacy. Leen slid into the hot water, her cold skin tingling with the heat. She slid further in, letting her chin dip into the warmth. Once Mem left she would get her hair wet, maybe cry one more time. Once she was clean again, maybe then she would be able to face her family. Maybe then their relief would match hers.

  Suddenly, Mem turned around to face her. “You were very stupid to do that, you know.” She dropped the clothes and knelt down and held Leen’s face tightly in her hands. Her eyes burned. She pressed her lips to Leen’s hair, then pulled back. “You stupid, stupid, girl,” she said again, and picked up the clothes, lumps of muddy clay falling on the floor.

  Once Mem left the room, Leen repeated Mem’s words. “Stupid girl.” She didn’t know why but she wanted Mem to overhear. “Stupid famke.”

  Leen shifted her feet as she waited to slide into the church pew after Tine, who always went in first with Renske stationed on her hip. The center aisle divided the wooden pews, old and straight–backed and stained a deep brown. The front of the church was dominated by the pulpit, set atop a small set of curved stairs, with an ornately sculpted cross behind it. The church was plain on the interior, brown wood and white painted walls with simple lamps stationed between the windows, but yet it had always reminded Leen of a castle. It was as old as one, first built in the thirteenth century, and dreaming of silly stories with princes and knights often took Leen right through the Dominie’s long sermons, but today her imagination had no force.

  As she found her seat, Leen kept her eyes down, but head up, trying not to look like she was hiding. As long as she avoided eye contact, she couldn’t be sure anyone saw her. But she knew everyone was looking. At any time it would begin. A head would lean over to another, and without turning, lips would move and chins would drop and then a head would slowly twist, shoulders still facing the altar, and then the whisper would slip out just when the prelude began. “There she is, Leen De Graaf, the one who killed the dog last night.”

  This must have been how it was for Issac. Not just at church, either. Everywhere. That’s the boy who killed his own brother. Of course it was an accident, but… Last night he had said little to Leen, even though she’d hoped he would do something like nudge her shoulder or even just nod. In fact, no one in her family had said much. By the time she left the bath, her steps wobbly as she tried to tiptoe across the cold floor, everyone had finished eating. When Leen sat down at the table, her food cool, Pater said, “Let’s leave Leen alone now, okay?” The silence continued to the morning, except when she interrupted Mem and Pater arguing in the kitchen. “I’m telling you that this family isn’t going to kerk, at least I’m not,” Mem was saying.

  “For what? To greet them at the door?” Pater replied, but when he saw Leen, both he and Mem clammed up, and Leen didn’t dare ask him what he meant. And now, they were all in church, staring ahead amid the heavy notes of the organ’s prelude.

  Leen rang a finger around the neckline of her sweater, then the cuffs. They all wore the same type of sweater, but it seemed the fabric only made her itch. Good fabric was hard to come by, so anything that could be spun from wool was. The yarn was made from the sheep that lazily grazed on the dike, and Mem used the black wool along with the white to make a pretty marled pattern. It didn’t stop the itching. Leen dug her nails too sharply into her neck and she flinched. Her eyes stung. It had been so hard to sleep. She woke often from her dreams to the shallow breaths of her sisters and though it was dark, it seemed their eyes bore hotly into her back. She never turned over, even when her body began to cramp and ache.

  Leen waited for Mem to pass the mints. At this time every Sunday, when the heads bobbed up after the prayer ended and the old wooden pews creaked as the congregation resettled themselves in their seats, Mem would reach into her small handbag and find the paper roll. She’d unwrap the top in a long spiral, just like the apple peels dropping from Pater’s knife when he used to peel the fruit on Sunday nights before the war. Silently, hands would turn over, pink palms facing upwards in a row, until a mint was passed down. Then everyone would discreetly pop in the mints, one by one, and sometimes they would compete to see who could make the mint last the longest, glancing at each other every few minutes with the white sliver of the candy poking out of their mouth until Mem would give them a look. Even Pater played sometimes, poking the mint out with raised eyebrows that challenged them not to laugh and Mem not to smile before she rebuked him with stern eyes. But today Mem kept her hands folded tightly in her lap. Pater was still except for his hands: he rubbed his fingers together and then snapped his thumb, and Leen realized he was rolling a phantom cigarette.

  “Let’s all open our holy Bibles, where we will look upon Exodus 20:12,” Dominie Wiersma said. His voice echoed from his perch and his long fingers spanned the back of the Bible, forming thick white veins a
cross the wrinkled black leather. He cleared his throat and began reading before Leen could find the passage. It didn’t matter. Like all the children in church, she’d learned all the commandments – with or without formal school – by the time she was seven.

  In the beginning of the war, the Dominie’s sermons were about victory. He lingered over the tale of war where the Israelites held Moses’ arms up, knowing that as long as his hands held up his staff, they would defeat the Amalekites. This was when women still wore orange scarves to church and men pinned carnations to their collars on Prince Bernhard’s birthday. Months passed, a year, then two, and his sermons changed. When the German camp was built, he preached for six Sundays straight on the book of Job, emphasizing limply that Job’s faith never faltered. Now, well past four years into the occupation, Dominie Wiersma preached only on the most elemental. He often devoted a sermon to a commandment, and until today this had never bothered Leen, because his sermons were now at least ten minutes shorter. Today, though, he chose the fifth.

  “Honor your father and mother, so that your days might be long in the land the Lord God has given you,” Dominie said, still holding the Bible, although his eyes never glanced at the words. “This is a simple commandment,” he said, his voice shifting like the wooden pews as he began the sermon.

  At least he hadn’t chosen the sixth commandment. For a second, Leen saw the dog’s fur catching the light and lift in the wind.

  “When you disobey your parents, you are disobeying your heavenly Father,” the Dominie continued. His voice grew louder. Leen glanced at Mem, desperate for the distraction of a mint.

  “I want to speak to the young people here,” Dominie said, putting the Bible down to grip the edge of the altar with both of his pale hands. His voice was unexpectedly vibrant, buoyed by something. “You must not question your mother or father, as God gave them the responsibility to care for you and keep you safe. Children, even if you think your parents are unfair at times, trust them. Obey them.” He held one hand up and pointed, shaking a finger. “Do not act out of anger. Do not act suddenly; do not act rashly! Trust in your parents as you trust in the Lord, and you will not disappoint your mother or your father, and your path will be straight.”

  Leen felt the pew stiffen underneath her with the held breath of her family. Issac coughed. He was thinking about what she did; all of them were. The whole congregation even, which didn’t have the highest opinion of her anyway, the only girl to defy the kitchen and the sink and the washing to work alongside men, and to excel at it. That she could stomach. But now, to be known for her stupidity, that was something else entirely.

  Finally, Pater moved. He scratched the back of his neck and softly cleared his throat. Leen’s face burned. She stared at the altar, blinking fast to force back tears of shame and embarrassment and residual fear that had resurfaced after its initial retreat. Had Pater told the Dominie? He must have. He knew what she had done, and chose this sermon for her.

  Tears rolled down the sides of Leen’s cheeks faster, forcing her to wipe her face. She felt the tug of Renske’s small hand on her sleeve, perhaps the only one in her family who didn’t understand how Leen had brought distress and shame to her family. Leen yanked her arm away.

  Renske started to cry a little, and Tine shushed her quickly, brushing her hand tenderly across Renske’s cheek. “Listen to the Dominie,” she said.

  “Amen,” Dominie said, ending the final prayer that closed the service.

  “Amen,” Leen repeated weakly, her voice subsumed into the congregation’s collective mutter. The organ’s notes jarred the dense air, and everyone rose hastily to sing the last hymn before the offering and the benediction. Once more, Leen waited for a head to turn and look at her, for some kind of whisper, especially after the sermon. There was nothing. Then she realized they were avoiding her. While some had approached Issac at the funeral, telling him it was not his fault, it was an accident, others had glanced at him, blanching in discomfort, and turned away.

  Leen fought the urge to push her way past her family’s slow exodus down the aisle and out the church doors into the cold damp that lingered from the night before. Normally Pater stayed behind to talk while the women trod home to prepare the midday meal. Mem called the men’s idle chatter skiet talk, or “shit talk,” when the men smoked and started out talking about the sermon but quickly detoured into talking about work, the war, or nothing at all. But this morning Pater took Leen by the arm.

  “Komme,” he said, guiding her towards the trail along the dike. “You and I are taking the long way home.”

  Pater never took one of his children up the dike alone, not unless they were in considerable trouble. The last time Pater did this was after Wopke’s funeral, taking Issac up there for a talk that remained between father and son. But in the summer the family often detoured together, trailing up the steps and past the memorial for lost sailors to walk along the top of the dike. Their house, one of the newer ones in Wierum, sat at the end of Ternaarderweg, and the walk was a nice change from the familiar bricks of the long street. Pater would comment on the water, if it was high or low, rough or calm; Mem would shudder in the breeze and say that they should get back, but she never quickened her steps; and Leen would chase Renske as she ran ahead and ran back, scampering between the lazy sheep that dotted the sides of the dike. Tine would stay near Mem and Pater, always practicing her adulthood, and sometimes, depending on his mood, Issac would scoop Renske up onto his shoulders and skip, making her jump and shriek. It would go like this until they reached another narrow set of steps that led down to a small bridge over the canal, where Leen used to go to escape from her chores, leaving behind a bowl of unpeeled potatoes, knowing that eventually Tine would succumb and peel them for her.

  Now, Leen trudged alone behind Pater, dodging sheep droppings. They both walked slowly along the muddy path, trying to keep their church shoes clean. The water of the North Sea was choppy and brown. The wind was cold, stinging her eyes after last night’s crying.

  Pater turned suddenly, startling Leen. He bent over and cupped his hands over his mouth as he lit a new cigarette. She didn’t dare ask him for one, but she craved tobacco. A few rays of sunshine selected certain waves in the distance, near the islands.

  Pater’s cigarette smoke curled into his nose and then back out his mouth. “Leentje, you must tell me all that happened last night, even the pieces you left out,” he finally said, voice cracking.

  “I did tell you everything,” Leen said. Even though she was telling the truth, mostly, at least, it felt like lying. She took a step and Pater grabbed her elbow, hard, and she winced as the pain from her tender bruise radiated out. It was now a deep blackish–purple.

  “What?” Pater asked.

  “That’s where he – I have a bruise there.” Her father let her go but did not move. His face was like she had never seen it before: terrified.

  “Leentje, you must tell me. Things can be done, you know? You made a mistake about the dog, but the other things, those are not always a girl’s fault.” He leaned in closer. “I know that it is not your fault. You can tell me, and then we never have to talk about it again.”

  Hearing her father’s words, she saw the driver’s lingering hand on the hood of the truck, on his own belt. Yesterday’s fear returned in a sudden spike of adrenaline. The grave–digging was a bargain. She could have paid in other ways. She almost had. Her heart raced and a flush accompanied the prickling at her skin.

  “Oh, blix, Leen–” He let her go and threw his cigarette away angrily. He covered his face with both his hands.

  “No, Pater, nee, nee,” Leen pleaded, clutching at his arms. She tried to get Pater to look her in the eye. Saying it in her own voice reminded her it was truth. “They didn’t hurt me like that.”

  “Are you telling me the truth,” he asked, but she heard no question in his words. He took her hand from his arm and pressed her hands between his. His hands always felt rough. Ever since she could remember, they were
covered in calluses.

  “They made me dig the grave, and then one…” She paused, feeling again the soldier’s weight, the truck’s dented side. “But he didn’t. I thought the grave was for me.”

  Pater started walking again, finding the muddy steps that took them over the canal and onto Ternaarderweg. He didn’t say anything, didn’t even smoke, and Leen didn’t know if he believed her or not. She waited for him to put an arm around her shoulders and tell her how careless and stupid she had been, about the things the Dominie said, but that she was his famke and it was all okay now, he was so glad to have her back. Because it was, wasn’t it? Everything was all right.

  Instead Pater said, “We should put it all behind us, then. Okay, poppie?” He called her the Frysk word for baby doll, the word he and Mem called them when they felt nearest to their children.

  Leen nodded. She was crying again, unable to stop it. It felt so good to hear Pater call her that. Suddenly she asked, “Did you tell Dominie Wiersma?”

  Pater looked confused. “I haven’t told anyone,” he said.

  “I shouldn’t have acted rashly,” she said, crying harder now, and growing angry at herself for it, and for her cowardice, for not knowing the right action, the right response; or knowing it, and finding herself unable to follow through.

  Pater finally did put an arm around her. Exhaling a long breath, he patted her shoulder. “Alright, alright, it’s over now.” Then he added, “Still, let’s keep it quiet, okay?”

  4.

  It began on the way home Wednesday night, when Issac said over his shoulder, coasting as he turned, “Let’s go to the café.” He’d been, under Pater’s orders, escorting her to and from the Deinum’s, arriving a half hour early every night, also according to Pater’s orders. It was a calculated risk, but with the German army weakening there had been few round–ups. Mrs. Deinum did not protest that Leen was leaving early, an oddity, considering her exact accounting when she figured Leen’s pay. Mr. Deinum was happy to see Issac, patting him heartily on the shoulder several times, even pulling him aside to chat, his arms crossed over his chest and rocking back and forth on his heels, a broad smile on his face.