River in the Sea

by Tina Boscha

  The women were lined up next to each other. Minne stood out from her companions. Her face held no expression but her chin pointed forward. She looked clean, aloof, beautiful, completely different from when Leen had seen her days before. Her hair was washed and gorgeously set. She’d drawn one side up into a beaded clip, showcasing a pale cheek, Leen’s handprint long since faded, and a ringlet hung down and framed her temple. Her blouse was buttoned neatly to the top and her lips were painted deep vermillion, the peaks of her upper lip carefully filled in. She stood with her pale feet close together and her entire frame was still, that familiar reedy–ness carried in her spine. The other women hung their heads, shifted their feet, softly begged to be let go. Leen strained to listen for Minne’s voice. She didn’t hear it.

  One of the Sytsma men stepped in front of the four, motioning them to quiet down. In his hand he held a pair of black–handled scissors.

  “For the crime of conspiring with German soldiers,” Officer Sytsma said loudly, not finishing his sentence. He turned to the first woman in line, and Officer Van Loo pushed her forward. Officer Sytsma reached towards the woman’s head, pulled out a thick section of her hair, and drew the scissors toward it. She writhed in Officer Van Loo’s grip, but he held her tighter until she stilled. Then she went limp as the scissors severed the lock of hair an inch from her scalp. It was quick work. The hair fell softly on the women’s shoulders and chests, then dropped to gather on top of their bare feet.

  Minne was last. Leen looked away when he held the scissors to her head, but then she looked back; she had to watch. Not because she wanted to see this happen to Minne, but because to do otherwise would draw attention. Leen’s name was attached to Minne, and there were rules to this event that Leen suddenly understood. For this, you could be quiet; there was no need to yell. It was Sunday, after all. But you kept your head up, you didn’t turn away. You weren’t one of the hoers up there. The children were not sheltered in their mother’s waists and skirts. They watched, but not as Leen did; her eyes focused on a small flowering shrub just past where the pretty beaded clip was torn from Minne’s hair and thrown to the ground. Then Officer Van Loo made the first cut. Leen could almost feel the clump of hair push against and then surrender under the sharpened blade. In seconds the artful style Minne had rolled and set in preparation, surely, for this afternoon, was gone, leaving ragged tufts in its place.

  Mr. Schaap stepped forward. People shuffled and repositioned themselves, stretching their necks once more. In his hands he held a set of old–fashioned clippers, powered by hand. The age of the instrument added weight, a measure of intensity to the gathering. Leen remembered serving him coffee. He’d told her he was sure her father was all right. She crossed her arms across her chest.

  The first woman had stopped crying after her hair was cut, but at the sensation of the clippers at her forehead, she started bleating, “No, no! I’m sorry! Stop it, please!” Mr. Schaap ignored her, his face stern as he shaved her head quickly and methodically. Leen wondered if he enjoyed this, if that was why he was so efficient.

  Mr. Schaap handed the clippers to the younger of the two Sytsma men, who shaved the woman from Bolingavier next. She sobbed loudly, watery mucus running from her nose. When he finished with her, her knees buckled and she slumped to the ground, her shoulders shaking so violently that Leen wondered if she was having a seizure.

  The third woman lost control of her bladder. Urine dripped on her feet and somewhere, ahead of Leen, a little boy or girl giggled. No one moved to give the woman a rag or a towel to wipe herself. Nor did anyone tell the child to be quiet. Leen closed her eyes. No one will notice if I close my eyes, she told herself. She wouldn’t watch when they sheared Minne’s hair away. She’d give Minne that small piece of dignity. But at the sound of the clipper’s metal teeth severing hair, she could not help it. She looked. Minne stood as she did in the café, absolutely still, hands flat at her sides, and Leen read her posture clearly: Minne was refusing it, all of it. Her straight spine said, I do not accept this. The blond hair fell steadily in clumps, then stopped abruptly, like hail. Her eyes stared fiercely into the crowd as the shape of her bald head emerged. Her lips stood out, a heart shape against the blank rest of her. Her scalp was pink from the harsh clippers. Improbably she was even more beautiful.

  Leen rubbed her eyes, along the side of her nose, anything to distract herself from watching. Issac nudged her, one quick touch of his elbow to her upper arm: stop it. Leen had known for a long time how girls were put through the fernedering and somewhere, deep down, she had known this event was coming. So had Minne.

  So why, then, had she allowed herself to be caught?

  And then Leen heard her. Minne’s voice rang out, echoing over the silent faces and cutting sharply in the air. She sang boldly and loudly, skipping the trepid start that later gained in bravado and vigor. Her voice wobbled only because it was not meant for singing. “Frysk bloed tsjoch op! Wol no ris brûze en siede, en bûnzje troch ús ieren om!” she sang, beginning the familiar anthem, admonishing her blood, the crowd’s, all Frisian blood to rise up and boil. She ended the verse and launched into the chorus, keeping the same volume as she declared the worth of the ancient Frisian ground.

  Leen suddenly looked up, as if Minne herself had yanked on her chin. She met Minne’s eyes. They were directed straight at Leen, but they looked vacant, like they weren’t seeing anything at all. Leen felt that if she didn’t meet Minne’s gaze she was a coward, weaker than the women quivering at Minne’s side, so she forced herself to stare at Minne, the starkness of her white scalp amplifying her voice. She continued singing De âlde Friezen, her voice alone. Even if Leen covered her ears, she still would hear her, loud, off–key, unrelenting.

  At first, no one responded to Minne’s singing beyond passing strange looks from one to the next. The five L.O. men moved aside, allowing the crowd to see clearly the Judases in front of them. The bare, sallow skin of their heads rendered the other women horribly ugly, their pale faces in sharp relief with nothing to smooth their features. Sobs and whimpers came from each of their mouths except for Minne, who continued to sing, standing rigid as her red lips formed the words.

  “Would someone quiet that girl,” a voice said.

  “Shut up!” someone else shouted.

  Minne’s chest heaved as she took in air to sing the third verse. “Unused to bowing, the Frisian people stood by their honor, their name and their tongue, their sense of freedom…”

  Leen covered her mouth. She re–crossed her arms over her chest and looked down again, kicking the ground. She hugged herself tight. She couldn’t see what was passing over Issac’s face but his feet shifted in place. He put his hands in front of him, clasping them, only to undo their hold and put them behind his back again. They both stared blankly ahead as the women were joined with another length of rope so that they formed a chain. Then Officer Van Loo instructed them to begin walking. Now Minne was at the head of the line. She had yet to stop singing.

  “Heide de boek!” another shouted. One of the Sytsma men leaned in to Minne and said something to her. If he told her to stop singing, she ignored him. Mixing up the order of the lyrics, she ended the final stanza with the lines from the first, “Flean op! Wy sjonge it bêste lân fan d’ierde, it Fryske lân fol eare en rom!” It was a command to all of them. Sing, all of you, sing of the best land in the world, the land full of honor and pride.

  At this the crowd forgot its somber, Sunday tone and broke open. As soon as Minne took a step the crowd began to jeer and yell. “Scum!” “Filth!” “Hoer!” Tine covered Renske’s ears but Renske flung off her hands. Mem looked blank. She could’ve been at home, a teacup and untouched plate of food in front of her. Leen cupped her hands around her mouth to hide her silent mouth. She remembered with bitterness how Pater used to say she was always the loudest crier of all his children when they were infants.

  The crowd’s fury grew as hands began to clap and the movement was contagious; even Mem followe
d along, keeping up with the movement. In seconds everyone stamped their collective feet and the beats of the brick and wood and earth created a strange accompaniment. Mem didn’t shout and her breathing was shallow, but her eyebrows knotted to the center of her forehead, like she was considering something she hadn’t before.

  The sound grew deafening but still there was a flow to it, a deep resonance, and Leen felt like she could close her eyes and stop all thought and that her body would still move. Needles shot up to her knees and elbows. She only clapped and stomped because she had no choice and the horrible thing was that she felt the potency of the crowd’s venom. Mixing with her own she didn’t know what she would do, what she was capable of. Renske made it into her own dance, grinning, wanting others to notice.

  An older woman from the crowd walked right up to Minne and kicked her in the ass. The kick sent her sprawling forward, but she caught herself before she fell completely. Laughter erupted as if they were watching vaudeville. At this Mem let out a yell, cheeks shaking. It dissolved right into the collective voice of the crowd but Leen caught it. Mem was transfixed. Her slack cheeks shook as she pounded, clapped, shouted, every movement clumsy, her voice rusty and hoarse. But she continued, lessening only with exhaustion as she let out months of breathy emotion inside her.

  “Go!” Mem bellowed loudly. “Take them away!” Her cheeks and temples flooded as tears slid in quick succession from her eyes. Yet her voice was firm and deep, like it was coming from her belly and not her lungs, hoarse and thick. “Filthy tramps!” Mem shouted, louder still. “You are all the devil’s instruments!”

  Tine put her hands over Renske’s ears, keeping them there this time. She looked at Leen: do something. “Mem,” Leen commanded, standing still. But Mem was still gripped. Her voice was its own storm, sending out waves of exhales that had been trapped too long. She panted. “You will rot! You will rot in hell!” Heads turned to her, their voices weakening as the energy no longer could sustain itself. And yet, over the top of the muted din, Leen could still hear Minne’s voice: sing, all of you, sing! Sing of the land full of honor and pride!

  “Mem, komme,” Tine said. She pulled on Mem’s arm. “Maybe we should go.” She looked over her shoulder, at Issac, at anyone, offering an embarrassed grin.

  But Leen didn’t care who saw. They all were complicit in this disgrace, and Mem had become the worst offender. “Moeder, enough,” Leen said, grabbing both of Mem’s hands so she could not clap. She felt the vibrations from Mem’s feet travel into her wrists. Her own anger coursed and pulsed and scorched, but this time, towards her mother. She dug her nails into the tops of Mem’s thin bones. Enough, enough with the ghost of Mem floating through the house, a mere specter of what she once was. Enough of the strange woman who had taken her place. Leen wanted to slap her, not to stun her out of the spell of the crowd, but to stun her out of the melancholy and delirium that had erased her from their life.

  “Pater isn’t coming back,” Leen said.

  Mem stopped shouting. She stared at Leen, her mouth open, her clipped breath sour and hot. Her eyes bore into Leen but Leen did not remove her hands. She held Mem’s gaze.

  “He left and so did you,” Leen said, choking down sobs. “But he isn’t coming back. Are you?”

  Tine stepped between them, breaking Leen’s hold. She said, “Mem, let’s go, okay?”

  Issac said, “We’ve had enough. Let’s go home.” He motioned to Mem, extending his hand to Renske. Leen didn’t know if he heard what she’d said. She fell behind her brother, willing herself with all her strength to stop crying. She bit her lip and blinked, gulping with the effort, as they stepped onto the road while the crowd quieted behind them, following the women who were instructed to walk down Ternaarderweg, then onto the main road that led to Dokkum. They were to walk past the old German camp, an empty humiliation but a reminder nonetheless.

  She had to look back, just once, to see Minne. Her gait was steady, her feet didn’t falter or stumble. She held her exposed head as high as before, although tears streamed down her cheeks. As the women walked the crowd began to follow, hundreds of people, forming a mute procession. Finally, mercifully, she stopped singing. Leen didn’t know why, but the absence of Minne’s voice was the only thing that made her stop crying over what she’d said, over the truth she finally accepted.

  But then out of the silence a laugh emerged, a shrill, high laugh. The laugh grew in volume, building upon itself. The tears returned and Leen cried all the way home, not trying to hide it, and no one, not even Tine, reached out to comfort her.

  Leen kept to herself the rest of the afternoon and evening. She could not look at Mem, who looked at no one at all, and after supper Leen returned to the barn. She hoped the work would help her avoid thinking over all that had happened, but with each push of the pencil she saw Mem’s silent, open mouth and Minne’s hair fall.

  If she had helped her hide her beau, would Minne have gone into hiding too? What was Minne gaining through him? Surely today, she had only lost. Leen pushed too much grain through the funnel, causing it to sputter. She threw the press at her feet, kicking it away, knowing they’d hear the clatter in the house. If Pater was returning, wouldn’t he be home by now?

  The worst was the singing, the familiar lines of the anthem caught in her head. Frisian blood, rise up! Foam, boil, and thud in our veins. The song echoed in Leen’s ears, and she couldn’t help it. Picking up the press again, she hummed the tune as she took another funnel of grain. Later, in bed, her fingertips throbbing, Minne’s voice kept her from sleep.

  21.

  Just before noon on a Friday, Issac ran into the kitchen from the barn, uniformed and sweating, and said quickly, “I’m leaving. We’re watching the final retreat.” He told them how the Germans had tried one last time to take the north coast, but together the L.O. and the Canadians had quelled the attack in less than an hour. They’d even captured a German officer and four men. He’d been there, seen it all, he said.

  “Isn’t it over now?” Leen asked. She, Tine, and Mem were at the table, picking through a basket of new peas, breaking off the tips.

  “No more fighting?” Tine added.

  “Close. And no, no more fighting. We’re just patrolling the retreat. I don’t know when I’ll be back, a day, two maybe?” Just before he ran out the door, Issac tucked an unwrapped pack of cigarettes into Leen’s hand. Real cigarettes, not a pouch of tobacco with papers, but formed in a factory, even and perfect.

  “Thank you,” Leen said, genuinely surprised. She sniffed the rectangle. Even through the foil she could smell the heady, rich scent. “Thank you–”

  But he was already through the door. Over his shoulder, he called out, “May 4! Remember the date!”

  Until now Mem had not said anything. But hearing Issac, she said, “So it is May already,” her quiet tone a cross between wistful and pleading. “May already.”

  “When we wake up tomorrow morning, the Germans will be totally gone,” Mrs. Boonstra said. “Can you believe it?”

  They had just finished a late lunch of bread, cheese, and a bowl of sliced beets, followed by black tea, and even with the meager portions, Leen could barely finish her cup. She did not have an appetite. She did not feel like conversation either. Since the day of the head–shaving Leen had been constantly talking to herself, repeating a kind of desperate rosary, listing her sins: the dog, her missing father, the words to her mother and brother, her continued friendship with Minne even when there had been suspicion. No one could say they saw Leen with a soldier. Yet they had seen the lipstick, they had seen her smoking. Before that, there was everything else. The driving, the working outside. The items formed a catalog of transgressions. She wiped her mouth and her fingers came away fuchsia, stained from the beets.

  The last time they had gathered like this was before the Canadians had come through, and the words had all been said so many times they had lost their meaning. But this was It, now, nothing more could happen except the end. The L.O were
on the dike, watching the Germans exit the islands, making sure no stray soldiers tried to defect or worse, stage another fight. Blaskowitz was close to signing the surrender papers, now that the German army had been defeated. They learned this while listening to the radio again with Mrs. Boonstra, who had invited them over to keep company together while her husband was out, patrolling with Issac and the rest of the Resistance, their last organized effort.

  No one responded to Mrs. Boonstra; there was too much to listen to. The Queen herself was due to address the nation, and the radio voices were animated, like they were at the beginning of the war, this time shouting about the food drops. Operation Manna, it was called. Many of the planes that flew over Friesland, coming over the North Sea, were for that now. They dropped sacks of food in Holland, although very little was dropped in Friesland. Leen thought of how she had stolen, how she had gone to Jakob. She hadn’t seen him in days. All those empty cellar shelves. Another to the list. She should’ve asked Issac. So much could have been avoided if she’d spoken at the right time, clammed up at others. How easy it was to say to Mem the one thing she didn’t want to hear – what none of them wanted to hear – but yet she had been paralyzed to go to her brother and ask him for food. She’d wanted to hide from Issac, but Mem? She was split, broken into pieces.