Madonna On the Bridge

by Bert C. Wouters

  “Once Germany invades Holland, the Nazis will hunt me down,” his father warned. “I will be sent to a concentration camp in Germany, unless I take decisive action, like going underground. Otherwise, I will not survive the onslaught of Germans,” his father said. His words had the desired impact on his sons, who knew they must protect their family in this hour of threat. “There is no doubt in my heart that both of you will have the courage to fight,” Antonius said to his sons. “Once the resistance calls on you, I expect you to serve.” He spoke these words with the profound conviction of an individual whose ancestors were known for their heroic deeds. But for now, Antonius was not ready to reveal his actual Circassian ancestry.

  The two brothers and their father pledged that they would become freedom fighters in the Dutch Underground if Germany invaded their land. Manus reflected on how his father’s dismissal had caused his family to unite around a common cause.

  Chapter 3

  A Rookie Policeman & Two Rabbits

  Arie Habers’ determination to become a police officer was paying off. On this morning, the sun was shining brightly on the narrow streets of Mill, where he would take his first steps as a rookie on foot patrol. The chief assigned Arie to the outskirts of town, where farmers lived, scratching out a living for their families. Word went around that you could smell a rookie because of the glossy shoeshine. The boyish expression on his face was another giveaway. He was well aware of this since senior officers had teased him at the graduation ceremony. He looked at his partner to see if he had the same youthful look, when suddenly someone yelled, “There they are! The new graduates of the Police Academy!” They looked in the direction of the loud noise and grinned bashfully. The voice came from a tipsy derelict with an old bowler hat, swaggering down the middle of the street. Arie was not sure how to take this. He felt better when a few citizens went out of their way to say something nice to them, like “Thanks for stopping by,” which was a rarity.

  They recalled the oath they took when they graduated: “In partnership with the community, I pledge to protect the lives and property of the people in my jurisdiction.” These were strong words for a twenty-year-old boy. The value statement in the oath was every bit as sacred as the three Hail Mary’s he recited before soccer games.

  To Arie’s chagrin, his police work in the community did not take off quite as he had expected. During his first months on patrol, he knew he had to make some adjustments.

  Walking the streets in his precinct, Arie was amused to see the same little houses that his father loved to put on canvas in pastel colors; the low-slung thatched roofs with stone chimneys, the little doors, and small windows, and a barn with a few bales of hay. He felt his stomach grumble. It was noontime.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked his partner, Jos, who had a funny look on his face and answered in his usual quizzical fashion.

  “Remember when we were in training and we asked dumb questions? ‘Why do they call it the 4-12 shift if it starts at 3?’ ‘Why do we have to wear clip-on ties?’ ‘Where do we stop to find a restroom?’ The answers were always the same: ‘Good luck, buddy.’“ Arie nodded, distracted by the smell of nearby food.

  “Do you smell that?” Arie asked.

  “How can I not?” Jos replied as the two hungry rookies hastened their steps, following their noses straight to Juintje’s house. Arie had met Juintje, aka “little onion,” and her husband before he was a police officer. The family grew the finest white, sweet, yellow, and red onions in town. Three times a week, Juintje came to town with her horse and cart, yelling, “Best onions in Holland!”

  The front door was wide open, as usual. “I smell rabbit stewing,” Arie whispered, peering inside the little home where Juintje stirred her pot. With her spoon dripping with delicious gravy, Juintje waved Arie inside.

  “Hey, Arie! You made policeman!” She smiled with the warmth of a typical Dutch farmer’s wife. “You come from a family of artists—your father a painter and your brother, well, he’s an artist of some kind too. What made you decide to become a lawman?”

  “Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve looked up to policemen. I wanted to be like them,” Arie explained. “I like working in the open air; I am more of the adventurous type. I would rather be on patrol than sitting in front of a canvas, smelling paint all day,” he smiled. “I smell rabbit in the pot,” he added, expectantly. Juintje felt a bit uneasy about having police in the house. She hoped they didn’t ask how the rabbit ended up in her cooking pot. There was no need for them to know. She served them each a rabbit leg, which they devoured before leaving to continue their patrol, never questioning how the rabbit ended up in Juintje’s pot.

  “Do you hear that grunting? Listen, it’s coming from over there across the street,” Jos said excitedly. Arie heard something more than a “grunt,” and they rushed over to investigate the noise, now sounding more like a squeal.

  “Let’s look behind the shed,” Arie directed. “It sounds like a pig in trouble.” As they turned the corner, they saw a boy riding a pig.

  “Get off that animal and let the tail go!” Arie yelled. “You’re hurting the animal!” The teenager yanked one more time on the little tail, causing the pig to bolt like a bucking horse and throw the boy to the ground. Arie grabbed the boy, who smelled like the pigsty where he had been working. Mud was smeared all over him. “If I catch you on that pig again, I’ll take you to jail for animal cruelty!” Arie admonished in a stern voice, pointing his finger at the boy’s face.

  The boy ran into the house. His mother was relieved that the officers had come by to teach her boy a lesson. Arie and Jos took another look at the pig, which looked like it was smiling, or so they told each other.

  During one of their patrols, Jos brought up an incident that had occurred when they were in training. The Police Academy operated under strict rules. Still, from time to time, something went wrong. The sergeant in charge of instruction had told Arie to start a fire in the stove every morning to warm up the room, so Arie had to arrive early to get the fire started. One morning after a light snow had fallen during the night and the temperature hovered near freezing, Arie found a few sticks in the wooden box, but they were frozen. Returning to the classroom, he noticed a stack of old newspapers. He quickly read a headline: “National Socialist Movement claims to have answers for economic woes in Holland.” Arie shrugged his shoulders, thinking. Here they are with their socialist ideas right out of the mouth of Hitler. He had no time to waste. He crumpled up the paper and stuffed it underneath the frozen sticks. His ingenuity jumped into gear as he thought about how to give the fire an extra boost. Grabbing some brown shoe wax from the cupboard, he smeared it all over the paper and threw two lit matches on the wax. The flames immediately started licking at the damp sticks of wood. It would not be long before the classroom was cozy and warm.

  Thinking about the headline he had just read, he spoke a few choice words to the flames destroying the paper. “Here you go up in flames … serves you right, you socialists.” He chuckled at the idea that the fire in the stove was destroying the ideals of socialism. He found some anthracite coal and poured a bucket over the fire. As the fire began to roar in the stove, the room quickly warmed to a comfortable temperature. A few minutes into the first class, the instructor noticed flames coming from the pan under the stove. Arie knew immediately the mistake he had made. He had used too much shoe wax, and it had caught fire. After class, the instructor told Arie that his error could have been costly, burning the entire building. Arie mumbled an embarrassed apology and left the building.

  “How did it go?” Jos, who had waited for him, asked.

  Arie sort of ignored him, before answering boastfully. “Would I do it again? Heck, yes, with a little less shoe wax.” Jos snickered when he heard the story.

  It was now spring, another beautiful sunny day. They were on bicycles today and began their patrol in the early morning, heading towards the ou
tskirts of town. Arie and his partner became a familiar sight, and when they had a flat tire on their bicycle, people would lend them a hand. To Arie, it was somewhat of a revelation to see the many people who liked them as police officers. In neighborhoods with little crime, the police were part of the scenery, and most people greeted them as if they were one of them. Arie remembered how he used to look up to police officers when he saw them.

  “I noticed policemen like I saw mailboxes,” he told Jos. “…until I needed to ask for directions or something.” Jos said he had the same experience. They both chuckled at the word “mailboxes.” Arie realized how much the police were now appreciated, primarily by the elderly, young children, single women and people dressed for work or church. They looked at him with thankfulness, seeing him as a protector against lawbreakers.

  During his patrols, Arie had plenty of time to think about his role in the street. When he started out as a policeman, he understood that his primary purpose was to enforce the law. With time, he found a measure of kindness for derelicts and delinquents, inherited from his father.

  Things were now different than they were in the beginning when he had reacted in a commanding voice to anyone who complained or challenged him: “It’s my job to show up here. Relax; maybe in a week or month, you will have found a reason to love or hate me, but for now, you don’t know me.”

  Arie dutifully reported to his sergeant on duty following each patrol. He quickly excelled in taking accurate statements, making realistic drawings of crime scenes, capturing circumstantial evidence, and more. His sergeant was impressed with his reports. It became clear that Arie was destined for more than just a street patrol officer.

  Illegal sale of liquor was high on the crime list. Police were under orders to bring this matter under control. Every night the jail filled up quickly with drunks. Citizens resorted to heavy drinking, seeking relief from the misery of the difficult economic times. In the districts outside town, many of the small homes had a small plot behind the house, where the farmers grew potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbage, and string beans. Those who were a little better off might have a pig or a few chickens in the yard.

  Poachers and trappers did their best to evade police. As the result of the economic hardship and poverty, people plied their trade of poaching out of sheer necessity rather than for the thrill of the hunt. Many officers would like to look the other way when faced with poaching, but in the eyes of the authorities, tolerating this activity of killing wildlife without a permit was not an option despite the bounty of wildlife.

  Three days had passed without any significant events. Arie and Jos ventured towards the outskirts of town again. On this day they went on bicycle to the outskirts of town, into the woods thick with underbrush. It was late in the afternoon as the sun set in a blaze to the west. In the distance, Arie saw movement in the undergrowth; without speaking, he signaled to his partner to follow him quietly, avoiding sticks and rocks on the dirt road.

  “I am sure there is a trapper in the woods,” Arie cupped his hand and whispered. Jos was not as anxious to proceed as it got dark, preferring to let it go.

  “Come on, why bother some poor soul who is trying to catch dinner for his family? Yes, I know it is against the law, but God knows how many mouths he is trying to feed,” Jos answered. Arie was more concerned with impressing his sergeant than becoming emotional.

  “I understand your concern. If you are going to make it as a good officer, we may as well start here,” he countered. Jos struggled to continue down the dirt road, not wanting to abandon his partner in case there might be trouble.

  Knol Brandts was a scruffy-looking forty year old, with a dirty beard and baggy clothing. All his life he had been a trapper, a trade he had learned from his father. He had spotted several rabbit holes and was an expert at finding recent activity. It was there that he set his snares. The two police officers moved slowly through the woods without making a sound until they were a few meters from Knol. He looked up from setting another snare, quickly dropping his wire cutter. His wry smile revealed his mischievous character. For years, he had managed to elude the law. He cursed himself for his stupidity at getting caught by two rookies.

  Arie saw the head and front paws of a dead rabbit sticking out of his pocket. In the other pocket, he kept his hand over something still quivering and struggling. “What are you hiding in your left hand?” Arie asked him.

  “You two are too green to see what I have in my pocket,” Knol told them.

  “Show us your hands!” Arie demanded, his voice rising.

  The old man showed them another rabbit, barely alive with a mangled leg, ensnared by a trap. The little animal struggled to get free. Arie could not stand the sight of the bleeding creature and commanded Knol to put the animal out of its misery. In one swift motion, Knol drew his butcher knife and slashed the throat of the animal. Then problems started. Brandishing his knife, he turned on the officers.

  “Get out of here you rookies!” he shouted angrily. “Do you see this knife? You are not going to take me to jail!” Arie felt a shot of adrenaline coursing through his veins as he tried to manage his anger. As if in unison, they lunged forward at the poacher, who turned quickly and began running. The race to capture him was on. Remembering his high school record for the 100-meter sprint, Arie ran fast, catching the old man without difficulty. The pair walked him to jail in cuffs. A couple of times, between cursing, he spat at the officers.

  That evening while Arie worked on his report, he reflected on the case and knew it could have turned out very different if Brandts had been successful with his knife. Catching some crazy trapper with a knife was not in the manual he had read while at the Academy, and Arie was disappointed that he did not feel satisfied with this kind of police work. Had he not learned that he would experience adjustment of expectations during training? That night he thought about his career as a police officer.

  “They had to sew his ear back on” was the description Arie heard in the Mill Police Department. A report came in late that Sunday night about a significant disturbance in the district east of town. Arie and Jos were on duty.

  The Bierens were a hard-working family. Sadly, they had no luck with their daughter. If the town of Mill were ever to hold a contest for the ugliest girl, the winner in this district would be Belle, the oldest daughter of the Bierens family. With her close-set and beady eyes, nose like a potato, small mouth with crooked teeth and protruding lower jaw, she was no beauty. She was flat-chested and had scraggly red hair. No boy in town would lay his eyes on her, and they all joked about her appearance. Until one day, she met Frans Dries, a twenty-two-year-old weaver.

  Belle’s parents had told their daughter to stay away from Frans. He had run up a conviction for stealing chickens, for which he had served six months in prison. They had hoped their daughter would end the relationship at once. Nevertheless, Belle saw in Frans her last chance to find a partner, and she would not hear of abandoning her Frans.

  “I will not break up with Frans,” she made clear to her father. “Where am I going to find another boy?” Her father looked her up and down, shaking his head.

  “I agree with you,” he told her. “With that kind of body, you are better off not being married. However, no matter how desperate you are, do not stoop this low, going out with a chicken thief.”

  That Sunday evening, Frans showed up at the Bierens’ farmhouse after Belle’s parents had gone to sleep. He knocked on Belle’s bedroom window; after a few minutes, she came outside.

  “I am afraid to tell you, my father no longer wants us to be together,” Belle tried to explain in a hushed voice. Frans flew into a rage, flailing his arms and jumping up and down.

  “What? You listen to me!” he shouted. “You’re fortunate to have me as your boyfriend … who else would go out with you? Tell your father that we stay together. I do not care if he is angry with me.” Tears rolled down her cheeks, as she looked
away from Frans.

  Her father appeared, grabbing her by the arms and swinging her around towards him. “As for you, young lady, you go inside!” her father commanded loudly, pointing towards the back door before suddenly lunging at Frans and pushing him into the street.

  Shortly after, Frans returned with a knife, attacking Belle’s father as he sat in the dimly lit kitchen. Her father was surprised to see Frans wielding a large knife in front of his face. It was over in a split second. Frans managed to cut the tip off his fat potato nose, picking up the missing body part and running outside in jubilation.

  Arie arrived at the crime scene first and helped Bierens with his bleeding nose. Once in a state to talk, Bierens told him to go after Frans.

  “Now, go and catch him; he is drunk and has a sharp knife on him.” Arie caught up with Frans, took the bloody stump of the nose from him, and returned it to the owner. Doctor Smit, who lived on the same street, stitched the missing part back on. Bierens thought long about the incident as he looked every day at his sadly aggrieved daughter.

  At the wedding of Belle and Frans, six months later, father Bierens thanked Arie for his quick action in returning the tip of his nose.

  During his first year as a police officer, Arie found some appeal to police work: the spontaneity and variety, picking up a criminal, the pursuit on foot, and intervening in disputes. He had learned to lend an ear to people’s hardships: robberies, beatings, heart attacks. When he had to deal with someone who had died in the house, he had a hard time getting used to the stillness of the body; it transfixed him. In the living organism, he saw at least a rhythm, shaking or trembling.

  Being present in life and death situations was all part of his job to become a good lawman. But something was missing. At night, when he went to sleep, he had recurring dreams of doing more, like fighting for freedom. His father’s words lingered: “There is no doubt in my mind that my sons will have the courage to fight to the death for the ideals of freedom. Once the war starts and the resistance calls on you, I expect you to serve. The blood that courses through our veins is Circassian. In due time, you will find out about your ancestors, a special people. At that time, you will better understand why you have courage in your genetic make-up.” Arie became restless, wondering when that time would arrive to understand his family heritage more fully.