The Journey Back

by Johanna Reiss

  “Well, that’s that. A handsome man you’re looking at, Annie. What d’ you say, eh?”

  “Yes, Johan.” He was. He liked my answer. He smiled a few times at himself before he hung the mirror on the nail again.

  With a long enamel spoon Dientje was stirring something in a pan. Billows of steam were coming up, enveloping her, then thinning out and spreading until they hit the window, the door, the tiled walls, becoming drops that ran down and formed tiny puddles on the stone floor. So many wonderful sounds here: the flames racing across the wood in the stove, the teakettle whistling, the potatoes plopping into the bucket, the scraping of Johan’s chair as he pulled it up right next to mine.

  “Now tell me what’s happening in Winterswijk.”

  Intently they listened. Once in a while they would say something. “That Sini, she’s got it in her, Johan. I could tell when she was dancing here. Those feet couldn’t stay still.” “But that was Liberation Day. Every night now? No, that’s not right for a young girl. No wonder she got sick. And then complaining, too! Fui-fui!”

  From Sini, I went on to Rachel, and again they listened and had things to say.

  “What? To church twice on Sundays?” Johan could hardly believe it. “I’ll be damned. Here, Dientje, goes once a year, and that’s only because of the neighbors.”

  “New Year’s Eve, Annie. I never skip. You know that.”

  With her lips pursed, Opoe said she’d love to go all the time if it weren’t for her lace cap. “It’s too much work to put on, Annie, and without it, it doesn’t look right. But that’s the only reason. Does Rachel talk religious, too?” she wanted to know. “Because some of ’em do when they get that way, like old woman Roerink who always says— ah—” Opoe had trouble remembering. “The morning may—ah, ah—be beautiful, but we never know what ah—” She puckered up her forehead. “—the night will bring us,” she finished. With a sigh of relief, she began on another potato.

  And I told them that every day I had to go to the masseur, that I was tired of it.

  “She shouldn’t have to, Johan,” Opoe said firmly. “There’s nothing wrong with her legs. A little short and crooked, but that’s the way they grew. You’re a pretty girl, Annie. What did you call that man? Ah, I can’t even say it. Pooh, what does he know.”

  “Annie”—I looked at Johan. His face was serious— “I’ll tell you something. You should’ve stayed here for always and not gone back to Winterswijk. I don’t even care for the town from what I saw. I guess I had it pictured wrong in my head. It’s not cozy.”

  “We sure would’ve liked you to stay.” Shyly Dientje looked at me. “We wanted to ask your father when he came to pick you up, but we didn’t have the heart. He was so glad to see you. It would’ve been nice though, Annie, what?”

  Vigorously I nodded my head.

  “But I’m still kind of a mother to you, right?”

  “Of course, Dientje.”

  With a pleased smile she moved the spoon around in the pan again.

  “We’ve got a school here, too,” Johan went on proudly. “You should see, a room as big as a house, Annie. With desks, nice pots of ink in the middle, everything. And I could’ve seen you every time I went by with the horse.” He laughed just thinking about it.

  So did I. “Excuse me,” I’d say to the teacher when I heard trotting noises, “I’d like to look out the window a minute.” And I’d run, wave. “Hi, Johan.”

  “And don’t think we haven’t got soldiers here for Sini. Ha, ha, plenty.”

  Well, that I didn’t like.

  “We’ve even got ’em visiting us. Ja, ja, I’m not kidding. Last week one walked right into the kitchen. Awfully nice fellow. We talked a lot.”

  “You didn’t.” Dientje laughed through the steam.

  Johan ignored her. “He stood around for a minute and said something like Borrow-horse-cart. ‘Well, my name’s a lot easier,’ I said. ‘Just call me Johan.’ We both kept on saying the same thing, Annie. After a while I gave him an egg. Had to get rid of him somehow.”

  “Ah, Johan, he must’ve come for something else. He looked so confused.”

  “Then he should’ve said what he came for. He left with the egg though. He even gave me a little tobacco, he was so happy.” Johan pointed at the cigarette in his hand. “Here, this is one of ’em. How many farmers in Usselo do you think he could have had a conversation with in English, eh?” Triumphantly he blew a mouthful of smoke at the stove where it merged with the clouds of steam. “No one. That Sini was a good English teacher.”

  “Fui-fui,” Opoe complained. “It’s becoming harder and harder to see here.” She took off her glasses and rubbed them against her apron. “Johan—” Her voice was urgent. She half got off her chair. “I hear someone coming. Annie, upstairs. Quick, quick. Johan, make’r go. Joha-a-an. ”

  We stared at her. “The war’s over.”

  “Ah, ja. What’s the matter with me? Ashamed, Opoe put her hand in front of her mouth. “It must’ve been my imagination.”

  “Well, woman,” Johan yelled, holding his fork up. “I’m ready to give you your dinner.”

  “Just a minute.” Dientje tried to see into the pan, frowned, gave the stew a stir anyway, and lifted the pan from the stove. “All right, Johan. Hurry up. Make some space on the table. Don’t wait; it’s heavy.” Groaning, she set the pan down in the middle of the table.

  With his fork Johan began to mark off portions. “Ma, this little strip by the handle is yours. Dientje, boy, look at what I’m letting you have, almost as much as me. Ha, ha. Don’t worry, Ma. I won’t forget about our Annie. This nice little pile is all for her.”

  I pushed my chair closer to the table, picked up my fork, and dug in. Three big flies buzzed up and down the table, trying to find a way into the pan. I slapped at them. Go away.

  Vlekje was standing on his hind legs, his paws on Opoe’s arm. But Dientje wouldn’t let Opoe give him anything. “Don’t forget, Mother, he’s only a dog.”

  A nice dog though. Sweet eyes. And the steam … it made everything even more cozy. All wrapped up—us. Contentedly I licked my fork.

  “It’s good, Annie, isn’t it? Nice and crusty, the meat, right? The way you like it?” Dientje asked.

  With my mouth full I answered, “Yes.” Her whole face beamed.

  We had finished eating. The flies had dived into the pan and were walking across the bottom. Johan tipped his chair back, stuck out his legs, and pulled a red handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his mouth.

  “Dientje, after you’ve cleaned up here, I want you to lie down for a while. Ja, ja, take a rest. You look awfully tired. It must be the knee. It’ll do it good.”

  “What?” With big eyes Dientje stared at him. “I don’t understand. All you’ve done for weeks is complain about my resting. You told me my knee was all better now.”

  He ignored her. “And, Ma, you do the same. Off to bed with the two of you.”

  “I won’t sleep, Johan,” Opoe protested. “And I’ve got to put fresh straw down for the chickens.”

  “I don’t care. Let them use the old stuff. We’re all going to have a little what-d’you-call-it—vacation. C’mon, Annie.”

  “Where are you going?” Dientje asked.

  “To the front of the house, woman.”

  “But Johan, this morning you said you had so much to do that we wouldn’t see you till dark. Now look at you.”

  “Ah, Dientje, that was this morning. C’mon, Annie.”

  I followed Johan out of the kitchen.

  “Ja, ja, Annie, life’s not easy.” Johan sat down between the geranium beds in front of the house, his arms resting on his legs. “We’ve had nothing but trouble the last couple of months. First Opoe with the head. Then Dientje with the leg. All I’ve done is work, Annie. I bet that’s what has kept me healthy. Remember, during the war Dientje and Ma always had to push me? ‘Go, Johan, what’s the matter with you? You can’t stay in the house all day. The grass, the turnips. …’ No more
. I run to work. What’s there to stay home for now that you and Sini are gone?”

  I took his hand. We sat close, saying nothing. When he began to talk again, he sounded more cheerful. “But you never know, Annie. You could come back and live here. Crazy things happen. Who would’ve thought you’d come here in the first place? Eh?” In front of us a butterfly kept waltzing by, its yellow wings glistening in the sun.

  The sounds of footsteps came from the road. I could see a farmer, a sickle across his shoulder. “Afternoon, Piet,” Johan called out to him. “How goes?”

  “That’s Annie,” Piet shouted, running over. “I was talking about you just a few minutes ago. Ja, ja, we still can’t get over it. I was telling the wife’s cousin how I thought I wasn’t seeing right when you first hobbled out of the house in April. Who’s that? I asked everyone, but they didn’t know, either. That Johan, how he kept it hidden from us! And that’s not easy in Usselo, Annie— let me tell you. Here, we even thought Johan was crazy, never getting into the air-raid shelter with the rest of us,” Piet said, shaking his head.

  “I was home with the girls, Piet, under the table. I always said if a bomb hits the house I might just as well get killed with them. You should’ve seen Annie— trembled like a leaf.” Johan squeezed my hand. “Eh? How could I have left her?”

  “I’m telling you, Annie. That Johan is something.”

  “Listen to him talk,” Johan said modestly.

  “Well”—Piet put his sickle over his other shoulder— “I’ve got to begin cutting the rye, Johan. Koos has most of his down already, and you hate to be the last one. If you ask me, this weather can’t go on forever.”

  Behind us someone was knocking loudly on the window. “Johan, Johan”—I could see Dientje’s head through the curtains—“get off the grass. What’s the matter with you, sitting there in broad daylight? No one else in Usselo is doing it, I’ll bet. What’ll people think?”

  “Ahh—” But Johan got up. ‘C’mon, Annie. We’d better get going.”

  I followed them all afternoon, ducking first into the chicken coop where Opoe was. “That one, Annie, with the funny eyes, always takes her own time. I have to keep reminding her what she’s sitting there for. Come, chickie, I haven’t got all afternoon.”

  Vlekje was curled up in the corner, his paws on a layer of peat litter. “Quiet, Annie.” Opoe put her finger against her lips. “There, she’s doing it.” Opoe sounded relieved. A minute later she rushed over to the nest. “I’ve got to be quick with this one. She likes to eat the shell. She doesn’t want to wait till it’s empty, and I feed it to her. C’mon, get off now.”

  The chicken got up, turned around to see what she had done, looked again. Then, cackling angrily, she left the coop.

  “Nice egg, Annie. She got it a little dirty, but I’ll wash it. You’re going to have it for supper tonight.” With a damp rag Opoe carefully cleaned the egg.

  In the kitchen where steam was still rising and dripping again, Dientje and a neighbor were canning beans. They snipped off the ends, broke them in two, threw them into a pot, and took up new ones from the heap in their laps.

  “You want anything, Annie? An apple maybe?” Dientje asked. “Shall I get you one from the side of the house? No? A cookie? One with sugar sprinkles? She likes those, Leida.”

  “Ha-ha, ha-ha,” Leida laughed.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Everything made her laugh, even when Dientje asked, “How many jars d’ you think this will make?” She must have seen me looking at her.

  “I bet Annie wonders what’s the matter with me.” Leida laughed again. “No teeth. I had ‘em all pulled, Annie. All of a sudden I had such a toothache.” She showed me where. “Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t work, it hurt so. I went to the dentist, and I said, ‘Out with ’em. I’ve had enough of pain in the mouth.’ Now I’m getting some new ones”—she giggled—”in a couple of weeks, for my thirty-fifth birthday. Some dentist in the city, Dientje, who first asked for a hundred guilders and a dozen eggs, but after I sat down in the chair and he had gotten the last ones out, he wanted more. Now I can’t get the new ones from him for less than four dozen, which isn’t very nice of him.” Laughing, she closed another jar.

  “Ja, ja, Leida. The war made a lot of people bad,” Dientje agreed. One by one, she lowered the jars into the boiling water.

  Johan was in the stable, sitting next to the only cow that was in there. “I’ve got to keep a close eye on her, Annie. She’s had a lot of trouble before when she’s calved.” He stroked her sides. “Ja. Better not be in the middle of the night again, you hear? Not like the other time.” He lifted his cap and scratched his head. “Too bad I can’t tell for sure whether it’s going to be a boy or girl calf, Annie. Some farmers tie a golden ring to a piece of string and let it dangle. If it turns one way, it means a boy calf; the other way, a girl. But I for one”— he scratched the cow’s head, too—“don’t believe in such nonsense. I say she’s been awfully jumpy for a day or two, so it’s going to be a girl. And, Annie, listen to this. I’m going to give her a special name. Guess what one.” He laughed mysteriously.

  “I can’t, Johan.”

  “Want me to tell you? It’s going to be Annie. This way there’ll be an Annie around here all the time. In the meadow, in the stable, ‘Annie,’ I’ll yell, and she’ll be right there! What d’you think of that, eh?”

  Calves were cute. They had big ears and such long legs. I liked it, I told him.

  “I thought you would. Ja, ja, leave it to Johan. Hey, where are you off to now?”

  The chicken coop, of course. I didn’t want to miss a thing that was going on.

  It was getting to be evening. The sun was going down red, turning the whole sky that color and a little purple, too, all the way down to the trees. Bunches of flies danced around in clusters, landing sometimes, but mostly not. A rooster crowed. I leaned against the gate, close to where Johan had tied up the four cows to be milked. Their backs were covered with pieces of canvas. From time to time they shook their heads and swept their tails around to chase away the flies. For a second it helped. Milk began to splash and hiss into the pails as Johan and Dientje’s hands moved the teats up and down.

  “Getting tired, Annie?”

  “Just a little, Dientje.” But it was a nice kind of tired, a peaceful kind. From the gate I heard their voices again, hushed. They were talking about tomorrow.

  “We can’t wait another day with the rye, Johan, or we’ll be the only ones with ours still up.”

  “First thing tomorrow, after the calf. Make a batch of pancake sandwiches, something to drink, blanket for Annie to sit on—”

  “Not too close to the sickle, Johan.”

  “I know, woman, what d’you take me for?”

  “And we’ll bring a straw hat, Johan. We don’t want her to get sunburned.”

  “Maybe we can find her one of those white aprons, like Ma used to wear.”

  I was having such a good time already, just listening. Tomorrow, the day after, the one after that, and then— No, I didn’t want to think about that day now. I scratched my arms. There were an awful lot of flies around; that, I didn’t like.

  Johan had finished with his cow. He emptied the pail into the jug. Steaming, the milk rushed through the strainer, leaving foam that fizzed around, then slowly dissolved. The sky was becoming a little darker, less red.

  Soon we’d all be sitting in the kitchen with the door open, to let in the last of the light. Opoe was already there, cutting bread for supper. She’d hold the loaf against her bosom and carve. Just before the knife touched the apron, she’d stop and break the slice off. A minute later she’d add a piece of wood to the stove, so the water would boil for tea—and my egg. She’d take four knives from the drawer, wipe the oilcloth on the table, get out the cups. …

  Noiselessly I left the gate. I had to go inside and see for myself.

  The four days were over. They had gone so fast I felt as if I had just come. Johan’s rye was still not
all gathered into sheaves. I could have gone to the fields again with him and Dientje, woven another basket, picked more cornflowers, selected more straws for binding the rye.

  Slowly I pedaled away.

  Far behind me, from the stable, came mooing sounds. The cow had calved—a girl. “Did just as I told her,”

  Johan had said. And we had laughed. Closer, I could hear voices, three of them, calling good-bye, telling me to be careful, to say hello to Sini, Rachel, Father, and to come back. Then I could no longer hear them. But when I turned around to look, they were still there.

  The fields again, practically bare now. A few birds were flying over the stubble, looking for spilled grain. When they saw a kernel, they swooped down, pecked at it. Flapping wings against the gray sky, the only sounds. Last field … the turn.

  Funny, I had not said anything to them about Father, that he was always out. Not on business either, Rachel said, not at night, not when it was pitch-dark. “How could he see?” Besides, he wouldn’t take a bath every day, she said, not for cows. Where did he go then?

  *

  9 *

  “I think I’m all set.” Sini picked up her bag and looked around the room to make sure she had left nothing behind. She turned to Father and Rachel.“I’ll be fine,” she assured them again. “Don’t worry.” Quickly she ran down the stairs. I followed her. A second later we closed the back door behind us.

  Already we were halfway to the railroad crossing, but the gate was down. Good. A freight train was coming. Noisily the two cars sped by. We crossed the tracks. Did Sini notice how fancy the Misterstraat looked compared to when we first came home? Pieces of glass taken from picture frames had been installed in the boards across the store windows, some so large that several people could see in at once. And read the signs that said what you could buy now and what would be coming soon. Or, as in the shoe store, see a real shoe. But, no, Sini was in too much of a hurry to get to that city she was going to, to become a nurse—Enschede, where so much was happening that she wouldn’t know what to choose from first. Listen to her carry on. The minute I got out of bed this morning, she began again, just as she had yesterday and the day before.