I sat down. Comfortable; pretty, too. Blossoms everywhere, above my head, around, almost on my head … closed most of them … red … I leaned back, carefully stretched out my legs. Almost straight again. Soon no one would ever be able to tell they had been crooked. I began to whistle, a French tune about a garden, like this one … trees.
There were so many things to look at. The whole side of the house, the shed, the stable, the chicken coop, the gate to my right, even a little bit of the road beyond. And the meadow—I just had to turn my head a little, and there was the calf tied to a post. That frisky.
“The cows were glad to get out, too, Annie. Don’t kid yourself, they get tired of standing in the same spot all winter.” There, the special cow with the one black ear, had crossed the meadow again, udder swaying.
We had a talk about the cow, Johan and I, in the stable. “She’s been giving so much milk,” he said, excited. “Five extra guilders worth last week, and I’m putting it all away. Guess for what? A tractor. You know what I’m going to do with it? Everyone’s work. Piet’s, Koos’s, and all the others’ who don’t want to do it themselves. Yep. They’ll ask me, you’ll see. Ahh, before you know it I’ll be driving around all the fields, sitting down, getting paid for it, too. I’ll be an important man.” He grinned. “I bet they’ll say, ‘That Johan, what he can’t do!’He picked up the pitchfork, pushed it back into the dirty straw, looked at me. “Don’t say anything about it to Dientje though. She’ll think I’m crazy. I’ll get to it when I’m ready.”
The door of the chicken coop opened. Opoe came out, holding the basket of eggs in one hand, cleaning rag in the other. She must have had a good day; her face was all crinkly with laughter. “Fifteen of ’em, Annie.”
Dientje had also finished her work. She was standing in the kitchen doorway, smiling. Wisps of wet hair stuck out from under her kerchief. She picked up the milking jugs.
Time now for Johan to bring the cows in for the night. Yes, there he was already, walking straight through the grass to the special one. He must be anxious to start milking that one first, see how much. … “Coming, Johan.” Eagerly I jumped down. Me, too.
What about today though? Watch them again? I already had yesterday, all day, almost from the minute I got up. “C’mon, Annie, over here. I’m going to wash the cows’ tails.” Five of them. And in the shed, cutting up potatoes for planting, a bushel at least. I had helped. Dientje had not even wanted me to. “You should enjoy yourself while you’re here, Annie.”
I looked out the kitchen window. Maybe I’d go outside? Sit? Maybe so. It was early still. The tree was a little damp. With a corner of my skirt I dabbed the branch. A few blossoms had opened, all white now. And some, almost open, that one by my knee, maybe even by tonight in this weather. Wherever I looked, the sky was blue. I sighed, settled myself a little better. The green of the kitchen door looked different today, darker; so did the stable and the strips of the chicken coop. I strained my eyes. Yes, the paint on the shed too, same thing, pretty. The branches and twigs were moving, making tiny sounds. Hardly any from the road. A horse sometimes, a cart going up the road, to Piet’s farm, or down the road, past Koos’s. A cow being taken to a meadow. Shovel sounds from the stable. Sweeping ones from the coop. I shut my eyes, opened them again. Something had changed. The sun was beginning to stick up above the shed, and there, near me, a tiny bug was climbing up a blade of grass. Long this morning, actually, very long. Maybe I should go for the walk again, stop at Spieker’s Diena for a while, see whether she had something new in the window, go as far as the baker. Walk slowly. I brushed my shoes across a cluster of tall weeds. Later.
“Having a good time, Annie?” Dientje was on her way to the stable.
“Yes.” I smiled. She did not have to worry.
Cheerfully she walked on. I would have liked to ask her whether or not she still thought Mother missed me. I had been gone for days now. Was she outside, too, in the garden with Nel? Maybe they were talking about me at this very moment. “I couldn’t have gotten a better daughter, Nel. She’s wonderful. Learned so quickly. Never gives me any trouble. I don’t even understand it myself, because there was a lot she didn’t know. I wish it was Thursday already, so she’d be home. You should see her now.”
I slid down from the tree and went into the kitchen. I picked up the paper, put it down again. I glanced at Opoe’s chair, the one they called easy. Hesitantly I walked into the good room. Everything did look good in here. Only if ever they had more than twenty people visiting, they wouldn’t know where to put them. Restlessly I wandered on, up the stairs. The doors to the bedrooms were open. I walked into Johan and Dientje’s. The furniture … no carvings on anything, just wood and who knew from where? From trees in Usselo probably.
Look how their bed was made. Covers all wrong. Their feet would stick out in no time, touch the footboard, could make smudges. And the curtain —it had been opened just like that. Uneven, puckered. No thought to it. Had it always been like that?
Slowly I walked into the back room, where Sini and I had spent so much time. What was the matter with me today, walking around, inspecting? If it hadn’t been for Johan and Dientje, I might not even be here. They’d taken us in just like that, had never even seen us. “We’ve got the space, Dientje. We can’t let them get killed. They’re just kids.” That bed—I had slept in it with them, all those years. And Sini, on the floor, close, too. So we’d be safe. Live.
I stared out the window. Coop, shed, stable. The wheelbarrow standing next to it—rusty. I stopped, bent my head, ashamed. It was the same wheelbarrow Johan had taken us out in that day, after we’d been in hiding for two years. We’d gone to the field all the way in the back so we’d get some sun, see the sky, be like other people, a little. Nice. That had been then though—a long time ago. What about now? Special place, this. And the people in it … special too. Would stay that way. Always. Only … hard to be here now. So many voices in my head. Johan and Dientje’s, Mother’s. Didn’t know which one to listen to. Home, tomorrow. Can’t wait. Nicer there. No smell of cows. … Things for me to do. I got up, walked to the door. Maybe I would watch Johan and Dientje again. They’d like that.
“Let’s sit in the good room tonight,” Dientje said.
“She’s showing off, Annie.” Johan laughed.
We went in, the four of us. We were not laughing any more; not talking either. Dientje’s hands were folded in her lap. Johan sat quietly, smoking. There, Opoe was going to say something.
“We’ve got to try a different spot for the cabbage, Johan. They grew scrawny, like sprouts, where we had ’em.”
Somberly he crushed out his cigarette. “I know, Ma.”
Opoe was studying the edge of her apron. “Let’s have something to eat,” she finally suggested. Quickly Dientje got up and went to the kitchen.
“Cut four nice pieces,” Opoe called out. Then to me, “We’ve saved part of a cake. Dientje didn’t make it. The baker did.” Instantly Vlekje came out from under Opoe’s chair, stood up against it, pawed her. “You can’t have any,” she said regretfully. “It’s too good. Don’t forget you’re a dog.
“Dientje,” she called in to the kitchen again,“where are the cookies you baked?” Opoe’s hand patted Vlekje’s head. “They were too hard for me, but maybe she’ll let you eat one.”
Silence again. Slowly I began on my cake. Opoe was softening hers under her tongue.
“You like it, right?” Dientje nodded to me.
“Yes.” I took another bite, a bigger one. Johan had not touched his. My eyes wandered to what was in the middle of the table, a basket holding a bundle of letters tied together with string.
Dientje noticed. “You know which one’s in there, Annie? The first one you wrote to us, telling us how well things worked out between you and your mother. Johan and I were so worried about you. I cried, Annie, on the way home from the wedding. I said to Johan, ‘What’s going to happen to her?’ She made you do all the work.” Dientje fingered the package.
“A lot of these letters are yours, Annie.”
“Ja, ja, the mailman’s here all the time these days.” Johan was cheering up. “As if I’ve got an office. One day, during New Year’s, we had two letters at once. I’m not kidding. I had to bring the fellow in here. Show him the photographs again, prove it.” He pointed to the chest along the wall. “Ha, ha, he never came before the war. Remember, Ma? Except to bring the tax bill.”
“Every winter, Johan. And he’d say, ‘Coffee ready?’ and sit for a while. Two cups, I remember.”
But not like now, Mother.” Dientje laughed.
“No,” Opoe conceded, “now he has business here all the time.” Solemnly she stared at what was left of her cake.
Again no one said anything. The only sounds came from Vlekje. He was chewing the cookies. Then he went back under the chair, became still, too.
“We haven’t heard from Sini for a long time,” Dientje said, breaking the silence. “She must be forgetting us.” She laughed nervously.
“Of course not, Dientje,” Johan flared up. “What a thing to say. When she was a nurse in Enschede, she came to visit all the time. She’s very, very busy.”
“Running around, if you ask me.” Opoe pursed her lips.
“Goddammit, Ma, that’s not true,” Johan said in an angry voice. “Those kids she’s taking care of keep her going day and night. That’s why we haven’t heard from her. One of them is under a year, can’t even stand yet. We’ve got it in a letter.” He jumped up, took the string off the bundle, and looked through the letters. “Here it is.” In a loud voice he began to read: “I may not even stay that much longer. I have to work so hard that I have no time for anything else.” Triumphantly he looked at Opoe.
“Besides”—here his voice became a little hesitant —“I haven’t been able to find one Jewish boy I like.” Abruptly he stopped. “I guess that’s it.” He tied the string around the bundle again. “Forgetting us,” he muttered. “Dumb talk. After what we went through together?”
Uneasily I fidgeted on my chair. Too early to go to bed yet.
“They could become strangers, Johan, with Sini off in a big city and Annie in that fancy house.”
“So what, woman? Won’t make any difference, not between us and the girls.”
“You’re awfully quiet, Annie.” Worriedly Dientje looked at Johan. “She used to talk much more during the war, remember?”
“And giggle,” Opoe added. “Fui-fui, all the time.”
“Sit on my lap.” Johan laughed. “I couldn’t keep’r off.
Like the devil, the minute I came upstairs, she’d climb on.”
“On mine, too, Johan,” Dientje reminded him.
“Tell about the first time the girls came here during the war, Johan,” Opoe said eagerly.
He jumped up and pretended he was me. He stuck out a hand and said in an elegant voice, ‘How do you do, Mrs. Oosterveld.’ The look on your face, Ma. None of us knew what she wanted with that hand. She didn’t know what a bunch of dumb peasants she had come to that only shake hands at weddings and funerals.” Johan laughed so hard he had to wipe the tears from his eyes. “We had a nice war, Annie. That, I must say.” Roughly he shoved his handkerchief back in his pocket. When he spoke again, it was hard to understand him. “We were a real family, then. We had kids.”
On the other side of the room, next to their wedding picture, hung the photographs of Sini and me, smiling.
“I think we’d better leave now, Annie.”
“Not yet, Johan,” Dientje protested. “It only takes you two minutes to get there. She doesn’t want to hang around that bus stop for an hour.”
Johan checked the clock again, frowned. “There’s no saying what time it really is. You can’t trust an antique. Besides, I’m not going to leave her there alone.”
“I want to come, Johan,” Dientje said.
Firmly he shook his head. “That wouldn’t be right, not the way people in Usselo talk. ‘Look at ’em,’ they’d say, ‘they’re both going off as if they’ve got nothing better to do, and it’s a workday.’ Now, that, we can’t do.”
Wistfully Dientje looked at him. “You think so?”
“For sure.” He gulped the rest of his coffee down.
“Here, Annie.” Opoe came into the kitchen. “For your Easter Sunday.” Looking mysterious, she gave me a bag. “Don’t open it till you get home. But they’re nice and fresh, cleaned off and everything.”
“I’ll be careful not to break them, Opoe.” Awkwardly I stood there, waiting. Shouldn’t we go?
But Dientje was talking about the next time. “We’ll take’r somewhere, Johan. On a Sunday, and we’ll both go, right after milking.”
A real conversation, Johan sitting down again. “We could easily enough. I’ve already thought about it. I’ve even picked the place.”
“The waterwheel on the other side of Usselo, Johan. Right?”
“Sure, Ma.” Now Johan was pulling out his tobacco tin and hunting around for his cigarette paper. “It’s got big paddles, Annie. You won’t believe what you see. People go there these days just to look, they tell me. Stay for hours. Healthy there. Cool, too … breezy.”
“They sell lemonade, I hear. I’ll get her a glass. …”
“We could all have some.”
“And I’ll wear my new dress, the new one,” Dientje said.
“If you’re going to be that fancy, woman, I’ll have to wear the suit.” They looked at me, all of them. “You’d better come back soon, Annie. We’ve got great plans.”
I nodded.
Finally Johan picked up my suitcase. “Come.”
Dientje took my face between her hands. “You’re sorry you have to go home, Annie?” Without waiting for an answer, she went on. “I know, you can’t help it. You promised’r. But you weren’t bored here?” Her voice trembled.
I shook my head and kissed her. Then I kissed Opoe.
“Make sure you have the bag, Annie.”
I held it up for her to see.
“I put something else in it.” She chuckled. “For the trip … with big pats of butter … bread.” She came closer. “I can still hug you. I may never be able to again, as old as I am.”
Don’t say that, Opoe. Please.
At the gate I turned. She was holding Vlekje.
*
4 *
Arm in arm, Johan and I began to walk, slowly. Wherever I looked, fields. The rye was already up, blades of green as tall as a hand, growing close together, rippling in the wind. There were black stretches, where the soil had just been turned up, and other parts still covered with weeds. A farmer was pushing his plow through those. “C’mon, horse, get a move,” he yelled.
“That’s Piet, Annie. You talked to him this summer.”
I had. I remembered.
“Say hello to’m, Annie.”
What if the bus came? “He’s busy, Johan.” Anxiously I looked down the road.
“Nonsense. He’s got all day. Look, he’s close to the road now. C’mon, it won’t take long.” With his elbow he nudged me toward Piet.
Piet put down the handle of the plow and scanned the sky. “Morning,” Johan called out. “How goes?”
“Johan, d’you think the good weather will last, or what?”
Johan turned to me. “What do you think, Annie?”
“She came to visit you, I see.”
“She sure did.” Johan beamed. “For close to a week. It’s awfully nice, Piet, to have one of the kids around, let me tell you. I guess she can’t forget us. What d’you say?”
“She shouldn’t, Johan, not after what you did for her.”
“My life, I risked for them. More a person can’t do, Piet.” He waited.
Piet said no more about it. He’d gone on to something else. “The wife’s cousin broke the leg in two places. They had to take’r to the hospital. Not easy to have to go to the city and see’r, with the potatoes coming up.”
“No, no, Piet, life isn’t easy. Hard work, tha
t’s all.”
“Well—” Piet spat on his hands, rubbed them together, and picked up the plow again.
“Come, Annie,” Johan said quietly.
Was he thinking that Piet used to call him a hero? I put my arm through his.
At the bus stop Johan put my suitcase down. His back was turned to me when he began to speak. “When’s the next time, you think?”
I swallowed. “I don’t know.”
He turned around, took my hand. “You’re not mad at me for yelling at you when you first came, are you?”
“No, Johan. Of course not.”
“Because I wouldn’t want that. I like it, Annie, even when you come for just one day.” Hopefully he looked at me. “You think in a few weeks?”
“I’ll try.” I didn’t meet his eyes.
“If you can’t, you can’t. There’s still the whole summer. No school then, eh?” He squeezed my hand. “You’re upset, I can see that. Don’t think any more about what Dientje said last night. Makes no difference that you go back to Father and Mother or what—fancy house or what—where you are. We’ll always love each other. We’ve gone through too much together, Annie.” He stopped, then said carefully, “Don’t worry about friends, either. You’ll get them, a nice girl like you.”
From the left, far away still, the bus. We stood, Johan and I, close. Bigger, the bus. Here it was. My free hand shot up.
Johan’s voice was toneless. “You get on now.” But he was still holding my hand.
The door opened.
“Go, go.”
My hand … I put one foot on the step.
“See you soon, Annie. Tell your father and mother to bring you next time and stay for the day. Maybe they’d like that.”
The door closed.
“Remember me to them. Bye, Annie, bye. Take care of yourself.”
The Journey Back Page 13
