by Tessa de Loo
In the pale blue studio Lotte allowed herself to interpret everything in terms of millimetres of thickness; Ernst Goudriaan took off his glasses and brought his face close to the wood – he seemed to be involved in a secret conspiracy with the emerging violin. He forgot to put his glasses back on as he embraced her clumsily amid the shavings and a pot of bone glue, which fell on the floor and immediately began to spread a sickly rotting smell. Perhaps it was love, perhaps they used each other as an antidote to the war that put his nervous system and her conscience too much to the test. Unconsciously he was banishing her tarnished origins from her, releasing her from her earliest memories that had to do with a previous life. Tabula rasa – with him, through him, she was becoming undilutedly Dutch.
In broad daylight they were walking in the wood; he was coolly tempting fate with her at his side. They rested on a fallen oak. Over his shoulder he discovered a beefsteak fungus on one of the heavy branches, a tongue-shaped red-brown piece attached to the bark – he loosened it carefully. That evening Lotte fried it quickly on both sides watching that the blood did not run out. The fungus appeared at table like a pièce de résistance; everyone was served a portion of this gift from the gods, because everyone was always hungry.
The food shortages were becoming dire. They took it in turns to walk to the soup kitchen in the village, lugging back a chum of watery cabbage and potato stew. In response to the rumour that geese could be bought in Barneveld, Lotte and Koen, who still couldn’t stay at home, went over on their bicycles. Just before Amersfoort they came across a caravan of evacuees from Arnhem including two little girls who were stumbling along with a cat on a rope. Further on they swerved into the verge, ahead of a bus full of Blitzmädel dashing past at full speed. ‘Bats,’ said Koen scornfully, ‘to hell with those bitches.’ They cycled on in the stink left behind by the bus. It began to rain. An aeroplane skimmed so low over the road that the birds flew out of the trees in terror. A second later they were startled by an enormous bang – right in front of their eyes, in the distance, the bus exploded. A column of fire shot up, the smoke evaporated into the rain clouds. Koen, astonished that his wish had been fulfilled so rapidly, stared at the scene openmouthed, hesitating whether to think it was great or terrifying. Lotte, on impulse, in a dumb reflex that she was not responsible for, thought of Anna. They had still been there a minute ago, they had whizzed past in bird flight in their spotless grey uniforms – the war was visible in a bizarre manner here, between the meadows in the drizzle. Imagine that Anna had been in that bus, then she would have just lost a sister. Then she was actually, definitely free now. The thought did not arouse a single feeling in her. Anna had already become so blurred into a shadow figure that it was all the same to her whether she went up in smoke right in front of her nose or not. Yet she cycled on with a slight reluctance, until an evacuee stopped them and told them breathlessly that the station at Amersfoort had been bombed and all the transport trains were ablaze. It was no place to cycle through, for a goose. They heaved their bicycles over the ditch into the meadow and went round the town in a semi-circle, from where the wind carried apocalyptic sounds. They found their goose. With the goose and a bag of wood shavings, in which fresh eggs were packed a safe distance from each other, they returned home via a short cut.
There was a shortage of flour. Sara Frinkel remembered a gentleman farmer in the vicinity of Deventer, before the war a vigorous admirer of Max’s antics on the violin. She volunteered to make the journey herself: nothing could happen to her, she had an impeccable identity card in the name of an Aryan seamstress from Arnhem. She dismissed Lotte’s mother’s objections: ‘He won’t give you anything without me.’ On a wet autumn day Sara and Jet set off for Deventer by train armed with two empty sacks and Bart’s old pram. Max Frinkel’s fame had not yet faded: they left the farm with full stomachs and an overflowing pram. On the way back they found shelter for the night in a stately manor house on the IJsselkade in Deventer. The next day another address flashed into Sara’s mind. She was becoming ambitious: the one time she had left her hiding place she wanted to come back laden with provisions – there was still room in the bags. They left the pram behind under supervision and walked out of the town. There had been a storm in the night; the road was strewn with broken branches. Autumn rain assaulted their faces. A German police van stopped half-way – the window was wound down. ‘Where are you going?’ Daringly Sara named the village. ‘Get in,’ invited the driver jovially. ‘Two lovely women in this beastly weather, that’s not on.’ They got in the front between the driver and an officer with a tight, tense face. They drove on in silence. Although the driver needed all his attention to keep the van on the road as it was being buffeted by the wind, he smiled roguishly at them in between. The other cast furtive looks to the side and discovered one of the famous noses of the Rockanje family, the hallmark of authenticity. ‘You are a Jewess,’ he cried, shocked. ‘Stop … stop …!’ The driver braked. Trembling, Jet took her identity card out of an inner pocket to show it. He was not at all satisfied with its innocent contents. ‘Nevertheless you are a Jewess,’ he said stubbornly. ‘Come now,’ said Sara in High German, ‘if she is a Jewess then I certainly must be one.’ ‘Let them be,’ said the driver. The rain beating on the roof created an intimate, oppressive atmosphere in the cab. ‘But she is a Jew …’ droned the other, ‘a child can see that.’ He threw the door open in anger because he could not prove anything: ‘Get out, both.’ ‘You’d better get off,’ said the driver, giving them a defeated look. They did not know how to get out of the van fast enough. When it had disappeared behind a mist of raindrops they fell into each other’s arms. The rain streamed down, but they did not feel it, wet as they were with anxious sweat. The élan for filling the bags had passed. They now had to conserve their strength for the journey home the next day with a laden pram.
But it did not turn out like that. That night the town was bombed. They fell into a shelter and waited, crammed together in the semi-humid darkness. At the moment when the attack seemed to become more intense and the floor and walls were shuddering so violently that they no longer knew what was up or down, left or right, Jet began to scream incredulously, indignantly. ‘The whole shambles is coming down like this all at once …’ She went on ranting and raving, slumped, her hands over her ears. The fear gave her voice a volume that exceeded the din of the air raid. Sara tried to calm her in vain. Hours later she was still on the verge of a breakdown – rigid and unapproachable, she crouched on the floor, only prepared to leave the shelter if she could go home on the first train. ‘And what about the pram then …?’ said Sara. Jet looked at her witheringly.
They could only think in terms of food. A pram full of flour, that was so many loaves, which so many people could eat for so many days. This simple logic drove Lotte to Deventer, where Sara had left the pram behind with a bleeding heart. She went on a man’s bicycle without tyres but with panniers, oversized lace-up shoes from Ernst Goudriaan on her feet over a pair of worn-out socks held together by Mrs Meyer’s home efforts. In Deventer she loaded the contents of the pram into the panniers. The big barrier was the bridge over the IJssel. First she went without the bicycle to take the pulse. There was a wooden building at the entrance where WA men were inspecting the traffic; half-way along was a shelter where a German sentry went through things once more. He noticed her and winked. ‘You want to bring food across the bridge?’ he said softly. ‘If possible,’ she whispered. She would not be the first he had helped, he told her. He had thought up a system to lead people unseen past the Hollanders who stole everything edible. The bridge consisted of two parts, one for motorized vehicles and one for pedestrians. Between the two was a high wall, interrupted half-way along by his sentry box. If she navigated through the ruins of the Sperr district with the laden bicycle and, as she walked via the pedestrian part, ducked towards the back of his sentry box, he would take the sacks of flour from her. Then she would have to walk back with the empty panniers and go past the Hollande
rs on the official road. Finally he would load the bags up again. She took his advice. They ordered her to go inside the Dutch post with the bicycle and all – a promised land of confiscated potatoes, bread, butter, cheese, bacon. The sentry peeked into her empty panniers, saw from her passport that she was far from home and said cheerfully: ‘We’ll give you some bread to take with you.’ He took a loaf from an enormous pile and shoved it in her pannier. She could continue. Wheeling the bicycle she approached the German sentry. A squadron of Spitfires swerved over the bridge like a storm out of nowhere. ‘To the wall, quick …!’ she heard shouted in German. She threw down her bicycle and pressed herself against the dividing wall. The bridge came under heavy fire, it groaned right through the infernal racket. From the corner of her eye she saw that one of her sacks had been hit; the grain was beginning to flow out like a column of ants. Her breath caught: as the shells flew all about the German crawled towards it to stop up the hole with a rag, as carefully as though he were dressing a wounded soldier. The Spitfires circled over the bridge once more then disappeared leaving a gloomy silence behind. Beneath the bridge the IJssel flowed on impassively. Crumpled, Lotte struggled to her feet. She was still alive and everything was going on as usual. The German heaved the grain over into the panniers. His generosity so confused her that she thanked him in his own language. ‘You remind me of my wife,’ he said, melancholy. ‘We have two little children. I am looking forward to the end of the war with longing and fear. Hamburg has been bombed heavily. I don’t know if they are still alive …’
The grain, the grain … only the grain mattered. She set off on her journey. On the road from Apeldoorn to Amersfoort the broad-leafed trees flamed orange and yellow between the permanent green of the pines. The sun was low and cast a sharp, uncompromising light on the colourless pedestrians wrapped up in old coats who were trudging along the road with anything that could be ridden, exhausted, hungry and continuously on their guard, fearing that at the very last moment they could still be deprived of the meagre supplies they had obtained in exchange for a ring or a brooch that had been their great grandmother’s. Lotte walked among them and lugged her spoils of war with her. Two men were stumbling just in front of her; the contrast between them and the autumn colours on either side of the road was striking – they looked as though they had come out of damp dungeons and had not seen daylight in years. Their coats seemed mouldy, their hands and feet were wrapped in filthy bandages. The moment she caught up with them a deafening tumult broke out. The shadows of bombers slid over them, explosions sounded behind the copse. German soldiers appeared out of the crêpe-paper shrubs. The two men looked around bewildered. ‘Come, help me push,’ yelled Lotte to give them an alibi in case there was a sudden checkpoint. ‘Push!’ They seized the handlebars, the luggage rack. Something exploded nearby; the three of them fled into the ditch, dived into a manhole. Gradually they realized that the railway line, parallel to the road, and soldiers’ transports were the target. Hidden in the earth, a grey film over their thin faces, in the pandemonium around them, in fits and starts the men told the story of their flight from Germany. As prisoners of war sent to work in a steel factory, at morning roll-call they had to jump up high like circus artistes because the guards, for amusement, whipped them under their feet. Feet that were hurt became ulcerated; the ulcers did not heal because of the chronic malnutrition. When the factory was bombed they fled in the chaos through the woods at night to the west – sleeping during the day. Their families lived in The Hague; they doubted whether they would get to them, the soles of their feet were festering away, their strength was exhausted by persistent delirium from hunger.
It grew quieter around them, except for the soft crackling and hissing of burning trains. The rumble of bombers died away; they disappeared over the horizon like angry insects and left an empty road behind, which soon became populated again with those who had to continue. In a village Lotte exchanged some grain for rye bread in the hope of bolstering the escapees’ fortitude a little. Although they were slowing her down, she did not dare leave them to their fate. ‘Let’s sit down …’ wailed one of them. Lotte was unrelenting, anxious that he would never get up again. ‘Keep going … keep going.’ ‘It’s finished,’ he said, three kilometres further on, ‘I can’t any more …’ ‘Just a bit … just a bit … you’re almost there.’ It was already dark; they were approaching Amersfoort. Lotte showed them the way to the hospital – it was known that the gates were always open for everyone. ‘They will certainly take you in there.’ But they held on tight to their talisman. ‘Don’t leave us alone,’ they pleaded, ‘we will be picked up without you.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t go with you, with all that grain.’ The grain, the grain … she had lost so much time already, she had to get out of the town with the grain before the curfew.
Hastily she disappeared out of their sight with her top-heavy bicycle. She quickened her pace. It was one of those same evenings, without moon, without clouds, ruled by an absolute blackness made even stronger by the window black-outs. The suspicion that she was in the process of getting lost crept up on her. A man passed her with a cart behind his bicycle. She spoke to him. Yes, she was on the right road, but why didn’t she put her things in his cart? Then she wouldn’t have to push so hard. He had a lamp. He could accompany her for a bit. She went along with his offer gratefully. He cycled at walking pace with her; nothing was said. What was there to talk about after curfew to an invisible stranger? All of a sudden, next to him, she became aware of an acceleration in his movements – her guide gained speed; cold-bloodedly he cycled away from the silent get-together. He disappeared into the darkness, swerving like a will-o’-the-wisp in a marsh. All she heard was the dumb mechanism of her heart pumping. An emphatic absence of sound prevailed outside. Now the anxiety got to her. On the bridge over the IJssel it had not succeeded, nor in the bombing of the railway – it had bided its time quietly. She began to scream. In the pitch blackness intended for no one she screamed straight through the curfew. The volume, with which she had once rocked the water-tower to its foundations, gave her voice an exceptional carrying power. A police surveillance car arrived; a policeman gripped her by the upper arms to calm her. She gave her account in fragments. He pushed her into the car and began the pursuit; the headlights bored a tunnel into the darkness. Beyond emotion, a strange apathy came over her; she did not care whether they caught him; the once clearly delineated concept of friend or foe had become blurred, the undertaking had got out of hand, it was no longer her affair, others seemed to have taken it over. He was caught, forced to stop, scolded. Perhaps he had twelve starving children waiting for him at home for the proceeds of the nocturnal raid. She looked uninterestedly at the figures in the light of the headlamps. The grain was handed over for the umpteenth time – it would get worn away.
They had settled in the Chalet du Parc. Once again they ducked behind a menu card; they did themselves proud. Their arthritis cure was mainly happening within the privacy of the bath house, the restaurants, pâtisseries and cafés because it was January and they wanted the heat of the peat baths to last the whole day – but chiefly because it was easier to talk over a meal, a pastry, a cup of coffee as lightning conductor.
‘Well …’ Lotte contemplated, ‘if you hadn’t ransacked our country such scenes would not have happened.’
‘We had our rationing too …’ said Anna weakly.
Lotte raised her eyebrows. ‘You were the storehouse of Europe.’
Affronted, Anna let the menu drop. ‘The French took revenge after the war. They starved us in the French zone.’
‘Ach …’ Lotte sighed. Always that explaining away. Always that: but we didn’t have it easy either.
‘What are you having?’ said Anna. She had got an appetite from all those stories about shortages.
‘I think …’ Lotte hesitated, ‘an Entrecôte Marchand de Vin … or shall I have a Truite à la Meunière …?’
Anna got her military hospital. It was run by nuns; she le
arned fast, in her eagerness not to disappoint Martin … She was given responsibility for two wards, one for soldiers and one for officers – all had lost limbs at the ever-shrinking front. The alarm went at ten o’clock every morning: enemy aircraft on the way! The wounded had to be rushed to the shelters on special stretchers with wheels on one side and two handles on the other. Wooden rails had been fixed to the stairs. ‘Sister Anna, hurry up!’ cried one of the nuns. Needless to say, Anna was already running half-way down the stairs to the hairpin bend, a precarious moment for the amputees. Whipped on by the sirens, she hurried back and forth until the last patient had been taken to safety; as the first bombs fell she rushed back up to fetch their prostheses. No assistance could be expected from the nuns, they were completely preoccupied with getting the monstrance to safety. They prayed and sang and carried the Blessed Lord to a small improvised chapel so that he would not be hit by the bombs. Anna had no time to take a breather. The daily programme continued with energetic relentlessness despite the bombing: washing, distributing medicines, cleaning bandages. High and dry in the sky her beloved puppet-master could see his suspicions confirmed. The wounded were concerned – clearly seeing that Anna, driven by a motivation that was not of this earth, scarcely managed to eat or sleep. One day those who could move a little with the aid of their prostheses knocked together a regal couch for her made of coats, jumpers and pillows in a corner of the shelter. She allowed herself to be driven there under protest, thermometer still in hand – to fall instantly into a bottomless sleep, after they had put a blanket over her with brotherly tenderness.
