The Tide in the Attic

by Aleid Van Rhijn

  He opened the front door and hung on to it with all his might, while the wind tried to wrench it from him. With a great combined effort, the two managed to get it shut again. As they made their way to the shed, Kees held tight to Jacob’s coat. He knew it was a bit childish of him but nevertheless he felt safer that way. They kept close to the wall of the house. As long as they did that, they were sheltered from the storm. But that was only for about ten yards. After that they were out in the open and had to struggle for every inch of the way. Suddenly Jacob stopped quite still. Kees had been walking close behind him and now he bumped into him.

  ‘What on earth do you think you are doing?’ he groaned, rubbing his shin which had come into painful contact with the heel of Jacob’s heavy boot.

  Why wasn’t Jacob saying anything? He just stood there. Kees could see him peering into the dark, and listening intently.

  ‘Kees,’ he suddenly said, ‘can’t you hear anything? Listen.’

  Naturally Kees could hear something: the howling gale. What a silly question! ‘Well, I can hear the wind,’ he said.

  ‘No, listen,’ Jacob said, as he caught hold of Kees’s arm and squeezed it hard. Kees tried again. No...wait a minute...what was that noise? It sounded like the ripple of waves, very close by.

  ‘Come on,’ Jacob said. He clutched Kees’s arm and pulled him along.

  The path was very wet, but not because of the rain....They kept stepping into huge puddles. About twenty yards beyond the shed, where they were nearly thrown over by the hurricane, they could feel the water lapping round their feet.

  Kees’s heart was in his mouth. Suddenly a cold shiver went up his spine. So it had happened...! He opened his eyes wide and tried to make out something in the dark. Straight ahead of him, he could see that the ground seemed to be unusually bright. It was water. Trembling, Kees kept staring at it, as it rippled up towards the yard of Sunset Farm. Then he tore himself free from Jacob’s grip, let out a hoarse scream and turned on his heels. He raced back to the house like a madman and rushed into the kitchen, without bothering to take off his clogs.

  ‘The water’s coming,’ he sobbed, as he fell into the nearest chair.

  Mr. Wielemaker jumped up in alarm.

  ‘Do you know what you are saying, Kees?’ he shouted and shook Kees roughly. Mother said nothing but merely wrung her hands. She was as white as a sheet. Bob came up to his young master, his tail wagging. He had no idea what all the excitement was about.

  Miesje looked up, stretched her paws and went to sleep again.

  Trui had put down her knitting. She decided a cup of coffee would do the boy good, so she poured him a large one, with a lot of milk and sugar.

  ‘The water!’ Kees sobbed. ‘The water! It’s got as far as the farmyard now. I’ve seen it. Behind the cow-shed.’

  For a moment there was complete silence in the kitchen. Trui stopped dead, Kees’s cup of coffee still in her hand.

  Mrs. Wielemaker looked at her husband with panic-stricken eyes, while he shook Kees once more.

  ‘Are you sure, Kees? Are you perfectly sure? Do you know what you are saying?’

  ‘I’ve seen it myself,’ Kees said, more quietly now. ‘Jacob has seen it, too.’ He took out his handkerchief to wipe the tears off his face. He was trembling all over.

  ‘Where is Jacob?’ Mr. Wielemaker asked.

  At that moment Jacob came in with Witje in his arms. The goat looked terrified. ‘Maah,’ she bleated plaintively. She, too, had no idea what was going on.

  ‘Well,’ Jacob said, putting Witje down on the floor, ‘now it’s happened. The water is rising all the time. It’ll be here any moment. There’s nothing we can do to stop it.’

  ‘So it’s true,’ Mr. Wielemaker groaned.

  Bob went up to the goat and sniffed at her inquisitively. The cat looked up in surprise. ‘What is this stranger doing in my kitchen?’ she seemed to say. Kees was slowly recovering from the shock. He was a bit ashamed of his unbecoming outburst, too. He went off to rummage about for a piece of string with which to tie Witje to the table.

  ‘Will the water rise high?’ Mrs. Wielemaker asked. She was much calmer now that her first panic was over.

  ‘There’s every chance that it might. We’ll just have to wait and see,’ Mr. Wielemaker answered. ‘There’s nothing we can do. Perhaps it won’t get into the house.’

  ‘You can’t ever tell,’ Jacob said. ‘It’s a good thing the livestock is away, in any case.’

  ‘There’s still the high tide,’ Mr. Wielemaker said. ‘The worst is yet to come, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Perhaps it won’t be all that bad,’ Trui said.

  ‘We should really go upstairs,’ Mrs. Wielemaker suggested, ‘and try to get some sleep.’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep for all the world,’ Mr. Wielemaker said. ‘I’m staying right here. Anything could happen.’

  ‘I’m staying, too,’ Jacob said. ‘Mr. Wielemaker and I will stand guard.’

  ‘Should I take Bob and Miesje upstairs?’ Kees asked.

  ‘No, let them stay down here for the time being. They’ll be all right,’ Mother said.

  Suddenly she stopped quite still and stared at the door leading to the hall. Her face turned very pale. Without saying a word, she pointed to the spot. And then they all saw it. A trickle of water was seeping into the kitchen. Furtively it stole inside and meandered over the tiles. Then a second trickle came in, and then a third. The trickles grew bigger and bigger, and more little pools formed in quick succession.

  Silently and stealthily the water was creeping in. Like a thief in the night, Kees thought. He had heard the vicar’s sermon on that text. He couldn’t remember the exact words but he remembered the bit about the thief in the night because it had sounded so ominous.

  Mr. Wielemaker was the first to recover. For a moment he had stood stock-still, just like all the others, staring at the pools of water as if spellbound.

  But now he jumped up, went up to the kitchen door and opened it. Then he looked at the hall. The others stood round him in a semi-circle. The whole of the hall was under water.

  A pair of clogs floated round, rocking on the rippling water. Everything looked so peaceful. The little waves formed tiny little rings where they lapped against the whitewashed wall.

  Then Jacob pointed to his feet. They had all been standing in a puddle. Now the front half of the kitchen was flooded as well.

  Miesje had jumped on to the table, while Bob looked round him in utter surprise. Kees could feel the cold, wet water being drawn up into his socks. His father was bending over in the doorway and looking at the mark the water had made on the wall. Jacob went up to him.

  ‘You can see it’s rising,’ the farmer said quietly.

  Kees heard it, though he wasn’t meant to. He, too, could now see quite clearly that the water was slowly climbing up the wall.

  ‘Maah,’ Witje bleated crossly, for she didn’t like standing in a puddle.

  Mother and Trui said nothing for a while. Then Mother broke the silence. ‘I suppose we had better go upstairs now,’ she said.

  Father nodded. ‘Yes, that’s the best thing to do.’

  Mother and Trui cautiously stepped across towards the stairs, but the water got into their slippers all the same. Trui had Miesje in her arms.

  ‘Take off your wet socks as soon as you get upstairs. We’ve put some dry ones ready for you.’

  Kees followed them up the stairs. Bob came next; then Jacob and finally Mr. Wielemaker, who was carrying Witje.

  ‘Have you turned off the light in the kitchen?’ Mother asked. ‘We don’t want to get electrocuted.’

  ‘I have turned off the main switch,’ he husband reassured her.

  ‘Well, you’ve made the loft very cosy,’ Jacob said as he looked at his new home. ‘It’s a good thing you hadn’t got rid of the old paraffin lamps!’

  There was an old carpet in the middle of the floor. On it there was a table with a few chairs round it. There were beds made up
all along the walls.

  ‘It’s nice to be up here,’ Kees said. ‘At least, it makes a change.’ But then he thought of the water downstairs. He decided he would have been happier without the change.

  The door to the bedroom was open. Sjaantje was fast asleep. She had no idea of what was happening. What a surprise she’d get in the morning!

  ‘Where do we all sleep?’ Mr. Wielemaker asked.

  ‘Trui and I will sleep in her room and you and Jacob can camp right here. There are two beds made up for you.’

  ‘Thank you, dear,’ her husband said. ‘Just listen to the storm outside.’

  The storm seemed to be getting worse and worse. You could hear it much more clearly here, up in the loft. From the direction of the yard there came a constant clattering noise. Kees noticed that he was getting very sleepy and no longer minded turning in. It was the first time in his life that Kees wanted to go to bed, without being told to.

  His mother smiled at him. ‘You can sleep extra late tomorrow,’ she said. ‘We shan’t be able to go to church, anyhow.’

  ‘You two had better go to sleep, too,’ her husband said to her and Trui. ‘Jacob and I will stay up for a little while yet.’

  He sat down with Jacob at the little table up in the loft. They had moved their chairs close to the paraffin stove because it had turned bitterly cold.

  Kees left his door open. He felt happier that way.

  But tired though he was, Kees could not get to sleep. He tossed and turned in his bed. He could see his father’s back, one of Jacob’s legs and Bob, his head resting on his paws. Miesje was probably on one of the beds.

  The storm kept battering against his window. Kees wondered why it did not break. From time to time a moaning could be heard in the chimney.

  But he could hear something else, as well, something he had never heard before. It was the water splashing against the sides of the house. When the storm let up for a moment, he could hear it quite distinctly. The waves were lapping against the sheds and now he could hear them in the hall as well. Automatically, he snuggled down further into his bed.

  There was water in the house! In the hall, in the kitchen and in the parlour! What a strange thought!

  The alarm bell was still tolling. Sometimes you could hear it quite clearly above the storm and sometimes it sounded as if it was coming from a long way away. By now, Kees had had more than enough. It wasn’t a bit funny any more and had become rather gruesome. He looked at his father again. He seemed to be quite calm and was smoking his pipe peacefully.

  Kees wondered whether the water had risen any higher.

  At that moment, Jacob said very quietly, so as not to wake the others, ‘I’ll go down and have a look.’

  ‘I’ll come down with you,’ Mr. Wielemaker whispered.

  Kees could hear them whisper downstairs.

  He crept out of his bed to see what was going on. Father and Jacob were standing half-way down the stairs. ‘It’s three feet high already,’ Jacob was saying. Father nodded gravely, his pipe between his teeth.

  Kees stole back under the blankets.

  The water was three feet high! Why, that meant it was above the table. How ghastly! Kees could imagine the whole thing. The table was only 2 ft. 6 ins. high; he’d heard someone say that once. It might even be floating round the room. Was the water above the window-sill, the sideboard and the bookshelf yet? The wireless was probably submerged by now. In that case his school books on the shelf next to the wireless would be ruined and the geraniums on the little table by the window as well.

  He shuddered. At last he began to appreciate the full seriousness of their position, now that all their possessions were slowly but surely disappearing in the floodwaters.

  ‘It’s bad, Jacob, very bad,’ Kees heard his father say. ‘Just think. The water is at least nine feet above sea-level. If the sea-wall doesn’t hold...’

  Kees was terrified. The water was several feet above sea-level and their farmstead several feet below. That might well mean at least twelve feet. If the sea-wall didn’t hold, they would be twelve feet under water. The water would rise to the kitchen ceiling and beyond. It would get as far as the roof, flooding his bedroom. He tried to remember the view from his window. It certainly wasn’t twelve feet above the ground, he decided. That meant that the water would stand high against the walls up here, too. What would happen then? Where would they be able to go?

  ‘Oh, please, dear God, don’t let that happen,’ he prayed. And deep down in his heart, he believed that it wouldn’t, that it couldn’t really happen. It was impossible because he couldn’t imagine it. A branch of the pear tree outside beat monotonously against the window. When Kees, dead tired, finally fell asleep, he could still hear it in his dreams.

  It looked as if Kees was not meant to have a quiet night’s rest that night. Suddenly, he was startled out of his sleep.

  He could hear voices shouting through the storm and then a thud against the wall by his window. It took him quite some time to remember what had been happening that night: the water in the kitchen, the animals in the open, their move upstairs. At last, he was fully awake. There were two men standing in his room, Father and Jacob. The window was open and they were talking to somebody outside.

  The wind was whistling through the loft and all the timbers were creaking. The curtain was fluttering wildly out of an open window.

  ‘No,’ he heard his father say. ‘I won’t think of it.’ He was saying it to someone outside.

  What was going on? In a moment, Kees was out of bed and pushing his way past Jacob and his father. The wind tugged at his open pyjama jacket and he was terribly cold. He looked out and caught his breath. He couldn’t believe his eyes. It must be a dream, a mad dream like the one he had had about his teacher riding on Bob.

  It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t possibly be true.

  The biting wind brought tears to his eyes. He looked at the pitch-black world outside. In the light of the paraffin lamp he saw that the water was only about three feet below the window sill. A rowing boat was out there, rocking madly from side to side. The water was no longer stealthy and furtive as it had been earlier when it had seeped in under the kitchen door, like a thief in the night. By now it had become a wild, raging, formidable sea. It was seething, foaming and whirling. The rowing boat kept being driven against the side of the house. Somebody was holding on to the windowsill with both hands. It was Houwelink, the policeman, with Arie, Trui’s fiancé. Arie was wearing an oilskin coat and a sou’wester. The water was almost nine feet high now. Very indistinctly, Kees could see the tops of a few trees above the water. That was where the orchard had been. And he knew that the branches belonged to the young apple trees which had been planted there two years ago.

  Kees felt that the wind would suck him through the open window at any moment. The storm had now become a hurricane.

  ‘No,’ Mr. Wielemaker was saying once again. ‘I won’t think of it.’

  Jacob went and shut the door. It helped a little and the wind no longer whistled through the room quite so loudly.

  ‘And that’s that,’ Jacob said. ‘Come what may, we are staying right here.’

  Another door opened and the wind howled through. Mrs. Wielemaker came in followed by Trui. ‘What on earth has been happening?’ she asked.

  ‘Just look outside,’ her husband said. She leant out, her hands pressed tightly against her ears, to protect them from the wind. Kees could see his mother going pale. She clung to her husband. Her lips began to tremble. Trui looked out past her. She saw the water first and then Arie, her sweetheart.

  Outside, it sounded as if it was the end of the world, as if some giant were beating against the walls and the roof of the house, demanding admission.

  Houwelink’s hands were still grasping the window-sill. Then he moved over and let Arie come to the window to exchange a few words with Trui. The rowing boat reared up and knocked against the house time and again, making a tremendous noise. The two men rowed off
. Mrs. Wielemaker looked at her husband wonderingly.

  ‘We are staying,’ Jacob said, as if to emphasise his employer’s determination.

  ‘There can be no question of our leaving,’ Mr. Wielemaker said. ‘A farmer belongs on his farm.’

  If anyone had bothered to ask for Kees’s opinion, he would have told them that he agreed absolutely. It would have been inconceivable to desert their home.

  Jacob, who was looking down the staircase, now beckoned to the others. The water was nearly up to the third step from the top. Was it going to cover the last step as well? Would it rise still further? Would it wash over the floor of the loft, as well, gently at first, and then always faster, just as it had done in the kitchen? What then? Would they drown? Or would they be imprisoned in the loft, without means of escape?

  Suddenly Kees felt his teeth chatter and knees shake. Jacob was rolling a cigarette. Mother and Trui were huddled up near the paraffin heater. Kees couldn’t remember anyone lighting it.

  Mr. Wielemaker stood in the middle of the loft, his hands deep in the pockets of his breeches. The hands of the alarm clock pointed at five o’clock. It was Sunday morning.

  ‘It’s time we all got dressed,’ Trui said to Mrs. Wielemaker. Without another word the two of them went off to Trui’s room.

  Shivering in all his limbs, Kees dressed, too.

  Sjaantje was still fast asleep, dreaming happy dreams, no doubt.

  ‘Let’s see what we have to do,’ Kees heard his father say.

  ‘Yes, we must hold a council of war,’ Jacob agreed. He was puffing away at his cigarette, and tried to talk in an even voice. Soon, they were all dressed and assembled. Jacob was the first to break the silence.

  ‘We can’t rely on the water not coming into the loft. Houwelink tells us that the sea-wall has given way in a number of places, Mrs. Wielemaker. But he thought the water would not rise very much higher.’

  ‘Still, we must be prepared for it,’ Mr. Wielemaker said. ‘It might easily rise another foot or so.’