River in the Sea

by Tina Boscha

  Leen was also glad for Issac’s company even if his conversation lacked. He always pedaled faster when they passed the camp. They’d passed it without incident, Leen trying not to look at the dark stain on the road. She wished they were in the truck, but Issac only drove it by himself or with Pater. Leen tried offering to drive it herself, but he flatly refused, and neither Mem nor Pater directed him differently.

  Issac’s request to go to the café surprised Leen. “Pater said we were to go straight home.”

  “It’s early still.”

  Leen knew she could blame Issac if they got in trouble for this, but she also knew that Mem and Pater would ask her why she didn’t bike straight home on her own. They were already past the camp. But Issac had invited her, and that hadn’t happened in a long time.

  Then he said, almost smiling, “If we go home now, you’ll just have to help Mem cook.”

  “Let’s go,” Leen said, making the turn on Snikke Straat toward the café.

  Inside, it was as dark as church, with lamps over the bar’s head and small lanterns at each table, turned low to conserve fuel. But unlike church, a thick haze of smoke in the café blanketed loud voices, ringing laughter, and beer mugs slamming sharply on tables. Being there always tricked Leen into feeling like she belonged. Old men who no longer worked and were not tolerated by their wives at home went there to smoke pipes and to play blokjes, the black and white tiles spread out neatly in front of them, their hands moving as fast and as easily as the conversation. It had been this way as long as Leen had been allowed to enter, and she could not remember a time when she wasn’t. The only thing that changed the atmosphere was when soldiers came through the double doors.

  Leen followed Issac inside, where he immediately spotted his friend Jakob Hoffman and gave him a wave. Jakob was from Haarlem, just outside Amsterdam, sent in secret to live with the Medema’s, “cousins” who could feed and house him while the hunger grew worse in the cities. Issac handed her a dime. “Buy yourself a melk,” he said. “I’m going to sit by Jakob.”

  Which meant she couldn’t sit with them. “Why did you ask me to come then,” she snapped, but Issac was already turning away from her, her voice drowned out in the tinkling of beer glasses and deep voices. She pinched the dime between her fingers as she watched Issac make his way through the tables. She must have looked like she was staring, because Jakob waved back at her. He was thin and shorter than Issac, and his hair was dark, nearly black. Hardly anyone in Friesland had hair that dark unless they put hair cream in it, and even then it didn’t look that dark.

  Flushing, Leen rushed to the bar and sat down as quickly as she could. She pushed her skirt between her legs and ordered the chocolate milk. The dime was sweaty when she handed it to Arnold, the bartender. This crowded, it was more apparent she was alone. She drained the milk in three gulps.

  Klaus Iedema, a man Leen didn’t know much about except that he married his cousin fifteen years his junior, leaned over the empty stool in between them and poked her shoulder. Now that he was a member of the L.O., the Landelijke Organisatie, the Frisian organized resistance too proud to be included with the identical efforts of the Dutch, no one said anything more about his cousin–wife, who looked to Leen about the same as other wives in town: tired, red–faced, a little unkempt, and big in the legs after the first baby came.

  Mr. Iedema leaned over the bar and said to Arnold, “If Miss De Graaf would like another, I would be happy to pay for it.” Arnold raised an eyebrow and looked at Leen. Bewildered, she blushed again. What was this?

  “You want another one?” Arnold asked. Two chocolate milks in one day. She glanced over her shoulder and found the sandy back of Issac’s head, and looked back before Jakob saw her looking again. “Dunke,” she said, nodding.

  Mr. Iedema leaned over the stool again, and Leen could see that he had long, spindly white hairs in his eyebrows. He whispered, “I hear you got into a bit of trouble over the weekend.” He poked her shoulder again. “You are a brave girl!”

  Leen was taken aback. Brave? All she remembered was terror, and Mem had said she was stupid. She whispered, “I didn’t feel so brave at the time.”

  Mr. Iedema threw his head back. Sprouts of hair on his Adam’s apple caught the light as he laughed loudly. “You never do.” Leen grasped the glass with two hands and drank, struggling to keep her chin steady, then took another swallow.

  “Slow down there, it’s not beer!” Mr. Iedema said as he slung his coat over his shoulders. He was still laughing. “I wish I had run over one of those dogs myself.” He left the bar before Leen could fully digest what he said. He was gone before she could ask him, how did he know? Beyond that, how much did he know?

  Leen wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and put the half–full glass down. There was no way, not by how close he stood and by the knowing look on his face, that Arnold hadn’t heard what Mr. Iedema said.

  Arnold poured a beer for himself. Leen had always liked him; he was easy–going and relaxed, and talked with her just enough to make her feel welcome without pitying her for being alone. By the time Leen let herself look at him, Arnold had drunk half. He clucked his tongue at Leen, winking at her before moving on to serve the other patrons. Skiet, she thought. The voices carried on around her, but they seemed softer, as if everyone knew a secret had just been passed.

  Yet even as Leen asked herself, who else had heard? she found herself smiling into her cup.

  She finished the second milk.

  She felt a nudge in her shoulder. “We’re going,” Issac said. Leen didn’t look to see if Jakob was with him, but then she felt another nudge and when she looked, Jakob was smiling at her.

  “Okay, big brother,” Leen said, grinning at Jakob to prove to him she felt nothing about him at all, and to show Issac that there was absolutely nothing he needed to be suspicious about.

  Issac rolled his eyes at her. “I meant me and Jakob ‘we’, not you too,” he said.

  “I don’t know if Mem will be so happy with me walking in by myself,” Leen shot back.

  “Heide de boek,” Issac groaned, but they both knew Leen had him.

  Jakob walked outside with them and the three of them retrieved their bicycles. “So you were the one who killed that dog,” he said. “Wow, Leen, you could’ve, well…” He drew a finger across his throat.

  “I didn’t mean to do it,” Leen sputtered, squeezing the handbrakes.

  “My sister doesn’t think too much,” Issac said. He looked directly at Leen.

  “Mr. Ied–” Leen finished the thought in her head. It didn’t matter what almost happened. Mr. Iedema thought differently.

  “I’ll see you,” Issac said to Jakob as he pedaled off.

  “Wait!” Leen blurted. “How did you know?” But the wind blew her words away. Issac pushed off and Leen struggled to catch up with him.

  “Pater told you to keep it quiet,” Issac said, seething, as they pulled into the barn. “It’s getting out. My sister, the dog killer. It was all Jakob could talk about.”

  Hearing this, something inside her flipped over. “I didn’t say a word,” Leen said. “Maybe you let it slip. You’re the one that had to see him so badly.”

  “Sure, Leentje, sure. He found out from whoever you told. I bet you told Mrs. Deinum.”

  Mrs. Deinum was famous for gossiping. She and her husband were bakers, after all, and people from all the coastal villages came to Dokkum for the limited sweet things they still had available on their sparse but neat shelves, oranjekoek and cakes with candied almonds and cinnamon breads. When people stopped in, people got to talking. But Leen knew, of all people, not to mention anything to either Mr. or Mrs. Deinum. She had done just as Pater said, kept it quiet. Accepting the milk from Mr. Iedema, well that wouldn’t please him, but that was another thing she’d keep to herself.

  “I didn’t tell anyone, kloet,” Leen said angrily. “And I do too think.”

  Issac rolled his eyes. “Well congratulations,” he said, yan
king off his cap. “You can bet that people are going to talk now.”

  Leen expected her brother to bring it up at the dinner table, for Pater to spring a question while they ate fried chunks of chicken and gritty potatoes. She was full from all the milk, and fumbled with her knife, dropping it twice on the table as she waited for it: “Who did you tell?” Issac glared at her throughout the meal, but he was always sullen and wordless during dinner, so his conduct didn’t alert Mem or Pater that something was wrong.

  Pater didn’t say anything after dinner either, not until Leen was just about to climb the stairs to go to bed. “Stay here for a minute, please,” he said, his voice floating from the living room. Mem was there too, sitting with the basket of mending at her feet, untouched.

  “Come sit by me,” Pater said, patting a space next to him on the davenport. He had a pouch of tobacco on his lap and a stack of rolling papers at his side, and the area on the ceiling above him had a yellow tinge that matched the very tip of his nose.

  “How has it been, riding to Dokkum? Has anything happened that you want to tell me?”

  Her cheeks prickled. This was the moment to be truthful, when the most trouble could be avoided, but Pater wasn’t asking her about the café. He was asking her about going past the camp. So she answered truthfully. “Nothing happened. I’m glad Issac is there.”

  The skin around Pater’s eyes folded into pleats as he looked at her. “You a little scared?”

  “A little,” Leen admitted. She hated seeing that stain. She hated the memory and she hated even a shadow of a soldier.

  “Well, leafe, I would be too.” He pulled her close to him, and Leen leaned into his warm shoulder, glad the moment had passed. Everything really was okay, even better now. If Mem came over to her and sat on her other side, where Leen could feel her belly and chest, soft and comfortable as a feather pillow, her perfect scene would be complete.

  “Issac told me that Jakob Hoffman asked him about his sister running over a dog,” Mem announced, her breathing suddenly loud. She bent over and picked up her basket of mending and put it on her lap, but didn’t pull anything out of it. Pater’s own breathing stopped for a moment. Leen curled her hands. She never thought Issac would go to Mem.

  “Oh,” Pater said. “Did he now.” The layer of warmth in his voice cooled.

  “He asked me about it.” Leen tried to speak purposefully, but her words only came out rushed and she knew how that made her sound. “But I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “You should have told me this earlier.”

  “I did not tell a soul! Pater, I promise that I am not lying!” Leen pleaded. She started to stand up to emphasize the truth behind her words, but then Mem said, “Sit down,” and Leen quickly obeyed. She stared straight ahead, feeling the small joy she felt at the café dissolve away.

  “Do you know what this means?” Mem asked, and Leen did not know if she was speaking to her or to Pater.

  Leen couldn’t help herself. “But I didn’t say a word!” She’d done as she was asked, even though no one would tell her just why she needed to. After all, the soldiers saw her kill the dog; there was no identity to hide.

  “How many days has it been?” Mem asked.

  Pater spoke next. “I told Mr. Deinum. He’s a good man and I thought he should know, if Leen is to spend most of her time there.” He shot Mem a look Leen couldn’t interpret.

  “Mr. Deinum?” Mem’s voice was so high it was nearly a squeak. She put the basket back onto the carpet. “Blix, Oenze, well it’s over now. Mr. Deinum is a good man but that is no guarantee that his wife won’t blab. You know her mouth.”

  “Aafke,” Pater said. Mem shook her head, and Leen’s heart beat faster. She had never seen her parents argue, not with her on the couch right in between them, with her the cause of it.

  “It’ll blow over,” Pater continued. “I was clear with Harold about his wife’s reputation. Things die down, they always do.”

  But Mem would have none of it. “Die down? The war hasn’t died down. And to think I thought we might’ve gotten away with it.”

  “But hasn’t it blown over?” Leen asked. She starting picking at a hangnail, feeling like she was interrupting even if her parents were talking about her. “They didn’t shoot me. They let me go.” She remembered the weight of the driver’s body leaving her. Mem and Pater were silent. “That’s what I think, anyway,” she added, looking down. She expected one of them to tell her to shut her mouth, they’ve already heard enough.

  Pater sighed and Mem glared at the wall. Finally he spoke, his voice low and deliberate.

  “They didn’t kill you, yet. And they could have, had the wind been different. Still, if there is any word, any feeling at all, that a brash young Wierum girl is going about talking of slaughtering a soldier’s dog, right under their noses, well. They can find us. There is always someone willing to give some information, some directions to the right house–”

  “Enough,” Mem said, shutting her eyes and shaking her head. “She understands.”

  It was always Leen’s skin that reacted. Sometimes, there were needle pricks of heat; now, cold tingled her nose, her hands, down her spine. For the worst things, Leen could count on hives, large, itchy stripes crisscrossing her chest and escaping onto her neck.

  “I, I–” Leen stammered. The skin on her chest was growing hot. The soldiers could come back. Actions could be labeled as merely unfinished. Had someone’s mood blown another way…

  “Maybe we’re exaggerating. I don’t know,” Mem said, picking up the basket once more and this time selecting a single sock from it. Leen hated it when her mother’s mouth grew tight like that, disapproving, grim, resolute. “But I think we have talked about it enough.” She started to rock in her chair. She always did this when she began stitching. “Maybe you’re right, Oenze. Maybe this one will blow over. Maybe it already has.” Her voice betrayed her doubt.

  Leen nodded. It had been four days and nothing had happened. Right? Maybe Mem was right.

  Then Pater said, “Well, no one is going to miss that dog.”

  Leen went upstairs without saying goodnight. No one said another word.

  By the end of that week eight different people mentioned the dog to Leen. One morning, Mr. Boonstra leaned over as if they were the only ones in on the secret, and said, “I heard about you and that German shepherd. Goodness gracious, famke!”

  Mr. Iedema bought her two more chocolate milks. Jakob began pinching her on the shoulder and laughing when she jumped, then running a finger across his throat and making a strange grimace that Leen guessed was supposed to look like a dying dog. Mrs. Cuperus, a woman rumored to be mildly crazy after having seven babies in eight years, all boys, had pressed two nickels into her hand while Leen was in Wierum’s only general store and patted her directly on top of her head and said simply, “That’s for getting rid of that hoendtje!” Leen tried to give the money back, but Mrs. Cuperus wouldn’t allow it. “I hate those awful dogs,” she’d said. And Leen replied in partial truth, “I can’t think of a time I ever liked them,” and everyone in the store started laughing, but for the first time, Leen could tell they were laughing with her, not at her. She had always stood out before, but was never appreciated for her unconventional driving, smoking, rolling tobacco, working the fields until her fingernails accrued so much muck that Mem forced Leen to stand at the table while she scrubbed them clean with a coarse brush.

  Leen did not forget what Pater said: they could come back. The soldiers could find her and finish their inclinations. But it was hard not to grow accustomed to this new feeling. Pride crept into Leen with each wink, clap, shout, and nod. Leen felt as if she was someone, a Resistance member, maybe; someone who had done something bold enough that she might have lost her life, but survived. And thanks to her, there was one less barking dog to antagonize the innocent villagers. Now, when someone winked at her, she winked right back, always careful that Pater or Mem was not around.

  5.

  Leen
slid her damp palm down the front of her skirt, took a clipped breath, opened the bin, and plunged her hand in. Salt spilled out of the sides of her fist as she drew it out and dropped the salt onto the ragged piece of white wax paper she’d hurriedly tore moments before, and the tumbling crystals sounded like the sand she poured out of her klompen after walking on the hard seafloor when the tide was out.

  She twisted the paper at the top and dropped the package in her pocket, pressing against it to flatten the bulge protruding away from her narrow hips. She licked her palm and her mouth puckered with the bright rush on her tongue. The taste was so delicious, and she ran her tongue over her lips, wondering if she ought to take some more. She brushed her hands against each other and put them in her pockets, one hand around the plump bundle.

  That would be greedy. Leen let out a grunt of a half–guilty laugh. This was greedy. Neither Mem nor Pater asked her to get any salt, and although they’d welcome whatever she brought home of her own volition, they weren’t expecting any today. Nor did she intend to offer it to them. This was hers.

  She’d never done anything like this before. Not this audacious. She wasn’t clear on what possessed her to act on the urge, except perhaps feeling confident, truly assured of herself, for the first time. It was peculiar that it took something so awful to feel this way, yet Leen felt somehow she earned it. The catcalls were sure to die down; things would settle. But until then she was determined to enjoy her newfound celebrity, this change that allowed her to show herself to be worthy; an individual, not an oddity; brave, not impetuous. Besides, she hadn’t seen a soldier outside the camp in weeks.