River in the Sea

by Tina Boscha

  Sitting with Jakob in the Feikema’s loft, both of them blowing smoke away from each other’s faces, was at once completely alien and strangely comfortable. He was being kind to her, and it felt soothing. Yet it was still odd to find him there. Leen sat up straight. “Jakob, why are you here in the first place? There’s no round–up, is there? Is a razzia coming?” Maybe in her hurry to get to the barn through the darkness, she missed the signal. She thought of Mem.

  Jakob shook his head. “Nee, I’d know about that. I’m always underdoek now.” Before Leen could ask him anything more about it, he asked, “Any news about your father?”

  Leen was too shocked to answer this.

  Jakob must have read the confusion on her face. “I know he’s gone into hiding. Have you heard anything from him? Messages? Notes?”

  “How do you know he’s in hiding?” Leen asked, immediately angry at herself for saying the word aloud. She herself barely knew anything about Pater’s departure, much less his current whereabouts, and she wouldn’t know more until he returned. Yet it was all she thought about.

  “It’s common knowledge,” Jakob said, shrugging. “You see people around, and then they’re suddenly gone. It’s not so hard to figure out.”

  Leen exhaled a stream of smoke. “I guess so.” Suddenly she was dead tired. Her body always felt this way, but now the energy for forming thoughts and words was gone. Stubbing out her cigarette, forgetting her concern over how she looked, she let herself fall backwards, leaning against her knapsack of quilts and a pakje of cold, greasy potatoes. Looking up, she watched the candlelight waving haphazardly across the exposed beams of the barn’s roof.

  “Can I have another cigarette?” she asked. She didn’t even sit up to take it from Jakob as he moved closer to hand it to her. He sat near her feet, his legs pulled and crossed at the knees. She was relieved to see his clothes were as rumpled as hers. His gray wool trousers rode up on his legs, and the marled scarf around his neck had become loose.

  She finally answered his question. “We haven’t heard a thing.”

  It angered her that she had not heard him leave. Mem must have poured whiskey in everyone’s tea that night; they’d all slept too soundly to awake to the sounds of him being ferried out by the Sytsma boys and Mr. Boonstra and a number of people Leen didn’t know, all part of the Frisian L.O. That was what Leen believed, anyway; Mem didn’t even know precisely who helped Pater escape. The only information Leen knew that gave her any measure of peace was Mr. Deinum’s constant reminder to her that the L.O. was active and very well–organized. “Better Resistance group than the Dutch even,” he’d said. He also said that Resistance men guarded bridges and sabotaged the Germans whenever they could. But how did that equal secure passage and safekeeping for her father?

  “Do you know what my father did before he left?” Leen asked. She felt open now, pulled in by the warmth in her lungs, the barn that was not her own, Jakob sitting near, talking.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The truck, in our barn,” Leen said. “I would’ve thought Issac told you.”

  “All he said was that his heit was gone. He doesn’t say much else about it. Even though I talk to him every day he doesn’t say much else about anything.”

  Leen grunted. She hadn’t spoken to Issac at all that day. “The soldiers wanted Pater’s truck, the one I drive on Saturdays. They wanted him to drive the truck to Huesden. And Pater refused. So he took out the engine and put in an old motor of some kind, one that burns wood. He made it look connected, like it would work. And the real engine? He hid it. Or destroyed it, I don’t know. So when the soldiers came for the truck, they found my father gone and a truck that wouldn’t start.”

  “Shit,” Jakob said, his voice a mix of surprise and admiration. “They must have been angry.”

  “Yes.” She stared at the smoke wafting in the rafters. She could see Jakob in the corner of her eye. “They smashed it.” She had come home after her fourth night underdoek to find the windshield destroyed, the bits of glass still left in the frame a jagged mosaic. The bench seat had been ripped completely out, the steering wheel missing.

  “Were you there? What did you do?” Jakob asked. “Shit,” he said again. She watched his hands roll another cigarette. His fingernails were clean and short.

  “I wasn’t there. Just Mem.” She’d found Mem at the kitchen table, sitting pale–faced in front of an open bottle of nobeltje, a liquor usually reserved for special occasions, and a small empty glass. Leen’s only consolation was that Mem appeared unharmed, her dress still buttoned and without ragged tears.

  Leen leaned forward and wedged herself against the knapsack. Now she could see Jakob’s face more clearly.

  He was listening intently, and his face was soft as he looked at her. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He didn’t break his gaze from her and she had to look away.

  “The rest of us were out, you know, underdoek. Someone told Mem and Pater, somebody from the L.O., that no children should be around for a little while. So it was just my mother when the soldiers came for the truck, and then when they came again to give notice that Pater is wanted. Who knows if they’ll come a third time. I don’t think she sleeps. The circles under her eyes are practically black.”

  It felt good to talk. Felt good to get it all out. She finished the second cigarette. She wanted to smoke just like her father, to be wanton, to take one after another after another. She felt too awkward asking Jakob for a third. He was silent, but she could still feel him watching her. She reached behind her and drew out her quilts. They were old and stained, but comforting in their heft. She busied herself by setting them out, one to lie on, two to cover herself.

  Jakob yawned loudly. “We ought to put out the candle,” he said. With a wet pinch of his fingers it was pitch black. She heard him rustling and assumed he was moving back to his spot, but then in one shift of his hips he was next to her. He whispered, “Sometimes you look very pretty, when you’re talking and don’t think I’m watching,” and then she felt his hand search for her chin, turning her head towards him. His nose bumped hers and then he was kissing her.

  At first Leen did nothing, her thoughts struggling to catch up with the abrupt and novel sensation of his lips on hers, first pressing dryly and then shifting into a strange struggle to wedge one of his lips, now very wet, between hers. There was more moving and then she felt his tongue, of all things, and it was thick and wet and warm but foreign, and she didn’t know if she should open her mouth to let his tongue in, and then she flinched and pulled back. “Hey…” she said, with far less force than she meant to.

  Jakob’s boots scraped on the bare spots as he retreated. He quickly relit the candle. The light seemed like a spotlight, and it surprised Leen to find him grinning sheepishly. The candlelight made his face look nearly purple. Instinctively she wiped her hand over her mouth, covered with a thin layer of his spittle, and said out loud, “Yuk.”

  The look on Jakob’s face immediately changed. “Thanks,” he said. He looked away.

  “Sorry,” Leen mumbled, her cheeks on fire now. They were probably purple now too. She’d embarrassed him with her comment but also embarrassed herself; now he knew she had never kissed before.

  “I didn’t think it was such a bad way to pass the time,” Jakob muttered.

  Her embarrassment expanded even higher, another delayed reaction that made it impossible to find words to say that she was sorry and to ask, Why did he kiss her, like that, out of the blue? At the same time she had the sinking feeling that she ruined an opportunity. If she’d just known he was going to do it – but then if she did, she’d probably be too nervous. Yet there was no way she was going to kiss him herself.

  “It’s probably time to sleep,” she said. She straightened out the quilts once more and pulled back so that only her feet were close to Jakob. She curled on her side, shutting her eyes tight but she was nowhere near slumber. Jakob sighed, keeping his distance, making a little wilted groan as he
blew out the candle once more.

  “Jakob,” she said, afraid he would go to sleep and leave her to the inevitable direction of her thoughts. It was better to speak them aloud. “Would you have let them take the truck?”

  He sounded far away. “It saves some trouble, invites other. Maybe it would’ve kept him safer.”

  Her hands tightened around the edges of the quilts. “What do you mean? I doubt my father would be safer sympathizing in Huesden.”

  “But he might’ve been back already,” Jakob said. “That doesn’t make him a sympathizer. It makes him a laborer.”

  The question had been with her ever since Pater left: What if he had simply agreed? The Germans would’ve taken the truck, and Pater would’ve been gone for a few days, maybe a week. And then he’d be home. Then again, maybe he would’ve been shipped to Germany, the need for men suddenly expanded to those with decades of work etched into achy hips and echoing in bad knees.

  Her eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the dark. She could barely make out the edge of the beam. She wanted to light the candle again. She wished Jakob would try once more to kiss her.

  But he’d moved to another mood. “I haven’t seen my parents in nearly two years. One year, seven months.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. There seemed to be no end to her stupidity. Jakob had come to Wierum without any parents at all, sent to live with a fabricated aunt and uncle, one of many children smuggled out of the cities to “relatives” in the country where there was still food. Jakob’s “tante” and “omke” had bragged that after a month of feeding him Friesland’s fresh butter and starchy potatoes and beef he’d gained nearly five kilos.

  “Sorry,” Leen whispered, ashamed. “I didn’t think of it.”

  “It’s okay.” Both of them were quiet. Then Jakob said, “Your father is a good man. Brave. Braver than me, I guess. But you know what everyone says. Soon, you and I both will see our fathers.” He nudged her foot. “I’m sorry I kissed you like that,” he said quickly. Before she could tell him it was okay, he said, “Hold out your hand.” Leen hoped for a second that he would pull her to him, but instead she felt him place another cigarette in her palm, unlit this time. Both their fingers fumbled against each other in the dark. Leen placed it on her knapsack. “Thank you,” she whispered so softly she wasn’t sure if he heard it.

  Sleep was fitful. Leen was too aware of Jakob’s presence, every one of his movements. It seemed she could go nowhere and find solace or sanctuary. Returning home in the mornings was never a relief except to find everyone – except Pater – accounted for. Mem was always at the kitchen table, dressed in yesterday’s clothes, her face drawn and tight, as if she was pursing her lips around a sewing needle, holding it tight lest she drop it and lose it forever.

  It had been so long since Mem had been silly or cheerful, the way she used to be. Mem used to wink or even stick out her tongue if she caught one of them looking around during prayer, when you were supposed to keep your eyes closed as Pater asked God to bless the food. Maybe, Leen wondered, Mem would do this again if Pater came home. Even though she’d lost Wopke, maybe this would be enough to bring back her spirit and drive out the brittle woman stationed at the kitchen tafel, flushed with worry and no sleep, despite the drops of nobeltje in her nighttime tea. Maybe she wouldn’t hold Leen responsible for sending Pater away.

  Leen almost began to cry. She wanted to whine aloud, “I’m so tired,” which would barely encapsulate what she felt, but hearing Jakob shuffle she stifled the urge. Then she remembered the small boat behind Mr. Boonstra’s house. In the morning, that’s where she’d go.

  Now, on the quiet water, Leen smoked the last bit of her cigarette. She had slept maybe four hours. She watched shadows move across windows, saw women rolling up the tarpaper and lighting lamps and candles. She saw a man lean over and kiss his wife on the cheek.

  There it was. There was only spot along the canal where you could see it, in the narrow space between houses that let in a sliver of her front window. She saw movement. Leen dug the oar into the canal floor. She squinted. It was Mem, outside, with no coat. Was she waiting for Leen? Perhaps there was a message, perhaps – No. Mem’s back was turned, and her arms jerked rapidly. She was sweeping the snow, so light and dry it was like dust, off the walk. Behind her, the house was dark. No smoke curled from the chimney. With a single push from the oar her mother and their house was out of view.

  Leen tied the rope around the top of the little post in the Boonstra’s back yard, but didn’t get out of the dinghy. Just another moment to herself. She hugged the post, resting her cheek against the worn wood, the cold alarming to her skin. Jakob had been asleep when she’d left the barn, but he was probably awake now, hurrying home to his fictitious relatives who waited for him with a heated blanket and warm hands.

  Leen got out of the boat and began walking. She placed one foot carefully in front of the other, each step the same distance from the next. Every house was awake now. Smoke and light was evident from every chimney and window, every one except hers. In the distance she saw Mem, hunched over, still sweeping. Leen decided what she would do: she’d kiss Mem on her pale cheek, light the fire, and heat some water to make coffee. Just as she had the day before, and just as she would tomorrow, every day until the war ended and Pater came home.

  9.

  Today, we come together as always to praise and worship the Lord above,” the Dominie said. “But today, today gives us cause for celebration!”

  An audible crackling of voices and nodding chins and heads rippled through the congregation. Leen glanced behind her, down the aisle, and immediately wished she had changed her clothes that morning. She hadn’t changed them in two days. Nor had she bathed. She could no longer detect the smell herself, but she knew it was there, the familiar scents of barns, of damp wood, of her oily skin. Wherever she looked, it seemed that every pair of trousers had sharper creases down the front and gold brooches were polished, radiating from their jaunty pinning on every woman’s collar, save Mem’s.

  “Today, we come together knowing that more of the Lord’s soldiers are safe!” the Dominie added. Leen nodded again, although she didn’t know what he meant. Everything seemed rushed, even the sonorous organ prelude was shortened. While the Dominie spoke, Issac hurried down the aisle and sat down. He had come home late from wherever he had slept underdoek the night before. “It was so dark, I didn’t wake up,” he’d said, sitting heavily into a chair as Tine began clearing away the breakfast plates. Now, as he settled into a spot at the end of the pew, Leen saw the back of his shirt riding up out of his pants. He looked like he hadn’t slept, the skin under his eyes thin and broken up into puffy squares and triangles.

  The Dominie continued. “War is a time of danger and war is a time of bravery. It is a time where risks are taken. Men are arrested, men are taken away.” Leen thought of Jan Fokke, and of her father. But he was not taken away. He had left. It had been four weeks. One month, one month already.

  “And men are freed! God blesses the pure of heart,” the Dominie said, smiling, waving a hand in the air, his long fingers fluttering. Leen leaned forward. Freed?

  “Many of you know this already, but it is something we must acknowledge in God’s house. Yesterday 51 Resistance workers, soldiers in the L.O., were freed from the Leeuwarden jail. And do you know how many shots were fired?”

  “Zero!” a voice called out. Leen jumped. No one spoke in church, no one except the Dominie. Renske twisted in her seat to find the speaker and neither Leen nor Tine corrected her.

  “Not a single one!” another said.

  “Not a single one,” the Dominie repeated, and something about his voice made the hairs on the back of Leen’s neck stand up. The only detail she knew about the jail was that it was where the SS held their prisoners.

  Leen heard a clap, then another. There was laughter. Someone near the front pumped his fist. Dominie Wiersma could hardly contain himself at the pulpit. “That’s right!” he said, nearly shouting
. “Not a drop of blood! No men were lost! In fact, 51 men were saved. Saved! They are safe now, out of their cells. And for this, we have many thanks to give.”

  He immediately launched into a prayer, and out of the corner of her eye, Leen watched all the heads bow. But underneath the bent necks was a flurry of activity. Women wiped their eyes with handkerchiefs, then handed them to their men, who took them but didn’t use them, simply covering their faces with their rough hands, placed next to one another like a book. Mrs. Boonstra’s chin practically rested on the orange kerchief tied around her neck. She was smiling to herself. Leen looked at Mem. She was blinking fast. She gingerly touched the corner of her eyes with her index finger, a futile effort. Leen almost reached out to touch her hand, force her mother to look at her.

  Mem must have felt her watching. She turned and met Leen’s gaze. She gave Leen a strange, relieved grin. She almost looked embarrassed by her tears but there was more, too; there was joy. There was some kind of happiness for Mem, hearing the news.

  Already Leen knew that this was a story she would hear about for the rest of her life. Fifty–one men freed and not a single shot: legendary stuff. But Mem’s reaction? She couldn’t make sense of that. Pater wasn’t jailed; he was not one of the 51.

  But maybe if the Resistance could so boldly and so successfully commit such an act, it must mean that the German army was weaker still. The war really was coming to an end. It wouldn’t be long. Soon, he would be home. Two weeks overdue was simply an inconvenience. It would be an anecdote to the legend. During the hymn Leen joined the crush of voices, singing loudly for the first time in years.

  At the end of the service, after the offering was collected, Dominie Wiersma announced something else that caught Leen off guard.