River in the Sea

by Tina Boscha

  “It has been some time since we’ve had a social for the younger members of the congregation,” he said, smiling. “In honor of Christmas, and to celebrate recent events, there will be a youth social next Sunday to gather in fellowship, from 12:30 to 2:30. This is a time where we should still celebrate, always giving the glory to God. Let us now close in prayer.”

  Leen looked at Tine, who looked back at her, a surprised little grin at the corners of her mouth. Then they both bent forward. Leen looked at Tine once more. She was still smiling.

  Leen didn’t listen to the prayer. The social would only last two hours, just enough time after morning service to eat and have a weak cup of coffee and then return to church while all the adults would be on high alert should anything happen. Still, it was obviously safe enough to have a social, boys and girls. The Resistance must have given Dominie Wiersma the go–ahead. Besides, now she was old enough to go. By the time she turned thirteen, the unspoken age deemed appropriate enough to attend, the razzias were too numerous and frequent, and the socials had been called off. They used to be held regularly, at least one a month, where the teenagers from the neighboring villages gathered Sunday evenings after the afternoon service. Not much happened except whispers behind cupped hands and glances over shoulders. For the older teenagers, it was the sanctioned place to find a mate, the ensuing courtships and marriages practically arranged by the church.

  Tine had been, and Issac too. He pretended he didn’t care about going, but Leen knew he snuck a comb with him and ran it through his hair just as soon as he was out of the house. All during the prayer, Leen could think only of how wonderful it would be if Pater came home before next Sunday to see her bathed, neat, her hair curled, looking girlish, even a little pretty. Growing up.

  She also wondered if Jakob Hoffman would be there.

  The light mood carried Leen into the kitchen, where she helped Tine and Mem cook and lay out the tafel without complaint. Tine hummed, her high voice sounding like a reedy flute, notes reminiscent of Mem’s old singing voice. Issac wasn’t home yet, staying behind to smoke with a group of men Leen had never seen him talking to before. There were two conversation topics discussed after church, the jailbreak among the older crowd, the social among the younger. Issac had chosen the former.

  Renske was underneath the table, grabbing absently at the chair legs. “Renske, you can help put out the knives and forks,” Leen said, bending over to smile at her baby sister. Renske crawled out without protest. Her curly hair was matted in the back. The Dominie’s announcement shifted Leen’s ennui to ambition, and she decided she would work those knots out when it was Renske’s turn for a bath that afternoon.

  “How many forks?” Renske asked. Tine was teaching Renske her numbers this way.

  “Six,” Mem sang. “Always six knives and six forks.”

  Leen got out the glasses, weaving around Renske as she carefully placed each piece of silverware down, pressing each as if it was a flower to be kept between pages, arranged just so.

  “I have one extra,” Renske said. She held up a fork in one hand and a knife in the other.

  Leen stopped and counted. Tine, who had been scooping potatoes out of the pot of boiling water into a clean bowl, looked at Leen in dread. Steam rose from the starchy clumps. The extra knife and fork in Renske’s hands threatened to blow down the fragile scaffolding of Mem’s new mood. Mem’s eyes flickered with a shadow of sadness, but then mercifully, she shrugged it away, holding her smile. “Acht, I forget,” she said. “Five is good. Put the extra away.” Mem turned to Tine, who quickly dumped the cooling potato into the bowl and resumed scooping the rest. “Are we almost ready? It’s time to eat smakelijk, ja?”

  Issac walked in as Leen set down the plate of pork chops and onions. He too looked different. He wasn’t smiling, but yet he didn’t appear angry or sullen. Instead he looked preoccupied, wary. He sat down and speared a chop and was about to cut it when Mem said, “Issac, shouldn’t we pray first?”

  He glanced at the door. “Of course,” he said, putting his fork down. Leen sat down, nudging Renske to put her hands together and close her eyes. She did the same, putting her hands close to her face so she could watch Renske.

  “Issac?” Mem said.

  Leen opened her fingers and saw Issac shake his head, as if to clear it, and then he began mumbling, starting the prayer the same way that Pater did, using the familiar phrase, “Dear Lord, we come before you this day to,” but then his words fumbled, unused to the responsibility of crafting a meaningful supposition to God. As the man of the house, Issac was meant to lead all of them in matters related to religion, which usually meant opening and closing the meals with prayers and a reading from the Bible. Pater usually selected the book, chapter, and verses and made one of the children read it, his own reading too slow and labored, but his memory of the passages crystalline. But since Pater had been gone, these standards had been more lax. If Mem did not enforce it, no one else would push for it, not even Tine.

  Today, though, Leen heard her vigor echoed in Issac’s voice. At first, his phrases were fumbling as he mentioned the easiest things: “Thank you, Lord, for this food and bless it onto our bodies. Forgive us for our sins, and guide us through the upcoming days.” His voice grew heartier as he said, “We thank you Lord, for the success of the Resistance this last day, and for the lives of our brave soldiers who weathered their stay at the jail, knowing they would one day be set free, from the tyranny and evil of the Nazi warmongers.”

  Leen looked at Tine. Pater didn’t pray like this. But Tine didn’t look, and when Issac’s tone finally descended she closed her eyes before he said, “Amen.”

  They began eating, and then Tine asked Issac, “Will you go to the social?” Her voice was timid. She – all of them – had spoken to Issac only in clipped, meaningless phrases since Pater left: “The door didn’t close all the way, it has to latch.” “Pass your plate to the end of the table, please.” “I pressed your shirts.”

  Issac shook his head, chewing noisily. His eyes were fixed on the front door.

  “Why? You used to,” Leen said. She wanted Issac to be there. She wanted to see what he looked like with his face unlocked, even playful.

  Issac spoke directly to Leen. He was so serious he struck Leen as comical, like he was over–acting. “What do you think is going to happen? Is the SS just going to say, ‘Ver dikke, we lost a few. That’s too bad.’ Right now, I can tell you that they’re cutting the dikes all around the Rhine.”

  “They were already doing that,” Leen corrected, feeling smug that she too knew what was happening, thanks to Mr. Deinum. It was all he spoke of now, feverish with reports of the Allies trying to move up again, coming through France this time.

  Mem’s brows pulled to the center of her forehead in a knot of concern. “I would think the social can only be held because the L.O. said so.”

  “Maybe, but no matter to me. The war isn’t over yet.”

  Leen winced. It was all falling apart.

  “It’s just for two hours,” Tine said, trying to hold on. “Mem, can we still go?”

  Issac pushed back his plate. He reached for the Bible, then handed it to Mem. He cracked his knuckles. He spoke like a worn–out shopkeeper. “I’ve got other things to worry about. But you go, if that’s your preference.” He got up and stood at the edge of the kitchen window, looking both up and down the street.

  “I’m not asking you for permission,” Leen snapped. Issac said nothing, unmoving.

  “If the Dominie and the L.O. thinks we can have one, then the girls can go,” Mem said, finding a hidden source of resolve. Leen nudged Tine’s foot under the table. Mem put down the Bible. “Let’s have something sweet, okay? Time for a little dessert. Tine, shall we have some pears and cream?”

  “Is there panne?” Renske asked, brightening slightly. Panne was nothing more than a makeshift pie of shortbread topped with cream and jam, then heated on the stove, a wartime dessert, but Renske loved it.


  “Ugh, Renske, there is no panne,” Tine said. “But I will get you something lekker, just a minute.” She stood up and hurried to the cellar ladder, her skirt swishing as her legs took long strides.

  “I’ll help you,” Leen called, eager for a moment to say under her breath to Tine, What’s gotten into Issac?

  “I’ve got it, don’t come down,” Tine said, the ladder emitting short, tight groans.

  “Let me get the bowls and spoons,” Leen said.

  “It’s alright, Leen, you work so hard all week.” Hearing this, Issac snorted. Leen did not respond. Tine came back to the table with her arms full, each hand balancing too many pieces of dinnerware. Leen took the tin of fruit Tine had tucked inside a bowl, about to tip out. She opened it. The slices of pears were narrow, and when she served them, there was no more than three slices to the bowl. “That’s all?” Leen said. “We’re supposed to be celebrating.”

  “It’s plenty,” Tine said. “What are you going to read, Mem?”

  “Oh,” Mem said. “Yes.” She opened the Bible. “Why don’t you eat while I read, okay? Something about Christmas,” she said, thumbing through the pages. Issac was still at the window, just inside the shadow.

  Already Sinterklaas and Swarte Piet had come and gone, and Leen hadn’t bothered to put out her klompen to collect a sweet or a small handmade present. It was Mrs. Deinum who gave Leen an apple as a gift. Maybe now that the tide had changed the De Graafs would celebrate Christmas as they usually did, with Pater and tiny snifters of nobeltje and slices of a grand brandied pudding.

  Mem began reading a passage about Mary’s vision. Issac had read the same passage last week. While Mem read, he never moved from the window.

  “I have no idea what to wear,” Tine said to Leen as she dropped into the bath, sighing with disappointment. Mem, Renske and Issac had already been in, and Leen, as penance, had offered to go last. The cool humid air made Leen hug her arms around herself. “Actually, I do know what I want to wear. The trouble is, we don’t own it. I wish I could get a pair of heels.”

  “I know,” Leen said, trying not to look too long at Tine’s chest. It was full, and the brassiere she’d draped carefully over the back of the chair Leen sat on now looked rigid, necessary. “Next week, will you set my hair?”

  “Of course. I’ve seen the mess you make of it when you do it yourself.”

  Leen looked at the towel Issac left crumpled on the floor. “Why do you think Issac won’t go?”

  Tine shrugged. She sank her head back into the water and took the bar of soap and began scrubbing. A gray lather foamed underneath her fingers. It looked like she was whipping up thunderstorms all over her scalp, and Leen wouldn’t need any soap in the water after Tine was done.

  “He probably thinks he’s too old,” Tine finally said, wincing underneath her own fingernails. “I don’t know. That’s just Issac. Hand me the pitcher, please.”

  Leen held it out by the handle and Tine took it, dipping it into the water and pouring the milky water over her head.

  “I don’t know why I’m doing this,” Tine lamented, trying to push a comb through her soap–tangled hair. “I’ll just smell like horse tomorrow.”

  “The soldiers have never come back,” Leen whispered. All of them were still underdoek, even Renske. Surely now it was unnecessary, except perhaps for Issac. The young men avoided any open roads, sticking close to the village interior. She was on her own again when she traveled to the Deinum’s.

  By the way Tine looked at Leen, she understood what Leen was suggesting. All she said was, “Not now.” She stood up, picking up the damp towel and winding it around her head. “After this, let’s go through our closets.” Her expression was hopeful in an effortful way, clinging to the good news. It made Leen’s eyes water. So Tine felt it too, felt the heaviness since Pater left, the need to break up the stagnancy that superseded the blame Leen believed Tine surely still placed on her, even if she had buried it away underneath the morning’s excitement, just for now.

  Because they had nothing else, they decided to wear their usual Sunday clothes, except Tine washed them on Friday while Leen was working, and Leen pressed them on Saturday afternoon while Tine took the first bath. When she was finished, they drained out half the water and added freshly drawn and heated water for Leen’s. Tine combed through Leen’s hair while she was still in the tub, working through each snarl that had formed at the base of her neck. They set each other’s hair in strips of washed and bleached cotton, and Leen scrubbed her hands, and when she exited the bath, she noticed that seemingly overnight she had developed a nearly full patch of pubic hair. The sparse, stray hairs had become dense, comprehensive, and Leen felt a private pride in herself. Scrubbed clean, hair formed into curls, hands soft and nails polished, she was almost ready for the social, looking forward to the end of the war.

  Later, just after they ate the evening meal, Issac left and quickly returned with a bag of apples. He sat in Pater’s chair with a piece of newspaper at his feet, running a paring knife underneath the skin in long, broken stripes, passing out slices to all of them.

  “Are you two ladies ready for tomorrow?” Mem asked. All that week she’d been keeping herself a level above her usual low mood. But the nobeltje was still on the counter.

  Leen nodded. “I am,” she said, mouth full of sweet apple flesh. Renske hummed while she ate. Tine ate with one hand, the other touching each of the knots dotting her scalp.

  Mem nodded in return. “Yes, me too,” she said.

  10.

  Leen had seen Minne Bosgra before, just as she had seen every young person in the coastal villages at one time or another. They passed each other regularly as they bicycled on the lanes between the villages and on the way to Dokkum. Yet, if someone asked Leen if she knew the name of the girl standing just outside the church doors rolling a cigarette, drawing sidelong glances from the boys and rolling eyes from the other girls, Leen would’ve said no. Still, she definitely stood out.

  Anyone there – boy, girl, deacon, elder, even the Dominie – knew what to do with the cigarette. Everybody smoked; it was just that the women didn’t smoke publicly. That was strictly a man’s privilege. Around age eighteen, when the women married off, their smoking ceased. But not the men. In the summertime, the sounds of coughing and rumbling lungs drifted out the open bedroom windows, coming from one side of the bed. Yet there was Minne, boldly flouting this fact, doing just what Leen had always wished she could do. So when Minne looked at her, meeting her gaze after she had stared other onlookers away, Leen couldn’t help it: she smiled.

  Minne was tall, like Leen, but her hair was lighter, and it was clear she was not the type to work in the fields. Like Leen and Tine had the night before, she’d curled her hair, but unlike Leen’s, she somehow managed to make it look effortless, each curl its own winding stream that ended in a shiny ringlet. The ends of Leen’s curls never wanted to lie together but instead divided into something that looked like an old overused wire brush. Minne’s frame was delicate, despite her height, but she had managed some curves too, so she did not hold herself awkwardly as some girls did who had to carry both inches and heavy legs and hips. Leen was neither a “skin flint,” Pater’s name for the bony girls, or a big girl, as the curve of Leen’s hip was slender and her legs strong and muscled but not thick. But it was clear, seeing Minne, that she did not have the same kind of figure, nor the same kind of hands that made rolling the cigarette look languid and elegant instead of the act of tomboy–ish defiance it was so clearly meant to be. And of top of all of this, she was wearing lipstick, and it was red. Immediately Leen wanted red lips, painted just the same, each peak a perfection of points.

  Minne registered Leen’s smile. She stopped, tilted her head, and then she walked over and held out the cigarette. A nerve–beat thumped in Leen’s chest. She knew it was more of a dare than a friendly gesture. Minne was asking her, you brave enough to do it too?

  Leen looked everywhere around her, avoiding Tine’s bu
lging eyes. The social was winding down; they had drunk the weakly flavored punch, had already exhausted the speculation of who was responsible for smuggling in the fruit juice necessary to make it. There was no tea or coffee, and the entire group had gotten restless, moving outside to form tight circles of girls and boys, the young women huddled close to talk so they could point discreetly at someone of interest, and the boys louder and claiming more space, even though they were fewer in number. They pushed and shoved each other now that they were out of the kerk.

  Minne started to withdraw the cigarette, a look of smug triumph on her face, when Leen held out her hand and took it, glad that at least her nails weren’t dirty. Closing her eyes to keep her hands steady, she dragged on it deeply, wondering if Jakob was watching. He was there but until that moment, Leen had managed to monitor him without ever meeting his eyes, looking past him or away a half–second before he turned to her. She passed the cigarette back.

  As Leen expertly blew out the smoke, heads turned. Tine stared, horrified, her eyes darting between both Minne and Leen, and the conversation around them slowed. Then the sentences tried to pick up again like a sputtering engine or a dying candle.

  Minne rolled another cigarette, lit it with her own, then handed it to Leen. The red outline of her lips on the mouth–end reminded Leen of Jakob and she felt the heat creep up her neck. Tine touched her arm, but Leen ignored her. She picked up Tine’s aghast frown and the wide eyes of Maatje, a childhood chum of Tine’s who lived five houses away from them on Ternaarderweg, but Leen looked past them, relying on the same technique she used to watch Jakob. She spotted him amidst a group of boys, one of them inexplicably beginning an old folk dance, his klompen and the street’s bricks providing the only music allowed. A crowd gathered around him, blocking her view, deflecting the attention off Leen. She watched Jakob’s smiling profile as he laughed and clapped time for the bold dancer showing off for the crowd, but just as she put the cigarette to her lips he looked at her. Leen flushed deeper when Minne turned to see where Leen’s eyes had gone.