River in the Sea

by Tina Boscha

  Leen suddenly braked. What if Pater was right under their noses, just like Jan Fokke? What if he was right in Wierum, in a false wall, in somebody’s cellar? What if he was under some type of heap, like the manure piles or the hay bales, stacked high and neat, enough room for a man to stretch his arms? But he’d be home by now. The small void inside, the hole that itched from the inside out, opened up and everything inside her felt desperate, ravenous, frenetic. She did not know how much longer she could go on unknowing.

  She started pedaling again. She swerved amid the upturned chunks of road the half–tracks had ruptured and stopped. She watched a soldier pour gasoline into a tub and then take his shirt off, put it into the tub and begin to wash it.

  “That’ll stink,” a man said, parking his bike next to Leen. Leen looked around. She had been staring so intently at the camp that she hadn’t noticed at least ten others with her, standing over or next to their bicycles, gazing at the new occupiers. At least half of them were girls. A few of them held folded segments of silk.

  “They’re airing them out, see? Over there, on the line,” another said, pointing. “What a funny way to wash their clothes.” The soldiers had run a clothesline from the radio tower to the main tent and a line of shirts, pants, and underclothes flapped in the wind.

  “The smell will air out eventually, don’t you think?” a girl said.

  “I hope so,” another answered. They giggled. “Should we bring them proper soap?”

  “I think they look clean enough.” More laughter. Leen’s cheeks prickled. It was warm, hot even. She took off her sweater and tied it around her waist.

  “It almost doesn’t look right,” the man who spoke first said, ignoring the girls. “Seeing them there instead of the others.” He looked at Leen. It was impossible to tell his age. He was deeply wrinkled, but his posture and frame was that of a younger man. He was probably a fisherman; their skin aged first before their joints.

  “I know,” Leen said. She smiled openly at him to show she wasn’t like the other girls there, foolish and coy. “I suppose we’re not used to it. How long do you think they’ll stay?”

  The old man shrugged. “The idiots on the island still won’t give up. After that, I don’t know.” He stuck a bent finger inside the side of his mouth to loosen a bit of tobacco. He was missing his front teeth, the gums a browning shade of pink. “But I sure am glad they’re here.”

  Leen smiled again at the man and said, “Doeie.” She tried to pedal off but the road got worse. It was more torn apart than put together, and each side of the lane was filled with tufts of sod where the wide half–tracks had gone over.

  She made it less than a quarter–kilometer. “The road is ver skrikelik,” she muttered to herself.

  “Yes, it is pretty bad.”

  Leen knew that soft voice. Minne faced her, straddling her bike. Her hair was combed but straight, her mouth forcing a smile, but without her red lipstick, it shrank into her face.

  “Leen,” Minne said. Her face was the color of milk. “I’ve been looking for you. It seems I’ve been hunting you down quite a bit lately.”

  “I’ve been home,” Leen said, her tongue thick in her mouth. She was not prepared to see Minne and at first she could not help feeling a flash of joy. Just as quickly she was filled with gall. She had tried not to think of her but it had been difficult not to wonder – what happened after she’d run? Had Minne run off? Did she stay inside her home when the Canadians came through her town? Think, Leen told herself, think. Prepare. Do not act rashly. She felt the scissors. She did not know why she might need them but their presence reassured her nonetheless.

  “I need to talk to you,” Minne said. Her knees trembled. She tried to hide it by shifting from foot to foot. “Please.”

  “What.”

  “It’s not what you think,” Minne said. “I wasn’t doing what everyone thinks.”

  “What is that?” Leen said, voice steady with anger.

  “You know what,” Minne whispered. She shut her eyes. “It wasn’t that at all. Leen, listen to me, I need to tell you about him. He isn’t bad, he’s not like the rest.”

  “Girls should never fraternize with German soldiers, ever,” Leen spat. She hated how her sentence sounded like a pamphlet. But Minne’s words were more pathetic. Her soldier beau had not been terrible, but what did that matter now? He was a German soldier, serving under Hitler, and Pater was gone because of them. And all along Minne knew.

  Leen erupted. “He’s NOT one of us!” she shouted. “He’s the enemy. How can you even pretend it’s different?” She stepped closer to Minne. “Did you know he was there? When I ran over the dog? He saw the truck, and then all of a sudden those soldiers wanted that same truck and instead they got my father.”

  Minne looked like she was in pain. “I knew about it before anyone else did! Leen, he helped you. You know that, don’t you? That enemy of yours got you out of there alive. He saved your life.”

  “And you believe that? Do you believe everything soldiers tell you? You are truly a fool, Minne.” She pointed at Minne, her index finger stiff with adrenaline. If she hurt her, if she sliced her face with the scissors, there would be no repercussion for it. She’d be celebrated. There was a man in Bolingavier who had told German officers where refugees were hiding, and in return he’d been given protection. But now that the occupiers were gone, his house had been surrounded at night, everyone’s fist knocking on the walls, calling for him to come down.

  “Yes, I believe him.” Now Minne was still, except for her hands, which made the same gesture, an open stabbing of the air with stretched fingers. “You know how I even met him? You think I’m just like the other girls, standing around the camps, waiting wherever the uniforms were. He talked to me. He heard me call my grandmother Beppe and he said that’s what he called his grandma too. Do you get it? ‘Beppe.’ He’s like us, Leen, he’s Frysk. He grew up in Germany but–”

  “Then he’s not one of us,” Leen said. Even after being beaten the Bolingavier man was sent to a re–education camp. He’d learn a lot by performing hard labor.

  “Shut up!” Minne shouted. Every muscle in her face and neck stretched in a bulging frenzy. “This isn’t a lie! There are Frisians there now and his grandparents were, and he is too. And you know what? That doesn’t even matter. He’s a good man and he hated the war too and he wants to stay. And I want him to stay.” She was crying hard now. “I want him to stay.”

  But Leen wouldn’t fall for it. Not now. She refused the temptation of Minne’s sadness, of her beautiful face wrenched into bitterness. “Don’t be so stupid. He heard someone else say Beppe and he remembered it. He just wanted to get you into bed.” Her skin puckered between her shoulder blades, then lower.

  Minne shook her head. “No, no, no!” She hit her handlebar and Leen could tell by the way her face smarted that she had hit her hand wrong, that it hurt, she’d have a bruise. “It was right after the camp went up… Leentje, you have to believe me. There’s more.” She shook her head again, trying to shake something away. “I’m not one of those girls. No matter what they call me.” She pointed behind Leen. “Look at them. They’re over there flipping their hair at the Canadian men. Tell me, what makes that so different anyway?”

  Leen said the cruelest thing she could think of. “Maybe you were on your way over there. You only saw me first.”

  Minne swallowed. “That was hateful.”

  Leen knew this, but all she could think to say were more cruel words. “There are the manure piles. Close one up again. Put him there.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Minne asked. She wiped her eyes with her fingertips. “You know they’re coming after me soon, right? You know what happens next.” She reached up and haltingly touched her hair.

  “No, I don’t. Tell me, what happens next?” Of course Leen knew.

  “I thought you’d understand, I thought you were my friend,” Minne said. “I was sure you would help.” She was calmer now, resigned. Leen s
queezed the folds of her skirt over the scissors in her pocket. It was hot. The part on her scalp felt like it was burning and the breeze blew the tips of her hair into her face, scratching her jaw.

  “He’s hiding out. He is trying to desert. And I’m going to help him do it, with or without you.” Minne started to push off but then quickly stopped. “He’s one of us, he’s a Frisian, and he’s going to stay. You’ll see. Your brother and all the L.O. men will come after me and everyone will leave those tarts alone, but they’ll be the ones with the growing bellies, and I won’t. You’ll see, Leen.” She started again, awkwardly dodging the road debris. She wove as if she was drunk. “If you knew him like I did, you’d help him!” Minne shouted.

  At first, Leen said nothing, staring at Minne’s narrow back. In the bright light Leen could see the sharp bumps of her spine pushing against her thin shirt. It looked like a line of lonely islands.

  The words flew out of Leen’s throat without warning. “I would never know him because I am not a whore!”

  Minne stopped. Slowly she turned around. “I’m sorry about your father, and if that’s why you won’t help me, you could’ve said. I would’ve understood.”

  Now. Go. Don’t say another word. Leen began walking towards Wierum, her bike bumping over the broken road, the wafting smell of gasoline tickling the edges of her nose, drawing more water from her eyes.

  Ver domme. She turned around. Minne’s figure was slumped, moving slowly. Leen pushed her bike over and ran back. She grabbed Minne’s shoulders. “Do you know where my father is? Do you? Has your soldier told you anything?”

  “Nee, Leen, I don’t! I swear I don’t! I don’t know anything about your father. If I did I would tell you! Stop shaking me!”

  Leen stopped. She took her hands off Minne. Blood pumped in her hands.

  “If I did, would you have helped me?” Minne asked.

  Leen drew back and hit Minne once, then again. She slapped her only friend across the same cheek so hard her palm stung.

  Minne gasped sharply. She froze, her head turned, the outline of a hand stained on the side of her face.

  Leen ran. Pulling up her bike, carefully mounting it again, every muscle inside twitching, Leen wove the front wheel across the center of the lane, surrounded by fractures and cracks, exposing dark earth underneath. She told herself she’d done the right thing. She told herself, do not cry. Do not cry for that whore.

  A motorcycle approached, suddenly braking behind Leen. The high–pitched whirring of its engine and a girl’s squeal made her jump. She stopped and looked back. It was a soldier, a soldier and a girl in a yellow shirt. Leen thought she recognized her. It was Maatje, Tine’s occasional friend.

  The soldier stood up to help her dismount. He had bright blond hair under his helmet and he grinned at Leen. Then he winked and blew a kiss to Maatje, mounting the motorcycle and wheeling it backwards with his heels. He started it, gave it a jolt of gas and zoomed off, saying, “Doeie!”, laughing at his new word.

  “Isn’t the camp the other way?” Leen asked, placing one foot on a pedal. She was still shaking.

  “The road is too torn up,” Maatje said. She began walking in Leen’s direction. Her pace was unhurried and a fresh daffodil was tucked behind her ear. Leen squinted. The front of Maatje’s shirt wasn’t yellow but white, everywhere except for yellow smudges around the small white buttons down the center.

  “Your blouse, you’re covered in giel,” Leen said. She purposely kept her voice light, light enough to be a little nasty. “It’s all over your back, too.”

  “What? Yellow?” Maatje twisted to look over her shoulder. Clean strips of white revealed where the creases had protected the cotton. The bottom of her blue skirt was cast green. “Oh!” she said. “Skiet!” She looked at Leen, stricken, frantically swiping at the buttons and at her skirt. She flushed to her hairline. “We took a walk in the daffodil fields. They’re so pretty right now,” she stammered, looking down. “Blixen,” she said under her breath, her voice growing teary.

  “I bet,” Leen said. Her lips felt thin as she dropped her voice a note. Her hand still stung. “And afterwards he dropped you off here.”

  Maatje didn’t answer. She pulled the fabric and slapped it, trying to beat the pollen out as you would a rug to remove the dust. She glanced up once at Leen, trying to smile. She eyed Leen’s sweater. Leen grabbed the dangling sleeves and pulled hard, tightening the knot.

  Maatje’s smile dropped away. “I’m moving to Canada, you know,” she said. “As soon as things are settled.”

  Leen nodded. Anger and guilt swirled inside her. “Of course,” she said. “Well, in case I don’t see you before you go, goodbye then. Good luck.” She pushed off and then, turning to look over her shoulder, she shouted, “Stupid cow! You stupid, idiot cow!”

  She bore down hard on the pedals, lifting herself off the seat, feeling her muscles clench, unable to stop thinking of her handprint on Minne’s bare face. “I did the right thing,” she said aloud, wiping her eyes, not caring if anyone could hear her. She could not afford one foolish move. She couldn’t loan her sweater to Maatje, she couldn’t help Minne, couldn’t direct the soldier to the dugout in their yard, to the Feikema barn, to another manure pile where no one would think to look. But she kept turning over a word in her mind: Beppe.

  The Dutch didn’t say that. Their words were the same in Deutsch, Oma, Opa. Nee, nee. Not this time. She’d done too much already. He had worn that gray uniform. Perhaps he had taken pity on her but another time he’d probably shot his gun and killed a Frisian. And even if he knew to say Beppe and lekker and doeval and griene tsiis, that didn’t make him just like another Wierumer. That didn’t matter at all. He did not, could not, share her blood. Nee, she wouldn’t make the same mistake as Minne. If she did, it would be acknowledging Pater was dead. It was the same as killing him herself.

  Except Leen knew, as her white fingers wrapped around the handlebars so hard her hands started to ache, that it did matter. They were so few in number, less now because of the war, on a small piece of land that had shrunk over centuries. To a Frisian, blood mattered very, very much.

  20.

  Normally after the Sunday dinner dishes were dried and put away Leen would not opt to go to the barn to press a sack of grain into oil. But today, this was the only thing Leen could make herself do to fill the time before the second afternoon church service, when all she had left to do was think. The list of things she replayed in her mind was long, and she thought of events by names: Minsha, Pater, Issac, Minne. So she got out the makeshift press Pater had fashioned out of spare parts taken from old farm equipment. Using a pencil, she pushed the grain through a small funnel until drops of oil fell from the press into an empty, washed milk bottle held between her knees. The work was tedious and repetitive and even though her neck ached and blisters formed on her fingertips, she did not stop. Not until she heard marching.

  Leen stepped out of the barn and this is what she saw: Five men walking down Ternaarderweg, two of the men in uniform, the other three dressed normally save for white stitched armbands, their klompen echoing loudly on the cobblestone. She recognized one of them as Mr. Schaap, the butcher. The men were followed by four young women, their feet bare, their hands tied behind their backs. One of them had softly curled hair, a striking honey blond, and dramatically painted lips. Turning away, Leen jumped, startled to see Issac there, coming in, wearing his blue coverall. It was unzipped to his waist and the sleeves hung down by his legs like extra limbs. He was out of breath.

  “Where’s Mem?” he said.

  “What’s going on?”

  All Issac said was, “It’s time.” When he turned, Leen followed him inside the house.

  “What is it?” Tine asked in the living room. Renske was at her side, sitting on the davenport, holding a small plate of panne. Tine had finally relented and made it, burning the bottom just as Renske liked.

  “Officer Wierema just walked by, with Mr. Schaap and Mr. Van Loo and
the Sytsma men,” Leen said.

  Heavy footsteps shook the ceiling. Issac had gone to get Mem.

  Tine took the plate of cake out of Renske’s hands. “Go back into the kitchen and drink your milk,” she said. To Leen, she asked, “Were the girls with them?”

  “Ja,” she said. She didn’t know how Tine knew to ask that. Word must have spread. But no one had told Leen. She knew why.

  The stairs became drumbeats under Issac’s feet. “We need to go,” Issac announced, still breathless. He hadn’t stopped moving since Leen had first seen him. The afternoon light was strong and angled towards his head, outlining it. “I’m leaving now. Mem said she was coming down.” He looked behind him at the clock, as if it mattered. This event was never posted to a calendar, nor was it scheduled far in advance. Sunday morning, the word–of–mouth probably began. Sunday afternoon, be ready. All the same, as Issac had said, it was time.

  Mem’s foot landed on the creaky step. “Komme, Mem, we need to hurry,” Leen said. This too, she knew. Being there showed whose side you were on.

  They filed onto the street in the direction of Wierum’s meager sports field, where occasional games of football were played, before the war anyway. Leen scanned the street. Ahead, she could see a crowd already gathered near the church, at the spot where the iron set of stairs led to the path on top of the dike and the memorial to lost sailors. Mr. Iedema rode past on an old rumbling motorcycle, tipping his hat as he passed. By some of the voices and the quick strokes of klompen on the new bricks Leen could tell excitement was building. When she and her family reached the field every Wierumer was present; Leen could name every face. Minne would have an audience, full of austere, ruddy faces, angry at her treason. A fraternizing hoer, she had betrayed everything sacred about war and loyalty.

  The five L.O. men exited a nearby house where they had paused while the crowd thickened. They led the four women, this time linked by a heavy rope, behind them. The crowd instinctively closed around them. Leen felt someone slip next to her; it was Issac. He stared ahead, his face solemn. She was glad he was not smiling, not like so many others, open–mouthed and craning their necks. He surprised her by touching her arm, squeezing it softly. She looked at him, unsure of what the gesture meant. Was it about them, the final acknowledgement that they were alright? Was it an apology? Or was this about Minne? She childishly wanted to hold his hand, but he put both hands behind his back and exhaled heavily. Yes, here we go, Leen thought. That’s what it felt like he was saying. Mem and Tine stood ahead of her, Renske sandwiched between them.