River in the Sea

by Tina Boscha

  “They moved me quite a bit, but I was on the islands, Ameland, most of the time,” he said. “In a house with a false wall. A policeman’s house. He was supposed to be working for the Germans but he turned on them every chance he could. The last place I stayed was in Leeuwarden.”

  “You were gone so long, we thought you were dead. Oh Pater, too much has happened.”

  “Okay, famke,” he sighed. “Time for details later.” He let her lean against his chest. He seemed smaller to her. He wiped her face with his bare hand. His calluses barely registered on her skin. They had grown small.

  He pulled her away once more. His eyes were watery and deeply pink–rimmed. His skin was dry. It flaked along his cheeks and mouth, following the lines of his beard. He held her face. “You’ve changed so much. You’re grown.”

  “Pater, Issac–” She remembered Tine waiting for her in the street years ago and how she had said it, Wopke is dead, a simple sentence, but as complicated and as sharp as a dagger. Now, it was her turn, but she couldn’t do it. She’d never thought Tine was stronger, not until now.

  “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  “Leen, who is there?” Tine’s voice called from the stairway.

  Pater let her go. He took a few steps. “Tine,” he said, and it was her sister who supplied the shouts.

  Renske followed Tine quickly, and Leen stood back and watched their reunion, listening to each of them ask the same questions. She lit the stove. It was spring but he looked cold. She’d serve her father tea. She’d pour whiskey in it, give him a cigarette, put a blanket around his shoulders.

  In between smiles and tears there was shuffling and a creak and another wail, coming from the top of the stairs. It was like a dog’s sad, soft whimper. Mem.

  She did not come down. Pater went to her, his homecoming to her private. Leen slumped on the bottom step of the stairs. She had never heard Pater cry like that, maybe not even for Wopke, when he had done his best to hide his grief from her. In those intervening years she had seen tears, but not heard the sound of his deep, throaty cries mixed with gasps for air, deep coughs and hacks and words that struggled to find a shape from black–scarred lungs and a broken heart, wails that came from the roof of the mouth, the well of the throat. It shook Leen to her very core, and as overcome and relieved as she was that Pater was home, she filled with a new kind of guilt, the kind that came after knowing he had done something big for the family, he had survived something horrific, but look: he had to come home to this.

  The rest of the day and the next were a rush of preparations. A flock of women, directed by Mrs. Boonstra, descended on the house, scrubbing every corner, every wall, to ready them for visitors. Leen couldn’t imagine what it was like for Pater, inserted immediately into funeral preparations. How would congratulations be expressed at the same time? We are happy to see you back, Oenze… and we are sorry for your loss. We are sorry you lost both your sons but we are glad that you are alive, that you outran the Krauts… Issac did his best. No one saw that coming…

  Seeing her father was still a shock. It was like watching a newsreel of him; he had sound and movement, but she could not get close. His hand was always touching Mem. At first Leen thought it was tenderness, a husband who had just returned to his wife, but on the second night she could see there was effort behind it. He was pushing her along, pulling her through it. Mem barely spoke, and Leen avoided her.

  Every night, after the last of the visitors had left, she had nightmares. The worst took place at the funeral. Leen was seated next to Mem, but Mem kept falling asleep. Every minute Leen had to wake her but Mem could never keep her eyes open. They fluttered closed as fast as they fluttered open and her head drooped forward and Leen constantly had to shake her, knowing everyone was gaping at them, and she would get so angry, and she would shout at her, and then she would strike Mem over and over again and then Pater screamed at her to stop, this was her brother’s service, why couldn’t she keep her mother awake?

  She woke up, always, after this dream, looking into the half–dark spring night, only to fall asleep again to dream another. In this one she went out in the rain after the funeral and she would get soaked, right through her clothes to the skin, and then she would reach into her pocket for the pack of cigarettes Issac had given her and it would crumble in her hands. She’d try to take a cigarette out but one after the other would disintegrate until her hands were covered in shards of foil and tiny threads of brown tobacco. Frantically she’d try to draw them together into a pile but the rain was coming down so hard it washed them all away, leaving just a few strands clinging to her fingers.

  On the morning of the funeral Tine roused Renske extra early to begin the baths. Leen laid in bed, telling herself just a few more minutes. She’d make the breakfast, get the coffee going. And then it would start.

  Pater appeared in the doorway.

  “Morning,” Leen whispered. He looked exhausted. Something in him was so sorely depleted he was working from something else entirely.

  He sat on the edge of the bed. “Your mother is pretty bad.”

  “I know.”

  “How long?”

  Leen paused. She wished for a second that she was little again, that it was just she and Tine in the bed, and he was there to tuck her in.

  “Not long after you left. She… She stopped. She stopped being Mem.” She thought Pater might ask her what she meant, but instead he nodded. “Why were you gone so long, huit? Why couldn’t you come home?”

  He stood up quickly. “Not now, Leen. Go see your Mem. She needs you. Help her get ready, okay? Today, today will be a long day. Tonight too.” He was wearing klompen but with no socks. His ankles looked small against the wide wooden opening. “At least,” he added, his voice so sad and low that Leen’s throat began to close, “at least today she will get out of the house. And we will have no more sons to bury.”

  “Mem?” Leen said outside the door. Despite the spring air she shivered inside her nightgown. She knocked lightly. “Mem?” she said again when she heard nothing.

  Then, through the door, she heard a rustle and a long, thin sigh.

  “I’m coming in, okay?” She opened the door. To Leen’s surprise, Mem was sitting up, on top of the bed, fully clothed. Her hair was pinned back on either side of her face, but it hung loose over her shoulders. Leen recognized the print of Mem’s dress. She had worn it last night. She hadn’t changed. The same musty odor hung in the air, months of her collected exhales, running up against the walls, unchanged by Pater’s presence except for the smoke from his cigarettes.

  A single photograph rested next to Mem’s legs. It was of the whole family, except for Pater, who had taken the snapshot with the borrowed camera, and Renske, who hadn’t yet been born. Mem was holding a basket of wash on her hip, and Leen, Tine, Wopke, and Issac stood around her. Leen and Tine held hands. Issac and Wopke stood together closely, and Mem’s hand rested on Wopke’s shoulder. The photo had been taken during the week, judging by the simple cut of the clothes, and Mem had an easy smile on her face, while the rest of the kids stared at the camera with plain faces.

  Leen found Mem watching her, studying Leen as she surveyed the photo, and Leen had never seen someone look so emptied out, like she’d been scooped clean of all she once had. Leen herself felt too full, like she wanted to spit it all up, write across every wall the familiar words of “I’m sorry.” She’d been deposited backwards in time, except she felt so much older, and the players were shuffled, one missing.

  “This was taken in ‘38,” Mem said, picking up the photograph. Her voice was like the teakettle right before the steam screamed. “I had both my sons then, and my daughters. No Renske, though. I lost one and got another.” She shifted and drew both her legs entirely on the bed. Her feet were bare and her toenails were overgrown and jagged. “My mother lost a girl. Did you know that? My sister lost one too, a baby boy, your tante in Makkum. We never see her.” Mem shook her head and gathered her fingers together and p
ointed to her chest, jabbing herself hard above her heart. “It hurts, right in here. It’s a real pain,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut. “I can feel it. With my body I feel it.”

  Leen took the picture. Issac’s young face wore a serious cast, looking quizzically at the camera, while Wopke’s was more open, warmer. But by the bones of their cheeks and jaw, the closeness of their shoulders, it was clear they were very much brothers. She was in the picture too, standing to the left, cheeks still fat, clasping Tine’s hand. She turned the photo over. She rubbed her chest. It was tightening, wringing, and she wondered if that was the same pain Mem felt.

  Mem took her hand. “I am not too old that I couldn’t have another.” She shook her head. “I am too old. But I could. I still bleed. But, I don’t think so. I don’t think I could do it again.”

  Leen’s muteness felt as bad as the dream where she had beaten her. This was the most Mem had spoken on her own, without prompt or questions or dreams fueling her, but the words were awful. Mem’s white, freckled hand felt too thin and cold, not the tender, gentle thing that Leen had loved to feel on her face and hair. This was the hand she’d tried to hurt.

  “We have to get ready for the funeral.” It sounded like a knife made of words and Leen closed her eyes and tried to find a way to soften it. “Don’t we?” She took her hand away from Mem and put both her hands over her face, tears seeping through her fingers.

  “Ja,” Mem answered. “We do.”

  Leen looked at Mem’s feet. “Do you have a little knife?” Leen stood up and searched near the basin where Mem used to keep a towel and a full pitcher of water. The pitcher had an inch of water in it. A small knife rested on the shelf where Mem kept her toiletries. It was dusty.

  “Here,” Leen said, taking Mem’s foot in her lap. “I’ll trim them for you.”

  Mem looked at her feet. “I’ll do it,” she said, unmoving.

  “Let me see your hands,” Leen said. The nails were long and uneven, the corners dark with grime. Threads of skin were torn away on her thumbs, leaving deep valleys of pink.

  Leen found a nailbrush and took the pitcher and a worn towel. She set it on her lap and tipped the pitcher and dipped the brush in it, letting the bristles soak.

  “Give me your hand,” she said, and this time Mem did not protest. Leen took the knife and pared off each edge. Mem’s fingers gave no resistance. Then she took the brush and began to scrub, careful to avoid the raw spots.

  “I used to do this for you all the time,” Mem said. “Now you do this for me.”

  “Just this once,” Leen said. “And after this, we both do it for ourselves.”

  Mem nodded her head, her movement changing the way her muscles felt in Leen’s hands.

  “You have to come to the funeral. You can’t stay home.”

  “Of course,” Mem whispered. “I know.” But her tone was not indignant. “Is the barn ready? It’s terrible, you know. A person is gone and you’ve got to put out the cake for all the visitors. People will help but really, you’ve got all the work.”

  “Pater and I tried, but we couldn’t move the truck,” Leen said. She winced. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll come down soon,” Mem said, drawing her hands away. They dripped onto her dress. Her voice was brittle. “But not just yet.”

  “Tea or coffee?” Leen asked, wiping her hands on her nightgown. Mem didn’t answer. Instead she took the picture back and lay on her side, holding it to her face.

  “My hands do look better,” Mem said. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Leen got up to leave. At the top of the stairs she saw the closed door to Issac’s room, the white paint the same as always, the line of sunlight escaping from underneath unbroken.

  She went downstairs and made her mother some tea.

  23.

  It was easier to get through the funeral than the gathering afterwards. Leen knew what to expect with the funeral. She knew the order of the ceremony, she knew that she would cry and that Mem would break down and that Pater would be stoic, as solid as possible, because that was expected of men, especially with Mem so weak beside him. But he cried at the burial, struggling to contain it, and Mem’s hand shook so badly that when it was her turn to throw the handful of dirt onto the coffin she missed and the dirt sprayed onto the ground, dust meeting dust. And when Leen had done it her face had felt so hot, knowing she was watched, and the whole thing made her start to shake so she threw the dirt onto Issac’s coffin like she was angry at it. She’d flung it hard, like a snowball.

  But at the gathering too many people crowded in the barn. Chairs from dozens of households were set up in groups, with a mishmash of tables pushed in a line and adorned with Delft platters of cake, cheese, sausage, crackers and sliced fruit and canned peaches and cups and cups of coffee next to open bottles of liquor that no one bothered to hide. Vases of the last daffodils were placed everywhere along with huge blooms of red tulips and everyone was drunk, crowding around Mem, even more crowding around Pater, and it looked like a party to Leen, except for the low voices and red–rimmed eyes and the clothes. Every skirt, every tie, everything was dark.

  She was leaned over, pulled up, hugged, pushed down, patted, kissed on the cheek. Leen kept one hand in her pocket, fingering the pack Issac had given her. The only way she could get through the night was to keep it close, unopened. The corners of the pack softened with sweat as she listened to the same words over and over: I am so sorry, Issac is with his Maker now, he professed his faith before God, he took communion, you have been through a lot, haven’t you, and at least your heit is back, that must be something. The Lord giveth and He taketh away.

  “Thank you,” Leen replied each time. Even when she started to slur her words, that was what she said. Each sip of coffee she swallowed was laced with brandy. It burned her throat but dulled everything else and so she drank another cup, and another, until Jakob came to her with tears in his eyes and instead of saying what everyone else did, he didn’t say a word. He handed Leen a cigarette and she took it. He held out his hand and she took that too. When they stepped outside the barn, she did not let go. Neither did he.

  The sky hadn’t yet gone fully dark; it was the time of year when the sky turned charcoal but never settled into ink. Leen had to fight the thought that they must be close to curfew. Seeing the evening light penetrate the windows still surprised her eyes. For a fleeting moment she got confused and thought it was dawn. Walking, her head felt heavy and her steps lurched and seeing Jakob next to her she knew what time it was; it was the night of the day she and her family buried Issac. It was May 8. The war had been officially over for two days.

  Jakob reached into his pocket and pulled out a little flask.

  “I’ve had too much already,” she said, but she drank from it anyway. It no longer burned like it did when she first tasted the coffee. Now it felt warm, but it didn’t deliver the same bright comfort as a cigarette.

  “So have I,” Jakob said, taking the flask from her and drinking, wincing. For the first time in days, Leen laughed.

  He looked at her. His own laugh died out.

  “Shit,” Leen said. “We laughed.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  They walked, and when Leen stumbled, she leaned into his arm, and her hand found his elbow. Everything about her moved too freely now. Every joint, every ball and socket, every bend was a turn too loose. It reminded her a little bit of how Mem and Pater walked down the aisle in the kerk today, her father leading Mem, going slow. But Jakob was not as steady as Pater; he leaned into her as much as she leaned into him.

  “Nee, nee,” Leen said when she saw where they were heading. To the right, around the corner, was the graveyard. “Not to the café. Not past the kerk. I can’t go past the church.”

  “Why? We can sit–”

  “I can’t walk past him, not like this,” Leen said, stopping short. “I can’t do that, Jakob, I can’t. He will see me. It’ll make God mad. I can’t.”

  “God
or Issac?”

  She didn’t answer him. Both. Hearing Jakob say her brother’s name, embedded in the present tense of their conversation, struck her as strange, because it was so normal. What was peculiar was that he was dead. He was still so much more than bare bones, she thought. And that was why she couldn’t move past, not when her blood was filled with alcohol and she was swaying like a sapling, moving in a slow circle, responding to an imaginary breeze.

  “But I don’t want to go back,” Leen said. “Take me somewhere else.” She squeezed his hand. She liked how the brandy allowed her to say just what she wanted while looking him in the eye.

  “Komme,” he said, turning them both around in a wide, uneven arc. “The Feikema’s are at your house, right?” He looked at her and from that angle, he looked less boyish. His skin was clear. She touched his chin, in the spot where he’d once had a blemish, but it was smooth.

  Outside the barn he slid away from her to open the doors, then slipped inside. Everything Leen looked at was moving. Her feet were planted but everything else was like a metronome, rocking from side to side. She reached out to grab the door and he reappeared with a lantern. He grabbed her hand and she was relieved. She followed him up into the loft. He missed a step and she reached up to push his foot onto the rung but then she missed the next one. At the top she turned and pushed herself back on her hands next to Jakob, and when she grew near, he laid back. In a faraway corner of her mind she knew they were breaking too many rules and an edge of sourness began to gather in her stomach, a mix of alcohol and nerves and sorrow, but it didn’t stop her from laying next to him.

  He handed her the flask again. It spilled a little when she put it close to her lips and she had to lean her head forward to drink.

  “There’s none left,” she said.

  He held it to the lantern head and tipped it. A dribble came out, soaking onto his pants leg. “Skiet,” he said. Then he was quiet.