Instantly Dirk said, ‘Surely you want to come with us?’ Mother said, ‘We didn’t mean to leave you out. We only want what’s best for you.’ Father said, ‘Of course you must stay with us. You know how much we love you.’ But Henk said, ‘I didn’t think. Sorry, little sister.’
How perverse we human animals are! The apologetic attention the others lavished upon me only roused me more. And my dear brother Henk took the brunt of it, as so often those whom we love most do at such times.
I said, ‘I am your sister, Henk, but I’m not so little any more. Or haven’t you noticed? I’m quite old enough to make up my own mind, and I’m quite capable of looking after myself, thank you.’
Of course by now everyone was becoming upset, especially Mother, who could never abide such scenes.
‘Geertrui,’ she said in her school teacher’s voice. ‘Stop it! Behave! No arguments, please.’
There was an embarrassed silence. Father stared at his boots, Mother slowly cleaned her spectacles, Dirk inspected our cellar’s shell-shocked walls. Only Henk could still look me in the eye, and at last broke the ice.
‘All right, big sister,’ he said with a smile he knew I could not resist, ‘tell us your decision. We really do want to hear it. Truly!’
Still it was hard for me to swallow my ire and speak pleasantly, but with an effort I managed. ‘I would like to go with you, Henk,’ I said, ‘because I think you’re right about what will happen after the British have gone, and that it will be better in the country.’ I paused, enjoying the drama, I’m afraid, before going on: ‘But I shall stay here.’ Another shameful pause for dramatic effect. ‘Though not because you want me with you, Papa.’
‘Then why?’ Henk asked.
‘Because of Jacob.’
‘Jacob?’ said Dirk. ‘Jacob who?’
‘The English soldier lying beside us,’ said Father.
‘Why? What does he mean to her?’ said Dirk at the same time as Mother was saying, ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Papa.
I said, ‘Letting him fight while the others leave. He isn’t fit. He’ll be killed for sure. How can we let him do this? I shall stay and help him. It isn’t right to send him in to the woods.’ (Do you have this expression? I can’t remember. It means to let someone down or abandon them.)
Papa was appalled. ‘What are you talking about? We, sending him in to the woods! It’s nothing to do with us. He’s a soldier. He volunteered. If he wishes to help his comrades in this way, it is not for us to interfere. That’s his business.’
‘I don’t care, Papa. I’m going to do what I can to help him.’
‘Geertrui, you’re not being rational.’
‘Rational!’ I said. ‘Father, is there anything rational about what’s happening to us here? Did being rational prevent this war? Did being rational save us from being invaded? Will being rational liberate us?’
‘You’re going too far,’ said Mother. ‘You should not speak to your father like this.’
‘I’m sorry, Mama. I thought at least you would understand.’
‘Understand what? I certainly do not understand you at all. You’re overwrought. Take hold of yourself!’
But I was so angry by now, I would not be silenced even by my mother at her most stern. ‘Mama,’ I said, with as much calmness as I could manage, ‘two Sundays ago we welcomed this man to our home as our liberator. We gave him water. We danced for joy. Have you forgotten? Then he was brought to us all but dead. For five days now we’ve nursed him. We’ve dressed his wounds. We’ve washed him. We’ve clothed him. We’ve fed him like a child. We’ve even helped him to go to the lavatory. Looking after him, I’ve seen and touched parts of a man I’ve never seen or touched before. He and I have slept huddled to each other for warmth while the enemy has demolished our home. We’ve treated him as one of ourselves, one of our family. Together, Mama, you and Papa and I, we’ve saved him from death. Yet because he’s decided for the sake of his comrades—and for our sake as well, let me remind you—to do something he’s not strong enough to do, when he’ll surely be killed, you tell me, Papa, it’s nothing to do with us. That we must not interfere. That I am not rational for wanting to help him. All I can say is that if he were Henk we wouldn’t think twice about it. Well, in these last few days I’ve done more for this man than I have ever done for my brother. Isn’t it only right that I help him now? Isn’t it the decent thing to do? That’s what I think being rational means, Papa. And that, Mama, is what I thought at least you would understand.’
Never had I uttered such a speech before. Never had I thought myself capable of it. Never have I made such a speech again. Because, perhaps, never did such anger seize me as possessed me that day. Upstairs in the ruins of my home foreign soldiers were fighting for my country. Here in the cellar I was fighting for myself.
No one said anything for a while, but stared at me in astonishment. Even the soldiers huddled around us had fallen quiet, sensing from our behaviour, I suppose, that we were troubled. Jacob, propped up against the wall by my side, had watched me intently all the time. I tried to avoid looking at him because I was sure I would burst into tears if I did, and then I would lose all my dignity and with it the effect my speech had made.
Outside, the guns thumped and rattled, and rain fell in cold torrents, filling the air in the cellar with an icy dampness. I remember that I was sweating from nervous reaction after my speech and how clammy the air felt on my skin.
The paraffin lamp which had supplied our light for the last two days chose that moment to run out of fuel and douse us in darkness, so we had to return to the flickering uncertain light of candles stuck inside preserving jars hung by twine from beams in the ceiling. Thank goodness, this provided a diversion that distracted us.
When we had settled down again, Dirk said, ‘I don’t understand why this man means so much to you, Geertrui, but if your mind is made up, there’s only one answer I can think of. We’ll just have to take him with us.’
As you will guess, this set fire to the discussion again. Father said such an idea was madness, we’d all get killed. No madder, Dirk replied, than hiding a Jew or working for the Resistance, as some of our friends and neighbours were doing. Mother said it wasn’t practical—how could three people carrying a wounded soldier hope to get past the German positions without being caught?
‘Where there’s a will there’s a way,’ said Dirk.
‘You’re talking like a hen with no head,’ said Father. ‘If you’re determined to do this mad thing, at least plan it properly. And for God’s sake leave Geertrui out of it.’
‘No, Father,’ I said. ‘I’m going. Henk and Dirk will find a way, won’t you, Henk?’
‘It’s a ditch of a card,’ said Henk. ‘He’ll have more chance of staying alive with us than he will lying upstairs in the state he’s in, on his own with a gun.’
‘It’s the only way,’ I said. ‘He’s got to come with us.’
Henk chuckled at me. ‘Now look who’s talking for whom,’ he said. ‘How do you know your soldier wants to come with us? Have you asked him? Or are you deciding for him?’
He was right of course. I felt shamefaced. Hoist with my own petard, as one of the ‘familiar sayings’ put it. Wie een kuil graaft voor een ander, valt er zelf in, is what we say: He who digs a pit for someone else, falls in to it himself.
‘I hate you sometimes!’ I said to Henk and the others laughed, which at least relieved the tension a little.
I shifted so that I could talk quietly to Jacob. I explained who Henk and Dirk were and that they wanted to take me to Dirk’s family farm, where they were hiding from the Germans, because they thought I would be safer there than in Oosterbeek after the battle, and where there would be food. Jacob shook hands with them and they said hallo. Then I told him I had refused to go with them because I was determined to remain with him. He tried at first to laugh this off, saying, ‘You can’t do that. Don’t be silly! I’ll be okay. But
thanks anyway.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m staying whether you think me silly or not. But,’ I went on before he could interrupt, ‘Dirk has made another proposal.’ And I explained about how we could take him with us, pushing him on our garden trolley, and hide him at the farm till his army liberated us, which would surely not be long. ‘This way,’ I said, ‘you will not die in our upstairs room, which is something I cannot bear to think of, and you will not become a prisoner of war if you don’t get shot, which you say you cannot bear to think of.’
I could tell from the change on his face how much he liked the idea. His eyes came alive as I had not seen them since the first day we met. But still he made objections, though I’m sure only because he thought he should. It was very risky, he said. Having to look after him would only make it more likely we would be caught or shot. The trolley would slow us up. If we were caught the Germans would shoot Henk and Dirk and me for helping a British soldier to escape. On and on like this for some minutes. What a maze men make of it when they want to argue. In and out and round about! I had soon had quite enough.
‘Jacob,’ I said as firmly as my then still searching English would allow, ‘this is not building a dyke. There is not time for all this talk. You must decide for yourself. But for me, my mind is made up. Go or not, I stay with you.’
‘You make it sound,’ he said, ‘like it’s only up to me.’
‘It is.’
‘No. There’s you. If you won’t leave me, Angel Maria, then what I decide also affects you, doesn’t it?’
‘Ach, what a Jesuit!’ I said, and wanted to hit him.
‘But I’m right. Yes?’
‘Yes!’
‘So you should tell me what you think is best and what you want to do.’
Having insisted that everyone attend to what I thought and what I wanted, when it came to making the final decision and taking the responsibility, I didn’t want to do it. I longed instead for someone to decide for me. At one and the same, both a failure of love and a demand of love. How typical of me, as I know after years of learning this lesson.
‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ I said, hardly able to speak the words. ‘It is your life I am trying to save, after all.’
‘And your life you’re risking to do it,’ said Jacob. ‘So we’re in it together and should decide together.’
Still I did not want to answer, and hung my head to avoid those dangerous eyes.
Jacob pushed himself up into a position where he could look closely into my face and smiling said, ‘Here’s a fine anger!’
‘Because I am angry,’ I said, not yet understanding his English irony.
Touching my cheek with a finger, he said, ‘Are we to fight each other as well?’
I managed to mutter a throttled ‘No.’
‘Pax, then?’
How not to return his smile? Clearing my throat I said, ‘I think it would be best to go with Henk and Dirk.’
‘Good. Me too. And as the man said, “It’ll be an awfully big adventure.”’
‘Man? Which man?’ I said. ‘I haven’t heard this saying before. Are you being serious? I don’t know.’
‘Have we time for all this talk?’ he said.
‘No,’ I said, aware again of the noise outside and of Henk and Dirk and my parents watching us. ‘You must explain me later. I’ll tell the others what we have decided.’
I cannot say that Mother and Father were happy, but they were resigned. There had been more than enough overleg to satisfy our Dutch desire for consultation. With nothing more to be said we set about our preparations.
What a relief it always is when a decision has been made and you can get on and do something! Like a heavy burden lifted from you. You feel so much better at once, charged with a new energy and with fresh hope. Never have I felt this more than that day, with death visiting all around us and the prospect of a life of misery and humiliation if I survived and stayed where I was. Whatever happened now, at least I was making an effort to take charge of my own life and not giving myself in to the hands of our enemy. I have never been as religious as my parents, but such times bring back the old words. As I rescued my little emergency suitcase from the clutter of our days confined to the cellar, I heard myself muttering:
My time is in thy hand; deliver me from the hand of mine enemies: and from them that persecute me.
The Lord of hosts is with us: the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Which made me smile and reminded me of another passage:
He shall choose out our heritage for us: even the worship of Jacob, whom he loved.
This made me laugh out loud and say to the God of Jacob, as I changed in to whatever clean, or at least unworn clothes I could find, in the uncertain privacy of our coalhole lavatory, ‘Please choose a heritage for us that includes a bath.’ I dread to think of how erg we must have gestonken by then.
Meanwhile, Henk and Dirk made a sortie into the back garden to prepare the trolley. And Jacob was talking to two of the other soldiers, explaining what was happening. When I came out of the lavatory, they had dressed him in one of their combat jackets, which would help keep him as warm and as dry as possible. It would also mean he was in uniform if he was captured, and would not then be shot as a spy. They had also given him a gun and stuffed the big pockets of his jacket with ammunition. ‘Must you take that?’ I asked. ‘Insurance,’ he said, patting the weapon like it was a pet dog. I did not approve at all and tried to persuade Henk to leave it behind. But instead he was envious, wishing he had one himself. Men with their deathly toys. There is no end of it.
Henk and Dirk agreed that we should leave soon after the bombardment by the British guns from south of the river started at 20:50. Henk calculated that this would be the safest time to travel across the British-held area, from our house near the eastern perimeter to the western perimeter on the edge of the woods in to which we must escape.
Night fell. With it rain fell in wild torrents. And through both wind and rain fell a hail of shells when the storm of the bombardment began, silencing the Germans, exactly as planned.
Time to leave. A terrible moment, when it was necessary for everyone’s sake to appear calm and cheerful. A pretence I would not have been able to sustain had I known this would be the last time I would see my father. He died during the Winter of the Hunger that was visited upon us after the failure of the Allies to liberate my unhappy country until the spring of 1945. It is as well that the future is ever an unread book, for had I known I would never see Papa again, I could not have left him. Such accidents of fate suffered in one’s youth return to haunt one with irrational guilt in old age. If only I had been there, I might have helped him survive. If only. By the time one is old, one is rich in this currency.
You see why I would rather not dwell on our parting. We embraced and kissed and shook hands and exchanged declarations of love and confident faith in our future together. All with that robust good nature and restraint of passion which is the glory of our Dutch civility.
And after our family farewells, the turn of the soldiers who shared our cellar. Those young men from a foreign country had in a few awful days become more intimate friends than any of our Dutch neighbours who we had lived beside for years. Not knowing, perhaps, how else to show their feelings, they pressed upon me as I said goodbye to each one, small gifts of the few personal possessions they had left. Cigarettes, though I did not smoke, some sweets, a cap badge, shoulder flashes, a pen (‘Maybe you’ll be able to write us a letter one day’), matches, a paratrooper’s scarf, even a wristwatch (‘You’ll need to know the time, Gertie, wherever you’re off to’), and from poor shell-shocked Sam, only just hanging on to himself, a book of poems which lies by me today as I write (‘Help you with your English!’). Norman, oldest of them in age and time spent with us, waited appropriately till last in this goodbye parade. He handed me a small black leather wallet, with a picture in it of his family and himself, saying, ‘Cheerio, Gertie. You’re a brave and lovely girl. I want you to have th
is. I hope we’ll meet again.’
And then with jokes and teasing, which is, I think, as much the English fashion on these difficult occasions as is our Dutch robust civility for us, we were led and helped and followed up the cellar steps and through the rubble of our dear home and out in to the back garden, where, in the roar and shudder of the embattled night, we sat Jacob on the trolley, his gun held ready in his bandaged hands, my emergency suitcase and his backpack tucked one on each side of him, and with the icy rain threatening either to freeze us or to drown us before we could be shot dead or reach our destination, we set off, Dirk leading the way, Henk pushing the trolley, and me by his side, my heavy heart pounding, my throat lumpy and dry, and my thoughts torn in shreds.
Such a leaving I would never wish on anyone.
Nor the cold coming we had of it to our hiding place.
POSTCARD
We become what we behold.
William Blake
‘OPEN YOUR EYES,’ Daan said.
He was standing behind Jacob, holding him by the shoulders, in one of the smaller galleries of the Rijksmuseum. Before entering he had made Jacob promise not to cheat, then guided him through the drift of visitors to this spot.
On the wall in front of him Jacob saw a portrait of himself. In ancient oils. Head to waist. Angled towards his left. In rich and rusty browns. Except for the pale triangular familiar face. Life size. Which shone as if bathed in sunlight, framed within the shadowed enclosure of a monk’s hood raised over the head. Eyes lowered and heavy-lidded. Wide mouth with fleshy bee-stung lower lip caught by the painter in a shy demure pleased-with-himself smile. And the feature which took most of Jacob’s attention because he hated it so much, the long thick nose with its blunt and bulbous end. His father’s nose. His grandfather’s nose. The Todd nose. His sister Poppy and his brother Harry didn’t have it. They had his mother’s pretty, slim-line version.
Postcards From No Man's Land Page 8