The Cut Out Girl

by Bart van Es

  More stories such as these are to be found in the museum and in the Dordrecht municipal library. In a high-ceilinged café I talk with Gert van Engelen as he writes down e-mail addresses and phone numbers in my notebook and suggests places of wartime significance that I might visit beyond and within the town.

  Two final stories stick with me. One is the case of Ger Kempe, a student doing the rounds in search of funding for a resistance group hiding children in late 1942. Having knocked at an unknown door, he was tentatively invited in by the old lady who answered it. Perched on a sofa in her sitting room, the young man delivered a speech that was met with awkward silence. The woman waited for a long time, giving no response, then eventually told him to come back in a few days’ time. When he did so, expecting little or nothing, the old lady gave him sixteen hundred guilders: a fortune that saved many lives.

  The second story concerns a number of female students. By late 1942 the situation for the remaining Jews in the Netherlands had become utterly desperate, so much so that mothers were now leaving babies and young children on doorsteps in the hope that they would be taken in. The German authorities, aware of this trend, put out an official notice: from now on, all foundlings would be assumed to be Jewish and even those who had earlier been accepted and adopted by Aryan families were to be hunted down by the police. The group of young students could see only one solution. They would register Jewish babies as their own children, fathered by German soldiers. This would bring the certainty of safety, but also, of course, tremendous shame to the women themselves. Years afterward, An de Waard retold the story of her experience at the registry office, where she was made to wait on public view for a very long time. Eventually, under the clerk’s contemptuous gaze, she was able to register the child as William, a royal name, which for her was a little gesture of resistance. Like the five other babies saved in this manner, William survived the war.

  * * *

  —

  MEANWHILE, IN DORDRECHT, the Heromas continued to ferry, to care for, and to hide Jews of all ages, although they were increasingly fearful that their activities were being tracked. Once, Jan Heroma headed out to look after a sick Jewish woman in hiding who, in spite of his best efforts, died of natural causes after several hours. As there was no way to remove her body without its being noticed, he dug a secret grave for her in the back garden under cover of night. In another case, he and Took rushed out to a house that had been hit by Allied bombing, aware that a Jewish couple was hidden inside. They guided the couple back to the Dubbeldamseweg, where they hid them in the cellar. After this, Jan went out in his little car to fetch the bombed-out couple’s daughter, who had been taken to a farmhouse far away. At first the girl, long separated, did not recognize her mother. Then, when she suddenly did, her delighted screams of recognition brought terror of discovery to the house.

  For months all went well, but then one night there was a knock at the door. A group of policemen stood waiting outside. In the dead of night, with Jews still hidden in the cellar, Jan Heroma was led away to prison and an uncertain fate.

  * * *

  —

  DURING MY TIME IN DORDRECHT I visit many places, but it is only toward dusk on the final day, just before taking the train back to The Hague, that I head to the Bilderdijkstraat to see the address where Lien first arrived in the town. It is a ten-minute walk from the station, so I go there trundling my suitcase, first through the park in the weakening sunshine and then along the broad pavements of a suburban trunk road that is beginning to fill with commuter traffic.

  The Bilderdijkstraat itself is narrow and rather gloomy. For the first fifty yards both sides of the street have high, gray panel fencing that is faded and marked by graffiti tags. After this, on the left, it opens out onto an urban playground filled with the smooth-edged concrete of bicycle and skateboard ramps. I come to a halt and look out at the empty swings and slides, which are of a high-quality polished metal that makes them look like abstract works of art. A few trees grow on little islands of gray soil surrounded by asphalt, but there is no grass. About half a dozen teenage boys of North African appearance sit chatting, perched on the seats of their bikes. Across the way, a corner shop advertises cheap international dialing and halal meats.

  Since the 1970s the Netherlands has become a country of immigration. One fifth of the population was either born outside the borders or are the children of those who were. Integration, especially among the two million that are of non-Western origin, has, on the whole, been only moderately successful, and that feeling of isolation is evident on this street.

  Looking for number 10, I begin scanning the doorways, my suitcase clunking on the pavement slabs. Toward the end of the road there is a block of new terraced housing, different from the low-rise brick tenements that surround it. Some of this is occupied, but other parts have steel grilles over the windows that seem to have been there for a good while. The new build has confused the number system, so I end up walking along the same stretch of pavement again and again. While the boys on bicycles are in no way threatening, they regard me with increasing interest as an oddity, as well they might.

  By the time I decide that number 10 stood on what is now the playground, the sun is casting long shadows across the street. I reach for my phone and take a few pictures, first of the concrete skateboard ramp with the spindly trees around it and then of the row of houses that stands opposite. The entire terrace is a single flat-roofed unit. It is as if its long front wall was rolled in some factory and then had windows and doors punched out of it by an enormous machine.

  As I return the phone to my pocket, a door opens and a middle-aged man in a kameez comes toward me asking suspiciously, with a heavy accent, what I am doing. Meanwhile, the boys on bicycles begin to hover round. Faced with their questions I am suddenly evasive, explaining in a vague manner that I am conducting research about the Second World War.

  Why is it that I do not tell this man about Lien as I did at the Pletterijstraat? I have done so at addresses across Dordrecht, where I have sat happily chatting in people’s front rooms over the last few days. Why do I feel guilty here?

  It is because I sense a distance between us. It is because I assume that Jewish history will not be welcome in this place.

  “You ought not to be spying on people,” the man tells me, and as he says this I suddenly see myself from the outside, with my wheeled suitcase and my phone camera, and my scuffed, expensive, brown leather shoes. Perhaps if I had told the full story this might have forged a connection? Instead, we retreat away from each other, equally nervous, and I head out again toward the commuter traffic on the main road where the cars have now switched on their lights.

  Walking back to the station, I am reminded of the obvious fact that the Muslim community, in terms of the hatred directed toward them, is probably closer to the Jews of the previous century than any other. There are no easy parallels, but all the same, the language of Geert Wilders (whose Party for Freedom has hit 15 percent in national elections) has an air of the 1930s to it. According to Wilders there should be a ban on the Koran and on the building of mosques. He has called the Prophet Mohammad a “pedophile” and he calls Islam “evil.” He has spoken of the threat of an “Islamic invasion” and wants no more Muslims to enter the country at all. He has even demanded the abolition of Article 1 of the Dutch Constitution, which outlaws discrimination on the grounds of religion. It is hardly surprising, given this background, that the inhabitants of the Bilderdijkstraat should feel suspicious. All the worse, then, that I came here trundling a suitcase, pointing a camera, only to look and not to tell.

  Five

  Everything is different. The family in the Bilderdijkstraat in Dordrecht have a mooie kamer, a room at the front of the house that is kept for special occasions and for the rest of the time stays unused, cool and dark. After a few months of staying there Lien gets very ill with suspected tuberculosis, and she lies there on the sofa for days on e
nd, watching the light of the day brighten and fade through the curtains, waves of cold and heat shaking her frame. “Auntie,” as she is told to call the mother of the new household, brings clear soup in a teacup with a piece of toast that cuts when it touches her throat. Auntie washes Lien’s face with a damp towel and helps her to sit up. The room, like the rest of the tiny single-story apartment, is sparsely furnished, with just two chairs facing the sofa on which she lies. Beside the unlit coal burner there is one precious object: a cabinet of dark polished wood with a china teapot and matching cups set out on top. The cups, which are never used, are pure white inside and they gleam even when the curtains are closed. If she picks one up and holds it to her eye, ever so gently, she can see her reflection in it. The curved sides of the cup bend the walls of the room so that they surround her like a burrow.

  When you are ill the whole world exists at a distance. She senses movement outside on the street through the curtains and the front windows: men calling in the Dordt accent, so different from her own. At the end of nearly every sentence they say “hey.” As the children arrive from school there is noise from the adjoining kitchen: voices, a chair scraping, a tap running. “Be quiet! Lien is asleep next door, hey!” The kitchen is where the house comes to life. Mothers and children enter without knocking from the back of the house, bringing friends and news. Auntie’s voice is the loudest. “Do you know what they are charging for mincemeat at the butcher’s?” “Nell is getting her meat straight from the farm, Kokkie told me, hey?” Movement here is rougher than it was in Lien’s old house. There is banging of pots and cutlery and if Kees behaves badly his father will give him a whack on the arm. But everyone is welcome, the neighbors are friends, and there are always new voices at the dinner table. The men talk of workers’ rights and of the bosses at the factory with a sense of confidence and strength. A strong smell of cigarettes pushes its way into the silence of the front room.

  * * *

  —

  EVEN THOUGH IT HAPPENED a few months after she first arrived, Lien’s strongest memory of the house in the Bilderdijkstraat is that of being hot and feverish in the mooie kamer. When Mrs. Heroma first brought her, she also went to the mooie kamer, sitting on the sofa, looking across at Auntie, a big woman with a rosy-cheeked face, who told Lien about her new cousins. Besides Lien, there are three other children in the household: Ali, who is eleven; Kees, who is nine; and little Marianne, who is nearly two. Ali and Kees first had a different mother, but she died.

  After their talk in the front room, Mrs. Heroma says good-bye, leaving Lien behind with Auntie, who takes her through into the back of the house. In the kitchen Lien is absorbed into the hubbub. Because there are so many people coming and going it is impossible to feel like a guest for long. As she enters, little Marianne totters on uncertain legs in the corner, half supervised by Ali, and then slumps into a heap. Lien feels grown-up as she crouches to comfort her and she and Ali soon have the girl in fits of laughter. When Lien does a ballet dance Marianne sits rapt with attention, looking up with adoring eyes. At bedtime, from Auntie’s arms, Marianne gives Lien several wet kisses, leaving a little trail of cold baby spit on her cheek.

  The first dinner is not so easy. She is given a deep plate with a mountain of potatoes, sprouts, and a meatball, all covered in gravy. Everyone is already eating—the talk continues uninterrupted except for the regular scrape of spoons. Lien toys with a potato. The digestive medicine, which Mamma normally gives her with a glass of water before a meal, is in her bag. She raises her hand to ask if she can go and get it. It takes a long time for her to be noticed but eventually Auntie calls out in her loud voice to ask what she wants. “Medicine?” Auntie loudly repeats the word as if it is something in a foreign language. Lien slips away to fetch the brown bottle and holds it out, label first, so as to explain. Auntie’s rosy face is all scrunched up with suspicion as she examines this object that Lien has brought into her house. Then she delivers her verdict. “You don’t need this, you can just eat your dinner with everyone else, hey,” Auntie tells her and pours the thick white liquid into the sink. Returning to the stove, Auntie continues to take part in the conversation, turning only briefly to instruct Kees not to bolt his food.

  Around her, the plates are already emptying. The moment one is finished, Auntie reaches over the seated person, picks up the plate, brings it to the sink for a vigorous wash, then returns it steaming with fragrant tapioca. Gradually the kitchen fills with the smell of the hot pudding. Lien would like to leave her sprouts and potatoes and move on to her sweet, which was often what happened at home. The boy Kees, nearly finished, has stopped eating—he looks over at her with a conspiratorial, comradely air. Auntie, though, gives short shrift to the rebellion. The last of the tapioca is scraped from the pan and divided among the existing pudding eaters, who barely notice the ladle as it reaches down over their heads. Plates are cleared and not a word is spoken about the uneaten sprouts and potatoes. Lien is dumbfounded and feels a hollowness inside her—it is all so different—but she joins Kees and Ali to head outside.

  After dinner they are allowed to play for another hour. Kees takes Lien with him and introduces her to his playmates. He seems proud of her. He is certainly proud of his ability to walk on the crumbling brick wall in the wasteland beyond the houses and scoffs when she notices afterward that he has cut his knee. Lien merges easily with the huddle of children who stand watching Kees as he jumps from one brick stack to another. Although they notice her accent and listen vaguely to her story she is soon part of the group.

  As the late summer evening darkens, a new consciousness settles over the children, who move almost in union like a flock of birds. They melt into the little terraced houses, exchanging brief words about tomorrow’s plans. At number 10 the bustle is over. Auntie has finished cleaning the kitchen and is now knitting; Uncle sits reading, his face stern with concentration beneath the room’s only light. Kees, Ali, and Lien wash themselves at the sink and visit the loo. “Trusten,” says Auntie, which is short for welterusten, meaning “good night.”

  The children share one bedroom, with the adults and baby Marianne in the other. Within minutes, Kees and Ali are sleeping. Lien lies listening to their regular breaths. As far as she can remember she has never slept in a room with other people. For a moment she thinks of her bedroom in the Pletterijstraat. At home Mamma always comes to sit by her in the evening, stroking her hair before she kisses her good night.

  * * *

  —

  KEES SHAKES HER AWAKE IN THE MORNING. It is still holiday time and today he is going to catch tadpoles. He knows a place where you can find them even in August and Lien can come. They wolf down their bread and cheese at the kitchen table while Auntie watches and then scramble out the door. Outside the sun is shining, so she barely notices the chill as she runs following Kees through the empty lanes.

  After ten minutes they are already in an area of farmland and industrial depots, which is where the secret supply of tadpoles is to be found. The blocked-up ditch that is their home has a slippery slope of grass and brambles and Kees edges down carefully, plowing the soil with a stick in his right hand to keep him steady, holding a jar in his left. He looks over his shoulder at Lien above him, then turns to paw at the water. Lien is not sure what he is trying to do, but after a few sweeps Kees seems satisfied. He holds his eye to the glass and then picks his way back up to her, the jar now filled with milky green liquid that sloshes over his hand.

  Lien hardly dares touch the wet container, and it takes her a while to spot the strange tailed and legged creature swimming inside. She has never seen anything like it, though she has been told in school about tadpoles. It looks like a frog gone wrong. After a bit she is goaded into trying to catch one and finds herself sliding a little on her way down the slope. Reaching into the brown-green water she has the horrible sensation that there is something trying to climb its way into her shoe. Kees is confident about everything and calls dow
n encouragingly, adding instructions to improve her technique, and soon there is a fellowship between them, which makes Lien more certain about what she is doing, so the air is filled with mutual cries of admiration as they work. At the end of the morning they have a whole set of the little monsters decanted into a single jar. After scrutinizing their catch through the glass, giving them names and characters, they pour the tadpoles back into the murk.

  With this adventure behind them, Lien and Kees become firm friends. On other days there are different excursions. Kees teaches her to ring the doorbell at people’s houses and then scamper away to hide and look. They also climb the great bridge over the canal and peer down on the barges, which Kees tries to hit with little stones. He is very good at throwing and sometimes they hear the satisfying tinkle of glass. The town of Dordt and the countryside around it is their playground, and they can disappear into it for a whole unimaginably long day at a time. The two of them follow only the rules that they themselves decide on, glorying in their liberty as only children can. When they return in the evening to the Bilderdijkstraat they feel like conquering heroes, worthy of the banquet of sprouts, meatballs, and potatoes that awaits.

  For the first time in her life Lien is free of her tummyaches. She eats happily in the small kitchen, she loves the talk and the bustle, she loves the freedom of running wild. At home she looks after little Marianne, telling her stories as she feeds her, one extra bit of story with each bite. Everyone follows the rules of the household—bedtimes, mealtimes, keeping your things tidy—but really she has to do almost nothing. Auntie cooks, washes, and cleans, seemingly without having to think about it, and for dinner everyone is always welcome to bring friends. If Uncle is studying in the evening they have to be quiet. She is a bit afraid of him but she also admires him terribly. Men and women listen when he talks to them and they always do what he says.