Postcards from No Man's Land (The Dance Sequence)

by Chambers, Aidan

  ‘Hadn’t we better roll up those dirty carpets and take them to the garret? Better no carpets than dirty ones, and now we can swab it all.’

  ‘You are ready? All right, go and dust room number 11.’

  ‘Would you please sweep room 14? Presently I’ll ask someone also to mop it.’

  ‘Look Kaja, here is some more rubbish.’

  ‘Would you mind cleaning all the washbasins in this floor? There’s a brush.’

  When I come downstairs I see Mother looking around, gleaming with satisfaction. It all looks quite different now! All those ready hands have been able to tidy it up in so short a time.

  Straw is carried in and it is put on the floor of the small drawing-room. In the big lounge rows of beds have been placed. The veranda and the dining-hall have been left untended. They have terrazzo floors. We think them too cold for the patients.

  And then—we have not finished—there is a flow of wounded men coming in.

  They are carried in on stretchers. Others are walking cases. Some are walking with difficulty, to others it is not difficult, it is their arms or hands that have been wounded.

  And it all happens so quietly. Not much is spoken. The helpers who have been cleaning stop their work. They are almost ready.

  Quickly we take the pails and the brooms out of the way, we don’t want anyone to be tripped up by them.

  And all the time more and more patients are coming in. [Van der Vlist, pp 11–12]

  *

  ‘I want to photograph the boy who laid the flowers on my grandfather’s grave,’ Jacob said to Tessel, and set off through the crowd to catch him before he disappeared. Tessel followed. The boy had produced a camera from his jerkin pocket and was aiming a shot at his flowers and the gravestone when Jacob reached him.

  When the boy had taken the picture Jacob said, ‘Excuse me.’

  The boy gave him a clear green-eyed look.

  ‘Can you speak English?’

  The boy nodded. ‘Some.’

  ‘Would you mind if I took a photo of you beside this grave?’

  Tessel spoke in Dutch. The boy smiled and said to Jacob, ‘This man your grandfather?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  The boy said, ‘Wait, please,’ and turned, looking here and there for someone he finally spotted among a gaggle of people about Jacob’s age three rows of graves away.

  ‘Hille,’ he called and waved to a girl, who, as she came over to them, Jacob saw was the mirror image of the boy. The same round head with close-cropped auburn hair, wide-set large eyes, wide mouth with full lips, clear oval face, as boyish as the boy’s was still girlish. She was in a loose white long-sleeved polo shirt tucked into blue jeans, a purple sweater tied round her waist by the arms, the rest hanging over her backside.

  The boy spoke to her in Dutch. She too gave Jacob a broad smile. ‘My brother says this is your grandfather’s grave.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They turned their gaze to the gravestone, as if deferring to a mutual friend.

  Of course, Jacob had seen Sarah’s photos of the stone, but now, confronted by it in tangible reality, he felt for the first time the strangeness of seeing his own name memorialised. J. TODD. And knowing he was standing on what remained of his grandfather made his feet tingle. A weird image came to him of his grandfather reaching up through the earth, grabbing him by the ankles, and pulling him down on top of him into the bed of the grave. Ever been kissed by a corpse? He was appalled at the image and felt guilty for even thinking it.

  ‘What means J?’ the boy asked.

  ‘Jacob. My name as well.’

  They looked at each other again.

  ‘I’m Hille,’ the girl said. ‘This is my brother Wilfred.’

  ‘And I am Tessel,’ Mrs van Riet said.

  ‘Oh, yes, sorry,’ Jacob said, latching to his adult manners. ‘This is Mrs van Riet.’

  At which they all performed the required handshakes, Wilfred with serious formality, Hille and Jacob exchanging wry smiles at the displacement.

  Jacob said, ‘I wanted to take a photo of your brother and his flowers. I know my grandmother would like it.’

  ‘I laid flowers on it one year when I was Wilfred’s age,’ Hille said. ‘Maybe you’d like me in the picture as well?’

  She might have been joshing him, but he said, ‘Okay.’

  ‘Our mother as well,’ Wilfred said. ‘She laid flowers on this grave.’

  ‘When she was in school. Many years ago of course!’ Hille said. ‘But she isn’t here today. We’re moving house tomorrow so she’s busy.’

  Hille and Wilfred arranged themselves either side of the gravestone, each with a hand resting on it. Jacob stood back, squatted so as to include all the stone and the flowers as well as the two people, took the shot and, as usual, another just in case.

  ‘Yes, yes. That was nice,’ Tessel said. ‘Jacob, would you like me to take one of you?’

  So now Jacob replaced Hille and Wilfred and both Tessel and Wilfred took a shot of him. At which Hille said she would like to be taken with Jacob, and this was done by each of the other two. Then Wilfred wanted to be taken with Hille and Jacob, so Tessel took one with each of their cameras so that both families would have the picture. This left Tessel out, which Hille said couldn’t be allowed, so pictures were taken of Tessel with Jacob, and then of Tessel with Hille and Wilfred.

  They formed a quartet again on the grass over dead Jacob, looking one to another, laughing, thinking of what to say now.

  ‘You haven’t been here before?’ Hille asked Jacob.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Want to walk around?’

  ‘Sure.’

  They set off through the crowd, Wilfred and Tessel walking behind, talking together in Dutch.

  ‘It’s their ages,’ Hille said. ‘Nineteen, twenty-two, twenty.’

  ‘I know it must sound stupid, and I don’t really understand it, but there’s part of me that wishes I’d been here. In the battle, I mean.’

  ‘Men!’ Hille said with a snort. ‘That’s why there’s wars.’

  ‘I hate wars. Hate violence any time actually.’

  ‘It’s the man part of you who wants to have been here. Testosterone. You can’t help it, poor thing.’

  ‘Well, if I had been, in the battle I mean, I’m pretty sure I’d be in one of these graves and not a survivor. I’m no hero, that’s for sure.’

  ‘There’s no such thing,’ Hille said. ‘No one’s a hero.’

  ‘Don’t you think some people show more courage than everybody else, and are braver and all that?’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Well, yes, I think so. When you read about what some of the men did in this battle, for instance. Not just fighting, but saving other soldiers at the risk of their own lives. They did amazing things other people didn’t dare do.’

  ‘And what did they do when they went home?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What did they do back home? How did they treat their wives or lovers? How did they behave to their work colleagues?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Does it matter? If they are a hero.’

  He pondered the question and Hille.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. To me it would. What are you geting at?’

  ‘You’re not stupid—’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am!’

  ‘—You know what I’m getting at. It’s not that I don’t believe in bravery or courage or those things. Just, I think most people are brave and courageous but in different ways and different—how do you say? gelegenheden—occasions.’

  ‘But no one is especially brave?’

  ‘Women giving birth, our famous Anne Frank says.’

  Jacob stopped in his tracks.

  ‘You know Anne Frank? I mean, you like it?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘So do I! My favourite book.’

  ‘Yes?’

  They eyed each other with sharpened interest.

  ‘But,’ Ja
cob said, ‘I thought I knew the Diary pretty well. By heart some of it. But I don’t remember anything about courage and women giving birth.’

  ‘It’s not in the old book.’

  ‘What d’you mean, the old book?’

  ‘The one we’ve always had.’

  ‘There’s another?’

  ‘Yes, now. Don’t you have it? In Dutch it’s called De Dagboeken van Anne Frank. In English I guess that would be “The Daybook—the Diary—of Anne Frank”.’

  ‘But that’s what my copy is called.’

  ‘Is it? In Dutch the one we always had is called Het Achterhuis, which means “The Back of the House”.’

  ‘So what is this other book?’

  ‘It’s all of the diary, everything she wrote, not the text Anne’s father made. You know about that?’

  ‘About Otto cutting some parts out of the diary before he published it? Yes, I know that. But I didn’t know all of the diary had been printed.’

  ‘It’s a very large book. You’d like it. There are chapters about the history of the diary, how it was saved, and about the scientific tests our government did to prove it was not a fake like the disgusting neo-Nazis try to say it is. Oh, how I hate those people! And all kinds of other things. It’s a wonderful book. My mother gave it me for my birthday.’

  ‘I haven’t heard about it.’ Jacob said. An angry anxiety came over him as if he had been denied some life-sustaining information.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Tessel asked as she and Wilfred joined them. Hille and Tessel spoke to each other in Dutch while Jacob stood there and fretted.

  ‘I really need this book,’ Jacob said. ‘Have to have it.’

  ‘Perhaps it isn’t in English yet,’ Tessel said. ‘Perhaps only in Dutch.’

  ‘There’s an English bookshop in Amsterdam,’ Hille said. ‘On the Spui. They should be able to tell you. Try there.’

  ‘I will, I will, by god I will!’ Jacob said with such vehemence that the two women laughed, while Wilfred looked on as serious as ever, not knowing what the joke was.

  They started walking again.

  Jacob said, ‘She talks about women giving birth being more courageous than men?’

  ‘It’s a wonderful part.’ She glanced at Jacob. ‘And her father cut it out.’

  They reached the focal point of the cemetery at the opposite end from the entrance. A tall white cross set on a plinth. It was surrounded by a crowd of people, many of whom were laying wreaths and bunches of flowers at its foot, piling them up in a pyramid there were so many. Across the floral mound from where Jacob and Hille joined the crowd stood a party of three old men in their uniform of blue blazers and grey slacks, one wearing a red paratrooper’s beret, the others in blue berets, and each with rows of medals paraded on his chest. The man in the middle held a banner, its flag furled in his white-gloved hand. They stood at attention in silent solemn state as people milled about beside them. On impulse Jacob raised his camera and took a snap.

  And instantly felt disapproval of himself, as if he had stolen something.

  ‘For my grandmother,’ he said to Hille as if it were to her he must apologise.

  But she wasn’t listening. Instead was looking up at the slim white cross towering above them. Inlaid into the stone was an outsize bronze sword, handle, blade and guard matching the stone cross itself.

  ‘The sword of Christus and the cross of oorlogskruis,’ she said.

  ‘Oorlog?’ Jacob repeated as best he could.

  ‘War. Sad, don’t you agree?’

  ‘Sad?’

  ‘The cross. The sword. Stuck together,’ she said. ‘Done. Finished.’

  And she ambled away.

  An anonymous officer:

  I am very bitter about Arnhem; I lost too many friends. When I got married at the end of the war, I realised that my best man was the ninth on a mental list of who I would have liked; the first eight were all dead or incapacitated. For years I could not talk about or read about Arnhem. When I did start reading, I came to the conclusion that it was all due to the flag-waving attitude of people like [Field Marshal B.L.] Montgomery who wanted to show how much cleverer they were than the others. [Middlebrook, p 452]

  Lance-Corporal Harry Smith, South Staffordshire Regiment:

  Even today it is hard to explain the feeling, but something seems to come over me. I go withdrawn and want to be by myself and keep quiet for days. Then my mind—or should I say myself—all of a sudden goes back to Arnhem. Then, after thinking things out as to what might have happened, or if this should have happened or that should have happened, I seem to worry something terrible for a while before I slowly return to myself. [Middlebrook, p 452]

  Ms Ans Kremer, who lived at No. 8 Stationsweg, Oosterbeek:

  The fighting made a very great impression on me. I was not afraid, but I had a feeling about the wounded and the dead just lying around and the dying—a feeling I cannot put a name to. Like the one we saw being hit, who shouted, ‘Goodbye’ three times, then died. Because of that, I now use ‘Goodbye’ very rarely; there is a kind of finality about it for me.

  Those events have always stayed with me, not all the time, and certainly not consciously, but now and then a face, a smell, a noise or situation brings up a vague memory or a vivid picture, with the sad feeling that goes with it. Those men are, for me, friends. Somehow there is a bond, and when we meet I want to give them a good time and make them comfortable. They came to help us be free again, and I feel grateful but also indebted to them because of all the suffering and dying of so many, known and unknown to us. ‘Grateful’ is too small a word. There are feelings you cannot really put into words properly. [Middlebrook, pp 452–3]

  They arrived at the entrance.

  ‘I’d really like to know about your grandfather,’ Hille said. ‘We’ve always wondered who he was, what he was like, this man whose grave we laid flowers on. But the years my mother did it, and I did it, no one came up and said it was their relative’s grave. So we could never ask. Until today. What about a coffee? We could go to a café and talk.’

  Jacob would have liked nothing better. Everything about this girl appealed to him. Her looks. The things she said. The funny, slightly aggressive way she said them sometimes. And Anne Frank. As always when someone specially attracted him, he wanted to touch her; but he wanted more than to touch this girl.

  He pushed the thought from his mind lest he gave himself away, and to allow himself time to answer he looked for Tessel, who was lagging behind somewhere with Wilfred.

  ‘I’d like to,’ he said. ‘But I’m with Mrs van Riet, with Tessel, and—’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Hille said in her matter-of-fact style, ‘she seems very nice, but it wouldn’t be the same, would it?’

  He glanced at her, and she smiled the same complicit smile she had given him when they all shook hands.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘it wouldn’t.’

  ‘If I asked, would she mind?’

  ‘I expect you’d get your way. I expect you usually do.’

  ‘I’m quite good at it, you’re quite right.’

  ‘But I’m not sure. It would be a bit rude to desert her when she’s looked after me and brought me here.’ He shrugged. ‘And there are complications.’

  ‘You’re not going to go polite on me, are you, Engelsman?’

  He laughed. ‘Can’t help it. It’s my nature. As the scorpion said to the frog.’

  ‘Oh dear, we must do something about that!’

  ‘We must?’

  ‘Why not? Be fun, don’t you agree?’

  ‘Quite like being polite, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Makes life easier. Oils the works, my grandmother says.’

  ‘I’ve heard of mothers’ boys. But not of grandmothers’ boys. You’re not a grandmother’s boy, are you?’

  He chuckled nervously. ‘A bit. Can’t help it. I live with her, you see.’

  ‘Your soldier-grandfather’s wife?’


  ‘The same.’

  ‘And you’re a Jacob as well.’

  ‘Incestuous, isn’t it.’

  ‘My god!’

  She gave him a knowing look.

  ‘What about you?’ Jacob said. ‘Are you a daddy’s girl, like my sister?’

  Now Hille chuckled, an echo of his. ‘A bit. Can’t help it. I live with him, you see.’

  They laughed.

  She added, as if winning a point, ‘So was Anne.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jacob conceded, ‘true. But not like my sister. She’s not just a bit of a daddy’s girl. She’s more of an obscene daddy’s girl, if you ask me.’

  ‘You don’t like her.’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘What a pity. My brother Wilfred and I, we get on well. I like him a lot, to tell the truth. He’s so serious! It’s funny how serious he takes everything. Perhaps he could lighten up a bit. But I love him just the way he is.’

  ‘You look a lot like each other.’

  ‘Everybody says so, which is a good joke.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s adopted. Mother couldn’t have any more children after me, and they wanted a son, so they adopted Wilfred, and I was so pleased. I picked him out.’

  ‘Really!’

  ‘Really! That’s what Mother says anyway. I was only four, but she says I took to him right away. So they decided it had to be Wilfred.’

  ‘But you do, you look so alike.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I see it too. And I don’t mind, because I think he’s beautiful.’

  Jacob wanted to say she was right but that would give away too much of what he was feeling about her.

  Even before Tessel had quite reached them, Hille was speaking to her in rapid Dutch, during which Tessel smiled and nodded and replied and glanced now and then at Jacob, who couldn’t pick out much except his own name and the words Amsterdam and koffie.

  ‘Of course you must stay and talk to Hille, if you wish,’ Tessel said to him when the conversation was done. ‘I don’t mind at all. It will be easier for me. I can go straight to Geertrui. But will you be all right, getting back to Daan?’