by Pam Lewis
The ship had belonged to Elisabeth? Minke had assumed that Sander had bought the ship and named it for her.
Tessa nudged Minke in the side. “It’s the smart man who smuggles his wife’s ship out from under the nose of the government.” The bird flapped and lit on her other shoulder.
“When is your baby due?” Minke wanted to change the subject.
“Another month is needed to be sure. But I’m certain. I remember exactly how I felt with my Astrid.” She dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “Astrid would have been thrilled with a baby brother or sister.”
Dietz interrupted and called for Meduño to bring another chair. “For the young skinner.”
Minke looked through the haze of smoke to see Pieps pushing his way through the crowded tables.
“Come on, come on.” Dietz, impatient, made space for the chair to be drawn in between himself and Sander. “Any friend of Minke’s is a friend of ours, eh, Sander? What’ll it be, young man? Sky’s the limit tonight. Meneer DeVries is paying, eh, Sander?” He belted out another big coarse laugh.
“I came over to say hello,” Pieps said. “I won’t stay.”
“We won’t hear of it,” Dietz said. “Tessa, you remember this boy. This is the boy who accompanied Minke to our home.”
Tessa barely glanced at Pieps.
“He doesn’t want to sit down with us,” Minke said. “Can’t you see? He’s happy with his own friends.”
“But you’re his friend,” Dietz said. “His very good friend, if I recall.” He gave a bark of insinuating laughter.
“Hold on, there Dietz,” Sander said.
Dietz said, “All in good fun.”
“Sander,” Minke said. “Let it go.”
“Yes,” Tessa said. “Let it be. I’m sure it was all perfectly innocent.” She wrinkled her nose at Sander.
“What was perfectly innocent?” Sander got to his feet.
Tessa said, “You married a young wife.”
Pieps addressed Sander. “Mevrouw Dietz misunderstood an event that occurred at the estancia. Minke was feeling unwell, and I was trying to help.”
Tessa flapped her hand. “It’s all in the past now. Of course you were trying to help. No matter.”
“Sander.” Cassian tugged slightly at his sleeve to make him sit.
“Tell us what’s new in the skinning business,” Dietz said.
Pieps raised his hands as if in surrender. “My friends.” He pointed to the bar. “I must get back.” He bowed slightly and backed away.
“Handsome boy there, eh, Cassian?” Dietz said with another guffaw.
Sander took bills from his wallet and laid them on the table. “My wife has informed me she is feeling light-headed and must be going home.”
Minke pulled her wrap around her and said good evening quickly. Sander took her by the wrist, and they made their way among the tables, through the foyer, and outside. She could barely keep up with him. “What was that about?” he raged as he spun her around to face him. “What went on out there?”
She snapped her hand from his and jumped back, rubbing where he’d held her. “I told you what happened out there. I spied for you.”
“What did Tessa mean, ‘all perfectly innocent’?”
“I fainted and Pieps caught me. Tessa made up a story. That’s it.”
He came close, his face deeply lined in the light from the hotel. “That boy isn’t to be trusted. I knew it from the start. I want you to keep your distance.”
“He’s my friend.”
“I’ve been in the world longer than you, Minke. I know. One day you’ll regret it. Keep your distance, I command you.”
He led the way home, walking a few paces ahead. When they reached the house, he saw her in. “I have to go back,” he said. “I’m the host.”
“Please, Sander. I can’t stand it when you’re angry with me.”
“Then you’ll mind how you behave.”
10
THE BIRTH BEGAN early in the morning with a rush of water and the onslaught of pain. Jozef Alexanders DeVries, Zef for short, was born on December 14, 1912. Sander sent someone to fetch Cassian, who arrived immediately with Marta, an old woman whom he had selected as his assistant. Cassian administered morphine so that, although the pain persisted, Minke floated at the top of the room, looking down on herself and the people who came and went and spoke as if through gauze. When she emerged from the fog, Sander was at her bedside, presenting her with Zef swaddled in white flannel.
Large and healthy, with fine white hair, a tiny cherub mouth, and pink cheeks, he was a miracle. She felt intense love, more than she had imagined possible. She opened the blanket to touch his little fingers and toes, the toes like tiny pink grapes, then wrapped him again and stared at his sleeping face.
In the ensuing weeks, her bedroom was always crowded. Women of the village emerged from their houses and came to see him; they stood in line at the door, chattering away and bearing gifts: the foot of a white rabbit, a rattle made from a small gourd. By now—she’d been in Comodoro for nine months—Minke had enough Spanish to say good morning, and to speak of the weather, and to say “nine pounds” and receive their gales of laughter at such a big baby on such a narrow girl, and to laugh with them and their mock grimaces of pain. She told them he took right away to the breast; he was a good baby who awakened only twice during the night to be fed. He cried little. The women cooed over him, made little noises to draw a smile, and touched his silken white hair. Two of the women, Rosa Corcoy and Maria Mansilla, held infants only weeks older than Zef and came often, treating Minke with the warmth of old friends, as if the birth of her baby had made her legitimate.
One hot afternoon, she spotted Pieps waiting to see her. His skin was a ruddy brown, hair bleached to ash and slicked back, and he was clean-shaven. When it was his turn, he gingerly reached for Zef’s tiny fingers, but Sander clapped his outstretched hand. “Don’t touch him. You’ve been skinning sheep. You carry disease.” Minke tried to apologize to Pieps with her eyes.
“Seals, not sheep, and I no longer do the skinning myself, Meneer. I hire the people who do.” Pieps gave a tight bow and opened the bundle he was carrying. The women gathered closer to see. It was a snow-white sealskin wrapped around a polished silver maté cup and bombilla. “The cup is from Goyo, and the skin is my gift.”
“They’re back?” Sander asked. “The gauchos have come back?”
“No,” Pieps said.
“How does Goyo know about the baby?”
“So many questions, Sander,” Minke said. “Pieps has only come to welcome Zef. Be reasonable!”
“Goyo left it the last time with instructions to present it to the baby. He’d have given it himself in July, but it’s bad luck to give a gift to an unborn child.”
“Our baby would have been born whether he received a maté cup or not.” Sander made a point of examining the fur’s underside as if it might still bear remnants of the animal. Minke took it from him and made an equal point of laying Zef on the soft fur.
Rosa giggled, pointed to Zef, Minke, and Pieps, then to her own hair and said to Maria, “Todos las misma,” which Minke knew meant “all the same.” She shot a look at Sander to see if he would react badly to the comparison. Fortunately, he never paid attention to what the village women said and had made no effort to learn Spanish. He was looking instead toward the door, where a new commotion had his attention.
Tessa. She filled the door in a pink and blue dress swishing about her, advancing and pushing her way through the women, eyes brimming with tears. “Oh, oh, oh.” She crossed her hands over her breast as if to still her beating heart. “Let me,” she said, sweeping Zef up in her arms, twirling once around, a kaleidoscope of pastels. “I came as soon as I heard.” Then she gave Zef back. “Well?”
“Well what?” Minke never knew what Tessa meant, where she was headed, in any conversation.
Tessa clamped her hands over her stomach.
“Oh!” Minke said. Tessa was indee
d pregnant. “Congratulations. When, may I ask?”
“Summer, I think.”
“Meneer is well?” Sander asked.
“He sends his best.”
To crowd things further, in came Cassian with Marta, who immediately picked up the baby.
“I’ll help you, Minke,” Tessa said. “Have you quite forgotten?” She began to rattle on, saying there was no need for any woman from the village when Tessa herself knew all there was to know and was European to boot. Hadn’t she offered to help all those months ago? Minke should have called for her immediately. Minke shot a look at Pieps and shook her head. Pieps rolled his eyes at Minke to show he was sympathetic, a fact that didn’t escape Sander’s notice. The whole crisscross of animosities in the tiny room made the air crackle.
“The baby is heavy,” Cassian said to Tessa. “It’s not a good idea for you to exert yourself, helping with the care, in your condition.”
“You’re not my doctor,” Tessa said.
“Cassian’s right, Tessa.” Minke didn’t take the offer seriously for a minute. It was all show. “I can’t allow you to take that on.”
“You’re a strange one,” Tessa said to Minke, and left.
TO GIVE TESSA her due, she’d been correct all those months ago about having to boil everything. Cassian insisted on it, too. Not just the diapers but the clothing and the utensils and, of course, as Zef grew older, any water that passed his lips. He slept in one of the small rooms with Marta because Sander wouldn’t hear of the baby sharing their room. He wanted his wife to himself, he said. Marta was to wake and tend to Zef’s needs, but Minke found that at the smallest sound from her son, she was awake and out of bed, on her feet, and tending to him, telling Marta to go back to sleep.
February brought the arrival of full summer; the wind relaxed, and finally, there was green—not a great deal, but the brown landscape turned an olive color on the plains, and the dry brush that had tumbled through town all winter was gone. The water along the sea was calm and shallow, the beach covered in sand that was the consistency of talcum and the color of rust.
Every afternoon Minke bathed Zef behind their house in water that had been boiled for purity, then cooled to the proper warmth. Oh, he was such a fat little thing by now, firm and slippery in her hands. He kicked his bare feet and squealed. He was a child who laughed at everything. On the day he turned over for the first time, from his stomach to his back, he lay gurgling with pleasure.
After the bath, she rinsed him and wrapped him in one of the towels that Marta washed daily. She walked about singing to him while he made his own sounds back. Then she lay him in his little bed in the room he shared with Marta and read aloud, until finally, he slept.
One very warm night, Zef woke as usual, demanding to be fed. Instead of sitting in her rocking chair, as she usually did, she carried him from the house and went barefoot along the trail that ran around the retaining wall to the beach, where she stood up to her ankles in the lapping surf. The moon was bright enough that sea and sky were bluely visible. She stood swaying with her baby, feeding him first on the right side, then on the left. He ate hungrily and was gaining well, according to Cassian, although the same was not true for her. Her clothing fell loose on her body. She was supposed to drink a pint of heavy cream each day, but try as she would, she could barely eat enough to keep up with Zef’s demands, let alone her own.
A great deal had changed in her. Not that long ago, she had stood in the same spot with Sander and her heart had ached for home with its buoys and boats and noises, for its busy, narrow streets. Now she was glad for the raw expanse of sea. Every inch of the Netherlands was groomed, tilled, built, and rebuilt over many centuries. Not a speck remained untouched. Until Comodoro, she hadn’t considered there could be anything different in the world. But here! This country was virgin. She felt her blood rush at the thought of its vast wildness.
She hugged Zef to her. He would see it all. When he was old enough, she would teach him to ride, and they would spend their days exploring. What would be old enough? Nine? Ten? They would begin by riding the few miles along the coast south to Punta Piedra. They’d see a forest she’d heard about where the trees had actually turned to stone. When he was older, they’d go farther. They’d see the Andes.
“You’re a child of Argentina,” she said, and swung him around in a circle, then paused. Born in Argentina, yes. So he was Argentine. But he was Dutch, too. She would take him there as well. Alone, of course, because Sander couldn’t return. Just as she had marveled over the rawness of Argentina, Zef would be in awe of the well-tended Netherlands. He would be the child of two magnificent countries.
“We’re joined to your ancestors by this ocean,” she told him. “Your other home is across that water. Right now it’s deep in winter, with snow and ice piling up along the shoreline and people slipping and sliding all over the cobbled streets. But in summer the Netherlands are so green it would hurt your eyes.
“Your father is from Amsterdam, and one day you will meet your brother and sister, whose names are Griet and Pim. You’ll like Pim.”
She thought a moment. “We are from Enkhuizen.” Images flooded in. The tiny houses, the narrow streets. What she told him surprised her. “We are the poor van Aismas. The other van Aismas live to the north, in Friesland. They have large farms and many acres of land.” She thought a moment of Papa. “This bothers your opa terribly.” Minke laughed, thinking how Papa loved to say they were the descendants of royalty, although the royalty was Johan Klazes van Aisma, who had been mayor of the tiny town of Beetgum a hundred years earlier. “And you have an aunt Fenna. One day you’ll meet them all. Fenna will tell lies about the family. She gets that from Papa. They are not content to be only who they are.” She wrapped him tightly in his blanket. “But we have something better, Zef. We are adventurers.”
Back at the house, she lay Zef in his bed. Marta woke and curled herself around the baby so he wouldn’t fall. Minke tiptoed into her bedroom, closed the door, and slipped back into bed beside Sander, who waited for her to come back so he could make love to her. Her nights, once the province of Sander only, now had to be shared with Zef, and she was becoming exhausted. Sander wanted her to leave the night feedings to Marta, but she worried about the water. Marta, as good as she was, boiled everything she was supposed to but clearly didn’t agree that it was necessary, given that water wasn’t boiled for the other babies in the village. If Minke allowed Marta to feed the baby at night, well, one slip and Zef could become very sick.
ON RAINY OR windy nights, she was unable to take Zef down to the water and sat outside with him, protected by the overhang of the house, while lightning flashed over the sea. Otherwise, she would gather him up and go down the path to the water. Zef expected it. He held on to her neck as they went, facing the sea. And she’d taken to swimming on warm nights. She would lay Zef on a blanket on the sand after feeding him, strip off her nightdress, and enter the water. She’d never seen a soul there at night, and it wasn’t possible to swim in the daytime. Women in Comodoro didn’t do it. She’d have felt foolish. So this was her chance, and she never swam far.
One particularly bright night, she lay for a long time on the blanket with Zef while he slept, his stomach full. She was on her back, looking up at the stars, trying to sort them out. She’d been taught the stars when she was a girl, but here, the sky was all new.
She was interrupted by a sound from a long distance away. She gathered up Zef and stood. It was a horse in the distance. The tiny shape grew larger as it approached. Who could it be at this hour? she wondered. Someone with an important message, perhaps? She would be as visible to him as he was to her in this half-light. She felt apprehensive, but not for her safety, exactly. Something else.
The horse stopped a quarter mile or so up the beach and circled before the rider turned it up the bank toward the town. It was exciting for her to see the horse in the moonlight, yet another surprise in this land of surprises. She laughed with Zef over it. “I fri
ghtened him off!” She bounced him on her way back to the house. She paused at the door, listening for the rider, but all was quiet, not even noise from the Explotación tonight.
ONE HOT, BLUSTERY day, news raced around town like wildfire that the Elisabeth had returned to the harbor after its voyage to the north. Sander insisted on taking the car with the top down to meet the ship. He wanted to be seen, and the family was a sensation in their yellow car, she luscious in red, little Zef in her lap, wearing the bright green sweater Marta had knitted, the wind whipping their fair hair. Sander parked at the top of the retaining wall, which was already crowded with people jostling for position to watch as the tenders arrived. He helped Minke from the car, then strode down to the beach, where Cassian waited with his pallet of boxes containing the small brown bottles of processed morphine. Once again, these boxes would be loaded onto the Elisabeth and shipped to ports along the route to the West Indies.
On the beach, Sander met the crew of the Elisabeth, with his lists and notes, gliding among them, shaking hands, embracing them, while Frederik Dietz strutted, cock of the walk, up and down the sand, calling attention to himself. He’d set up a small table and two chairs and kept motioning to men disembarking the tenders to come on, get a move on, and those poor men, with all their luggage and bundles, ran tripping across the sand, where they formed a line at the small table. Minke recognized the man sitting at the table as Dr. Pirie, a Boer who’d come down from the north to treat all the men who worked for Dietz. Since she’d first heard of the new doctor from Tessa, she’d learned that Dietz forbade his workers to visit Dr. Tredegar because he provided morphine, which made them lackluster at their work. Dr. Pirie, so it was said, believed that hard work cured illness.