The Trap

by Rink van der Velde

  The Trap

  Rink van der Velde

  Translated by Henry J. Baron

  New York

  Foreword

  Rink van der Velde was born in Friesland, a province of The Netherlands, in 1932. By profession a journalist, he has especially established himself as a first-rate storyteller among Frisian prose writers. His novels and short stories frequently feature a sociocritical dimension and attract a large readership. Critics have acclaimed The Trap as perhaps his best accomplishment among the more than twenty novels and numerous collections of short stories he has written since 1960. The author received the Gysbert Japiks prize in 1975, the most distinguished literary prize awarded by the Province of Friesland.

  The Trap, a short war novel based on a real incident, tells the story, with utter economy, of a Frisian fisherman whose cottage on the lake becomes a refuge for those who need a hiding place. One day his only son is caught by the Germans, and the fisherman must make a choice. It is a searing and memorable tale, a classic tragedy that celebrates human courage and dignity in the face of defeat.

  As have many of van der Velde’s novels, The Trap has been translated into Dutch; it has also been translated into Ukrainian. The stage version of the novel has over the years enjoyed frequent performances and enthusiastic receptions. It is especially appropriate that fifty-two years after liberation this novel makes a new appearance, both in its revised version in Frisian and Dutch, and in its first translation into English.

  1. The Raid

  Some people feel by intuition, but he had never had forebodings, and so he was caught off guard this time, too. He heard the rattle of the loose boards in the bridge, and when he turned around, he saw the light coming up the drive. Then the light was turned off, but the engine was not.

  He had just pulled the boat on shore and stomped the stake into the ground. The latter wasn’t necessary, because there was a breeze only in the middle of the lake. By the shore the water lay as flat as a mirror, frozen under the lingering fog and twilight.

  He stood by the edge and had thought to himself that he could put on the tea before taking the eel out of the live box. It was cold, and there hadn’t been one dead eel on the floaters, so there was time for such an indulgence.

  The motorcycle coming up the drive changed his mind. He crossed the yard to the shed and opened the door. At the same time he looked past the house to the drive where it was still dark. Much darker than on the lake, which began to reflect the light.

  The sound came closer and now and then there was a momentary flash of light. They didn’t trust the path because of yesterday’s rain. The cycle frequently got stuck, from the sound of the engine, anyway.

  He hollered through the door: “Fellas, something’s coming, you gotta clear out.”

  Cor was beside him at once, afraid and jumpy. “What is it? Are they coming? Are the Germans coming?”

  “Somebody’s coming, but I don’t know if it’s Germans.”

  Cor ran into the dark of the barn and grabbed his blankets. At the same time he swore at Willem, who always took longer to do things.

  He said: “Wait for the girl, then you can take her along, because I have to use the small scow pretty soon.”

  The girl—he never called her by name—slept in the back part of the house. He grabbed the door handle and ducked down for the low-hanging rain gutter.

  “Something’s coming,” he said. “The fellas are by the boat already.”

  No answer came from the dark. Feeling his way, he took a few steps and pulled on the blankets. She sat up at once.

  “Something’s coming,” he said again.

  He groped along the wall and found the kerosene lamp on the crate next to the bed.

  The girl was out of bed already and grabbed his arm. “Are the Germans coming?”

  Her voice was hoarse and scared and she was shaking.

  “I don’t know, but there’s a motorcycle coming up the drive.”

  Then she heard the sound too. While he gave her a light, she grabbed her clothes together. She pulled the black overcoat that Germ had found for her over her long nightie and stuffed her dress and stockings into her shopping bag.

  “The fellas are by the boat already, I’ll clean up,” he said.

  Her breath came in short gasps and she stumbled over the doorstep. She gets more frightened every time, he thought.

  He had wanted to ask her where Germ was, but she was already gone. He laid the blankets in place and ran around the bed to the ladder. With the lamp in one hand and the other on the top of the ladder, he lit up half the attic. The bed, one end against the ceiling, had not been slept in. He went down and took the blankets off the girl’s bed after all. The soft warmth of her body met him.

  That child has such a strange smell, Gryt had said once.

  With the bedding under his arm he ran through the hallway. At the end, by the cellar door, he found by feel the pail in which Gryt soaked the dirty clothes. He shoved the sheet under the suds. With the blankets he went to the little room and, through the open doors of the cupboard bed, threw them over Gryt. She turned over and grumbled something but immediately dozed off again. He put the pillow on his own bed. On his way out again, he remembered that the girl would often put some of her things on the mantelpiece. He felt around and found a comb and a hairbrush. He shoved the things under the dirty wash in the pail. The lantern was still in the back part of the house. He blew out the light and set it behind the door.

  The motorcycle must be halfway by now. It couldn’t go very fast. The lane was in bad shape there and anyone not forewarned could easily sink up to the knees into the mud. With a motorcycle it must be even slower going. He took a few steps toward the access canal and listened. The scow had disappeared, though he could still hear the splash of the pole. Cor was pretty good at it.

  To make certain, he went back to the shed, dropped to his knees, and felt around the place where the men had been sleeping. They had left nothing. He spread the straw around and threw a couple of old fish traps on top.

  Then he ran back across the yard to the larger scow and dragged the dipnet through the live box. Nice bunch of eel, including some gray ones. The bobbers should be set tonight too, while the fishing was good.

  Then it occurred to him that he might not get a chance to do that. It was a strange feeling. He stepped from the scow and waited.

  He would have liked to know where Germ was. The boy was often gone at night, but he would usually tell them ahead of time. Yesterday at lunchtime he had said nothing. If he was on the way home, he would notice soon enough that it was not safe now.

  He paced back and forth on the yard for a bit and then went back to the scow. The eel had to be taken care of.

  He heard Gryt in the door. “What’s coming?”

  “A motorcycle, I’d say. Why don’t you put the tea water on, then I’ll take care of the eel. It was a good catch tonight.”

  But he made no effort to start and Gryt stepped into her clogs.

  “Is everything cleared out?”

  “Of course, otherwise I wouldn’t be standing here.”

  He searched for some chewing tobacco. But it was too early.

  He had purposely not put the pouch into his pocket, for if he started on that too early in the morning, he would be paying for it at night.

  “Germ is not home,” he said.

  He had grabbed the dipnet and took the lid off the live box.

  “He hasn’t been home?”

  “The bed’s untouched.”

  He lay the dipnet on the open live box and stepped on shore.

  They had reached the gate when they swung into action. All of a sudden everything was lit by powerful flashlights. They shone the lights on the front of the house and saw him standing.
He could see the shadow of one man and then another, and behind the light of the motorcycle were more. They wore long coats. They began to search the yard, and two of them stopped in front of him and shined their lights in his face.

  “We’re expected,” said one. “It’s cold.”

  “That’s from that damp mist,” said the other.

  An officer wearing a high officer’s cap came by and kicked against the scow. He shined his flashlight on the scow and muttered something.

  There must be about five or six of them, he thought. He could hear them throw the fish traps around in the shed and turn over the old tanning kettle that stood in the far corner.

  The man with the cap had reached the clump of willows where he had his new tanning kettle. He looked at it from all sides and hollered something. Someone came from behind the house, also wearing a cap, and he saw that it was a policeman. Not one of the water police, he knew all of those. It had to be Bolhuis, the village policeman.

  The officer asked about all the details and the policeman did his best, but his German was bad. They also checked out the oven in which he smoked eel; the policeman sniffed. The officer went on snooping elsewhere.

  He hollered: “The ground is pretty soggy there and if the gentleman wants to keep his ass clean, he’d better come out this way.”

  The policeman quickly passed on the message and lit the way for the officer.

  Daylight began to break, and the breeze, coming off the lake, chased the mist ahead of itself.

  On the side of the house two men wandered around the young fruit trees and looked behind the willows he had planted to protect the apple trees from the wind.

  The officer said: “Let’s go into the house.”

  The policeman came up to him and said: “We’re going to have to search the house.”

  Gryt stepped aside; the officer let the policeman go first. The policeman banged his head against the eaves trough, and the officer looked at it and ducked his head. But in the hallway he bumped his cap against the tile laths and swore. He let the policeman pick up his cap.

  The small room seemed crowded with four persons. They shone the flashlights around and the policeman said: “You’d better light the lamp.”

  Gryt did, but she had trouble with it, and he took over. He took the glass off the lamp and the officer gave him light. Two soldiers rummaged around in the back of the house and went up the ladder. They stomped around in the attic so that the lamp began to shake.

  “Sit down,” said the officer.

  He unbuttoned his leather coat and laid the cap on the table. Gryt sat down on the chair between the two cupboard beds. He himself went around the table to the cane chair in the corner between the mantelpiece and the window bench. The policeman stayed by the door.

  The officer seemed to become impatient. He pulled up a chair and put his elbows on the table. The policeman watched him and waited. Gryt was probably willing to make tea, but she didn’t dare initiate it. Her hands trembled.

  He moved the pillow under his seat and took the box with the chewing tobacco out of the window bench. The officer, with eyes half closed, watched him take out a wad and stick it into his mouth. In the attic the two soldiers moved the bed and threw a bunch of fish traps around that he had put by the chimney to keep dry.

  The policeman said: “Why don’t you tell us what you have in the house?” while he looked at the officer, who nodded his approval. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  He did not answer right away. He shifted his wad. “I did not send you word that I had something to tell you,” he said then.

  “Why are these people up so early?” the officer wanted to know while momentarily lifting his head.

  “These are fishermen folk,” explained the policeman. “They have to start early in the morning.” And to him: “The Oberst would like to know why you’re so early.”

  “That’s what I hear,” he said.

  “Oh, can you understand it?”

  “I can follow it.”

  He could go on to explain that he had worked in Germany long enough to learn more of the language than the policeman, but he’d better keep quiet as long as nobody asked him.

  A sergeant appeared in the door, clicked his heels together, and said that they had found nothing. The officer nodded. The sergeant left with the policeman. A moment later they heard the policeman talking upstairs.

  He looked outside and noticed a soldier standing under the apple trees, a gun under his arm.

  The policeman came in and asked: “How are the boarders?”

  He took the can, which he used as a spittoon, off the floor. “We are mostly alone, my wife and I.”

  “Nobody uses those two beds, of course. And each of you has a cupboard bed. You only need one really, so the others must be for guests.”

  He took a step forward and looked behind the doors of the beds. “One would gather that both have been slept in.”

  He did not answer because no one had asked him anything, and the policeman reported that there were four beds while only one was needed.

  “I see,” said the officer. “Let him explain that situation.”

  He called the sergeant into the room and ordered him to conduct a thorough search of the yard.

  “The Oberst would like to know what you need all those beds for,” said the policeman.

  “Haven’t you explained that yet?”

  “I have noticed that there are too many beds here for two people. Who sleeps here?” He pointed to the first cupboard bed.

  “I sleep there.”

  “And that one?”

  “My wife sleeps there.”

  He clawed around among the blankets. “So you sleep separately.”

  “Coffee?” the officer asked.

  “Why don’t you make us some coffee,” the policeman said to Gryt. She was going to get up, but he said: “We don’t have coffee.”

  “Then tea.”

  “It’s too early for us. I’ve got to be finished with my chores first and I didn’t get to that yet.”

  He stood up to take his jacket off. It was stuffy in the small room and he had put a sweater on before he had started out early this morning.

  “I see that you don’t want to cooperate. Such people always pull on the short end of the stick.”

  The policeman told the officer that they refused to make coffee. The officer shrugged his shoulders.

  He noticed that Gryt tried to get his eye, but he looked away intentionally. He knew what she was going to say after the soldiers had left: Now what did I tell you? Our troubles are starting all over again. Why do you get involved, we have enough trouble as it is.

  “And what about all those beds for boarders?”

  “We have no boarders,” he said.

  “So those beds in the attic and in the back of the house are just for show, not to mention the extra cupboard bed.”

  “In the summertime it can get pretty close in the cupboard bed and then I often sleep in the back,” he said.

  That was true. When on his final check before turning in he’d notice that the girl had crawled in with Germ, he’d grab the blankets off the cupboard bed and take them to the back of the house. Not that it was his intention, but he would always listen to Germ and the girl talk.

  “And that boy of yours sleeps in the attic, I suppose?”

  He nodded. He expected that they would press for more details, but they didn’t.

  “Were you home during the night?”

  “I was home during the night.”

  “You had bobbers in the boat, did I see that right?”

  “I had a few bobbers out, but I don’t stay with them anymore.”

  That was also true. He would haul in the bobbers in the morning on his way to the traps.

  “Where did you have those bobbers?”

  “On the other side of the channel, by the south shore.

  That’s where you have the soft bottom and if you’re after eel …”

 
But the policeman wasn’t listening anymore. He told the officer that he had been fishing on the south side of the lake. The officer wanted to know more. “Ask him what time he was there and how long.”

  The policeman obliged.

  He hesitated. He wondered why they didn’t ask about Germ since the police knew that he had a son.

  “I started setting out the stuff around eight-thirty, give or take fifteen minutes either way. I usually don’t carry a watch.”

  “Where did you start out?”

  “By the access canal below Echten. I have a shutoff trapnet there and I always check that first. And then I set out the first bunch.”

  The officer listened with more interest now and interrupted the policeman a few times.

  He had been fishing for weeks on the south side and yesterday was no different from all the other days.

  “What time did you set out for home?”

  “I don’t know. It was dusk when I threw the last ones out. It was almost dark, I think.”

  “What time were you home?”

  “What time was I home, Gryt?”

  Gryt, who had not yet said a word, didn’t know. “Same as other nights,” she said then.

  He added: “We don’t watch the clock too closely around here.”

  “A lot of fishermen stay out all night,” said the policeman.

  “If I have five hundred bobbers out, and it’s a beautiful night, I do that too sometimes,” he said, “but not for the sake of a couple of hundred. Nowadays it’s not really necessary anymore either.”

  “Why not?”

  “Nothing much can go wrong; there’s not much boat traffic anymore.”

  And he didn’t have to catch a lot, for eel was expensive. He caught as much as he needed for trading purposes. Now and again he would need his tobacco, and salt for smoking fish, and silk and cotton for the fish traps.

  “You noticed nothing unusual last night?”

  “I don’t think so. A barge came through the channel, in the direction of the Follegeast stream. I did notice that it had a load of lumber, those meter-length beams. And the police boat from De Lemmer was there, of course, at the same time as always.”