Mara (11 page)

I have fended her off, excluded her, hurt her. But how long will she be patient? When I see how she cares for the animals, I think her patience is unending and she has actually proven that already. She has been so very patient with me. Yet, I am not able to count on her love. I must not forget that there was, after all, once a time when I was a child who knew her father and mother’s love and who trusted in a loving God. But in the name of that same God, all the love I knew was taken from me.

And Auntie worships that same God.

I noticed that increasingly often my hands would linger on the swelling of my stomach. Every day there was some moment where I was newly struck by the sensation of life moving deep within me. Was it a hand, a foot, or a knee?

Auntie kept a close eye on me and smiled with a nod when she caught me mesmerizing. When that happened I would quickly return to the present and make my hands continue their task.

My hands had changed in the last while. The soft, preacher’s daughter’s hands had turned into the rough hands of a farmer’s daughter. The cuts I had suffered at the beginning had all healed and were replaced by tough calluses, my nails were cut short, and the palms of my hands were rougher than they used to be. It made me proud, they resembled Auntie’s hands more and more. They were hands that could love and care. Would my hands be able to do that?

It was solely for Auntie’s sake, because of her constant care and patient love that I had spent the last hour struggling to come up with words to put on the sheet of writing paper in front of me. Words that would explain nothing and at the same time say everything. I would add my sheet to Auntie’s letter. Right from the start she had insisted I would write to them. She never checked my letters, so she wasn’t aware that all I did was fill a sheet with lines, circles and scribbles, knowing full well that no one was ever going to notice. But now something had changed and I no longer wanted to deceive her.

The last thirty minutes I had been thinking of how to start the letter.
Father and Mother
was no good, since he wasn’t my father and never would be.
Dear Sir, Mother
also didn’t work, because I couldn’t call him ‘dear’.
Dear Mother
was a wish I didn’t dare write down, so in the end I decided to write no salutation at all. I wasted three sheets of Auntie’s expensive stationary before coming to this decision.

In the end I managed to come up with three full sentences that seemed sincere to me, but that didn’t reveal anything about my true thoughts and feelings. I didn’t dare to commit to paper my wish that Mother would reply and would tell me how she was. I knew very well that this wish wouldn’t come true.

Auntie had also finished her letter. She stood up from her seat and opened the door to the barn.

‘I want to show you something, come along.’

I followed Auntie obediently up the stairs, not knowing what she was up to. To my surprise she opened the third door, the one leading to the hayloft, a place where I hardly ever came. Her hand held an oil lantern and she quickly lit it. The little flame lit up the dark room with whimsical shadows and Auntie’s long shadow followed her as she walked to one side of the hayloft. I stayed as close to her as I could and tried not to touch anything. Everything was dusty and I knew there would be big spiders here. Probably mice too, and who knows what else.

‘Ah, that’s where it’ll be.’ Auntie moved a few steps to the left and gave me the lantern. ‘Would you hold the light for me, please?’

I stooped over and the light fell over a large sheet that covered some lumpy objects. With one jerk Auntie removed the sheet and I sneezed because of the sudden dust cloud that reached my nose. I sneezed again and only then did I see what Auntie had uncovered.

‘A cradle,’ I whispered in surprise.

I came closer and put my fingers on the beautifully entwined wicker.

‘I didn’t know you had one.’

‘This was your own cradle once.’

‘Oh.’

‘Your father was simply overjoyed with your mother’s pregnancy. He worked on this cradle for weeks without Anna knowing about it. It was such a surprise for her.’

I felt a lump in my throat. My father. He had made this for me and together with my mother he had placed me in it. My father. Even if I closed my eyes, I couldn’t remember him, only his curly hair and the warmth of his voice. But were these really memories or wishful thinking?

‘Come, let’s bring it down.’

Auntie gave a tug and with a creaking sound the cradle slid across the floor.

‘I’ll help you.’

When we were in the kitchen I could have a good look at the cradle. Father had twined the dark and light wicker alternately and it had created a beautiful pattern.

‘We’ll have to give it a good scrub,’ said Auntie, ‘and we’ll make a new little canopy and some new bedding.’

I looked again and I saw her beaming.

‘That’s why I wanted you to see it. Tomorrow, at the market, I’m going to buy fabric for it, what do you think?’

‘But there is still bedding in it.’

‘It’s old and discolored. Or do you like it?’

No, it wasn’t beautiful at all, but that was no reason for Auntie to go and spend money for the sake of me and my…

My thoughts halted before I dared to think the word. But then I allowed the thought. Child. My child.

A cradle for my child.

‘I have some money left from the journey,’ I suddenly remembered.

It looked like Auntie first meant to protest, but then she nodded. ‘That’s good. You can give it to me, and I’ll find something nice.

She took two mugs and poured us our some coffee. Then she took her loaf tin and walked to the table.

‘Come, sit down for a bite.’

We sat down beside each other, so we could both look at the cradle.

‘What color would you like?’

‘I haven’t thought about it. What color would go with a baby?’

‘Any color is good, as long as it isn’t black.’

I nodded. ‘As long as it isn’t black.’

I went to bed and fell asleep with one hand on my stomach as it changed shape with the child’s movements inside. I could almost imagine that the child was calling to me and wanted to know me.

I had picked flowers for Mother, pretty yellow and red ones. I held the little bunch tightly in my hands. The stems were already starting to wilt, so I had to walk home quickly and cheer Mother up with these flowers. I would find a pretty vase and place the flowers on the kitchen table. It would be a nice surprise. Mother loved flowers. Mother loved me, and I loved Mother. The sun was shining and the birds sang their songs and I started to whistle along. I couldn’t whistle all that well yet, but I practiced a lot and was getting better and better at it.

Father had been able to whistle really well and he had shown me how to do it. Father himself had learned from Grandpa, who could whistle with his fingers as well, really hard. Sometimes I tried to do that, but then you heard nothing, and all I ended up with was wet fingers. But now I could sing along with the birds. I looked up at the blue sky and felt just as cheerful as the birds I could hear. I saw a butterfly and chased it, into the sky. It was a tiny black speck against the blue sky, and I followed it, higher and higher, closer and closer to the sun. I could feel the sun’s warmth on my face and I basked in the glow of it with my eyes closed. The sunlight shone just as brightly behind my closed eyelids. Even though my eyes were closed it wasn’t really dark at all. It was a cheerful darkness. Yes, that’s what it was, a cheerful darkness.

But all of a sudden the cheerful darkness disappeared and turned into a frightening darkness. It was real dark now, black, like the night with its scary sounds. A cloud had blocked the sun’s light. It was now dark as the night and a watery moon shimmered in between the clouds, and then it vanished again. I could feel how it suddenly turned cold. My arms, back and legs were covered in goose bumps.

My hand let go of the flowers. Yellow and red fluttered to the ground, withered and forgotten.

‘No, no!’ I stammered the words, but beyond my lips there was no sound, just silence, a silence that embraced me in the darkness.

‘No.’ A tear found its way from my eye down my cheek. My knees gave way, legs that had carried me up into the air moments earlier, had lost their strength and I collapsed. I crushed the flowers in my fall.

‘No.’

Suddenly he was there, standing over me.

‘Maria, get up.’ His arms stretched out to me as he stooped down and lifted me up. High over his head I flew. The black night could hold me even better now and choked me as I floated. I couldn’t breath as the darkness oppressed me. His strong hands had a crushing hold on my stomach, I saw his black eyes and felt his black breath, hot breath that cut like a knife through my body.

‘Don’t!’ The words resonated in my head, loud and clear, but in the night they were stifled and they were lost before he heard them. He didn’t hear and continued to hold me with the big hands that pulled away clothes and that scorched my exposed skin.

Why, why? Where is Mother, I want Mother.

But she wasn’t there, she never was.

12

S
ometimes it seems to me as if the present and the past merge together in this place, though I know that nothing will ever be quite the way it used to be. The hatred I feel for the Reverend is still there and I don’t think this will ever change. I’m not even sure if I want it to. My hatred for him gives me the strength to go on. I no longer wish to loose the child I carry, but I often feel the weight of shame pressing down on me. It’s impossible for me to face people. It would make my misery unbearable. But it’s also impossible for me to live the rest of my life in isolation. With the new year drawing near I start to have many new questions. But I’m not yet ready to face up to the answers.

As I woke up on the morning of New Year’s Eve I smelled a fragrance that brought me back to the past. I got out of bed and slowly came down the stairs, one hand pressed on my ever-growing stomach. I no longer was troubled by nausea, so whenever I smelled delicious aromas that reminded me of my younger days coming from Auntie’s kitchen, I was always tempted to eat a lot.

I opened the door and saw Auntie standing in the kitchen with a cloud of steam around her head, and I saw how she just poured out a large ladle full of batter onto the waffle iron on the stove.

‘Waffles!’ I exclaimed.

She turned and smiled broadly.

‘Of course. We can’t have New Year’s Eve without waffles.’

I returned her smile and thought of how Grandma used to bake waffles at this time of year. She had told me once that the waffle iron used to be her mother’s. She had baked her first waffle when she was seven years old, and Grandma had promised me that she would teach me too when I would be that age. That never happened, of course. At seven I no longer lived on the farm.

But this memory was a new one. The years had come and gone without me ever thinking of it, but now that I saw Auntie standing there in that cloud of steam and I could smell the waffles, it all flooded back to me. I remembered just how it used to be.

Grandma used to stand in the kitchen all day baking, and Grandpa would, after his daily chores, come in and set up the long tables in the barn. He would attach three long tables and arrange long benches to go along them.

The whole neighborhood used to be invited, and the tradition was that at around nine o’clock in the evening everyone would show up. Many of the guests would bring delicious treats such as battered apple rings, chicken soup, or oliebollen, the traditional New Year’s doughnut balls. But the only one who made waffles was Grandma. Nobody else was allowed to bake them, and nobody else was allowed to bring them.

‘The butter, Jochem!’ Grandma would call to Grandpa when he was finished setting up the tables and benches. I had so often watched him when Grandpa would pick up a milk can and pour the milk into the butter churn. Next he would get to work with the big churn dash. He often let me help him. With his big hands folded over mine we would hold the dash together and move it up and down in a regular motion. After a while little clumps of butter would appear floating on the milk and I would look up at Grandpa and smile. Again with his big hand over my small hands he would help me scoop up the butter grains and place them in the butter bowl. One time I had forgotten to place the cheesecloth in the bowl so we had to return the butter grains to the churn. Grandpa never got angry with me, but he patiently explained to me that the cheesecloth was important because it allowed the liquid to flow away. He showed me how to do it, and after that I never again forgot to place the cheesecloth in the butter bowl.

After kneading the butter we had to salt and rinse it, and then it was ready.

‘You go and ask Grandma for a spoiled waffle.’ Grandpa would tell me. I would skip to the kitchen and beg Grandma for a waffle that hadn’t turned out well, just so that we could taste and see if the butter was good. Of course the butter always was just right.

Grandpa would spread a thick layer of butter on, and sprinkle it liberally with icing sugar. When he had done all that he would take a knife and very carefully cut out five heart shapes. I would always get three of them and he would always have the other two.

The very first waffle was always the best. That very first waffle…

‘I haven’t had waffles in years, Auntie.’

Auntie turned around and placed her hands on her hips. ‘Well, this year you’ll have them again, you just wait and see. There may not be any guests this year, but I intend to enjoy these waffles with you. I’m using Grandma’s recipe and you’ll see that I make them as delicious as Grandma used to.

‘That sounds wonderful, Auntie.’

‘Will you help me?’

‘I’ve never done this, though.’

‘It isn’t difficult. I prepared the batter this morning already, so the only thing left to do is bake them. You take a big ladle full of batter and pour it onto the iron, then you close it and slowly count to one hundred and twenty. Then you press this here,’ and Auntie pressed on the handle and I saw how the iron turned over and now lay on the stove the other way around, ‘and again you count to one hundred and twenty.’