River in the Sea (28 page)

Two men wearing dull gray uniforms sat at the middle table. Upon noticing Minne, one straightened in his seat and with a drunken jerk of his arm, raised his hand. The other remained still, his eyes rooted in his glass of beer. 

Leen grabbed Minne’s arm, meaning to pull her towards Arnold and the bar, but Minne’s arm was limp in her hands. Leen opened her mouth to object, but the silence was ruptured first by the drunk soldier, who slurred, “Minne!
Hoi
, Minne!” His voice was jovial. His tone, familiar. 

There were only a handful of other patrons in the café. Arnold coughed. Leen looked at Minne, whose face was unmoving except for her eyes. They blinked constantly, her eyelids thrashing. She looked straight at the soldier who beckoned her to come to him.

“Minne, let’s go,
now
,” Leen said, her voice thick with desperation as she realized she’d have to be in charge. She’d have to be the one to get Minne out. Her grip grew tighter.

The soldier spoke again, his voice uneven with alcohol, using a mix of Frysk, Dutch, and German. “Minne!
Famke
,
meikomme
! Why are you standing so far away?” He patted an empty chair. Just like the rest, he couldn’t have been more than eighteen. His body was thin and bony, his movements lacking the assuredness of adulthood. Both of the soldiers looked haggard, unshaven. 

The soldier pushed his chair back, then tried to stand up, but he didn’t leave himself enough room between the table and his chair. His knees gave and he started to fall backwards, and the other soldier stood to catch him, yelling “Shit!” as the drunken soldier hit his head against the seat of the chair, his boots knocking the chair he’d meant for Minne. 

The few bits of laughter that followed quickly dissipated. Minne turned once to look at Leen. Her mouth was set, her eyes blank. She seemed resigned to something. Wordlessly she lifted Leen’s fingers from her arm. “Minne, what–” Leen said. Minne turned back, and Leen followed where Minne directed her gaze. Her eyes did not rest on the fallen soldier, but to the other, the one who kept his head down, and Leen immediately knew him as the one who had held the lantern, the one who had told her to go when she’d dug the grave, the one with the can of oil, the one who had nodded to Minne, the one with the shadows under his eyes. He got up and helped his drunken colleague to his chair. 

“I’m alright, I’m alright,” the soldier slurred as he settled into the chair. “I just wanted you to sit by your girlfriend.” He grunted and pointed to Minne, still standing, arms straight at her sides.

The café was completely quiet. No one spoke, sipped, coughed, made any movement whatsoever. 

“Minne,
komme
, now!” Leen cried, trying once more. Her voice sliced into the silence. They should’ve been halfway down Ternaarderweg. She remembered Jan Fokke, how sudden it had all began, but what was happening before her didn’t match the scene she was witnessing. The loud one, perhaps he might be the one to lunge and attack, but the other? By now she knew he would not do anything of the kind. Not to her, not to Minne. It was clear they knew each other, not by how they looked at each other, but by the way they avoided each other’s eyes. Everywhere but toward each other they cast frightened, furtive glances. This, and their shared silence, a mutual protest, confirmed that they were sweethearts, lovers even.

“Minne,” Leen said. She shook. “Minne, no.”

The desperation that had filled Leen deepened into a stony rage, her belly hardening and jaws clenching as she thought to herself that this should not happen, that the soldier should not know Minne’s name. But it did happen; both of them knew Minne; and she had taken Leen there willingly, drawing her out of her house, even acknowledging the De Graaf troubles, the trauma of Leen’s father. She’d held back her lipstick for that reason, hadn’t she – she’d known Leen couldn’t be that frivolous, not now. But Minne was. She was fraternizing with a German soldier – worse, admitting it publicly. But what weighed Leen down far more was her friend’s betrayal. She might have even planned this. Her hair, her makeup, even her black heels; she must have known he would be here.

Arnold grasped Leen’s shoulder. His stern face gave her direction. In a low, sharp voice he said, “Leentje De Graaf, no one under sixteen is allowed here. I think you had better get home.” He didn’t lie. But he had never before enforced that rule with her. “Don’t be stupid like your friend.” 

Leen hated that she was crying. She hated that she was the only one speaking. She hated seeing Minne so still, unresponsive to her cries. She hated that Issac was right, that she should’ve listened to him all along. In his own aggressive way he had been trying to protect her, just as Pater wished him to.

Minne turned around. She was crying too. “You should go,” she whispered. Whatever reason she had for Leen’s presence was no longer needed. She turned back to the soldier, her narrow shoulders dropping to acknowledge all the stares. She took a single step towards him, supplying her final answer.

“I told you to get home,” Arnold said. He rubbed his face in exhaustion. He must have witnessed this scene many times before, ever since the beginning of the war. “Leentje, you know what’s going to happen. Go.”

She tried to run home, but her knees couldn’t take it. She had to slow down, but every attempt at stopping only made her start running again. Each time her
klompen
met the hard wet bricks of the street twinges of pain burned up her bones to her kneecaps. She didn’t care that she was saying aloud, “No, no, no!”

Issac was right. And Minne?
That stupid, stupid girl
, she thought. 

Both of them.

18.

Issac sat in his typical spot on the edge of the pew. He sat so straight his shoulders didn’t touch the backrest, and Leen couldn’t stop herself from stealing glances at him. Until he walked into their kitchen that morning, she hadn’t seen him days, as he had mobilized with the rest of the Frisian Resistance. Finally, Wierum was cleared of its men, except not in the way the German army had planned.

Even in church, Issac was watchful. At least once Leen caught him raising eyebrows at another congregant, also wearing the blue coverall uniform with the stitched armband. She wanted to finger the heavy canvas, even try it on in secret. She pictured herself wearing it while hiding in corners, waiting in doorways, passing secret signals, listening for a truck coming through in a quiet gear, then springing out. The crispness of the uniform would not chafe her skin as she leapt out, hands wrapped around the cool handle of a gun, taking prisoners of war.

At least this is what she thought Resistance men did. For the past eight days the L.O. had been on duty and she had no idea where Issac was or when he would return. The last two nights they had gone to Mrs. Boonstra’s house to listen to her illegal radio, a relic with huge knobs she had managed to hide away like many others did after the radio ban two years prior. Once the whirring of the generator was steady, Mrs. Boonstra, Leen, her mother and her sisters crowded at the table to listen to the reports where they heard the latest city to fall, waiting for the names to grow more familiar: Ternaard, Meppel, Ee, Oosternijkerk, Wierum. With every bit of terrible news – prisoners forced to run with the soldiers, raids and deaths of Resistance officers – there was another bit of good news. The Allieds freed one more village, dot by dot on the map, working their way closer with the help of the L.O. It was strange to believe Issac was part of that.

And then, that morning, Issac walked into the house dressed as the soldier he’d become. He was clean–shaven. Over what basin, using what pitcher, had he shaved his face? Washed his hands? Was it really safe enough for him to be home for
kerk?
When she saw him, Mem’s eyes immediately filled with tears. His face was soft when he kissed her on the forehead, and whispered, “Hello,
moeder, who ist mei dei?”

Mem did not answer. As she had done over six years ago, she reached up and slapped Issac’s face. He shut his eyes but held still. Then Mem took his hand and pressed it to her cheek and held it.

Leen watched all of this, frozen. She was glad to see him, filled with relief, yet frightened of him too. She wanted to poke him in the arm, pinch his shoulder, nudge him, bug him like she used to. She wondered if he knew about Minne, about what had happened at the café, if he’d heard how Leen had run, how she’d left Minne there. Now, with the hopes and anticipation at their very highest, Leen wanted to grab her brother’s elbow, tell him, “Sorry,” and hope that would be enough for each of them to let it go. Instead, they tiptoed around each other that morning as they readied themselves for church, avoiding eyes, avoiding words.

Staring at Issac’s uniform, Leen was too immersed in her thoughts to pay attention to the sermon, nor did she hear the rumbling. 

Someone shouted, “Canadians!”

The air shifted with a
whompf
. Everyone turned their heads to the left and adjusted their hips in a collective lean towards the direction of the sound. Leen watched a man get up, right there in the middle of the sermon, to look out the window. It was unreal, as unreal as the talking when the Dominie announced the jailbreak. Then another person shouted, “Canadians! Canadian tanks!”

The congregation moved as a single mass, rushing to the windows that pulled them to the sound like a magnet. Boys scrambled inside the bay of the windows, pushing them open even further, leaning out the sills. Leen took Mem’s hand and put it through her elbow and Tine did the same. She pushed forward with her toes and ahead of her Issac hoisted Renske onto his shoulders.

“Is it true?” Mem asked, echoing the question asked by quaking voices behind her, and in front, as the Dominie called from the pulpit, “Canadians? Have they come?”

At that moment Leen saw a shadow pass over the window and for a half–second it was silent as everyone saw the shadow take shape, and then there were shouts, and when the next Canadian half–track followed with a man’s khaki–sleeved arm waving from the side of it, Leen’s voice joined. A tingle traveled down her neck, down her spine, down every strand of hair, into every cell.

The mass broke; everyone pushed out, the energy suddenly pulsing, every Wierumer’s heart pumping blood to legs. That was the benediction; the church was empty in less than a minute. Leen pulled Mem to take her with the running mass, forming again to see the rolling line of strange, massive vehicles with tires up front and tank tracks in the rear. She stared in awe and when Mem cried to her, “Leentje, Leentje, look at it!” it finally hit.

They were liberated. All the towns and villages announced, forming an envied list; now Wierum was on it. The Allieds were there. They were free.

Leen threw her arms around Mem and found herself crying. Soldiers shouted at them, “Hello! Hello!” and she shouted back, “
Hoi! Hoi
Canadians!” Something hit her foot and when she looked down she saw a wrapped butterscotch candy. Another dropped as she reached for it.

“Candy! They are throwing candy!” Renske shouted from her perch atop Issac’s shoulders. He bounced her and jumped and she shrieked at the joy. He yelled, no words, just shouts, and Leen let go of her mother and grabbed his arm. To her relief he did not shrug off her touch, but kept shouting, and Leen linked her arm through his and joined him. Neither of them could form intelligible words but still he did not let go, and the three of them bounced and shouted, “Hello! Hello! Thank you Canadians, we are free!”

“Tine!” Renske cried. Leen searched for Tine’s face amid the sea of shifting smiles and eyes shut in rapture, no one keeping still, and finally she found her, looking dazzled. Leen pushed through the crowd to her, took her hand, and found Mem, now holding onto Mrs. Boonstra’s elbow as if she might drown if she let go. Someone started singing
De âlde Friezen
, their anthem, and the words were infectious. They all sang along, the words something Leen never remembered learning but always knew. “
Klink dan en daverje fier yn it rûn, dyn âlde eare, o Fryske grûn
,” she sang, as loudly as she could. The crowd’s collected voice roared into the chorus, singing of the pride and honor of their ancient Frisian ground. The anthem was their hymn, church now outside, the Canadians their Dominie. They wore khaki brown uniforms and they beamed and Leen held her hands up as they threw out bags of sweets. Everyone’s face looked the same, a great relief breaking through the invisible veil of fear and weariness.

Someone started running, then all of them were, following the tanks down Ternaarderweg, the sound of the sea drowned out by the rumbling half–tracks, singing voices, laughs, shouts, the beat of
klompen
on the bricks, Leen’s knee weak but holding underneath her. 

She and her family ran with the tanks, stopping in front of their house, everyone doing the same, forming an immediate audience for the impromptu parade. Tine ran inside the house and returned with the orange kerchiefs.