The Gypsy Moon (13 page)

Slowly she walked toward the house of Dorcas Burke, but she was troubled by the contrast of the beautiful bullfinch and the blue sky above with the political chaos of the spring of 1940 that filled her thoughts. Betje turned through the gate of the glistening white fence that surrounded the redbrick house that was half covered with ivy. Oskar Grotman was busily digging in one of the flower beds.

“Hello, Oskar,” she said as she approached him. “What are you planting now?”

At age sixty, Oskar was still a strong, active man. His hands were huge, and the shovel looked like a toy in them. His small blue eyes contrasted with his large wide mouth, and his chin was as blunt as a piece of granite. When he spoke, his voice was coarse but friendly enough. “Planting geraniums,” he muttered. He pointed with his shovel, holding it as if it weighed no more than a straw.

Betje looked at the gaily painted wagon that had been pulled out of the carriage house. It remained inactive all year except for the festival that came in May, and now it gleamed with fresh red and yellow paint. “Is Gabby home yet?”

“Not yet. I’ve been cleaning up the wagon for her—greasing the wheels so they won’t squeak.” His eyes glowed, and his big lips stretched into a broad smile. “Every year she do this thing—dress up like a gypsy. You go with her this year, Miss Betje?”

“Yes. I told her I would.” She gazed at the geraniums for a moment and then suddenly asked, “What do you think of Germany, Oskar? Will the Germans invade the Netherlands?”

Anger flared in his eyes, and his lips drew into a tight line. “Ja, the filthy Boche are coming!” He shook the shovel in the air, his grip so tight his knuckles turned pale. “And I vill kill them like I did in the Great War.”

Betje had always liked the older man. He had often taken her and Gabby fishing when they were growing up. She remembered walking along the dikes holding one of Oskar’s huge hands while Gabby held the other one. He had told them stories of his service in the war and the changes he went through when he returned home. He had medals he was very proud of and still wore on special occasions.

“You’re a Christian, Oskar. Isn’t killing Germans a sin?”

“It’s not a sin to kill lice!” He took the shovel in both hands and drove it into the dirt. He said no more, but he was clearly enraged.

He must have been a fierce warrior back in his fighting days,
she thought.

Betje turned and walked up the path made of crushed oyster shells to the house. She knocked on the door and it opened almost at once. “Hello, Matilda.”

“Hello, Miss Betje. Come on in.”

“How is Grandmother today?”

Betje couldn’t help noticing how much Dorcas Burke’s housekeeper had aged lately. Matilda had never been a beauty,
but now with old age creeping up, her cheekbones stood out atop hollowed cheeks, and deep wrinkle lines marked her face.

“She’s having a good day,” Matilda said. “Go on in. She’s in the sitting room.”

Betje walked down the short hall and then turned into the sitting room. Yellow sunlight flooded through the windows, enlightening the features of Dorcas Burke, and Betje thought, as she often did,
I hope I can look as good as she does when I’m seventy-one. I’m already almost halfway there!
“Good morning, Grandmother.” Betje had always loved Gabby’s great-aunt and thought of Dorcas like her own grandmother.

“Good morning, Betje. Come and sit.”

The sunlight touched the old woman’s hair, giving it a silver glow. She was wearing a pale blue dress fastened at the neck and at the wrist. Her gaze was direct, and as she lifted her voice and called for tea, Betje admired the strength still evident in her. Betje sat down and questioned Dorcas about her health.

“At my age, I’m good,” she said. “The Lord has given me a good life. I have Jesus, and that’s the best anyone can have.”

Betje smiled as Dorcas told her about the Scripture she had been studying lately. She knew that soon enough the older woman would ask her directly about her own spiritual life, and sure enough, after Matilda had served the tea, Dorcas gave her an encompassing glance.

“I’m praying that you will find Jesus,” she said directly. “I will never give up, Betje. You will have to say yes to God one day.”

“Don’t preach at me, Grandmother!” Betje pretended to be angry, but actually she respected Dorcas Burke as much as she did any human being. She had known hypocritical Christians before, but this woman had lived her religion faithfully under Betje’s careful scrutiny.

“I only preach because it’s important,” Dorcas insisted. “God has a wonderful plan for your life, but He can’t share it with you until you say yes to Him.”

“Yes, yes, I know.” She changed the subject, saying, “Gabby talked me into going to the festival with her this afternoon. She’s going to do her gypsy act again.”

“Yes, of course. She always does.”

“I may even try my hand at doing a little fortune-telling myself this time. I’ve watched her do it often enough, and I’ve got nothing better to do today.”

“I’ve never liked her doing that fortune-telling,” Dorcas said. “I used to get angry about it, but not anymore. I know Gabby just does it to raise funds for the church. She has a good heart.”

“This may be the last year she’ll do it.”

“You mean because of Germany and that madman Hitler?”

“Yes. He’s going to take over the world, it seems.”

“He could never do that.”

Betje sipped her tea and shook her head. “Nobody’s been able to stop him yet.”

“God will stop him,” Dorcas said with a confidence in her voice.

Betje did not argue, for she actually agreed that the only one who could stop Hitler was the Almighty himself. She got up and looked out the window. “Does Gabby ever talk about what happened to her when she was with your son and his wife in Germany?”

“She never speaks of it.”

“Something must have happened there,” Betje remarked, and her eyes narrowed as she thought hard. “She’s changed. Something has made her different. For one thing, she won’t have anything to do with men anymore. Someone must have wounded her heart.”

“You could take a lesson from her.”

“You think I like men too much? Well, maybe I do. What’s not to like?”

“Moderation in all things, young lady!”

Betje laughed. “All right. Go on and preach to me,
Grandmother. I know you’re going to, and we might as well get it out of the way.”

Dorcas looked fondly at the younger woman and spoke of Jesus and His love for sinners. Tears rose in her eyes as she spoke of the cross. She dashed them away and said firmly, “One day you will find the Lord Jesus.”

As always, Betje felt uncomfortable when Dorcas Burke spoke to her of Jesus. The same thing happened when Gabby tried to get her to turn from her ways. Deep in her heart, she knew that both women were right and that her life was wrong. Although she had known many who called themselves Christians who did not seem to live up to that claim, she was never able to deny the reality of the faith of Dorcas and Gabby. Uncomfortably, she shifted and poured herself some more tea. “Have you given any thought to going to stay with your son in Germany?”

“No, I won’t do that.”

“Hitler’s going to invade Belgium and Holland, Grandmother.” She waited for the old woman to reply, but when she said nothing, she said what everyone in Holland already knew. “He wants France, and he has to come through the Low Countries with his armies to get at it.”

“I will never leave my home.” The words were firm, and Dorcas Burke’s lips formed a tight line. The Germans might occupy Holland, but they would find this old woman who sat across from her as adamant as a human could get.

They heard the front door open and close, and then they heard Gabby greet Matilda. The two women waited in silence until Gabby entered the sitting room. She greeted Betje and gave her great-aunt a kiss.

“I see you’ve come to go to the festival with me,” Gabby said to Betje.

“Of course. I told you I would.”

“I’ve heard that the queen might be there.”

“So they say.”

“Are you still going to let me dress you up in a costume like mine this year?”

“I’ll wear a costume, but you’re not going to dye my hair! I like it blond.”

“I can cover it up with a colorful kerchief.” Gabby perched on the edge of a chair. “Grandmother, Betje has been doing such good work at the orphanage.”

“So you told me.” Dorcas turned her eyes on Betje. “You’ve been teaching the children to paint. That’s good. They need all the love and attention they can get.”

Betje suddenly felt uncomfortable. She had worked hard with the children but preferred not to be complimented about it. “I get bored,” she said. “There’s nothing else to do.”

“I know just the thing for your boredom,” Gabby said. “We’re starting to work on another skit for the kids at the orphanage, and I think you’ll like the part I’ve got for you.”

“That’s fine, as long as I don’t have to wear one of those ridiculous wigs you keep in the spare bedroom.”

“It’s a deal. Come on. I’ll show you the costume I wore for the last skit. The children laughed until they were practically rolling on the floor.”

“All right, and then you can make a gypsy of me!”

****

Gabby stood back and admired her handiwork. “You look just right, Betje. You make a fine gypsy.”

Betje laughed and turned to look at herself in the mirror. She tucked a stray piece of blond hair back under her kerchief and fingered the gold earrings that hung heavily on her earlobes.

The two were both dressed in colorful blouses and full skirts. They had spent a fair amount of time lining their eyes with eyeliner and darkening their eyelids with brown shadow.

“Come along,” Gabby said after they’d checked their reflections from all angles. “We don’t want to be late.”

The two women left the house and found that Oskar had
already hitched up the horse to the wagon for them. As they climbed up onto the seat, Oskar handed the lines to Gabby, saying, “He’s getting old, so don’t hurry him.” He patted the horse fondly. “I remember when he was only a colt.”

“I’ll bring you back something nice from the fete, Oskar. Thanks for painting the wagon. It looks beautiful.”

“Go on,” Oskar said gruffly. “Do your fortune-telling.”

Gabby slapped the horse with the lines, and he obediently moved into a brisk walk. As the wagon rolled along the road near the canal, the two young women spoke of the festival. It was a beautiful day, and people called out to the two women as they passed, smiling at their appearance. A young boy ran over and said, “Tell my fortune, Miss Gabby.”

“You’re going to be rich and famous and marry a beautiful girl and have twelve children.”

“I don’t want to hear that! That’s for old people.”

Gabby laughed as they left the boy behind. She told Betje about one of the children at the orphanage, a girl named Leida, who was having great emotional troubles. “She lost her father and mother in a train accident,” she said sadly. “She cries herself to sleep every night. I know what that’s like. It took me a long time to get over the loss of my parents.”

“I don’t think you ever really did get over it.”

“No, I guess not.”

They rode in silence for a moment, listening to the horse’s rhythmic cadence. Suddenly, Betje asked, “What happened to you in Germany? You weren’t the same after you came back.”

“It wasn’t a happy time, Betje. I don’t like to think about it.”

“It was a man, wasn’t it?”

Gabby was startled that Betje had come to that conclusion. “Yes, it was,” she said.

“Who was it?”

For some reason Gabby felt she was finally ready to tell her friend about those days. She had tried to forget about them, but from time to time, a song on the radio or a laugh she
heard in a crowd reminded her of Erik Raeder. The months apart had not removed the memory of his passionate kisses. They came back with a startling reality, even though she knew she had done the right thing in leaving.

“His name was Erik.”

“What did he look like?”

“Very handsome.”

“Well, tell me about him. Did you love him?”

“I . . . I thought I did, but it never would have worked.”

“Did he love you?”

“He said he did, Betje.”

Something about Gabby’s voice caught at Betje, and she realized that talking about it was hurting her friend. Quickly, she put her hand on Gabby’s arm. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you were terribly hurt by it, but you have to put things like that behind you.”

“I wish I could, but how do you do that?” Gabby said, her eyes sad. “Our memories are not at our command, Betje. I mean, we can’t forget something just because we will it.”

“You have to try.”

“I have tried, but he loved me. How can I forget that?” She waved at a couple passing by on the sidewalk. “Oh, I know he’s with some other woman by now—maybe even married. But I think he really did love me, and when a man loves a woman, that’s the best compliment he can pay to her.”

Betje did not speak for a moment. The hooves of the horse clattered on the cobblestones, and people heading for the festival were laughing as though no threat from Adolf Hitler loomed on the horizon. “You need to have more fun, Gabby. I still remember part of a poem I read when I was just a girl:

“That’s what I believe,” Betje said. “You have to grab whatever happiness comes to you. There’s not much of it.”

Gabby shook her head. “That same poet once said, ‘Forgive me, God, and blot each line out of my book that is not Thine.’ Gathering flowers isn’t the same thing as loving a man. I want something that will last for a lifetime.”

“Nothing lasts. I wish it did,” Betje said poignantly.

The women fell silent until they pulled into the park, where people were already gathering for the fete. Betje looked at her friend and tried to speak, but she felt too sad. She knew she had stirred unhappy memories, and she did not want to hurt Gabby.
I wish she were happy,
Betje thought.
But then, who is?