Postcards From No Man's Land (40 page)

Daan told me you asked to be here at my end
.

I must say no
.

It will be difficult, most for Tessel and Daan. They must live afterwards. They must not have anyone else to think of
.

I have planned
.

Only Tessel and Daan with me. The doctor also
.

But you will think of me
.

It will be noon, Monday
.

Tessel and Daan will be here all the time from Friday
.

We say our final goodbyes
.

The doctor gives me an injection. When I sleep, he will give the injection to end my life
.

There will be no pain. It will be the end of the most terrible pain
.

From the time of our goodbyes until the end they will read words I love. One poem will be in English
.

There will be no fuss
.

After the funeral my body will be cremated
.

Tessel and Daan spread my ashes in the Hartenstein Park at Oosterbeek
.

Dirk’s ashes are there. Where we grew up and spent the days of our childhood with Henk
.

The grave of your grandfather is not far away
.

It is beautiful
.

Our family can come there to remember us
.

I hope you will also
.

May your life be blessed
.

Liefs
,

Geertrui
.

‘Hille?’

‘Jacob.’

‘Okay?’

‘Okay. You?’

‘Need to see you.’

‘But you leave tomorrow, yes?’

‘In the afternoon.’

‘I was going to write.’

‘You got my letter?’

‘Yes.’

‘I need your help.’

‘Help?’

‘Some stuff I’ve found out. And I need to see you.’

‘There’s chaos here. The move and everything.’

‘I really need to see you.’

‘But when?’

‘Tomorrow. I’ll come to Oosterbeek and go on to Schiphol from there.’

‘I’m in school.’

‘Just the morning.’

‘I’m looking at what we’ve got.’

‘You’d be back for the afternoon.’

‘Maybe I could.’

‘It’s important.’

‘Okay. But I’ll come to you.’

‘Okay. When?’

‘About ten. Something like that.’

‘I’ll wait in the apartment. You know where it is?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thanks. See you then.’

‘
Tot ziens
.’

POSTCARD

The gift of pleasure

is the first mystery.

John Berger

‘
YOU WONDERED ABOUT
my grandfather,’ Jacob said. ‘Now you know.’

Hille laid Geertrui’s story on the coffee table between them.

‘Glad I’m alive now and not then,’ she said.

‘But what d’you think? About my grandfather and her, I mean.’

‘Things like that happened a lot. Especially at the end of the war. This year, we even had a day for it.’

‘For what?’

‘For people who were children of soldiers who helped liberate us. It was called Reconciliation Day. Some people, many people, who had children by soldiers and kept it secret, told their children for the first time.’

‘In public?’

‘Yes, if they wanted to. And the people who had always known helped them.’

‘Amazing.’

‘Why? I thought it was good. I liked it.’

‘Can’t imagine a day like that happening in England.’

‘You didn’t need it. You were never occupied and so you were never liberated.’

‘Wouldn’t happen even if we had been.’

‘Maybe it is a bit Dutch.’

‘Finding out my grandfather had a Dutch lover and a
Dutch daughter and grandson was bad enough. God knows what it must be like to find out your father wasn’t who you always thought he was, and that your mother let you believe a lie all your life.’

‘Some people went in pieces. Others took it very well. Some didn’t seem to mind. It’s always like that, don’t you think? You never know how people will behave when they hear big news. You never really know how you will yourself till it happens. I don’t anyway. Like I told you about when my grandmother died. Before, I wouldn’t have thought I would feel guilty. I mean, why should I? I’d done nothing wrong to her, she was an old person and ill. Sick old people die. It’s natural. It wasn’t my fault she was sick and old. But I still felt guilty.’

‘That’s odd, because—one of the things I want to talk to you about. Since yesterday, when I had time to think about it, I’ve been feeling guilty. About Grandad.’

‘Why? Because he and Geertrui were lovers?’

‘Not that so much.’

‘Because Geertrui had a child?’

‘I can understand how it happened. Why it happened. The way things were for them. I might have been the same, probably.’

‘Then why?’

‘Because I know about it.’

‘But it happened a long time ago. And it’s not awful for you, is it? That you’ve got yourself a nice Dutch family.’

‘No, that’s all right. I like it.’

‘What then?’

‘I’m not so sure my grandmother will be that pleased.’

Hille slapped her thigh. ‘She doesn’t know!
Domkop
! I was only thinking of you.’

‘Thanks. But that’s why I feel guilty. Because I know and she doesn’t. Almost as if I were my grandfather and she were my wife. Stupid, eh?’

The anxiety made him restless. He stood up, wondering
as he did why he always chose to sit in this chair, and went to the window. A family of coots was paddling along the canal, that spring’s young ones looking quite grown up. No one in view in the hotel except a chambermaid making a bed. The grimy church windows blank and blind and wire-netted as always.

He heard Hille get out of the sofa, her shoes clicking on the tiles as she came up behind him and put her arms round his waist. He could feel through his shirt the squash of her breasts against his back, and the hardness of her hips against his buttocks.

‘Will she be very upset?’

Her breath tickled the nape of his neck. He waited a moment before replying.

‘You think I should tell her?’

Now she waited.

‘Won’t you?’

‘Daan says I shouldn’t. Tessel as well.’ He didn’t mention Ton or Alma, so as not to complicate it, and because he wanted to hear what she decided if she thought everyone else said no.

There was a longer pause before she spoke again. He didn’t mind. He liked her hugging him this way. It was comforting as well as sexy. Kept very still, wanting it to go on.

‘Like I said just now. You never know how people will behave. Especially with bad news.’

‘I was hoping you’d help me decide.’

She stood back. He turned to face her. She took his hands, holding them between hers. Before she spoke she pursed her lips and scowled.

‘If I were you, I would tell her. But I’m not you, and I don’t know your grandmother.’

He gave a rueful smile and said, ‘In other words, it’s your problem, Jacob.’

She smiled and nodded. ‘Don’t mean it like you say it.
But it is, isn’t it, you have to agree.’

He let out a long breath.

‘I learned to read for myself when I was six. To congratulate me, my grandmother—Sarah—sent me a picture postcard. The picture was of a rabbit reading a book. On the back she wrote, “Well done! Now you can find out all the secrets of the world.” When I saw her next time, she asked if I liked it. I said, “I like it so much, Gran, I wish I had a postcard every week.” And since then she’s sent me a picture postcard every week. Never misses. Doesn’t matter if she’s ill. Or away on holiday. Whatever. Every week she sends me a card. Even though I live with her now, she still sends them. By post. When there’s no post, like when there was a postal strike once, she puts that week’s card through the letterbox herself. The picture is always something she wants me to know, like a famous painting or a building or a person or a landscape. Anything. And on the back, if there’s nothing she wants to write, she copies out a quotation from something she’s reading, or she’s heard on television, or she sticks on a clipping out of a paper or a magazine. Not always serious. Jokes sometimes, cartoons. I’ve kept them all from the very first. There are seven hundred and eleven so far.’

Hille studied him for a while. Then let go of his hands and went back to the sofa.

‘That’s one serious grandmother,’ she said as she sat down.

Jacob followed and sat beside her.

‘And my grandfather was the love of her life. She never married again. Now I’ve got to tell her this man she thinks is so wonderful and who she’s still in love with—. It could kill her.’

‘So don’t tell her.’

‘Then I’ll feel bad about it for the rest of my life. I just know I will. Besides, she always tells me I wear my feelings on my face.’

‘She’s right. You do.’

‘Thanks a lot! That really gives me confidence. So, she’ll want to know about what happened while I was here. I’ve always told her everything. Never hid anything from her. She’s bound to know I’m hiding something.’

‘Then you’ve got a problem.’

‘Sure. I’ve got a problem! Thanks for telling me what I know.’

Again the rising anxiety made him fidgety.

‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ he said. ‘All that coffee while you were reading Geertrui’s story.’

When he came back Hille was looking at the wall of books. The view of her back affected him as strongly as her front, the fall of her shoulders, the curve of her bum in her jeans, the proportion of her body on her legs. He looked at his watch. The morning was almost gone. He came up behind her and put his arms round her waist, just as she had to him a few minutes before.

‘You’ll not make it back for school this afternoon,’ he said, ‘if you don’t go pretty soon.’

‘Too late already.’

‘You’re not going?’ He tried to keep the excitement out of his voice but didn’t succeed. She’d feel it in his body anyway.

‘About telling people difficult news.’

‘Let’s forget it. Just enjoy ourselves till I have to go.’

‘When?’

‘From here, about four.’

‘There’s something I want to say to you. Come and sit down.’

She unhooked herself from his arms and went to the sofa. Something in her manner told him to sit in one of the chairs. He deliberately chose the one he never sat in, facing the window.

Hille was leaning forward, elbows on knees, a fist held to
her mouth.

‘About the position of kissing boyfriend.’

‘Ah!’ He could see the blow coming. ‘You’ve given it to someone else.’

‘No.’

‘What, then?’

‘There was a qualification I forgot.’

‘Which is?’

‘He must live close enough to do the kissing.’

‘And I don’t.’

‘No.’

‘So I don’t get the job?’

‘I can’t be a girlfriend of an absent boyfriend. I wouldn’t be able to keep it up.’

He said nothing.

‘You understand?’

‘Sure. You don’t need to explain. Is that what you were going to write to me about?’

‘Yes. And to say I’d like to be friends. If you want to.’

‘I want to. But everything else? If we lived near to each other?’

‘You’d get the job.’

‘I would?’

‘You would.’

‘Can I have a kiss to prove it.’

She laughed. ‘Good idea.’

‘Look,’ he said. ‘Let’s go somewhere. See some of the town together. Are you hungry?’

‘I’m hungry.’

‘Like a pancake?’

‘If you say it in Dutch.’

‘
Zal … het zijn
… er …
lijken … een pannenkoek?
’

Which gave her the giggles.

‘Glad I’m good for a laugh, anyway.’

‘Sorry! You did try. I know a good place near the Anne
Frank house. Even has an English name, The Pancake Bakery, so at least you’ll be able to say it.’

‘But won’t give you such a good laugh.’

‘I’ll take the risk.’

‘Before we go, I’ll get my stuff together, then I’ll be ready to leave.’

He picked up Geertrui’s story.

Hille said, ‘Can I see the things she gave you? The book and necklet your grandfather gave her.’

‘Okay. Come up. You can look at them while I pack.’

She followed him to his room. The gatherings from his trip were in the Bijenkorf bag. He took out his grandfather’s badge, Sam’s book and the pendant, and laid them on the bed. Hille sat beside them and at once picked up the pendant, smoothing it between her fingers in a way so sensuous that it unsettled him.

He turned away and began packing his spare clothes in his carryall. Went down to the bathroom to collect his toilet gear. When he got back Hille was flicking through Sam’s book.

He finished packing, all but his bag of gatherings, and went to the bed to get it.

‘What else have you got?’ Hille said. ‘Can I see?’

‘If you want.’

He tipped out the rest of the contents. Hille sorted through them.

‘What’s this?
Teach Yourself Dutch in Three Months
.’ She laughed.

‘Daan gave it to me last night. His going-away present. More of a come-back-soon present he said.’

‘And will you?’

‘You bet.’

‘Learn Dutch in three months I meant.’

‘Going to have a bash, yes. Seriously, I’ve been thinking. There’s nothing to stop me studying here, is there? At university, I mean. Daan says a lot of their lectures are in
English. They have to be so as to attract foreign students. And he says I can stay here with him. So accommodation would be no problem. My home-from-home, he says.’

‘Told you it was good to have a nice Dutch family.’

She put the book down and pushed away the used roll of film Jacob had taken in the Oosterbeek cemetery, and the Order of Service, to uncover the postcards of Titus and Rembrandt.

‘Why these?’

‘Daan thinks I look like Titus.’

She held the one of Titus against Jacob’s face.

‘A bit maybe.’

‘You need to see the painting.’

‘D’you like Rembrandt?’

‘Quite a lot, yes.’