River in the Sea (2 page)

That’s all anyone could talk about – food and the end of the war. No one in the De Graaf family had eaten a piece of fruit in weeks, not even an apple, and having the salt also meant Mem could take even the tiniest
pakje
of salt, as small as a teaspoon, and trade it for a tin of peaches or a few pears. But even more so, Leen hoped this new possibility would invigorate Mem, who had become still over the years, the only word Leen could think to describe her, when her brother Wopke died. 

Leen turned left. It was the last stretch before home and her eyes passed over the deep green of the pastures where the sheep, goats and cows grazed. The dike, a specter half–covered in mist, held back the North Sea, its horizon interrupted by the radio spire of the camp. Already she was going fast, too fast. Her knee shook a little as she let up off the gas. Like her father, Leen could be brashly stubborn at times; when she wanted something, she was sure of it. Like her mother, she did not like learning to do anything she was not drawn to, and when she was forced, she was timid and fearful and too sensitive to those watching her, yet reticent to admit these traits. The trouble with the camp was that it fit into none of these parameters; it was not a task, it was a not a new taste, it was not a job. It was, simply and uneasily, there.

To some Wierumers, passing it was like passing another field of cows. It was nothing to take note of despite the faded green camouflage tents connected by yards of netting; the mottled concrete bunkers resting heavily on the wet ground, like igloos; the spikes of the ominous radio towers stabbing the low sky. But Leen had never gotten over her fear of the soldiers posted at the side of the road, their uniforms a plain, flat gray that matched the dull metal of their warplanes, a gray that matched the heavy clouds drifting over the dike. Long after she passed the camp she could still hear the soldier’s barking dogs, brown and black German Shepherds growling and straining at their leashes. As much as she tried not to, she listened for it.

Could they hear her? Did they ever catch her laugh, an odd phrase about something mundane, like needing to sweep out the barn, or that she hated tulips because they never lasted, or Tine’s giggle, or Renske’s needful whine, or worse, Issac’s or Pater’s deep voices? The danger was never over for the men. 

And in many ways, the danger was never over for the girls and women either. Leen and Tine were under strict orders not to interact with any German in a uniform, ever. During the last year at least two girls she’d known since her earliest memory had suddenly disappeared, sent off to family in another village no one had heard of. Sometimes girls were arrested. Their heads were shaved in public with rusted clippers and the worst things you could say, things Leen would be slapped for if she ever said them aloud at home, were screamed at them. The words
hoer
and
lânferrieder
were shouted and Leen had watched more than once as the girls’ eyes squeezed shut at the words, as if they had been slapped, and Leen wondered what was worse, to be called a whore or a traitor.

Just a month before, bicycling her way to her first day of work at the Deinum’s, a soldier had yelled to Leen, asking for a kiss. His voice was high and lilting, almost friendly. It had shocked her to hear him use Frysk words, not the limited Dutch some soldiers could spit out: “Hey you,
famke
, I want a
lyts
tutsje
! Give me a
tutsje
!” Leen was wiry–haired and skinny–armed, the curve of her chest slight. She hadn’t yet started her period, much less kissed a boy. She had clear, light blue eyes but nearly everyone she knew had them too. She was not someone who attracted much attention, for her looks anyway, and although she had never admitted this to anyone, not even her older sister Tine, she wouldn’t mind if a certain boy noticed, even if as far as she could tell he regarded her as a curiosity rather than desirable. Nor would she mind being kissed, under normal circumstances, as long as she didn’t have much advance notice, because that would give her too much time to develop her nerves and refuse, or worse, fumble the act itself and have that memory forever to alternately fail to repress or scrutinize her mishandling. After all, if girls married at 18 and 19 and became mothers soon after, there was a lot of, of territory – space and land she knew little about – to traverse. 

But these nervous desires did not match the sudden shout rising out of the muted din of the camp, and it startled her. She swerved and rolled onto the wet grass, sending short sprays of muddy water onto the edge of her skirt. He called to her again. She could see his hair was almost white.

“Come on, come over here!” he called. Crouching over the handlebars, pumping her legs, Leen maneuvered her bike back onto the road, looking only at her front tire, her eyes tearing with the wind. The soldier yelled again, his voice lower now, but she didn’t answer, letting only a small whine sound from the back of her throat. In her head she repeated:
Go, go, go
…

Finally he yelled, “Mean girl! You’re breaking my heart!” Then she heard a crash against the wire fence and heard the characteristic bark of a German shepherd, low, deep, loud, and constant. She let out a yell, fearing that the dog would somehow break through and clamp its jaws around her ankle as she had seen one do during a
razzia
years before. Then she heard the laughter of the soldiers standing with him, some more jangling of wire and chains, the barks suddenly quieting, but it wasn’t until their voices faded behind her completely that Leen stopped her bike and clutched her cramping stomach, gasping and spitting on the grass. At that moment she had thought to herself,
twelve times. Twelve times a week I have to pass this camp.

As Leen approached the curve, downshifting the engine so it revved high as the truck headed onto the straight part of the road that finally turned onto the far edge of Ternaarderweg, she saw a group of soldiers standing. They leaned on poles, shovels, and guns, talking and kicking at the ground. It never failed to surprise her how normal the men looked, how some of them were dirty, and some clean, and they all were young, and seemed to have little to do – except torment a passing girl. 

A soldier opened the gate to let out a truck. He had his back to her, and motioned to the driver to exit. At the gatekeeper’s side sat a barking German shepherd, beautifully striped with deep currents of black and brown, its snout long and full, its ears sharp–tipped triangles. The barks were low and rounded in sound, like the dog was aware of its own voice and wanted to use it to its full potential. When Leen had first seen one, she thought she might like to have a dog like those at the camp. But then she heard them, saw them straining at their collars that ground against their necks. The dogs’ fierceness scared Leen. They seemed beyond control, immune to any welcoming sound she could make, any wiggle of her fingers to come or stop or stay. The soldiers teased the dogs to make them bark and lunge and growl, while always holding on to the leash tightly, leaning back against the power of the animal. 

The German truck inched forward, then stopped, waiting for Leen to pass. The soldier at the gate stepped aside, holding the metal gate. A bird swooped down low, passing over the lane, and just as Leen began to steer the truck around the corner, the dog suddenly ran out in front of her, barking.

It was still light out, the sky barely gauzed over by the approaching dusk. The dog came out of the shadows, catching the sun, a golden thing with its teeth snapping as it barked. It raced towards her door. There was no one else in the road, and the bird swooped back into the sky. In a half second she pictured the dog lunging, biting the salt from her hand, its teeth gouging a terrible wound in her palm, and then, without thinking, the paper of the salt packet crackling loudly against the steering wheel as her hand tightened around it, she pushed in the gas. She heard the engine revving in its gear before she registered that she’d floored it. She hit the dog square on, the bark strangling from a clipped bark to a yelp, then to nothing. The truck bumped roughly as if she was driving fast over the clumps in the fields, and Leen braked, hard. 

Everything halted. The truck, the air, the sun, the bird, it all stopped. Everything except the bare ticking of the engine and a single thought:

I killed it.

2.

Leen sat, rigid, in the truck. One hand gripped the gearshift, the other still held onto the wheel. Every muscle seized, and she had to fight the urge to shudder and break free from her stillness. But she feared that if she moved at all, something more would happen, and more than anything, she wanted nothing more to occur. 

Leen allowed her eyes to glance out the driver side window, wanting to keep every single movement as small as possible. She saw the familiar ditch falling away from the side of the truck, full of soggy earth and weeds. Then it felt like someone turned her ears up, so she didn’t just hear the dead engine’s tocks but also shouts from soldiers. She couldn’t yet place where they came from or who was yelling. Ragged shards of her thoughts came together, telling her she was at the camp. This time, she could not control the shudder. It started at her head and ran down her back and ended at her fingertips. She could not make herself stop from saying out loud, “Oh
doeval, doeval
, oh
doeval
,” the worst swear words she could say, since it was calling upon the devil.

The truck’s dented metal frame suddenly felt flimsy, barely separating her from the bodies moving frantically against the late afternoon air. Leen knew she had to see where the shouts were coming from, who was right outside the truck. She started to raise her head, but then a fist struck the hood and Leen jumped and cried out, “
Blix
!” Her own voice surprised her, and she clamped her mouth shut so hard she bit her tongue. The briny sting and burn filled her mouth and she hit her fists against her thighs and prayed to God that she could figure out what to do next, just please tell her what to do next.

There was no direct answer, no voice in her head delivering directions, except for a strange sensation telling her to do everything slowly. She focused on the door handle, the bottom edge of the truck, the small strip of earth before the wet ditch where she could find her footing. She pulled the handle but didn’t get out. She had to look up. The truck that had been waiting to pull out was now stopped halfway out of the camp’s gates, and the driver and the gatekeeper were now in front of her, crouching, nearly indistinguishable in their flat gray uniforms. One of them had his hand on the top of the hood to keep his balance, and Leen knew that was the hand that had pounded the hood of Pater’s truck, and that it was the hand of the dead dog’s owner. She blinked, and one of the soldiers was gone.

The truck’s door shrieked open and Leen flinched backwards as the driver reached in. His hand was red and weathered, like an old man’s, but strong like the young man he was, no more than 20, and before she could grab hold of anything, he yanked her out by the arm, shouting, “
Komm raus! Komm raus
!”

Leen half–slid, half–tumbled out of the truck, her feet catching on the edge of the ditch. The driver let her go and her
klompen
slid down the steep bank of mud. She grabbed the truck door, but the driver pinched her elbow, digging his fingers into her nerves, filling her arm with fire. She let go of the door and the driver gave her another jerk and she tripped, hands slapping against the mud, feet slipping to the bottom of the ditch. 

“
Steh auf
!” The air was dark under the driver’s shadow, and Leen stood slowly. It felt like everything inside her had cooled, all but the very top of her head, which felt heavy and hot. 

It had been no more than two minutes since she had put her foot on the gas.

The driver walked past her and slammed his fist against the driver door, shutting it with another shriek of its rusty metal hinges. He started screaming at her, repeating, “
Steh
auf! Sie idiot, steh auf jetzt
!” He was shouting in German and although she did not understand it besides the numbers she had tried so hard not to learn, Leen knew he was shouting to her that she was stupid, she should’ve braked, why did she do that, what was she thinking? She didn’t know, she wanted to plead. She’d never done anything like this.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see it,” she tried to whisper, and that was when she realized the pain in her chest was her heart pounding so hard it felt like a mallet beating against her ribs. 

The driver continued to shout, his mottled face hard and distorted. There were no good choices; whatever she did could be interpreted as too bold or too cowardly – she was never somewhere in the middle – and so she tried to stay still. The driver, jaws clenched, looked to the front of the truck. Now there would be a dent in the front as well as the side. It occurred to Leen in a swell of nausea that the truck had killed two living, breathing beings, Wopke and now this dog. The gatekeeper was still bent over, holding his cap in his hands, his back rounded as he angled himself over the
hoend
.

Slowly he stood up. He began walking ahead, away from the truck, waving one hand in front. Then he stopped, put his hand to his face, and circled around. Blood covered his fingertips. He was pale, grayer than his country’s warplanes, and his hat was filthy. Leen watched his grief wash over his face. 

“Minsha, Minsha,” he said, his hands fluttering back and forth above the dog. It struck Leen that he resembled Issac, the faintest signs of sun around his eyes, the rest of his skin smooth. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old. Suddenly Leen remembered what Pater had said to Issac once, forgetting that she was nearby: “
Acht
, those soldiers are boys, just like you.” He said that the soldiers stationed at the camp were more or less mascots, men whose job was to watch and wait, as fearful of the SS as the Friesian civilians were. Leen knew that some of the young men from Wierum had even become friends with a few of the soldiers who came to town, usually to the café, although now the soldiers rarely visited. They were hungry for food, not beer, and some Wierumers pitied the weary and drawn faces in the camp. Some even left plates of cold fried potatoes on the outlying road. In the mornings the plates were left in the same spots, licked clean.