River in the Sea (6 page)

Now, Leen trudged alone behind Pater, dodging sheep droppings. They both walked slowly along the muddy path, trying to keep their church shoes clean. The water of the North Sea was choppy and brown. The wind was cold, stinging her eyes after last night’s crying.

Pater turned suddenly, startling Leen. He bent over and cupped his hands over his mouth as he lit a new cigarette. She didn’t dare ask him for one, but she craved tobacco. A few rays of sunshine selected certain waves in the distance, near the islands.

Pater’s cigarette smoke curled into his nose and then back out his mouth. “Leentje, you must tell me all that happened last night, even the pieces you left out,” he finally said, voice cracking.

“I did tell you everything,” Leen said. Even though she was telling the truth, mostly, at least, it felt like lying. She took a step and Pater grabbed her elbow, hard, and she winced as the pain from her tender bruise radiated out. It was now a deep blackish–purple.

“What?” Pater asked. 

“That’s where he – I have a bruise there.” Her father let her go but did not move. His face was like she had never seen it before: terrified.

“Leentje, you must tell me. Things can be done, you know? You made a mistake about the dog, but the other things, those are not always a girl’s fault.” He leaned in closer. “I know that it is not your fault. You can tell me, and then we never have to talk about it again.”

Hearing her father’s words, she saw the driver’s lingering hand on the hood of the truck, on his own belt. Yesterday’s fear returned in a sudden spike of adrenaline. The grave–digging was a bargain. She could have paid in other ways. She almost had. Her heart raced and a flush accompanied the prickling at her skin.

“Oh,
blix
, Leen–” He let her go and threw his cigarette away angrily. He covered his face with both his hands.

“No, Pater,
nee
,
nee
,” Leen pleaded, clutching at his arms. She tried to get Pater to look her in the eye. Saying it in her own voice reminded her it was truth. “They didn’t hurt me like that.”

“Are you telling me the truth,” he asked, but she heard no question in his words. He took her hand from his arm and pressed her hands between his. His hands always felt rough. Ever since she could remember, they were covered in calluses.

“They made me dig the grave, and then one…” She paused, feeling again the soldier’s weight, the truck’s dented side. “But he didn’t. I thought the grave was for me.”

Pater started walking again, finding the muddy steps that took them over the canal and onto Ternaarderweg. He didn’t say anything, didn’t even smoke, and Leen didn’t know if he believed her or not. She waited for him to put an arm around her shoulders and tell her how careless and stupid she had been, about the things the Dominie said, but that she was his
famke
and it was all okay now, he was so glad to have her back. Because it was, wasn’t it? Everything was all right.

Instead Pater said, “We should put it all behind us, then. Okay,
poppie
?” He called her the Frysk word for baby doll, the word he and Mem called them when they felt nearest to their children.

Leen nodded. She was crying again, unable to stop it. It felt so good to hear Pater call her that. Suddenly she asked, “Did you tell Dominie Wiersma?”

Pater looked confused. “I haven’t told anyone,” he said.

“I shouldn’t have acted rashly,” she said, crying harder now, and growing angry at herself for it, and for her cowardice, for not knowing the right action, the right response; or knowing it, and finding herself unable to follow through.

Pater finally did put an arm around her. Exhaling a long breath, he patted her shoulder. “Alright, alright, it’s over now.” Then he added, “Still, let’s keep it quiet, okay?”

4.

It began on the way home Wednesday night, when Issac said over his shoulder, coasting as he turned, “Let’s go to the café.” He’d been, under Pater’s orders, escorting her to and from the Deinum’s, arriving a half hour early every night, also according to Pater’s orders. It was a calculated risk, but with the German army weakening there had been few round–ups. Mrs. Deinum did not protest that Leen was leaving early, an oddity, considering her exact accounting when she figured Leen’s pay. Mr. Deinum was happy to see Issac, patting him heartily on the shoulder several times, even pulling him aside to chat, his arms crossed over his chest and rocking back and forth on his heels, a broad smile on his face. 

Leen was also glad for Issac’s company even if his conversation lacked. He always pedaled faster when they passed the camp. They’d passed it without incident, Leen trying not to look at the dark stain on the road. She wished they were in the truck, but Issac only drove it by himself or with Pater. Leen tried offering to drive it herself, but he flatly refused, and neither Mem nor Pater directed him differently.

Issac’s request to go to the café surprised Leen. “Pater said we were to go straight home.”

“It’s early still.”

Leen knew she could blame Issac if they got in trouble for this, but she also knew that Mem and Pater would ask her why she didn’t bike straight home on her own. They were already past the camp. But Issac had invited her, and that hadn’t happened in a long time.

Then he said, almost smiling, “If we go home now, you’ll just have to help Mem cook.”

“Let’s go,” Leen said, making the turn on Snikke Straat toward the café. 

Inside, it was as dark as church, with lamps over the bar’s head and small lanterns at each table, turned low to conserve fuel. But unlike church, a thick haze of smoke in the café blanketed loud voices, ringing laughter, and beer mugs slamming sharply on tables. Being there always tricked Leen into feeling like she belonged. Old men who no longer worked and were not tolerated by their wives at home went there to smoke pipes and to play
blokjes
, the black and white tiles spread out neatly in front of them, their hands moving as fast and as easily as the conversation. It had been this way as long as Leen had been allowed to enter, and she could not remember a time when she wasn’t. The only thing that changed the atmosphere was when soldiers came through the double doors.

Leen followed Issac inside, where he immediately spotted his friend Jakob Hoffman and gave him a wave. Jakob was from Haarlem, just outside Amsterdam, sent in secret to live with the Medema’s, “cousins” who could feed and house him while the hunger grew worse in the cities. Issac handed her a dime. “Buy yourself a
melk
,” he said. “I’m going to sit by Jakob.”

Which meant she couldn’t sit with them. “Why did you ask me to come then,” she snapped, but Issac was already turning away from her, her voice drowned out in the tinkling of beer glasses and deep voices. She pinched the dime between her fingers as she watched Issac make his way through the tables. She must have looked like she was staring, because Jakob waved back at her. He was thin and shorter than Issac, and his hair was dark, nearly black. Hardly anyone in Friesland had hair that dark unless they put hair cream in it, and even then it didn’t look that dark.

Flushing, Leen rushed to the bar and sat down as quickly as she could. She pushed her skirt between her legs and ordered the chocolate milk. The dime was sweaty when she handed it to Arnold, the bartender. This crowded, it was more apparent she was alone. She drained the milk in three gulps.

Klaus Iedema, a man Leen didn’t know much about except that he married his cousin fifteen years his junior, leaned over the empty stool in between them and poked her shoulder. Now that he was a member of the L.O., the
Landelijke Organisatie
, the Frisian organized resistance too proud to be included with the identical efforts of the Dutch, no one said anything more about his cousin–wife, who looked to Leen about the same as other wives in town: tired, red–faced, a little unkempt, and big in the legs after the first baby came.

Mr. Iedema leaned over the bar and said to Arnold, “If Miss De Graaf would like another, I would be happy to pay for it.” Arnold raised an eyebrow and looked at Leen. Bewildered, she blushed again. What was this?  

“You want another one?” Arnold asked. Two chocolate milks in one day. She glanced over her shoulder and found the sandy back of Issac’s head, and looked back before Jakob saw her looking again. “
Dunke
,” she said, nodding.

Mr. Iedema leaned over the stool again, and Leen could see that he had long, spindly white hairs in his eyebrows. He whispered, “I hear you got into a bit of trouble over the weekend.” He poked her shoulder again. “You are a brave girl!”

Leen was taken aback. Brave? All she remembered was terror, and Mem had said she was stupid. She whispered, “I didn’t feel so brave at the time.”

Mr. Iedema threw his head back. Sprouts of hair on his Adam’s apple caught the light as he laughed loudly. “You never do.” Leen grasped the glass with two hands and drank, struggling to keep her chin steady, then took another swallow. 

“Slow down there, it’s not beer!” Mr. Iedema said as he slung his coat over his shoulders. He was still laughing. “I wish I had run over one of those dogs myself.” He left the bar before Leen could fully digest what he said. He was gone before she could ask him, how did he know? Beyond that, how much did he know?

Leen wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and put the half–full glass down. There was no way, not by how close he stood and by the knowing look on his face, that Arnold hadn’t heard what Mr. Iedema said.

Arnold poured a beer for himself. Leen had always liked him; he was easy–going and relaxed, and talked with her just enough to make her feel welcome without pitying her for being alone. By the time Leen let herself look at him, Arnold had drunk half. He clucked his tongue at Leen, winking at her before moving on to serve the other patrons.
Skiet
, she thought. The voices carried on around her, but they seemed softer, as if everyone knew a secret had just been passed. 

Yet even as Leen asked herself,
who else had heard
? she found herself smiling into her cup.

She finished the second milk.

She felt a nudge in her shoulder. “We’re going,” Issac said. Leen didn’t look to see if Jakob was with him, but then she felt another nudge and when she looked, Jakob was smiling at her.

“Okay, big brother,” Leen said, grinning at Jakob to prove to him she felt nothing about him at all, and to show Issac that there was absolutely nothing he needed to be suspicious about.

Issac rolled his eyes at her. “I meant me and Jakob ‘we’, not you too,” he said.

“I don’t know if Mem will be so happy with me walking in by myself,” Leen shot back.

“
Heide de boek
,” Issac groaned, but they both knew Leen had him.

Jakob walked outside with them and the three of them retrieved their bicycles. “So you were the one who killed that dog,” he said. “Wow, Leen, you could’ve, well…” He drew a finger across his throat.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” Leen sputtered, squeezing the handbrakes.

“My sister doesn’t think too much,” Issac said. He looked directly at Leen.

“Mr. Ied–” Leen finished the thought in her head.
It didn’t matter what almost happened. Mr. Iedema thought differently. 

“I’ll see you,” Issac said to Jakob as he pedaled off. 

“Wait!” Leen blurted. “How did you know?” But the wind blew her words away. Issac pushed off and Leen struggled to catch up with him.

“Pater told you to keep it quiet,” Issac said, seething, as they pulled into the barn. “It’s getting out. My sister, the dog killer. It was all Jakob could talk about.”

Hearing this, something inside her flipped over. “I didn’t say a word,” Leen said. “Maybe you let it slip. You’re the one that had to see him so badly.”

“Sure, Leentje, sure. He found out from whoever you told. I bet you told Mrs. Deinum.”

Mrs. Deinum was famous for gossiping. She and her husband were bakers, after all, and people from all the coastal villages came to Dokkum for the limited sweet things they still had available on their sparse but neat shelves,
oranjekoek
and cakes with candied almonds and cinnamon breads. When people stopped in, people got to talking. But Leen knew, of all people, not to mention anything to either Mr. or Mrs. Deinum. She had done just as Pater said, kept it quiet. Accepting the milk from Mr. Iedema, well that wouldn’t please him, but that was another thing she’d keep to herself.

“I didn’t tell anyone,
kloet
,” Leen said angrily. “And I do too think.”

Issac rolled his eyes. “Well congratulations,” he said, yanking off his cap. “You can bet that people are going to talk now.”

Leen expected her brother to bring it up at the dinner table, for Pater to spring a question while they ate fried chunks of chicken and gritty potatoes. She was full from all the milk, and fumbled with her knife, dropping it twice on the table as she waited for it: “
Who did you tell
?” Issac glared at her throughout the meal, but he was always sullen and wordless during dinner, so his conduct didn’t alert Mem or Pater that something was wrong.

Pater didn’t say anything after dinner either, not until Leen was just about to climb the stairs to go to bed. “Stay here for a minute, please,” he said, his voice floating from the living room. Mem was there too, sitting with the basket of mending at her feet, untouched. 

“Come sit by me,” Pater said, patting a space next to him on the davenport. He had a pouch of tobacco on his lap and a stack of rolling papers at his side, and the area on the ceiling above him had a yellow tinge that matched the very tip of his nose.

“How has it been, riding to Dokkum?  Has anything happened that you want to tell me?”

Her cheeks prickled. This was the moment to be truthful, when the most trouble could be avoided, but Pater wasn’t asking her about the café. He was asking her about going past the camp. So she answered truthfully. “Nothing happened. I’m glad Issac is there.”