The Journey Back (3 page)

“Johan, you should’re trusted us enough to tell us. It wasn’t nice, tricking us the. avay you did.”

“He was not afraid; he just said so. That’s bravery for you. The danger that man put himself in.”

“It was dangerous for Mother and me, too,” Dientje told them.

“That Johan,” they shouted, pounding him on the back. “We’ve got ourselves a hero in Usselo, fellows. A real one, our Johan Oosterveld.”

The first time they said it he looked ball ted But he liked it; he was laughing now. “Who would’ve thought it? All my life I’ve done nothing but dumb work, and here they call me a hero.”

They all laughed together, Johan the loudest.

l5 U$SELO

We had to leave. That’s what Rachel said when she arrived. Father said the same thing, a few days later, when he stopped in to thank the Oostervelds.

“Come, Sini, Annie, I want to take you home with me.”

Home? Home was here. “One more week, Father.” He, too, went back to Winterswijk with Ollt us.

“It’s the craziest thing,” Johan told the farmers that night. “Those girls don’t want to go back,” he said happily.

The day came, the hour, the minute.

“I’m sure going to miss them.” Opoe was blinking her eyes. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself now. The house is going to be so empty.”

“I know, woman. I know.” Johan’s voice shook, too.

For the last time we walked mound the house. In the good room, on the big chest along the wall, were the family portraits. One of Opoe in her Sunday apron-the black one with the dark gray flowers. Johan’s and Dientje’s wedding picture-Johan grinning, in striped pants and a special jacket; Dientje holding a tiny bouquet of lilies of the valley. And now that people knew we had been hidden there, a photograph of Sini and me.

“Our children,” Johan said proudly. “Don’t we look good there? The five of us?”

Sini and I nodded. Yes. We hugged again and again. Until the young man who was going to give us a ride became impatient: “Let’s go.”

Down the road we went. It was daylight now, not nighttime as it had been when we came, almost three years earlier. A tiny village, Usselo, just as Johan had said. Even tinier now. The bakery and parsonage had been destroyed by bombs, just before the end. We went past the school Johan had gone to. It was filled with Canadian soldiers, as many schools in Holland were. The store; the call the fields, where an occasional plow was already waiting. That was all. I turned around to catch a last glimpse of everything before we rattled across a hole and went around the bend.

Maybe this afternoon I’d go with Father to call on one of his customers.

“I’ve brought my youngest daughter along,” he’d say, “just as I used to.” I’d watch Father and the farmer clasp hands again. I bounced on the seat.

“One hundred and eighty guilders.”

“No, de Leeuw, I won’t part with her for less than three hundred.”

It could be-I sat up a little Straighter-that

Bobbie, my dog, would come along. Maybe Father had already gone to get him and had brought him back. Was Bobbie standing by the house now, waiting, wagging his tail, ready to run over to me, bark, jump up? Was that Winterswijk in the distance? Already? Nervously I licked my lips.

It was such a big town, hundreds of times bigger than Usselo-at least.

And it had so many people, thousands and thousands, and so many children, girls my own age-just thirteen. Stealthily I pulled my skirt down as far over my legs as I could. I moved a little closer to Sini until I was sitting right next to her. She put her ann around my shoulders. What would it be like?

SUMMER

Suddenly the car stopped. No matter how h the man tried, it would not start again. Desperat he put his foot on the gas pedal. Nothing happen He pulled out the choke and moved his foot up: down again. Nothing. For a second he sat still.. seemed to be thinking. Then he turned around his seat. “I was afraid of that,” he said somber

“The carburetor-it’s finally died.”

As he was looking up and down the road for army truck to tow him home, Sini and I began walk, tightly holding hands. It was mild, w almost, yet it was only May. The early momi sun was trying to push its way through a clot For a second it did, shining on the road, on I broken tank lying on its side, a bird curiously 1oc ing in, and it lit up the white stone marker that s: Winterswijk .6 kilometers.

Anxiously Sini looked at my legs. “Is it too f for you, do you think?”

Of course not. I smiled to show her she need

Woity.

A great many people were on the road. Most, them were walking, carrying bundles the way we were. Others were resting, sitting on tree stumps, talking. A young woman was rubbing her feet; they were red, swollen.

“How are things where you came from?” one of the men called out to us.

“That’s where I’m going, north, over a hundred kilometers from here.

I’ll get there, too, even if it takes me a week. I want to see whether my old mother is still alive.” Without waiting for an answer, he jumped’ to his feet and ran toward a delivery cart that was gradually coming out from a side road. “Hey, hey, stop,” he yelled to the boy who was pedaling it. “Where are you going?” Laughing, the man got in.

“This is my lucky day.” The bicycle’s wheels, which had no tires, made clicking sounds on the asphalt as the boy pushed on, north.

Close to me, Sini was talking about this afternoon. “I’m going to look up my friends, Annie; find out how they are, what they’re doing. Maybe we’ll all get together.” She squeezed my hand. “I bet it won’t be long before I’m back into things. None too soon, either. Come on, Annie.”

Yes. I stretched my legs as far as I could. I was in a hurry, too.

Let’s see, where could I go? Not to Willy Bos’s, of course. Her father must be in jail. Sure, he’d been a traitor, like Willcm. But there was Frits Droppers. He even lived close by. l wouldn’t be able to climb trees with him for a while, but there were other things we could do-sit in the grass, whittle sticks, have fun. Yes, yes, yes. After I got back from visiting a farmer with Father. Father came first.

And then there was Rachel. I shouldn’t forget about her. She was such a good artist. Maybe she’d show me again how to draw and paint. She even knew how to make things out of wood! I was going to be so busy, I almost felt like holding my head.

We were very close to Winterswijk now. Just ahead, around the bend, would be the first row of houses, brick ones smack up against each other. They even shared a roof. But when we got there, the roof was gone. One long hole stretched out over the entire row. There were more holes, too, where the windowpanes used to be. A dog stepped out of one of those while his owner was locking the door.

We were lucky. Our house was still in one piece. Johan had seen it for himself when he had gone to Winterswijk, to make sure the roads were safe for us. The run with the dog was brushing a piece of charred wood.

It looked like a table. With a broom made out of twigs, he swept off some of the black.

Behind him, on a clothesline, a pair of patched overalls billowed in the wind. It was Monday, laundry day, and a little breezy, just right for drying.

Rapidly Sini and I went on, past other people, past more rubble and holes, past the movie theater and the beauty parlor. All the fronts of the buildings were boarded up, just the way the furniture store, the shoe store, and most of the other stores around the marketplace were.

“Opening again when merchandise arrives” was written on the boards. Only a grocery store seemed to be open. In front of it many people were standing in line, empty bags hanging on their arms. Their voices were excited.

“Aren’t the Allies wonderful to have dropped food again? … Six planefuls of it. They say there’s plenty more on the way.”

“As soon as I heard, I ran over. I didn’t even bother to comb my hair.”

“I just hope k gets here fast,” a fourth woman added, tightening the’ sash around her skirt so that, it wouldn’t fall off. “Because if it doesn’t, we won’t be able to cook the food we bring home. It’ll be time for the gas to be cut off.”

“Of course, it’s nice that the Allies drop food, but why part of it in the water? In the harbor of Rotterdam it fell, instead of on the soccer field where everyone was waiting. It’ll be soaked. Why didn’t they give the job to someone who kne,0 what he was doing?”

“The police will get it for us,” someone else sai soothingly. “They’ve been swimming around f days, trying to rescue the stuff.”

Suddenly Sini let go of my hand. “Gerrit, ho are you?” And to me, “Wait here. You should taka rest anyway. I want to talk to my friends.” Sh ran across the marketplace. “Gettit, Gerrit, sto for a second! It’s me!”

The people in the line turned their heads’ an stared at Sini. So did the man she called Gerrit. Sir was talking to him now. His mouth opened, st aye that way. “Don’t you remember me?” Her voic was shrill.

He shook his head. No.

I looked at the ground. Had we changed this much?

Bong, bong-What was that? I looked aroun Bong-Nervously I laughed.

The church cloc[ of course. Beng-It struck nine more times. W were going to be late. Where was Sini? I looked turned all around, looked again. Sini?

There she was, standing by a building with group of soldiers. The notice penciled on a card board window read

“English lessons here. Ju opened.” Some students came out.

“I is a girl,” one of them said.

“No,” her friend corrected her. “You am a girl.” They winked at the soldiers. “In soon days wait you here, we speak.”

I put the bundle down. Silly, to have been so frightened. It had been nicer before though, on the road, when there were just the two of us.

I leaned against the wall of the church. I could hear Sini talking and laughing as if she had all day! I was going home by myself. I knew the way. I did not need her. “Sini.”

She did not hear me. I took a few steps. Whispering, coming from the back of the line. Heads turned.

“Poor thing. Look at her. What this war hasn’t done to us!”

“How can she even walk on them. So spindly.”

“And crooked.”

My legs wouldn’t stay this way. I should tell them. I was going to go to a masseur, Sini said, do special exercises. They’d get straight again”

just the way they used to be.

With my eyes fastened on Sini’s back I waited. Near me were farmers with pails of flowers for sale. “Beautiful daffodils, jonquils. Look

Sere …” Sini surted to turn around. I smiled, raised my hand a lie.

Come. She did. As I. stuck out my hand and took a few more steps, I saw a notice on the caf wall. “Nightly Dances,” it read. “The Canadian soldiers cordially invite you.”

Quickly now, through the Misterstraat, past streetlights without glass, past a store owner who was tearing down a shed, so he’d have boards to put across his empty window frames, too, and his neighbor who begged him for a plank, just one, for the window of his store.

One more street, the short one with the cobblestones. There, we were already on it, passing one little house after another. They were not damaged, not even the windows. Ahead of us was the railroad crossing, and there was the road-ours.

It was a straight road and long, with poplars on either side, poplars so tall that you had to bend your head way back to see the beginning of the leaves. Beyond the trees were ditches, then meadows and farms-small ones. Only one house wasn’t a farmhouse-ours.

We couldn’t see it, not yet. Soon, though, part of it would be visible-the chimney, painted white like the rest of the house. In the meadow to our left a cow was grazing around molehills that stuck up like fray black dunes. There was a piglet, too, all pink, and some sheep. A woman was tugging at the barbed wire on which fluffs of wool had caught.

She must have heard us. She raised her head. We stopped.

“Hello, rouw Droppers. How have you been?” we said, and went a little closer. Maybe I could ask her about Frits. We were about to cross the plank. We didn’t. She was staring in such a funny way and shaking her fist at us.

“Why did you have to come back?” she yelled. “You should’ve been killed.

It’s all because of you …”

What did she mean? Fast, away from her, whatever she had meant. Part of our house was in view now, the chimney and one whole side. I held tightly to Sini’s hand as we hurried on.

“Girls”

Was that her? Coming after us?

“You didn’t even see me you’re in such a hurry. It’s me, Maria!”

Sheepishly we laughed. Sure, we remembered Maria, the woman who always had a goat with her.

“It’s nice to see one Jewish child back,” she said to me. “Ja, ja, it’s been a bad time for a 1o, t of people. Take your neighbors, the Droppers. They lost their oldest son. You remember ‘m-Hans. He tried to save a Jew’s life by pulling him off a train before it left for Poland.

A stranger yet. The Get-mam saw what he was doing and shot him right at the station.” She paused. “The Droppers may not be very friendly,” she warned. “They hate all Jews now. Well-” Maria changed the subject. “You girls mus wonder where’s the goat. Ja, she’s gone. I go faster without her.

“rem me, I have o h. I never hded m rao oers d. I’s old, he me, bu we this work.” She ed. “I he’d we’ have no ouble geg ood nex well. The freight e ready be haed home d w be ng aghn by r for se.” She sed to leave. “People e cog on me. ey even op me h the seet to

“M what’s g( on?” No new spa at’s why, I .” Bry she walked towed to.

We were front of the ho, on e pat I to e back dr.

“Faer d Rachel wl take cme of you now, nnie.”

at? Shi didn’t want to y more? at &d she me? But ere w no e to k. e droned d out Faer md Rachel. We hued, we d, we cried. We were back ag —at 1. 2.

Still holding on to one another, we walked inside, t! king, iring about things but not waiting for answers. “How are you?”

“Fine.”

“And you?”

“F;me.” And out of the kitchen. Sini and I had to see the rest of the house. “Come,” we said, laughing shyly and pulling each other along.

There was very little furniture, though, and the floors were bare. I tried to tiptoe. Still, the living room looked beautiful. There, as if they had never been away, were the old sofa and the chest with the tea cozy perched on top, a little bit of the teapot showing. And in the middle of the room, where they always used to stand, were the chairs with the plush seats that scratched your legs.