River in the Sea (37 page)

But Issac was gone. And Pater was home.

She didn’t say any of this to her father. Instead she asked something she had wondered about for a long time. “What did you and Issac do with the engine?”

Pater pointed towards the back of the barn, in the shadows where he stored tools and where the horses had once been kept. He sniffed deeply and the sound was sharp and gruff. “Outside, in the dugout.”

Leen nearly laughed then. What if Minne had agreed to her help? That was what they would’ve found, a block of metal hidden underground. In the end her help would have been worthless.

Pater sighed. Leen felt it too, the little bit of rest after the storm of weeping was over. There’d be more, she knew, but maybe for the afternoon they would allow each other a reprieve.

Leen stared at the outline of the truck. It had been a long time since she had driven it, and looking at its familiar shape, she remembered those times when she was alone, smoking and humming, enjoying the freedom, before it had all happened the way it did. She wanted to drive that way again, someday. But not that truck.

Leen asked, her father still holding her hand, “Are there Frisians in Germany?”

“Maybe,” Pater said. “Probably. Friesland was once quite big. There were Frisians before there ever was the Netherlands. Maybe before there was Germany.” 

He looked at her as if he knew what she was thinking. He took the cigarette out of his pocket. He lit it just the way Issac had, with the flick of the thumb. He’d probably taught Issac first before the technique was passed to her. 

He acknowledged none of this. Instead he said, “You should’ve been taught that in school.” He stood, his knees grinding. He dragged on the cigarette, then passed the cigarette to her. 

He said, “Come, let’s clean up.”

25.

Every day began the same way: footsteps creaking slowly above Leen and Renske’s heads as they ate breakfast, the groans and pops in the joints of the upstairs creaking in time with Pater’s knees and hips as he slowly led Mem down the stairs. He said it was to make up for so many lost days, that a husband and wife ought to start the day together, but Leen knew his accompaniment was for different reasons. In the days and weeks after Issac’s burial, despite Pater’s return, Mem refused to get up. Pater reminded her that she had a house to run and children to watch. But Mem protested that her children were grown. She was of no use anymore. “Renske, she is not grown,” Pater said, but Mem replied that Tine was more her mother than she was, had been for a long time.

And so, after that first argument, Pater pulled Mem out of bed and he all but forced her down the stairs. Leen had watched, as did Renske and Tine, who hadn’t yet left the house, as he took her slack frame step by step, her feet dragging in a scuffling protest. He admonished her to move, his tone belying the anger despite his gentle words, “Come now, Aafke, let’s just get downstairs. To the kitchen. For some breakfast and a good strong cup of coffee.” By the time Mem reached the bottom of the stairs her head rested on Pater’s shoulder. She begged him to let her go back to bed. 

“You okay, Renske?” Leen whispered to her.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m not a little girl.” She was seven. But Leen reminded herself, her younger sister had seen a lot.

And then Renske turned eight. And nine. Ten. Still, every day, it was the same. Mem no longer protested, she didn’t scream as she had one day, only weeks after May 8, that she didn’t want to set foot downstairs again, nor did she shut her eyes mid–conversation as if she had suddenly left her body. But each morning Mem waited for Pater until he took her arm and there was not a day that Pater did not offer it.

Even now, moss collecting on her brothers’ gravestones in autumn, drying to a cracked brown layer in summer, Leen burned with impatience at this new tradition. She thought of Pater’s habit like starting an old car. Sometimes, you just wished it would start on the first try; sometimes you just wanted to bang your fist on the wheel. Once in the kitchen, Mem moved around their home slowly, and the house was never quite like it used to be, especially with Tine’s attentive hands gone. She was ready to give birth in a few months’ time. No one asked her after names. Wopke if it was a girl, Woppie for short; Issac if it was a boy. Her husband, Hilke, their first hired hand, was allowed to name the second child, when that time came. But Tine had spoken firm. Pregnancy had made her bold, her round, hard stomach filling her with confidence as her fingers danced with needles, thread, and fabric in preparation for the baby. Leen liked Tine this way. 

Pater never spoke it aloud, but Leen knew that he thought leaving for America would be good for Mem, for all of them, to start over. Even if Tine and Hilke could not come right away, they’d join them after the baby was old enough to make the journey. Make a new life. 

Leen couldn’t wait.

America rejuvenated Pater, filling him again with the twitchy De Graaf energy. He rose before 5 a.m., jumped out of chairs, and his face was constantly flushed, as if the endless brainstorming sent all the blood to his head. He instructed Leen to scribble notes as he thought of new ideas and tasks and then he stuffed them in his pockets. This is what they would do: travel first to England, then Ireland, and then New York; from there, they would take the long train to Chicago, where their cousins would pick them up and drive them to Racine, Wisconsin. The family of Cornelius Visser, Pater said. His sister’s husband. Leen barely remembered them. They had lived just outside Leeuwarden and had left years before the war began, when there was no exodus for North America, not like now. As their sponsor, Cornelius would help them get jobs, find a nice house to rent, even arrange their train tickets. 

“He says there is plenty work,” Pater said. “Plenty.” He rubbed his hands together as if he was about to dig into a meal.   

“What kind of work?” Leen asked. 

“Factories, farms, everything,” Pater said. He must’ve seen Leen’s face fall. “
Poppie
, you can work in an ice cream
winkel
if that’s what suits you. You can do whatever you like.”

For Pater’s benefit, she smiled. But she knew already she wouldn’t work anywhere like that, nothing with a broom or a wet towel dripping on her hands. She wasn’t even sure she wanted dirt under her nails. Wasn’t the point to start over, do something new? She wanted to see this country
Amerika
, where everyone had such white teeth, where there were forests and mountains and round hills randomly placed on the land, nothing like the uniform, unbroken line of the dike. She wanted to feel wind without salt in it and she wanted to see the landscape change. Whatever job she had, she would be behind a wheel. And when she drove, she would drive fast.

It became a sport to predict what day the immigration papers would come, and the postman never reached their door; he was always greeted at least halfway down the road. Others waited there too. It seemed half of Wierum was laying plans. Most had selected Canada, Ontario or the western coast. Jakob Hoffman was waiting to hear if Toronto would have him. He’d lost nearly his entire family, save for a sister, but she’d been so small when they were sent out of Amsterdam that she hardly remembered him and wished to stay with her “family” in Groningen. 

In the weeks after the funeral Jakob tried several times to talk to her. Leen knew he wanted to apologize for that night, that he’d meant no disrespect to her or Issac, but she did not want to revisit it. She found him guilty of nothing, but at the same time she didn’t want to re–examine what they’d done or the words she’d said, of blame and bones, so she avoided him until finally the matter seemed dropped. And then, much later, he began to wait for her, standing with feigned nonchalance outside the new
winkel
just after she’d gone in, and they’d gone walking together a few times. The first time his hand dangled at his side, hers crossed over her chest. The next time she let a hand rest at her side, and he took it, and to her surprise she didn’t immediately feel a rush of guilt or shame. She pushed her fingers between his. Jakob was familiar and warm and what they had in common beyond Issac was that they were Wierumers but yet neither of them were perfect fits. But when he bent down to kiss her, her face turned to him, he hesitated. He pecked her on the cheek and left.

After that he waited fewer times at the
winkel
. Leen refused to seek him out at the café like other girls would. They didn’t have to talk about the reason. He was Jewish. The war was over and very few had aligned themselves with Hitler’s ideas. But his church was on Saturday, even if he had no “church” to go to, and hers was on Sunday. Leen was hurt but she was also proud. She hoped Jakob would make it to Canada. She meant him well. 

But that was not the country the De Graafs whispered about. Once again, Leen and the De Graafs stood out for their choice.

At the end of the seventh week of waiting Leen sensed something was coming. She felt it on the way home from a farm in Bolingavier, where she’d spent the day picking the first batch of new potatoes. 

“Did it come?” she asked, bursting through the door.

Pater was at the kitchen
tafel
, smoking as always. The letter lay unfolded neatly in front of him, the envelope crumpled in a ball. 

She sat down. “So they said no.” She helped herself to one of the three cigarettes Pater had already rolled for himself. She lit it quickly, expecting to cry, but the tears didn’t come. This disappointment felt different. It dried the tears before they came, enervating her with the sensation of her stomach not sinking but dropping precipitously. “Shit,” she said. “
Ver domme
.”

“Don’t swear,” Mem said.

“
Ja
, well,” Pater said, nodded. “I feel that way too.” 

Leen flicked the envelope right off the table. It hit the wall and skidded across the floor, right near Mem’s foot. Pater shook his head as he picked up the letter. He scanned it again. The creases were worn already. 

“Too many people are leaving,” Pater said. “I don’t think they realized how many would want to go.” He put his hand on the back of his neck, picking at something as he studied the letter again. “I suppose they have to, otherwise we’d be emptied out. Still, it makes no sense for them to turn down the application for the family but allow only one.”

“What?” Leen asked. Her stomach rose, a centimeter.

Pater continued. “What did they think, I would go, and leave the rest of you here?” He pushed the letter away from him. “
Ver skrikelik
. Who is in the office now, a bunch of Germans?” That had become the new joke when something didn’t work or someone did something stupid: it must be, somehow, German.

“Well,” Mem suddenly said, “what’s done is done. Let’s make some supper.”

Leen nearly groaned out loud. Was this Mem’s answer to everything? No use talking, it was time to eat. Didn’t she tire of it? Every night she put hot food on the table. Every night. Every night, on this table, for the rest of her life.

Leen stood up. “I will go. I want to go.”

“That is
gek
,” Mem said. Her voice was loud. She picked up a single crumb from the tablecloth and dropped it to the floor. “You can’t go on your own.” 

“I’m eighteen,” Leen said. 

“Eighteen or not, a young woman should not go such a long way on her own,” Mem said, her voice still loud. “If we are going to make such a big change, well, it’s just not what’s done. Let’s get the glasses and silverware on the table.” 

Leen started to gather forks and handed them to Mem and then sat down. Mem’s reaction was like a splinter, digging in. Renske could finish setting the table, wherever she was hiding. 

“I’m going,” she said. It was so easy to say it. It made sense. It felt true. “I will go on my own.”

“No, you are not,” Pater said quietly. His voice was firm, the voice of a father who would tolerate no more talking back. “There is no way I’m sending you alone. Forget it, Leentje, and don’t ask again.”

This is what drew the tears from her. Pater blew out a cloud of smoke that blocked his face. But his words came through the smoke. Softly, sounding as if he was talking to himself, he said,  “
Ja
, that’s the best way, to go as a family.”

Pater was still at the table when Leen stumbled into the kitchen. Most days in this season he was gone by six a.m., sometimes earlier. But he no longer pushed through the night, even when the weather suggested he ought to. He let Hilke and Leen do that. Her cheeks stung as she stirred
sûker
into her coffee. The fall winds had chapped her skin. Her shirts were tighter across the shoulders than they were in the beginning of the year, the fabric pulling where her muscles had grown. She could drive a tractor and work through the night but still, fathers did not send their daughters to
Amerika
. 

“Good morning,” Pater said. “Where are off you to today?”