The Journey Back (11 page)

Gingerly she touched a few of the things on the table, the cloth, a vase. “I’ve got to try everything, Annie, so I can tell the others in Ussdo about it. I bet they’ve never been to a place like this.” With the utmost care her finger moved on to something else. “I think you’re impressed, Dientje,” Mother said when she passed by. She laughed. “You should be. Everything was expensive enough.” Dientje did not hear her.

“We’ve got more important things to do, Annie,” Johan said. “You and me, xight? re’re going to sit someplace. Come, these chairs look like nice soft ones. Ah-” He bent down and looked at his legs. “No wonder Magda didn’t like the suit. I’ve still got the bicycle clip on. There, that’s better.”

“Yes, Johan.” Much. He was not even wearing his thick black socks and klompen today. “Ja, I’m fancy,” Johan said, looking at his shoes, too.

“You never saw them on me, I guess, because Dientje and I didn’t go anywhere when you lived with us. They’ve gotten smaller, I think.” He loosened his shoelaces. “There,” he sighed, leaning back. “Now tell me what you’ll be learning in school.” I didn’t yet know exactly, but I said, “Languages, math, physics.”

“Physics?” Johan repeated. “What are those?” I didn’t yet know that either, but it had something to do with formulr. “Formulas?” Delighted, Johan slapped his leg. “That’s what I give the calves. Don’t tell me I’ve been doing physics all my life, and no one ever even taught me. I’m not surprised though. I was good in school, Annie, especially at subtracting. “Dees Johan Oosterveld know the answer?” the teacher always asked. I’m not kidding. Every time something difficult came up. While the other kids were still figuring things out on paper, I alregdy knew it. I loved school, Annie. Couldn’t wait to put my good pants on in the morning and run down the road. Well, here we are.” He sighed. He looked over at Dientje. She was still standing by the. table. “I think I can say what I want to say without her, Annie.” Quickly he began. “We want you to be happy, Ma, Dientje, and me. Don’t forget. But if tbio don’t work out i3i FALL AND WINTER

-they will, don’t worry-but if they don’t, you come to us. Because that’s what our house is. Home for you. Always. You hear?”

“I know, Johan.” Beautiful, this room. The pinks and browns and greens, the flowers-everything. And Johan and Dientje were here. Near us Father and his friends were discussing leather goods and woolens. Business was getting better, but slowly apparently. “That Max, he was shrewd, beginning again in scrap metal. You know how much of that’s around.”

“No wonder he had to leave; he doesn’t have the time.”

“Before we know it, Ies, he’ll be shipping old iron to America and bringing back brand-new cars.”

“I wish that man could ship me a tractor, Annie.

Wouldn’t that be something? What I could do with one of those!” Johan said. “Annie.” From the back of the room came Mother’s voice. I got up.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can, Johan,” I promised. Absentmindedly he nodded. I took a ew seps, then looked back. Johan was beaming.

Maybe he was imagining himself already sitting on a tractor. He saw me, and waved. “Don’t take long, Annie. Eh?”

I shook my head. “Don’t worry, Johan.” Did Mother know I was there?

She kept on talking. “It wasn’t easy to get Nel into that school, let me tell you. They don’t take just anyone. Difficult courses they give.

Household management is one of them …” Bettie nodded enviously. “I hope she learns to run a household better than I do, Magda.”

“Embroidery, intermediate French, plus fancy cooking as soon as the ingredients are available. Right, Nel?” Now Mother knew I was there.

“I’ll be needing you soon, Annie. Nel, tell Bettie about your roommate …” I hurried back. to Johan. His face had changed, I saw. He wasn’t beaming any more. He must be thinking about the money a tractor would cost. “C’mon, Annie,” he said, looking up. He patted the empty chair next to’ him. “I was wondering where you were.” Father’s group had gone on to talk of something else, I heard-silks. “In a way I hate to be here today,” Johan said, after I had sat down. “But I’m glad to have a chance to see you again. That’s what really matters to me, Annie. Who knows when it’ll happen again? Eighty kilometers a day on the bike is a lot in the kind of weather we’ll be getting. And the bus sta

I FALL AND WINTER

tion in Enschede doesn’t know a thing yet. I h: Sini ask. We live in the wrong part of Honan they said. If it was Amsterdam, it wouldn’t be problem; there’d be a bus.” Frustrated he looked me. “I can’t win.”

Silently we watched Dientje move away fro the table. She saw us and came over. Smiling apol, geticatly, she sat down. “It was getting about time, woman,” Johan sai, “Hanging around all that stuff. She won’t like wh: we’ve got at home any more, Annie.” He lang he

“She’ll want to buy things, too, eh?” Dientje winked at me. “Annie.”

Mother beckoned. “Come.”

“What are you jumping up for now,” Job complained.

“We just got settled.” Yes, yes, I know. But Mother needed me. “Don’t take so long this time,” Johan said.

It was though-taking long. Every time I pasr Johan and Dientje, they asked, “Aren’t you dot yet?” No. So many things had to be taken care of.

Sal eggs, mustard, napkins, and plates, of course. It w: nice, passing things around. Everyone looke happy when they saw me. “Thank you, Annie, they said. “You’re wonderful.”

Of course I wasn’t, but it made me smile anyway, hearing that. It would have been even nicer if Mother had said so. But it was too soon for that, I knew. I had to have more patience. And on I went, carrying the tray the right wayout and a little up—exactly as Mother had shown me.

“Thank you, Annie,” people said, “thank you.” What did Johan want now?

I shook my head. No, I was still not through. “Come here a minute anyway, Annie. Isn’t Nel going to help you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Annie looks awfully tired, Johan. She can’t do it all by herself.”

“I know, woman. Why d’you think I asked?” Well? Was that all?

Impatiently I walked away. I wished Johan had not said what he had about Nel though.

I glanced over at her. Talking with Mother … still. I went to the table for another set of plates, with flowers, too, around the borders.

And on to the next person, tray just fight. “Have some, Mrs. van Gelder?” But it was not the same now. Johan had spoiled it.

“Johan.” I touched him on the shoulder.

He looked up. “Are you through?” Firmly I nodded. Yes. “Well then.”

He laughed. “We can talk about lot of things. Eh? Here I’ve been so busy sittin I’ve forgotten to give you Opoe’s regards. She fine. She’s wondering when she can see you. should hear her, Annie, when Sini comes.

“Tha could be our Sini,” and laughing! She would haw come today just to see you if there’d been a bus And you know Opoe; she doesn’t leave the hous easily. Last wedding she was at was ours, Dientje.”

“Ah, that was not the same.”

“It was raining then, too, woman, worse that this. But it didn’t matter, Dientje, did it? The housl looked beautiful, even from the outside.

Remembel the greens over the kitchen door?” Grimacing little, he swallowed the rest of the egg he wa eating.

“Bah,” he said, “sardines and eggs don’t together.” Quickly he went on.

“Remember the cow your mother gave us, Dientje? Ha, ha, I got it out of her, didn’t I? That cow was a beauty, Annie. You should have seen her coming down the road with the neighbors. A st fine of flowers around the horns, a mirror in between them, and they were all singing. You could hear it all over Ussdo. “Fui-fui,” Opoe kept saying when we got to the house, ‘just for a wedding. No, that I can’t see.” Those crazy neighbors stopped off first at the baker’s, and before he knew what he had on his hands, she had helped herself to a loaf of whole wheat.

“That’s the cow for Joban,” everyone hollered. “She’s got pie my of spunk.””

“Not so loud, Joban.” Anxiously Dient’le poked him in the side. “Leave me alone. I didn’t ride this far to whisper. They put us on a chair, woman, remember?”

“Paper flowers around the back of it, Johan-”

“And they lifted us. High and low, and high and low, we went.”

“I had to pull my skirt down, hold it to the chair; it was that wild.”

Dient}e giggled. Me,“too. Just as I had the first time, I heard Joban tell the story. “And while we were doing the waltz to the accordion and singing, “Had I but never wed, would not have any regret,”-but it was already too late-everyone was twirling paper ribbons around us. After a while, I had trouble moving the feet.”

“I was scared, Johan, I had ‘em twirled around the throat-”

“Ah, you always scream for nothing. And the food we had! Remember, Dientie? Plenty of beer and a juicy piece of pork?”

“And beef, Johan:”

“You’re damned tight. Two kinds of meat, potao toes, green beans, and a dish of chocolate pudding at the end.” Dientje defended Mother. “But Magda couldn’t do that. Don’t forget, Johan, you still can’t get everything.”

“It’s time to come back, Annie,” Mother called. She sounded impatient. I followed Johan’s eyes to the table, to the platter with cookies, the coffee cups, saucers, sugar, milk, spoons. Slowly I got up and looked for the tray. With both hands I carried it away; but only a little up.

The guests had left, all of them, Johan and Dientje last. They had stood in the doorway for a long time, silent, their collars up. The bicycle path would be muddy, and slippery with leaves that had been coming down for days. The leaves would wind themselves around the tires-splash-get stuck, fall off … Slowly the rear lights of their bicycles were moving away. Opoe would still be up when they got home.

She’d rush to the door, ask. I hadn’t had a good time at the party, either. I had not liked seeing them sit there, arms folded, waiting. I sighed. Things would be easier tomorrow. No Nel. No Johan and Dientje.

Two dots, the bicycle lights, tiny ones. Barely specks now. Then darkness.

All over town, doors were opening, letting in the morning air, which was fresh and a little chilly. They closed again, behind people going to work and to shop, and behind hundreds of children, going to school.

Rapidly I walked down the road. They’d be waiting, the kids, wouldn’t they? Had they forgotten? It had been a while since I had seen Jannie.

I should have asked her exactly wherei smiled. There she was, in front of her house, with another girl—Selma-but she did not look as nice.

“Hi,” I said to both of them. Well, aren’t we going to leave? What if we’re late? “Jannie?”

“Not yet,” she said laughing. We had to wait for the others. I blushed.

I had forgotten all about them. Worriect, I looked at the other homes.

C’mon, c’mon, we don’t have all day.

There, three doors had opened, and out they came, kids with clean, pressed clothes. The boy Kees’s hair was so neat that the comb marks still showed. “Now,” Janhie said, and off we went.

And talking! They couldn’t stop. “Hope the teachers are nice.”

“Hope they don’t make us work too hard.” For whatever they hoped, Jannie had an answer, a good one. “Can’t wait, can’t wait,” everyone yelled.

Can’t wait? I stopped. Was there something in my shoe? I took it off, held it upside down. No. So many new kids. They wouldn’t stare at me, would they? Say anything, about my legs? And I’d know as much as the others, wouldn’t I, not seem stupid? Sure, Sini had taught me things, especially math-but she had not always understood it herself. And never geography or history or-there must be other things. It had been so long ince I’d gone to school-fourth grade. What if I had forgotten what to do? I’d watch the others. They would know. Where were they? Quickly I slipped my foot back into the shoe and ran after them. “The principal,”

the kids around me whispered. “Come with me,” he said, but nicely. He took me to my classroom. The teachers knew how much school I had missed, he said. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll catch up. Even if you don’t do well for a while, don’t worry.” He mussed my hair. He was sure it would come, he said. “There, sit in the front.” Quickly I nodded. Yes, that would be better. Stealthily I turned around. Too bad Jannie was in another grade, a higher one. But Selma was in my class; she sat right behind me.

So many teachers, and all in one day. I yawned, and slouched just a little bit. That would be all right? For a minute? Wearily I watched another teacher walk to the front of the room. He picked up a piece of chalk, wrote his name on the blackboard, and began to talk. I shot up in my chair. This one was speaking German. “Guten Mirtag.” It’s a teacher speaking, Annie. Look at him. It’s not a soldier in the street, not Hitler on the radio. You don’t have to be afraid. No boots, no uniform.

A suit. “lob bin … dub …” No. Tomorrow I’d listen to this teacher, not today. I would write to Johan and Dientje tonight, a nice letter telling them not to worry. Mother and “2 were getting along so well. We had a talk yesterday, almost the minute she came hack from the, station.

And I had been afraid she wouldn’t even want to see me she had been so upset when she went to see Nel off. Of course she was still sad, just as I had been after Sini left, and Rachel. Maybe she’d like to sit down.

“Here, Mother.” Then I did, too. Close, but just a little. “I feel lost with Nel gone, Annie. We have been together a long time, even in hiding.

It seems unbe

lievable that suddenly she’s not here any more.” Solemnly I nodded.

Yes. But she’d get over it. I’d better not say that though. “What I haven’t gone through! I often think how is it possible for one person to have suffered so much. Here I am in a strange house with people I hardly know. With Nel around, I didn’t mind. But without her …” I stared out the window. Maybe we could do something special today. Not a celebration-Of course not. But something. What? Startled I looked back at Mother. Had that to do with her suffering, too? What she had just said? That I had come to her knowing practically nothing? It must have.

She looked so serious. “I even said to your father, “So many people took care of her and not one of them bothered to teach her anything. The result is that I have a lot of hard work ahead of me.”