The Journey Back (4 page)

“Annie, put on something longer,” Mother used to say, “or don’t sit on those chairs.”

I had anyway, telling her it was fine, but secretly I had put my hands underneath my legs and wondered why Mother loved those chairs so. I was glad they were back, though.

I had not thought about Mother for a long time. I stood there for a minute; then I rushed up the stairs to catch up with the others.

My room was much bigger than the one at’ the Oostervelds, gigantic almost. I bounced on the bed -perfect. Then I went to the window.

Sure, just as I’d thought. Through the treetops I could see the clock on the church tower.

In Rachel’s room there was something new-wooden plaques with Biblical.

sayings painted on them. Funny, we never had those in our house

I SUMMER

before. She must have made them herself. They were pretty, with curlicues and flowers everywhere. “Come, Annie.”

Yes, yes. I stepped out on the balcony, too. The road stretched out ahead of us. There was the Droppers’ farm. Then, a little farther away, Mulder’s, Ten Riet’s and Geerdes’, where the vanes of the w’mdmills were going around and around. I could even see Maria’s cottage at the very end of the road, and behind it, the woods, a long dark shape. Not safe.

Might be mines there … There. I smiled. Old Geerdes and his two sons -one tall and one short-were rushing off to work, their shovels across their shoulders, exactly as they always had.

“They never stop working,” Father used to say. “Maybe that’s why they have no furniture in their house. It would only tempt

“Hurry up, boys,” old Geerdes was shouting. “We don’t want your mother to be the first one digging.”

Back in the kitchen we kept offering each other chairs, but only I sat down. The others were too restless. They were talking, talking, talking-about the rubble on the other side of town, how lucky Father was to have a bicycle with real tires yet, how tall the weeds in the garden were when Rachel first came back.

“And the house”-Rachel’s hands pointed everywhere-“filthy, Sini. Those traitors who lived here while we were gone must never have cleaned. The dirt on the floors and walls was an inch thick. There’s no soap. You can’t imagine how hard I worked.” She showed Sini her nails. “And it doesn’t even look as if I made a dent. Those Judases must have expected to go to jail, too. Everything was gone from the house-dishes, pots.

Not even a spoon was left.

“I borrowed a handcart, visited everyone we had stored our furniture with. “Please,” I said, ‘we’re back.” Those Droppers cried when they saw me, but not from happiness. They threw a few things out on the road, then slammed the door in my face. Some other people returned nothing. I wanted to go to the police, to complain, but Father would not let me.”

“How could we prove it was ours?” he said. “I did not ask for a receipt.”

He was afraid, Rachel said angrily; that was why. “Didn’t want people in town to think badly of US.”

“Don’t or get I have to begin my business all over again. I can’t afford to start with trouble. “Look at that les,” they’ll say, ‘barely back and a big mouth already.” What if they continue to do business with the people they used while I was

gone?” Impatiently, Father walked to the door.

Would he take me with him? Yes, yes, I had been right.

“Let’s go, Annie.”

Quickly I followed him outside and climbed on the back of his bicycle.

Rachel rushed after us. “Button your sweater,” she cautioned. “I don’t want you to catch a cold.”

A cold? In this weather? Okay, if it was that important to her. I let her button it. Now we could leave, right?

“Make sure you stop plenty of times to rest, Father. Yesterday you came home exhausted.”

“Stop bothering about me, Rachel. I have to go.” Father’s voice sounded a little edgy.

Rachel stepped back. Father put his leg over the bar, and off we went.

It was wonderful, even more so than I had thought it would be. We whizzed along the road, leaving the poplars, the cow, the sheep, and the piglet behind us. Vrouw Droppers was gone. It did not matter that Father had no car. I could sit much closer to him this way.

Contentedly, I rubbed my face against the back of his jacket. Even the sky was beautiful, with only a few clouds now, streaky ones, lacy almost, going east and rushing along fast like us. Which farmer would we go to? i had not thought to ask. Maybe to one who lived hours away.

Oops, the cobblestone street. We were slowing down. A-bump, a-bump, we went.

“Hang on, Annie.”

I could not hold Father more tightly than I was. We were really slowing down. Maybe I should get off for a few seconds. “Father?”

He had already stopped. Drops of sweat were running down his face.

“I’ll have to leave you here, Annie. You won’t have too far to walk home. I can go faster alone. The cow may already have been sold if I take too long to get there. But I’ll come home as soon as I’ve finished.” He kissed me, then continued down the street. Not quickly though, and his back was still bent.

In a couple of weeks, it would be better. When he was stronger, he’d ask me to go with him again. Then we’d get there, all the way.

Slowly I started home, across the rusty railroad u=cks and through the weeds that had grown up all mound them, past the poplars, the same ones”

with the skinny trunks. Look, though! I bent down and put my hand on the ground right next to a tree. Moss, like velvet almost it was that soft, was growing against the bark. I bent down even more and smelled it.

Musty but fresh, too.

I heard a dog bark. I struggled to my feet. Bobbie? No. It might have been though. He had run away from the people who were taking care of him, Father said. Sure, that was a few years ago. Still … Calling his name over an dover again, I walked toward the house.

It had been a strange afternoon. Rachel never stopped bustling around; Sini sat, in a daze; I yawned. The light that came into the kitchen started to grow dim. It was falling now only on what was close to the window. The table, set with the four plates. Father. For the first time since our return, I studied his face. It was thin, with many more wrinkles or with deeper ones; I didn’t know which. Almost all his hair was gray.

Rachel looked different, too-pinched, pale, older They were like strangers almost, both of them, not like family. I was glad Sini was here. I did not have to turn my head to know what she looked like-pretty.

“Father, Sini, Annie, come to the table,” Rachel said.

We sat down. Such a good place I had, right opposite the window. I could see almost a whole meadow, and anyone going by. It was very silent though. It had been for a few hours now, with only Sini and me doing a little talking, in whispers. Ssbt, Father was going to say something.

He started a few times, got out

“I’m a happy man tonight,” and that was all. We could begin to eat, I guessed. I picked up my fork and stuck it in a potato. Confused, I stopped. What was the matter with Rachel? Her head was bent, her hands folded. Ssht.

“Bless this food, O Lord …”

“Not again,” Father muttered. “Enough.” Then, except for the clinking of our forks, it was silent. Maybe Father would say something rise? Or Sini? Or Rachel? Or me? What though? Just anything? I stared at my plate. It had been nicer in the’ Oosterveld kitchen. Much, much. There had been laughter and noise.

“Get your butt off the chair and pour me another plateful of that pudding, woman,” Johan would say. “Why d’you think I married you, eh?

No, Ma, you sit. It’s Dientje I’m talking to.”

Was it only this morning that Sini and I had left them? How could that be? It didn’t make sense that we didn’t live there any longer. I forced another bite down, and another, till my plate, was empty.

Instantly Father pushed his chair back. It scraped across the tiles, but not so loudly that I couldn’t hear what Rachel was saying: “… not for our sake, but for the sake of Jesus. Amen.”

She opened her eyes and leaned toward me. Before her hand could touch mine, I got up.

Plop. Suddenly the. electricity went on. Rachel had expected it and had already turned the switch. What now? Would we play a game? We used to, on special nights. The one where we all got eight cards?

Maybe, maybe.

Father was putting a hand in his pocket. Yes? Yes? There, he had pulled out a piece of paper. He pulled out a pencil stub. He licked the point.

He began to write. But not our names, the names of cows.

“Marietje, red and white, two years old.” Prices-of cows, rows of them.

Additions and subtractions-cow ones.

Rachel sat down on the chair opposite him. Her lips began to move, too.

Once or twice Father scowled at the Bible in her lap. Rachel did not notice. Leaning against Sini’s chair, I watched. Row after row. Page after page.

Startled, I looked up. The doorbell was ringing. At this hour? Who could it be? Father went to look.

“Evening, Ies.” Country voices.

And Father’s happy one, answering, “Come in, Ten Riet, Mulder, Geerdes, Geerdes, Geetales.”

“Ah, but just for a minute, Ies. We know this must be a celebration for you.”

Ten Riet stepped forward. “les, Rachel, Sini, Annie, now that you’re home again we want to welcome you officially back into the neighborhood.

It’s different from greeting you out on the road as some of us already have done. We’re glad. Only not that Mrs. de Leeuw wasn’t allowed to see this day, and that Droppers refused to come along-I asked’m-and that our womenfolk couldn’t; they’re busy with the work.” He pulled a rumpled handkerchief from his overalls and wiped his face.

He must have forgotten something. Mulder was nudging him with his elbow.

“Oh, ja. And we came because it wouldn’t ‘we been right not to, now that we know you’re back. They made me the neighborhood chairman, Ies,” Ten Riet complained, starting on his face again. “I hate to talk, but what can I do? I was picked, and now I’m stuck.”

“Only till January first, Ten Riet,” Mulder reminded him. “Then we’ll vote again.” He snapped his suspenders.

“Look at him! He thinks he’s already got it,” the short Geerdes son said, laughing. ‘

Rachel went into the living room and came back with chairs.

“Not for the boys and me, Rachel,” the Geerdes father declined. “Once we sit, we won’t work.” He took his pipe out of his mouth and peered into the bowl. “I can’t wait till there’s tobacco again,” he grumbled.

“I’m tired of sucking air.”

“Only another month,” Mulder comforted him, “and you’ll be all right again. An ounce a week, Maria heard.”

They weren’t leaving, were they? Anxiously I watched Mulder give Ten Riet a signal. Good, Ten Riet had not noticed. He was too busy listening to Father talk about cows. “Ja, ja. Ja, ja.” ja, Ies …”

Mulder gave the signal again, a bigger sweep with his head.

I smiled. Again it had not worked. Of course not. Father knew so much about cows. “Ja … ja, ja

“Ten Riet,” Mulder warned, “don’t bother with your stories tonight.”

Hastily Ten Riet got up. “Ies, Rachel, S’mi, Annie, we’ve got to go, which is only right. It’s your first day back. But we can tell our wives and mothers that you all look well. We saw.”

Led by Mulder, they hurried toward the door. The last ones to leave were the Geerdes sons. They could not take thdr eyes off the empty chairs.

Then they were gone, too.

“In half an hour the lights must be off,” Father ordered. Then I heard the door to his room dose. I looked out my window. The lit dial on the church clock said nine. I took off my clothes and put them on the chair.

Acw-!!y the room in Ussdo had been a line cozier than this one, now that I was taking a beer look at it. I quickly crawled into bed. Footsteps coming up the stairs. I smiled.

They were Sini’s. She must have or gotten what she said this morning, about not wanting to take care of me any more. Quickly I made room on the bed for her to sit by me.

“I miss Johan and Dientje,” she began the minute she came in. She closed the door. “I don’t like being here. It’s not what I dreamed it would be.

I had hoped Rachel and I would get on as we did before, but all she’s interested in is work and her new religion. And Father isn’t any better.

I know it isn’t easy for him, but the few times he stopped to say something to me tonight, he ordered me around as if I were a child-“Do.”

“Don’t.” Doesn’t he know I’m twenty-three years old? And my friends …”

She bent her head. “I don’t want to see them, Annie, not after what happened with Gerrit. He must have thought I wouldn’t make it back, the, e way he looked at me. I have to do something. I want to have fun, and have it fast. I’ve lost so much time already! I can’t sit around here waiting!”

Awkwardly I patted her. Father and Rachel would not always be this busy.

This was only the first evening. It was going to get better, maybe even as soon as tomorrow. And then we could do things, all of us. Besides, she should not forget that she had me, which was as good as having a friend. Better.

We sat close, talking about the Oostervelds, laughing a little again.

The church clock struck once. Half an hour had gone by. Sini got up, kissed me. “Good night, my Annie,” she said. Immediately afterward she ran out of the room.

A few minutes later I heard her at the from door. Downstairs, from Father’s room came

“Sini, is that you?”

She answered.

“Now? At this hour? You should be in bed. What’s the matter with you?”

His voice had become louder and louder.

The door closed behind her. “Sini, for an hour then. No more. You hear me? Sini?” I heard him run to the kitchen. “Rachel …”

The fuss he was making. What was wrong with going out? Nothing. When people were free they could do anything they wanted to. Right? I could not hear any more, not till the yelling began again. “From the moment I set foot in this house, that Bible has annoyed me. But I figured it would be over once we were all back. I guess I was wrong. A daughter of mine acting like a Christian, reading the Bible, praying at the table.

It’s a good thing your mother can’t see it. But I don’t want to see it, either. I’ve had enough. You’re no longer with the people who hid you.