4. Braaksma

If that pious schoolteacher, Braaksma, the man with the orange ribbon under the lapel, had his way, then the man in the fancy room would be on the right track now. The teacher used different words, but it amounted to the same thing. He had appeared in their yard in the fall of the first year of the war.

“A nice place,” he said after he had snooped around a bit.

He was after a meal of fish, of course, but there was a fisherman in the village too, one of his own kind even.

But he knew what the man was after. A few weeks later the teacher was back again.

“Really ideal. No one is able to sneak up on you here.”

But he made another trip before he came with the request: Would he be willing to give a hand now and then on behalf of the cause? He refused on the spot, and Gryt, who was there with them, said that they didn’t want to get into hot water again. That irritated him, and he walked to the boat. The schoolteacher tried it out on Gryt first, and when she went inside, he came to him. He had gotten into the boat and was clawing around in the fish traps.

“But if we get somebody now and again who has to lie low for a while?”

“How do you mean that?”

“Well, there are people whose lives are in danger. If they’re caught, they’ll be shot.”

“Anybody in trouble like that can come, but nobody else,” he said.

That was good enough for the schoolteacher. Gryt was angry and she tried to talk him out of it. When that didn’t work, there followed the same accusations he had listened to for years, and then came the silent treatment, which he had also become hardened to.

The first one came fairly quickly, and when he told Gryt that the man should have his food and drink on time, Gryt did not protest. They never had more than four at one time, and when the teacher tried to get him involved in other things as well, he made it very clear that he wanted no part of it. He had never had a weapon in his yard. He didn’t even have his own shotgun, his father’s muzzle-loader, at home.

The man in the fancy room had revealed his hand. All they had was his criminal record, and that wasn’t enough to hold him. They suspected, of course, that he was involved in resistance, but they had no proof. They were just bluffing.

People in danger—he took only those. He never asked them why they needed to hide. That made absolutely no difference to him.

That had been true in ’40 also, when two young men had made their home in his shed for a couple of weeks. He wasn’t even sure whether one of them was Thomas’ son. One evening in the first part of May they had suddenly stood in the yard, two young men in military uniform. The smaller one called him uncle and told him that he was one of Thomas’s boys, and they said they’d be damned if they’d fight for queen and fatherland. He agreed with them.

Gryt was of course opposed to sheltering the boys, but he said what he would say again later: Anybody in trouble can come.

The Germans were well in control when the two boys took off again. He never heard from them again, and that was fine as far as he was concerned. He dug up the uniforms that they had buried under the shed, and Gryt made clothes for Germ out of them. He himself had gotten a lot of use from a long, green coat when he went poaching. Among the young reeds he could hardly be spotted in that coat, and, besides, the thing was almost waterproof.

“This is the first time we got something out of it,” he said in jest.

But Gryt maintained that he should have sent them away.

“You should have sent them to Hindrik, he’s always had a big mouth.”

But Hindrik lived in a populated area, and it wouldn’t have been safe there. He wanted Gryt to understand that, but it made no impression on her.

It had been different with the girl. It didn’t exactly please him either that Germ had come home with her, just like that. Gryt objected even more strenuously than usual. It was the first time he felt sorry for her. She couldn’t help it; that was simply the way she was.

“That girl is going to be the death of us,” she said, “or of Germ.”

And days later she was still complaining. This was the limit, a woman in the house who’s a total stranger and then one of that kind to boot.

The straitlaced schoolteacher said: “I don’t know, I don’t know.… The Jews must be helped, of course, but whether this is the right place for such a girl …”

“Germ and her get along fine,” he said, and then added intentionally: “They sleep together, so we don’t even need an extra bed, and that helps with Gryt’s washload too.”

He pursued the topic, and Gryt said later: “You’re just like Hindrik, he always talks dirty too.”

That’s where he got it, all right. Hindrik would always push it too far and turn people off.

Later the schoolteacher discussed the subject with the girl herself. It wasn’t a proper thing for her to do. When he heard that, he told the teacher that he didn’t want to see him in the yard again. He’d better get his fish somewhere else in the future. The schoolteacher did not come again. When he had a message, he sent someone in his place.

Maybe they were keeping his place under close surveillance today. It made no difference. Willem and Cor would take care of the girl. Willem, especially, was very much at home on the lake. Right at this moment they might be sitting in the shelter by Lolke. And Germ he didn’t have to worry about at all. He must’ve known for some time already that something was amiss. He did hope, though, that the boy hadn’t gotten too deeply involved in resistance work.

He sat on the bunk and listened with half an ear to the man, who was talking a blue streak.

The cell was cleaner than the one in Crackstate, the house of correction in Heerenveen, and the barrel didn’t stink so badly either. But there were no windows. There was a ventilation shaft in the ceiling with a bit of light shining through. And a weak lightbulb shone above the door, but it was half-dark in the corners of the cell.

He sat down on the bench by the wall, right by the door. They had let him keep everything, even his chewing tobacco. He took off his jacket and hung it on the hook of his bunk. He was going to go to the barrel to take a leak when the other man suddenly jumped up.

“Just a minute, let’s do it together. That lid has to stay on as much as possible, otherwise the stink is gonna kill us. I had the runs a few days ago from the watery chow here.

“They usually empty the barrel every three days. I think they forgot me the last time, so now it stinks like the plague.”

They each stood on a side, so that the lid didn’t have to be off too long.

“Isn’t this obscene,” said the man. “But the funny thing is that for days now I haven’t been able to go. From one extreme to the other. My stomach is killing me. And I can’t stand this smell.”

He thought that it wasn’t too bad.

He sat down on the bench again and took a wad of tobacco.

“Damn, you have tobacco?”

He offered the man his pouch.

“If I only had some paper now.”

He got up and in his jacket found some paper from Boonstra, the eel buyer. “Will this do?”

“Anything will do, just so it smokes. Do you have matches too?”

“That I can’t help you with.”

“Too bad.”

The man sniffed the pouch and pulled out a pinch of tobacco. “It smells well-seasoned; this isn’t homegrown. Are you in here for black market dealing too? That’s what they picked me up for, see. Just some small-time stuff. You’ve got to make ends meet somehow, ain’t that right? Everybody’s got to take care of himself. It’s just a case of bad luck. They could just as well have picked up the whole population.”

He sniffed the pouch again and licked the tobacco he held between thumb and index finger. “I never chewed. Does it taste good?”

He put a couple of strands in his mouth and started sucking. “Kinda strong, but I can’t say it tastes bad.”

He took the small wad out of his mouth and scrutinized it carefully. “Kinda dirty business, really.”

“Start out easy,” he said, “and don’t chew too hard.”

“This is real tobacco, I’d say. You can’t buy this anymore.”

“I trade a half pound now and again.”

“Then you’ve gotta have pretty good stuff to trade with.”

“Fish.”

“Fish? Now that you mention it, you have the smell in your clothes. So you’re a fish dealer.”

“I fish myself, and last night I caught quite a bunch of eel. That’s what you probably smell, the slime of the eel.”

“Strange, though, that they let you keep the tobacco,” said the man, who had sat down on the bunk.

“I still have everything.”

“They forgot, of course, but that’s unusual for a German. They’re pretty particular, and when they goof, it’s trouble. That soldier will get an immediate transfer to the front line. I’ve heard some strong stories about that.”

The man talked too much.

“That bench is too narrow, it’s hard on your back. It’s more comfortable on the bunk. I speak from experience, because I’ve had a lotta time to try it out. I’ll be here three weeks soon. I’m fed up to here with it, and I don’t even know yet where I stand. First they told me that I’d be sent to the camp in Amersfoort, but that was impossible, of course. They can’t put you in a camp for a little thing like that, right? They thought, of course, that I was doing the black market for people in hiding. I was interrogated for days, and that could get pretty rough sometimes. They hit me once, but an officer who was present put the kibosh on that.”

The man had put the wad in his mouth and was quiet for a little while. He sucked on the tobacco while pacing back and forth. He said, “You’re sitting there pretty calm, I’d say. As if you were sitting at home.”

“Do they give you something to do here?” he wanted to know. “Pass the time with something or other, like gluing bags or something?”

“Something to do, work, you mean? Of course not. What would we do? I sit here the whole day with my hands folded. We can’t even go outside for some fresh air, and that’s pretty routine in all the jails. But this ain’t an ordinary jail, of course. This is where you get interrogated. They’re not equipped for outside privileges and so on. Every two days we’re allowed to get out to wash ourselves. There’s a little room right above here with a couple of faucets. We go in threes, but we’re not allowed to talk. Did you want something to do?”

“That’s what I’m used to. We always glued bags or made clothespins.”

The man thought that was a good joke, he said, and wanted to know more about it. But he didn’t want to pursue it anymore, because it was no joke and the man apparently didn’t understand that.

He was tired; he’d like to rest a while. He inspected the upper bunk. There was no covering, but he folded his jacket double and put that under his head.

“Tonight at nine they’ll bring a blanket. No mattress, nothing but a blanket. I sure had to get used to those boards at first. I’m used to sleeping on my side, but that’s impossible now; your shoulder would be in pieces in the morning.”

He lay down on his back and looked into the shaft, which let in a bit of fresh air and a glimmer of light.

“So you’re a fisherman,” the man tried again. “Where do you live, if I may ask?”

“On the northeast side of the Tjeuke Lake.”

“Oh, I don’t know that area. Pretty good fishing there? Of course there’s a good market in fish nowadays.”

It seemed like a long time ago that they had arrested him, and yet it was only half a day.

“When do we eat?” he asked.

“It’s almost time, but we’re not going to get fried eel, if that’s what you mean.”

If Boonstra had not come by this time, the line eel would probably be dead now. It didn’t matter much to him anymore. Maybe the guys were cleaning now and Germ was lighting the fire under the smoke barrel. Or maybe Gryt had taken the whole business to Boonstra. In such things, she was plenty helpful. He doubted, though, that their main concern at this moment would be a bunch of fish.

“I used to love to fish,” said the other. “With a pole, of course.

“But since my marriage I don’t get around to it anymore. Too bad, because it can be so nice out in the fields, especially in late summer. How is the weather now? I haven’t seen the sun in days.”

“It’s nice weather every day, still and sunny, and at night there’s a dew. But the evenings are getting colder and the nights are getting longer too.”

“I suppose so. And here I sit wasting my time. It burns me up sometimes, can you believe that? Anyway, it can’t be too long anymore, I hope. I haven’t been summoned before the gentlemen in the last four days, and that’s a good sign, don’t you think?”

And then the man started jabbering again, but he didn’t ask questions anymore, so he could stretch out in peace now. His body succumbed and he fell half asleep. He heard the man say that he sometimes didn’t sleep a wink all night and that he couldn’t understand how he could just lie down and go to sleep. He thought back to the fourteen months when during the first weeks he slept so badly too and climbed the walls at night because he thought he was losing his mind.

The door opened and the man below him sat up.

He didn’t open his eyes. No one said anything. The man below him went to the door, and then he was alone. Now that he was rid of the babbling, he fell asleep, but he kept waking up with a feeling of anxiety. He wondered how it was with the boy, and the girl preyed on his mind too.

The man woke him up. “They interrogated me again. It didn’t amount to anything. I think they’ll let me go soon.”

He was going to launch into another spiel, but a soldier entered with two plates of chow and a small can of water. The other smelled what was on the plate. “Turnips, of course, and without salt again, I bet.”

He tasted it. “Just as I thought, not a grain of salt. It’s strange, but I never realized how important salt is to the taste. This is no food. The first few days I seldom touched it, but I won’t let that happen anymore. Two slices of bread in the morning and a mug of water, a plate of mashed potatoes and turnips at noon, and in the evening two more slices of bread—that’s not enough. I must’ve lost ten pounds, the clothes are hanging loose on my body.”

He started to eat. There was no taste to it, but he ate the plate clean.

“Maybe you’re not used to much.”

“That’s true, though it’s been getting better the last few years.”

“But this is no food. I swallow it, but otherwise …”

“If it doesn’t get worse …”

He meant that. As boys they often went to bed in the wintertime with a piece of turnip. Sometimes the turnips were frozen and smelled bad. A dish of potatoes with a quarter of a salted herring was a banquet.

“Maybe you can take it all right. I don’t know how long you were in, but even if they locked me up for twenty years, I don’t think I’d get used to it. I think I’d die inside a year.”

“It’s not that bad, but you don’t easily get used to it, that’s true.”

He put the empty plate on the bench and lay down again.

“Don’t you want a couple of swallows of cold water?”

He felt no need of it.

“Of course, there’s enough water in what you just ate.”

He took a wad of tobacco and noticed that there wasn’t much left.

“I asked them how long they were going to hold me, but they didn’t give me an answer. I do think, though, that I’ll soon be out now. Last week they still talked about Amersfoort; they threatened me with that all the time. I found out from the detective that they paid my wife a visit and they tried to get information from the police and mayor too. They know now that I’m not a big operator on the black market and that I have nothing to do with the underground. Well, then they have to let you go, right? They also asked me what I thought of you. I said: I’ve hardly known the man an hour, so I can hardly tell you much about him. But when I left, he was sleeping. They found that interesting, I think. I added that you were pretty calm. I said: If you ask me, that man is wondering what he’s doing here, just like me. The guilty don’t sit still. Anybody who goes to sleep that peacefully can’t have much to hide. Ain’t that so? Or are you sleeping again?”

“No, but I can just as well be lying down.”

The man sat down below him again. “Where are you from again, Tjeuke Lake, right?”

“Mailing address Delfstrahuizen.”

“I think, I’ve been there after all. I’m from Sneek myself, that is, I’ve lived there since I got married. For business reasons; I deal in sheep. Sometimes I buy a cow, but I prefer sheep. Cows are hard to handle, and they take so much work. You can chase a flock of sheep into the field and they’ll take care of themselves. Are there sheep in your area?”

“I’ve never thought about it, but I don’t think so.”

“I would have thought that people like you who live out in the country always have some animals, even if it’s just a goat. Every day a couple of liters of rich milk and in springtime a couple of lambs. That way you can make ends meet pretty well, right?”

“I don’t care much for animals.”

“As a fisherman you can get along fine, of course. I’ll stop by sometime for a meal’s worth of eel. As soon as I’m free I want to take a look around in your area.”

“You do that.”

“If they let you go soon, anyway.”

“Did they ask you any more about me?”

“No, as I said, what could I tell them about you. What did they get you for, really?”

“I don’t know that myself.”

“Oh, that’s odd. They usually don’t pick you up for nothing.”

“But they picked you up too, right?”

“Well yes, but I’m not entirely clean. As I said, some small-time stuff, but they thought there was more behind it.”

“They must think that of me too, then.”

“But there’s got to be a reason for that, I’d say. Sold the fish for too much or something and … oh, of course, you live out in the country, right? Hiding people, maybe?”

He gave no answer.

“You’ve got to be careful with that. I don’t want to say anything about the good ones, but you never know ahead of time what you’re gonna get. There are all kinds. A brother-in-law of mine, who’s a small farmer, had a couple of those Hollanders. Every night out on the road, but they never explained what they were up to. Till one night suddenly a raid, Germans all over the place, and everything turned upside down. Fortunately, they didn’t find anything, but that’s when I told him: You’ve gotta show them the door, because you’re gonna pay for it otherwise. So that’s what he did. I don’t know your situation, but I wouldn’t feel too sorry for those guys. They can take care of themselves. And those Germans here, they’re not gonna let anybody screw them. All they do is interrogate people, they’re experts at it. You can be as stubborn as you want, but they’re gonna find you out sooner or later. I always said to myself: Never confess anything, but I’ve changed my mind about that. They had me trapped in no time; I was stuck in all directions, and I’m a pretty good talker usually, if I say so myself. Well, then, I simply told them the honest truth. I said: If you please, here is my story. I butchered a sheep, my wife filled all the canning jars, and for some six days or so we ate mutton. The rest went out the door and that became a treat for some others. That’s all. I didn’t ask where it was gonna go, that’s none of my business.… If I had known that it was intended for people in hiding and for the underground, then they wouldn’t have gotten anything from me. Because I don’t want no damn trouble. We all have enough trouble of our own these days. That’s exactly what I said. Do you have a family too?”

“A wife and a son.”

“How old is the boy, if I may ask?”

“Twenty-one.”

“A dangerous age. Did they catch him or wasn’t he home?”

“I don’t know where he is. They say that they have him.”

“Hell, that’s not so good. That’s gonna be Germany for him, in a factory. Was he in the underground? Of course he was, boys like him get a kick out of that. Is he here in Leeuwarden or somewhere else?

“I don’t know, but I don’t think he’s here.”

“Was he home when they picked you up?”

“I don’t know.”

“If I were you, I’d meet these men halfway. Your family is at stake, right? And your own count more than strangers. Something would be wrong if it was different. All of us have the duty to stand up for our family.”

He realized at once where the man was heading. He had heard this kind of talk before. As a boy already, when in the night, in Terwispel, they had beaten up the peat boss who needed straightening out.

“Remember your mother, boy.” That was the village policeman, Dykstra, who tried to get him to name his buddies. “Remember your mother, she’s got such a heavy cross to bear already. All the blame is going to turn on you, and that’s going to hit you pretty hard.” And later came the others, as reasonable as could be. First they told him that he was right; the peat boss had messed up. And they wanted so badly to do everything kindly, especially the chairman from the polder company.

“You’re in a bad spot, and something has to be done about it.” He asked the man right away who had sent him, and the chairman said that he shouldn’t be so silly—he was acting out of the goodness of his heart.

This morning, in the fancy room, he experienced it again. They still went at it the same way.

The man below him kept on babbling. What had they promised him if he succeeded?

When they had been excluded from the government work program after the strike in ’20, they had used Jan Welles for the same purpose. This has got to stop, said Jan. I’ve got to have work, I don’t dare come home. I can’t let Aeltsje and the kids starve to death. And they’re willing to do right by us. If we sign the paper that we won’t strike again, then we’ll be back to work tomorrow. Hindrik got mad and said: Jan Welles, if you set one foot in this house again, I’ll break both your legs.

Had he been in agreement with Jan Welles then?

He said nothing now. He let the man talk, he gave no further answers. When the other man stood up, he kept his eyes closed. A bit later he heard him by the barrel. He pulled down his pants and sat down. He groaned: “I’m plugged up, it won’t come. It’s gonna give me trouble. That rotten food is gonna do me in yet.”

He pulled his pants back up and sat down on the bench and complained of a stomachache.

He turned on his side, because his back began to hurt. “Are you sleeping again?” asked the man.

He said: “Don’t bother to ask anymore, because I have nothing to say to you. And if I have to, I can take care of myself.”

Then the man was silent.