7. The Cigarette Box

“How did it go?” asked the other.

He stood under the light with his hands on his back and looked him up and down.

“All right.”

He lay down on the bunk.

“What do you mean, all right?”

“Or not all right, I don’t know exactly.”

“I was called back again too.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“How would you know?”

“They gave you something to smoke.”

“Damn.”

He put his hand in front of his mouth. “You smelled that, of course. I could smoke as much as I wanted. I smoked four cigarettes in a row, enough to make me sick, but now I’ve had my fill of them for a while. They were pretty decent. Some of them are scoundrels of course, but there are a couple you can really talk to. You shouldn’t be too hard on those people, of course. After all, they got their orders too and let me tell you, far from home in a foreign land and among people that would like to see them dead. That ain’t easy. It shouldn’t surprise us that they sometimes go too far. And …”

“What was the message?” he asked.

“What they said to me? Well …”

“No, what you have to say to me.”

“Oh, well, yeah, they did talk about that. You were on to that this morning already. I didn’t tell them everything. I’m in a bad fix, just as bad as you are, and it’s worth a good deal to me if I can get outta here. I’ve got a family with three young kids. I can …”

He grabbed his stomach and doubled up. “There it is again, a cramp in my guts.” He ran to the barrel and pulled his pants down. As he sat down, he groaned: “This can’t go on, the whole business is plugged up. I’m gonna have to ask for a doctor.”

His talking turned into moaning.

He saw that the man’s pain was real. He said: “Now that you’ve smoked, maybe it’ll come. When I smoked my first pipe as a boy, I had to go like a cow full of spring grass afterward.”

The man grunted some more but said that nothing was coming.

He lay down on his back and stared into the ventilator shaft. He was gradually beginning to relax again. But he was very tired. I can’t take it as well as I used to, he thought.

When he was first married, he often thought about it, sometimes every day. After the discussion about Germ and Bareld with the man in the fancy room it came back now: the feeling of regret that he hadn’t gone to America. Germ had very much wanted him to because he really didn’t dare go alone.

I should’ve done it, I should’ve done it. There were times he had thought that more than once every day. Everybody seemed to be going. Guys of seventeen, eighteen years old went across and reported that they were making money to burn.

He could’ve afforded it. The trip at that time cost eighty guilders and he’d sometimes come back from Germany with that much money. At one time they had spent a whole summer in peat work without striking once, and he could have gone after that summer.

After he got stuck with Gryt he still had it in his head. If it hadn’t been for the boy, he would have gone through with it. There would’ve been somebody else to go along. He got along well with Jaap Dykstra and together they would’ve made out fine.

“You don’t have to stay here for my sake,” said the old man. “If I was ten years younger, I’d still try it myself.”

“What prevents you?” said Hindrik. “You’re still in good shape and they can use ornery types like you in America.”

Hindrik did not want to go to America for all the gold in the world. When they worked in Germany he got as homesick as a cat. He didn’t go as often as the others, either. They were able to make it at home. “My old lady can get along on a shoestring,” he used to say.

“It won’t come,” sighed the other man as he put the lid back on the barrel.

“The cramp’s over for right now, but it’ll come back, of course.”

Bent over, he stumbled to the bench and sat down.

He didn’t like the man, right from the start he hadn’t, but he could see that the man had a bad case. In a few minutes the man doubled over from a new attack.

“Sit down on your knees and then let yourself sag down so that you’re squeezing your stomach, that will help.”

The man looked at him funny. “Is that s’posed to be a joke?”

“No, just try it. As kids when our bellies were empty, we would do it too. You’re pinching your guts together that way, and that gives relief.”

“But my trouble ain’t from hunger, but because I’m all plugged up.”

“That makes no difference. It works great for a gut-ache too. It’ll make you go pretty soon. A little bit of peppermint oil would work even better. If we could afford it, Mom would often have some of it in the house and then we would get half a teaspoonful. She had it in her apron pocket when we worked in the peat together. As boys we’d be treading around in the scoop and Mom would wheelbarrow the first squares into a pile. In the fall we’d have a constant cold, and then we needed her. But when she wasn’t there, we’d sag through the knees and squeeze our bowels.”

The man knelt on the floor and tried it.

“Make ’em pinch,” he said, and he turned on his side to watch how the man did it.

After a while, the man grunted: “I’ll be damned, I think it’s working.”

“Just stay sitting that way. According to my mom, you shouldn’t do it for more than fifteen minutes, otherwise you’re going to have trouble. But I don’t know anymore what kind of trouble. She had a lot of those cures that cost nothing.”

He suddenly remembered that he had talked about America with the girl. The subject came up when she said that in 1939 her dad wanted to emigrate, preferably to America, because they had relatives there. Dad was afraid that the Netherlands would not be able to stay neutral in the world war that was sure to come.

“He should’ve done it,” she said.

“I should’ve done it too,” he said.

Together they were checking up on the fish traps. It was an outing for her and she could lend a hand when necessary. He had a fish trap in hand that in all probability had had a visit from an otter, judging by the hole. He explained to her what such an animal looked like. He had put the boat on the leeward side of a clump of bulrushes and was knitting the holes in the trap. While watching his skill, she told him about her family. “We should’ve gone to America.”

He told her then that more than once he had been ready to take off.

“And it would’ve been easy to do. I’ve got two brothers there and one would’ve been willing to help us. I’ve often been sorry that I didn’t go through with it.”

“Did they do well in America, those brothers of yours?”

“I think so, at least they never came back.”

“You mean they never wrote about it?” the girl wanted to know.

“We never went to school much, and we didn’t keep it up either, so letter writing doesn’t come so easy. But Germ often sent a picture postcard with a few words that he was doing fine.”

“And the other brother?”

“We never heard from him again; he didn’t get along with Dad.”

“Did he run away or something?”

“No, we didn’t have trouble, but the morning he left he gave Dad a good beating.”

He went on to tell her how Bareld had put his knapsack down, walked over to the old man and said to him: “And now you’re going to get what you’ve got coming, because you let our mom die, you old skunk.”

And that was true. Dad was rough on himself and even rougher on Mom and the kids. The big boys could take it, but mom couldn’t. Bareld said that he had let her die. He rammed Dad in the chest and punched him in the stomach three times, and then he flung him into the canal. Bareld put his knapsack on his back and that’s how he left.

The girl looked at him and asked cautiously: “Was your dad so terrible then, or was your brother …”

“Bareld was not a bad fella. He is older than me and so he lived longer with Mom. According to Hindrik, he was crazy about her.”

“And what did your dad do then?”

“Nothing. He’d pretty much had his fill of it, I think. We hauled him out of the water or he would’ve drowned because he couldn’t swim. He did stand there for quite a while looking after Bareld, but Bareld never looked back.”

It was almost too much for her, he noticed.

“What did he say about your dad again?”

“He said that he had let our mom die. Mom was sick a long time, I still remember that. Our boat lay in a stream then by the Prikroad. It was mostly water then and there were almost no houses. We lived on a small flat barge on which Dad had built a cabin. I don’t know what was ailing Mom, nobody paid too much attention to that, but it was likely consumption, there was a lot of that going around. We didn’t get much to eat of course, and Mom even less, the kids came first. And the food wasn’t the right kind. Mom needed eggs and milk and so on.”

“And wasn’t that available?”

“It was available all right, but we couldn’t afford it. Maybe Mom could’ve gotten help, but then Dad would’ve had to go to relief for the poor in Beetsterzwaag. They would give handouts sometimes, not much of course, and usually no eggs or other expensive foods. And for Dad that would’ve been a hard trip to make.”

“Why?”

“Dad didn’t want to hold out his hand, he was too proud for that. He was sorta extreme and his reputation wasn’t the best, so I don’t know if they would’ve helped him. He was a fanatical Domela-man. Domela Nieuwenhuis was his man, whatever he said was the law for him. Domela was the leader of the anarchists and the gentlemen in Beets were not fond of those.”

“He never tried to get help for your mom?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But if your mom was so terribly sick …”

“Maybe he didn’t even realize that himself. They probably didn’t even have a doctor out to see her. And Mom never complained.”

The girl got on his nerves a bit with all those questions.

“But would you do it if your wife was terribly sick?”

He said that he didn’t know.

“Germ never tells me anything about Beets and so on,” said the girl.

“Germ doesn’t know that much! He was still a boy when we left there.”

“But you don’t tell him anything, either. Why not?”

“He’s never asked about it, I guess.”

At another time she had remarked that Germ and he said so little to each other and that he and Gryt would be silent for a whole evening.

“And you tell me a whole lot.”

He replied that talking to strangers seemed to come a bit easier.

“Should that be about enough?” asked the other man. “The pain is mostly gone.”

“Why don’t you try it.”

“If I could get rid of something now …”

The man got up and grunted. “I don’t even have to try it.”

He went back to lie down on the bunk.

“Lay on your back and pull your knees up, up to your shoulders if you can, then it won’t come back, maybe.”

“How do you know all about these things?”

“As I said, at home we had to take care of ourselves, and what Mom taught us then we still profit from. We never had a doctor out to our place.”

“You mentioned something about my message a while ago.”

He waited. “I said, you wanted to know a while ago what message I had.”

“I heard you.”

There was a short silence. “They want me to pump you and then report it to them. If that works, they’ll let me go.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“I told them I was willing, but that there was no use trying to put anything over on you. Just after you left for your interrogation, I had to appear before the other man to give a report of what you had said. I tried to give them something, but those guys are sharp, I tell ya. They caught on right away that I’d found out nothing. So now you know how things stand.”

He heard the squeaking of the bunk under him. The man tossed and turned and passed gas. “Well, at least that one’s out.”

Then came the sound of soldier boots down the hallway, but they went past.

The man said: “And then they started to threaten. They said that I had to try again or it would turn out bad for me.”

“But they did let you smoke cigarettes.”

“That was later, after I explained it to them.”

“What did you explain to them?”

“That you weren’t born yesterday, so to speak. Well, what are you gonna do. I’m up a creek and that’s why I’m telling them straight out what the lay of the land is. I want to get the hell outta here. I’ll go stir-crazy here before long.”

“You’ll get over that, of course.”

“Not me, I’ll go outta my mind if I stay here any longer.”

“The first few weeks are the worst, that’s true.”

“This is no prison, this is a transit house. The people who refuse to cooperate end up here. Did you see that long corridor right around the corner here? They have rooms there for the big-timers who refuse to confess. During the night I sometimes suddenly hear somebody scream and then soldiers start running through the hall. That kinda thing always seems to be done during the night.”

“Is that where you were questioned?”

“No, but that’s what I’m scared of.”

“So, you haven’t confessed yet.”

“I don’t have anything to confess, that’s the problem. I’ve told them everything I know, but that’s not enough. There are a lot of people in the underground in Sneek, they said, and they thought I would be able to tell them more about that. But I know nothing. I’m a dealer and I want nothing to do with the underground. But they don’t believe that.”

“Yeah, that’s the way it usually is.”

“It’s the honest truth; they think I’m mixed up in all kindsa stuff, but all I did was a little dealing. I bought a bunch of ration cards, but if I’d known they were taken from a distribution center by the underground, I wouldn’t’ve touched them, of course. But how was I to know? I made the deal with the man in the alley next to the cafe by the public market. I can’t even tell you what he looked like because it was almost dark. That’s all, but they don’t believe me. I told them. I said: Do you think those people of the underground are crazy? They’re not about to throw in their name and address, you know. Detectives should certainly be able to understand that!”

“And now they just let you sit here.”

“The first few days I had to do nothing but try to identify people they had arrested, but I didn’t know any of ’em. But that gradually got less, and I started to hope that I would get off with that.”

“Maybe they’re still after some others they want to show you, and that’s why they’re still keeping you.”

“I don’t know, I’m all mixed up. I wish there was more I could tell those guys. If I only knew as much as you do.”

“I know even less. I’ve never bought ration cards. I sell fish and I know exactly where they come from, because I take them out of the lake myself.”

“They seem pretty sure, though, that you know a lot more.”

“I get the same feeling.”

The man below him sat up and held up his hand as if to seal an agreement by handsmacking. “I want to make a deal with you. Nobody’s gonna find out, the Germans don’t have to know about it. I’m gonna tell them that you made a slip of the tongue. I’ll give you ten thousand guilders to boot. I’ve got a nice bunch of sheep in the fields on the other side of Sneek. We’ll go there together and then we’ll close the deal. My hand on it, and it stays between us. It’s in the interest of both of us, right? You don’t have to tell the Germans everything. If they just have a lead, they’ll take care of the rest. You’ve gotta think about your family, nobody else will. And you don’t have to do a thing yourself.”

The man held up his hand again and looked at him with eager eyes.

He said: “This is a rotten business. You know a lot more about the underground than I do.”

Then the man began to sob nervously and suddenly dashed to the barrel with his hands clutched to his stomach. Halfway there he dropped to his knees and squeezed his belly.

“I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, and you too, goddamn you, we’re both gonna die. Tell them something, man. Why should we give a damn about the people.”

He kept whining and wailing while pinching his gut more and more and swaying his rear end back and forth.

He was still lying down when a soldier entered, looked at him, and told him to get up. The man had not noticed him and jumped up. But he immediately folded double again with his hands on his stomach, and he hollered that the pain was killing him. The soldier ignored him, stepped to the bunk and said: “Come along.”

He put on his jacket and followed the soldier.

They went back to the fancy room and the soldier stopped on the doormat. The sun just touched the top of the houses on the other side. The blinds had been pulled up, and he saw people behind the windows.

“Your last chance,” said the man, businesslike.

He was not offered a seat.

“I don’t think you understand what that means. If we don’t come to an agreement this time around, I won’t be able to do anything for you anymore.”

He looked at him and continued: “Now we’re going to do it without the embellishments of this morning. I’ve tried to be decent with you, I’ve given you every opportunity, isn’t that so?”

“I s’pose so,” he said.

“I will now give you straightforward questions and I expect straightforward answers. Let’s have that clearly understood. This is the first question: You have no contacts with the underground?”

“No, I said that already and …”

“Stop; I said without embellishments. How did your son join the underground?”

He felt the old anxiety creep up on him again. He said slowly: “I don’t know if he joined. I don’t believe so.”

“He joined, all right. He just turned twenty-one, he’s of age. But can he do all of that without your knowledge?”

“If you say that he did join, then that happened without my knowledge.”

“Where was he last night?”

“That I don’t know, he was not at home.”

“You just let him run. You have no authority over him. That boy can do whatever he wants.”

“From early on we’ve had to learn to take care of ourselves.”

“That’s how you were raised, and that’s the way it is with your son, too.”

“That’s always been our way.”

“He should have been in Germany. He was called up, but you wouldn’t know about that either, of course.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“But it’s true. I had somebody look it up. He was called up for Germany.”

“It’s not our way to let ourselves be ordered.”

The man suddenly jerked a drawer open and put a few things on top of the desk: a well-worn tobacco case, a pocketknife, and a tin cigarette lighter.

He saw it at once. He didn’t even have to see it from closer up, yet he took a step forward and stared at the tobacco case, the F. Herder, and the lighter that the boy often fussed around with because it worked so poorly.

He felt himself get sick, a feeling he had not had before, and that was much worse than the shaking and the sweating.

The man behind the desk was silent.

He wanted to say something, but he couldn’t think of anything. He would have liked to sit down now, even in that low chair if necessary, because his legs were shaking.

The man said: “We always have more than one trick up our sleeve.”

The trembling did not subside, and the sick feeling in his stomach didn’t either.

At last he said: “You’ve got him.”

The man answered: “We’ve got him.”