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The Upstairs Room Page 11


  “Rachel, please take her with you. I’m tired of fighting with her.”

  Well, so was I. Maybe I would leave Sini, and go with Rachel. Oh, she couldn’t take me? Fine. I wouldn’t have gone anyway. I just thought it, to … to think something. I hated both of them.

  “You girls having a nice time? That’s good, that’s good. Rachel, you eat an egg?”

  “Sure, Opoe.”

  “Laid early this morning. I went in specially to see if they’d been busy, and yes, one of ’em had. Girls, you’ll have one on Sunday. You didn’t make such a trip. Fui-fui. Well, it’s nice for them. You being here. You must have a lot to say to each other.”

  I was trying as hard as I could to say something to Rachel. Maybe I should show her where we lived in the summer.

  “Follow me,” I said mysteriously. I opened the door of the back room wide. “Here. You see those windows? The left one’s mine. And see that tree over there? It already has buds. That’s very early.” I looked up at her. What did she think of that?

  She liked the room, she said, but wouldn’t I let her iron my dress. I’d look so much better. “C’mon, Annie, it’ll just take a minute.”

  “No,” I said miserably.

  When we got back to the other room, Rachel opened her bag and took out a postcard. Sini and I bent over it. The card was from Uncle Phil. “We’re all on our way to Poland, but we’ll manage. I’m going to throw this postcard out of the window at the next station in the hope that somebody will pick it up and mail it.” Here the handwriting changed. It was now shaky. “Our warm clothes are coming in handy,” Grandmother wrote, “because the weather is getting colder. Don’t worry about us.”

  Don’t worry about us. Sure. I knew what must’ve happened to them after they got off the train. I looked at Rachel out of the corner of my eye. She knew, too, or she wouldn’t have looked so solemn.

  When it was dark outside, Rachel got ready to leave. Silently she hugged us. Her face was wet. So was mine. Why did she have to go so soon? We hadn’t even started to talk to each other, not really.

  She left our room and closed the door behind her. Quickly she ran down the stairs. After a moment Sini went into the back room. I heard her crying through the doors.

  We should have asked Rachel where in Winterswijk we’d meet after the war. We couldn’t very well meet by our house. NSB-ers were living in it. Wouldn’t they have to leave when we got back though? Of course. Run, we’d say. Sure. They couldn’t do anything to us then.

  But when would after the war be? The Germans had been losing for years now. All right, for a year and a half. How long could they go on losing without giving up? I walked up and down the room. I might just as well. When would this war be over, eh? When?

  So at night Allied planes destroyed German cities. Very impressive. The Russians were fighting near the Polish border. Big deal, Poland. Only Johan thought it was a big deal. “All the Russians have got to do now is cross Poland and go right into Germany. Boy!” Boy! was right. And the Americans and the British were still fighting in Italy as if they were never going to stop. They probably liked it there. Nice climate or something. Why would they bother to come this way? Just look out the window. All that rain. I kicked the table leg as I passed it. Damned table leg.

  Sini hadn’t even heard. She was talking to Johan. “I can’t imagine that you have any of our money left,” she said. “Father never thought we’d have to stay this long.”

  “I don’t.”

  “What now, Johan?”

  “What d’you mean, what now? Nothing, of course. You think I’m turning you out in the street ’cause you’ve got no more money, eh?”

  “Father’ll pay you after the war, Johan.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that. In the first place he’s got to live through it, and in the second place he may not have any more money. But don’t worry. He can always buy me a cow or two real cheap. Or sell a few of mine for more than they’re worth. Eh, Johan isn’t such a fool. For a dumb farmer.”

  “Oh, Johan!”

  “Sini, they’re saying the invasion’s coming soon.”

  “Who’s they, Johan?”

  “At the bleachworks. That man I work with is sure the war won’t go on much longer. And I’ll tell you why he thinks so.”

  “Stop it, Johan,” Sini said wearily, “I don’t care what he thinks of the situation.”

  Why didn’t Sini let Johan tell us why the man thought there’d be an invasion soon? Maybe he knew something we didn’t know. That could be. Ah, no, she was probably right. I sighed.

  With difficulty I got up and went to the back room. I stopped when I reached the window. Indifferently I noticed that the trees were green again. Soon we’d be back in this room, for the summer. No, not again. Please!

  High heels were clicking on the street outside. I pushed my chair away from the window. I knew it was nine o’clock without looking at the watch. Every morning at this time, Mrs. Groothuis came to get milk, just like last summer. She knocked at the kitchen door. “Hoo-oo, anybody home?”

  She never stayed long. And when she walked home, she went much slower, so she wouldn’t spill any milk.

  If the mailman came it would be shortly afterward. I had to listen carefully for him. He came on the bike, and I couldn’t tell he was there until he jumped off it right under my window. I winked at it. You know something, stupid window, we may not have to be here that much longer. Nope. Not after last night’s news: allied troops landed in normandy.

  I mouthed the word Normandy again. You probably don’t know where that is, right? Just like Opoe. “That in Italy again?” she had asked. That Opoe. Nope, it’s in France, and this is the invasion the man in Boekelo and Johan and everybody were talking about. You didn’t know that either, did you? I grimaced at the window. And you know something else? Johan and Sini bet that we’ll be free by August. Yes, this August. So, let’s see, it’s June now, in two months I may not be sitting here all day keeping you company. You’ll be on your own again. “Right Sini?”

  Sini looked puzzled. How could she respond? I hadn’t been talking to her. She was probably thinking about getting a tan. What had Opoe said about that last night? “We get a tan whether we want it or not. Bah, nonsense!”.

  “In Normandy the weather’s supposed to be awful today,” Johan said. “Nothing but rain.”

  “Poor things, having to fight in that weather. Fuifui.”

  “Let’s go to bed,” Dientje said. “I’ve got a headache already from all that news.”

  “Awright, wife. But if this gives you a headache, boy, what’ll you have when the Allies get to Usselo, eh? Those Americans and English and Canadians?”

  “They’d come here? To Usselo?”

  “Of course, they will. You better start learning, eh… What do they talk in America and England, Sini? And in Canada?”

  “English.”

  “Yep, English. Goddammit, Sini, I want you to teach me some.”

  “English. What’s next. Johan, don’t act so silly,” Opoe said. “For a grown man.… ”

  “Stay out of it, Ma. How d’you say, Hebben jullie sigaretten?”

  “Do you have cigarettes?”

  Johan tried it. His tongue stumbled over the words. Dientje laughed. “Stop it, Johan. You sound like a dumb farmer.”

  Johan didn’t answer. He tried it again and sounded much better this time. And again. That was it. He now pronounced the words just like Sini.

  “I want to be sure I can say it right. I’m sick of my own tobacco.”

  “Annie,” Sini said worriedly, “I’ve been watching you for quite a while, and I don’t like what I see. You’re mumbling and carrying on as if you have an audience.”

  I smiled at her. But I did have an audience. I turned my head back to the window and winked. All right, Sini, I know what you want me to do. Exercise. Energetically I got off the chair. C’mon legs, a little higher. Ow. So they hurt, but it’s good for you. You don’t want anyone to point at yo
u after the war. Ha, that sounded good… after the war. I’d better practice my English, too. After all, wouldn’t I want to talk to the soldiers, too? Of course.

  Opoe asked a good question the other day. “How far have those soldiers gotten?” Very good question. Not very far. But they’re doing all right. Of course, of course. They like France. Apparently.

  I spent long hours looking at the window. It was better than looking at Sini’s face. The last time she laughed was when the radio started to say that somebody had tried to kill Hitler. And even then she only laughed for a few seconds… until she heard that all he got was a couple of scratches. Anyway, that was weeks ago, before August, before Johan and Sini lost their bet. Even the fact that most of France was liberated couldn’t take Sini’s mind off a tan. “Again I won’t get one this summer, Annie. Look at me, as pale as ever.”

  Maybe we could ask Johan whether he’d let us go out for an afternoon. “Sini?”

  “You’re crazy.”

  Well, we could ask. Where could we go though?

  “A few more fine days like this one,” Dientje said, “and we can cut the wheat. It came up nicely this year, thick and tall.”

  “Where’s the wheat field?”

  “In back of the shed.” Dientje looked out the window. “No, you can’t see it from here. But it’s there all right.”

  Sini and I looked at each other. When would Johan be home?

  “It looks so beautiful outside, Johan. Please?”

  “I want to tell you girls something. You got me to say yes when you wanted Rachel here, but this time I’m not going to be such a sucker.”

  “Girls,” Dientje said, pulling me on her lap. “What if somebody saw you. We could all end up dead. Think of that. Please don’t ask’m again.” She put her arms around my waist. I loosened them.

  “Just for a tan,” Opoe said. “No, that I can’t see.”

  “But Johan, it would be so nice to be out during the day again. It’s been .… ”

  “That’s enough, girls.”

  “Two years, Johan. And that’s a long time.”

  The next day Johan asked us if we were ready. We stared at him. What for?

  “Didn’t you ask me last night about going out? Eh?” Well, we had, but he had said no.

  “So I changed my mind. Sini, I’ll take you downstairs first. Annie, you wait here. I’ll be back for you.”

  I felt the blood rise to my cheeks. Did he mean it? He must have. He and Sini were already heading for the door.

  I tapped my foot on the floor. We were going out in broad daylight. Well, you’d have to if you wanted to get a tan. Right, window? And what a beautiful day it was, not one cloud.

  I hopped over to the window. There was Johan, pushing a wheelbarrow. But he was by himself. Sini would probably come out of the kitchen in a minute. Would she just walk over to the wheat field though? What was that in the wheelbarrow? I pushed my nose against the window. All I could see was a horse blanket. Did it cover something? Sini perhaps?

  I strained my eyes. That bulge could be her.

  A few minutes later Johan came back with the wheelbarrow. The blanket lay flat and wrinkled in the bottom.

  “Annie, you can come down.”

  The wheelbarrow was standing in the kitchen.

  “Get in. I’ll cover you up.”

  “If you knew how dangerous this is,” Dientje said in a fearful voice.

  “Fui-fui. Hendrik should see that people have to go out in wheelbarrows and covered up.”

  Slowly I pulled up my legs until they almost touched my face. I put both hands over my right cheek to keep the rough blanket off my face. Somebody opened the door. The iron band around the wheel made scraping sounds on the walk.

  “Ksshht. Out of the way you,” Johan hollered. The chickens, of course. I smiled. Good for them to have to get out of the way for me.

  It was warm. I raised my arm a little to let some air in. “Annie,” Johan hissed. Immediately I put it down again. Dumb of me.

  Johan stopped, then with great force he pushed the wheelbarrow into the wheat field. He stopped again. This time he took the blanket off.

  There was Sini sitting on a bed of flattened wheat stalks. With difficulty I climbed out of the wheelbarrow. The wheat was taller than I was. Johan spread the blanket on the ground. “Well, here you are, girls. And you’ve got all day. I’ll be back for you around suppertime.”

  We lay down on our backs, to get our faces tanned. I put my arms under my head. Contentedly I felt a little bit of wind on my face. Isn’t it nice to be here, as if we’re free? The wheelbarrow? What about it? That wasn’t such a bad ride, a little bumpy maybe. I know this is not a real beach, but there aren’t all those people either, kicking sand in your face. And no boys to take Sini away from me. What was she saying? That she was going to leave Winterswijk after the war?

  “Why, Sini?”

  It was a boring town, she said. It had dances on Saturday nights only. I’d better enjoy today, having her all to myself. I tried to open my eyes, but the sun hurt. Cautiously I opened one eye, then the other one. I put my hands over them to keep all that light out. Then I spread my fingers apart so that I could see something. The sky was so blue. And not one cloud. Wasn’t it nice to be out? “Sini?”

  “Ahem,” she said in a lazy voice.

  I turned on my side to look at her. Her face was all sweaty. It didn’t matter, she said, that’s how all tans started.

  A plane flew over. It sounded as if it were skimming the tops of the wheat stalks. What would the pilot think if he could see us? We pulled the blanket over us and stayed perfectly still, until we could no longer hear the plane.

  When was Johan coming back again? At supper-time? “Why that late, Sini?”

  “Are you bored already?”

  “No, of course not.”

  It was getting awfully warm though. A pity there wasn’t any shade. I wiped my arms across my face. Wet. Now before the war Mother would’ve called me inside after this many hours in the sun. I would’ve complained. “You never let me do anything.” But I would’ve gone in, relieved.

  It would be nice to be back upstairs now, to sit in front of the window and look at the trees, to walk to the other room if I felt like walking. I had had enough of this. E-n-o-u-g-h, enough. I stuck my lower lip out and blew against my nose. Hot day.

  All of a sudden Sini pushed me deeper into the wheat. What was the matter? She pointed to the right where the wheat stalks were swaying wildly. Somebody was coming.

  “Girls, where are you?”

  Johan. Of course, it was after five.

  “My god, you got too much sun. Poor things.” He looked upset. “And listen to this. Dientje’s sister and the child are here. I can’t take you back until they’ve left. And I don’t know when that’ll be.” He sat down next to us. “Goddammit, what did I do? You feel all right? I’m going back to the house. We’ll see if they can’t leave soon.”

  A half hour later he came back, this time with the wheelbarrow. “Annie, get in.”

  “Johan, don’t put that blanket on me. It hurts too much.”

  “I know, but it’s got to be done. Let’s go.”

  I put my hands over my face again. Johan almost ran. With every step the blanket chafed my arms and legs. The kitchen door opened. I was back.

  “God-o-god-o-god, Johan, what did you do to them?”

  “I told you not to take’m out, Johan, but you never listen to me. You always listen to them.” Dientje bent over me. “And he thinks he’s so smart.”

  “Dientje, leave Johan alone,” Opoe said. “Hollering at him doesn’t help the girls. Get some wet towels.”

  “I’m cold, Sini.”

  “Cold?” Sini asked in a nervous voice. “You can’t be. Let me feel your face. You’re not cold, you’re burning hot.”

  But I was shivering.

  “Johan, she needs a doctor,” Sini said.

  “We really don’t know one. Last time we had the one in Boek
elo was at least ten years ago when Ma had pneumonia.”

  “More, Johan, I wasn’t sixty yet. And I didn’t like ’m. He was a blabbermouth.”

  “Ma, you don’t like any doctors.”

  “He was no good,” Opoe said firmly. “We can’t go to ’m.”

  “Who are we going to get then?” Johan asked.

  “Go to the Hanninks,” Dientje suggested. “Maybe they’ll know one who won’t talk.”

  Johan and Opoe looked at her in surprise. I turned over on the bed. Ouch.

  When the doctor came he said it was a miracle that Sini wasn’t sick, too, after that many hours in the sun. He sounded angry.

  “He was a nice enough man,” Opoe said after he left, “for a doctor.”

  “You mad at me, Annie?” Johan asked. “I couldn’t get you earlier, or I would’ve.”

  “I’m not mad, Johan.”

  “Good night, Annie,” Opoe said. “If you need anything, just call me. I’m awake anyway.”

  “She can call me,” Dientje said. “I’m closer to her.”

  “Move over, Dientje, so she has more space,” Johan said.

  “Good night, little sister.” Carefully Sini kissed me.

  It really had been a nice day. A little long though. And hot.

  10

  THE Allies were running through Belgium, just like that. They would be in Holland next, the radio said. Every time I thought about it, I had to smile. If it was wonderful to be almost free, how wonderful it would be when the Allies really came. Wasn’t Holland only a little bigger than Belgium? Say a few days’ worth? Many people living in the south of Holland, near the Belgian border, could probably see the Allied soldiers already. They were lucky.

  I turned to Opoe. “Will you come and see us when we’re back in Winterswijk?” I asked her.

  “Me?” She laughed. “No. I haven’t been any place in twenty-one years. Winterswijk. What’s next?”

  “I’ll come,” Johan said, “and I won’t be wearing these dumb overalls. I’ll wear my suit.”

  “Johan, you’re late for work again,” Opoe said.

  “Yes, Johan, hurry,” Dientje urged.