The Upstairs Room Page 15

  Johan wiped his forehead. “Well, wife, put some of that food out that I got you today.”

  “This meat in the can,” Opoe said, “is no good. It has no taste.”

  “But it’s soft enough, Opoe.”

  “It sticks to my gums. I wonder how they make that stuff.” Opoe picked up the empty can and turned it around in her hands. “Is this English?”

  “Yes.”

  “English! Hendrik should know.” She lifted her apron to wipe her eyes.

  “Come sit on my lap,” Dientje said to me. “Or don’t you like me anymore now that you’re free? You know, in a few days you’re going back to Winterswijk.”

  “I’ll go first and take a look,” Johan said.

  What would I do in Winterswijk? Go back to school? What grade? Nobody would remember me. Frits? Pooh. I went back to my own chair.

  “It sure was nice having you,” Opoe said.

  “You talk, Ma, as if you’ll never see them again. They’ll come a lot, you’ll see.”

  “I know, but it won’t be the same.”

  “Will you miss me a little bit?” Dientje asked.

  “Sure.”

  “You’ll forget me, that big woman from Usselo.”

  “But Dientje, we won’t. We couldn’t.”

  “And that dumb farmer. You’ll get so fancy.”

  “Stop it, Johan.”

  “I want you to come for my birthday every year,” Opoe said, “for those few I’ve left.”

  “Okay, Opoe.”

  “Will you write sometimes?”

  “Of course.”

  I straightened my legs under the table. They hurt. People had looked at them today. They will in Winterswijk, too. Would kids ignore me? Pretend I wasn’t there. Or stop talking when I came close? Because they didn’t want me to know what they were saying? Would they … ?

  My lips felt dry. What a day! Who had said that? One of the farmers. He was right.

  “Well,” Johan yawned, “let’s go to bed.”

  Opoe stood up first. “My poor bones. Fui-fui. Soon.”

  We kissed her. “Good night, Opoe. Sleep well.”

  She looked pleased, “I won’t, but it’s nice enough of you to want me to.” Slowly she went upstairs. Johan and Dientje followed. Then Sini and I.

  At the top of the stairs we stood still. Opoe was standing in the doorway uncoiling her brown braid. She stroked it. “I got this from my sister, too. Such fine stuff she had.”

  “Where do you want us to sleep, Dientje?” Sini asked.

  “You can stay in the front room. Johan and I’ll sleep in the back.”

  “Hey, woman, our bed used to be good enough for Annie. And Sini did fine on the floor. Eh?”

  “Johan, the war’s over.”

  “You know, I’m beginning to wish it wasn’t. We used to have good times. Goddammit, now it’s over.”

  “Johan, what’ll the girls think?”

  “They know me.”

  “And Hendrik used to be so soft-spoken.”

  “Well, good night.” But nobody moved.

  “You want something to eat before you go to sleep?”

  “No, Opoe, we’re full.”

  “Annie, I’m going to make you another dress so you’ll have two when you go back to Winterswijk. I have another one of mine I can cut up. Nice little checks.”

  “C’mon, woman. It’s late.”

  “Maybe we can get you some wooden shoes now, too.” Dientje’s face was red.

  “You’re not leaving tomorrow, are you? To Winterswijk? Johan, not tomorrow?” Opoe asked.

  “No, I think I’ll wait a couple of days till the roads are safe.”

  “Maybe a week, Johan.” Opoe’s voice was trembling.

  “Now, let’s go, woman. I’ve got to get up early. Want to help me with the cows, Sini?”

  “Sure.”

  “Now that she can be useful she’s going away.”

  “Johan, she shouldn’t have to work here.”

  “But, Ma, she likes to.”

  “Ja, ja, I don’t understand. We just do it.”

  “Doesn’t she have to tell the farmer that she won’t be back, Johan?”

  “I’ll go with her tomorrow. I’d like to see his face. Now, c’mon.”

  “Johan, the girls can’t come with you when you go to Winterswijk. You’ve got to see for yourself first.”

  “I know, Ma.”

  “Well, good night, then,” Dientje said awkwardly, “I guess there’s nothing we can do.” She and Johan went into the back room.

  “Back to Winterswijk,” Opoe said with tears in her eyes. “What’s next?”

  Quietly Sini and I slipped into the front room. The shade was up.

  Boldly I passed the safe side of the bed. Another step and I was in front of the window. I pushed my nose against it. There was the street and the Groothuises’ house.

  Somebody on a bicycle passed. I ducked.

  “What are you doing?”

  That’s right, you don’t have to anymore, Annie. The war is over. You’ll get used to it. I pulled the shade down and got into bed.

  “Good night, Sini.”

  “Good night, little sister.”

  Postscript

  A week went by, and Johan still had not gone to Winterswijk. “Tomorrow,” he kept saying. When tomorrow came, nobody reminded him of it. Then Rachel arrived in Usselo, on foot, since no buses were running and no one had tires left on their bikes.

  “It can be done in one day,” she said, “if you’re as anxious as I was to get here.”

  It was nice to be with her until she mentioned that she had come to take us back to Winterswijk.

  “I can’t go yet,” Sini said. “I’m dating this boy, and I’m just getting to know him.”

  “And I’m not leaving either,” I said. “I’m just getting used to being able to go outside here.” Defiantly I looked around the kitchen. Nobody would make me go.

  So Rachel went to Winterswijk by herself, to clean the house.

  It was almost a month later before Sini and I left Usselo, in her boyfriend’s rusty car. The few clothes we had were wrapped in old newspapers, the no-good-kind, the ones with all the lies. In my pocket was the money Mother had given me the last time I saw her.

  Opoe stood in the doorway. She cried. “You’re closer to me than my own family. What am I going to do now?”

  The boyfriend started up the car.

  Johan blew his nose. “Damn.”

  “Don’t forget us,” Dientje called out.

  Slowly we drove away, waving.

  Father was in Winterswijk, too. Our life there started again.

  After a while both Rachel and Sini left. So did I eventually, to come to America. In my trunk was the lace cap Opoe had given me when I had gone to say goodbye. “Put it on top of your clothes, not underneath,” she told me, “so it won’t happen again. You remember… that heavy book?”

  Four years ago I took my two children to Usselo.

  “You Holland talk?” Johan asked them.

  They shook their heads. No.

  The two of them sat on Dientje’s lap, staring at Opoe.

  “You really should’ve gotten false teeth, Opoe,” I said. “All these years you’ve been miserable because you didn’t.”

  “Nonsense,” she said, “I got used to it. And now it doesn’t make any sense. Soon.”

  She was ninety-two then.

  I took my girls upstairs to the front room. Johan had left the hiding place intact.

  “That’s the place Mommy used to crawl into,” I said.

  “See whether you can do it now,” they asked me.

  Obediently I went over to the closet and got on the floor.

  That’s as far as I got.

  “Look, she’s crying,” my girls said.

  Find out what happens next in the sequel to this book:

  The Journey Back

  by Johanna Reiss

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Johanna Re
iss did not set out to write a book about her experiences during the Second World War; she simply wanted to record them for her two daughters, who are now about the age she was when she went to stay with the Oostervelds. “I didn’t think it would take me more than a week!” she says. “Not until I started to write did I find out how much I remembered, things I had never talked about with anyone because they were too painful.”

  Mrs. Reiss was born in Holland. After the war she attended high school and college and taught elementary school there for several years before coming to the United States. She has been a consulting editor for Atlas magazine and now lives in New York City. Every few years the family travels to Europe, to visit relatives and to spend several days with the unforgettable Oosterveld family.