I’ll wait without moving until this ordeal is over, it can’t go on for ever. He coughs and my body shakes with him. He has placed a hand next to me on the window and I look at his short broken nails.
Before I know what has happened, I am suddenly back on the ground next to the car and the boys are pushing me out of the way to have their turn on the running-board. In the ensuing confusion I make good my escape as quickly and unobtrusively as possible through to the back of the circle. The soldier looks round for me, but when he spots me and starts to move in my direction I take to my heels. Quick, I think to myself, back to Laaxum, back home! Halfway to Laaxum I slow down a bit, the oblong packet still in my sweaty hand. Dispassionately, I examine it, as if it were something dangerous. The blue and red coloured wrapper contains thin strips neatly packed in silver paper. They have a sharp pepperminty smell. I peel back the silver paper and find a soft pinkish-grey slab inside which bends easily and seems to be lightly dusted with powder. It is a small, delicate miracle of precision and smell, streamlined and perfect.
As I chew the little slab it turns into an elastic, pliable little ball that I can work between my teeth and mould with thrusts of my tongue. The more I allow it to wander slowly through my mouth, tasting, testing and savouring it, enjoying its sweetness, the more it is brought home to me: I was given this present by an American soldier, this little packet is for me alone, he picked me out specially…
They will hardly believe me at home, it all seems like an incredible adventure story, a voyage of discovery through strange lands: the car, the black soldier, the packet pressed into my hand… I forget how passive and terrified I had been, how, paralysed with fear, I had just allowed it all to happen, and how I had run away as fast as I could. What remains is the memory of a glorious adventure.
I squeeze the other little slabs carefully back into the wrapper and push it deep into my pocket, my hand covering it protectively. I am no longer so sure that I shall tell them about it at home.
Chapter 2
Next day a surprise is waiting for us at schooclass="underline" the only thing we have to do is to write out the words of the Frisian and Dutch national anthems because, the master tells us, we shall be singing them at the liberation celebrations.
Using exaggerated flourishes, he writes the words on two separate blackboards and our two classes, joined into one for the occasion, dedicatedly copy his ornamental letters into our exercise books.
one of the anthems begins. How can we sing that now: ‘a prince of German blood’? Shouldn’t we be going and wiping out all the Germans, now that the war is over? I had taken it for granted that we would all be marching straight into Germany with pitchforks, sticks and rifles to give them a really good hiding in their own rotten country.
‘Anyone finished copying may go home, there are no more classes today. The school will remain closed for a few days, until after the celebrations. Off you go and enjoy yourselves.’
It is drizzling, and we hang about undecided in the school porch. Should we go back home or shall we make for the bridge? We walk, awkwardly because of the strange time of day, through the village street, hugging the house fronts for shelter.
A moment later Jantsje catches up with us, panting, her exercise book with the anthems pressed protectively to her chest. ‘Jeroen, the master wants you, you’ve got to go back.’ She is looking at me gleefully, has it got something to do with that packet of chewing-gum? I never told anybody at home about it, but this morning as we filed into school Jantsje suddenly whispered to me in passing, ‘I know what you’ve got!’
I feel in my pocket where the packet is tucked away, warm and pliable. They won’t be getting any, it’s just for me and no one else is going to touch it, I’ll make sure of that! I run back to school, walk down the stone passage and stop when I hear voices. I can see the master in the classroom with two men I know vaguely by sight. They live in a part of the village we seldom visit and they are standing stiffly and awkwardly beside the blackboard.
I walk up to the master’s table, wondering what it is this time, what they can want with me. ‘This is one of the pupils from Amsterdam,’ he says. ‘Shake hands with the gentlemen, boy.’
Silently I put out my hand, my eyes riveted to the tabletop. Am I about to get news from home?
The master’s voice sounds friendlier than usual and I listen in amazement. He says that the visitors are members of the festival committee for the liberation celebrations and that they are looking for a pupil who can draw nicely.
From his desk he brings out a drawing I once made of a wintry scene, a farmer pulling a cow along by a rope. ‘You didn’t know I’d kept it, did you now?’
The men bend over the drawing and then look at me. Do they like what I’ve done? You can’t tell from their faces.
‘You will understand, of course, why we thought of you. The drawings have to be about Friesland, a fishing boat or something to do with our dairy products. And a national costume never comes amiss either. We shall have the drawings copied on a larger scale and then hang them up in the Sunday school.’
‘It would be very nice if they were in colour,’ says one of the men in a drawling voice, ‘that’s always more cheerful. After all, it’s for the celebrations. And that’s why we also thought of putting these words underneath.’ He fetches a piece of paper from out of his pocket on which we thank you and underneath V = victory are written in big capital letters in English.
I can’t believe it: they need me, they want me to do something for the liberation celebrations! Everyone will look at the drawings and know that it was me who did them…
‘I’ll do my best. When do they have to be ready?’ I am back in the porch, a box of coloured pencils they have given me in my hand. The school yard is deserted, the drizzle has turned to rain. The houses across the road are reflected in the smooth pavement.
The emptiness of the yard seems to increase the solemnity of the moment: there I stand all alone on the steps with my newly commissioned assignment, ready for a fresh, unknown start. Yesterday that present from the soldier and now this. My luck has changed!
A green car drives through the deserted street, the tyres making a lapping sound over the rain-washed stones. A piece of canvas hanging loose and blowing like a flapping wing in the wind looks like a ghostly apparition, lending the village street, in which I have never seen any other car since our arrival from Amsterdam, a completely different appearance. The houses seem smaller and the road, with the car in it, looks suddenly narrow and cramped.
Like a messenger from the Heavenly Hosts, of whom I have heard so much about in church, the vehicle whirrs past me, an imposing, combative angel. I slip into my clogs and start to run after it. At the crossroads the car stops and a soldier leans out. He calls. I stop and look behind me, but there is no one there. Surely he can’t be calling me!
‘Hey, you!’ He leans out of the window and waves to me. I look up into an intently inquisitive face. It is the soldier who gave me the packet of chewing-gum yesterday, the same chapped lips, the same searching eyes.