He opens his mouth as if he wants to say something and then realises that there is no point. Perhaps I ought to say something, but what? ‘Thank you’, or ‘V = Victory’, the English words the master wrote in my exercise book? But I don’t know how to pronounce them, even if I were brave enough to try.
The soldier looks inside the car for a moment and then holds another red and blue packet with a silvery sheen up above my head. ‘Yesterday,’ he smiles suddenly with a friendly grin that makes all my heaviness of heart fall away. He is like a divine apparition enthroned above me against the grey, massed clouds, as he raises the little packet up to heaven in what might be a gesture of blessing. Small beads of drizzle glisten in his hair, and a thin gold chain gleams under his throat, moving gently as if he were swallowing his words. It is in strange contrast to his strong hairy arms and unshaven chin. His face is like something I had forgotten and am seeing again after a painfully long time. It is almost with gratitude that I recognise the tooth with the chipped corner and the sharp groove setting off his mouth. The door opens; a leg jerks nervously and impatiently, as if there is a hurry. ‘Hello, come on in.’ I understand because he pats the seat beside him invitingly and nods his head. Should I really get in, can I refuse to? I ought to be getting back home, so I can’t really… He whistles impatiently and spreads his arms out in a questioning gesture. Before I know what has happened, he has leaned out and seized me by my coat. Reluctantly, I step onto the running-board and allow myself to be pulled into the seat, where I edge as far away from him as possible. Why am I so frightened, he has a friendly face and won’t do me any harm. On the contrary: with a few determined movements he beats the rain off my coat and puts an arm around my shoulder.
‘Hello,’ I hear again. I try to say the same thing back, hoarsely and timidly. They are right, I’m a scaredy-cat, too frightened to say boo to a goose. I clutch the box of coloured pencils as if my life depends on it and look at the door.
‘Okay.’ He stretches across me and slams the door shut. ‘Drive?’ he asks. ‘You like?’ His hand goes to my thigh and gives my leg a reassuring pat.
The car judders and then we are away. I hold tight to the seat, and whenever I see people I make myself as small as possible, no one in the village must see me sitting in a car belonging to the Americans.
While we are driving he looks at me, his face half turned towards me and his eyes veering from me to the road and back again. Why is he watching me like that, doesn’t he trust me?
We have left the village behind and are driving towards Bakhuizen, on a road I do not know. I have never walked here and the unknown surroundings frighten me as the familiar ground disappears from under my feet.
In the middle of an open stretch he slows down and then stops the car by the side of the road: that’s it then, now I’ll be able to get out and hare back to Laaxum. But the soldier lights a cigarette, leans peacefully to one side, and gazes across the rain-drenched land and at the shiny wet road. Carefully, I move my hand to the door handle and try to turn it without his noticing: I can barely budge it. The soldier takes my hand from the handle with a smile and continues to hold it.
‘Walt,’ he says pointing to himself. ‘Me, Walt. You?’ and digs a finger in my coat. I quickly free my hand and mumble my name under my breath, ‘Jeroen.’ I am ashamed of my voice.
‘Jerome?’ He puts out his hand and pinches mine as if trying to convince me of something. ‘Okay! Jerome, Walt: friends. Good!’ His lips make exaggerated movements as they form the words he utters with such conviction.
It is as if his hand has taken complete possession of me. I feel the touch run through my entire body. He has narrow fingers with bulging knuckles, the clipped nails have black rims. His thumb makes brief movements over the back of my hand in time with the windscreen wiper.
We are moving again, he gestures around the cab and gives me a questioning look. ‘Is good, Jerome, you like?’
I nod, and I’m beginning to feel a little bit easier. When the road makes a sharp curve, I lurch sideways and fall against the soldier. He puts an arm around me and stretches out the word ‘okaaaaay’ for as long as it takes to go round the bend.
We pass houses that seem to be bowing under the downpour and bedraggled trees that appear more and more often until they have grown into a wood. Everything slides past me through a veil of rain, whisked away from the windscreen with resolute flicks of the wiper. The arm around me feels warm and comfortable, as if I were enfolded in an armchair. I let it all happen, almost complacently. This is liberation, I think, that’s how it should be, different from the other days. This is a celebration.
His hand lies lightly on the steering-wheel, now and then making a few routine movements with it. That too is a celebration, this fast and trouble-free progress. I surrender to pleasant thoughts: he is my friend, this soldier, he will see to it that I get back to Amsterdam soon. Walt, what a strange name, just like Popke or Meint. Foreign. It’s a wonder he picked on me of all people, that’s surely something to do with God, the reason why so many sudden changes should be happening to me…
His hand, one finger having slipped inside the collar of my shirt, is kneading my neck, casually but deliberately. The landscape has become hilly and for a long time we speed along a forest road. I have never been so far from Laaxum. We stop at a clearing where a few other cars are parked, all looking like ours, green and with canvas roofs. A small group of soldiers is hanging about, some on their knees looking under one of the cars while another is holding a coat over their heads to keep the rain off.
‘Wait,’ says my companion, ‘just a moment.’ He winds down the window and calls out to the other men, then jumps out of the car and winks at me as if we are sharing a secret.
His boots grate across the quiet road and a moment later he is leaning against one of the cars talking with the others. I hear their voices and see them gesticulating vehemently and pointing to our car. The patter of the rain on the roof is lessening and a bright band of sunlight drifts across the road and the encircling trees. I look around the cab and put the coloured pencils in a groove between the seat and the backrest, clearly visible so that I shan’t forget them. Beside the wheel, under the buttons and the little dials, some strange words are written. They’re bound to be in American: I must try to remember them.
A small chain hangs down from the little mirror above my head, a silver cross and a few coins dangling from it, and next to it someone has jammed a shiny coloured print of a lady with bright yellow curly hair, smiling with a tight-set, red mouth. Her neck is long and bare, the yellow curls fall in gentle waves onto her shoulders. Do such women really exist, so sleek and brightly coloured? My eyes keep returning to that shimmering face with its carefree come-hither look.
A chill sun breaks through every so often. The talking on the road that had seemed endless to me fizzles out, the soldiers climb into their various cars. At last! My soldier jumps cheerfully behind the wheel and holds a chilly hand against my cheek. ‘Cold!’ He presses on the horn, making a loud noise, and the other cars sound their replies promptly through the still air. As they pass us one of the men whistles shrilly through his fingers and bangs on the roof of our car, giving me a fright. ‘So long!’
Then silence descends between the trees. We are alone again. The soldier opens a packet of cigarettes and holds it out to me. Me, smoke?
He chuckles and lights one for himself. The smell of wet clothes and cigarette smoke fills the cab, making me drowsy: it’s high time I went back home.