Read Online Tales from the Fountain Pen by E. Lynn Hooghiemstra - Free Book Online Page A

slice it in the machine before bagging it while she would count out exact change for the bread. Then she’d take it home and take the small end piece, spread it with butter and slowly, quietly eat it, savoring every bite. Then with a contented sigh as if she’d just consumed the most precious of delicacies, she would continue with her day.
    My sandwich now doesn’t seem quite so ordinary, and I take my time in preparing it. I eat it slowly and try to savor every bite as I’d seen my mother do. For a moment I imagine she’s there with me in the kitchen. I imagine I can even catch a faint hint of her favorite perfume, Chanel No.5.
    It takes me quite some time to return to the fountain pen on my desk and the remaining blank pages, but finally curiosity compels me.
    It is late, well after curfew, and I am in Siepie’s home. The front room is cold, colder than ours, and lit only by a small oil lamp set on a table between two easy chairs. Siepie’s mother sits in one of them with a blanket pulled up to her chest, squinting at her knitting. She’ll ruin her eyes in this poor light.
    Siepie’s father isn’t home yet. He often has to work late at the rail-yard and sometimes doesn’t come home at all. Instead he’ll sleep a few hours in the station office. Well hidden from any German patrols, of course, as they don’t allow people to sleep in the station waiting room.
    Siepie silently lights a candle and motions for me to follow her up to her bedroom. I’m holding a small ball of blue yarn in my hand and I know we’re going up to find her red yarn, and to talk in secret.
    Her room is even colder than downstairs and I wonder how they are coping. Her little brother is in the big bed downstairs in the back room and now and then I hear him coughing. This cold can’t be helping his frail lungs. How will they all survive the coming winter?
    “Well?” Siepie asks. “Have you found out anything?”
    I suck in my lower lip and think where to begin. Johann had quite a lot to say after he got home from the camp. Especially after I encouraged him. I feel ashamed and don’t want to say anything, but I know I must. I know that what I did was for the greater good.
    In my mind’s eye I still see the happy grin on his face after I let him kiss me.
    We were upstairs, I was getting a cardigan to put on over my sweater, and he had just returned. I could taste cigarette smoke on his lips, but I didn’t stop him. Oh, why does he have to be the enemy?
    “Well?” Siepie asks impatiently.
    I nod and take a steadying breath. I decide not to tell her about the bread…or the kiss.
    “He told me,” I say with as steady a voice as I can manage, “the invasion is planned for next month. They’re waiting on extra equipment. The factories in the Ruhr area are working around the clock building tanks and aircraft. And they plan to load a lot of troops from here, using the Waddenzee to confuse Churchill.”
    An involuntary shudder runs through me.
    “Are you cold?” Siepie asks.
    “Yes,” I lie, not wanting to admit my revulsion at what I’ve done.
    “You’ve done well. That’s very valuable information.” Siepie pats my arm to show her approval and understanding, but she can’t possibly know what I’m feeling inside.
    Without waiting for her to give me the red yarn I make my excuses and leave quickly. It almost feels warmer outside than in Siepie’s house, but I find myself shivering uncontrollably; not from the cold. Before I am able to open my own front door I throw up my meager dinner, which consisted of a fried egg and a slice of that bread.
    With shaking hands I open the front door and go straight to the kitchen. There I fill up a pan with water to heat for a hot water bottle to take up to bed.
    “What’s wrong with you?” Betty asks when she finds me in the kitchen.
    “Cold,” I say through chattering teeth.
    “Are you sick?” she asks with disgust. “If you are, I don’t want to share the bed with you.”
    “No,