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

just cold,” I manage to say through clenched teeth. I do feel sick, but I know the cause: loathing and disgust.
    Now I’m a collaborator. What will happen to me? Maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe nobody will find out. Maybe one kiss is not the end of the world.
    Conflicting thoughts run through my head and I end up spilling some of the hot water over my hand as I try to pour it into the stainless steel bottle. It soaks the wool and knitted sleeve and scalds my hand.
    “Ouch!” I cry and shake the water off my hand, tears flooding my eyes.
    “Clumsy!” Betty says and takes the bottle from me. I watch her screw the top on and strip off the wet cover. “Hold your hand under cold water, dummy, you don’t want it to blister, do you?”
    I silently comply, letting the cold water flow over my hand while hot tears run down my cheeks. I feel like a little kid. How could I have been so stupid?
    Tomorrow I shall tell Johann “no more,” and I shall tell Siepie the same. It’s too dangerous.
    With my hand wrapped in a piece of flannel with ointment, the hot water bottle in a fresh, dry sleeve under my arm, I warily climb the steep stairs to the cold little attic room I share with my sister. I can hear the soldier’s voices coming from Theo’s room and feel a fresh wave of nausea rising.
    I close the door to my room behind me and without even taking off my clothes I slip under the covers, clutching the hot water bottle as if it’s my most treasured possession.
    The pen lifts and I find tears slowly dropping onto the paper as I relive my mother’s anguish. I remember asking my mother once if she knew how to speak German, to which she tersely said: “Yes, but I won’t ever speak it again.” Was that because of what happened with Johann?

    Before dawn the next day I am at my desk to meet my mother again and to relive her life. I unscrew the cap of the old pen, top off the ink bladder and touch the tip to the paper, allowing myself to be transported back to her village in the north of the Netherlands during the war. I hope she’s all right and I will the pen to write faster despite the pain in my hand from writing the day before.

    I can’t tell how much time has passed when I find myself outside on a cold morning. I’m huddled into the collar of my old coat, a scarf wrapped around my neck and my hands firmly in my pockets.
    It looks like I am near the center of the village: I can see the train station some way up the road. It looks like a train is being loaded with supplies and people. No, they’re soldiers. Is the war over?
    No, it can’t be. People walking past me have downcast eyes and a hungry, almost haunted look about them. That’s not how I imagine a liberated people would look. Besides, I don’t feel much joy inside either.
    I seem rooted to the ground under my feet as I watch the train being loaded in the distance.
    With an effort I turn my head to see where I am and find myself in front of the boarded-up butcher’s shop.
    “It’s no use standing around waiting for Hendrik, my dear.” The kindly voice of Mrs. Jansen startles me. “Just because the soldiers are leaving doesn’t mean they’ll let him go from wherever they’re holding him.” She gives me a sad little smile.
    I try to think of something appropriate to say. “Maybe soon,” is all I manage.
    “Yes, maybe soon all this will be over and we’ll have our boys back.” She turns, but not before I see her eyes well up. Of course, her son, Jan, is in hiding too, just like Theo. Jan went into hiding a few months before my brother. He had to, as he’d been handing out anti-German leaflets in Leeuwarden.
    Where Hendrik is brash and bold, Jan sometimes is just plain stupid. He figured he would be safe if all he did was quietly hand out little notes urging people to resist the occupiers.
    The first time he got picked up he got off with a warning, but the second time he got severely beaten. Just a few days after that he went into hiding. That was