Tales from the Fountain Pen Read online

  “What’s with her?” Theo asks.

  “Not sure. She got searched on the train,” I say. “Well, actually, my pen from her bag got searched.”

  “What?” my brother asks.

  “I don’t understand it either, but I have her new fountain pen,” I say, and then proceed to tell him all that has happened.

  “Sounds to me like she’s a courier,” Theo says wisely.

  “That’s dangerous work,” I say softly.

  Many of the windows we pass already have the blackout curtains drawn. It makes the street look cold and the houses un-lived in. No children are out playing one last game in the twilight before dinner; even dogs are kept inside.

  I put the pen down and stretch. Clearly I have sat for some time scribbling this long-buried memory from the pen. I read what I’ve written. Very little is familiar to me, and I realize with sadness all those secrets my mother kept inside her, or in her pen. She didn’t seem particularly burdened by secrets in her life. Her motto was “Why bother with what’s been. It’s best to enjoy the day and look to the future.” A good motto, I suppose, but she was such a complex and vibrant woman, that I can’t help wondering what experiences shaped her.

  I know the pen will tell me, but I need some time to steel myself. Living two lives at once, which is the closest way I can describe this experience, is overwhelming, to say the least.

  Even before the nib touches the paper again I am transported back to the darkened village, walking as my teenage mother and her brother. It feels cold and damp. The kind of cold that settles in your bones and makes you shiver.

  We enter our house silently. I notice the brick duplex as if for the first time, though I have lived here all my life.

  Before closing the door I hear a faint coughing coming from next door; it must be Siepie’s mother, sick at home. I briefly wonder if I should make some broth to take next door.

  “Well, it’s about time you showed up.” My mother stands in the doorway to the kitchen with her arms crossed, and a scowl on her face. She’s a stern, short and stout woman.

  “The train got searched again. They almost took Siepie!” I say, cutting her off before she can comment on the smell clinging to my coat. “It was really scary!” I add, hanging up my coat and putting my damp shoes by the coal stove in the living room. I hope she remembered to put the bed warmer between the sheets today, as there’s no heating in the attic bedroom and I get really cold up there. My sister stares at me with a funny look on her face.

  “So, who was he?” she smirks. “You’ve been mooning over Hendrik again, haven’t you? That’s why you’re late.”

  Why did God give me a mean older sister? And almost immediately, in answer, I hear the thought in my head, Because he gave you a kind older brother.

  “Well?” my sister says, primping her skirt and plucking invisible lint off her sweater.

  “Oh, do be quiet, Betty,” I say forcefully, but quickly check my temper when I hear my father’s key in the lock. He hates it when we argue, and I don’t want to worry him. Not now that the war has him so frightened. He is always so glad to be home with all of us safe. I don’t want to do anything that might upset him.

  “I have homework to do,” I say instead, and take my satchel to the dining table. I pull out my books and paper and look for my pen, which I know won’t be there. Siepie still has it. Instead I find her new one.

  I unscrew it to see if has any ink in it, and find it does not.

  Theo sits down next to me and puts his index finger to his lips, then takes the pen. He seems to know what he’s looking for as he deftly uses a pin from my mother’s pincushion to feel around inside the barrel of the pen.

  I quickly glance behind me to see if my sister notices what we are doing, but she is reading a book and ignoring us. Just in case, though, I stand up and reach for the inkwell on the sideboard, effectively blocking Theo from her view.

  My eyes grow wide when I see Theo extracting a small piece of paper from the barrel, almost the same color as the pen.

  “What does it say?” I whisper as quietly as I can.

  Theo unfolds the paper and holds it up for me to see, but both sides are empty. I was sure it would have a secret message on it.

  We both look disappointed and stare at the little colored scrap a minute longer.

  I wonder if they used red cabbage juice or perhaps beet juice to color the paper. Then a thought occurs to me, something long forgotten from a science class about hidden messages and heat.

  “Hold it over the candle,” I say quietly.

  Theo understands and holds the paper carefully over the heat from the flame. Before our eyes a message does appear. FRIDAY 13.00. It must be important to someone.

  “I’ll put it back,” Theo says. I nod. Siepie must have known—why else would she have swapped pens?

  “Dangerous stuff,” my brother says and screws the pen back together again before handing it to me. I chew my lip and nod.

  A knock at the front door startles me.

  “Someone get the door and someone set the table for dinner.” My mother’s voice comes from the kitchen, mingled with the familiar scent of overcooked vegetables. “And ask who it is before you open the door!”

  Theo gets up, but I stop him.

  “No, I’ll get it,” I say, and hold up the pen.

  He nods.

  “Hendrik? What brings you here, after dark?” I say with what I hope is a sly smile.

  “Hi, Maggie. I just walked Siepie home and she asked me to return your pen that she borrowed earlier,” he explains. He acts as if it really was a simple pen borrowing and nothing more.

  “Why didn’t she come to return it?” I ask, taking back my pen.

  “She caught a chill and her mother needs her help,” the most handsome boy in our village calmly explains.

  “Hmmm,” I say. “I think she’ll probably want her new pen back. It seemed important…to her.”

  Now Hendrik smiles sheepishly.

  “Yes, that pen is important,” he says, “to her.”

  He takes Siepie’s pen and turns to leave.

  “Hendrik?” I say, but hesitate to finish what I want to say.

  “Yes, Maggie?” I can just make out his bright blue eyes by the thin strip of light that escapes from inside the house. He looks worried for a moment.

  “Oh, nothing,” I say, chickening out.

  “Right.” He turns to go again.

  “Hendrik…just…be careful.”

  “Always.” He gives me his most devastating smile and disappears into the darkness.

  Through the flutter of butterflies in my stomach I detect that sense of foreboding, growing. I shall have to be more careful around my friends from now on. Two of them have just used me as a courier and I didn’t even know it.

  The ink stops flowing, nothing more of this memory will come out of the pen. Perhaps another time I shall learn what happened to my mother’s friends.

  I have avoided the siren’s call all day and only now on the cusp of twilight do I have the courage to go where the pen wishes to take me. It is, however, a fleeting courage. With some trepidation I unscrew the cap on the old pen.

  Why I should feel this much fear I cannot say. Perhaps I feel every time I uncap the pen I am Pandora releasing a multitude of horrors, not necessarily upon the world, but upon myself. Will hope remain behind in the pen once I’ve set free all those memories, or will my life become overly burdened and perhaps irreparably harmed by my mother’s stories? Was that why she kept them secret; hidden in her pen?

  Before I can lose myself in these contemplations the pen pulls me in, faster than before. I find myself in the dark, and disoriented.

  Where am I—or rather, where is my mother?

  Slowly my eyes adjust.

  I am outside. The breeze is cold, but not unbearably so. Stars shine brightly overhead, but I see no sign of the moon. Perhaps that is why I am out this night. But what am I doing here on a deserted back road surrounded
by farmland?

  “Are you coming?” the familiar voice of my brother whispers. “We don’t want to get caught by a patrol.”

  “Oh, right. I was just admiring the stars,” I say, and look at my brother. His face is almost hidden by the dark; I can barely make out his features.

  He takes my arm and we walk along the empty road toward a structure in the distance. Of course: the Adema farm. I am taking my brother to the farm to hide him from the Germans.

  But, wait. This is not the way to the Adema farm. Are we going even further away?

  Just then, Theo puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me close.

  “Patrol, act married,” he hisses in my ear.

  “Right.” I remember what our plan was now.

  I snuggle against his shoulder. My left hand is in my pocket and I can feel our mother’s wedding band on my ring finger. Everything has been set up to give the appearance of a married couple.

  “Halt,” a gruff voice behind us calls out.

  We stop and slowly turn around to find a small German military vehicle with its headlights shuttered.

  Fear spreads from the pit of my stomach through my whole body. This is no ordinary patrol. These are people on a special mission, I’m sure of it. There are twice as many soldiers on the vehicle as normal and they have a Gestapo member with them.

  They are after somebody big and I only hope it’s not us. It can’t be us. There is no possible way they could be after us.

  “Who are you and why are you out after curfew?” the man in the long leather coat purrs malevolently. He’s a Dutch man who’s joined the enemy. How I hate those.

  “I’m Theo Hooghiemstra and this is my wife, Maggie. We received word that my mother is dying and we have traveled for most of the day and half the night to get to her,” Theo says smoothly.

  The man purses his lips in thought while some of his soldiers openly leer at me.

  I realize how incredibly vulnerable I am here in the dark with just my brother for protection. My teeth start to chatter, perhaps from cold but more likely from fear.

  Why does this man not control his soldiers? I had heard they were under orders not to molest Dutch women.

  Two of the soldiers slowly circle us, like predators circling prey.

  Theo’s hand is holding mine, tightly, and I am grateful he is there, though I’m wondering why I thought this “adventure” was a good idea. My courage seems to have deserted me.

  “Your papers!” the man barks, no sign left of the earlier purr.

  “Certainly,” Theo says in a voice more calm than I know him to be.

  Now comes the really big test. Will our altered identity cards stand up to official scrutiny? The only advantage I can see is that they will have to examine them by flashlight, a small shuttered beam to avoid detection from above. I wish with all my heart for a fly-over by the English right now, but the night sky remains quiet.

  Theo hands over our identity cards.

  One of the soldiers breaks from circling and comes over to me. He moves my hair off my shoulder and smiles greedily at me.

  Revulsion ripples through my body and I swallow several times to keep the rising bile down.

  The soldier notices and laughs. Then he strokes my cheek with the barrel of his pistol. The steel feels cold and menacing against my skin.

  I can feel the anger in Theo rising by the way he’s squeezing my hand, but know that he is as powerless as I am to stop this. One wrong move from him and they’ll kill him where he stands and do far worse to me.

  “Leave her!” the man in leather barks in German. “We do not interfere with good citizens.”

  He hands us back our papers and says, “May you get to your mother in time. It is important to say goodbye to those we care about.” His tone of voice is clearly meant to convey a kind and reassuring manner. “And assure your young wife that we are not all heartless brutes. You may pass freely, but hurry.”

  We quickly turn around and start walking briskly toward the farm further up the road. How I wish it is our destination, but I know we have further to go.

  I can still feel the cold imprint of the pistol on my cheek. Behind us we hear the Gestapo man give the soldiers a severe dressing-down in their own language and it is a small consolation, giving me little comfort as I try to stop myself from shaking.

  “I should not have let you talk me into this idea. I should have found a way to hide on my own,” Theo says, still holding on to my hand.

  “I had to. If I hadn’t come along you would be in Germany by now, forced to work in one of their factories,” I reply.

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Yes, but you might be.”

  “Maggie, nobody’s questioning your courage, but this is dangerous. These are not the kind of scrapes you normally get into. I can’t protect you from these people. I can’t beat them up if they pull your hair in class.”

  “I know,” I whisper, aware of the gravity of life under the occupation. We have all had to grow up too fast.

  The fear threatens to overwhelm me and I want desperately to remove the pen from the paper, but it won’t let me. I know what my mother must have felt as I feel it now. No wonder she wouldn’t talk of her experiences. I am wrestling with the pen to regain control but instead I go on, the story continues. My mother is not yet safe.

  “Just a little further,” I hear Theo saying.

  In the distance another rectangular shape looms up, which I guess must be the farm of our destination. I cannot remember why we chose that one over our uncle’s farm. He provides us with extra food from time to time. Why could he not hide Theo until this war is over?

  I see a lantern signaling across the fields. “That’s for us, come, quickly,” Theo says and pulls me along. We run toward the lantern and toward safety.

  “You’re late. We expected you some time ago,” the farmer says. His rough, weathered hands push us quickly into the warm farmhouse.

  “We were stopped by a patrol,” Theo explains.

  The farmer nods. “They were here before supper, but left when they didn’t find anything.”

  “Where can you hide my brother?” I ask, not at all convinced that Theo will be safe on this farm.

  “We have a very secure hiding place. I’d best not tell you, for your own safety,” he says.

  “Understood,” I say, but still I worry.

  “Come, have some warm milk and bread with cheese.” The farmer’s wife urges us into the warm kitchen. “Why, child, you are shivering.” She sits me close to the fire and wraps a blanket around me, then brings me a cup of warm milk and a plate with a thick slice of bread with cheese. I haven’t tasted anything so rich in at least a year. Most of the food is now taken to feed the German army. I start to cry, softly, hoping no one will notice.

  The farmer’s wife seems to understand and nods at me, then makes sure the others won’t notice by blocking their view of me. She stands at the head of a long table cutting bread and cheese for Theo and another young man who has just turned up out of the dark night.

  “Hi, I’m Willem,” the newcomer says.

  “No names, son,” the farmer says quickly. “The less we know, the better. Eat up and then I’ll take you to your hiding place. You, young lady, can sleep in the hayloft. Tomorrow I can take you part of the way home. It should be safe enough for you to walk the rest on your own,” the farmer says. He picks up a lantern and leads the way.

  I start to take off the blanket, but the farmer’s wife stops me, “Keep it. You’ll be thankful for the extra warmth.” She pats my shoulder kindly for a moment.

  I say goodnight to my brother, not sure if I will see him again in the morning.

  The hayloft is only half full, but looks comfortable enough. Not so many years ago it would have been fun; sleeping in Uncle Adema’s hayloft. It was always something to look forward to, that week in August we would spend on the farm before school started again.

  “Dig yourself in back there. Nobody will see you,
” the farmer says. I nod and slowly climb to where he points. “We’re up with the sun. If you want breakfast before we head out, you’ll be up by then too.” His voice sounds gruff and a little cold, but I know that the offer of food means kindness. If he didn’t care, he would have just rousted me out a minute before leaving.

  I mumble an agreement and will myself to be awake by sun-up. That is assuming I will even sleep at all.

  I burrow into the hay like a scared young animal and lie there listening to the sounds of the night. I don’t feel brave. I don’t feel strong. I long for the protective arms of my father who is probably awake at this very moment, worrying about Theo and me.

  He didn’t like this idea at all, but I bullied him into it. Nicely, but still. He never can refuse me anything. It angers my sister no end, but I’m sure she could have her own way more often if she made herself a little more agreeable.

  An owl hoots in the distance. Normally that would be a comforting sound, but tonight it reminds me of the hunt and, for the first time ever, I feel sympathy for the tiny field mouse trying to evade the nocturnal predator. I know how it must feel.

  When I close my eyes I still see the leering soldier. He looms close in my face and I open my eyes again, determined not to go to sleep…ever again.

  What is that noise? I sit up and strain to hear better. It sounds like the whine of an engine. Oh please, don’t let the patrol come back. Not tonight.

  I hold my breath as the sound comes closer, reverberating over the fields. As it gets louder and closer I begin to recognize the drone of the fighter planes. I hope they are the English on a bombing run into Germany. Inwardly I cheer them on. Not that I want ordinary Germans to die, I just want the war to end.

  I lie back and listen, trying to guess where the airplanes might be going, fighting sleep that tugs most insistently at my eyelids.

  I wake to find it is still dark out, but something tells me dawn is not too far off. Perhaps it’s the chill in the air brushing my cheeks or the slight lightening of the darkness. Whatever it is, I decide to get up.

  With an effort I climb out of my nest and pull the blanket along. Once out of the hay, I shake the blanket and brush off my clothes. Faint sounds of life come from the farmhouse and the stables across the yard.