Village Squire, 1977-01, Page 12hollowness in his empty stomach and the room echoed with
bitter finality as the husband and w ife got down onto their
knees beside the bed. It was hard, it was hard. He was a
farmer and he believed that things should grow higher, taller,
come to fruit. He believed that each spring should come
to its harvest. and he said bitterly, "1 wish to God that I would
never see another German again."
It took them a moment to settle on their knees, their old
joints aching with weariness for the day's end and weariness
for this aching life. He looked at her for a moment, and she
said. as she rested her dark eyes on him, "Try not to be too
angry Jan?"
"Ja," he said, "I'll try."
Then they began: "Onze Vader, die in den Hemel zijt; uw
Naam worde geheiligd; uw Rijk kome ....
The warm black soil moved. the plant went in, the soil was
pressed around it. In the air cooling in the late afternoon the
first birds of spring sang and the church bells rang in the wind
on the water, over the houses and through the grey air. The
four boys and their father paused at their work to listen to the
tolling bells. It was a sound that made a silence, the bell of
Sint Martinus working a silence over the village in its
Saturday afternoon quiet of rest after the long week. As a
bowl holds water the ringing bell held silence over the water,
the trees. the rooftops.
Kees spoke. "It's the wedding. Boman's wedding." The
father too was distracted from the work, as he looked across
the ditches and the trees at the point of the church tower
rising above the treetops.
"A wedding," he said, with both wonder and sarcasm. "A
wedding. in such a time. Who could believe it?" He shook his
head and bent to the work again. The boys detected a softer
tone in his voice and began to talk among themselves, quietly
discussing matters of serving on the alter, which Kees had
been asked to do for this wedding. He had to stay home and
plant the lettuce, but they discussed anyway the amount of
money he might have been given by the bride's father or the
bestman, and what he would have done with those visions of
wealth.
""Were you ever an alter boy?" the youngest of the boys.
Leo, asked Bas. who was fourteen, and from Leo's point of
view:. big enough and honourable enough to carry the cross at
the front of the processions.
"No." Bas said. smiling quietly at Leo's earnest face. "but
I used to sing in the choir before the war."
"In the choir?" the boy asked, who crouched at his work
next to his father. He only kept up with his father because he
found half of the plants ahead of hint already done. "You
mean with the old people. not with the children?"
"Yes." said Bas. smiling because he new Leo was trying to
Lind out the value of that accomplishment. "I used to sing
with them at weddings too."
"How: long ago was that?" Kees asked him.
"A year ago was the last one."
"Why don't you do it now?" Leo asked with simple
curiosity.
-Because now 1 work." Bas said. looking across the path
a Leo. "and singing doesn't till the stomach."
i hey asked no more questions. Even little Leo. working
hard to keep up with his father. knew that they were treading
on touchy ground. knew that they had reached the
uncomfortable line of difference between themselves and Bas
Groeneveld; they had a father who could feed them and send
them to school. while Bas, who had not only been, the
youngest member of the choir, but who the school masters
still held up as a legendary scholastic example. spent his days
here beside their father. working from dawn till dark for his
bed and his food. Besides. now they could see again their
father's furrowing brow. There was quiet while the bells
ended ringing and they pictured. each of them. the couple
walking down the dark aisle while the choir sang and Pater
Ferdinand waited for them at the end.
Thinking of that young couple the father glanced across his
row. at Bas. "What a world." he thought bitterly. thinking of
years of work and his back bending. his pipe empty and his
wife worrying in the night about mouths to feed. and the tire
tread nailed to the bottoms of their wooden shoes so that even
they would last longer. 'What a world." The quiet boy
worked steadily across from him, oblivious to the shot of eyes
across the dirt path. Jan Capel raged against it, while he
looked at the boy. raged against the years of his life. work and
struggle. made empty for him by the making of a single
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10, Village Squire/January 1977