“So, you told him,” Wim said when she appeared downstairs again. He slowly massaged his thighs with his two hands, and his torso moved back and forth with the same rhythm.
“Yes, this afternoon. He seems to have suspected something like that himself. Suddenly he asked me himself, why—”
“And…?” Wim interrupted her. His impatience betrayed him.
But there was no “And,” none at all. Marie put the empty tray on a chair near the door and stepped closer to the table.
They had caught Jop and taken him in three days ago; he had fallen into a trap — he was careless, he was betrayed, who could say? That kind of thing happened, unfortunately, all too often these days. Those were the stakes everyone had to play for if they took part in the game at all. They had searched his house, looking for papers that would incriminate him. Now he was in Amsterdam, sitting in an infamous police prison, and no one knew if he would get through the “cross-examination” alive. He didn’t need to say much; people were so modest, they were satisfied with just a little, a tiny little bit of evidence — just the tiniest little pebble, high in the mountains, that worked loose and fell and in falling would grow into an avalanche.
Marie and Wim were warned as well, too late in any case; the danger had already passed. They discussed whether or not to tell Nico the news — whether it wasn’t, in fact, better to get him out of their house for a while. Two days later the report came that Jop was in jail with the so-called “light” cases. So there was nothing to fear, for now. But still, you had to be on your guard. That was when they decided to tell Nico.
“Ach,” Marie began, “he actually stayed rather calm.” She faltered. “He was scared.” She fell silent again. It took her a long time to find the words to express what she had, to her horror, perceived.
She had seen fear: the terrible helpless fear that rises up out of sadness and despair and is no longer attached to anything — the helpless fear that is tied only to nothingness. Not fear or anxiety or despair about a person or a situation, nothing, nothing, only the exposure, the vulnerability, being cast loose from all certainties, from all dignity and all love. The man offered it up to her so shamelessly that it felt to Marie like she was seeing him physically naked. No cry out loud, no contortion of his face or his hands, he was simply uncovered, he stood in the middle of the room, the focal point and bull’s-eye for all the poisoned arrows being shot at him from beyond life. And Marie understood that words like “love your neighbor” or “national duty” or “civil disobedience” were only a weak reflection of this deepest feeling that Wim and she had felt back then: wanting to shelter a persecuted human being in their house. Like the way people veil a body in fabric and clothing so that the blaze of its nakedness does not blind too deeply the eyes that see it, people veil life itself with precious garments, behind which, as under ashes, the double-tongued fire of creation smolders. Love, beauty, dignity: all that was only put on, so that whoever approached the glowing embers in reverence would not singe his grasping hands and thirsting lips. But wherever violence and annihilation tore away the protective covering, the undaunted heart was thrown into turmoil and could not rest until new costumes had formed, new threads had been spun, to mask and raise up what was shameful and unbearable.
He, too, the man standing so pale before her who had shut his eyes for a moment, felt the look she was giving him. He whispered: “I’d felt so safe here, so safe.”
He did not speak Jop’s name. But Marie saw that he was still thinking about him and that he had included him in his own — purported — safety and security. She was almost ashamed that she had to be witness to all this.
She had no words for any of it. She said: “He was afraid, of course, for all of us — for Jop, for himself, for us. Maybe not in that order exactly, but what’s the difference?”
“Strange,” said Wim, “I would have bet that… Didn’t he say anything else?”
“Should we eat first?”
She sat down. Then she continued: “He suggested to me that he look for another place.”
“How could he think such a thing,” Wim asked, a little aggressively. “He wants to just go out onto the street, not knowing where? I hope you told him, Marie.”
Marie started to fill the bowls and, in her mind, was already back in the kitchen. She was thinking about the pieces of meat she had always used to put into her soups, which made them so especially tasty. When would they have meat in their soup again?
They started to eat. “I’ll talk to him later,” Wim said.
“Tonight he won’t be coming downstairs again, I’m sure.”
“Then I’ll go upstairs.” Silence. “Did you also tell him that his ration cards are taken care of?”
“I forgot,” Marie said, and she let her spoon fall back into the meatless soup. “I never even thought of that.”
And Wim said slowly, without looking up, “He won’t be eating a single bite of his food up there.”
“I’ll go right now,” Marie cried, a little ashamed, and she flew up the stairs. She didn’t stay long.
“You were right, Wim,” she announced when she came back to the table, slightly flushed. “Everything was standing exactly as I brought it to him, untouched.”
“Maybe it was still too hot for him,” Wim said, and he blew on his soup-filled spoon for a long time before carefully bringing it to his mouth.
That evening he had a talk with Nico.
“So what will happen now?” Nico asked timidly.
“Nothing,” Wim answered.
He was right. Nothing happened. Jop stayed away and Leen came by and did exactly the same things that Jop had done. It went on.
More than anyone, Coba proved herself to be a great help. She watched the house whenever Marie had to be away for a shorter or longer time, like the time when Marie’s mother fell ill and Marie took care of her for ten days. Coba’s nature was just like her walk: not heavy, lightly swinging past every obstacle, but still firm and decisive. She laughed easily. “Excellent!” she said when Marie — during Coba’s very first visit — confided in her. “Excellent. How old? That’ll work. Older and they’re already too fossilized. I had wanted to ask you two for a long time if you’d take someone in.”
“Really? Would you have done it too?”
“One? I’d take two or four! Just not three together, that’s bad in arguments and so on. It’s always two against one. By the way, you don’t have anyone else waiting in the wings, do you? I need to take in another three soon.”
“You?”
“Yes, well, these things just come up…”
Coba — who would have thought it. Marie felt dizzy.
“Does he have visitors?… No one? But he needs to see someone else’s face now and then.” It turned out she had quite a lot of experience in all sorts of useful things. “Careful,” she said, “be careful, my friends! But within reason, don’t overdo it. That leads to a complex, to anxiety, and that’s how mistakes get made. Don’t isolate him, fresh air every now and then, when it’s possible. Imagine if we…!”
Coba and Nico were on a first-name basis right away. She was in her late twenties. The next time, she brought him new books in English and French, detective novels and others.
“When this is all over, Nico, Marie and I get a lifetime supply of perfume from you, agreed?”
“Nuit de Paris. Romance for the lady in the evening…”
“Not just in the evening, Nico, I’m a lady all day long—”
He went on: “Violetta, Sans-Gêne for afternoons, and some mornings, for fashion shows…”
“I’ve never been to a fashion show myself,” Marie said.
The names that used to waft from his lips, sleek and melodious like magic formulas, now sounded perfectly ordinary, and strangely fresh, unused. They too once were, and maybe one day would be again…