Boys Don't Cry

By Joseph De Prest

Belgium 1942.
In the midst of the German occupation, this heart warming story comes to life through the eyes of a child. It captures brilliantly the sights and sounds of war.
It is an amazing chronicle of hardships and triumphs, of survival, both humorous and compassionate. A monument to the enduring strength of the human spirit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479748143

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Copyright © 2012, 2014 by .

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012921623

ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4797-4813-6

Softcover 978-1-4797-4812-9

eBook 978-1-4797-4814-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Front cover photo: Author on the left next to his two brothers Hubert And Andre.

Rev. date: 02/10/2014

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Boys Don’t Cry

July 14, 1936

My Mother

Pure Brutality

My Father

Infancy

Our Home

Start of World War Two

Yolanda’s Cameo

German Biscuits

Story Time

Pepe

Lillian’s Nightmare

Despondent

Bomma

A Gypsy Boy

A Surprising Act of Kindness

Deathly Reprisal

Baby Robert

A Real Treat

Our Little Window to the World

In the Garden of Eden

German Smokes

Andre’s Nightmare

Sabotage

Mama’s Story

Off to Confession

Father Gilbert

January 1944

A Little of Meme’s Kindness

A Visit to the Doctor

On the War Front, a Glimmer of Hope

The Allied Invasion

A Shortcut through Hell

Free at Last

Revenge

My Own War with the Bullies

All Saints’ Day

Saint Peter’s Cemetery

More Revenge

The Funeral Cortege

A Special Treat

Diphtheria

Lillian’s New Home in Saint Denis

Hunting for Live Ammo

My Early Teens

Out in the Work Force

Better Days Ahead

This memoir is a work of creative nonfiction. The story of my parents, especially before I was born changes as stated by the teller.

This is my account.I have used the actual names of my family. The names of anyone else in this book have been changed out of respect for their privacy.

Acknowledgements

I like to thank my wife Lorraine, who encouraged, and guided me, urging me to go deeper into my past. Her warmth gave soul to the challenging demands of writing one’s long, almost forgotten past. I am also indebted to Carole Shuttleworth and Path Lockrey and especially John Roney who spent a good deal of time correcting and critiquing this maze of words and sentences.

To my parents, hidden amongst the stars.

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BOYS DON’T CRY

Memories, I’m not all that keen on them. Not that there aren’t a few good ones, but on the whole, I’d like to keep them in a safe and forget the combination.

After the birth of my first grandchild, Brandon, a friend approached me, suggesting I pen the story of my life, thus leaving some history behind for my grandchildren. You’re a repository of unique experiences, he said.

I’ve been away from Belgium, my country of birth for a good fifty years, but it is still in my bones. The brutal landscapes of my childhood are so ingrained that it is hard to talk, let alone write about. I had to convince myself with some friendly persuasion—should I, or should I not, exhume my thwarted past and give it voice? I’ll consider it, I said.

Reluctantly, here I am, ready to break the code my father gave me as a child; not talking about your past suffering shows courage and grace. Likewise, there’s a saying, To go on about the past you’ll lose an eye, but to bury it you’ll lose both. I also believe that memory is an obligation; perhaps the last duty owed anyone. Besides, solitude is no friend of science. It is a fact that we must concentrate and look forward to the future, but I have come to believe that our greatest wealth as human beings can be discovered by simply looking at the mistakes of our past—a springboard for the future, so to speak—and because of it, I have a story to tell.

Even though I have worked at jobs in Europe, and across the American continent from East to West, which includes farmhand, sailor, lumberjack, businessman, and others too numerous to mention, I knew this monumental task would be the most difficult endeavor I’d ever undertaken because of my limited education. Yes, I have stories to tell, but only a limited amount of words in which to express the nuances and shadows of the story. Equally important is the challenge to place the pieces of my unusual past in the right sequence. I am holding my breath for all the possible errors I’m anticipating and the punctuation crises I’ll be going through in order to make this a coherent narrative. Regardless, I will try my best to bring it all into focus, for I am now convinced I owe it to my grandchildren and future great-grandchildren.

The subsequent years it took to unravel these experiences are bound to include inaccuracies, omissions, and perhaps create some conflict of interest here and there. Please understand that it is impossible to recreate exactly every feeling, action, or thought in another person’s life. For the sake of brevity and structure, I altered a few details, but for the most part, the dialogue and scenes, to the best of my knowledge, did occur. My recollections as a child of the war years are long and intricate. Even now, after a lifetime ten times as long, those memories are still engraved, still vivid— a keyhole into the dark years. A page of drama that stays with you for life. It often resurfaces as one sits back and reflects, long after the coffee has gone cold and tables have cleared. I still see it all so clearly, even with these fading eyes of mine—a small flame now, but once a roaring fire. I will submit to the impartial reader only two requests: first, that they will not expect to find perfection in this work, and second, that they’ll excuse my views that in some cases fall short of merit. For better or worse, I believe there should be a record of it all, a way of life lost but to memory. There is nothing exceptional or unusual about me, but I hope this glimpse into their roots will prove fascinating to my descendants.

This diary is a record of hope always rising.

JULY 14, 1936

Nineteen thirty-six was not a good year to be born, especially in Belgium, but what choice does one have? The newspaper headlines around the world recorded that the Depression was worsening, a civil war was on the verge of erupting in Spain, and the United Kingdom started a mass production of gas masks. The target? One for every citizen! Mussolini was sending troops into Abyssinia. Widespread use of mustard gas on troops as well as on civilians had been reported. That action once again violated the Geneva Convention of 1925. Hitler’s troops goose-stepped into the Rhineland, defying the treaties of Versailles and Locarno. Hitler had proposed a new treaty, guaranteeing peace for the next quarter century; the British saw his intentions as conciliatory. It was perhaps more likely the dark logic of that time. A newspaper commented, After all, he has done nothing more than re-occupy his own backyard. Made sense. Just remember, he was 160 km closer to France.

We did not know that the whole world would change. Of the events threatening such a change and the fearful weaponry that would bring it about, already rumbling into action, we had no idea. We could not know, not then, how treacherously time could break its promise—how our trust in the permanence of things would be shaken. We would learn that beyond the poppy-sprinkled fields and valleys of our dear Flanders existed other scenes—dark rooms and unlit streets, corruption and hunger, cruelty and pain. While the whole world was suffering, our country, once more would groan beneath the weight of it all.

And so it was, on a warm summer night, after a long nine months of my mother’s difficult pregnancy, my life began. It was a life that, together with my mother’s, for a few miserable hours hung equally balanced between this world and the next. Another mouth to feed, another burden, for it came to be an unexpectedly hungry one. My name is spelled J-o-z-e-f M. D-e P-r-e-s-t. The initial M stands for Marie-Anna, bestowed on me by my godmother, which, upon my voyage to the new world, I have conveniently cast adrift amongst the turbulent waves of the North Atlantic, together with all the embarrassment and laughter it had already caused.

I was the fifth child of Andrea and Germain De Prest. A large family was the norm in those days. It was expected of you, rich or poor. My mother was only twenty-one years old. Her first child, born days before she was seventeen, was a boy, Andre, but he died when he was two years old. His illness had started with rickets and progressed to poor bone formation of the skull. He died eventually of a multitude of deadly infections. After him came two girls, Lillian and Antoinette, followed by a boy, Andre, named for the firstborn. I suppose, like in every large family, there’s a comedian and Andre was ours. His fiendish sense of humor as a kid endured no diminution in his later years.

After the birth of Andre, and being severely weak, due to poor nutrition, the doctor warned my mother that if she had any more children, she would surely die. But as luck would have it, there I was in all my glory. Little did the doctor know that six more children would follow in rapid succession! I was a difficult breach birth, and since my mother was at home with just a midwife, we both nearly died and were very weak for a period of time.

Our house, although it had no running water or heat, was an improvement over our former residence: a one-room attic. My first bed was an orange crate. As children, what kept us together was our determination to survive without losing heart. Being born into a family so well used to surviving against the odds wasn’t so bad.

We came from a family of schippers—people who made their living delivering freight by boat on rivers and canals throughout Europe—both from my mother and father’s side. My father was born on a boat in Charleville-Mezieres, France, my mother in Liege, Belgium, both on the River Meuse, better known as the Mosel. My maternal grandfather, Gus Aelbrecht, came from a long line of troublemakers and bar fighters. He was a stark man, square built, with a hard mouth. His jaw, on both sides, had deep scars that implied a run-in with something—an errant barstool or perhaps an ill-placed fence post. On occasion, he could be charming, but he had a mean side, an unpredictable temper that could easily explode. His good intentions seldom lasted longer than the first drink. The devil inside him came out grinning when the booze dribbled in. At the age of twelve, he had been thrown out of his turbulent home. Educated in the cruel academy of the streets, he became a bare-knuckle brawler, willing to take on anyone who dared, using his punishing fists as a weapon. Enraged, he became a terrible foe. He despised restraints and rules, and scorned any attempt to keep him within those rules, obedient only to his own law and his own rules, and was good at making other men live by them.

Gus Aelbrecht was well known as the fighter of Wondelgem, a small town near my place of birth. His wife, my grandmother, Cordula Aelman, was purportedly a beautiful girl when she was young—something I found difficult to believe during the time I knew her. Apparently, when she was young, she loved dressing up and sang in bars or cabarets. (Those stories came to me, like others did, in fragments.)

My paternal grandfather, Dees De Prest, was a sailor who sailed every ocean before he was seventeen. He was a unique individual of immense vigor, color, and salt. I can remember so clearly watching him try to catch a monarch butterfly for me with his schippers kapp while a delighted crowd looked on, laughing to their hearts content.

Like many old folk, he was a wealth of tales, some almost like legends that went on and on—stories that stayed with me into my dreams. The burgeoning storyteller in him had an instinct for material, telling it in the old storytelling way. There was sadness and laughter in them, of how fate righted the wrongs of the poor and made good the suffering in the end. His stories were told in such vivid detail we just sat there, dazzled with visions of places stranger than fairy tales, stories that could’ve easily been set in type and sealed between the hard covers of a book. The wheres and whens are lost, but there were the everlasting stories of the sea and its salt. He filled the evening air with those vast images of its wrath—about its endless magic, about the whales, dolphins and sharks—that kept us rapt with words that created living experiences in our minds. Those stories were better than any book, and to me, that was as good as anything on this earth. His tales and sagas became a refuge against the world of reality—their fantasy offered an escape and an easing of grief. Increasingly, that world assumed for me more reality than the hostile world in which we lived. It was also revealed that when he came ashore, stowed along were small bloodsucking creatures known to us all as the unadorned bedbug—which I prefer not going into detail about and, grudgingly and embarrassingly, learned to live with—which were common mates aboard a ship.

The story goes that upon returning from his travels, Meme, our paternal grandmother—Catarina Roelants—a prayer-ridden woman who loved only God, often gave him the green light and sent him off to the red-light district at the harbor front with her blessing, where, behind those alluring red lights, I’m certain, he crossed paths with soiled doves. Thank the Lord my father was born before that time. The plotlines of my grandmother’s life, on the other hand, were neatly tied—tied to the beads of her rosary, or Paternoster as she used to call it. I cannot remember her ever without it wrapped around her hands, in the service of a higher cause, praying, regardless of whether or not we were visiting. She talked about heaven as though it was a nation she had visited and returned from with tales so out of this world, it made your head spin. She also believed that the holy word had no power without giving strong voice to it. One can’t imagine how overly zealous she was toward God—she belonged to him and lived a life of martyrdom and self-pity. Dressed in black, and always in black, she had the capability of darkening an inherently happy scene and could easily turn day into night. As far as we were concerned, she turned the light out on herself and groped around in the darkness to the delight of those who created it. There was an absence of warmth, even in summer. It didn’t matter what we said—she couldn’t understand. If we tried to explain, she stared with a total lack of interest. One couldn’t broach a single topic without coming into immediate criticism. She berated us at every juncture, squashing our dreams and aspirations before they had an opportunity to develop. She was also straightforward in speech, fervent in the belief that God smiled on the just, and sent transgressors straight to hell. We were always careful not to bring down on ourselves the full force of her explosive character. The insensitivity that prevailed defied description. There was something about the character of this woman during the time of war that tolled the bell of remembrance within me and reawakened long-forgotten memories. Her shouting voice was always scolding. I confess I was ashamed of her. When she accompanied me down the street, I looked down at my feet when we passed other kids I knew and suppressed my embarrassment as best I could. She was full of gestures and airs that were almost grotesque considering the orbit in which she walked. In spite of her obsession with God, which was pathological and worsened with the years, she was quite intelligent.

MY MOTHER

I’m getting ahead of myself! I believe it’s essential that before writing about the happenings in my life and of the journey itself, it seems well to set down briefly a few lines about my parents’ lives without whom I could not begin my story. If I am to give my own account of what I am, how I came to be, and where I’m going, the other stories need be told too, and I hope that it will give you some idea of how it was for them all those years ago.

My mother was born on October 19, 1914, in Liege, Belgium, on a canal boat on the River Meuse—a boat that carried freight between one city or country and the next. She was born into a family of ten, but only four children survived—two brothers and two sisters. Most died from typhus—some quickly; some as slow as a lifetime. My mother also contracted the disease but survived after a lengthy stay in hospital. The epic saga of her family’s history was carved in stone by rivers of misery.

The past reigned over the present with unsympathetic oppression. Raised by abusive parents, my mother struggled most of her young life. Facing each day of my formative years with all of this in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but think that the poverty and deprivation could hold no equal to what we’d left behind. For both my mother and father, making do and working around problems was second nature most of their miserable lives.

By the time my mother was ten, it was her job to lead the horses that pulled the boat with its load since most were not equipped with motors, something that changed years later after they were rigged up with such. At the age of eleven, she became very ill and was placed in a hospital, then an orphanage, to recuperate. Her parents continued with the delivery of goods by boat. A year later when my mother was twelve and back aboard the boat, her parents separated on one of their journeys to Nancy, France. Her father, who had acquired a girlfriend, took her younger brother, Raoul, and her sister Margaret and moved on by boat, leaving them both stranded. My grandmother, who at the time had very little money and had been promised a job in Ghent, pleaded with her older son, Gaston, who at the time lived in Reims, France, with his fiancée, asking if he could look after my mother for a while. She explained that when she had sufficient funds and a place to live, she’d send for her daughter. Gaston accepted, and my grandmother traveled back to Ghent. My mother had no choice but to move in. She felt this dreadful need to be liked by them, by someone. It was not to be, for soon she realized that her brother’s girlfriend, two sisters, and mother, for whatever reason, disliked her intensely. The days passed into weeks, then months. Autumn gave way to winter and winter passed into spring, but my grandmother still did not return, and my mother, the twelve-year-old, came to be part of a strange group. Every night my mother prayed and every day she begged God to bring her mother back to her. In vain she waited, but her mother did not return. She could only conclude that God, like so many other people, was inexplicably angry with her. No one came but the darkness and the ghosts of despair. It also brought reality. She spent most of her time washing and cleaning and was threatened and abused for about a year. She had almost become a child of the streets, a child of time, a forsaken trace of a worthless and neglectful generation. She dreamed as every little girl dreamed, just to be happy. That was before she understood the reality of her life and the sin of ranting against a defunct God. Before this revelation, her fondest dream of childhood was to be loved. She did not know how it felt, the feeling of holding, the softness of a rocking lap, the voice of love and compassion. She wasn’t certain if such things existed. Every night she’d fall asleep with a prayer. To help God along, my mother would not only pray but also worked day in and day out, convinced she was the cause of her parents’ discontent.

There was a park nearby and people walking home at night would see, as they saw so many other nights, a small girl sitting on a bench illuminated by a nearby street lamp. Sometimes they would see the child looking at the horizon as if she were waiting for someone very far off to appear. Sometimes, if they came close, they might find her fast asleep on the bench. And sometimes very late at night, they might hear her plaintive cry, long and heartbreaking.

Then one day, on his way to work, a kind and thoughtful man decided to ask if he could help. Reluctantly, eyes pools of worried fear, my mother explained that she was concerned about her little brother, Raoul—Cococh, she called him—and her older sister, Margaret, who by then were the only ones in her life that meant something to her. She explained that she didn’t trust her father with them, and that her mother might be dead. She told him also about her mother leaving almost a year ago to find a job in Ghent, and that she hadn’t heard from her since. When he stated that it was a terrible thing her mother did, she came to her defense. She probably had reasons, she said.

"There’s never a good reason to leave a child, a daughter, out here alone. It is a bad thing. Wrong, very wrong!"

The man took her home, wrote down her name and address, then left. Two weeks later, my grandmother arrived. My mother looked at her for tenderness but found none. What she found instead were harsh words that said, Have you no pride, talking to strangers about your life?

Pride, my mother wondered, what do I know of pride? For her entire life, she had never taken or been allowed an opportunity to take any pride in who she was or what she did. In an effort to escape the brutality of unloving parents, my mother had always been content to cower in the shadow of her littleness.

We won’t miss her, said her brother’s girlfriend as my mother walked out. Disobedient little bitch!

As they walked down the street, the little girl searched for words for what she was feeling and asked, Why have you never written in all this time? I thought maybe you were dead. Worried, she asked, How’s my little brother, Cococh?

Her mother replied that as far as she knew, he was fine. Then in an offended voice, she answered, You should be happy to see me instead of questioning why I didn’t write.

Her mother bought a newspaper and, through the want ads, found work in Epernay, a village on the River Marne, about a hundred kilometers east of Paris where, at the time, all the talk was about Mr. Charles Lindbergh’s daring non-stop flight from New York to Le Bourget Airport in Paris.

Before she had left, her mother had ascertained where her husband’s boat was moored. They took the train to Chalon-sur-Marne, walked to the harbor, and were lucky to find the boat without difficulty. They observed the vessel, with mounting frustration, for about two hours before her brother, Raoul, appeared on deck. My mother walked quietly over to the boat. When her brother noticed her, she put a finger to her lips and made a sign to come ashore. When he stepped onto the quay, she asked where her sister Margaret was. He told her she was sent to her aunt, and that his father had gone to the café, and Bertha was at the grocery store. At first, when she asked to come along with them, he was reluctant, for his father had just bought him a fishing pole. My mother promised she’d buy another one if he came. Instantly he obeyed, and for that fleeting solid moment, she recalled how happy she was. It seemed a dream, she added, a lovely dream. I have my Cococh back.

They wrote a note and told him to place it on the table in the cabin. All three went back to the station and on to Epernay. The job they applied for was at Moet et Chandon winery, where in the seventeenth century a French Benedictine monk, Dom Pierre Perignon, started champagne production. The work consisted of cleaning the main house and the cabins of the helpers. My mother was too young to work full hours but strong and willing, and much in need. They rented a cabin from a demolished ship, installed on land. The floor was composed of wooden decking, the roof made from the remains of a hatch cover. When the harvest was over, they both found work in a factory in Dizy, producing bricks, where the boss praised her for being the youngest and fastest. She was only thirteen at the time. I still hear her talking about it. How raw her hands were—since gloves for employees were unnecessary and too costly. After a year, they had saved enough, and the three of them returned to Ghent. My grandmother and mother applied for work at a factory, Le Gantoise, that produced linen and were accepted.

After about a year of employment, her mother took out a loan and bought a broken-down houseboat. With some help from friends, it was put into shape and made livable, then towed to Gorduna Kaai on the River Leie (Lys). It was the least expensive location in the city to moor. It was also the place where she met my father’s family and, of course, my father. She was considerably younger than he was—almost ten years—and was astonished and embarrassed by his interest. Her manner, always, was somewhat diffident. He uncharacteristically pursued her, wooed her, and eventually won her heart.

When her mother discovered they were dating, she was enraged and called my father a cradle robber. She was determined to do everything in her power to keep them apart. She was more worried, I’m certain, of a lost paycheck than her daughter’s well-being. In any case, ever resourceful, my grandmother took on a boarder to help with the finances. As the months passed, my mother and father kept meeting secretly, and in all the excitement of having found someone who really cared, she found herself on the road to starting a family of her own. Her mother, suspicious of the fact that her daughter was having morning sickness at work, confronted her. Infuriated, she called her a whore, telling everyone in the factory, and placed a firm demand with the boss for her daughter’s dismissal. He did reluctantly, for she had been a good worker—but in his own words, what my mom had done was an unforgivable act of a loose woman.

She was cast off the boat and abandoned to the streets. She realized that the sense of foreboding that had troubled her of late had reached its culmination. She was fortunate to have a friend, Irene, who took her in—she had previously broken up with my father over a quarrel. She relayed to Irene that her mother’s boarder had made sexual advances on several occasions but was slapped across the face and called a liar when she told her mother. She had been forced to block the door to her room with a chair because none were equipped with locks.

With very little money to her name, something had to be done. In desperation, she wrote to her father, asking if she could stay with him for a while on his boat, which at the time was docked in Nancy, France. She knew it was a situation burdened with pitfalls, yet it seemed the one destined for her. In his reply, he stated that her older sister, Margaret, no longer lived with them and that she would have to work for her keep—being a girl was no excuse. He explained in detail where the boat was docked. He’d pick her up at the station on Friday, the fifteenth, at 8:15 p.m.

She said good-bye to her little brother, Cococh, and left for Nancy. Upon arriving at her destination, there was no one to be seen. She was worried, for it was late and the last vestiges of daylight were fading. She had only a few francs and certainly not enough to stay over somewhere. She waited for about a half hour, then asked the stationmaster approximately how far it was to the docks. Gleaning the address from her father’s letter, he replied, About ten blocks, but, my dear child, I wouldn’t go there at this time of night. She had no choice. It didn’t look as if her father was going to appear. Confused and worried that maybe something had happened to her father, she picked up her small suitcase and started trekking the ten blocks.

Upon arriving at the dock site, she took a deep breath, hoping he would be there. After walking around for a while, her hopes were dashed. Dusk was now fast deepening into total obscurity. Telling herself not to panic, she kept on walking. Suddenly, out of the dark, a deep male voice asked what she was looking for. His presence aroused great misgivings, and an unexpected dread came over her as she started to tremble. Observing her fear, he asked what she was frightened of. My mother recognized his schippers kapp, which somewhat laid her fears to rest, enabling her to inquire about the ship, "Le Cogniar. Pushing his kapp forward and scratching the back of his head, he explained, I believe he was docked next to The Hollander, a Dutch tanker. He’s moored on the other side of the river about two kilometers from here. If your pa’s boat isn’t there anymore, ask the tanker’s schipper, or whoever’s aboard. They’ll probably know where he went. Be careful, he added, pointing to the other side of the bridge. A lady was raped there a week ago."

Thanking him, she started walking toward the bridge. Stimulated by apprehension, she crossed it. Looking in all directions, she started to run, her heart beating at an incredible speed, hoping her father’s boat was still there. Getting closer to the location where the ship should be, she was out of breath, and tears started running down her face. Despondency set in as she observed only the Dutch tanker.

She was scarcely able to grasp this distressing reality. Collapsing next to the gangplank of The Hollander, she started sobbing uncontrollably. As the surroundings fell dark in the shiver of the river’s breath, she looked at the reflections in the water and found no comfort in it, and a feeling of immense aloneness overcame her. For some unknown reason, she had fabricated a dream with an immense tower of expectation, too delicate to stand against the stress of this reality. It had never been positive deprivation and absolute rags, but it was the constant hopeless grip of destitution, and now abandonment as an encore, that had brought her to this moment. She fought against the terrible undertow of feelings as the ship dissolved into strange smudging dabs of color.

Suddenly, a kind, soft-spoken voice asked if she was hurt. My mother looked up, surprised, almost shocked, and nodded. The man’s name was Jan. He extended an invitation to come aboard the ship, meet his wife, Jane, and have a warm drink. Jane was a pleasant-looking lady, plump and short, with dark blond hair and rosy red cheeks. After partaking of their hospitality, my mother clarified the reason for being there. Jan explained that her father had left two days ago and was going to lay over for a while in Liverdun, which was approximately twenty-five kilometers away. When asked if she wanted to stay for the night, my mother declined. Then, Jan said, let me walk you to the station, grabbing his coat. While he took his bike out of a small compartment on deck, she thanked Jane for her kindness. On their walk to the station, Jan explained that Bertha, the lady living with her father, was the domineering kind and had the upper hand. But, he continued, he should have waited or, at the very least, left word as to his whereabouts. Upon arrival at the station, he inquired if my mother had sufficient funds to board the train. Embarrassed, she said she didn’t think so. Giving her twenty francs, he explained, I’ll be reimbursed by your father the next time we meet. Entering the station, she thanked him for his extraordinary generosity.

Considering there was no train going to Liverdun until the following morning, she entrusted herself to the station’s bench, where she’d be safe and at no expense to herself or anyone else. Morning found her on the train, fighting sleep so as not to miss her stop at Liverdun. Disembarking, she began the long walk to her father’s boat. Noticing her, he came ashore, his arms spread, exclaiming, "Andrea, Andrea, my poor baby, I totally forgot about you. He wanted to move into an embrace, but she could not. For only a moment, her expression met his and then closed down. Noticing her reaction, he narrowed his eyes to a cold stare and asked in a less caring voice, How did you get here? Who told you where I was?" Trying to sort out her feelings was next to impossible… Andrea, my poor baby . . . I totally forgot about you. She spat the words at herself as a wave of helplessness surged through her. She found, in the brevity of those words, a coldness that implied she didn’t count, was as easily expunged as a figure drawn in the dust, as quickly forgotten as a leaf blown from a tree. She could also hear so clearly the insincerity that had always lurked beneath the hollow, false pretenses. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him as everything inside her seemed to fill up. She knew one glance at his face would have it all spilling out—and then what? A horrible emptiness settled over her. There was some maligned, cruel force squeezing the breath out of her. Her lungs seemed suddenly incapable of taking in air. Light-headed with fatigue, she tried to swallow a mouthful of oxygen, and then another, as her legs began to shake. A darkening vision enveloped her as she slowly fainted in the arms of her father.

The boat was moving when she awoke. Realizing that she was too tired to focus, she turned to her side and looked directly at the porthole, noticing it was daylight. Her head was aching, and she felt sick to her stomach. She quickly looked around and in the nick of time noticed a bedpan. Bertha must’ve been in the wheelhouse because she overheard her whispering in a voice laced with annoyance and exasperation, I hope your little girl doesn’t expect to stay in bed all day. Her father had explained in the letter what he expected from her, and she was ready. At that moment, there was a knock, and her father entered the cabin. Seeing her awake, he said, We need to talk… He hesitated for a moment, then rubbing his neck and narrowing his eyes, he continued, Bertha is strict and can’t take too much stress. His movements, exaggerated and quick, were designed to show her he was right at the edge. Bertha can be very demanding at times, but I love her. You can stay, but only until we get back to Ghent, which should be in about two months. He stopped talking for a moment, rubbing his chin, taking a deep breath. Then, my dear, he continued, it will be time for you to move on. You’re sixteen, and a grown woman, old enough to stand on your own two feet—in the meantime, do me proud. I told Bertha you were a good worker.

As she looked long and hard at her father, he felt her stare, intense, searching, knowing she had the ability as a child to see beyond words. Walking out, he turned before closing the door and whispered, Show her—show her what you’re made of—and please, don’t disappoint me.

Her childhood memories bombarded her in a relentless cannonade. Be a good girl, Andrea. Don’t say anything, Andrea. Make us proud, Andrea. We want you to do this, before you do that, Andrea. Oh, God, she whimpered as despair overtook her defenses, and the tears squeezed past her tightly closed eyelids. "Oh, God, please, please." She wanted so badly to tell her father what she thought of him, but not now. It wasn’t the time or place. She couldn’t take that chance, knowing she had nowhere else to go. Besides, she didn’t want to break the only fragile link left to her. She began to withdraw deep inside herself again, where he couldn’t see her, couldn’t hurt her.

PURE BRUTALITY

It was a cool clear morning—one of many in April. The French countryside looked serene and captivating, only disturbed by the steady pounding of the recently installed diesel engine, pushing the Cogniar forward through the murky waters of the River Marne. The sound of the ship’s engine was threatening—like the sound of a thousand menacing voices. She lay still, her eyes shut, her body curled tight, holding the warmth captured within the circle that would grow as the child within her matured. She wondered if she had dreamed it all but knew that any minute, her father would come in chastising, "Are you intent on staying in bed forever!"

While dressing, she tried to unscramble the last couple of days in her mind. She knew that what lay ahead were strife, struggle, and tears. She was certain of it. She would take it on her slender shoulders. She knew she was able. She rushed on deck, determined to drive away her thoughts with work. It was not dirt, grime, or oil she was scrubbing off the ship’s deck, but a lifetime of unhappiness. Her knees grew raw and stung as she swept it from the ship’s surface into the greyness of the water—a chore she was familiar with. Worrying that her father or Bertha would find out she was pregnant brought into focus her friend Irene’s suggestion, an abortion. Just the thought of it made her shiver. She knew something was alive in her and wasn’t about to give it up. She also knew that all she had left in this world was what she carried within her. She put a hand on her belly and closed her eyes. It had been a cruel world for her up till now, but this child was going to be loved like no child had been loved before. She knew this for certain. She also knew it would be a son, a fine boy. She would name him Andre to match hers and bring him up to be strong and proud, kind and fearless, and most of all—kind to the opposite sex. A fierce protectiveness swept over her, a feeling that so perplexed her because of its depth and strength. She thought, If I lose him, I’d lose my reason for life, pure and simple. But the sadness, the anger, the forgiveness, the laughter, and hurricane of words that had blown through my mother’s life were no match for what was to come. Lose her child she would, and life would go on.

The first few weeks aboard were manageable, but as time went on, it blurred in an awful greyness of effort and fatigue. She was given less food and harder work. Bertha disliked her intensely and had slapped her across the face on several occasions, especially when she would voice an opinion of her own. It was not allowed. In order to maintain their privacy, my mother was moved to the front of the boat in a smaller cabin with little heat or light, making life more difficult. She told herself she was glad to be alone. She could hide her growing child, and needed the silence to look at and take stock of this misery that dominated her. When she was by herself, she could at least breathe more easily. All she longed for was for this tightness to cease. This feeling, this ball of misery that was consuming her, overtaking her.

After docking at Chalon-sur-Marne she decided on a walk along the river. She had so much to think about. All she knew was that she was inexpressively unhappy and not sure if her misery would ever come to an end. When she found a comfortable place close to the river, she sat and looked at her reflection in the water and saw blue eyes, brown hair, a common face—nothing to be ashamed of. Why me? she asked the girl in the water. Why do my parents not want me? Why don’t they want me around? Why do they find it so hard to love me? Of course there was no reply. She didn’t presume there’d be one. She felt the need to ask some questions but was conscious of the fact she’d never know the truth of it. As the weight of what was happening kept gathering within her—dark and turbulent, threatening to obliterate her—she wished she had the courage to submerge herself and stay under until she drowned. But then, at the spur of the moment, she thought of the unborn child and felt the womanliness in her come alive like a great surging force, a power she had never felt before, and she knew she would not back down and be broken.

The next day, the boat unloaded its cargo and left for Cambrai. Arriving, and being only the fifth to be loaded, the Cogniar had to be docked at the edge of town. Her father had walked to the port and into town on some business, but when he came back, she knew there was something wrong. She heard his rage even before he stepped across the gangplank. His thinking process had been sluggish and spasmodic; he had, she was almost certain, on different occasions, wondered why she had gained weight even though her appetite was next to nil. But now, the truth had come to him; it had come to him through the mail. His seeds of suspicion had fallen on fertile soil. Frowning sternly, he went in to his cabin, only to come out a few minutes later with Bertha, who was holding a broomstick with both hands, and him rolling up his sleeves, walking on a flame of whiskey. My mother knew she was in trouble but had nowhere to run. She squeezed her eyes shut, too young to look bravely at what she feared. But then, sucking in a deep breath, she couldn’t resist and slowly opened them. She knew from her past, a scoundrel like him could just as easily strike a woman as a man—yet she would not back down. With stubborn chin and fiery eyes, she stood facing them defiantly, staring into the angry gaze of two maniacs. She knew that looks were silent, but there was no question that hers spoke volumes.

He shouted wildly, and his fist brought pain to her face so severely it knocked her down, her head striking the deck. Get up, her father said. "Get up now, and say you’re sorry. Her nose bleeding, her heart thumping, she got up, looked at him, her chin up and mouth clenched, but did not utter a word. Get off this boat before every soul in this town sees our shame." He spat and coughed and spewed the words out. She stood there, letting her father’s anger and hate wash over her—a monster unrecognizable.

She cinched her mouth tightly because it kept wanting to open, but the reprove she had wanted to say for so long could no longer be held back. "I hate you—" she cried, the words grating raw in her throat.

But before she could finish, the brute again struck her, this time with more force, saying with anger so cold, the words frightening her more than his fists, I’ll give you a reason to hate me, you little slut. As he went on striking her, she remained impassive and did not cry. She felt increasingly numb as the blows continued to fall.

Faintly she could remember the impact of his fists upon her face—but it was no longer her face. It all seemed so far away. It opened an abyss within her heart. Perversely as it might seem, she often thought that it was this feeling she carried within her that caused him to be the way he was. If only she’d crumble, I’m sure he thought, or at least weep. She ought to have at least let a single tear flow, but something deep within her had long ago shattered, and though his blows brought forth pain, he could not find reflected in her face the shortcomings I’m certain he felt in himself. So he had no alternative but to go on searching that tearless, enigmatic world of his daughter’s body with his punches and blows for what he carried within himself. It was an unspeakable act, a painful, inarticulate attempt to find what he knew they both had in common. He was not, my mother explained, a big man, but when the madness was upon him, he could appear so immense that he’d be fit to burst out of the ship’s cabin and smash down the door and trash its wall with the magnitude of his anger. And as always, the madness came upon him when the drink was within him. When she was still a child, to escape his wrath, she had learned the art of littleness, of presenting one’s being so insignificantly as to be out of sight to all but the closest scrutiny. She had seen her father manipulate her brothers. She had watched him use people for his own purpose. No more. This time she was determined to stand her ground. The stone-grey eyes in his lean face were like shards of ice when he gave more words to his thoughts and called her a no-good slut and dirty whore. Dragging her on shore, he left her with a bleeding nose, swollen face, pain in her side and