Christmas Eve: a Ratfink Story

(My children will remember many a bedtime Ratfink story I would share with them.  They are no longer at a bedtime story age.  Occasional nostalgia attacks make a parent miss those times.  But maybe we can gather around the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, and revisit our Ratfink.)

It was Christmas Eve, and Ratfink was home all by himself.

Ratfink had always lived alone, ever since he had run away at age 16.

But he couldn’t run away from the world, though he had wanted to.

Instead he lived in a simple cabin, close to the woods.

It was quiet there and private, a place where he could be himself: a loner with a chip on his shoulder.

Except that a month ago, his private domain had been invaded by another loner.

A big burly bearded brute of a man with one eye and a bad limp had set a little old house-trailer only 200 yards away from him.

One-eyed Sam had a terrible temper, especially when he was drunk, and that was nearly every day.

One early evening he had been roaring and raging around his place when he spotted Ratfink coming out of his cabin. 

He had come swaying toward Ratfink, cursing and threatening to skin him alive if he set one step on his yard.  Then he sicced his pit bull on Ratfink, and the big dog had come flying, fangs bared and the kill-look in his eyes.

Ratfink had just managed to get back inside his cabin and slammed the door shut when the dog had thrown his full weight against it. 

But the door was sturdy and had held. 

More fury than fear had made Ratfink shake.

His whole body shook, and his hands rolled into fists.

Nothing could make him more incensed than to be cursed and yelled at as if he were a stupid cow.

It’s what he had tried to escape, and now the worst of all plagues had moved next to him.

Now it was Christmas Eve, and Ratfink sat close to his woodstove, cleaning his gun, the gun he used now and then for hunting in the woods. 

The gun he intended to use on his neighbor’s dog, should he ever be threatened again.

He cleaned and polished in the light of the kerosene lamp he had placed close to him.

Then he heard a fierce barking, coming closer, closer, then right at his cabin’s front door.

The rage rose in Ratfink again. 

He quickly re-assembled his gun, slid a bullet in the chamber, and cautiously advanced toward the door.

But the barking had now changed to whining and whimpering. 

The dog was scratching on the door, as if begging for someone’s attention.

Ratfink paused, puzzled.  He wondered if it was Sam’s dog and what it was trying to do.

The dog’s whimpering and scratching was becoming more urgent.  When it barked, there was no threat in it.

Ratfink opened the door just a tad, his gun at the ready still, his rage now mixed with curiosity.

He saw the hated pit bull now in the moonlight reflecting off the snow.

The dog did not attack but turned toward the trailer, barked, turned his head toward Ratfink, as if pleading him to follow, then ran ahead a ways before stopping again, waiting for Ratfink to come.

And Ratfink did come, his gun cradled in his arm. 

He did not want to come. 

He hated that dog and he hated one-eyed Sam even more.

He’d just as soon shoot both and have them out of his life for good.

Yet he followed the dog to that dilapidated trailer, as if compelled by another force that negated his will.

The pit bull led him to the trailer’s open door.

Ratfink paused there, wondering if he was walking into a trap.

He remembered Sam’s threat of skinning him alive if he set foot near his place.

Now he was about to go inside, and he held his gun in firing position, just in case.

The dog had preceded him and now stood whimpering by his master’s body, slumped on the floor near his chair, a handgun and an empty whiskey bottle few feet away.

Ratfink took in the gory scene and hesitated.

He could just leave and pretend he knew nothing.

Sam would die, or maybe he was dead already, and that would be that: good riddance.

He half turned to follow the impulse, but the dog was already at the door, barring the way.

Then this other force, so strange, seemed to surge deep inside again.

He bent over wild Sam, checked for a pulse, found a faint one, and saw the blood oozing from his chest.

Now the other force took over fully: Ratfink took out his pocket knife, cut away the shirt, uncovered the wound, cut a strip of shirt, placed it over the bullet hole, took off his own flannel shirt, folded it several times into a narrow band and bound it tightly over the wound and around Sam’s chest.

There was no telephone; and there were no other neighbors.

Sam was too heavy to carry; only one thing to do, and that was to drag him.

Ratfink grabbed a blanket off the nearby bed, rolled Sam onto it, and began to drag him toward the door.

Then he ran to get his pickup, backed it up to the trailer, and somehow wrestled Sam onto the flatbed where he covered him with all the blankets and burlap bags he could find.

When the pit bull had jumped in too, he raised and locked the gate in place.

The nearest hospital was 17 miles away.

He had no idea he would make it in time.

Before jumping in the cab, Ratfink got an impulse to look up to the clear star-lit sky.

One star, directly overhead, seemed to glitter more brightly than the others.

For the first time in a long time, Ratfink felt clean and good.

He almost smiled when he remembered it was Christmas Eve.

What have you done with the Child?

                                                    

Aukje dropped a couple of oranges, a few chocolate bars, and two dried sausages in her daughter’s large weekend bag.  Each time when her girl took off again after her days off, there was a surprise from mom between the clothes.  Well, okay, they both played a part in the game.  In the evening, the telephone would be sure to ring with Femke’s thanks for the goodies.
Now she came rushing down the stairs.  “What time is it, do I still have time for a cup of tea?  De bus won’t wait, of course.” There was just enough time.
“How about Christmas, are you going to be able to come home?” her mom asked.
“I do have off; I have to work both old and New Year’s.  To be honest, I’ve told Aart and Bram that they’re invited to eat with Guy and me on Christmas Day.”  She followed up with a hesitant: “Otherwise they can come with us over here, if that’s okay with you.”
“Who are Aart and Bram?”
“Two of my students.  Bram has no family and Aart’s parents kind of abandoned him.  He’s 18, but he won’t advance beyond the age of twelve.  On top of that, he always wets himself at night.  I’m not sure you’re up to that, mom.”

Aukje thought about her nice, clean beds.  A big strange fellow like that and then wetting everything!  Her daughter always did something weird like that.  Still, at Christmas time one really should do something for another and that’s why she said mildly: “Your friends are welcome here and we’ll manage with the bedding.  We will celebrate in our own way, of course.  A tree and something extra with the coffee and the dinner.”

She remembered last year when Femke called and asked how they had spent the day.  She hardly took time to listen to her mom, because she was so full of her own experiences of the day.  A group of twenty, all colleagues and friends.  One had put twenty-five guilders on the table. The meal consisted of stamppot, sauerkraut, and for each a small slice of sausage, and with the coffee a small piece of coffee cake.
“We had a good time, mom.”  She could still hear her say it.  The money that was left they sent to a children’s home in Brazil.

“I have to go and I’ll let you know what we’re going to do.”

Aukje walked along to the bus stop and waved her daughter goodbye.

Full of thoughts she walked back to the house.  What would Folkert say when they’d sit in church with three total stangers?  Guy, Femke’s friend, had been over only once before.  They couldn’t understand him.  Femke translated and so they really didn’t have a conversation with him.  He did his best to learn Dutch.  That wasn’t easy when you only know Portuguese and a bit of English.  Fortunately he could play a little chess, with Folkert winning both games, so that helped some.

The girl had been in a good mood lately.  But she could come up with some strange reactions.  To mom’s suggestion that they spend an afternoon at Klaske’s, the other daughter, she had reacted mockingly: “Sure, let’s make the rounds of admiring Klaske’s house, garden, and kitchen.”

The two little girls of Jurjen and Klaske had had a lot of fun with aunt Fem.  She really knew how to give them a fun time.  To the other children she seemed different.  That was no doubt because she worked with the handicapped in the big city.  City life in Utrecht was a lot different from life in a small village.

Lately she took offense at nearly everything.  When dad said that the foreigners had landed in the butter here, she could retort sharply.  “Didn’t those poor wretches have a right to a better life?  To shelter and freedom?” 
Don’t say anything, Aukje thought, that’s how they could maintain a little peace.  She could easily put up with that for a couple of days.

She, Aukje, had made excerpts from books which Femke had to read for her exam.  Needlework was the most difficult course for the girl, but mom was always in the background and had managed to help Femke get a good mark.  And now, she had so much trouble to simply let the child go her own way.  Sometimes she would get one reproach after another flung at her.
“You want me to become a duplicate of you and Klaske.  Marry a nice boy from the town and a year later push a child in a stroller.  And you knitting socks and jumpers.  Yuk!  Yuk!!  I don’t think it’s responsible to bring children into this dirty, miserable, egotistical, racist, and whatever I can think of besides, kind of world.”
Aukje was thinking that it would get better with time.  When she’d meet her true love, who knows but that she would change.  That it had to be that Guy fellow, Aukje could not really take seriously.  She would just have to wait.

And indeed a telephone call came from Femke.  She and Guy would come in the afternoon before Christmas Day and would stay one night.  The other two boys declined and would be taken care of by colleagues.  Aukje didn’t mind that one bit.  Now they would be more or less with their own.

In the morning they went to church well in time.  The church towers sent their happy celebration sounds across the village.  The church filled up.  The choir was already seated in front of the pulpit and the grand Christmas tree beamed its light over the congregation.
It was a beautiful, joyous service.  The people that walked out with them afterwards were in complete agreement.  The choir had sung the Christmas cantata so beautifully.  And the soloists, they gave you the shivers.   Femke and Guy walked silently along with them, arms tightly around each other.

But once they were home, she exploded: “So, you found it beautiful!  Not I!  I asked myself: what have the people done with the Child who was born two thousand years ago.  Who for three years showed the people how to treat their neighbor.  You can read it every day in your Bible.  And what do they do here in church?  They’re turning it into a big sweet chocolate truffle, that’s what I thought of it!  Nice singing, some nice poems, and a sermon about peace and love.  Where do we find that today?  Peace?  Do you know what’s happening in the world today?  All those refugees without shelter, warmth, or food?  No, they don’t know about that in this little hamlet.  Dad told us yesterday at least three times that he painted aunt Aal’s kitchen.  Isn’t that great!  My, my, what you don’t do here for another.”
Aukje looked anxiously at Folkert.  His face turned red, the veins stretched taut, and yes, there it came.  “You and your big mouth!  Are you going to read us the riot act here?  Shouldn’t it be up to us what we like?  This is where we live and relate to the people around us.  You….”
 “Oh sure, stay comfortable in your little corner and let others starve.”

Then Guy pulled her with him out of the room.

“Couldn’t you bite your tongue for once, you just spoiled our holidays.”
“Oh of course, you always want to keep the peace, but I’m not going to let me be told off in my own house.  Glad they didn’t take a couple of dim-witted bed wetters along.  That’s all we needed.”
“Quiet, they’ll be able to hear it!”
“So?”  Folkert grabbed the paper and Aukje got busy in the kitchen.  The beautiful church service was now entirely forgotten.  They drank their coffee silently.

Close to twelve the door opened quietly and there stood Femke on the threshold with a tear streaked face.  “Guy tells me I have to apologize.  He says…you live here, it’s different than by us…you lived through the war…had a business, the household, I don’t have the right to…. Each has to take care of the place where he’s settled, Guy says.”
Ït’s okay, dear,”Aukje says warmly, “come in, your stomach must be growling by this time.”

At first, dad doesn’t say much, but in the late afternoon Guy won the chess games.  Or…uh…did Folkert let him win?

Together they brought the young folk to the bus around seven o’clock.  The goodbyes were good, but at the same time a relief.  Aukje didn’t like to have it this way, wasn’t it after all your own child?  But on the inside she felt that the girl was becoming estranged.
They still took a walk through the quiet neighborhood.  In corners and in gardens, also on people’s yards and in almost all the homes lights burned in the Christmas trees.  Light, peaceful light.  In their house it had stormed seriously for a while.  They would not soon forget it.
When they entered their own street again, Folkert said: “Not such a bad boy, really, that Guy, though he’s a foreigner.  I’m thinking all the time what the girl threw at us: What have you done with the Child in those two thousand years?  She is right, we have done nothing with it.”     

                       -Wytske Bakker; my translation from the Frisian