Excerpt 7
[Note: this is an ongoing series of excerpts from my
translation of
Hylke
Speerstra’s De treastfugel, published
both in Frisian and in Dutch.
The book,
translated as The Comfort Bird, seeks
a publisher.]
(Johannes Boorsma, driven by need
and ambition, seeks his fortune in Germany.
It wasn’t easy to leave his
parents behind.)
A father in tears, a mother
trying in vain to calm the storm. He
remembers that he ran outside and through the window saw the old man sitting in
the house, his back turned to the outside world. Mother brought her son to the small gate by
the road. “Son, wherever you will go,
weigh your words.” The mother and the
son, who dearly love each other, shake hands, while the father has his back
turned against the evil world.
Dad. He felt himself tied to his birthplace which
he seemingly hated and loved at the same time.
And always longing for a better place.
… The real fate of Meindert Birdie was that he had been born without
wings; he had always talked and sung with the birds, even able to fly around a
bit with them. But he caught on that he
lacked wings. What remained was only an
anchor which he dropped then here, then there.
…
What do you want to do, Johannes
Boorsma? Live in fear all your life, or live? …
Johannes , on the way to
Frillendorf.
[He finds work, enjoys himself,
and is paid well.]
On Sunday evening, 11 August
1912, Johannes is at the door of his old parents in Hichtum.
“Dad is waiting for you, boy,” his mom whispers. “He’s close to the end.”
“Here is Johannes,” his mom whispers while she opens the bedstead doors
a bit wider to let in some light. …
“Dad!” Two dull eyes that light
up and fasten on the son. He reaches out
to his son what once was the iron-strong fist of Meindert Birdie and now seems
as if the son is holding all of his dad in that one hand.
A day later, on 12 Monday August 1912, Meindert Boorsma, age 63,
dies. Laid out with his hands folded on
his chest, and hidden in those hands the thing with which he had serenaded his
longing for the Better Land. Johannes
had taken the bird whistle back home with him from Germany. “It belongs with Dad on his last journey, it
is the mirror of his soul.”
A Shipful of Hope
Excerpt 8
Geartsje Hiemstra-Namminga feels
herself trapped in a haunted no-man’s-land where chaos and confusion
reign. …
She hears the blast of the ship’s horn.
The 12,000-ton ocean steamer is leaving the dock. Her stomach churns, then it turns. A ship loaded with uncertainty and hope. More than a thousand men, women and children
of a hundred different kinds and who knows how many languages. Torn loose from their roots. …
Geartsje’s three fall asleep at
last: Jacob four years old, Ytsje two, and Hizkia eight months. …
Some more hours later, deep in the nausea-inducing stomach of the
steamship, Geartjse Hiemstra-Namminga stumbles around with three whining
kids. They are wet and dirty, and the
lost diapers have not re-surfaced.
“The little fella is asking for the breast.” Grandma is awake and in command again. “Mom, I feel like I don’t have a drop of
milk, I’m dry.”
“No milk left? I’ve never had
that happen.” The old lady has a way of
hurting her daughter from time to time. …
Later in the evening there are signs everywhere of the increasing
wind. …
“The Lord will protect us and
take care of us.” And with those words
Grandma is going to go to sleep, trying again to get a head start on her
rest. Douwe and Nammen have been upstairs
and come back with the news that an icy cold winter wind together with
splashing water clouds chased all the happiness seekers from the upper
deck. …
Something seems wrong with the Noordam.
It is rumored that in such a serious storm it can sail at only half its
power, for otherwise it would bury itself so deep inside the enormous waves
that it might never surface again.
“The ship is just trying to stay afloat.” …
Now they discover the bad shape
Grandma is in. Totally done in. For the first time the daughter has to wash
and change the mother. Geartjse
carefully pulls the smelly undervest over her head, and then there’s still a
flannel undershirt that needs changing.
Wait, what is that? Something
drops out of a secret inside shirt pocket.
A white envelope. A letter. From Springfield SD, delivered in Hichtum. The address written in ink is from none other
than Lolke. Did Grandma in Hichtum hide
a letter from Lolke? She must have. Why then didn’t she open the envelope? Because there might have been an inconvenient
truth inside? Geartsje takes hold of the
envelope and pretends to know nothing.
Because of the extremely bad
weather and other setbacks, the ocean journey takes a week longer than usual,
but then the weather improves. After
Grandma too has recovered, her first words are: “Are all of you still here?” …
Later, at night, while Grandma
snores her own dream, Geartjse and Douwe open the letter from Lolke in South
Dakota, and read:
“Dear
family
[…]Here west of Springfield the summer seemed to run its course so
ideally, but now by us on Norwegian Hill the bitter cold winter weather
is
getting the best of us. In the fall we
heard little good news from the
Biesmas who live west of Sioux Falls, and now nothing is heard from
them
at all anymore. It’s not likely that they crossed the Missouri, because
over
there it’s said to be even worse and twelve farm folk were frozen to
death. It is so bare and
miserable here, every sane person
is
heavyhearted. Think hard before you start, tell our mother that. […]”
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