The Journey Back by Johanna Reiss Page A

longer,” Johan said as he collected their bicycles. “If you ask me, nothing’s gone right today.” Nothing? It had not been so bad for me!
    Pretty. good, in fact. “I must say, Annie, it was a shock when the letter came. I’ve got to be hone. I didn’t know what I was reading at first. “Getting married?” We didn’t even know your father was seeing anyone. We couldn’t sleep that night from worrying about it. “Fui-fui,”
    Ma kept saying, ‘that little Annie.” She wanted me to go and see the woman right away. “We’ve got to make sure she’s right for her,” she said.” He shook his head. “How could I have done that, Annie? It was already too late. We only got the letter a few days ago. The mail still doesn’t get delivered right.”
    “Johan.” Excitedly Dientje was coming down the steps. “I just had a nice talk with Ies. He took me into a corner and said, “Dientje, what d’you think of my wife.” Ja, he wanted me to tell him. It made a difference to’m to know, I think.”
    Quickly she added, “She’s a good-looking woman, Johan. That, I had to say.”
    “Good4looking, good-looking.” Johan sounded angry. “She’d better be good to Annie. That’s wmt. matters, Dientje. Nothing else. I wish Ies would’ve asked me. That’s what I would have told him.”
    “You sometimes make mistakes, too, Johan. When Ies came to see us that time, you never opened your mouth. If you had, we would be a lot
    “What do you mean?” Johan asked.
    “You know,” Dientje said, looking at me, her face getting red. “But it wouldn’t be right to say-not today.”
    “All right, woman, all right. We didn’t come to ruin Annie’s day. We’re making her all upset. Come, Dientje, here.” He handed her the bicycle.
    “How’s the knee?”
    “It doesn’t maixer, Johan,”
    “Damn. If only the buses were running … Well, we’re going to the house anyway. You can take it easy there.
    We’ll keep Annie company, talk with her, for a couple of hours. We haven’t seen her for over a month. We’ve got things to say. Eh, Dientje?” She began to smile a little. I let out my breath. Maybe we should go right now, not wait here another minute. Except for Mrs.
    Menko, who had already gone home, everyone else was getting organized to come hack with us. “Wait for me, Bernard.”
    “Put up your collar, Berrie.”
    “Come, Johan and Dientje,” I urged. Wre wouldn’t want to miss any of the party, either. All the way hack from Town Hall, Father kept turning around. He was still looking for Rachel.
    Another cart and another farmer had brought it all, Mrs. Vos’s furniture, in many trips. “You’re really making our road look beautiful, Ies,” Maria had said, holding her goat back and watching as one piece after another had been carried inside: the sofa and chairs with carvings of fruit and flowers on the arms, the mahogany sideboard, the china cabinet, the rug, with flowers, too. Dientje did not have to tiptoe in our house. You could not hear footsteps anyway. Here, I’d prove it to her. Firmly I led her across the rug, arm in arm. “It’s something, Annie, this rug. For the feet yet. It’s so fancy.” That’s what the guests were saying about the dinner table. They were all crowded around it. “It’s spectacular, Magda.” There was awe in their voices. “How did you manage a whole platter of cookies?”
    “And all those eggs.”
    “They’re stuffed.”
    “Look, look, with-What are those brown flecks in them?”
    ““Sardines,” she just said.”
    “Sardines? I don’t remember what they taste like.”
    “And bowls of salt and mustard the likes of which I haven’t seen for years. Magda, how did you do it?”
    “You have to know the right people, that’s all,” she said and hughed.
    “Annie, get the xz7 VA,.L ASD
    Gently she pushed me toward the kitchen. “Hurry,” she said. “And don’t break them, they’re delicate. Better make several trips.” Break them?
    Of course not.