Jantsje walks back to the bridge and I push the bike with Pieke behind her, hoping she doesn’t hang about there too long; it would be just as well not to get too close to those soldiers. I can see Pieke peeping secretly at the swimmers and suddenly I feel cross. What is happening over there is nothing to do with her; Mem was quite right, it’s grown-ups’ business.

One of the soldiers on the bridge is singing and the hammer blows sound loud and clear. Someone puts down a tin from which they take sandwiches. The war seems a peaceful and friendly affair.

I feel ashamed as I catch myself peeking at the swimming soldiers, just what I wanted to stop Pieke from doing. What is it that fascinates me so much about them, why does my mind keep wandering back to them, and why does that make me feel ashamed? The swimmers have wrapped towels around themselves, and hit their heads to shake the water out of their ears. One of them does a handstand in a free and fluent movement, poised athletically like a fairground showman, a strange contrast to this sober landscape.

‘Come on, we have to get back,’ says Jantsje, taking the handlebars from me, ‘or Mem’ll realise we’ve gone.’

Then to my own surprise I take an unusual decision and suddenly give voice to my own will. ‘You two go home if you like, but I’m going to stay here a bit longer.’

Unexpectedly, Jantsje raises no objections, gets onto the bike and pedals off without sparing me another glance. As she rides away I hesitate; Mem will know now and be cross. Behind me I can hear the singing voice and the rhythmical tapping of hammers, an enticing new world. I drop into the grass next to a couple of village boys, put my arms around my knees and, avid-eyed, settle down to watch.

The swimmers are standing by the tents, one is combing his hair in a small mirror, the others are drying themselves. Now that they are closer I can see that they are not much older than Popke, eighteen or nineteen. How do you teach people so young to fire a rifle, how can such youngsters make war? Can they really have beaten the Germans, these playful, boyish swimmers? But they are here in Friesland; they’ve got this far, anyway. I look at all the little bursts of activity in the camp with growing interest, at the toiling men, at the comings and goings of cars, at an oilcloth being spread out on the ground and one of the boys sitting in front of a tent and cleaning his rifle. Imagine if these soldiers were going on to Amsterdam and they offered me a lift, and we fetched Jan and we sat together in the back of one of those cars and we drove right through villages and polders straight on to Amsterdam…

I am startled out of my daydream by a noise that makes all of us on the bank leap simultaneously to our feet. An armoured car is driving out of the village street, making straight for us, hooting loudly for our attention, solid and outlandish as an elephant.

It stops at the canal with its engine growling. A soldier beside the driver leans out of the window and calls something to the men on the bridge in an incomprehensible language.

A curious crowd has poured out of the village to take a closer look at the car and the soldiers, a large circle forming around the unwieldy monster, at a safe distance not only because it might easily start firing at us from all sides but also because the people feel uneasy about the foreign language and the unfamiliar behaviour of the men. When the soldier beside the driver opens the door and steps out, everyone falls respectfully silent. Then there is a crush and the circle closes in.

I take a few steps back because the craning and the jostling scare me. I’d really much rather go back home, now that everything is getting so much closer and more real. I remember Mem and the clear warning she gave us.

As I try to break away from the circle someone puts an arm around my chest from behind and pulls me back hard. Popke, I think, or Hait. Now I’m for it… Another arm is thrust out past my head, an arm I do not know, strong and tanned, with a down of blond hair and a watch on the wrist. Between the fingers is a little oblong packet wrapped in blue and red paper with a thin silver edge.

I stand there in a state of terror, numb and cowering, staring at the hand: what does it all mean, what is happening, who is behind me holding me so tight? The people around me move back a little and look on curiously, some laughing as if it is all a great joke. I should have gone back with Jantsje, now I am all on my own with no one to help me. I am taken by the shoulders and turned around. Behind me a soldier is squatting and looking straight at me with piercing grey eyes. He has rough, cracked lips that are open in a smile and the corner of one of his front teeth has been broken off. Close-cropped, sandy hair with a bit of a curl, a white undershirt and a small chain around a powerful straight neck; I take all this in with one glance, an intense moment of guarded acknowledgment. I try and pull away. Leave me alone, I think, let go of me. It’s all up with me now, I’m for it. Fear wells up and floods through me, I ought to start yelling and kicking. But I remain standing stock-still, clasped in his arms.

He seems surprised and pats me gently on the head, takes my hand and presses the oblong packet into it. His hand enclosing my fingers is warm and reassuring. ‘For you,’ he says in English.

I hear the words, sounds that mean nothing, and I turn my head away, tongue-tied. What should I do? Why are they all staring and why does nobody do anything? The soldier gets up from his haunches, his voice still friendly and gentle, but making me dizzy with fear. I hold the hand with the little packet in it as far away from me as possible and see that all the boys around me are looking at it. But that hand does not belong to me, I have nothing to do with it, it’s just a mistake, surely they realise that?

The soldier walks over to the car and leans through the window; there is a fresh burst of hooting and an arm waves from inside.

‘He’s hooting for you.’ The boys push me forward. ‘We can go and look at the car, hurry up!’

The soldier lifts me on to the running-board. I can feel two strong hands against my ribs pushing me forward awkwardly, as if trying to squeeze me through the door. In the car, behind the wheel, sits a black soldier, a Negro with shining dark eyes and a big, happy-go-lucky smile. A narrow cap is perched on his frizzy hair, the point pulled down in front to just over his eyebrows.

‘Hello!’ He almost sings the word, in one long soothing, drawing-out of breath. ‘Hello, mister.’ He puts out his hand but I don’t take it. ‘What?’ He pats my cheek, then I watch his hand sliding along the inside of the car and pointing things out with a brief tap of his fingernails: knobs, round glass panels, little handles. He is smoking a stream-lined, snow-white cigarette – quite unlike the crumpled butts that Hait smokes – and puffs the smoke with an emphatic noise out of the window. Every so often he gives a high-pitched, childish laugh and gestures to a soldier on the bridge. The soldier who is holding me steps up on to the running-board behind me and bends over into the car, pushing me tightly against the door, pressing my throat against the top of the rolled-down window. Above my head a cigarette is being lit. I hear them talk and feel the painful weight of his body burning against my back. His voice reverberates through me, as if I were a sounding-board.

I’ll wait without moving until this ordeal is over, it can’t go on for ever. He coughs and my body shakes with him. He has placed a hand next to me on the window and I look at his short broken nails.

Before I know what has happened, I am suddenly back on the ground next to the car and the boys are pushing me out of the way to have their turn on the running-board. In the ensuing confusion I make good my escape as quickly and unobtrusively as possible through to the back of the circle. The soldier looks round for me, but when he spots me and starts to move in my direction I take to my heels. Quick, I think to myself, back to Laaxum, back home! Halfway to Laaxum I slow down a bit, the oblong packet still in my sweaty hand. Dispassionately, I examine it, as if it were something dangerous. The blue and red coloured wrapper contains thin strips neatly packed in silver paper. They have a sharp pepperminty smell. I peel back the silver paper and find a soft pinkish-grey slab inside which bends easily and seems to be lightly dusted with powder. It is a small, delicate miracle of precision and smell, streamlined and perfect.

As I chew the little slab it turns into an elastic, pliable little ball that I can work between my teeth and mould with thrusts of my tongue. The more I allow it to wander slowly through my mouth, tasting, testing and savouring it, enjoying its sweetness, the more it is brought home to me: I was given this present by an American soldier, this little packet is for me alone, he picked me out specially…

They will hardly believe me at home, it all seems like an incredible adventure story, a voyage of discovery through strange lands: the car, the black soldier, the packet pressed into my hand… I forget how passive and terrified I had been, how, paralysed with fear, I had just allowed it all to happen, and how I had run away as fast as I could. What remains is the memory of a glorious adventure.

I squeeze the other little slabs carefully back into the wrapper and push it deep into my pocket, my hand covering it protectively. I am no longer so sure that I shall tell them about it at home.

Chapter 2

Next day a surprise is waiting for us at school: the only thing we have to do is to write out the words of the Frisian and Dutch national anthems because, the master tells us, we shall be singing them at the liberation celebrations.