Carla Neggers - Cut and Run

Sighing, she nodded. “Just be careful.” And she too managed a smile. “Don’t leave me having to explain to your mother!”

Juliana laughed and went to the counter to order something to eat, and Wilhelmina retreated to the back, where she found her sister seated at a small table in the storeroom. Even dressed as she was in simple pants and a pullover, with her softly graying hair piled on top of her head, Catharina looked elegant. In the same outfit, Wilhelmina thought, I would look dumpy. It was one of the many differences between them.

She’d fixed a pot of tea and had a plate of speculaas and bread and cheese in front of her, untouched. “Willie,” she said, her voice cracking, and she went on in Dutch, “I hate to say it, but I’m so glad you’re here. I mean…”

Wilhelmina laughed, taking no offense. “I know what you mean, Catharina.”

“Johannes…” Her voice trailed off, her eyes once more filling with tears.

“Yes. We’ll miss him, won’t we?”

“I’d begun to think he’d never die. Willie, what’s happened to us? I remember when I was a little girl I could never imagine being away from my family. I wanted to live with Mother and Father forever-and you and Johannes. I thought you’d always be close by.”

“You were the one who left,” Wilhelmina pointed out, but without condemnation; it was a fact. She filled two simple white mugs with tea.

“I know, but I never thought we’d drift so far apart. I-”

Catharina cut herself off and began pulling distractedly at her hair, upsetting several pins, so that part of a braid came loose. Wilhelmina remembered how blond her little sister’s hair had been as a girl, how she used to braid it for her so carefully and tenderly, not wanting to pull. Catharina’s hands trembled, but she shoved them quickly into her lap.

“You’re so strong, Willie,” she went on, trying to smile. “I-I can’t lie to myself, you know. I can’t pretend I’m not relieved you’re here. All these years…” She inhaled deeply. “And I still depend on you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that, Catharina.”

“But who do you depend on?”

“Myself. But that’s only because that’s all I have.”

“What about me?”

Wilhelmina sighed, feeling awkward; she didn’t like to discuss these things. “You’re my sister. It’s enough that you don’t hate me.”

Catharina held back a sob and shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe her sister’s words. “Oh, Willie, how could I ever hate you?”

“Sometimes, Catharina,” she replied quietly, “I wonder how you could ever not. But enough of this nonsense. We must talk, don’t you agree?”

Quickly and succinctly, in Dutch, they filled each other in on the events of the past few days, but Wilhelmina found herself facing more questions than answers.

“So Hendrik hasn’t changed,” she said at length. “He’s out for himself and always will be. After all this time, he’s finally going after the Minstrel.”

Catharina nodded, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “But Willie, is it possible Johannes went with Hendrik voluntarily?”

“No.” Wilhelmina put a small chunk of cheese on a slice of the dark bread; it was just what she needed after the exhausting trip. “Johannes would never give Hendrik the Minstrel. Hendrik had to have coerced him somehow-he had to have some kind of leverage. Us, I would think. Hendrik would know Johannes would rather die than to give him, of all people, the Minstrel. So threatening Johannes with his own death would do no good. Even threatening him with my death alone wouldn’t make Johannes go for the Minstrel; he would know better than to engage in any ridiculous protective sentiments toward me. Hendrik knows this.”

“Johannes cared about you.”

Wilhelmina waved a hand impatiently. “I know that, but he cared for me in a different way than he cared for you. Catharina, you’ve always been the favorite-Mother’s, Father’s, Johannes’s, Hendrik’s, mine. And Johannes may not know Juliana very well, but she’s your daughter and she’s all that represents the future of the Peperkamps. If he were threatened not with his own life, not with mine, but with the lives of you and Juliana, he would tell Hendrik anything. Do anything. Next to all of us, the Minstrel’s Rough and four hundred years of tradition mean nothing.”

“But you said yourself Hendrik wouldn’t hurt me!”

“Of course he wouldn’t.” With a satisfied sigh, Wilhelmina swallowed the last of the bread and cheese. She added sugar to her tea and took a sip. “But the more I think about it, the less inclined I am to believe Hendrik is acting alone. Perhaps someone is threatening him.

“Who? Not Senator Ryder?”

“Who knows? It’s all very complicated, I’m sure.”

Catharina shuddered. “Willie, please, don’t tell me this.”

“What do you want to do, pretend nothing has happened?”

“I want to leave well enough alone.”

Wilhelmina studied her sister for a moment. “And do you believe we can, Catharina?”

She waited for an answer while her younger sister sat rigidly in the chair, her eyes glazed and unfocused. She hadn’t touched any of the food or her tea. Wilhelmina dunked a spice cookie and ate it in two bites.

“Of course you’re right,” Catharina said tightly, more hair falling out of its pins, and she added almost inaudibly, “We can’t.”

“I wish that we could. Believe me, I do. Have you been followed?”

Catharina’s round soft eyes grew even larger as she took in her sister’s words. “You, too?”

“Yes-and Juliana.”

“Juliana!” Catharina jumped up, her face ghastly white. “No, Willie. She can’t be involved!”

“Why, because you don’t wish her to be?”

“That’s cruel.”

“We must look at the facts and not let our judgment be influenced by wishful thinking.”

“Juliana has no place in this,” Catharina said sternly, returning to her chair.

“We might not have that choice.”

“She’s my daughter, Willie.”

“Yes, and she’s also an adult. She must make her own decisions and deal with their consequences. Catharina, she’s thirty years old.”

Catharina broke a cookie in half, then into quarters, then into crumbs. “You don’t have a daughter, how could you understand?”

“Achh, I understand more than you think. Because of who she is-her career in music, her growing up here with all this wealth-Juliana knows little of the world. You can’t stop her from finding out what it is.”

“You think I’ve spoiled her.”

“Life has spoiled her. She’s been very lucky, Catharina, to have you and Adrian, to have so much.” Wilhelmina smiled, trying to take the edge off her words. “Except for not teaching her Dutch and, perhaps, being so closemouthed about the past, you haven’t done anything I wouldn’t have done in your position. You don’t want what we suffered in Amsterdam to touch her. I understand that. We didn’t want the war to touch you, but it did. That wasn’t our fault or yours. It was just something that happened.”

“Willie-”

“Catharina, talk to her.”

“I don’t think I can.” She brushed the cookie crumbs off her trembling fingers. “Willie, I don’t want to lose her.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I believe I do. More than thirty years ago I watched a ship sail with my only sister aboard. She’d married an American, the man she loved, and I was happy because she was so happy. But I’d lost her. There was no going back, no making up for what was done. Never in my life have I felt so alone as at that moment.” She looked into her sister’s soft green eyes. “You see, I do understand how you feel.”