Dinah

Holde

The cow was Blume, an old, sagging thing with a demeaning attitude, if a cow could be said to have an attitude. The Rots had owned her since before any of them were born - in fact, Papa had been sixteen and helped birth her. Constantijn could not imagine either Papa nor the cow being young.
Blume used to have stark white hair spotted inky black, but now it was more of a pitch-stained gray color.
"Hullo, pretty girl," Constantijn murmured as he entered the small barn. It smelled of sweet straw, manure, and a little bit of sour milk. In the opposite corner, the horse lay, pricking his ears up at the new sounds but, after identifying them, shifting his feet a little and falling asleep again.
She looked up, and then down again at a worm squiggling across the ground.
Constantijn started milking her and she didn't object.
A warm, thin squirt of milk hit the bucket. "Would you miss me if I was gone?" Constantijn asked suddenly, "Maybe not like, emotionally; I mean, you're a cow. Cows probably  feel emotions so much as people do. But would you notice that I wasn't here?"
Obviously, Blume didn't answer.
Constantijn went on anyways, "Do you ever notice that Pieter and Werner and Dieter aren't here? Maybe not. We probably all look alike from your perspective anyways. You probably just see blond hair. Are cows' eyes any good?" He looked at her eyes. In the right kind of light, they would reflect blue, like stained glass, but now they were just great round  black marbles, framed by long dark lashes.
She stared at him dully. Finish up. She started chewing her cud. It always alarmed Constantijn how a cow could just - do that, all of a sudden have food in its mouth. He'd said that to one of his brothers once - he didn't remember if it was Pieter or Dieter. He'd laughed. And Constantijn had to admit it was a stupid thing to think about.
So Constantijn finished up - at least, he started to, and then he looked up again. "Wait. Can cows be Nazis? No. That's stupid. You guys don't have any clue what's going on in the world, do you?"
Blume stamped her foot, and the milk pail tipped dangerously. Constantijn snatched it up and glared at her, "You know, if cows could have political opinions, you'd be a Nazi. You're sour and don't care. Now hold still," He finished the milking and carried the now-heavy pail back towards the house.
Rolf, Gretchen, Freida, and Katrin had left for school by now, leaving Isold, Holde, Augusta, and Pieter standing in the kitchen when Constantijn entered.
They looked up as he came in.
"Constantijn, you'd better eat," Isold said, and nodded towards the loaf of bread on the counter, sitting next to the jar of homemade jam, "Holde's leaving for work soon and I want you to walk to town with her,"
Constantijn always walked with Holde to work now. Isold, bold as her Nazi belief was, did not trust the troops that constantly travelled through town.
"'Kay," Constantijn cut himself a slice and spread just enough jam on it to convince the girls he wasn't being skimpy, because Mama, who had already been at work since five that morning, wanted him to eat well before he got shipped off and she trusted them to enforce that.
He ate as the two of them walked down the lane, dodging pecking chickens.
They walked in silence for a while, and then Holde asked, "Constantijn?"
"Yeah?"
She looked at him. She had eyes the color of milk chocolate, Pieter had always said. "You know it's okay to worry?"
"Yeah," Constantijn said. He didn't know that he could trust her with all the thoughts running through his head right now, so he stayed quiet. It hurt. "I know,"
"Are you afraid of dying?"
He frowned, "Not really, I guess. I'm not really afraid of who I'm leaving behind, either. I know you'll all be fine. I just," He shrugged emptily, "I dunno,"
"Okay," She said, "You know you're fighting for the Fatherland, right? For Germany," She didn't say for the Führer. Maybe she meant for the Führer. Constantijn didn't know. Pieter, if he were here, might have said for the Führer, but Pieter also hadn't had the ardent admiration for Adolf Hitler that Werner had. He hadn't been home before Constantijn was old enough to listen to the radio with the "adults", but when he came up to bed after the Führer's speeches he was quiet. He and Werner talked in hushed tones, and although Werner always won because you simply couldn't deny the Führer, Constantijn knew that hadn't been the end of it. Pieter hadn't served the Führer. He'd served Germany.
Or had he? Constantijn wondered. Had Pieter died so that Germany could "eliminate" the Jews, Communists, and all those other peoples? Or had Pieter died so that Germany could...
Could something. Constantijn wondered what would have happened if the war hadn't started. Maybe that's what Pieter died for.
He didn't like all these questions. But he liked it better than the uncertainty kicking his gut since the first time he'd heard Hitler speak.
"Ja," He mumbled an agreement, although from Holde's odd look he could tell he'd been in thought longer than he realized.
They walked a while longer and then Holde said, her voice laced with conviction, "Constantijn, maybe it's selfish of me to say this, but fight for Pieter. He should not die in vain,"
"He shouldn't have died at all," Constantijn said, "Nobody should have to die,"
"They will," Holde murmured, and Constantijn wondered if he wasn't supposed to hear that, "They will die,"