The Seeds Will Grow

De Kat en der Tulpen

There is a look, it is impossible to describe, of a truly hungry child.

Not the child between meals, craving a snack, but the child who has suffered through want. A child who has eaten a scrap of cheese and a few morsels of bread, and has no more to fill their stomachs. This look had greeted me every day from November 1944 until our country was liberated in May 1945.

We had long ago run out of things that could be eaten and had progressed well into things that shouldn't. When you reach that point, you find that few things remain on the list of things you won't. Rotting food, things that were never intended to be food, things that might not kill you immediately if you ate them -- your stomach no longer cares, so long as something is given to it.

My husband was arrested in September 1944, trying to help the Allies liberate Arnhem. I pleaded for him to stay, but I knew he wouldn't. The Germans had to go, and he was out to make sure of that. And so I stayed, with two children. Our daughter, Maria, was nine at the time; Pieter, our son, was six.

Food had not been plentiful for some time, but it grew so scarce, so quickly after my husband had gone. The coupons provided something resembling bread. Rancid butter and rotten vegetables found their way into stews and broths. The look, that look of craving and unsated hunger, demanded it.

And soon those things became luxuries we dreamed about, avid topics for discussion as we picked about for wood or anything that might burn for that matter. The lights went off then too, we were hungry already, and then it became far too cold. There was no coal, or rather, the coal was on one side of German-occupied territory and we were on the other.

There were houses we visited, emptied throughout the war of their Jewish owners. We took whatever we could find. Stealing does not seem such a crime when you are shivering and your stomach feels as if it has folded in upon itself. We could not save those people, but ironically they could save us. Their shoes and belts became a pasty, sickening stew. Even a picky child will eat boiled leather when there is nothing else.

Even the stew could not banish that look from my children.

"If only I had some of that yucky butter, this wouldn't be so bad," I remember Pieter saying as he gnawed on the remnants of a shoe. I patted his head, silently blessing him for not devouring his sense of humor. He surely would have if it was served on a plate for him, but as it were, it made for a lighthearted moment.

My daughter could find nothing to amuse herself during this winter; her thoughts lingered on the suffering all around her. She protested as two young boys passed us, each with a rat slung over his shoulder, holding them by their tails.

"How can they?" she asked. "The animals are hungry too."

I could only look at her, for I could only see the rats as something to be put into a pot. Whatever the nature of the animal, whether it be pest or pet, it seemed more like an item for the menu than something to be pitied. I could not help it, my mouth watered imagining a steaming bowl of rodent stew.

Maria read my body language and turned in disgust, returning to pawing at the wood between the railroad tracks for a few slivers to burn. I did not recognize this small piece of her nature, the kind and caring little girl, that she clung to in the same way her brother kept his spirits up with a joke. To her, the rats had to live too, they needed food just like any other animal. They were not to be eaten. I would have savored the taste of any meat by then, we had not had any in so long.

Later into the fall and proceeding into winter, the Germans further restricted the rations. There was barely enough food for a day, let alone the week that it was supposed to last. I resorted to boiling the tulip bulbs for food. These flowers are far more pleasing to the eye than to the stomach. But so little else remained to eat, we had little choice. There was always that look, the pleading little eyes that wanted more.

It was for those little eyes that I committed a desperate sin.

I was alone, having ranged further from home than normal when I chanced upon a cat. I called for it, making soft noises and beckoning it to come closer. This was not a wild cat, it was familiar with people, and was surely someone's pet. It readily came toward me, possibly under the impression that I had something for it to eat, or that I would offer a gentle rub of its fur.

My intentions were far more cruel. I snatched the cat when it drew close enough for me to grab it, then closed my eyes and squeezed. I kept imagining that look, my hungry children, to help me cope with what I was doing. The flailing of claws subsided, I could no longer undo the deed and went about the rest of the gruesome task at hand. I told the lifeless animal that it did not die in vain, almost begging it to forgive me.

I hurried home as quickly as I could, I did not want to encounter the owner of the unfortunate pet, nor did I want the children to discover what I had done. The cat was cleaned and readied, with generous chunks of meat dropped among the slices of tulip bulbs in the pot. This meat, I would tell them, was from an unfortunate rabbit that had died in the cold.

The smell of the stew, I am ashamed to admit, was heavenly. It wafted about the kitchen, and escaped out the door, giving an early warning to my children as they arrived home from school.

"Mama!" Pieter shouted as he bolted inside. He promptly produced a spoon from his pocket which he carried at all time "just in case", his mouth was visibly watering.

"It smells so good," Maria added. "Can we have some?"

I carefully laded out bowls for each of them, with a far bigger portion that I normally would have given under such circumstances. I felt I owed it to the cat to fill their stomachs to some degree of satisfaction.

I could only stand and watch as my children devoured their soup. The look was gone, if only for a moment, replaced by the glimmer of sheer joy in their eyes. If I only I could have enjoyed it, for suddenly I was overcome with visions of a little child begging for her cat to come home. The feeling billowed and rolled within me until it found an outlet. Large, steady tears began to flow from my face. I erupted into an uncontrollable sob.

"Mama, what's wrong?" Pieter said innocently. "Aren't you going to eat? This soup is so delicious." My daughter was more keen to adult emotions. She stopped and looked at me. It was a different look. Not the look of hunger. It was a look of disappointment and shock.

"Where did you get the meat, mama?" she asked. I would have given anything at that moment to been under the intense questioning of the Gestapo than the pointed inquiry of my nine-year-old daughter.

"I...I..." I stammered. The lie about the rabbit hopped about in my head, darting away from my tongue as I tried to recite it to the child.

"Is this rat?!" Maria howled, staring intently into the soup before awaiting my answer. Pieter took pause from his slurping to quickly discount his sister's theory.

"The chunks of meat are too big," he told his sister as though she ought to have figured it out on her own.

Maria said nothing, she pursed her lips into a stern scowl and awaited my answer.

"It's...It is not rat," was all I could manage. "I'm sorry. We're all so hungry..." I stopped there. The little girl in my vision calling for her lost cat took the face of own my daughter, her cries for her pet more desperate and sad. I could only bury my face into my hands and cry.

I felt a hand touch my shoulder. It was such a tender touch, one of compassion and understanding, one far beyond the tender age of my daughter.

"The soup was good, mama," she said softly, leaning close to my ear. "You don't have to tell me what was in it."

She nuzzled her way onto my lap, her stomach content for the first time in so very long. I ran my fingers through her hair and said a prayer silently to myself, one that I still repeat every day, 20 years later:

"May no parent ever have to see the look of hunger in the eyes of their children."