My Sunday best shoes made polite clicking noises on the brick streets as I resolutely walked away. away from mother. away from the endless lectures which were, of course followed by being rendered invisible by the baby sister adoration society. I was just seven and had been cast aside. I stopped just for a moment, because the pain of being cast aside was real pain, it made me hurt in the pit of my stomach, and for a moment the world did a full turn around me.
As I righted myself I watched the small Sunday market, about six stands. Each one heavy decorated with paper flowers and flags. Families walking through, stopping to chat, children with hands full of sugary treats. The smell of waffles so strong you could actually taste them. I inhaled, deeply, and again. I had to stop thinking about what it would be like to be someone else’s daughter. Surely even children stolen by gypsies would just occasionally be bought a waffle at the market on a Sunday after Mass. I’d be happy of they’d just take me to Mass.
I had gone to mass that morning, alone. I’d walked a little behind my next door neighbour’s family. There were ten children, one more would scarcely be noticeable. Mother Hendriks knew I was not a Catholic but she’d never made a big deal of it. Actually no-one had made a big deal of it, except for my parents. Mass was wonderful, the music, the tranquil scent of incense, the girls in pretty dresses, the ladies all wearing marvelous hats. Children and mothers sat near the front, the men, for reasons learned when I was older, were seated near the rear exits.
Here, obviously, children were well liked, we were special. Mothers stroked the hair on their daughters and prodded their sons to sit straight and follow along attentively. The entire congregation was in the nurturing embrace of an exceptional organ, the organist could not be seen. I imagined the organist would look just like my uncle Jo, who also played organ. He would play Peter and the Wolf whenever I came to see him. I had wandered through the enormous organ in the church of Nieuw Lekkerland, there were many cubbys to curl up in and allow the music to transport you to other magical worlds.
This was all very new to me, it was hard to remember when to kneel or make the sign of the Cross. I imagined being in church with my parents, my hair would be long, and my mother would stroke my hair. No long hair, no waffles. Today friends of my parents were coming over, to fawn over the baby no doubt. So I’d told mams I was going to play with friends. There were, of course, no friends available. I knew that before leaving home, but I had to get out and away. I was sad and angry. I needed to walk until I was too tired to be either sad or angry.
My Sunday shoes were the only pair that were not sensible. They were white, had hard soles that made clicking noises as I walked, the edges were beautifully detailed like lacy daisies and with my sparkling white lace ankle socks my footwear was stunning. Very near what Shirley Temple danced in. Of course, my mother found tap dancing very vulgar, but when out of sight I could shuffle and tap on the sidewalks and up and down the post office stairs.
I bet if the gypsies stole me I could dance all the time. My friend Marlies was a gypsy and she could walk a tightrope, she had really long hair too, and red dancing shoes. Marlies worked in a circus with her sisters. I had never been to the circus, my mother considered that vulgar also. Marlies would show me dance steps at school during recess. I missed her when she went away for a few months, the circus went to Belgium part of the year. I still didn’t have that many friends at school. Just the neighbours’ kids, Marlies, Sofie (she was protestant) and Sylvia, the burgomaster’s daughter.
At school I was the only girl with short hair. My mother argued that we were simply more fashionable because we came from the city. All the better children had short hair, and that was the end of it. Those wonderful ruffled dresses were also “vulgar”. My friend Toni let me wear one of her’s ones and I thought I looked splendid in ruffles with three petticoats one of them in pastel tulle. Toni’s parents were building managers where we used to live in Hoogvliet, that made them common people “vulgar”, my mother did admit that they were very nice “considering”. I did not share my mother’s attitudes. These were my friends and that made them perfect. I was a seven year old little girl, I liked ruffles and long hair with ribbons and sparkly buckles on my shiny shoes, and lots and lots of petticoats. It was hard for me to appreciate the many hours my mother spent sewing copies of what the better classes were having their little girls wear.
The shoes were perfect. It was a gift that good fortune gave me. My feet grew, I needed new shoes and the small town we now lived in had only one kind of little girl Sunday best shoes. Nothing sensible, just pretty, and the store clerk had given me these pretty sock for free. With most of the town at the market the town streets were silent, except for the tapping of my shoes. I danced, sang, walked and stopped to admire the flowers in people’s gardens. At the edge of the town stood a small forest — in the Netherlands any grouping of more than 20 trees would be considered a forest — it had a small brook running through it and a small glass chapel on the hill from where you could see Germany.
I took of my shoes and socks, the walkway here was dirt and the red topsoil here would stain. I lit a candle in the chapel, asked Mary to forgive me for my anger. On the way home I washed my feet in the brook and put my shoes back on and danced all the way home.
