When Frits was a teenager, he took his bicycle to De Woude, a small island reachable only by ferry. He was to work that summer on the largest farm on the island. He slept high in the loft where the hay was stored. Part of his job was ferrying the steer down this stream to the various cows. 

One night there was a big thunderstorm. It caught the big farmhouse, and the hay caught fire. Frits ran to safety, as did the farmer’s family. But the farm was burned to the ground. The villagers were good to Frits. They got together and bought him a new bicycle. Frits went home for the rest of the summer.

The next year, he returned. This time he worked on the small farm. As ill luck would have it, there was another big thunderstorm. This time the small farm burned down to the ground. No loss of life, but a terrible loss to the farmer. 

It was now clear as day that Frits brought bad luck. No farmer would house him until he could go home to the Hague. The local pub let him sleep there. Frits was asked never to return to De Woude again.

Many years later, when we had our eldest daughter with us, we were curious if there were still people around who remembered the fires two years in a row. So Caroline asked a passer-by who the oldest person in the village was. The answer came very prompt, “Tante Mientje. And there she is.”

We were facing a very spry old lady. We asked her if she remembered the fires when a young man worked on those farms. “Oh yes,” she said. “As if it were yesterday. His name was Frits.” She described what happened.

Frits recognized the old lady and told her he was that young man, Frits Evenblij. She looked at him and after a while said, “Well, then, you’d better get out of here, because we don’t want another fire.”

Frits and I had visited the village many times before and indeed afterwards, too, whenever we were in the Netherlands. But there never was another fire.

More in the upcoming book, Unforgivable.