THE BULLET THAT MISSED

 “Guusje, I hate this! This damn war! I detest seeing my family like this!” Pappa furiously dashed the tears from his eyes. “Look at the kindertjes with their bones showing. What can I do? What can I do?”

“Oh, Cor, don’t upset yourself. None of us can help this. Maybe there’ll be an end soon… if not to the war, to us.” Mamma hesitated briefly before continuing. “But I think it’s high time we figured out something to end the children’s suffering.”

A jolt of fear passed through my body. Was Mamma really suggesting that they should kill their children?

Pappa paced the room with clenched fists. “No! No, that’s not an option! When I was only a child washing windows to earn money for my mother and sisters, I promised myself I would always provide for my family. We’re not going to die and we’ll not be ‘ending any suffering’. I’m going to figure something out.”

A few days later, Pappa shared his plan. Being a mailman, he was allowed to break curfew, so he went out way before daylight. He’d stayed away all day, and my mother sat on the couch, her eyes unfocused while her fingers twisted her apron. As evening drew near, Mamma progressed to weakly shuffling up and down the room. “Where’s your father? He should have been home an hour ago!”

“Maybe he stopped off to see his friend, Harry. Why are you so worried? Sit down. He’ll be home soon.” Sieglinde led Mamma back to the couch, plumped up a pillow, and slid it behind her back.

Corrie said nothing. She couldn’t.

“You don’t understand. He was going to try to get us food from the Malieveld.

“Um, that’s where the Germans grow their potatoes, right?” Sieglinde frowned at me and rolled her eyes towards Mamma.

I stopped playing my imagination game, the one where I pretended to be a doctor who could heal my big sister, and took Mamma’s other hand.

“Yes! What if he got caught? Maybe he’s already on the way to Germany. Or, maybe they shot him! They do that. He might be dead, and we’ll have to cope without him.” Mamma’s voice rose, and she pulled her hands free to again begin her endless apron twisting.

My stomach turned over, but I raised my chin. “We’ll be fine, Mamma. I’ll…”

Just then, we heard the front door open. Pappa came in with a big grin on his face and a bundle of flowers in his hand which he presented to Mamma with a flourish. “Guusje, you could almost have put those on my grave!”

I gasped. What could he mean?

Pappa strode into the kitchen and proudly emptied his mail bag onto the counter. There were a few potatoes. “Look! I stole them. I even got enough to give one to Harry and his family!”

Next my father placed his uniform cap beside the potatoes, arranging it carefully while winking at me. I was the first to spot them: two perfectly round bullet holes—one in the front and one in the back of the cap.

I looked at Pappa with wide eyes. With a mischievous grin on his face, my father bent down and showed us the top of his head. Our mouths dropped open. There was a line of singed hair going from the front of Pappa’s head all the way to the back. We could see his pink scalp peeking through the smelly blackened hair.

Mamma traced her finger along the line of missing hair. “Cor, what happened?”

“As I was filling my bag with potatoes, I noticed a German soldier watching me. He looked about 12 years old, but he had a gun. I jumped on my bicycle and began pedaling like crazy. Just then, I heard a shot. I went even faster. Who’d have thought a bicycle with wooden wheels could go like the wind? It sure did give me a rough ride!” Pappa rubbed his bottom as he laughed.

Patting his head, Pappa said, “It’s a very good thing that I’m not a tall man. He got my cap, but he missed me.”