While the rest of mankind whiles away their evenings in front of a TV, students at McMaster University in Hamilton are up till the middle of the night studying for Christmas exams. They live in barely fixed-up attics, two students per room to save money. Unmade beds, piles of laundry on the floor, and desks made of discarded doors and orange boxes — this is their life.

The bearded university chaplain with his charming Dutch accent knows it. Although James has been skipping the student chapels for months now, this chaplain does not let go of the young man. He regularly visits the gangly student, whose long arms and legs are no help in the crowded, low attic room. The chaplain has noticed the trembling hands, the tired face and the twitching around the left eye.

The veteran chaplain knows more. That James feels abandoned by God and man. That he scoffs at the rigidity of his parents’ church life, among those members of a “black stockings” church, transplanted, skin and all, to Canadian soil. A church where everything must stay the same. His fellow students ignore him — what do you do with a guy who is always so critical? But the pastor also knows that this boy needs a girl. James told him that even in primary school girls walked around him in wide circles.

Black Hole

The chair, missing its spindles, keeps creaking. The formulas line up in James’ brain. Often, they chain together and develop, surprisingly, into a solution. James sits staring at this chain, but his mind is tired and fails to find links now. His hand smashes down, shovel-like, on the desktop veneer and gets stuck in splintering wood.

Downstairs, the two elderly landlords are holding their breath. They like James, but lately he has been acting so strangely. Listen now . . . now he’s going to play that loud music again. The old Polish steelworker is ready to go upstairs. The woman with her furry headscarf stops him. “Music maybe good for the boy,” she says softly. “You crazy … and he real crazy,” he mumbles back while tapping his head, but falls back into his big leather television chair anyway.

Boom-boom-boom-booooom! Beethoven’s Fifth. Death knocks on the door. Then the urgent melody drags this boy’s soul beyond the stars, into the black hole between galaxies where sick souls spiral down into their hell. The music gets even louder, and then that boy stomps on the attic floor boards once more, and a heavy curse thunders down, so blasphemous that both of the little, old people make a cross.

“I go help him.”  Her mumbling mouth, between cheeks like wrinkled apples, intones a “Mary, Mother of God”. Wearily, she climbs up. There he sits, angular shoulders shaking. A big, sweet boy rocking away the sadness of incapacity and abandonment like a small child. She sees the stunned blankness in his eyes . . . the kind she has seen in a Polish concentration camp. She thinks of her own son who died in the war. “Such a good, good boy he was — big boy, like this Jamie boy.”  

And then the woman does something a mother or a girl should have done long ago. She strokes the boy’s bushy hair that never wants to ‘sit’. She presses his head against her flowered apron and sits there until his body stops jerking, until he closes his eyes and relaxes into the unfamiliar warmth. He hears her say “You boy, you not study no more — you gonna be real sick. You go for trip to old country, that will help.”

Intervention

When she was gone, James bends down to the old bookcase. Jammed between two textbooks is an old photo album — the trip to Holland he made when he was twelve, with his father and mother, to Terschelling, where father was born. He peers at the photos intently. There he is, on the dune behind West Terschelling. There he is with Japke. He puts the photos away and fiddles with the splinter in his finger. He looks at the hole in the table top. “You go for trip to old country!”  But you can’t, can you? Sighing, he stands up, lights a cigarette, and looks for the physics book that fell to the floor.

Two days before Christmas, James is at Schiphol Airport after all. The landlord had warned the university chaplain by phone. “He gonna go crazy, you got to go help him!” He had gone straight to James’ parents and had warned them sternly that James was sailing straight for a mental institution. Father De Bree didn’t think that would be such a big deal. Then the chaplain’s white beard twitched with rising anger. “When was the last time you had a proper talk with James?” Father De Bree mumbled that you couldn’t talk to James anymore, he knew everything better and, after all, he had turned his back on God too. Mother De Bree was more concerned, although she too did not understand the full implications of James’ illness. It had taken a lot of digging before the father would write a cheque to pay for James’ trip to Holland.

Summer Holidays  

It was ten years ago that the whole De Bree family spent a holiday in the Netherlands. Beforehand, James, at 12, had thrown himself frantically into the Dutch language. In the bookcase he discovered small, thin books about Terschelling and his stolid, serious father suddenly became more forthcoming. For the first time in their lives, they sat side by side looking together at a book, and James discovered another side to his father. Yes, if he wanted, he could be enthusiastic about something. Mother De Bree sees them sitting there; the boy with his strangely triangular face, floppy ears and wide-set eyes, just as awkward as his father. Not a child to be cuddled anymore.

She knew he was struggling at school. The boys ignored him. James read books in the schoolyard because he wasn’t good at soccer — he always kicked the ball too far. Sometimes he played chess with another scholarly outcast from a lower class. Sometimes girls would come and disrupt that game of chess. They would knock pieces off the chess board and the ungainly boy would look puzzled. Why do they do that now? The teacher suggested to the class that James could teach them chess. Oh no, not him!

Finally, the holidays arrive. On the Terschellingerland, they sail into the harbour. James finds the island even more beautiful than father told him. They stay with uncle Siebren. Behind their farm is the Wadden Sea. “My goodness, girl,” says Aunt Griet to James’ mother, “what a beautiful family you have. But where is James now? I’ve hardly seen him.” Uncle Siebren points to the dyke. “Already a real islander, loves nothing better than roaming from home!”

A New Girl

James has never felt happier. It is so beautiful — so beautiful! In the distance, he sees the Brandaris. Tonight, Uncle Siebren says, the bright beams of light will flood into his little bedroom. At the foot of the dike, over the heavy basalt blocks, he sees a girl walking. Too bad, James thinks. There are girls here too. The girl pauses and waves at him. In Canada, James would have ignored her. Here he shyly waves back. In his mind, he hopes she won’t disturb his peace — no girls plaguing him this holiday. It must remain beautiful!

But the girl approaches. She is tanned and has beautiful blonde hair. “I am Japke, and you are the Canadian staying with our neighbours.” There is no mockery, no edge to her voice. He tries to look past her but is drawn in by a pair of serious eyes. “Can’t you talk, Canadian? What’s your name?”

“My name are James,” he offers shyly in Dutch. A broad smile erupts on Japke’s face. See! James thinks and immediately stands up. “Well,” says Japke, “you’re quick on your feet, too. I’m laughing at what you say, not at you, silly! ‘My name is James’, you should have said — ‘are’ is plural.”

Japke sits down next to him, pulls her knees up and folds her hands around them. “What does ‘silly’ mean,” James asks suspiciously. Intuitively, the girl feels she shouldn’t explain the joking nature of the word to him. “It means you are a very sweet boy.” That makes James turn colour. He can’t remember anyone ever saying that to him, not even his mother.

There, on the crest of the dyke, James gets his first language lesson. And after that, the two are inseparable. If you see Japke, you see James! They cycle to West Terschelling or take Cupido’s bus. On top of the high dune behind the village, they sit together in an old German bunker. There they eat their sandwiches, see the afternoon boat sail south of the North Channel. James says softly to himself; “I wish I could stay here alway.” “Always,” Japke corrects. She looks at him sitting there sadly. That’s too much for her maternal nature. She strokes his hair and says, “You have kind eyes, James.” Why is he crying now, Japke thinks, boys don’t cry, do they?

Going Back

“You go to Terschelling, you can stay with Uncle Siebren, if you help out a bit on the farm,” Father De Bree had said, and gently (to himself) he had added, “I wish I could go with you.” Mother stipulated that he had to visit Grandma in Leeuwarden first.

Huddled up now, he sits on the train to Harlingen, staring blankly out of the window against which the rain swirls. The novelty of flying again had lifted him out of his depression for a while, but now his thoughts are spinning like millwheels again, round and round — no matter how much he tells himself that he is now free from exams and lectures and the endless study of a matter whose deepest essence he does not understand. That’s the worst part! He doesn’t understand a bit of it. You can memorize formulas, but even on good days, he couldn’t see the connections. He doesn’t understand it – not physics, not God, not life.

Even less does he understand the unbridled feelings that every healthy young man feels bubbling up from within. The dreams — the dreams in which there are taunting girls’ faces, but girls who still offer up their beautiful bodies. The dreams in which another female figure sometimes appears; a sweet, tanned face. In those dreams he sees again the serious blue eyes of Japke that say, you have kind eyes. But then she disappears among the figures of other girls — hussies sweeping the broken pieces of his life into the gutter.

His spinning thoughts latch onto the rhythm of the train wheels! Physics . . . the chaplain; “how can you reconcile this rotten life with God’s love?” The old woman and young girl stroking his hair; father wasting money this trip; mother’s shy and empty, quick kiss; Japke — is she on the island, will he see her again?

I’m dead tired, he knows — bone weary from thinking.

Boat Boarding  

In Harlingen, he mindlessly follows the people walking into the ticket office. Once on the Friesland , sailing past the Pollendam, he stands on deck. He remembers the boat, merry with holidaymakers. Now she only serves faithfully to transport the few islanders who want to be in Terschelling for Christmas.

Past the pier, the boat begins to roll. The icy wind pushes to gale force. Boom boom boom boooom! The bow eats into ice floes to the opening theme of Beethoven’s Fifth that plays out endlessly in his mind. The boat shakes furiously and James shivers with cold. Maybe this ship will get stuck in the ice. Boom boom boom boooom! It will sink, and then distraught thinking will cease as the boat’s last bubbles rise to the surface. And at that final moment, he’s read, his life will flash before him like a fast, bright slide show. He tries to imagine it, holds his breath, and then suddenly sees pictures crowding out the maelstrom of thoughts. To his great surprise, there is only one picture standing out among the hundreds long string of bright images that flash before him at lightning speed. The dune and Japke . . .  Japke, Japke, Japke.

But he will not meet Japke on the island – of that he is certain! In front of him lies a dark pool of water set among grey ice floes. Now he is empty, empty, empty – inside, he knows, he is already dead. No one will miss him if he jumps into the dark water. He has never meant anything to anyone. Silly boys don’t become physicists.

Captain and Mate

How does God work? A man saunters across the deck with a cup of coffee. The first mate had spotted a guy with his foot on the lower rung of the railing. “C’mon kid, get inside — you’ll freeze to death here.” With a jerk, James turns around and the mate sees a twisted face. Heck, this lad won’t . . . will he? With his empty hand he pulls the boy by the sleeve, but James resists. “I’m OK,” he shouts, “I’m used to weather like this in Canada.” “Well, suit yourself then,” the sailor shouts above the storm.

Back in the wheelhouse, he looks through the side window. The boy has disappeared. Coffee splashes over the compass as he runs outside. He hurries down the stairs to the forward cabin and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees the boy sitting there. A moment later, he is back in the wheelhouse. “What have you got there on your hip,” says the captain gruffly. “Oh, a little mishap . . . did you know we have a Canadian on board? Must be either a Cupido, a de Jong, or a de Bree.” “I had a Simon de Bree in my class,” says the captain, “is it a guy my age?” “No, no — a young lad,” says the mate. “Maybe his son,” replied the captain.

The captain quickly pulled on his jerkin and muttered, “I will get coffee myself then, keep her in the trench.” Captains can be curious too. They are also men of authority! Standing in front of James, his “Who are you?” sounds almost like an order — like, ‘the truth, or I’ll throw you overboard.’ James looks up in surprise. Father had said: if people want to know who you are then just say; Jacob from Simon from Jaap de Bree, and they will know.

The captain can’t get over it. His best friend Simon’s son. How’s that possible? Gruffly, he snorts his emotions away into a handkerchief. Hail clatters against the portholes as the captain talks about the old days, in his best English. At first, he misses that the boy has tuned out, cannot listen. But then a small window cracks open in the boy’s mind anyway. A little door of interest. He hears the captain saying how his father also did not have it easy as a young man for a long time. Eager to learn, as he was always the best student in class, there was no money for a school on the mainland, let alone a university. This view of this father fades to the image of a General Motors factory foreman, interested only in his beer by the TV after the day’s roar of machines.

Grounded

Then, his head almost bangs against the captain’s cap. With a tremendous jolt, the boat lies still. “Are we there now?” asks James. “Are you kidding — a curse — we’re stuck in the sand next to the gully.” The captain runs up. James follows him up with some other passengers. He stands by the wheelhouse door and the captain beckons him inside. “We’ll have to wait for high water,” he says.

James returns to the cabin with the other passengers. In predicaments like this, conversation comes more easily, and the islanders start to include the big, ungainly boy. When he tells them he is from Canada and going to stay with Siebren de Bree, he even becomes the focus of their conversation. James finds himself becoming calmer inside. These people talk warmly and are so interested. He can even smile when an old chap points to his gangly hands and says, “you work hard, hey, in Canada.”

Does he dare? These islanders will surely know if Japke is still on the island. Then suddenly he hears her name mentioned. Intently, he listens to a conversation between two women. Is it Japke, from then and now? He understands that she will tell the Christmas story to the Sunday school children in church tomorrow.

Shyly he interrupts their conversation. “Is that Japke who lives besides Uncle Siebren?”  “Yes, yes, do you know her then?” More curious, the women lean in towards him. Female intuition suspects there is something more between that boy and the Christian School teacher. But James doesn’t let on.

Home Coming  

When the Friesland docks late at night, James sees Uncle Siebren pacing on the quay. He will be annoyed because the boat is late, James thinks. But his uncle greets him warmly. “Man, oh man! What a big guy you’ve become.” He’s so different from my father, James thinks. As he walks with his uncle to the car, he turns for a goodbye glance at the boat, where he met with so much cordiality. Uncle Siebren follows his gaze, and James does not notice the knowing smile that plays out around his mouth.

By the ticket office, a girl emerges from the shadows, a young woman with a scarf around her blonde hair. The tall boy in his strange, hooded jacket stands nailed to the ground, as if seeing a vision. The girl walks faster now, then runs towards him. Three paces away from him, she stops, stands still and says, “My name are Japke — ‘are’ is for us.”

Then she flings herself at him and a pair of strong arms lift her almost off the yellow brick road. She feels his body shake violently, just as it did ten years ago, but this time she is not surprised that a boy can also cry. She hears his soft, raspy voice whisper, “Japke, Japke, Japke.” Then she pulls back the floppy monk’s hood and puts her mouth to his ear. “All will be well now, James. I am with you — all will be well.” And she too shed tears.

Moments later, they walk hand in hand past The Waking Eye as the beams of light from the Brandaris lighthouse beckon their eyes up towards the Lord. Back on the quay, a stunned Uncle Siebren turns and walks to his small car. He thinks, that lad will get home somehow. Besides, he would have had to fold himself double to get in.

Laughing, he kicks the rear tire.