Читать книгу The Soup - Jorma Rotko - Страница 3

It was the bang of all bangs! By coincidence, I was cleaning my nets out in the yard at the time. I felt the ground shake and caught a glimpse of roof thatch, and my Grandfather, flying through the air. The sea breeze carried the thatch away, but Grandpa fell back to the remains of his laboratory with a thud.

Grandma Margareta and my brother Dietrich ran from the house, but it was too late. There was nothing to do now but speculate and mourn.

In the days following the mishap, half the city of Harlingen came to view the scene. The source of the explosion was Grandpa’s large copper kettle, his main piece of equipment for concocting mixtures and making gold. Miraculously, the kettle survived.

Nobody knew what raw materials he had used in his last mix, as he had dozens of liquids and powders in his lab. Plus, the day before, he had been to Leeuwarden, Friesland’s capital, buying still more things. Some people supposed he might have purchased gunpowder from the Spanish mercenaries who occupied the Low Countries.

I took Grandpa’s death hard. He was a mysterious wizard when I was small, an alchemist. His laboratory was in a little hut next to our cowshed. Although the door was always locked, I was sometimes able to peek in. A blazing fire burned in the middle of the room. Smoke from the fire was allowed to escape through a cupola and chimney made of sheets of copper. On the workbench were mortars and other tools, but his kettle was the most interesting of all.

My family had lost another. The last time was two years before when, within a short time, my parents and oldest brother had died. At the time, my brother was serving as a boatswain aboard the Dutch bark Hoop. It had recently arrived in Amsterdam with a cargo from Africa. My parents made the trip to visit him while he was in port. No one guessed the Hoop was carrying more than its intended cargo – the plague, Black Death, had come along, too. It was detected too late. Four victims from the same family in so short a span of time; I was sure that the streak of bad luck couldn’t continue. But, it did.

My family is Mennonites – Anabaptists by another name. We believe baptism should not take place until adulthood. A child, we feel, cannot know what it means to be a Christian. The Lutherans don’t accept this, and the Catholics deal out capital punishment for such a sinful belief.

Unfortunately, Friesland, home to my family, is part of the Low Countries that belong to Spain, Europe’s most Catholic realm. Still valid is a decree issued forty years ago by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V:

Who has seduced to their sect and re-baptized any; also those who have been called prophets, apostles or bishops – these shall be punished with fire. All other persons who have been re-baptized shall be executed with the sword, and the women are buried in a pit.

Grandpa had not been gone for a week yet when a Mennonite brother from Leeuwarden rode to warn us that the Catholic troops had again begun their religious persecutions. They had killed fifty sisters and brothers in Leeuwarden, he said and were targeting Harlingen next. We had only one direction to flee: the sea! But, Grandma was unwilling to leave.

“You just go, Simon and Dietrich,” she said. “I’m too old and tired, and besides Grandpa had gone. If I have to die, I will meet him in paradise”.

We tried, in vain, to change her mind. Grandma relied on that the assailants would chase the young, not some old women.

“And, too,” she said, “I won’t leave my cows!”

Grandma’s three cows were her friends. Besides, she made money selling milk and cheese. This was all very distressing, but there was nothing we could do.

Grandma searched her larder and cellar for food. She put rye bread, cheese, and smoked ham in a bag. Then, out came Grandpa’s kettle, and she started to make soup. She began by pouring water into the pot and added peas. While this cooked, she diced turnips, onions, three leeks, carrots, and celery root. Then, she cubed up bacon.

She put half the vegetables in the pot and added salt. She let the soup cook for some time before adding the other half of the vegetables and the bacon. After simmering for a short time more, the soup was ready.

We quietly took our seats at the table. Grandma folded her hands and prayed a blessing:

Thank you for the wind and rain and sun and pleasant weather. Thank you for this our food and that we are together.

Men in our family don’t cry, but my tears weren’t far away. Good times or bad, we were hungry – at least Dietrich and I were. Grandma, however, seemed to be too glum to eat. The soup was perfect, but it didn’t console us. Our sorrow seemed endless.

Morning came quickly. It was early, but the sun would be rising soon and our oppressors would be mounting their steeds. It was time for us to be away.

Hoping to draw more gold into the imperial treasury, Emperor Charles had issued a new silver coin called a florin – or as known to the commoners, a Carolus. It was to replace the gold guilders. Grandma Margareta went to her hiding place and returned with a leather pouch full of coins. Our family, it seemed, had lived sparingly because Granny’s pouch contained many more gold guilders than silver Carolus’. We tried to persuade her to keep at least a part of the money but didn’t succeed.

“I don’t need those coins,” Grandma said. “At the end of the day, I may be dead, and if I’m not, I’ll pull through. I have my cows, my vegetable garden, a roof over my head, and my neighbors, should I need help. Besides, I can always sell Grandpa’s tools to another fool who thinks he can make gold”, she said as she tightly covered our kettle of soup.

There was nothing more to be said, so we kissed her goodbye and walked to the harbor, carrying the pot of soup between us. Our boat was shipshape and ready to go. We had named her the Wrouv Margareta after Grandma. She was a flat-bottomed yacht with one mast and leeboard. She was good on the canals, in a cautious manner usable on the shallow Zuider Zee, but dangerous on the North Sea. We began to load our equipment.

Having made the sails of the Margareta, we steered her to the north. Although we were both dead tired after our short night of rest, I let Dietrich sleep for a spell and took the tiller myself. The Margareta was merely 30-feet from stem to stern, so the helmsman could easily handle the sheets alone. Sitting on my own at the tiller, as the sun began to rise, I had plenty of time to think. I had been baptized at the age of fifteen. True, it was mostly because of the tradition, but I didn’t want to be the black sheep of the Friesen family.

Dietrich and I had decided to sail to Terschelling, an island we were familiar with from earlier voyages. Leenaert Bouwens, a preacher we knew from Harlingen, had re-baptized about hundred-fifty people on this island, and we hoped they could help us.

The distance between Harlingen and Terschelling was only fifteen miles, so it wasn’t long before I caught sight of the island. Nearshore, we lowered the sails and dropped the anchor. Seals on the beach crawled into the sea and disappeared. The tide was ebbing, so it wasn’t long before the boat was lying high and dry. The beamy and flat-bottomed boat stays upright, so we pulled the sail over us like a blanket and slept.

The new religious movements are prone to destructive outbreaks. About ten years back, an iconoclastic campaign called Beeldenstorm, broke out in Flanders. The Anabaptists along with some Calvinists and Lutherans sought to remove and destroy painting and sculptures from Catholic churches. Over thirty temples and cloisters were devastated, and some priests were killed.

King Filip II of Spain sent hard-handed troops to revenge the destruction. The Flemish rich escaped further, most to North Germany or Schleswig-Holstein, while the poorer Mennonites left for Friesland.

There the quarrels soon began. Grave Frisians accused Flemings of being overly vain. They defended themselves by saying Frisians wore modest clothing but filled their homes with the best of linen and other costly things. Two antagonistic groups of believers soon came into being.

Preacher Leenaert Bouwens was a disputed man. During his trips around Friesland, he had re-baptized more than ten thousand believers. Both sides of the quarrel appealed to the preacher’s authority. At first, his sympathies lay with the Flemings, but soon he deserted to the Frisian side.

A burst of allegations was launched from the Flemish camp against Bouwens including an argument that he bossed parishioners around. They said as well, that the preacher, as an elder of the parish, had collected fifty silver coins as payment for holding spiritual services. These services, they felt, should be held for free. On top of these misdeeds, the Flemings argued that he had used the money for drink.

Although it was harsh to dismiss such a popular preacher, he was excluded from work for many years. This made the Frisian Mennonites bitter.

Even though the Frisians and the Flemings inhabited the villages, they kept to their own separate parishes. Marriage, for instance, between people from different sides was frowned upon.

Dietrich and I slept like logs. We were awakened by questioning villagers, “Who are you and what is your business here”?

Even on this small island believers were divided. The villagers advised us to go to the house of Eelke Huisman, the elder of the island’s Frisian parish.

Huisman had heard of the death of our Grandpa, but the news of the massacre in Leeuwarden had not as yet reached him. The names of those killed were unknown to us, but among them must have been some of Huisman’s friends, and perhaps his relatives. He realized it was impossible for us to return to the mainland. But, on the other hand, sailing any further in a small open boat was risky.

He said he knew of an old skipper, Dirk Boersma, who lived on the island and owned a 60-foot sloop, the Heilige Geest. Boersma, he said, had shipped small freight – mostly contraband – between England and the Low Countries.

Although Boersma lived on the east end of the island, his boat sat useless in the western harbor.

“I don’t know if he would be willing to sell, but I know he uses it very rarely,” Huisman said. “When he wants to sail to the mainland, he persuades his son or son-in-law to accompany him. The boat is too big for an old man. I doubt if he can sail it alone”.

“We haven’t money enough to buy the boat outright, but Dietrich and I could swap our boat for his and pay the difference in gold,” I said. We then asked if he would be willing to come with us and act as a middleman?

“That is not a good idea,” Huisman said. “Our island has been divided for as long as I can remember. My presence could do more harm than good. I can, however, lend you a horse and carriage”. I said we can walk.

“Sure, but Boersma can’t and he doesn’t own a horse. If he is interested, he will see your boat and praise his own”.

Captain Boersma had high praise for his sloop. She was older than the Margareta, but not so bad. She was clinker built of oak planks with a sturdy keel reinforced with bolted keelson. The boat was 60-feet long without a 10-feet bowsprit. She had an 80-feet mast and a gaff-rigged mainsail.

The space between the mast and gaff made it possible to raise the topsail, and the bowsprit offered space for two headsails.

“Although the Geest is old, she doesn’t leak,” Boersma boasted. “She’s dry as a bone”.

Dietrich pointed to the bilge pump. “Well then, we can throw that away!” , he said. Its wooden plunger was shiny from hard use.

Captain Boersma was undoubtedly interested in our boat. The Margareta was in meticulous condition and is newer and smaller than the Geest, easy to sail alone.

After extended negotiations, Boersma agreed to the arrangement, and we shook hands. The Geest was ours at the cost of ten guilders and the Margareta. While we transferred our things to the Geest, Boersma spotted the revolving grindstone we had brought with us from home.

“I want that as a gift of our trade,” he said, pointing to the grindstone. “My tools are blunt and my grindstone is useless. I’ve been planning to sail to the mainland for a new grinder for a long time. Now it has come to me on its own”.

With mixed feelings, we parted with the stone. Our tools were as much in need of a sharpening as his.

Sylvius de Bouve, Grandpa’s alchemist friend, had concocted a medicament flavored with juniper berries and called it genever. We had a bottle, and Boersma, Dietrich and I put it “down the hatch” to celebrate our agreement. It seemed to be a first-rate drug.

While Dietrich drove Captain Boersma home to the east end of the narrow, 16-mile long island, I warmed up the soup. Dietrich returned very hungrily. “Do you think we paid too much”? he said. “Ten guilders is a lot of money”. I comforted him telling that the value of gold had drastically diminished because of a massive export of gold from the New World to Spain.

We now had a seaworthy sloop, but where did we go from here? France was near, but there the Duke of Guise Henry terrorized people. Jesuits and monks agitated folks against the Huguenots and other Protestants.

England, too, was close and at least there we need not fear the Catholics. But, she was the most expensive country to live in Europe. With all prices increasing by two-thirds during the reign of Queen Elisabeth, how could we earn enough to live? Later, when we went to the village to return Huisman’s horse, he too, was curious where we planned to go.

“Let me give you some advice,” he said. “Why not go to Poland? They have reserved land for new immigrants, and are especially seeking men from the Low Countries who can build dams and windmills, and are also able to fend off flooding and dry marsh,” he continued. “The land is available for peanuts, on long-term credits or even, sometimes, free of charge”.Everyone is free to practice his religion, and there are many parishes of Mennonites. I have heard Menno Simons himself traveled to Danzig once to organize a congregation there”.

Huisman told of a man he knew who had returned from Danzig with news of the von Loytzen brothers’ bank. The King of Poland had borrowed money from the bank and mortgaged a large tract of land east of Danzig. The king, it seems, was unable to pay due to constant wars, and had let the bank reclaim the land. The property is said to be a sloppy bog and marsh, full of bushes, and not cultivatable at the present time. The von Loytzen brothers have invited the lowlanders to establish homesteads and prepare the land for farming. The first ten years are free, after that the rent is half a thaler per acre. “That,” Huisman said, “is small potatoes”.

We liked Huisman’s idea – it sounded interesting. We returned to the Geest for another meal of bread and soup. Thoughts of the long voyage to Danzig had me feeling unsure, and a bit frightened. I suspected Dietrich was felt the same, but neither of us admitted it to the other. We were anxious to move on. With our navigational aids and everything else onboard the sloop in shipshape order, we decided, if the wind were favorable, we would cast off the next morning. We had never been so far away. Fishing trips to the Wadden Sea, east of Harlingen, were our only experience at sea. We knew by following the long chain of Frisian Islands, we eventually reach East Friesland, Schleswig-Holstein, and Denmark.

The Geest had no nautical charts on board. Luckily for us, Captain Boersma had left his copy of De Kaert van der Zee. It is a book filled with sailing directions and compass bearings to help us get from one place to another. The real charts are far too dear for common skippers like us. A legend tells of a captain unwillingly married a colleague’s widow just to get her late husband’s charts.

At the sunrise, we set off, headed for the North Sea. We began our trip with an unusual argument about raising the sails. Even though the wind was light, Dietrich didn’t want to set all sails. His argument was we didn’t know yet how our new boat would behave. Although he is a big man – about two inches taller than me – he was afraid of the sea. In the end, we raised only the mainsail and a jib. I steered us to the open water through the sound between Terschelling and Vlieland. The wind was favorable, but the going was slow. Even the small Vrouw Margareta, I felt, sailed faster. We simply didn’t have enough sail up. Despite Dietrich’s protests, I lowered the mainsail and added topsail over the gaff. I set up the fore staysail, too. The speed increased, but I noticed Dietrich turned pale every time a sudden gust made the Geest heel.

We were sailing on the North Sea, but always with the profile of Frisian Islands visible. The sloop was equipped with a compass mounted in front of the tiller, and the trusty De Kaert told us we ought to take bearing toward the mouth of river Elbe, but we preferred to rely on our own eyes for navigation. That meant sailing during daylight hours only. A fresh and constant southwesterly breeze allowed us to clip along at a good eight knots. By the end of the day, the sloop was north of Spiekeroog and Wangeroog, the last of the eastern Frisian Islands. We anchored in a deep tidal inlet between them and began to warm up our soup.

Our journey continued from one sheltered anchorage to another; around the Jutland peninsula on to Kattegat. Further on, we drew nearer the Öresund or Sound. It is here the Danish Crown collects duty on ships going to and from the Baltic Sea. According to the De Kaert, at the Sound, we were faced with a choice of two different routes. One route would take us inland to the German city of Lubeck and the second straight to Danzig. We understood that sooner or later we have to leave shore and begin sailing, night and day, toward our destination.

With the help of our compass, we sailed past the island Bornholm and on towards Danzig. We spotted a harbor and a town onshore and sailed in. It was a beautiful, old Hanseatic City, not Danzig but Kolberg in Pomerania. Danzig, we learned, was 150-nautical miles to the east. We were embarrassed, but now on the right track. The route was easy— just follow the shoreline to the mouth of the Vistula River. We found it with no effort at all.

We were told on arrival that more than a thousand ships from the Low Countries visit Danzig every year. The first thing Dietrich and I did after securing the boat was head for a market. Our supplies were running low; there was very little bread, and not much soup left on board the boat. In my mind, there was something peculiar about that soup. It was three weeks old but seemed as fresh as if it were just made. It should be covered in mold or at least fermenting but wasn’t. It wasn’t normal.

I used my silver Carolus to buy bread and cheese and received some copper coins back as change. I asked the woman behind the counter what was available that I could use to make soup. She gave me the ingredients for Weisse Bohnensuppe, a white bean soup, and told me how it was made. We chatted in Plautdietsch, a language is most often spoken along the shores of the North and Baltic Seas. It is a mixture of Dutch and the Low German languages.

The first thing I did when I got back to the Geest was to put the dried beans in water to soak. Then Dietrich and I headed back to town to find the von Loytzen brother’s bank. It wasn’t hard – the place was a big one. We decided it would have to be considering it financed King Sigismund II Augustus and his wars. The king’s lost wetlands are known as the Grosse-Werder, meaning “the large holm”. It lays between the Vistula River and the Nogat River at its right, both rivers of which run to the Baltic Sea. It turns out the wetland property in question is as large as of Luxembourg.

Michael von Loytzen was a handsome man with a long nose, a small mustache and a chin divided by a thin beard. He was dressed in a black suit, with a strange, square white collar. The von Loytzen’s were well-traveled men. Michael von Loytzen had visited the wealthier towns of the Low Countries and admired the Dutch ability to reclaim land from the sea, and their knowledge of cultivation. He brought this knowledge back to his brother who felt they could profit from what he had learned.

They established a manor, Loytzenhof, in the Grosse-Werder and stocked it with the productive Frisian cows von Loytzen had seen in his travels. He had also observed how the Dutch used windmill pumps to dry the land. This method, the brother’s felt, could be the perfect solution for drying the Grosse-Werder, thus increasing its value tenfold.

Initially, their goal had been to interest all lowlanders to immigrate. But, due to the religious terror in the Low Countries, they got mostly Mennonites and other Anabaptists.

We should have known it wasn’t going to be easy. Even though the banking brothers had already given land to hundreds of Mennonite family’s, we found they were now waiting until they had enough folks to set up next settlement of at least ten families.

The von Loytzen’s planned that the members of each community would establish an association to be responsible for tenancies. It would also be expected to guarantee dams, ditches, and other drying works were done in time. True, the first ten years of tenancy is free, but after that, the rent was five thalers per acre, not the half thaler our friend Huisman had speculated. Farm sizes varied from 50 to 125 acres, depending on your needs and ability to cultivate it. In addition, the von Loytzen’s had negotiated with the government making it possible for Mennonites to be released from the military service.

And, so we wait. Dreams of building a house, plowing a field, or doing any work at all would have to be put on hold. Luckily, we did have Grandpa’s kettle, so we would soon have soup.

Into the kettle, I poured clear water, added the drained soaked beans and salt, and put it on to cook. In the meantime, I cut up smoked ham and diced onions, garlic cloves, celery, and asparagus. The result was very tasty – good enough even for Grandma.