[About the translation:

‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ is a story by Janneke Spoelstra from her Frisian

collection of stories, In Jikse-libben (A Jiks’s life), published in 2008.
It was translated by Renée van Weringh, in collaboration with the author. Renée, who emigrated from Friesland as a child, lives in Canada. This English version will be published in four instalments in consecutive issues of ensafh.]
Strawberry Fields Forever

I

‘Look,’ said the taxi driver, ‘there it is.’
At the top of the hill stood a white house with a grey barn behind it. The road curved up towards it. On the left, raspberry bushes grew in long lines up the hill. On the right, behind a low wall, lay a sparse meadow where sheep foraged. Twinklehill it said in elegant black letters on a white board.
Gravel crunched under the taxi’s tyres as it drove into the yard. While the driver pulled my bags out of the boot, I surveyed the yard. A couple of boys sat on a gate looking at us. Two girls came out of one of the grey barn’s two doors, gesturing energetically. They went to the shed in the hollow next to the barn. Past the house, in the distance, I could see in the valley the village I had come from.

Mornings at seven-thirty the farmer, Mr. Barron, waited in the yard with the bus. The bus was old. Its doors would no longer close. After everyone had boarded—the last ones often jumping in as the bus was already rolling across the yard—we rode down the hill, across the little bridge over the brook, up through the trees and along garden walls down to the village. On the other side of the village, where it was flatter, lay the strawberry fields.
The first week I spoke with this one and that one, whoever had a row next to mine. On a wagon at the top of the field stood two women from the village. They took the boxes of strawberries, set them on a scale and wrote down the weight.
In the afternoons at five o’clock Mr. Barron drove us from the field to the village where we could shop. After that we rode back to Twinklehill. Sometimes the bus wasn’t able to make it up the hill. Then Mr. Barron would shout over his shoulder, ‘All the boys out and push.’ If it still wouldn’t go, we’d have to get out, too.
In the evenings we ate in the shed that did duty as the kitchen. After that we sometimes walked a ways. In the direction of the village, or the other way, along the woods, to where you could see the Highlands rising up in the distance.
One evening at week’s end, we saw the first couple out walking. Helen, the English girl, and Ricardo, one of the Basques. Nobody was surprised, and there was much lively speculation as to who would be next. Those who were mentioned protested loudly.
‘You are so quiet, Jiks,’ Ana, the Catalan girl, said to me. ‘Isn’t there anyone here for you, or do you have someone at home already?’
I didn’t say anything, just laughed a little and felt myself colouring.

I sat beside Thea from Rotterdam in the kitchen by the window. It was Sunday. Thea was reading. I was writing a letter home about how I could surely hold out for six weeks and about how I was learning lots more English.
Mohm, one of the Moroccans, sat across from us wearing his Walkman and carving his name in one of the last empty spaces on the table. Hadi was at the table furthest in the back writing a postcard home, to Malaysia. Ana was trying to explain something to Sizuko from Japan, using both hands and feet. Pierre from Nice rummaged about in the pots and pans on the kitchen counter. The Basques sat with the Pole, playing cards.
The door opened. Two new boys stepped inside. One of them was tall, and his short hair stuck straight up. Where have we ended up, he seemed to be wondering, while his eyes swept over us, the dirty stoves and the full sinks. The other one was shorter. Curiously he looked round the room from under black curls, a smile on his lips.
They hauled their rucksacks off their shoulders and walked around and introduced themselves. They were from Yugoslavia. Rebecca, the camp leader, was called to show them the ropes.
That evening I went walking with Thea and Ana. We walked the road out to the woods. I raced Thea to a gate on the road, just before the woods. She won. When we came back a few boys were playing football in the yard. Mario, the Yugoslav with the curls, was among them.

That Monday toward the end of the afternoon, he spoke to me. On the way to the wagon, he paused a few rows over from me, standing at the same level. He couldn’t recall my name anymore, but remembered that I was from the Netherlands.
‘Amsterdam?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said, ‘Friesland.’
He had never heard of it. Stepping over the rows, he came toward me. He was from Zadar, on the Dalmatian coast, Croatia. ‘Many people from the Netherlands come there,’ he said. Toni was from Zagreb, where they were both studying technology. When my boxes were full, too, we walked to the wagon together to get them weighed.

On Tuesday Thea gave her farewell party. I stood with her and Ho from Singapore in the yard by the barbeque. It was dusk. From the kitchen came the sound of music and clapping and singing. When the door opened we could see people dancing.
Mario came out. Ho chatted with Thea and Mario with me. He said that he was a big fan of Dutch football, that he’d seen all of the EC’s matches on television.
Later I went inside, past the dancers. In the back of the kitchen I got to talking with Rien from Groningen. He and Sido were intending to take off for a few days. They’d had enough of strawberries for a while. They were going to the west coast, Fort William, Ben Nevis. I talked with some of the others, too.
It was eleven o’clock when I got up and started for the door. Mario and Toni sat close by at a table, and Mario asked where I was going.
‘I’m going to bed,’ I answered.
‘It is much too early for bed,’ he said. ‘Tell to me some more from your country.’
I hesitated and stopped. I told him about my country and he told me about his, and when it grew quiet he would ask me something else before I could walk away.

Rain clattered on the roof window Wednesday morning. Rebecca informed us at a quarter to seven that we could have a lie-in.
When I went down to the kitchen at nine, it was still raining. Grey clouds hung between the hills. The village in the valley was hidden from view. Thea was ready to leave. Mr. Barron was to take her to the village in the Land Rover. We said our goodbyes and, as they drove out of the yard, we called after her, ‘We’ll write to you!’
The kitchen was still full of the mess from the evening before. ‘At ten o’clock clean it up, together,’ Rebecca called out.
‘You can help me,’ I said to Mario. I was standing in front of a sinkful of dirty dishes. ‘See, you can dry.’ I threw him a tea towel.
We laughed at Abdul who was cleaning windows with a newspaper. The sink was stopped up.
‘Here, let me,’ said Mario.
I grinned when he rolled up the sleeves of his jumper and held up a handful of spaghetti.
‘Since I was in the service I can do anything,’ he said, ‘and somebody must do it, although why me it must be, I do not know.’
‘Then do it for me,’ I said.

Thursday afternoon we were rained out. We were deposited in the village so we could do some errands. The bus was to fetch us again at four o’clock. When I got there at five to four quite a few were already waiting.
‘What have you bought?’ asked Mario.
‘Cards,’ I said. I walked past him and went to stand with Sizuko.

Friday we picked the whole day. After the shopping in the village, Mario and Toni sat on the seat in front of Ana and me, and Mario offered us a biscuit from the packet he’d bought. When we rode into the yard a new girl was standing there. Someone in the bus whistled. ‘She could be from Sweden,’ I heard Toni say.
That evening we were out in the yard. Abdul, Pierre, Ho, Sizuko, Ana, the new girl and I. Mario came out of the boys’ dormitory. ‘What will you do?’ he asked.
‘We’re going to the pubs,’ said the new girl. ‘Are you coming?’
‘I must still eat,’ he said. ‘Toni was going to make it; maybe I come later.’
I looked straight ahead of me, into the valley.
We went down along the unpaved path by the brook, not so steep as the road. The ground was boggy. We had to walk around big puddles. The brook foamed and frothed. Along the way I talked with Ana. She was from a little village in Catalonia. That’s what we discussed, and her painting. And I talked with Liz, the new girl. She wasn’t from Sweden but from Minnesota.
I was sitting with Ana when Mario came in. He looked round, searching, and spotted us. He pushed through the others towards us.
‘Toni and I shall go tomorrow to Loch Ness,’ he said to me. He talked about his studies and how he would run whenever he had had enough of books. ‘I saw you this week running,’ he said, laughing. ‘You did lose; I was disappointed for you.’
I told him about my sports, korfball and keatsen, and my studies.
He asked if I wanted to dance and we danced. After that we talked some more. ‘At home they decide I am crazy,’ he said, ‘when I said I am going to Scotland. So cold and wet, they say, and at home so nice weather.’
‘Today it was nice weather here, too,’ I said. ‘See, I got some sun on my nose.’
‘How is it possible,’ he laughed. And to Liz, who was looking in our direction, he said, ‘Can you believe it, the nose burns in Scotland!’
Later we danced again and during a slow record he wrapped his arms around me.
‘Should we walk back?’ Mario asked. We were standing together in front of the pub waiting for a taxi. Only when more of the others wanted to walk back, did I want to, too.
Again we took the path along the brook. In the dark we saw the puddles just in time. Following along behind the others, we made our way around them, stepping into the mud and catching our clothing on the thickets. Mario walked ahead of me and pointed out the puddles.
He said, ‘Give me your hand!’
But I didn’t.
At the end, on the way up the hill, I said, ‘Look, the Great and Little Bear, Lyra, Cassiopeia…’
‘How do you know all that?’ he asked. ‘You must point them out to me.’
The others were walking ahead of us. When we came into the yard, they were already inside.
At the corner of the barn, he stood still. I kept walking. ‘Sleep well,’ I said over my shoulder.

(to be continued)