Chapter 1: Anton Plays Piano
Wehl, Gelderland, The Netherlands
September 4, 1933
September 1, 1933, The Geldersche Courant
On the morning of September 2, the body of Mr. Josef Kahn, proprietor of J. Kahn, Butcher, was discovered by his employee, Mr. Jaap de Vries. Mr. de Vries stated that he found Mr. Kahn lying on the floor behind the meat counter when he reported for work at seven. Because Mr. de Vries was accustomed to seeing Mr. Kahn in a bloodstained jacket, he initially believed that his employer had died suddenly, of either a stroke or a heart attack. After the police arrived, it was discovered that the victim had been shot with a small-calibre pistol at close range. Mr. Kahn was 34 years of age, and was a recent immigrant to the Netherlands from Essen in Germany. Mr. Kahn is survived by his wife, Rachel, and three young children. More details will be released after further investigation.
*
The house at Veenweg 31 belonged to the family Janssen. It was a typically Dutch house, which is to say that it was typical of smaller towns and villages, and not one of the grand canal houses of Amsterdam or Haarlem with their ornate stepped gables. Like most houses in the village, the Janssen house was constructed of brick. Dormers extended out on either side of the pitched, pantiled roof. Each window was framed with dark shutters and veiled with white lace curtains. This gave the impression that all was as it should be—clean, orderly, and cared for—and that a good Dutch family resided inside: a father who worked hard, a mother who stayed at home, and a child, perhaps even two children, clean and well-dressed, who were good scholars with exemplary report cards and proper haircuts.
The walkway to the Janssens’ front door was flanked with short, neatly trimmed hedges. The dahlias that Anton Janssen’s mother, Anna, planted every spring had grown as tall as the windowsills. This year she had chosen lemon yellow and deep purple. Even though it was only early September, the flower petals were already fading and curling—Anna didn’t always remember that dahlias need plenty of water.
At the back of the house, a brick terrace, where the family ate lunches on warm and sunny Sundays, faced a canal and overlooked the green meadows of one of the many farms that sprawled across the surrounding countryside. Anton always chose the chair that faced inward, toward the rear of the house. That way, when he heard the squawk of wheeling gulls, he could imagine that the vast, flat, green meadows were actually the North Sea. During winter nights, as the rain ran down the pantiles and the southwest winds soughed around his bedroom window, he could often convince himself that his home had been magically transported to the seaside town of Noordwijk.
Today was September 4, a Tuesday, the day when the children of Wehl returned to school—including Anton, who was beginning his second year at Gymnasium. With her husband, Piet, at work and Anton at school, Anna took the opportunity to clean more thoroughly than usual. She opened all the windows. She scrubbed the kitchen floor. She rearranged the linens and washed the lace curtains. She even took the time to remove the tufts of hair on the settee that had been left behind by Loukie, the cat.
The afternoon breezes arrived just past one, causing the newspaper on the parlour table to rustle open and close again, as if a spirit had developed an interest in world events. But no one was present to notice the photograph on page five, showing a swastika banner being unfurled at a women’s cycling event in the northern Dutch city of Groningen, or to read the short news item announcing that, on September 5, Jewish businesses were to be boycotted throughout Germany.
Anna expected Anton to arrive home from Gymnasium just after three for his daily piano practice. She was proud of her son’s musical accomplishments. The piano had been left to the Janssens by Anna’s mother, Josefien, along with the rest of the furniture in the house. Anna herself had tried to learn the intricacies of the instrument, but was defeated by the closely packed notes on the pages and the necessity to coordinate her hands and feet and mind.
The parlour clock struck five. It was later than she thought. Her husband would be home soon, and she must get supper started. Where was her son?
*
During his walks to and from from school, Anton had devised a novel way of beginning his daily piano practice. He would stretch his arms out in front of him, as if he were playing on an invisible keyboard, and murmur, “G-major scale,” watching his fingers bob up and down as they moved along the imaginary keys. “C-major… C-minor…”
“Anton! Anton!”
Anton started and looked behind him. He squinted. It wasn’t Robbie, was it? He hadn’t seen Robbie since June, the end of the last school year. In fact, he’d wondered if Robbie had moved away.
Anton watched his friend’s approach warily, trying to tamp down the rush of feeling, almost like a pain, rising in his chest.
“Hey, I was calling you,” Robbie huffed as he approached. Anton noticed a new sprinkling of tiny pimples running up his left jaw. Blond hairs sprouted on his upper lip.
“Hey,” Anton said. “You weren’t at school today.” He heard the accusatory tone in his voice and instantly felt sorry. He just couldn’t help it.
“Tell me something I don’t already know,” Robbie retorted. “I don’t like school. In fact, I’m going to start working soon.”
“Oh, come on. Who’s going to hire you?” Anton’s voice cracked slightly on the word “you.”
“Still a baby, huh,” Robbie teased, then flashed his wide smile. “So, jochie…” Anton flinched at the insult. Robbie continued, “I found a cigarette at home. My Oma Magda’s friend left it there.”
“Really?” Anton knew it was very likely that Robbie had stolen the cigarette—probably more than one of them. Looking down the street, he added, “I have to get home to practice.”
“Oh, come on,” Robbie wheedled. “You can practice later, can’t you? Let’s have some fun.”
“Well, I don’t know…” Anton said doubtfully.
Robbie hurriedly cut in. “Besides, you can’t be much good if you need to practice so much.” He waved the cigarette and a matchbox in front of Anton’s face.
Anton remained silent.
“Never mind,” Robbie said, offended. “I’ll ask Ari.” He began to walk away.
A small pain entered Anton’s chest. He cleared his throat. “Uh…”
At once Robbie turned back to face Anton. His eyes had brightened, and his mouth repositioned itself into a smirk. “I forgot,” he said, “I’ve got something to show you. But you’ve got to come over to my place to see it.”
“What is it?” said Anton. He was elated that his friend had not left him standing at the side of the road after all.
“You’ve got to come now. It might not be there tomorrow. I’m not kidding.”
Anton was becoming more and more curious. He felt himself, as usual, being drawn into Robbie’s sphere.
Anton did not arrive home until 5:30, long after he was expected. His mother was preparing supper in the warm and steamy kitchen. He imagined her face, shiny with sweat, tight with worry.
“Where have you been?” she said in a sharp voice.
Although his mother’s disapproval never failed to frighten him, today Anton told himself he didn’t care. He tossed off a few words as he made his way toward the music room: “I can’t talk now, Moe. I’ve got to practice.”
He sat at the piano, staring at the sheet music. His mind was restless. Why did he have to conform so fully? This afternoon, for the first time, he had felt the shackles of convention loosen. School? Music? Who cared? And what about all this politeness? Being on time. Attending church every Sunday. It was all too much.
“Anton?” called his mother.
“Verdomme!” he swore under his breath.
*
Anton had not always felt this way. In fact, after his first year at Gymnasium, he had continued on with his piano lessons right through the summer.
In early July, Anton had begun to study the second movement of Haydn’s Kaiser Quartet. Naturally he used Haydn’s key notation of C-major. He practiced hard for several weeks, and in mid-August he played the piece in its entirety for his teacher, Mr. Simons.
“Beautiful!” Mr. Simons exclaimed as soon as Anton finished. “Just beautiful. Isn’t it so, Mrs. Janssen?” he called toward the kitchen.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Simons,” Anna replied. “Of course, you are an exceptional teacher.”
“We’re a people who love music, Mrs. Janssen.” He took off his glasses and wiped the lenses gently with his handkerchief. A few strands of fine hair fell over his forehead. As he replaced the glasses and adjusted the nosepiece, he said, “Now, tell me, Anton, how does this music make you feel?”
“W-well,” Anton stammered, “I don’t really know.” Mr. Simons had never asked him that kind of question before.
“Can you think about it for me, Anton? We can discuss it next week.”
Anton was worried. How could he possibly answer his teacher’s question? He wasn’t even sure that he knew what a feeling was. Of course he knew that anger and love were both feelings, but beyond that he was unsure.
The August evening was unusually warm, so Anna served her husband and son cold salmon and salad on the terrace. The air was very still, the water in the canal flat and brackish. Gulls were nowhere to be seen.
Anton spoke quietly, letting his gaze fall on a group of grazing cattle in the adjoining pasture. “Mr. Simons wants to know how the second movement of the Kaiser Quartet makes me feel.” He glanced at his mother, then watched his father’s face darken.
“Feel? Feel? What’s that supposed to mean?” Piet stared at Anton, narrowing his eyes. “You’re nearly a man now. It’s not for a man to have feelings.”
“Och, Piet,” Anna interjected.
He glared at her. “Don’t interrupt.”
Anton watched a column of ants making its way across the bricks as his father continued, “That boy will have to go into military service in five years. And where will he be then?”
Anton scraped at a crumbling brick with the toe of his shoe. Ants toppled, one over the other. Military service—he could not imagine it. He knew it was every Dutchman’s duty, but still… His shoulders fell.
Piet asked for another beer. “And one for Anton too. It’s time he learned how to drink properly!” Anna rose from her seat. “And, Anna…” Piet paused as his wife turned. “The boy needs a haircut.”
That night the heat that had hovered, then settled, over Gelderland showed no signs of abating. It was as if the relentless, blasting rays of the sun had been stolen by the moon and stars, as if someone had pasted a sign on the window: No breezes welcome here.
Anton angrily shoved his blankets and pillows to the floor. He reversed position so that his head was directly next to the open window. He slapped the air wildly as a pair of mosquitoes whined past his ears. He was sure that the trilling, chirping pond frogs were getting louder. It wasn’t only the heat that was unbearable and seemingly inescapable, but also the remembrance of his father’s ferocious words at lunch: It’s not for a man to have feelings. The boy needs a haircut. The boy needs a haircut. A haircut. The incessant repetition of the words felt like a million tiny knife points stabbing at his chest.
The bedside alarm-clock tick, tick, ticked. An hour passed, followed by another, then another. By the time the parlour clock struck two, Anton had had enough. He threw back his remaining covers, slipped out of bed, and tiptoed down the hallway to the stairs. On his way down, he was careful to avoid the sixth step, which never failed to creak.
He moved silently across the kitchen floor and held his breath as he carefully opened, then closed, the back door that led to the terrace. Once outside, he stood for a moment, listening intently. There was no sign of his parents being aware that he had escaped his overheated bedroom, no pale square of light behind the bedroom curtain, no toilet flushing. Anton congratulated himself as he inhaled a long breath of night air. Cooking smells hovered in the stillness—oil from fried potatoes, the neighbours’ fish dinner.
As he made his way across the rough, still-warm bricks and settled himself into a canvas chair, a light from the house next door flared, flooding the front of the terrace. He could hear muffled voices, then the distraught words “I can’t do everything!” He guessed that the new baby was fussing, needing to be fed or changed.
Babies. He could hardly believe that he had ever been that small and helpless. He stared at the sky. The moon was a tiny sliver; stars flickered. Was he expected to marry and have children? The thought frightened him even more than the thought of military service. He wasn’t even sure he liked girls, although he couldn’t imagine admitting that to any of his friends or to either of his parents. He could scarcely admit it to himself. His mother’s magazines stated that there was someone for everyone—one special person waiting for you. So what if that person lived on the other side of the world, in China, say, or the United States? It seemed an impossible conundrum.
The light next door flicked off, and darkness enveloped him once more. He continued staring up. More stars appeared the harder he concentrated. A thin cloud veiled the moon.
At breakfast the next morning, Anton was exhausted. His eyes felt gritty. His shirt glued itself to his back, even though he had just showered. “Verdomme, it’s hot,” he complained.
“Hush,” his mother admonished. “I don’t need to hear another man swearing in this house.”
“Sorry,” he said, although he wasn’t. The ache in his chest remained. He yawned, closed his eyes, and laid his head on the table.
“Sit up straight, Anton, and eat something now.” Anna pushed a plate of cheese and a basket of bread towards him.
Anton didn’t move. “I’m so tired, Moe.”
“Ach, Anton, we’re all hot and tired. Think of your father, who has to tend the fire at the sawmill. Imagine, a fire.”
The mention of his father’s name stabbed at Anton’s chest. “Verdomme.” He whispered the word this time, and let the tears prickling behind his eyes slide down the edge of his nose and onto the tablecloth. “Moe,” he sniffed, “I don’t know the right answer for Mr. Simons. I just don’t!”
Anna reached across the table and let the back of her hand rest on his cheek. Her wedding ring felt cool. He hoped she wouldn’t guess the real reason for his misery.
On Thursday, just before four o’clock, Anton listened for the hum of the car engine that would herald his teacher’s arrival. As soon as he heard the crunch of feet on the gravel, he threw open the door.
Anton was exuberant. “Mr. Simons, I know the answer to your question!”
“Oh, yes?” Mr. Simons answered with a broad smile. He wiped his feet on the dusty doormat.
“How about this?” Anton went on, quickly tossing out words: “Warm. Peaceful. Comfortable. And how about this? Everything is good in the world.”
“Ah, yes! I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Mr. Simons replied, and then, his smile fading, he added, “If only it were so.”
Anna entered the parlour. “Would you care for tea, Mr. Simons? Thank goodness the weather has cooled, a least a little.”
After Anna cleared the teapot and cups, she joined Anton and Mr. Simons in the music room.
“See, Mrs. Janssen, how tenderly your boy moves his fingers across the keys.”
“Yes, yes, I know, Mr. Simons. He has a very sensitive soul. An artist’s soul.” Anna retired to the kitchen with the tea tray, humming as she went.
Now, Anton,” said Mr. Simons, handing him a folded music score. “Here is a challenge for you. I’ve transposed the Kaiser Quartet into the key of E-flat major. Please use this in your piano study this week.”
Anton groaned. “Surely you don’t mean I have to continue playing this piece?”
“Anton!” his mother admonished from the kitchen.
“And you will be sure to tell me next time, won’t you, Anton?” Mr. Simons asked.
“Yes, yes,” Anton interjected, “I know—how does the music make me feel.”
Anton was determined not to bring up Mr. Simons’ request at the supper table a second time. In fact, he hoped there would be no conversation at all about his music lesson. Hs mother, however, proudly told her husband how Mr. Simons had praised Anton for his sensitivity and talent.
“Hm,” grunted Piet, as he forked mashed potatoes into his mouth.
Anton dropped his gaze, not wanting to catch his father’s eye. The thin brown gravy was pooling so close to the edge of the plate, it was nearly overflowing onto the tablecloth. Anton had a strong urge to tip the plate onto his father’s lap.
That week, the weather had turned pleasantly warm. Each afternoon, soft breezes played around the houses and farms. The laundry, hung on Monday morning, was dry by mid-afternoon. The vines were heavy with squash and tomatoes.
Anton began to put less effort into his daily practice, starting late or stopping after only a half-hour had passed. He used the extra time to hurtle into the lukewarm water of the Van der Pols’ pond with Wim and Ari, black mud squeezing up between their toes. After all, hadn’t he mastered the Haydn piece already? It would be a piece of cake to play it in a different key. And anyway, who cared about his feelings? He certainly didn’t. He was sure he’d be able to throw a few new words at Mr. Simons on Thursday with no trouble. Besides, hadn’t Mr. Simons said just last week that Anton was a sensitive genius?
The afternoon before his lesson, Anton spent his practice time on scales and études.
“Anton,” his mother called from the kitchen. She was making her usual clinking, clanking sounds.
“What?” Anton replied, more sharply than he meant to. “I’m busy.”
“What about the piece Mr. Simons asked you to study?”
Anton looked up from the piano. Well, why not? He would go ahead and play it now. “Sure, sure,” he said, repressing the irritation from his voice.
He moved the weight on the metronome pendulum to Adagio, then centred himself on the piano bench. Following the clicking rhythm and using the new, transposed score, he pecked out the melody with his index finger: black key E-flat, F, G, F, black key down from A, back to G. Then he placed both hands on the keyboard and began to add the chords.
As he completed the second line of music, the sounds in the kitchen stopped, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed his mother standing in the parlour doorway. Her apron was untied; a faded dishtowel was thrown over her shoulder.
Anton played the piece through, and then, just as Anna asked if he would play the piece one more time, he heard a bicycle bell ring—not just twice, Piet’s normal announcement that he had arrived home from the sawmill for supper, but four times in quick succession, so that the ringing had a panicky sound.
In a voice that sounded nervous and irritated all at once, Anna said, “It’s your father. But so early?”
Anton played faster, intending to get to the end of the piece before his father entered the house. The back door opened and slammed shut. He was about to repeat the final stanza when he felt the sudden looming presence of his father.
From the doorway, standing next to Anna, Piet shouted, “Louder, much louder!” He grabbed Anna and began to waltz her around the room. He seemed frantic. Blood had rushed to his cheeks, and a sheen of sweat covered his face. His hair, usually neatly brushed, stood on end. Anton felt shaky and afraid. He could never predict his father’s actions when he was agitated. Piet pumped his arm wildly. He pushed his cheek hard against Anna’s and clutched her so tightly that she cried out, “Piet! It’s enough.”
Instantly he let her go and strode over to the piano, directly in Anton’s view. He waved his arms like a mad conductor and yelled, “Louder, Anton, much louder!” Anton pounded the keys, and Piet sang along in deafening German, throwing his shoulders back, “Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit, / Für das deutsche Vaterland!” (“Unity and justice and freedom / For the German fatherland!”)
Before the piano strings had stopped vibrating after the final E-flat chord, Piet exclaimed, “Ja! That’s it, Anton, ja! You have played the future, our future. It’s the Deutschland lied!”
—
Author’s Statement
I was born in the Netherlands after World War II, and immigrated to the west coast of Canada with my family at the age of four. I grew up with the idea, signalled by the post-war government of the Netherlands, that every Dutch person had been a victim of the German invasion and occupation. This approach was seen as a “nation-building” exercise. My parents’ daring wartime espionage stories added to my simplistic notion that all Dutch people were “good.”
Then, in 2018, I read the book Dancing with the Enemy by the American-Jewish author Paul Glaser. In this memoir, taken from letters and diaries written by Glaser’s Aunt Rosie, he related the story of his aunt’s wartime experiences in the Netherlands and in the concentration camps. I learned several things I had never known: that, contrary to the common belief that all Dutch people were busy saving the Jews, many Jews in hiding were betrayed by Dutch citizens for money; and that some of the Dutch population fully supported the ideas of Hitler and the plan to become part of a larger Germanic nation.
Naturally, the news that some of the citizens of the Netherlands had happily collaborated with their Nazi occupiers, including aiding in the expulsion of the Jews from the country, came as a great shock to me. Even more disturbing was the discovery that fully 75 percent of the Jewish population of the Netherlands were murdered by the Nazis—the largest percentage recorded in Western Europe. (As a contrast, 24 percent of the Jews in Germany were murdered.)
STORIES FROM HOME, a novel in progress, is the result of my deep and personal exploration of events in the Netherlands, and ordinary citizens’ reaction to them, from the 1930s through to the war’s end. There are seven main characters in the novel: Anton and his Jewish partner, Izzy; Robbie, a Dutch SS member, and his wife, Elsa; Vera and her German-born husband; and Miriam, a young Jewish woman.
Annie Weeks has been writing fiction since the beginning of 2019, after a long career as a graphic and book designer, theatrical lighting designer, and production manager. She has called Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, her home since 1975, and has been married to her long-term partner, the artist Phyllis Serota, since 2014. STORIES FROM HOME began as a series of short stories written in a Creative Fiction class taught by the author Robert Wiersema.
Embark, Issue 23, October 2025
Embark 