The bell that rang for the robbers

Brammert wiped his knife on the tablecloth and scolded Marieke because the tablecloth was dirty.

“A household has to be orderly,” he said.

Behind him lay a heap of stolen shoes. The leg of a broken chair stuck out of it. In the corner, something was growing on a piece of cheese that by now could probably feed itself.

His father Ellert nodded. Order was important. That was why their clubs hung neatly beside the door.

The two robbers lived in a den on the Drenthe heath. Giants, people said, with fists for which an ordinary glove could only have served as a thimble. Anyone who ran into them had better be carrying nothing. And even then they took your coat, because you had wasted their time.

They had strung thin wires across the field. These all met at a bell in the den. As soon as a traveller walked into a wire, the bell rang and the robbers went out to meet him.

“A good business runs itself,” Ellert liked to say.

Someone did have to scrub, wash, cook and sort through the stolen goods, though. For that they had taken Marieke. Against her will, of course. Nobody would have gone to work in that den of their own free will, not even if there had been wages.

Marieke had tried to run away. The first time she had tripped over a wire. The second time Brammert had caught up with her at the edge of the heath. He had carried her back like a bundle of laundry.

After that she watched more carefully. She watched which wires ran to which paths. Which robber got up first. Where the light fell when the door opened. Everything she saw, she kept. It was the only thing she could own without having it taken from her.

One morning Brammert ordered her to shave his beard.

“You’re pulling,” he said before she had even touched him.

His beard was full of knots. A fly had disappeared into it and never come out again. Marieke got the water ready.

Then the bell rang.

Ellert leapt up. “That one’s mine.”

“You said that about the last one.”

“The last one had no money.”

“Then he must have been mine.”

Ellert stormed outside. Brammert sank back and laid his head in Marieke’s lap. The door stayed a little way open. Outside, the blades of grass trembled in the wind.

Marieke waited.

“Don’t dawdle,” muttered the giant.

His eyes fell shut. It had not crossed his mind for a moment that someone he held captive might actually want to leave.

Marieke looked at the open door. Then at the razor. There would be no third attempt.

She killed her jailer.

She put it down.

And ran.

The first wire lay just in front of the door. She stepped over it. The second hung by a tussock of grass; she had seen it hundreds of times when she was allowed out to fetch water. She crouched, crawled underneath and ran on.

Behind her, all stayed quiet.

She had imagined so often what it would be like to walk freely across the heath that it was strange how little this resembled freedom. Her breath cut into her throat. A branch caught in her skirt. She tore the fabric loose and left the ripped piece hanging.

Then she heard the roar.

Ellert was home.

The ground began to thunder behind her. She had to take four steps for every one of his. Her parents’ house lay at the edge of the field. She could see the roof. She could see the door. It seemed as if someone kept pushing the house a little further away.

“Back!” roared Ellert.

That was all he could think of. As if she had simply gone the wrong way by mistake.

Marieke did not look round. She had seen his face long enough.

At the last ditch her foot sank in. She fell to one knee, hauled herself up by the grass and ran on. The robber came closer. His breath sounded like a bellows with a hole in it.

She reached the door and grabbed the latch.

The door stuck.

It had always done that. Her father was going to fix it. Tomorrow. When there was time.

Marieke put her shoulder to the wood and pushed with everything she had left.

The door gave way.

She fell inside. Behind her, Ellert’s axe struck the wood so hard that dust came down from the beams. Marieke rolled aside and got the bolt shut.

Outside there was roaring, kicking and hacking. Then came a thud that was different from the others.

After that, nothing.

The chase had been too much for Ellert. The robber who had held the whole field in his power lay in front of a door he could no longer get through.

Marieke stayed sitting against the wall until her breath belonged to her again.

Her father came over. He looked at the axe, at the damaged wood and at his daughter.

“That door,” he began.

“Today,” said Marieke.

For years they had given her orders. She found it suited her perfectly to hand one out herself.