The Soup. Jorma Rotko

p>Jorma Rotko

      The Soup

      “If God were a Capitalist, the Mennonites would be his Favorite People”!

Newspaper “The Province”, Vancouver 1977

      The Soup

A story of seafaring, dogs of war, and eternal youth

      Simon Friesen, 1575

      Grandpa goes to heaven, Simon to sea

      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