History Lesson...

fiction

She had read the story when she was a young teenager. It had been in a book that was meant to make history seem more exciting to rebellious souls. Later she found it in other books. Generally, about badass women throughout history. Which in a way made her happy, more books about women doing exciting things please! But on the other hand, it bothered her. Why were the stories about women being segregated out? Why were they always treated as “other” stories instead of part of the whole?

But she had never forgotten about Freddie and Truus. Two Dutch sisters who hunted and killed Nazis. They used what they had. Namely, being female. They were teenage girls. They were cute. The Nazis would underestimate them. There was no way they would be a threat. And CLEARLY when they would flirt with them it was because those Nazis were just so darned attractive. Not that they wanted to lure them into the woods and kill them.

Go, Freddie and Truus!

At first she remembered the story because it seemed so scandalous. Not the murdering part, the sex part. That these young girls were seducing men. She had grown up in a conservative part of the United States which was already conservative as far as the rest of the Western World was concerned. She remembered her grandmother scandalizing her own mother with stories about the sex she had before she was married. “You Americans treat virginity as a currency to be bartered instead of sex as a gift to be enjoyed!”

Her grandmother clearly still had a very European attitude. Or as her mother said to her and her sister, “Your grandmother was a bit promiscuous before she was married, that is not how we live our lives.” Or as she said to their father when she thought they couldn’t hear her, “Your mother was a slut and she’s trying to teach our daughters to be sluts! You need to talk to her!”

She had always wondered if she had lived through a Nazi occupation if she could have been as brave as Freddie and Truus had been. Her sister had said she could. Not even a hesitation. “Even though you’d have to have,” and here she’d whisper the word, “sex?”

Her sister had always laughed at that. “I don’t know if they ever even got to the sex part. But if I had to have sex with Nazi to get him vulnerable enough to kill him, yeah, I could do that. You use what you have, and what they had was sex.”

Years later, when she had adopted her grandmother’s view on sex and discarded her mother’s more puritanical views on, well, everything, she agreed. Though she still thought it odd that neither she nor her sister seemed all that bothered by the idea of killing someone. She guessed it was because it was just commonly accepted that if you had the chance to kill a Nazi you would. Afterall that’s what WWII was all about right? We were all sure we would have been the person to hide a Jewish family in our attic, to smuggle war plans out to the Allies, to kill a Nazi if given the chance.

It was commonly accepted.

Until it wasn’t.

And suddenly she was living in a world where people argued that it was okay to put certain people in concentration camps. That it was fine to blame marginalized populations for the entirety of the world’s problems. There were people who were just better than others. And it just so happened that they were white. And rich. And well, honestly shouldn’t the men be running things completely as well? So many of her friends, and even her family, now believed things that seemed impossible to her.

This was not the world she had grown up in. It was not the world she had ever expected to see rise again. Yet here she was.

Her husband had died a few years before this new authoritarian regime had fully taken hold. Leaving her on her own. They were comfortable, in the old way of phrasing things. Enough money to live without worry, not so much money as to be on any sort of Forbes list.

Her sister, the one who would not have hesitated to kill a Nazi even if it meant having sex with one, was now married to a prominent Republican politician in Florida. Giving her access to everything the new regime promised the rich, white, elite. She had been disgusted by this and was preparing to never speak with her again when she got the text. “Thinking about you. Please come to see us. Love you, Fred.”

Fred. Her sister had called her Fred.

They had spent the entire visit talking about old times. And making plans for the future. There was a lot to be done. A lot they could get done by working together. If they were careful.

Which is why she was standing in the office of a plastic surgeon in Boca Raton. She had already grown out her hair and bleached it to a not quite flattering shade of blonde. She had lost every ounce of weight she could, so she looked almost skeletal. She had gotten breast implants to make up for the loss of her natural curves and to mimic that too round, too high look. And now she was getting the last stitches taken out and the last round of fillers injected to complete her “Republican Woman of Means” makeover.

She was no longer young and pretty, but she didn’t need to be. There were always ways to get through the door. And men would always underestimate women. Freddie and Truus lived on.

Here's a link to their story. I love their friend Hannie as well. I imagine her last words will make it into another story at some point. Just so badass.

(This was a piece I originally wrote for my exchange with Dana, but after talking about how my fiction writing has definitely leaned Antifa lately I thought I'd share one of the first of this cycle)