This week I read The Tree and the Vine by Dola de Jong. De Jong was born in the city of Arnhem, located in the Eastern part of the Netherlands in 1911 to a Jewish Father and a German Mother. The Netherlands is located in Northwestern Europe and borders Belgium and Germany. In 1940 de Jong left the Netherlands due to fear of German occupation and escaped to Morocco only weeks before the Nazi invasion. She could not, however, convince her father, stepmother, or brother to go with her and they were killed by the Nazis
The Tree and the Vine was written in 1954 and is one of de Jong’s later novels. It was originally published in Dutch in 1954 and was translated into English in 1961. Though de Jong had moved to America in 1941 and was a citizen of the country at the time of publishing, her novel was rejected in the States and was described as “unpublishable” and “shameless” due to its depiction of lesbian desire.
The novel follows the tumultuous relationship of two women, Bea and Erica, who meet in 1938. The two could not be more different, and often their trouble comes from miscommunication and the repression and denial of their desire for one another.
Bea is a put-together, ordinary girl working as a secretary. She and Erica have a chance encounter when they meet at a mutual friend's house. Within a month of meeting each other they decide to move in together.
Erica works as a novice journalist and is paid next to nothing, she is motivated by her restless energy and leaves the logistics of the move to Bea, though she refuses to concede to ideas that will make their lives easier, for example hiring movers.
Bea narrates the novel from some point in the future, as if she is looking back in her memory and reciting the pathways of her and Erica’s relationship. She says that she doesn’t know what exactly stopped her from thinking too deeply about Erica’s personality and her peculiarities back then.
She says that she saw Erica’s, “struggles and conflicts, but in those years, it was as if they were projected like silhouettes on a white screen—only later, after I had some insight into Erica’s background, did the images take on form and color”.
In the beginning of their relationship they had an understanding of privacy and tried to let each other live their own lives. Bea can be categorized as blissfully ignorant. She indulges Erica’s oddities and whims, though she is definitely annoyed by them sometimes, never thinking deeper about what is going on, either with Erica or with the World. In hindsight, Bea understands, if only vaguely, that there was much more going on that she was not privy to, sometimes subconsciously ignoring the signs. She writes, “there were so many times when I thought I’d finally figured her out, but looking back on it later, I could only smile disparagingly—a little sadly even—at my own self-proclaimed ‘insight’. Even now, with my broader understanding of humanity, I wonder whether what I took to be a tree growing off in the distance wasn’t in fact a lifeless trunk, its own leaves strangled by the vines growing up around it”.
Conflict between the two arises when Bea begins dating a coworker, Bas, he and Erica don’t get along and Bea is constantly trying to juggle the two of them. Erica is also distraught over her relationship with her mother, “Ma”. Ma has joined the Nationalist Socialist (Nazi) party and is becoming heavily indoctrinated. This is when we learn that Erica is half-Jewish, she claims Ma only joined the party because Erica’s father, who Erica has never met, is Jewish and Ma hates him.
Though World War II is beginning to take over Europe, Erica and Bea decide to go on a vacation traveling between other European cities. Their trip is absolute chaos, with Erica refusing to plan or consider any of Bea’s thoughts or suggestions. They meet an American traveler, Judy, who becomes close with Erica, pushing Bea to the side. When their trip is supposed to come to an end, Erica refuses to leave. Bea returns to the Netherlands herself and doesn’t hear or see Erica for over a month.
During her time back home, Bea is distraught thinking of Erica. She uses the war as an excuse to talk about her worries to her friends and to Erica’s coworkers. She tells them Erica got sick abroad and couldn’t return. Seeing the way that de Jong sets up the war in the background, and Erica and Bea’s relationship trouble at the foreground, showcases how all encompassing and sometimes delusional their feelings for each other are. Bea writes that “the world around me could’ve gone up in flames, and I still would’ve been more worried about the conflict between Erica and me. I was consumed by my own troubles”. The world is in fact going up in flames as the Nazi’s invade the Netherlands and continue wrecking devastation throughout Europe.
When Erica finally does return she adopts a different persona. While before she had been outspoken against her mother and involved in anti-Nazi political parties she takes a step back. The direct correlation is that Erica’s boss is a Nazi and he threatened her job and career. Unknown to Bea he also accused Erica of having a relationship with a woman, Wies, their mutual friend.
After a fight with Ma, the German soldiers come to raid Erica and Bea’s apartment. Though Erica was not there at the time, Bea finds out that she has been arrested. Bea and Ma have a fight because Ma is the one that turned Erica in. She did it for her daughter’s sake, to teach her a lesson. She truly believes that all Erica will get is a slap on the wrist and then she'll be released. Nothing Bea can say makes a difference.
Bea saw Erica one last time at Erica’s trial. After that, Erica was sent to the Vught concentration camp in the Netherlands. Bea received an official letter stating that Erica had died of pneumonia, though this may not have been truthful.
After the war Bea immigrated to the United States and that is where she is writing this account of her and Erica’s relationship. We never see them outright say that they love each other, but it is undeniable. One thing that I loved about this novel was the pacing. The translator, Kristen Gehrman, made an effort to preserve the “pace, vivacity, and feverishness” of the original. I thought it showed the intensity of their relationship and the constant fluctuation of emotions that both women are constantly feeling. Gehrman writes in her translator’s note that, “it’s easy to look at this story through the lens of war or to see it as a lesbian romance that could never be because of the restrictions of the time. But as I got to know Erica and Bea better, I came to see their restlessness, struggles, doubts, and hesitations as reflective of a broader female experience”. Though the story ends with tragedy, like most lesbian fiction from that time, it showcased the complexity, beauty, and turmoil of being human and of being in love.
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