B007P4V3G4 EBOK (48 page)

I became afraid and decided not to look any longer. With great
difficulty I drank from the lemonade which was fizzing up my
nose. Werther's aunt seemed to notice. 'You don't have to drink it
against your will,' she said. I got out the money now and planned
to cast the sum wrapped in paper into her handbag.

Meanwhile I spied on Martha and Werther. Martha appeared to
think everything that happened on stage to be colourful and
funny. She laughed repeatedly. Werther, however, stared out
ahead of himself with a gloomy look.

Using the tubes I recognised as those of a stethoscope, one of
the doctors examined the lady now only left wearing her corset
and shoes. Meanwhile he muttered comments which drew laughs,
here and there, but we were sitting too far off to hear them.

I wanted to cast the wrapped-up money with as fluent as
possible a movement into Werther's aunt's open handbag but the
throw missed and it dropped on the ground. She heard it and
picked it up. 'Did that drop from the table?' she asked me. 'I don't
know,' I replied. 'Someone's sure to have left it,' she decided,
having opened up the paper. Great shock gripped me for it turned
out to have been written on. She read it out: 'Milkman, a jug and a
half please, will settle up with you tomorrow.' It contained nothing
further so I felt somewhat more at ease again. She decided that it
was pointless to make an effort to track down the owner. 'You
three may buy some sweets with it,' she said.

The doctor had finished the examination and declared she was
healthy. Then, without her having undressed herself, he examined
the daughter. 'She needs an injection very badly,' he said. 'Gosh,
how can you tell so soon?' the mother cried, 'she hasn't even taken
anything off yet. 'No,' the other said, 'we can tell from just seeing
her.' Then mother and daughter made to leave.

'Your daughter had better come to the surgery tomorrow
afternoon, alone,' the first doctor said. 'Is it expensive?' the mother
asked. 'No, not at all,' the doctor assured her, 'she'll have that
injection for nothing.' 'Can it do any harm?' the lady now asked.
'No, not at all,' the doctor assured her. 'They do occasionally get
fat for a while,' the other one said, 'but that passes of its own
accord.'

The audience roared. Werther's aunt called the waiter. 'Will the
animals still be coming?' she asked, 'the dog with that hoop?' 'No,
madam,' the man replied, 'that was last week.' 'So what's on now
then?' she persisted. She learned that the programme consisted of
sketches, tapdancing and acrobatics. Werther looked on intently
during the conversation. I suddenly got the feeling that perhaps he
had the same thoughts as I did: that possibly, without anyone
knowing it - for it was being kept a secret - we were brothers.

'This's not very suitable,' his aunt said. 'We'll leave.'

With extreme willpower, I began to drink down my lemonade.
A finale developed on stage: having left to applause, the woman
returned with her daughter and the orchestra made thumping drum
rolls. Suddenly all four of them put on wigs, seemingly made of
dusters or cotton wool, and stepped to the edge of the stage. The
music struck up a slow, dragging melody. All four, in time to the
music, began jerkily to thrust their hips forwards and backwards,
singing in harmony: 'Roger here 'n Roger there 'n Roger please, all
day; if Roger's still available, it's Roger now till May.' They bowed
at the end, the music drumming once again. We went outside.

'It was really nice last week,' Aunt Truus said, 'but this's not
quite suitable.' I wondered where we were trundling off to. 'Why
don't the two of you go off and buy something,' she said all of a
sudden, giving Werther the money and she sent him and me
together into a grocer's shop. There were rather a lot of people
standing there. Werther,' I said as we waited, 'you must come
with me on Sunday to my uncle and aunt. I've been with you this
time so you may come with me on Sunday. You've really deserved
that.' We bought dates and sticks of rock and spent the entire
amount. I wanted to request him again to accompany me on
Sunday, but we'd already left the shop and returned to his aunt.
She approved our purchases. It began to drizzle. Werther divided
up the dates but I didn't like them. 'I'd better go home again,' I
said. His aunt tried to talk me into staying with them but I didn't
give in. 'I have to be back early,' I said. In the end she gave way
and asked whether I had money for the tram. 'Oh yes,' I said but I
had none on me. When she wanted to take me there, I said I still
wanted to look at a few window displays and would then take the
tram myself. I left with a fleeting wave of the hand. When they
were some way off already, I walked back and asked Werther if I
could count on him on Sunday. Before he had answered, I had run
off already but in this short time his aunt handed me a stick of rock which I accepted. I began to travel the very long road home on
foot and ate the stick of rock, without relish.

'Did you give that aunt the money,' my mother asked. 'Yes,
she's got it,' I said. Was it nice?' she asked. 'Yes, it was a giggle,' I
said flatly and went up to the loft. Here I wrote a note to Werther,
which read as follows: Werther. You must come along on Sunday
afternoon because it's great fun. Come to my place as early as you
can. When you get home the letter will be on the mat already.'
When I went to deliver it, the same rain prevailed as when we had
set out. In front of Werther's house there was a white car; some
people stood talking beside it. I passed them, entered the porch
and popped the note into the letter box. The moment I had done
this I heard the clump of footsteps on the stairs and noisy voices
that developed into cries. Now hold on, easy,' a high-pitched
man's voice said, 'and don't let go.' I listened at the letter box.
Thudding, half stumbling noises sounded, as if there was a struggle.
At this moment a man from the group standing by the car
approached me and chased me off. I ran some way into the park
and sought out the spot where I had been on the lookout before,
and I settled down on the trunk. The same way as previously, I
continued to spy on Werther's house. Nothing extraordinary
happened, however. The shrubs gave inadequate shelter so I
started to get wet and went home.

Early that same evening Werther came to bring a reply in a
letter which he handed to my mother. She called me but when I
reached the door, Werther had already disappeared. The note ran:
'Dear Elmer. I'd love to come with you. I'll come to you; you
mustn't come to me. I'll come over to you before it's Sunday. You
must not come to my house. Werther.' This letter made me think.

He didn't turn up for the rest of the week. I thought he had
forgotten the entire appointment and began to write a new letter,
but -I destroyed it.

On Sunday, when I had installed myself on the lookout in the
loft, I saw Werther approaching at almost half past two. We set
off. 'You're sure to like it,' I said: 'that's why I have brought you
along.' The truth was that I didn't want to go to my uncle and
aunt on my own. They had asked my mother why not send me
over this Sunday. They lived in an upper-storey flat on the
Tweede Oosterparkstraat.

My uncle sold goldfish in the market. His stock stood in large
tin baths on the veranda at the back. When, sitting on my heels, I looked at the fish swimming among the floating water plants, my
mood would always turn sombre and I would feel desolation
encroaching. The house was situated close to a comer and the
veranda only provided a view of a blank wall plastered white.
(Thin, blue smoke would settle in the gardens frequently.)

We spoke little on the way. The weather was dark but dry and
windless. I foresaw that the afternoon would run a bad course.

My aunt greeted us warmly and gave each of us a piece of
Christmas cake. My uncle wasn't home. She went and sat at the
window and brought out her cithern. Underneath the strings she
laid out a trapezium shaped sheet of music which didn't contain
notes but little balls connected by a jagged line. When the sheet
had been placed accurately, the little balls, each lying beneath their
relevant strings, indicated the plucking point for the melody.

As always, she began with the song about a frog that was eaten
by a stork: she sang slowly and loudly.

Werther sniggered for a moment and stood there listening with
a stupid expression on his face. I leant against the alcove door.

At the end of some verse or other, of which the final words
ran: 'Mr Stork, Sir', I could no longer contain myself and I just
had to look at the brass vase with peacock feathers on a small,
three-legged table at the entrance to the alcove. I knew that
great sadness had appeared and made my way on to the veranda.
There, everything was as I had foreseen. This time, too, there
was a hazy veil of smoke between the rows of houses. I looked
into the tin baths, dipped my finger in and studied the wall. I
knew I had to go back in again but that this, too, would provide
no relief.

'That's the wall,' I said out loud, 'and these are the tin baths. The
cithem is inside with the song on it. And in the vase the peacock
feathers are.' I wanted to start and sing it softly but it wouldn't work.
I went back in through the kitchen; my aunt went on singing the
song. Without switching the light on, I went and sat in the lavatory
and waited. In the end I came off and stayed and stood listening in the
hall. The song had finished but now the cithem was playing
something else, without any singing. Without a sound, I descended
the stairs and went on to the nearby footbridge above the railway.
Here I stood for an hour, watching how the smoke of the locomotives
mingled with the strands of mist. In the end I clambered down from
the bridge again and took up my post on the comer from where I
could keep an eye on the house. I stayed and waited here for I did not want to go up there again. After a very long time Werther
came out.

Unseen, I followed him for several streets. Then, jumping out at
him from behind, I gave him a fright. He was cross for a moment
but didn't remain so. 'I thought you'd gone to fetch something
somewhere,' he said. Where had you gone?' 'I can't tell you that
yet, not right now,' I said, 'though I would like to: it simply has to
stay a secret.' When Werther failed to reply I said, to fill the
silence: 'It's horrid, the way they live there, I think. Did you like it
upstairs?' He replied feebly that he didn't. We walked on. We're
going to move,' he said suddenly. 'To the Slingerbeekstraat. That's
in Plan Zuid.' I didn't reply. Without my asking anything, he told
how the removal would be taking place within a week. He
mentioned the number of the house as well.

I was silent a long time. Then I said: 'You've got to be very
careful with removals 'cause there're people who move and then
they end up in a lesser house than the one they first lived in.'
Neither of us said anything after this.

'D'you know why I stayed outside?' I asked after a while.
"Cause I think you're boring this afternoon. That's what you are all
the time, really.' Before he could reply, I ran out ahead and hid
myself away on a comer. Again I gave him a fright but in doing so
I collided with him, which made him fall. It fumed out he had
grazed the palms of his hands a bit. I apologised and declared it
had happened by accident but in truth his injury gratified
me.

From now on we kept silent as we walked along. He looked at
the ground with a stern expression. I tried to make him laugh
several times but didn't succeed.

Approaching my house we took our leave with a bit of a
mumble.

I ru ' longer saw him after that. I did, every day after school,
walk past his house without ringing the bell.

The sixth day there were no longer any curtains to be seen. I
made my way home and took a piece of paper but merely dashed
a few scrawls across it. Then I took my brother's bike and rode to
the Slingerbeekstraat.

It was slightly foggy, and the street lamps had been lit early. I
had remembered the number.

It was a ground floor flat near the corner. The sign with the
green star had already been attached to the door.

Without getting off, I slowly rode past the windows and then
turned back. 'They live darkly,' I said, softly.

At home I roamed the back garden and pulled the tops off the
withered remains of the Michaelmas daisies. Afterwards I fetched
the axe from the loft to hack thin branches to bits on top of the
fence.

Arthur van Schendel

In a small town with little canals and tall elm trees lived a man
who for his entire life had only observed people without having
anything to do with them. It was said that he was timid, not a
philanthropist although he always subscribed to good causes.
Never had he had any other pastime than books and reading; from
morning till night, year in, year out, he had long reposed in worlds
far from this one. Otherwise he was ordinary - no criticism
the two old servants who had known him from his
birth lived contentedly in his house. By day and by night he was
in his room with the books, occasionally looking out at one of the
windows at the back on to the garden, occasionally at one of
the windows at the front on to the canal.