Margriet de Moor - De verdronkene

She sat up and listened now, frowning in concentration.

Sjoerd described how the woman at the table had first entered Lidy’s date of birth and similar details, and had then asked about her hair color.

“Deep chestnut brown,” Armanda answered promptly. “Long.” She thought for a moment. “Probably in a ponytail.”

Sjoerd nodded. “Eyes.”

“Emerald green.”

“Height.”

“Five foot ten.”

“Yeah, and then she wanted to know the state of her teeth. I couldn’t help her there.”

“Well, better than mine. A few fillings, nothing more. But we can check with the dentist.”

“She wanted to know if she’d ever broken a leg or anything like that.”

“No, never.”

“Scars, birthmarks.”

“Umm, that little patch on her stomach, you know the one, just below her navel.”

“Her clothes. That ash-gray winter coat, as far as I know.”

“Yes, the one with the glass buttons.”

“Shoes.”

“Size nine.”

“She was probably wearing that pale blue sweater, I thought. And dark blue trousers with cuffs.”

“The sweater belongs to me. Turquoise, angora. It needs to be hand-washed and dried flat on a towel.”

“She asked about underwear. Cotton? Silk?”

“Could be either.”

“And the make of her bra. I never paid any attention.”

“Maidenform.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Really?”

“We … we once bought an expensive one, by Triumph.”

“Would you like a drink? A little water?”

“I think I’m going to go now.”

Squalls of snow battered the windshield, which the wipers could barely keep clear. They had left the town behind them. Izak Hocke had just taken over the driver’s seat; Lidy was beside him and Simon Cau in the back. Lidy looked with interest but absolute ignorance out at the pitch-dark road and the overflowing black drainage ditches to either side, which had nothing to do with her.

They were driving northeast.

She had reached her decision without hesitation. When she had been inspired within a couple of seconds to say, “Hang on, I’m coming with you,” it was only a confirmation of her previous decision to embark on this little excursion, which had at first simply attracted her and now had become an essential condition of her life.

She had thrown on her clothes in the blink of an eye. Trousers, the angora sweater that had originally been Armanda’s and that she’d worn all day on the way here. Izak Hocke and Simon Cau had waited for her downstairs in the entrance hall by the reception desk. With their heavy coats and headgear — Hocke was wearing a woolen cap — they looked quite different from the way they’d looked at the family gathering, during which she had immediately and quite naturally addressed both Hocke and Jacomina using the familiar form, whereas she had spoken to the charming landowner who was her dinner partner using the more formal turn of phrase. Now both men were standing waiting at reception, their faces expressionless. But she didn’t feel awkward in any way.

Why had she wanted to go along too? Why hadn’t she just handed over the car keys instead of getting into her winter coat, dark rings under her eyes, and marching after them as if it were the only thing to do?

They had needed a means of transport. The two men, friends and neighbors, had come to the party in Hocke’s car, but Hocke had then lent it instead of holding on to it. What Jacomina had told Lidy in a rush at the bedroom door was that Simon had had an urgent call and needed to get to a dike on the other side of the island and Izak Hocke should have been back home with his old mother long since in this terrible weather. Whereupon she had offered them the Citroën. With the greatest pleasure, of course. And when she said — just like that, because it seemed self-evident to her — that she would drive, the two men accepted with distant politeness. Only Jacomina still asked, “Do you really want to do this?”

“Yes.”

“Not go back to your nice warm bed?”

“No.” And with the bedroom door still open, she was already unbuttoning her pajama jacket.

So this was her situation. Straightforward, nice, and it was fine with the Hockes and Simon Cau. Which of them could have known what was coming at them? The land was used to storms and bad omens. And besides, Lidy was a girl with a taste for adventure, for whom finding a second bed out in the polder tonight was not an alarming thought in the least. As she stepped out onto the deserted street behind the men, all she felt, fleetingly, was that her father’s car, there at the curb, stuck out as very much something from home.

“Nice car,” said Hocke.

“Yes,” she replied, “but it’s hard to start.”

But she knew how to do it; the first time the engine turned over you gave it a little gas, and the second time you immediately gave it more. The wind was making so much noise that she had to do it by feel this time, not by ear. It worked on the second try. The lights went on, and the three of them drove off. The windshield was steamed up; Hocke wiped it clear and gave her directions.

“Turn right at the end. Now there’s a sharp curve. The Nobelpoort is just past the corner. Why don’t you switch on the windshield wipers?”

It was around 2 a.m. The town was asleep, and elsewhere on the island, which lay far below sea level, most people were asleep too, the way they sleep when the wind sweeps over the roof on a Saturday night. Just here and there, things were beginning to happen. A few people in a house near the New Harbor had got up to make themselves a cup of tea, because even the wallpaper on the walls was moving. And at the flood fence that blocked the access road to the quay, the mayor, wrapped in his fur coat, was looking in amazement at the waters of the harbor on the other side, which had almost reached the topmost plank and therefore were simply going to overflow it. Someone in his entourage had immediately signaled that something had to be done, and at lightning speed: namely, go fetch the carpenter who lived a hundred yards down the street. At the very moment when the latter, screaming into the wind, was beginning to explain that the ramshackle props couldn’t take one more nail, even a decorative one, the Citroën, with Lidy still at the wheel, was clearing the Korte Nobelstraat on its way to the town gate at the other end.

And afterward, it was absolute madness for anyone who had no experience to be trying to hold a car on the road. Once you were out beyond the houses, it really came home to you what a force-11 gale actually was. But before Lidy could panic, Izak Hocke turned to her and said calmly in her ear, “Pull over.”

He got out, the interior light went on; she grasped immediately, got out too; he had already gone round the car past the headlights and held the door as she hurried past him in the insane wind. Switching drivers only took a moment, but as she slid back into the car next to Izak Hocke, she was out of breath, said, “My God” several times over, and realized that what she was sharing with her two companions was something enormous. She tried to look over her shoulder, seeking agreement, but Simon Cau, his face gray and sunken, was sitting hunched over in the middle of the backseat, his eyes going from the road to her and back again, no smile to be seen.

So the three of them were a group portrait.

The car drove off again at once. Izak Hocke searched for the lever to push the seat back farther. “It’s here,” said Lidy, noticing how hard and impatient his hand was. What a night, she thought. The kind of night that would stick in the memory as a sort of dream.