Peter Buwalda - Bonita Avenue

It went all wrong. He botched it. He had shoved the gruesome torso backward onto the tree stump; the head still hung back and off to one side, he had cut away the scarf with shears — enough exposed neck to finish the job. But that rum he’d drunk. The rum, coupled with what he asked of himself. The first swing fell wide. There was more than enough room to hit the pale, outstretched neck, but he wasn’t paying attention, or perhaps he faltered; in any case the blade of the axe landed too high, struck squarely into the lower part of the face. It cut a deep gash in the left corner of the mouth, through the upper lip and a bit of nose — everything gaped, he heard teeth, maybe even molars, breaking off. For a moment the axe appeared to be stuck, lodged deep in the upper jaw. He gasped for air. When he had jiggled the blade loose his arms, his hands, his entire body started to tremble.

It’s all going so fast. Got to find thermal. Mathematics. Absolute clarity, synchronicity of beauty and insight? The ecstasy it could make him feel. Yellowish bone and flesh. The diagonal gash welled up with fluid: blood, but something grayish too. The Erdős problems he used to have at his fingertips. During receptions when he felt completely lost, during bad movies. When they lived on Bonita Avenue and he’d sit in the YMCA canteen during Janis’s and Joni’s swimming lessons. But now, Erdős ran through his fingers like fine sand. Joni was totally wrapped up in those lessons. What is going on? Not Janis: she’d keep looking over at him, smiling and waving. The sight of the jawbone, the hacked-off tongue, the mangled face. He tried to raise the axe a second time, but the thing weighed 100 kilos, halfway up he had to let it drop back. For a few moments his head was totally empty, until the clattering sound of breaking teeth returned, the strange overtones in the sloshy blow of the axe. The teeth. Scattered everywhere . A pathologist needed only one tiny piece of tooth. Shovel all that crap into the garbage bin, that was his first impulse, he was about to get the spade but was suddenly overcome with panic. Fell to his knees, tore off his gloves and began to grabble wildly in the snow. The pain in his frozen feet.

He was burrowing in the snow like a truffle hog when someone walked into the yard. The Teeuwen girl — he still can’t remember her first name — came into view. Black spots filled his vision.

The ring road is busy, he approaches the exit for Val-d’Isère. He’s got the route down pat, they’ve been coming here for years. He’s known her since she was born, the Teeuwen girl. Was it that time already? She took her bike around the back, her full school bag strapped to the baggage carrier. She snapped out the kickstand, checked to see that the bike stayed put, precious seconds he used to stretch out his legs and lie flat in the snow. There he lay, prepared for utter ignominy. His eyes wide open, he peered past the bloody torso, his face pulsated. Thirty meters away, the thickly clothed girl walked toward the back door, the utility room. He could see her stop short as she approached. Her gloved hand briefly touched the taped-up windowpane. What was her name again? She looked around, he squeezed his eyes shut. When he looked again she had opened the back door. Her voice was dry in the morning air. “Hello?” she called out. He begged, he prayed she would go inside. To get to the cats’ food bowls she would have to cut through the living room to the front hall. Had he cleaned up properly? She disappeared into the farmhouse.

Get off here. Chambéry exit. The will to carry on, the survival instinct that now leaks from him like alkaline from a spent flashlight battery, brought him to his feet. Swiftly he scrambled up and lifted the torso off the stump, dragged it to the workshop without breathing, and went around the back of the large workbench. Drunk with adrenaline, he laid the monstrosity behind the veneer press and lay down next to it. Wait. Don’t move. That girl has to go to school, she’d feed the cats and cycle off to school. What was her name, damn it? Joni looked after her, Joni used to babysit at the Teeuwens’.

It’s another quarter of an hour beyond Chambéry. But what he’s known all along, happens: he keeps driving. The two of them, they were at the Teeuwens’ together. He misses the exit and keeps on driving . Joni and Wilbert babysat that girl together . His Audi is a droplet gliding toward the Mediterranean Sea.