J. Bernlef - Out of Mind

'Wandered away from home, clearly.' It sounds as if I am talking about someone else. Then I see the briefcase in my lap. 'I'd forgotten my briefcase. I'd gone to collect my briefcase.'

'Mr Klein,' says the young man with the blond springy hair that sticks out from under his cap in all directions, 'I'll take you home. Straight away. Before you catch cold, without a coat on. What were you doing all by yourself?'

'A little stroll. I didn't have the dog with me. Forgotten. That's why.'

These words do not really belong to me. Every now and then the little boy looks over his shoulder at me with big frightened eyes. He does not answer when I ask him his name, but perhaps he cannot hear me because of the noise of the engine. There is a blue peacock embroidered on the back of his jacket. A blue peacock with a fan-shaped tail full of dark eyes that stare at me steadily. I turn my head away, preferring to look into the wood with its blown-down trees and broken branches. In the bends I have to let go of my briefcase and grab hold of the metal back of the driver's seat in front of me.

When the jeep stops in front of my house Vera comes out on to the veranda. How thin she is! The American helps me get out. I hold the rug tightly around me for I still feel dreadfully cold.

'Maarten!' She takes my hand and drops it again at once. She shouldn't do that. I want to take hers again but she walks over to the American who has stayed beside his jeep. She shakes hands with him and also with the little boy. She talks to the man who waves his black-gloved hands dismissively in front of his chest and jumps back into the jeep. As he reverses he waves with one hand and I wave back from the veranda, until the jeep has disappeared from sight among the trees, past a bend in Field Road.

'At last,' I say to Vera as she comes up the steps. 'At last the time has come, darling.' I follow her into the house and put my briefcase under the coat stand.

'It really can't go on like this any longer, Maarten!'

I enter a room and take stock of the interior. Strange, how people put chairs and tables and cupboards at random around a room. As a result I cannot decide where to sit down.

Maybe it is also because of the cold. My fingers tingle as if I had just come back from ice skating.

Vera wants to take the rug away from me but I hold it tightly by two corners around my neck.

'The American gave it to me.'

She lets go. 'Maarten,' she says, 'what have you been up to? Where are your thoughts, for God's sake?'

Where are my thoughts? A coming and a going. No one knows where from and where to. But one thing is certain: what we have been waiting for all these months has happened at last.

'Thank God they have come at last. Five years we've had to wait for them. It's still cold outside but it will slowly get warmer. I was allowed to sit in the front of the jeep.'

'What are you talking about, Maarten?'

'We've been liberated, Vera. Don't you realize?'

She is less pleased than I am, but that has always been so. She never was as exuberant in showing her emotions. You always have to spur her on a bit. Therefore I put one arm around her waist.

'Come, let's do a freedom dance.'

She takes a few awkward steps with me and then wriggles loose.

'At least Uncle Karel can grow his moustaches again,' I chuckle. I feel beautifully warm now. I put the rug over a chair and dig my hands into my pockets.

Vera comes out of the kitchen with a glass. 'Here, drink this.' At one draught I drain the glass. It makes me warm and dozy. I sit down on the settee and look in the direction of a sound. A green Chevrolet comes up the drive, followed by a large white Ford. We're having company, just as I am beginning to feel so tired that it seems to be snowing even inside the room. Close my eyes for a moment. Only for a moment.

Another American. I shake his hand cordially. He is called Eardly. Dr Eardly even. So he's an officer, even though he is in mufti now.

'I've just had a ride in one of your jeeps,' I say in fluent

English. I have no trouble with that. Very satisfying. Again I grab his hand. Tears spring to my eyes. 'If you knew how long we've been waiting for you.'

'You have been a bit naughty,' says the American. 'Walking out of the house without a coat, that's very dangerous at your age.'

Come, come, I am not that old. Vera is standing beside him. How small and slender she is compared with him. There have been times these last months when I feared she would become sick, she looked so haggard. At the slightest exertion she had to sit down. I thought there was something wrong with her lungs but it was simply malnutrition. Now we shall soon have plenty to eat again.

'It's cold everywhere,' I explain to him. 'The only place where you can still get more or less warm is in bed.'

Suddenly there is a blonde girl standing in the room. She is wearing a bright red sweater. She doesn't look as if she works in the army. But maybe the American forces have women in civilian dress working for them, secretaries probably. She takes me to another room and tells me to sit down on that bed there. So she is more like a nurse.

'I am actually quite tired,' I mutter, while I feel her pulling off my shoes. 'It must be the emotion.'

She does not reply and starts undressing me. There is no need for that. But she carries on regardless. She is strong and bends my arms back in order to strip off the shirt. Somewhere to the side a door opens. A man with a square face and short-trimmed hair enters with a syringe in his hand. I try to get off the bed but that blonde one holds me down while I feel the needle jab into my arm.

'I want to live! I want to live!!'

'Don't strap him down,' I hear a man's voice say. 'No need for the straps.'

Then I suddenly understand everything. 'You've got the wrong man. I wasn't on the wrong side. Maybe I was no hero, but I wasn't on the wrong side. I never hid any fugitives in my house, that is true. I wouldn't have minded, but I never came across any. Or I didn't recognize them in time. Or it was too late, all finished, and I never realized what trouble he was in. Not even afterwards. He was drunk. He was singing. I had no idea. If I had known that the next day. . maybe he was still drunk when he did it.'

Vera comes into the room. Thank God.

'She is my witness. I have never done anything wrong. Isn't that true, Vera? Not even that time in Paris. That wasn't me. That wasn't really me.'

She nods reassuringly and sits down on the edge of the bed. Why is she crying? Could it be that I am mistaken and that the war has only just begun? Have we been occupied instead of liberated? Is everything starting all over again?

'Has the war started again?'

'Go to sleep now, Maarten,' she says hoarsely. 'No one will do you any harm.'

'Is there no war?'

'It's peace.'

Why is she crying, then? I'm glad she is here. She is the only one I still trust. 'You must never leave again,' I whisper and take her hand. 'Do you hear, Vera, never.'

Headache, headache and thirst. Move these lips, maybe words will come back into this head.

Turn the light on! (Good boy.)

What was before this? As if I've come up from a hole in the ice. And so hot. Must get out. (Get out, then!) Wasn't there always someone lying beside you?

Step by step. Luckily there is light burning in this corridor. Wooden floors, straight boards, with joins it would be better to avoid. Watch out for splinters. Pull up your knees, high up!

At the back of this head there's something buzzing. This body is pressing me out. Like a turd I am being pressed out of myself. I can think this with words, but they do not cover what happens. Meanwhile it happens, outside me. (Again an inadequate term.)

The light switch is usually to the right of the door. So it is here. Hi, dog. Wave, don't talk.