Gerband Bakker - The Twin

Our two daughters are Brabant born and bred, but because they’re our daughters, and I get on with them really well, it doesn’t matter so much. They’re both very warm and they both have nice husbands and young children (yes, I’m a grandmother!). They live a stone’s throw away so I can drop by whenever I feel like it.

Our son (I’ve only just noticed that I’ve written “our,” although Wien has been dead now for almost a year) doesn’t fit in quite so well in Brabant. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because he takes after me more than Wien. After Wien’s death I sold up and now I live in the village, together with my son. That’s strange: husband dies, you move, and then all you’ve got is time on your hands.

I’m writing this letter because you haven’t written back or called. I’m curious about how life has treated you. I don’t even know if you’re married, but I suspect not, because just before my mother died, she told me you weren’t. Yes, you can see that I tried to keep up with you as best I could. And there’s something I’d like to ask you, but I’d rather not do that in a letter. Won’t you write or call?

I’ll just say it straight out: I would like very much to drop by. To see you, but also to see the farm I visited so often (and where I, if things had gone differently, would now live). But then the problem with your father (which I wrote about in my last letter) needs to be resolved.

Hoping to hear from you,

Love,

Riet

This time there is an address on the back of the envelope. The name of the village doesn’t ring any bells. I don’t understand what she wants from me. Like the previous letter, this one is muddled. The first time it was “best wishes, Riet,” now it’s “love.” It’s as if she’s trying to arouse my curiosity. Is the thing she wants to ask me about, which she also mentioned in her first letter, simply whether she’s allowed to drop by? Or is it something else. The sentence “and where I, if things had gone differently, would now live” (in brackets, of all things, as a passing comment) annoys me. I interpret the end of her letter as meaning that I have to inform her that Father is dead, otherwise she won’t come.

A fitful thaw has begun. Now and then the temperature creeps above freezing. It’s misty with occasional rain, but most of the day it stays below zero. There’s a layer of water on the ice, but at the same time the yellowish-white frozen edges in the ditches keep widening. The mist is strange; with mist you expect warm air. I can forget about my Monnickendam-Watergang circuit, I’ve already put away my skates. The donkeys stay indoors. The chickens are hardly laying. The frost flowers in Father’s bedroom have slid off the window, there’s a pool of water on the windowsill. He ate the apple. I don’t know how he managed it. He must have been very hungry.

Twenty cows. A pre-war tie stall barn. A few calves and a handful of yearlings. Twenty-three sheep. No, twenty. I’m not even a smallholder. But the paintwork is in good condition and the tiles on the roof are straight.

In the afternoon the young tanker driver arrives. I don’t go into the milking parlor. I watch him through the round window, which was moved from the outside wall to the wall between the milking parlor and the scullery when the milking parlor was built. With the doors to the shed, hall and milking parlor shut, it’s dark in the scullery, the only light comes in through that same round window. Mist seems to be streaming along the sides of the enormous tanker and into the building. The driver keeps smiling, despite the pitiful amount of milk flowing into his tanker through the hose from my tank. I’ve forgotten his name again and the harder I try to dredge it up, the further it sinks. There’s an O in it, I know that much. He sticks a little finger in his nose; I actually feel like turning away. He doesn’t look like he’s waiting for me, he doesn’t seem to care whether I come to make small talk or not.

Is it enough to have the paintwork in good condition and the roof tiles straight? The willows neatly pollarded and the donkeys warm and well fed in their shed?

Of course I am curious about Riet. Of course I want something to happen. I want to know what has become of the beautiful girl with long blonde hair — the young woman who was going to marry my brother. I want to hear what she has to say, I want to see the look in her eyes. I wait until the young driver has leapt up to his cab, as lithe as ever, before going into the parlor to spray the storage tank clean. The hot water drives the cold mist back outside.

After milking I go into the vegetable garden to pick some kale. It’s had more than enough frost. I straighten up and look through the kitchen window into my own house. The lights are on in the kitchen and the living room. In the distance-Ican see it because all the doors are open — the new bed is like a throne in a palace. It’s Christmas Eve and in seven days the new year will start.

“There’s no such thing as a pig farmer.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pig keepers, maybe, but you can’t call them farmers.”

“Why not?”

“Did that husband of yours have land?”

“Yes.”

“How many acres?”

“A bit between the sheds and another bit around the side.”

“That’s what I mean. A farmer has land and he does something with that land. Pig keepers keep pigs in sheds for slaughter. That ’s got nothing to do with farming. .”

“The clothesline was on one bit of land and the silage clamp was on the other.”

“. . it’s all about money.” I’m standing in the hall and looking out of the kitchen window. It’s raining. The fitful thaw has finally set in and any ditches with ice left in them are now steaming. Funnily enough it was sunny all day yesterday and the temperature dropped below zero again last night. I have no idea what Riet is looking out at. The telephone conversation isn’t going well. Riet (who answered using the name of her deceased husband) mentioned pig farmers and I couldn’t help myself. I feel like hanging up.

“Come on, Helmer, let’s change the subject.”

“Yes,” I say.

“Would it be all right if I dropped by?”

“That’s what I’m calling about.”

“How. . is your father. .”

“Dead.” I’ll sort that one out later.

“Oh,” says Riet, as if she’s suddenly intensely sorry.

“It’s no big deal.”

It’s quiet for a moment, somewhere in Brabant. “Did you have a good Christmas?”

“Yep.”

“And last night?”

“I lit a New Year’s bonfire.”

“Just like the old days!”

“That’s right. The two boys from next door came to watch. And help, of course.”

“That must have been fun.”

“It was. Except the youngest, Ronald, burned his hand.”

“Oh. .”

“Not badly. He even managed to laugh about it, he thought it was cool. Fortunately his mother was there too.”

“When shall I come? I can any time.”

I can any time. Half my life I haven’t thought about a thing. I’ve milked the cows, day after day. In a way I curse them, the cows, but they’re also warm and serene when you lean your forehead on their flanks to attach the teat cups. There is nothing as calming, as protected, as a shed full of sedately breathing cows on a winter’s evening. Day in, day out, summer, autumn, winter, spring.

Riet says “I can any time” and those four words send everything toppling. I see her emptiness, and her emptiness shows me mine.