Gerband Bakker - The Twin

“Ye-es,” says the livestock dealer slowly and unexpectedly. He takes his cap off and sits down. He glances sideways at Henk.

“I don’t have anything for you.”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

When he doesn’t say anything else, I ask if he’d like a coffee.

“Yes, a coffee would hit the spot.”

I stand up and get a mug out of the kitchen cupboard.

“So you work here,” the livestock dealer says to Henk.

“Yes.”

“Do you come from Brabant?”

“Yes.”

Ada? Or is a single “yes” enough for him to hear where someone comes from? I put the mug down on the table in front of him.

He looks around the kitchen as if he’s never been here before.

“How’s old Mr. van Wonderen doing?”

“Fine,” I say. I slide my plate, with a half-eaten sandwich on it, away from me. “Even if he’s not all there any more.”

“Too bad,” says the livestock dealer. “I did a lot of business with him.”

“Yes.”

The electric clock buzzes, Henk fidgets on his chair.

“I’m here to tell you I’m quitting.”

“Really?”

“Do you have any idea how old I am?”

“Just turned sixty?”

“Sixty-eight.”

“Then it’s getting time to stop.”

“The wife said, ‘If you don’t stop now, I’m leaving you.’”

“Hmm.”

“She wants to travel.”

“Don’t you have a daughter in New Zealand?”

“Uh-huh. The wife’s already bought the tickets.”

“Nice.”

He sips his coffee. “Flying,” he goes on. “Can you see me on a plane?”

“Why not?”

He has a slow way of talking and hardly looks at me. I suspect that his feet are now at rest and flat on the floor, and I feel like looking under the table to check. He’s already become someone else. No longer a livestock dealer, he can speak freely.

Henk gets up. “I’m going outside,” he says. “Goodbye.”

“Bye, son,” says the livestock dealer. Once Henk is gone, he looks me straight in the eye. “So that’s your new farmhand.”

“Yes,” I say.

“Sturdy lad.”

“Yes.”

I hear the door to the milking parlor bang shut.

Finally the livestock dealer looks away, through the side window. “I was just at the neighbors’.”

“You dropping in on everyone?”

“Yeah. That will take me a week as well.” He puts the mug down on the table. “I’ll be off.”

“Okay,” I say.

“I’ll see you around,” he says in the scullery.

“Have a nice time in New Zealand.”

“It’s summer there now,” he says. He slips his feet into his clogs. “Say hello to your father.”

“I will,” I say.

He pulls open the shed door and walks around to the back.

I wait for a moment and then go out through the milking parlor. When the truck passes, I raise one hand. Henk is sitting on the donkey paddock gate, opposite the milking parlor. I only notice him after the truck has passed. A big plume of smoke is hanging over his head. He raises a hand to wave to me. A play without words for three men: one leaves without looking up, the second watches him go, the third looks at the second, and the second only sees the third after the first is gone.

It’s hot in the kitchen. The sun is shining on the table. A brace of ducks fly over. I butter two slices of bread, cover them with cheese and walk upstairs. Father doesn’t wake up when I come in. I put the plate down carefully on the bedside cabinet and sit down on the chair next to the window.

“The livestock dealer says hello,” I say quietly, but without any spite. “He’s going to New Zealand with his wife, to see his daughter.” The hooded crow in the ash is my only witness. “I can’t stand you because you ruined my life. I don’t call a doctor because I think it’s high time you stopped ruining my life, and I tell Ada you’re senile because it makes things that much easier. If you’re senile, then none of it makes any difference anyway. What I say, what you say. And you don’t know the half of what I would have done for Henk. Henk was my twin brother. Do you know what it’s like to have a twin brother? Do you? What do you actually know? In the months after you fired Jaap you didn’t visit him once because you refused to see him as an equal. I saw him as an equal. He kissed me on the fucking mouth. Have you ever kissed me? Have you ever said a kind word to me? Do you know what I want? No, you don’t know, because I don’t even know myself. The livestock dealer is never coming back, that’s why he says hello, and the tanker drivers are never coming back either, one’s dead, you knew that already, the gruff one, but maybe you forgot because you’re senile, and the other one, the young one who always smiles, is off to drive another route. That’s your fault too. Not him going away, but making me be here for him to go away from. If I hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t have known him. And by the way, I don’t think we’ll be seeing much more of Ada, she prefers to spy on us from a distance and Ronald is the only one from next door who still comes here, we’re in Teun’s bad books because-”

“Helmer!” Henk shouts from the bottom of the stairs.

Father wakes up.

I stand up. “There’s something to eat next to your bed,” I say.

“Did I fall asleep?” asks Father.

“We going back to work?” Henk calls.

“Coming!” I shout. “Yes,” I say to Father.

“Didn’t even notice. I’m exhausted.” He sits up and looks at the plate. “Cheese,” he says. “Delicious.”

Henk is actually a kind of nephew, I think when I close the door to the stairs and see him standing there. He is pulling on his overalls, the ones with the crotch that rides up, the sleeves that are too short and the tear in one armpit. A half-nephew, a could-have-been-nephew, a nephew-in-law.

“I’m not going behind those donkeys. Do it yourself.”

“Go and stand in the yard over there then.”

“I don’t want anything to do with them.”

“If you go and stand there, just past the gate, they’ll walk straight into the paddock.”

“And if I don’t stand there?”

“Henk, they won’t even touch you. These are my donkeys.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“They’re not your father’s and they’re not miniatures.”

“What?”

“They’re not like the one that kicked you.”

“How do you know about that?”

“Your mother told me.”

“Fucking hell.”

“What’s there to swear about?”

“What else did she tell you?”

“Nothing. Listen: the smaller, the meaner. Shetland ponies are vicious too, they kick and bite. These are real donkeys, they won’t do anything. Teun and Ronald. .”

“What else did she tell you? Why am I actually here?”

“I don’t know.”

“For no reason?”

“What?”

“Am I here for no reason?”

“No. .”

“Why?!”

“Because you were at a loose end at home.”

“At home? At home where?”

“You know, Brabant.”

“Oh, fucking hell.”

“What is it? Don’t swear so much.”

“What kind of bullshit’s that! A loose end?”

“Yes, a loose end.”

“How long do I have to stay here?”

“You don’t have to stay anywhere.”

“So if I want to, I can go?”

“Of course.”

It’s March and the sun has disappeared. We’re standing in front of the donkey shed. It’s drizzling. The donkey paddock fence is finished.

“Are you fighting?” Ronald is suddenly standing next to us. Like a faithful dog.