Herman Koch - Dear Mr. M

Miriam hadn’t bothered to wipe the tears off her face — maybe she had just forgotten, or maybe she simply didn’t care, Laura thought. The wet spots that gleamed under her eyes and on her cheeks did not make her round face any prettier, and that was putting it mildly. Laura was reminded of the little boy who lived upstairs in their building, she babysat for him sometimes to earn a little pocket money. He was about six, a spoiled little six-year-old boy who started crying whenever he didn’t get his way. Laura never let him have his way, at least not right away. She would watch him as he started to cry and stamp his feet, for as long as it took to make her wonder how anyone could love an ugly child like him. Only then did she give him the lollipop or the extra spoonful of sugar on his yogurt that he’d been whining for the whole time.

“What makes us happy-go-lucky?” she asked. “And why shouldn’t you be that way too?”

Now Miriam finally used the sleeve of her sweater to wipe her face; the wet spots became red smudges. “I don’t really know if you want to hear that,” she said. “And whether I feel like telling you about it. Besides, Stella’s with Herman. No, it’s not a good idea.”

For the first time since they’d sat down here on the edge of the bed, Stella looked at Laura. “That doesn’t matter,” she said, rolling her eyes a bit. “Really, it doesn’t, Miriam. Even I don’t like everything about Herman. I think those films are funny, but I know exactly what you mean. That sometimes it seems like they don’t take it into account, David and Herman, how nasty the experience can be for someone else.”

“Aw, David…,” Miriam said: it seemed like she was planning to say more, but she only wiped two fingertips across the spots under her eyes.

“What?” Stella asked. “What were you going to say?”

“I don’t know,” Miriam said. “I mean, I think David is really sweet, but when I’m here I also see how spineless he is. I don’t know if I really wanted to see that. Whether I can go on with him now that I’ve seen that side of him, I mean. And then I see him in that movie with Miss Posthuma and I think: That’s not the way you are, you only do that to act cool around…around… Oh, just listen to me! Who am I to say that’s not the way he is! I’ve only known him for about a week.”

And what about us? Laura thought. Do you think we’re spineless too? She looked at the girl’s round, teary face and suddenly she found it unbearable to think that this Miriam, who — it was true, she’d said so herself, hadn’t she? — had known them for barely a week, was already equipped with judgments about who was spineless and who wasn’t. She braced herself, in her thoughts she stood up from the bed and said something. Something like Well figure it out for yourself, Miriam. You really are a cow. It was more fun last time, when you weren’t with us. But she didn’t get up.

They hadn’t heard the footsteps on the stairs, there was only a little knock and the next moment the door opened. Herman was standing there.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I hope I’m not intruding, but before things get completely out of control, I want to say something too.” He took a step forward. “To you, Miriam.” There wasn’t much space in the bedroom, Herman’s legs were almost touching Miriam’s knees, she had to tilt her head all the way back to look at him.

“I want to tell you that I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not going to say that I’m sorry about the movies, because David and I really had fun making them, but maybe I ranted on a bit about Miss Posthuma. I think you’re right, Miriam. After all, they’re people too, teachers. I went too far. I’m sorry about that.”

“Okay,” Miriam said.

And then Herman leaned down, he took Miriam’s head in his hands and laid his own head on her hair. “So will you come downstairs and make us happy? David’s a bit confused too, but I know he’d be very glad if you came down.”

Herman had turned his head to one side, his cheek against Miriam’s hair, his face turned to Laura, not to Stella.

As he was saying that Miriam should come downstairs and make them happy, he looked at Laura and winked.

When Herman came over and walked beside her on the beach, Laura couldn’t help thinking about that wink. They had left the thistles and the tidal creeks behind; David, Miriam, and Stella had almost reached the waterline. Ron, Michael, and Laura paused to wait for Herman, but he gestured to them to walk on, without taking the camera from his eye. In the distance, in the direction of Knokke, they saw a dot that could only be Lodewijk.

When Ron and Michael walked on to meet the others by the water, Laura slowed without really intending to. Herman still had the camera held up to his left eye, he kept his right eye shut. Above the sound of the surf and wind, Laura could hear a rattling from inside the camera, a toilsome rattle like an old, un-oiled clock.

First Herman filmed the beach — literally the beach, the lens pointed down at the sand. Then he walked past Laura and turned around. Standing with his back to the sea and walking backward, he slowly panned up until he reached her face.

“I’m going to tell you something now,” he said. “You don’t have to say anything back if you don’t want, but then at least I have it for later. On film.”

He had spoken very quietly, but Laura still glanced up past Herman at the others. They were too far away to hear anything above the sound of the waves, she thought. She looked back at the lens, and at Herman’s closed right eye.

“You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted, Laura,” he said. “Ever. I thought maybe it would go away, but it only gets worse. You don’t have to say anything, it’s enough if you just keep looking. I see it, I can see it.”

He halted, less than ten feet from her. There were two things she could do, Laura realized. She could keep on walking, past Herman and the camera, out of the picture. Out of his picture, out of their picture — forever. Or she could stand still.

She took three more steps, then stopped. She looked straight into the lens. She didn’t say anything, she thought what she wanted to say.

“With me, it happened right away,” Herman said. “At David’s party, the first time I met you. Was it like that right away for you too, Laura? At that party?”

She didn’t answer, she didn’t nod or shake her head. She kept looking straight into the lens.

Yes, she thought, for me too.

After dinner that evening, Herman set up the projector on the stepladder again and tacked the sheet in front of the window.

“There’s one more little film I’d like to show you,” he said. “Something we didn’t get to yesterday…” He glanced over at Miriam and smiled. “But I promise, no more nasty jokes, Miriam. And definitely not at the expense of others.”

They were all sitting or slouching on the couch, in the easy and less-easy chairs around the table. “It’s not a very long film,” Herman said, to explain why he hadn’t set them up in a semicircle this time. “But I’m very curious to hear what all of you think.”

First a flickering white light appeared on the sheet, then a title, written in capitals with black Magic Marker on a piece of cardboard: LIFE BEFORE DEATH.

“Michael…,” Herman said, and Michael picked up his saxophone, moistened the reed with his tongue, and stuck the mouthpiece between his lips.

Then a dinner table appeared on the sheet, a man and a woman eating across from each other, above the table was an antique hanging lamp. “My parents,” Herman said. “That’s all I’m going to say. I just want you all to watch.”