Herman Koch - Dear Mr. M

Ever since Herman had started going with Laura, he behaved differently in the classroom. He leaned far back in his chair with a pen between his lips, his long legs sticking out from under his desk. But even more than his shiftless posture, it was the look in his eye. I’m with her now, and you’re not, that look said. He should really say something about it, sprawling like that in a classroom wasn’t done, but he held himself in check. He knew the skinny boy’s reputation; he could imagine how he would react. Does it bother you? The bleeding had stopped faster than he’d expected, with great care he shaved around the thin red stripe on his cheek. The reason I sit like this is because what you say doesn’t interest me at all. He had to be careful not to cut himself again. Breathe calmly. What was it Herman had asked him last time? Something about Napoleon…no, now he knew: about Napoleon’s maîtresse. That high-handed tone! The insinuating look on his face as he pronounced the word “maîtresse.” He had tried to ignore the question, but wasn’t able. He had let himself go. And why should you suddenly be so interested in that? he’d asked — the whole class must have seen it, must have heard the tremor in his voice. And then he had looked at Laura, Laura who — ever since the fall vacation — had sat beside Herman at the back of the class. He had looked at her with a helpless gaze, in his mind he counted to ten, by five he was still no less afraid that he would burst into tears right there on the spot. First Laura had lowered her eyes, but when he reached seven she looked at him. For half a moment, eight …she had smiled at him, and then, nine …she shrugged. It was like a beam of sunlight at the close of a rainy day, the hope of a tiny bit of warmth that might dry your soaked clothes. With that smile and that shrug Laura had, if only for the space of a second and a half, distanced herself from her new boyfriend.

After school he cornered her in the bike shed. “I have to talk to you!” he panted, and she glanced around a few times before answering him. “What about? We’ve said all we have to say.” At that moment, from the little tunnel linking the bike shed to the school basement, came the sound of laughter; a few senior boys were walking to their bikes, lighting their cigarettes and roll-ups as they went. “I saw you,” he said quickly. “This afternoon in class, I saw how you smiled at me and shrugged.” He paused for a moment and took a deep breath before asking the next question, the question that had kept him awake night after night, tossing and turning in his bed, for the last few weeks. “Are you happy with him, Laura? Are you really happy? That’s all I need to hear.”

Laura raised the pedal on her bike with the tip of her right shoe — so she could hop on and ride off immediately, he realized. “I smiled at you and shrugged this afternoon because I felt sorry for you, Jan. I thought you were pitiful. I don’t want the whole class to see you like that, I can’t stand it. I mean, look at yourself, the way you look. How you…how you smell. You shouldn’t want to do that to yourself.”

Then she took off on her bike. When she had to pass the smoking seniors, she hopped off, but she didn’t look back.

It was Laura’s words that handed him the key to his current metamorphosis. He would no longer elicit her pity, he would look fresh and well rested, he wouldn’t smell anymore, at least not of alcohol and dried sweat. He was finished shaving, he sprinkled himself with aftershave, not only his cheeks, chin, and neck, but also his chest and belly, armpits and arms. Later on, at the house in Zeeland, when she opened the door for him, he would smell like a fresh start.

A towel around his waist, he made coffee and fried three eggs with ham and melted cheese. I mustn’t ask that anymore, he thought, whether she’s happy with him. I just have to be there —he didn’t know how to formulate it any more clearly than that, but somehow it covered the feel of what he wanted to make happen. Be there. A certain nonchalance. That’s the feeling he would elicit: that he was cured of her. A healthy, clean-shaven, fresh-smelling man who was sufficient unto himself. A grown man. A man who was old enough and stood above it all. Whose knees didn’t start knocking at the sight of a schoolgirl who had dumped him, traded him in for someone her own age. Only in that way could he be a viable alternative for her. The self-assured, grown man who came by only because it happened to be on his way, simply to deliver to her the message that he had moved on. That he wanted to tie up the loose ends, together with her. He wasn’t going to call her anymore. He wasn’t going to stand in front of her bike in the shed to keep her from getting past. He would not — and this was the episode of which he felt most ashamed, he stopped chewing on his omelet and began groaning at the recollection — follow her home and hang around under a streetlight until deep into the night. Yes, he would round it off, close the book, turn a new page and then he would drive on to see his friends in Paris.

Meanwhile, however, the seed of doubt would be sown. Laura would see them beside each other at the table. She would realize again why, not so long ago, she had been attracted to him. Beside the skinny boy he would come out looking good. Anyone would come out looking good next to Herman. How could it be? How could it be, for Christ’s sake? He looked almost like a girl! Around one wrist Herman wore a knotted leather strip, around the other a thin, woven lanyard of beads. And then those rings on his fingers, the flaxen hair on his cheeks. And his teeth! His teeth were too weird to be true. To call them irregular would be putting it mildly. Those front teeth that curved inward and the open spaces between his canines and the molars behind made him look more like a mouse than anything else. A mouse that had been smacked in the teeth by a much bigger mouse. How could a girl be drawn to that? They were teeth that let the wind through, a girl’s tongue would have a hard time not getting lost in there. Granted, when it came to seduction, his own teeth weren’t exactly his ace in the hole. But he had practiced it in front of the mirror, how to smile without his lip pulling back to show his gums and expose the full length of his uppers. Whenever he couldn’t help laughing, a reflex he’d developed made him hold his hand in front of his mouth. Don’t forget to brush your teeth well, later on, he noted to himself. Nothing was as deadly as a chunk of bacon or white bread in the gap between teeth that were too long anyway.

He laid the plate with the knife and fork on it in the sink and turned on the cold water. The frying pan was still on the stove. He looked at his watch, he wanted to leave on time, he didn’t want to run the risk of getting caught in the blizzard. On the other hand, it would be strange for someone who was going to Paris for a couple of days to leave dirty dishes lying around. He’d do them later on. Before he went out the door. First he had to brush his teeth.

He smiled at himself in the mirror above the sink. His hair was almost dry now, he pulled it back and looked. The bags under his eyes, that was a problem, they hadn’t just gone away after one night of not drinking. He sprinkled a little aftershave on a cotton swab and pressed it against the grayish-blue hollows under his eyes. Then he opened the door to the balcony. Atop the railing was a thin layer of fresh snow that had fallen during the night. He swept it together with his fingertips and rubbed his face with it, his eyelids and the bags. As though I went for a long walk this morning, he told himself when he saw the result in the bathroom mirror. The bags were still heavy, but the contrast between them and the rest of his face was already less striking.