Gerbrand Bakker - June

A gleaming, light-grey 1968 Volkswagen van, Type T2a. Tailgate and sliding side door, packed full at the start of the round with bread and pastries, cakes and white rolls, and everything still within easy reach. The streamlined VW logo prominent on the front, beautifully central between the two headlights; the chrome hubcaps and door handles; the red leather seats and front-door lining. The dealer in Den Helder told him, not without pride, that the chassis had Y-shaped steel supports and that ‘in the event of an accident’ the steering column would fold forward to prevent him from being crushed. The Saturday farm run in particular was fantastic at the start. At the start. Fresh bread and fresh leather, as if the two smells belonged together and were inseparable, made for each other.

He flicks the lights on and off once again, then strides through to the kitchen, where he pulls the large watering can out of the cupboard under the sink.

While emptying it between the hydrangeas for the third time, he sees a cyclist approaching on the other side of the canal that bisects the village. With difficulty, he straightens up; the watering cans are heavy and his back is old. A man with a green bucket on the pannier rack, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Short red hair. Early forties. ‘Hmm,’ goes the baker with the chapped face, putting the half-emptied watering can down on the gravel. He keeps watching the red-headed man until he turns off and rides onto the grounds of the former Polder House, where he slowly rounds the rose bed on the left before disappearing around the side of the building. The baker sticks a hand into the watering can and scoops up some water, bends forward a little and rubs his face with it, even though it’s no longer that cool.

‘So! At least now you’re doing something.’ The villager with the little dog is on his way back home.

‘What kind of dog is that anyway?’

‘This? Jack Russell. Rough coat. Have I got you thinking?’

‘Ah.’

‘Jesus, man, the sweat’s pouring out of you. I’d sit down if I were you.’

‘Yes, I’m about to.’

‘We’re going to get some rain. At last.’

‘You reckon?’

‘I do. You can put that watering can away. We’ll be getting gallons of the stuff and you won’t have to pay a penny for it.’ The villager walks on without saying goodbye.

Not one like that anyway, the baker with the chapped face thinks. Too small. He pours the remaining water out over the gravel path without noticing, then walks in through the open front door, puts the watering can on the draining board and sits down, both hands neatly placed on the table in front of him.

The old Queen. She was there once, in front of the Polder House, long ago, when the light-grey Volkswagen van was still gleaming. She was presented with two pygmy goats. By the district council if his memory serves him right. What happened to those goats? Did the driver stuff them in the boot of that big black limo? Did they spend years eating grass in the back garden of Soestdijk Palace? I’ve got photos of them somewhere, of that whole visit, he thinks. Lots and lots of photos. She was inside the Polder House too, of course. I saw the table, he thinks. White tablecloth, plates and glasses, vases with sweet peas. I delivered freshly baked bread there in the morning. Ordinary bread, nothing special, that’s what the district clerk said. Brown and white rolls, fruit loaf. It was only after she left that I started on my round of the surrounding farms. Yes, there are photos. Later. Now I’ll sit down.

He looks at the calendar, hanging between the two narrow windows. Saturday. There are words written there that he can’t read from this distance, but he knows what they say. Dinner at Dinie’s. He sweeps imaginary crumbs off the tabletop.

‘Look, Daddy, a gold ring!’

‘Nice,’ says Klaas. ‘Where’d you get that?’

‘From a plant.’

‘A plant?’

‘Uh-huh, it’s broken now. It was there.’ Dieke points at the floor.

His gaze goes from the floor up to the windowsill, where one of the Christmas cactuses is now in a plastic tub and listing to one side. Then he has a closer look at the large ring. It reminds him of something, something from the old days. ‘You going to put it in your bag?’

‘Of course.’

‘Can I have a look in that bag sometime?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s my bag.’

‘Can’t argue with that.’

‘Can I have it back now?’

He hands the ring back to his daughter and rustles the newspaper. When they’ve finished the paper it goes over to the other side of the ditch, and the newspaper from the other side of the ditch comes here. The breakfast things are still on the table, but the mid-morning coffee is already dripping through the filter. It’s almost ten o’clock. A long way to go to midday, he thinks, and after that, a much longer afternoon.

‘I’d still rather you didn’t hide the bag so far in under your bed,’ his wife says.

‘Why not?’

‘It’s dusty.’

‘So what?’

‘Yes, what.’

‘Otherwise people will look in it.’

‘No they won’t. Your father and I aren’t going to look in it if you say we’re not allowed to.’

‘I don’t want to go to the swimming pool.’

‘What?’

‘I want to go see Uncle Jan.’

‘Where is he?’

‘In the village. He just left. On Grandma’s bike.’

‘Haven’t you arranged something with Evelien?’

‘Doesn’t matter. He had something hanging off his handlebars.’

‘It does matter.’

‘I don’t like it at the swimming pool!’

‘Yesterday,’ Klaas says, ‘talking to Jan, you were full of it.’

‘That was yesterday! Now it’s today.’

‘Whereabouts in the village has Jan gone?’ his wife asks.

I didn’t ask him anything, Klaas thinks. I don’t really have a clue. ‘He’s probably gone to the churchyard.’

‘The cemetery.’

‘Huh?’

‘It’s a cemetery, the church is miles away.’

‘Yeah! I want to go there!’ Dieke screeches.

‘You think that’s fun?’

‘Of course! He said he was going there to work. I can help him, can’t I?’

‘And then every ten minutes you’ll want to come home again I suppose?’

‘Or start whining for Evelien? Wouldn’t you be better off going to the swimming pool?’

‘No!’

‘Coffee?’

‘Lovely,’ says Klaas.

His wife pours the coffee. Big mugfuls. She opens a cupboard and gets out a packet of biscuits, tearing it open with one index finger. The mugs and biscuits go on the table, between the teacups, jam and chocolate sprinkles. Klaas takes milk and sugar, his wife drinks her coffee black. Dieke is quiet, letting the gold ring slide through her fingers and not whinging for a glass of lemonade. Klaas has put the paper aside and rolled a cigarette. His wife has already lit one. Now and then he looks at her over the top of his brown mug. She has a dour expression on her face and keeps her eyes fixed either on the tabletop or out of the window, maybe staring at the withered grass in the drinking trough. He doesn’t know what she thinks about it, that grass. She doesn’t seem to mind it too much; she’s never attempted to fill it with a few violets or some ivy-leaved geraniums. The kitchen is blue with smoke.

‘You’ll take her?’ she asks.

‘Me?’

‘Sure, why not?’

‘I’ve got things to do.’

‘Really? What, for instance?’

Say something immediately, don’t wait, it doesn’t matter what. ‘Clean out the cowshed.’

‘Oh.’

‘See?’

She gets up, pulls the jug out of the coffee maker and tops them up. Then she stubs out her cigarette, stuffs a third biscuit into her mouth and looks menacingly at Dieke — who is still being as quiet as a mouse. ‘The cemetery,’ she mumbles. ‘What next?’