Gerbrand Bakker - June

He kneels down in front of the headstone and picks up the brush and the tin of paint.

‘What do I do?’

‘I just told you. Go and have a look at the blue tits.’

She waits a very long time before turning around and reluctantly setting out for the tree and the bench. She closes her eyes tight and pretends the world no longer exists. When she thinks she’s made it to the tree, she opens them again. Yes, the birds are still sitting on their branch, sucking air in and blowing it out again. She feels sorry for them, but she can’t do anything to help. The zip of her bag is open, she sticks an arm in and grabs an apple. ‘Do you want an apple now too?’ she calls.

‘Sure.’

She gets the second apple out and walks back. When Uncle Jan goes to take the apple, she pulls it back. ‘Never do that again,’ she says.

‘I promise.’ They eat their apples on opposite sides of the grave, facing each other.

‘The birds were still there,’ she says.

He doesn’t say anything.

‘How old is this auntie?’ she asks.

‘Two.’

‘Two? She can’t be. How old are you? Thirty?’

‘Ha! Forty-six. You understand that this auntie was one of Grandma’s children?’

‘Huh?’

‘I’m one of Grandma’s children too, right?’ He spits out a bite. ‘Yuck, that was a bad bit.’

‘Um…’

‘Don’t worry about it. We have to think of something for you to do. Or would you rather go home?’

‘No.’

Uncle Jan looks around. ‘Would you like to clean some of the other stones?’

‘Sure.’

‘Good.’

‘Do I have to do it with the cuddle bone?’

‘No, just water will be fine.’ He walks over to the path, picks up the wet rag and shakes out the shell grit. ‘Here’s a rag. Is there enough water in the bucket?’

‘Yes,’ says Dieke.

Uncle Jan comes back to the shell path and points out a stone, one that’s lying down, completely smooth and brownish.

‘Who’s under here?’ she asks.

‘Do you really want to know?’

‘No.’ She dips the rag in the water, wrings it out and starts to rub the stone clean, the tip of her tongue soon appearing between her almost clenched teeth.

‘Daddy!’ He’d walked up without her noticing.

‘Hi, Dieke.’

‘There’s lots of dead people under here!’ she shouts excitedly. ‘I’m cleaning them.’

‘No.’

‘I am.’

‘Did your uncle tell you to do that?’

‘No, I thought of it myself,’ she lies.

Her father walks over to Uncle Jan. She stands up and follows him. He puts his hands on his hips and watches Uncle Jan at work. ‘You shouldn’t do it that way,’ he says.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You have to lie the stone down flat. That’d be a lot easier.’

‘Can we do that?’

‘We can try.’

Her father and Uncle Jan take hold of the headstone and wobble it back and forth a little until they’re able to lift it up. They lay the top part of the stone on the raised edge of the grave.

‘Are you taking it apart?’ she asks.

‘We’ll put it back later,’ her father says. ‘It’s not a problem.’ He sits down on a nearby grave, pulls his tobacco pouch out of a back pocket and rolls a cigarette.

She looks closely from one to the other. They really do look a lot like each other, but at the same time not at all. Her father’s older, at least she thinks he is, and that’s strange, because her uncle looks older. Uncle Jan dips the brush in the paint tin and bends over the stone. Her father lights his cigarette. One smokes, the other paints. She was cleaning and she goes back to that. Neither man says anything, but it’s still a lot nicer now. There’s something beautiful about working in silence; she can sense that. It means something. When, after a while, Uncle Jan says, ‘It’s no good like this, we have to stand it up again,’ she doesn’t even react. She only looks up when she catches sight of someone coming down the shell path. ‘Dog!’ she shouts. And that big lady with black hair. The dog and woman march past her without a word.

‘What’s the meaning of this?’ the woman says. She talks loudly and the dog starts barking. ‘Quiet, Benno! You’re wrecking the place. I knew it. I was on to you. Do you plan on knocking over other headstones too?’

Dieke has stood up, but stays close to the stone she’s cleaning. Uncle Jan and her father are standing between the graves with the stone in their hands. The woman sounds angry and the dog’s not listening to her. He’s still barking.

‘This is our grave,’ her father snaps. ‘You keep out of it.’

Dieke’s shocked. The way he’s said it sounds really rude.

‘I’m going to report this! And what’s that girl doing? To that stranger’s grave! She’s dirtying the stone. Have you got a tub of cow shit here somewhere too? What are you doing? Benno, quiet!’

The dog barks, Uncle Jan and her father slowly lower the stone. ‘Up a little,’ her father says, ‘there’s some pebbles on the concrete.’ Uncle Jan bends down and brushes something away with his free hand and the stone moves down out of sight. Then the men straighten up, her father with a red face.

‘Well?’ the woman says.

Dieke looks at her father. Is he going to be rude again?

‘Go away.’

‘What?’

‘Just mind your own business.’

Her father stares intently at the big dog, and after a while it stops barking and skulks back behind the woman’s legs.

‘I have business here,’ the woman says, pointing at the tall narrow headstone she pointed out to Uncle Jan earlier.

Her father turns and looks carefully in that direction. ‘We’re not doing anything against the rules,’ he says slowly.

‘We’ll see about that,’ the woman shouts, now staring at Uncle Jan. ‘And you…’ she says.

‘Yes?’ says Uncle Jan.

It looks funny: Uncle Jan bare-chested with that T-shirt tied around his head, the woman and her dog on the shell path. Only now does she notice that the woman doesn’t have her jacket on. And wasn’t she wearing glasses before? Dieke is curious what she’s going to say to Uncle Jan. It’s gone very quiet, so quiet she thinks she can even hear the panting of the two birds. The woman doesn’t say another word. She just spins around and strides off. When she passes Dieke she gives her a dirty look. ‘Horrible boys,’ she says.

Dieke gives her a sweet little smile. ‘I’m a girl,’ she says cheerfully. ‘Bye-bye!’

The dog drags on the leash.

‘I actually came to pick you up,’ her father says a little later.

‘Did you?’ she says.

‘Yep. You ready to go home?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t you want to go to the swimming pool?’

‘No.’

‘We could go to the beach instead.’

‘Yuck.’

‘When are you going to have lunch?’

‘I’ve already had a banana. And an apple.’

‘Me too,’ says Uncle Jan. ‘Let her stay if she wants to.’

‘Fine.’ Her father sticks his hands in his pockets. ‘You heading off again tonight?’

‘Yeah,’ says Uncle Jan. ‘What would I stay here for?’

‘Maybe we could do some fishing?’

‘In weather like this?’

‘Sure, why not? A worm’s a worm, or do fish stop biting when it gets too hot?’

‘Yay, fishing!’ Dieke shouts.

‘Have you already decided what you’re going to do?’ Uncle Jan asks her father.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Have you sold the land yet?’

‘No.’

‘But what are you going to do then?’

‘I dunno. It’s not your problem.’

‘No,’ says Uncle Jan. ‘So towards evening we’ll go fishing.’

‘We’ll see,’ her father says. ‘I’ll see you in a bit, Diek.’