Gerbrand Bakker - June

The song finished and they cut straight to another golden oldie. She’s glad to reopen her eyes.

The Kaans. Once she rode her bike past their farm in winter and there they were, the oldest son and Zeeger in the middle of six or seven nasty-looking men, shotguns broken over the crooks of their arms. Lying on a white tarpaulin were rows of hare, pheasants and ducks, poor creatures. The hunters were knocking back little glasses of schnapps with their free hands, out in the open air, in broad daylight! Strange people. She hardly knows Anna Kaan, but she must have a screw loose too.

Teun. Her hand wants to move towards the telephone again. ‘Benno, that’s enough now,’ she says. The dog doesn’t listen. Instead of the police, maybe she could call Teun? And then avoid saying ‘Teun’ by accident, but use the right name, otherwise he can get so angry. The baker: she could call him too, he’s always home. He’d be sitting in his back garden under an umbrella, a crossword puzzle on his lap. No, there’s no point, she’ll see him in a couple of hours. She starts crying again, this time more because she feels so helpless. It took all of her powers of persuasion, but she managed to get away from the village, the son respectably married in Den Helder with two children, and then he gets divorced. What’s more, he no longer wants to be a fitter, but retrains as a youth worker and ends up running some home for ‘difficult’ youths. And just hangs up if she phones him and accidentally lets slip with a ‘Teun’. But you are your name, surely? She and her husband didn’t call him Teun lightly. Names are important, that’s why it’s so horrible when people have an ugly name. Dieke? Terrible for that girl, somehow. She thinks of calling her ex-daughter-in-law, but rejects the idea, because she has a new husband now and there’s a chance he might answer and he doesn’t know her at all. Oh, yeah. ‘Does she dye her hair, do you think?’ That’s what that red-headed Kaan said to that ugly child. And he’d asked, ‘Do you know who that woman is?’ as if he didn’t see who she was. If I recognise him, he must recognise me too, surely? ‘Benno,’ she says quietly, so that the dog doesn’t even react.

Den Helder. Almost all of the shrubs and perennials they’d dug up out of the front garden froze that first winter, the furniture looked wrong in the small living room and her husband was completely miserable. Once, when everything was more or less sorted, just once, she called her son a nincompoop, which he accepted impassively. He’d started at a new school after a week or so and otherwise didn’t seem to have a problem with the move. Her husband had a new, wide-eyed expression, as if he was constantly asking himself how he’d ended up somewhere so windy. Because of her, of course. She’d set the transfer in motion. He kept that strange look in his eyes until just before he died. It was only after she promised to bury him in the village that he finally started looking a bit normal again.

Don’t call anyone then, because only weirdos call people when they’re crying. ‘Benno!’ she exclaims. The dog stops licking. She stands up and walks over to the window, stares down at the dry grass. The dog comes over next to her and barks at a sluggish thrush in the garden. Long strands of drool drip from his jaws onto the rug. She should get started on dinner, put a bottle of white wine in the fridge. They’re fond of a glass of white, her and the baker. The baker is nothing at all like the Negro who slipped in through her bedroom window this morning. He’d let dark ale run down his chin and drip onto his bare chest without any embarrassment, after which it would make stripes all the way down to his navel, or maybe even lower. She sighs. The Negro, of course, is also much younger than the baker.

The baker hits the trunk of the linden with his walking stick to avoid losing face. For a moment he’s afraid he’s disturbed the birds, but they don’t fly off. Just stroll over, have a look what he’s doing, then comment on it? His mouth is dry from the lemon brandy, dry and cloyingly sweet. The stick is back between his legs and, putting his whole weight on it, he manages to stand up. Stroll, he thinks, don’t walk. To his left there’s a radiant gravestone that looks like it was lowered into place just yesterday. Jan Kaan is painting. A small tin of white paint, a brush. The baker isn’t right behind him and has a clear view of what’s written on the headstone. Four words in fresh paint. Jan Kaan has just started on the year of birth. The baker closes his eyes, he doesn’t want to read the rest. ‘Hi,’ he says and then he’s at a loss. Can he say ‘Jan’? ‘Kaan’ is what he comes out with. ‘Hi, Kaan.’ Only then does he open his eyes again.

The red-headed man turns halfway towards him.

‘It’s turning out well,’ the baker says.

‘Hmm,’ says Jan Kaan.

‘And coming along nicely.’

Jan Kaan doesn’t reply. He puts the tin of paint down on the ground and lays the brush across it, gets onto his knees, unties the cloth tied around his head, shakes it out and pulls it on. It’s a T-shirt. He stands up. ‘I’m going to go and sit on that bench for a bit,’ he says.

The baker smells him as he passes, eyes fixed on the bench. Not unpleasant: sunscreen and perspiration, maybe a bit of something like deodorant mixed in. He’s aged, of course, and has already started walking with his father’s and grandfather’s stoop, but the seven-year-old kid is still in him. And the twelve-year-old. The baker tries to remember when he last saw Jan Kaan. Really saw him. Maybe when he was about eighteen. After that, once or twice, three times at most? He must have been in the kitchen sometimes — on a Saturday — when he delivered the bread? He’s sat down on the bench and is tugging at the short sleeves of his T-shirt. The baker takes his words as an invitation to go and sit next to him. He needs his walking stick to cover the fifteen metres. Exhaling deeply, he sits down on the bench for the second time. A bit of small talk first, he thinks. ‘Where are you living these days?’

‘Texel.’

‘What do you do there?’

‘I run a holiday park.’

‘Oh,’ says the baker. ‘What’s that involve?’

‘Painting, mowing the lawns, talking German, cleaning up rubbish.’

‘And you had the day off?’

‘I’m just the assistant really.’

‘Ah. But it is high season now?’

‘Yeah.’

The baker thinks hard. The man next to him is answering his questions, sure enough, but he’s not taking the initiative. He’s sitting there like Dinie’s dog, Benno; it undergoes things passively like this too. ‘Married?’

‘Nope.’

That’s a shame, because a wife would have to come from somewhere, and you can always find something to say about children.

‘No wife, no kids. I don’t have anything at all.’

‘Oh,’ said the baker, ‘I’m sure that’s not true. How are your parents?’

‘Fine.’

‘Both still in good health?’

‘Yep.’

‘Are you hungry? Should I go and get you something?’

Jan Kaan looks at him. Piercing eyes and light eyebrows. ‘Why would I be hungry?’ Again he reminds the baker of Benno, he’s raised his chin slightly as if he’s caught a whiff of something and is trying to optimise the position of his nostrils.

‘Well, maybe —’

‘I’m not in the least bit hungry. And if I was thirsty I’d walk over to that tap there.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Have you been drinking?’ Jan Kaan asks.

‘Ah…’ What am I doing here? the baker wonders. He wipes his forehead with one hand while gripping the ivory knob of his walking stick tightly with the other. He dries his damp hand on his trousers. ‘I was just looking at some old photos, back home.’