Gerbrand Bakker - June

‘You p-iss your pants?’ Johan shouts.

Before looking down at his crotch, Klaas sees familiar names on an old headstone to his left.

Zeeger Kaan 1858–1917

Griet Kaan-van Zandwijk 1862–1957

Why doesn’t Jan paint that stone sometime? Does he even know that this is his great-grandparents’ grave? He walks on and looks down. The shape of his underpants is visible as a wet mark on his jeans. ‘Yes, Johan, I pissed my pants.’

‘Ha ha ha,’ goes Johan.

‘You back again?’ Jan asks.

‘I’ve come to pick you up. Orders from your mother. And Johan has to leave here too.’

‘You M-ummy’s little boy again?’ Johan asks.

Klaas stares at Johan calmly and pulls a crumpled tobacco pouch out of his back pocket.

His youngest brother looks back equally impassively, if not more, and pulls out his pack of Marlboros. ‘S-moke first,’ he says.

‘Sure,’ says Klaas. ‘Always smoke first.’

‘You h-ave to take your s-hirt off too.’

‘Fine.’ He unbuttons his shirt and drapes it over a grave before rolling a cigarette.

Johan still has his lighter out and offers him a light.

‘Why aren’t you wearing shoes?’

‘H-ot. And I’ve got b-listers on my b-loody feet!’

‘Did you get the gravel?’

‘Y-es.’

‘All finished?’

‘Y-es.’

‘So we’re not going yet?’ asks Jan, who feels excluded because he doesn’t smoke.

‘Nope,’ Klaas says. ‘Relax, we’ve got all the time in the world. I do, anyway.’

The three of them stand there like that for a while: Klaas and Johan smoking, Jan still holding the green bucket. Klaas has another good look at the grave that’s brought them here. The fourth Kaan, his little sister, Dieke’s aunt, his parents’ daughter, lying here under a thin layer of sky-blue gravel with a headstone that should actually have a sign hanging from it, a sign saying WET PAINT .

Our little sweetheart Hanne 1967–1969

‘M-e too,’ says Johan.

‘And you?’ Klaas asks Jan.

‘Are you bored?’

‘Quite.’ Let it go. Don’t take the bait, he thinks. It’s true anyway.

‘You’re n-ot going to sell the farm, are you?’ Johan asks.

‘Why not?’

‘You bastard! We were b-orn there!’

‘Don’t shout. I can’t take all that into account.’

‘Of course he’s not going to sell it,’ Jan tells Johan. ‘He can’t, anyway.’

‘Oh?’ says Johan.

‘No. He’d have to buy us out first.’

‘Huh?’

‘Oh yeah?’ says Klaas.

‘Yeah,’ says Jan, who then tells Johan, ‘We have a say in it too.’

‘Wh-at do you mean?’

‘Klaas owes money to Dad, who didn’t just give it all to him. And probably to the bank too?’ Jan studies him.

Klaas gives a curt nod. He shouldn’t have said he was at a loose end. And now Jan is stirring up Johan. Still, he thinks, it’s all true.

‘R-eally?’ says Johan. ‘Were you a-llowed to g-et rid of the cows?’

‘Yes,’ says Klaas.

‘It’s fine by me,’ says Jan. ‘I’m not stopping you.’

Enough’s enough. ‘No, you’re on Texel. You’re not here. Why don’t you just mind your own business? Isn’t it really busy over there now? Do you even have time to be here?’

‘I —’

‘All that land!’ shouts Johan out of nowhere, a sudden spark in his drowsy eyes. He sends the filter of his cigarette flying with a flick of a finger.

‘Not that I even have a clue what you do over there on Texel.’

His brother looks at him and raises his chin a little, probably to say something that’s not true.

‘That l-and!’ Johan cries again.

‘I don’t do anything there at all,’ Jan says.

‘How’s that?’

‘They sacked me.’

‘When?’

‘A while ago.’

‘Hey!’ Johan shouts. ‘Are you l-istening to me?’

‘What is it?’ Klaas asks.

‘That l-and, I said!’

‘What about it?’

‘Y-ou can do other things with it, too!’

‘Like what?’

‘A tree nursery,’ says Jan, relieved.

‘Y-es!’

‘A Center Parcs holiday village,’ says Jan. ‘With a sub-tropical swimming paradise.’

‘Y-es!’

‘You’re mad,’ Klaas says. ‘Both of you. You’ve been out in the sun too long.’

‘Some thing with f-lowers!’ Johan screams. ‘And then we sell them!’

‘Something with flowers? And who’s going to do that?’

‘Us! An-d a girl. For in the shop!’

‘Or give the land back to nature,’ says Jan.

‘F-lowers are better, but n-ature’s good too. With el-der shrubs and those b-ulls and c-ows with big horns.’ Johan scratches his crotch in excitement. ‘And p-aths!’

‘Highland cattle,’ Jan says. ‘That bit of land on the other side of the road already borders the wood that guy planted there, what’s-his-name, and if you plant trees and shrubs as well, you can turn it into a nature reserve.’

‘Y-es!’ Johan screams. ‘They always have those cows! Tons of them!’

Klaas looks at his brothers. Paths? Highland cattle? A nature reserve? They don’t have a clue. They’re taking the piss. He stubs out his roll-up on the top of Hanne’s headstone.

‘Hey!’ Jan finally puts down his bucket. He brushes the ash off the stone, but can’t get rid of the black spot.

‘It’ll be gone the first time it rains.’

‘Why’d you do that?’

‘Because you two keep nagging.’

Johan takes a step forward and stubs his cigarette out on the stone as well.

‘We’re not n-agging, we’ve got plans!’

‘For something that’s no concern of yours.’

‘T-oon says I have to do some thing. Work.’

Jan picks up the bucket. ‘I’m going.’

‘Me too,’ says Johan. ‘G-et Mum down off the straw!’

‘That’s your job,’ Jan tells Klaas.

‘Why me?’

‘You’re the oldest.’

‘Piss off.’

‘Then you have to do it,’ Jan tells Johan.

‘Wh-y?’

‘It’s your fault she’s up there.’ Jan walks off.

Johan follows him. He picks his T-shirt up off the stone Dieke cleaned so thoroughly earlier in the day. ‘W-ait!’ he yells. ‘I s-till have to put on my shoes!’

Jan waits under the linden, taking his T-shirt off the back of the bench and putting it in the bucket.

Klaas picks up his shirt but doesn’t put it on yet. The idea of wrapping his body in checked flannel is unbearable. He looks up. The sun really has gone now, the sky is filthy, but not so you can tell what’s going to happen. A thunderstorm? Rain? It doesn’t feel like it, although it’s muggy and still. He waits until Johan has his shoes and socks on and has reached Jan. Jan who already has a slight stoop; Johan, straight, broad-shouldered, an unruly gait. He quickly bends down to the grave and runs a hand over the blue gravel, although it’s already as smooth as they’re going to get it. They’re beautiful, he thinks, the small, brightly coloured stones. Over time, the gravel had grown scruffier and sparser until it was almost all gone. Then he stands up to follow his brothers. Passing the bench he looks up into the linden. A solitary blue tit is sitting on a branch, panting its way through the hot day. Odd, Klaas thinks, you don’t usually see a blue tit by itself.

Now he’s busted. He can’t turn back. Well, he could, but they’d still see him. He heard shouting in the distance but thought it was somewhere off in the village. There’s never anyone here, especially not when it’s hot like today. ‘Wait!’ they shouted, so he’ll just have to stand here, there’s nothing else he can do. What should he do with the bucket? Hold it, hold it tight, it’s his bucket. Can I keep that up? he wonders. He has to. Putting it down would show him up.