Gerbrand Bakker - June

‘What, the wine? It’s fine. Refreshing.’

The beans are fine too, fresh, and the potatoes are just right, but she can’t enjoy it. Her visits to the cemetery have left a bitter taste in her mouth that even the juicy beef olives can’t displace. And this morning she had that bitter taste too of course, after the Negro… She hacks off a piece of beef olive, shoves it into her mouth and chews fiercely. In a while, after dinner, she wants to suggest a stroll to the baker, a stroll that will include the cemetery. She wants to see what’s happened there, she doesn’t trust those redheads. She definitely wants to be the last person to visit the cemetery today.

‘What’s happened?’

‘Huh?’

‘To make you wish the day was already over?’

‘Ah, nothing special. You get days like that.’

‘Yes.’

They eat their meal in silence. After clearing the table and rinsing the plates and cutlery, she returns to the living room with two apples and two oranges. While she peels the first apple, Herm drains his glass. She quarters the apple, removes the core and hands him a piece. He should stay the night, she thinks.

‘I’m thinking of getting a dog,’ he says.

‘A dog? You? I’ve never seen you so much as touch Benno.’

‘Benno’s not the kind of dog I’m thinking of.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

Ridiculous. Herm with a dog. It’ll be the death of him. A broken hip first and then downhill from there. She pops the last quarter in her mouth and starts to peel the second apple.

‘That son of yours,’ he says.

The continuous strip of apple peel breaks. ‘Yes?’ she asks warily.

‘Where’s he live?’

‘What makes you think of my son all of a sudden?’

‘This afternoon I was looking at the photos I took on the day of the Queen’s visit.’

‘Oh, yes. When was that again?’

‘The seventeenth of June, nineteen sixty-nine.’

‘Almost forty years ago.’

‘Your son was in them too. Teun, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. I don’t have any photos of that at all. I know she was here, but I had to work. The swimming pool didn’t close just because the Queen was coming. Some people wanted to enjoy a quiet swim for a change. Maybe my husband took Teun.’

My husband. That’s what she always says, never Kees.

‘But, where does he live now?’

‘Schagen.’

‘Married?’

‘Divorced.’

‘Kids?’

‘Two daughters.’

‘Does he still see them?’

‘I believe so. I see them regularly, they live in Den Helder. I still see my daughter-in-law, you see.’

‘You believe so?’

‘Herm, I don’t have much contact with him. I don’t even like him any more…’

‘What?’

She hands him a last piece of apple and then starts to elaborately peel and pith an orange. She doesn’t want to talk about Teun, she doesn’t want to start crying again. ‘Nothing,’ she says.

‘What’s he do?’

Now she’s had enough of the interrogation. ‘Social worker,’ she snaps, popping a segment of orange into her mouth and plonking the rest in the baker’s hand. ‘There. Cup of coffee and then a stroll?’

‘Fine. I could use a walk, my knees are a little stiff.’

‘Lovely.’ She clears away the peel and puts on some coffee. Benno has followed her into the kitchen. He yawns loudly. ‘Yes,’ she whispers. ‘You can come too.’ The coffee machine bubbles. She puts her hands on the worktop and looks out through the kitchen window at the hole in the hedge. ‘With your mistress.’ It’s actually much too hot for coffee.

‘See, until sunset.’ Dinie points at the green sign with white lettering that’s screwed to the gate.

‘I’ve learned something new,’ he says. He’d been counting on a walk along the Molenlaan, maybe even popping into The Arms for a second cup of coffee, or something stronger. He should have known better. If Dinie closes the lace curtains when he’s in the house, he can’t expect her to sit down at an outdoor cafe with him. The dog seemed happy about being taken out for a walk, but the moment they were out on the street it started to drag its feet as if something terrible was about to happen. Dinie suggested walking through the cemetery and he said it would be closed by now. ‘Not at all,’ she said.

They’re now walking through the section that’s still empty, with dry grass on either side of the path. After coming in through the gate, she’d taken his arm, making his walking stick superfluous.

‘And the sun won’t be going down for quite a while yet,’ she says.

‘Not that we’ll see it.’ He sneaks a look at her from the side and tries to imagine what she’d look like if she stopped dyeing her hair. The dog pads ahead slowly, dragging its tail over the shell grit. Dinie is big and buxom, he likes having her next to him in bed. As far as he’s concerned, that’s as far as it needs to go. Just lying alongside each other, touching. He is determined not to go back home tonight. He’ll also have a look at the headstone Jan Kaan was painting this afternoon. Dinie is holding him tight.

He hears a vague rumbling in the distance. A thunderstorm after all? ‘Did you hear that?’ he asks.

‘What am I supposed to have heard?’

‘Thunder, I think.’

She looks at the sky. ‘No,’ she says.

They pass between the two low hedges and into the populated section.

‘Look,’ she says, when they’ve more or less reached the stone. ‘Freshly painted.’ It’s as if she’s led him straight to it.

‘Hey,’ he says, not even feigning surprise because he’s looking at the gravel. Blue gravel that he doesn’t remember seeing earlier in the afternoon.

‘It’s something we’ve never talked about.’

‘No.’ As far as he’s concerned, there’s no need either. Not any more. Yesterday, there might have been.

It’s as if Dinie senses that. ‘Maybe it’s not necessary either.’

‘No.’ He suddenly feels the wine. He hadn’t wanted to drink more than one glass but she’d kept pouring until the bottle was empty.

She guides him towards the bench under the linden. There’s a dead bird lying on the ground in front of the bench. He looks up. The branch is empty. That can mean several things, but it is strange. This afternoon two birds, and now one dead one. He can’t imagine the other one just flying off. But if it hasn’t, wouldn’t it be lying there too? Dinie spots the blue tit and silently slides it under the bench with the tip of her shoe. Now he feels the lemon brandy as well. He flops down on the bench. The dog follows his example by slumping on the ground.

‘Are you two tired?’ she asks, turning and sitting down herself.

‘Yes,’ he says.

The dog doesn’t react.

Dinie grabs his arm. At first he thinks she wants to support him even now, seated, but when she keeps squeezing he realises it’s something else. She stands up and, as she doesn’t let go, he’s forced to stand up too. And now she starts walking, pulling him along behind her, he has to watch carefully where to put his stick. Swinging it and putting it down, swinging it and putting it down again. Then suddenly she stops, clapping one hand over her mouth. Without a single word of encouragement the dog has followed them and now rushes on past and up to the tall and narrow but, above all, filthy headstone, which it starts to lick with abandon.

Dieke looks out through one of the living-room windows. The window with the crack. The blades of grass are still completely motionless, but the colour is a lot different from this morning. It’s around eight o’clock, she should have been in bed ages ago. Standing behind her is her mother. Her father is in the kitchen, sitting at the table that still has to be cleared. He rustles the newspaper.