Gerbrand Bakker - June

He has the idea that the light is already fading as he, bare-chested, starts to dig a hole just to the side of the gate he, Dieke and Jan were sitting and leaning on yesterday evening. It’s heavy work: the ground is dry and hard. He runs a hand across his forehead a couple of times. When the hole is deep enough, he fetches the wheelbarrow with the dead sheep and pushes it to the edge. Rekel, apparently no longer offended, is doing a circuit of the yard and comes over to see what he’s up to, stopping at the open gate and sitting. He’s learned not to go onto the road or into the fields. He holds his head at an angle, finding it difficult not to approach the dead animal. Klaas tips the sheep into the hole and shovels earth on top of it. The burial mound will sink in time. When he’s finished he leans on the spade, looking out over the fields. They’re empty. He sees grass and grey sky. He only notices how very quiet it is when he hears quacking from the broad ditch a bit further to the right. Rekel wanders over to the ditch. He doesn’t bark, he already did that earlier this evening. He knows the Barbary duck, he knows how old it is.

Empty fields, and he sees all kinds of things.

Johan watches the car drive off. Jan is sitting in the back, staring at the headrest of the front passenger seat where he, Johan, was just sitting. Behind him a door opens. TV noise fills the wide hall. ‘Y-es, Toon,’ he says. ‘N-o, Toon. O-K, Toon.’

‘I didn’t say a word,’ Toon says. ‘Leave the door open for a bit. Why are you walking so funny?’

‘I w-alked ten kilo metres with a bag of s-tones on my back. I’ve got b-listers!’

‘Shall I look at them? With a needle and some iodine?’

‘N-o, leave it. I’d have to t-ake my socks off and I don’t f-eel like taking my socks off. They’ll be fine.’ He goes into the communal living room, where three of the other guys are slumped on an old brown sofa. They’re staring at some game show or other and don’t look up when he comes in. Two of them have taken off their T-shirts. When Toon comes in, one of them shouts, ‘Door!’ Toon leaves it open and sits down at the dining table with Johan, in the short section of the L-shaped room. There is big cane lampshade over the table. Johan rests his forearms on the tabletop and intertwines his fingers. ‘I just c-aught four fish,’ he says.

‘Did you wash your hands?’

‘Yes.’

Toon looks at the clock on the wall. ‘You’re more than two hours late home.’

Home, thinks Johan. Is this my home? ‘I’ve h-ad a busy day.’

‘You were with your little sister.’

‘Y-es. Shall I tell you about it?’

‘That’s OK. I already know.’

‘Oh, y-eah?’

‘Yep.’

‘Shhhhh!’ shouts one of the guys on the sofa.

‘And Jan was there too.’

‘Y-es. He’s g-oing bald.’

‘That doesn’t matter, does it?’

‘Y-ou’d like him, Toon.’

‘I do like him.’

‘Oh, y-eah?’ Johan stares at his support worker. That doesn’t bother Toon. Someone like Jan can’t bear it, he noticed that again this afternoon. People get nervous around him. Even his own brother.

‘Yeah,’ says Toon, staring right back.

‘He was just in the car. My f-ather d-ropped me off, but you didn’t see the car.’

‘Pity.’

‘Shut up!’ someone else shouts from the sofa.

‘Y-ou’re a p-retty nice guy,’ Johan says, watching his fingers wriggle. ‘And I th-ink Jan’s p-retty nice too, though I’m n-ot sure.’

‘I think he is.’

‘He’s th-inking about Hanne and that’s why he for-got to get out of the car and see who you are.’ Johan screws up his eyes, making a deep frown appear in his forehead. ‘I s-aid, come in for a s-econd, see who T-oon is.’

‘And?’

‘And n-ow he’s on the t-rain and thinking, sh-it.’

Toon smiles and looks over at the sofa where the three other guys are still slumped in front of the TV, feet up on the coffee table.

Johan pulls the pack of Marlboros out of his back pocket and lights one. ‘He’ll c-ome some time. He has to come v-isit me some time, doesn’t he?’

‘We’ll wait till he does.’

‘Cut the crap, will you?’ shouts the third guy.

Crap? Johan sucks in a lungful of smoke and then thinks of something, something from the afternoon. ‘A t-ree nursery,’ he whispers, leaning over the table. ‘Is that a lot of work?’

‘Not at all,’ Toon whispers, looking like he knows what he’s talking about. ‘You plant trees, let them grow, weed them occasionally, and then you sell them at a profit.’

‘Th-at’s all?’

‘Sure. Do you want to work at a tree nursery? It’s time you did something, Johan. You can’t spend your whole life sitting in the courtyard in your undies.’

‘Y-ou don’t m-ind that,’ he whispers.

‘Of course not. Beer? You’ve earned a beer.’ Toon stands up and gets two cold beers out of the fridge. He flicks off the tops and sits down again.

Johan holds the bottle against his cheek before taking the first mouthful. ‘Toon,’ he whispers, ‘I’m not ug-ly, am I?’

‘Telephone!’ shouts one of the guys. ‘Toon! Telephone!’

Toon looks up from the papers he was reading with a pen in his hand. ‘Johan, can you get that?’

He stands up, puts his empty bottle on the table, takes the first steps with one hand on the tabletop. The hall door is still open and so is the outside door. The old-fashioned phone is on a rectangular side table. He picks it up.

‘Y-es?’

‘…’

‘Jo-han.’

‘…’

‘Who?’

‘…’

‘Oh, Toon. Y-es, I’ll call him. Toon!’

Toon is already in the doorway. ‘You have to say, “Good evening, this is the Link,”’ he says, taking the receiver from Johan.

Johan’s legs feel very heavy. Although both doors are open, there’s not a breath of air in the hall. He sits down on the chair next to the table — the phone chair — and rubs his nose dry. ‘Do it y-our self then,’ he says quietly. On the wall opposite is a poster of a sunny island. With a beach, palm trees and a green sea. Next to the poster is a big pot plant. Judging by the sound of the TV, a police series has started.

‘Yes?’ Toon says. ‘Toon speaking.’

‘…’

‘Calm down. Take a deep breath.’

‘…’

‘Just say Toon for once. It can’t be that difficult.’

‘…’

‘What? What’s happened?’

‘…’

‘Cow shit?’

‘Who’s that?’ Johan asks.

Toon waves for him to be quiet.

‘Y-es, b-ut…’

‘Johan, not now. Mother… calm down a little… Who are you talking to?’

‘…’

‘The baker? Which baker?’

‘…’

‘Clean it off.’

‘…’

‘No, you don’t have to go straight to the police. Talk to someone from the council first.’

‘…’

‘I know it’s Saturday night. You can still —’

‘…’

‘The Kaan boys? Which ones?’

Johan has long since stopped looking at the sea, the beach and the palm trees. He’s looking at Toon, who’s talking a little impatiently and tracing circles in the air with one hand. That means hurry up, at least Johan thinks it does. He’s a Kaan boy himself and the woman he just spoke to wanted to talk to Teun but there’s nobody called Teun here at all. Now Toon’s looking at him with a relieved expression and his hand has stopped going round in circles and started twisting back and forth instead. As if to say ‘that was a close one’ or ‘we got out of that by the skin of our teeth’. Or something else, he can’t think straight. Besides giving him heavy legs, the cold beer has also made him light-headed.