Gerbrand Bakker - June

‘Mother. Wait. Did you see them at it?’

‘…’

‘So how do you know —’

‘…’

‘What’s the baker say?’

‘…’

‘He’s absolutely right about that. Tomorrow.’

Johan can’t stay where he is any longer. His legs are itching, he can’t stop wracking his brain about which women he’s seen today except for his mother and Klaas’s wife, and he also saw the Piccaninny with the bucket full of cow shit, and although he remembers climbing up a ladder and talking to his mother, he now thinks about his mother properly for the first time today, that she’s up on the straw, and the bucket full of thrashing fish. Did somebody remember to tip them back in the ditch? He stands up and walks outside, where it’s still refusing to rain. But it does feel a little cooler than the hall. ‘Jesus H. Christ!’ he screams into the silent street. ‘It’s hot!’ He limps over to the other side of the road, sits down in the gutter and stares back at the building he lives in. The sign over the door says THE LINK ; the neon light above it has already flicked on. He takes off his T-shirt. He’s tired, very tired.

A little later Toon comes out too. He crosses without looking left or right and sits down next to him.

‘Do you think Jan will e-ver come to v-isit me?’ Johan asks.

‘Ah, Johan.’ Toon wraps an arm around his shoulders.

‘Sh-all we go to the s-tation?’

‘Later. Maybe.’

A woman comes past with a dog. She frowns at them, or so Johan thinks. ‘What you looking at?’ he says. ‘Bitch.’

Strange perhaps, but he can’t stop thinking about those French beans. After getting home and parking in front of the garage, he walks into the kitchen for a glass of water, then immediately heads back out to crawl through the branches of the first chestnut he cut down. It’s not easy, sometimes he has to hang almost upside down to pick a few beans. It’s not very solid, chestnut wood, and a few branches crack under his weight. When he thinks he’s picked himself a decent meal, plenty for two people, he calls it a day. He wipes the sweat from his face and puts the colander of beans in the scullery. Rekel is sitting on the tiles by the side door, making a show of yawning while doing his best not to look at his master. ‘You want to eat!’ Zeeger says. ‘I completely forgot.’ He scoops two mugs of dry feed into the bowl and moves into the kitchen to let the dog eat in peace.

He turns on the TV and goes over to stand at the sliding doors. ‘Why doesn’t it rain?’ he asks himself out loud. He turns the TV off again. As he makes his way through the scullery on his way out, the dog growls quietly. In the garage he’s welcomed by the same guy who was reporting from the beach this morning, saying exactly the same things. When they hand over to Jan Visser, the weatherman, he realises that it’s a repeat. ‘ Tomorrow, listeners, we’ll have a completely different take on the world. ’ Good, thinks Zeeger. He picks up a couple of Christmas trees off the pile in the corner and inspects them. They’re still unpainted. He puts them on his workbench and picks up the tin of green paint. When he’s about to flick off the lid, he changes his mind and hangs the screwdriver back up on the tool wall. Tomorrow’s better, when Anna’s back and will call him in for coffee around ten. Maybe she’ll feel like going to the car boot sale in Sint Maartenszee next week; she can sell something herself too. The fishing rods are standing in another corner, he’s already tidied them away after everyone left them lying on and near the bridge. He emptied the bucket as well; there were already two fish floating belly up. Rekel comes into the garage slowly, his head hanging. ‘Come on, boy,’ says Zeeger. ‘We’ll go and sit by the ditch for a while.’

The dog sits obediently next to the deckchair he’s set down between two willows. Zeeger thinks about the grave and decides that tomorrow — no, Monday — he’ll buy a sack of gravel to really finish it off. Light-coloured gravel. And maybe a new shrub? There was a conifer once, a conifer that was supposed to stay small, but after about four years it had already plunged a few of the neighbouring graves into shadow. He removed it just in time, before the roots went too deep. No, no shrub. But fresh gravel, definitely. I have to ask Klaas if he’ll strip the chestnuts. I’m not up to that any more. Not three big trees in one go. ‘Come down, woman!’ he shouts. ‘It’s light! Your kitchen isn’t dark any more!’ He’s startled the dog, which stands up and crosses the bridge, then wavers in the barn doorway at the border of light and dark. Something’s moving behind the tilting window in the farmhouse roof. The curtain slides aside a little and Dieke’s face appears. She waves to him. Zeeger waves back. She can’t sleep, of course, after a day like today. He wonders whether he’ll be able to sleep himself later: another night alone. Maybe she’ll come down off the straw. Everyone’s gone, the job’s been taken care of. She must get hungry and thirsty sooner or later? Dieke slides the curtains shut again. When he looks back at the barn, Rekel’s gone. Has it got something to do with Soestdijk too? he wonders.

Soon after the party, Anna wanted to go to Soestdijk. She was irritable. ‘While we still can,’ she said. ‘Soon they’ll turn it into a hotel.’ One morning, ten or so days ago, they’d climbed into the car, although he actually found driving increasingly difficult and didn’t want to make long journeys any more. The drive went smoothly, but at the entrance they ran into a hitch. The woman at the counter asked them for their tickets. ‘Tickets?’ said Anna. ‘That’s what we want to buy.’ It turned out that wasn’t possible, you needed to order and pay for the tickets on the internet. ‘Internet?’ said Anna. ‘Do you know how old we are?’ They had to wait and, just before the first tour was due to start, they were allowed in after all, as a few people hadn’t showed up. It was quite a walk from the entrance to the palace and Anna had linked arms with him. He noticed that the guide annoyed her: she spoke with a German accent, as if she was entering into her role just a little too much. Anna was indifferent to the old rooms and grew a little nervous on their way to Bernhard’s study. There was nothing there. The room was empty. ‘But, why?’ she asked the guide. ‘Well,’ the answer went, ‘just as in ordinary families, things are shared out among the next of kin after a bereavement.’ ‘Terrible,’ Anna said quietly, so quietly only he could hear. A tear appeared in her eye at the sight of how run-down it was, how drab and decrepit, even the dining room, where furniture had been left in place, original and simple. ‘They sat in here,’ Anna said, running her fingers over a damaged sideboard. ‘No touching!’ the guide exclaimed. ‘Zeeger, they sat in here,’ Anna repeated, ‘back then too.’ Finally, Juliana’s study, also empty. But with new carpet on the floor. It was good that Anna was standing close to him because when the guide told them that this was where the old Queen had been laid out, her knees went weak and she leant heavily on him. ‘Terrible,’ she said again. ‘Did that poor old woman spend her last years in these run-down rooms?’ After that they did a circuit of the garden. ‘There’s nothing left,’ Anna said when they reached the greenhouses. ‘All empty.’ There were sweet peas growing in front of the greenhouses. It was a brisk day, drizzling. The next day it warmed up and it hasn’t cooled off since.

Rekel comes out of the barn yowling, and when he lies down next to the deckchair the yowling gives way to whimpering. ‘What’s the matter?’ Zeeger asks. ‘Has she chased you off?’ A slight ripple passes through the dead-still ditchwater, the top of the ancient pear tree rustles. Zeeger turns his head. He can’t see if it’s already formed minuscule little pears, but in four or five months they’ll be ripe, even if it’s not always easy to tell with stewing pears: they’re that hard. And green. It’s only after hours of simmering at the lowest setting that they change colour. It’s a Gieser Wildeman, the tastiest stewing pear there is. If only it was October already.