Tommy Wieringa - These Are the Names

Scarcity, Beg thinks.

He slides a chair up beside the bed, but doesn’t sit down. Instead he stands at the barred window, his hands behind his back, looking out at a radiant white park. The north side of each tree is flecked with fine snow. Maybe, when his days on the force are over, he will become a gardener — a man with a wheelbarrow and a hoe. He knows a few things about plants and the seasons. His flowerbeds will be a comfort to the patients.

‘It’s been snowing,’ he says. ‘There’s more on its way. You people got in just in time.’

He turns around, walks to the bed, and sits down. The neutral coldness in the boy’s eyes feels unpleasant. Children sometimes make him feel inferior, as though he’s sold out by becoming an adult. Again the faint memory returns of the boy he once was at the weir — his thin, effective body, still devoid of both fat and memories, pinned in place between dive and impact. That’s how a fifty-three-year-old man looks at a boy of thirteen, from a distance as far away as it is close by.

These are things he can’t tell the boy in the bed, because he wouldn’t believe him if he did. In the boy’s world, grownups have always been the way they are now; earlier manifestations are too hard to believe.

‘What’s your name?’ he asks.

No reply.

‘Where do you people come from?’

Somewhat to his amazement, he hears the boy say: ‘I don’t know.’

He has a high, clear voice, almost like a girl’s.

Beg leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees. ‘What do you mean, you don’t know? You know where you come from, don’t you?’

The boy shrugs his skinny shoulders — a sparrow’s bones. Then he says: ‘I saw you when that man shaved off my hair.’

‘That’s right,’ Beg says. ‘I’m the boss at the police station.’

The boy runs his free hand over his shaven head.

‘You have no idea how filthy it was,’ Beg says. ‘When was the last time you’d washed your hair?’

‘We didn’t have any soap,’ the boy says, offended.

‘That’s true,’ Beg says. He clears his throat. ‘But now I still don’t know who you are or where you people come from.’

‘You weren’t there,’ the boy says. ‘So you don’t have to know.’

Beg grins. ‘I wish I could say you were right, but we found a human head in your baggage. Did you know about that?’

The boy remains motionless.

‘One of you beat that man’s brains in,’ Beg says, ‘and then cut off his head. That puts you on my turf, criminal turf. I want to know everything about who did it, and why. Then the rest of you can go home.’

A veil has descended over the boy’s eyes. ‘You weren’t there,’ he repeats feebly.

‘That’s exactly why I need you to tell me what happened, because I wasn’t there. The sooner you do that, the sooner you’ll be out of here. You don’t want to stay here, do you?’

The boy shakes his head. His gaze wanders across the wall.

‘You want to go home, don’t you?’ Beg asks.

The boy purses his lips and shakes his head almost imperceptibly. Somewhere a madman begins screaming. ‘Shut! Up! Shut! Up! Shut! Up!’ another one shrieks.

‘They scream all day and all night,’ the boy says quietly. ‘Why do they scream like that?’

‘That’s what crazy people do. No one knows why.’

The boy slides his feet back and forth under the blanket.

‘What’s your name?’ Beg asks. ‘You can tell me that, can’t you?’

‘No one needs to know that.’

‘I do. I need to. Without a name, I’m not leaving here.’

‘Nacer Gül,’ the boy says.

‘So your name is Nacer Gül,’ Beg says slowly. ‘And where are you from, Nacer Gül?’

‘You said you were going to leave.’

‘Whoa, wait a minute, I said I wasn’t going to leave without a name, not that I would leave with a name.’

He sees the boy’s amused surprise. The wordplay appeals to him.

‘So then when will you leave?’

‘As soon as I know everything.’

A sigh. ‘Not before that?’

‘Not before that.’

‘It’s nobody’s business. Only the ones who were there. I can’t explain it. You weren’t there.’ He looks at Beg. ‘So you can’t understand.’

Two bumps slide back and forth under the blanket at the foot end.

‘Don’t underestimate me too quickly,’ Beg says. ‘There are a lot of things I can understand. Even things that happened when I wasn’t there. I’ve been a policeman for thirty-four years, I’ve seen a lot. Really nasty things, but also really funny things. In fact, maybe I’m able to understand too much.’

‘What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen?’

‘There isn’t really a list from bad to worst—there are just some things you forget, and other things you keeping thinking about.’

It’s quiet for a moment, then he says: ‘I often think about this one girl. What we think, what you could sort of tell from the things she had with her, was that she was hitchhiking. It was summertime; she was wearing summer clothes. They found her in a ditch at the side of the road. She’d been there all winter. In her bag there was a diary, some pictures, tickets for a rock concert. Just a girl, maybe a little more reckless than other girls … She took a little too much of a risk, I think. But who she is … We’ll probably never know.’

He thinks about it for a moment, then says: ‘That shouldn’t have happened, you know what I mean?’

He doesn’t know exactly what it is about the story that affects him so. The lost innocence, perhaps; the unfulfilled potential, maybe …

‘Her father and mother don’t know where she is?’

Beg shakes his head. ‘They’re still waiting for her. A person who doesn’t come home isn’t dead. The door stays open a crack.’

‘Yeah,’ the boy says.

‘Yeah,’ Beg says, too. He lays a finger on the boy’s nose, pushing it to one side a bit. ‘And what about you?’ he asks then. ‘Someone’s waiting for you, too. I heard you have a brother. Your parents — are they still alive?’

The boy nods.

‘I’m sure they’d like to know where you are. I could let them know that you’re safe.’

‘Who says I’m safe?’

‘I do. I say that. Maybe you don’t like it here, but you’re safe. A thousand times safer than out there.’

‘I hate it here.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘At night the screaming is even worse. I don’t know why I’m here. I didn’t do anything.’

‘That’s good news. So then the only thing I need to know is who actually did do something. If you tell me that, I’ll help you to get out of here as quickly as possible. Once you’re fixed up a little. Once you’ve got your strength back.’

‘I didn’t do anything,’ the boy says resentfully. ‘So why do I have to stay here?’

‘That’s kind of a technical thing,’ Beg replies, ‘but I’m allowed to tell you. You people were trying to get across the border, right? Without passports or anything. Crossing the border illegally is a crime. It’s punishable.’

The muscles tense around the boy’s jaws.

‘But that’s not the worst thing. If it was only that, I wouldn’t keep you here too long — so many people try to do that. The black man’s head, that’s what it’s about. That’s a much bigger problem. I can’t be lenient about that.’

The feet slide back and forth restlessly under the blanket.

Beg says: ‘There are things you’re not telling me because you’re afraid of the others. Am I right?’

He sees nothing that looks like confirmation.

‘You’re safe here — there’s nothing to be afraid of. The others can’t hurt you.’

The boy shakes his head.

‘What?’