by lize Spit
Most of the time I don’t have any trouble remembering a joke or riddle, as long as I can remember the face of the person who told it to me, their tone, the rhythm of the sentences and pauses used to build up suspense, how their tongue moved in their mouth, whether they’d just drunk milk and still had white threads of saliva on their lips.
The riddle came to me yesterday—no face, no voice, no emphatic pauses or milk threads. That’s what worries me now. A riddle’s weakest point is its origin. Who knows, maybe Pim or Laurens told it to me once, maybe I read it in a book. Once a riddle has been published in the local paper, it can’t be used again for years.
I bike through town at lightning speed. In the pocket of my faded jeans are the four fifty-euro bills. It’s the first time I’ve ever had so much money in my pocket, and the first time I’ve ever been late. My delay has nothing to do with the two hundred euros, but if Pim or Laurens asks, I’ll say I forgot the money and had to turn back halfway. I actually do have a valid excuse, but it’s useless because I can’t tell anyone: Tessie spent over an hour in the shower this afternoon. Probably because she kept making mistakes—didn’t step in right over left, didn’t rub in the shampoo the right way. In the end, she must’ve had to scrub herself ten times before she got it right, because when she finally came out the skin on her neck and arms was bright red. Of course, I shouldn’t have waited until the bathroom was empty to brush my teeth, but I wanted to make sure she got clean.
Laurens’s mother looks up in surprise as I lock my bike in the butcher shop parking lot. I haven’t been here in a while.
She smiles over a customer’s shoulder and points to the side of the house. I don’t have to enter through the shop. I’m still allowed to use the side door.
She almost always smiles when she sees me. Not the quick, grateful smile she flashes Pim or the priest and other customers for hanging out with her son or consuming her meat. No, her smile forms more slowly for me; it’s more rigid and a little bit sad and wrinkles her face, as if her lips weren’t really made for it.
I know why she does it, what I did to deserve this special grimace.
She told me herself, confessed it really, at Laurens’s tenth birthday party. We were too old for a bouncy castle, but I think she wanted to see us little one last time. She rented the biggest inflatable palace they had.
I was sitting off to the side taking a break and watching Pim do perfect back flips. Laurens’s mom came up beside me.
“You okay?” she asked. I just said “yeah” because I didn’t know what she was getting at.
“You want to jump with us?” I asked her.
“Oh, I can’t do that,” she said. “Have you seen the size of me?”
“Yes,” I said.
For a moment she looked at me insulted.
“I’m no good either,” I said, “I’ve got elephant feet.” I pressed my finger over one of the tiny holes in one of the seams to stop the air from leaking out.
“You don’t have elephant feet,” she said.
I shrugged.
She plopped down beside me, her butt sinking halfway down into the slowly deflating castle. I slid into her and ended up with my arm pressed against her right side. She didn’t squirm or try to push me off her or anything.
Then she just started talking.
“You know, Eva, when you and Laurens were still in kindergarten, your Mom and I used to chat outside the school. One time, I was watching her pedal away, and all of a sudden, she just fell over, bike and all. You guys were little. Tessie was in the front, buckled into the child seat on the handlebars, legs forward. She was fine. But you were sitting on the saddlebags with your legs hanging on either side.”
Every time Laurens and Pim landed a flip, we bounced up a bit and gently knocked into each other.
“I went over to help her, but she pushed me away. She was upset and told me to mind my own business. Jolan had been riding out in front on his BMX bike. He helped get your mom and her bike upright again. Tessie was crying, and he calmed her down. But you, Eva, you didn’t make a peep. You just sat there, clinging to the seat.”
Laurens’s mom pursed her lips, like she did when she sniffed her salads to make sure they were still fresh. Next to us, Laurens broke into an overconfident run. She waited a few seconds until he had safely landed.
“I’ll tell you, Eva, I couldn’t eat a bite that night. I just kept seeing Jolan helping your mom and her bike disappearing into the distance with your little legs dangling on either side of the saddlebags. Your right foot was twisted at a weird angle.”
She looked at me and for the first time gave me that smile, loving but filled with regret. She took my right ankle between her hands and petted my leg, longer than necessary, like I sometimes did to street cats, with firm strokes, hoping to charge them up with happiness so they would go on purring for hours after I was gone.
“These things happen,” I said. And I meant it. It was good Mom fell off her bike that day because it got me this: the smile she didn’t give to anybody else, that came from far away.
Laurens shot us a quizzical look but didn’t interrupt. As long as his mom was sitting there, the castle had more air in it, which meant that there were still more somersaults to be made.
I don’t think Laurens’s mom knows what happened between me and her son three weeks ago on our last day of school. Maybe she didn’t ask any questions when Laurens came home with the scratch on his face, maybe he didn’t dare to tell her what really happened.
I walk along the window display, open the gate on the side of the building, and pass by the door to the back of the shop. That’s Laurens’s dad’s domain. We were never allowed to go in there. Laurens’s mom always said there were knives so sharp in there that we could cut our eyes just looking at them. We knew this was unlikely, but still we never looked in for more than a few seconds.
I head into the courtyard. Under the awning are doors leading to various places: one to the old kitchen, one to the workshop, one to the giant walk-in freezer they installed during the first renovation.
The last time we played hide-and-seek, Pim hid in the walk-in freezer while I was counting to a hundred. The door locked behind him. It took a while before I dared to look for him among all the hanging carcasses. I found him balled up in a corner, lips blue, face pale. For the rest of the day, he smelled like death.
Behind the courtyard is a long narrow backyard with a wooden swing set and an old shed where they used to boil the hams and dry the salamis. It also contained a machine for vacuum-packing meat, which is why we called it the vacuum shed. Nobody ever goes in there anymore, but for some reason it’s where we’re meeting today.
The door’s already open. Laurens is sitting on a chair behind a desk with only three legs—it must be leaning on something I can’t see in the dark. The barn is full of cast-off furniture. A family from Kosovo could live in it, no problem. There are old bookshelves, a recliner with an old pair of reading glasses on top, a washstand, an old TV and a discarded heat blower. It’s really hot inside. Hanging above Laurens’s head is a strand of dark red, speckled sausages. They’d almost look festive if they weren’t made of meat.
“Is Pim here yet?” I ask.
“What does it look like?” Laurens eyes dart emphatically around the empty room. To his left is a dark imprint on the floor where the oven used to be.
I don’t dare to ask any more questions. I plop down on a wheelie office chair and roll myself around the room.
Laurens nervously opens and closes a desk drawer. I can’t blame him for not talking. I don’t have anything to say either. We keep a close eye on the door.
Pim hasn’t been here in a while. Maybe Laurens isn’t sure if he’s really coming, if he still knows how to get here.
“So,” I say. “What’s the plan?”
Laurens looks at the door again and sighs.
“Pim’s not coming alone. He’s bringing a girl. You’re going to recite your riddle, and she’ll try to solve it. An
d if she can’t, then . . .” He raises his eyebrows three times in sharp arches.
“Then we’ll make sausages out of her?” I ask, my eyes fixed on a drum of flour. But Laurens looks dead serious.
“You’ve got some imagination, you know that?” he says, trying to sound as offended as possible.
Outside, the gate clatters. Laurens jumps to his feet. Pim walks in. Behind him is a girl I immediately recognize: Buffalo Ann.
There are two Anns in Bovenmeer. One of them lives next door to me—she used to be our babysitter. The other Ann, the one standing in front of me, owes her nickname to the fact that she once showed up to track practice wearing Buffalo platform sneakers, thinking the heavy soles would make her legs move faster. Before the starting gun was even fired, she’d twisted both her ankles in all the pushing and shoving before the race. But that didn’t stop her from wearing those shoes. She wore them all the time.
Ann is a year younger than we are, but she tries to make up for it with the way she dresses. In addition to her Buffalos, she’s wearing a short black skirt, a yellow top, and a plastic tattoo necklace around her neck that reminds me of those nets they sell lemons in. The black-and-yellow color scheme is no coincidence; her dad is the president of the Lier soccer fan club.
She moves swiftly through the shed over to Laurens and doesn’t leave his side. She used to have a crush on Pim until it became clear that he was out of her league, so she set her sights on Laurens instead.
“Friends,” Pim says ceremoniously. He steps up onto a can of breadcrumbs so he’s a head taller than the rest of us. Laurens glances at the lid sagging under Pim’s weight but doesn’t say anything.
“I already explained the rules to Ann on the way here, didn’t I, Ann?”
She nods enthusiastically.
“Can you repeat them for us, please?” he asks.
“There’s a riddle. And a chance to win two hundred euros. I can guess as many times as I want, but each guess costs an item of clothing.” Ann pulls three pieces of chewing gum out of her pocket and grinds them down with her front teeth. I watch the white chunk morph into a different shape with every time she opens her mouth.
“Any questions?” Laurens asks.
“No,” she smacks.
“All right, Eva, over to you,” Pim says. “Let’s hear the riddle. Ann will start guessing. If she’s right, nod your head yes; if she’s wrong, shake your head no.”
“Did you hear that, Ann?” Laurens chimes in. “Eva is the only one here who knows the answer.”
I clear my throat and recite the riddle without looking at the boys. While I’m speaking, Ann pushes the gum between her front teeth with her tongue and lets it sit there, like putty between her upper and lower jaw.
“How am I supposed to know what happened to the guy?” she blurts out, letting the gum go.
“That’s why they call it a riddle,” Laurens says. “Start asking yes or no questions, so you can figure it out.” The look on his face suggests that he has no idea where to start either.
“Okay, okay, give me a second to think.” She tugs at her plastic choker, loosening it up so that it’s even more obvious that it’s not a real tattoo.
It’s so quiet that we can hear the bell over the shop door in the distance. I try to imagine how the sound reached us all the way from the front of the house, what it had to hit and dodge along the way.
“You want me to tell another riddle?”
Pim motions for me to shut up.
“Did he wet his pants? Is that how the water got there?” Ann tries.
Pim and Laurens look at me. This is what they would have guessed too. I let the suspense build up for a second, then shake my head.
“No, he didn’t wet his pants.”
Ann lets out a deep sigh and pulls the choker over her head.
“That thing doesn’t count,” Pim says immediately. “It’s not an item of clothing.”
Without protest, Ann pulls her underwear down under her tight miniskirt. It’s a thong. She folds it into a square and stuffs it into her pocket. Maybe she’s thinking about leaving it at that. Whether she starts with her underwear or not, she’s only got four guesses. But apparently she’s not worried.
“Was there a chair or a ladder in the room?”
“That was already given in the riddle,” I reply. “I said the room was empty.”
Ann’s already reaching for the bottom of her yellow top. Arms crossed, she lifts up the lower edge, revealing a pale belly and sports bra. She tosses the shirt on the ground.
“You can stop, you know,” I say.
Ann chews her gum at full speed.
“Did he fall through the ceiling?” she blurts out in the hope that it might only count for half a piece of clothing. She’s looking only at Pim. This isn’t about winning two hundred euros.
I shake my head.
Ann reaches behind her back and unfastens her bra. She slides down the straps, and it lands on the floor next to her top. She has small, average breasts. Exactly what you’d expect from her.
Laurens and Pim look at her without flinching—as if they can’t believe someone’s actually going along with this. They stare at her belly button. Laurens doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He wants to shove them into his pockets, but he doesn’t have any, so he sticks them under the edges of his pants.
Standing there under the sausage bunting, with only two Buffalos and a short skirt left, Ann becomes awkward and vulnerable, like a newborn calf with oversized hooves. Pim takes a step closer.
“You’ve got one shot left,” he says. “Shoes count for one guess.”
Suddenly, Ann’s embarrassed. She covers her upper body with her arm. The thought of taking off her shoes suddenly makes her feel naked.
“I’ll stop,” she says.
“Okay, shoes count for two then,” says Laurens.
“No.” Ann bends over and wraps her arms around her knees. She scoops up her clothes. There’s nothing sadder than a pile of recently removed clothing on the floor. She wrenches her T-shirt back on.
“Too bad,” says Pim.
Ann takes the thong out of her pocket, unfolds it and holds it up to see which side is the front. She pushes her feet through the holes. One of the platform sneakers gets caught on the fabric and she stumbles. Laurens catches her.
No one says a word.
I don’t know what else to say except sorry, but I can’t say that because I’m one of the guys.
As she’s walking out of the courtyard, Pim and Laurens high-five.
“Not bad for a five-pointer,” Pim says.
“But she’s definitely not a six,” Laurens says. He looks at his watch. “So far our system is spot on.”
“So we’ll leave it on the cemetery wall as-is. Buffalo Ann, five out of ten.” Pim nods.
I sit back down in the chair and roll myself over to them. Only then do they notice I’m still here.
“You came up with the best riddle ever,” Pim says.
“So, what did you think?” Laurens asks me. “You can talk now, by the way.”
I shrug and check to make sure I still have the money. I pull it out and pass it to them.
“No, you hold onto it,” Laurens says. “It’s for you. Not really for you, but for the bank. You’re the secretary.”
“Why am I the secretary?”
“We need one for sampling purposes.” Pim steps back up onto the can of breadcrumbs. “You should know that. All these years we’ve been making rough estimates. Now we’re making sure we haven’t been wrong all along. A sampling only counts when it’s done properly.” At the word “sampling”, he licks his finger, forms a circle with his thumb and forefinger and punches the wet finger through the hole.
Laurens forces a loud laugh but stops when he sees the worried look on my face. “We need you. Without a bank, no one will play. It’s like the lottery—it’s not valid without an official.” He reaches up and grabs one of the sausages, yanks it off the line and snaps it in
half. A clot of coagulated fat lands on his chin.
Conscience
IN FOURTH GRADE, I gave my conscience a name and a face. Miss Emma was left-handed and wore her hair in a bun that, even after looking at it for a really long time, you still couldn’t figure out how it stayed so firmly in place. On her forehead were three parallel wrinkles. She reminded me of a picture from the Miffy memory game we played at home sometimes—not a lot of lines were needed to draw her.
Miss Emma wasn’t married. In addition to teaching at the primary school, she volunteered at the White and Yellow Cross and gave first-aid courses to local clubs. Students could go to her with their more embarrassing problems: girls who got their chin or boys who got their foreskin stuck in a zipper. She had small, soft hands and could provide resuscitation if necessary.
In third grade—when we were all in our Roald Dahl phase—I noticed that the tip of Miss Emma’s right pinky was missing. She saw me staring at it. “Oh, I’ve tried watching it grow back,” she said, “but so far it hasn’t helped.”
It was her “so far” that left just enough room for hope. During the afternoon recess, while the rest of the class was whizzpopping, conjuring Snozzcumbers out of lunchboxes, and slurping Frobscottle through a straw, I watched Miss Emma monitoring the playground. I narrowed my eyes like Matilda and tried to make her little finger grow back. After a while, I stopped, mostly because I started to doubt what I was trying to achieve. Did I want to fix her finger so she would adopt me? That would be sad for my parents, I thought. They weren’t nearly as bad as the ones in the book—they at least had better intentions. They weren’t crooks.
How exactly Miss Emma became my conscience the next year, I don’t know. I only know when it happened: it was on a Thursday afternoon during arts and crafts. Usually, she only taught sixth-graders, but that day some of the teachers got shifted around, and she ended up in charge of our class for a few hours.
She gave me, Laurens and Pim the same assignment she gave everyone else. There was a storybook cassette playing in the background, but we never got past the first side of the tape because arts and crafts only lasted forty minutes. After recess, we still had to do an hour of religion. Miss Emma walked around the classroom while we were working. She stood behind my chair the longest.