The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By
Page 20
Of course. He also wondered whether . . . but why not?
‘Let her accept it.’
‘You think so?’
Wasn’t it odd, that he was being asked for his view, here in the madhouse? They developed the habit of asking his opinion about everything, the most trivial details, such as those that, back in Groningen, had been the subject of endless family debate.
‘I’m wondering whether we should rent an apartment with a kitchen. Of course, the rent would be higher, but then . . .’
Of course, of course. He would approve. He would contribute his opinion. And Mama was more Mama than ever, though instead of sticking pictures in her album she was sticking God knows what together at De Jonghe’s.
‘They let me have biscuits half-price.’
‘Well, that’s marvellous, isn’t it.’
Given that there was nobody who could remotely understand him. This was surely the best way, wasn’t it?
He was so well behaved that he was allowed to spend two or three hours with two other inmates, both obviously insane, but one of them only became deranged at nightfall, while the other was the most reasonable man in the world as long as he was not contradicted.
‘But be careful, Kees!’ the doctor had warned him: ‘The slightest bit of trouble and it’s back to solitary.’
Why would he contradict these poor people? He let them say what they liked. Then when they had finished, he might start:
‘Well, when I was in Paris . . .’
Then he would soon stop short.
‘But you won’t understand. It doesn’t matter. If only you could play chess, though.’
He made himself a chess set out of paper, from the pages of the exercise book, so as to play against himself. Not that he was bored, because he never got bored, but out of a kind of sentimentality about the past.
What could it matter now? He was not even angry when he thought about Chief Inspector Lucas. He could see him again, walking around him, questioning him, poking him, and he knew that he, Popinga, had won the game. So what?
No, he was not going to argue with his fellow-inmates, or with Mama, who had not changed, nor with anyone. And he even managed not to keep track of time passing; so that he smiled when one day Mama announced:
‘This is awkward. I don’t know what I should do. De Jonghe’s nephew has fallen for Frida, and . . .’
From her emotion, he recognized that she came from the outside world, that she didn’t have the experience of a Kees Popinga. She was turning it into an affair of state! You would have thought the fate of the world depended on it.
‘What’s he like?’
‘Not bad. Very well brought up. He may not be very strong. He spent some of his childhood in Switzerland.’
It was really funny! That was the only word for it.
‘And Frida’s in love with him?’
‘She told me that if she can’t marry him, she’ll never marry anyone.’
‘Well then, tell them to get married.’
‘Only the thing is, the young man’s parents . . .’
Were of course hesitating to let their son marry the daughter of a madman!
Well, let them sort it out! He could do no more. He even took it a little too far, to the point that one day the doctor, seeing him poring over a game of chess, stayed more than a quarter of an hour behind him, watching the outcome, then murmured: ‘Would you like it if we had a game now and then, at teatime? I see that you are very good!’
‘Well, it’s so easy, isn’t it?’
But all the same, when he found himself facing the doctor, and playing with a proper chess set, the black pieces made of ebony and the white of pale wood, he could not resist the urge to play another practical joke.
This time, they were not in the Groningen chess club, or on Boulevard Saint-Michel in Paris. On the table, there were just two cups of tea and yet, seeing a bishop threatening him, Popinga could not help purloining it, under cover of handling another piece, and dropping it in his tea, as he had once done with the beer glass.
The doctor was taken aback for a moment, then he saw the chessman in the cup, wiped his forehead and murmured as he stood up:
‘Excuse me: I had forgotten I had another appointment.’
Fancy that! What if Popinga had done it on purpose? If it amused him to remember certain things?
‘You must excuse me too,’ he said. ‘It’s an old story. I can’t explain, and you certainly wouldn’t understand.’
Too bad. It was safer this way. As was proved when the doctor thought of asking him for the exercise book he had given him to write his memoirs in, and where all that could be read for now was:
The Truth about the Kees Popinga Case.
The doctor looked up, astonished, and seemed to be wondering why his patient had not written any more. And Popinga, with his forced smile, felt obliged to say:
‘There’s no such thing as truth, is there?’
What’s next on
your reading list?
Discover your next
great read!
* * *
Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.
Sign up now.