Nine Open Arms

by Benny Lindelauf

  Van Wessum, that was who.

  Van Wessum who, across the ocean, had had his palm read and ever since had firmly believed he would get married on his fortieth.

  But then, he was rich, wasn’t he. And the rich could do what they liked. The townspeople knew better than to remark on it: the bricks from his factory meant bread on the table for many in the town.

  Charley had never taken much notice of the gossip. Van Wessum might be a bit odd, but he certainly wasn’t crazy.

  He stared at the furniture.

  Was that when he got the idea?

  ‘Still on the road at this late hour?’ the gatekeepers remarked when Charley left the town the next evening.

  Charley nodded.

  It was quite a job getting everything out there without anyone seeing it, but God favours a lover. He pushed the cart behind a bush, climbed up the slope, walked into the cornfield, cleared an area, went back and lugged the lot, one piece at a time, into the maize. I must be crazy, he thought. Crazier than Lexidently, dimmer than Dimdog.

  As if he had a blueprint in his head, he knew exactly where everything had to go. Two hours it took him. Then he sat down and waited.

  He heard her coming. He heard her breathing, heard her push through the maize. There she came. He felt his back going tense; his eyes wouldn’t blink. There she came. There she was. She stepped into the cleared space. She saw. She took a step back, dumbfounded; she nearly fell over.

  She saw Nienevee’s house. Nienevee’s house in the middle of the cornfield, full of real furniture

  He had pushed boards under the legs so they wouldn’t sink into the soil.

  ‘So you can sit down properly, but don’t move too much,’ he warned.

  And Nienevee went from chair to chair. She sat at each side of the table in turn. He saw how she held her breath. He felt himself holding his.

  She liked the bed best.

  ‘Then I would be the lady and you the gentleman,’ she laughed.

  Since when could Nienevee laugh like that?

  She stepped into the empty bed, the bed without a mattress, without blankets. And he had to come, for she kept holding his hand. Nienevee couldn’t stop looking. She bent over the foot board, touching the carved figures and lines. She laughed out loud at the little chair that stood in the middle of the carved road.

  She touched the waving grain and said she could hear the wind.

  ‘How?’ she wanted to know.

  And he told her. About chisels and gouges, about tapping with the mallet. How force was only a small part of carving, and guiding the tool was at least as important. The right direction and the right depth. How timber could listen, but could also turn against you, even break, if it felt you weren’t listening back. And about the burin, his favourite tool. Did she see the grain swaying in the wind? The small side-towers of the church in the distance, the detail of the stones in the town wall? And the chair? All done with the burin.

  It was a warm night, one of the last of that year. They lay in Van Wessum’s bed, the dark shadows of the rest of the furniture around them, among the rustling maize.

  ‘You can ask me anything,’ she said.

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Anything.’

  He thought. ‘That little bundle for my father. What was in it?’

  ‘Travellers’ secret.’

  ‘That’s no answer.’

  She sat upright, leaning on her elbows. He could feel her breath.

  ‘Travellers’ blood, of course,’ she said. ‘The eye of a blind rabbit. Two—’ He put his hand over her mouth, surprising himself with his boldness.

  ‘I really want to know.’

  She gave him the Nienevee look. A probing look.

  She said, ‘Soil.’

  ‘Just soil?’

  ‘I didn’t say just.’

  ‘What sort of soil?’

  ‘Birth-soil,’ she said. ‘On the spot where a traveller is born, we take a handful of soil and wrap it in a bundle. So he will always know where he has come from. They say it helps.’

  ‘So what sort of soil did you give my father?’

  ‘Soil from here, of course, idiot.’

  He felt a little disappointed, but at the same time he felt as if somehow a load had fallen from him.

  ‘And what about Dimdog?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You saved her, didn’t you?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘She had poison in her stomach, didn’t she?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘But I saw with my own eyes how my father put rat poison into the sausage,’ he said irritably. ‘You saved her. With a travellers’ secret.’

  ‘Sometimes a secret isn’t what you think,’ she said.

  He kept his mouth shut. Perhaps that would be more useful.

  ‘Look,’ she said. In her hand she held a corncob. ‘What am I holding?’

  ‘A corncob.’

  ‘Shut your eyes for a minute.’

  Obediently, he did as he was told.

  ‘Now open them again.’

  He opened them again.

  ‘And now,’ she said. ‘What am I holding now?’

  He stared at her stupidly. ‘I told you. That corncob.’

  ‘Wrong,’ she said with a giggle.

  Nienevee giggling. Nienevee saying a corncob wasn’t a corncob. Things had better not get any weirder.

  ‘Take a look behind you.’

  He turned around. There lay another corncob.

  ‘There’s your corncob,’ she said.

  It only slowly dawned on him. ‘You had two of them.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Two corncobs.’ He looked at her, totally bewildered. ‘The sausage!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There were two sausages?’

  For a moment, he was lying facedown in the mud again, Lexidently’s hand pushing him down. For how long? Long enough . . .

  ‘But where did you get a second sausage from so quickly?’

  Nienevee grinned. ‘I told you, it wasn’t the first time. After a while, you get to know all kinds of townies’ welcomes. We saw you coming, we saw you aiming the sausage. While Lexi lay on top of you, I picked up the second sausage. You didn’t notice. In the dark, all sausages look alike.’

  He didn’t get it.

  ‘We always keep a sausage handy, Bottletop,’ she explained patiently. ‘One without poison. Another townie comes to poison our dogs. We grab him. You were lucky my father was asleep, because he usually makes the townie eat the sausage. The fake one, I mean. The townie thinks he’s very nearly dead. We tell him we know an antidote, but he’ll have to pay for it. You would be amazed how generous that makes a townie!’

  ‘But what about your dogs? They were sick, weren’t they?’

  ‘Travellers’ herbs. Makes anybody violently ill.’

  ‘So there are no travellers’ secrets? No travellers’ curses?’

  ‘Did I say that?’

  After that, he laughed and laughed. With every laugh, a bit of the mystery disappeared, but at the same time, something else took its place.

  That night, he hardly slept. All he could do was think: Nienevee, Nienevee, Nienevee.

  ask who waited

  Three nights he kept it up. At nightfall he loaded up his cart, rode to the cornfield, unloaded all the stuff. And early in the morning, as soon as the town gates were opened, he rode back. It was idiotic, it was insane, but he did it anyway.

  ‘Late night, Bottletop?’ said the guard.

  ‘Special order,’ said Charley. ‘Rich folk, you know how it is.’

  Charley and Nienevee talked less and less. There was no need. There were other things you could do that were very like talking.

  On the third night, she changed. The night sky was between black and dark-blue. Nienevee cried for Lexidently. Awkwardly, gently, Charley patted her head.

  ‘I’m not your dog,’ she said. She dried her tears roughly and started sobbing again.

/>   ‘And what are you crying about now?’ he asked.

  ‘About leaving,’ she said. And then, half-laughing, half-crying, ‘Can you imagine? A traveller who’s homesick?’

  ‘And what about your birth-soil?’

  ‘You shouldn’t believe everything I say.’

  ‘So that isn’t true?’

  ‘Not everything that’s true is right.’ After a long silence, she added: ‘If you ever tell anyone, I’ll murder you.’ And when it grew light: ‘Only when you lie under a stone slab with your name on it can you be sure you’re going to stay where you are.’

  ‘As long as I can lie there, too,’ said Charley.

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘But you would have to stop crying,’ said Charley.

  ‘Good,’ said Nienevee.

  ‘And be my girl,’ said Charley. The words sounded just right. A bit casual, as if it really didn’t matter too much to him.

  ‘Good,’ she said.

  Sometimes, words could do wonders.

  ‘I have a plan,’ said Charley.

  Actually, it was more a wish than a plan – an idea he’d had in his head for a long time.

  ‘We’ll go away together. Away from the town, away from the travellers. Somewhere else is always better.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure of that.’

  ‘Do you have a better plan?’

  She didn’t.

  ‘Aren’t you up for it?’ he asked. ‘Are you afraid of what people will think?’

  ‘I don’t give a shit about the townspeople,’ she said calmly. ‘I don’t give a shit about the travellers. I don’t give a shit about the whole world, if it comes to it. But I don’t know if you’ll be up for it.’

  And he was cross, and he was offended, and he turned his back towards her.

  ‘Alright then,’ she said.

  She was going to wait for him by the blackened oak.They were going to set out from there. At night. And he was absolutely certain that was what he wanted. He was certain it was what he had always wanted. To go away – to go Much Further Away.

  Until the moment he pulled the door of the workshop shut behind him. Until he walked out through the gate and left the town behind him.

  Then, suddenly, everything changed.

  He walked, stopped, walked on, stopped again.

  He felt the town walls behind him. He felt the wind blowing free.

  He broke into a sweat.

  He turned around, ran back, just managed to get through the gate before the guards pulled the creaking double doors shut.

  Nienevee ignored him for a month.

  ‘You have to be certain it’s what you want to do,’ she said later, furiously. ‘I need to be certain it’s what you want to do. If we go away, there’s no way back for me. I’ll be dead to the travellers.’

  He swore it was what he wanted. He said he’d got scared, panicked, but was terribly sorry afterwards. She had to believe him; she had to really, really believe him.

  Charley bought a cart and horse to carry his furniture-making gear.

  ‘Are you expanding?’ asked old Nol who ran the bar.

  ‘Working hard?’ asked Farmer Kalle. ‘We hardly ever see you nowadays.’

  If Charley had been paying more attention, he would have noticed the look those two exchanged.

  And so it was that on the evening Nienevee furtively packed up some clothes, waited for the other travellers to go to sleep and kept glancing towards Sjlammbams Sahara, Charley unexpectedly had a visit from Nol, Farmer Kalle and their sons.

  ‘Can you spare us a few lumps of coal, Charley?’

  Charley nodded. They came with him: four men and one coal-scuttle.

  That seems a lot of men for a little bit of coal, he thought briefly. But he didn’t give it another thought. He unlocked the workshop, lit the kerosene lantern. He kept the flame low so it would be less obvious that the workshop was nearly empty. He had loaded as much as possible onto the cart, leaving only the lathe – a dead pity, but it was just too heavy.

  ‘Been tidying up?’ said one of the men.

  He mumbled something about wishing the old rubbish a good riddance, and they laughed.

  He opened the coal shed.

  ‘Help yourselves,’ he said.

  ‘Could you get it out for us?’ said Kalle’s son, pointing at the very low door. ‘It’s easier for someone of your shape.’

  Charley took the coal-scuttle and stepped into the coal shed. And then the door shut.

  ‘For your own good,’ they said, bolting the door. ‘Give some thought to Lame Krit. He’d be turning in his grave if he knew.’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘Do you think the town is blind? Do you think we’re stupid? All those times you’ve gone down Sjlammbams Sahara with your cart full of furniture? Furniture for Van Wessum, I might add. We’re not mad.’

  ‘Let me out.’

  ‘Only when you can see sense.’

  ‘But I can see sense. I’ve never seen better sense than now. I’m going away.’

  ‘With that traveller girl? Not likely. You off with that wench . . . The travellers furious . . . What do you think happens next? They’ll have to blame somebody. And we don’t want to finish up with a curse on our backs.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as a curse.’

  The men turned around as one.

  He heard them walk away. He heard the gate to the courtyard closing and the key turning in the lock. Nobody would be able to hear him from here, but he shouted himself hoarse anyway.

  And he thought of Nienevee.

  Nienevee, who now stood waiting for him. With all her things. Nienevee, who had doubted if he really wanted to go. Nienevee, who could not go back.

  Later, much later, he heard that she had waited all night. Farmer Kalle had seen the travellers, who had been waiting for her and had given her a travellers’ farewell that could not be misunderstood. And it was Van Wessum, the brick-factory owner, who had found her the next morning, in the dip in the hillside, all alone, pale, grim-faced.

  The same Van Wessum who had told her six years earlier that once upon a time the land had belonged to no one, and that it might be like that again sometime, but not yet.

  It was Van Wessum who found her, who first offered her a job as a servant, and less than a year later asked her to marry him. Exactly on his fortieth birthday.

  And she said yes, on one condition.

  ‘Have you heard?’ they said in the town. ‘Have you heard what that traveller woman has wangled this time? A new house, she is going to get. Not here, but at the end of the world! She says she doesn’t give a shit about the townspeople, not a shit about the travellers, not a shit about the whole world, if it comes to that, and that she’ll show us, too. You’ll never guess what she meant by that!’

  Part

  Three

  The Wanderer of

  Sjlammbams Sahara

  townies’ welcome

  Now the magic of that night was fast disappearing.

  Through the kitchen window, I watched the black sky turn grey.The moonlight faded and the glowing sand of Sjlammbams Sahara returned to being beige and ordinary. In an hour or so, it would be day.

  Our brothers stretched and slapped each other’s faces teasingly. ‘Stay awake! Stay awake!’

  Had we really stayed up all night? In one way it felt as if we’d only just sat down here, as if we’d brought Oompah Hatsi inside only a minute ago. In another way, it felt as if I’d been there for centuries. With my heart thumping, I had crept along with Charley. I had seen Nienevee dancing in the cornfield with the chair in her arms, and felt what it was like when her chair sank into the soft earth as she sat down. I had desperately hoped she would go away with Charley. And I had seen her sitting in the dip in the hillside, abandoned by everybody.

  I had cried.

  ‘Nienevee had a house built on the very spot where, in the past, the travellers were not allowed to stay,’ said Oma Mei. ‘And she called it Townies’ Welcome
.’ She got up slowly and filled the kettle. ‘She had the name made out of cast iron. And the day she married Van Wessum, she put it up above the front door. So everybody could see it.’

  ‘Above the front door?’ wondered Muulke.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So those four holes above our door . . . ’ Oma Mei nodded.

  ‘So they’re not bullet holes?’

  Strangely enough, Muulke didn’t look disappointed.

  ‘And what happened after that?’ I asked.

  Oma Mei shrugged. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘She and Van Wessum lived in the house until they died.’

  ‘Are they buried here?’

  ‘No, in the old cemetery.’

  ‘And Charley?’

  Oma Mei got up and walked towards the living room. ‘Nobody knows.’

  Softly, she opened the sliding door. We could hear Oompah Hatsi snoring. Our grandmother put a final scoop of sjlamm into the Belgian potbellied stove and put the kettle on. Despite the burning stove, it was chill and damp in the house. I shivered and pulled my vest tight around me. Oma Mei came back into the kitchen and shut the door. ‘A cannon shot wouldn’t wake that one,’ she said.

  ‘That’s all well and good,’ said Eet. ‘But what in God’s name does that whole story have to do with Oompah?’

  Piet, Sjeer and Krit nodded to show they, too, were puzzled.

  It was strange to see that our brothers could do sums in their heads to the second decimal point; that they could tell if a window that was to become a door was just one millimetre off square; but that they simply did not notice some other, perfectly obvious things. ‘Boys aren’t girls and girls aren’t boys,’ Oma Mei had often said, and I was beginning to see what she meant.

  ‘Do you really not get that?’ asked Oma Mei.

  Our brothers looked annoyed.

  ‘He is Nienevee and Charley’s son,’ I said.

  ‘Kwatsj!’ they shouted. Nonsense! They tapped their foreheads, huffed and puffed indignantly, and then tiptoed off to have a look at the snoring button-chewer.