The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories (Penguin Modern Classics)

by Joost Zwagerman

  He probably sees me slowly get red, because his last words sound a little friendlier. He’s probably thinking: Maybe I was too tough. And now he’s afraid that I will get angry. Or he’s simply good-natured. But I am thinking something entirely different. I think: Damn it, always the same thing. Because this is not the first time that I clearly miss a chance to realize one of my fantasies.

  But it is a passing annoyance. When I reach the big settlement in the evening with the handyman’s guest house, I have already fitted the incident into the picture I have of my Northwood. It is and remains a fairy castle with its entrances completely overgrown. Peartree’s big mouth has cut a hole in this barrier. Onward.

  Two days later.

  The rest of my trip back I did in two days and when I come home in the afternoon, I am completely used to the green again and I sit contentedly in my chair in front of the house, when the lamp is brought outside and the play of the tree shadows begins. For the moment I’ve had enough of ranging in forests. In ten days the boat will arrive. In ten days Peartree will come here. He will ask: Have you been north already? I will say: Yes, I have searched for a suitable spot for a settlement. This is excellent. An excellent plan.

  Twelve days later.

  The ship has come and gone. I witnessed a replay of my own arrival. Everything was so much like the first time that it frightened me, frightened and depressed me.

  Peartree was here for two evenings. In two weeks I will go to Peartree. In a month the ship will come again; third performance.

  In the evening I leave my house at the back. The forest is black and impassable. I wander through the trees along the side of my house to the front. I stand behind a tree and look around the trunk. In front of the house in the forest the lamp is shining, in its circle of light is a table and a chair, an empty chair. It won’t be long now before I will see myself sitting in the chair while I stand behind a tree and carefully look around the trunk. I wish that there wasn’t a lamp burning but a wood fire, and that a kobold was dancing around it, singing: Nobody knows, nobody knows, that my name is Rumpelstiltskin. It would be more fitting, more natural.

  A day later.

  I have the village chief come to me. I have been ordered, I tell him, to build three settlements, and I point in the fatal direction. He is frightened and cringes for a moment. He gives me a long, sad look. I say: Well, nothing we can do about it. And then I shake my head a bit. I wish I had never mentioned the Northwood to this man. Until his dying day he’s going to regard this assignment as some kind of trick.

  The question arises whether there is something I should do myself, but I wouldn’t know what it possibly could be. You give orders, Peartree says. Are they going there now and are they taking building materials with them or do they get that on the spot? I would imagine the latter.

  A week later.

  In the final analysis it all went rather smoothly. I wanted to have the first settlement built about twenty-five miles due north. That would also be just fine, said the village chief, but there was already a settlement around there. When did that happen? I asked. Yesterday or the day before yesterday; maybe I would like to have a look one of these days.

  And now I sit under the lamp, and what am I doing? I am singing softly to myself out of satisfaction and relief. The village chief is a good person. He still regards the orders I received and which he passed on as a trick invented by me, but he considers it an admirable idea on my part to do it in this manner, that I didn’t bark the order at him to begin the expansion at my very first appearance. He hopes and trusts that we can haggle about the number of new settlements. Surely there won’t be more than two, he thinks. And for one of these he has earmarked the abandoned settlement that is supposed to belong to a nomadic tribe. This nomadic tribe is nonsense, of course, it was those gentlemen all along, until they got sick of it. It was their fear of the unknown forest. The village chief and I, we both have followed the path of least resistance, la di da. But it is much better this way.

  Two days later.

  This morning I’m going to see the village chief to arrange for my first journey to the new settlement. We are now so polite to each other, the village chief and I, that I think it better to warn him a few days in advance. Then he can prepare things out there at his leisure, because it isn’t even half finished, of course. Once again I regard my impending journey as a pleasant adventure. I really should go to Peartree, but I am putting it off for a week.

  Two days later.

  We are on our way. The settlement is some thirty miles away, an impossible distance to cover in one day, but thirty miles means half the distance to the edge of the forest. When we arrive this evening, I will reward the village chief by reducing the number of new settlements to be built from three to two.

  I am on my way in my magic forest; I walk between the trunks and look around me. There still is no ground cover and now I know why. The ground is rocky. In any case, a lot of large stones are partly buried in the soil and partly visible above it, it is a marvellous forest. Straight trunks, green light, always the same, and it must be very ancient. It is Time itself, I say, laughing. Ancient, green, and always the same.

  We finally reach the settlement, a couple of sombre huts in the darkening forest. I am too tired to eat and I only recover a little in the evening, when I sit on the small porch and stare in front of me into the dark. It is always the same.

  A day later.

  I sleep late, afterwards I take care of the more urgent matters, jot down data, give my approval for the appointment of a settlement chief. Not until the afternoon does the realization of where I am really strike me. This is the Northwood. If I get up early tomorrow morning and head north all day, I can reach the edge of the forest. For a moment I am tempted to call my village chief and give him the order for the journey. It won’t work, there are too many problems. And I also have to go to Peartree. Damned annoying, those visits, but I can’t back out of them, ridiculous, forsaken by God and man alike, and I have to hurry to pay a visit.

  Two days later.

  My legs still bother me from that walk of twice thirty miles. I have been loafing and fooling around all day, with nothing to do really. I won’t go to Peartree tomorrow.

  Twelve days later.

  I ended up not going to Peartree at all and tonight, two days before boat day, he comes walking through the forest. I didn’t see you, he says. The work in the forest has kept me, I say. It satisfies him. He is simply nervously pleasant.

  Four days later.

  Today I walked four hours out and back in the Northwood. It is a marvellous forest in all its similar infinity. If I walk here, or if I walk thirty miles further down, it’s all the same, nor can I change myself during that time.

  Three weeks later.

  I am in the Northwood, three miles from the border. The second settlement has been built and I will be at the border in one hour. I walked away quietly this morning. I want to be alone when I reach the edge of the forest, when I cross the border. The forest finally changes. It seems as if it enshrouds itself before it will disclose its secret. There are a lot more bushes and it becomes hilly.

  In a while I will see the dawn, the dawning of light. And it is already growing lighter.

  I will have a house built out there. It will not have a front or back, no preference for forest or open plain. I will know how to be generous after my conquest of the green forest. If need be, I will have the house built round, that is an idea, a round house with a round porch around it.

  And then it is light, then I can see the open plain. I begin to run, I trip, I almost fall, but then it is light. It is exactly the way I pictured it, it is truth, I sing, I shout, I am saved.

  I stand still, panting, under an enormously wide sky. This is it, then, so this is it.

  A great bare land, with many stones, big stones, hilly, with hazy blue mountains in the distance. I walk on now, but more slowly. I also notice that there is no sun. The light is sharp, I don’t notice it otherwis
e, in the forest. I walk on, I know that I have to go back, that I can’t stay yet, for ever, but just for a moment, just a moment longer, like a child before going to sleep. I sit down on a stone. Where have I seen this before? I am thinking.

  Stonehenge, maybe, where Merlin stayed, in a picture in a geography book. There are really huge stones here. And those mountains form an orderly and neat demarcation. I have no desire at all to start also constructing a fantasy about what could possibly lie beyond them. Let’s leave well enough alone. Now I know what lies beyond the forest and that will have to be enough. I am behind the forest. And then I turn around to the forest.

  Three days later.

  I just got home. The village chief and the bearers went home. I cannot ask anyone to stay with me. It wouldn’t help anyway. I cannot ask anyone to stay, I can’t tell anyone what I saw, when I stood outside it and turned around to the forest.

  The wind was blowing when I stood there outside. I had not noticed it as long as I was in the forest, but it was blowing.

  The sky was a mouldy grey and beneath that sky, against that sky, was the forest, poisonous green in the glaring light of the grey sky, a layer of slithering sliding snakes.

  I stood outside it and I was terrified. I wanted to run away to the blue mountains, but it wasn’t possible, oh God, of course it wasn’t. I had to return, had to walk towards this awful creature with open eyes and enter it, and never, never, shall I know again the peace of the green tempered light, now that I know what is above me.

  A day later.

  This evening I sit on my bed with my head in my hands and a little later I walk out of the house at the back and go between the trunks to the front. I am not afraid in the evening or at night, because the green snakes above me are then as dead. I stand behind a tree and look at the circle of light of the lamp. A table and a chair. Then I go back again along the same path. It is a game that I play again every evening. I am going crazy, I think. Tomorrow comes the ship.

  A month later.

  I walked all day yesterday and today, and this evening I’ll be back in my village.

  The ship has also been, yesterday. I did not think of it, but the ship has also been here.

  It is already dark by the time I arrive home. The lamp is not shining and it is very quiet. I sort of counted on Peartree still being there, but there is no one around. It is actually pitch black. Yes, it is pitch black. I take out my flashlight, find the lamp, light it, and take it outside. When I want to hang the lamp from the stand, I see that I can’t, because Peartree is hanging from it.

  And now let sweet and low.

  And now let sweet and low

  and now let sweet and low

  Vineflower, swingflower

  Vine in the swing in the vine in the swing in the vine in the swing.

  Vineflower.

  In the flower.

  And now let sweet and low

  How dark it is, they all took off, and I have left my lantern behind, back there, I have left it hanging. Oh God, I have left Peartree hanging, for how long, at least half the night, I murdered him. If only he hadn’t been dead when I arrived. It was his intention, wasn’t it, rien que pour vous servir, mon très cher. À la lanterne, Peartree. I am laughing my head off. If, ha-ha, your name is Peartree, then you’re going to hang yourself from a tree, ha-ha. Oh well.

  But shouldn’t he be taken down now? Damn it, I can’t find the lamp, I really can’t. Otherwise I would have gone to the village chief a long time ago. I can’t leave. Wouldn’t mind getting out of here. Stop bugging me. I’m afraid, I don’t give a shit. I’m afraid. I don’t want light. I don’t want to see Peartree hanging there. I don’t want light.

  Hours later.

  Oh God, I’ve been drinking like a lunatic. It is completely light now, perhaps it’s afternoon already. Peartree is gone. He’s not hanging there any more. They put him down in an empty house. I write a statement and have a couple of witnesses sign it. I let them put down a cross, which isn’t right at all, but it will have to do.

  I have to have a grave dug, but that’s been done already, the village chief says. I ask about a coffin. They bring one. Jesus, that will never do. We’d have to put him straight up, we’d have to put him straight up and give him a good whack on the head so that his knees will give, maybe it will work then. It will never work.

  I say: Another coffin and I give the measurements, seven feet long, two feet wide and deep.

  They really did make another coffin. Now Peartree has to go in, but I don’t see how, I am a creep, a shitface, I don’t see how, but he has to, the poor bastard, poor bastard.

  We go to the house, the coffin is carried behind me. I’ve brought a cloth to put over the coffin.

  In the house two tables are pushed together, they’ve put Peartree on top of them, wrapped in a sheet, but his head sticks out. I quickly put a handkerchief over it, it’s even respectful.

  I ask for a minute of silence and after that we pick him up, with me at his feet, and we put him in the coffin and the coffin is nailed shut.

  We carry him to the grave, of course it is much too small, it was measured for the other coffin. They dig. Clumps of earth fly out of the hole and finally it is done.

  Two ropes around the coffin and then we let it down. I am standing near an open grave. Our Father, I say, who art in heaven. When I turn around, I notice that my legs are still drunk.

  I leave the lit lamp hanging from the standard like before. Because I am still alive.

  Translated by Hans Koning

  10

  Anton Koolhaas

  Mr Tip is the Fattest Pig

  Mijnheer Tip is de dikste meneer

  ‘Feeling chipper?’

  That was the question with which Tip the pig greeted each of his fellow inhabitants of the pen every morning. Tip was a young and cheerful pig and, after he’d asked the question, he’d give the other pig a comically searching look from under his ears, which he’d hold forward at a rather amusing angle, until the answer came. He did this in such an irresistible way that the others always replied and even made an effort to make their responses somewhat entertaining, so that during Tip’s tour of the pigpen such cries were heard as: ‘Chipper than a chip, Mr Tip!’; or ‘Are you suffering from porky trotters?’; or ‘Gorge your way through Cheddar Gorge!’ and other such witty remarks, because pigs are good listeners and a nod is as good as an oink to a clever piggy.

  When Tip had made his round of all thirteen pigs in the pen and enquired after their health, he stood up on his back legs and looked over the partition into the pen next door, the one to the left. That was where the sow Ali 4 lay with seven piglets, who had been born a few months later than Tip, but were already able to engage in a little conversation.

  ‘Chipper than a chip!’ Tip would call over the partition, which always filled the little piglets with glee. ‘Hello, Tip,’ they would call back in a very grown-up way and then they’d come and stand in a semicircle in front of the partition that Tip was leaning over.

  ‘And what have you got going for you?’ Tip would ask next.

  ‘Our age,’ the seven chorused.

  ‘Are we happy little hoglets?’

  ‘Like pigs in muck! And twice as stinky!’ the little ones would whoop, even though they didn’t stink at all badly yet and were in fact very nice and clean, and, as the hilarious conclusion, Tip would call out: ‘What makes a piggy giggle?’

  ‘A chicken with a wiggle,’ the seven would cheer. And they were right to cheer, because it wasn’t easy to learn all that by heart.

  At that point, Tip would drop down from the partition and wait with a joyful heart in anticipation of what always came next. The seven in the other pen would now also stand up on their back legs and try to look over the partition. But they were still too small, and all that could be seen were their little snouts, dancing helplessly just above the top of the partition, and then disappearing. This was a most entertaining spectacle for the pigs in Tip’s pen, who watched with
great enjoyment every time, so, at least in those two pens, even though morning had barely begun, everyone was already having plenty of fun.

  After watching the dance of the snouts for a while, Tip headed over to the partition on the right-hand side. He went up on his hind legs again and leaned over.

  That pen housed Mort, the boar, and the sire of them all. Mort was always grumpy in the morning, and he made a great show of his suffering.

  ‘That lot back there are having a great time again,’ said Tip, nodding backwards with his head, as if he had nothing at all to do with it and thought that he, too, would do better to lead a life of seclusion, just like Mort.

  The father figure groaned softly.

  ‘Must have been a bad night!’ said Tip. A muted yet penetrating squeal now entered Mort’s groaning. ‘I can’t piss!’ he whispered, which was certainly not true – anyone only had to glance into his pen to know that. Tip could see that very well too, but Mort’s declaration still made him sad. ‘What a world!’ he said and he stood there looking for a long time at Mort, who had now folded his ears over his eyes and was irritably peering out from under those little awnings, preparing for further lamentation.

  Tip felt that he should say something else to comfort Mort, but the other pigs in his pen were in such high spirits, having watched their tiny neighbours’ attempts to peep over the partition, that Ferry, one of the other pigs from Tip’s pen, had stuck his head between Tip’s hind legs and kept bumping him up a little higher, so that Tip bounced over Mort’s fence and then dropped back down again. Inside, Tip was squealing with laughter, because it was such a crazy feeling and an excellent jape of Ferry’s, but it was out of keeping with Mort’s morning lament. Tip could sense that he’d have to give in to the fun soon, though, as Ferry was lifting him higher and higher. But at the same time he was somewhat annoyed at being disturbed in his contemplation of Mort, as he was just wondering if, in the balance between venerability and foulness, the former quality stood any chance at all with Mort. There was, however, currently no answer for this issue. The urgency of Ferry’s merrymaking was now so intense and bouncy that Tip let out an involuntary little squeal of playfulness, and that caught the attention of Mort, who had not yet noticed the latest party in the pen next door. He lifted one ear from one eye and saw that Tip, gleaming with glee, was being lifted almost up and over the partition.