‘We shall have to give the matter some thought,’ he heard Tip say, with a tremendous laugh bubbling up in his throat, but that was all he said, as the funny little Ferry was now lifting him very high indeed and moving forward at the same time, with the result that Tip lost his footing and tumbled backwards over Ferry and into his own pen. Mort put his one ear back over his eye, as Tip swiftly disappeared, then he muttered ‘sprat louse’, and dozed off.
As soon as Tip was back on all four feet again, he decided to bump smack into Ferry and knock him topsy-turvy. There was a dull thud as they collided, but Tip hadn’t put enough force into it and Ferry remained standing. ‘This is a day for tulip bulbs and wild speculation, my friends,’ cried Tip and at that moment the whole dozen other pigs jumped to their feet, and all fourteen of them began lumbering wildly around the pen, crashing, grunting, whirling, and sometimes deftly dodging one another. The game now was for four or five of them to cluster in one corner of the pen, and then pretend they couldn’t get back out again. Ferry and Tip had to untangle the knot and it was always so much fun, as they’d call out orders that sounded really crazy. ‘Haul that cross-eyed one out of the oil stove,’ called Ferry, giving Simon Artzt (the fattest pig in the gang) a whack in the belly so that Simon, shrieking with fake pain, barrelled backwards all the way through the pen and went crashing into the rear wall with his fat behind. It made such an incredibly loud bang that they all laughed themselves silly. Encouraged by this merriment, Simon smashed his bottom into the wall once again, with a frenzy of screaming; to make the chaos complete, he’d then act like a rubber ball rebounding, trotting back, quick as a flash, on his little legs to the tangle in the corner and forcing his way in among the others, where he would stand still as if weak and powerless, his head hanging. If you were to look under his ears and into his eyes, though, you would see that they were shining with fun, as the best bit was about to come. Tip and Ferry set to work at getting him back out of the clump, which involved nibbling the rearmost fold of his ear, where it met his neck, and saying crazy things like: ‘It’s raining frogs and chocolate logs’ and ‘Twinkle twinkle little star, legs and wings will take you far’, which made Simon Artzt so twitchy and so weak that he started drooling and smacking his lips before throwing himself upwards with a jerk, twisting and kicking and trampling with his front legs over the backs of his friends who were surrounding him, until he was free and standing on his own in the middle of the pen. Then they all called out at once:
‘Fattybum, who pinched the pig,
He wasn’t clever but he sure was big.’
and, having blissfully listened to it all, Simon would walk over to his corner, where he lay down. At first he’d watched the others capering around for a while, but he didn’t have the heart for it these days. And when Tip and Ferry, after Simon had lain down, tried it again and chewed his ear and quietly whispered to him about the chocolate logs, Simon grew sullen and surly and he snarled, ‘What do you want? Knock it off!’
This was a game that they always played with the fattest in the pen. Everyone would presumably have a turn, as the farmer would come to the pen from time to time, give the fattest one an approving slap on the flanks, scratch its bristly neck, and then pull it away from the group, out into the barn. That fattest one didn’t ever return, and so someone else immediately became the fattest one. Sometimes the fattest-but-one would serve as the fattest one for a few days before the actual fattest one was taken away, as the fattest one would usually stop playing with the others. You could generally sense it coming as, a few days before, the fattest one would start showing less enjoyment as they played, as if he were just going through the motions, and on the first day when he stopped joining in you could do whatever you liked, but the fattest one would only get angry. If you still tried to make him, he’d just snap, ‘Get off!’ or ‘What do you want?’ or ‘Knock it off!’ and he’d try to bite you. Then, the next day, the fattest-but-one would become the fattest and he had to go crashing into the wall and make as big a thud as possible. Everyone would spare the previous fattest one for that whole day and maybe a couple more, until the farmer finally came to take him away. No one could have explained why they showed such deference. You could call it respect, fear, perhaps just ignorance. Because it was always an anxious moment when the fattest one – and occasionally a few of the fattest ones at the same time – was manoeuvred out of the pen. The others watched them go, leaning over the front partition, as they walked slowly past the other pens in the barn, and then disappeared out through the door and into the light. So they knew it was a fact that the fattest ones went outside, where maybe something was waiting for those who no longer wanted to play.
But, whatever the case, why spend too long worrying about it? A new one usually came to join them in the pen straightaway, sometimes a few, who were around the same size or just a little smaller and had to be initiated into the gang’s secrets as quickly as possible.
When someone had been taken away, Tip often felt the need to look over the partition at Mort, as Mort was so much bigger and fatter than whoever had just been removed and, in a sense, it should have been possible to tell by looking at Mort (thought Tip) how the future would be. When Simon Artzt had snarled ‘What do you want?’, effectively announcing his departure, Tip went to take another look at Mort. The progenitor, after Tip’s hasty departure, had turned over and was staring aimlessly into space. He was in a mood for becoming deeply melancholy and, with that in mind, he embarked upon one of his most famous feats: a rasping grunt, from deep in his throat, culminating in a little sob. It was a sob as if made by a very young and tender individual, with a sudden fear of being abandoned without protection and being incapable of successfully coping with the situation. Seven of these grunts with sobbing followed, and then came a few variations, the youthful and reedy character of the sobs giving way to a more knowing pain, which was fuller and deeper and gradually acquired some undertones of malice. The sobbing, which at first was an exquisite continuation of the grunting, finally supplanted the grunts completely and became a shrieking wail, wracking Mort’s enormous body with panting breaths.
Just as Tip had gone to lean over the partition, the sobs began that reminded him of the sounds he had once made himself when he found a particularly high-quality teat on his mother. That’s no reason to sob, you might say; but indeed it most certainly is, as the abundance that Tip found, or the bliss of his own staggering smallness in comparison to the mother mountain, carried within itself the sad awareness that one day it would end. For a young piglet, such happiness is always accompanied by the restless sense of wishing to experience something else for a change, and also with the foolishness of a body that is filling up, before the bliss of fulfilment becomes fixed for ever. And so Tip had always given quiet sobs when he’d found a particularly good teat. Just like the sobs that Mort gave as an overture to his variations.
Tip certainly hadn’t failed to notice that Mort was a mess. He looked at the little legs of the enormous, grief-stricken pig, which dangled uselessly in the hurricane of painful squealing. Mort suddenly stopped and tried to see if anyone was looking over the partition. He was most satisfied with the climax he had reached and wanted to find out if it had been appreciated elsewhere. Tip dropped down and didn’t know what to do next. He hadn’t actually received any insight into what awaited the fattest ones.
Simon Artzt was fast asleep, Ferry was playing at slobbering around in the trough and the others had gone to lie down together, but they were watching, as they were ready for more japes.
‘That time with the bucket, that was good fun,’ said Tip to Ferry.
‘Yes, and that time with Fat Jaap, that was good fun,’ said Ferry.
‘Yes, and do you remember,’ said Tip, ‘that time with the rooster?’
‘I most certainly do,’ replied Ferry. ‘That was really good fun.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Tip, who was actually quite distracted, and more to keep the conversation going, ‘we had such good f
un that time, too.’
‘Do you remember when Fat Jaap didn’t want to leave the pen?’ said Ferry. ‘Now that was funny. Everyone had such good fun.’
‘Everyone had fun,’ Tip said, ‘except for Fat Jaap.’
‘But that was the fun thing about it,’ said Ferry. ‘Because Fat Jaap hadn’t been any fun for a long time. You couldn’t have any fun with him at all, but when he left we still had some fun because of him.’ Tip didn’t say anything now, as he wasn’t so sure that it had been much fun when Fat Jaap had finally been dragged out of the pen by the farmer and two of his men. If Tip remembered correctly, no one had really had very much fun at all, as one of Fat Jaap’s ears had torn because he’d been dragged about and it was bleeding badly, and besides, there’d been something about the hugely fat Jaap’s resistance and about his wailing that had nothing at all in common with Mort’s fake wailing.
‘It was good fun,’ he said, though, to please Ferry, and they fell silent again.
‘So he mounted the sow and began to play,
She truly snatched his breath away,’
they could now hear Mort singing in his pen. That meant that Mort expected everyone to join in, but Tip wasn’t in the mood. When he compared Mort to Fat Jaap, he realized that he actually hated Mort a bit.
But Ferry wanted to sing. He’d spent long enough smacking his lips in the empty trough now to feel ready for some other kind of entertainment and so he merrily chimed in:
‘And when he’d scratched his piggy itch,
He cooled his arse in a nearby ditch,
The sow folk didn’t like to see such muck,
They …’
But he didn’t get any further, as before anyone realized what was happening, the farmer removed the front partition and came into the pen. He gave Simon Artzt a kick in the rear, and Simon immediately jumped up and, with no manoeuvring required, trotted over to the trough, without saying goodbye to anyone, and into the barn and then through the door into the light. By the time the farmer had replaced the partition and they were all leaning over it, Simon was nowhere to be seen.
And that was it. He was gone!
‘Now you’re the fattest,’ Dolores said to Tip.
‘Me?’ asked Tip vacantly, as that was the last thing on his mind.
‘Yes, you!’ said the others, and Ferry called out:
‘Fattybum, who pinched the pig,
He wasn’t clever but he sure was big’
and gave Tip a tentative push to see if the new fattest one was enough of a sport to go barrelling backwards and crash into the wall with his behind. But Tip didn’t fancy the idea right now. Simon’s sudden departure had put him in a very pensive frame of mind. Departure didn’t have to happen the way it had with Fat Jaap, but there was something much more eerie about the way Simon Artzt had simply trotted off. Good heavens, they’d had such fun playing with Simon and he’d always been so cheerful. And he had such a carefree way about him, without ever getting angry when they played really rough. Tip felt that he owed it to Simon Artzt’s jolly nature to go bouncing into the wall in a particularly funny way tomorrow, as Simon had been so very good at it. But not now, and when Ferry gave Tip another whack, Tip had almost got furious and he’d nearly yelled, ‘Yeah? What do you want?’, but instead he bit his tongue and said, ‘No, chaps, wait until tomorrow morning. I’m not officially the fattest one until then.’
‘Hogwash,’ cried Dolores, but Ferry calmed the rising discontent and agreed with Tip: ‘Fine, tomorrow morning, but then we’re really going to make this pigpen shake.’
Tip looked at Ferry and tried to work out whether he might be the fattest-but-one, but he thought it would be Melisande’s turn next. Anyway, that was obviously no longer his concern, now that he was himself the fattest. On previous occasions, Tip had always made a big deal of standing in the middle of the pen after the fattest had left and wittily weighing up who was the next in line. He always picked out the most amusing physical peculiarities of all those present. ‘What about you, Tip?’ the others would cry, and Tip always said:
‘Well, my name is young Tip Jones,
And I’m made of twigs and bones.’
and then everything was right with the world. Now that it was Tip’s turn, he hadn’t thought about his rhyme for a moment, as he realized when he went to take another look over Mort’s partition. Mort had finished singing and was having a sleep. He looked very peaceful and particularly filthy. The pigs in Tip’s pen weren’t dirty, as they were too young for that, their pen was kept clean, and they never went outside. Mort did, though. He didn’t have to go into the barn first and then out through the door into the light, as he had a hatch in his own pen that was sometimes opened up. He generally stayed away for a really long time, but sometimes he just popped out and came back in again. Usually he’d return yelling strings of curses. Tip always listened carefully, because Mort was coming from outside. True, it wasn’t through the barn’s big door that led into the light, but even so it was still from a place that might be connected to it somehow. To wherever the fattest ones went. It was all very confusing, that was for sure, and pigs don’t like confusion, but Tip wanted to find out more about it next time he spoke to Mort. Maybe tomorrow, during his morning lament. Then Tip would be able to bring up the subject of whatever lay beyond the hatch. In any event, thought Tip, I ought to know and I shall pretend to remain happy, until I know, because otherwise they might come to fetch me before it’s my time. He threw one last glance at Mort, who didn’t look as if he would reveal any secrets today, and then Tip stood on all four feet again. The others were lying together, already very drowsy, and Tip wriggled his way in and snuggled up cosily between Dolores and Mr Medlar (as they called one pig who was certainly round but remarkably small) and fell asleep after, without having intended to do so, letting out a small sob.
The next morning, there was no escape. The others all began nudging him before he was even properly awake and they wanted to start straightaway, but Tip said, when he was standing up on his hind legs (which, as he now noticed for the first time, wasn’t all that easy for the fattest one), ‘Just a moment, chaps. First I’ll have my morning conversation with our sire.’
They allowed him to do so.
‘Good morning,’ said Tip to Mort, who was already waiting for him, ‘did the night bring you some relief?’ Mort said nothing, but, as on other mornings, quietly groaned.
‘It must have been another bad one,’ said Tip.
‘I have phlegm,’ Mort answered calmly.
‘Then I wouldn’t overexert myself today if I were you,’ advised Tip. And then he asked Mort: ‘Are you going out through the hatch today?’
‘Bowel brushes!’ muttered Mort (a curse Tip had never heard before).
‘Is it serious out there,’ Tip asked then, ‘beyond the hatch?’
‘You just stay inside, my boy,’ Mort said then, ‘Father will swill it all down. Never go there, lad,’ he cried, and then he actually stood up. ‘You’re never going to go there,’ he repeated, as if he was very worried about something and was planning to defend Tip.
‘I shan’t go there,’ said Tip nervously. ‘But why not? That’s what I should like to know, and maybe the others would, too.’
‘Out there, it’s the leaven of the forked tongue,’ Mort mumbled, darkly now, but making no sense at all.
‘Oh,’ said Tip, who now felt scorching hot over his entire body, which was the fattest body in the pen. That awareness burned within him. Better to be a skinny little diehard, thought Tip fearfully. A skinny little diehard, who never left the pen. But there was little chance of that.
‘I couldn’t piss again,’ cried Mort, who was now rubbing up against the partition just beneath Tip, as he had a bit of an itch.
This trivial announcement made Tip question the gravity of the leaven of the forked tongue, so he replied vaguely: ‘What a world!’ as he had yesterday and then left Mort, who now had to put up with having hardly any attention paid to his lamenta
tions for the second day in a row. ‘Bowel brush,’ he called after Tip. ‘Dung cockerel.’
But Tip was gone. He was at the mercy of many thoughts as he stood surrounded by the others, who had all taken up their positions for the game. But then he saw the piglets in the pen next door doing the dance of the little snouts. They still had to be indulged. He trotted up to the partition, leaned over it, and called out glumly: ‘What have you got going for you?’
‘Our age, Mr Tip,’ squealed the piglets, who had already heard that Tip was now the fattest one. ‘You’re the fattest, eh, Mr Tip. That’s nice, eh, Mr Tip? You’ll bang into the wall harder than anyone ever has before, Mr Tip. We’ll listen really hard when you do, Mr Tip.’
Tears filled Tip’s eyes as he looked at the delighted little piglets, bouncing busily against the partition.
One of them, whose name was Chervil, said, ‘Soon I’ll be big enough to look over the partition, Mr Tip, and then I’ll be able to see you doing it, at least if you’ve not already left by then.’
‘I’ll wait for you, Chervil,’ said Tip. ‘You can count on that!’
‘That’s great, Mr Tip,’ cried Chervil and then Tip was back among the pigs from his own pen.
Ready and resigned.
The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories (Penguin Modern Classics) Page 19