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

by Joost Zwagerman

  ‘Were you off again, Steiger?’

  ‘Yes, Lieutenant. I thought you wouldn’t notice, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Where’s the girl?’

  ‘Ran off, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Did anyone from the village see you go off with her?’

  ‘No, Lieutenant. She was sitting alone under the truck listening to the music.’

  That was a weight off my mind, but I was seething.

  ‘You held your hand over her mouth, did you?’

  ‘No, Lieutenant. She wanted it.’

  ‘Hold your hands out.’

  He held his hands out. In his left hand there were deep teeth marks.

  ‘That … that always happens, Lieutenant.’

  ‘From sucking your thumb, I suppose, eh? Stand there a bit with your hands out.’

  I made Steiger stand with his hands out for a quarter of an hour. No one said anything more. The music played softly through the rushing of the river. The insects massed in a thick, crackling, dying layer around the lamps, so that the light lost half its strength. In the jungle on the other bank something began screaming, and suddenly stopped. After a quarter of an hour I rubbed his palm with my thumb. The impressions had virtually vanished.

  ‘Double guard, tonight, Sergeant,’ I said to Massuro.

  ‘Right, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Turn in, Steiger, and report to the captain in Kaukenau. You knew what can happen to you?’

  ‘Yes, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Bugger off.’

  I could do it with Steiger; nobody liked him, apart from Massuro perhaps. Once he had gone and the others were getting on with their own stuff, Massuro came and sat next to me and silently smoked a fat cigar.

  ‘I know more or less what you think,’ I said after a while. ‘But still you should have told me.’

  ‘Never done anything like that yourself, Loonstijn?’

  That was something new. For the first time in fifteen years he called me by my name; for two years I had been ‘Lieutenant’ to him. It moved me, probably I had admired him greatly in the past and I suddenly shared confidences.

  If that had not been the case, I might have let him do as he wanted.

  I felt that he was looking at me.

  ‘You’re used to the islands, Massuro,’ I said. ‘They eat rice there.’

  He kept looking at me. I stared at the other bank. There was a rustling sound from the jungle, followed by a soft thud. A tree falling over after a thousand years.

  ‘It happened to me somewhere on the Mimika; when I’d just got here. The same kind of girl as Steiger. I hadn’t had anything for three months. What difference did it make – a kapauko girl in the ten-thousand-year-old wilderness …? I held my hand over her mouth but halfway through she bit me, she started yelling and I had to let her go. When we came back a month later she was no longer in the village.’ I looked into his eyes. ‘They had slaughtered her and eaten her.’

  I don’t mind your knowing, Gentlemen of the BOZ. After what happened to Massuro, I have no interest in secrets of that kind. Perhaps your Bureau is entrusted less with investigating cases like that of Massuro – which can’t be investigated – than with keeping an eye on those who were witnesses. Go ahead and discharge me, Gentlemen. I have no interest in that any more either.

  Let’s go on. Massuro asked: ‘How do you know?’

  I shrugged my shoulders and looked straight ahead. ‘They were manowes.’

  ‘She could just as well have been ill, or married off, or simply died.’

  ‘It’s possible.’ I nodded. ‘But Steiger will pay for it.’

  There was still rustling and thudding in the jungle – trees that gave way under the weight that suddenly hung on them and dragged other trees with them in a panic of breaking nests and crushed animals.

  I didn’t know if they had eaten her. At any rate it was possible. But I had never been able to comprehend the thought fully and decide what it would mean to me. (Slaughtering, chopping to pieces, cooking, spices …)

  I looked at my watch – if I close my eyes, I can see the face again: three minutes past nine. On the roof of the truck glowed the cigarette of Persijn, who was on guard. Behind us a few times there was a clear ticking and at the same time a sobbing sound. Massuro sat enjoying his cigar like a farmer in the evening.

  Nothing happened that was out of the ordinary.

  I had the radio turned off, Massuro shared the double guard duty and gradually everyone went to bed. Only Elsemoer was sitting with his feet in the river some way off. Massuro wasn’t a talker and I was in need of distraction.

  ‘Mind the sand fleas, Elsemoer. Otherwise you’ll be dancing tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m not touching the bottom, Lieutenant.’

  ‘He’s thinking of his girl,’ said Massuro. ‘Perhaps she’s being lured behind the cars in Overschie at this very moment.’

  ‘Don’t you want to come and join us, Elsemoer?’

  ‘Sure, Lieutenant.’

  Still ‘Lieutenant’. He sat next to Massuro like a little boy shaking hands with the queen.

  ‘I expect you were thinking of your girl, weren’t you?’

  ‘No, Lieutenant, I haven’t got a girl. I was thinking about school.’

  ‘About school? Did you know that the sergeant and I were classmates?’

  He looked at us respectfully. I started laughing and offered him a cigarette.

  ‘What were you thinking about, then?’

  ‘Nothing special,’ he said in embarrassment, ‘as it happened … About land-grab.’

  ‘Land-grab?’

  As he told me I remembered. A game with knives. Each player is given a part of a square piece of flattened sand. In turns the knife is thrown into a neighbour’s land and the piece that can be cut off is captured, provided it is in contact with the attacker’s land. Anyone who can no longer stand on his piece of land has lost.

  ‘What have we got to lose?’ I said to Massuro. ‘Shall the three of us play land-grab?’

  Although in various respects I had authority over him (not only deriving from my rank), Massuro somehow still had the measure of me: through the tone in which he said or didn’t say something, through a look, through the way he now stood up and opened his pocket knife. He had been through more than me, and experiences play a part in every word and gesture. They always carry more weight than innate qualities of intellect or character. Sometimes I had trouble giving him an order, and then I was surprised and embarrassed by the meticulousness with which he carried it out.

  Like an industrious lackey, suffering somewhat from the caprices of his masters, Elsemoer dug the plants out of the ground and provided an immaculate playing area. He must be a guy who could not make love if a corner of the sheet were turned back. Meanwhile it had become pitch black, the lamp shone like a planet and designed against the edge of the jungle a most horrific spectacle of caves, animal heads, grottoes and temptations, which with the best will in the world none of us can be afraid of. So much for Dr Mondriaan’s theory.

  And now, Gentlemen, I must treat you to a short match report. After all, we are dealing with facts, aren’t we?

  Massuro threw first and immediately cut off three-quarters of my land. Elsemoer gave the impression of being faced with a difficult dilemma: if he annexed from Massuro, it might result in guard duty, if he annexed from me he was threatened with cancelling of leave. He restricted himself to a small bite of what Massuro had robbed from me, looking at me like a crafty Italian. I had bad luck; my knife repeatedly fell flat on the ground, which Elsemoer always accompanied with a sporting and regretful, ‘Whoops!’ Massuro flung his knife into the ground like toreador and ate up everything around and kept demanding that we demonstrate that we could still stand on our piece. But, going pale with fright Elsemoer captured almost all of his territory, so that Massuro could only keep upright on the toes of one foot.

  I was having a great time. Once Massuro nodded in the direction of the village and I saw the ghost of the counci
llor. All alone, he was crouching by the river and watching the white men stabbing his land to death with knives and jollity. I didn’t like it and I called to Persijn to do something about it. Two shots rang out and immediately he had disappeared.

  Massuro won again. Without any prior agreement Elsemoer and I allied ourselves against him, but suddenly Elsemoer was eliminated: after a brilliant throw by Massuro he didn’t have a single square centimetre left. With a gesture acknowledging he had met his match and a sigh of relief, he sat down. I stole a small amount from Massuro and then he raised his hand with the knife far behind his back ready to eliminate me too in one throw.

  But his arm remained immobile and the knife fell behind him with its point in the ground, outside the playing area. His eyes were becoming larger and larger.

  ‘I can’t get my arm down again,’ he said.

  I stared at him. Above us I heard the deep drone of a rhinoceros bird flying overhead.

  It was as if I was dreaming. I went over to him and felt his arm. It was as if there were no joint in it.

  ‘Sit down,’ I said.

  Meekly Massuro sat down on the land-grab area, right across all the boundaries, arm raised. I began cautiously pulling at it and slowly it gave way, as if he were tensing all his muscles. He had to support his other arm on the ground.

  ‘Pain?’

  ‘No.’

  Elsemoer sat watching open-mouthed. Finally the arm was lowered.

  ‘Can you move it?’

  He moved it, his fingers too; I saw that it took him a lot of effort. He contemplated it with a worried look.

  ‘Do you have any problems with rheumatism in that arm?’

  ‘No … never have.’ He was upset, so badly that it surprised me. Suddenly he started shouting at Elsemoer: ‘You should have someone put a different mug on your head!’

  I heard a sound in his voice that I had never heard before. It was no longer a vacation voice. Elsemoer jumped up in alarm, saluted and disappeared.

  ‘Go and get yourself some sleep,’ I said, God knows why. ‘I’ll take over your guard duty.’

  It surprised me that he accepted. (Yes, that was the weirdest thing of all: that he accepted!) Without a word he got up and walked woodenly to our tent. His right arm hung stiffly downwards, but I saw that the left arm was not moving either and that his knees were as stiff as those of a cavalry officer.

  ‘Tomorrow it will be over,’ I managed to say.

  As long as you know that I am writing with little or no conviction. With what conviction is one supposed to write about an avalanche? One can write about causes with conviction: how it could happen, what was done to prevent it. The avalanche itself is just stupid, something we have nothing to do with because we cannot defend ourselves against it. And if we realize that there weren’t even any causes? Then there’s nothing left of us, Gentlemen in Room 3, nothing at all.

  Massuro slept all night like a log, with his clothes on. I had done the last guard duty with Kranenburg and we had talked about the stars, but in the background there was the constant worry of Massuro. Despite Steiger, everything had remained calm in the village. When I shook Massuro awake at six thirty, I immediately felt panic in my hands: a human being didn’t weigh this much! I pulled him up, it was like pulling a horse up, a rhinoceros, but the consciousness did not get any further than my hands. Wide-eyed, he stood in the tent wobbling like a robot from one leg to the other. It was as if he didn’t see me. He wobbled on stiff legs outside, where the men were washing, and blinked at the sunlight. Beneath my feet pounded the weight of his body. He moved his hand to his face like a very heavy dumbbell, burped and closed his eyes …

  I felt as if my feet were in my head and my head in my shoes. For a number of seconds I stared at his back. Suddenly it dawned on me how heavy he had been. Impossibly heavy. I began to swallow, at least ten times, and finally got out the words:

  ‘Sergeant … come in the tent for a moment.’

  He looked at me and wobbled back. In the tent I stood opposite him; my hands were trembling.

  ‘Listen, Massuro, you’re ill, you hear, you’re ill. We’ll strike camp at once and make sure we get to Kaukenau as soon as possible.’

  He looked at me and said nothing.

  ‘Do you understand me, Massuro?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ll strike camp right away.’

  I looked at him for a moment longer and then left him where he was. Outside I called the men together and said as calmly as I could:

  ‘Guys … the sergeant is sick. Something to do with his joints … and with his weight … I don’t know what it is, but it’s something dreadful. If we make sure we get to the valley before dark, we can drive through the night and be in Kaukenau by tomorrow afternoon. We’ll leave everything behind and take the route via Oegei. We’ll leave at once.’

  They ran to the tents and I stood where I was. I daren’t go back to Massuro. I went to the radio operator, quickly called Kaukenau and told them briefly that Massuro had been struck down by an unknown disease and that we were on our way. I had the captain on the line; he was quite sceptical and asked for more details, but I told the radio operator to create some interference and turned off the transmitter.

  I knew it wasn’t a disease. Growing heavier isn’t a disease. I wanted to get to Kaukenau to be among people, as if I believed that something like this could not persist with other people around.

  Ten minutes later we were off. I had no time for the councillor and greeted him from my jeep. The whole tribe was present again with children on backs and breasts. The councillor nodded and held onto his gourd with a grin.

  I sat at the back, with Elsemoer next to Massuro. Massuro sitting straight, without turning his head an inch to the left or right. Elsemoer was at the wheel looking as if he was taking his driving test. We did not talk. I did not dare say a word. I had to look at the back of Massuro’s head the whole time; I was as scared as I had ever been, and yet … I couldn’t take it on board. Not even a hundredth part. And I never will. Just imagine that in Amsterdam the statue of General van Heutz steps off its pedestal and starts talking to you about Aceh. You’ll never manage to take it on board.

  At twelve o’clock I ordered a stop so we could eat something. While everyone got out, I went forward sweating to look at Massuro. He had blotches under his skin all over his face.

  ‘How do you feel now, Massuro?’

  He looked glassily into my eyes.

  ‘I can’t feel a thing.’

  ‘Are you hurting anywhere?’

  He shook his head almost imperceptibly.

  ‘Don’t you want to get out for bit?’

  He closed his eyes.

  ‘Just leave me.’

  Suddenly I grabbed him and shook his shoulders – an elephant, a car.

  ‘Massuro, what’s wrong with you?’

  He panted and his teeth began to chatter.

  My head was spinning. He did not want to eat. I went to get something for myself at the truck, where the men were sitting on the ground among empty tins. They looked at me but didn’t ask any questions. I was given my portion and walked a little way into the dry bush, where I sat down to eat. The vehicles were empty and parked behind each other, as if they would be there for ever. In the second one was Massuro’s motionless body. I tried to realize that something impossible was happening, but that was as difficult as imagining that the girl Mimika had been eaten – though that was still within the realm of possibility. I looked at the sky, too. Something incomprehensible was at work in Massuro.

  We drove on, hour after hour, endlessly. I looked constantly at Massuro: a heavy neck covered in black hair, a square head. I had put his carbine next to me. Was I frightened he would start shooting? We drove fast and his body bobbed up and down like a tree trunk. I decided to continue on to Screwsville, where we had a bungalow and could have a hot meal. It was like a journey from here to the moon; my brain had long since stopped functioning, it wasn’t something for br
ains, it was stupid, stupid as a stone. We arrived at seven thirty and then it was as if the time had flown. The village headman came towards our jeep cackling exuberantly, looking forward to the greeting meal. I brushed him away and said that we had someone seriously ill with us. Walking backwards in alarm he shrank away; the whole tribe started to walk backwards. I gritted my teeth and started helping Massuro out of the jeep. As soon as I felt him, I knew that he had got much heavier. The men looked on in silence. A step at a time we walked to the log cabin. The steps of the stairs creaked and bent under his weight. I pushed the door open; a fat toad slipped away. With both arms around him I lowered him on to one of the rough wooden chairs. He was completely unable to bend his knees. Once he was sitting, the chair collapsed under him and he hit the ground with a shuddering thud.

  He started crying.

  ‘Massuro,’ I whispered.

  I was at a loss. I ran to the doorway and started shouting that we had to move on, that there was no time to cook. The men must have heard the crash; they sat motionless halfway out of the vehicles.

  I knelt by Massuro. He sat sobbing like a child. Apart from the blotches on his face there was nothing special about his appearance, but he must have weighed at least three hundred kilos.

  ‘What’s happening to me?’ he wept.

  ‘Christ, Massuro; Christ, Massuro!’

  I held him tight with both hands. Fat tears trickled down his cheeks.

  ‘What the hell is happening to me, Loonstijn? I feel stiffer and heavier all the time. What have I done?’

  ‘Maybe we’ll be in Kaukenau by tomorrow morning, and you’ll get treatment straight away! In the hospital they’ll …’ I couldn’t say any more. ‘Hang on, Massuro,’ I whispered. ‘Lie down.’

  He was doomed and he knew and I knew. He allowed himself meekly to be laid back by me; it was as if I was pushing a wagon along rails. There was a sweet woody smell in the dusky hut. If I pushed too fast his legs went up in the air with the weight of a piano. Suddenly I started crying too. Massuro looked up at me wide-eyed.

  ‘It’s not possible for something like this to happen …’ he said.

  I shook my head in despair.