Sunrise Day
De dag van Zonnegloren
It was still dark when she noticed him getting up and starting to potter around the room.
‘Come back to bed, Jacques,’ she mumbled. ‘It’s too early.’
He didn’t respond, but groped for the linen cupboard and opened the door. He rummaged around inside.
‘I need a wash,’ he said. Even tucked up in her blankets and sheets, she could feel that it had turned cold in the night. A strange silence hung on the other side of the curtains. Maybe it had snowed. The shower began to roar, and she dozed off again, to vivid dreams.
When she awoke for the second time, he was sitting on the bed, now dressed. The curtains were open.
‘No, not those socks.’
She nodded at the window. In the dim light, the houses across the street were just visible. A layer of snow covered the roofs.
‘It’s cold. Wear the blue ones, my boy. The thick woollen ones.’
She got up, took the socks from the drawer, and sat down beside him on the edge of the bed. She was a fat woman with a fine complexion and watery, pale-blue eyes. Age indeterminate. Maybe sixty, maybe seventy. As she put his socks on for him and gave his big feet a quick rub with both hands, the man sat there, bolt upright, staring calmly ahead. He had blue eyes too, dark and deep-set.
‘Go and have a shave,’ she said.
It was nearly eight o’clock when they sat down for breakfast. She’d squeezed oranges, and she’d fried eggs. She passed him the bread basket.
‘How many am I allowed?’ he asked.
‘As many as you like. Just you enjoy them.’
He took two bread rolls and put them next to his plate. As he began to cut into a third, she put on her glasses and opened up the newspaper. She took her time over the articles, reading all of them; she had no preference. She ate nothing but drank the entire contents of the teapot. Every now and then she glanced up to meet his eyes. He was chewing away, his whole face in motion.
This big man had always eaten well. He was a glutton by nature. Young though she had been, she’d understood that right away. With those hands. With that wide mouth. ‘I’m going to marry her this summer!’ he’d proclaimed, looking around the family with ominous cheer, and the silly goose was pushed in the direction of two elegant sisters-in-law. The goose sat all evening in a straight-backed chair, transfixed by his booming laugh, his drinking, the bloody nose he accidentally gave his brother, the winks across the crowded room that were intended for her. That big man opposite her had to be the happiest man in the world.
She looked outside. The daylight was hazy. The car was covered with snow. Across the street, two doors opened at almost the same time. Men in dark coats emerged. They walked to their cars and began wiping the windows. One of them had problems starting. Then the car sat there with the engine running for a long time. Steam drifted down the street.
He’d finished eating now and sat watching her with his usual pained expression. The anxiety of recent years had made his features sharp. It was as if he wanted to hide his eyes, they lay so deep in their sockets, and two deep furrows now ran beside what had once been the nose of a gourmet, but was now an angular beak. His mouth was dotted with crumbs.
‘We’ll be off soon,’ she said. ‘We’ll just wait until the rush hour’s over.’
He stood up to go and wash his hands and face.
‘Where are you taking me?’ he asked when he came back in.
‘You know where, don’t you? It’s Sunrise day.’
But of course he had no idea. Why should this hunter, this fisherman, this half-gipsy have any understanding of how to make ashtrays? Of the scorching-hot oven they were fired in? Of the red paint he was required to apply to them?
He thought for a moment.
‘I want to stay with you,’ he said.
Suddenly she felt intensely guilty. Not because she was taking him to the day-care centre, as he was no worse off there than at home. It was her own foolishness. This morning she had the sneaking feeling that her simplicity was criminal. Why couldn’t she follow his trail? Why couldn’t she see with his eyes? What was the terror that he couldn’t live with?
‘I’ll come and fetch you this evening, sweetheart,’ she said helplessly.
He stood there before her, broad-shouldered. She helped him into his coat. Gently, she led him down the garden path. As she walked around the car, clearing the windows, the small vehicle seemed to be crammed full with a hunched-up bird. Two eyes followed her movements with the incomprehension of an animal.
They drove out of the village. Alongside the road lay the white, silent fields. Did he remember the gunshots, the excitement, the triumph? When he got home, he would put his day’s kill, with the bloodied fur, the bloodied feathers, in the shed. He was very skilled at skinning and plucking. The animals arrived on her kitchen counter, clean and tidy. A humble offering. She’d always been good at preparing game, and it was a crying shame that, for years now, he’d refused to eat any kind of animal whatsoever.
She drove cautiously. There was little traffic, but it might be slippery in places.
‘Look, Jacques, isn’t it beautiful?’ she said as they approached the lakes.
He stared at her profile for a moment.
The narrow road was no more than a dyke between the lakes. A hazy sun gave the air and the water the sheen of metal. In the distance, the villages were just faint silhouettes. Beautiful, indeed, for those who could see it. She was briefly startled by an unexpected event: a flock of birds skimmed across the road with wild cries. Above the water, the creatures fanned out a little, but stayed together. Then, suddenly, they were gone. Flawless. Resolute. Entirely aware of their position in space and time.
He was her husband. She knew the rhythm of his breathing. She could smell his scent. Without looking aside, she knew how the shadows were falling on his face. The sense of doom had returned, even worse than it had been at home just now. She suspected it was not solely his present secrecy that was shutting her out as if she were from a different planet. He’d always been a stranger to her. Even, especially, on those nights when he overpowered her with his body.
Who had she spent her life with?
It was getting on for ten. Bright sunlight broke through the clouds. The lakes to the left and the right began to shine like mirrors.
There had been a few winters when she had not been pregnant. They’d skated here. She’d gone on ahead, a good deal faster than him, superior for the first time. In the middle of that flat expanse, beneath a sky that promised snow and storm, with that demon trudging after her, she’d felt her body change, right down to the smallest molecules. She knew for certain that she was beautiful. As beautiful as the reeds and the ice and the deep blackness gleaming beneath her. The whole combination was perfect. She was not at all startled by his grasp when he caught her after all and kissed her so hard that her lips split and started to bleed.
At the beginning of the next village, there were traffic lights. It was not yet time for people to do their shopping. Slowly, they drove along an empty street of modernized shops. Neon lights shone everywhere. She noticed that he’d started to look around: and yes, there was the colourful sign outside the sweetshop on the corner.
‘Would you like a treat, Jacques?’
He nodded in delight. She pulled up, walked around the car, and helped him out. In front of the shop window, they conferred. Finally, he chose a simple chocolate figure. Once inside, they had to wait for the sales assistant to finish arranging a line of white chocolates in the display cabinet, but she was very friendly when she came to help them. The chocolate figure was packed up in a gift box and presented to him. The two women smiled at each other across the counter. But he was reluctant to leave. He walked around to the assistant and took her to one side.
‘There’s a possibility that my coat may have brushed against those peppermint sticks,’ he explained. ‘I certainly came very close to them. So maybe it’s not such a good
idea to sell them.’
Back in the car, he started eating straightaway. It was just a few bites. She picked up the clean handkerchief in readiness and handed it to him as soon as he’d finished. With a frown on his face, he wiped his hands, his wrists, and each individual finger. Then he put his hands back on his knees and gazed down at them with his chin on his chest.
She looked along with him. His hands lay there like heavy, unfamiliar objects. Then a sense of horror washed over her: she felt that she could see the same as him. Pity shot through her, as fierce as physical pain. She went to take hold of his hand, but he pulled away and gave her a look that was so raw and so terrible that her breath caught in her throat. For a moment she thought she was absorbing his actual fear.
‘Let’s go,’ she whispered.
She started the engine, jerked the car into gear, and sped off.
The village gave way to the next one almost without interruption. The narrow road cut through the social strata like a jagged knife: to the right were the big houses in their parks with their old trees, to the left were the workers’ homes, leaning against one another, with backyards that opened onto the canal. The composition of the local high street was imbalanced: ‘Laundry’, ‘Dry-cleaning’, ‘Wash-o-matic’ said the signs. They must do an incredible amount of washing in this village.
Cars were lined up in front of the hotel, with white ribbons and white flowers attached to the aerials. People, as colourful as birds, were walking down the steps outside.
She pointed.
‘Look, Jacques, a wedding.’
She hoped he would forget the church among the houses a couple of hundred metres away.
But his sharp eyes had already noticed the open side door.
‘I want to confess,’ he said.
There was no point objecting that he’d already been to church once this week. That last week he’d visited two, three other churches. That every priest for miles around must be aware of his secret story by now.
The thick layer of gravel crunched beneath their feet. Inside the porch it was ice cold, but once they were through the heavy revolving door, the temperature was pleasant. You could feel that the place was well insulated. Whatever happened here did not escape, but lingered in the form of scent. And that scent did not fade.
They walked along the side aisle and came to a door from behind which they could hear quiet noises. Footsteps. The clink of dishes. She knocked. ‘Yes?’ someone called. The door opened, and a young man in a red jumper appeared.
He looked at the man and woman, a question on his face.
The old man put his head forward.
‘I need the priest,’ he said.
‘I am the priest,’ the young man replied with a smile.
The old man stood silently for a moment before repeating: ‘I need the priest.’ Then he added, ‘I have to confess.’
The young man’s gaze slid away from the couple and he looked around the church. In one of the side walls were a few doors with stained-glass panels at the top.
‘Wait a moment,’ he said to the man before disappearing again. He left the door ajar.
He was back surprisingly soon, in his cassock and white surplice. As he straightened the purple stole around his neck, he motioned for the man to follow him. The woman joined them.
The priest opened one of the doors. Inside the small dark room was a vacuum cleaner, a pile of books with red covers, and a few sticks with limp velvet bags attached. The priest bent down and began to move everything, including the books, which weren’t really in the way. Eventually the kneeling rail became free. The priest and the man, who had stood motionless as he waited, each disappeared through a door.
She sat down in a side pew. It was absolutely silent. Not a sound penetrated through the doors. Her gaze wandered before coming to a stop on the icon in the alcove in front of her; she looked at the familiar image of the crucified man with the bloodied hands, the bloodied feet.
When had it begun? Maybe as long as ten years ago. She’d recently remembered his strange behaviour on the day of his retirement. They’d laid on a lovely party for him. The alderman had given a speech. About his great services to the village. About how indispensable he was, in fact. There’d also been a few allusions to the last winter of the war. His courage. His cunning. No one had known the hiding places in the peatlands like he had.
Yes, nice things had been said. But Jacques had been too drunk. He’d started an argument afterwards. A friend who’d wanted to shake his hand had found himself on the receiving end of some nasty insults and had slunk off, astonished. Ah, that good, good man didn’t want to be turned out to pasture. That was all.
Suddenly, directly above, she heard a few hesitant chimes. Every ring summoned forth another, louder one. A column of sound piled up on her head. A column of triumphant peals. The wedding … At the front of the church, a man in a grey suit appeared and began to light the candles in the huge candlesticks.
The doors beside her swung open. She turned her head to see the priest rapidly retreating and the bowed figure of her husband, who was waiting for her. Unchanged.
‘Come on,’ she said, in a loud whisper. ‘Now we really do need to get a move on.’
At the exit, he spread his hands, one at a time, in the basin of water.
It was almost eleven o’clock. Inside the car it was nicely warm. Snug. Almost like in bed. These trips were not at all unpleasant. She looked at the trees along the village road. They were birches of some unusual variety, which, with their broad white trunks, bore a certain resemblance to plane trees. In a quarter of an hour they would be in town.
‘Are you comfortable, Jacques?’ she asked kindly. He didn’t respond at first, but when she turned to look at him, he mumbled, ‘I don’t feel well.’
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘I feel sick.’
She changed gear and slowed down, but there was no way she could stop there.
‘Just keep calm. It’ll soon pass,’ she promised.
But suddenly he began to sigh, his hands searching around, groping for the door and for the plush fabric of her coat.
As she turned off and looked for a parking spot – it was break time at the school and the young people wouldn’t move an inch out of the way – he slumped to one side with a quiet groan.
She managed to make it through the crowd and to park the car. Then she got out and walked to the other door, thinking: Fresh air, he just needs fresh air. As she opened the door and was about to lean towards him, he fell. She reached out her hands to catch his head. The weight of his body was suddenly enormous.
‘Jacques! Jacques!’ she cried out.
He was now lying half on the street. Crouching down, her hands still cradling his head, she looked around. She could see no one except for a handful of schoolchildren who were standing some distance away, watching. Her hands were caught between the warmth of his hair and the icy paving stones.
A young man arrived on a bike. He dismounted, resolute, as if he’d known where he needed to be. His large head, shaved almost bald, filled her with confidence. Together, they laid the heavy body neatly beside the car.
The young man removed his scarf and made a pillow to go under the head. Then he lifted the eyelids and felt for a pulse. She watched, with wide open eyes. These vital actions had a calming effect.
‘My husband is confused,’ she said.
The man seemed to ponder her words for a moment. Then he stood up and looked right at her.
‘Your husband is dead,’ he said.
Then everything became very busy. As she was still sitting there on her haunches, staring curiously into that suddenly dead face, she heard sirens approaching. Doors slammed. ‘Over here!’ someone called out, and: ‘Out of the way!’ A few louts in brightly coloured jackets had finally come closer now and had to step aside to let the stretcher through. The paramedics tucked him in very carefully, with blankets and straps, and then slid him into the ambulance with ease.
How strange that they prevented her from getting back into her own car when it was all over. Even though her grief had yet to surface. Even though no one could have claimed that her senses were not working in accordance with the expected patterns, because look: there, beyond the curve in the road, were the white fields and the white trees and the sun, the ice-cold sun above elongated pale-purple clouds.
Translated by Laura Watkinson
29
P. F. Thomése
The Southern Continent
Zuidland
1
If he closed his eyes, he could hear the roar of the sea. He was convinced that if God had a shape, He would be the sea, rolling meaninglessly in His immensity. So awesome was His expanse that no coast was beyond His reach, even the unknown ones at the end of the world. But no sooner was He there than He retreated and people lived there without knowing Him. God was indifference and Jacob Roggeveen felt that knowing this made him one of the elect. Formerly he would have propagated this truth to prove everyone wrong who laughed at him and saw him as a failure; today, however, he kept it to himself and it gave him a secret satisfaction. In the presence of others he often deliberately closed his eyes. While the people he was talking to uttered their futile words, his thoughts were putting out to sea en route to that immense calm. On the quays of Middelburg too, which he was accustomed to visit every day, he felt his omnipotence. Initially he heard the sounds of the harbour, the harsh rattling of cart wheels, the rolling barrels and creaking ropes; but then the waves of the sea broke and roared majestically over them, swallowing up every separate thing.
2
As a boy he feared the sea. It was as if the seals of all the horrors of the Apocalypse had been broken: the devastating violence of whirlpool and hurricane, the crushing majesty of rocks and reefs, the ship reeling defenceless over the unfathomable depths that teemed with invisible shoals of sea creatures lurking for him – and no safe haven anywhere, only primeval forests or wildernesses that were home to devils incarnate, cannibals, pangolins, griffins and fire-breathing dragons and overgrown with poisonous plants as all other vegetation had been blighted by locust plagues.
The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories (Penguin Modern Classics) Page 48