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

by Joost Zwagerman

  The long seat was empty. She sat down and put her cardigan beside her. It had been hot for days. The leaves of the plane trees barely filtered the sun. Frightening, how all that green had kept itself hidden for months and was now bursting forth. Everything was shooting up out of the ground. Growth – she wanted it to slow down, so you could get used to it. Every month she sorted the children’s cupboards, removed clothes that had got too small, selected, took some to the container on the corner, kept too much yet again.

  She pulled a pile of exam papers out of her bag. She’d mark a few, then she wouldn’t have to do it this evening. In the canal a duck quacked. It swam away, disappearing behind the bronze Rodin sculpture standing almost directly in front of her. ‘L’homme qui marche’ she read on the plinth. The man’s legs were long, his buttocks firm and round. He had no head or arms and his prick was obscured. Only his steps mattered, keeping going, putting one leg in front of the other.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw a man coming towards her. She quickly looked down at her papers, working: no empty chatter with guys who were just hanging about in the city.

  His shadow reached to her shoes and led to a pair of suede moccasins, then above them the legs of leather trousers with fringes down the side seams: the Indian suit she’d bought for Heintje as a St Nicholas present. The man came to sit next to her. Annoyed, she picked up her bag, put the exams back into it and placed it between them. On this long bench, with room for an entire school class, he had to come and sit right here. The idiot. Although Heintje would like the way he looked. She peered sideways at the black hair hanging halfway to his shoulders. He was wearing a leather wristband with a turquoise gemstone on it, set in silver. He’d crossed his brown arms.

  ‘Could I ask you something?’ His voice was soft.

  ‘Certainly.’ She looked at him. His eyes were very dark brown.

  ‘Do you know where Ahoy is?’

  ‘You need to take the metro to Zuidplein. There’s a stop along that way where you can get on.’

  ‘On the Ahoyweg, it said in the directions.’

  ‘From the Zuidplein metro station you just follow the signs.’

  An empty Coke cup floated past the water’s edge. The duck poked about in the litter with its beak. A tram passed on the other side of the canal. She noticed that on one of the big old houses it said ‘Mariners Centre’. On the building next door was a sign: ‘Stop suffering’.

  ‘Off to a concert?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I have to work. I’m already late. I wanted to walk there but this city is bigger than I thought.’

  ‘You’ve got a long way to go. It’s on the other side of the river.’

  A Japanese couple came to stand in front of the Rodin statue. The boy asked if they would mind taking a photo. He’d used gel to make his hair stand upright.

  ‘Better not get me to do it,’ she said. ‘Mine always come out blurred.’

  The Indian took the camera.

  The boy and girl put their arms round each other. Next to the legs of the walking man they looked like a pair of dwarves.

  ‘You only have to press.’ The Japanese was becoming impatient. His smile was artificial.

  The Indian took his time, changed position, rotated the lens, pushed one or two buttons. The boy was clearly struggling to resist switching places and taking the photo himself.

  When the couple had gone, they laughed together. Then it was quiet, for several minutes. The sun shone all along the bench. Holidays in the past, the sense of timelessness you felt walking home from the beach.

  ‘I have to go,’ said the Indian.

  From a clock on a lamp post she saw it was already five. The crèche was on the other side of town, there was a vegetable box to pick up, they’d run out of nappies. ‘So do I,’ she said. ‘If you like, I can walk to the metro with you. I’ll show you the stop.’ She blushed.

  ‘Yes, please,’ he said.

  Together they walked along the shopping streets, past people with sunglasses and full carrier bags, past buggies issuing high-pitched wails. It was busy; the fine weather had drawn people out of their houses.

  The metro station was a dark hole in the ground. At the top of the steps they stopped. ‘You need to go down there.’

  He asked if she had a pen.

  She found one in her overstuffed bag.

  He tore a corner off a free newspaper, wrote something on it and gave it to her. Then he adjusted the collar of her blouse. For a second his fingertips touched her throat. Before she knew it, he’d disappeared into the ground. Bewildered, she read the note he’d given her.

  She dashed into the crèche, panting for breath. The children didn’t seem to mind too much that she was so late. She stuffed them into their coats. Heintje dragged his backpack along the pavement. At a rocking duck he stopped and tried to haul himself onto it. ‘Just keep walking, darling.’ She clamped Nora to her side. In her free hand she held the note with his phone number. He was called Justin. What a name. The area code didn’t look familiar. Did he live in one of those outlying suburbs? Hadn’t he got a mobile? At the glass doors to the block of flats she crumpled the note and threw it into a litter bin. For a moment she had an urge to walk back, stick her hand in and pull his number out from among the crisp packets and ice-cream wrappers.

  The lift glided upwards. The long half-hour they’d spent sitting on that bench together. His eyes. Relief at having disposed of the note didn’t come. The children whined. Heintje wanted to press all the buttons; Nora pulled her earring out.

  Inside, Heintje made straight for the fridge. ‘Ice cream, ice cream.’ He tugged open the freezer compartment. His little sister crawled after him.

  ‘We’re just about to eat.’ She sighed and gave them each an ice lolly.

  It was stuffy in the flat. She slid open the balcony door. The pansies she planted in the window box last week could do with some water.

  She gave the children their dinner and loaded the dishwasher. Hugo was late. Recently he’d started talking about a third. When you had two already it didn’t make all that much difference, he said.

  He didn’t get home until they’d finished dessert. He’d gone for a quick game of squash with Carel after work. Carel had seen an adviser about his pension, Hugo told her as he poured a glass of wine. ‘He thinks we ought to invest in real estate. You pay all the costs out of the rental income. You should see what you can build up over ten years.

  ‘I’d rather just put something in a savings account,’ she said.

  ‘Go ahead. Two per cent interest, nice subsidy for the banks.’ Shaking his head, he poured another glass and said nothing.

  At eight thirty the children were finally in bed. Hugo was sitting in front of the television. He looked tired, his eyes were dull, his skin greyish. He’d barely reacted lately to anything she said.

  She sat down with her laptop and looked up the Ahoy website. A Western Fair was starting, with Indian dances and rodeo demonstrations.

  Suddenly she felt Hugo’s hand on her shoulder.

  ‘In need of a bit of adventure?’ He chuckled.

  She quickly clicked away the page and opened her university email account.

  When he was settled in front of the television again, she went back to the Western Fair. Photos of men with cowboy hats and guitars, of sun-reddened blonde women line-dancing back to back. A stage with the Stars and Stripes as a backdrop and, six times as big, the Dutch flag.

  There were just two photos of Indians, one of a dance group and one of a warrior with a headdress of white feathers. Didn’t he look a bit like Justin? Their faces were painted with black-and-white stripes. She doubted the authenticity of the brown underneath.

  She clicked on the opening times. The Fair started at nine thirty the next morning and lasted for two days. Her first appointment at the faculty wasn’t until eleven. She could be at the Centraal Station at nine, at the front exit, where all the passengers came out.

  It was cool in the bedroom. Hugo w
as already in bed; he’d set the air conditioning running. She didn’t switch on the light, he didn’t like it.

  She slid across to him. ‘Little furnace, so here you are.’ Eyes closed, he pulled her towards him and kissed her. She turned onto her side. Tomorrow morning she could work on her research for two hours instead. She hadn’t got much done recently. Compare the results of the surveys she’d got her students to carry out after the summer.

  She couldn’t sleep. Every time she shut her eyes she saw Justin, his eyes, the skin of his arms, his fingertips touching her collar bone before he disappeared into the maze of the metro station.

  Hugo snored. She got out of bed and took a homeopathic sleeping pill in the bathroom. That couldn’t do any harm. She lay down again. Before she knew it she was standing on a wide-open plain, summer freckles around her nose, hair in a ponytail. The sun burned. The sky was blue. Someone was coming towards her out of the arid distance, forcing his way through prickly scrub.

  For fifteen minutes now she’d been standing at the ticket machine. She’d picked up a newspaper. Combing the crowd with her eyes, she pretended to read. The station clock said it was ten past nine – still less than twenty-four hours since she met him on the bench by the canal. Had it been a hallucination? How long was she going to stand and wait? It began to get hot. Her silver sandals pinched. She loosened the straps a little and rocked from one foot to the other. She wondered what to cook tonight, spaghetti carbonara or penne with peas and ham.

  Behind two men in suits, he emerged from the pedestrian tunnel. Justin. His long hair was tied in a ponytail. He came straight towards her. He didn’t hurry.

  ‘There you are again.’ He touched her wrist.

  ‘I saw you were going to be working at the Fair,’ she stammered.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a stand there with handicrafts. We set it up last night.’

  Perhaps he could tell she was nervous. He calmly went on talking, to allow her to settle, get used to his voice, to the fact he was there. ‘I sell tapestries and pots, but not many, transport is tricky. Jewellery’s better, not big, not heavy, always good. Dutch women are crazy about turquoise.’ He raised his arm a little to show her his leather wristband with its blue stone set in silver.

  ‘Is that from America?’

  ‘How does Taiwan strike you?’ He laughed.

  ‘Are you also in the dance group that’s performing this afternoon?’ She blushed.

  ‘I’m hopeless at dancing.’ He gave a little jump, making other passengers briefly look up. She didn’t believe for a moment that he couldn’t dance.

  ‘Come on. My treat.’ He stuck out his hand.

  She took it. This can’t happen, she thought, holding tight.

  Between hurrying commuters they strolled towards the centre of town. At the bottom of one of the city’s tallest buildings he asked her name.

  ‘Maidie,’ she said.

  ‘Then you’ll never grow old,’ he said.

  They walked along the canal, past the Rodin statue near where they met, the man who was mainly legs. He stopped. ‘Beautiful.’ His hand skimmed a bronze ankle. The metro station came into view. ‘I really only wanted to say hello. I have to go to the university.’

  ‘Phone not working?’

  ‘I lost your number.’ In a bin, to be precise. His note had probably already been swallowed by a dustcart. She blushed.

  He asked whether she’d have time soon. After.

  Hugo was collecting the children from the crèche today. Just for once she could get home a bit late, a couple of hours. He often rang to say he wouldn’t be in for dinner. And there were still fish fingers in the freezer. Urgent meeting, she’d say. No, she was going to the theatre with a colleague, unexpectedly. They’d eat something in town first. It wasn’t worth coming home. ‘I can make five o’clock,’ she said.

  The rest of the day was a disaster. She forgot an appointment with a student, wiped part of a draft and jammed the photocopier so badly they had to ring the manufacturer. At three the lecture ‘Governance in the Public Sector’ began, a course she was giving for the first time. ‘The world in which policymakers attempt to implement changes is often more complex than they anticipate.’ She laid another sheet in the projector. There was total silence. ‘Excuse me, but either you’re in the wrong place or we are,’ a student called out. The whole room laughed. On the large screen behind her it said ‘Methods and Techniques of Qualitative Research’. Red-faced, she hunted for the correct sheet.

  At four thirty she grabbed her things and hurried to the metro. Below ground she used a window as a mirror. She undid her hair, tied it into a ponytail, then released it again.

  On the dot of five she reached the spot where they’d parted that morning. She put on her sunglasses and looked around nervously. It was so busy; the whole city was adrift. As long as no one she knew happened past. Justin’s a colleague, she’d say. It didn’t sound very good. She didn’t know anyone on the university staff who wore fringed leather trousers. A friend from America, that sounded better.

  She took up position on the corner, in front of a place where you could make photocopies twenty-four hours a day. Then she went over to stand on the kerb, a little higher than the street. Her eyes kept wandering to the clock above the counter. At five thirty he still hadn’t arrived.

  She was just about to leave when he ran up to her. ‘Sorry. I was just packing away when this big group of women suddenly came up to the stand. There wasn’t a soul all afternoon, but right at the end I sold three hundred euros’ worth. Necklaces and earrings. Hand over fist.’

  ‘Business before pleasure,’ she said. How stupid that sounded. She tried to wink as she said it, which no doubt looked like a nervous tic.

  They went to a Surinamese place she used to call in at sometimes after a night out. A semi-basement, it was hot and damp inside. Fiery Caribbean sounds came from the loudspeakers.

  He had two rolls with roast pork and a large bowl of soto, eating quickly and with concentration. She stabbed a little at her rice and beans and couldn’t swallow a mouthful. In every sense he was unlike the men she knew. His imperturbable gaze. The skin of his face, his arms, which seemed to shine.

  Ten past six. Right now Hugo would be lifting the children out of the car. She’d left a message on his voicemail saying a colleague had a spare ticket for the theatre. A very lengthy performance. ‘There are still some fish fingers in the freezer. And sorry, but my phone’s almost dead.’ Then she’d switched off her mobile.

  Plates of food and bowls topped with foil were slid through a hole in the wall. Behind the hatch, illegal immigrants worked here, Hugo had once told her. The last time they ate out he’d added that all the bars in the city centre were terrorized by the Turkish mafia. He liked to tell her things like that right at the start of the evening. She’d be unable to get them out of her head and he would casually order some special wine or other.

  ‘Delicious.’ Justin wiped his lips.

  She prodded at the beans some more. A few ended up next to her plate.

  He looked at her, then said: ‘Shall we go outside?’

  They walked in silence towards the river. A cool breeze got up as they stood at the waterside. A freight barge passed. The cage on top of its cargo hold had a playhouse and a slide inside it. They walked along the quayside. Justin sang a song with words she didn’t know.

  She used to come here with boys from her class. First sweethearts after school hours. Her grandfather had stood here too; his brother left for America from the building on the far bank. Long afterwards he’d come to this spot and watched the bridge being built. A few days before it opened, he died. A month later, in a force-six gale, the whole structure started to sway. The cables had insufficient resistance.

  On the open deck of a tourist boat stood an elderly couple. The woman waved her handkerchief. Justin waved back. The evening sun lit up the flats and warehouses on the other side. The buildings were sharply outlined against the pink sky.
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br />   Suddenly she felt his hand sliding up from her wrist, past her elbow. Her breathing quickened. She swung round to face him. She kissed him, taking hold of his leather jerkin.

  Her clumsiness.

  His hands on her back.

  A car tooted. They were standing at the edge of a parking place.

  ‘Come on.’ Justin pulled her after him over the cobblestones. The sun had gone, the buildings on the opposite bank had faded. He led her with him, into an avenue. As if she could no longer walk by herself. A row of historic houses was being restored. Green gauze flapped from deserted scaffolding. An overhanging wisteria was attached to a front wall with rusty wire. That sweet smell, as if out of a bottle.

  At the road junction they stood still. He pointed to a hotel across the street. She nodded.

  In the lobby an aquarium was built into a wall of lacquer. Little fish swirled about, blue, yellow, fantails. The fish came towards them and then swam away.

  They took a room. Number 304. ‘Beautiful view,’ the receptionist said. She paid. As they were going up she realized that the credit card she’d used was from her joint account. ‘Sorry.’ She ran back down: ‘Can I still cancel that payment?’ The receptionist shook his head. She turned round and walked slowly upstairs.

  He was sitting naked between the white sheets, upright, his legs apart. The legs she’d felt around her. She leaned against the wall. Dark tresses slid between her fingers. She made his hair into a thick plait, then undid it again. From the corridor they heard the voices of other hotel guests. The balcony doors were open a crack. It was getting dark, but the birds were still singing, high in the tall poplars along the street.

  ‘Where do you live?’ she asked.

  ‘In Emmen,’ he said.

  She laughed. ‘An Indian from Emmen.’ She ran her fingers along his spine, from bottom to top.

  The muscles of his shoulders hardened. ‘Just shut up about Indians.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She withdrew her hand.

  ‘Maidie, little girl … You shouldn’t say the first thing that pops into your head.’ He laughed. There was a tiredness to it. ‘My father was American. In 1954 he came here with the air force. He was stationed at Soesterberg and he brought us with him, his whole family. As a boy I often played on the moorland there, I knew all the paths and rabbit holes.’