June

by Gerbrand Bakker

  Anna Kaan picks up the bottle of advocaat, unscrews the cap and lets the thick drink slide down into her throat. It makes her drowsy. At birthday parties she limits herself to one or two small glasses. When the big creaking starts – What is that? Is it the main timbers? The beams? Or is it something in her own body? – she screws the cap back on. A quarter left. Is the wood, all the wood, expanding because it’s so hot? Or is it shrinking? She looks up through the hole in the roof at the sky, which does seem to have turned white now, or grey at least. Her time on the straw is almost over. A raindrop, she thinks. When I feel the first drop, I’ll seize on it to go back down. She takes a few more mouthfuls of warm water to wash the sweet taste out of her mouth and shakes her legs to make her calves wobble. The numb feeling doesn’t go away.

  Walking Stick

  The walking stick with the ivory knob. That will give him the support he needs. The hydrangea leaves are looking a little better, at least they’re not limp any more. The gravel crunches under his feet, the point of the walking stick pokes holes in it. He’d rather not bump into anyone on the short walk from his house to the cemetery. He wants to walk purposefully, and the walking stick helps with that too. He thinks about Dinie’s dog; but that’s going too far in the other direction. It’s big and sluggish and never seems that interested in what’s happening around it. Its name is well chosen though, Benno. No, a schnauzer, he wouldn’t mind that, with a short sharp name.

  He takes the bridge over the canal and from there it’s only a short distance to the Polder House drive. The point of the stick taps on the pavement. One, two, three. One, two, three. He interrupts the rhythm by reaching for his left rear pocket and touching the sealed envelope containing the photo. He slipped a piece of cardboard in to stop it creasing. It’s much too hot for a jacket, otherwise he would have put the envelope in the inside pocket. The back of his shirt was wet the moment he stepped out the front door. The Polder House looks strange to him, so soon after looking at the photos of the Queen’s visit, and after quickly gulping down a third lemon brandy before grabbing the walking stick. There used to be trees here, elms, and old-fashioned lamp posts, and next to the door a sign saying Office hours: 9.00–12.30. Closed in the afternoon. That’s where the Queen, the mayor and a man he didn’t know stood to watch the folk dancing, with that ancient violinist standing next to them playing, his lips thin and tight. He’s buried a hundred metres further along by now, of course. Just like the mayor. The old Queen is interred in Delft, in that big crypt. They stood in the shade of the old linden espalier. He turns around, because he can see that image before him so clearly he almost expects to see his light-grey Volkswagen van outside the bakery on the other side of the canal. It’s not there, of course. Someone is approaching on a bike and he hurries past the Polder House to the cemetery gate. It’s wide open, as if somebody just left.

  The baker hardly ever visits the cemetery. His parents were both cremated and he has no other family buried here. Dinie once brought him here to show him her husband’s grave, leaving him to stand there awkwardly while she attacked the headstone with a dishwashing brush (he hadn’t seen a fleck of dirt), threw away some old flowers and put some new ones in their place. The dog lay a few metres away looking in the other direction.

  He has a slight headache, which is hardly surprising after three brandies in the middle of the day. He has a hat on the hat rack at home – he can picture it hanging there – but unfortunately he didn’t put it on. More than just protecting your face from the sun – something that’s not necessary now because the sun is hardly shining – the brim of a hat also casts a shadow over your eyes. Just act like you come here often, as if the cemetery is part of your regular afternoon walk. He looks at the inscriptions without reading a single letter. The shell grit under his feet sounds very different from the gravel in his front garden and he’s glad he brought the walking stick; he really is leaning on it now. There’s a bench over there, under a big linden. And now he sees Jan Kaan, or at least a gleaming back and a head with a cloth tied around it. He lowers himself onto the bench, in the middle at first, but there’s a brass plate that jabs him in the back, so he slides across to one side. He stands the walking stick between his legs, both hands on the ivory knob.

  Then it gets so quiet he imagines he can hear panting. It seems to be coming from above. Damn it, there are two little birds in the linden. Two little birds that are really hot. If he’s not careful, one will topple over onto his head any minute. He slides back to the other side of the bench, drawing a line in the shell grit with the point of his stick. Jan Kaan rises up a little and looks in his direction. They look at each other, creating a brief possibility of speech, of greeting each other – then the moment is gone. By the time the baker decides to raise his stick up in the air, Jan Kaan is already sitting down again, hunched in front of the headstone.

  Oh Happy Day

  Dinie Grint is sitting on the sofa in her living room. She’s lowered the awning even further, making it even yellower inside the room, despite the main window no longer being in direct sunlight. Her bare feet are resting on a leather footstool and Benno is sitting in front of it, licking her heels. She’s crying. She’s already reached out to pick up the phone three times, and three times she’s pulled back her hand. You can’t call the police when you’re crying, they won’t understand what you’re saying, and if they do, they’ll think you’re soft in the head. ‘Yes, sweetie,’ she sniffs. ‘At least you’re nice to your mistress.’ The dog looks at her and stops his licking. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Don’t stop.’ The dog obeys.

  People at the cemetery are generally nice and friendly. Sometimes they’re not very talkative and she understands that. Sometimes they’re the opposite and then she has to dam their flood of words, so she can have her say too. The council neglects its duties; she’s the one who has to keep her eye on everything, clearing away wilted flowers now and then, with Benno’s fat tail smoothing out the shell grit in the paths as a free extra. Those horrible Kaan boys sent her away from the cemetery. The red-headed monsters!

  ‘Bah!’ she says, pushing Benno away. She stands up, turns on the radio and looks at the clock. Yes, it’s the Golden Hours. Non-stop hits. She sits down again, swinging her legs back up onto the footstool. They just chased her off. What did they say again? ‘Just go away!’ And, ‘Mind your own business!’ But she does have business there, and she knows what sorrow is. And that cheeky little girl – Dieke, who on earth came up with a name like that? – with her stomach pushed forward and those bright eyes under pale eyebrows. The tone of that ‘Bye-bye!’ of hers was outrageous. They were wrecking the place, whether it was their own grave or not. For the fourth time she reaches out to the telephone. She’s stopped crying, but still doesn’t pick up the receiver. Even if there is someone at the station, they’ll only laugh at her, she knows that, her voice hasn’t calmed down yet. ‘Yes, sweetie,’ she says soothingly, to herself and the dog. She hikes her skirt up a little, then stares at the radio, stunned, as a familiar tune begins and the Edwin Hawkins singers launch into ‘Oh Happy Day’.

  She closes her eyes and, instead of Benno’s tongue, feels the draught on her knees in the white ticket booth; the wind blowing in through a hole under the counter, mostly warm, but sometimes biting cold. This song, all through that long summer, and it didn’t bore her for a single minute. The smooth gospel flowing out over all of the heads in the swimming pool, singing about Jesus washing sins away and making no distinction between Christian and non-Christian heads. It was the first summer the radio had been connected to the speakers on the corners of the ticket booth. She sold singles, checked the season tickets, and fished sticky one- and five-cent coins out of children’s hands in exchange for yet another piece of liquorice, another marshmallow.

  It was only when she hadn’t seen her son on the diving board for a while that she lifted herself up off her chair to get a better view out over the water, and then she immediately sneaked a glance at Alb
ert Waiboer, standing in the paddling pool with his daughter, his back bent, his feet planted firmly on the bottom of the pool, muscles tensed. She used to daydream about Albert Waiboer. Him doing things to her that her husband couldn’t even imagine. If Albert Waiboer wasn’t there, and he didn’t come often, there was always some other man to look at. And yes, she’d smoked a cigarette now and then, even though that wasn’t strictly allowed; she just set the door slightly ajar and the smoke soon drifted out through the opening. The two little Kaans always came together, and she always greeted them with a cheerful, ‘Ah, if it’s not the Kaan boys again.’ One always pulled a bad-tempered, surly face and the youngest one always swore. They were always unfriendly, they were never fun, not happy or carefree like other kids. And Teun dived off that board so beautifully in his yellow swimming trunks. She didn’t see much of the oldest Kaan at the swimming pool, but the other one, Jan Kaan, who later . . . in the garage attic . . . with her son . . .

  The song finished and they cut straight to another golden oldie. She’s glad to reopen her eyes.

  The Kaans. Once she rode her bike past their farm in winter and there they were, the oldest son and Zeeger in the middle of six or seven nasty-looking men, shotguns broken over the crooks of their arms. Lying on a white tarpaulin were rows of hare, pheasants and ducks, poor creatures. The hunters were knocking back little glasses of schnapps with their free hands, out in the open air, in broad daylight! Strange people. She hardly knows Anna Kaan, but she must have a screw loose too.

  Teun. Her hand wants to move towards the telephone again. ‘Benno, that’s enough now,’ she says. The dog doesn’t listen. Instead of the police, maybe she could call Teun? And then avoid saying ‘Teun’ by accident, but use the right name, otherwise he can get so angry. The baker: she could call him too, he’s always home. He’d be sitting in his back garden under an umbrella, a crossword puzzle on his lap. No, there’s no point, she’ll see him in a couple of hours. She starts crying again, this time more because she feels so helpless. It took all of her powers of persuasion, but she managed to get away from the village, the son respectably married in Den Helder with two children, and then he gets divorced. What’s more, he no longer wants to be a fitter, but retrains as a youth worker and ends up running some home for ‘difficult’ youths. And just hangs up if she phones him and accidentally lets slip with a ‘Teun’. But you are your name, surely? She and her husband didn’t call him Teun lightly. Names are important, that’s why it’s so horrible when people have an ugly name. Dieke? Terrible for that girl, somehow. She thinks of calling her ex-daughter-in-law, but rejects the idea, because she has a new husband now and there’s a chance he might answer and he doesn’t know her at all. Oh, yeah. ‘Does she dye her hair, do you think?’ That’s what that red-headed Kaan said to that ugly child. And he’d asked, ‘Do you know who that woman is?’ as if he didn’t see who she was. If I recognise him, he must recognise me too, surely? ‘Benno,’ she says quietly, so that the dog doesn’t even react.

  Den Helder. Almost all of the shrubs and perennials they’d dug up out of the front garden froze that first winter, the furniture looked wrong in the small living room and her husband was completely miserable. Once, when everything was more or less sorted, just once, she called her son a nincompoop, which he accepted impassively. He’d started at a new school after a week or so and otherwise didn’t seem to have a problem with the move. Her husband had a new, wide-eyed expression, as if he was constantly asking himself how he’d ended up somewhere so windy. Because of her, of course. She’d set the transfer in motion. He kept that strange look in his eyes until just before he died. It was only after she promised to bury him in the village that he finally started looking a bit normal again.

  Don’t call anyone then, because only weirdos call people when they’re crying. ‘Benno!’ she exclaims. The dog stops licking. She stands up and walks over to the window, stares down at the dry grass. The dog comes over next to her and barks at a sluggish thrush in the garden. Long strands of drool drip from his jaws onto the rug. She should get started on dinner, put a bottle of white wine in the fridge. They’re fond of a glass of white, her and the baker. The baker is nothing at all like the Negro who slipped in through her bedroom window this morning. He’d let dark ale run down his chin and drip onto his bare chest without any embarrassment, after which it would make stripes all the way down to his navel, or maybe even lower. She sighs. The Negro, of course, is also much younger than the baker.

  Walking Stick

  The baker hits the trunk of the linden with his walking stick to avoid losing face. For a moment he’s afraid he’s disturbed the birds, but they don’t fly off. Just stroll over, have a look what he’s doing, then comment on it? His mouth is dry from the lemon brandy, dry and cloyingly sweet. The stick is back between his legs and, putting his whole weight on it, he manages to stand up. Stroll, he thinks, don’t walk. To his left there’s a radiant gravestone that looks like it was lowered into place just yesterday. Jan Kaan is painting. A small tin of white paint, a brush. The baker isn’t right behind him and has a clear view of what’s written on the headstone. Four words in fresh paint. Jan Kaan has just started on the year of birth. The baker closes his eyes, he doesn’t want to read the rest. ‘Hi,’ he says and then he’s at a loss. Can he say ‘Jan’? ‘Kaan’ is what he comes out with. ‘Hi, Kaan.’ Only then does he open his eyes again.

  The red-headed man turns halfway towards him.

  ‘It’s turning out well,’ the baker says.

  ‘Hmm,’ says Jan Kaan.

  ‘And coming along nicely.’

  Jan Kaan doesn’t reply. He puts the tin of paint down on the ground and lays the brush across it, gets onto his knees, unties the cloth tied around his head, shakes it out and pulls it on. It’s a T-shirt. He stands up. ‘I’m going to go and sit on that bench for a bit,’ he says.

  The baker smells him as he passes, eyes fixed on the bench. Not unpleasant: sunscreen and perspiration, maybe a bit of something like deodorant mixed in. He’s aged, of course, and has already started walking with his father’s and grandfather’s stoop, but the seven-year-old kid is still in him. And the twelve-year-old. The baker tries to remember when he last saw Jan Kaan. Really saw him. Maybe when he was about eighteen. After that, once or twice, three times at most? He must have been in the kitchen sometimes – on a Saturday – when he delivered the bread? He’s sat down on the bench and is tugging at the short sleeves of his T-shirt. The baker takes his words as an invitation to go and sit next to him. He needs his walking stick to cover the fifteen metres. Exhaling deeply, he sits down on the bench for the second time. A bit of small talk first, he thinks. ‘Where are you living these days?’

  ‘Texel.’

  ‘What do you do there?’

  ‘I run a holiday park.’

  ‘Oh,’ says the baker. ‘What’s that involve?’

  ‘Painting, mowing the lawns, talking German, cleaning up rubbish.’

  ‘And you had the day off?’

  ‘I’m just the assistant really.’

  ‘Ah. But it is high season now?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The baker thinks hard. The man next to him is answering his questions, sure enough, but he’s not taking the initiative. He’s sitting there like Dinie’s dog, Benno; it undergoes things passively like this too. ‘Married?’

  ‘Nope.’

  That’s a shame, because a wife would have to come from somewhere, and you can always find something to say about children.

  ‘No wife, no kids. I don’t have anything at all.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the baker, ‘I’m sure that’s not true. How are your parents?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Both still in good health?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Are you hungry? Should I go and get you something?’

  Jan Kaan looks at him. Piercing eyes and light eyebrows
. ‘Why would I be hungry?’ Again he reminds the baker of Benno, he’s raised his chin slightly as if he’s caught a whiff of something and is trying to optimise the position of his nostrils.

  ‘Well, maybe –’

  ‘I’m not in the least bit hungry. And if I was thirsty I’d walk over to that tap there.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Have you been drinking?’ Jan Kaan asks.

  ‘Ah . . .’ What am I doing here? the baker wonders. He wipes his forehead with one hand while gripping the ivory knob of his walking stick tightly with the other. He dries his damp hand on his trousers. ‘I was just looking at some old photos, back home.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘From when the Queen came.’

  ‘The seventeenth of June, nineteen sixty-nine.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That was when the old Queen was here.’

  ‘Do you remember it?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Oh. You’re in them actually. The photos.’

  ‘I know.’ Jan Kaan stands up. ‘I’ll get back to work.’