June

by Gerbrand Bakker

  Jan Kaan walks away from the bench.

  The baker stands up too quickly and one of his hands, the one he just used to wipe the sweat off his forehead, slides off the ivory knob. He falls to his knees. It hurts terribly. All those sharp shells. Jabbing into his hands too. Jan Kaan turns back to look at him, apparently wavering. The baker realises that he can’t get up again without help. Help either from the man opposite him or from his stick. He gropes around for the stick. Jan Kaan takes a couple of steps towards him. ‘No,’ says the baker. ‘Just let me sit down for a minute.’ He sees the scene from above, as if he’s one of the two birds in the linden tree. Old man on his knees. Much younger man, in T-shirt and shorts, looking down on him, ordered not to lend a helping hand. ‘I wanted . . .’ says the baker.

  ‘Yes?’ says Jan Kaan, in a tone that isn’t even unfriendly.

  ‘No . . . I . . .’

  ‘Do you want me to help you or not?’

  The baker stares up at him without answering.

  ‘Look, um . . .’ Jan Kaan is clearly trying to decide what to call him.

  ‘Just call me . . .’ Call me what? Mr Blom? Herm? Blom? Baker? ‘I actually want . . .’ He’s got hold of his walking stick now and, planting the point in the shell path, slowly pushes himself up. With a pounding in his temples, he is now standing more or less straight, longing desperately for his hat and a large glass of cold water. He goes to brush the grit off his knees, then leaves it. Then he says, ‘Here,’ pulling the envelope with the photo and the piece of cardboard out of his back pocket and pressing it into Jan Kaan’s hand. He doesn’t care any more, he can tear the envelope open right here on the spot if he wants to. ‘My wife left me,’ he says. ‘A long time ago now.’ As if that explains the picture. He can leave the envelope sealed too if he likes, and look at the photo later. Jan Kaan stands there, hesitating, the envelope in his hand. The baker realises that he doesn’t have any pockets, not on the T-shirt and not in his shorts, which are the kind people wear for running. ‘She couldn’t take it any more, living with me.’ Now I’ll turn around, the baker thinks, and then I’ll walk to the gate, remaining calm and collected the whole time. I can manage that, especially if I use the stick properly. One, two three, swing; one, two, three, swing.

  ‘Where is everybody?’

  He turns back. Where is everybody? Jan Kaan is standing just like before, staring at the envelope he doesn’t have anywhere to put. ‘Everybody who?’

  ‘In the village.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s like it’s deserted.’

  ‘It’s not that bad, is it?’ What does he mean?

  Jan Kaan walks back to the grave and lays the envelope on the edge. He runs a hand over the back of his neck and sits down again. The baker swings his stick. One, two, three, swing. When he hears Jan Kaan say, quietly but clearly, ‘Thanks,’ he doesn’t slow down. One, two, three, swing. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t hear it.

  Chestnut

  Klaas’s wife is standing on the far side of the ditch. ‘Mr Kaan!’ she shouts. ‘Do you know what Eben-Ezer means?’

  ‘Eben-Ezer? That’s what Kager’s house is called, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but what’s it mean?’

  ‘Not a clue. Does it have to mean something?’

  ‘I was just wondering. And Linquenda?’

  ‘You ask some difficult questions.’

  ‘So you don’t know either?’

  ‘No.’

  She goes back into the house, as if she came out especially to ask him. He’s put the chainsaw down on the lawn for a minute. After getting it out of the garage he’d carried it through the back garden on his way to the side of the house, counting six more trees on the way that could come down too. To think that earlier in the day he’d smirked about that guy from the city planting his wood. ‘Rekel, get out of here,’ he says to the Labrador, which had sat between him and his daughter-in-law during their conversation, turning his head faultlessly to look at whoever was speaking. The dog only half obeys him, sitting down again where Zeeger was standing, while Zeeger moves on to the bleeding, patchy chestnut. It’s the middle one, the biggest of the three. A letter arrived from the council, quite a while ago now, urgently advising people to leave infected trees alone. So Zeeger Kaan is not cutting down a sick tree, no, he’s felling a tree he sees as a weed. A tree that’s growing somewhere it’s not wanted. Rekel bumps into his legs. ‘Get, I said!’ The dog whimpers and reluctantly retreats to the corner of the house, where he sits down on the brick path.

  Zeeger has filled the tank to brimming with the fuel mixture, the oil tank is full as well, and he’s even cleaned the air filter. He pulls out the choke and presses the hand guard with his wrist but the brake is already on. With one foot in the handle to keep the saw on the ground, he pulls the starter and immediately groans. Incomprehensible, these machines. One day the saw kicks over immediately, another you have to keep pulling it. He’s also never sure whether to pull out the choke or press it in. Now he pushes it in and pulls the starter again. No, that’s not right, he hears that immediately. He has to have the choke out. After three or four tugs, the engine starts. Rekel tries to stay sitting there, but then the racket gets too much and he stands up and retreats to the bridge. Zeeger pulls the hand guard back and the chain starts to turn. Long ago he did a one-day course. He no longer knows exactly what all the different parts of the felling process are called, but he does remember that he has to cut a triangle out of the trunk on the side he wants the tree to fall, and then cut the bark on the sides of the triangle before starting to really saw into the trunk from the other side at the height of the cuts in the back – the felling cut. The tree must be a good twelve metres tall: he has to make it fall diagonally, between the corner of the house and the third chestnut. The other direction isn’t an option: half the tree would end up on the road. Fortunately, most of the strawberry plants in the vegetable garden are bare. I must be mad, he thinks when he has to put the chainsaw down on the lawn halfway through the felling because the sweat has started to run into his eyes. He pulls a hanky out of his pocket and tries to dry his face. He sees Rekel sniffing around near the open barn doors. The trees have been here almost forty years now. When he planted them, the labourer was still living here. ‘You really want to?’ said the labourer. ‘Yes, I really want to,’ he answered, and dug three holes. The labourer’s two children thought it was fun, they watered the three saplings faithfully for weeks. He scrunches away his hanky, disengages the brake and sticks the blade in the cut he’s already made. Soon the wood starts to creak. He takes a quick step back and to the side. The chestnut tips slowly through the warm air and slams down onto the ground with an unexpectedly loud crash, while twigs and brown leaves swish up. Shame about the French beans that were left, he thinks, turning off the chainsaw and going into the house. And the last few strawberries too, of course. In the kitchen he has a good look around. It’s lighter. ‘Hmm,’ he says. It could be even lighter. Before going out again, he fetches a towel from the bathroom and drinks two glasses of water. Rekel is already waiting for him on the back doorstep. ‘No, Rekel, I’m not finished yet,’ he says. He waves the dog away with the towel. ‘Go over to the other side of the ditch.’

  Straw

  Now everything’s finished. The biscuits, the advocaat, even the water. The advocaat ran out after Dieke had stood downstairs for a while, calling up. When was that? An hour ago? Half an hour? Things about Jan, who ‘was painting a stone with a really little brush’ and about ‘an auntie, but I don’t get that’. About someone called Leslie and Jan saying that Leslie is ‘a pick ninny’. Dieke herself had ‘cleaned all these stones with dead people under them’ and that had ‘felt a bit funny’. She hadn’t said anything in reply, of course, and eventually Dieke went away again. Dirk snorted for a while, then he too fell silent.

  Anna Kaan has crept over to the edge
of the straw and tries to look out through the open barn doors. He’s cut down a tree, but which one? She can’t see anything except a rectangle of gravel. And Rekel of course, hanging around the doorway: a paw on the concrete for a while, then a paw on the gravel. If she really wants to know what Zeeger’s up to, she’ll have to get down, and her whole body’s itching, she’s that keen. I’m not going, she thinks. Not yet. That raindrop. That’s what I’ve decided on. They can wait a bit longer.

  Again she hears the chainsaw starting up. Another tree? A little later, Rekel reappears at the barn door. Why doesn’t that dog just come in? What’s all this indecision about? She rubs her hands to warm up her fingers. It’s because of lying still, she thinks. Her blood’s not flowing properly.

  Fortunately no memories of earlier celebrations have surfaced. She had dozed off and was half asleep when her granddaughter woke her. The old Queen’s hat had appeared before her. It was a beautiful hat with a broad round brim, and made of fabric that complemented her dress. A dress with flowers on it, stems included. Leather gloves, but not for the cold, because it was beautiful early-summer weather. And the one glove she pulled off, and the words she said. The cheek she touched, briefly, with her bare hand. The two women behind her, one very posh with a yellow pillbox hat, and one who kept studying the Queen from close quarters, almost shamelessly. The one glove held loosely in the other, gloved, hand. ‘The Queen touched her,’ she was mumbling, as if it had just happened, when Dieke shocked her awake with a blaring shout of ‘Grandma! What are you doing up there?’ Incomprehensible, that child still wanting to talk to her, hoping for an answer.

  Chestnut

  Klaas is sitting on the lawn next to the big plastic paddling pool, keeping an eye on his daughter. The pool is on the south side of the house. By the sound of it, there are two trees down already, but he can’t see from here. He’s dying to know what’s happening, but Dieke’s in the pool and although she already has a swimming card, water’s dangerous even when it’s less than knee-deep. The screech of the chainsaw is hellish in the quiet afternoon. Apparently there’s a third tree that needs cutting down.

  ‘What’s Grandpa doing?’ his daughter asks.

  ‘Cutting down trees.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Grandpa thinks trees are stupid.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘No. I think Grandma must have complained, Dieke. That it was getting too dark in her kitchen.’

  ‘Why does Grandma go up on the straw?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask her?’

  ‘I did. I said, “Grandma, what are you doing up there?” but she didn’t say anything.’

  ‘Maybe she’ll tell you one day.’

  ‘Has she got something to drink?’

  ‘I hope so, otherwise she’ll be getting pretty thirsty.’

  ‘When’s she coming down?’

  ‘Oh, it won’t be long now.’

  ‘I don’t care if she stays up there.’

  ‘Dieke, it’s not that Grandma dislikes you. You know that, don’t you?’

  She doesn’t answer, she’s too busy staring down at the warm water.

  He watches her and wonders when people lose the ability to take things in their stride like that. She’s already forgotten about the trees and now, in front of his eyes, she’s forgetting her grandmother.

  ‘Daddy . . .’ she says.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Why does Uncle Johan talk so funny?’

  ‘Do you think he talks funny?’

  ‘Yes. Slow.’

  ‘I’ve told you before, haven’t I?’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘I told you. About the accident he had on his motorbike . . .’

  ‘He rode over cars.’

  ‘See? You do know.’

  ‘I kind of forgot.’

  ‘It’s called trial riding. And one day he fell off one of the obstacles.’

  ‘Obsta . . . ?’

  ‘It was a lot of tree trunks piled on top of each other.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. And then it was like he was asleep.’

  ‘Yes, for about ten days. Wait a sec, will you, Dieke? I’m just going round the corner to see what Grandpa’s doing. I’ll be right back. Will you stay sitting there like that? Exactly like that? Not lying down?’

  ‘No,’ says his daughter.

  ‘What do you mean, no? Do you mean you are going to lie down?’

  ‘No, not lying down. Will you get in the swimming pool too?

  ‘Yep. I’m boiling.’ He stands up. Before disappearing around the corner of the house, he quickly looks back. His daughter is doing her best to stay sitting exactly as she was sitting. As he walks under the balcony he looks up. Knowing his luck, a beam or a chunk of concrete will crash down just when he’s walking under it. But the balcony doesn’t drop anything. The privet that separates the lawn from the yard is much too high to see over, it hasn’t been pruned for years. The smell of the flowers is unbearable. Stupid, he thinks, if I cut the hedge it will stop flowering. He goes up next to the hedge and breathes through his mouth. The middle tree is lying angled into the vegetable garden; he must have cut that one down first. The second is lying in the middle of the front garden; that makes sense, because the tree that was there is now gone. And he can tell from where his father is standing that the third tree is going to come down on top of the second one. He’s only cut them down, he hasn’t stripped them yet. This was the coarse work. Klaas’s heart misses a beat: his elderly father, bent over next to the third chestnut with a potentially lethal machine in his hands. When the third tree falls, he’s had enough and shuts off the chainsaw. Rekel, sitting in the middle of the bridge, immediately stands up and pads over to his master. Klaas turns and heads back past the front of the farmhouse. He looks in each window and doesn’t see his wife through any of them. Dieke hasn’t moved a muscle and looks at him contentedly.

  ‘Is he finished?’ she asks.

  ‘Yep. He’s finished.’

  ‘Are you going to get in too?’

  Klaas pulls off his shoes, socks and trousers, and steps into the pool. The water stopped being cool long ago. He can’t quite stretch out full length in the pool. Dieke sits on his stomach.

  ‘You’re an island,’ she says.

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’m an island. With underpants.’

  She’s forgotten Grandma, she’s forgotten Jan at the cemetery, she’s forgotten Johan and now she’s forgotten the chestnut trees too. ‘Texel,’ she says. She hasn’t entirely forgotten Jan, then.

  I’ll just lie here like this for a bit, Klaas thinks. Breathing in the old-fashioned plastic smell: pungent, like water wings and inflatable beach balls in the old days. Then I’ll go.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘That auntie, at the cemetery . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Why is she dead?’

  ‘Dieke . . .’

  ‘Aren’t I old enough?’

  ‘Yes. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Where was I?’

  ‘Yes, when she died.’

  ‘Oh, that’s so long ago now. I don’t remember.’

  He was standing at the side window, two metres from where he is now lying in the pool.

  He’d skipped school that morning as he had no desire to stand in front of the Polder House holding hands with his classmates or waving a stupid little flag. ‘If I want to see the Queen, I’ll watch TV,’ he’d told a friend, and together they’d ridden their bikes to the canal to go for a swim near the white bridge. They knew the Queen would be coming from Slootdorp and it was no coincidence they were standing on the railing in sopping-wet trunks and that both jumped just when the big car was crossing the bridge. They’d agreed that neither of th
em would look, that they’d act as if they were just going for a swim like any other day. They didn’t manage it; their curiosity got the better of them. Klaas saw the Queen sitting in the car, a woman with a little hat on top of her head. Afterwards he’d gone to his friend’s house for something to eat and then he went home, where he made sure his mother didn’t see him.

  That afternoon he was sitting under the workbench in the barn, fiddling around with nuts and bolts, bits of wood, chicken wire and nails. He wanted to make something, but didn’t know exactly what. The three young bulls were standing with their heads against the bars of the bullpen; a ginger tom was lying next to him on an empty burlap bag. It ended up being a kind of cart, with twine spools as wheels. Then he heard his mother scream, ‘Zeeger!’ That was no teatime call. He jumped up, banging his head on the workbench. The tom shot off, the young bulls took a step backwards. He didn’t take the shortest route – through the barn – but went out around the back. By the dairy scullery he heard his mother call his father again. He made his way through the vegetable garden at the side of the farmhouse to the front garden. He stopped at the side window, where he could look straight through the house and see the road framed by the front windows, above a row of cactuses and the privet. In the distance he saw the baker’s Volkswagen van.

  He didn’t move. He saw his mother, his father, he heard Tinus yelp once, as if he’d been kicked. The baker got out of his van; they bent down – behind the hedge – and they talked, but they were too far away for him to make out any words. He heard a siren, the baker disappeared, the van stayed where it was, half on the road, an ambulance manoeuvred past it and then a police car drove up as well. Men in white coats in the yard, men in uniform standing on the causeway and next to the baker’s van, and Klaas still didn’t understand what was going on. His mother called his name a few times.

  Eventually, only the Volkswagen van was left, though he wasn’t sure if the baker was still sitting in it. His eyes were fixed on the cactuses, the grey woolly ones with vicious barbs on them. Something bumped up against his legs: Tinus. Together they walked straight through the vegetable garden to the back of the house; he heard the beans cracking under his boots. He arrived at the barn, not knowing what to do, walked into the cowshed and pulled the door of the calf pen open. Tinus stumbled in behind him, and just before he closed the door the ginger tom slipped in too, frightening the calves. After he’d sat with his back against the wall for a while, the calves came up and started to sniff him cautiously. Tinus licked their wet noses. No longer standing with their heads pointing into the barn, the three young bulls pushed against the bars on his side. He stuck his hand in a calf’s mouth and a little later he stuck his other hand in a second calf’s mouth. He thought of a brochure from the Stompetoren Artificial Insemination Station his father had recently given him. It included a bull called Blitsaert Keimpe. Blitsaert Keimpe! That was a cut above Dirk. Dirk followed by a number, the name shared by all three of the young bulls. It was a long afternoon. The tomcat spent hours dozing in a corner, even Klaas nodded off for a moment. Tinus was restless. Then the cows came into the shed. Was his father going to do the milking? Was everything back to normal? Slowly he climbed up onto his feet – not wanting to wake up Tinus, who had fallen asleep with his head on his thigh – and opened the door of the calf pen. Grandpa Kaan was standing there. ‘Ah, there you are,’ he said.