Technically speaking, it’s even possible that the little boy is my son, for P.J. and I never stopped sleeping together. And my balls are in perfect working order. Says P.J. She comes by when Christof is off travelling. Pa always closes the living-room curtains, on days like that she is there in full. P.J. is getting little wrinkles of age beside her ears, my love for her has never cooled. She is still my only reader.
The passages where I wrote about Joe, the things that happened and how we lost our souls make her uneasy. ‘He was a dreamer,’ she says, as though that explains or justifies anything.
Sometimes she asks me to pick her up with my good arm, I put my hand under her arse and she keeps herself in balance on my shoulder, so I can slowly lift her off the ground. Then she sits briefly on my hand like on the saddle of a racing bike. When I lift her I am, for a moment, as strong as a bear and she feels as light as a feather. This gives her a great deal of pleasure. After that we fuck like animals.
I still make my village rounds and occasionally drop in on Hennie Oosterloo in his garden house behind the Little Red Rooster. He sets his elbow in the middle of the table, because he will associate me with arm wrestling for the rest of his dimwitted life, but I shake my head and sometimes I almost start crying. I think about seppuku, the clean, straight cut, but in the end that is not in my line. I didn’t lose my honour, I gave it away while in full possession of my senses.
The E981 has opened. A glacier of asphalt came grinding in, steamrolling new times before it, and we have disappeared behind a towering sound barrier of earth and plastic. And indeed, we hear nothing, just as little as we are heard. From the corner of their eye, drivers zipping by may catch a glimpse of the tip of our steeple poking up above the wall, atop it the cock that showed its pluck; otherwise the world has hidden us from view. But behind that we have not passed away, nor have we changed our shape. We are still here.
Joe Speedboat Page 28