The Dedalus Book of Dutch Fantasy

by Richard Huijing

  'Time is eight hours, forty-nine minutes, twelve seconds. We are situated at the edge of the convoy's first zone of defence. Its centre is estimated to be at a distance of nine miles. It's moving in a North-North-Easterly direction at a speed of fifteen knots. There are many aircraft in the sky. Your position

  Rigid, Brose listens to the voice in his ear. It was hard and dry: the commander's. His legs were made of blue, transparent ice.

  We'll be going about in a hundred and twenty seconds' time. Detach yourself in sixty seconds. Do you read me?

  Hoarsely, Brose said:

  'Yes:

  'Time is eight hours, fifty minutes, four seconds:

  Brose began to shake and, listening intently to his headphones, directed his eyes towards the instruments. The soft noise of metal on metal already sounded down below. In a moment, the wire would break: he had no radio on board - it would be too dangerous. He heard someone walking. Metal continued to tap against metal.

  'Detach yourself in ten seconds.'

  All of a sudden he heard shouting and running, to and fro, disjointed sounds like those of a brawl. He put his foot on the starter, peered at the chronometer and listened with his whole head.

  'Ah! ... come ... not the . . . - Brose!'

  Thumping, groaning: the officer from the base. He wanted to protest, undo it all, to make the world a better place - 'Ha ha ye ya lala!' Brose shouted, slamming down the starter. Trembling embraced him and a moment later it was so quiet in his ears as though an entire solar system had disappeared and got lost.

  He dived to a hundred and fifty feet and thought: I could turn around and blow up the Y253. But the commander would have borne this in mind. Like an eel, he wriggled and zig-zagged his way away from him now, into the fathomless space of water - not to protect himself but his ship - himself. Never would he find him.

  But it didn't enter Brose's head to go and find him. His eyes on his instruments, he shot through the water. It had become lighter, a soft-blue dusk with many little fish in it. His knuckles were white clenching the steering wheel. Minutes on end, he roared on. He didn't exist. He was a figment in the admiral's mind, and another in the commander's and again another in that of the officer from the base. In a quarter of an hour's time, for an indivisible moment, he would be a figment in the cranium of the Beast: a figment of tearing iron, fire and death. That was the most extreme purpose to which a human being might grow. Nobody existed any other way than as thousands of different figments tearing each other to pieces in the heads of other figments - fata morganas in a desert dream. Brose breathed agitatedly into the hose and looked wide-eyed at the gauges. Man builds himself in, in his words, grasps the joystick and flies through the air or the water like a god, he thought. His eyes grew large. The craft was his body. He had turned into iron. With his body he would break open the flowing body of the Beast. The imagination of the human soul was too large for a bundle of flesh and blood. It had found itself more spacious accommodation. In the beginning was the word and the word has become machine. Somewhere in a clean room, an electronic brain would suddenly punch out a saving message of redemption for mankind, the message of the new body and everything would bend its knee to ex machina.

  Brose's head glowed like phosphorus. More and more frequently, he slid underneath hazy, dark patches hanging like thunder clouds above him. He kept away from being beneath them as much as possible to evade their radar. But he would be a quick, unknown sea creature to them at most: he, an iron body with sufficient explosive power to obliterate a metropolis. Suddenly it began to rain silver before his eyes and for seconds on end fish drummed against his little dome. When he had passed through the shoal, the dark patches had greatly increased in number and the sea was full of hollow pounding.

  I'm deep below the convoy, Brose thought. It suspects nothing, It's a colossal, floating creature, held together internally by wireless nerves. A signalling aircraft, a train thundering across points, a ship with people inside: these are creatures of a higher biological order than a human being. Offices, the cuckoos of singing churches, smoking factories, cinemas shaking with laughter, are bodies with forms of consciousness above the comprehension of man, the way the cells of a body know nothing of the individual they collectively have formed. Brose thought and thought; he thought so as not to think. Cities, states, Before his eyes he saw consciousnesses piled up like an inverted pyramid disappearing ever wider and hazier in a darkness forever darkness. He thought: the entire earth's becoming a body with a consciousness, and soon the solar system and then the Milky Way and, after billions of years, all solar systems in the universe: an omnipresent character grown from the human soul chased away from house and home - and then, who knows, other universes worlds where one belongs ...

  Was this still thinking? His brain worked like his razor when connected to a voltage too high for it. He looked up. The firmament was choc-a-bloc with threatening, billowing shadows. The water had changed into ear-splitting thudding. It was nine hours and four minutes. He had travelled eight miles. Half a minute later everything above him was suddenly green, empty and quiet again. Startled, Brose looked at his instruments. Had he gone off course or had the fleet changed direction? A corpse-white fish flashed past - the ghost of a fish. Five hundred metres further on, a small diffuse cloud hovered again. At top speed he shot underneath it from the side and then ran into the convoy again. He hurled his steering wheel round, veered back in a sharp bend and reduced speed.

  He was in the eye of the cyclone. The little cloud was carrying the Beast, a silence surrounded by space, the Beast with his State Department. At that same moment, an electrical charge hovered in his belly and legs like when he thought of the woman he would go to bed with later on. Then, thirty metres above him but twenty metres below the surface, he slowly saw a colossal iron shadow looming up. His body reacted sooner than his mind - when he was able to think, he was already in a perpendicular spin at full power, down into the deep. Twenty centimetres above his head was the water. He felt the pressure rise rapidly: he felt it by the dancing indicator which began to light up as the darkness increased. There was no difference between the little dome and the roof of his skull; it could withstand a pressure of thirteen atmospheres - death lay at the red line on the dial. At a depth of three hundred and sixty feet, he levelled the craft, hurtled with buzzing ears a few hundred metres in the direction the convoy was steaming in, and there he waited, leering about, with his instruments as so many senses. Light fell through a church window in deep dusk, almost absent but penetrating ultraviolet. No submarine appeared. No depth charge exploded. He hadn't been seen. Were he to continue to circle this spot, the centre of the convoy would be above him again in exactly two minutes. What was he to do?

  But he thought: the murderer is a figment in the victim's imagination as the victim is a figment in the murderer's. But every bullet that strikes, too, is a part of the murderer's body, piercing that of his victim. Each murder is an obscenity, an intimate embrace, a sex killing. He saw his wife riddled with bullets and thought: murderer and victim are two figments, mating.

  Then Brose wanted to see the Beast. For a single instant, he wanted to see his steel body above water stretched out over the ocean. Then he would hurl himself upon him. The Beast was lost already any way. Even if he was discovered and shot at from a mile's distance, his explosion would toss the entire fleet melting into the air and slurp all the aircraft like liquid aluminium, down to the deep. If he couldn't reach the Beast's steamer, he would pitch himself on to the submarine or a ship at random. It made no difference. Cautiously, suspicious like a deep-sea fish that at last wants to see the sun for once, he began to rise. The indicator ran back slowly and sun hovered in the water once again. The engine's trembling was no longer there; what he heard was the quiet flow against the dome of the water, an impassive element the moon is tugging at. A small shadow began to take shape above him: just one, no more. It was the ship of the Beast. Brose rose and let the shadow pass over. With a little snap, the ru
shing in his ears disappeared. The submarine was nowhere to be seen any more, nowhere the churnings of its wake. Brose began to shiver and suddenly he spiralled up to fifteen feet below the surface. All of a sudden there was a bright green transparency, a sphere of glass. On his chronometer, he checked when he would be exactly midway between the steamer and the convoy. It was possible that a ship or an aircraft would open fire at once and put an end to the Beast and his fleet. Slowly, he rose to six feet, to three feet - and then, all of a sudden, he rushed his dome out of the water.

  He shouted. In an ocean of light, the convoy lay there, from horizon on horizon. The sea was quite built up with hundreds of silver-grey battle cruisers and dreadnoughts, heavy in the water, with supernaturally turning radar aerials; in amongst them countless light cruisers, flotilla leaders, destroyers, mine-sweepers, corvettes, gunships, frigates, all smoking and baying cheerfully: an immense city on the glinting water - and above it the blue, booming sky, full to overflowing with aircraft, tumbling, playing, descending and rising up from their matrons of mother aircraft carriers. A chalkwhite seaplane touched down, foaming, between the ships and a jet fighter whistled over him, low down; high, high up, heavy bombers drew crosses and pentagrams against the sky. Brose looked and looked, no longer capable of stirring himself, one second after another. The unutterable body of the Beast! And the heart, the black steamer with her fat plume of smoke at the centre of the empty circle: it was dressed and full of music. Oompahmusic, moving off thinly across the sea, she sang as she sailed along. Sobbing, Brose clenched his steering wheel and began to dive. For an instant he saw the irrepressible feast split in two; it foamed around his head and the water closed over him. He had seen the sun for the last time. That too is no more unbearable than never to see a certain pebble in a foreign country again.

  Under water, Brose realised he was still alive. What had happened? He must have been seen, the little quartz dome must have shone in the water like a gem. Perhaps the defence was over-organised: they had taken him to be one of their own craft. Maybe it didn't cross their minds that the enemy had been able to penetrate so deeply. Perhaps everyone here at the centre was far too jolly to keep an eye out.

  He moved along with them, at the same speed as the convoy, as if he belonged to it - like the deadly germ in a body tough as iron. He had nothing to fear. He put up his periscope and trained on the Beast's steamer. She was sailing three hundred metres on ahead of him, covered in bunting. Brose looked at his instruments. He still had fuel for a good three hours but oxygen for two, at most. He had panted, wept and shouted too much.

  Thus he sailed along - in his head, once again, the fleet, an architectonic swarm of secrets, the sky full of finger tips and glances, and in front of his eyes a gleaming little film of the heart, with its plume of smoke, but the music inaudible.

  And suddenly he got the hiccups the way a pope once got it from two thousand years of Christianity. Malevolent hiccups, from deep within his entrails, every three seconds; at each hiccup into his hose, the machine shot forwards with a jolt, a defect in the engine, so that the little steamer jumped from the mirror and returned there, trembling. He held his breath, swallowed, shifted in his seat, tensed his stomach muscles, but the hiccups continued, like a clock. Nervously, he fingered the steering wheel and with dismay he felt how the hiccups began to tear him down, stone by stone, propeller by propeller - his dismay was disintegration itself already. Along with it came the fear; that same instant, a white pillar of smoke rose up perpendicular within him. With trembling hand, he retracted the periscope and -gave full throttle. The ocean began to seethe around him. It was coming, it was coming! His life lay stretched out in metres before him. Softly the throbbing of the ship awoke in the water - in the distance, her shadow was born; the throbbing soon grew louder and created the ship. There she hovered, keel down, her propeller grabbling helplessly through the water. Black, thunderous, she stormed towards him. Brose hiccupped to the point of shaking - death to the Beast! - saw a broken shoelace, a comer of the balcony of his burnt house, his father's hair parting, and full of revulsion, he drew the steering wheel towards him. With the roar of welded armour plate, rust and shells, the ship rolled by overhead, gliding into the silence beyond him.

  Hiccupping and weeping and making noises, Brose came to himself, still in the silent space. Automatically, he turned and desperately tried to find the way within himself. At the last moment he had dived underneath. Why, why? The fleet ought now to have been hanging in the sky, aflame, and the war to have been over. Why had he dived underneath? Not because he could not die - he could die - everything suddenly had become impossible. No hero's death - an impossible death. He could not die. He hiccupped - it was almost turning into vomiting - he put out his periscope and sought the Beast. The moment he saw him he chased over towards him.

  Emerging the other side he had turned into a wreck. Death to the Beast! His mouth was full of vomit, dripping into the hose. Everything was nonsense! His will was an admiral with a monocle and he had no one in the world any more! He looked for the ship, retracted his periscope and, roaring along through the water, he murmured desperately:

  Andra moi eneppe, Moesa, polutropon hos mala polla Planchte epei Troies hieron ptolietron epersen ...

  Thus Brose hurtled, hour after hour, now from one end then from the other, from the front, then from the rear, below water, towards the steamer of the Beast continuing, impregnably defended and full of oompah music, on her way to the mother country.

  Finally - he had lost track of the convoy for ages now and was wildly roaring back and forth, pointlessly, at great depth - everything went black in front of his eyes, he slumped forwards, let go of the steering wheel and, without oxygen to hiccup still, he slid slowly down to the deep, hour upon hour, with his craft, gently turning and somersaulting like a meditating fish; the little dome was tenderly being pushed in, and at the end of the journey he came to a halt, almost unnoticeably, in an oozy world of ink and illuminated monsters, extinct millions of years ago. There his craft, languid and sleepy, dug itself into the sand, along with him.

  Once every few centuries, however, soft floating and humming would suddenly set in during that night, a mirage - this was he himself, a realisation of existence, a boundless amazement: Bernard Brose - Bernard Brose.

  Carel van Nievelt

  Her last breath had been peace, as had her last glance been love. Peace and love likewise reposed in the marble smile which the finger of death had etched around her pale mouth. Still and painless, as if in a soft swoon, she had slipped away in the mist that no gaze will penetrate.

  But such battle had preceded that reconciliation between living and dying! - Battle by the body, the young body that wrestled and contorted itself to shake off the.annihilator who, unsuspected, in one of his grimmest guises, had ambushed it. Battle by the heart which had to part from him whom it loved and whose life was but one within hers. Battle by the clouded brain that in its feverish delirium felt itself to be accosted by visions of terror, terror of that which, hideous, depicted itself in the human imagination gripped by its most bitter fear.

  Yes, had she not, only the night before, risen up from restless sleep and tortuously gripped the hand of him who did not move away from her couch, and had she not spoken to him in a hoarse voice, eyes wide and staring, of the tortures of hell?

  Reinout, my beloved, save yourself! she had said unto him.

  Save yourself! It is all true what the Christians teach, the things we have rejected so foolhardily. I have seen it: my soul in its oppression has revealed it to me. Reinout, there is a God, a zealous God, a fervid grey-beard on a bank of clouds. And at his right hand is his son, Jesus of Nazareth; and around them both are legions of believers singing hosannahs to the strumming of golden harps; and deep beneath their feet bums the eternal pool of sulphur, full, full of doomed ones, wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth. Reinout, I have seen it all. I died: I sank away in that which is unfathomed, but like a bubble of air in water, th
us my soul shot up to the Eternal Throne. They dragged me before the radiant judge: brazen, like the tone of a trumpet, the judgement sounded from his mouth: 'Down with the adulteress who has not sought grace through the sacrificial blood of my Son! She has despised my word and rejected my covenant. Forgetting herself in unlawful passion, she has desired the flesh over sanctification. She has been dissolute and hardened in all this. Into the pit with her!' I cried out to the Saviour for pity but angrily he turned away from me: 'Too late! Was I crucified for naught? I know not them who have not known me.' And then I was seized and cast down; flames writhed around me, a fiery fume became my breath, waves of sulphur slammed together above my head - I Here, internally, it is still here - the fire, the Reinout, save yourself! Flee into the desert wilderness and do penance for our sins! Do penance, Reinout, and pray for me! For, I burn! I burn! All is true what they preach in their churches. Our lust was our fault and our unbelief is our doom!

  Olga! he then cried, steeling himself against the abundance of his suffering, stop! Here: drink, my darling! It is thirst that scorches your throat, it is the fever that makes you dream of this devilry and which stirs up the memory in your sick mind of this misbelief of your youth. Drink, sweetest one, drink!

  No, no! No water will quell this fire, this fire will not be extinguished. My Reinout, save yourself! Do penance! Pray for me!

  Olga, come to your senses! What do you fear? Have our lips ever lied? Was our unbelief not honest, was our love not true? - And even were it all true what you believe to have heard and seen - Pray tell, have we not both sinned together? If the glow of hell is marked down as the penalty for that which did us both such good, made us so blissful in each other's possession - oh, my all, my love, shall I then not be with you in the fire? ... Olga, look at me! Am I not your only one, your faithful one?