The Dedalus Book of Dutch Fantasy

by Richard Huijing

  'This is the first pre-condition for he who wishes to be a balanced human being and seeks to make a success of his life: ask not the why of things, accept the things the way they are, and act simply, with honest conviction, according to circumstances:

  When, after a year had past, the king had grown calm again, he ordered Karel de Man's theatrical company to attend court.

  The celebrated artiste came at once and was received in special audience. The star, who now acted very modestly, barely dared look up at the monarch, but when he did so his eyes acquired a deeply thoughtful expression.

  'Tell us what you are thinking,' said the king. We demand that you should tell.'

  'Your Majesty,' was the hesitant reply, I thought of a ... forgive me, pray, Your Majesty; I once knew a rich man who believed himself capable of personifying a king. He resembled Your Majesty so much that at first

  'And was he regal?'

  'Begging Your Majesty's pardon, he was an upstart Mr Average. Only his face resembled yours but in his manner, bearing and expressions he was annoying, but conceited he was to a high degree.'

  'Are you quite sure we were not that man?'

  The actor grew fearful of having said too much.

  He stammered: No, Your Majesty ... for I should recognise you amongst thousands by the majesty of your person.'

  And the king gleaned from his eyes that he was speaking the truth.

  That evening, Karel de Man acted in his most powerful play but, though giving the best he was capable of, he could not manage to make more of it than a modest success.

  That same governor who once had applauded him warmly, that same mayor who had ridiculed the king, those same dignitaries who had praised him once loudly, thought him, now they knew themselves to be in the king's presence, a ridiculous prince.

  The king has thought at length about these contradictions, but he has never reached any clarity in the matter.

  Jan Siebelink

  In his mind, he imagined that the little room filled itself with the racket of his revolver blazing away, that cracks ran like dark rivers through the glass of the mirror and that both of them, he and the woman, fell apart in shards ... With a smile on his serious, contorted face, he listened to the reverberation of the tumult above their destroyed bodies which had remained intact nevertheless. The smile vanished, his hand slid along the bedspread hanging down to the ground, sweat forced its way out from his forehead.

  A few years ago, Van Baak had entered an ironmonger's shop and had stood a long time looking at a showcase sealed with a padlock, at the rear of the shop, in which firearms of many kinds were displayed. He had just made his so-manieth visit to the sexologist ... 'Allow your imagination to wander a bit, let it do the real work, and do take plenty of He knew in advance that it wouldn't work out, but the doctor acted very busy, made telephone calls, rinsed bottles, walked to and fro, washed his hands at length: all actions undertaken with the intention of distracting him so he would not get the feeling that the doctor was waiting for him, was expecting something from him. His mind had to be trained 'lightly' on the sex act, so 'lightly' in fact that the success of that act would not seem of the slightest importance ... 'Close your eyes! It stimulates the imagination and gives you But he did not close his eyes; from behind the plastic curtain he followed with revulsion the grotesque shadow of the doctor; that particular time he got an erection; its cause did not lie in the evocation of the sharply defined image of a lascivious woman. The busy doctor irritated him boundlessly. Chill anger crept up inside him; if I had a revolver now, he suddenly thought, I'd wrench open the curtain and then, him, I'd ... Calmly, he slid open the curtain; the doctor turned round, smiled, rubbed his hands and said: 'You see: perseverance's the thing!' With his index finger he tested the hardness; Van Baak looked at the nail which was smooth and pink with fine spots of calcium.

  'Splendid!' the doctor added. But under the caressing finger and the approving gaze, his sex withered.

  And he had gone for a walk in town, right hand in the pocket of his unbuttoned raincoat, finger on the trigger - in reality he was clenching the key to his front he an uninterrupted hail of grey bullets ... he felt himself grow strong, a strange power seemed to take possession of him, the sombreness in his life was solved at a he even had to restrain himself from dancing a few the disdainful expression on her face would disappear. The trick, discovered just now, did not turn out a success; he could riddle her with bullets, shoot like a daemon: in vain.

  He never could have imagined that something like this would happen to him. Even as a boy he had been convinced that terrible afflictions lay in wait to assail his body; he was forty-two: anything was to be expected at that age and gratitude was a fitting thing for each day without pain. Thus, he had been prepared for many things - not for this. He well remembered that evening when it had gone wrong for the first time; he blamed it on the combination of tiredness and booze, and her discovery, too - he could not deny this - of an entire year's worth of 'Knock-knock, knockers', the bigboobs mag, underneath a folder of bills in his desk drawer; and shortly afterwards she had come into his room (a blush of shame rose to his cheeks again) and he had not been able to stuff the booklet out of sight quickly enough; it had fallen from his trousers, down in front of her 'I'm the one watching every penny - Sir buys expensive, filthy little books ...' They lived in a small place near Utrecht. She worked for social services in Amsterdam, visited broken homes, rang up ever more frequently to say that the consultation was running over time, that she wasn't coming home, and in the end she moved in with a man she had helped with his divorce. In letters she wrote from time to time another reproach came to the fore. That they had remained childless was his fault. The sexologist had once confided to her that his semen was too meagre.

  It would happen that he would lean in town against a lamppost, right hand in his coat pocket, and that for a moment he was really of a mind to buy himself a firearm, but people had looked at him so penetratingly and he'd hurried off into the suburbs. He would never buy a firearm, and that moment of repentance had given him childlike pleasure because he was mild-mannered by nature, but particularly because he could now give his imagination free rein if need be; without danger, he could observe all the effects of a shot fired, down to the last detail, as his whim dictated.

  He became a regular visitor to the house boats on the Zandpad. Most of the prostitutes knew him alright: always carefully dressed, but never without an unbuttoned beige raincoat.

  The noise had sunk away into the drab bedspread. Except for the woman who, sighing, moved her leg, it was quiet inside. Outside, birds uttering sharp cries flew in across the water; in dense swarms they would dive, over the road situated higher up, over the fence in the verge, rotting away, over a crumbling wall - the last remains of a little farm - down into the depths where the fields began and faded away, further on, to a dead plain with a block of flats under construction.

  The mirror. with blister marks was the sole luxury in this bare, repulsive room; he turned his head and his eye fell on a poster depicting a naked woman in a curious vaulting position. At one time, the walls had been papered; the remnants were still stuck to the faded, badly fitted slats. On the table by the door stood a table lamp without a shade and a portable radio; he heard the birds again and he pressed himself up against the woman; with his head held to one side he could continue to see the shine that gave a depressing intimacy to the room - the fo'c'sle in fact. Under the lamp lay two twenty-five-guilder notes.

  It was always asked for immediately upon coming in. Van Baak had adopted the habit of taking the money from his wallet in advance and to come in with the money clearly visible, mumbling, half-stooping, as if he had just found it on the path that led steeply down from the road to the boat. The money he was holding in his hand wasn't even his! And now those notes were lying there just so, brightly lit under the lamp, he could barely remember having put them there. Of course, his behaviour was very childish, but this playing with illusion had bec
ome a necessity to him.

  There was a further advantage connected with this course of action. What he was holding in his hand was the sum he wished to spend. He had no more for that evening. In order to answer the call, financially, of this increasingly compelling 'extravagance', he had to draw cash more and more frequently. Van Baak was an averagely paid white-collar worker.

  It was quiet outside now, too; the boat rocked and in that moving silence he expected, any moment now, that the woman would let fly at him. He would get in there first: he turned his face towards her, almost closed his eyes and said: 'It won't work.' He raised himself and leant on his arms.

  'Don't give up so soon.' The eyes beneath slate-blue eyebrows in the thin face had a friendly expression. He heard the birds outside again; in the dusk they would be gleaming black and round; birds or people, in great numbers they were always terrifying. He had never been inside this woman's place. He always took a great deal of time to take his pick, but today the chattering creatures flying over so low had frightened him. Without looking, he had fled in here. He shifted his weight from one arm to the other, lowered himself beside her, spotted a shallow fold, like an eager child's mouth, in her neck, and he was moved; his nose caught the scent of her perfumed hair; he was afraid that he would have to cough, and he looked in the mirror again, his head in the hollow of her arm. When the woman was lying down she had very hunched shoulders too; she breathed heavily; he thought she had asthmatic bronchitis.

  'Come,' the woman said hoarsely.

  'It's no good today,' he said. 'I don't need to try: it's because of the birds.' He lay perfectly motionless, actually expecting that she would begin to laugh, derisively.

  After a good while, she said: 'And you haven't been drinking?' Her voice was calm; it seemed resilient because of the asthma.

  'No.'

  'Been working too hard, have you?'

  'Yes,' he admitted. 'I'm sorry.'

  'When you're tired it's always difficult.'

  'I do believe I'm tired,' he said softly and weepily. He raised his head, stared at the bare wall above the pillow. Her hand stroked his back; he stretched his legs, laid his head back down on her shoulder.

  'Are you nervous?' she asked.

  'Yes, I should have stayed home today.'

  'You must relax and not think - look at me.' He looked at the ageless face; she pulled his head towards her, pressed it against herself; he felt her thin neck and her bony hand slid across his body. 'It's no good,' he said. 'My eyelids are trembling - I'm tired, I'm terribly sorry.' She looked him in the face, made a slight movement, and he thought she shrugged her shoulders.

  'I'm restless ... if the birds hadn't been there ... it was just as if they were coming out of the water: vicious, black creatures. He acted a bit hard-done-by, made a helpless gesture with his hands. 'You're afraid but don't you go thinking that there's anyone who'll take any notice of your fear. You, yourself, will have to ...'

  'I can't help it.' He would have liked to stroke the woman's hair but its hard sheen of lacquer prevented him.

  'Better luck next time,' she said and remained lying down.

  'I'm making a fool of myself.'

  'You'd never been to me before?'

  'No, I walked in, just like that.'

  'Walked!' She had a thoughtful way of smiling. 'It looked as if they were after you; like a bat out of hell, you ...'

  'The birds. . .'

  'They settled this afternoon, opposite; they seem very vicious.' She thought and then she said: 'It's as if they want to fly themselves to death; perhaps it's only at dusk that they shriek like this.' She looked at him for a moment and said: 'There's something very sad about you.'

  He got up from the bed.

  'Why are you in a hurry all of a sudden?'

  'I'm ashamed of myself.'

  A cat came out from underneath the bed; it rubbed against his legs, it purred; it was airless in the low room and the table lamp was burning; he stroked the creature. In the mirror he saw that she, too, now left the bed. To save face, he asked: D'you loathe it?'

  'Why?' She was standing in front of the wash stand.

  'With all those men?'

  'I know who I take in.'

  'How many a day?'

  'Curiosity killed the fine, if you want to know: things are very quiet now but on a day with lots of regulars I quickly hit thirty or so, but I do make things easy for myself at times.' He stroked the cat. He had gone and sat on his heels next to the bed; he began to put his shirt on.

  'So how d'you do that?' She began to laugh, a hoarse laugh that ended in a fit of coughing; she let water run into the mitten flannel; he saw in the mirror that she closed the tap, allowed the flannel to slide into the basin and came towards him; the cat's body was warm.

  'She's a timid puss, actually; she'll only allow me to stroke her. She loves you; I think you must have a lot of friends.'

  'I've got no friends.' He waited. 'I've got too powerful an imagination.' He did not understand quite what that last sentence amounted to right now; he was surprised for he felt at ease in a strange kind of way.

  'You're an odd-un.' The cat shivered; the birds were silent.

  'How old are you really?' Across the back of the animal, his eyes trained on her, he said: 'Forty-two.' He got tired of hunkering down and, with the cat, he went and sat on the bed; the woman had walked back to the wash stand. He looked at her sunken back.

  'Forty-two,' she repeated. He squeezed the cat hard below its backbone. It jumped away, moaning; making itself small, it crawled away beneath the bed.

  'What on earth're you doing now?' She looked him up and down from head to toe, but he couldn't discover anything disapproving in her; only her voice was upset. 'I made an unexpected movement,' he replied despondently and he bowed his head.

  'You don't half look glum, you do - I've never had a man like you before.' She acted a little annoyed. The woman came and sat down beside him; footsteps sounded outside, it had begun to rain; he knew what the sky would be like this autumn which had set in early: from behind the flats, dark clouds would come sailing in, winging their way up like tremendous beasts, lit from below by the last rays of the evening sun; it was as if all those clouds were gathering for an attack upon the endless row of dripping, rocking boats, in order to smother the shrill cries of love. He looked in the mirror and was startled: he was still holding his revolver in his hand; it was not heavy, what with its slender, cobalt-blue barrel and the flame-grained grip. He got up and walked over to his raincoat hanging on a nail against the door, and he put the gun away, deep in the coat pocket. The woman followed him and shook her head. The rain was falling, hard and monotonous; again he heard footsteps, someone was listening at the window; the image of the feverish sky returned; he was sweaty and he saw that his hands were trembling.

  'Actually, what's the time?' She took his right hand, rotated his wrist forty-five degrees, and looked. 'Ten past seven. Quietest time of the day.' She put his hand on her bare, knobbly knee. 'Try just one more time.' He looked at his shirt which he was busy buttoning up.

  'Never mind, keep it on.'

  'Yes,' he said, without conviction. He lay there looking at himself again and at the woman who was doing all she possibly could.

  'Just think of nothing at all and don't do anything either; you're all wet with perspiration.'

  'It's hot.'

  'The room has low ceilings; it soon gets too hot with the electric fire on.'

  'It's hard to regulate the temperature in such a little room,' he said, 'an electric fire has just two settings.'

  'Don't move,' she ordered; she acted very strict, almost the same tone as his mother's, way back.

  'My wife ...' he said, and was silent.

  'Well ... ?'

  He was silent. 'You don't have to tell me anything, but if you want to get something off your chest, I can listen, I've learned to - , I'm here, I sometimes think, more to listen than ...' He went on being silent.

  'Fine ... all the sa
me to me...'

  'No,' he said, suddenly.

  'What, no?'

  'It won't work, honest ... I'm s...'

  'Is that you apologising again?' She acted cross again; looked at him in the mirror. 'No need to be ashamed of yourself: you're just tired, we're all tired at times.' The rain clattered on the roof and against the little window pane. 'Please don't pull such a helpless face: you're just like a child.'

  'I shouldn't have done it today - I might have known.'

  'You're in a bit of a state: you ought to go home.' He got up at once, walked over to the chair his clothes were lying on and, with a rapid gesture, pulled his trousers from it. The woman continued lying down and said: 'See: now you're acting all panicky again.' He stared at the money under the lamp, on the table by the door - he only need stretch out his hand.

  'Perhaps I'll already be back again tomorrow,' and a little laugh spread across his face.

  'I won't let you in.'

  'You'll let me in alright.'

  'Yes, I will let you in,' she admitted and she smiled, thoughtfully.

  'Just imagine, me being so tired today of all days, when I'm here for the first time.'

  'Now you listen here,' she said, 'it's time you stopped that whingeing.'

  'Could I have some water, please: my mouth's dry.'

  'That's what it's there for., He walked past the bed the woman was still lying on, held his head sideways underneath the tap and drank; he saw the money; why hadn't she put it away at once? He drank greedily, wiped his mouth and said: 'I'm sorry.'

  'Put a sock in it, please.' She put a long cigarette between her lips. It had become stronger of late, this mania of apologising for every word, for every deed.

  'D'you know what it is with you7' He shook his head. 'Lack of self-confidence.'