The Dedalus Book of Dutch Fantasy

by Richard Huijing

  Full of hunger, all reproach, his eyes regarded me; his hands were folded as though he would pray to me, or only to give me strength even though it did seem too late for everything ...

  What was I to reply? I sensed nothing uncommon in what he said. I was too late, I knew. Again I thought of the stone face; the transition had taken place too soon for me to have been able already to banish him from my thoughts. And, quick as lightning, his question continued in my mind in a different form: why had I not shone on to him for longer, why had I allowed myself to be distracted? And particularly as regards the memory of that deathbed of thirteen years ago that popped up again, more threatening than a moment ago, I felt all too clearly how sorely I had failed, now and in the past already, too. For only now did I realise why my father had become more youthful in his death throes. It was to spare me, not to burden my shoulders with what everybody who feels guilty and tortured by remorse when he sees his father die, must bear anyway, even when there has never been any real cause for such things. Through the alteration to his appearance, everything had transpired unnoticeably and more soothingly, through the support of that curiously rejuvenated face, though in reality he was even older than one could ever become in this life. But bridging time, that other, real deathbed for which he had judged me not worthy, had travelled along with me now to reveal itself fiercely all of sudden - fiercely like a reproach, fiercer still than self-reproach and yet akin to self-reproach. For I could have stopped him, the way I had done with the stone face! Even if it had only been five seconds more: I could have let him who knows, death might have beat a retreat, demoralised, frightened off already by that short-lived resistance. No, no, it was not to spare me even so: it had been a chance he had given me which I had not managed to take advantage of! Not for me had he rejuvenated himself, but for my help which he hoped for! Who knows the fluctuations of the heart beat, or the life force of a dying brain? I should have spoken with him, not stand there with a hand on my chin and thoughts of the nuisance of a funeral in my head; I should have pursued that miraculous rejuvenation, laughingly, cheeringly, and bringing all our shared self-confidence to bear, I should have pointed old portraits out to him, memories that are eternal, a childhood that returns, time and again, the tremendous life force that exceeds everything, death included, the ...

  The reality of the staring boy's face made me come to my senses once again. A question forced its way to the forefront, gained power over me: I had to utter it. I made a step closer to him so we were standing eye to eye.

  'Is it your father who has died?' I asked softly.

  He recoiled, but no reply came from his lips. He now leant sideways, up against the woman who might be a nurse or a mother, and who had kept her arms stretched out as though to receive him. His face fascinated me like a mirror. What was it that strange smile wanted? I no longer expected a reply. Behind them, I saw the hard, white garden shrink far back, become hazy, die away ... It was as though his face came very close to mine, closer still ... But how long had this been going on for? ... Years? ...

  How dark it now was. Dark as though nothing had happened and nothing would ever happen again. Could I still hear footsteps? The light had gone out all too suddenly, and the night wind with its whisperings had taken possession of me again so irresistibly that I wasn't able to make out whether the young man walked back to the house along that gravelly drive, or whether he disappeared a different way. Blinded by that rapid transition from light to darkness, anaesthetized by emotions without a name, I only felt capable of making a step forwards after a number of minutes, the way a sick man does when setting his feet on the ground for the first time.

  I didn't search for the stone face. I knew I could no longer get in contact with him nor could he with me. Till morning, I roamed that inhospitable landscape without equal on any map. Poplars whispered by my side, endless fences fled ahead of me in despair; they curved and seemed about to return to the same spot again; constellations I did not recognise gleamed in the sky above. Never did I see that house again nor have I ever known what might be true of all this - and whether indeed a father died that night.

  Jan Wolkers

  Herbert stands in front of the steamed-up window of his apartment on the fifth, and top, floor. His hands in his dressing gown pockets, he listens to the rushing in his ears.

  I'm in a bit of a state, he thinks, I'm a doomed man, though it may take another ten years. Ten more years with Liesbeth. Horror! I'm perspiring as if I have a fever, yet I haven't one.

  He digs his nails into the palms of his clammy hands. The only thing he sees through the foggy window is the Belisha beacon on the opposite side of the road. As if he's standing on a tall mountain and an orange full moon, having just risen above the horizon, is being hidden from view, time and again, by fast moving clouds. Like he has seen in films run at a higher speed. But the flickering, on-off, is too regular and disturbs the illusion. He takes his hand from his pocket and, fingers slightly apart, he draws long, parallel curves down the moist honeycomb, as though he's caressing a woman's long hair. The Belisha ends up on a post of licorice allsorts; the traffic island with its yellow bollards, poisonous aniline blue lights burning within, becomes visible. Of the trees in the park only the trunks can be seen. The tops have been devoured by the mist insects. The houses are wrapped in damp sheets. A neon adyertising sign loses its purchasing power and acquires a lofty meaning. A red cross on waves of mist. Herbert puts his hand back in his pocket when the door opens behind him. Liesbeth shuffles into the room. She sighs and pokes the fire.

  'You've left the vent open too long,' she says. 'The stove's got red cheeks.'

  She's now standing by the stove, bent over, Herbert thinks. I should walk up to her and give her squat bottom a shove. A wee taste of purgatory. But she'd scream the place down. I'm wearing my slippers. Before my shoes were on and I was out through the door, the neighbours would be here already.

  'Mind you don't go drawing on the windows, Herbert. Once they've dried, I can barely get them clean again. You might wash them for me.'

  'I'm not washing anything. I just want to have enough of a view. Let the moisture evaporate: good for the plants.'

  'But it's bad for the furniture; it makes them warp, Herbert. Just bear that in mind, would you? Peter, Peterkin! Come here lad, come!'

  That hairy predator approaches to comfort her after the defeat I've inflicted on her, he thinks.

  He hears the cat's paws tap the lino. It jumps up at her and climbs up her pinny. She croons over it as over a newborn babe.

  Barren womb, yieldless acre, he thinks. Why didn't your womb open itself up to me twenty years ago? Why were you like a pollarded willow that fails to sprout in Spring? I would have had a daughter of twenty by now. The scent of young female flesh in the house. Tunes being hummed, the tripping of high heels, rouge to lend some colour still to my old age. Let's think, now let's think clearly.

  Herbert leans his torso forward so his head rests against the cold, damp window.

  Ah, that's wonderful! I'm in Rome, sitting on a terrace: a hot summer's afternoon. The tarmac's billowing because of the heat. I order a glass of beer, icy cold. I press the glass to my forehead. The cold makes its way through my brain down to my backbone. What was it again I wanted to think about? Ah, yes: why do men always murder their wives in a rage while the balance of their minds is disturbed? Why not a trip to Austria? A hearty walk, a mountain trek? D'you hear that yodeller in the valley over there, Liesbeth? Look, there he is! If I go and stand on this rocky promontory, I can see him sitting there. Where, Herbert? I don't see or hear him. Bend over a bit more! Look, he's sitting there surrounded by columbine, further down the valley. Then a goodly poke with the walking stick and those two hundred pounds souring my existence tumble out of my life.

  He suddenly gives a start because of the shrill squeal of tram brakes. It sounds like the screaming of a hare being jumped by a stoat. He looks down. The tram moves off slowly. Then, all of a sudden, there's a woman lyin
g on the traffic island. The parts of her lower legs dangling beyond the kerb are at an angle of almost ninety degrees to the parts on the traffic island. It is as if her instep reaches a tremendous way up, or her knee joint has slid down. Blood runs along the edge of the traffic island towards the rails. The tram halts, grindingly. A conductor runs to the motionless body, bends over it. He shouts something to the driver, steps on to the pavement and enters a shop.

  He's going to ring the paramedics, Herbert thinks. Perfectly pointless. Why not quietly leave her to bleed to death? Why must her husband drag out his twilight years behind a wheelchair?

  People abandon cars, bicycles, prams, and hurry to the fateful spot. They surround the victim the way carrion beetles do the cadaver of a mole.

  Didn't I hear deathwatch beetles in the bars of the bed this morning? So it was inescapable. Look: the windows are weeping.

  Herbert follows the drops that jerkily draw vertical lines among the curves. Then he turns round.

  'Can you see, Liesbeth, what's on that piece of paper in the milkman's window? Your eyes are better than mine. Might even be a special offer.'

  Liesbeth sets the cat down on the chair and totters over to the window. Herbert walks to the stove and holds his hands above it in the rising warmth.

  Wonderful, those hot water springs in Iceland, he thinks. Would the winter be a severe one? The signs are favourable. Would it be suspect to buy a refrigerator at the beginning of Winter? Wouldn't it rouse suspicion? Shucks: there are people who buy a camping tent in January. Didn't I myself once stand beside a girl buying a bathing costume when it was twenty degrees below? But there are indoor swimming pools, of course. And aren't there any houses where the heat's tropical in winter? I can't hear anything by the window yet. Might the mortal ... ehm, might the remaining mother (in-law, grand and great-grand) have been carted off already? That'd be a pity. Haven't heard the siren yet, for that matter. Or are there so many people standing around now that it's as though someone is offering something for sale, just like that, right out in the street?

  I must keep a grip on myself, Liesbeth thinks, and with both hands she presses her stomach. There isn't even a piece of paper in the window: he spares me nothing. The blood! She must be draining dry.

  She feels the contents of her stomach rise. Quickly, she walks to the door.

  'And could you read what was there?' Herbert asks.

  He hears the toilet seat being raised with a bang.

  A coarse brain but an oversensitive stomach, he thinks.

  A siren sounds outside. He walks to the window. A cream coloured car stops at the traffic island. Hurriedly, two men jump out, pull a stretcher from the back of the car and set it down beside the body. Then they pick it up and put it on the stretcher. The left foot, bobbing up and down, perpendicular in its stocking, ends up next to the stretcher. One of the men shoves it back on with his foot.

  Liesbeth comes in again.

  'It's busy in the street,' Herbert says.

  'That's what I saw too, just now. There seems to have been an accident. I couldn't see.'

  'Best thing, too,' Herbert replies as he draws a little landscape with a windmill in the top comer of the window. 'You've got enough of a weak stomach as it is. You'd be upset for days. Assuming it was an accident, then it was caused by the tram. Not a pretty sight at all. Those iron wheels shear the lot off, clean. I once ... Hey, why are you leaving the room in such a hurry?'

  Retching, Liesbeth runs to the toilet.

  Dinner-for-one this evening, Herbert thinks, rubbing his hands. I'll put the newspaper behind my plate, up against the condiment set. A feast!

  When Herbert has reached the top of the stairs, the door to his apartment opens. Liesbeth steps out into the hall.

  'Oh, you shouldn't have, Herbert,' she says, ticking him off.

  'What shouldn't I have?' Herbert asks, leering with screwed up eyes at the red face.

  'Such a big one, far too much space for a small family.'

  'Oh, the fridge - has the fridge arrived? I thought it'd take them hours. Hoisting it up and so on.'

  'No, they managed it the ordinary way, up the stairs. But such a big one, Herbert; it really is too much.'

  'What rot - this is no ordinary birthday: you turned fifty today. Half a century.'

  Too many, he adds in his mind, half a century too many.

  'Come on, show me,' he says cheerfully.

  He follows her to the kitchen.

  'It's a whopper indeed,' he says, once he's standing in the kitchen in front of the gleaming white enamel. 'It looked much smaller in the shop.'

  What a magnificent sight, he thinks, the polar ice cap seen from a stratospheric aircraft. It gleams and glistens in the polar light. Now for an axe, and we can start on conservation.

  'You would have done better to wait till summer, Herbert; it's cold enough here now.'

  'That's just why it's so practical now. You won't have to turn down the heating in the evening any more 'cause otherwise your food'll go off. And no waiting for hours in the morning until it's warmed up a bit here. Just take a look,' he says cheerfully, pulling the door of the fridge wide open. 'Just you take a look: the space! I bet you could go and sit in it in Summer, when it's hot.'

  'Now you really are exaggerating Herbert,' Liesbeth says, estimating its volume by eye.

  'Exaggerate? I never exaggerate.'

  With a clatter, he removes the horizontal aluminium racks.

  'I think you could take the cat in with you too. No, no kidding: you try it, Liesbeth. My lumbago's giving me gip.'

  Blood, blood, he thinks, I'll bring it about without spilling blood. The heavens regard me with favour. There'll be no writing on the wall.

  'Well, alright then, 'cause it's my birthday,' Liesbeth says, laughing. 'But it's a strange experiment.'

  She sets her bottom down on the floor of the fridge, wraps her arms round her drawn-up knees and swivels herself inside.

  'Enduring the worst heat of August would be easier than sitting in this position, I think.'

  With a powerful sweep, Herbert throws the door shut. Then he puts the plug in the socket.

  I can hear her shouting but I can't make out what she's saying, he thinks.

  He walks to the living room, switches the radio on and sits down in the tub chair beside it. Circumspectly, he takes a cigar from the cigar case, licks the outer leaf and presses it down. He twiddles the radio until a nice little tune breezes into the room. From the blue banks of cloud that linger in the middle of the room, the temptations of a life of freedom drift towards him. They spin in the surf of his imagination. He gives them girls' names and those of flowers.

  There'll be ice flowers on her pupils; she'll be sitting there, hunched up like the tree mummies of Central American Indians. I could have a hole made in the bottom of my car with a broad pipe through it, reaching down to the road. Then, one rainy day, I put her in the back. On the bumpy rural roads, I shove her down the pipe, head first, so that her hair rests on the cobbles. And then I drive about until there's nothing left but the soles of her feet. I won't take her glasses off. But I won't even be able to straighten her out. She'll have wriggled her way into the most impossible angles. She always did. I'll avail myself of other means to get rid of her, as it happens. Now won't I just, you white-shirts you?

  Walking over to the window, he addresses the seagulls diving down into the street, after bread being thrown from a window somewhere.

  'I'll be spoiling you, lads! For the time being, your hungry beaks won't be eating dry bread any more: they'll be red with all the raw.'

  A grand moment, Herbert thinks, eye to eye with the deep freeze princess. A fortnight past already: she'll be feeling the cold.

  He pulls open the door of the fridge. With a jump, daylight takes possession of polar night. Liesbeth still sits there exactly the way he last saw her. Her hands rest calmly on her tummy, between the hillocks of her bosom and her thighs. Her glasses are covered in a thin, matt layer of ice
as though, with its fragile wings, a butterfly seeks to protect her eyes from the cold. Icicles formed by the condensing water, with pointed fingers probe the hoarfrosted shrubbery of her hair. Her mouth hangs open. The pink tongue of land lies speechless, riveted down in the bitter ice of the inland sea of her oral cavity. An elegantly curved little rod of ice runs from her bottom lip to the remnants of food on her chest, as though her last thoughts had been of the fountains of Italy.

  Herbert bends forward and looks intently at the food remnants.

  Not such a peaceful death as first it had seemed from the resignedly folded hands on the stomach, he thinks. Perhaps that was a whim of the last death throes. Let's take a peek at the eyes.

  Carefully, he grips the frame between the lenses. With his fingertips he stirs the cold marble of her forehead and the bridge of her nose. The cold spreads up to his wrists. He has to apply force for a moment in order to free the spectacles. Then he sees what the butterfly was trying to spare him. Her eyes have bulged out so far that, Herbert suspects, the lenses have prevented them from drooping even further. They hang down over the bottom eyelids like infertile, greenish owl's eggs that have been cast out from the red and yellow veined nest of the eye sockets. In blind suspicion, the pupils stare down sideways into the remnants of food. When Herbert replaces the specs, those pupils stare through them like the eyes of a sea monster through the steamed up pane of an aquarium. He staggers in front of the fridge.

  I'm overcome by the cold, he thinks. I -must have a drink. I must raise my glass to this memorable fact.

  He goes to the living room; he pours himself a glass of genever, warms himself in front of the fire. The liquor warms him all the way down to his digestive tract.

  'Now what have we got?' he mutters, taking a sip from the glass at each object he mentions. 'A sharp little cleaver for between the joints, a saw for the bones, a razor sharp knife for flesh and tendons, a chopping board, plastic sheeting, a nutmeg mill. And a glass for the eyes.'