In White Ink

by Elske Rahill

  They were for a free Flanders, but not for the ugly whispered things. And though they had once been in sympathy with the Germans – though they did not resist when their houses were occupied, though they were obedient and polite with the soldiers – on her parents’ street everyone left their back doors unlocked at night, soup and bread on the table, warm blankets ready by the stove and a basin with soap and washcloths. Would they have done it if the first Louis was still alive? That was a thing she sometimes wondered. The difference between sacrifice and suicide, Grietje knew, all lay with the right witness. She could have been more curious about that building, and about the whispered things, but Grietje did not think so much of herself to believe her curiosity could veer the course of history.

  ‘They are saying Bompa worked there, Bomama. Do you know anything about that building?’

  Grietje was cold from remembering that building and the whispered things, and the way it could suck the voice and the heat from you just by standing there so tall above the pavement. She laughed to push out the insult, but the anger made it come out wrong; a snicker.

  ‘Why are they inventing? You have no idea...’ she said, ‘what that building was. We none of us could bear to walk that street, for the shadow of that building...’

  Grietje heard her own voice tremble and trip. Was Dine not ashamed to ask such things, she who was born so far from it all? She who once loved to sit on Theo’s belly with her bottle, head nestled back in Theo’s neck and her legs crossed at the ankles? As a little one Dine brought her grandfather wounded things – snails with cracked shells, earthbound birds – as though he could heal all. There was a time she wrote him poems about endangered species and acid rain. Theo had kept them in a blue folder.

  ‘What about the Flemish Legion, Bomama? That’s what they say... that the Legion joined with the SS and that Bompa was in the Legion and that’s the connection, you see, that they are making,’

  ‘Connection, Dine? The connection?’

  ‘Well... or the leap. The leap they are making. They think that means he worked there...’

  ‘Ha! Suddenly the communists were a fine people?’

  ‘The communists? No, that’s—’

  ‘They have the time of things wrong. With the Legion he was on the Eastern Front,’ she said, ‘against communism. That was much before occupation – though then, you know, we were in sympathy with the Germans then. The communists wanted to take over the world and there were things that came out about them too you know, you know what gulags are, don’t you? You don’t blame the communists for that, do you? You think they were so much better than the Germans?’

  ‘No Bomama, I’m not saying that. No one is saying that...’

  ‘It was only right to fight against Russia, doesn’t matter with who – the things that were happening. You know about it, Dine, Bompa must have told you? And when they hear he fought the communists they say he was a Jew killer? You think the communists spared Jews?’

  ‘Don’t say “Jew killer”, Bomama. If you are talking about this, please don’t say that. It might sound – people might take it the wrong way.’

  Grietje wrapped her fingers tight over each armrest and looked at her granddaughter. Dine had the moon-bright skin of an early baby, and it seemed to glisten now, slicked over her temples like something less solid.

  For this she had carried herself away from Belgium, her hair bleached lurid rust to match the passport, the third Louis pushing her old stretch marks fresh, so that all the flesh she sent out after that would be new, all her children and her grandchildren. She had named him for his lost brothers, but she never spoke her mother tongue to the new Louis. She wanted no way back to Belgium, the rotten gendarmes or the girlish nonsense of nationalism.

  She could have slapped Dine, she could have torn up the paper. Instead she nodded and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

  ‘Yah. Don’t say this Bomama, and don’t say that Bomama, but who was there, Dineke – you or me? I can say how it was. I hide nothing and I tell how it was and they can check it and check it and make their stories but it was me who was there, not this little schijterd with his inventions and not you my darling! Oh after the war you could not speak. No one had an opinion on anything – how is it possible? No one saying a word about anything. And we mixed together in the evenings – a great big Russian with bullet wounds in his back and shoulder, and when he drank he would open his shirt and show us and tell such stories you wouldn’t believe; and a woman with the painted red lips of a gypsy and no one giving their real name... All the Russians were called Richard and every word we spoke was salted. They locked me up, you know. They locked me up for three months – threw me in a van with abortionists and all sorts – disgusting women – and my sister too, because the postman said we had a picture of Hitler over the piano – of all the stupid things. That was the kind of stupidity and spite that was happening. For three months I waited to hear what I was accused of – and it was that Walloon postman, saying I had a picture, framed, over the piano...’

  Her granddaughter drank coffee and let her speak, squinting sometimes as though trying to make her out from a distance. Such a terrible glow from her skin.

  ‘It was not for fun that your Bompa fought on the Eastern Front. Theo who could not see a rabbit shot in the field, you think it was for fun or for murder he went to the front? There is no shame in it and he never lied about it. He was there two weeks. It made him so sick he passed blood and they let him home for stomach ulcers and is it for that they say these disgusting things? I will answer. They said he could reply and then they wait until he is gone to spit at us. Well I will make my reply for them.’

  ‘Okay, we’ll give an answer. Let me write it down, Bomama... or maybe we should get a journalist to come. What do you think? To hear your reply? Will I get someone to come, Bomama, and write an article with your side?’

  ‘Would you? Yes. Yes, that is what you do, Dine. Do that will you please?’

  She would tell them how it was, but how could she begin? They wanted a story that ran glossy and clean as ribbon like their own, not the convoluted knots of sixty years ago.

  It was like when she first arrived here, nodding and frowning to facial cues, unable to shape her mouth to the new language, saying only things she had the words for because what she meant would take so many unknown sounds.

  ‘You know, don’t you, what they did to us? The Walloons? You know when our baby boy was sick, how the gendarmes laughed at us? They laughed at him burning up in my arms, the eyes nearly popping with pain, his arms slapping out, and they would not allow us to call the hospital, they laughed and said, “No loss, we do not want more Flemish muzzles yapping at our heels...”’

  ‘Don’t think about that now, Bomama.’ Dine’s face seemed to shrink to the frame. She smiled a sore smile, her Irish-blue eyes edging shame. Such terrible white skin, like Theo’s sister. ‘Don’t talk about the Walloons, Bomama, if they interview you, or the evil Russians!’

  ‘Dine, you are pale darling,’ said Grietje. ‘I hope you are getting enough sleep.’

  And was it the ream of morning light that beaded along the bones of her face, but Grietje thought she saw an unhappy laugh ripple over the big, sad lips of her frowning grandchild.

  *

  When the bell rang, Dine gave her grandmother a kiss for reassurance, and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her. The front door of her grandmother’s house had a rectangular hatch set at eye level. It opened onto a window of diamond-patterned bars. As children, Dine and her cousins used to stand on chairs either side of the door, opening and closing the hatch, exchanging secrets and coded notes through the diamonds. Like a church, or a hospice, the house had fixed her into tiptoeing slowness, and she almost put her finger to her lips as she unlatched the little hatch. Through the bars she saw Billy standing on the doorstep, jigging in the bright cold. There were patches of dust-coloured hair daubed across his face and neck. Billy was a stocky man, all mild
angles, wobbly throat, kind grey eyes and clean, blunt fingers. He wore his knapsack secure over both shoulders, each hand clinging tight to a strap.

  ‘Hey,’ Dine whispered, ‘hang on till I get the alarm.’

  He nodded. He was trying to look solemn, she could see, but the excitement twitched in his cheeks. Billy’s father had once been a very successful journalist. At university Billy was president of the History Society, editor of the college paper, a leading member of the LGBT society, a great debater, but since graduating he’d had only a few articles published – dense, essayish things that, he complained, had pivotal chunks clumsily cut at the last minute. This could be a proper story for him.

  She opened the door only enough to admit him.

  ‘It’s warm in here,’ said Billy. He gave Dine a brief hug before tugging off his scarf.

  She nodded. ‘I like the beard. When did that happen?’

  ‘Oh...’ he rubbed a palm back and forth across his jaw, ‘it’s not quite there yet. I – Paul likes it so... But how are you doing, with all this? Disgusting, isn’t it? I would have thought the paper still had some standards. Things like this have their own momentum, it only takes one irresponsible journalist...’

  Dine shrugged. ‘She’s upset, Billy,’ she said, ‘and shocked. Just see what she wants to say, that’s all. Don’t push for a story, okay?’

  ‘Can I see this right-to-reply letter? They will only publish if we have that...’

  ‘It’s not here, but we have it. I’ll have it by tomorrow...’

  She led him into the kitchen where the fire’s heat swelled viciously and blocks of yellow sunlight cut the tablecloth. As Dine entered she saw a private frown pass over her grandmother’s face. Her eyes moved from Dine to Billy, and she touched her hair briefly, smoothed a hurried finger sternly along each eyebrow. A painful impulse kicked in Dine – she wanted to wrap herself over her grandmother.

  ‘This is Billy, Bomama,’ she said, ‘he’s going to hear your side of things.’

  ‘Yah.’ Bomama’s lips closed small, her cheeks tightened. ‘Hallo,’ she said. She pushed herself to her feet, one palm flat on the table as she leaned to shake Billy’s hand. Dine’s grandmother had big, bony hands. The pads of her fingers tapered flat to the strong curve of her nails.

  ‘Sit down, Billy,’ said Dine. ‘Tea or coffee?’

  ‘Oh tea please, if you have it.’

  ‘Dineke darling, get me my hand cream will you please? It’s in my handbag.’

  Dine flicked the kettle to boil and rummaged in her grandmother’s handbag, ‘Sit down, Billy,’ she said.

  Billy rested his bag on a chair and unzipped it. ‘Mrs Tack, do you mind if I record this?’ He removed a silver contraption the size of a small wallet.

  ‘Oh. Well. Dineke, what do you think darling?’

  ‘It’s up to you, Bomama. It’s handy for Billy, so that he can remember exactly what you say.’

  ‘Yes okay. Whatever you think.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Bomama. Billy is here to help. Two sugars, Billy?’

  ‘Just one now,’ he said, ‘I’m trying to cut down...’ Then he turned to her grandmother. ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Tack. I’ll explain what you tell me. I’m a historian really – my thesis was on twentieth-century independence movements... Just to say, you know, I am aware of the complexity of these things. My father says Tiernach Mac Mahon is a notorious ignoramus... He says his name has no place on a broadsheet...’

  Dine set Billy’s tea in front of him, and sat beside her grandmother. ‘Drink your coffee, Bomama,’ she said, kissing the large hand which scrunched her fingers in an oily grip of rose-scented hand cream, leaving only Dine’s thumb to rub back and forth, back and forth over the raised veins, the waxy skin stretched thin as a drum across the bones, and a single brown age spot, raised like the blisters on the flatbread she used to make.

  ‘We will sort this out, Bomama. We will sort this out together.’

  Billy pressed a button on the recorder and placed it in the centre of the table.

  ‘Do you want me to put some questions to you, Mrs Tack? Or do you know what you want to say?’

  She shook her head and straightened her back, released Dine’s hand and grabbed it back again. After a silence her voice came thin. ‘You should have known him.’

  It sounded guarded and hard. She took a breath to say something, but swallowed instead. Dine rubbed her hand again, and her grandmother repeated the words as though to herself.

  ‘You should have known him.’

  ‘Well,’ said Billy, ‘well, I am here so that you can tell me about him, Mrs Tack. Tell me why Mac Mahon is incorrect? Mr Tack was listed somewhere as a translator. Mac Mahon is saying that translator was code for interrogator, so maybe if you tell us about his translating job...’

  ‘He got a job, for a few months, translating local papers into German and French. He needed a job... they were gossip papers. We used to laugh about them – advice on how to manage your wife and so on...’

  ‘Okay,’ said Billy.

  ‘You know, Dine will know this – when Theo was nineteen, all in the Legion swore allegiance to Hitler, but he refused. We didn’t think all these ugly things about the Germans then – that wasn’t why – it was just because he had already sworn allegiance to the King. “How can I swear to both?” he said, and he was quite right. “It is not logical,” he said. Nobody took it in bad part. Theo could be particular like that. That was the kind of man he was. He would not lie. You know, Billy, it is important to say it – that was a terrible building. He was never inside that building...’

  The phone rang again and her hands flew up like a flurry of startled birds. ‘Oh – don’t answer it, Dine!’

  ‘But Bomama—’

  ‘Leave it. Don’t answer.’

  Billy looked at the table.

  ‘It’s probably Mammy, Bomama, or Aunty Bertha. They’ll worry if you don’t answer.’

  The ringing stopped, but just as Dine drew breath, it began again.

  ‘If it is some halfwit you just hang up, Dineke.’

  ‘Okay, Bomama.’

  ‘Hello?’ There was silence on the other end. She tried to sound nonchalant. ‘Hello?’

  ‘I’d like to speak to my mother.’

  ‘Hi Louis.’

  Uncle Louis was always uncomfortable. As children Dine and her cousins were afraid of him, for he was one of those rogue adults with the demeanour of a slighted child. He would scoop children up by the ankles and hang them upside down for too long, his face set in a sardonic scowl until one of his sisters found an excuse to retrieve them from his clutches. The other thing he would do was rub balloons on their hair to make it stand up. Sometimes, when babysitters did that it was funny, but there was nothing light-hearted about Uncle Louis; that was the problem. He rubbed so hard that their heads burned. Even when he smiled there was a shadow pressing on his brow. Instead of putting them at ease, the sense that he was not actually grown-up under the moustache, but another awkward child like them, was cut with danger.

  ‘Bomama,’ said Dine, ‘it’s Uncle Louis.’

  ‘Oh Louisje!’

  With her daughters and her granddaughters, Bomama was clucky and bossy, but Louis brought on a sort of cheek-flushing heartbreak in her and she stood now, as though in honour of the caller. When Louis came to the house the children used to disappear to the back of the garden, and Bompa retreated to his study, but Bomama bustled for tea, hung on his every word. Uncle Louis liked to stay standing while everyone else sat. He had a proud way of delivering a small piece of information, or a statistic that he had gleaned from the daily news. Straight-backed at the kitchen table, each hand lightly touching Bomama’s embroidered tablecloth, looking straight ahead at no one, he would kick all sorts of banalities out from beneath his moustache, while his mother nodded. ‘Oh yes you have it, you are right Louis.’ When Dine got older she learned to sit in the kitchen and pretend to listen to Uncle Louis too, because it hurt Bomama that Bompa nev
er gave him much regard.

  ‘Move my chair up to the phone would you, Dine?’

  Her grandmother settled herself in the chair and spoke her son’s name like a sigh, ‘Louis.’ She clutched the phone to her head with both hands, nodding. ‘Have you? Well if you think so, Louisje... Now I need you to get something from Daddy’s files, Louis. You will find it in his letters from 1985, I think... the right to reply, yes, that is important, Louis... No, only Dine. The others will come. And a friend too. A friend of Dine’s. A journalist... Oh well he seems very nice you know. It is a friend from the university.’ Then she cupped her mouth with her hand, and lowered the pitch – but not the volume – of her voice. ‘I think he is of a special kind if you are with me. Nice to his mother I would say, but they can be very nice too, those fellows, you know. He is writing down the real thing, explaining what Theo did in those years, and all about the Legion, you know... Oh do they? Well I don’t know, Louisje. Do they yah? Well you know best... But he seems to know a lot about the history. We have the right to reply, Louis – Daddy made sure of it so you find that letter, yah?’

  Her grandmother stopped speaking then. Red patches blossomed high on her cheeks. The sag beneath her jaw began to tremble, and she lowered one hand onto her lap. Dine mouthed, Okay? and her grandmother rolled her eyes theatrically, but she lodged the phone between cheek and shoulder and began to rub hard at the age spot at the back of her hand, harder and harder, as though scrubbing at a stain. After a while she held the phone at arm’s length, her face spattered red as fresh burns. ‘Dine. Your uncle wants to speak with you.’

  Dine took the phone, leaning her back against the sink. ‘Hi Louis.’ After a silence she said it again, ‘Hello Louis, would you like to speak to me?’