‘I’m not saying he isn’t. But if you ask me, it’s a matter of sublimation. He’s just trying to cover up his own inability to express love. He thinks taking pictures of them is a way to bond with them. No, Charlotte, keep on doing what you’re doing; it’s good for those poor kids that you’re there. That way at least someone can teach them about feelings.’
‘Right, Hannah. I’ll bear that in mind.’
5
‘A pound of those delicious ginger snaps, please.’
‘Are they for the doctor’s sons?’
Frau Maenhout shook her head, smiling. ‘No, they’re for me, actually.’
Martha Bollen began rummaging in the glass jar of home-baked ginger snaps that sat on the counter. She slipped the biscuits into a paper bag and plumped it down on one of the scales’ copper pans, placing a weight on the other.
‘I’m giving you three extra,’ said the shopkeeper, squinting at the needle on the scales. ‘For the boys. With love from Martha, tell them, from the shop.’
Frau Maenhout wanted to refuse the offer - the doctor’s children weren’t allowed any sweets - but being afraid that Martha would pepper her with all sorts of unpleasant questions again, she just nodded her head and said, ‘That’s very nice of you. Thank you.’
She took the bag and stuffed it into the shopping trolley that held the fresh goods she came here to buy for Dr Hoppe’s household nearly every day. Her wicker basket was full as well, brimming with, amongst other things, tissues, talcum powder and a packet of nappies.
Frau Maenhout had started taking on more and more of the doctor’s housekeeping. While she was looking after the children, she’d do some polishing, as well as cooking and doing the laundry. She always took the ironing home as a matter of course. The doctor hadn’t asked her to do any of this, but she had taken it upon herself voluntarily, largely for the sake of the little ones, for she had too often seen them dressed in grubby clothes. In her eyes, they weren’t being fed a sufficiently varied diet, either. The doctor mostly bought tinned goods, or ready-made food in jars.
Martha began punching the keys on the cash register. ‘Aren’t you ever going to bring the boys with you? We never see them out,’ she said.
‘They’re still too young, Martha.’
‘Too young? They must have turned one by now - haven’t they?’
‘Yes, last Saturday.’
‘Last Saturday? September the twenty-ninth?’
‘That’s right.’
‘But that means their birthday is on their saints’ day.’
Frau Maenhout stared at the shopkeeper in surprise.
‘September the twenty-ninth’, said Martha, ‘is the feast of St Michael, St Gabriel and St Raphael.’
‘Is that so? I didn’t realise.’
‘My husband’s name was Michel. That’s how I know it. Maybe the doctor named his children the way he did because they were all born on that day.’
‘It would be an uncanny coincidence otherwise.’
‘Nothing is coincidence,’ said the shopkeeper, wagging her finger in the air. ‘But tell me, did the children have a nice birthday party?’
Frau Maenhout nodded, averting her face, because she felt herself turning red. She should have told the truth, but it still upset her to think of it - the doctor had sent her home when she arrived that Saturday morning with a bag full of presents, including some picture books. His sons were very ill, Dr Hoppe had told her, and he’d decided that they would have to spend the rest of the weekend in isolation, in a sterile room - he’d used the word ‘quarantine’, which had an unpleasant ring to it. When she’d asked the doctor what ailed them - they had not shown any sign of illness the night before - he’d answered that they had taken ill in the middle of the night and that he was still in the process of working out what was the matter.
It was the first time that all three had been ill at the same time. There had been one or two previous occasions when the doctor had sequestered one of them in a separate room next to his office for a few days largely as a preventive measure, having noticed symptoms that might indicate an illness brewing: a red throat, a slight cough, loss of weight or a suspicious rash.
Frau Maenhout had thought it all a bit odd, but who was she to question the doctor’s professional opinion? Besides, Michael, Raphael and Gabriel had always returned from these separations hale and hearty.
Actually, hale and hearty wasn’t exactly the right expression, because there did seem to be something seriously wrong with them. However, Frau Maenhout had not quite deduced what it was. The doctor was always a bit vague about it, as if he didn’t want to come out and admit that he wasn’t sure either. In referring to their illness he used words she did not understand, and kept telling her he was still running tests. She had once made the suggestion that he call in a specialist, but the doctor had seemed so offended that she had not raised the subject again.
‘Any other doctor wouldn’t know the first thing about it,’ he had said, before stalking off.
The worst thing for Charlotte was that she had no idea what the children’s ailment looked like, nor how it might manifest itself. Other than the fact that the children tired easily and couldn’t really tolerate being touched, she hadn’t noticed anything that might indicate a serious condition.
‘What should I be looking out for?’ she had asked Dr Hoppe early on.
‘Oh, it will be plain enough,’ he’d replied.
Martha Bollen’s voice roused Frau Maenhout from her musings. ‘And how well are they talking now?’ asked the shopkeeper. ‘Rosette Bayer said that they can speak Dutch as well. She heard them singing a Dutch song.’
‘Singing isn’t speaking, Martha. You mustn’t believe everything people tell you. The boys just like to copy what I say.’ She’d deliberately twisted the truth a little, for she had noticed on other occasions that mentioning the triplets’ unusual ability with languages tended to provoke envy or disbelief. Some people thought Charlotte was just showing off what a good teacher she was.
‘But they’re smart little fellows, aren’t they?’
‘They get that from their father.’
‘And a good thing too,’ said Martha sotto voce. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it - if the only thing they’ve inherited from him is his looks. And how is our doctor, anyway?’
‘Busy, very busy. People think he can work miracles.’
‘And so he can! Last week he cured Freddy Machon of his chronic gout. Gave him five shots and then it was all better. The doctor told him they’ve been using the stuff in Germany for years. You know what it is, Frau Maenhout? We’re very behind, here in Belgium, as far as medicine is concerned. It’s too bad the doctor didn’t get here sooner. Maybe he’d have been able to cure our Michel.’
‘You shouldn’t be thinking that way, Martha. What’s done is done. How much do I owe you?’
Martha, peering at the bill to check that she had not forgotten anything, then said, ‘Nine hundred and twenty francs, please.’
Frau Maenhout took out her purse, removed a thousand-franc note and placed it in the shopkeeper’s stubby hand. After putting away the change, she left, wheeling the shopping trolley behind her.
‘Will you please give the doctor my regards?’ Martha called after her as she reached the door.
As Charlotte crossed the street, the plastic wheels of the shopping trolley clattered loudly over the cobblestones, attracting the attention of the three youths in the square, who began waving at her. She recognised Fritz Meekers, Robert Chevalier and deaf Gunther Weber, who used to come to her for weekly speech lessons because his parents couldn’t afford a trained speech therapist. She hadn’t really been all that happy with the result, but at least he could now make himself understood and appeared to be taking great strides since he’d started attending a special school for the deaf in Liège last year.
Waving back at them, she hurried on, urged by the church bell, which had started to strike six o’clock. It had been over two days since she’d seen the triplets. She’d sat by the phone all weekend, as usual, in case Dr Hoppe rang to ask her to mind the children while he went out on an emergency call. But nothing of a serious nature had happened to any of the villagers - she was ashamed to admit that she almost wished it had - so she had waited in vain, working herself up into a state about the boys’ condition.
This morning she hadn’t been allowed to see them either. The doctor had told her they were quite a bit better, but they were still asleep. He wanted to let them sleep on, so she had just tidied the place up and done a little cleaning, keeping an ear open for any sound from the boys. When it was time to go home, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael were still asleep. When she rang the doctor some time around three in the afternoon, he told her they’d finally woken up at 1.30, which came as a great relief.
As she rang the bell at the gate, the sixth and last peal of the church bells was dying away over the roofs of Wolfheim. She peered wistfully through the railings, hoping to see Dr Hoppe with one of the boys in his arms on the lookout for her through one of the street-facing windows. Alas, he wasn’t there.
She had become attached to the children, and they had become attached to her. Even though it did still feel as if the three boys had put up a wall around themselves, she had the impression that they were beginning to lower their guard every once in a while. There was definitely a change in their facial expressions when she arrived, and also when she left. If you hadn’t known them before, you wouldn’t have seen the difference, but she had learned to notice the most trivial things: a slight tug at the corner of the mouth, a glance, a twitch of the hand.
‘Frau Maenhout stay,’ Michael had even said the last time she left, as if he’d had a premonition that she would be forced to stay away longer than usual. ‘Vow aynot yay.’ That’s the way it had sounded.
Meanwhile, the boys were learning fast. Frau Maenhout estimated that they were at least six months ahead of other children their age. They understood almost everything she said to them, and came out with simple sentences in German and French. They could put together wooden puzzles aimed at eighteen-month-olds, and identify objects in picture books or comics.
Physically they were a little slower. They were not yet walking, and also had some trouble with their motor skills. This was made plain, for instance, when they tried to feed themselves or to pick something up. But that, Frau Maenhout thought, was only because she had limited time to devote to each of the three boys. There wasn’t enough opportunity to give them individual attention. ‘I only have two hands!’ she’d often exclaim.
Besides, she suspected that the doctor didn’t spend very much time with the children after she went home. He would plop them down in their little chairs or in their playpen, and then barely pay them any attention, except to put them through more medical tests.
‘Isn’t the doctor home?’ she suddenly heard a boy’s voice calling.
Frau Maenhout was startled. The doctor hadn’t yet appeared, and the boys who had been playing in the village square were now ambling towards her.
‘Oh, he is,’ she said; ‘he’ll be coming out in just a minute.’
‘How are they doing, then, the Hoppe brothers?’ asked Lanky Meekers.
‘Very well. How about you? I see you’re still growing. You’ll soon be a head taller than me.’
The doctor says I’m going to be at least two metres,’ the boy responded, not without some pride. ‘He examined me the other day.’
‘His dad kick im in pants all de time!’ Gunther Weber remarked. ‘Thas why he’s so tall!’
‘And yours doesn’t kick you often enough!’
‘OK, no bickering, boys.’
Frau Maenhout glanced at the front door, but there was still no sign of life.
‘My dad says the doctor’s sons are geniuses,’ said Robert Chevalier.
‘Gee-whah?’ cried Gunther, pointing at his ears.
‘Gee-nee-uses,’ said Robert, enunciating carefully. ‘Exceptional.’
‘Well, aren’t all of you?’ said Frau Maenhout with a wink, and saw all three puff up with pride. ‘Here, I’ve got something for you.’ She put down her basket, rummaged in her shopping trolley and drew out the bag of gingersnaps.
‘From Martha the shopkeeper,’ she said, glad that she could at least make someone else happy with the biscuits.
‘Mmmmm!’ said Gunther.
‘Thank you, Frau Maenhout,’ said Lanky Meekers and Robert Chevalier in unison, eagerly taking one biscuit each.
‘Dwhere is de doctor.’
Gunther was pointing at the house. Dr Hoppe had opened the door and was coming down the front steps.
‘When can we come and play with the doctor’s boys?’ Lanky Meekers asked quickly.
‘Later on, when they’re bigger.’
‘Hello, Heaw Doktow,’ Robert said with his mouth full.
The doctor nodded and clicked open the gate. ‘Please come in, Frau Maenhout.’
‘Can we help you?’ asked Lanky Meekers.
The doctor acted as if he hadn’t heard him. He bent down, picked up the basket and said again, ‘Please come in, Frau Maenhout; we don’t want to leave the children unattended for too long.’
Lanky Meekers scowled at his friends. Frau Maenhout, grabbing the handle of the shopping trolley, nodded goodbye to the boys. They stared after her as she walked up the path. At the door the doctor took the shopping trolley from her.
‘How are the children, Doctor? Are they all better?’ asked Frau Maenhout before going inside.
No response. He stopped to let her pass. ‘I’ll take this into the kitchen,’ he said. ‘You go on ahead.’
She didn’t have to be told twice and hurried down the corridor.
Behind her she heard, ‘Frau Maenhout?’ There was some urgency in the doctor’s voice.
She looked back at him quizzically, and thought she could see his left eyelid twitching. The same thing happened to his sons sometimes, when they were under stress.
‘Something has happened, Frau Maenhout.’ And his eyelid twitched again.