Authors: Gerbrand Bakker

The Twin (11 page)

We wait.

'I've come to show you my hand,' he says, without looking at Riet.

'Show me then,' I say.

'Can't you see it?'

'Up close.'

Ronald almost shoves his hand in my face. The skin on the side, under his little finger, is pink, pale and tight.

'Does it still hurt?'

'Nah,' he shrugs. 'We took the bandage off 'cause the cold's good for it.'

'Did your mother say that?'

'Yes.' For a moment he looks past me at the other side of the car, where Riet is standing waiting. 'Who's that?' he asks.

'That's Riet.'

'Where's she from?'

'Brabant.'

'Brabbend?'

'Brabant. A long way from here.'

'What's she here for?'

'Ask her, she won't bite.'

He looks at me with doggy eyes.

'I used to come here very often,' says Riet. 'And now I've come to have a look around.'

'Oh,' says Ronald, staring at my stomach.

'I was going to marry Mr van Wonderen's brother.'

'Huh?'

'That's me,' I say.

'Do you have a brother?' he asks in astonishment.

'No, not any more.'

'Oh.'

'But now I'm going home. On the train.'

'Are you taking her?'

'Yes,' I say. 'To the ferry in Amsterdam.'

'Is she going to come back another time?'

'I don't know. Are you going to come back another time?'

'Maybe,' says Riet. She gets into the car and closes the door.

'We're going,' I tell Ronald.

'Okay,' he says. He turns around and walks off. When he's almost at the causeway, he turns around. He's going to copy Teun, I can see it coming. 'Where's your father?' he screams.

'Upstairs,' I say, pointing at the sky with one finger.

'Upstairs,' Riet says when we're parked in front of the chip stand.

'Yeah,' I say.

'What a joy to be a child.'

'Yeah.'

'He must have died fairly recently?'

'Yes, not so long ago.'

We've been parked in front of the chip stand for a good while now. The sun hasn't gone down yet, but it must be getting close. I can't see it, the train station is in the way. It's much busier than it was this morning. People are going home in both directions. If the ferries weren't operating and the Rhine barges and tour boats weren't sailing, the water of the IJ would be perfectly smooth. In the distance I see tall buildings in a place I remember as empty. It frightens me, the other side. This side frightens me less, because I know exactly which roads to take to get away as quickly as possible. Riet shows no signs of wanting to get out. Even the bag on her lap isn't standard for women of her age. Although the double fisted way she's holding it is.

'Henk is a bit of a problem,' says Riet.

Is?

'He doesn't do anything. He's been hanging round the house for six months now. He hasn't even got any friends.'

Doesn't? Hasn't?

'Sometimes he just lies in bed and then suddenly he's gone. I have no idea what he gets up to.'

'Riet, what are you talking about?'

'Henk.'

'Which Henk?'

'My son.'

'Is your son called Henk?'

'Yes. Didn't you know that?'

'How would I?'

'Lying in bed like that, that's what gets to me the most.'

'Henk? You called your son Henk?'

'Why not?'

'What did your husband think of that?'

'Nothing. Wien thought it was a good name. There was a Henk in his family too. Short and snappy, that's what he said.'

A passing cyclist bumps the wing mirror. He half turns to raise a hand in apology.

'I was thinking, couldn't he come and stay with you for a while? Working, I mean.'

Is this what she wanted to ask me? 'With me?'

'Yes. You've got animals. Cows, sheep, chickens. I think animals would be good for him. And you're alone, maybe you could make use of someone. As a farmhand.'

As a farmhand. She forgot to mention the donkeys.

'It will do him good. Working. Getting up early, going to bed early, regularity. Fresh air, although he gets enough of that at home, of course.'

'Really?' I say, 'With all those pigs?'

'That's true,' Riet says. 'It smells better here.'

'What's he think about it himself?'

'He doesn't know about it.'

'When did you come up with this?'

'Oh, about a month ago.'

There's no reflected sunlight visible anywhere any more, not on the water, not in the windows of the tall buildings. It's getting dark quickly and the sky over the train station is turning orange. Riet lets go of her bag to open the passenger door.

'Will you think about it?' she asks.

'Of course,' I say.

Glancing over her shoulder to check for pedestrians, she opens the door. She hesitates. 'I've lost him,' she says. 'When he looks at me, it's as if he's looking at a stranger.' She leans to the right, ready to get out of the car. Cold air streams in. Then she leans back to the left and kisses me on the cheek. 'Thank you,' she says.

I watch her go. During the interrogation Ronald subjected her to through me, I felt like I would be seeing her more often. Now I think I will never see her again. Dragging her leg slightly and not looking back, she disappears among the pedestrians and cyclists. She is crossing the harbour, soon she'll be on the other side, walking among hundreds of people who will all be travelling in different directions. Thousands of people taking different trains that will carry them all over the country. There won't be anything to see outside, it's dark. What will she do? Read? Sit there quietly and think? Talk to the people opposite her? I don't know. Before starting the car, I rub my hand over my cheek and look at my fingers.

While milking I rest my head on the cows' warm flanks more often than usual, even when the teat cups are attached and the milk is being sucked into the tubes in a soothing rhythm. I will never stand in a white-tiled milking pit wearing a plastic apron while ten or twelve cows are milked simultaneously; there will never be a big free stall barn here where you spread sawdust instead of straw; here the gutter cleaner will always shuttle back and forth slowly and the muck heap will always grow a little every day until I spread the manure with my ramshackle muck-spreader; a woman will never work in the kitchen here every day, or hang out the washing two or three times a week on the clothesline on the strip of grass next to the vegetable garden. Here, my head moves in time to the breathing of the cows, it is safe and secure. But also empty.

I think of electricity cables hanging low with the weight of hundreds of swallows. I think of Denmark, but for the first time without Jarno Koper. I think of a farmhand who saw the swallows in Denmark.

'Old junk!' Father says indignantly when I take him something to eat after milking.

'You disputing it?' I ask, pointing at the grandfather clock, the photos on the wall and him.

'That crow's back in the ash.'

'I saw it.'

'How was it?'

'I don't know yet.'

'You don't know yet?'

'No.'

'What were you two doing in the new room?'

'Talking.'

'About what?'

'Couldn't you hear us?'

'No.'

It's been a long time since he's asked so many questions. Riet is on his mind, he might have spent the whole day thinking about the old days. I picture him lying here quiet as a mouse, breathing out when there's talking on the other side of his door, and straining his ears when things get said further away. Is he lonely? I shake my head, I don't want to think about things like that. All the same, the day suddenly feels like a competition with one player in concealment: Riet versus the Van Wonderens.

I draw the curtains. 'Oh, one thing,' I say as casually as I can, 'you were cremated. And scattered.'

He has to laugh. 'You went to the cemetery.'

'Yes. And your name was missing.' Have I ever joked like this with him before? I stare at the pattern on the curtains, unable to remember any occasions.

He suddenly gets serious. 'I'm dirty.'

'Maybe you are.'

'Where was I scattered?'

'I don't know. In the fields, behind the chicken coop, under the ash.'

I let go of the folds of the curtain and turn around. His eyes are still wet from laughter. I think. He badly needs a shave. The white pillowcase is greyish.

'What did she come for?'

'Because.' I walk to the door. When I turn off the light, a better answer occurs to me. 'No,' I say, 'not because. She came for a job interview.'

Smiling, I go downstairs.

I am the last Van Wonderen. There are many others, of course, but not in our branch of the family. I used to see the name Kees van Wonderen in the sports pages: a footballer. Feyenoord, I think. Once there was a photo of him as well. I thought I looked like him, although he could have been a good thirty years younger than me. Grandfather Van Wonderen had four sisters. They all married and they all had children. Father had, or has, quite a few aunts. I have, or had, just as many great aunts and even more second cousins. None of them was called Van Wonderen. I don't know them. Father was an only child. Henk – named after my Van Wonderen grandfather – is dead. I'm not married. After me, we'll die out.

It's raining. The second freeze was short-lived and I read in the newspaper that at least three skaters drowned. I walked to Big Lake with my skates in my hand and discovered that it was only half frozen. I didn't try the ice – I don't want us to die out just yet. Two days ago the young tanker driver had a big round bandage over his left eye. He was doing some painting at home and got a splinter in his eye while sanding a window frame. The smile on his face was still there, if a little crooked. I left the milking parlour sooner than I'd intended; seeing him like that brought a lump to my throat and I was afraid he'd hear it if I stayed talking. Yesterday the livestock dealer drove into the yard. He stood in the kitchen rubbing one foot over the other for a while, then left without doing any business. The vet came to look at a sick heifer. He emptied two enormous hypodermics into her rump and said she'd get better. I separated her from the rest.

For a few days now I've been looking round the kitchen and wondering whether I shouldn't also paint in here. Every time my survey ends at the hooded crow in the ash and my thoughts turn to the farmhand. I've started to think of him as 'Little Henk'. Riet phoned to ask if I'd thought about it. 'Yes,' I answered, 'but not enough.' I've never had a farmhand. I was one myself, Father's. Every now and then the crow goes off somewhere, always swooping down a little first (as if to test its wings), before starting to fly.

It's only today that Ada has reappeared in my kitchen, five days after Riet's visit. Saturday. Teun and Ronald are at football, the winter break for the junior teams is already over.

'Helmer! How lovely! What was it like?'

'Strange,' I say.

'What kind of answer's that? Your sister-in-law!'

'No. My sister-in-law-to-be.'

'Still.' Ada acts as if Ronald hasn't told her a thing about Riet. 'I saw you out walking and I said to myself, What a goodlooking woman.'

'Yes, she's still good looking.'

'Was your father excited about it as well?'

'Very excited.'

'What did he think about it?'

'Not much.'

'Ah, don't be so offhand. I can tell from your face you enjoyed it!'

'It brought a smile to his face,' I say. I look Ada in the eye and after a few seconds she turns away. She is more wound up than usual, flustered.

'What kind of things did you talk about?'

'Nothing special, the old days, her husband who died last year, her daughters, what a sweetheart Henk was, the donkeys and the chickens.'

'Is she going to come again sometime?' Her voice is different too, pinched. I can almost see the exclamation marks.

'Maybe. That's what she told Ronald before she got into the car.'

Ada blushes. These aren't red cheeks from busyness and spring-cleaning. 'Great,' she says.

Between the side window and the kitchen cupboards is an old electric clock. The face is brown, the case is orange, the hands are white. The clock buzzes quietly, almost inaudibly. The other day, when Riet was here, I heard it buzzing. I can't remember ever having heard it before. Now it's buzzing louder than ever. Maybe it's on its last legs.

'She didn't come here on her own account,' I say.

'What?'

'When we got to the ferry, instead of getting out of the car, she started talking about her son.'

'Her son?'

'Her son, Henk. Whether he could come and work for me.'

'Why?' Her face has regained its normal colour. She brightens up.

'He doesn't do anything at home. He hasn't got a job, he spends a lot of time in bed and sometimes he disappears.'

'Why?'

'I don't know. Riet asked me whether I could use him as a farmhand.'

'Fantastic!' exclaims Ada.

'Fantastic?'

'Yes! You've had to do it all yourself since your father fell ill.'

'I can do it easily, there's no work for him here.'

'It would be more fun together, surely? Of course there's work for him. Take the yearling barn, it's high time that was creosoted again. Two people to do the milking, in a few months you'll be busy with the sheep—'

'I have twenty sheep.'

'Still. If you're helping the kid out at the same time. And Riet?'

She says the name as if she's known her for years.

'Hmmm,' I say.

'You going to do it?'

'I have to give it some more thought.'

'Does she want to come and live here too?' She does her best to sound casual.

'Surely not?' I say.

'I'm asking
you
.'

'No, I don't think so, she didn't say anything about that.'

Ada turns to check the clock. She stands up. 'I have to pick the boys up from football.'

'Have they lost their hero yet?'

She gives me a baffled look.

'Jarno Koper? Is he gone yet?'

'Oh, Jarno Koper. Yes, he left.'

I walk her through the scullery.

'She must have loved your brother very deeply,' Ada says as she opens the door to the milking parlour.

'To call her son Henk?'

'Yes.'

'It's a common enough name.'

'Bye, Helmer. Say hello to your father for me, will you?'

'I will.'

I watch her walk past the storage tank and out of the milking parlour. There's something elderly about the way she holds her back, something I've never noticed before.

The first thing I do when I go into Father's bedroom is say hello from Ada. Then I give him the works. I sit him down on the toilet and ask whether he wants to shave before or after his shower. Before, he says, and he wants to do it himself. I take the small mirror off the wall in the hall and put it on the sink so that he can see himself while sitting on the plastic stool. It takes forever: his hands tremble and he finds it difficult to pull the folds in his neck smooth and use the razor at the same time. Besides washing his body, I also squirt a big dollop of shampoo into his hair. Once he's clean, I ask him whether he can stay sitting on the stool. He can, as long as he clamps his hands on his knees and leans back against the tiled wall. I go upstairs, strip the bed and remake it with clean sheets and pillowcases. I catch myself whistling while I'm at it. Before going downstairs again, I walk to the window and look at the hooded crow. 'Yes, have a good look,' I say, when I see its eye on me. A little later Father is back in bed with fresh-smelling, combed hair.

'I want some French toast,' he says.

'Do you turn over in bed sometimes?'

'Turn over? Why should I?'

'If you always lie on your back like that, you'll get bedsores and then you'll have to go to hospital, and, once you're there, that'll be it, there'll be no coming back.'