The Twin (13 page)

I scoop milk out of the storage tank with a measuring cup; Henk wants a glass of milk with his sandwich. Myself, I almost never drink milk – it's my livelihood but about the only thing I ever use it for is making porridge. The door to the milking parlour is open, outside it smells of spring. The idea of the trees turning green again and daffodils flowering around their trunks suddenly makes my stomach churn. The image of lambs under pale spring sun drains the strength from my arms, for a moment I have difficulty holding up the lid of the storage tank. Yet another spring like all the previous springs. I don't think it, I feel it. Before walking back to the kitchen, I stop to look out through the open door at the trees that line the yard. They are bare and wet. The rain keeps falling. It's late January and in February you can still get severe frosts.

When I come back into the kitchen Henk is sitting there exactly as he was a while ago, in my old spot, with his back to the door. There is a slice of bread on his plate, unbuttered, with nothing on it. I take a mug from the kitchen cupboard, fill it with milk and put it down next to his plate.

'Thank you,' says Henk.

'You're welcome,' I say.

I sit down. I realise there is no wardrobe in his room. Where's he supposed to put his clothes when he takes them out of the backpack? 'Aren't you hungry?' I ask.

'A bit.' He sticks his knife in the butter and spreads a thin layer on his bread. Then he puts it down to look at what else there is: cheese, peanut butter, jam, salami and ham. He settles for jam.

'My next-door neighbour made that,' I say.

'Oh.'

'It's blackberry.'

Before he starts eating, he takes a mouthful of milk.

'And?'

'What?'

'How's it taste? Fresh cow's milk?'

He takes another mouthful. 'Metallic,' he says.

On second thoughts, his ears aren't so very big. They just stick out a little. That makes them look big. When he chews they move up and down.

'I milk twenty cows. That's hardly any.'

'It smells good here,' says Henk.

'You think?'

'Yes.'

'Not like pigs?'

He doesn't answer. He looks at me and that's enough. The shed door is open. I let him go first. He's not much taller than me, but he's a good deal bigger. Brawnier. I'll stand on the trailer and stack the bales of hay, he can throw them up. Teun and Ronald will roll them to the trailer. Thinking about early summer doesn't bother me: no churning in my stomach, no weak legs.

'The yearlings are in here.'

They sniff and raise their heads as we enter.

'All they do is eat, sleep and shit,' I say.

'Don't you have a gutter cleaner in here?'

He's asked a question, that's a development. 'No,' I say.

'How do you do it then?'

'Nothing special. A shovel and a wheelbarrow.'

'Oh.'

I walk out and turn the corner. Before opening the side door, I point out the muck heap. 'See that plank, you run the wheelbarrow up there.'

'Bit narrow,' says Henk.

We go into the sheep shed. The bricks and woodwork are saturated with the dry smell of sheep and manure. Even if I left the door and all the windows open for months, you would still smell it. For most of the year it's empty in here. Sheep can take anything: drought, rain, snow – although they do tend to go lame during extremely wet autumns and winters.

'In a month or two we'll bring the sheep in.'
We
, I say. The tour of the farm – with Henk in the cowshed, the yearling shed and the sheep shed – has evidently turned us into farmer and farmhand.

'Why?' he asks.

'Because they'll start yeaning.'

'What?'

'Yeaning. Lambing.'

'Oh, lambing.'

'What do you call it when pigs have piglets?'

He looks at me as if I'm not quite right.

'Farrowing.'

The donkeys leave him cold. Out of politeness he asks what they're called. I tell him that they don't have names. They have stuck their heads over the rail enthusiastically, but Henk ignores them, staring intently at the shelf with the farrier's tools on it. When I say that I hope it turns dry so they can go outside again, he leaves the donkey shed. Of all the people who have ever been here on the farm, he is the first who hasn't touched the donkeys. Even the taciturn livestock dealer strolls over to their paddock occasionally to scratch them on the head, even when I don't have anything for him.

'And?' I ask.

'What do you mean?'

'What do you think of it?'

He looks around with a rather gloomy expression. 'It's all a bit bare.'

'Do you want to get started?' I ask in the barn.

'Sure,' he says.

I point at the bike. 'That's my father's, but it's been ages since he could ride a bike. If you can fix it, it's yours.'

Henk walks over to the bike and wipes the cobwebs off the frame. 'How old is this thing?'

'Oh, about twenty years old.'

'Christ,' he says.

He looks around. 'Bike pump?'

I get the pump, which is probably pushing twenty as well, out from under the workbench and plug in the strip lights. 'Come on,' I say. 'I'll give you some overalls.'

'What do I do?' whispers Father.

'Nothing special,' I say.

'Yeah, but . . .'

'What?'

'I'm dead, aren't I?'

'No, not any more.'

'That boy's mother . . .' He can't bring himself to say her name.

'Yeah?'

'She thinks I'm dead.'

'There were reasons for that.' I feel sorry for him. I don't want to – when I'm in his bedroom I don't want anything – but I still feel it.

'Where is he?'

'He's in the barn fixing your bike.'

Father is eating a cheese sandwich off a plate he tries to hold under his chin with one trembling hand. I've turned on the light. It's just gone three, but the clouds refuse to break. What was I thinking when I moved him upstairs? That it would be the first step to 'upstairs' as Riet understood it when I told Ronald where Father was? That here, surrounded by photos, samplers, mushrooms and the ticking of the clock, he would lie back calmly and wait? I walk over to the grandfather clock, open the door and pull up the weights.

I imagine Riet cooking in the kitchen; she's already turned on the light. Everywhere something is happening: Father is lying here; for the moment I'm not sure where I am; Henk is in the barn, in the light as well, at work; the cows are standing calm and serene in the cowshed; in the donkey shed the donkeys are eating winter carrots out of Teun and Ronald's hands; the twenty sheep are lying down near the Bosman windmill; Ada drops by, drinks a coffee with Riet and asks her whether she'd like to come over tomorrow to see her newly completed willow-shoot bank; the buzzing of the electric clock in the kitchen is less and less penetrating; the winter is far from over. And, of course, I know where I am too: I'm fixing the bike together with Henk, and Riet is more mother than wife.

'That old rattletrap,' says Father.

'Yes, but it's not worn out yet.'

'What's he like?'

'I don't know yet.'

'That's what you said last time.'

'Whatever,' I say. I take the plate out of his hand and walk to the door. 'Light on?'

'Light on,' says Father.

'I'll send him in to you for a moment this evening.'

'I don't know . . .'

'We can hardly act like you don't exist?'

'No.'

The bike is upside-down in front of the workbench. Henk is squatting before it. He's wearing a pair of Father's old overalls, faded green with big patches on the knees, the collar turned up. He's got the chain soaking in a container next to the bike, in diesel by the looks of it. The tyres are pumped up. He looks up at me as I approach. There is a black smudge on his jaw. Now he's down low, I see that he has his mother's mouth.

'It needs a new back mudguard,' he says.

'I can buy one,' I say.

'And the tyres are almost perished.'

'If they've really had it, I can buy new tyres too.'

'The chain's soaking in diesel.'

'Did you siphon it out of the tank?'

'Yep.'

Not once has he come to me with a question. What does that say about him? I don't know.

We eat kale with smoked sausage and mash. Once I've started on the kale, I eat it at least twice a week. The supply in the vegetable garden lasts until deep into the winter. Mother always put a beef stock cube in with the potatoes, I use vegetable. I buy the smoked sausage from the butcher. I have a lot of stuff in the deep freeze, but no pork.

'Mr van Wonderen?'

'Yes?'

'Do you have any wine to go with this?'

'Wine?'

'Red wine. It's good with kale.'

'No, I don't have any wine. Only spirits.'

He spoons a large portion of mustard out of the jar. After loading his fork with mash and kale, he smears a dab of mustard over it with his knife. He spears the sausage without mustard.

'Listen, Henk . . .' Before I go on, I take a mouthful. Saying his name was an obstacle.

'Yes?'

'Can you stop calling me Mr van Wonderen?'

'Okay.'

'It's Helmer.'

'Helmer,' he says. He takes a mouthful of water, then says, 'Difficult.'

'What's difficult about it?'

'It's an unusual name. It sounds young.'

'Henk's a difficult name for me.'

'Why?'

'My brother was called Henk.'

'Oh, yeah.'

'You're named after him.'

'No I'm not.'

'No?'

'I'm named after one of my father's uncles, but a generation back.'

'A great-uncle.'

'Is that a great-uncle?'

'Yes. Who told you that?'

'My father.'

'Did you know that my brother was called Henk?'

'Yeah, my mother told me a bit about him. But not when I was little, much later.' He thinks for a moment. 'I think it was only last year.'

'More sausage?'

'Yes, please.'

I cut off a piece of sausage and lay it on his plate. A car drives by.

'Why aren't the curtains closed?'

'Who's going to look in here?'

Henk looks straight ahead, at the side window. I see him gazing at his reflection.

'With a telescope I could look right into that house over there.'

'The neighbour who made the jam lives there.'

'Has she got a telescope?'

'Probably.'

We eat in silence for a while.

'In Russia they eat donkeys,' he says.

'What?'

'Donkeys. In Russia they eat them.'

'How do you know?'

'I dunno, I read it somewhere.'

'Russians are barbarians.'

'Hmm.' He lays his cutlery on his plate and pushes it away. He crosses his arms and looks at himself in the window. I pick up the plates and put them on the draining board. I get the washing-up basin out of the cupboard under the sink and fill it with hot water.

'There's food left over,' says Henk.

'That's for my father.' I'm standing with my back to him. He doesn't say anything. I slip the plates and cutlery into the washing-up basin. It's still quiet behind me. I turn around. His arms aren't crossed any more and he's sitting straighter on the chair. He's staring at me. If he hadn't been here, I wouldn't have filled the washing-up basin with hot water yet.

'My father,' I say again.

'Is there someone else in the house?'

'Yes.'

'Your father. I thought . . .'

'What?'

'When you said, "He can't ride a bike any more" . . .'

'Yes?'

'And that bike's so old. I thought . . .'

'What did you think?'

'I thought he died ages ago.'

'No.'

'Christ. Where is he then?'

'Upstairs.'

'Where the light was on when we drove up?'

'Yep.'

'Is there something wrong with him?'

'He's old. His legs are clapped out.'

'How old?'

'In his eighties. He's starting to go downhill mentally as well.'

'Christ.'

I picture Riet and Henk at home in the village in Brabant. They live there together, but I find it impossible to imagine them in one room. When one walks in somewhere, the other walks out, doors opening and shutting simultaneously. They hardly exchange a word. That's good for me, I have less to explain than I expected.

'Let's take his dinner up to him now,' I say, 'before it gets cold.'

'What, me too?'

'You too.'

He looks at me as if I've asked him to lay out a dead body.

'Show me your hands.'

Now Henk has to go closer to the bed. From the moment he entered the room, he kept his eyes on the things on the walls and finally he noticed the gun leaning against the side of the clock. He's been staring at it for a while now. He holds out his arms with the backs of his hands up, as if about to dive.

'No, the palms.'

Henk turns his hands over.

'Hmm,' says Father.

'Your bike's fixed,' I say.

'Yes, my bike. Be careful with it,' he says to Henk.

'Yes, Mr van Wonderen,' says Henk.

Father has put the plate with the kale, mash and sausage on the bedside cabinet. 'Do you have any experience with cows?'

'No,' says Henk.

'His father had pigs,' I say.

'Pigs!'

'Yes,' says Henk. Almost imperceptibly he shuffles away from the bed again.

'There's no comparison!' Father says. He shakes his head. 'Pigs,' he says quietly.

'Henk comes from Brabant,' I say.

'I suppose that why he's got a Brabant accent.'

I have to admit to being impressed. Rather than lying back like an old, decrepit man, Father is playing the part of a large landowner laid up with a dose of flu. In the spring of 1966 he fired the farmhand. Henk and I were eighteen and Riet was looking like a permanent fixture. He gave the hand six months to find somewhere else to live. That was very obliging of Father, considering the way he treated him otherwise.

'I'm the bloody boss here! You follow my instructions.'

Father and the farmhand were standing in the cowshed, opposite each other. I was behind Father and to one side, squirming, and when I dared to glance up quickly at the hand I saw that, like me, he was keeping his head bowed. I remember being surprised by the phrase 'follow my instructions'. Father didn't usually talk like that. I had no idea what the hand had done wrong.

'Who's the boss here?'

'You are,' said the hand, not looking up but seething inside. 'You're the boss.'

I was young, young enough to get tears in my eyes. I couldn't stand my father, I wanted to stick up for the man who had taught me how to skate. But I was young and had no idea what the disagreement was about. Not too young though to notice the trembling muscles in the farmhand's neck. It was a recalcitrant trembling, somehow provocative. After his subjugation he straightened up, but he didn't look at Father. He looked at me. His eyes were still smouldering.

Now Father is trying to resume his old role. Maybe he's not even trying, maybe the master–servant relationship comes naturally. To him.

'Get out of here,' he says. 'Then I can eat in peace.'

Henk reaches the door before I do. He dives down the stairs in front of me.

'Christ,' he says, walking into the scullery.

Henk wants to watch TV.

'We don't have TV here,' I say.

'What? What do you do at night?'

'Read the newspaper, do the paperwork, check the animals.'

'Paperwork?'

'Uh-huh. Nitrate records, health records for the vet, quality control records for the dairy—'

'I get it. What am I supposed to do in the meantime?'

I don't know how to answer that.

'You miss all kinds of stuff, you know, if you don't have a TV.'

'Yeah?' We're sitting in the kitchen. Henk doesn't have anything else to say. I stand up and open the linen cupboard.

'Towels are in here. Come with me.' I lead the way to the scullery. 'The washing machine's here. You can throw your dirty clothes in the basket.' I open the door to the bathroom. 'The bathroom,' I say. 'The hot water is from a boiler. It's a big boiler, but it doesn't last forever.' We walk back to the kitchen. 'Can you cook?' I ask.

'I can throw a pasta dish together.'

'Good.'

He walks straight through to the linen cupboard, pulls a towel from the stack and disappears into the hall. As if he's following instructions. I hear him on the stairs. Then it's quiet for a moment. He comes back down the stairs. A little later I hear water running in the bathroom. Ten minutes later he turns off the taps. From the instant he left the kitchen I haven't done a thing. I've stayed sitting at the table with my arms crossed. The scullery door opens. 'I'm going to bed,' he calls.

'Goodnight,' I call back.

'Goodnight.' He climbs the stairs again. It gets quiet upstairs.

He has taken up half of the shelf under the mirror. Shaving gear, toothbrush and toothpicks, shower gel, shampoo and expensive-looking deodorant. His damp towel is hanging over the shower curtain rail. I wipe the steam from the mirror. 'A good thick head of hair,' I mumble. Black hair, even now.

I'm exhausted, but can't possibly fall asleep. Not that far away a group of coots is swimming on the canal. The hooded crow is quiet and there is no rain drumming on the window ledges. Am I a kind of father now? What am I? Can he sleep in that room up there? It's not just missing a wardrobe, there's not even a chair. Thrown-together pasta. I can't see Father being too happy about that. What is Father thinking about? Suddenly it's full of breath and life, upstairs. For the first time since taking over Father's bedroom, I feel some degree of regret about the move. Just before falling asleep, when all my thoughts are slipping away from me, I see the young lad who looked like Riet on the back of that bike. With his arms wrapped tightly around the girl.