Out of Mind (11 page)

A bit over the side, it runs across the floor. Jesus, that's bad, but I can't hold it now. Robert comes to my aid, he licks it up. A dog is ever a trusted friend. He looks at me briefly with his yellowish eyes, beside the stone jar in which the umbrellas are kept.

'Come, we're going for a little walk, Robert.'

Then someone puts an arm around my shoulders from behind and pushes me into the room, in the direction of a piano (perhaps wants me to play something for him? Or do I have to practise?), I sit down and start playing Mozart's adagio, but he is standing beside me with a hypodermic syringe. Behind my back I hear someone crying, a woman.

'We know that from the war,' I hiss, and knock the syringe out of his hand. The man bends to pick it up and I use the opportunity to sit down quickly at the table, opposite Vera.

'Don't cry,' I say, 'I'm in complete control of the situation.'

I see how the man lets his syringe slide into a soft black leather doctor's bag.

'I am not a hero,' I say, 'but betray someone, never. The Nazis will lose the war, that is beyond question. The greater part of the country has already been liberated. The Queen has arrived in Eindhoven, they say. We must persevere, no matter how hungry we are.'

The man is holding a soft leather bag in front of his stomach with both hands. Looks just like a doctor's bag. He is listening but I can tell he doesn't understand me. He looks at me almost timidly.

'It's war. People do the craziest things. In the long run you don't find anything crazy any longer. But only among ourselves, you mustn't talk about it outside, they're still prowling around, walls have ears. You can stay the night here. You're still in enemy territory, after all. It's dangerous outside. Shall I show you the guest room upstairs?

'Just as you please. There are a few collaborators living near here, so it really is dangerous.'

The American still does not react.

'What are you sitting there for, Vera? Get the man something to eat. Maybe he hasn't had any food for days.'

'Nick,' she says to the man, in a choking, imploring voice. He nods briefly in her direction, opens a black leather bag and takes out a hypodermic syringe. He disappears into the kitchen with it. I hear water running.

'Have we any food left? Or has it all gone?'

'Push up your sleeve,' says Vera and unbuttons one of my shirt cuffs.

'I didn't realize I was in such a bad state,' I said.

The man enters the room and before I realize it the needle is in my arm.

'Liquid food,' I mutter. 'I was in bad need of it. I can feel it already. My stomach is filling up. Thank you, thank you both very much.'

Wash . . . wash . . . wash
... A woman is standing behind me. I can see her in the mirror. A chocolate-coloured blouse printed with leaf-green French lilies, a black skirt. Her face doesn't go with the rest of her appearance, I think, it seems to be detached from it. She is holding a beige bath towel in her outstretched, trembling hands. Wash... wash . . . wash . . . wash.

'That's enough now, Maarten.'

Turn around and take the towel from Vera. Rub. Nice, that rough towelling against your bare shoulders. Rub. And then I have lost the towel. She is holding it in her hands.

'Give it to me!'

'You must get dressed now, Maarten.'

'I am not tired. As far as that is concerned you are right in what you say.' (What a cumbersome manner of speaking.)

Skin that is beginning to feel thick and numb again. Can no longer feel the shirt (as if I am not really wearing it).

Behind me in the doorway stands a woman. Her brown hair falls in a lock towards the right across her forehead. Remarkably smooth cheeks in an otherwise old face that seems to move away ever further and comes closer again only after I have briefly looked away from the mirror to the wall beside it. She is keeping an eye on me. (Could she have been assigned to me? By whom?) Tie, where is my tie?

You should never try to put on your tie in front of the mirror. All that movement in reverse makes you dizzy. It confuses your fingers. Shut your eyes and do it by touch, let your fingers carry out the correct movements from memory. Suddenly I feel strange fingers at my neck. They fiddle with the stand-up collar of my shirt. (I am perfectly capable of doing it by myself.)

'I can do it, Mama.'

'Don't call me Mama.'

'What makes you say that, Vera?'

I turn, the sound of Vera's voice still in my ears. The little hollow in her neck is deep and sunken, almost black. How chic she looks today.

'Where are we going? We don't have to go to a birthday, do we? I hope we haven't forgotten Pop's birthday, like we did last year? That voice on the phone. I could have sunk through the floor in shame.'

'Come along, now.'

'Where are we going, Vera? Are we going out? You're all dressed up. Is it someone's birthday? If I've forgotten, you must tell me.'

Ah, a room. Outside there is snow everywhere. I don't like the winter, I clench my fist against it. As I did when I was a little boy, against the lightning. I used to crawl under the living-room table and clench my right fist against the 'heavenly force', as Pop, standing by the window, called it. I looked fearfully through the orange fringe of the tablecloth at the flashes of lightning and his dark figure, at each flash sharply outlined against the black blur of the window. I was scared, scared and yet longing to be struck.

'Come and sit down.'

'Won't you give me a kiss? I must be off in a minute.'

'You don't have to go anywhere. You're free.'

'Did they phone from IMCO? Did Leon Bähr call?'

'He called to say you could stay at home, yes.'

'No more meetings this week, I suppose. I'll get some wood from the shed.'

'William Cheever has already stacked some in the laundry room. Enough for the whole week.'

'Nice lad, that. Was Kiss here too? I didn't see him.'

'No, he'd left Kiss at home. Stay where you are now, I'll get the coffee.'

Of course, that is the smell I've been smelling all this time. It belongs to coffee. (Get up! Walk to the window!)

Two degrees above zero. We're moving in the right direction. There are already black thaw-holes in the snow. A little while longer and you'll hear the dripping of melting snow all day as if taps were running all over the house. But there's no way of telling. One year isn't like another. If you look at Pop's graphs you can see that at a glance. No question of any rule or regularity. Or perhaps there is, but we can't see it. A human being is too small for this life. What a delicious smell there is here. It is as if I have unexpectedly fallen into the day because of this smell. Or rather, as if the smell is inviting me to do so, with its sharp, scintillating message.

'Here comes the coffee-lady. We'll take a seat and enjoy the most delightful moment of the day. A lot of sugar, please.'

'Maarten, one spoonful is enough.'

'More, more. Come on, we only live once.' (To tell the truth, it's more because of the stirring, an action which I could, how shall I put it... a whirlpool appears in the coffee when you stir fast, you stare and stare into the swirling black hollow inside the cup, which at the same time moves and is still.)

'Maarten, look what you're doing!'

'I bestir myself to stir.'

How amusing, to burst into humour. (This must be where 'bursting out laughing' comes from.) Well, what does it matter if you make a bit of a mess in your old age? No harm done. Now the sugar is at the bottom again. Slowly lift the sugar on the spoon. As careful as can be. Once they were beautiful, separate, white glistening grains and now look: what muck. Like the brown slushy snow in Field Road. Everything gets filthy. You must try to remain spotlessly clean yourself.

'Don't mess about with your coffee like that, or I'll take it away.'

Nod. Yesyesyes. 'Absolutely right. Approved and signed.'

'Dear Maarten, will you listen.'

'Dear Maarten, will you listen.' Simic's method. Pronounce: Simmitch. Always works. Look how she is briefly knocked off balance. No, those Yugoslavs aren't so dumb by any means. Poor fellow. I have to swallow a couple of times to hold back my tears, grab the edge of the table and blink my eyes. How frayed this tablecloth is. In a moment Ellen and Jack Robbins will be here and we'll have this old rag on the table. I take hold of the frays and then it suddenly comes back to me just in time. Sometimes I can't get at a particular word, it lies hidden behind another word with a similar meaning. And a wrong word leads you to wrong thoughts and makes you do wrong things; words act like railroad points. These aren't called 'frays' but a 'fringe'. Deliberately sewn on. (Belongs to the tablecloth, is part of it, stupid fool!)

Let's see if this coffee is still drinkable. It's rather nice like this, so sweet. There used to be cookies that were as sweet as this, they were long and coated with sugar. Sponge fingers!

Come, I ought to talk to that woman over there. She sits there so sadly behind her cup of coffee, as if she were all on her own in a snack bar. You see them sometimes in Boston. All alone among those newly wiped, damply shiny Formica tables and chairs under a bare fluorescent tube behind a tepid cup of weak coffee. What a way to start the day!

'Do you remember what sponge fingers looked like?'

She reacts strangely. At least I think so. Maybe she doesn't want to be spoken to. She gets up and turns on a radio somewhere. As long as it isn't that German braying, I don't mind. Fortunately, we are so remote here that we haven't needed to hide our radio. The neighbours can be trusted here.

Music. Don't know it. A clever pianist, you can tell. I would need to practise for years to get that far. When you see all those black and white keys lying side by side and you listen and you know the music is hidden somewhere down there between the keys. And because you haven't practised hard enough all those possibilities will be denied you. And that isn't all yet, by any means. All the music that is still to be made can be guessed there. You look at those black and white keys as if at any moment they might begin to move.

'Have you seen my practice book anywhere?'

She must have left the room. Surely it must be lying somewhere on the piano? If I don't practise this week I'll be in trouble with Greta and I don't want that. I think she is the most beautiful girl I know. If I dared I would very carefully lay my head in her lap, close my eyes and lie very still, feeling how she breathes, how she lives, bare, underneath that lemon-coloured dress of hers.

'Here's your book. You asked for it, didn't you?'

'I think I have read this book before. Or have I only seen the movie based on it? Be that as it may ... It doesn't matter. I don't remember the movie either, actually, if I ever did see it.'

I pick up the book. Start reading. An echo rises from the sentences. As if I had seen this page before, as an image, in a flash. What do they call that feeling again, I read an article about it once.
Déjà vu.
A short-circuit between brain neurons. The image is registered a fraction of a second before the awareness of the image occurs, and so it seems you recognize something that you know for sure you can't ever have seen before.

'We're going to have company.'

A sentence fired at me from nowhere. A sudden turn in the conversation that must be made undone immediately.

'Our Man in Havana,'
I say. 'I think I have read this book before. Or am I confusing the book with the movie?'

'Maarten, we're going to have company. A lady will come to look after you. When I have to go out for a while . . . Go shopping and so on.'

'Since when do I have to be looked after? I'm not a child, am I?'

'You're becoming so forgetful, Maarten. You keep forgetting what you are doing. It can be dangerous for you to be all alone in the house.'

I cast a quick glance at her. She means what she says, I see fear in her slightly screwed-up eyes. Dangerous in the house, it echoes in my head. It confirms my idea that there is indeed something wrong about this house sometimes. As if shifts occur in the interior arrangements, as in an office with movable partitions.

'She'll look after your medicine, make sure you rest at the right times.'

'I'm not having myself sent to bed. I'm as fit as a fiddle. I can still do everything. I'm going to get you some firewood from the shed.'

'It's already in the laundry room. William brought it in. There's enough for a whole week.'

'Nice lad. Except you have to pour a pint of beer into him from time to time. Taciturn, like most of the fishermen around here. At sea they don't teach you to talk, one of them said to me the other day in the tavern. You're too busy, he said. And if you have a bit of spare time once in a while there's always the sea around you that you mustn't ever take your eyes off. Shall I let Robert out?'

'Later,' she says, 'when we have company.'

'You're being very mysterious. Who could it be except Ellen and Jack Robbins? Or William Cheever? Or are the children coming? About time too.'

'They lead their own lives. But Kitty phoned the other day and said she'd soon be coming over for a while.'

'You'd better hide the radio in that case. It may seem crazy, but you can't even trust your own children these days. Before you know it they let their tongues run away with them at school and you're in for it.'

'The war has been over for a long time, Maarten. We're living in a free country, in America.'

'You don't need to tell me where I live. I live in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The other day I was in the tavern and a fellow says to me, at sea they don't teach you to talk. What are you nodding your head for? You weren't there, were you?'

'Nevermind.'

'Ah, here's Robert. Shall we go for a walk, Robert?'

'In a while, Maarten, in a while. You'd better stay in now. We're going to have company in a minute.'

'Company at this hour of the day? Or is it evening already?'

'Wait quietly, now.'

'Who's coming, then?'

She does not reply.

As long as it isn't Karen. I wouldn't know what to say to her. She'd be sixty-five now, a ridiculous thought. Maybe she's dead. Imagine me sitting here thinking of someone who doesn't exist any longer. There's no way of knowing. I remember it so clearly, how I stood before her, naked and trembling like an aspen-leaf.