The Book of Everything (3 page)

T
homas was worried, because he had taken the plunge. He had put his letter into Eliza's letterbox. What was he going to do if he met her? Which way would he look? The best thing would be to hide himself and never reappear. That was why he was at home, reading
Emil and the Detectives
. It was a wonderful book about a German boy in Berlin. It was not about God. It seemed Emil never had to go to church, which was odd.

When he had read for half an hour, he put the book down with a sigh. Perhaps it would be okay to go outside for a bit, if he was really careful. If he saw Eliza, he could for instance quickly jump into a doorway, or hide behind a fat lady, just like Emil in Berlin. As he was going down the stairs to the front door, he saw a white envelope lying on the doormat at the bottom of the stairs. His mouth became dry from nervousness, for that letter was from Eliza, he was convinced of it. If it was an angry letter, he did not want to go on living. He would go and drown himself in the Reijnier Vinkeles Canal, among the swordtails.

With thudding heart he went down one tread at a time and picked up the envelope from the mat. “To Mr. A. Klopper,”
read the address. That was Father, for Thomas's name was T. Klopper. And on the back: “Mrs. van Amersfoort-Raaphorst.”

It wasn't a letter from Eliza at all! It was a letter from Mrs. van Amersfoort to his father! That was even worse! That was a national disaster! Quickly he stuffed the envelope under his shirt. He looked up into the dark stairwell. No one had seen him. Carefully he opened and closed the door. He ran down the street, turned the corner, and kept running until he reached somewhere where no one knew him. Then he stopped, gasping for breath.

He examined the letter in his hand. Why would Mrs. van Amersfoort write a letter to his father? This could only lead to trouble. Father must never get that letter. He must tear it up and bury it, for Mrs. van Amersfoort was a commernist or something, and a witch on top of that. And who would get the blame if his father received a letter from that woman? He! Thomas! And nobody else. He clasped the letter in his hands and was about to start tearing it up when he thought, “I wonder what's in it?” He could read the letter first and then tear it up, couldn't he? Then he would at least know what it was about!

He looked around to make sure no one was watching him. Carefully, he undid the envelope. Why were his fingers trembling so? Why did his stomach feel as if he had swallowed a rhinoceros? Because he was doing something that was totally
forbidden. “But,” he thought, “it has to be done, because if I don't, much worse things are likely to happen.” What sort of things? “For instance somebody could get a terrible belting and that person could for instance be me.”

He pulled the letter from the envelope and unfolded it. There was only a single sentence. Thomas read it aloud to himself: “
A man who hits his wife dishonors himself.”

“A man who hits his wife …” Thomas muttered uneasily. So she knew! He flushed with shame. She had discovered the great secret. There were secrets you could safely pass on. But this was a secret that nobody must know, because it was awful. Mrs. van Amersfoort knew it. How could that be? Had someone told her or did she just know, automatically, because she was a witch?

“… dishonors himself,” he mumbled. What did “dishonors” mean? He had no idea.

“Papa must not ever read this,” he whispered. “For I will be blamed for it, and probably Mama too.”

He walked over to the Van Heutz monument. In front of the monument was a pond with a fountain where children sailed small boats. Behind it grew shrubs. He slipped in among the shrubs, squatted, and started digging a hole in the ground with his hands. He stuffed the envelope into the hole, but when he was about to put the letter in too, he hesitated. Once more, he reread the sentence Mrs. van Amersfoort had
written.
A man who hits his wife dishonors himself
. He thought. Perhaps it was a magic spell. A spell that could change people into … eh … something. That was quite possible. He filled in the hole. The envelope was buried, but the letter he kept.

Thomas went back home, the letter folded up in his trouser pocket. He would have to hide it somewhere at home until he could figure out exactly what it meant. When he turned into his street he was so deep in thought that he didn't see Eliza coming. He looked up only when he heard her leather leg creaking.

Accidentally, he looked straight into her face and turned as red as a brick.

“Listen, Thomas,” said Eliza.

Thomas looked at the tiles of the sidewalk and felt his heart thumping.

“That was ab-so-lute-ly the loveliest letter I have ever received,” he heard her say.

So she was not angry. Now he dared look her in the face again. Was she making fun of him?

“I will keep it carefully. And whenever I feel sad, I'll read it.”

“Oh,” said Thomas. “Good.”

“You're such a wonderful boy. Later, when I live in my castle, you can come and visit anytime. We'll go for rides in my Rolls-Royce.” She bent over and kissed him on the cheek. Then she walked on.

It was unbelievable! A kiss from Eliza right in the middle of the street. For a letter! His ears were ringing and he heard the music he had heard before, with lots of violins. He jumped for joy. To his amazement, he shot two meters into the air, so light had he become.

At home, he wrote in
The Book of Everything
, “I have to write letters to people. That cheers them up. And then they like me.”

He pulled Mrs. van Amersfoort's letter from his pocket. He looked around. Where to hide it? Among the clothes in his cupboard? No, for his mother tidied that up every week. Under the mattress? No. Behind the loose piece of wallpaper? No.

By his side on the table lay
Emil and the Detectives
. He sat staring at it and suddenly he knew. The solution was in the story. A pin. No, he had an even better idea: a safety pin. But how to get hold of a safety pin? Yes! In his head he saw his mother's apron. He crept down the stairs and slipped into the kitchen. There was the apron, hanging on a hook. Not by a loop, but by a safety pin. He took the apron off the hook, snapped open the safety pin, and there, it was his. He hung the apron loosely back over its hook and crept back to his room. He got out the folded letter and worked the safety pin through the four layers of paper. Then he unbuttoned his shirt. With the safety pin he fastened the letter to the inside of his shirt, behind the breast pocket, so you couldn't see it
at all from the front. He rebuttoned his shirt. Now he wore Mrs. van Amersfoort's magic spell over his heart.

 

After the meal, Father read aloud from the Bible:

“And God said to Moses: Pharaoh's heart will still not soften. He will not let the people go. Tomorrow you must go to Pharaoh. He always walks by the water. Wait for him on the bank of the Nile. Take your staff. Strike the water with it, and the water of the Nile will change into blood.”

“That is the first plague,” Thomas thought. “The water turned as red as cordial. That must have terrified Pharaoh.”

“
The fishes died and began to stink,”
Father read on.

“The fishes?” thought Thomas. “The swordtails too? It wasn't the fishes' fault that the Pharaoh was a bad man, was it?”

He looked at his aquarium that stood in the back room, its light glowing. It had a greenish look. Just imagine if the water suddenly turned red as blood … would that kill the fish? “All the plagues of Egypt,” he whispered. “One after the other.” He loved his fishes a lot, but sometimes it was necessary to make sacrifices.

“Thus far,” said Father, closing the Bible. “What did you say, Thomas?”

“I said, ‘All the plagues of Egypt.'”

“Yes,” Father said, pleased. “This was the first. Tomorrow we'll do the second.”

 

Thomas was playing in the street when a police jeep came around the corner. It stopped, tires squealing, and three policemen jumped out. They ran to number one and rang the bell. At the same time, they kicked the door with their boots. It was quite scary. Very quickly, a lot of people gathered around.

“What's going on?”

“They're picking up Bikkelmans.”

“That Nazi?”

“Don't know if he was actually in the Party, but he was as pro-German as … eh …”

“As Hitler?”

There was laughter. The door opened, and the policemen stormed up the stairs. That's when Mrs. van Amersfoort arrived. She put her heavy shopping bag down and silently watched the stairwell at number one.

“And about time too, eh, Mrs. van Amersfoort?” someone called out.

Mrs. van Amersfoort shrugged and said, “Oh, that little man.”

For a long while nothing happened. Then there was thumping and shouting at the top of the stairs. Two policemen came out, a struggling man between them. One pulled the man along by his hair, the other had a tight grip on his neck. The third policeman walked behind the man, pushing him in the back.

“I wish you all had been so brave during the war!” Mrs. van Amersfoort shouted suddenly. “He is a human being, not a pig!”

The policemen took no notice of her. They pushed the man flat down onto the backseat of the jeep. Two of the policemen sat in the front. The third one climbed into the back and sat on top of the man's shoulders. He wrapped his long trench coat around himself so the man became invisible. Only his shouting could be heard over the roar of the engine.

“What sort of manners is that?” Mrs. van Amersfoort yelled. “Haven't you learned anything?” But the jeep tore off, screaming around the corner.

“Did you see that?” Mrs. van Amersfoort shouted angrily.

Nobody answered, so Thomas said, “Yes, I saw that.”

People walked away. “Serves him right,” someone said. “He was even worse than we thought.”

Mrs. van Amersfoort pulled a packet of Golden Fiction cigarettes from her coat pocket and lit one. Then she looked at Thomas. “I should not have shouted like that, Thomas,” she said. “But I can't bear to see people treated so roughly. And now I'm completely out of breath.”

“Shall I carry your bag in again?” asked Thomas.

“Let's do it together,” said Mrs. van Amersfoort. “It's full of books.”

She took one handle and Thomas the other one. “What did that man do?” he asked.

“Ah, he belonged to a club that supported the wrong side.”

“Oh,” said Thomas. “I see.”

 

Mrs. van Amersfoort drank her coffee and Thomas his cordial. One of the cats purred on his lap. It made his legs feel warm.

“I've finished the book,” said Thomas.

“And? What did you think of it?”

“Good,” said Thomas.

“What did you think was good about it?”

“When all those children helped Emil,” said Thomas. “When they caught the villain together. And that business with the pin, that was really good.”

Mrs. van Amersfoort nodded.

All you could hear in the silence was the cat's purring.

“I want to ask you something,” said Thomas shyly. “It's rather a silly question.”

“I've got a silly question too,” said Mrs. van Amersfoort. “You go first.”

“Can I take the cordial home with me?” asked Thomas. He didn't dare look her in the eyes.

“You can finish it here, can't you?” asked Mrs. van Amersfoort, surprised.

“I mean the bottle,” said Thomas. He did not look at her. Of course she was going to ask what for, and he couldn't answer that.

“The bottle …” she said. “All right, I can buy a new one.”

“Thank you very much,” said Thomas. She hadn't asked what for. Maybe she
knew
what for, because she was a witch.

“My turn,” said Mrs. van Amersfoort. “A silly question. Here it comes. Thomas, do you ever get hit at home?”

Thomas felt the shock like a punch in his stomach. “Me?!” he blurted. “Of course not!” He thought, “I get a thumping sometimes, but Mama gets hit.” “Mama!” he wanted to say. “She's the one who gets hit!” But his throat felt like a tightly screwed-down lid.

For a long while, Mrs. van Amersfoort said nothing. The cat jumped off Thomas's lap and stretched. Thomas quickly emptied his glass. She knew everything, everything. But his mouth was locked. He could not talk. “Jesus … Mama …” he thought. “What am I going to do?”

“Thank goodness for that,” said Mrs. van Amersfoort. “Shall we listen to some music?”

Thomas looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. “It's just about time for me to go home,” he said.

“Good,” Mrs. van Amersfoort got up. “I'll just pick another book for you. Here, take this one. But I will want it back.
Alone in the World
.”

She saw him to the front door. “I'll lend you this book precisely because you're
not
alone in the world.”

“Ah, yes,” said Thomas. He looked at her, embarrassed. “And the cordial?” he whispered.