The Twin (21 page)

Helmer,

 

You lied to me. Henk told me about your father. I thought he'd lost his mind. But he's dead and scattered, I said. No, he's not, Henk said, he's upstairs in bed, I can hear him coughing now. He even told me he quite often takes his dinner up to him. Why did you lie to me? I didn't expect that sort of thing from you. Henk (your brother, my fiancé) would never have lied to me like that. I always thought of you as a nice, honest, gentle guy, but it turns out I was wrong. I sat in your house and walked around with your father there as well, behind closed doors! It puts my visit in a brand-new light. I hate your father, he sent me packing, he ruined my life. (Or do you think I spent dozens of years happy and contented with Wien? That I like living in Brabant?)

 

Why did you do it? Because you thought I wouldn't come otherwise? You only think of yourself. There isn't a day goes by I don't think of Henk. Henk was a boy, but he was a real man as well, and he gave me what I wanted. Wien was completely different. In a way he was more interested in his pigs than in me. I came second. If only you knew the pictures that haunt me every night. Always that car and Lake IJssel. You're more like Wien than Henk. And to think that I found some degree of peace on the farm in the days after Henk's death. Your mother was a comfort to me and I thought there was also some kind of connection between us (you and me). There was something we could build on, I thought.

 

And something else: I want Henk back (not your brother, my son). Having him round the house wasn't easy but I see now that not having him is even worse. I want to learn to talk to him, I want to understand him. He's my son. What's more, I realise now that he doesn't belong there with you, because you're a liar and a cheat, and a bad example for him. And what's this story about the crow? Didn't you realise it was such a dangerous animal? Why did you expose my son to that kind of danger? Did he at least get proper treatment at the hospital? You're an irresponsible man.

 

I'll write to Henk as well, telling him he has to come back to his mother, that she needs him.

 

It can't go on like this.

 

Yours,

 

Riet.

 

Fog. All I can see are the bare branches of the ash. Empty branches. Beyond that, nothing. It's always a bit damp in Father's bedroom. I can't remember it being clammy when I slept here. It's still March, but to me it feels like it could just as well be May or even June. Father agrees entirely.

'I've had enough.'

'You just said that.'

'It's taking too long.'

'It's not spring yet.'

'I know. That's why.'

I look at the crowded walls: the photos, the samplers, the watercolour mushrooms. Do people take photos for later, for when they're gone? 'And?' I ask. 'What do you want to do about it?'

'Stop eating.'

'What?'

'I'm not going to eat any more. I'll just drink.'

'But . . .'

'Is that so bad?'

'If I don't bring you any food . . .'

'You'll be guilty of killing me? Bah. If it bothers you so much, bring up the meals anyway. I just won't eat 'em.' He's lying there cheerfully, as if it's a joke. Maybe he's thinking, If my son can joke, so can I.

The last few days I've kept looking at Henk's wrists. He has strong, broad wrists. Covered with fine ginger hair. After ending the telephone conversation with his mother, he followed me out. He hung around for a while at the causeway gate, where he couldn't see me, but noticed the sheep clumped together and staring in the same direction. There was something funny about it, he said later. In retrospect I think that must have been the moment I managed to get my head above water for the last time. He climbed over the gate just in time, and walked just fast enough to reach me before I drowned. He saw the sheep lying there and a limp arm draped over its flank. He too stepped into the ditch, slid the sheep off me with ease and pulled me upright with those strong wrists. My boots stayed behind in the mud; they're still there now. He heaved me up out of the ditch. When I opened my eyes I saw an ear, a hand and a scar. He kissed me on the mouth, I thought, and the next thing I knew a powerful stream of air was forcing its way into my lungs – I felt like I was suffocating. There was nowhere else for the air to go, he had my nose pinched shut. I made a noise and Henk's head moved away. My diaphragm contracted and the next thing I knew I was lying on my side – helped by his strong wrists – and vomiting a wave of muddy body-warmed water. 'Just stay there, don't move,' said Henk. I obeyed. I was gasping and glad to be breathing air instead of water. A little later a few drops splashed onto my face from a bale of wool that came wobbling by. He'd even managed to get the sheep up out of the ditch.

Now he's in bed. He says he's come down with something. I see his wrists on a background of African animals. I vomited a few more times in the course of the day and that was that.

'How's Henk?' Father asks.

'Okay,' I say. 'Better.' It's as if I can still taste the mud in my mouth. Or feel the gritty soil between my teeth. I can well imagine death tasting like mud. I stare at the ash.

'You were going to tell me why you hate me and what I did to you.'

'Yes,' I say.

'Why you tell Ada that I'm senile and why you refuse to call the doctor.'

'Yes,' I say.

'I understand.'

'What do you mean?'

'You put me upstairs as the first step. You keep people away from me.'

I stop answering and stare out of the window.

'At first you hardly brought me anything to eat. And now I've said I don't want any any more, you start grumbling. Just let me go.'

Slowly I turn my head towards him. He is no longer cheerful. He's about to say things he's never said before.

'You tell people I'm senile so that whatever I say, no matter who I say it to, it won't be true.'

I stay silent.

'That time you brought me bread and cheese, on that beautiful sunny day.'

'Yes?'

'And you thought I was asleep.'

I don't say yes again. He said, 'thought', that's enough.

'I know, son. I know.' He smooths out the blanket next to his legs with one hand. It's a strange, feminine gesture. 'No,' he goes on, 'I suspected it. And I don't want to hear another word about it. Ever.'

The fog is thinning out, thinning and paling. There is a silver glimmer to the road and almost imperceptible ripples on the surface of the canal. I get up and walk to the door. What exactly does he know or did he suspect? He doesn't want to hear another word about it, ever, but that's not as easy as stopping eating.

I see myself kneeling next to the bed and laying my head on the blanket and I see Father's old hand stop rubbing the blanket. He raises his hand, lifts it up over his legs and lays it on my head. The hand feels dry and the skin scrapes over my hair, and it feels warm as well. I open the door and look at the plate on his bedside cabinet. A cheese sandwich, an apple and a knife. I leave the plate where it is and go out onto the landing.

Everyone else is in bed so I lie down on my bed too. It's just gone midday. I feel even more that I don't belong here. Henk should have lived here. With Riet and with kids. Despite the age difference, Riet would have been as thick as thieves with Ada, and her children would have gone to school with Teun and Ronald. No, her grandchildren. I should have been an uncle. Henk would have told the young tanker driver from his heart that he was sorry to see him go and wished him all the best, maybe even patting him on the shoulder. When I look in a mirror, I see myself. Sometimes I look through myself and see Henk, who generally looks back with a strange expression on his face. What would it have been like if the two of us had been standing there with Father just now, united? Would he still think we were conspiring against him? Would we have still been capable of provoking him by looking him straight in the eye? Would Henk have stood up for me or would he quietly but clearly have called me an idiot?

I've been doing things by halves for so long now. For so long I've had just half a body. No more shoulder to shoulder, no more chest to chest, no more taking each other's presence for granted. Soon I'll go and do the milking. Tomorrow morning I'll milk again. And the rest of the week, of course, and next week. But it's no longer enough. I don't think I can go on hiding behind the cows and letting things happen. Like an idiot.

His arms are next to his body, I can't see his wrists. The fog has lifted and I have set the window ajar. The new room smells of illness, even though he's been better for a day or two now. It also smells of cigarette smoke. He refuses to get up. The letter his mother sent him is lying next to the bed. The letter she sent me is downstairs, on the kitchen table.

I changed the bandage on his head once, pulling the gauze cap back on over the top. When I went to do it a second time (he had already taken to his bed), I saw that the wound was dry and left it. The ends of the blue stitches are longer than his hair. 'They always go for my head,' he mutters. 'Animals.'

I wonder when the stitches need to be removed. Is that something you can do yourself? I like the idea of doing it myself. I'd clamp his skull against my chest and use one steady hand to remove the threads with a pair of tweezers.

I hear the milk tanker turning into the yard. The new driver is a determined woman in her mid-forties. I've only exchanged a word or two with her, she is standoffish and, like the old tanker driver, a bit surly.

'Do you miss your brother?' Henk asks.

'What?'

'Do you miss your brother. Henk?'

I don't answer.

'I don't miss my sisters at all.'

'They're still alive.'

'True. Were they really going to get married?'

'Yes.'

'And you looked like each other?'

'You've seen the photos in Father's bedroom, haven't you?'

'Yeah, but . . .'

'We were twins.'

'Why did she fall in love with your brother and not with you?'

'I don't know.'

'Or did she see him first and you afterwards?'

'No, both at the same time. We were at the pub together.'

'Why?'

'I don't know, Henk. Things just happen like that.'

'It could just as easily have been different.'

'I'm not so—'

'What if she'd—'

'Stop it.'

'I think she wants to marry you.'

'I thought so too.'

'Not any more?'

'No.'

'I think she's even using me for that.'

'How?'

'By sending me here.'

'You watch too much TV.'

'She's going to be disappointed.' He sniggers.

I look at him. 'It's time you got up.'

'No. I'm staying here.'

'What's she say?'

'That she needs me and you're a liar and I have to come home.'

The tanker drives out of the yard. It grows quiet outside. I can feel from my back that I'm still standing under the window, under the sloping wall. I slide his clothes off the chair and sit down.

'She's angry. With my father, my sisters, me. Always has been. She's angry with everything and everyone. Even the pigs. She's probably angry with you too.'

'Yes.'

'Why did you tell her your father was dead?'

'It's a long story.'

'I've got time.'

'No, you don't. We have to get the sheep in.'

'Why?'

'They're about to yean.'

'You mean lamb.'

'Yes.'

'Can't you do that by yourself?'

'No. I need your help.'

'Will I have to run?'

'Maybe.'

'I'm ill.'

'You were.'

'I'm scared.'

'You're young, you should take things in your stride.'

'I want to stay here permanently. I don't want to go back to my angry mother, to Brabant. I hate it there, there's nothing for me in Brabant. What good are sisters?'

'Is there anything for you here?'

'Yes.' Two wrists appear. He fumbles for the packet of cigarettes on the bedside cabinet. 'It must be weird,' he says. 'Having a twin brother. Someone who's exactly like you.' He lights his cigarette.

I get up off the chair and open the window a little wider.

'Exactly the same body.'

'What are you actually scared of?'

'Summer.'

'What?'

'Summer is long and lonely and light.' The duvet has slipped down a little, baring his chest. A smooth young chest with a timorous heart. He blows out a cloud of smoke. Not at the window, but straight in my face. 'With a twin brother that's not a problem. You're always together.'

Of course he runs twice as fast as I do. He runs too fast, scattering the sheep in all directions. I tell him to take it easy, reminding him that he's dealing with pregnant animals. When I check after milking, two lambs are already walking around the sheep shed. A fence in the middle of the shed divides it into the drop pen on one side and the lambing pen on the other. I pick up the two lambs and a ewe starts to stamp. That is the mother. I put the ewe and the lambs in the lamb pen. Henk watches from the doorway. His face is flushed. Wisps of steam are rising from his shoulders.

'Come on,' I say.

We walk through fields that are sheepless but not empty to the Bosman windmill. Two greylag geese are standing next to the ditch. I also see two peewits, a flock of wood pigeons, a pair of white wagtails and a solitary black-tailed godwit. When I'm almost certain that the redshanks haven't arrived yet, two fly past. The sun is about to set. The vanes of the mill are turning very slowly. I fold the tail forward to disengage it and wipe my hands on the legs of my overalls. Let the water come.

'We spent a lot of time here,' I say, 'in the summer.'

'You and Henk?'

'Yes.'

'Like now,' he says. 'But it's not summer yet.'

'No,' I say. 'It's not summer.' The geese take wing, one flying higher than the other, the way geese do. 'Your mother used to come here too, just after Henk died. With my mother.'

That doesn't interest him. 'What did you do here?'

'Hang around.'

Hang around. Stand, walk, sit. Stare at the yellow water lilies in the canal, watch clouds drift slowly – always slowly – by. Watch the water bulging in the ditch. When we closed our eyes to listen to the larks, the squeaking of the windmill's greased axle and the wind blowing through the struts, time stood still. All kinds of things flicked back and forth under our eyelids and it was never dark. It was orange. When it was summer and we were in another country here – almost like America – nothing else existed. We existed and even stronger than the smell of warm water, sheep droppings and dried-out thistles was our own smell. A sweet, sometimes chalky smell of bare knees and bare stomachs. Sitting on the itchy grass. When we touched each other, we touched ourselves. Feeling someone else's heartbeat and thinking it's your own, you can't get any closer than that. Almost like the sheep and me, merging together just before it drowned me.

'Helmer?'

'Yes?'

'What's it like, having a twin brother?'

'It's the most beautiful thing in the world, Henk.'

'Do you feel like half a person now?'

I want to say something, but I can't. I even need to grab one of the struts to stop myself from falling. I've always been forgotten: I was the brother, Father and Mother were more important. Riet demanded – no matter how briefly – her widowhood, and now Riet's son stands opposite me and asks me if I feel like half a person. Henk grabs me by the shoulders; I shake him off.

'What are you crying about?' he asks.

'Everything,' I say.

He looks at me.

I let him look.

We don't really eat. Henk has opened a bottle of wine, there's bread and cheese on the table, butter and yoghurt, a ripped open bag of crisps. 'She acts like you set that crow on me,' says Henk. He's got the letter his mother sent me spread out in front of him. 'And here, "some kind of connection between us" and "something we could build on". I told you she wanted to marry you. Then you would have been my father.'

'Of course not,' I say. 'If I was your father, you wouldn't be who you are.'

'What?'

'You know what I mean.'

'Not at all. Shall I fry a couple of eggs?'

'No, thanks. What are you reading that for anyway? It's rude to read other people's letters.' I am tipsy and keep looking out of the side window. I hope Ada is watching through her binoculars and can see just what's going on in here. Booze, bad food, general agitation.

'I could have been your uncle,' I say. 'But not really, because if Henk was your father, you wouldn't be who you are either.'

He gives me a fuzzy look. 'Uncle Helmer,' he says slowly.

I wonder where the tweezers are. In the first-aid kit, in the linen cupboard, somewhere under a pile of clean towels. 'Henk,' I say. 'Get the first-aid kit out of the cupboard, will you? And turn the light on.' He gets up and does what I ask. Keep watching, Ada, I think, digging the tweezers out of the first-aid kit. I push my chair back from the table and signal for Henk to come closer.

'What are you going to do?' he asks.

'I'm going to remove those stitches.'

'You sure? Don't I need to go to the hospital for that?'

'No. Kneel down.'

He kneels down in front of me and I use one hand to press his head against my chest.

'Careful,' he says.

'Of course,' I say. There are four stitches. Two come out without any real tugging. The third is more difficult.

'Ow,' says Henk.

'It's already done.' The fourth stitch is another easy one.

Before standing up, he runs one finger over the wound that has almost become a scar.

Slightly befuddled, I stand in the sheep shed. Not much is happening. The two lambs are drinking from their mother, the rest of the sheep are lying down and quietly chewing the cud. There's nothing for me to do in here and I put off whatever else might be about to happen by sitting on the floor of the lambing pen, my back to the fence. Sitting is easier than standing. A shed full of sheep in spring is just like a shed full of cows in winter. I tell myself that I mustn't think like that any more. I don't want to think like that any more. Henk pulled me out of that ditch and something has changed. The re-la-tion-ship, I think with my boozed-up brain. I wonder if you have to do something in return if someone saves your life. One of the lambs comes up to me, the ewe stamps a forefoot. Sheep in a shed aren't as sorry as they are in a field. When I walk out of the shed I leave the light on.