Straw Book

I need new underpants, Zeeger Kaan thinks as he takes the dry washing off the line. He tosses the clothes in a laundry basket and sets it on the kitchen table. That’s as far as his duties go. He’s never folded them up or done the ironing. Rekel has followed in at his heels and stretches out under the kitchen table. Zeeger looks at the clock. Twelve thirty. Summer days can take forever. Klaas is back home. The car, filthy and clapped out, is parked next to the barn. He suspects that his oldest son has been to the cemetery. He goes over to the sliding patio doors and stares out at the garden, which has grown fuller and fuller over the years. All kinds of plants are in flower, not a single perennial clashes with the perennial next to it, but still it looks somehow drab on a day like today. He’d like to turn on the sprinklers, but doesn’t, because he doesn’t want a scorched lawn. The large leaves of the pipevine are dull and dusty. Already, and it’s not even July yet. He crosses the room and studies the front garden. Anna’s right, it’s gloomy, even now, at the start of summer. Early this morning it was already grey. But for some reason he finds it impossible to cut down things he planted himself. Anna’s not the only one to complain; Klaas has taken to commenting too, not that he pays him any attention: he doesn’t keep the farm garden up at all. He just lets things go to rack and ruin, not even taking the trouble to plant a few violets or African marigolds in the drinking trough next to the back door in spring.

He gets the exercise book out of the desk in the small room, intending to take it through to the living room, but changes his mind. Why not just stay here? It’s pleasant enough and has more or less the same view as the one through the sliding door, just a couple of metres further along. He opens the door to the garden. Not because he thinks it will make it cooler, but so he can hear the radio in the garage. Rekel starts to whimper; he doesn’t like being alone. Zeeger walks into the living room and says, ‘Come on, then,’ to Rekel, who’s standing with his front paws on the last row of kitchen tiles. That’s his limit, he’s not allowed in the rest of the house. Head down and tail between his legs, the dog comes up to him. He’s doing something that’s forbidden, but he’s been ordered to do it. That confuses dogs. He slips into the small room and slinks straight through it. He exhales deeply and slumps against the open door to the garden. ‘It’s not easy for you either, is it, boy?’ says Zeeger Kaan, who sits down on the desk chair and rubs his knees. Sometimes he has to tap his left knee when he wants to stand up, as if the joint won’t work without a jolt to get it going.

The fairly thin exercise book has a grey marbled cover. The label on the front is blank, he hasn’t given it a name. It’s not a diary, it’s a straw book. Before he starts writing, he leafs through it a little. The pages feel dry and brittle, but in other seasons they’re limp and clammy.

Thursday 9 October 1969. Anna’s back up on the straw. For the second time. Just after the funeral Jan and Johan couldn’t find their mother. Me and Klaas went looking. She was up on the straw. I asked her to come down but she didn’t say anything and wouldn’t come down. Mother-in-law came. On Saturday 5 July (1969), mother-in-law cooking, she came down. She sent her mother home. Yesterday (8 October) I leant the ladder against the loft. She kicked the ladder over when I was about halfway up. Broken wrist. Can still milk, but with difficulty. Plaster got dirty and wet. A few hours later she came down. No comment.

23 December 2003 (Tuesday). Klaas’s wife tried to get Anna down off the straw. She stood there yelling like a fishwife. Anna said nothing, as always. She took her duvet, fortunately. It’s bitter cold. When Klaas’s wife walked out of the barn she said something after all, ‘Go to your child.’ Hours later she came in, it was already dark. She was very angry and asked me why I hadn’t decorated the Christmas tree yet.

21 March 2004 (Sunday). It was to be expected. The old Queen is dead. Instead of plonking down in front of the TV (the whole damn day), she was up on the straw. What’s left of it anyway, there’s only about three layers. Today too there was all kinds of stuff on TV. There’s been fifteen months between the last time and now, although until December 2003 I thought she’d never do it again. After all, the time before that was the end of June 1994. ‘So,’ she said when she came in this afternoon. And later in the evening there was more. ‘Everyone and everything’s starting to die off now. Just me left to go.’

30 March 2004 (Tuesday). My heart was in my mouth but Anna didn’t make any trouble. She just sat in front of the TV watching the gaudy purple coach and kept watching until someone drew the curtains in front of the hole in the church floor. Then she put the kettle on.

Despite the brevity of his notes, the exercise book is almost half full because he eventually started using it as a gardening book too. Careful records of everything that’s died in the garden. First everything around the farmhouse, then, after moving to the other side of the ditch, in the garden here. Two elms blew over on 24 December 1977, several hostas didn’t come up in the spring of 2001, a pear tree fell on 1 April 1994, both the buddleias froze at the end of March 2002, a conifer turned brown after the summer of 2003 (inexplicable, mould?), the orpine (fell apart) was removed in the autumn of 1993. And in between the downfall of trees, shrubs and plants, the occasional death notice:

12 October 1981. Klaas had the vet look at Tinus. Addled with cancer, he said. Give him a shot, said Klaas. In the afternoon the collection service came to pick up a dead calf. Klaas wanted to give them Tinus too. I wasn’t having it. Dug a hole at the base of the last willow and buried the dog there. The ground was still loose. Klaas snorted a bit, Anna seemed almost relieved. She always told the dog off, she kicked him, but he was her dog. The whole time I was digging she stood there right behind me. I think she felt like ripping the shovel out of my hands.

May 1984. The back willow isn’t really taking. I’ve pollarded them twice now, the other four have formed a nice head. Leave it for now, it’s not dead. Tinus?

‘Should I start writing now, or wait a little?’ Zeeger Kaan asks Rekel. He’s sick of all those old things, the whole exercise book, but still feels obliged to keep it up. There’s not a single bird singing in the garden, which seems crushed by the heat. It’s no longer violin music coming from the radio, but talk, too soft to hear what it’s about. Now and then he makes out a word or two: Maartenszee, shipyard, volleyball. Rekel has sighed once, after hearing his name. He takes a pen from the pen cup, turns it between his fingers, taps the point on the open exercise book, then puts it back in the cup, which falls over, sending a few pens rolling over the desk. A couple end up on the floor. He closes the exercise book and puts it back in the drawer, then walks out into the garden in his socks. ‘So,’ he says, ‘come on, you.’ Rekel stands up and follows him reluctantly, as if he senses what’s about to happen. Zeeger slips his feet into his clogs at the side door, then lures the dog to the bank of the broad ditch between his house and the farm. He sits down and pulls the dog up onto his lap, then slides down until his clogs are resting on the wooden shoring. With some difficulty, he slides Rekel, who’s damn heavy and not cooperating, off his lap. The dog falls into the water sideways and goes under. Zeeger Kaan rubs his knees and leans back. Just to lie down for a moment. He doesn’t care that Klaas and his wife might be able to see him through their kitchen window.