Fish

Zeeger Kaan turned on the deep fryer and fried up some chips and croquettes. The steaks were still in the freezer, there wasn’t enough time to thaw them out. He considered cooking some French beans, but a single glance at the felled chestnuts was enough to dissuade him. This is the time of year to eat outside at the table near the side door, but Johan and Jan sat down at the kitchen table.

Besides things like ‘Wh-ere’s the k-etchup?’ and ‘You going to leave the trees lying there like that?’ they hardly speak during the meal. (Yes, he thinks, maybe I will leave them lying there a while.) Jan drinks two bottles of beer, Johan and he drink water. Johan asks for beer too, but Zeeger doesn’t think he’s allowed to have it. All three have sweat running down their faces. When everything’s finished, Dieke rushes in. ‘Fishing!’ she says. ‘Dad’s ready!’

‘Yeah!’ says Johan. ‘Ang-ling!’ Johan has been crazy about fishing his whole life, that’s why he calls it angling.

‘But not too long,’ Jan says. ‘The ferry doesn’t run all night.’

They’re biting surprisingly well. All the floats are pointing straight up. There’s a bucket in the middle of the bridge for everyone to slip their fish into. When Dieke catches one, Klaas takes the hook out of its mouth. Every now and then they hear the sound of a very hard head banging against iron bars in the barn.

‘Don’t know what’s got into Dirk,’ Zeeger says.

‘It was a bit busy for him today, I think,’ says his oldest son, who then shouts ‘Two!’ and raises his rod. A small catfish is wriggling on the hook.

‘We should take size into account too,’ says his second son.

‘N-o!’ yells his youngest son, who’s up to four. Four tiddlers.

‘Or what kind of fish,’ says Jan.

‘What’s worth the most then? A catfish or a bream?’ Klaas asks.

‘Rekel! Here, boy!’ Zeeger calls. The dog is lying under the back willow. It’s not the first time he’s called him, but he stays put, lying stubbornly with his head turned away.

‘Re-kel doesn’t like f-ishing.’

‘No, he’s cross because you threw him in the ditch,’ says Dieke.

‘Did you throw Rekel in the ditch?’

‘Y-es.’

‘Me too.’

‘Oh,’ says Zeeger Kaan. ‘That explains it.’

‘Diek, how many fish are in the bucket now?’ Klaas asks.

Dieke sticks her rod through the railing of the bridge and bends over the bucket. ‘I can’t count them, they won’t stay still.’

Klaas looks in the bucket too and starts to count out loud.

Zeeger Kaan has stopped listening. He looks at the sky. He can see a lot more of it now: looking west towards the village, at least half of the horizon is open again. A strange sky. It’s like a sea mist hanging over the land, which is something you almost never see in June. You get that kind of thing in August and usually it cools off immediately, unlike now. There doesn’t look to be any rain on the way, no rumbling in the distance either. He thinks of Anna. Soon everyone will leave again. He doesn’t want to be alone in the house, to have to go to bed alone. Just before dumping the chips in the fryer he’d hung the parade sword back up on the two hooks under the bookshelf. An ugly thing, really, but what can you do: an heirloom from some uncle or other who’d stood guard in front of an important building. He can’t imagine why Anna took it up with her.

‘Thirteen,’ says Klaas. ‘I’ve got two.’

‘F-our,’ says Johan.

He’s caught one himself. ‘You, Jan?’

‘Just the one. But a very big one.’

‘Then you’ve got five, Diek,’ says Klaas.

‘Does that make me the winner?’

‘If we stop now it does.’

‘N-o!’ cries Johan.

‘Why isn’t Mum fishing?’ Dieke asks.

‘Your mother thinks fish are slimy,’ Klaas says.

Zeeger looks at the farmhouse. Klaas’s wife is standing at the kitchen window with a tea towel in one hand. Isn’t that the second time he’s seen that today? A little further along, the old Barbary duck comes out through the side doors of the barn. Halfway across the yard it takes flight. That surprises Zeeger, who thought it was well past flying. The duck lands awkwardly in the ditch near Rekel, who finally looks up and barks.

‘Hey!’ Johan yells. ‘You’re s-caring the fish!’

Jan raises his rod, fiddles the worm off the hook and winds the line around a spool.

‘Had enough?’ Zeeger asks.

‘I want to go home.’

‘Home?’ Klaas asks. ‘But you’ve –’

‘Shut your trap,’ says Jan.

Rekel barks again. The Barbary duck swims in circles and hisses. It doesn’t mean anything. Zeeger once saw them in the yard with Rekel lying stretched out while the duck put on a courtship display for him. Rekel probably thinks the duck’s a dog and the duck probably thinks Rekel is a duck. By the sound of it, Dirk has banged his head against the bars of the bullpen again.

‘I want to go home,’ his second son says again. He looks at Klaas and rubs his forehead, back and forth over the mosquito bite Zeeger saw this morning. He’s still only wearing shorts and a T-shirt.

‘N-ow it’s no fun any more,’ Johan says.

‘Then I’m the winner!’ Dieke cries.

Jan walks over to the barn, goes inside and comes back out a little later with the green bucket. He stayed inside longer than necessary. He rummages through the bucket on the way back and pulls out something. Is that an envelope?

‘D’you get a letter?’ Zeeger asks.

‘Y-es,’ says Johan. ‘From the baker.’

‘The baker? Blom?’

‘Yeah,’ says Jan. ‘I’ll put all this away and then get changed.’ He walks over to the side door with Johan behind him.

‘Well done, Dieke,’ says Klaas, who leaves too.

Dieke has already forgotten her victory. She leans on the middle rail of the bridge and stares big-eyed at the gas well.

‘Something interesting down there?’ he asks.

‘I can see the bogeyman,’ she says. ‘He’s breathing.’