Dinner

Soon he’ll ask why, that’s the kind of man he is. Herm Blom. Retired baker. A baker with a past. She studies him over the rim of her wine glass. An old man with a dry neck. Dry from shaving day in, day out. She never looked at Herm Blom the way she looked at Albert Waiboer almost forty years and a few hours ago. Herm Blom was always delivering bread, and if he wasn’t delivering it, he was baking it. She never saw him in his trunks at the swimming pool with a firm young body. Sometimes when he’s lying next to her in the double bed in the dark and she’s in the mood she can guide her hands with thoughts of someone else. She coughs, glugs down the last mouthful of wine and refills their glasses, although Herm’s was only half empty. ‘Don’t you like it?’ she asks.

‘What, the wine? It’s fine. Refreshing.’

The beans are fine too, fresh, and the potatoes are just right, but she can’t enjoy it. Her visits to the cemetery have left a bitter taste in her mouth that even the juicy beef olives can’t displace. And this morning she had that bitter taste too of course, after the Negro . . . She hacks off a piece of beef olive, shoves it into her mouth and chews fiercely. In a while, after dinner, she wants to suggest a stroll to the baker, a stroll that will include the cemetery. She wants to see what’s happened there, she doesn’t trust those redheads. She definitely wants to be the last person to visit the cemetery today.

‘What’s happened?’

‘Huh?’

‘To make you wish the day was already over?’

‘Ah, nothing special. You get days like that.’

‘Yes.’

They eat their meal in silence. After clearing the table and rinsing the plates and cutlery, she returns to the living room with two apples and two oranges. While she peels the first apple, Herm drains his glass. She quarters the apple, removes the core and hands him a piece. He should stay the night, she thinks.

‘I’m thinking of getting a dog,’ he says.

‘A dog? You? I’ve never seen you so much as touch Benno.’

‘Benno’s not the kind of dog I’m thinking of.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

Ridiculous. Herm with a dog. It’ll be the death of him. A broken hip first and then downhill from there. She pops the last quarter in her mouth and starts to peel the second apple.

‘That son of yours,’ he says.

The continuous strip of apple peel breaks. ‘Yes?’ she asks warily.

‘Where’s he live?’

‘What makes you think of my son all of a sudden?’

‘This afternoon I was looking at the photos I took on the day of the Queen’s visit.’

‘Oh, yes. When was that again?’

‘The seventeenth of June, nineteen sixty-nine.’

‘Almost forty years ago.’

‘Your son was in them too. Teun, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. I don’t have any photos of that at all. I know she was here, but I had to work. The swimming pool didn’t close just because the Queen was coming. Some people wanted to enjoy a quiet swim for a change. Maybe my husband took Teun.’

My husband. That’s what she always says, never Kees.

‘But, where does he live now?’

‘Schagen.’

‘Married?’

‘Divorced.’

‘Kids?’

‘Two daughters.’

‘Does he still see them?’

‘I believe so. I see them regularly, they live in Den Helder. I still see my daughter-in-law, you see.’

‘You believe so?’

‘Herm, I don’t have much contact with him. I don’t even like him any more . . .’

‘What?’

She hands him a last piece of apple and then starts to elaborately peel and pith an orange. She doesn’t want to talk about Teun, she doesn’t want to start crying again. ‘Nothing,’ she says.

‘What’s he do?’

Now she’s had enough of the interrogation. ‘Social worker,’ she snaps, popping a segment of orange into her mouth and plonking the rest in the baker’s hand. ‘There. Cup of coffee and then a stroll?’

‘Fine. I could use a walk, my knees are a little stiff.’

‘Lovely.’ She clears away the peel and puts on some coffee. Benno has followed her into the kitchen. He yawns loudly. ‘Yes,’ she whispers. ‘You can come too.’ The coffee machine bubbles. She puts her hands on the worktop and looks out through the kitchen window at the hole in the hedge. ‘With your mistress.’ It’s actually much too hot for coffee.