Digging

Dieke skips ahead of him up the stairs as if it’s early in the morning. It will take her a while to fall asleep. Upstairs, she doesn’t go straight into her bedroom, but looks up at the door first. ‘Somebody changed my letters!’ she bawls.

‘Gosh,’ he says. ‘How could that have happened?’

‘Yeah! Who did it?’

‘Me.’

‘You? When?’

‘This afternoon. It said Dekie. I didn’t know who that was.’

‘Me. That’s me!’

‘I know. But now it’s written properly, now it says Dieke.’

‘Hmm,’ she says. She goes into her bedroom and looks around carefully. ‘The window’s broken!’ she screeches.

‘Yep,’ he says.

‘How’d that happen?’

‘It was the heat, I think.’

‘It’s scary!’

‘Why?’

‘It might fall out.’

‘No, it won’t. It’s the outside window.’ Klaas draws the curtains. ‘There. Now you can’t see it any more.’

‘I don’t like it.’ Before lying down, she goes down on all fours to peer under the bed.

‘Did you look in my bag?’

‘Of course not. It’s your bag, not mine.’

‘That’s OK then.’ She crawls under the bed and re-emerges with the bag.

‘Pyjamas?’

‘Too hot.’ Before lying down, she opens the treasure bag and, after rummaging around a little, pulls out the ring she found this morning. Then she pushes her legs in under the duvet. ‘It was fun, wasn’t it? Uncle Johan coming. Uncle Johan’s nice.’

‘Yes, he is. And Jan?’

‘Mm, him too. But Uncle Johan’s nicer. Can I go to Leslie’s tomorrow?’

‘Leslie?’ He chuckles.

‘What? What are laughing about?’

‘Have you ever been to Leslie’s?’

‘No. Just at the swimming pool.’

‘Then we’ll have to ring up his dad.’

‘We can do that, can’t we?’

‘It’s fine by me. Ask your mother tomorrow morning.’

Despite the heat, Dieke pulls the Sesame Street duvet up to her chin. ‘Nighty-night,’ she says.

‘Goodnight, Diek.’ He straightens up and walks out of the bedroom. ‘Open or closed?’ he asks in the doorway.

‘A little bit open.’ She’s almost forgotten him already, holding the golden ring between thumb and index finger in front of her face, peering through it with one eye closed.

He leaves the door ajar. And looks once again at the letters his father made. NAHNE, he reads. ENNAH, HANEN, and finally HANNE. Before going back downstairs, he studies the painting on the landing. A painting his father and mother left behind when they moved out of the farmhouse and into the house next door. Long ago Jan and Johan thought it was a portrait of Great-grandmother Kaan, although they never knew her, of course. He used to make fun of them about it, but looking closely now he does see a resemblance between this woman and his father. Griet Kaan as a young, carefree girl. Halfway down the stairs, he suddenly remembers where he’s seen that golden ring before: the Piccaninnies on the wall hanging in the bedroom. How on earth did one of those rings end up in a flowerpot?

‘This place is a madhouse,’ his wife says as he re-enters the kitchen.

‘Yep,’ he says, still thinking about the wall hanging and where it’s got to.

Dieke’s clothes are still on the floor, the plastic step hasn’t been moved out of the way. His wife is smoking a cigarette. Between the plates and cutlery on the table in front of her there is a mug of coffee. There are pans on the stove.

‘Dieke just told me that your mother pinched her.’

‘Really? When?’

‘At the party.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’ She sucks hard on her cigarette. ‘But actually your father’s even worse than your mother.’ She gestures outside, over the lopsided cactus. Zeeger Kaan is wriggling between the branches of the chestnut. It looks like he’s picking beans.

‘Yes,’ he says, sliding a chair out from the table to sit down. He rolls a cigarette very calmly, lights it and stares at the drinking trough full of dry grass for a couple of minutes. ‘What do you think of Highland cattle?’ he asks.

‘What do you mean? As meat?’

‘No, on the land. On paths. Between elderberries.’

She fixes her eyes on him. ‘I want to get away from here, Klaas.’

He lets the smoke drift out of his nostrils. ‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘Maybe.’

Entering the barn, Klaas is surprised by the silence. Dirk is no longer restless and doesn’t even look up when he goes over in front of the bullpen. He breaks a chunk of hay off a bale lying against the wall and tosses it into his feed trough. Some linseed cake goes on top. There’s already enough water in the big black trough. The bull sticks his head through the bars and starts feeding. There are no swallows flying in and out. Klaas steps up onto the bottom rung of the ladder, though he doesn’t know what he’s going to do. About halfway up he stops, pushes the extendable section up a little, then climbs back down. The upper part of the ladder rustles down past the bales of straw as he descends. After locking the hooks of the extendable section onto the bottom rung, he tilts the ladder back, lowers it and lays it flat on the floor. Then he takes an old broom, sweeps the shards from the advocaat bottle together and pushes them into an old cardboard box that is lying around. ‘Mum?’ he asks. No reaction. He calls again, louder this time. Silence, not even a crackle of straw. She must have fallen asleep. What do you expect after a whole bottle of advocaat, when she usually limits herself to a single glass on birthdays? Leaving the barn through the big doors, he sees that she’s switched on the light. He smiles.

He has the idea that the light is already fading as he, bare-chested, starts to dig a hole just to the side of the gate he, Dieke and Jan were sitting and leaning on yesterday evening. It’s heavy work: the ground is dry and hard. He runs a hand across his forehead a couple of times. When the hole is deep enough, he fetches the wheelbarrow with the dead sheep and pushes it to the edge. Rekel, apparently no longer offended, is doing a circuit of the yard and comes over to see what he’s up to, stopping at the open gate and sitting. He’s learned not to go onto the road or into the fields. He holds his head at an angle, finding it difficult not to approach the dead animal. Klaas tips the sheep into the hole and shovels earth on top of it. The burial mound will sink in time. When he’s finished he leans on the spade, looking out over the fields. They’re empty. He sees grass and grey sky. He only notices how very quiet it is when he hears quacking from the broad ditch a bit further to the right. Rekel wanders over to the ditch. He doesn’t bark, he already did that earlier this evening. He knows the Barbary duck, he knows how old it is.

Empty fields, and he sees all kinds of things.