14
Teun and Ronald are bundling up the willow shoots. They lay a length of baler twine on the ground, each throw an armful of willow shoots on it and tie it tight. They carry the bundles through the front garden to the yard. Every time they pass a window, they wave. In front of me on the kitchen table are a telephone bill and a hand-addressed letter Ada has brought in. The postman drove off just before she turned into the yard with a trailer hitched to the back of her car. It’s Saturday.
I’d like to open the letter, but Ada is still standing on the threshold of my bedroom. She just felt the duvet cover. “You have to wash these covers first!” she calls to me. “They’re always so stiff!” I nod at Ronald, who is waving as he walks past the front window. I follow him in my thoughts and he appears in the side window just when I expect him to. He waves again. He is wearing a woolly hat and snot is trailing from his purple nose. He’s happy, he’s always happy, even when his fingers are cold and he’s trampling kale in my vegetable garden.
“It’s lovely.”
She makes me jump.
Ada is standing in the doorway with her head a little to one side, as if listening for something. “I miss something,” she says. “In the living room.”
“Chairs?”
“No.” She thinks for a moment. “A sound.”
“The clock?”
“Yes, the clock. Where’s that got to? You didn’t throw it on the woodpile, did you?”
“No. It’s upstairs with Father.”
“Oh,” says Ada. She looks at my hands. “Who’s the letter from?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t opened it yet.”
“How is your father?”
“The same.”
“Does he ever come downstairs?”
“Sometimes. He sleeps a lot.”
“I see.” She looks at me with her head to one side, but this time not as if she’s listening for something. “I’ll go and load up the trailer.” She turns and walks into the hall. I wait for the sound of the door opening into the scullery, but instead her head reappears around the corner of the kitchen door. “Two pillows, Helmer,” she says. “Two pillows.” Ada looks funny when she gives you a meaningful look, with that harelip. Then she really does disappear. I turn the letter over and over in my hand. There is no name on the back.
Dear Helmer
Don’t be shocked, I know you looked at the sender first, I always do that when I get letters too, but there’s no reason for you to be shocked by my name. Maybe you don’t even know who I am any more! We haven’t seen or spoken to each other for more than thirty years and that makes writing this letter difficult.
I’ll start by honestly saying straight out that I am finally writing to you because I think that your father has probably passed away by now. Am I right? Your father has always been the obstacle that has stopped me from getting in touch with you. I’m not trying to be nasty about this, and maybe you find it hurtful, if you are sad about your father’s death (if he has died).
And do I really need to write down all the things that have happened to me? Okay, in a nutshell then. I went to stay with relatives in Brabant, where I soon married a pig farmer. We had two daughters and, much later, a son. My daughters left home long ago. My husband (he was called Wien, I know, it’s a bit of a strange name) died last year. My son still lives at home, he just turned eighteen.
I may as well be honest and tell you that I already tried to get in touch with you before writing this letter. Once I cycled out to the farm in the middle of the night and stood there looking at it for a while. I saw you at the bedroom window upstairs (no sign of your father). I was staying at my aunt’s in Monnickendam. (Yes, she’s still alive, she’s eighty-three. Do you know her? She doesn’t know you.) I hadn’t seen her for fifteen years and she couldn’t understand what she owed the honor to. The next day I rang the bell, but suddenly panicked and left in a hurry. I also phoned you and then I heard your voice and hung up like a real coward. But I’m sure you’ll understand that it’s not easy for me to see or hear you. When I heard your voice, I pictured Henk standing there in your hall.
A letter seemed like the simplest solution, but now I’m writing it I find it difficult. Would you mind if I wrote you another letter later? Or shall we talk on the phone? I’ll put my telephone number at the bottom of the letter.
That’s all for now,
Best wishes,
Riet
P.S. There’s something I’d like to ask you.
Like the envelope, the letter is handwritten. No address, just a telephone number. I don’t open the bill.
In the afternoon - on a Saturday of all days-a council cherry picker arrives. One man operates the contraption from the ground while the other unscrews the lamppost cover. I stand behind the blinds in the living room to watch them, I don’t think they can see me. It’s only when they’re finished that I leave my spot at the window. I lie down on the new bed. I’m restless, I have the same feeling in my body as the day I saw that flock of different birds and my sheep stared at me like the members of a firing squad. Sleep is out of the question, all kinds of things keep running through my head, nothing stays put. Painting the living room and the bedroom, pollarding the willows, Jarno Koper in Denmark, the old tanker driver’s funeral, the hooded crow in the ash. Buying the new bed, which I am now lying on, and that should be enough to send me to sleep, but I’m too restless.
A letter from Riet.