38
We roll the plastic-coated mesh out in the opposite direction, from what’s left of the laborer’s cottage towards the farmhouse, from post to post. Again it’s a couple of degrees warmer than yesterday and now that I look I see more crocuses in the verge. The flower Teun trampled was less lonely than I thought. I keep looking up at the sky, expecting redshanks and black-tailed godwits, despite knowing full well that it’s not even March yet. The concrete posts are designed for wooden rails, which you are supposed to attach with a nut. We twist wire around the bolts in the posts to hold the mesh. Henk is enjoying the work, I think. He whistles while rolling out the mesh, twists the wire together and smokes the occasional cigarette. He raises an index finger for cyclists and says “Hiya” - sniffing when the cyclists don’t say anything in reply. Sometimes, while smoking, he stares at the high buildings and haze of Amsterdam. It’s as if he was born here. All Waterland smells like manure.
“Do you ever get any other cheese?” he asks at lunch.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s Edam from the dairy.”
“So?”
“I get it cheap.”
“It’s pretty bland.”
“You can always buy yourself some other cheese.”
He lays down the cheese slice. “I don’t have any money.”
I stand up and walk over to the bureau. The wallet is in one of the square drawers. I flick it open and pull out two hundred-euro notes. “Here,” I say.
He takes the money without a word, folds the notes in half and sticks them in his back pocket. He picks up the cheese slice and cuts some more slices.
The livestock dealer’s truck goes past slowly.
“We’ve got a visitor,” I say.
“You’ve got a visitor,” Henk says. “Not me.”
The livestock dealer knocks once on the jamb and appears in the doorway. “Afternoon,” he says.
Now that I look at him properly, seeing him partly through Henk’s eyes, even though he is sitting with his back to the door, I notice how old the livestock dealer is. He has a gray beard, the kind of beard you see in very old, severe photographs. The deep furrows in his forehead are dark along the edges. As usual he rubs the sole of one foot over the top of the other. He looks at Henk’s back.
“This is Henk,” I say.
“Nephew of yours?” he asks.
“A nephew? No, Henk works here.”
“Oh.”
Henk acts as if there’s no one else in the kitchen. He hasn’t turned around and keeps on eating. I’ve half turned my chair away from the table.
“Sit down,” I say, pointing at the chair opposite me.
“Ye-es,” says the livestock dealer slowly and unexpectedly. He takes his cap off and sits down. He glances sideways at Henk.
“I don’t have anything for you.”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
When he doesn’t say anything else, I ask if he’d like a coffee.
“Yes, a coffee would hit the spot.”
I stand up and get a mug out of the kitchen cupboard.
“So you work here,” the livestock dealer says to Henk.
“Yes.”
“Do you come from Brabant?”
“Yes.”
Ada? Or is a single “yes” enough for him to hear where someone comes from? I put the mug down on the table in front of him.
He looks around the kitchen as if he’s never been here before.
“How’s old Mr. van Wonderen doing?”
“Fine,” I say. I slide my plate, with a half-eaten sandwich on it, away from me. “Even if he’s not all there any more.”
“Too bad,” says the livestock dealer. “I did a lot of business with him.”
“Yes.”
The electric clock buzzes, Henk fidgets on his chair.
“I’m here to tell you I’m quitting.”
“Really?”
“Do you have any idea how old I am?”
“Just turned sixty?”
“Sixty-eight.”
“Then it’s getting time to stop.”
“The wife said, ‘If you don’t stop now, I’m leaving you.’”
“Hmm.”
“She wants to travel.”
“Don’t you have a daughter in New Zealand?”
“Uh-huh. The wife’s already bought the tickets.”
“Nice.”
He sips his coffee. “Flying,” he goes on. “Can you see me on a plane?”
“Why not?”
He has a slow way of talking and hardly looks at me. I suspect that his feet are now at rest and flat on the floor, and I feel like looking under the table to check. He’s already become someone else. No longer a livestock dealer, he can speak freely.
Henk gets up. “I’m going outside,” he says. “Goodbye.”
“Bye, son,” says the livestock dealer. Once Henk is gone, he looks me straight in the eye. “So that’s your new farmhand.”
“Yes,” I say.
“Sturdy lad.”
“Yes.”
I hear the door to the milking parlor bang shut.
Finally the livestock dealer looks away, through the side window. “I was just at the neighbors’.”
“You dropping in on everyone?”
“Yeah. That will take me a week as well.” He puts the mug down on the table. “I’ll be off.”
“Okay,” I say.
“I’ll see you around,” he says in the scullery.
“Have a nice time in New Zealand.”
“It’s summer there now,” he says. He slips his feet into his clogs. “Say hello to your father.”
“I will,” I say.
He pulls open the shed door and walks around to the back.
I wait for a moment and then go out through the milking parlor. When the truck passes, I raise one hand. Henk is sitting on the donkey paddock gate, opposite the milking parlor. I only notice him after the truck has passed. A big plume of smoke is hanging over his head. He raises a hand to wave to me. A play without words for three men: one leaves without looking up, the second watches him go, the third looks at the second, and the second only sees the third after the first is gone.
It’s hot in the kitchen. The sun is shining on the table. A brace of ducks fly over. I butter two slices of bread, cover them with cheese and walk upstairs. Father doesn’t wake up when I come in. I put the plate down carefully on the bedside cabinet and sit down on the chair next to the window.
“The livestock dealer says hello,” I say quietly, but without any spite. “He’s going to New Zealand with his wife, to see his daughter.” The hooded crow in the ash is my only witness. “I can’t stand you because you ruined my life. I don’t call a doctor because I think it’s high time you stopped ruining my life, and I tell Ada you’re senile because it makes things that much easier. If you’re senile, then none of it makes any difference anyway. What I say, what you say. And you don’t know the half of what I would have done for Henk. Henk was my twin brother. Do you know what it’s like to have a twin brother? Do you? What do you actually know? In the months after you fired Jaap you didn’t visit him once because you refused to see him as an equal. I saw him as an equal. He kissed me on the fucking mouth. Have you ever kissed me? Have you ever said a kind word to me? Do you know what I want? No, you don’t know, because I don’t even know myself. The livestock dealer is never coming back, that’s why he says hello, and the tanker drivers are never coming back either, one’s dead, you knew that already, the gruff one, but maybe you forgot because you’re senile, and the other one, the young one who always smiles, is off to drive another route. That’s your fault too. Not him going away, but making me be here for him to go away from. If I hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t have known him. And by the way, I don’t think we’ll be seeing much more of Ada, she prefers to spy on us from a distance and Ronald is the only one from next door who still comes here, we’re in Teun’s bad books because-”
“Helmer!” Henk shouts from the bottom of the stairs.
Father wakes up.
I stand up. “There’s something to eat next to your bed,” I say.
“Did I fall asleep?” asks Father.
“We going back to work?” Henk calls.
“Coming!” I shout. “Yes,” I say to Father.
“Didn’t even notice. I’m exhausted.” He sits up and looks at the plate. “Cheese,” he says. “Delicious.”
Henk is actually a kind of nephew, I think when I close the door to the stairs and see him standing there. He is pulling on his overalls, the ones with the crotch that rides up, the sleeves that are too short and the tear in one armpit. A half-nephew, a could-have-been-nephew, a nephew-in-law.