52

“It’s almost over,” says Father.

“Yeah,” I say, thinking of earlier in the day.

The window is wide open.

I correct myself. “Yeah?”

“And I haven’t had a spring, but a summer instead.”

“Are you going to eat your egg?”

“Soon. I’m going to look at it for a while first.”

I have already shelled the egg for him. It is lying on a saucer and the salt dish is next to the saucer. Mosquitoes dance in front of the open window. I’ve sat down on the foot of the bed. He says he’s going to look at the egg, but he looks at me. The sheet of paper is no longer sticking out from under the bedside cabinet. I wonder where the poem has got to.

“Will you manage on your own?”

“I think so.”

“You’re a grown man.”

“Half a grown man.”

Now he looks at the egg as if he’s got a little marzipan cake in front of him, the kind the baker in Monnickendam calls “castles.” In the old days he would sometimes drive all the way into town on a Saturday to buy four. On some occasions he might have got five. Later it became three and, after Mother died, very rarely, he went in for two. I never told him that castles were not my favorite cake.

“I was second choice,” I say. “That was the worst. Always feeling I wasn’t good enough.”

“I did my best,” he says.

“And I didn’t?”

“Of course you did. We all did.” There’s a lot more life in him now than there was this morning.

“Where’s Henk?”

“I don’t know. Outside, I think.”

There is something I want to ask him. Despite everything, there is something I want his permission for. “Shall I . . .” I say. I stand up, go down on my knees and stick my head under the bed. There’s the poem, covered with fluff. I stand up and sit back down on the bed, close to his feet. He’s still staring at the egg, a bit frightened now.

“Father, shall I sell up?”

“Feel free, son. Feel free.” He takes the saucer off the bedside cabinet with his claw hand and puts it on his lap. The egg rolls onto the blanket. “Dead is dead,” he says. “Gone is gone and then I won’t even know about it.” He gropes for the egg and lays it back neatly on the saucer. “You have to decide for yourself.”

I stand up. Watching him eat the egg is too much for me.

For weeks now he hasn’t said a word about the hooded crow. It’s as if he’s forgotten it.

 

Henk isn’t outside. Henk is in the kitchen, half sitting on the worktop. In his right hand he is holding a torn-open envelope, in his left he has my letter to his mother, which I should have posted in time for today’s collection. He has already changed: exactly the same but different, the way a house seems strange when you’ve spent a day somewhere unfamiliar. The farmhouse seemed different to me after the old tanker driver’s funeral, after skating on Big Lake and after picking Riet up from the ferry. I realize now that I felt just the same when I came home after picking up Henk. I haven’t worked out why that is. Maybe because you yourself have grown older, even if just a few hours (I had already got that far) and everything at home has stayed still, except the hands of the clock. Then it takes a while to smooth over the time you’ve missed at home.

I’m not going to tell him that it’s rude to open other people’s letters. I notice now that his forehead and nose are burned as well. He turns away, screwing up the letter as he turns. I recognize the gesture, but unlike Father almost forty years ago, Henk is carrying a lighter. He pulls it out of his back pocket and holds the flame under the piece of paper, letting go just before he burns his fingers. The letter burns away in the sink.

“What kind of letter was that?” asks Henk. “Do you think my mother would have understood any of it?”

“The last bit, at least.”

“There’s no need,” he says. “You should be glad I’ve burned it.”

“What do you mean, there’s no need?”

He looks at me and raises his eyebrows. Then he strolls out of the kitchen. I hear him go upstairs and walk into Father’s room. Is he going to sit and watch Father eat the egg?

I look around. The buzzing clock says eight twenty. I’ve boiled an egg for Father, but I haven’t eaten myself. I don’t know whether Henk has eaten. It feels much too early for the sun to have set but I need to turn on the kitchen light. Summer in April.

 

Before going to bed I look in on Father. I don’t turn the light on, the light shining in from the landing is just enough to see the empty saucer. Father is lying on his back and I can hear him breathing in and out through his nose. The curtains are open. I tiptoe over to the window and close them.