July 2000
Willem
THE ONLY GOOD part about being sick was that he got to skip piano lessons, which almost made up for missing the hockey match. But it was Monday morning, his temperature was normal, and he’d stopped coughing. So the lessons resumed.
Willem sat at the good old Yamaha. Its walnut finish was chipped in places, but all the keys worked, and it was in tune. Louisa sat at the Steinway, its ebony finish gleaming. They were practicing a duet.
Willem didn’t dare take his eyes off the sheet music, but his brain reeled with plans for the summer vacation. Bas was coming over later. They were going to mess around on their guitars, maybe compose a new song. And because he wasn’t concentrating, he lost track. His hands froze above the keyboard. What came next? The Steinway fell silent. The metronome ticked, and the ventilating system hummed.
“Concentrate,” Louisa snapped. “Let’s start again from the beginning.”
Patience wasn’t one of her virtues, but relentless determination was, and right now she focused on him like a magnifying glass directing a hot beam of sun. Sweat broke out on his forehead.
He turned back to the first page.
“One, two, three …” she said.
After only a few measures, she screeched, “Stop!”
He nearly jumped off the bench in alarm. “What?”
“Are you deaf as well as stupid?”
Willem didn’t answer.
She rose and switched off the metronome. Arranged her long skirt over the back of her bench and sank down again.
“Listen to me play. Keep the tempo. And don’t bang on the keys. Strike from the surface. You’ll get a more fluid, relaxed sound.”
He tensed up. Listening hard, he kept the tempo and didn’t bang on the keys. But achieving a fluid, relaxed sound proved impossible because he was stiff, like a guitar string wound too tight. Playing well enough to please her just wasn’t going to happen.
His fingers stumbled, and he lost his place.
The Steinway fell silent again, but before that alarming fact penetrated his brain, he caught movement from the corner of his eye. Not in time to duck. Something walloped the side of his head. He saw sparks, then red pain. His hair felt sticky next to his temple, a knot forming. Dazed, he glanced around for the offending missile and spotted the edge of the bench was gouged. On the floor next to the pedals lay the metronome, the pendulum and the sliding weight separated from the cracked casing.
His head swam, and the ground beneath him seemed to shift. His heart raced, jumping hurdles in his chest, booming in his ears. His skin buzzed. He knew what was coming, but knowing didn’t help. He couldn’t stop himself. He never could. Sweat poured down his sides, and all rational thought deserted him.
He kicked the metronome as hard as he could with the toe of his trainers. He grabbed the sheet music and ripped it to shreds, hurling the pieces into the air. Then he swung around with his fists balled and glared at his mother, standing frozen next to the Yamaha. She held her hands out in front of her, big as a man’s, fingers splayed. She was staring at her hands, the color drained from her face. She had gone too far, but she wouldn’t apologize. Not now or ever. Sorry wasn’t in her vocabulary.
He seized the keyboard cover with both hands and slammed it down hard, his chest heaving. He lifted it and slammed it again. And again.
“Stop!” she shouted. “Show respect for the instrument. And put an icepack on your head.”
After lunch, Louisa locked herself in the piano studio to practice.
Willem holed up in his bedroom with Jurriaan and Bas. He sat in the desk chair, pressing an icepack against his temple. Bas lay on the bed with his hands behind his head, ankles crossed, and Jurriaan slouched in the beanbag chair.
“So, why the icepack?” Bas asked.
Jurriaan fiddled with his glasses, frowning.
Willem reluctantly told them. Maybe because he was still weak from the flu, he couldn’t think of a plausible explanation for the welt on his head, except for the truth. Maybe he was tired of making up excuses and lying to his best friend.
From the desk, he had a view out the window of the three bronze figures erected on the grassy median. The spot where the Germans shot twenty-nine prisoners in October 1944. Executed without trial, in reprisal for actions taken by the Resistance. Willem doubted he would have had the courage to join the Resistance—the smuggling, the killing, the fear of betrayal. Jeetje. He couldn’t even stand up to his own mother.
“I swear. That was my last piano lesson.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Bas said, running his hand through his dark hair. He was a year older and bossy.
“I mean it,” Willem said.
After a silence Bas said, “You should tell your dad what happened.”
“Dad won’t believe me.”
“Then tell the coach. Or the police.”
“If Dad won’t believe me, why will they? Besides, she’s my mother.”
“My mom wouldn’t do something like that. Not in a million years.”
Mrs. Debose wouldn’t hurt a spider. Willem had seen her coax one into a paper towel and shake it off in the garden.
“She shouldn’t hurt you,” Jurriaan said.
“That’s right,” Bas said. “Has she done something like this before?”
Willem and Jurriaan answered at the same time. Willem said no and Jurriaan yes.
“She’s never thrown the metronome at me before,” Willem clarified. Once, a lamp. Another time, a book. But she threw like a girl and usually missed.
“She could have killed you,” Bas said.
“Don’t exaggerate.”
Bas jumped up and started pacing. “Does she hit you?”
“Not with her hands.”
“What does that mean?”
“She hit me with a belt.”
“And she pinches him,” Jurriaan said, bouncing nervously on the beanbag chair.
“How often?”
“Not often,” Willem lied. If he told the truth, Bas would think he was a wuss, even if he pretended otherwise.
Bas turned to Jurriaan. “Does she hit you too?”
“No … never. It’s not fair.”
It wasn’t fair, Willem thought, but if their mother started picking on Jurriaan, war would break out. He would make her sorry. Sometimes he fantasized about attacking her precious piano with a hammer.
Bas fixed his eyes on Willem’s. “Do you want me to ask my parents to talk to yours?”
“Mom would kill me.”
“Don’t be a wimp.”
Willem felt his face burn. No one could know. This was between him and his mother. The last thing he wanted was to become a story in one of those magazines for sale at the grocery checkout. He imagined a headline: “Concert Pianist Charged with Child Abuse.” Or worse: “The Secret Agony of Louisa’s Son.” He didn’t want people thinking of him as a victim. He would be thirteen soon. He could take care of himself.
“Bas, promise you won’t tell anyone.”
Bas dove onto the bed and rolled over onto his back. “If you promise to tell your dad.”
“I will.”
“Today?”
Willem felt a fluttery feeling inside his chest. “Yes, this afternoon.”
Bas rolled onto his side and arched an eyebrow. “I didn’t see Marina when I arrived.”
“She quit,” Willem said, grateful for the change of subject.
“Another au pair quit? I liked her. She was hot.”
Willem rolled his eyes.
“Does your mom have another one lined up?”
“No. Katja is coming to stay with us.”
“Katja?”
“Mom’s stepsister. You must have met her at a birthday party or something.”
“Oh yeah.”
“She’s nice,” Jurriaan said.
Willem placed the icepack on the desk and reached for his guitar. “I’ve been working on a new song. Want to hear it?”
After Bas left, Willem found Hendrik in his ground-floor workshop. The only answer to his knock was the scream of an electric drill. He opened the door and slipped inside. Hendrik, in coveralls and safety goggles, was bent over a worktable, drilling holes in a strip of metal. Willem caught a whiff of sulfur.
“Dad.”
No response. Willem tapped him on the shoulder. Hendrik jumped, then switched off the drill and pulled out his earplugs.
He was a mechanical engineer turned inventor, inventing component parts the average person had never heard of. Like the cog he’d invented that was used in the manufacture of drums. Not the kind of thing Willem could brag about to his classmates. He imagined their eyes glazing over and the conversation shifting to his famous mother. Although most of the kids didn’t have a clue about classical music, Louisa had also written the score for the hit movie SS Athenia, and the theme song had played on the radio for months. Even Lex Dickhoff, the most feared bully in the school, had asked Willem for her autograph. Willem saw it as protection money, and for a few months Lex left Jurriaan alone.
“What brings you down here?” Hendrik asked, raising the goggles.
Willem showed him the knot on his head and the cut, which was an angry red.
Hendrik probed the spot with his finger. “You don’t need stitches. What happened?”
“I was playing a duet with Mom, and I lost my place. She threw the metronome at me.”
“Your mother wouldn’t do that.”
“She did.”
“She pushes you because she wants you to reach your potential. But she would never hurt you. She loves you.”
Willem wanted to puke. “Are you saying I’m lying?”
“I think you want to get out of taking piano lessons.”
“Is that a yes?”
Hendrik didn’t reply.
“How do you explain this?” Willem said, jabbing at his temple.
Hendrik shrugged. “Does it hurt much?”
“What do you think?”
“Take an aspirin. And watch your attitude.”
Willem balled his fists, digging his nails into his palms. Louisa never hit him when Hendrik was present, and if he suspected she caused the bruises and bumps, he turned a blind eye. Why had he listened to Bas? It had been pointless to tell Hendrik and would piss off Louisa if she found out.
“Don’t tell her what I said.”
“Sure, son.” Hendrik looked relieved that the issue was solved, or at least closed. He shoved the plugs into his ears and lowered the goggles. The scream of the drill filled the workshop.
Willem consoled himself with the knowledge that he’d kept his promise to Bas, and in his book that counted for something.