When he has smoked it down to the end, he carries the ashtray with the stub to the garbage and empties it there. With his hand he waves away the faint smell of smoke in the room. No one needs to know…
A secret! No one needs to know, Marie thought, and shut her eyes, half upright in her bed. A wistful, melancholy feeling rises up in her, the same as the previous night in his room. Poor Nico! A secret — what a horrific piece of theater — from them, the ones who were keeping him as a secret. But had it never occurred to them that he too might have something he didn’t share with them? Had they really forgotten? Were they without any secrets from him, for that matter? Sometimes they seemed to sense it, when they observed him without his realizing it, when he ate or sat there in silence and stared into space… Was it his race, the history of his people? Yes, that too, why deny it, but that was only part of it. For that was something they could understand to a certain extent, they could empathize and so share it with him somehow. Something different, foreign, something we ourselves are not, is relatively accessible to our understanding. But the decisive thing remains unexplained. The spark in him, the splinter of the great fire that burns in the world and that we call Life, mysterious, solitary, finding new form in every human being and revealing itself only in a fraction of a second, breaking through the fire wall of the body in an illuminated moment, and then a light, a sign of connection, of togetherness, but still solitary and indestructibly full of mystery.
The cigarettes belonged to him alone. Everything else he had shared with them, or they with him, depending on how you looked at it. He had often given her flowers, through Wim since he couldn’t get them himself, and Wim got a little book as a present from him on his birthday. But the cigarettes — no, he couldn’t share those.
What would Wim say? Would he understand, or would he be annoyed? He so craved a good cigarette.
Marie threw herself back onto the pillow and pulled the covers up under her chin. Wim still lay there with the covers over his head, his breath coming deep, heavy, and even. The poor boy, the whole experience hit him too, harder than he let on. Sleep was his only escape, the only way he could be fresh for work again in the morning. The excitement of the past few days had taken a lot out of him.
Nico was lying under a bench in the park. In just a few hours someone would find him. And then? Sometimes a quiet fear came over her, a fear that further complications were still to come. But she fought against it, she didn’t want this fear. Should she tell Wim about it at all? Maybe tomorrow?
She dropped off to sleep. When she woke up again, she crept to the window and let a little air in through the blackout curtains. It was still night out. She lay down again but no longer felt tired. The experiences of last night were before her spirit again, but clearer, sharper, as though purified of all superficial thoughts and feelings through the fine-mesh sieve of sleep.
She felt connected to the dead man in a way she had never managed with the living. Outside, a cock crowed in a yard that bordered the park.
She would keep his secret, burn the cigarettes. No one else would ever smoke them!
X
The next morning.
At first neither of them dared to look at each other.
“Good morning, Marie.” —Slowly it changed.
Then, when they sat down together as usual at the breakfast table, which held as always the deep soup plates, bread, butter, and marmalade, they would have gladly discussed the situation again, especially what the future had in store. For they had, each of them in private, the uncertain feeling that it wasn’t entirely played out yet. On the contrary. Something new could still follow, something they couldn’t yet guess.
Even though they knew that they were both thinking the same thing, neither one dared to disturb the other’s inner silence. Marie had put the pot of porridge back on the warm stove and now they both sat bent over the steaming plates and stirred the hot porridge. Now and then Wim paused from spooning his food, turned around in his chair, and started moving a poker back and forth in the stove, stirring around in the flame.
“Nice and warm,” he said, and he rubbed his hands together.
“Do you want some more porridge?” Marie asked, and she stood up to take the pot from the stovetop.
“Why?” Wim asked. He ordinarily ate only one plateful.
“I had some extra milk,” she answered.
“Ah, right.”
She scooped some out for him and then took some more herself. Each of them ate one and a half portions.
“Do you want to maybe lie down again for a while?” Wim said, sticking his napkin back into the napkin ring. She looked like she had had a terrible night’s sleep.
“Me? Why?” She looked at him questioningly. Had he observed her in the night after all? “You should have another piece of bread,” she said. “You usually eat more anyway.” Every morning, after their porridge, they ate two pieces of buttered toast with marmalade or another kind of spread.
“No thanks, I’ve had enough.” He stayed calmly sitting in his chair, to keep her company.
“Then I’ll give it to you for the office,” she replied, and started cutting the bread… “You’re coming home for lunch?” Because it sometimes happened that he stayed in the factory and took his midday meal with him in the morning.
“Of course — I’m coming home today…”
Finally she got up the courage.
“Do you think that we’ll hear what… happened soon?”
“Definitely. Maybe as early as tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? So long?”
Pause.
She had put the last bite into her mouth, and as she put the cover on the butter dish and tightened the lid of the marmalade jar, tasks that seemed to require her whole attention, she got to the point: “Do you think there will be any complications?”
“Complications?” He thought about it. “No, I’m sure there won’t be,” he replied after a while, totally calm and in a tone meant to indicate how slight he thought the possibility was.
“But…”
“But? Oh, I don’t think they’ll go door-to-door searching houses over this.”
His head tilted a little to one side — he considered. They hadn’t, when you came right down to it, fully thought through all the consequences of the situation. They hadn’t, and the doctor hadn’t either. The only thought on their minds was to get the dead body out of the house as quickly as possible.
“But Wim!” Marie was slightly startled when he said “door-to-door.” Even though she had secretly considered the possibility herself, it gave her a little shock to hear the words spoken. She made an effort to keep her thoughts in check and not give free rein to another feeling rising within her, a feeling of anxiety and fear.
He stood up. “If anything happens, you can reach me at the factory. I have to go now.”
“See you later.” In a sudden burst she threw her arms around him and kissed him. And when he kissed her back, he felt all at once how well she was holding up, how well she had held up all year.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said tenderly, “everything will be fine.” At the moment when he said it, he believed it himself.
At half past nine the milkman came. He rang twice, one ring right after the other. Marie had worked out this signal with him and also with a few other people; it was nicer to know in advance whether there would be a known face or an unknown face on the other side of the door, in these times…
“Same as always,” Marie said, and she passed him the blue enamel pot. He filled it up.
“They found a man here in the park this morning,” he said, giving her back the filled pot. The sturdy kid stood there in his wooden shoes, legs wide apart, and he shut the lid on the white-enameled, thick-necked milk canister.