‘A Coke,’ the boy says.
‘And something to eat?’
‘French fries. With mayo.’
‘French fries for the boy and I’ll have. . a gravy-roll sandwich. Heavy on the mustard.’
‘I’ll give him a little salad along with his fries,’ the barwoman says. ‘For the vitamins. You want anything to drink?’
‘Yeah, a Coke for me too.’
OK, maybe it’s not the greatest example, but things sometimes really do happen at Waanders’. At the weekend they have live music and Ella Booij, the barwoman, is your girlfriend as long as you pay your bill. She has the professional gung-ho of a go-go dancer, but as soon as she gets to the kitchen you know that smile falls from her face like an old scab. She’s not from around here. She comes to work from somewhere else around noon, driving a white Mazda automatic, and she goes back there when her shift is over. No one knows whether she has a family, she doesn’t look like she loves anyone in this world. I appreciate it that she doesn’t act nicer to me than she is.
She brings the truck driver with the white socks and the little boy two glasses of Coke, one in each hand. They’re sitting over by the window. Out on the highway a truck goes screaming past.
‘Good thing they’re putting in that E981,’ the driver says.
Ella looks outside, where the sun is making everything shiver.
‘Yeah, good thing,’ she says.
‘The way it is now, it’s getting out of hand. The question, of course, is how it will affect you folks.’
The truck driver looks at Ella, hoping to hear her opinion on the E981 that will connect this neck of the woods with Germany.
‘You never know how it will go with those sound barriers,’ the man continues. ‘Whether you’ll end up on the front of it or the back, that makes all the difference, right?’
‘We don’t have much to say about it.’
‘No, I guess not, no.’
‘Wouldn’t mind, though. .’
‘But that’s not how it works.’
Fifteen minutes later the gravy rolls and fries arrive. Contented, father and son leave Waanders’ and continue their circle around the sun.
For the time being at least, Lomark’s future added up to little more than the code name ‘E981’. I’d read about it in the paper; it was a plan that deserved our attention. My impression was that some people were enthusiastic about it because they thought a four-lane would bring the village economic prosperity, but the general reaction was a shrug. In any case, the old road to Germany wasn’t enough anymore, it was choked with a rising tide of vehicles. No one was thinking about reducing the number of cars, of course, only about widening the road. MY SPORT IS TRANSPORT I read on the bumper of one truck, and WITHOUT TRANSPORT EVERYTHING PILES UP.
My favourite was the sticker saying I ♥ ASPHALT, which had been pretty much the motto of every government since World War II, and so the asphalt came pouring in. In stupefying quantities. Joe was right, the world ran on kinetic energy. ‘The greatest minds in the world are working on that,’ he said, ‘and don’t ever forget it. Basically, the combustion engine hasn’t changed in the last hundred years; what they’re working on now is how to refine it, how to make a car run as economically as possible with the lowest possible emissions.
‘The automobile is being perfected all the time, but in a way that keeps it affordable for everyone. That’s the miracle of our times: that we can rocket down the road for next to nothing. But don’t believe in anyone who calls that progress. There’s no such thing as progress. Only motion. That’s the great claim of the twentieth century, that we can move. We’d rather surrender our right to vote than give up our cars. So if those environmentalists really want to change something, they’ll have to come up with something better. And there isn’t anything better.’
The route the E981 would follow hadn’t been staked out yet; every once in a while the subject came up at Lomark Town Council meetings, but the questions posed were as insipid as the answers. People just don’t deal very well with threats that lie too far in the future.
The day Papa Africa’s felucca was launched, Regina Ratzinger’s party gown got more attention than the whole damned ship. Someone called it an ‘Arab wedding dress’. It was a sort of intense blue, with mysterious patterns embroidered on it in gold and silver thread. A pair of shiny slippers poked out from beneath the hem. She was wearing a goodly amount of makeup, and the sequins on her headscarf shimmied as she welcomed the guests.
‘I didn’t know it was a costume party,’ Joe mumbled.
India made the rounds carrying a tray with glasses of beer and cava. She was wearing an olive-green T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans. Her skin was brown and shiny, on sunny days she rubbed lemon juice in her hair and it had turned blond. It was like we were seeing her for the first time. We couldn’t take our eyes off her.
Little clumps of people were coming along the Lange Nek, on their way to the inauguration of Papa Africa’s boat. It was a mild August day, not too hot, with a whispering in the poplars. The party got off to a slow start, the guests didn’t mingle, they clotted. Some people felt uncomfortable with Regina’s extravagant presentation and Papa Africa’s somewhat tense aloofness. But of course he was tense, who wouldn’t be? His ship’s design was based on old memories and not some detailed plan, and that suddenly caused him to doubt. Had he remembered correctly, were the proportions right? He had put on his linen suit at Regina’s insistence, but he would much rather have worn overalls, for this was a workday, not a holiday.
There was a bit of laughter among the guests now and then, but mostly they just waited. The things-aren’t-what-they-used-to-be men were there as well. They stood close together, fluted glasses of sugared gin in hand, looking all around. Nothing escaped their attention; later on, back on their bench, all of this would be reviewed in minute detail.
Here and there people picked at the hors d’oeuvres laid on long tables. Regina had spent days preparing the little snacks. Seasoned meat on skewers lay beneath foil, for roasting later on. There were flat Arab loaves and bowls of red and green tapenades, and for the children — none of whom were there — she had baked almond cookies in the form of Lomark roosters. There lay a woman’s love, and not a hungry soul in sight.
Piet Honing tied the ferry to its moorings and came on land. He shook Regina’s hand.
‘A fine-looking vessel, ma’am, isn’t it? Yes indeed. A real beauty.’
His gaze cruised over the tables of food behind her back. She took him by the arm and said, ‘Come on, Piet, help yourself. Please, people, do have something to eat!’
The Eilanders’ Peugeot station wagon came roaring in from Lomark, Kathleen Eilander at the wheel. She parked with two wheels up against the embankment and yanked on the emergency brake. Julius Eilander climbed out, his hair tousled, looking like an escaped hostage.
‘Kathleen!’ Regina cried. ‘How wonderful to see you!’
‘Oh, you look divine, Regina! Is that the boat? What a jewel, simply gorgeous! Where’s Mahfouz? I just have to tell him how much I admire it!’
‘First have a drink, have something to eat! Eat! Oh, there’s going to be so much left over.’
Julius Eilander followed in the wake of his wife’s warlike enthusiasm. Piet Honing and Papa Africa were down by the boat, speaking the wondrous abracadabra only they understood. Running their hands over the wood, their lips formed words regarding the ship. Until a squall blew in between them.
‘Mahfouz, how wonderful! I’m so proud of you. .’
The Egyptian grinned sheepishly at Kathleen Eilander. Her husband seized Mahfouz’s hand and cranked it forcefully.