Then he’s gone, Christof right behind. They all look at me. I blow spit bubbles, they laugh. Go on, laugh, laughter is good for the soul.
I don’t really take part in any of it. How could I? What I do do is make sure I keep moving all the time, on the roll and on the prowclass="underline" the one-armed bandit with his bionic vision. Nothing escapes him, his eyes are peeled. He devours the world the way an anaconda bolts down a piglet. If you can’t join ’em, eat ’em; how’s that grab you? Over hill and dale, come rain or shine, foaming at the mouth as he goes. Standing sentry in his war wagon, wearing his poncho when the weather’s mean, a sou’wester when the storm wind tugs at your shutters, or a Hawaiian shirt in the burning sun. Fear not. The Eyes have it.
I see Joe and Christof heading for the river and crawl along after them like a snail. A grinding sound comes from the link where my hand-lever imparts energy to the front wheel. It’s not like I’m tagging along after them, it’s not like that. This is something more active. My limits are the limits of the paved, so I guess I should be thankful for the activities of Bethlehem Asphalt. Joe puts his tackle box on the back of the bike and Christof hops up onto the crossbar. They hang out on the shore down there all the time.
Today the thistles are going to fluff, farmers worry their hay and the gulls are having a wingding. Summer has turned juicy ripe. I can choose between two routes, to the left past the sandpit and through the cornfields to the river, or to the right along the Lange Nek and through the poplars to the ferry. I take a gamble and go left, along the bumpy road that passes the Hole of Bethlehem. That pit is where the factory takes all its sand. No one knows how deep it is, but the water there stays cold as ice even in the hottest of summers, if that tells you anything.
Back of the Hole is where it all happens, that’s where they come from the village at dusk on their mopeds, to kiss and stuff. You see the evidence lying all around: empty bags of weed, butt-ends, conked-out lighters, condoms.
All this is underwater in winter, which is why the road is full of holes. In spring, when the water’s gone, they fill the holes with rubble and ground bricks, but that never really makes it smooth.
Flocks of sparrows fly up from the corn as I pass by, groaning from the sharp pains in my arm and shoulder; you could compare my method of locomotion to a one-armed man pushing home a dead horse. I’m not whingeing or anything, that’s just the way it is. Dirk just won’t lube my cart, no matter how often Ma reminds him. He’d rather go off with his sub-zero friends so they can act out their dirty little fantasies. Torturing things and stuff. He’s just no good. They already put him in a home once after he tied Roelie Tabak to a tree and stuck twigs in her. When he came back it had only got worse, but then on the sly. He’s a sneak, never let him out of your sight.
The sun burns on the back of my neck. All around the sandpit are signs saying HAZARDOUS TERRAIN — DANGER OF COLLAPSING SLOPES. Perched up on one of those poles is a hangman crow, a nasty monster with a croak like the hinges on an old barn door. Slopes collapsing is exactly what happened one fall night two years ago, when the road to the ferry landing just disappeared. Gone, like that. Seems the Bethlehem Asphalt sand extractors had extracted a little too long in one place, and the hole filled itself up with the sand around it. That’s what usually happens when you dig a deep hole like that, the sand around it kind of starts to roll, looking for the deepest spot. They call it ‘sloughing’. But the Hole of Bethlehem is so deep and hollow that there wasn’t enough sand left for it to fill itself with, and everything in the surroundings started rolling, because it had to come from somewhere. A whole stretch of the riverside and the Lange Nek chunked into the water, with a whole bunch of trees in its wake. When you come by in the morning and find the whole road gone like that, you do a double-take. Gas and electrical mains lying around, lampposts fallen over. They say it’s safe now, they’ve stopped sucking away so much sand in one place. If you’re prepared to take their word for it.
The corn is high on both sides of the gravel path, the ears almost bursting from their husks. The poles around here are all askew; whatever you set right in summer goes crooked again in winter. The path’s a metre and a half wide, corn shucks lisp Pull, Frankie, pull! and I yank till I almost drop. My arm’s going to wear out too fast this way, and once it’s worn out, where will that leave me? The corn waves its fingers to cheer me on. Frankie parting the waters to escape his enemies — the sea of green closes behind him. . Go, Frankie, go! Cornfingers urge him on — You’re almost there!
The slope of the summer dyke is broad and gradual. If Joe and Christof aren’t on the other side, I’ll have come all this way for nothing. I make it to the top; my arm’s about ready to fall off. Down at the bottom is a little beach, its sand yellow as the fungus nail on Pa’s big toe. Swans are floating in the calm of a breakwater. Out at the end of it are two bent backs with long antennae, sounding the water for signals: Joe and Christof.
I haven’t been down this way for a long time, along the water, the dyke and the fields shiny with fat grass. The spots they’ve just mowed are pale as a newly shaved scalp. Hundreds of lapwings are sitting on the next jetty. Joe’s got a bite, he pulls a glimmering fish from the water. Christof hops around him nervously.
In fact, I’m the one who should be Joe’s friend. Christof isn’t good for him, he’s too careful. He holds Joe back, that’s how I see it. He acts as a drag on Joe’s velocity, and that’s not right; Joe should be allowed to soup himself up till he flies. My accident happened too soon, it disturbed the natural order of things. It should be me sitting there beside him, not Christof.
The wind at my back wafts me a little coolness, I was almost sopping in my chair. Now Christof sees me, because he suddenly stops, nudges Joe and points. They figured they were all alone, and now there’s something about them like they’ve been caught in the act. The lapwings all take off at once, skimming the river with sloppy wingbeats. I’ve heard people talk about how the British bombers used to fly above the river, heading to Germany to pound it all flat. There was ack-ack here along the shore, but nothing could put a dent in that total darkening of the sun.
A lot happened around here back then. Like the stuff with the Elevelds. They used to be one of the biggest families in Lomark. September 1944 was the first time their number came up. They were all in a kind of air-raid shelter under the walnuts at the landing when an Allied juggernaut, intended for the ackack on the far side, landed right on top of them. One bomb, twenty-two Elevelds killed at a go. The rest of the family went to Lomark, figuring they’d be safe there. One week later the bombs came raining down again, this time on Lomark, and the first direct hit bull’s-eyed their roof. The children came up the steps carrying their own intestines: ‘Daddy, look!’ They died on the spot. Then there were only three Elevelds left. They moved to the city, where, in the final month of the war, they got caught in a German mortar attack. Two of them were killed. By the end of the war the only one still around was Hendrik Eleveld, whom they called ‘Henk the Hat’. Henk the Hat’s son, Willem, is Engel’s father.
It’s a weird story, if you ask me. Fate vs the Elevelds: 27–0. Anyway, when you see Engel you’d do well to think about that invisible queue behind him that’s commemorated each year at the war memorial.
Joe and Christof are coming up the dyke toward me. I pull hard on the parking brake.
‘He’s following us around,’ I hear Christof say.
‘Hey, Frankie,’ Joe says once they’re in front of me. ‘You come out here all by yourself?’