I look at my raised right hand and quickly drop it. Reality comes to my aid in the shape of a black car that stops behind Vera's Datsun in front of the house.
'Dr Eardly, that must be Dr Eardly,' I say quickly.
Vera gets up, puts the book she was holding in her hand upside down on her chair and goes to the door. I can read the title. Our Man in Havana. Rings a bell. I probably read it long ago, though I haven't the faintest idea what it is about.
'Hi, William,' I say as the eldest Cheevers boy follows Vera into the kitchen carrying a carton full of purchases.
William nods. He is tall, broad and shy, in his padded blue anorak and jeans. And, of course, those stitched training shoes that every boy around here ruins his feet in these days. A good lad, but you have to chat to him a bit before he loosens down. . up!
I use words the wrong way around occasionally, I notice, very occasionally. Maybe I have suffered a very slight stroke. That can happen in your sleep, you don't need to have noticed it at the time, I have read about it somewhere. But as long as you're still conscious of everything it doesn't matter, does it?
I go to the kitchen and ask William how Kiss is, their white Pomeranian. It seems the question is not well received. Vera and William, side by side behind the kitchen table with the red-dotted plastic cloth, remain silent for a moment. Embarrassed like two children. Then Vera says to William: 'Maarten's jokes are a bit gloomy sometimes. Don't take too much notice.' William nods emphatically, with relief. The acne has left deep pits in his cheeks.
'Well, I'll be off, then,' he says.
'Don't you want a beer?' I ask.
Behind William's back Vera motions no with her hands. Why? Why shouldn't the lad have a beer?
'No time,' says William.
'Many thanks,' says Vera.
'No trouble, Mrs Klein,' says William in reply.
How beautiful is this speaking from person to person, one after the other, like beads on a string.
I sit down at the kitchen table and watch Vera unpacking the purchases and putting them away in the kitchen cupboard. Sugar here, tea a shelf lower down. Every household has its own rules. That is why you often can't find your way around in someone else's kitchen.
'Sometimes,' I say, 'when you can't get the usual brand and you've bought a different tin you don't even see the new tin at first. The memory of the familiar tin makes the new one invisible.'
'I don't know what you're talking about.'
'About coffee,' I say, 'tins of coffee.'
When she has finished tidying up she pushes the empty carton under the kitchen table with one foot and asks me if I would like a bowl of soup. Oxtail soup.
'All right,' I say.
She passes me the newspaper but I push it away again at once. Most of it is the same every day, anyway.
Stirring the saucepan of soup she says, 'Why don't you go and lie on the settee and read the paper? I don't like being watched when I'm busy in the kitchen.'
I put the paper over the book on Vera's chair and close the curtains. Then I switch on the television. I listen while looking at the stylishly groomed women and men of NBC news, busily gesticulating behind their desk. I understand everything they say. I can follow everything. Yes, it must have been a slight stroke, a very slight one. I won't tell Vera, she would only worry.
The food is very thin this evening, but I am not hungry, anyway. Beside my plate lies a green capsule. Vera says I must take it. It calms you down, she says.
'But I am already calm.'
'Even calmer.'
I hold the pill between thumb and forefinger and put it in my mouth and take a spoonful of soup.
'Oxtail soup,' I say. 'Nice.'
'Your favourite soup,' she says.
From the settee we watch the television. A documentary about the rise of Hitler. The familiar scenes of flags and banners and crowds of people, hysterically cheering the moustached little man on the balcony.
I was twenty-one then. I was engaged to Karen and no one in my family except Uncle Karel at the Twentse Bank believed there would ever be a war. Certainly not in the Netherlands. Karen. Would she still be alive? She was the first girl I ever saw naked, in her parents' cottage in Spierdijk. With her arms crossed above her head she pulled off her lemon-coloured summer dress in one movement. She wasn't wearing a bra underneath. She sat down on the edge of the bed, tilted her white buttocks and pushed her even whiter panties down over her knees. She kicked them off her foot and held out her arms to me. I trembled like a reed and did not really know what to do. What I wanted to do at that moment was kneel before her. I had not been brought up religiously but that was what I wanted to do, kneel down to that naked girl with her blonde hair, one strand of which fell between her small pointed breasts. She helped me, but as soon as I felt her pubic hair against my belly I came, from sheer excitement. Leaning on her elbows she looked with a contented smile at the glistening white puddle on her tummy. Never mind, she said. You'll take longer in a minute. Later she told me she had had an affair with a married man, a teacher at school. She never realized how much I adored her. Maybe it was my own fault. I was very shy. Pop always made jokes about it. I'm sure that boy is going to be an archaeologist when he grows up, he said. All he ever looks at is the ground.
'What's the name again of that fellow with the dog's face and those little spectacles?' asks Vera.
'Himmler,' I say. 'Do you want to go on watching?'
'No, always that war. Might as well turn it off.'
The picture leaps backward and vanishes into a white dot that continues to glow for a moment on my retina. Himmler, Hitler. I, too, lived through that war. It now seems inconceivable. But even front-line soldiers usually have only a vague idea of the campaign in which they have taken part.
'Do you know what I sometimes wonder?' I say. 'Whether inquisitive extrovert people have more memories in later life than shy introverts.'
'I wouldn't have thought it had much to do with it,' says Vera.
'I used to be so shy my father called me the archaeologist, because I was always looking at the ground.'
'When I first met you that didn't seem to be the case.'
'I've learned to play my part,' I say. 'But in reality I am still a shy person.'
She looks at me with her emerald eyes above the wrinkly pouches of skin. I feel like a baby looking up at the face of his mother. My smile arises in the same way — all by itself — for no other reason than the recognition of the familiar face. I kiss her carefully on the cheek, but my lips slide away to her ear. Tears spring to my eyes.
'Stop it, you're tickling me.'
'I should like to kneel to you,' I whisper.
'Don't talk such nonsense,' she says, gently pulling my hair. 'Come on, silly,' she says. 'Let's go to bed.'
While she gets undressed in the bedroom, I switch off the standard lamp in the living room. I pause in the doorway and look at the furniture. It has nothing to say to me. That is good. Tomorrow it will still be there in the same position. And the day after. That is good. I switch off the light.
'We're going for a walk, Robert,' I say. 'Just finish my coffee.'
'Maarten, the doctor says you're not to go out. Here you are.' Vera pushes a bowl of yoghurt and cornflakes in front of me.
'Since when does a doctor decide where I go or do not go? I'm not sick. At least I don't feel sick.'
'You're a little confused. You might get lost.'
'Get lost?'
'Yes, because you sometimes forget which way to go.'
'Not when Robert is there. He knows the way home, no matter where he is, even from the centre of Boston.'
'The other day you lost Robert when you were out.'