Out of Mind

'Is that a photograph of your wedding?' asks the man.

'Is that a photograph of your wedding?'

Look up at a slant, between the two of them, and keep nodding your head. Then I say six times in quick succession, 'Yes.' This is Simic's second rule: raise politeness to ritual heights. Even when you don't agree with anything, start by confirming everything, but belie by frequent repetition the affirmative nature of your statements.

'Yesyesyesyesyesyes.'

I put the album, wham, back on the settee. Must get up, walk around, and begin to gesticulate with my hands in anticipation of the words I feel coming.

'Let us try to tackle the problem first in general terms. They are people who are destined for each other, aren't they, hand in hand, he in black, she in white. But have you noticed those bystanders, those groups of people on the lawn? All of them potential candidates for this marriage! In other words: man pretends to himself he is leading a life, a meaningful existence. There is little to be said against this notion, although I must say it has no foundation, a mere illusion, shifting sands. If we look at it more globally, universally, we come to the conclusion that we are particles, female and male particles, moving around in society and sometimes accidentally meeting and fusing and then we talk of a marriage while all other possibilities continue to be present in the background. The erotic background chorus, Mr. .'

'Doctor, Dr Eardly.'

'Look, Eardly, the temperature is rising. Two and a bit degrees. Before you know where you are, everything is in bud, the birds are twittering everywhere. The whole gigantic mating machine gets into motion again. Without visiting cards, name plates or address lists.'

I pause in front of the open photo album. 'Some of them are dead. Others are still alive. You can estimate it but you can't see it.'

'What was your wedding day like? Do you remember what your wife looked like on that day?'

'May I ask you what is the meaning of this impertinent question?' I say, and walk out of the room without further ado. The last move in Simic's method. A slow, friendly opening, a moderate middle game and then an endgame that bags the loot quickly and aggressively. You simply leave for a leisurely pee and then re-enter the arena in which your opponent has been left in utter confusion.

A bit over the side, it runs across the floor. Jesus, that's bad, but I can't hold it now. Robert comes to my aid, he licks it up. A dog is ever a trusted friend. He looks at me briefly with his yellowish eyes, beside the stone jar in which the umbrellas are kept.

'Come, we're going for a little walk, Robert.'

Then someone puts an arm around my shoulders from behind and pushes me into the room, in the direction of a piano (perhaps wants me to play something for him? Or do I have to practise?), I sit down and start playing Mozart's adagio, but he is standing beside me with a hypodermic syringe. Behind my back I hear someone crying, a woman.

'We know that from the war,' I hiss, and knock the syringe out of his hand. The man bends to pick it up and I use the opportunity to sit down quickly at the table, opposite Vera.

'Don't cry,' I say, 'I'm in complete control of the situation.'

I see how the man lets his syringe slide into a soft black leather doctor's bag.

'I am not a hero,' I say, 'but betray someone, never. The Nazis will lose the war, that is beyond question. The greater part of the country has already been liberated. The Queen has arrived in Eindhoven, they say. We must persevere, no matter how hungry we are.'

The man is holding a soft leather bag in front of his stomach with both hands. Looks just like a doctor's bag. He is listening but I can tell he doesn't understand me. He looks at me almost timidly.

'It's war. People do the craziest things. In the long run you don't find anything crazy any longer. But only among ourselves, you mustn't talk about it outside, they're still prowling around, walls have ears. You can stay the night here. You're still in enemy territory, after all. It's dangerous outside. Shall I show you the guest room upstairs?

'Just as you please. There are a few collaborators living near here, so it really is dangerous.'

The American still does not react.

'What are you sitting there for, Vera? Get the man something to eat. Maybe he hasn't had any food for days.'

'Nick,' she says to the man, in a choking, imploring voice. He nods briefly in her direction, opens a black leather bag and takes out a hypodermic syringe. He disappears into the kitchen with it. I hear water running.

'Have we any food left? Or has it all gone?'

'Push up your sleeve,' says Vera and unbuttons one of my shirt cuffs.

'I didn't realize I was in such a bad state,' I said.

The man enters the room and before I realize it the needle is in my arm.

'Liquid food,' I mutter. 'I was in bad need of it. I can feel it already. My stomach is filling up. Thank you, thank you both very much.'

Wash. . wash. . wash… A woman is standing behind me. I can see her in the mirror. A chocolate-coloured blouse printed with leaf-green French lilies, a black skirt. Her face doesn't go with the rest of her appearance, I think, it seems to be detached from it. She is holding a beige bath towel in her outstretched, trembling hands. Wash… wash. . wash. . wash.

'That's enough now, Maarten.'

Turn around and take the towel from Vera. Rub. Nice, that rough towelling against your bare shoulders. Rub. And then I have lost the towel. She is holding it in her hands.

'Give it to me!'

'You must get dressed now, Maarten.'

'I am not tired. As far as that is concerned you are right in what you say.' (What a cumbersome manner of speaking.)

Skin that is beginning to feel thick and numb again. Can no longer feel the shirt (as if I am not really wearing it).

Behind me in the doorway stands a woman. Her brown hair falls in a lock towards the right across her forehead. Remarkably smooth cheeks in an otherwise old face that seems to move away ever further and comes closer again only after I have briefly looked away from the mirror to the wall beside it. She is keeping an eye on me. (Could she have been assigned to me? By whom?) Tie, where is my tie?

You should never try to put on your tie in front of the mirror. All that movement in reverse makes you dizzy. It confuses your fingers. Shut your eyes and do it by touch, let your fingers carry out the correct movements from memory. Suddenly I feel strange fingers at my neck. They fiddle with the stand-up collar of my shirt. (I am perfectly capable of doing it by myself.)

'I can do it, Mama.'

'Don't call me Mama.'

'What makes you say that, Vera?'

I turn, the sound of Vera's voice still in my ears. The little hollow in her neck is deep and sunken, almost black. How chic she looks today.

'Where are we going? We don't have to go to a birthday, do we? I hope we haven't forgotten Pop's birthday, like we did last year? That voice on the phone. I could have sunk through the floor in shame.'

'Come along, now.'

'Where are we going, Vera? Are we going out? You're all dressed up. Is it someone's birthday? If I've forgotten, you must tell me.'

Ah, a room. Outside there is snow everywhere. I don't like the winter, I clench my fist against it. As I did when I was a little boy, against the lightning. I used to crawl under the living-room table and clench my right fist against the 'heavenly force', as Pop, standing by the window, called it. I looked fearfully through the orange fringe of the tablecloth at the flashes of lightning and his dark figure, at each flash sharply outlined against the black blur of the window. I was scared, scared and yet longing to be struck.