‘No, no,’ I said, ‘you don’t understand. Claudia’s blameless. She offered to live with me, look after me. Nothing would’ve made her happier. I was the one who said no. It was me who ended it.’
‘But why?’ Something about the way my father lurched forwards, over the table, reminded me of a cow. That numb weight, that clumsiness.
I tried to explain it to him. ‘Everything’s changed,’ I said. ‘Everything. Don’t you see that? It’s like when someone close to you dies. It draws a line through your life. Nothing’s the same after that. The choices I made,’ and I hesitated for a moment, ‘the choices I made before I was shot no longer apply.’
A kind of shiver went through the room; even the heavy velvet curtains seemed to shift.
‘Of course, you won’t be working for a while,’ my father hurried on, glancing anxiously at my mother, ‘not in your condition.’
I lost patience suddenly.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I could always sell matches.’
My mother stood up. But then she didn’t seem to know why she was standing. People look like that if they walk in their sleep and wake up in the middle. They’re not quite where they thought they’d be. There has to be a moment of adjustment. At last she fell back on habit and began to clear the table. My father mentioned that the news would be starting soon. I wasn’t sure which of us he was talking to. Perhaps, like Smulders, he was simply saying something that he always said, regardless.
We drank our coffee in the next room, watching television. The economy was in trouble again. Two children had been murdered. There was severe flooding in the north-west. I wondered if I’d been on the news when I was shot. Probably not. They like you to be famous. Or else you have to be a child, preferably under the age of ten. GIRL, 12, MURDERED — that sounds all right. But BABY MURDERED sounds much better.
‘More coffee, Martin?’ my father said.
I rested my head against the back of the sofa and closed my eyes.
I stayed awake that night and slept for most of the next day. I didn’t appear downstairs until just after five in the afternoon. My parents thought I’d been avoiding them. That wasn’t the reason for my behaviour, of course — it was simply one of the side-effects — but there was no persuading them of this and, in truth, I didn’t really try. The mood in the house was awkward for the whole of that first week. I was still having dreams, too, dreams where my body came apart. I would wake up in the bed I’d slept in as a child, muddled, panic-stricken, sweating. I would hear my parents whispering about me in the room below.
Towards midnight, when they were asleep, I would go out for a walk. We lived on the outskirts of the town. At the end of our street there was a wooden stile and then just fields; in the distance the ground lifted to a ridge which was dense with firs and pines. I kept to the roads. I saw few people, even fewer cars. It was very quiet. I passed front gardens — waves of autumn roses breaking over fences, metal gates with rising-sun designs built into the wrought-iron. Not far from our house there was a restaurant that was open late. I used to go there when I was sixteen or seventeen. It had coloured light bulbs in the garden and a sign that said RESTAURANT — DANCING. I sometimes dropped in for a coffee or a schnapps. The place had changed hands recently and I didn’t know the new owner. If he’d heard about me, he didn’t let on; he just served me drinks and made the usual small talk. I appreciated that.
When I got home, the silence deepened. I spent hours at the window, watching the railway line that ran behind the house. Trains appeared from the left, one strip of yellow light, and slanted diagonally across the land towards me. At the last moment they seemed to speed up and, like some legend’s sword of gold, plunged into the bank of trees that stood next to the cemetery. Though it was the same every time, I never tired of it. It reminded me of Smulders. And, by association, of Maria Janssen as well. There were no such consolations here. I’d never imagined that I might miss the clinic, but, sitting by the window, I would often think back to the night of the strip-tease. Claudia would never have done anything like that for me. She would have been too embarrassed, too ashamed. No, I couldn’t. Or, I’d feel silly. Then, later, I don’t satisfy you, do I? And my reply: a weary, Yes. Yes, you do. I was almost relieved when my mother woke me one morning with the news that Visser was on the phone. I took the call upstairs, in my parents’ bedroom. He told me that he wanted to visit me the next day, if that was convenient. I asked him if we could meet outside somewhere, and mentioned the restaurant. He thought that was a good idea.
It was almost dark when I arrived the following afternoon. I bought myself a beer and took a seat by the window. The place was empty except for an old man who was wearing one of the green hats that used to be traditional in our part of the country.
I’d been sitting there for twenty minutes when Visser came up behind me. He held my elbow for a moment.
‘Martin,’ he said. ‘How are you?’
He ordered tea, with lemon.
I was surprised he’d come so far and told him so, but he assured me it had been no trouble; he’d been in the area in any case, for a conference.
‘Though it is a weakness of mine,’ he admitted, sipping his tea. ‘I can’t seem to let go of my patients,’ and he paused, ‘especially the difficult ones.’
This was one of his rare attempts at humour. I dutifully chuckled.
We discussed my parents for a while and I conveyed a much greater degree of understanding than there actually was. He interrupted me. According to my mother, he said, I was sleeping during the day. Every day. I didn’t deny it. Having known they’d go behind my back, I was prepared.
‘Since I can’t see the sun,’ I said, ‘it doesn’t make much difference to me. And anyway, I prefer nights. They’re more peaceful.’ I smiled faintly. ‘I had this conversation with Nurse Janssen once.’
‘You’re not hiding, then? This isn’t another version of the broom cupboard?’
I laughed. ‘Well, maybe a little.’
He liked the honesty of that.
I asked him, as casually as possible, how long a convalescence was supposed to last.
He fingered his moustache. ‘That depends on you. Your progress and so forth.’
‘So if I feel ready to strike out on my own —’
‘It’s a little early for that,’ he said, ‘don’t you think? After all, you’ve only been home a week.’
‘I know, I know. But still —’
I’d come a long way, I told him, since I’d been given my cane six months before. I recalled for him my first, tentative attempts at walking, the feeling that the ground was opening in front of me, the sudden sense of an abyss. I was convinced that if I took one step I would fall. And because I didn’t know how far there was to fall, it would be like falling for ever. Like the game that children play with cracks in paving stones. I used to long to lie down on the floor and somehow wrap my arms around it and hold on.
‘It seems so long ago.’ I shook my head at the memory.
With Nurse Janssen’s help — and his help, too, of course — I’d learned to employ my remaining senses to overcome my fear, to orient myself. And then there was old Kukowski, with his talk of tactile clocks and sonic spectacles. Touch, taste, hearing, smell — they all played a part; it was a vision that had to be worked on, practised — earned. Though I wasn’t looking at Visser, I could sense him nodding. I was happy with my speech so far. The exaggerations seemed just right, as did the gratitude. Surely it would not be long, I went on, before I was ready for a challenge, before I wanted to explore my condition — its true limits, its possibilities. After all, I couldn’t spend my whole life locked in darkened rooms!