“The clothesline was on one bit of land and the silage clamp was on the other.”
“. . it’s all about money.” I’m standing in the hall and looking out of the kitchen window. It’s raining. The fitful thaw has finally set in and any ditches with ice left in them are now steaming. Funnily enough it was sunny all day yesterday and the temperature dropped below zero again last night. I have no idea what Riet is looking out at. The telephone conversation isn’t going well. Riet (who answered using the name of her deceased husband) mentioned pig farmers and I couldn’t help myself. I feel like hanging up.
“Come on, Helmer, let’s change the subject.”
“Yes,” I say.
“Would it be all right if I dropped by?”
“That’s what I’m calling about.”
“How. . is your father. .”
“Dead.” I’ll sort that one out later.
“Oh,” says Riet, as if she’s suddenly intensely sorry.
“It’s no big deal.”
It’s quiet for a moment, somewhere in Brabant. “Did you have a good Christmas?”
“Yep.”
“And last night?”
“I lit a New Year’s bonfire.”
“Just like the old days!”
“That’s right. The two boys from next door came to watch. And help, of course.”
“That must have been fun.”
“It was. Except the youngest, Ronald, burned his hand.”
“Oh. .”
“Not badly. He even managed to laugh about it, he thought it was cool. Fortunately his mother was there too.”
“When shall I come? I can any time.”
I can any time. Half my life I haven’t thought about a thing. I’ve milked the cows, day after day. In a way I curse them, the cows, but they’re also warm and serene when you lean your forehead on their flanks to attach the teat cups. There is nothing as calming, as protected, as a shed full of sedately breathing cows on a winter’s evening. Day in, day out, summer, autumn, winter, spring.
Riet says “I can any time” and those four words send everything toppling. I see her emptiness, and her emptiness shows me mine.
Of course it’s Father I’m cursing, it’s not the cows’ fault, especially not the cows we have now.
“Helmer?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’m here”
“When shall I come?”
“Whenever you like.”
For a long time that afternoon I sit with the donkeys, feeding them pieces of mangold. Although it’s stopped raining, it’s still gray. The light is on in the donkey shed. I recognized her voice.
Yesterday evening, before I poured diesel over the woodpile, Ada, Teun, Ronald and I stood by the donkeys for a while. Cold stars were shining over the shed. Ada’s husband wasn’t there, he wanted to keep his eye on a cow that was about to calve. Plus — according to Ada — he doesn’t like “the festive season,” I had made doughnuts, a task I have taken upon myself every New Year since Mother’s death. Father was sitting very briefly at his old place at the kitchen table. He worked hard to keep himself upright on his elbows and ate two doughnuts. I sat in Mother’s old spot and stared at him while he and Ada talked. Teun and Ronald shared the other kitchen chair. Ronald kept his eye on Father and seemed a bit scared, he had trouble swallowing. Father told Ada no less than three times that he wanted to see a doctor. When she shot me a questioning glance after the third time, I raised my eyebrows significantly.
“I hope you get better soon, Mr. van Wonderen,” she said as I carried him out of the kitchen.
“Do you have heating upstairs?” she asked in a concerned voice when I came back down.
“No,” I said. “But he’s a tough old codger. A shame he’s not altogether with it any more. He’s going downhill fast.”
“Is he dying?” asked Ronald, eating a doughnut at top speed now there was nothing to hold him back.
“Ronald!” Ada said.
“When are we going to light the fire?” asked Teun.
And then the donkeys, and then the New Year’s bonfire, and then a smoldering board (from my old bed) falling on Ronald’s hand. He’d got a little too keen while poking the fire with a thick branch.
“Finished!” Father calls. The flush gurgles dully, as if the lid is closed.
I’ve been standing for a good while in the hall, in front of the toilet door. The doughnuts have got his bowels working. I contract my nostrils, open the door and lift him up. He pulls up his own pajama bottoms. “Wash your hands,” I say.
He picks up the piece of soap on the sink and I turn on the tap.
Carrying him upstairs, I ask, “Do you actually know what day it is today?”
“Christmas?” he says.
“New Year’s Day. You’re not right in the head any more.”
“No?”
“No.”
“You’re the one who’s not right in the head. I’m not mad.”
“Have it your own way,” I say, laying him on the bed.
“Ada was here last night,” he says.
“Yes, she was.” I sit down on the chair in front of the window. Maybe I should buy an electric heater after all, it’s damp in here. Before you know it he’ll have all kinds of terrible fungal infections. I rest my elbows on the armrests and rub my hands together. The wall with photos, samplers and paintings is a big rectangle with little rectangles and squares on it, I can’t see any detail. I stand up and turn on the light. With my hands behind my back, like someone visiting a gallery, I walk along the wall extremely slowly before sitting down again. “Why did your mother embroider two samplers instead of just one?”
“You’d have to ask her,” Father says reluctantly.
“I can’t.”
“No, you can’t,” he says with a sigh.
“Did she think one of us wouldn’t make it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it so you could throw one of them out?”
“Shouldn’t you be milking?”
“Soon. The cows aren’t going anywhere.”
“Hmmm. .”
“It was economical of her,” I say. “No, not economical, practical.”
“Yes, practical,” says Father.
“But still, when someone dies at nineteen, you don’t take their sampler off the wall.”
“No.”
I talk, but hardly hear what I’m saying. The telephone conversation with Riet is on my mind. That’s what I want to talk about, I wanted to taunt him with it and instead I’m taunting him with our samplers. Until five minutes ago I’d never stopped to think why grandmother Van Wonderen embroidered two separate samplers. One sampler must have been a big enough job as it was. Did Mother actually know she was going to have twins? I sigh and open my eyes. I am really not in the mood for tormenting Father. It’s New Year’s Day.
“What’s the matter?” asks Father.
I open my eyes. “Nothing.” I get up and walk to the door. I pull up the weights of the grandfather clock. “Kale tonight?”
“Delicious,” says Father. He looks happy. It’s unbearable.
“Light on?”
“Yes.”
“Curtains closed?”
“Yes.”
I walk back to the window and draw the curtains. The lamppost in front of the farm is already on. Now it’s been fixed, no one can stare in unseen.
The bulb in the scullery casts a dim glow up the staircase and onto the landing. The door of the new room is open. As an invitation: come and fill me. I look at the key in the lock of the bedroom door. I look but don’t turn it. I hurry downstairs.
I ring Ada to ask about Ronald’s hand.
“It’s fine,” she says, “it’s not that bad at all.”