“Where were you going?”
“Away.”
“You didn’t have anything with you.”
“So?”
“You hadn’t even taken off your overalls.”
“So?”
“How’s your head feel?”
“Itchy.”
“That’s good. Itchy’s good.”
He pours himself a second glass of wine. I cover my glass with my hand. We’re eating steak, with potatoes and green beans. It’s not completely dark outside yet, but I’ve already drawn the curtain over the side window.
“What makes a bird do something like that?”
I shrug.
“Why me?”
I shrug again.
“My arm’s numb.”
“Imagine if it had gone for Ronald, his head is still really vulnerable.”
“So it’s actually good that it attacked me?”
“In a way.”
“Thanks.”
I put the third steak on a clean plate and cut it into small pieces.
“You’ve actually got really big hands, you know,” says Henk.
I spoon a couple of potatoes and some beans onto the plate and push it over to him. “Will you take it upstairs?”
“Okay.”
He’s gone a long time. I do the dishes and when I’ve finished I get the nailbrush out from the cupboard under the sink. The tub of mechanic’s soap Mother bought when she was trying to get Father and me to take better care of our hands must be in here somewhere. After her death the tub moved deeper and deeper into the cupboard. I find it in a damp corner, under a threadbare rag. I scrub my hands with the sandy soap until my cuticles are almost bleeding.
In the scullery I take off my clothes and throw them into the laundry basket. I go into the bathroom, turn on the taps and step in under the hot water. It’s only when the boiler is almost empty and the water is cooling off that I turn the taps off again with my shriveled fingers. I dry myself, wrap the towel around my waist and walk to my bedroom. On the way, I look at myself in the mirror over the mantelpiece, and at Mother, who looks back vigilantly. I was planning on putting on some clean clothes, but when I see my bed, I don’t bother.
Tossing the towel into a corner, I go over to stand in front of the map of Denmark. “Værløse,” I whisper. “Farum, Holte, Birkerød, Frederiksværk.” My penis starts to swell and I slip into bed. I hear Henk coming downstairs. He walks through the house and seems to pause in front of my bedroom door. Then he turns off the lights-I can tell from the route he takes. A little later he goes back upstairs. The house is peaceful.
41
I’ve walked into the field to count the sheep. The sight of a sheep is always enough to make me feel a bit melancholy. They’re such sorry animals. I often think of the three sheep I sold to buy the map of Denmark, mainly because I didn’t even check which sheep I was getting rid of. It could have just as easily been three different sheep. Twenty sheep in the rain is not a pleasant sight, unshorn sheep look terrible in a heat wave and a lame sheep is almost unbearable. Worst of all is a sheep on its back. Incapable of getting up again under its own steam, intestines bloated and pressing against the abdominal wall, coughing and rattling, and, if it’s windy, straining to hold its head up as long as it can while it slowly inflates. I try to remember when I took the ram out of the field. It must almost be time to take them in. I count nineteen sheep.
I’m not in the field just to count the sheep, I’m there to get out of the house. Riet rang. She asked again whether she shouldn’t visit, not for any particular reason, just to have a look, and maybe to do some “women’s work.” Father was coughing upstairs. I called Henk, gave him the receiver and walked out into the field.
I sigh and count again. Nineteen. I walk to the closest ditch. The sun is shining on the smooth water. The lack of ripples doesn’t mean very much: a sheep that falls into water gives up quickly, starts drowning and stands there calmly waiting for the end. Texel sheep are great drowners. Another point against them. I follow the ditch to the intersecting ditch. The nineteen sheep keep their distance, but follow. The sheep is in the third ditch. Almost everywhere the water is up to just below ground leveclass="underline" the banks of this ditch are no more than twelve inches high. I bury my hands deep in the wool and start pulling. Sheep legs are thin and fragile, but when those legs are stuck in mud, they’re like leaden barbs. The sheep sways back and forth a little, turning its head towards me; water splashes against the ruler-high sides of the ditch. I plant my feet wider and try again. A couple of seconds later I’m sitting on my bum in the grass with a tuft of wool in my right hand. The sheep is no longer waiting for the end. It goes against its nature by struggling and bleating, its panicked eyes roll in its head. I stop thinking and step into the ditch, without taking my rubber boots off first. It’s a shallow ditch, but when I squat down to get my arms under the belly of the sheep, I’m up to my neck in the muddy water. I struggle to lift the sheep, my boots sinking deeper and deeper in the sucking mud. Slowly but surely the animal rises, I’ve already got one of its flanks against the side of the ditch. Just when I think I’m going to manage it, the sheep feels solid ground and starts kicking wildly. I lose my balance, fall backwards, and the sheep rolls over on top of me.
My boots are standing upright in the mud as if in cement, I’m lying on my back with my legs bent, unable to exert any force. Just once I manage to get my head up above water — past the wet, enormously heavy fleece — and suck in a big lungful of air. Then the sheep’s body pushes me down again. I think I can feel its heartbeat, a furious pounding, but it could be my own. I try to wriggle my feet out of the boots. No recklessness at all, now I’m running out of breath. Sideways, I have to try to get out from under the sheep sideways. No agelessness either, now I’m a half-drowned animal stuck under another half-drowned animal. The other way, to the left, pushing my left shoulder up and hoping the sheep will slide off. Strange, all of a sudden I see Jaap swimming away from me with his powerful strokes and myself, kicking awkwardly and thrashing my arms with my mouth wide open and great gulps of IJssel water disappearing into it. Clean? This filthy, stinking water? What is there to wash away? His hair floated back and forth like seaweed. I have to open my mouth, I can’t help it. I don’t see Henk, I see myself sitting in the Simca and my hair floats back and forth like seaweed while Riet looks in through the window. Not shocked, not frightened, not panicking. Smiling. She doesn’t even do her best to open the door. I have to open my mouth. I can’t get my arms between me and the sheep. Even if I tried to roll it up over my head to get it off me, I couldn’t.
III
42
Helmer,
You lied to me. Henk told me about your father. I thought he’d lost his mind. But he’s dead and scattered, I said. No, he’s not, Henk said, he’s upstairs in bed, I can hear him coughing now. He even told me he quite often takes his dinner up to him. Why did you lie to me? I didn’t expect that sort of thing from you. Henk (your brother, my fiancé) would never have lied to me like that. I always thought of you as a nice, honest, gentle guy, but it turns out I was wrong. I sat in your house and walked around with your father there as well, behind closed doors! It puts my visit in a brand new light. I hate your father, he sent me packing, he ruined my life. (Or do you think I spent dozens of years happy and contented with Wien? That I like living in Brabant?)