“Helmer?”
“Yes?”
“What’s it like, having a twin brother?”
“It’s the most beautiful thing in the world, Henk.”
“Do you feel like half a person now?”
I want to say something, but I can’t. I even need to grab one of the struts to stop myself from falling. I’ve always been forgotten: I was the brother, Father and Mother were more important. Riet demanded — no matter how briefly — her widowhood, and now Riet’s son stands opposite me and asks me if I feel like half a person. Henk grabs me by the shoulders; I shake him off.
“What are you crying about?” he asks.
“Everything,” I say.
He looks at me.
I let him look.
We don’t really eat. Henk has opened a bottle of wine, there’s bread and cheese on the table, butter and yogurt, a ripped-open bag of chips. “She acts like you set that crow on me,” says Henk. He’s got the letter his mother sent me spread out in front of him. “And here, ‘some kind of connection between us’ and ‘something we could build on.’ I told you she wanted to marry you. Then you would have been my father.”
“Of course not,” I say. “If I was your father, you wouldn’t be who you are.”
“What?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Not at all. Shall I fry a couple of eggs?”
“No, thanks. What are you reading that for anyway? It’s rude to read other people’s letters.” I am tipsy and keep looking out of the side window. I hope Ada is watching through her binoculars and can see just what’s going on in here. Booze, bad food, general agitation.
“I could have been your uncle,” I say. “But not really, because if Henk was your father, you wouldn’t be who you are either.”
He gives me a fuzzy look. “Uncle Helmer,” he says slowly.
I wonder where the tweezers are. In the first-aid kit, in the linen cupboard, somewhere under a pile of clean towels. “Henk,” I say. “Get the first-aid kit out of the cupboard, will you? And turn the light on.” He gets up and does what I ask. Keep watching, Ada, I think, digging the tweezers out of the first-aid kit. I push my chair back from the table and signal for Henk to come closer.
“What are you going to do?” he asks.
“I’m going to remove those stitches.”
“You sure? Don’t I need to go to the hospital for that?”
“No. Kneel down.”
He kneels down in front of me and I use one hand to press his head against my chest.
“Careful,” he says.
“Of course,” I say. There are four stitches. Two come out without any real tugging. The third is more difficult.
“Ow,” says Henk.
“It’s already done.” The fourth stitch is another easy one.
Before standing up, he runs one finger over the wound that has almost become a scar.
Slightly befuddled, I stand in the sheep shed. Not much is happening. The two lambs are drinking from their mother, the rest of the sheep are lying down and quietly chewing the cud. There’s nothing for me to do in here and I put off whatever else might be about to happen by sitting on the floor of the lambing pen, my back to the fence. Sitting is easier than standing. A shed full of sheep in spring is just like a shed full of cows in winter. I tell myself that I mustn’t think like that any more. I don’t want to think like that any more. Henk pulled me out of that ditch and something has changed. The re-la-tion-ship, I think with my boozed-up brain. I wonder if you have to do something in return if someone saves your life. One of the lambs comes up to me, the ewe stamps a forefoot. Sheep in a shed aren’t as sorry as they are in a field. When I walk out of the shed I leave the light on.
In the scullery I take off my clothes and throw them in the basket. The sound of TV is coming from the living room. I go into the bathroom, turn on the taps and start by washing my hair with Henk’s shampoo. Just when I’m putting the bottle back on the shelf under the mirror, the door opens. He comes into the bathroom and closes the door behind him.
“What are you doing?” I ask, wiping the lather out of my eyes.
“I want to get in the shower,” he says.
“Can’t you see I’m in here?”
“Yes,” he says. He pulls off his T-shirt. “You using my shampoo?”
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Go away, Henk,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because I say so.”
“Ha!” he says.
“Who’s the boss here?”
He’s standing opposite me, the T-shirt dangling from his right hand. He looks surprised. “What’s got into you?”
“Who’s the boss here?” I repeat. The foam on my skull is starting to itch, my head is buzzing. I have become my father. I’m not embarrassed, I don’t have the slightest urge to conceal my nakedness. Henk keeps looking at me, I see him turning things over in his head, searching for something to say. But he doesn’t have any allies, there isn’t anyone standing behind me and off to one side.
“You’re the boss,” he says. Very calmly, he puts his T-shirt back on before disappearing from the bathroom.
When I emerge, all the lights are on. In the kitchen voices drift from the radio; in the living room the TV is on a music channel. Henk is nowhere to be seen. I do a circuit of the house and turn off all the lights, the radio and the TV. Finally I turn the fire down to the lowest setting and go into my bedroom. I turn on the light and go over to stand in front of the map of Denmark. “Skanderborg,” I say quietly. Generally three or four other names follow, but not this time. I get into the enormous bed and close my eyes. A little later I hear the whirr of a passing bicycle. After that it gets very quiet.
I wake up when someone climbs into bed with me. He sighs and shuffles back and forth. The pillowcase on the pillow next to mine rustles. He hasn’t turned on the light. I wait.
“I don’t want to sleep in that room any more,” he says. “It’s cold and horrible.”
I know that. It is cold and horrible. It’s also empty.
He lies very still, I can’t even hear his breathing.
“Your father hasn’t eaten,” he says after a while.
I clear my throat. “He doesn’t want to eat any more.”
“Does he want to die?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t,” he says, with a satisfied sigh. Then he turns over onto his side. It’s too dark to see which side.
I have already said something else. I answered him. Now it’s too late to send him away. Maybe this is what you have to do in return for someone saving your life.
45
I sit on the side of the bed and look at him. He is lying on his back and wearing the T-shirt he had on yesterday. His chest rises and falls calmly. Exhaling, he puffs a little. He’s lying in my bed as if he’s never lain anywhere else. That annoys me. I get up and pull on my work trousers. “You going to come and do something?” I ask loudly. Wake up, Henk is something I can’t bring myself to say.
He gives a slight groan, rolls over and snuggles down on his stomach. “Yeah, sure,” he mumbles into the pillow. “Not yet.”
“It’s five thirty,” I say.
It takes a while before he says anything else. “Those animals.”
“What about them?”
“The ones that go for my head.”
“Yes?”
“I have to do something about it.”
“What do you want to do about it?” I’m almost in the living room.