Читать книгу Gliding Flight - Anne-Gine Goemans - Страница 16

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6

That night Gieles dreamed about the crashed golden eagle. But instead of a bird’s head, the creature had long black hair and a head that looked like his mother’s. He woke up in a daze. It was only six o’clock.

Gieles began to worry that Expert Rescue Operation 3032 might not be safe. He calculated his chance of success at ninety percent, provided the geese listened to him. And that was the problem. They followed after him when they were supposed to stay put, and stayed put when they were supposed to take off.

On the other hand, Captain Sully’s chance of success couldn’t have been more than one percent. But he was well prepared. He had things under control. The captain followed the landing instructions, even when the runway had turned to water. He stuck to his schedule. Gieles had to have a schedule, too.

He paced back and forth in his insulated room until the solution presented itself. Then he grabbed the partition from the junk corner and turned it over.

Perfect. With a black felt-tip he wrote out the schedule on the back of the wooden partition.

‘May: train for stay command

June: train for up/down command

July: train for all commands—stay/up/down

August 7, 11:40 a.m.: Mom comes back’

Gieles looked at the outline with satisfaction. This afternoon, after school, he’d work on training the geese and finish the letter to Moullec.

He got dressed and went to the kitchen. Uncle Fred was reading the newspaper.

‘What a brouhaha with that robot yesterday,’ he said, taking a sip from a mug with a picture of DC-2 on it. There was a jagged crack running through the plane. Why the coffee didn’t leak out was a mystery.

‘I can understand why your father blew his stack, but it really was tough luck for the inventor, too. I heard he had worked a long time on that bird.’

‘Three hundred and fifty hours,’ said Gieles as he spread peanut butter on a piece of bread.

Uncle Fred pushed the newspaper towards Gieles. It was the free regional paper that came every week through the mail slot.

‘Speaking of tough luck, take a look at this.’ He tapped his finger on the front page photo, obviously amused.

Gieles recognised him right away. Super Waling.

He was sitting on his mobility scooter, which was sunken deep in the mud, and smiling meekly as the firemen pulled him out with a rope. Gieles read the caption.

RUNAWAY SCOOTER

While on assignment for this newspaper, correspondent Waling Cittersen van Boven found himself in a potato field along the Hoofdweg. His mobility scooter had bolted and refused to turn left on the bicycle path, causing Cittersen van Boven to end up in the mud. The fire department managed to free him from his perilous predicament. Fortunately our correspondent came out unscathed, and after his wild ride he continued on to the line-dancing finale at the Fokker Dancing School. Read his lively report on page 3.

Gieles wanted to say he knew him, but he swallowed his words along with the peanut butter. This wasn’t the kind of guy you bragged about knowing. He was even embarrassed about having helped him in a crowded shopping centre. But why hadn’t Super Waling told him anything about his work for the newspaper?

Gieles took another look at the photo. He could hear the echo of the man’s contagious laugh and felt himself brighten up, just as he did at Super Waling’s house.

‘This guy must really be ashamed of himself,’ said Uncle Fred. ‘Being so fat that the fire department has to haul you out and then ending up in the newspaper.’

‘He’s not that fat,’ said Gieles with irritation. Calling him up and cancelling was what he really ought to do. That was more decent than not showing up at all.

‘Seems to me I’ve seen him before at a lecture,’ said Uncle Fred, putting on his reading glasses. ‘Except he was thinner then. You often see that with overweight people. They always get fatter, seldom thinner.’

Uncle Fred studied the newspaper photo again more closely and repeated his last name a few times. ‘Cittersen van Boven. That name sounds familiar. You wouldn’t know by looking at him, but it seems to me it’s a noble name. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was from a rich family.’

For the rest of the morning Gieles couldn’t get Super Waling out of his mind. He had become a mystery. By twelve o’clock the tub of lard had attained the status of table tennis celebrity Jan-Ove Weldner. Gieles told his teacher he had stomach flu and raced home on his bike. Uncle Fred and his father weren’t there. He stormed up the stairs to the attic and googled 10,340 hits for Waling Cittersen van Boven. A huge number of the articles he wrote for the regional newspaper came to the surface. Gieles read the headlines. LECTURE ON SWISS ALPS AT PUMPING STATION. VAN MARELS CELEBRATE 50 YEARS TOGETHER. NOW: SPEED DATING AT THE PUMPING STATION. FARMER FINDS 150-YEAR-OLD SAILOR’S BOOT. GET MARRIED AT A PUMPING STATION. GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY FOR A GOLDEN COUPLE. MOUNTAINEERING MEGASTORE OPENED. PUMPING STATION RESTORED. PLATINUM ANNIVERSARY IN DEPARTURE HALL. PLAYBOY TAKES PICTURES IN PUMPING STATION. COUNTRY WESTERN SHOW AT WEDDING FAIR.

The overview went further, with many more stories about pumping stations and old married people. Gieles searched and searched, but he couldn’t find anything about Super Waling himself—whether he was from a noble family, as Uncle Fred had claimed, or whether he was swimming in money. The last didn’t seem likely. Super Waling lived in a tiny house.

Gieles heard the geese. He walked to the little window in the hallway and saw Tony in the yard. The geese were honking at him from a safe distance, their necks twisting angrily. They didn’t carry on with anyone else that way. Tony kicked some pebbles at them and lumbered to the back door with his hands in his pockets. Gieles clicked away from the stories by Super Waling and the photo of Gravitation with her almost naked torso, holding her rabbit. He also reversed the partition with the training schedule on it.

Tony stomped up the stairs and entered the room.

‘I heard you went home sick.’ He plopped down on the bed and stretched out full length. Reaching behind his back he pulled out a book.

Tony was in his second year of vocational training at the local high school after having been left back twice. Gieles had just started at the college prep level.

‘You really missed something this afternoon,’ said Tony, leafing through the Dutch-French dictionary.

Gieles spun around in his desk chair and crossed his arms, balling his fists under his armpits. Conversations with Tony usually started by him saying, ‘You really missed something.’ Usually it wasn’t anything spectacular, but Tony always managed to make him feel excluded with that remark.

‘You know Becky? Becky Boobs?’

Of course Gieles knew her. Everybody knew Becky with the big tits.

‘This afternoon they caught her in a closet with a janitor. That Moroccan. They were fucking.’ Tony made bumping movements with his hips and looked at him triumphantly with his slanted eyes.

Gieles certainly had missed something.

‘Who caught them?’ he asked with as much indifference as he could muster.

Tony noticed the agitation in Gieles’s voice and calmly continued leafing through the dictionary. ‘Boobs isn’t in here … Cunt is. Chatte, con. I leek your leetle chatte. French is for fags. Gimmie bossie,’ said Tony.

Gieles raised his eyebrows quizzically.

‘“Gimmie bossie.” That’s what that Flippertong guy says to all the babes. He’s from the Antilles.’

‘Who caught them?’ Gieles repeated impatiently.

‘That stiff from biology.’

He tossed the dictionary onto the floor and lit up a cigarette, blowing smoke rings with pursed lips.

‘You can’t smoke in here,’ said Gieles, leaning toward him with an empty cola can.

Tony kept smoking anyway, burping as he exhaled. The smell of onions enveloped Gieles’s face.

‘By the way,’ Tony began, ‘I think we’ve outgrown the first-name stuff. Real guys call each other by their last names. So, Bos, from now on I’m Keijzer.’

‘Fuck off, Tony. Give me a break.’

‘Fuck off, Tony,’ Tony said, imitating him with a whiny voice and sitting up.

‘You coming with me to the mall?’ He asked as if nothing had happened.

‘No. I have homework.’

Tony left the room, trailing smoke. Thirty seconds later he slammed the back door loudly, causing the geese to start honking all over again. Tony picked up a handful of stones. He was about to throw them when he noticed someone from the campground looking at him. It was Johan, the old man with the fossilised legs.

Gieles tried to redirect his thoughts, turning his attention yet again to the picture of Gravitation holding her rabbit up in front of her breasts. She was being provocative. Maybe she’d strip on the webcam for money.

Gieles stood up. He had to concentrate and stick to his new training schedule.

He shook off his thoughts of Gravitation and went downstairs and out to the barn, where he picked up the bamboo stick and cookie tin. The geese came up to him as soon as they heard the sound. He drove them energetically along the edge of the woods and down the grassy path to the shed. There was a pasture next to the shed where a couple of cows were grazing. In a few weeks he would move his training programme to the pasture. After all, his rescue operation was going to take place outside anyway.

He pushed open the corrugated metal door and assumed his position. The geese circled him, pestering him for food. ‘One for Tufted and one for Bufted,’ said Gieles, giving each one a piece of speculaas. He had given them names.

‘Tufted and Bufted,’ he repeated, and he thought of Super Waling, who would be disappointed if he didn’t show up for the tour.

‘Stay,’ Gieles ordered. Both geese looked at him with one eye. ‘Stay.’ Slowly he walked backwards to other side of the shed.