Читать книгу Thirty Days - Annelies Verbeke - Страница 12

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27

Only Sieglinde was still home when Alphonse arrived. She hastily led him through the bedrooms and announced she had to go to work, but an hour later she’s still here. She walks from room to room, upstairs and down, the little dog in her arms. He passes them on the stairs and meets them in the kitchen where, lost in thought, she presses a pointy kiss to the tiny canine skull. The animal keeps its eyes fixed on Alphonse, who believes he can read ‘say something’ in them.

‘Ça va?’ he asks.

The eyes behind the lenses of her spectacles seem even bigger and bluer than before.

‘Do you have a family?’ she wants to know.

‘A girlfriend. Partner.’

‘No children?’

‘No.’

She scrapes her lower lip with her upper teeth, knows it’s a risky question but asks nonetheless: ‘Why not?’

‘That’s the way life has gone,’ he says.

‘You still want them?’

He finds it strange that most people talk about hypothetical children in the plural, as if they usually present themselves as a class. ‘It’s something I’d welcome. It’s not essential.’

‘So it doesn’t matter?’ She makes no effort to hide her incredulity. ‘What does your partner think about that?’

‘At the moment she’d rather not think about it.’

That could mean a lot of things. Sieglinde has now started licking her lips: one of many tics designed to prevent her curiosity from being transformed into words. Then her face hardens. ‘She’d better. Yes. Think about it.’

‘There’s still time.’

That’s not what she means. She speaks quickly and solemnly, as if performing a theatrical monologue she’s known for years. ‘A lot can change, in yourself, and not always for the better. All I’d heard about having your first child was that it’s the best experience of your life, an unbeatable experience that connects you with everything. That it’s only then that you really feel what love means, what it is to be human. That’s what I was told. Of course I knew you could find the occasional degenerate woman wandering about who’d never be ready for it, a weak link that just wasn’t intended to procreate. I turned out to be such a person. I didn’t foresee that as soon as I fell pregnant I’d start going down. During the contractions I was sucked into a deep hole. It’s because of the pain, I told myself. Soon they’ll lay the child on your tummy and the euphoria will come. Then they laid the child on my tummy and all I could think was: get it off me! The next day was no different, nor the day after that. A year and a half passed before I could feel anything but loathing. Not just for the child. No one knew, other than my husband. If it wasn’t for him I’d have ended it all. That’s another thing I remember from all those months: it defies imagination, how much you can hide. I held the baby in my arms and chattered away with an endless succession of visitors, all the time hoping that if a meteorite landed it would hit our house. I think she’s doing fine, my daughter, but I’m always afraid it’s left its mark on her. Because it wasn’t anything natural, what I had. Nature has its own cruelty, I’m fully aware of that, indifference too, certainly, but there was no sense in the way I was, it was pure devastation, and it took control of me without any trouble at all.’

The silence grows. She’s finished for now, he thinks, but there is more.

‘Lana’s really nice.’

‘Yes.’ Shaken, she bends over the little dog in her arms and plants more kisses on the tiny scalp. ‘When did you meet her?’

‘She was with Mila, on their ladder. We had a brief conversation.’

She stares at him without blinking. ‘They were here. Our neighbours. Yesterday they were suddenly at our door. We thought what now? But it was cake. Cake and a lot that was left unsaid, a lot of awkwardness. Made tea. Chatted for a bit about the children and the dogs. About you for a moment, too. Walking on eggshells. Within an hour they’d gone and Ronny and I didn’t know what to say. All in all it wasn’t too bad.’

She puts the dog on the floor. ‘Anyhow, I have to go. I’m already late. And I’m keeping you from your work.’

‘What’s he called?’ Alphonse asks.

‘Who?’ Again those blue flashing lights behind the glasses.

He looks down at the dog, which is lying on the floor with its head on the toe of his shoe.

‘She’s called Happy. A bitch. And she seems to be comfortable with you.’

He wobbles his foot. Happy raises her head and lies down somewhere else, allowing him to carry his things upstairs.

‘Alphonse,’ she says from the bottom of the stairs when he’s almost at the top. ‘Can you take a look in the bathroom? It’s between the bedrooms.’

‘You want me to paint that too?’

She hesitates. ‘Not necessarily. Just say what you think about it. But not right now. See you this evening.’

She hurriedly puts on her coat. Happy yaps at the closing door.

There’s nothing unusual about the bathroom, nothing to paint or repair. The walls are tiled from top to bottom, the ceiling coated with a damp-proof membrane. What does she want him to look at? Then he sees it, on the rectangular washbasin, between the tap and the hairbrush. He holds the white stick closer. The blue cap has been broken off. One short and one longer vertical stripe indicate a positive result, he believes. Not necessarily a favourable one.

He doesn’t know what he should tell her and he racks his brain while taping the skirting board. What he certainly must make clear is that he’s got no experience at all with post-natal depression.

In Brussels, in the many periods when he was unable to make a living from his music, he worked on and off for a building firm, sometimes as a painter and decorator. People used to tell him all sorts of things then too. As a musician it happened less often—it must have to do with interiors, with insides.

He was warned about the dour, taciturn character of people in the Westhoek, but in his experience they’re no different from clients he’s had in the past; after reluctantly presenting their problems, they make no secret of the needs that accompany them. Cat says his skin colour underlines the fact that he’s an outsider to their lives, and that’s why they allow him access. His colour is the clergyman’s cassock, the psychiatrist’s duty of confidentiality. He’s not convinced by this theory; in Brussels he worked with other Africans, many of whom had a greater tendency to prompt suspicion, or at least reticence, even though he couldn’t see that they gave any reason for it. The defensive looks that rested on them, with that willed blindness, seeking differences as confirmation, seeking an authorization for inequality, had sought him sometimes too, and found their mark. Yet clients started talking to him more and more frequently. They laid their secrets out before him with an eagerness he found overwhelming; it was as if they hoped he might rescue them from their lives. ‘You’re just ridiculously patient,’ Cat has tossed at him more than once. She still feels quite a bit of annoyance at the amount of time he devotes to his clients. He’s never really managed to explain to her exactly what happens when the unburdening begins, why he keeps responding to it. He can barely convert the experience into thoughts. Mutual hypnosis—that’s how he’s tried to express it to himself. According to Cat he’s a magnet to the deranged, and colleagues and friends in the past have pointed to some such power of attraction. He can’t convince himself of it. These are simply people who want to change the colour of their walls. They’ve spotted his number on the internet or under the rainbow logo on the side of his van. They’re not marginal figures mumbling to themselves before noticing him across a crowded town square and sidling over to him. This isn’t the exception, this is the norm behind closed doors.

What about him? If it’s true that he has more patience than most and therefore, for whatever reason, evokes more trust and sparks more hope, is he the one who needs to adjust?

He’s never found listening difficult. Giving advice is a different matter. He’s sparing with it, although clients often seem to expect him to pronounce. When it comes to an escalating row like that between Dieter, Els, Sieglinde, and Ronny he ventures to be resolute, since the people involved—these four aren’t the first he’s encountered—will all stand and shout that it’s the quarrel itself that’s the real torment, patching it up the only remedy. They know this, but they can’t act upon it. Then he happens along, and casually makes the whole thing drop away.

Happy has tiptoed shyly past the door on several occasions. This time she decides to mention something. With each bark her tiny white body slides a centimetre back.

‘Pee-pee?’ He sounds hoarse. His voice has been sleeping for several hours.

The dog races down the stairs ahead of him.

He opens the door to the garden and waits inside until the animal has finished and is flurrying around him again with nervous leaps. He strokes its head until it falls asleep on the living-room carpet.

This is something he can do. Listen, soothe, comfort. Sometimes confront. Encourage? Clients who want to change more than the colour of their interior decor have to do that for themselves, ultimately. Do you really have to rule out offering help, even when you’re asked for it, for fear it might be true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions? If he’d come upon a single case in which his intervention had made things worse, he’d have found himself a different job. It’s not abnormal to enjoy this, not wrong to be happy to leave for work in the mornings because people are waiting for you. It’s not vanity. Not arrogance. It’s something that happens to him and something he can do. He pushes the paint roller up and down, surrounding himself with Balanced Mood. He still has no idea what he’s going to say to Sieglinde.

Happy barks when the door opens. He can hear from Sieglinde’s footfall that it’s her arriving home. She comes straight upstairs, two steps at a time.

First she looks around the room. ‘Yes. Peaceful. Beautiful. Thanks.’ Then she turns those enormous eyes to him: ‘Well?’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘It’s a test from four months ago. I kept it. I’m five months gone now. It’s too late to do anything about it.’

Is she five months pregnant? ‘Some people find peace and a greater sense of freedom once the options are limited. Others don’t, of course.’

‘I kept the test because sometimes when I wake up in the morning I think it’s not true. And I’m hardly putting on any weight.’

‘Does your husband know?’

‘Yes. He says it’ll be different this time.’

‘That’s something at least.’

She looks at him. She still hasn’t told the whole story. She doesn’t seem to take offence at his inability to guess.

‘Hey, I do hope you’ve had something to drink today.’

‘I brought some water with me.’

‘Just take what you need, all right? Shall I make tea?’

‘Yes, please.’

She hurries back down. ‘A Chocotoff?’ she calls up from the bottom of the stairs.

Through the half-darkness he drives into Zoetemore, the village where they live now. He’s hungry, he’ll have to call in at Duran’s place shortly; he wants to know how he’s doing, but he doesn’t feel like eating shawarma this evening. He thinks of Duran’s finger and the severed fingers he saw in earlier years. Life consists of an immense number of accumulations, most of which you’re not even aware of: all those times you experience similar things, the actions you undertake—how often you fill a bucket, kiss a shoulder, sit on a swing, and how many times still remain to you. He thinks about this as he puts the key in the lock, then looks up in response to a knock on the glass. Willem waves at him from his first-floor window, gesturing to him to wait. He seems in a panic.

‘Have you seen it yet?’ his elderly neighbour asks, dashing out of his front door with a wallpaper scraper in his hand. He points past him to the concrete wall across the street, a monstrosity full of asbestos that the council has promised to remove before spring. Although the last elections were several months ago, a poster has been stuck up there of an extreme right-wing politician. Willem throws himself at it, scouring it off with his scraper. ‘It’s those sons of the newsagent’s,’ he says. ‘Or the father. The mother, possibly. Both their families disgraced themselves in the war. That never washes out.’

Alphonse remembers the woman, who always struck him as an ungainly little girl grown old. In their fleeting moments of contact he felt sorry for her. Could she have done this? He doesn’t know. Neither does Willem. Are there other people in this village who want him out? His legs feel weak as he walks over to his neighbour and stands next to him until the last bits of paper have gone.

‘Voilà,’ says Willem. ‘Like a drink? Something strong?’

Alphonse shakes his head. ‘Thanks all the same.’

At home he takes his things out of his backpack. His smartphone tells him Amadou has twice tried to call. He pours himself a glass of fruit juice and rings him.

‘Ah, there you are.’

‘Yes, at last, sorry. And man, ça va?’

They laugh for a moment, at the rapid Wolof larded with French that they’re speaking, that they share, and to declare unimportant the times he didn’t ring back.

‘Everything all right?’

‘Yes, yes. When are you coming?’

‘Next week, if that’s still okay?’

‘Yes, fine.’

He hears a woman mumble something in the background. Amadou’s girlfriend. He’s never met her.

‘Is your wife happy with that?’ asks Amadou.

‘Cat always likes having visitors. Only thing is, I have to work. I can’t take any time off.’

‘Yes, you’ve already said. If you’d prefer us to make it some other time, we will.’

‘I’m looking forward to seeing you.’

‘It’s been ages.’

He dictates the address again. He can hear a pencil writing it down.

They won’t try to reconstruct how it happened that two men who virtually lived together for years came to spend so long not seeing each other. If anyone should ask they’ll put it down to the distance, to being busy. There was a more definitive breaking point, however, Alphonse recalls. Although he can’t any longer bring to mind the precise details, he believes it happened in the underground passageways of a busy railway station, an ugly incident that would happily have remained as inconspicuous as it was banal. There in the station Amadou asked him for a loan, enough to cover lunch and a ticket, and he, Alphonse, refused, without explaining but convinced that it happened too often, that he kept lending people money when he didn’t have any himself, suddenly bitter about the many times he hadn’t got back what he gave. He was aware at once how much his refusal was resented, saw Amadou’s thin body bend, and afterwards he realized that Amadou didn’t belong in those statistics, that he’d made a mistake. After that day they still walked for a while at each other’s side, but both with a sharp stone in one shoe. The distance and being busy were just convenient excuses.

He’s glad that his friend has restored contact, and that he’ll soon see him again. Whether he’s missed him he can’t say for sure. Still, there are people he can’t simply dismiss as belonging to the past. Cat thinks that’s nonsense. If you haven’t seen someone for years, then it’s clear, according to her, that you don’t regard that person as important enough, either that or you’re not important enough to them. In their telephone conversation later that evening she calls the upcoming visit of Amadou and his girlfriend ‘strange’. She warns of disappointments, because it would be a fairly big coincidence if they’d ‘changed in the same way’. Aside from that, she thinks it’s a good idea.

That he thinks so too doesn’t tally with his hesitation about ringing back and making firm arrangements with Amadou. Sometimes he wonders if he likes his job so much because the contacts are as fleeting as they are intense. He listens, allows people to share, then leaves, as if they’d met while travelling.

In search of frozen soup his eye falls on the box containing Shaka Duran. He opens it and looks in. When he stands the figure upright, it sucks his finger tight to its ice-cold lips for a moment.

As he spoons his soup, he reads the newspaper. Dyslexia means he has to haul the letters of every word, more slowly than he’d like, into their places. This time the exhaustion induced by the struggle is outweighed by his interest in the article. One of the leaders of the largest party calls herself fundamentally happy. That touches him. He’s never felt any connection with the woman, but he has secretly called himself that too, not long ago either: fundamentally happy. Things in common, connections he’s not seen before, are less a source of confusion than of summery hope. He had a similar feeling on reading an article about the love letters an extreme right-wing politician wrote to his late mistress. ‘Soyons heureux, vivons cachés,’ the man told her in one of them: ‘Let’s be happy, hidden away.’ The French saying, which slipped out of a Flemish nationalist in a moment of passion, has often passed through Alphonse’s mind. It would have different resonances for Cat. Now that they’ve been living here for almost a year it turns out the advantages of isolation escape her. In any case she’d find it a less than credible slogan for Alphonse, a man who devotes so much time and attention to complete strangers. In the context of the extreme right, that ‘vivons cachés’ carries a hint of a back turned, a slammed door followed by crossed arms, a ‘not in my backyard!’ and a fist shaken at whoever dares walk past the window. But inside that house are the man and his sweetheart. For a moment Alphonse clearly sees the connection, a brightening bundle of immaterial threads between the most diverse people who—perhaps only sporadically, perhaps only now—find their fundamental happiness in isolation: a child at play, Lego-brick imprints on its bottom, mouth slightly open; an elderly Russian lady murmuring in front of an icon in a St Petersburg church; the politician, dreaming during a powernap, alone and united with the woman he misses; a Chilean singer disappearing into her song, sitting on her bed, in front of a mirror; and he himself, here, moved, close to tears. Dozens, thousands of others are on the point of taking shape, of soaring up, when the feeling disappears into the background just as abruptly, giving way to embarrassment, a dry cough, the sound of the dishwasher, his new habit of looking through the window to the far side of the street to check that no fresh posters have gone up. He finishes his soup. Is fundamental happiness a conceit, an illusion? Can it be taken away?