Читать книгу A Threefold Cord - Howard Goldenberg - Страница 15

Chapter Ten

Atall person woke up very early in the morning while darkness was on the face of the earth. The person dressed in the dark. The child in the next bed woke too and stared hard at the adult, trying to learn the answer: is this a man or a lady? But the child – a little boy – could not see.

The adult put on a jumper, long trousers, a cape, a large hat and dark glasses. During daytime the child could see his own reflection in the mirror lenses of the glasses. And he saw the cape and the hat and all the adult’s clothing; everything was black.

The child knew the name of the adult: Dr Vandersluys. The child did not remember his parents. He was cared for by a couple called Kees and Cornelia. Cornelia travelled with the boy to Australia, but she was suddenly called back to Holland. She said there was a family emergency. She told the child: A man called Mike was riding his bike, fishing for pike near the dyke. He fell onto a spike. Before Cornelia left she asked the vet to care for Tiger the cat. “And one more thing, Dr Vandersluys: would you please look after Willem too. He and Tiger are a twofold cord: they can’t bear to be apart.”

So Willem and Tiger stayed with the vet.

And now Tiger was gone.

Willem was lonely. He missed the cat. Although he liked Cornelia, his feelings were hurt when she left him with a stranger to go and care for Mike on the spike. While he was alone in the house of the strange doctor he wondered about his parents: What are they called? Where are they? Will they come and collect me one day? All he knew about his parents was that they had given him his name, Willem. Someone said it was the name of a famous king.

Before Cornelia went away, Willem asked when she’d be back. She said she couldn’t say: a spiked biker can be a tricky thing.

During the daylight hours Willem looked hard at Dr Vandersluys. He noticed how white the vet’s skin was. Willem listened too, trying to decide if it was a lady’s voice or a man’s. He couldn’t tell.

Once he opened the bathroom door without knocking. He just opened and walked right in. There, right in front of him, Willem saw the naked skin of an adult’s thighs. The adult was seated on the toilet, with black trousers around the ankles. The adult’s thighs were a shiny white. The adult wore sunglasses inside the house.

Willem was frightened. He cried out: “Oh! Oh, I am sorry!”

He turned and ran and closed the door behind him.

Willem hid in the garden and waited for his heart to stop knocking inside his chest. Would Dr Vandersluys be angry? Would Willem be punished?

After a while, he calmed down. He thought again about the vet: Ladies sit on the toilet for everything; men and boys stand to do a wee. Everyone sits to do a poo. Which one was Dr Vandersluys doing? I don’t know – and I still don’t know what that person is.

Suddenly Willem missed Cornelia, awfully. He cried, then stopped. I hope the vet is a lady. A lady would be kinder.

(What has happened to Willem’s parents? Why has Cornelia left Willem alone in Australia? Do you believe her story about spiked Mike and the pike? It sounds fishy to me.)