The Evenings

by Gerard Reve

  “They’re not all afraid of them,” Maurits said. “I’m referring to the ones who are afraid of them,” Frits continued, “and do you know why?” “No,” Maurits said, “well, I guess because they think it’s a filthy animal that crawls its way up everywhere.” “A filthy animal, indeed,” Frits said, “but why is a woman so fearful of it that she wakes the whole neighbourhood with her screams?” “I don’t know,” Maurits said. “They can’t tell you themselves,” Frits said, “but why is a woman afraid of mice? Stop and think about it. What is she afraid of, unconsciously?” “I’ll be damned,” Maurits said, “I get it.” He grinned. “Do you think that’s really it?” he asked. “Is that it, really?” “Exactly,” Frits answered, “it is a scientific fact.” “Spiders and frogs too, probably for the same reason, right?” Maurits asked. “Yes,” Frits replied, “of course it’s now clear to you as well why they always climb up on a chair.” Maurits grinned. Neither spoke for a moment.

  “I’ve noticed,” Frits said, “that you have tried to sell me neither those shoes nor that coat. May I conclude from that that you are no longer strapped for cash?” “That’s right,” Maurits said, “things have been better for the last few days. I found a purse, not long ago. New, with a hundred and eighty guilders in it. Not bad, eh?” “Doesn’t that make you feel depraved?” Frits asked. “The person it belongs to cried all night about it.” “It is going to start raining soon,” he thought, “I’ll make it home just in time to keep from getting wet.”

  “Maurits, Godspeed,” he said, waving his hand. “I’ll see you around.” He walked off quickly. “I still need to talk to you sometime,” Maurits shouted after him. “At least I don’t have to shake that hand,” Frits thought. “But I could at least have wished him a pleasant evening, in any case, and a happy and prosperous New Year. That was lax of me.” “Yes, Maurits, we’ll talk soon,” he shouted back.

  The rain began. He hurried his step. “Rain with moderate gusts,” he thought as he arrived at the front door. “It’s dry here, let us pause to think for a moment.” “So I’ll go upstairs,” he said to himself, “right. Up the stairs, go inside. What are they going to say? Imagine my father is home alone. He says: Hello, my boy. If my mother is home alone, she says: Well, is that you? If they’re both at home, they won’t say anything at first. Then my mother will ask me something, whether I closed the door behind me, whether I wiped my feet, something like that. Why? Who can tell?”

  He opened the front door, closed it quietly behind him, climbed the stairs slowly and crossed the landing. Right in front of his own door, he stopped. “I could have looked at the coats on the stand,” he thought. “Now I don’t have a clue. Who is in there?” He closed his eyes. “Both of them,” he said to himself. “I smell it, I can sense it. I know it. Inside are the two people who are my parents. Onward.”

  He opened the door and stepped inside. Beside the fire, his father sat reading. His mother was lying on the divan. He closed the door quietly behind him. “I should say something simple, something normal,” he thought. “It is up to me.” “Frits,” his mother asked in a sleepy voice, “if your coat is wet, will you put it on a hanger beside the fire? Is it raining out?” “Yes,” he answered, “but not in.” “It’s by the sideboard,” she said. “Aha,” he said, picking up the hanger. He slid his coat over it and hung the hook on the ornamental ledge above the sliding doors. “Look,” he thought, “behold, how the light falls in this room. Light is not what it is, more like less-than-total darkness.” “What are we going to do this evening, Mother?” he asked. “Who is coming over?” “It will be just the three of us, nice and cosy,” she replied. “What is it?” his father asked. “Is someone at the door?” “No,” Frits said. “Aren’t Joop and Ina coming, Mother?” he asked. “They’re going to the Adelaars’ this evening,” she answered. “It is,” he thought, “only a quarter to three, but still this day will fill itself like any other.” He pulled a chair over to the radio and turned it on.

  “—decision to be made,” a flat voice said. “The condition of many playing fields makes it uncertain still whether the Sunday competition will take place. But we will know more on Saturday afternoon; at that point I will discuss with you the opportunities that lie in store for Enschede Boys, Be Quick, Speed and Haarlem First in particular. So until Saturday, dear listeners. I thank you.” “You were listening to Sport Talk, with Henk Appelman,” the announcer said. “For the second time this afternoon, here are the Air Masters. They will kick off with the foxtrot ‘Blue Blue, Everywhere I See Your Eyes’ by John Fireground, as arranged by Piet Matel and sung by Arie Toleman.”

  “Hilversum Two,” Frits mumbled, twisting the dial to the right. The final bars of a waltz sounded. “Yes, and now we’ve arrived at a request from Mr and Mrs Frissendonk of Zeist,” said an announcer with hurried diction. “They have requested ‘Tales from the Vienna Woods’ by Johann Strausz. Tales aplenty we’ve got for you. This record is also for Mr—” Frits switched off the set and stood up. “I’m going to fix that tyre,” he said to himself. He went into the kitchen, opened a cupboard beside the sink, pulled out a large tin box and examined the contents. “Cleaning fluid,” he said softly, “glue, four tyre levers—more than enough—patches, yes, that’s all in order.” He set the box down on the kitchen table and went to the landing to fetch his bicycle.

  “Frits,” his mother called. He left his bike sticking halfway out of the storage cupboard and went inside. “Are you going to work on your bike?” she asked. “Yes, it’s about time I did,” he answered. “Don’t forget,” she said, “not to take your bicycle into the kitchen.” “No, I was going to do it in my bedroom,” he said. “Absolutely not,” she said, “if you are going to mess about with your bicycle, go to the attic.” “That’s too much lugging around,” Frits said. “I don’t want you doing it down here,” she said. “Upstairs, you have plenty of room there.”

  He walked out to the landing, rolled the bike back into the storage cupboard, went to his room and lay down on the bed. “I didn’t put away the tools in the kitchen,” he thought. “Why am I lying down? Not to sleep. I need to think. To be sleepy now, I’d have to be old and sick.” “This is the way a person lies in bed when they have the flu,” he said to himself. “It is winter, the light is harsh and it is about to rain. It is raining already.” He fell asleep.

  An hour and fifteen minutes later, he awoke. “Why am I lying here, as though I were exhausted?” he thought. “I need to come up with some plans. I need to establish a programme for tomorrow. It is slowly growing dark, and I am just lying here.” He got up, went to the window and looked outside. “This is the final day of the year,” he thought, “until midnight it is still December of this year. Immediately after that it is the 1st of January. Between the two there is nothing. It’s cold in here.”

  He paced back and forth a little and said to himself: “If I lie back down again, my brains will turn groggy.” He sat down on the bed, scratched at his temples, slowly sank back and fell asleep once more.

  He was walking outside along a narrow road through the open field. It started to rain. He raced in the direction of a large building with factory smokestacks. “It happens every time,” he thought, “only when you go out without your coat does it start raining.” He turned up the collar of his suit jacket. By the time he reached the roofed veranda at the front of the building he was wet through and through. He shivered. A double door, like that of a garage, opened. In the opening stood a man in a pair of yellow overalls. Instead of a human head, he had the head of a fox. “I bid you welcome,” he said, “but pay no heed to my appearance. I would be most grateful if you paid no attention to my head.”

  “Don’t give it a second thought,” Frits replied. “Besides, your face is much more sensible than that of most. It appeals to me.” “It does not appeal to me in the slightest,” he thought.

  “You are wet,” the fox head said, “good thing we have just fired up the furnace. You will be dry as a bone within minutes. C
ome along.”

  They entered a factory hall where huge fires were burning in all manner of furnaces, as well as on the actual factory floor itself. Air was being pumped into them, and the flames roared whitely and spread an enormous heat. Frits remained standing before each hearth for a moment, approaching as close as his skin would bear. “I’m almost burning up,” he thought, “but I’m not getting any warmer.” Cold shivers washed over him. “It’s very good, what you’re doing,” the fox head said, “no need to remain standing beside any particular fire, just walk along with me; you will dry even as you look.”

  The further they walked into the factory hall, the lower the ceiling became. Each fire they passed was fiercer than the one before, and each time Frits had to shield his face against the blaze. “Doesn’t anyone work here?” he asked. “We haven’t come across anyone.” The fox head gave him a piercing look. “You may dry yourself here,” he said, “but you do not have the right to meddle.” “My apologies,” said Frits. At last they came to a dusky corner of the hall, where they descended a set of stone steps and entered a cellar. In the middle an enormous fire was burning, the flames were more than six feet high; its light hurt Frits’s eyes. Beside the fire was an anvil.

  A man in a close-fitting leather suit entered. He was so tall that he had to bend over; he ran one hand over the ceiling as he walked. Over his shoulder he carried a large hammer with a long handle. When he arrived at the anvil and entered the full light of the flames, Frits saw that he had the head of a bear, with round, little ears. The creature raised the hammer and began pounding the anvil. The blows rained down harder and harder. Suddenly, the ceiling lifted a long way. The man could stand up straight, he turned slightly towards Frits and grinned, exhibiting a pair of fangs.

  “He’s not pounding anything at all,” Frits thought, “the anvil is bare. Why is there nothing on it?” “It’s not going to remain bare,” the man with the fox head said suddenly, staring at him intently.

  Every blow the man in the leather suit struck was harder than the one before, the hammer was lifted higher and higher each time, its head grew ever larger. “My head is splitting,” Frits thought. Every time the hammer came down he opened his mouth. “Stop it,” he shouted, “let me out of here.”

  “We’re not going to harm you,” the fox head cried. “This is our blacksmith. He’s hammering at the moment, but if you like I can make him dance at the end of a chain. With a whip, if he doesn’t feel like it. If it is too noisy for you in here, you may leave.” The man with the head of a bear produced a growl and brought the hammer down so hard on the anvil that Frits felt something tear in both his ears: fluid from the openings ran down over his cheeks. The pain in his eyes became so intense he had to close them. Feeling around with his feet, he searched for the steps. “Over here, sir,” he heard the man with the fox head call out, “over here.” The voice began laughing and shouted: “Over here, sir, we’re waiting for you.” “No,” he thought, “it’s the anvil. It’s waiting for me. Get out! I have to get out! It is a trap. I am done for.”

  He had just placed one foot on the bottom step when an icy cold wind almost blew him over backwards. He was able to remain upright, but could not climb the steps. The pounding of the anvil stopped. “Here they come,” he thought, “I need to get up the stairs.” He tried to move forward, but could not.

  His heart beating wildly, he awoke, shivered and sat up. “I didn’t pull a blanket over me,” he thought, “maybe I have already caught a cold.” He stood up and turned on the light. For one whole minute, black spots went on dancing before his eyes. He looked at his watch: it was five thirty. “The chill here is unbearable,” he thought, “I’ll go to the front room.” He went to the kitchen and drank some water. His mother was cooking dinner.

  “Where were you the whole time?” she asked. “You need to fetch some coal. The repair kit, the whole mess, you just left it lying there. I suppose you thought the maid was going to tidy up after you? As long as you realize that I would just as soon toss it out of the window as put it away. Next time I’ll throw it in the bin.” “Or drop it in the stove, you could do that too,” he thought. “Teedeetadeetee tom tom,” he sang to himself.

  He shut the metal box of tools that was still on the kitchen table and slid it back into the cupboard beside the sink. Then he went into the living room.

  His father was sitting in a chair by the window, reading a newspaper. “Frits,” his mother called from the kitchen. “No,” he thought, “full repose. I hear nothing.” “Frits,” she called out again. “Is Mother calling?” his father asked. “No,” he replied, “you must be mistaken.” “What?” his father asked. “No, no one is calling,” Frits said loudly. “Two times,” he thought, “that should do it.” He listened closely. “Very good,” he said to himself after a few moments, “she’s not calling any more.” He sat down by the radio.

  “Let’s look at the guide first,” he thought, stood up and rifled through a pile of newspapers on the little table beside the window. “What is it?” his father asked. “Oh, I’m looking for something,” he answered. After searching through the newspapers he piled them up again, but bumped against the stack and knocked a few to the floor. “Leave it for the moment,” he thought, “I’ll look again in a bit, just to be sure. The paper I’m looking for is gone anyway.”

  As he was searching through the newspaper rack on the wall, his mother came into the room. “What are you looking for?” she asked, “don’t toss things all over the place. I suppose that was you again”—she pointed at the little table. “You don’t look for things, you just rummage about.” “I’m looking for yesterday’s newspaper,” he said, “for the radio guide.”

  “Yesterday’s paper isn’t in there,” she said, “don’t go tearing everything apart.” “So then where is it, yesterday’s paper?” Frits asked. “It’s not in there either,” she said, pointing at the rack, “I was looking at it just this afternoon.” “What good is that to me?” he said. “You need to look around,” she said, “it’s here in the room. Or else you threw it away, or someone else did.”

  He returned the newspapers, which he had taken from the rack during his search, to their places and walked over to the little table again. He picked up the fallen newspapers, searched slowly through the pile, and went to the window. He opened the long curtains a crack and looked outside. Three people stood talking beside a lamp post. “The evening of the old year,” he mumbled, “the night the year is made new.” He closed the curtains again and turned around. Suddenly his eye fell on the newspaper his father was reading. He read the date: Monday, 30th December. “There it is,” he said to himself, “he has it.”

  “Well, Mother,” he said, “it’s not here on the table. If you think that I am incapable of searching, why don’t you try?” “It’s as though the two of you were morons, as though no one in this house has any sense,” she said. “Don’t you two have eyes in your head?” “What’s all this screaming?” his father asked. “Nothing,” Frits said, “there is no conflict whatsoever. It is a friendly debate. Later on there will be an opportunity for you to pose a few questions.”

  First his mother searched the rack, then the pile on the little table. “It’s like having six little children around the house,” she said, “every bit as much bother.” “See? It’s not there,” Frits said after she had searched through the whole pile. “I’m perfectly capable of looking for something.”

  “What newspaper does he have there?” she asked, stepping over to his father. She seized hold of a page. “By the life of me,” she said. “Sometimes I wonder whether the two of you are all there.” “Were you looking for this?” his father asked. “If I could borrow it for a moment, yes, please,” Frits said, taking it from him. He sat down in front of the radio again, reached out and laid his hand on the set. “What shall I do first, look at the guide or turn the thing on?” he thought.

  “Frits, would you go and fetch some coal?” his mother asked. “It’s all finished, the sacks too. T
here are still a couple of them upstairs, but I want to keep those. Scoop it up out of the box, that’s the bit that needs to be finished first. Can you go right now? Otherwise the fire will go out.” “No,” he replied, “I’m afraid of the dark, you know that. That’s asking too much.” “There is the scuttle, behind the stove,” she said. “Fill it and put a few briquettes on top. I’ll think I’ll just let it go out later tonight, we won’t be getting up that early tomorrow anyway.”

  “Mother,” Frits said, “you know very well that I am terribly afraid of the dark. It’s unreasonable to ask me to go up to the attic now.” “What is it?” his father asked. “Oh,” his mother said, “he’s refusing to fetch coal from the attic.”

  “It’s not that,” Frits said loudly, “I would be more than pleased to fetch coal. But I’m afraid of the dark. Boo-hoo. You never know what may be lurking behind a door. Am I right, Father?” “Tee-ra, tee-ra, tee-ra,” he sang to himself, “boom-see-kay. Old goat.” “He’s too lazy to fetch coal,” his mother said. “As though I haven’t been breaking my back all day.”

  “But what if one is afraid?” Frits asked. “There are all kinds of things up in the attic. Even as a child, it scared me.” “What a pain,” he thought, “I mustn’t stop now.” “I don’t understand what you think is so wonderful about that play-acting,” his father said. His face rumpled in a frown. “My father can make such ugly faces when he’s angry, can’t he, Mother?” Frits said. “Huh?” his father asked. “I said that it’s important to respect a person’s notions,” Frits shouted. “When a person is afraid, you mustn’t force them. That is a well-known mistake in child-rearing.”