Found in Translation

by Frank Wynne

  Appi’s father had a butcher shop that was doing well, he could afford it. And Japi was right when he saw that Appi would never learn how to paint. His father would later get him a job painting houses, signs, and billboards.

  I made tea. Squatting next to the burner, I poured the water into the teapot and put it on top of the kettle. Japi sniffed.

  “Smells good,” he said, and turned all the way around, scooting his chair over so he could sit with his nose right above the teapot. “I had a fight with Bavink,” he said. “Really?” I said. I had heard from Hoyer that they were roaming around everywhere together, day and night, that they slept in the same bed—Japi under the covers and Bavink on top—and took turns drinking jenever out of the one beer glass Bavink had left. “I busted his stove Sunday night.”

  In one night he had heated it so hot that it broke. And still he kept piling more coal in and poking it around and kept looking at the belly and smoking his pipe, with the stove between his knees so to speak. And he didn’t say anything, until Bavink suddenly saw that there was a huge crack in the belly and raised hell. Japi let him thunder on, he stood up and moved his chair away, Bavink opened the grate with the poker and burned a hole in the floor with the glowing coals he dragged out. And when Bavink was still raging, Japi said “You and your stove” and coolly left and went back to his old man’s house and put on one of his brother’s clean collars and got a piece of pie from his mother that was left over from dessert. He spent one night at home and the next afternoon he ran into Loef on the street, he’d already met him too. Loef, who later drowned swimming, just when he was starting to make something of himself—he took Japi back to Bavink and said, “Here Bavink, I have a stove-buster for you.” And Bavink had laughed. And Japi went straight to the shelf and found a new bottle of Bols in the usual place, “next to Dante.” And the three of them knocked back most of the bottle and then Japi cut thick slices of Bavink’s bread to make sandwiches and then all three of them were off to Amstelveld and they bought a new stove for seventy cents (it was Monday), a prehistoric model, and they got it home in a wheelbarrow, the three of them.

  I handed Japi a cup of tea. He drank it out of a mixing bowl, I didn’t have a cup for him. He groaned in contentment and banged the bowl down on the table. “What I could really use now is some bread,” he said. “Don’t mind me, I think I can find it.” He’d had his eye on my cupboard for a while. “Hey,” he said, “did you know you have meat in the house?” Did I know! He was already putting some sausage on the bread. “Sausage on bread—the people’s victuals.” My sausage, my treasure, the object of my reveries of luxury: the ham I was saving for tomorrow. Of course Japi went straight for that. I have to admit that he didn’t forget about me—he gave me two slices of sausage on every slice of bread. There was enough for that. And Japi ate. How he could eat! The bread was there next to him on the table and he just sliced away. I started to enjoy it. “Don’t be shy, Japi, there’s enough money.” Japi hadn’t noticed the money yet. “Damn!” he said. “It’s a pot of gold! They must have printed another one of your pieces.” I nodded. “As well they should,” he said. “What else are those people good for besides paying our expenses. I’d like to know. I’ve also written a thing or two in my day.” He stuffed his mouth full of bread and sausage and wiped his hands on the newspaper before crumpling it up. “I shouldn’t be writing anything, though, it’s not like I’m any good.”

  Then out from his inner pocket came an old, moldering, nasty-smelling newspaper with the creases worn through. It was The Vlagtwedde Sentinel and he showed me an article with “Letters from Amsterdam” at the top. He’d written six, he said, but his brother had lost the other five. Japi helped himself to another slice of bread. “You don’t want any more?” he asked. I declined and Japi took the last quarter pound of my sausage. “The people’s victuals” seemed to agree with him. “Did it at night,” Japi said with his mouth full, pointing to the paper with his knife. “After hours. I always had to go back to the office in the evening. Sometimes I had to hold my head under the faucet to stay awake. Now I’d say no thank you. What do I care? Nothing. It only tires you out. I’d rather just walk around and look at people and the carriages and the houses. And especially at the pretty girls and the fresh-faced brides. You can always pick out women who have just gotten married, you can tell right away. And then I think about the fun I don’t have with all those dear creatures. I’d rather do that than write about it. What do the numskulls care what I see. They just shuffle down their own streets, staring down at the ground with tedious faces stuck to their heads because it’s a lost cause, life is so hard, it makes them miserable. What have they ever done for me? Let ’em keep their couple dollars.”

  The article was quite well done, but Hoyer said later that he was sure Japi didn’t write it.

  “Now I could really go for a pint of beer,” Japi said, leaning back. “Sorry, man,” I said, “none in the house, no beer and no jenever and no clothes to go across the street in, but have a cigar.”

  The rain clattered on the roof like it was about to break through and the windows were white with water. Japi was not in the mood to go outside, I was sure of that. He lit a cigar, looked at the smoke for a while, then said, “That Hoyer, what kind of a guy is he really?” Hoyer and Japi didn’t get along. I’d already realized that. Hoyer was a penny-pincher and spoke his mind too. “He’s useless,” Japi said, “he should stick to smearing his paints around, he’s no good for anything else.”

  Bavink had left town for the day, “on business” Japi said, and he (Japi) had run into van Houten on the way home from the office. Van Houten, a friend of Bavink’s, worked in an office and thought he could write. He had already published a brick of a novel, which had cost the publisher a pretty penny. Japi let himself be invited out to dinner. Hoyer was there too, he was the first one to say, “Hey, freeloader!” Japi thought that was excellent. After all, who among us is not a freeloader? “The bourgeoisie are there to pay our expenses.” That same night he had asked Hoyer to loan him a rijksdollar, just to needle him. He knew perfectly well that Hoyer wouldn’t happen to have any money on him at the moment. But even big ol’ Hoyer got taken eventually, he couldn’t help it. Japi borrowed Hoyer’s ridiculous salmon-colored coat and never brought it back. Japi didn’t get much enjoyment out of it, though. He was always getting into fights about it, and eventually some roughnecks tore a sleeve off, on the bridge in Ouderkerk.

  “Look at that,” Japi said, “quarter past nine. Time to get going. Listen to that rain.” He went and stood by the window. “Pitch black,” he said. “Can’t see anything through this rain. Phew, I’m shivering, my pants legs are still wet. Too bad you don’t have anything to drink in the house.” I fetched his jacket. It was still waterlogged.

  “Do you have a long way to go in this weather?” I asked. “I could go by the old man’s,” Japi said, “but that’s half an hour away too. That’s your nest, is it?” Japi shoved the curtain aside and sat down on my bed and yawned. “I think I’m coming down with something,” he said. “You know what you should do, go get a half dram of old jenever, it’s on me. I’ll pay you back when I get the chance.” I was still standing there with his jacket over my arm. “Wear my jacket,” he said. I stumbled out to the attic—my sweater was more or less dry. The liquor store wasn’t far. I draped Japi’s wet jacket over my sweater. The thing felt cold and unpleasant. And I went down the stairs like that and across the street. There was no line and I was back within ten minutes. When I came upstairs I found Japi lying there snoring, in his clothes, with his shoes on. “Hello!” I shouted and shook him by the shoulder. He mumbled something. “Hello, jenever’s here.” He looked drowsily up at me and sat up slowly. “Oh,” he said, “so I see.” He drank a sip. “That’ll fix me right up. Say,” he said, “can’t I spend the night here? I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night or today either.” What was I supposed to say? He could sleep on the floor, he said, if he could just have something to put under
his head. “Thank God,” he said, throwing both his shoes across the room at the same time, “Thank God I’m out of those dripping wet monsters!” Then he hung his pants over the back of a chair, “to dry out.” He pushed my little burner aside, put Appi’s books down in the corner, put his jacket on top, and kept his sweater on. Then he took my best blanket, rolled himself up in it, took another sip of jenever, and lay down with his head on the little pile and said, “Sleep tight.”

  And I went back to the table and sat down, looked at my money, and dozed off. When I woke up the lamp was out of oil and sputtering. I crept into my bed and slept badly because of the cold. Japi didn’t notice a thing.

  When day broke and I woke up, for the umpteenth time, I heard him rummaging around. He was busy making tea, had gone downstairs on his own to get water and told my startled neighbor that he was a cousin of mine. He had slept great, was just a bit stiff. He hoped he hadn’t woken me up. “I already ate,” he said. “I think you’re pretty much out of bread.” He had to go. He wanted to talk to Bavink who in those days usually went to sleep around ten in the morning. He brought me a mixing bowl of tea in bed and stood by the window slurping his own bowl. He held it tight in both hands and looked out. “Times are tough all over,” he said. “Well then, ciao, I can get my jacket from the clothesline myself.” At the door he turned around again. “A place like this looks a lot nicer at night.”

  I thought so too. I stumbled out of bed, cold and miserable. My money was still lying on the table. He had said he didn’t need his old man’s money, I thought, or the bourgeoisie’s money either. You try saying that.

  V

  “Koekebakker,” Japi said, “I feel so strange inside.” It was one afternoon at Bavink’s. I’d stopped by to talk to Bavink but he was out. Japi was sitting at the table with a little dime bottle of ink and a pile of newspapers in front of him. “Koekebakker, I feel so strange inside.”

  “Well you certainly smell like jenever,” I said.

  “No,” Japi said, “it’s not the jenever. I think my soul is too big.” Can you believe it? That sponger! “What are the newspapers for, Japi?” I asked. Japi slapped the pile. “Daily News, Koekebakker, Daily News. Some of them are a month old.” “Have to apply for a job again, Japi?” “You guessed it. Can’t go on like this. Grab a chair. Look: KH14684, Daily News. Dear Sirs:”—“How many have you done so far?” I asked.—“First one. It’s slow going. You people who’ve never worked in an office, you don’t know what it’s like. What’ll you have to drink, man? You don’t mind if I keep going, do you?” and he dipped his pen in the ink and then stared at the blank page. “Koekebakker,” Japi said, looking helplessly around and putting down his pen. “It’s no good. I’m not the man for this. I worked in an office once, and I’m not cut out for it. I know from experience. I don’t understand anything about it. What’s the point of it all? I’m perfectly satisfied as I am. Let’s just put that all away.” And he picked up the stack of newspapers and carefully placed them out of sight beneath the table.

  “There, now I can’t see them. You don’t know what an office job is like, Koekebakker, or you wouldn’t laugh. First you go to school till you’re eighteen. Do you know how many sheep there are in Australia or how deep the Suez Canal is? My point exactly. But I knew all that. Do you know what polarization is? Me neither, but I used to. I had to learn the strangest things: ‘Credited to the inventory account,’ translate that into French. Have a go at that. You have no idea, Koekebakker. And it goes on for years. Then your old man sticks you in an office. And you realize that the reason you learned all those things was so that you could wet slips of paper with a little brush. And it’s always the same old routine, be there nine o’clock sharp, sit there quietly for hours and hours. I realized I couldn’t do it. I was always late, I really tried to get there on time but it never happened, it had been going on too long. And so boring. They said I did everything wrong and I’m sure they were right about that. I wanted to but I couldn’t do it. I’m not the kind of person who is cut out for work. Then they said I was distracting the others. They were probably right about that too. When I complained that this was boring the hell out of me and asked if this was why I had learned all those strange facts at school, the old accountant said, ‘Yes, my boy, life’s no novel.’ I could tell a good joke, and they liked that, but it wasn’t enough for them. It didn’t take long before the old accountant had no idea what to do with me. When the boss wasn’t there I made animal noises or sang funny songs they’d never heard before. The boss’s son was a stuck-up little brat who came by the office now and then to get some money. Everything he said was horribly pretentious and he looked down on daddy’s employees with an absolutely insufferable, totally unfounded air of superiority. The guys laughed their heads off when I imitated the young gentleman. I ruined a typewriter there too, and misplaced a book. Then they sat me down at a machine they called ‘the guillotine.’ I had to cut samples. For days and days I sat there and guillotined. All the samples I cut were crooked. They must have known that that was going to happen, what else would they expect? They’d only put me there to prevent anything worse. They threw out the samples—the clients never saw them. But I’d still managed to put a letter in the wrong envelope somehow. It was pretty bad, of course: the man who got the letter wasn’t supposed to know that the boss was doing business with the man the letter was written to. The accountant practically had a stroke. That’s when I figured it would be better if I left. The boss held out his hand, and I was glad to be on my way too, I shook it heartily up and down. I said I was sorry but that there was nothing I could do about it. I think I meant it too. See, Koekebakker, that’s an office job. After that I interned in a stockbroker’s office once, looking through newspapers with a book to see if any of the clients’ bonds had been selected for redemption. Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. They had to get rid of me. I had to copy there too, but I don’t think they could ever figure out what I’d copied. I could see it wasn’t working out, I couldn’t stay focused.

  “My old man was at his wit’s end. Now he’s hoping that things have improved with time. I’m not so sure. Doesn’t look that way to me. I’m doing just fine. Did you know Bavink just made a pile of money with his latest painting? Ditch at Kortenhoef with calf and haystack. Look at this.” He took out his wallet. “It’s bulging with cash, Koekebakker my boy, just bulging with cash. Cold hard cash. I’m going on a trip tomorrow.”

  “With Bavink?” I asked. “No,” Japi said, “not with Bavink. Alone. I’m going to Friesland.” “In the middle of winter?” Japi nodded. “To do what?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Do? Nothing. All you people are so pathetically sensible: everything needs a reason and a purpose. I’m going to Friesland, not to do anything, not for anything. No reason. Because I feel like it.”

  The next day I took him to the station to catch the 7 p.m. express. It was already dark. He was wearing a jacket with the buttons missing, much too big for him, and a hat with a brim that flopped down over his ears, and Appi’s new yellow shoes on his feet. In his hand was a paper cigar holder with an advertisement on it. “Wait a second,” he said, when we were already downstairs. “I forgot something.” He came right back down carrying a fishing pole.

  He wasn’t very talkative that evening. I couldn’t get out of him what he was planning to do with the fishing pole. On the way to the station, he smoked four cigars in half an hour with his paper cigar holder, and when I said goodbye to him at the gate he asked if I happened to have a little tobacco for him.

  Six weeks later he came back with six buttons on his jacket and a pair of red velvet slippers on his feet. He refused to give any explanations. Where was his fishing pole? Oh, that, he’d dropped it out of the train. One time he’d fallen in the water himself too, he said. Other than that his lips were sealed. He had obviously not had a shave the whole time, he looked the color of red brick and smelled like cow shit. He brought back two pounds of tobacco that no one else could smoke, he was addicted to
it and didn’t ask for a cigar for two weeks. Then the two pounds were gone, plus a butt he had brought too. It turned out you couldn’t get that kind of tobacco anywhere in Amsterdam. He wrote to Friesland for some more but didn’t get an answer. He was inconsolable. After a few days, though, I saw him sitting at Bavink’s again with a cigar in his mouth after all, one of Bavink’s of course.

  VI

  The next summer, Japi disappeared again. Then I ran into him on Boulevard du Nord in Brussels. Monsieur Japi was clean-shaven and nattily dressed in a gray hat, a narrow gold-colored silk tie, checkered shirt, belt, white flannel jacket with thin blue pinstripes, white linen pants with impeccable cuffs, brown and white argyle socks, and flat shoes.

  How was it going? Dandy. What was he doing here? Strolling back and forth along the boulevards between Gare du Nord and Gare du Midi. Having a good time? Splendid. Residing? In Uccle. Freeloading upon? He laughed but didn’t answer. At the Maastricht on Place de Brouckère, we had several glasses of a strong beer Japi had grown fond of. Actually he had all several glasses and I had one, which I didn’t finish. He sat majestically straight in his chair and drank with dignity and great pleasure, held forth on the topics of asphalt, the Grote Markt, and the fine weather, then said he had to go and asked where I was staying. In that case he’d have to come pay me a visit sometime. After saying that, he paid for the beers and left me sitting there in amazement.

  He came back to Amsterdam at the beginning of August with a bandaged head. A mine worker in Marchienne-au-Pont had smashed a ceramic pot over his head. He looked more down-and-out than ever. His old man was keeping him on a terribly short leash. He wore his white pants, which hadn’t been white for a long time, deep into November. He was not his old self anymore—he talked less, smoked much less. When he came by Bavink’s place and Bavink put his cigars on the table, he collapsed into a chair, kept his jacket and hat on, picked up a cigar with difficulty, slowly bit the end off, had trouble finding his matches, hesitated before lighting it, smoked it slowly, and rarely had more than one a night. If he did light a second cigar he would throw most of it away, something he never used to do before. He used to smoke a cigar until the end was too small to hold and then stick a pin in it to smoke the rest. Before long it was burning crooked. One time he let Bavink’s stove go out.