For the Nymph &
For My Son, Quinten
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
A SUDDEN SNOWFALL
A BUS TED HIP, HALF A MAN
GROPING THROUGH THE DUST, GASPING IN THE ICY WINTER AIR
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
COPYRIGHT
A SUDDEN SNOWFALL
A SUDDEN SNOWFALL. It reminds me of the war. Not because of the cold or some other inconvenience, but because of the silence that takes hold of the city. It’s coming down thick and steady now. It’s night. I hear the sounds congealing into a dull nothing. And then someone like me has to go out, no matter how old he is. I know, son, everybody thinks: He’s going to slip and break his hip. Soon he’ll be lying in a hospital bed at St Vincent’s with his legs up in the air. And that’ll be the end of him, laid low at last by the kind of bug they cultivate in hospitals. It’s odd how the elderly get infected by other people’s fear. The fear that makes them consent to being cooped up in homes, letting themselves be fed codswallop and cold porridge, going along with oh-bugger-off bingo nights and submitting to a Moroccan assistant nurse with an arsewipe in her hand. They can keep their fear. I’ve never been afraid, not really, and nobody’s going to teach this clapped-out old dog new tricks. Outside, the snow crunches under my boots. No, not fancy shoes, but the old-fashioned boots I’ve stayed true to for years, taken to the cobbler’s dozens of times and greased almost weekly, walking boots that now allow me to take a step back in time. The flakes are still drifting down. Recently I saw an enlargement of one in a newspaper in the library reading room. All one-offs, those snowflakes, beautifully constructed mathematical worlds landing on my cap and coat. No, I’m not going to write a poem about it. Nobody reads them any more and I’ve run dry. The snow transforms the city, imposing not just silence, but maybe thoughtfulness too, remembering—on me, anyway. When it’s snowing I can see better. As long as the snow is falling, you know what the city really means, what it’s lost and what it’s trying to forget. The city gives up the illusion that the past is past.
In front of me City Park is shining white. I wait and close my eyes for a moment. The yellow light on the streets turns blue, as blue as the tinted glass in the old gas lamps. Picture a city with hardly any light. Faint blue light on the streets out of fear of the fire that can fall from the skies. Those of us lucky enough to have the use of a torch on night duty considered light a privilege that was no business of any Germans, war or no war. It was already dark enough, after all. I remember the Germans being furious about their inability to get it under control. They had to threaten insane fines and ultimately the death penalty before people started to be a little less casual with light. I’ve seen field gendarmes burst into spasms of rage because we were using our torches unscreened. Sabotage! And so on… and so forth. At the station our chief inspector would cock an eyebrow: ‘Come on, lads… no mucking about.’ No reprimand—we had to stop mucking about, that was all. Anyway, City Park bathed in faint blue light, that’s where we were. But I turn right. Pacing slowly, I enter Quellin Straat. Your great-grandfather is no longer looking at shop windows. I see the city as she really is, a naked woman with a white stole draped over her shoulders, the kind of woman doctors and surgeons can’t keep their paws off: a new bosom, then a different face. Magnificent buildings have been razed here, office blocks put up in their place. Did you know there was a grand hotel on the Keyser Lei corner, just near the opera house? Built by a German before the First World War. Ever learnt anything about Peter Benoît at school? Probably not, and no need as far as I’m concerned. They used to teach names and dates; nowadays they act like that was a mistake. But nobody—not then, not now—gives you the smack on the side of the head that history really is. A stream of filth, bastardry that never stops, not really. It just keeps going. Peter Benoît has become a street name. When I was at school we almost had to go down on our knees for him. ‘He taught our nation to sing.’ A real hero, in other words. A statue of this once-worshipped composer stood directly opposite the opera, surrounded by what people used to call Camille’s lido, named after a mayor you’ve definitely never heard of, who I can only vaguely remember myself. So the revered artist, the man who once gave his nation singing lessons, looked out over a paddling pool that was used as a public urinal, mostly by drunks. The statue’s been relocated; the so-called lido was demolished and as for that grand hotel where smart German officers drank aperitifs with their sweethearts during the Second World War… now it’s the site of a concrete monster that towers over nothing much. So things were better in the old days, were they, Bompa? I can already hear you thinking it, and besides, if we ever get to see each other, if the family I helped create, which no longer wants anything to do with me, allows it, I am sure you will call me opa. After all, the word bompa is dying out. But of course, the old days weren’t better. They were just as bad. Imagination is everything. In the beginning there wasn’t the Word and definitely not God’s. In the beginning there was an imagined darkness—remember that. I stop for a moment in the middle of the street. Two big black banners are hanging from a building that no longer exists. Each banner emblazoned with two lightning-bolt runes. I’m standing in front of the headquarters of the Flemish SS. Those uniforms used to drive us cops crazy. A mate got the book thrown at him for not saluting some cocky little bastard in black. He wasn’t even German, though he obviously wished he’d popped out into the light of day somewhere more Teutonic. Bullyboys. So many different uniforms… they made your head spin. When to salute and when not to salute? Many’s the time I had to grit my teeth. Some of those posers had absolutely no respect. For people like that I might just have well been standing there in my birthday suit. At the end of the street I turn right. It must be about four in the morning. Still absolute silence, snow falling and not a soul in sight. OK, apart from a junkie who asks me for a euro. ‘Get stuffed,’ I say. ‘Come on, grandad,’ he drivels. I look deep into his red-ringed eyes as if I’m already sinking my fangs into his soul like a wormy hellhound and tell him he’d better piss off before there’s nothing left of him. Did you know your great-grandfather eats blokes like that for breakfast? You don’t believe me? Later you will, maybe: unfortunately. Bearings. On my right, at the end of Keyser Lei, I see the railway cathedral officially called Middenstatie, a name nobody uses. On my left, on the corner of Keyser Lei and Frankrijk Lei, is Café Atlantic, with Hotel Weber above it, headquarters of German Field Command. The men in field grey swarmed around it, triumphant at first, dragging themselves from one fancy dinner to the next, where they would invariably be entertained with all due respect, their boss for instance bending over a folder full of old ink drawings of our city, offered to him as a gift by our mayor, who was blinking like an owl on tranquillizers… All this trouble so that they could later, after just a few years, be reduced to a parody of their own triumph, knowing very well that by then their so-called thousand-year Reich was already in injury time. Now I turn right, towards the station and, a dozen paces later, right again, into Vesting Straat. It’s cold. I’m twenty or thereabouts. Someone behind me calls out ‘Wilfried!’ That’s not my real name, but more about that later. The person behind me—Metdepenningen, Lode by name—catches up and slaps me on the shoulder. Does that name ring any bells? It may very well. But I’m not going to lay all my cards on the table at once. Read on and all will be revealed. ‘I’m freezing my balls off.’ Lode slips, almost twisting his ankle—I manage to grab him by the elbow—and swears. We’ve just finished training together. Three months of listening to people talk bollocks at us and then we were probationary constables. What it came down to was that we had to keep our uniforms clean and always obey anyone who had an extra stripe. All through those three months I watched Lode sucking furiou
sly on his pencil and staring intently at the blackboard. Whenever the instructor asked a question he put up his hand. A show-off, definitely, and handsome to boot. Pitch-black hair, roguish smile, son of a butcher who had a shop the other side of Astrid Plein. He was the one who got our friendship rolling. The kind of bloke who declares after just a week that you’re mates for life. ‘You teach me something new every day…’ I can still hear him saying it. Just when we’re about to go up the two steps to the station, two field gendarmes come out the door. They look at us and one of them roars at us to follow them: ‘Sofort mitkommen!’ Some clichés just happen to be true. All Germans in uniform talked like that. So we went with them, immediately, because we already knew we didn’t have a choice. Normally we had to check in to get our orders, but when one of those field arseholes roared, you followed. We carry on south to Pelikaan Straat, Lode and me tagging along behind the two uniformed supermen in complete silence like a couple of schoolboys being punished for something. The Germans have only been here six or seven months and it’s like the whole place has been theirs for years. The city lay down for them and spread her legs wide. Everything is organized. Pedestrians going from the railway station to the Meir have to walk on the right-hand pavement, with people headed the other way on the opposite side, and woe betide you if go against the flow by accident. If someone had predicted something like that in the years before the war, everyone would have been rolling on the floor, spluttering out beer froth while they roared with laughter. But one squeak from the master race and everyone’s following orders. And what’s more: they like it. Discipline at last. We cross the road and go under the railway viaduct to the Kievit district. Two streets further we stop in front of a house with a flaking facade. One of the field gendarmes shakes the powdery snow off his shoulders and pounds on the door. The other one looks at us with an expression that says ‘watch and learn’. But nothing happens. The knocking only seems to have made the house quieter. He hammers on the door again with his fist. Now we hear some noise inside. Someone comes downstairs wailing in a language I don’t understand. The door creaks open. Through the chink we see a sinister face with big eyes. He immediately gets a whack on the head with the front door as the two Germans shove it all the way open. ‘Chaim Lizke?’ one of them yells. We hear some mumbling. They go straight in, gesturing for us to wait outside, and shut the door behind them. ‘Another work dodger, I suppose,’ I whisper. Lode doesn’t say a word. He stamps his feet against the cold. Tough luck for him that he can’t afford the sturdy boots I’m wearing. You have to know that in those days the provision of uniforms was a complete shambles. Those who had enough money for textile coupons were better dressed than the rest. That was another thing that drove the Germans crazy. A couple of years later we all had to buy new uniforms they’d designed for us. But that rule only made things worse. By then only a few inspectors had the means to get one. Everybody tried to wear something that looked good from a distance if nothing else, hoping to avoid a bollocking from somebody or other. Meanwhile there’s a racket inside the house. People shouting and crying. We hear children screeching. A cupboard falls over. Somebody comes crashing down the stairs. More screeching. But the orders bellowed in German are far louder than anything else. The door swings open again and there they are: the Lizke family. Five half-dressed children aged four to twelve, a weeping woman with a cloth draped skew-whiff over her hair and the father of the house keeping his eyes on the ground while blood drips from his swelling ear. ‘The pride of Israel,’ Meanbeard would have sneered. He’s someone you’ll encounter later in the story. I’ll tell it like it was: I don’t have a clue what those people had been cooking up for themselves, but the consequences were far from salubrious. They were rank.
To be fair, I have to add, I could also feel pretty woozy sometimes when I got too close to Lode. That lad could stink to high heaven of blood and guts. I’m sensitive to smells, always have been. My father used to say I have the olfactory capacity of a pregnant female. Hilarious, of course, but I felt like smashing his head in every time he casually let it slip, preferably at a party with lots of drunk people around.
One of the field gendarmes waves us over and points a gloved finger at a sheet of paper, using it to underline an address in Van Diepenbeek Straat. That’s where we have to go, and apparently they don’t know how to get there. Lode avoids my gaze as if he’s not even here. It’s not too far from my place. Follow the railway, then cross back under on Van de Nest Lei? I give the Germans a nod. The address is not in our division; it’s in the seventh, but I’m not crazy enough to tell them that. And off we go. Us in front with one of the Germans beside us, behind us the foreigners with the other field arsehole. The woman won’t stop crying. Her husband whispers quietly, trying to keep her spirits up. In Polish, I think, but it could be Hebrew or God knows what. The field gendarme hisses something and we hear him give the man a whack. Right away the children start sobbing again. I would have gone about it differently. Lode too, I suspect, but who are we? Tourist guides in the dead of night. It’s got slippery. The snow has lost its crunch, turning the streets into a skating rink. The Germans are trying to force a pace that a family with small children can’t match. One after the other goes arse over. Another stop, more bawling, more blows, even more crying. Lode still hasn’t said a word. I see his face tensing. Looking back on it, I have to think of the seaside. At that stage I’d never been there, but when I went later and was lying on the beach nibbling a waffle and pretending it was worth all the bother, I saw a large family in full retreat with their bags and chairs and parasols and all their children with faces as red as tomatoes and completely overexcited. The father exploded: he dragged one of the youngest roughly over the sand while carrying one of his daughters in his other arm, and his mortified wife had to undergo the furious glares of the bystanders while pulling a child along with each hand too. I swear I saw it snowing then too in the scorching heat. And I can assure you just as firmly that I also heard someone bellowing in German. ‘Nicht far jetzt,’ I told one of the field gendarmes. Broken German, I know, but by now I’m so sick of the ridiculous situation I’ve resorted to their language for the very first time, if only to temper the rising fury a little, because that’s not going to get us anywhere. It’s hardly going to scare the Jews into suddenly skating along like lunatics. It’s true, too: it’s not far now. We just turned into Van Diepenbeek Straat. ‘This lady and her children are work-shy too, are they?’ Lode whispers, his voice trembling. ‘Fuck this bullshit. Is this any way to behave?’ I don’t say a word. What am I supposed to say? He hasn’t told me anything that’s not already obvious. But we’re a part of it, we’re walking along, we’re being obedient and respectable and accompanying the stinking gang to an address on a scrap of paper. The moon comes out and the ice on the streets starts gleaming like silverwork. And then it happens. One of the children, a boy of about twelve, lets go of his father’s hand and shoots off ahead, rushing past us. I don’t know why. We hear the father yell. For a moment or two the field gendarme in front with us doesn’t do anything. He’s as surprised as we are by the little fellow racing over the ice with his skinny legs wobbling like a newborn foal’s. It only takes about five seconds until he slips over again. Before he can get back up onto his feet the field gendarme has caught up to him and given that little boy a kick up the arse… unbelievable. We see him literally sliding over the ice like a sled until he slams headfirst into a lamp post and lies there motionless. The Germans crack up and it would be a funny sight if not for the mother shrieking as if somebody’s twisting a jagged-edged knife into her guts. She collapses on the spot. Her crying husband puts his hands together and raises them up, as if the Almighty might descend on his request to re-establish order with his flaming sword, or at least rise from his slumber to see what’s going on. ‘Aufstehen!’ the Germans shout, at both the mother and the boy a little further along. The lead German starts to stride towards him, but Lode beats him to it. It’s like he’s wearing skates, he’s that f
ast. He reaches the little fellow, goes down on his knees and curls his whole body around him like a cocoon, like a shell of muscle. He doesn’t let him go, not even when prodded by the still-smiling gendarme, who now says, ‘Schon gut,’ a little more quietly. The German pokes him again, and then kicks at Lode’s backside almost playfully. Lode roars, ‘Fuck off, you bastard!’ From his voice I can hear that he too is now crying. I see part of his red cheek, his handsome, brilliantined hair falling in black arrows over the boy’s face, his white helmet a little further along, lying upside down in the snow like a gaping thunder pot. The German loses his sense of humour, swears and reaches for his rubber truncheon. Before I’ve even realized it, my own hand has shot forward and clamped the field gendarme’s wrist in a vice-like grip. We look at each other, me and the German. What saved me, son, was the momentary astonishment on that field arsehole’s face. He can’t believe this is happening in this ridiculous country they have occupied almost effortlessly. For a few seconds he can’t quite process it: in this city they’ve plonked their fat arses down on so easily. A stupid toerag like me in my ridiculous uniform grabbing him by the wrist and staring him straight in his arrogant mug is a scene that feels like it’s taking place on another planet. Anyway, I let go and he doesn’t do a thing. He keeps staring while his mate jerks the mother up onto her feet while keeping the children at bay. The father too is watching Lode and me, seeing how I pick the helmet up out of the snow, put my hand on Lode’s shoulder and gently help him up with the boy in his arms. He watches while I pat the snow off Lode’s back and sees Lode, still crying, wipe the blood from his son’s forehead and use his thumb and index finger to purse the boy’s half-open lips, as if he’s fished him out of the water and is about to save him by performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Then the boy half opens his eyes and Lode sighs deeply while hugging that skinny body closer to his own. He doesn’t want his helmet. Without saying a word or giving us a second glance, he walks on with the boy in his arms and his head held high and we follow him in silence, the Germans too, like after a family row that has suddenly cleared the drunken father’s boisterous head, struck him dumb and left him to quietly appraise the havoc he’s created. The two policemen on watch at the entrance to the old army bed depot, final destination of this wild walk, don’t speak either. They haven’t seen any of it, though they might have heard the shouting. They stand there pale and rigid at the sight of a helmetless Lode with a child in his arms, like an embodiment of the now probably almost forgotten Hollywood hero Errol Flynn, even forgetting to salute the Germans. Before being dragged inside with his family, the father carefully takes his son out of Lode’s arms, looks in my friend’s eyes and mutters something. And then they’re gone, swallowed up by the hollow darkness inside the building as if they’d never existed. We stay outside, Lode and I. It would be wisest for us to make ourselves scarce, but my mate doesn’t feel like it yet. He swallows, tidies his hair, takes his helmet back, and then calmly asks the sentries if they have any cigarettes on them. We smoke while the snow makes a half-hearted attempt to start falling again. One of the sentries, a cop in his thirties with a walrus moustache who’s known to everyone as Gus Skew because his eyes start turning in all directions once he’s had five stouts, says that the whole pack of them, everyone they’ve got locked up inside, is going on the train to Limburg tomorrow, Saint-Trond to be precise. Nobody asks what they’re going to do with them there. ‘And I have to go on the train with them,’ Gus Skew adds. ‘Fun and games. Anyway, there’s a bonus in it, so I’m not complaining.’ Lode sucks the smoke deep into his lungs and asks how much. ‘Forty-five francs,’ Gus replies. ‘Not bad,’ says Lode, flicking his butt into the snow.
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