by Annet Schaap
She’s right. There really is a ship coming, a big ship with dark sails and a flag with a skull and crossbones.
Look, says her mother. The Black Em is coming to fetch you.
The Black M… What is that? murmurs Lampie.
She can tell from the sound of her mother’s voice that she is smiling all over her face. The Black Em? she says. That’s me.
THE BLACK EM
To sail out in the middle of a storm – well, the storm has died down now, but the wind is still blowing in gusts – and to moor a wooden ship so close to a rock that a man can jump down onto it from the deck, and without knocking any holes in the bow – that calls for a very skilled sailor. But Augustus is rising to the challenge. He feels a little rusty, but he is quickly getting the hang of it again.
Lampie is scared half to death when two big boots suddenly land next to her head, when big hands grab her under the armpits, and big eyes look at her from a bearded face, as if he has been waiting for her all his life. Even though she has never seen him before.
“Cannons and cholera!” says Captain Buck. “You look so much like her.”
“Um… Like who?” Lampie asks.
“Like Em. Like your mother.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes.” Pirate Captain Buck gives her a grin, showing the gaps in his teeth. Then he swings her over his shoulder and climbs back on board. “You’ve got red hair instead of black, but otherwise I’d think she was all mine again.”
“I belong to myself,” mutters Lampie.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” says Captain Buck with a sigh.
He stands her on the deck, on her own two feet. A pirate in a dress wraps a blanket around her and plants a kiss on the top of her head.
“Julie!” says Lampie with a smile. “Are all of you here? The dwarf too, and Lester and…”
“No,” says Jules. “It’s just me.”
“And us! We’re here too!” More pirates come and stand around her. She recognizes faces and remembers names. Bill gives her some ointment for her scraped knees and Crow brings her some dry clothes, which are far too big. But all the time she keeps sneaking glances at the helm.
He was the first thing she spotted. And he has seen her too.
Sometimes, when you really, really want something for a very long time and then you finally get it, a sort of silence descends, a moment of stillness when no one knows what to do.
Lampie has imagined so often what she would say and – well, there he is. He is a bit balder than she remembers and has a lot more beard. And there is that leg of course and the way he is standing at the helm – that’s new too.
Buck takes the wheel from him, and Augustus walks over to her. They rest their hands side by side on the rail. The wind blows in their hair.
“There you are,” says her father after a while.
Lampie nods. Yes, here she is.
“I’ve thought about you so, so much,” Augustus mumbles. “All those days, every day. And…”
Yes. Lampie nods again. She has thought about him too. And yes, here they are.
“You know, you really do look like your mother.”
Lampie nods a third time. “Yes, everyone says that.”
Inside her head she hears her mother sigh. Come on. Out with it!
Out with what? What is she supposed to say?
Not you, says her mother. Him.
“This is our old ship,” Augustus says, taking in the whole boat in a sweeping gesture.
“Yes,” says Lampie. “It’s nice.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Very nice,” says Lampie, looking out across the sea. What could be better than sailing, than going wherever you want to go? And plundering, because that is what it will come down to. Sleeping in hammocks. Seeing foreign countries. Turning brown all over.
“I can teach you to tie knots. And to sail the ship, when your arms are a bit longer. Or, um… maybe you could cook for us?”
“Definitely not.” Lampie has absolutely no wish to do that.
“That’s a shame. We don’t have a cook, so we’ll have to get by on ship’s biscuits.”
“I might know someone,” says Lampie. “If she wants to do it. And if Lenny can come too. If he’s brave enough.” She thinks he will be. If Lampie is there too.
“Maybe. Your mother never cooked either.”
Yes, Lampie remembers that very well.
Her father looks at the horizon again, where the last remaining bit of the sun is sinking into the sea. “I, um…” he says, and then he clears his throat a few times. “I really, really miss her.”
“Me too,” says Lampie. “But sometimes she’s still here.”
“What do you mean?” Her father looks at her in surprise.
“I hear her talking inside my head.”
“Em? Seriously? So what’s she saying now?”
“That she wants you to get a move on.”
“Me? What with?”
Lampie shrugs. “I don’t exactly know.”
Augustus looks into the distance and thinks. Then he nods and looks at Lampie with that expression she knows so well. But he doesn’t say anything.
He’s sorry, thinks Lampie. But he can’t say so. Doesn’t matter.
And then a young merman leaps out of the water.
“Lampie, there you are! They found you! But I was the one who rescued you – did you know that?”
“Fish!” shouts Lampie. “Hey, Fish! Do you know what? I’m going to be a pirate. Just like my father!”
“Is that him?”
Lampie nods and looks a little proudly at the man with the wooden leg.
“Hello, sir,” says the young merman politely, leaping out of the water.
Augustus nods. “Hello. Yes. Hey, I’m sorry.”
“Um… What do you mean, sir?” asks Fish. Panting, because he is having to swim quickly to keep up.
“Not you. Her,” says Augustus. “I’m sorry.” He rests his hand on her cheek, where the blue has long since faded. “About everything. Really sorry.”
Lampie gives him a big grin. The water stretches out behind her father, in every direction. They can do anything, go anywhere.
“It’s fine, Daddy,” she says. And so it is.
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COPYRIGHT
Pushkin Press
71–75 Shelton Street
London WC2H 9JQ
Copyright text and illustrations © 2017 by Annet Schaap
Original title Lampje
First published in 2017 by Em. Querido’s Uitgeverij, Amsterdam
English translation © Laura Watkinson, 2019
Lampie and the Children of the Sea was first published as Lampje in Amsterdam, 2017
First published by Pushkin Press in 2019
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ISBN 13: 978–1–78269–219–5
This publication has been made possible with financial support from the Dutch Foundation for Literature
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Pushkin Press
The Bertolt Brecht quote in the epigraph is translated from ‘Seerauber-Jenny’ from Die Dreigroschenoper © Bertolt Brecht
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