by lize Spit
To avoid being seen, I park my car a few meters away in front of Laurens’s neighbors’ driveway—they’re probably away skiing, all the shutters are rolled down. From here I have a perfect view of the butcher shop door and the sign with the three pig heads on it. In addition to the time, the sign also tells the temperature outside: it’s exactly two degrees below freezing, sixteen minutes past two.
I’ve still got at least forty-five minutes to go.
I call Tessie. I let the phone ring. There’s not much she could be doing right now. Why doesn’t she pick up?
The phone rings three times. I hang up right before the fourth. I don’t want to leave a voicemail. Voicemails are always listened to at the wrong moment, after their content has already become irrelevant.
July 31, 2002
“THAT HOWLING IN the backyard is just a cat,” Dad reassures me when I come down the stairs an hour after bedtime to check on him and Mom.
“That kitty’s got a bunch of burrs stuck on his penis,” he says, forming sharp claws with his fist. “You’d be howling too.”
Back in my bed, I reassure Tessie that the shrill cries that’ve been echoing through the yard for the last forty-five minutes aren’t coming from Mom.
“Cats have to defend their territory,” she says.
“Yeah,” I say.
It’s two minutes after eleven. I’m almost used to Laurens being in France. Maybe that’s because I know he’s coming home tonight.
As usual, Tessie starts bidding everyone and everything goodnight. The wardrobe, the children in the third world, objects in the room, the teachers she likes, Nancy Soap, Agnes from the Corner Store, Nanook, the nearest stars and planets, her rabbit, Stamper. The whole thing takes about a minute and a half. She ends with God and me. It’s been like this for almost two years now, every night, without exception. She recites the prayers as if she were playing “I’m-going-on-a-trip-and-I’m-going-to-pack . . .” In the past, she would tag new names onto the end of the list, but now the goodbye has taken on a definitive form.
I look at my clock radio. It doesn’t tick away the time but adds every passing minute to the rest, as if it’s still owed to us.
“. . . goodnight, God, goodnight, Eva,” Tessie finally says at four after eleven.
Now it’s my turn. I have to wait exactly two seconds before I can start.
“You have to count two CROC-A-DILE,” Tessie told me once. “It takes exactly two seconds to say ‘crocodile’.”
After the crocodiles, I have to end the ritual by replying on behalf of everything and everyone with “goodnight, Tes”, and then I can only hope that no plane flies overhead, no car honks, no dog barks, no cat meows, or that I don’t accidentally say “Tessie” or “Sis” instead of “Tes”, because that would lead to a sigh of irritation, and she’d have to start all over again from scratch, wishing everything goodnight again in exactly the same order.
One CROC-A-DILE. Two CROC-A-DILE.
“Sweet dreams, Tes.”
For a moment, all is quiet, both in the bedroom and out in the yard.
Did Dad ever show Tessie his noose? Did he ever try to talk her out of life like he did to me?
The crying starts again, shriller this time. It’s coming from the back of the garden. Of course, Tessie hears it too. The whites of her eyes shine in the dim light. One of her hands emerges from under the sheet squeezing a juggling ball with calculated rhythm: thirty squeezes, two-second pause. I wait for her to start the goodnight ritual again, but a few minutes later, at fourteen past eleven, I hear the little bean-bag plunk to the floor. It lands on the vinyl-covered parquet. This is exactly what the juggling balls are for. It’s a trick I invented at the start of the winter—when she was already having trouble sleeping.
It’s simple: you think of something in the back of your mind, a relatively unimportant task that’s even more tedious than falling asleep itself, like holding that little ball, for example. Then, you let your wrist dangle just over the edge of the bed and close your eyes. Slowly the sleep will begin to creep into the task, until somewhere far away, between sleep and memories, the thought of holding on slips away, your muscles slacken and the ball falls to the ground. The task becomes a duty, sleeping becomes a right. A body lying flat is more inclined to choose what’s allowed over what’s required.
At first, Tessie took to it easily; the sound of the stress ball plopping to the ground came shortly after her final goodnight. To me, the sound was like a starting gun for my alone time.
Lately, however, she’s been kneading the ball more furiously, more rhythmically, as if she were giving it a heart massage. It’s taking longer and longer for her to let go. When the thud finally does come, all I feel is relief—we’re done. I can sneeze, cough and move again without having to worry about the consequences.
It’s a warm evening. I lay my own ball down beside me. The sheet sticks to my lower legs, my arms, making my skin feel heavy. I yank the blanket down to my waist and pull up my knees like a frog preparing to jump. Then I let them fall open to either side until they’re resting on the cool mattress, peeking out under the blanket. It must be a ridiculous sight for whoever is looking down at me from above now—the sheet wrapped around my waist like a diaper.
Under my pillow, jabbing into my shoulder, is a colored pencil. It’s there because I told a lie to Elisa, and now the lie has to be undone. I have to do it before Laurens and Pim get back. The longer I wait, the more obvious it will be that I’m still a virgin.
Normally I keep my pencils in a metal box with multiple shades of each color and Bruynzeel printed on the top in gold letters.
Last Thursday, the day after I came home from Lille Mountain, I took the box out of my backpack. I carried it up to my room as inconspicuously as possible, though there was really no reason to sneak around. Nobody was even looking and even if they were, they wouldn’t have thought anything of it. I drew at my desk in my bedroom all the time.
It wasn’t until yesterday that I finally decided which color to use: the reddest shade of brown—no one at school will ever ask to borrow that one because it’s so ugly. Which is the same reason why it still has its original, factory-sharpened tip.
I pull out the pencil from under my pillow, cover the sharp point with the palm of my hand, and move the blunt end down my navel, under the crumpled sheet, to the inside of my thighs.
There’s a noise downstairs, probably Dad.
I freeze. He’s headed out to the yard to holler for Mom. She shouts back. The low-pitched tones seem to come from outside, through the open window. The high-pitched tones come from inside, through the bedroom door. The voices cross exactly in this room.
I wait with the pencil against my thigh. I don’t want to look back and feel like one of my parents was in the room.
Tessie is sleeping soundly enough. The headlights of passing cars scan the entire room, over her spiky hair, the calendar photo on the wall. Then, all is dark and quiet again.
I push the blunt end of the pencil inside.
Red-brown. Somehow it feels less wrong than yellow or green.
I don’t think about any boys. Instead I imagine I’m some other girl, that my vagina isn’t mine. This is important. As long as this isn’t my body, the shame doesn’t have to be mine.
Slowly I push the pencil in deeper, exactly the way Mr. Rudy moved the chalk across the clam drawing on the board while the class named the parts he was pointing at. Labia majora. Labia minora. After a couple of centimeters, the pencil won’t go any further. As I push harder, the pain spreads. The tip of the pencil is jabbing into my palm. Maybe this is the hymen. This is where I have to apply force.
I turn the pencil around and point the tip inward. Then I thrust my palm against the top end. The path is cleared. The pencil shoots in deep. Slowly, the pain fades.
It’s done. I’ve no longer told a lie. I could stop here.
Instead, I push the pencil in even further, just to see how deep it will go. It’s too thin, I hardl
y feel anything, only the prick of the pointy tip.
A pencil floating in an open cavity, is that all this is? I want it to fill me up, for it to just barely fit, for it to have to wriggle its way in. I jerk around a bit, but I still don’t feel much of anything.
It’s not for nothing that dicks are big and blunt. How thick is the average penis? About six or seven colored pencils, I guess.
I pull the pencil out from between my legs. The wood is as warm as it is after coloring in an entire sheet of paper. It doesn’t smell like anything; there’s no blood on it. I wipe it dry on my blanket and tuck it back under my pillow. I lean out of bed and try to grab the pen pouch on my desk. Just as I’ve got the corner between my fingers—the little juggling ball beside my pillow falls to the floor with a loud thud.
I stay as quiet as I can. Tessie rustles under her blanket and turns over so we’re face-to-face.
“Tessie?” I ask.
Her eyes flutter but she doesn’t hear me. She turns around and falls back asleep.
I decide to finish what I started. I empty the pouch’s contents onto the mattress.
Inside is a glue stick; it’s round and smooth. It glides in easily but is still thinner than the fingers Jan used to nudge me along underwater at the Pit. The ruler fits in beside it. I’m able to push it in deeper until it hits the top of my uterus. I move fast and hard. For a second, I imagine I’m Elisa, that I have a long ponytail swinging back and forth, that I’m riding on the back of a galloping horse, but I like thinking about Jan better.
I make figure eights, press my crotch into my hand. There’s enough room for a finger in there too.
The poking starts to make a soft, squelching sound. I wipe off my fingers on the blanket.
Suddenly Tessie sits up in her bed.
She looks at me strangely. I stop wriggling, pull the blanket up and push my legs together.
“What’s the matter?” My voice sounds startled.
“I have to pee,” she says.
I lie there motionless. Tessie crawls out of bed and into the hallway. The light from the landing shines into the room and reminds me of what a small, clumsy, ugly person I am.
I have a uterus covered in red pencil marks. And there’s no way to erase them.
Tessie is gone longer than it takes to pee, which means she’s typing on the keyboard again. She shuffles back down the hall, turns off the light, climbs into bed and checks that her blanket is hanging down evenly on both sides.
Then, she starts saying her goodnights.
I still don’t dare to move. I have to throw away the red-brown pencil tomorrow, along with the glue stick and the ruler. I can’t take them back to school after the summer.
Tessie would be angry if she found out what I did with the school supplies. She would find the thought of it unbearable: a pencil separated from its family forever, me creating a hole in my beautiful Bruynzeel collection purely for my own pleasure.
I look at my clock. Two after twelve. It’s Wednesday. Maybe Laurens is asleep in the back seat while his parents drive home. Maybe they’ll stop at a roadside cafe at the crack of dawn for fresh baked croissants.
One CROC-A-DILE. Two CROC-A-DILE.
“Goodnight, Tessie.” I can tell by the sound of my own voice how nauseous I am.
“Not funny, Eva!”
“What?”
“You said Tess-ie.”
The muscles in my lower abdomen tighten. I don’t know if my vagina is shrinking or the wet ruler is swelling.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
Tessie immediately starts saying her goodnights all over again, in a tone more nagging than before. It no longer sounds like a routine, more like a reproach.
At six past twelve Tessie says her final goodnights, to God and to me. I count two crocodiles, and make sure to do everything right this time.
I turn my head as far away from my body as possible, with my cheek against the soft mattress. The sheet smells like sweat.
Only after I’m sure that Tessie’s asleep do I dare to remove the glue stick and ruler from between my legs. It hurts, like a hair-tie that’s been tight around your wrist all day.
I hide the school supplies under my pillow.
I lie awake for hours and feel myself losing something. I’m no longer compatible with the image Tessie has of me. I’m an even bigger liar than I was before. I definitely don’t deserve to be last on a goodnight list.
Confirmed
IN SIXTH GRADE, we had to make our Solemn Communion. It wasn’t really any more solemn than the First Communion, but it was an extra opportunity to collect money—not for a starter bike like the first time around, but for a larger model to take to high school.
Our town was full of moms who jumped at any opportunity to do crafts in the parish hall. Some joined the parish voluntarily just so they could help with the confirmation preparations. Every other Tuesday, me, Laurens and Pim would go make pottery with them, paint our names, nail together little wooden crosses, pour candles—square or round. It didn’t matter, as long as the whole time we kept in mind “what it means to be confirmed”.
The last two months we shifted into high gear, practiced our posture, worked on the texts we’d have to read aloud. We were reminded of the proper wafer-receiving etiquette—which hand goes over which, which one should be used to make the sign of the cross, not to say “thank you” but “amen”.
To avoid taking any time away from the fifth-graders, whose class we’d been tagged onto that year, we mostly rehearsed during lunch. Odette, a lady from town who was particularly involved in the church and had an extremely high voice, came in to teach us the songs. Once a week during recess, we met with her in the gym, where we had a panoramic view of the playground and the adjacent football field.
“Until seventy times seven, I shall forgive thee, until seventy times seven, the Lord hath forgiven me.” We sang it as fast as we could, hoping we’d still be able to catch the few last minutes of recess.
“You know, four hundred and ninety chances might sound like a lot, but you’ll run through them quicker than you’d think,” said Pim. For the rest of the school year, he’d bring it up every time somebody missed a goal.
Since we were incapable of harmonizing, we were allowed to pick an instrument from the box of musical objects. Me and Laurens got two coconut halves, Pim claimed a toilet-paper roll filled with rice and Odette took the triangle.
“All eyes will be on you,” Principal Beatrice said. “So don’t strut to the altar like you’re walking down a catwalk. When you get the wafer, swallow it immediately. It’s the body of Christ. It’s not a toy.” She came by to check on our dress rehearsal when she heard all the coconut clapping—she said it sounded like a stampede of wild horses. She was wearing tiger print, as usual. I think it made her feel like she had a secure position in the pecking order.
Despite all the preparations, the church was far from full on Solemn Communion day. Though they did spread out our three families across the empty chairs.
I wore a dress that Mom made from the fabric we picked out together. In the fabric shop, surrounded by rolls of colorful prints and corduroy, she insisted I wear something girly. I felt naked the whole day because at any moment the skirt could be blown up by the wind.
Because of the church’s size, the gigantic crucifix and the oak confessionals, our coconuts sounded less like a herd of horses and more like two nervous, newborn calves. No matter how hard we clapped and shook, the sounds of our instruments were negligible, and we remained invisible. Until the top of Pim’s toilet-paper roll flew off from all the heavy shaking, flinging rice all over the confessionals.
In an attempt to save the ceremony, Odette raised her voice so high that it gave me an uneasy feeling, like watching the ballet girls showing off their splits on the playground.
The Mass was over sooner than planned.
Out in the parking lot, a photographer was there to take pictures of each family. I wante
d us to be the first ones out, so the others wouldn’t see my family being photographed, but first initials didn’t count, and my surname came last in the alphabet, so I had to pose in my skirt with everybody watching. The photographer tried to make sure that Jolan, Mom, Dad, Tessie and me all looked good in the photo.
“Okay, look happy everybody!” he said at least three times. Just before the flash went off, I saw Laurens covering his mouth behind the principal’s back to show Pim “the travesty in his mouth”—he hadn’t swallowed his wafer.
That’s when I knew it for sure—Laurens would never be confirmed.
According to Jolan, people were more inclined to give money when they knew what it was for—that way it’s not a gift, it’s an investment. So I made a big piggy bank out of an old shoebox and stuck a cut-out picture of a black ladies’ bicycle on the top.
I shoved all the envelopes and cards I collected during the party into my collection box without opening them—all except one. When I walked out of the church, Laurens’s mom handed me an envelope. I put it in my closet when I got home without checking how much money was in it. I didn’t want to know exactly how much I meant to her. I wanted to treasure it, but I also wanted to hide it out of shame—my parents hadn’t given anything to Laurens.
The next day I opened the other cards in the shoebox at the kitchen table and counted the money. It was a lot—hard to believe it was only enough for one bike.
There used to be a bike shop in Bovenmeer, next to the gas station with one pump. Both the shop and the station went out of business. Maybe the owner got rich on all those Solemn Communions. He moved to Nedermeer to open a shop with a showroom there.
Following his advice, I chose the bike with the softest saddle—22,000 francs.
“You’re not just buying a bike, you’re buying a Gazelle,” the owner said as he counted my stack of bills a second time.
