‘Childish,’ said Muulke.
‘Last week you didn’t think it was childish.’
Muulke poked out her tongue. ‘I’m eleven.’
‘Nowhere near yet,’ I said.
‘Nearly.’
‘You’re not.’
‘Am so.’
‘Muulke, stop squabbling,’ said Oma Mei without looking up from her knitting. It was too warm for the time of year. The sky was cloudy, the air warm and as thick as porridge.
For the first time in a long while, the Crocodile was opened again that night in the garden.
This time it was a story about the Mam with the heart as soft as a rag doll when she was a child. It took place on the feast day of Saint Rosa, the patron saint of the town.
Oma Mei had been ill. Fortunately, she had set up the little house altar outside their porch the day before so that, during the procession, the bishop would be able to bless it. But then the coalman’s horse had bolted, cart and all. (There were whispers that Saint Rosa was angry because the coalman had been working as if it was any old day.) The cart had tipped over, and all the coal and sjlamm had blocked the road past their house. None of the clergy wanted to get their vestments dirty, so they chose a different route.
When the Mam got wind of that, she didn’t waste time thinking. She stuffed the candles, the candlesticks, the plaster statue of the Virgin, the rosary and the tablecloth into her basket and hoisted the heavy little oak table onto her back. She climbed over the coal and sjlamm, pushed her way through the crowd and found a spot.
‘And so we still got the blessing,’ said Oma Mei. ‘And because the Mam was on her knees behind the altar, nobody could see that her white dress and shoes were pitch-black.’
We stared at the tiny, curled-up photo. It showed a lot of girls, all dressed in white. They had coronets of white roses on their heads. One of them was the Mam. She was standing at the back. Our grandmother pointed her out, but the face was so small it could have been anyone.
‘Is Mr Wetsels burning stuff?’ Oma Mei asked suddenly.
We sniffed the air. Something was burning. And now that we were silent, we couldn’t just smell it, we could hear a soft crackling and then, suddenly, a loud, sharp crack and the clinking of glass.
‘It’s coming from the cemetery,’ said Eet, who was running in the direction of the sound.
In a fright, I looked at Jess and Muulke.
By the gate, Eet turned towards us.
‘The hedge!’ he shouted.
Oma Mei was the most level-headed. She shouted that we should get the pram. She loaded it with tubs and buckets. Muulke was sent to fetch blankets. Then we raced to the opening in the hedge.
If the wind had been in the wrong direction, we would never have been able to get to the pump. As it was, the way through was still open, although full of smoke. As fast as we could, we pushed and pulled the pram through the hedge and ran to the pump.
The crackling became a roar. Already, the flames were rising high, which was strange because it was living wood, which shouldn’t burn so quickly. Piet said later that it was probably because of all the straw at the bottom of the hedge.
The Dad was pumping, and our brothers filled vases they’d grabbed from the gravestones. ‘Here!’ they shouted to us. ‘Here!’
Muulke, Oma Mei, Jess and I stood furthest away from the fire, but even from there, it was a terrifying sight. It was an all-devouring, all-destroying light. You couldn’t look through it. The glare of the flames was reflected in the sweat-covered faces of our brothers.
After what seemed like an eternity of pumping and putting out flames, just when I thought I’d had it, when my hands and arms had gone numb, when I thought the fire was going to win, it started to lose ground, bit by bit, until finally all that was left was a long, smouldering stretch of charred hedge.
Our brothers and the Dad slapped each other on the shoulders. Eet and Piet rehashed the whole fire eagerly: what if the wind had been like this, or like that, or what if we’d had only two buckets and one vase . . .
There was a sound of sobbing.
‘Jess, please,’ said Oma Mei, sounding annoyed.
The sobbing became louder.
‘It isn’t as bad as all that,’ said Oma Mei.
‘But I’m not doing anything,’ Jess objected.
We turned around.
Muulke, with her sooty hands covering her face, was crying as if she was trying to personally put out all the fires of hell with her tears. She stood near the hedge. The branches were like charred skeletons. And through the openings created by the fire, Oompah Hatsi’s old home was now clearly visible – or at least what was left of it: the chair with its cut-off legs, the rug, both scorched black; a couple of branches tied together, missed by the fire; a heap of soot-covered thick shards from the conserve jars. And more shards. Bright-blue shards.
We found him in the middle of Sjlammbams Sahara, his legs stretched out. His clothes were steaming, his short, coppery-grey hair singed, the stump of a better-luck-next-time cigar in his mouth. His eyebrows were missing; maybe that’s why he had such a surprised look on his face. He was holding the fox fur in his hands. It was completely scorched – the eyes had melted, and only its teeth were recognisable.
‘Miljaar!’ Piet, Eet, Sjeer and Krit said all together.
Everyone was staring at Oompah Hatsi, the smouldering button-chewer, who stared back like an overgrown baby. Off his head from the cherries in brandy from Fie’s parents’ blue conserve jar. The conserve jar Muulke had nicked, hoping for a bit of tragical tragedy.
a long road
‘It’s no story for children,’ said Oma Mei. ‘That’s for sure.’
We were sitting round the kitchen table. Our hair and our clothes still reeked of smoke. We were covered in soot and ash. The kerosene lamp drew a tight circle of light around us, dividing each of us into two halves, one dark and one light.
In the silence that followed, we could hear the deep snoring that came through the gap in the living room door.
Staggering, supported on one side by the Dad, and Sjeer and Piet on the other, the button-chewer had come into Nine Open Arms.
‘Has he burned his legs?’ Muulke asked. ‘Is that the problem?’
She had fluttered about him until Oma Mei pushed her away. ‘He’s just blind drunk,’ she said curtly.
That wasn’t entirely true, because when she went in to take care of him, it had involved bandages, scissors and vaseline. Oma Mei had resolutely shut the connecting door. As far as that was possible with a door that wouldn’t quite shut.
‘He must be terribly burnt,’ said Muulke, her eyes glittering. ‘Next thing you know, an arm or a leg will fall off, just like that. Boom!’
Jess, her hands over her ears again, was loudly shouting for the Dad to make Muulke stop it, but he was still blinking his eyes from the surprise.
‘What’s that button-chewer doing here?’ he asked.
I could see the usual fanciful answer forming on Muulke’s lips.
‘Spare me your tragedies,’ I yelled.
‘It’s no story for children,’ Oma Mei said again while she put away the first-aid box and Oompah snored on next door.
‘I’m nearly eleven,’ Muulke said right away.
‘Chairs on four legs, please.’
Muulke straightened up her chair.
Oma Mei sent Jess upstairs, but strangely enough she said nothing to Muulke and me. Her hands were still shiny with vaseline when she pushed her chair back and sat down.
‘Did you know Oompah was here?’ the Dad asked her.
‘I suspected it,’ said Oma Mei.
‘Then why didn’t you say anything?’
‘And let that poor man be picked up by the police?’
‘He’s stolen things.’
‘Reject cigars!’ Oma Mei jeered.
We heard Oompah let out a plaintive sigh. For a while, Oma Mei said nothing more. Nobody else dared speak.
‘Reject cigar
s,’ she said again, but softly this time. ‘The poor devil. Who knows what could have happened.’
‘It would have been his own fault,’ said the Dad, still a bit angry. ‘He shouldn’t have got pickled. I can’t bear thinking of what could have happened.’
‘Nothing has happened,’ Oma Mei said. ‘And you don’t really know what’s what. Nobody drinks without a reason.’
So much understanding was strange coming from our grandmother’s mouth.
‘And why is he no longer in the madhouse?’ Eet wanted to know.
‘Maybe they let him go,’ said Oma Mei. ‘Or he ran away. No idea.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ the Dad repeated.
There was a brief silence.
‘It’s no story for children,’ our grandmother said for the third time. That’s for sure.’ She looked at us.
‘They’re awake now,’ said the Dad. ‘And if we send them upstairs, they’ll listen secretly anyway.’
We were surprised: we’d never known that the Dad knew. Anyway, Oma Mei didn’t know, we could see that in her face.
She said nothing for a while. She did look from me to Muulke and back, though. I could see she had made a decision.
‘You will have to grow up sometime.’
I looked at Muulke, who was sitting bolt upright, a perfect picture of good behaviour. She hardly dared breathe, clearly afraid Oma Mei would change her mind. A scorched twig was still stuck in her hair.
‘Been there for a long time,’ said Oma Mei.
‘Who?’ asked Sjeer.
‘Oompah, of course,’ said Muulke.
Oma Mei was silent. She stared out through the kitchen window. We followed her gaze. The sandy road glowed in the early moonlight.
‘I think she’s talking about Sjlammbams Sahara,’ I said.
Oma Mei nodded. ‘It was here already when the Mam was still little. It was here already when I was a child. It was here already long before I was born.’
She tilted her head. As if she was listening to something still far away.
‘Ask me,’ she said.
Part
Two
Nienevee from
Outside the Walls
ask if she was welcome
From Germany, a small group of travellers came along Sjlammbams Sahara. It was the end of August, 1863, and it had been raining for four days nonstop. In parts, the road was like a small creek. Clumps of grass and ears of corn floated everywhere.
First came a cart, pulled by five dogs. This was followed by a carthorse pulling a caravan; then came three more heavily loaded small wooden carts. The travellers turned into a field just outside the town.
It wasn’t long before the townspeople found out.
The townspeople disliked travellers. It had always been like that.
‘They need to know who’s boss,’ they said. ‘They need to know people can’t simply settle down anywhere just because they feel like it.’
The biggest loudmouths gathered their courage at Nol’s bar on the corner. ‘Just in case’, they took four table legs from Lame Krit the furniture-maker’s workshop. They arrived at the field, their feet sodden. The travellers were having a meal.
There were five of them: two men, one with a beard, one with a moustache, a woman with a boxer’s nose, and a boy who sat on a box next to a girl. The man with the moustache wiped his mouth with the cloth on his knees.The woman brought out wine. Seven glasses were put down and the wine was poured.
‘We would love to share a drink with you,’ the man told the townspeople. ‘But on our last trip we lost a few of our glasses. And guests come first.’
The townspeople clenched their jaws. They said once more that people couldn’t simply settle down anywhere just because they felt like it.
‘Making a nuisance of themselves?’ asked the man.
‘That would really be the end,’ said the townspeople. ‘And it would be better if everyone observed the customs. Know what we mean?’
The man with the moustache nodded. The townspeople went home satisfied. Having refused a glass of wine had given them a thirst, so they had a few more at Nol’s.
‘They just need to know their place,’ they said to whoever cared to listen. ‘Then there won’t be any trouble.’
The following day, they discovered that the travellers were still there.
Again, they picked up the table legs, and again they walked down Sjlammbams Sahara.
Since the arrival of the travellers, there had been no more rain, but the road was still very slippery and soggy. It was Sunday. Morning mass was over and afternoon benediction was still to come, so the men were still in their Sunday suits. Before they’d gone any distance at all, their trouser legs and shoes were filthy. Maybe that’s why things came to a head.
After only three sentences were spoken, the first threats were uttered. Then the travellers brought out their dogs.
‘Hellhounds,’ the loudest mouths shouted when they were back at Nol’s. ‘With jaws like bear traps. What can you do against that? We have our children to think of. Nothing to do with cowardice.’
That evening after half-a-dozen beers, Lame Krit, furniture-maker and loudest mouth, decided he knew how to make the intruders change their tune. One by one, he pressed grains of rat poison into a sausage, which he gave to his son, Charley.
Charley. Just turned twelve and Lame Krit’s only surviving child. Three older sons and Lame’s wife had perished in the great town fire of 1861, which had been caused by a lightning strike. The furniture workshop had completely burned down. The town council paid for a new workshop. People contributed household goods, food and even furniture, because nothing had survived. The fire had given Lame Krit his nickname: he had been crippled when he was hit by a falling rafter while trying to rescue his wife from the burning house. It had also turned him into a bitter man. Three strong, healthy sons had perished and the only one left was little Charley, an afterthought, with hands as slight as a dressmaker’s.
Charley needed to grow up fast and become a man, and Lame Krit knew how to make this happen.
‘Make sure not a single one of those travellers’ dogs will ever bark again,’ he said to his son.
It turned into a disaster.
Charley had not even reached Putse Gate with its guards when he was overtaken by Dimdog. Dimdog was meant to be their watchdog, but she wasn’t fierce enough. Lame wanted to drown her, but Charley had managed to prevent that. Dimdog was a small bitch with a constantly slobbering mouth and dark, dumb eyes. Most of the time she was locked into the coal shed at the workshop, her short snout poking through the hole in the door. As soon as she got half a chance, though, she’d escape.
Dimdog was mad about Charley. And even madder about sausage.
Charley tried to make her go back, but he wasn’t too upset when she wouldn’t. He didn’t like Sjlammbams Sahara in the dark; he had heard too many stories about it that ended badly. And he knew that so long as he kept the poisoned sausage under his coat, Dimdog was in no danger.
‘The gate will be locked at eleven, Charley Bottletop,’ said the guards. ‘After that, you can only look from outside at us sleeping inside.’
It was a strange night, that night Charley Bottletop and Dimdog set out to poison the travellers’ dogs. There must have been wind up in the sky, because large clumps of cloud drifted across it. But down there, at the start of Sjlammbams Sahara, there was hardly a breath of air. It was so still you could hear the foxes yipping in the cornfield.
Charley kept clutching the sausage to his chest, holding the chair leg in his other hand. First they passed the cornfield, then the field of beets, until finally they came to the spot where earthen banks hid the road and led downwards. On the left embankment stood a blackened oak tree; on the right grew dense blackberry bushes.
Dimdog stopped.
‘Come on,’ said Charley. But she stayed where she was, even when Charley slithered further along the muddy path. He pulled out the sausage. Dimdog may
not have seen it, but she could certainly smell it. Wagging her whole body, she came towards Charley again.
At the last bend, he stopped. From here, he could see the field where the travellers were camping. He saw a burning lantern, dangling from a stick attached to the caravan. White underpants hung on a washing line. He couldn’t see the dogs. Apart from the horse, tied onto a linden tree further along, there was no sign of life.
‘They’ll be lying under the caravan,’ Lame Krit had told him. ‘Be careful not to walk downwind.’
Charley wet his finger, but he couldn’t feel the direction of the wind.
He used his trouser belt to tie Dimdog to a tree. She protested softly.
‘Shush, Dimdog, shush!’
He went as close as he dared to the field. He still couldn’t see the dogs, but sensed they were there. Even though he was small, he had to walk bent over to make sure he wouldn’t be seen. Crawling wasn’t possible, the ground was too soggy. It was hard, slow going with the chair leg in one hand, the sausage in the other. Now that he no longer had a belt on, his pants sagged down on his hips.
‘When I grow up, I’m going to be just as tall as Tei,’ Charley had said to his father. It was not long after the fire, and he’d wanted to comfort him. Tei had been his oldest brother.
Lame Krit had hit him, giving him a blood nose. ‘Trees will learn to walk before then, Bottletop.’
Charley hadn’t objected when Lame gave him the sausage. Not only because it was not a good idea to refuse him anything, but because Charley himself wanted to grow up as fast as possible. The sooner you grew up, the sooner you could pack your bags. That was why he had just nodded.
He felt the sweat prickling on his back while he forced himself to move closer. Step by step. Improving his chances of aiming the sausage at the right spot. He was approaching by way of the linden tree. The horse barely moved its ears, it was so deeply asleep. When Charley reached the tree, he stopped. From here it was no more than a dozen paces to the caravan. And still he couldn’t see the dogs, only the pitch-black space between the caravan and the grass.
Nine Open Arms Page 10
