Tench

by Inge Schilperoord

  Yes, he was making progress, he thought, glowing with pride. Maybe it was just a question of submitting. Trusting in science, and putting his fate in the hands of psychology. Then everything would get better.

  There was no one around the square in the middle of the demolished neighbourhood. He sat down on a bench. He had taken the coarse-toothed comb with him and was combing Milk when the girl appeared out of nowhere and came up next to him. Although he’d been expecting her, he felt that blow on his neck again, his muscles stiffening and contracting. He saw her lips moving before her words got through to him.

  “Hey, can I do that?”

  He braced himself. It had been four days since he’d seen the strange girl with the sandy ponytail up close. All the times he’d wanted to go looking for her outside, he’d managed to divert his thoughts. He’d got a grip on himself, bent over his workbook and instructed himself about how later, when he saw her, he would keep everything under control. And now he was already holding out a hand to pass her the comb. That wasn’t the agreement, Jonathan, he told himself, pulling his hand back. I don’t have to do everything she asks. Set your own limits, the psychologist had explained, that’s important. Then things won’t boil over so quickly. That was literally what he’d said, boil over, as if his head was a saucepan of milk. I set my own limits, he repeated, silently mouthing the words. “No.” He bent forward and drew the comb through the dog’s coat. Looking sideways at her.

  “Fine.” She blew away the stray lock of hair, which immediately fell back down over her forehead. She shrugged, sat next to him on the bench, made a move as if she was going to slide over towards him, then changed her mind and slid down onto the ground.

  Now he was looking down at her. There was a small mole like a pencil dot on her right ear lobe. She was wearing the top he’d seen her in a few days ago, the one with the flower, but had got a dirty mark on the shoulder in the meantime. Her towelling shorts were tight around her bottom: they must pinch in the crotch, he thought, but was already averting his eyes. She had a book with her and began to read. He could see out of the corner of his eye that she was muttering silently and she kept raising her index finger to her mouth to moisten the tip and turn the page.

  Her not saying anything delivered him up to his own thoughts. And in that moment he felt that tension again, the seed of fury. What was he doing? Why shouldn’t he let the girl comb Milk for a while? Wasn’t that actually part of a normal interaction with children? In the meantime, the dog had lain down, stretched out towards the girl and rested his sluggish head on her thigh, eyes half closed and luxuriating in the attention. She was saying something to him, but softly, and Jonathan couldn’t make out what it was. Her whispering disappeared in Milk’s coat.

  “Here, you do the rest,” he said, giving her the comb.

  “OK.” She hardly looked at him, getting up on her knees and edging round a little so she could bend over the dog and slowly pull the teeth of the comb through his hair. He could hear her breathing.

  He managed to read the title of her book: What Do You Know about Animals?

  She followed his gaze and looked up proudly. “Dad gave it to me.” She sniffed, studying him for a moment through her hair. “I looked up that fish of yours. Tench,” she giggled. “But I don’t think it’s in it.”

  “You don’t see them here often.”

  “Do they need to be protected?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Cause I’m starting a club to protect animals.”

  “A club?” He gave her an awkward smile.

  “Yeah, a club. But I have to hurry up,” she said, “because we’re leaving soon. Thank God.” She looked around and sniffed. “There’s nothing to do here, no kids at all. It is sooooo boring. A real shithole.”

  He looked down at her, so close by. He noticed that he found it difficult when she talked like that, like recently about her mother in the bar. That coarseness didn’t suit her. She turned back towards him and puckered her forehead into a frown while looking at him. It was like her face grew softer and more beautiful every time he saw her. In the weak, grey light she looked even younger, even more innocent. He chewed on the inside of his cheek.

  Don’t look at me like that, he thought. Just don’t. And to himself: Don’t think so much. Don’t get hung up on your thoughts. “Thoughts come and go like waves in a river,” it said in the workbook, everything passes.

  “I’m not allowed to say where we’re going,” she said. “Or when. Nobody’s allowed to know where we live, except me and Mum, of course. And Milk and your mother. You’re not allowed to tell anyone either!”

  I never talk to anyone was on the tip of his tongue. Nobody knows me. But he rubbed the knuckle of his left thumb with his right and hoped it would calm him. She was looking straight at him. He saw an expression he couldn’t place. Often it was better not to say anything. Words never solved anything.

  “Dad’s definitely not allowed to know.”

  “What?”

  “Where we live. That’s what Mum says. Now you’re going to ask where Dad is, of course. But I’m not going to say that either.” She shook her head and the lock of hair fell to one side of her face.

  She’d said her piece. Now and then she whispered something to the dog, and when she did, he felt that she was looking at him. He thought about all the things she’d just said and felt an overwhelming desire to leave it at that—he already knew too much. He had enough on his plate with himself.

  Suddenly he wanted to be gone; he was already half standing, but then he sat down again. He knew that if he left now, he’d regret it and want to come back again. Still, he made another attempt, rising again and gently gripping Milk by the scruff of his neck. “Come on, boy, it’s getting late.”

  She started to protest. “Hey, I haven’t finished combing him yet!”

  “That’s more than enough.”

  “You’re mean. He’ll get hot like this. It’s sad.”

  Sad. He thought of the word that came up in the workbook so often: empathy. He wasn’t insensitive, far from it; if anyone was caring towards others, it was him. But he still couldn’t see why she thought it was sad. How were you supposed to know what others were thinking or feeling anyway? The dog looked happy enough to him. “It’s not that bad.”

  The furrows in her forehead grew deeper. Her nose puckered. He could see her nostrils quivering. Did she really care that much about the dog? She’d wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him onto her lap as best she could. Milk didn’t put up any resistance. With her he was completely docile. He looked at the dog, sprawled out on the ground and breathing heavily. “All right then, just a bit more.”

  She turned away again and he stretched his back, looking at the houses that lined the cleared area. Empty windows, he thought. Blind eyes.

  The vertebrae in her neck, the curves of her ears, everything, it was all coming much too close, but he stayed sitting. I have to practise, he thought. Maybe that was best. Look, he thought, without knowing who he was addressing, look at how I’m sitting here. He thought back on that river and letting it flow. Look at her and let time pass.

  “But he’s sorry now,” he heard the girl say after a while. Her voice sounded different and he asked, “What?”

  “He said so himself.”

  “Who?”

  “Dad. For leaving. He calls me sometimes. He’s sad.”

  She was now bent completely over the dog, her cheek pressed against his coat. It made her look terribly sweet. He tried to concentrate on something else and forced himself to look at all the things that weren’t right about her, all the things that weren’t beautiful. The sun lit up the grimy fabric of her top; he could count her vertebrae through it. He thought of the slight smell of sweat he’d just caught.

  The dog gave a deep growl of satisfaction and rolled onto his side. With long, careful strokes she pulled the comb through Milk’s hair, pressing down on his back with her free hand. Jonathan stared at her rough,
chewed nails. Tufts of hair came loose and drifted over the tiles as if they were lost and looking for a hiding place.

  “Mum says they’re a pain in the arse,” she said. “All of them. The lady from child welfare’s the worst. I think so too.”

  He heard her voice on the edge of his thoughts, but closed himself off from it. Maybe there wasn’t that much to be afraid of after all. What could happen out here anyway? And the girl was smart and strong, he could see that. Her eyes were clear and when she turned towards him she met his gaze straight on. But her smile was insipid, not joyful. That had to change. He wanted her to feel safe. It was worrying. In the meantime, she changed the subject.

  “Can I come and look at the fish sometime?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Some other time.”

  “Is it still sick? Are you looking after it properly?”

  All these questions! He told her that of course he was looking after it properly, thinking at the same time that it was pathetic that he apparently felt the need to defend himself. “Yes, it already weighs 1.4 kilograms. At first it only weighed one and a quarter,” he said firmly.

  “It had been bitten, right?”

  “It’s getting stronger every day.”

  She looked relieved. A very slight breeze had come up. It passed over the skin of his arms and made his hairs stand on end. He smoothed them down again.

  “I really hate it,” she said, “when animals suffer. I’m glad you’re not cruel to animals. I don’t like people who are cruel to animals.” Her hands moved slowly over her throat and started picking at the material of her top.

  “I knew someone and he hit a dog I knew too. I’d never hit my dog. I think it’s so mean when people do that. Or if they hit children or are mean to them. And then later they don’t say sorry. If you say sorry, it’s different.”

  She was quiet for a moment, looking down at the paving stones and then straight ahead, squinting into the sunlight. “I think it’s sad too if a horse has to live in a stable and do whatever people want it to. And when animals die and they get, what’s it called, not buried but thrown away or put in the rubbish bin. I think that’s sad.”

  I have to go, he thought.

  “Before, when Dad was still living with us and we didn’t move all the time, I had lots of pets. Guess how many.”

  He looked up and around. Delicate threads of cloud were floating slowly past, just over the rooftops, the sun already descending in the west. A purple glow lit the sky. It was a very mysterious light.

  “In my club we’re going to protect animals. I’m going to write the club rules. I’m really good at rules.” She picked up her book and started leafing through it. OK, Jonathan told himself, you listen to the rules and then you leave.

  “In the house we were in before this one, I made rules for my room. I hung them up on the door and copied them out on a piece of paper I take with me wherever I go. Listen.”

  She took a crumpled sheet of paper out from between the pages of the book and started to read, solemnly reciting the rules one after the other.

  “My Room Rules:

  —nobody is allowed to barge into my room without asking first

  —I decide for myself what my room looks like

  —if I am asleep, don’t wake me up

  —if you’re angry, you are not allowed to shout inside my room or break things

  —in my room you are not allowed to hit anyone or squeeze them or be mean

  —don’t just barge into my room if I’m doing something

  —if you take something from my room you always have to put it back and not lose it.”

  You don’t want to know all of this, Jonathan, he thought. The girl was sitting motionless in front of him and staring down at her own words. She’s alone, he thought, but it’s not my fault. He cleared his throat and stood up. “Milk and I have to go now,” he said, breaking the silence.

  She turned at once and looked up at him. “No, don’t go. I’ve got other stuff I can read too. I’ve got stories. When I grow up I’m going to be a writer and I practise in this exercise book.” She had pulled a thin exercise book with a blue cover out from between the pages of her book and now opened it. “I write down everything that happens to me, look.”

  He saw that she had drawn up columns, just like he always did.

  “Tench,” she had written with three points beneath it: “Family of the carp. Also called the doctor fish. As big as a pike.”

  He nodded. “I have to go help my mother,” he said.

  “My mother works so much she’s hardly ever here.” She looked miserable. “She’s at that stupid bar all day. She doesn’t even have time to cook any more.”

  “What do you eat then?”

  Why are you asking that? he thought immediately. What are you still doing here?

  “Bread. It’s not like I don’t like it or anything. With peanut butter, that’s my favourite.”

  Part of him wanted to ask her lots more questions, but it was getting late and he felt like he had to go and not stay here talking to her any longer. The five minutes were up ages ago.

  “Look,” she said suddenly, holding her ring finger out to him. She was wearing a small, cheap ring. “Dad gave it to me. He won it on the shooting gallery at the fair.”

  The light on the copper-coloured fleck in her right eye was now so incredibly beautiful he had to catch his breath. I am flesh, he thought. I am flesh. But I can control the flesh. He thought about what he had read yesterday evening on the scrap of paper on which his mother had copied out some quotes from the Bible. She’d left it lying open with her bookmark in place and the piece of paper covered in writing. It was about how you can live according to the flesh or the spirit, and that if you set your mind on the spirit you’ll have life and peace.

  He’d put it in his pocket and read it over and over again, learning sentences off by heart. It went on to say that you weren’t condemned to sins in the flesh, but you had to say no. No to desire.

  “I really have to go home now. Say goodbye to Milk.”

  He was in bed lying on his back. It was dark. The curtains were open. In the distance the moon was no more than a thumbnail, a splinter of bone. He was tired. Nagging backache. For a very long time he lay still with his hands on his stomach. Breathing. He felt like he could be proud of himself. He hadn’t stayed out on the square with her for too long and he hadn’t had any weird thoughts about her. But it was still disturbing that he was already thinking about her again now. About what she’d told him and about her mother hardly ever being there. He never saw her around the house either. That wasn’t right. The child didn’t have anywhere to relax, he thought, and everyone needs to be able to relax, to have somewhere safe. Animals and people too.

  His thoughts began to drift. How could it be that he had his thoughts under such good control one minute and they’d set off in a direction of their own the next? Did he worry about other people too much? The psychological report said he wasn’t good at seeing things from other people’s perspectives, but that seemed completely wrong. He was actually constantly worried. About his mother, about the girl. Just then he’d looked at her wound and seen that it was closed, but given her a plaster anyway in case the scab came off. And he took so much work off his mother’s hands: he cooked and tomorrow he’d start packing the boxes, and by playing cards with her every evening he made her happy, despite being completely indifferent to it himself. He did all of that for others. The only one who worried about him was his mother. And maybe Milk. Though he wasn’t sure if animals were even capable of that, being concerned about others.

  Right now the dog was snoring softly on the floor next to him. Jonathan dangled his hand out of the bed and stroked his head. His thoughts started off again. He could see the girl very clearly now. The outline of her shoulders visible under her top. The material clinging to her backbone. She was skinny. He wondered if his helping her a little bit more could do any harm. As long as h
e kept his distance, it would be OK, wouldn’t it? Surely there couldn’t be anything risky about giving her something to eat?

  An hour later he still hadn’t fallen asleep. It had been such a good day, and now this. From downstairs he could still hear the drone of the TV. He knew his mother slept badly too. If he went downstairs for a glass of milk in the night, he’d find her sitting in front of the telly in her dressing gown more often than not.

  He turned from one side to the other for a while before finally falling asleep, but woke with a start a few hours later, wet with sweat. He immediately sat up straight. Was that a bang? No, it’s nothing. He stood up, walked over to the window, stared into the dark for a moment, then went into the bathroom for a drink of water. The alarm clock said two thirty. Back in bed he felt his heartbeat slowly settle. After a few minutes he fell asleep again.

  TO JONATHAN’S SURPRISE he found the door ajar when he came home on Monday afternoon. He’d taken the bus to the pet shop and bought water plants for the fish. Why was the door open? He was sure he’d locked it. Maybe his mother had let Milk out into the front yard and hadn’t closed it properly afterwards? He looked around, but there was nobody in sight. Slowly he walked into the hall and found his mother asleep in front of the TV with the sound turned down.

  He turned it off and left her to sleep on the sofa. That way he could be alone for a moment in the quiet without anyone asking him anything. He pulled off his boots and walked through the hall in his socks. Just when he was about to go upstairs, he saw something big and round in the dark corner under the stairs. The space hopper.

  This is not good, he thought. Not good at all. His throat tightened, restricting his breathing. He wiped his sweaty hair away from his forehead with both hands, crossed his arms to hike up his overalls, stood still and looked around. She was upstairs, of course. The girl had seen that the door was open and gone up to look at the fish. He took a deep breath. And another. His pulse was pounding in his temples. He thought of the workbook. Some situations you simply just had to learn to bear, he knew that. But for the moment he’d forgotten which ones they were. And he couldn’t go and look it up now, it was upstairs in his room. What else was there? The screwed-up tissues in the waste-paper basket, his workbook and the exercise book on the table. Pen, pencil, ruler. As long as she didn’t touch anything.