Tench

by Inge Schilperoord

  He closed his eyes and stood there for a while. His hairline was itching. Self-confidence, he thought. The book said you needed self-confidence. You needed to feel strong. To banish fear. “Fear is a poor counsellor,” he said quietly, and opened his eyes again. You mustn’t let it take control. Come on! He chased the doubts out of his mind, concentrated on his breathing—long breaths, deep breaths—walked upstairs and stopped in front of the door.

  There in the silence he heard, very softly, the murmur of a child’s voice. He couldn’t make out the words, but it was her, as he’d guessed, no doubt about it. Was she talking to the fish? Wheezing quietly, he pushed the door open and let his eyes adjust to the semi-darkness. There she was, on her knees in front of the aquarium.

  “Hi, Jonathan,” she smiled, then turned back to the fish. “Look what it’s doing.” She pressed her nose even harder against the glass. He watched it steam over.

  He stayed there for a moment, motionless, holding his breath, numb and vacant. And then he had a strange thought. That it wouldn’t actually matter what happened here. That everything that happened in his room would trickle away into nothing, just like the time that leaked away at work, never to return. He thought about it for a moment and wondered if he shouldn’t see it differently, as something that had happened for a reason, a sign, an opportunity. Yes, he thought, it is different. It’s a test. I have to stay alert. See how my body reacts. He scarcely dared to move, but still edged a little closer to stand there awkwardly, a few steps behind her with the water plants in one hand. There was a particular smell in the room, he noticed. A smell that was different from usual. She was still staring at the fish.

  “How’d you get in here?” he asked.

  For a moment she didn’t respond. He heard the click and scratch of birds’ feet in the gutter, quiet cooing. Pigeons. Then she looked at him. “The door was open. And now I’m looking at this beautiful fish. I was scared it might not be doing too well.” She looked up at him and gave a cautious smile. “Its wound’s got smaller. Did you see?”

  He didn’t move. After a while he noticed that the silence in his bedroom was different with her there. Like a held breath. Sunk in thought and staring in turn at the motionless girl and the light shining in through the low window, he imagined the prison psychologist. His long, bony face and piercing eyes. It seemed very far away right now, as if something in the room was blocking it. The light, her presence, or the carpet muffling the sounds. He found it almost impossible to picture the two of them working on the offence analysis together. He’d have to look up his notes later and read through them. But now he had to let it all go. Let it go, he said quietly to himself. Let it go.

  “You didn’t tell me what it’s called,” she said after a while. Her breath was still misting the glass of the aquarium, she was sticking that close to it.

  “It doesn’t have a name.”

  “That’s weird.”

  He walked over to her. Now that he was confronted with what the workbook called a “high-risk situation” the best thing was to see what effect it had on him. Carefully, so as not to make too much sound, he took the folding chair, sat down a safe distance away and took a deep breath, feeling the air come in through his nostrils, find its way to his throat and the bottom of his lungs, then flow back up to his mouth. Ten inhalations, ten exhalations.

  Minutes passed without either of them saying a word. He sneaked an anxious glance in her direction. She was sitting unmoving in front of the tank, her lips pursed, her mouth slightly open. Lying on the floor next to her he now saw the animal book he’d seen her with before. He waited for a moment to see if something was going to happen, but nothing changed. The girl just stared at the fish, which was floating big and silent on the other side of the slightly misted glass, which seemed to enlarge it even more. Jonathan sighed. Slowly he blew out some more breath.

  “Is it a girl?” she asked and—studying her tentatively from behind, her dangling ponytail, her running shorts, her top, the line of her back, her neck—he began to explain that it was a male, pointing out its large lower fins and the thick outer ray on the ventral fins. The girl got up on her knees and craned her neck for a better view.

  “Its Latin name is Tinca tinca,” he said, and she repeated it to herself, “Tinca,” and then again, “Tinca.”

  “It’s a shy, gentle fish.” His gaze glided over the tank. “It likes peace and quiet. If there’s too much noise or if other animals get too close, it hides in the mud. It gets scared easily. Then we have to leave it alone.”

  “She’s lying on the mud now too. Is she scared now too?”

  He ignores the “she” and explains that tench don’t cope well in the heat. That they sometimes hide in the mud because it’s cooler there.

  “That’s sad. Is it too hot today too?”

  “Yes.”

  He listens to himself talking. It’s going well. It’s like he’s outside himself and watching this man who’s explaining things, or standing behind himself and looking over his own shoulder. But he can still feel everything that’s happening inside his body. The way his heart is pumping blood, the arteries throbbing in his throat, the burning of his cheeks. He has to stay sitting here like this, he tells himself, sitting perfectly motionless, not doing anything. He hardly dared to move anyway, scared of ruining it. It was fantastic. She seemed genuinely interested and stayed so calm. He’d never experienced anything quite like her quiet concentration. He thought of the term “protective factors”. Couldn’t calm like this be a protective factor too? It was like a warm fluid streaming through his veins.

  “It’s a very special animal too,” he went on. “Before, in the old days, they used to think that it…” He searched for the best words to explain the fish’s powers to her. “That if you were sick, the fish could make you better. You only needed to touch its skin and then you’d recover, just like that.”

  “Really?” He saw the wonder in her eyes. “From what? What diseases?”

  “It didn’t matter, anything.” He told her about the peasant woman who was healed by touching a tench, the school of carp that got better. She kept her eyes fixed on him while he talked.

  When he’d finished, a silence fell. A very different kind of silence from the ones he was used to. Not uncomfortable, but soft, and it lightened the tension in his shoulders. He suddenly felt stronger than ever before and observed the girl, still on her knees before the tank, closely once again. She had closed her eyes in deep concentration. Her soft lips were still slightly open; her front teeth were showing again.

  As if he had said something about them, she touched her chipped tooth with one finger. “I was supposed to go to the dentist with Dad for this tooth. But he left and Mum didn’t have any money. We were maybe going to go during the holidays, but we haven’t yet. Could Tinca make my tooth better too? If I’m around her a lot?”

  “Maybe.”

  He walked around to the other side of the tank with the bag of water plants, and when he went to open it, she asked, “Can I do that?”

  He hesitated. If she dropped it, it would make a mess. A dirty carpet, plants on the floor, water everywhere. It didn’t bear thinking about. He looked at her and didn’t know what to do. She was frowning and looked serious. He passed her the bag, which she took gently with both hands. “Be careful opening it.”

  She peeled the plastic down like a sock. Again he saw the tiny tip of her tongue sticking out between her lips. He moved away and took up position a few steps behind her. When she bent over the tank to let the plants slide into it, the material of her shorts crept up between the cheeks of her bottom. He looked away quickly.

  After they had sat next to the aquarium for a while watching the fish swimming between its new plants, she started talking about her mother again. About how much money she was saving and how everything was going to be better in their new house, soon, in the city, close to her school, but she didn’t know where that was yet. After that she told him about her father. “When he was
still living with us, he used to work really hard. Sometimes he worked so hard he got sick.”

  “Oh.” He didn’t know how to react to that, but she was already talking again.

  “And then I’d take care of him.”

  “You?”

  “Yes, me. I’m old enough,” she said. “I’m good at it.” He noticed that her voice had changed again. She looked sad. The furrows in her forehead grew deeper.

  “Would you like to give Tinca something to eat?” he asked to distract her. With his hands tensing up again, he pressed his fingertips against each other and bent his fingers until the cracking of the joints provided some relief. For a moment he was lost in a confusing web of thoughts. He thought through everything she had just told him with mixed feelings: concern and pride at once. Was she hoping he would help her? And how was he supposed to do that? He pondered for a moment. Didn’t that mean she trusted him?

  “Would you like to give him something to eat?” he asked again, whereupon she nodded and flashed a faint smile. She looked at her feet awkwardly, then sat down, pulled her hairband out of her hair, ran her fingers through her ponytail, then tied it up again. When he got up to get the canister of fish food, she started talking again. Her voice had taken on yet another tone. “I bet you’re like all the others.”

  He stiffened and rubbed his throat, clammy and warm, combed his hair with his fingers and stood there without speaking. Just when he’d thought he’d understood what was going through her mind, she said something like this. He felt like walking away, fleeing the situation, but he kept his distance and looked over her head and through the window. The sky wasn’t clear. There were a few hazy banks of cloud.

  “What do you mean?” he heard himself asking. He was overwhelmed by his inability to understand her.

  “Mum says I have to stay away from you, that you’re no good.”

  “People say lots of things that aren’t true.”

  “But maybe you’re just like the others.”

  “Who?”

  “The people from child welfare and that.”

  “I don’t know anyone from child welfare.”

  “Are you going to report me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “To child welfare.”

  “Of course not.”

  Now she was quiet again and hanging her head. She picked at the broken trim of her flip-flop.

  He went into the bathroom, stood at the mirror, looked at himself and said, “Send her away. You can’t deal with this too.”

  But he couldn’t shake the image of the girl turning slowly and smiling up at him. She’d asked it to test him. He should have realized that straight away. Now of all times, he needed to show who he was. That he was more than an ex-prisoner, a number on the roll in the courtroom, a percentage in the psychologist’s statistics.

  He opened his eyes wide and forced himself to look his own reflection in the eyes. “I’m honest,” he said. “I’m good. I can take care of her.” And, as if she was standing there next to him: “You’re safe with me. It’s late now. You have to go, but tomorrow I’ll show you that you can trust me.” He thought back to the healing calm she had radiated, ran the water over his wrists and went to rejoin her.

  “It’s gone half-three,” he said, and heard that his voice was still tight. He glanced at the alarm clock, whose hands were advancing silently and imperturbably. “It’s getting late. I still have to clean and cook tea for my mother.”

  She’d undone her ponytail again and was fiddling with the hairband. She looked at him with a slight smile, but he could see that her eyes were dull.

  “Are you hungry too, maybe?” he blurted, as if someone else had forced it out of him. She nodded, slightly embarrassed, then looked up at him with a sideways glance.

  “Have you got anything yummy?”

  “You’ll see,” he said. “I’ll get something for you. But my mother’s asleep, so you have to be really quiet. You’re not allowed to make any noise.”

  She nodded.

  Ten more minutes, he thought. He’d promised to wake his mother up at four. But he couldn’t send her home hungry. There was a pounding in his forehead. He looked down at his feet. It was a good thing he’d taken his boots off downstairs. Very quietly he slipped downstairs in his socks, his neck muscles tense.

  Less than five minutes later he was back with a plate of pollock and mash he’d warmed up in the frying pan. The girl was where he’d left her, kneeling in front of the aquarium, watching the fish.

  He put the plate down on the floor, filled cups of water for himself and the child, fed the fish and sat down next to her. Listening to her eat, he stared at the downy hair on the back of her neck. Within arm’s reach. But that was possible now, with him doing so well. Minuscule blonde hairs he wanted to feel against his cheek. Through the open window he again heard the quiet scratching of birds’ claws in the roof gutter and, a little later, fluttering as the pigeons flew off.

  You help me with the fish and the dog, he told her in his thoughts. I’ll help you with food and company. He felt his blood glowing. She understood him. And he understood her. This could go well. It wasn’t the same as last time. This, he could manage.

  JONATHAN AND HIS MOTHER were in the kitchen by the half-open window. The fan was on. They were sitting across from each other and his mother was shuffling the cards. While he was waiting, Jonathan thought about the girl. He’d seen her again this afternoon after work. Yesterday he’d adjusted his daily schedule slightly, marking the period from three to four as “free” time. His mother wanted to have a nap in the afternoon and he needed to relax more. He’d been finding the days tiring, especially in the unremitting heat. This afternoon he’d sat on the square with the girl and the dog; after that he’d had some sandwiches with his mother, who now wanted to play cards.

  He thought about how it had gone that day. Showering after work, he’d fretted about whether he was being productive enough at the factory. Despite the air-conditioning, the heat seemed to slow him down there too. But the instant he saw the girl on the square those worries vanished: there was only the moment, the two of them together, everything around them shut out by the solid block of heat, and now he wondered if that was a good thing. Maybe. Inside his body it had stayed quiet. He thought about the way she’d talked about the animal club. The light that splashed up out of her eyes. Her voice. Her lips. All the vowels and consonants that sounded so beautiful and round in her mouth, like little pebbles. He tensed his fingers and then stretched them, joint by joint. The cracking of his knuckles.

  What were the exact words she’d used? What precisely had she said? He should have written it down. Trying to retrieve it now, it was like his thoughts were breaking up, dissolving, leaking out of him. There was a hole in his memory, at least it felt like it. But this afternoon it had gone well, that was the most important thing. It had gone well, hadn’t it? he asked himself again. Yes, he thought, it had gone well. The way she’d stood before him. He’d noticed faint sweat stains around the neck of her top, but her smell, that vague, pleasant tang of perspiration, hadn’t come too close. Only his fingers, quivering slightly, nothing else.

  “Isn’t it lovely, being able to do this together again?” his mother asked as she passed him the cards.

  He nodded and felt like he should assent more forcefully, but he was so preoccupied with his thoughts and the heat that he could only scan the room from under his lowered eyelids, as if searching for a way to keep cool. His eyelids were damp. He couldn’t remember it ever being so warm. And the day just dragged. Looking at the clock for a moment, he saw the long hand moving forward in little spurts—quarter to seven. He waited for fourteen minutes to, just to see time change, to convince himself that not everything was completely static.

  The sun was still shining in through the window, burning hot. He slid his chair back from the table, away from the window, and angled his head away from its rays, though he knew it wouldn’t help. He felt dehydrated, his eyes were
stinging and his tongue was swollen and sticky.

  It was like his mother could tell. “Shall we have another drink?” she asked. “Could you get me another wine? And a beer for yourself, maybe? Nice and cold?”

  No alcohol. The text in the workbook lit up inside his head. Under the influence of intoxicants you could lose your inhibitions. If you drank there was a higher chance of doing things you didn’t want to do. Bad things.

  “So, you going to get something?” he heard her ask.

  He looked up and smiled. “Sorry. On my way.” She smiled back at him.

  Despite the scorching heat and his clammy hands, he felt a strange, calm satisfaction. Maybe a drink wasn’t that bad, he thought. Just one. What could go wrong? The girl wasn’t even here. Besides, he had worked so hard the last ten days, he deserved it. That might not have been a correct thought, he interrupted himself, and for a moment he wondered if this was what the workbook called “cognitive justification”. Or was he getting two terms mixed up? It definitely said something about justifications and there was something with cognitive, actually loads of things with that word, but he couldn’t remember what exactly they were. His head started to glow. He’d look it up in a minute. Just don’t think about it, he hushed himself. One drink won’t do you any harm. A little drink will actually relax you.

  In the kitchen he searched the cutlery drawer and cupboards and finally found an opener printed with the name of the supermarket round the corner. He unscrewed the lid of the wine bottle and took a bottle of beer out of the fridge. It had been there for months and the beer wasn’t fizzy enough to make a proper head, but it was cold and he knew it would taste fantastic; it had been so long since he’d had any.