Tench

by Inge Schilperoord

  From downstairs the annoying voice of a TV presenter reached him in erratic, muffled bursts. “It’s now or never… Go for it… Try your luck.” That sound, he couldn’t bear any more of that sound. He clamped his jaws shut.

  He pushed the stiffened cotton-wool balls as deep into his ears as he could, but snatches of voices still got through. He got up, filled the jug and drank, letting the cool water wash through his mouth, past the back of his teeth, over the raw slab of his tongue. Waiting for it to glug down his throat. The wave of nausea now finally, very slowly, exhausted itself. He thought about her and waited until his insides had steadied and were calm again, like that Wednesday afternoon. He took a few more deep breaths. Then he unscrewed the cap of his pen, chewed on it for a moment, drew some lines in his exercise book with the ruler and wrote his new rules down one under the other:

  If she comes, she’s only allowed in if my mother’s asleep.

  She can stay until four, then we can look after the fish together.

  She can keep coming until the fish is better.

  If she’s scared, I will protect her.

  He didn’t know just how he was going to do it, but it seemed right to him. Although he was writing intently, he felt himself growing tired and drowsy. It was so bright in his room. Angled needles of summer light were shining in through the curtains. He felt exhausted, as if he’d been working in the factory for days on end, and he began to drift off. His head grew heavy and suddenly slumped down to his chest. Immediately he shook himself awake: Pull yourself together. For a moment he fought against an urge to punch the wall. A little more, he told himself, come on, a little bit more. All right, then, he said to himself, but on the bed. With his back against the wall, he continued working. Five more good sentences. Five more. But after just three, his eyes started to roll and at four he fell asleep again.

  He woke up with the workbook and exercise book on his chest. His chin on the pen. A stiff neck. He began to rub the aching muscles, but at the same time his other hand descended to his warm belly. He touched his dick, wrapped his fingers around it and felt that it was already half swollen. Immediately it started to grow. Images formed behind his closed eyes, appearing out of nowhere like the crests of waves, then disappearing under water again. The girl. The complete concentration when she’d looked at him with her soft lips and half-opened mouth. The images kept lighting up and dimming again. He could make them move: away from him and back again. Sometimes coming very close, sometimes staying further away, as if he could see them dancing, elegant and slow. He waited quietly, as if something was going to reveal itself. Approval.

  Gradually a soft hum rose in his ears. He didn’t know what it was, but it was quiet inside him now, a vast space, and nobody could see him. Everything around him and in him seemed inexplicably friendly and innocent, as if the world was on his side. He let out a deep sigh. Gradually what he’d seen faded and he was floating motionless around a big, gently vibrating space.

  Then, suddenly, he saw the towelling of her shorts stretched over her bottom. He reached for his stiff dick again, but pulled his hand back as if he’d burnt it. “Stop,” he whispered to himself drowsily. “Don’t.” But he kept going. His breath was dragging through his nostrils. His warm fingers traced the course of his swollen veins. He began to move his hand to a slow rhythm. A little bit more, he thought. Just a bit longer. Think of something else. Empty your mind, just feel it. It was so good. A bit more. As long as he didn’t think of her, it was OK.

  “Sex is normal,” it said in the workbook, “a normal drive.” They had taught him that a better way of handling his sexual urges was to train his sexual fantasies. You had to replace unwanted sexual fantasies with others. Fantasies about women, adult women. It was all a question of learning and unlearning. Unlearning. Or learning and replacing. He repeated the words to himself a few times and tried it. But he couldn’t think of any images that appealed to him and tried to think of nothing instead. His excitement trailed off.

  Still, he persisted. It took a long time, but in the end he managed to come. Short and dissatisfying. After that he lay there for a long time, eyes closed, feeling the pumping of his heart, breathing heavily.

  He raised his fingers to his mouth and bit down hard on his fingertips. You shouldn’t have done it, he thought, not like that. It’s not good. Not good enough. But, he countered as a feeble reassurance, it was better than this afternoon. He still had to change though. He opened his eyes and closed them again, too tired to think. He felt like he had to make something up to her, even though in the end her face had only been a blur in his imagination, just before he came.

  Go to the bathroom, he thought. Go to the mirror. “Look at yourself,” he whispered. He tried a few times to sit up on the bed, but sagged back down. If you don’t do it, he threatened himself, you’re doing an extra exercise as punishment. He didn’t budge. He looked at the alarm clock. Thirteen minutes to ten. At twelve to you start moving. The clock’s ticking seemed to speed up. At ten to ten he lowered his feet to the floor and went through to the bathroom, where he forced himself to look straight into the mirror and struggled not to start swearing at himself. Come on! With difficulty he opened his eyes wide and instructed himself to make a solemn oath. Holding two fingers in the air he looked at himself. “It will never happen again,” he said, straightening his back. “Never again.”

  A little later he was back at the window with his hands on the sill and his forehead pressed against the glass, staring into the mysterious twilight. A blue glow that hid more than it revealed. It didn’t look real, a screen that had been slid in front of something and could be pulled away with a single tug. Behind it, he thought, was the other world. The prison. You don’t want to go back there, do you? He tried to imitate the prosecutor’s stern, severe tones. Think what it was like.

  He tried to imagine it again. How he’d spent hours wide awake at night, curled up on his side in bed. Voices on the other side of the wall. Dirty paedo! The attack in his cell that first week, three strong, the kick in the head, his neck bending back, his front teeth through his lip. But it all seemed so far away, like he was looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope. It was the first time he had even been touched by a man, ever felt those male smells at such close proximity, their body warmth, their fury. But the fear that had got hold of him there kept its distance now. You have to establish contact with your body, he thought—that was how the psychologist had put it. Inhabit your body. The relaxation exercises. Do the exercises.

  He stretched out on his back on the bed, his hands once again clasped together on his stomach. He closed his eyes. “In through the nose,” he said to himself, “out through the mouth.” He repeated it ten times. But his breath stayed high in his throat and refused to calm down. Again. Once again he sucked air in through his nostrils as slowly as he could and held it, meanwhile massaging his groin where he could feel his pulse beating. After a while the girl suddenly appeared in his thoughts. This time sitting completely at ease in the corner of the room, patting Milk and quietly talking to him.

  Immediately that strange, calming liquid flowed into his brain. Although it felt good, he ordered himself to think her away. He groaned and turned his head on his pillow, back and forth, pushing her image to the furthest edge of his imagination. But just before she went tumbling into darkness, he thought her back. Come on. “Come on,” he now said out loud. In his thoughts he put her back in the corner of the room, chatting away quietly to Milk, feeding the fish. He stared at her back. Now his breath flowed out of his mouth in a long, even stream. Finally, he was going to bed calm.

  JONATHAN SAUNTERED through the deserted neighbourhood in his pool sandals, the dog following him. The sky was hazy and dusty; high up in the distance, seagulls were gliding away, everything slowed and curbed by the heat. The sea glittered and splashed softly against the wharf with its load of floating rubbish: boxes, plastic bottles, bits of nylon cord. All that light hurt his eyes, the pain expanding through his
forehead. It stayed hot, seventeen days now. This morning at quarter past six, the mercury in the thermometer next to the kitchen window, above the empty geranium pot, already showed 26 degrees. By the time he got home from work in his overalls at half-two it was up to 34. He’d had a quick shower and pulled on some shorts.

  Now he was walking to the square. He was expecting to see her sitting on the swing and there she was. One of the chains was broken and the board was hanging at an angle. He walked on, going a bit too close. In his mind he crossed the line he always drew around her, but right then he didn’t care. He let himself be reassured by her face. She smiled. Her expression was as light as ever. Her eyes were big and interested. Above them, clouds were drifting slowly by. Alternating shadow, light, shadow on her face.

  “Hi,” she said. She was wearing those towelling shorts again. She stroked the ground with the half-detached plastic edge of her flip-flop. He saw scorched blades of grass, some gravel, sand and tenacious thistles that persisted in stubbornly reaching up to the sun. Always that hair on her neck, as light as down. She was rocking back and forth on that one chain in crooked, wobbly lines, with one hand holding the plank seat up and the other holding the book she was reading.

  For a moment he’d considered turning around and slipping into the dunes through the back of the village, but he wanted to sit with her. He looked around. All of the houses on the square were gone. A bare, empty expanse.

  He sat down on the bench, a couple of metres from the swing, a few steps away from her. This is good, he thought. I can sit here quietly. I can watch her reading. With her lips moving, like always. A very distant expression. Giggling twice at something. Now and then her mouth slowly drooped, and then she closed it again just as slowly. Today she was wearing a top he hadn’t seen before, a sallow colour. It was too small for her; the material was tight under her arms.

  I could look at her all afternoon, he thought to himself, and the light, the patches it made on the grass, the small shadows. It was very quiet and with her this close to him even the silence was gentle and mysterious.

  “Did you bring something yummy for me?” she asked after a while.

  “Maybe.” Suddenly he felt like teasing her a little.

  “What?”

  He flashed the bag of crisps he’d brought, then hid it behind his back.

  “What is it?” she insisted.

  “Come and see.”

  She came over on her thin legs, which looked sticklike in those shorts. Her ponytail was messy, held together by an elastic hairband with big plastic balls on it. She kept having to push strands of hair back into it.

  “Well?” she laughed. “What is it?” She wrapped her arms around him to grab the bag. A waft of her smell. Startled, he let go.

  With a highly precise, endearing cautiousness, she pulled at the top of the bag with both hands to open it. A short, ripping noise. Then she started to eat. As fast as last time, but still neatly, taking the crisps out of the bag one at a time between her thumb and index finger. She stopped for a moment to squat down next to the dog, pat him and say something to him under her breath. Jonathan tried to make it out, but she was whispering too much. He slid forward and listened more closely. He still couldn’t hear.

  “Yuck,” she said, puckering her forehead. “Now my hands are disgusting.” And as if to check if it was true or not, she raised her hands to her face and sniffed her palms. She pulled a face.

  “Here,” he said, holding out a hand. She put the bag on it, without question, and he fed her the crisps one after the other. It felt like feeding an animal. A small, soft, foraging animal, he thought. Minutes passed and seemed to stretch on for ever.

  “Will you push me?” she asked when she’d finished eating and had licked her lips clean with a few short swipes of her tongue.

  He nodded and stood up, moving his head left and right, waiting for his neck to crack. He wrapped one hand loosely around the chain and supported the plank with the other. His hand now close to her bottom. He rocked her like that as best he could and gazed at the light shining through between the houses in the distance. Don’t look at her, don’t look at her neck, too close. A swarm of tiny flies quivered over the grass. From somewhere far away came the faint sound of a ship’s horn.

  The pushing lasted for ever. In the meantime, he kept thinking about an exercise he’d discovered. He’d noticed that he could erect a glass wall in his thoughts to block him off from his surroundings. So that no matter what was coming towards him he felt it less. With his eyes half-closed, blowing out deep sighs, his back tense, he tried to erect that wall. He only half managed. Every time he succeeded in putting the panel in place in his imagination, the glass started to vibrate and, slowly, wobbling gently, flowed away. He clamped his teeth together. The girl was humming a song.

  He tried again and again the glass melted and flowed away. He bit his lip. Why can’t I do it? I could a few days ago. It had gone well at the weekend. Why can’t I manage it any more?

  As if to test him, she half turned towards him, and started talking. “Mum thinks Dad’s tracked us down. We’re going to leave soon.”

  This made it even worse, much worse. His head pounded no. No, I can’t listen to this now. I’m too tired, it’s too hot, my eyes are swollen from the heat. Not this. Zoom out, he thought, look at yourself from a distance. That was another technique. Look at yourself like in a long shot in a movie. But his head was starting to spin. His legs were getting weak. Stop it, stop it.

  “Dad asked me if I’d like to live with him. He rang up again. Mum doesn’t know.”

  He tried to relax his muscles while keeping his eyes half closed against the shimmering light.

  She looked up again.

  Don’t respond, he thought, and immediately rejected the idea. You have to say something. Don’t think of yourself now, she’s the one that matters, she needs to be OK. Now is the time, help her. Talk to her.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked, then sniffed air in through his nose in little bursts.

  She shrugged. “I have to decide. But I can’t.” She jumped up off the swing and went over to the dog. For a moment he was scared she was going to cry. Had he seen that right? Was her upper lip trembling? But before he could tell for sure, she’d looked away again, her mouth pressed into a thin line. With a closed expression, she kicked a few stray stones. The swing slipped out of his hands.

  “If they find me they might send me to a home. Dad thinks Mum doesn’t look after me properly.”

  You’re staying here, he thought. Here. With me. And again he felt his heart in his throat. Its quivering beat. He asked, “Is that what your father says?”

  “No. I just told you. He wants me to live with him. But Mum says we shouldn’t put it off any more. That we have to move. Child welfare’s looking for us.”

  Out of nowhere, an annoying squeak started in his head. A hand pushed him from behind, trying to knock him over, to make his knees buckle. He wanted to say something about the club—maybe that would cheer her up, make her feel safer. Maybe it would help. But what could he say? His arms, which just a minute ago were rocking her body, now hung limply by his side, his palms turned forward. His hands empty. Suddenly he felt anger rising inside him again. Despite all the trouble he’d gone to. Despite everything.

  The girl bent over the dog, who raised himself on his front paws, stood for a moment with his snout trembling in the air and then, as if he’d changed his mind, sank back down to the ground. The tip of his tail moved very slightly. She stroked his ears, then straightened up again, sighed, sat down on the ground and started writing furiously in her exercise book.

  He took a couple of steps towards her, as if getting closer would reveal the answer. Those boundaries were nonsense anyway, he thought. As if suddenly he wouldn’t be able to control himself if he came within a metre of her. He’d change that in his workbook. Without thinking he turned his hands inward and covered his left wrist with his right hand, as if that was his vulnerable spo
t.

  She lowered her pen and looked at him through her hair. There was something tense and furtive about her expression and her lower lip was protruding. After a while she asked quietly, “Will you help me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if you want to join the club, you have to promise you’ll always help me.”

  “Fine, I promise.”

  “You have to really promise.”

  “I promise.”

  “Do it then!”

  “How?”

  “You have to spit.”

  She jumped up. “Like this.” With a serious face she made a v with her first two fingers, held them up to her mouth and pretended to spit through them.

  “OK.” He felt ridiculous going along with it so meekly, but he did it. When he looked back at her, she’d sat down again and had a slight smile on her face.

  “Look.” She pointed to a drawing she’d done in her exercise book with “Bythinia” written above it. Another spelling mistake. Thank goodness, he thought. That was a beautiful imperfection. One more. And for a moment it was like he could see his own imperfection gently reflected in her face. His muscles relaxed a little.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “The name of the club, of course.”

  Before he could react, she’d gone off on another tangent. “And if we move, all the club members who can have to send each other letters.”

  He nodded, harder than he intended, but the thought of her going away and only being with him in letters was unbearable.

  While she kept talking about the club, he watched her feet moving in her flip-flops, the way she kept curling and relaxing her toes and how the material of her shorts seemed to grow tighter around her thighs.

  “There aren’t any kids here at all. So it’s only Tinca and Milk in the club. And you.”