by Herman Koch
‘I have no idea,’ I said meanwhile, sounding as casual as I could. ‘I’m just as surprised as you are. I mean, they sort of look alike, our cell phones, but I can hardly imagine that I—’
‘I couldn’t find it anywhere,’ Michel butted in. ‘So I called my own number to see if I could hear it ring somewhere.’
His mother’s picture on the screen. He had called from home; the screen on his phone showed a picture of his mother when anyone called him from our land line. Not a picture of his father, it flashed through my mind. Or of the two of us. At the same moment I realized how ridiculous that would be, a picture of his parents on the couch in the living room, smiling with their arms around each other: a happy marriage. Daddy and Mummy are calling. Daddy and Mummy want to talk to me. Daddy and Mummy love me more than anyone else in the world.
‘I’m sorry, guy. I guess I was stupid enough to put your cell phone in my pocket. Your father must have had a senior moment.’ Home was Mama. Home was Claire. I didn’t feel left out, I noted, somehow it was actually a comfort. ‘We won’t be home late. You’ll have it back in a couple of hours.’
‘Where are you guys? Oh yeah, you went to dinner, you said that already. Isn’t that the restaurant in that park, across from …’ Michel mentioned the name of the regular-people café. ‘That’s not very far.’
‘Don’t bother. You’ll have it back before you know it. An hour or so, max.’ Did I still sound light-hearted? Cheerful? Or could you tell from my voice that I didn’t really want him to come to the restaurant and pick up his phone?
‘I can’t wait that long. I’ve got … I need some numbers, I have to call someone.’ Did I actually hear him hesitate there, or was it just that the connection was lost for a moment?
‘I’ll look for you if you want. If you tell me which number you need …’
No, that was completely the wrong tone. I had no desire to be that kind of easygoing, fun-to-be-around dad: a father who’s allowed to poke around in his son’s cell phone because father and son, after all, ‘having nothing to hide from each other’. I was already so grateful that Michel still called me ‘Dad’ and not ‘Paul’. There was something about that first-name-basis business that had always appalled me: children of seven who called their father ‘George’ or their mother ‘Wilma’. It was freeness and easiness of the wrong sort, and at the end of the day it always backfired on the all too free and easy parents. It was only a small step from ‘George’ and ‘Wilma’ to ‘But I said I wanted peanut butter, didn’t I, George?’ After which the sandwich with chocolate sprinkles is sent back to the kitchen and disappears into the garbage.
I’ve seen them often enough in my own surroundings, parents who laugh rather sheepishly when their children speak to them in that tone of voice. ‘Oh, you know, these days they hit adolescence a lot earlier,’ is how they try to smooth it over, but they are too short-sighted, or simply too cowardly, to realize that they have called this reign of terror down upon themselves. In their heart of hearts, of course, what they hope is that their children will go on liking them for longer as George and Wilma than they would as Dad and Mum.
A father who looked at the contents of his fifteen-year-old son’s cell phone was getting too close. He could see right away how many girls were in the contacts, or which raunchy photos had been downloaded as screen wallpaper. No, my son and I did have things to hide, we respected each other’s privacy, we knocked on the door of the other’s room when it was closed. And we did not, for example, walk in and out of the bathroom naked without towels around our waists, simply because there was nothing to hide, as was common in George-and-Wilma families – no, not that, not that at all!
But I had already snooped around in Michel’s cell phone. I had seen things that weren’t meant for me. From Michel’s point of view, it was mortally dangerous for me to hold onto his phone any longer than was absolutely necessary.
‘No, that’s okay, Dad. I’m coming right now to get it.’
‘Michel?’ I said, but he had already hung up. ‘Fuck!’ I shouted for the second time that evening, and at that moment I saw Claire and Babette emerging from behind the tall hedge. My wife had her arm around her sister-in-law’s shoulder.
It took only a few blinks of an eye: during those blinks I thought about stepping back and making myself fade into the shrubbery. But then I remembered why I had gone into the garden in the first place: to find Claire and Babette. It could have been worse. Claire could have seen me using Michel’s cell phone. She could have wondered who I was calling, here, outside the restaurant – in secret!
‘Claire!’ I waved. Then I walked towards them.
Babette was still holding a hanky to her nose, but there were no more tears to be seen. ‘Paul …’ my wife said.
She looked straight at me as she spoke my name. First she rolled her eyes, then breathed an imaginary sigh. I knew what that meant, because I had seen her do it before – the time, for example, when her mother tried to take an overdose of sleeping pills at the rest home.
It’s a lot worse than I thought, the eyes and the sigh said.
Now Babette looked at me as well, and took the hanky away from her face. ‘Oh, Paul,’ she said. ‘Dear, sweet, Paul …’
‘The … the main course has arrived,’ I said.
19
There was no one in the men’s room.
I tried all three cubicles: they were unoccupied.
You two go ahead, I’d said to Claire and Babette when we reached the entrance. Go ahead and start, I’ll be there in a minute.
I went into the cubicle furthest from the door and locked it behind me. For appearances’ sake, I pulled my trousers down around my ankles and sat: my underpants I kept on.
I took Michel’s cell phone out of my pocket and slid it open.
On the display I saw something I hadn’t seen before – at least, something I hadn’t noticed out in the garden.
At the bottom of the screen, a little white box had appeared:
Two missed calls
Faso
Faso? Who the hell was Faso?
It sounded like a made-up name, a name that couldn’t really belong to anyone …
And suddenly I knew. Of course! Faso! Faso was the nickname Michel and Rick had given their adopted half-brother and half-cousin. Beau. Because of the country where he was born. And because of his first name: Beau.
Beau Faso. B. Faso from Burkina Faso.
They had started it a couple of years back: at least that was the first time I’d heard them use the nickname, at Claire’s birthday party. ‘You want some, Faso?’ I heard Michel say as he held up to Beau a red plastic bowl of popcorn.
And Serge, who was standing close by, heard it too. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Cut that out. His name is Beau.’
Beau himself seemed to be the last person to be bothered by his nickname. ‘It’s okay, really, Dad,’ he said to my brother.
‘No, it’s not okay,’ Serge said. ‘Your name is Beau. Faso! I don’t know, I just think it’s … I think it’s not nice.’
Serge had probably meant to say, ‘I just think it’s discrimination,’ but had bitten his tongue at the last moment.
‘Everyone’s got a nickname, Dad.’
Everyone. That was what Beau wanted. He wanted to be like everyone.
After that I had rarely heard Michel and Rick use the nickname when other people were around. But apparently it had lived on: all the way to Michel’s list of contacts.
What had Beau/Faso been calling Michel about?
I could listen to the voicemail, if he’d left a message, but then Michel would see right away that I’d been poking around in his phone. We were both on Vodafone, and I could have recited the voicemail lady’s message in my sleep. ‘You have ONE new message’ changed, after the first time it was listened to, into ‘You have ONE old message.’
I pushed the Select button, clicked on through to File Manager and then to Videos.
A drop-down menu appeared: 1. Videos,
2. Downloaded videos and 3. Favourite videos.
Just as I had a few hours (an eternity) ago in Michel’s room, I clicked on 3. Favourite videos; even more than an eternity, it had been a turning point: a turning point as in before the war or after the war.
The still of the most recent video was outlined in blue; this was the film clip I had already watched an eternity ago. I clicked back one video, pushed Options, then Play.
A station. The platform at a station, a subway station by the looks of it. Yes, an above-ground subway station out in one of the suburbs, judging from the high-rise apartments in the background. Maybe the south-east side of town, or else Slotervaart.
I might as well be frank. I recognized the subway station. I knew right away which subway station it was, and where, and along which line – only I’m not going to shout it from the rooftops; at this point there’s no one who would benefit from me mentioning the name of the station.
The camera panned down and began following the heels of a pair of white sneakers that were moving down the platform with a certain degree of haste. After a while the camera swung up again and you saw a man, an older man, around sixty I figured, although with people like him it’s always hard to tell: it was clear in any case that this was not the owner of the white sneakers. When the camera moved in closer you could see his unshaven, rather spotty face. A panhandler, probably, a homeless person. Something like that.
I felt the same cold that I had felt earlier that evening in Michel’s room, the cold that came from inside.
Beside the homeless person’s head, Rick’s face appeared. My brother’s son grinned at the camera. ‘Take one,’ he said. ‘Action!’
Then, with no warning, he struck the man on the side of his head with the palm of his hand, on the ear. It was a real rabbit punch; the head lurched to the side, the man winced and raised his hands to cover his ears, as though to ward off the next blow.
‘You’re a piece of shit, motherfucker!’ Rick screamed in English, with a hint of that giveaway accent, like a Dutch actor in a British or American movie.
The camera moved in even closer, the homeless man’s unshaven face filled the little screen. He blinked his watery, red eyes, his lips mumbled something incomprehensible.
‘Say “Jackass”,’ said another voice off-camera, a voice I immediately recognized as my son’s.
The homeless man’s head disappeared, and there was Rick again. My nephew looked into the camera and put on an intentionally stupid grin. ‘Don’t try this at home,’ he said, and took another swing, or at least his arm made a punching movement; the actual blow landed off-camera.
‘Say “Jackass”,’ said Michel’s voice.
The homeless man’s head appeared on screen again, this time, judging from the camera angle – there were no longer apartment blocks in the background, only a stretch of grey concrete along the platform and rails behind – lying on the ground. His lips trembled, his eyes were closed.
‘Jack … jack … ass,’ he said.
There the frame froze. In the ensuing silence I heard only the sound of water rushing down the peeing wall.
‘We need to talk about our children,’ Serge had said – how long ago? An hour? Two?
What I really felt like was staying here until tomorrow morning: until the cleaners found me.
I got up.
20
At the entrance to the dining room, I hesitated.
Michel could arrive any moment to pick up his cell phone (he hadn’t yet, in any case, I saw as I took a few steps forward, then stopped: the only people at our table were Claire, Babette and Serge).
I ducked behind a large potted palm. Peeking through the foliage, I didn’t have the impression that they’d seen me.
By far the best thing, I reflected, would be to intercept Michel. Here in the entranceway, or at the cloakroom; even better, of course, would be outside in the garden. Yes, I needed to go to the garden, that way I could walk up and meet Michel partway, give him his cell phone there. Not hindered by the looks and possible questions from his mother, uncle and aunt.
I turned and walked outside, past the girl at the lectern. I had no fixed plan. I would have to say something to my son. But what? I decided to wait and see whether he would bring anything up himself – I would pay close attention to his eyes, I resolved, his honest eyes that had always been so bad at lying.
Following the path with the electric torches, I took the turn to the left, just as I had earlier in the evening. The most obvious thing would be for Michel to take the same route we had, across the footbridge opposite the regular-people’s café. There was another entrance to the park, in fact that was the main entrance, but then he would have to cycle a lot further in the dark.
When I reached the bridge, I stopped and looked around. There was no one in sight. The light from the restaurant’s torches was no more than a weak yellowish glow here, no brighter than a pair of candles.
The darkness had an advantage too. In the dark, when we couldn’t see each other’s eyes, Michel might be more willing to speak the truth.
And then what? What was I going to do with that ‘truth’? I rubbed my eyes. I needed to appear lucid, in any case, later. Cupping a hand in front of my mouth, I exhaled and sniffed. Yes, my breath smelled of alcohol, of beer and wine. But until now, I calculated, I had had a total of no more than five drinks. I’d resolved beforehand to remain in control; I didn’t want to give Serge the chance to score off me this evening just because I was sloppy. I knew myself well enough, I knew that a dinner out had a certain, limited curve of concentration, and that by the end of that curve I would no longer have the oomph to come back at him if he started in about our children again.
I looked at the other side of the bridge and the lights of the café behind the bushes, on the far side of the street. A tram rode past the stop without slowing down, after that it was silent again.
‘Hurry up, now!’ I said out loud.
And it was there and at that precise moment, as I heard the sound of my own voice – was jolted awake by the sound of my own voice, I should perhaps say – that I suddenly knew what I had to do.
I took Michel’s cell phone out of my pocket and slid it open.
I pressed Show.
I read both text messages: the first one contained a phone number, and the comment that no message had been left; the second said that the same number had left ‘one new message’.
I compared the times under the two texts. Between the first and the second there had been only two minutes. Both had arrived just a little more than fifteen minutes ago: while I was talking to my son on the phone, in this same park, just a little way from here.
I pressed Options twice, then hit Delete.
Then I called the number on the voicemail.
When Michel got his phone back later, there would be no missed calls listed on the display, I reasoned, and therefore no reason for him to consult his voicemail – at least not for the time being.
‘Yo!’ I heard then, after the voicemail lady had announced that there was one new message (and two old ones). ‘Yo! You gonna call me back, or what?!’
Yo! About six months ago, Beau had started adopting the Afro-American look, with a New York Yankees cap and matching lingo. He had been taken from Africa and brought here, and until a short while ago he had always spoken proper, standard Dutch. Not the Dutch spoken by ordinary people, but the Dutch of the circles surrounding my brother and his wife: supposedly quite neutral, but in fact with the accent recognizable among thousands as that of the elite; the Dutch you hear on the tennis court and in the canteen at the hockey club.
There must have been a day when Beau had looked in the mirror and decided that Africa was synonymous with pitiful and needy. But despite his prim diction, he would never be a Dutchman either. So it was perfectly understandable for him to go looking for his identity elsewhere, on the far side of the Atlantic, in the black neighbourhoods of New York and Los Angeles.
From the very beginnin
g, though, there had been something about this act that annoyed me terribly. It was the same thing that had always annoyed me about my brother’s adopted son: something about his aura of sainthood, if you could call it that, the shrewdness with which he exploited his differentness from his adoptive parents, his adoptive brother, his adoptive sister and cousin.
As a little boy he had climbed onto ‘Mother’s’ lap much more often than Rick or Valerie did – usually in tears. Babette would caress his little black head and speak comforting words, but she was already looking around to find whom to blame for Beau’s sorrow.
The guilty party was usually not far away.
‘What happened to Beau?’ she would demand accusingly of her biological son.
‘Nothing, Mama,’ I heard Rick say once. ‘All I did was look at him.’
‘In fact,’ Claire had said when I aired my dislike of Beau, ‘you’re a racist.’
‘No I’m not!’ I said. ‘I would be a racist if I liked that little hypocrite simply for the colour of his skin or where he comes from. Positive discrimination. I would only be a racist if our adopted nephew’s hypocrisy made me draw conclusions about Africa in general, or Burkina Faso in particular.’
‘I was only kidding,’ said Claire.
A bicycle was coming across the bridge. A bicycle with a headlight. I could see the rider only in silhouette, but I could have picked my own boy out of a crowd of thousands, even in the dark. The way he sat hunched down over the handlebars like a racing cyclist, the supple nonchalance with which he let the bike sway left and right while the body itself barely moved: these were the ways and moves of … of a predator. The thought popped into my mind without my being able to stop it. ‘Of an athlete’ was what I had meant to say – to think. A sportsman.
