The maid begins a melancholy, tremulous song about a seaman or soldier, accompanying herself with the sound of chopping vegetables, the strokes of which sound harsher and duller in turn, according to whether the cleaver strikes the wood or the vegetables.
I walk up and down all the while, listening to the mournful singing and the ticking of the clock, and I wait.
Would no one come today7!
Dreaming because of my regular tread, my thoughts stray into the future and I rebuild castles in the air from the past.
A large room with books, cloaked mysteriously in dusk, a stove that crackles cosily and casts its shine on to the floor, a tea kettle with soft-singing clouds, lulling a tabby cat to sleep who is pondering a cabbalistic problem. The tea-service on the table, upon which clear light-spots shimmer from the soft, subdued lamp light, and over me, in the big circle of light from the lamp a black-locked woman's head that busily bends over needlework but now and again casts up the long-lashed eyelids to regard me with serious, dark eyes.
It is as if suddenly the light of the lamp is intercepted by a vague shadow and I see a bony hand, stripped of its flesh, descend on that black hair. The head falls over backwards, the dark eyes, devoid of sheen, dull, stare into space; the quiet, soft features are wiped out, the colour disappears, the mouth is half opened. The hand stretches out to me, too, and I hear the warning una ex his sound more loudly.
I wake from my drowsing with a start; the maid has stopped singing and chopping, the clock ticks more loudly.
Fora moment, I stand staring, devoid of thought, in front of a picture on the wall, then for a moment after that in front of the mirror and I walk on again, my identical walk, always awaiting someone's coming.
Again my mind wanders and I see a summer's day, a bourn sleeping quietly between tall reed curtains beneath a burning sun, upon which yellow and white lilies form large islands with their flat, pale-green leaves. A few tall trees on the banks, and in the shade these provide, in the dense, soft grass, I see myself lying down, playing with clover flowers which I try to thread into the seam of her gown while she lies staring into the deep, clear blue of the sky where humming insects now hover motionless in the sun and then swoop about at wild speed. All of this is a long time ago.
Suddenly, it is as if I have been transported to an anatomy theatre where shapes, vague in outline, lie under dirty sheets on black tables. With trembling hand I raise each sheet and, one by one, I see the features, contorted and drab, of those who were with me that one in particular, the one with the wax-pale head bent over the edge at the back, and the long, black hair that hangs down, lustreless, in a tangled mass. I feel that I myself am one of those shapes, dead and cold, and I shudder-crumple because of the warning una ex his.
I start because of the cheering and braying of the children in the street who are coming from school. I see them with my mind's eye as they run after their caps which the wind rolls along down the muddy street and I hear the little girls scream in fun and fear when, their skirts stuck flat to their legs, they are being propelled on ahead by a powerful gust of wind.
It must be nigh on four o'clock now.
In my room it is already becoming night, the glimpse of light beneath the curtain is turning from white into grey and from grey into black. I can no longer see anything and I am tired.
The cat who has been lying in her basket all this time, does not feel happy any longer in this nocturnal environment and she seeks my proximity. I go and sit down on a comer of the sofa and listen to the ticking of the clock, and to the wind, howling more powerfully and more mournfully through the cracks in the window frame. The rain drips continually against the window in a monotonous tic-toc. The cat jumps on to my lap, rolls herself into a ball, begins to purr and, purring, spins me a yam about a strange country, warm in colour and sun-glow, a country with strange buildings and statues, silent and mysterious as Fate. She tells of priests in long robes and tall hats, priests who sing strangesounding canticles in front of a white bull whose mournful lowing is muffled by colourful tapestries embroidered in gold.
Of a river, a broad, great river, now foaming and wild, now muddy and sluggish again like thick oil, a river rolling on between banks covered in tall greenery where ibises thrust their curved beaks into the grubby silt; of lakes where brilliant white flowers softly bob up and down when the clear water is set in motion by a pink-hued flamingo.
The purring grows more mysterious when it tells of a big city which is quiet and gloomy, and where, in dark caverns, stiff, motionless mummies stare with painted gazes into unfathomable darkness and are kept asleep by the rushing flutter of grey bats. It tells of an idol with old eyes that, motionless in a corner, keeps watch over the dimly visible objects and that remained motionless even when she touched its round eye with her soft little paw.
But gradually the purring, too, grows silent. The cat falls asleep and I am left alone, listening to the ticking: una ex his, necropolis, una ex his, necropolis.
Thus I continue to doze and it is as though, aboard a fastmoving boat, I am being borne along by splashing waves.
Beneath a dark vaulted expanse that hangs low and oppressive, I feel myself to be taken along in a wild rush. Far ahead of me shines a spot of light in which an old skeleton with a leering grin shakes its bony limbs and, full of rage, shakes a woman's head known to me, shakes it to and fro by its long, black hair.
Fast and noiselessly I slip towards it and gradually I feel myself floating
Then I fall in a deep slumber and I continue to sleep until the lamps are lit and I am called to dine.
Boring and sad, it passes by. I still feel oppressed by the visions of this afternoon. Afterwards, the same silence again, even more gloomy because of the light, half turned down.
I go out to take a walk and to forget my visions.
The fierce gusts of rain have made way for a cold, misty drizzle that falls fine and penetrating. The wind has abated. Slowly, I walk along the muddy streets and loaf about the backstreets because the main thoroughfares are too busy and too full of light.
Black and dirty these old houses are, and the few people I meet look pale like ghosts in the dancing light of the gas lamps that, because of the wet glass, only shine down on a small radius of the street.
On the comer of a square stands a trader with his barrow upon which there are gleaming cheeses, displaying their greasy cut in the ruddy light of a candle enveloped in a piece of old newspaper. With a long knife, glinting blue in the light, he pricks small, hard pieces from a brown-rinded cumin cheese and offers them on the tip of his knife to bystanders. These, mainly women, look threadbare in their dirty, faded white or purple jackets and their black, ravelled skirts, soiled with mud spatters both fresh and old. Time and again, the trader lets out a raucous cry that dies away in the dark street and lures no buyers, and that still reaches me when I am already so far away that I only see the yellow-red gleam of his lantern. I walk beside a dark, narrow canal. The warehouses standing here and there among the well-kept houses stand out black against the lighted windows surrounding them.
I pause in front of a big house. A slow, plunky little tune with a melancholy three-four time in the left hand is being played on a piano. The hoarse, muffled cry of the shady, winter radish trader who makes his progress, almost invisible, along the water's edge, commending his sombre wares in a sepulchral voice, makes me start. The ting-tonging of the piano and that cry of winter radish reminds me of my youth, of evenings, long gone by, in a spacious room, warm and cosily lit, with grave, old furniture. We children are sitting around the table opposite my mother who reads stories aloud to us from a book. I hear again the tale of the dog who was shot by his master because he was faithful, and I see myself weeping with childish sorrow again, suddenly to change to laughter because of the cries of the winter-radish man which resound gloomily in the hallway through the little open hatch in the door.
I walk on, through the narrow, winding, filthy little alleys and along different, n
arrow canals. I walk past turbulent, black factories whose chimneys angrily store smoke and flames in the misty air.
I reach a vastly long, broad street with tall houses, old and dilapidated. I meet hardly anyone except, now and again, for small gangs of workmen returning from work who stomp through puddles and mud, talking loudly, suddenly to disappear into a little drinking parlour, the open door of which casts a bright strip of light across the wet paving stones. Mournfully, the smoking paraffin lamps in the little shops light up the gleaming stripes and the black, rotting fascia boards.
I walk down this sad street for a long time before I reach the end. I cross a bridge and sit myself down on a pile of planks at the water's edge, to rest.
The rain has ceased and slowly the mist hanging over the canal disperses.
Repeatedly, the moon emerges from among the clouds that break apart and close again, and all is still, quiet and lacklustre.
Before me, I see the dark water restlessly rattling its black little waves on towards the darkness beyond the city.
When I have been sitting a while I hear a quiet rustling and I see a thin, wet little dog sniffing about in the load of shavings on which I have put my feet. What's the matter, little one?' And I pick up the little dog and put it down beside me. It lies down on my coat and I hear a hard, heavy little tail wagging against the planks. The little dog presses itself tightly against me to get warm and, stroking him, I feel his ribs through his skin that hangs limp from the protruding bones. The wagging abates and I hear by the quietening breathing that he is gradually falling asleep, and while I continue to stroke him, involuntarily, I stare ahead of me along the road I have travelled, on the one side, and the great, dark expanse on the other side of the bridge. In the long, gloomy street, a flickering light here and there, I see my life as I have lived it, without variety and without joy. My youth at a great distance, as far away as the factory with its rising flames that disappear into the darkness; from there on not a single bright spot, nothing but monotonous darkness with here and there a shadowy glimpse; and on the other side of the bridge I see my future, darker still than my past and my present, one huge dark expanse, impenetrably black, on to which a pale moon tries to shed some light, in vain.
The water rattles on continually in restless waves and disappears into the black expanse.
I stare at my future for a long time. Timorously, a shaft of light falls through the rending clouds and lights a stretch of the water with a blue-green sheen. It is not large, the part I see lit up - it disappears and comes again.
Suddenly I see an ill-defined shape loom up from the dark and move slowly up and down in the light-green dusk.
Softly bobbing up and down, it remains on the shadowy spot and I see further shapes join it, vague in outline like the first. When I look properly, I recognise those who were with me and who have been gone a long time now.
They disappear and make way for others, more sharply drawn and more clearly recognisable.
I see those who are with me, compliant and motionless, one with calm features, the other with distorted ones. They are dead; along with them, others arise from the dark waters and float across the clear spot, and beyond it they disappear into the black future.
They come from all sides, thronging together, corpse to corpse, pressed closely more.
Gradually, the spot becomes deserted as before and I am still staring down, motionless as ever, on the water rattling by.
Again something rises up from the dark water towards the gleaming shine. A head, a single head, the same one I saw today, with the thick, black hair hanging sodden and tangled around the temples and with the long, dark lashes that cast a shadow on the wax-matt cheeks. And suddenly again I see the old, grinning skeleton grasp with his rough claw the big, black shock of hair and shake the head with its pall of suffering, to and fro, in wild fury, so that the eyes are opened and stare at me with a silent, pleading, fear-filled gaze.
I am startled by the dog that begins to whine as I grasp hold of it roughly, and the vision disappears.
Still the water rattles on with its restless black waves. The little dog drops off to sleep once more, and again I stare down on the dark waters. But now the luminous spot has gone and there is nothing but darkness and black around me.
I see myself lying blue and contorted beneath the water where I am sucked into the mud, soiled and battered, and I follow my own corpse that bloats and rises to the surface. It snags on a barge which drags it along over mud and stones; I see how it comes loose and floats along on the current and how, finally, it is fished out by a passing boatman. I see the little yellow cart, pushed along by an indifferent drudge and accompanied by a single police officer; I see how it rolls along past quiet backwaters where everyone moves out of the way, revolted, as it passes, how it continues on its lengthy way one evening and reaches the churchyard.
The rain that slowly has begun to fall shakes me from my reverie. I take shelter tight against the planks and continue to drowse.
I see the churchyard, a sunny, warm comer, green with tall grass sprouting up luxuriantly among which rough thistles and yellow dandelions grow, quietly rained on by the white petals the may is sprinkling down. Warm and clear, the glow of the sun radiates from the crisp blue sky and scorches the leaves of a copper beech casting a deep shadow over this quiet spot. Humming flies dance around it, a few white butterflies sway gently to and fro on a tall ear of grass-seed that, spindly, sticks out above the rest. Repeatedly, a mild wind rustles through the leaves of the surrounding woods and makes the little spots of shade dance and intertwine on the soft, gleaming, green turf. Now and then, a bird perches on the grey tombstones, hops to and fro for a while on the warm stones and disappears among the quiet twigs. The air trembles, straight from the soil up to the deep blue of the heavens above.
The rain falls more heavily. The wind blows more strongly across the dark water.
This has to be the end - and when I get up, for a moment I still feel the warm breath of the little dog which I have startled from its sleep and I see all the visions of that entire day pass before me one more time, the pale head of a woman with the black hair, the dense throng of corpses; and when they have passed, everything dissolves into the same grinning old skeleton who, like today, stretches out his scrawny hand to me.
While I am ready to do that to which everything propels me, while I already feel the scrawny hand with irresistible grip urge me toward the dark pool glugging forth wildly in the direction of the great, black water, whipped up by the wind, while the gloomy cry of the winter-radish man sounds from the opposite side of the water, I suddenly see in the sunny spot of the churchyard a woman, wrinkled with sorrow, who is staring at a raised spot under which I myself am lying, and I recognise in her my mother ...
I return home, sadder and gloomier than ever, followed by the skinny dog who stays close to me and trots along beside me with a drooping tail.
Jan Arends
It's not just any old day. It's the first of September. What is more, it's Sunday. And Mr Koopman's birthday. The other gentlemen have already been up for many hours. The night-duty assistant began washing at five o'clock this morning. Now, in as far as they are up and about, they are all wearing their Sunday-best suits and have already had their breakfast.
Most of them are sitting in the sunlounge. They're smoking or chewing tobacco. They're quarrelling or looking outside. Not much to see out there. A dusty patch of lawn. A large horsechestnut that blocks out a lot of light and will be chopped down this winter. A black-tarred fence.
It's September the first, 1968. But Mr Koopman is still asleep. He's seventy-nine years old now. It is true that Mr Koopman is the most difficult gentleman in the home. He's a little senile. But that doesn't alter the fact that he is contrary in general. He's bad at obeying and cannot stay in bed at night. When the other gentlemen are already asleep, he's still scuttling about the ward, turning over ashtrays still standing there and wastepaper baskets. For he's addicted to chewing tobacc
o and this way he sometimes finds an old chew that has been spat out by one of the other gentlemen. Four, five times of an evening he has to be tucked back in bed again.
'Mind you stay in bed, Mr Koopman. Or else it'll be off to the asylum for you.'
It makes no difference at all.
The moment the ward orderly - who has a further fifty-nine other gentlemen to bother her head about, after all - has gone to a different part of the ward, he gets out of bed again. Such trouble you then have to get the man back in again! And he won't wake up in the morning. Not with sweet words. Not with threats. Perhaps a good clout would help. But no slapping is allowed in this establishment. Barring exceptions, they keep to that here.
But this morning Mr Koopman does not have to wake up early. It's his birthday. On their birthdays the gentlemen are spoilt. All of them. Mr Koopman too, therefore. And there is no finer day to have your birthday than Sunday! And September the first, to boot. And all of nature is festive. To celebrate summer's farewell. There's dear, sweet sunshine and there's gold in the leaves of the chestnut tree which will be chopped down this winter.
But now it's a quarter past nine already. It really is high time that Mr Koopman woke up. 'I'll lay his table. I'll fetch his breakfast from the kitchen. I'll wake him up. Then he's sure to know it's party time and that it's his birthday. He's not as potty as all that,' gabbles the fat, kindly orderly. She has the habit of talking to herself.
'Then he'll wake up alright. There's an egg with it, too, after all.'
She comes out of the kitchen carrying a large tray with everything on it. Four slices of bread. A slice of ham (not at all thin-cut). Two slices of cheese. A little glass dish of red jam. Oh, yes. Real cherry jam. And REAL butter. Sugar, coffee, milk. An orange on top of all that as well. And the egg, of course.
The Dedalus Book of Dutch Fantasy Page 2
