Here and there, the ground, which was juicy and sucked tight to my shoes, was covered in moss. I chose a spot where, without being visible to passers-by, I could watch Werther's house. Here I sat on a small trunk that had snapped, one that hurt me sitting down, and I embarked on some reflection. It turned out that I did have a stub of pencil but no paper on me. However, I discovered a damp cigar box on the ground. On this I wrote: 'I'm sitting in the spying tower, looking out at Werther's house. At the moment I can't see anything yet. When I spot trouble I shall send a messenger.' I trampled the box and drove it, stamping my heels, into the soil.
Just as I had finished doing this I heard laughter and hollering coming nearer. I saw a woman run past along the broad cinder path who slowed up occasionally to turn a full circle. At first I thought she did this to look behind her, but it more closely resembled some combination of dance steps. Before I'd been able to make an accurate observation she had already gone past. I stepped out from the bushes into the open, in order to watch her go; just as I was standing on the path a collection of at least thirty hollering children reached me, apparently following her. I mingled with them and dashed along in their midst. We began to catch up with the woman. Reaching the street, she stepped on to the pavement and halted. All her pursuers came to a halt at some distance from her. I was one of the last.
The woman turned round, bowed and took up the edge of her skirt on either side. When she straightened out again I saw that she was Werther's mother. A great fear crept over me. Afraid she would recognise me in the multitude, I bent down a little and crouched slightly. 'She isn't wearing a coat,' I thought.
She began to execute rapid steps on the spot during which she repeatedly struck the soles of her shoes loudly against the paving stones. All of a sudden she raised her skirts about her head, almost losing her balance in doing so. When she had let them drop again she halted a moment and then began to make shorter, more restrained little steps, humming as she went.
Two women now arrived from a porch near by, one of whom wore a white cap, like a nurse. The other had put on a coat. They took Werther's mother carefully by her upper arms. 'Mrs Nieland, you really must go home quickly,' the woman with the cap said. 'It's far too cold here. It's late already. You really must go home quickly.'
They continued to hold on to her. She did show signs of putting up a struggle but did not resist with force. We came closer.
'I'm dancing in time to the music,' Werther's mother said. 'I'm the dancer Agatha.' She said this in an ordinary, businesslike tone of voice, but immediately afterwards she went on resentfully with: 'Everyone shouldn't think they know what dancing is. Dancing is quite a different thing to what people think.' The two women pulled her along with mild coercion. Her dark floral dress billowed occasionally in the wind which lifted her fluffy hair repeatedly. I wanted to walk away but could not bring myself to.
Suddenly she began to shout. 'Education!' she cried. 'That's no education at all! Not in a month of Sundays!' Her face looked tired and flushed, but she smiled continually. The two women drew her along more rapidly now and brought her inside the doorway to her house.
Adults had joined us now, too, among them the corner shop tobacconist. He looked on but said nothing.
Though it was no longer necessary, I had mechanically continued crouching at the back. A girl gave me a push so that I fell over. 'Just taking a crap were you?' she said. The door to Werther's house had closed. I walked away slowly, a few steps, and then I ran home. I understood I would have to think a great deal.
After dinner I lit a wood fire in an old iron barrel in the garden and stayed with it, standing there. The sides became red hot. I called Maarten to come and see. We peed against the iron, creating clouds of steam. When the fire was becoming spent he proposed to sail a large cardboard box that stood in his garden, on the water, its contents burning. We took along the necessary and went to the watercourse. The box, filled with wood shavings, pieces of cardboard and dry branches, and weighted down at the bottom with a paving stone, we balanced on the water, set it alight, and pushed it out from the edge. Because the wind was unfavourable it sailed back slowly. We gave it another push but this time, too, it slowly returned. Maarten said that, had he had the air gun on him, he could have sunk the box with one or two shots. The latter slowly burnt down to the water line, became saturated and went out with a hiss, whereupon it sank. We went and sat down on the bank.
Though it was dark we could see smoke rising above the cemetery which blew in our direction. It smelled of smouldering, imperfect combustion. 'That's where they burn the bones,' Maarten said. When the dead have been underground for seven years, the flesh's off the bones.' He added detail to this. The bones hanging in his room he had, he maintained, fetched from the big piles of bones in the cemetery when the ditches were frozen over. He had done this in collaboration with others. They had taken skulls along as well but had lost these then because they had begun to play football with them on the ice on their way back, without knowing that cemetery staff were closing in on them, from behind. They had managed to escape at the last minute but had been forced to abandon the skulls. It had been thawing, and when they returned the ice had cracked already.
I didn't know whether it was true what he told. Lastly, he maintained there had still been hair on some of the heads. This detail, I thought, could not possibly be invented so that I now believed his entire story. 'The day has three signs,' I said inwardly: I believed that Werther's mother's dancing, the sailing back of the cardboard box and Maarten's tale of the bones were connected with one another in a mysterious way.
When we got back home I took Maarten along to the loft and switched on the electric light. As we were going upstairs, however, I already longed to be alone. Maarten looked round searchingly and studied the cabin trunk. 'That's the secret chest,' I said. 'You're not allowed to touch it.' I went and stood behind it and took paper and pencil. 'I happen to have to write something concerning the club,' I said, regarding the paper as if it bore a message. 'The messenger has brought an urgent message. I have to deal with it but a non-member may not be present.' I looked at him pensively. 'You've got to go,' I decided, 'it can't be helped.' Maarten left without a word. As he descended the stairs, I said: 'You mustn't come here any more 'cause I can't possibly have anything to do with enemies of the club.'
I lit a candle, doused the electric light and wrote: 'The Army Club. What the Club can do. We can sail boxes that bum. That's good to pester the water monsters. 2. Go to the cemetery when it's freezing and fetch heads and bones. If it's not freezing we'll build a dam. This must be done by members who know a lot about graves and building. At the head stands the chief, that's the chairman of the club. 3. Go and take a look in the spinney when, for instance, someone comes by who runs fast and begins to dance. You can see this 'cause she hasn't got a coat on.' The final item made me ponder deeply. I put the date underneath what had been written, put it away beneath the roof tile and took a fresh sheet. I decided to send Werther a letter and wrote: 'Werther, I have to speak to you urgently because it's very important. Danger threatens. I'll wait for you tomorrow at four. At your house, on the comer. Elmer.'
I was given permission to go out on to the street for a little while. When I was standing in Werther's porch, the same smell blew out at me as the one I had noticed inside his home. I pressed open the letter box but instead of dropping the letter in, I listened at it, keeping an eye on the street. Only a draught rustled past my ear and I didn't hear a thing. I continued to listen even so. After some time I heard the rub-a-dub of footsteps crossing one of the rooms, and hushed voices. I considered opening the door with a pass key I possessed and to go and sit at the foot of the stairs, but this I did not dare.
Suddenly a door opened somewhere on the upper landing and I recognised the voice of Werther's mother. 'I've got a good deal more power than you think,' she said loudly. 'I've got the green gem stones (A number of words got lost here.) Then the door was slammed shut again rather forceful
ly; I could still hear voices but too faintly to distinguish between them. In the end, I flicked the note into the letter box and went home.
The following day, in the afternoon, I was standing sentry at the spot indicated. I had come walking quickly from school and I knew I would have to run into Werther for he attended a private school twenty minutes' walk from his home. When I saw him coming I ran towards him and walked along with him during which I held forth at length. 'There's a very bad misunderstanding,' I said. 'That has to be cleared up. We aren't enemies at all but there was someone who wanted to break up the club: he was sowing discord.' (This last expression I had read somewhere shortly before.)
Werther wasn't angry any more and heard me out affably. We must meet tomorrow afternoon,' I said. We had ended up on the pavement in front of his house. Here he halted hesitantly. We have to talk,' I said, 'that's necessary.' All of a sudden, his mother poked her head out through a little window that could not belong to a room nor to the stairwell. From here she began a conversation.
'Hello boys,' she said, laughing. I wasn't sure whether her behaviour was commonplace or most extraordinary. 'Mother, you're just like an acrobat,' Werther said. He sniggered for a moment but then looked straight up again.
His mother made a few dott, shaking movements with her head, then stuck out her chin and asked: 'Isn't that your little mate Elmer? Have you hatched a plan again? You're a right pair of likely lads. Why not come upstairs.'
Werther seemed to hesitate but when his mother repeated her request we climbed the stairs. His mother was already waiting for us on the landing. By looking round carefully, I worked out where the window might have been and concluded it had to open out from the lavatory.
'I had been looking down for quite a while already,' she said, 'but I said nothing. I had actually wanted to throw water on to your heads. Would you've liked that, Elmer?' she asked.
'It would've been a giggle,' I said, looking at the floor; 'it's still a bit too cold for that' I felt uncomfortable.
We had made our way to the kitchen. 'Cold water is good for horrid dreams,' she said. 'Werther, why don't you tell your friend what you keep on dreaming all the time.'
Leaning with one hand on the window sill, she did a few tripping steps. 'Come on, tell,' she urged him. 'He's a strange laddie, isn't he? she said and grabbed Werther by his hair. 'Are you strange like that too?' she said. At once she seized me by the hair also and gently shook my head. I dared not make the slightest movement.
'Well, ehm,' Werther said, 'there's a man after me all the time. He's got a big bread knife and he wants to cut my lips in two with it' He indicated this with his index finger using the same gesture as the one with which you ask for silence.
'But we've been to the doctor, Werther,' his mother said. 'Yes, Elmer,' she said, turning to me, 'we've been to the doctor with Werther-kin. He's over sensitive. Every afternoon or evening, he has to be washed with cold water. I'll run the bathtub ready. He's got to be undressed completely, of course.'
At this moment Werther's sister arrived home. 'You can have a bath together,' his mother said, 'then I won't make the water as cold' She began to fill a large bathtub she fetched from the veranda, running the water through a red rubber hose, and she told Werther and Martha to get undressed.
'It's quite alright for you to join in,' she said to me. 'No, that's not necessary,' I said. 'I had a bath only this morning.' (This wasn't true, however.) 'You're welcome to have another one here, you know,' she said. 'Then you lot can have a bit of a rough and tumble afterwards to really dry off. You don't have to get dressed at once.'
She spoke with apparent indifference but in reality there was something compelling in her voice that made me afraid. Werther and Martha had begun to undress. They put their clothes on the kitchen chair. It struck me that Werther undressed himself very tardily and would look round all the time, embarrassed. His mother urged him to hurry.
You never have to be ashamed of anything about your body,' she said. 'It's a very ordinary thing. Elmer's having a bath with you - or isn't he?' 'No, not now,' I said quickly, 'it's not necessary.'
'If you don't want to, you don't have to,' she went on, 'but it's very good for you. You surely dream horrid things too sometimes, don't you?'
'I've dreamed of a whale,' I said. I regretted this announcement instantly and understood I quite simply should have replied in the negative. 'But it wasn't horrid at all, quite the opposite,' I added speedily. I considered how I might suddenly run from the house, but didn't do this for I might trip up on the stairs. Martha, who was already naked, declared she was cold and ran to the living room.
Werther's mother decided that they didn't have to go into the water at once: they were allowed to walk about undressed for a while.
'Why don't you go and wrestle inside,' she said. 'Then I'll come and watch to see who wins.' Werther hesitated to rid himself of his underwear, however.
'You really don't have to hide your thingummy,' she said. 'Your little friend has one too. Or doesn't he - what?' I nodded feebly and searched for any word to say but failed to utter anything. I tried to shuffle imperceptibly to the corner of the kitchen. Suddenly, however, she approached me from behind, swung an arm round my neck and felt with the other, over my shoulder, downwards; I could feel her breath against my neck. I stood quite motionless: at the slightest resistance, I knew, she would stick a thin knife or a long needle into my neck until the marrow had been reached. It took a few seconds before she reached the goal of her fumbling. Then she let me go and jumped towards the window. Her face was red. Werther looked into the water in the bath. There was a moment's silence. 'That thingummy of yours has a purpose,' she said. 'It's there to do something with that isn't anything weird at all. Birds do it too.'
The front door was being opened and somebody came up the stairs. Werther's father. He looked into the kitchen but said nothing. Then we saw him go into the living room but he left it rapidly too, to go up the stairs. He turned back from this instantly again, entered the kitchen and halted, standing there in silence. I considered greeting him but dared not do this.
The man continued to stand there in silence as though he had complex considerations he must shed light on. 'Mother,' he then said without looking anyone in the face, 'Aunt Truus'll be coming tomorrow to collect Martha and Werther for the little circus.' He had uttered this sentence uncertainly, staring out through the windows on to the veranda as he did so. Werther's mother said nothing and didn't appear to be listening. 'Agatha,' he said. Now she looked up all of a sudden. 'Who'll be collecting Werther and Martha?' she asked. 'What's all this? What's it all in aid of?'
Werther, quite naked now, was standing by the veranda door. I considered what it would be like were he to go outside and jump off. 'He'll become a dead bird,' I thought as I regarded him. I thought he was feeling cold.
'Agatha,' Werther's father said, 'I'm telling you this to make you remember. When Truus comes they must be ready. So they can go along at once.'
'So she's going with them to the circus?' she asked. 'I'm coming too in any case, no problem.' 'Agatha,' Werther's father now said at once, 'we were going to be home tomorrow afternoon, weren't we? We were going to have a chat about things; we'd agreed on that, remember? Course you do.' 'Oh,' she said, 'yes. We're home tomorrow afternoon. That'll be nice. But if the circus is really fun, I might go along after all: just for a little while.' She smiled and spoke ever more quietly until she stopped, unnoticed.
Werther,' the man said, 'listen. I'm telling you this in case your mother forgets. Both of you must stay home after lunch and not go out getting yourselves dirty.' 'Yes,' said Werther, staring at his father. The latter went on: 'Then Aunt Truus'll come to collect you and she'll go with you to a kind of little circus. You'll remember now, won't you?'
'Werther was coming over to my place tomorrow afternoon,' I now said, suddenly. 'First, I was coming to him and then he was going to come with me.' For a moment I wasn't sure whether in fact I had uttered the sentences.
'Well, you come along too then,' Werther's father said quickly. Werther, he can come too.' Werther's mother was standing there wiggling and looking with a rigid smile at the mat.
'What is it we're going to, father?' Werther now asked.
Look, Werther,' he replied, 'it's a kind of variety, a little circus in miniature. With small animals. There's a man with a dog that jumps through a hoop. You can stay to have supper at Aunt Truus's. Agatha, they can have their evening meal at Truus's.'
Werther's mother, not listening apparently, began to giggle. Suddenly, without addressing anyone in particular, she said: 'But d'you think that's education? That's no education at all. It has nothing to do with anything.' She continued to stand there.
Werther, go and get yourself dressed, there's a good lad,' his father said. Why not go inside. Take your clothes along with you to the stove.' Werther disappeared. I would have liked to have followed him but didn't dare. The three of us remained. Werther's mother began to hum.
Don't you have to go home yet, lad?' his father asked me. 'Yes, I really ought to,' I said, sniggering to save face. With a hand to the back of my head he pushed me out of the kitchen and closed the door behind us. Without real force yet inescapably he drove me along. We reached the landing. 'Best be off quickly now,' he said, 'or you'll be late.' He didn't look at me. I stepped on to the first stair. 'Sir,' I asked, 'what time must I be here tomorrow afternoon. Didn't you say I could come too?' I thought it possible that, with a kick, perhaps even against my head, he would make me plummet down. He hesitated a moment and then said that I had to come at two o'clock. What's your name?' he asked. I gave my name, said goodbye and rushed downstairs, for I was afraid that he would go and look for that brochure.
The Dedalus Book of Dutch Fantasy Page 32
