Marcel (5 page)

“
Un accident de parcours
,” the grandfather said, grinning.

“Mind you, he gets good marks at school. It wouldn’t hurt to follow his example.”

More thumping. A woman’s voice could be heard asking: “So where are they now?”

The boy growled unintelligibly.

“What’s that?” cried the woman’s voice. “Why didn’t you ask them to come through …”

The door opened again and this time it was Anna who stepped into the cave.

“Fancy making Henri and Andrea wait all this time,” she said with an apologetic smile. “Whatever would Cyriel say if he knew … Welcome. I see you’ve brought your grandson along.”

Around her eyes lay deeply etched lines, which weren’t there when she had last visited, six months earlier. The dull blond hair which had been fluffed out in a formidable perm on that occasion was now secured with old-fashioned bone combs behind her ears. She wore a grey blouse and a small pendant, which was nothing at all compared to the shiny bangles and glittery necklaces she had always worn when she came to visit. The pores of her naked skin, which would usually have been thick with makeup, now gave her features a grainy cast. When she shook my hand I saw there were tobacco stains on the tips of her index and middle finger.

“Cyriel’s still asleep,” she said. “Let’s sit out on the veranda for a while.”

At the back of the house, where the blinds had been let
down over the windows, the air was cool and funereal. The roof of the glazed veranda had been covered with linen sheets.

Anna motioned us to take a seat. The grandmother glanced round for a swift appraisal of the interior. On the windowsills stood tired house plants barely surviving in clumps of parched compost. Over the backs of the beige, fake leather chairs hung crochet antimacassars, which released little puffs of dust around our ears when we sat down. Several untidily folded newspapers littered the place.

Anna perched stiffly on a chair with a cane seat. Her fingertips kept touching the pendant on her chest.

“Well, we got here safe and sound,” the grandmother remarked, for want of anything else to say.

Anna smiled feebly and turned to look at me.

“Our Wieland must show you his room later on.” Over her shoulder she shouted “Wieland! What’s keeping you?”

“Coming, Ma,” the boy called from the kitchen. His voice was breaking, and rose from a growl to a squeak. I heard him setting cups on a tray, tipping sugar lumps into the bowl, filling the milk jug and rattling spoons in a kitchen drawer.

Anna spread her fingers on her lap and studied them at length.

“To be honest, we must be prepared for the worst.”

The grandmother gave a little nod as she slipped into her tried and tested routine of bobbing her head up and down and murmuring “Yes … yes. I know … yes, yes … But what can you do? It’s not fair, you know.”

“I know,” sighed Anna.

Meanwhile there was some commotion in the kitchen. Wieland could be heard wrestling frantically with a tightly-sealed package and, when it finally ripped open, swearing under his breath. Drawers were opened and cupboard doors slammed. Next came the sweeping sound of a brush.

Anna did not seem to notice. She raised her hands from her skirt and lowered them again.

“We’re all treading on eggshells.”

“As well you might be,” said the grandmother. “It’s very trying. Personally, I’ve buried more than my share …”

She was shocked by her own words. Her self-assured poise evaporated.

“Dear me, here I am carrying on … just as if …”

“It’s no use pretending it won’t happen,” Anna said. “We just don’t know when. It may be days or weeks, but not much longer than that. I think he knows.”

Wieland came in from the kitchen carrying a tray, which he set down on the low table with a clatter. He busied himself with the distribution of cups and saucers. His Terylene flares flapped around his shins, and every few seconds he tossed the hair out of his eyes.

“If I’ve told him once I’ve told him a hundred times to get that fringe of his cut,” Anna said, “but he won’t listen …”

“It’s the fashion,” Wieland said, his voice switching from growl to squeak. He poured the coffee, pausing repeatedly to rub his nose with the back of his hand.

“And how’s the vegetable garden, Henri?” Anna asked.

The atmosphere on the veranda lifted, to everyone’s relief.

“My spuds are in a right state,” the grandfather replied brightly, as if that were a good thing. “Those Colorado beetles … when those little blighters decide to pay you a visit …”

Wieland seated himself next to me on the low footstool. His body doubled up like a jackknife, with his knees almost touching his chin. He drained his cup of coffee, put it back on the table and then held his left wrist under my nose.

“Look, Our Dad’s given me his watch. A proper deep sea diver’s watch. Goes down to a hundred metres.”

“Have you tried it yet?” I wanted to know.

The grandmother shot me a look I took to mean I should not be critical.

“I’ve tried diving to the bottom of the swimming pool with it. Four metres at least.” After a pause he said: “And it didn’t budge.”

“I think I can hear him,” Anna said, rising to her feet. “I’ll see if he needs anything.” She vanished to the back of the house.

The grandmother had been fidgeting with her empty coffee cup for a while before Wieland noticed. He sprang up and went round with the coffee again.

“Thank you, lad,” the grandmother said. “And how’s your school work?”

“Fine,” Wieland said gruffly. He had no desire to pursue the subject.

“What was it you were taking your exams in? I ought to know, but I keep forgetting. At my age …”

“Latin,” Wieland said hoarsely, “at the College of the Blessed Fathers. It’s quite a long way from here.”

“Latin,” she sighed. “Difficult, I suppose, but worth the effort … Cicero, Seneca …” Her voice faltered as she tried to recollect. “How did it go?
Tityre, tu patulae
… Oh dear.
Tityre tu patulae … recubans …
” She gave up. “My memory’s like a sieve …”

“Virgil,” Wieland broke in. “A bit of a bore, to tell you the truth. Give me Caesar any day.”

“What’s that?
Jules César
!” The grandfather laughed. “He didn’t stand for any nonsense, did he? Still, we led him quite a dance. Said so himself.” He drew himself up. “Of all the Belgians, the Gauls are … how did it go?”

The grandmother ignored him.

Wieland filled my cup to the brim.

“I’ve got some great pictures upstairs,” he said. “Of the army. Want to have a look?”

“He’d like that,” the grandmother said.

Wieland waved his arm towards me. “Compared to my photographs,” he said proudly, “even Caesar’s a softie.”

Wieland’s room was seldom aired. It held all his stale breath. The orange curtains on the narrow window were half open, revealing a dusty radiator. The bed was rumpled; there were posters stuck randomly on the faded wallpaper. Wedged into a corner was a small writing table strewn with crumpled bits of paper. On the rug lay a still life of tangled shirts and underwear, all black or grey aside from the circles left behind by dried body fluids.

“It’s a bit cramped in here,” he said. “How d’you like my posters?”

They were too fierce-looking for my taste, but I did my best to appear enthusiastic. He had filled the spaces between the posters with pictures of pop singers in glittery outfits.

Wieland cleared away some stray clothes.

“You can sit on the bed. I’ve got something to show you. Some photo albums our Dad has given me. Wait.”

He opened the drawer of the writing table.

I glanced round. There was a shelf of books over the bed. Most of the spines were cracked, some were so ragged that you could barely read the titles.

Onward Soldiers

All Quiet on the Western Front

Incense and Tear-gas

A thin book squeezed in between two fat volumes caught my eye. I drew it out carefully.

Pussy Street

“That one’s about tarts,” Wieland squeaked nervously.

His mouth was disconcertingly close to my ear. He snatched the book from me and replaced it on the shelf.

“They don’t know I’ve got it. Come on.”

He installed himself on the bed and opened a large album with a glossy black cover. More soldiers. Ramrod-straight in serried ranks, parading past the tall town houses.

“Our Dad’s somewhere in there, marching with the others,” Wieland said. “You just try picking him out of the crowd.”

He turned the pages slowly, pausing at a picture of a mass
of men’s heads, all turned toward a cluster of tiny figures on the steps of an imposing building in the distance. Above the men’s heads in the foreground rose a hedge of right arms raised in diagonal salute.

“Those were the days,” Wieland murmured dreamily, as if he had been there himself. He spelled out the caption:
From the steps of the Bourse, once the stronghold of Jews and plutocrats, the leader surveys his following
.

He chuckled.

“Our Dad always says, if only our people had stuck it out a bit longer, we’d all be a sight better off right now. Our Dad used to give speeches, too. They put them on records, some of them. He wouldn’t let me have them, though.”

He pursed his lips and whistled. “He was a quite a speaker in his day, you know.”

Wieland’s nose must have been itching again, for he squeezed his nostrils between his thumbs and rubbed up and down at length. The mattress began to heave, making some large photos spill out on the none-too-clean bedspread along with a sheaf of snapshots.

“Take a look at this. You know who they are, don’t you?”

There were two men, one of whom wore an elaborate belted uniform with braiding and epaulettes, topped by an outsize military cap.

“That’s our Dad,” Wieland said, beaming. “Good uniform, eh?
Überscharführer
. He says it was the best time of his life.”

Überscharführer
.

There’s no moustache, I thought, he ought to have a
moustache. I didn’t know why. All I thought was:
Überscharführers
always have moustaches, and he hasn’t got one. His face was very ordinary: pale, lumpy, short thick nose, eyes peering out of measly wire-framed spectacles. A shopkeeper in fancy dress.

I swallowed hard and glanced at Wieland.

He grinned. The downy black hairs on his upper lip lay in perfectly regimented lines.

“And that one there,” he said. “You know who that is, don’t you?”

Next to the shopkeeper in disguise stood a slim figure in a dark, unshowy uniform. Instinctively I blurted: “It’s Marcel.”

“Our Dad always says Marcel could have gone far. He could have done a lot to help the Flemish cause. It’s a shame he died before …”

Wieland shut the album, jumped up and put it back in the drawer.

Silence fell. I just sat there, stroking the bedspread.

He watched me narrowly.

“Great pictures, eh?”

“Yes, yes.”

He sprawled on the bed again, letting his hand rest chummily on my shoulder. “I know what people say behind our backs. Do they call you ‘blackshirt’ at your school too?”

He didn’t wait for me to reply.

“Mind you, I couldn’t care less … Come on, let’s be blackshirts and talk about girls.” He wrinkled his nose. “You got a girlfriend?”

I stammered non-committally.

“I suppose not. They’re always a bit backward in the country … I’ve got one, though.”

“What’s her name?”

“Kathy.” His voice cracked again. He jiggled his right foot and tossed the lock of hair from his forehead for the umpteenth time.

“Wouldn’t it be a good idea to get your hair cut sometime?” I asked, to change the subject. “It keeps getting in your eyes.”

“Girls are crazy about long hair,” he boasted. “Wait. I’ll show you a picture of Kathy.”

He sat up and raised his right arm to the bookshelf over the bed. His hand fumbled around, tipping a tin soldier onto his pillow, followed by a stamp bearing a postmark and a revolting crumpled handkerchief. He drew himself up further, lost his balance and fell on top of me. His dark jersey gave off a metallic body smell. I tried to push him off.

“Sorry,” he stammered. It sounded a little too studied.

His bony hands gripped my shoulders.

“Let me go, runt.”

He flattened me against the mattress, drew himself up again and planted his knees on my upper arms. His trousers crackled with static.

His face broke into a hard smile. “See if you can escape now.”

He took a deep breath and looked around with a show of unconcern.

“What shall we do? Any ideas? D’you know how to snog?”

I wasn’t sure I knew what he was getting at.

“Snog. Don’t you understand?”

He leaned over until his nose touched mine and his fringe tickled my eyelashes. His eyes were dark brown.

“Snog,” he repeated.

He put his lips to my right ear.

“What girls do. Not like this …” he said, moving his lips to my cheek, “… like this.”

He pressed his face down and ground his mouth against mine to force it open. I screwed up my eyes and clenched my jaws. His tongue wormed itself between my lips. Our teeth collided painfully.

He shrank back and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“Pig.”

He leaned forward for a renewed attempt. Suddenly his mother’s voice called from the landing: “Wieland!”

We drew back instantly and glared at each other from opposite sides of the bed.

“Wieland?” Anna repeated.

She pushed the door open a little way, eyed the pair of us carefully, put on a solemn expression and said: “Our Dad, Wieland, would like you to take a nice photo of us all.” She paused. “You know where the camera is.”

Wieland left the room. His mother motioned me to follow her.

“He didn’t try to tie you up, I hope,” she said. “He keeps wanting to play Red Indians. His friends don’t fancy it, so they’ve stopped coming to the house. All of seventeen and still playing games.”

Shaking her head she retreated to the sparsely-lit landing.