Postcards From No Man's Land (31 page)

After the recent rain, the ground was waterlogged. Already the bottom of the grave was flooded. I closed my mind to it, shut out what we were doing. I do not even remember how we lowered the coffin in to the grave. Only taking the spade and insisting that I be the one to cover the coffin with soil. And I went on shovelling with greater and greater speed, with a growing anger that gave me strength, until Mr Wesseling took my arm and said, ‘Enough. Don’t exhaust yourself. I’ll finish it.’ At which the anger seemed to seep away, leaving me almost too weak to stand.

Mrs Wesseling put her arm round my waist and together we watched as Mr Wesseling finished filling in the grave,
and then scattered the remaining soil.

‘I’ll lay some flagstones on it later,’ Mr Wesseling said when he had finished.

‘God rest him,’ Mrs Wesseling said. ‘This is a sad business.’

‘After the liberation, we’ll see he’s properly laid to rest,’ Mr Wesseling said. ‘There’s nothing more we can do for him now. And there are the animals to see to.’

He turned and went off with the pushcart to his work. And Mrs Wesseling led me back in to the house.

All day it bothered me that we had said nothing over the grave. It may seem an odd small thing to be concerned about, but the mind finds many ways to protect itself in times of grief. And so at dusk I went out alone, and stood by Jacob’s grave, and recited one of his favourite poems from Sam’s book, an ode by Ben Jonson. He liked especially the last two lines, which he said summed up life better than any other words he knew.

It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make Man better be;

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:

A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May,

Although it fall and die that night;

It was the plant and flower of Light.

In small proportions we just beauties see;

And in short measures life may perfect be.

POSTCARD

The great object of life is sensation –

to feel that we exist.

Lord Byron

HE WOKE LATE
next day, ten thirty, having slept the sleep of the dead. Only the need to pee got him up. He meant to go back to bed, but on the way to the bathroom his kiss-and-tell with Hille in the park came back to him so vividly that, by the time he had relieved himself, the remembered sensations were so current on his skin, the desire for it all again was so straining, that he couldn’t help but relieve himself of this other call of nature with a hand job that produced more satisfaction than any for a long time. Because, he told himself, it was inspired by somebody real—yes, some
body
, and yes, some
mind
too—not a fantasy, not a virtual reality he couldn’t lay his hands on (or lay in any way) but an actual reality he could actually lay his actual hands on.

When he had done the make-do deed, he looked at his sleep-rustled frig-sweated self in the mirror, smiled, winked, and said out loud, ‘Skin, skin, I do loooove skin.’

He felt happy for the first time since arriving in Holland. He must have been happy yesterday with Hille, but he hadn’t thought whether he was or wasn’t because happiness was happening then. Do you only know you’re happy when the happiness itself is in the past? Is the cause of happiness an active state and the knowledge of happiness a reflective state? The kind of questions Sarah would like to discuss. Would Hille? He knew with pleasure that the answer was yes. After breakfast he must write to her. Not
must
. Wanted
to. A twinge of guilt at that thought. And to Sarah too, not so much
wanting to
, but must. She’d feel hurt and neglected if he didn’t send her something soon, even just a postcard. Apart from a brief phone call the day he arrived to let her know he was safe, he hadn’t been in touch. Sarah affected not to mind such things but he knew she did. And knew she preferred written messages to phone calls.

Anyway, he repeated to himself as he happily brushed his teeth, he felt happy. He happily stood under the shower, happily washed his hair, happily soaped himself all over, happily played the detachable showerhead down and over and up and under and round himself, happily got out of the shower and happily towelled himself, happily clipped his toe- and fingernails with the dinky scissors happily included in the compact traveller’s toilet bag his mother had given him as a going-away present, happily brushed his hair, which he was happy he had had cut severely short for this trip, and happily viewed his sluiced, spruced and glowing body in the mirror.

Mirror, mirror on the wall

who is the fairest of us all?—

And you’d better say me

or I’ll smash your face in.

For once he was moderately pleased by what he saw. Especially he was pleased with his dinger, which, now roused, was game for more attention. But he decided no, it must wait. His stomach needed attention even more. (Yesterday, when he arrived back from Oosterbeek, he had felt so shattered and had so much to brood on he had gone straight to bed without eating, as much to be on his own and not to have to talk to Daan as because he was tired. He had meant to get up later and eat but had fallen flat-out asleep almost as soon as he lay down.)

While dressing, he went on thinking about Hille. He had not felt like this for a girl before. For some girls he’d felt randy, yes, and there were girls who were friends but who
didn’t turn him on. But no girl had ever
unsettled
him, mind and body, the way Hille did. Not to mention make him feel as happy as he felt this morning.
Scareee
, he said to himself as he went down to the kitchen, and wondered how she was feeling about him today.

In the kitchen he found a note from Daan written on a large sheet of yellow paper, which was hanging like a banner from the lampshade above the counter.

Jacob
:

Change of plan
.

Geertrui:

Asks you see her

tomorrow, 11:00
,

not today
.

Me:

Am with her
.

Back 18:00 approx
.

Then want to hear

all about yesterday
.

You:

Make yourself at home
.

Do as you wish
.

Need company?

Ton would like it for sure

that you call him
.

Be happy
.

Daan

He said hooray, and set about making breakfast. In the fridge he found half a Galia melon wrapped in clingfilm. He ate it straight from the husk, scooping the flesh out with a spoon. A cold refreshing juicy start. Next: in Dutchland do as the Dutch do. For breakfast the Dutch do thin slices of cheese and thin slices of ham. Plenty of that in the fridge. And grainy bread in the bread bin, not quite fresh but okay
to toast. Butter. And for after the cheese and ham, because there was no marmalade and anyhow he’d gone Dutch, these chocolate whatsnames,
hagelslag
, look like mouse droppings, which he’d seen Mrs van Riet scatter on her bread at breakfast the first morning and thought at the time how odd, associating such stuff with topping for cakes at teatime. Tea? He’d been surprised at how much tea the Dutch drank till, mentioning it yesterday, Hille made the history connection between the Dutch and their once but no longer colonies, now Indonesia was it?, where they must have picked up the char habit as the English picked it up during their (our, but he didn’t feel it had anything to do with him or that he wanted to have anything to do with it) time ruling India. But he could only find Earl Grey, which he didn’t like: too scented. Never mind. Be not daunted. Dutch coffee, why not, Douwe Egberts, in a pleasantly ominous black bag, ho ho ho and a bottle of rum. Make it in the nice dinky two-cup silver cafetière standing on the draining board. But why don’t the Dutch, or this Daan Dutchman anyway, use an electric kettle instead of always boiling water for tea the slow way on the stove? (That’s what he could give as a thank-you present when he left, Sarah having dinned into him that he must do such a thing as a sign of gratitude. But would it be a bit domesticky dull? More the sort of thing you’d give to someone getting married. He’d never been much good at thinking what to give people for presents. Now now, no mouse mood today: avaunt and quit my mind. Maybe Hille would help him choose something better.)

For the attention of Ms Hille Babbe:

In reply to your recent advertisement for the post of kissing-boyfriend, I hope my interview and test yesterday gave satisfaction. If you require a second interview and further tests of my qualifications, may I be so bold as to suggest that we arrange as early a date as possible as my stay in the Netherlands is an all-too-short one. I assure you of my eagerness to prove myself worthy of the vacant position
.

Dear Ms Babbe:

I am pleased to inform you that you successfully completed the first test for the post we discussed yesterday and that you did so with higher marks than any other applicant has ever scored. In fact, your score was so high it is off the scale. On the basis of this achievement I would like to offer you a contract immediately. However, if you still have any reservations about taking the post, I am only too ready to cooperate in further explorations of the employment benefits I can offer. I look forward to hearing from you about another meeting as soon as is convenient to you
.

Hille:

By the time you read this we will probably have talked on the phone. But there are things I want to say now which I can’t say on the phone because you will be at school. (It’s 11:00, and I’ve just got up.) Anyway, apart from that, there are some things I can say on the phone, some things I can’t, and some things I can only say in writing. Not that this letter is about things I can only say in writing. I’m only writing it because I can’t be with you. That is what I would like the most. Not necessarily saying anything at all. Being with you would be enough
.

Since yesterday I haven’t stopped thinking about yesterday. Well, that’s not
completely
true. Can’t be, can it? Was I thinking about it while I was asleep, for instance? (Don’t know, can’t remember. Do we think while we sleep? Is that what dreams are? Sleep thinking. Last night I slept like a log—did you?—and can’t remember dreaming anything. Can you, and if ‘Yes’, what?) Also, I thought about what to have for breakfast (what did you have and what’s your favourite breakfast?) and how to spend the day without you. (How was your day without me? Don’t reply if the answer is ‘Better than it would have been with you’.) But still: underneath (on top of, alongside, parallel with, whatever) those sorts of thoughts, everyday thoughts, all the time in another part of my mind I was also thinking about yesterday. No, let’s be accurate, not about
yesterday
. About
you
. I know, because ever since I woke up I’ve felt what I believe people mean by the word ‘happy’
.

You, yesterday, made me feel happy today
.

By the way, talking of happy. I’ve just looked it up in an English Dictionary I found on the bookshelves in this apartment, and I discover that
happy
comes from an Old Norse word,
happ
, meaning
good luck
, related to Old English
gehaeplic
, meaning
convenient
, and Old Slavonic
kobû
, meaning
fate
. So, as just thinking about you makes me
happ
-y like never before, do you think it might be my convenient good luck that you are my fate?

There are a zillion and one things I want to ask you, from easy questions like ‘How are you planning to spend the rest of your life?’ to really important ones such as: ‘Is it better to go with the flow or to let the flow go?’, ‘Whose films are funniest, Laurel and Hardy’s or Charlie Chaplin’s (or neither)?’, and ‘Will eternity be long enough to do all I want to do with you?’

I better stop before this letter gets any stupider. I could rewrite it so you wouldn’t know how stupid I can be. But I’m not going to, because if we are going to get to know each other and become friends, which I hope we are, and which, to be honest, is what this letter is really trying to say, then I reckon you might as well know from the start how stupid I can be
.

I’ll make a guess: you like poetry. Me too. So I’ve written one specially for you
.

Hille:

for you

earth plays

sky tunes

water sings

stones rock

time burns

fire quenches

in me:

Jacob

‘Ton? Hi, this is Jacob.’

‘Jacques! Hey, hallo!’

‘Did I wake you up?’

‘No no. It’s okay.’

‘I was wondering …’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m on my own today.’

‘You’re not to visit Geertrui?’

‘No. Change of plan. And Daan is with her. The thing is, I need to post a letter, and I haven’t done that before, in Holland I mean, and I thought you might … and, well, like you said, remember? … show me a bit of Amsterdam.’

‘What time is it?’

‘About twelve thirty. If it’s a problem—’

‘No, no problem. Good idea. Just thinking. Can you be outside Daan’s place at two o’clock?’

‘Two o’clock. Yes.’

‘If it isn’t raining. Wait in the apartment if it is.’