‘No, I’m not allowed to do anything for a few days.’ When Jan got up from the table I could see that he had a bad limp. His face was pale and his reddened eyes, strained and weary, had a troubled expression. His initial pleasure at seeing me seemed to have vanished. He made his way awkwardly across the room, overturned a cup on the windowsill with a clatter and looked out of the dark window.
I had wanted to look the place over, to see how he lived, what sort of things were part of his daily life, but I was afraid to. As if rooted to the spot I remained standing in the middle of the room and kept my eyes timidly on the sullen figure by the window.
‘Come on, let’s go upstairs, I’ll show you my den. Or would you rather stay here?’ He opened a door at the back and walked in front of me up a steep little flight of wooden stairs. The stable sounds were very close now through the plank wall and there was a sweetish scent of hay. Excitedly, I followed him up the blue-painted stairs. I was being admitted to the room in which my hero slept, where he dreamed, a world of mysterious deeds I had only been able to guess at in my imagination. It was sure to be a place of unlimited promise, of friendship, shared secrets, of silent touches and discreet meaningful glances.
The little room was small, more a partitioned corner of the attic, with almost the same dimensions as my cupboard-bed. Even so, I thought, it’s his own room. Here he can read, lie on his bed, here he can be alone. He doesn’t have to share anything with anybody.
Jan pointed to a small window which did not look outside but gave onto the hayloft. You could see the haystack, dug into on one side, and beyond it a corner of the pigsty. A heavy wooden beam ran in front of the window, covered with thick layers of grey cobwebs to which dark pieces of dead insects were attached, and the planks beyond were covered with a grotesque layer of bird shit.
‘Shall I show you what I’ve done?’ Jan tried to pull up a leg of his overalls but the material caught in a lump around his knee. Annoyed, he sat down on his bed and began to undo the top of his overalls, his finger tugging impatiently at the buttons.
This little room is like a nest in a tree, I thought, suspended between dark branches and protected by cobwebs. Even I bough you couldn’t look out you could feel it was getting late, you could hear the darkness closing in on us, caressing our limbs. In the gloom of the room I could see a pale torso emerging one shoulder at a time from out of the overalls and hanging there luminously, fragile and tender.
I felt myself grow hot with excitement: this was a hidden place that no one knew about. What was about to happen here was something I would discuss with no one else, a silent, wordless happening between Jan and me. I had the feeling that I was about to discover the real Jan, that he would strip off the layers of indifference before my very eyes, revealing at long last who he really was. I heard him get to his feet and saw him push the overalls down. What was he really up to, what did he mean to do? Was he going to do again what he had done at the Cliff, the bare belly and the sticking-up thing?
‘Come here, take a look at that. Closer.’ The pale shadow sank back onto the bed, the voice sounding hesitant, almost embarrassed.
I went up to him, my heart beginning to thump rapidly and chaotically, the blood throbbing violently against my throat. ‘I can’t see anything, it’s much too dark.’ I could hear how toneless and laboured my voice sounded. Jan stood up, his feet creaked across the floor. I peered at the movements of his white arms and suddenly a softly surging light flared up, casting a path in the darkness. ‘Bother it.’ The match went out. More creaking sounds and a moment later an oil lamp flickered.
From the dark Jan pulled a chair up to the table and sat down. ‘Look,’ he pointed to his leg, ‘look at that cut.’ I saw a gash, a dark line running almost all the way from his knee to the top of his leg. ‘My knife slipped. Really stupid.’ He gave a muffled chuckle. ‘And it’s deep, too. I ought to be sitting with my leg up all the time.’
I crouched on the floor beside Jan and looked at the elongated, scabby wound and at the smooth, clean line of the legs in the knitted underwear that flopped loosely about his body. Jan sat bent forward, peering closely at the wound as if he were short-sighted. His fingers pushed and pressed along the dark stripe. Suddenly he placed his hand over it protectively, as if he were afraid that I might hurt him. ‘It’s red-hot, just like I’m boiling. It’s full of pus which has to come out. Have a feel, see how much it’s throbbing.’
I didn’t move. The wound was like a thin snake that might suddenly wriggle away at great speed.
‘Would you mind squeezing it out for me? Otherwise I’ll have to go to the doctor’s.’ He looked at me anxiously, I had never seen him so uncertain and afraid before. ‘Just have a go, I don’t care if it hurts.’ I edged a little closer and laid my hand warily on the white leg. I could feel the throb of the feverish skin under my awkward fingertips. I was unable to talk, to breathe, to swallow, frightened to death lest I made the wrong move and caused him pain.
‘Get on with it, then.’
Carefully I slid my hand across a soft, smooth surface until it came up against the crusty, rough, injury. ‘Ouch, careful.’ The leg moved and pushed into my chest. ‘Watch it, you hear?’ He pointed to a whitish little swelling at the edge of the scab. ‘Feel that? The pus is under there, that’s where you have to squeeze.’ He pushed one of his hands under his thigh so that I could have a better look.
A wild sensation shot up inside me, something I could not control, like a flame spreading with lightning speed. I wanted to press my face between those two white legs, push my hands up inside the loose underwear so that I could feel his body, breathe upon it, exorcise it. I wanted to absorb it, greedily and hungrily, to kiss it and caress it.
Dizzy with fear I gripped his knee tightly and bent my head, my tongue moving spasmodically in a dry mouth. My body was jerky and stiff. Horror-struck I felt it happen: like an insect breaking out of its tight cocoon with strange, compulsive thrusts and then freeing its wings. Something had burst within me. I stood up awkwardly and shifted my clothes, in a panic lest Jan noticed.
It roared inside me: I had it, too, I was having it too, just like [an. It was like a sickness you could hide from nobody. Everyone could see it and would talk about it. I was betrayed, lost.
I pinched the skin on Jan’s leg between my fingers, that mouse-soft, butterfly-wing, tender warm skin. I kept pinching wildly and despairingly until I heard Jan say ‘Ow’, and tell me to squeeze with my fingers closer together.
I felt the wound break open as you might feel a gooseberry pop under your shoe with a sudden snap. Jan bent forward with his eyes screwed half-shut and wiped the wound with the sleeve of his overalls. I straightened up in the little room .and tried to control my panting. ‘Bloody hell,’ I heard Jan say, ‘that hurt all right.’
I was already by the stairs, the doorknob in my hand. I have to go.’ A moment later I had stumbled outside through the dark living-room, and was tearing home without stopping, to a house full of busy, warm and familiar people.
Chapter 11
The days crawl by on hand and knees, drab and without prospect. Bewildered I sometimes look at the calendar and see how many days have gone by. Those mysterious rows of figures only make me despondent; one long day compressed into one little number, and there have been so many little numbers, and there are so many freshly mustered columns still waiting, drawn up in serried ranks.
I feel locked up in time. It’s been more than five months, too long to remember my home properly – sometimes I think with a shock, What did they really look like? How did Mummy laugh? – and too brief to feel properly at home in my new surroundings. I wander about in an illusive no-man’s-land, a kaleidoscope of chill, fluctuating forms. Sometimes the little figures jell and I can make out my mother’s face, but they fall apart at the slightest movement, shockingly, into everyday, tangible objects.