‘Well, poppet,’ she says, ‘the celebrations are over now, so it should be back to work again. But the farmer’s going to have to do without me this morning. If all of you have been let off school, I don’t see why I can’t skip a morning as well.’
The water is ice-cold on my face and when Trientsje is not looking I push a wet hand inside my shirt and place it on my arm; it feels as if needles are being stuck into the wound. Mem is in a bad mood and sends all the children outside. She can’t seem to cope with the irregularity of this free morning. I have a slice of bread pushed into my hand, ‘Here, go and eat that outside.’
Hait strolls uneasily with Pieke along the fence, a free morning and no church! Meticulously he plucks tufts of sheep’s wool from the barbed wire and kneads them into a ball. I chew on my bread, my throat tight. There is the clattering noise of something falling inside the house, followed by raised voices. Jantsje rushes out sobbing and disappears into the barn. The celebrations are playing on all our nerves now.
I walk to the back of the house where the wind is less strong and fling my buttered bread across the ditch. The folded piece of paper lies in my trouser pocket, fingered so much that it feels as soft as a piece of cloth. I want to read it, I want to see those letters again, that secret message, and feel it between my fingers like a priceless possession.
Meint is crouching by the ditch parting the duckweed with a stick. The sun sends a shaft of light right to the bottom of the still, black water where a water-beetle is moving about amongst the weeds, its little legs furiously thrashing. ‘It eats tadpoles,’ Meint whispers, ‘we’ve got to kill it.’
I poke the water. The duckweed folds up over a small crimson creature that wriggles down towards the bottom in agitated circles.
‘We’ve got to find something to keep frogs in,’ says Meint, but I go off to the wooden privy without helping him.
‘Wednesday, 10 o’clock,’ and the thin lines with the letters L and W and the small cross showing where we are to meet. It looks like a capital T, the downstroke is the road from Warns to Laaxum and the cross-stroke must therefore be the dyke. Ten o’clock, how much time have I got left?
Meint bangs on the door. ‘Haven’t you finished your shit yet? I’m off to look for a tin at the harbour. Come on!’ Through a crack I can see the deserted, sunny road to Warns. I push my pants down, sit on the round hole in the plank and hope Meint will go off to the harbour by himself. I pick at the crusts on my stomach. My life is like a funnel that gets narrower and narrower, constricting me until I can’t escape. I tear up the piece of paper and let the snippets flutter down through the hole into the stinking pit below. Meint puts his face to the crack and makes spluttering noises with his tongue. ‘Shit-house,’ he laughs.
Crossly I go back into the house. ‘When is dinner?’
Mem laughs. ‘You’ve only just had your breakfast, we don’t keep going non-stop, you know.’
Down at the harbour I keep my distance from Meint, who is hunting about among stacks of crates on the other side. I must try to slip away unnoticed, which means hiding myself when he isn’t looking. My legs, dangling over the quay wall, are reflected in the water. The heat is oppressive and there is no one else in the harbour. Now and then the door of the shack bangs shut, breaking the silence like gunfire. Meint gives a shout and triumphantly holds up a tin can which he has fished out of the harbour with a stick. Thick blobs of sand drip out of it.
‘Got it! Come on, now we can go and catch some frogs.’
If we go back home I shall never be able to get away. I take the tin and, lying on my stomach, scoop up some water with it. ‘It leaks, it’s got a hole in the bottom. It’s no good.’ I try to fling it into the water, but Meint snatches it out of my hand.
‘Don’t be stupid. I can easily mend it with a bit of tar.’ He makes for the shack and disappears behind the banging door. Instead of following him I race past the little building up a grassy slope, drop into a hollow and press myself close to the ground. Meint calls out, first round the back of the shack and then towards the side where I am lying hidden. ‘I can see you. Come on out, I’ve mended the tin.’
Why don’t I go along with him, catch frogs and play by the ditch? I have to stop myself from raising my head. When I hear the sound of his clogs. I peer through the grass and see him disappear behind the dyke. Doubled over, I take to my heels and run across the bare, open fields towards the Mokkenbank. I don’t know if I’m too early or too late, but I keep running, away from Meint, away from the frogs, away from deciding whether to go back.
The sandbars of the Mokkenbank lie grey in the advancing and receding waves. Overhead the gulls climb like whirling scraps of paper, hover in the wind and dive down. I clamber on to a fence and look around: not a soul in sight. Straining my eyes I scan the line of the distant sandbars; maybe he is there already, lying in the sun or taking a swim.
On the other side of the fence I stop to scrape the mud from my clogs. Isn’t he coming, or has he already been and gone? The sun is broken by the sea into dazzling splinters of light. I go and sit down at the foot of the dyke and shut my eyes tight against the glare. A cricket makes bright little chirping noises beside my ear, the sound becoming thinner and thinner, a wire vibrating in the sun.
I wake up when a pebble plops into the grass next to me. Walt is lying close by, looking at me. I feel dizzy. The earth is filled to overflowing with sounds, all nature seems to have sprung to life. Walt says nothing, he just whistles – I remember the tune – and turns over onto his back. I had thought the two of us would rush up to each other, that it would be like yesterday and he would be pleased to see me.
A little later we are walking through the marsh grass towards the sea. He carries me over a swampy patch, taking long strides and pressing on my burning arm. I am suspended in the air, without speech or will. Where is he taking me? Suddenly he stops, turns round and pushes me down roughly in the reeds. Two cyclists are riding along the dyke, I can hear the squeak of pedals and snatches of conversation in the distance. ‘Sssh. Don’t move,’ he says and pushes me further down. ‘Wait.’ He watches the approaching cyclists, his hand patting my knee reassuringly. ‘Kiss me.’
We stay there crouching for a moment longer, then he pulls me along to the beginning of the sandbar and goes and sits down in the cover of a circle of reeds. He holds me at arm’s length as if looking me over, brushes the hair from my forehead and tweaks my nose. He pulls off my clogs and draws me between his knees, pursing his lips to kiss me, a dry mouth against mine. He pulls his clothes up a little and puts my hand on his bare waist, a warm curve under my fingers.
‘You happy? You like?’ He has closed his eyes as he talks to me. I keep my hand nervously where he has put it, but his hand lies softly kneading between my legs. My body gives answer, I can feel it move under his touch and stretch out in lis hand, and I turn away to one side.
‘Jerome, come on.’ He speaks gently, as if whispering to me in his sleep, and pushes my mouth open. I let him do it, but remain tense under the squeezing and kneading of his hand. ‘Sleep,’ he says then, takes off his jacket and kisses the hillock in my trousers. Humming softly he lies down next to me; I listen: everything he does is beautiful and fascinates me. When I place my arm on his he looks at me in surprise.
The sand turns cold and wet under me, as if the sea were seeping into my clothes. He has stopped moving, his head has drooped to one side and his breath is heavy and deep. Above us the gulls complain and call.
I look into his defenceless face, the mouth that has fallen open slightly and the small white stripe between his eyelids. Every so often he makes a sound like a groan. He’ll take me away with him, I tell myself, if I don’t hear from home I’ll stay with him, he’ll wait for me in his car and then we’ll drive away to his country.