His daughter lives in Limburg. South Limburg. He’s started to hum along to the violins. A dog. Why not actually? Not a big one, but medium-sized, one of the ones with a German name. A schnauzer, that’s it. Or is that the kind of dog you have to get trimmed every couple of months? Suddenly he’s had enough of the view. He goes into the hall and opens the door to the shop. It’s darker here than anywhere else in the house, with yellowed lace curtains hanging in the enormous window. Nothing’s changed in this room. The counter’s still there; the cabinet that used to contain the zwieback, rye and gingerbread hasn’t been moved. Everything’s just empty. He flicks the lights over the counter on and off a couple of times. He reads Blom’s Breadery in mirror writing through the curtains. ‘Blom’s Breadery?!’ He can still hear his wife saying it, much too long ago. ‘What’s wrong with Blom’s Bread and Pastries?’ He’d mumbled something about the seventies being just around the corner. A new era, a different era, elegant lettering on the Volkswagen van. ‘You’re weird,’ she’d said, but without any real spite.
A gleaming, light-grey 1968 Volkswagen van, Type T2a. Tailgate and sliding side door, packed full at the start of the round with bread and pastries, cakes and white rolls, and everything still within easy reach. The streamlined VW logo prominent on the front, beautifully central between the two headlights; the chrome hubcaps and door handles; the red leather seats and front-door lining. The dealer in Den Helder told him, not without pride, that the chassis had Y-shaped steel supports and that ‘in the event of an accident’ the steering column would fold forward to prevent him from being crushed. The Saturday farm run in particular was fantastic at the start. At the start. Fresh bread and fresh leather, as if the two smells belonged together and were inseparable, made for each other.
He flicks the lights on and off once again, then strides through to the kitchen, where he pulls the large watering can out of the cupboard under the sink.
While emptying it between the hydrangeas for the third time, he sees a cyclist approaching on the other side of the canal that bisects the village. With difficulty, he straightens up; the watering cans are heavy and his back is old. A man with a green bucket on the pannier rack, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Short red hair. Early forties. ‘Hmm,’ goes the baker with the chapped face, putting the half-emptied watering can down on the gravel. He keeps watching the red-headed man until he turns off and rides onto the grounds of the former Polder House, where he slowly rounds the rose bed on the left before disappearing around the side of the building. The baker sticks a hand into the watering can and scoops up some water, bends forward a little and rubs his face with it, even though it’s no longer that cool.
‘So! At least now you’re doing something.’ The villager with the little dog is on his way back home.
‘What kind of dog is that anyway?’
‘This? Jack Russell. Rough coat. Have I got you thinking?’
‘Ah.’
‘Jesus, man, the sweat’s pouring out of you. I’d sit down if I were you.’
‘Yes, I’m about to.’
‘We’re going to get some rain. At last.’
‘You reckon?’
‘I do. You can put that watering can away. We’ll be getting gallons of the stuff and you won’t have to pay a penny for it.’ The villager walks on without saying goodbye.
Not one like that anyway, the baker with the chapped face thinks. Too small. He pours the remaining water out over the gravel path without noticing, then walks in through the open front door, puts the watering can on the draining board and sits down, both hands neatly placed on the table in front of him.
The old Queen. She was there once, in front of the Polder House, long ago, when the light-grey Volkswagen van was still gleaming. She was presented with two pygmy goats. By the district council if his memory serves him right. What happened to those goats? Did the driver stuff them in the boot of that big black limo? Did they spend years eating grass in the back garden of Soestdijk Palace? I’ve got photos of them somewhere, of that whole visit, he thinks. Lots and lots of photos. She was inside the Polder House too, of course. I saw the table, he thinks. White tablecloth, plates and glasses, vases with sweet peas. I delivered freshly baked bread there in the morning. Ordinary bread, nothing special, that’s what the district clerk said. Brown and white rolls, fruit loaf. It was only after she left that I started on my round of the surrounding farms. Yes, there are photos. Later. Now I’ll sit down.
He looks at the calendar, hanging between the two narrow windows. Saturday. There are words written there that he can’t read from this distance, but he knows what they say. Dinner at Dinie’s. He sweeps imaginary crumbs off the tabletop.
Coffee
‘Look, Daddy, a gold ring!’
‘Nice,’ says Klaas. ‘Where’d you get that?’
‘From a plant.’
‘A plant?’
‘Uh-huh, it’s broken now. It was there.’ Dieke points at the floor.
His gaze goes from the floor up to the windowsill, where one of the Christmas cactuses is now in a plastic tub and listing to one side. Then he has a closer look at the large ring. It reminds him of something, something from the old days. ‘You going to put it in your bag?’
‘Of course.’
‘Can I have a look in that bag sometime?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s my bag.’
‘Can’t argue with that.’
‘Can I have it back now?’
He hands the ring back to his daughter and rustles the newspaper. When they’ve finished the paper it goes over to the other side of the ditch, and the newspaper from the other side of the ditch comes here. The breakfast things are still on the table, but the mid-morning coffee is already dripping through the filter. It’s almost ten o’clock. A long way to go to midday, he thinks, and after that, a much longer afternoon.
‘I’d still rather you didn’t hide the bag so far in under your bed,’ his wife says.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s dusty.’
‘So what?’
‘Yes, what.’
‘Otherwise people will look in it.’
‘No they won’t. Your father and I aren’t going to look in it if you say we’re not allowed to.’
‘I don’t want to go to the swimming pool.’
‘What?’
‘I want to go see Uncle Jan.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In the village. He just left. On Grandma’s bike.’
‘Haven’t you arranged something with Evelien?’
‘Doesn’t matter. He had something hanging off his handlebars.’
‘It does matter.’
‘I don’t like it at the swimming pool!’
‘Yesterday,’ Klaas says, ‘talking to Jan, you were full of it.’
‘That was yesterday! Now it’s today.’
‘Whereabouts in the village has Jan gone?’ his wife asks.
I didn’t ask him anything, Klaas thinks. I don’t really have a clue. ‘He’s probably gone to the churchyard.’
‘The cemetery.’
‘Huh?’
‘It’s a cemetery, the church is miles away.’
‘Yeah! I want to go there!’ Dieke screeches.
‘You think that’s fun?’
‘Of course! He said he was going there to work. I can help him, can’t I?’