He starts singing. Very loudly. There was something in his head just now that needed drowning out. The bright-blue stones are leaving dents in his flesh; that helps too. Along the side of the road are a few big trees, with yellow dots painted on two of them. Between the big ones there are smaller ones with shrivelled brown leaves. It’s getting too heavy, he has to put the bag down for a moment. Next to a causeway gate he takes off his trainers and sits down on the end of a culvert that runs under the causeway. He sees steam rising from his bare feet. In his head. He’s stopped singing and for a second forgets where he’s going. He pulls a pack of Marlboros out of the back pocket of his cut-off jeans; the cigarettes are squashed flat, but unbroken. On his right is the road, with patches of melted tar; on his left a field, two birds with long curved beaks walking in it. They pretend they haven’t noticed him. ‘Currrr-lew!’ he calls, and even then they don’t take off. Stupid things. Or is it too hot to fly today?
Today. Isn’t it today that Jan…? He thinks. He tries to think. He pictures Toon. Maybe that will help him get the day worked out. Did Toon say something before he left? No, because he made sure Toon didn’t see him go. He draws on the cigarette. He slaps the soles of his feet against the water in the farm ditch. Jan lives on Texel, he thinks. Boat. Seagulls. The cigarette’s finished, he draws on it once too often, the filthy taste of the filter gets stuck in his mouth. He slides down off the culvert and stands up to his thighs in the water, which was clear, but isn’t any more. He scoops up some water and uses it to rinse out his mouth. The filter taste is gone. Climbing back up out of the ditch he kicks the sludge off one foot and then the other, then uses his white socks to dry carefully between his toes before putting them back on, filthy and damp. Shoes too, and then he has an elaborate scratch of the crotch, it’s all a bit sweaty down there. Bag back on his shoulder. ‘Currr-lew!’ he calls again and walks on, in the middle of the road. A few minutes later a car beeps him over to the side. It’s like a giant apple driving past; never before has he seen a car this colour, a strange kind of green, it hurts his eyes. The car doesn’t brake; it wouldn’t have occurred to the driver to give him a lift. Johan Kaan rests his free shoulder against the trunk of an old elm. He looks up. Dead, he thinks. ‘Stone dead!’ he shouts.
Ledge
Yes, the red beech has had it. The tree is just short of a hundred. Probably planted in 1912, just after the farmhouse was built, in the middle of the newly sown lawn. Directly in front of the blind door and the balcony over it. Zeeger Kaan looks at the tree through a kitchen window that gets no sun, because of the three chestnuts he planted in his own lawn. One of which is already showing signs of that new disease, bleeding dark sap from little holes. What’s it all about? he wonders. All these diseases trees get? What purpose do they serve? Shall I ride or drive? Taking the bike is good for his knees, but the car’s better on a day like today, it’s got air conditioning.
While backing up the drive a little absent-mindedly — earlier that day he hadn’t seen a soul on the road — he has to suddenly brake hard for a car that’s going at least thirty kilometres an hour over the limit. Stunned, he follows the green blur with his eyes. What kind of idiot buys a car that colour? He himself drives calmly up the road in the settling dust. In the village he slows down even more. Here and there he raises an index finger to people painting their eaves or letting out the dog, the odd cyclist. It’s only when parking the car next to the Polder House that he starts to notice the air conditioning. Stupid, he thinks, painting eaves in weather like this. They’ll have blisters in the fresh paint by evening.
‘Hey, Grandpa!’
‘Hi, Diek,’ he calls.
‘We’re over here!’
‘I see you.’ Dieke is standing on the path at the entrance to the new part of the cemetery. Every time he comes here it seems smaller and more cramped. Jan is sitting in front of the headstone. He’s finished Our little and is already working on the s of sweetheart. ‘It’s coming along.’
‘Yep,’ says his son.
‘Hungry?’
‘Nah.’
‘Dieke! You hungry?’
‘Yes,’ Dieke shouts. ‘Grandpa,’ she then adds, as if she hasn’t said hello to him yet, ‘come and have a look here.’
He walks away from his son. Dieke shouldn’t stay out in the sun much longer, her arms are already turning red. She points. Three large herring gulls are standing in a circle and stamping on the dry grass, staring down at their feet. They want worms, but on a day like today they’ll be waiting a long time. Even the red dots on their yellow beaks — here it is, come and get it — won’t lure any worms up. ‘Gulls on land, storm on strand,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘It’s a saying.’ He looks to the west. The hazy air is advancing, the sun no longer quite as bright.
Dieke whispers something.
‘What’d you say, Diek?’
‘I’d like to go home after all.’
‘Then you can come with me in a minute, OK?’
‘OK.’ They walk back together, holding hands. When they reach Jan, Dieke lets go of his hand and carries on to the bench under the linden. She picks up her cup and starts to drink. ‘Phew,’ she says, screwing the lid back on the cup.
‘That cuttlebone…’ Jan says.
‘What about it?’
‘What’s it for?’
‘To get it nice and clean.’
‘It’s useless. The stone’s way too rough.’
‘OK, we know that for next time then.’
Jan pulls the brush back out of the w and looks at him. After a while he says, ‘Yep.’
It’s not always easy, watching your children. They resemble you so much. Sometimes they come so close it’s frightening. Jan especially can get a look in his eye that makes Zeeger Kaan feel quite uncomfortable.
‘There’s an auntie of mine over there,’ Dieke yells from her bench. ‘Under the ground.’
Sometimes their faces merge and he’ll suddenly see Jan in Klaas, or Klaas in Jan, and have to close his eyes to get it right again. At other times he’ll see himself, and that gets stronger as they grow older: bags under their eyes, lines at the sides of their mouths, creases in their foreheads. Not with Johan of course, he’s the exception to every rule. Since the accident he’s developed into the best-looking Kaan by far.
‘Is “Piccaninny black as black” a boy or a girl?’
He looks away, opens his mouth to answer his son, then closes it again and hums until he gets up to ‘so she put up her umbrella’. ‘She,’ he says. ‘She’s a girl.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yep.’
‘Hey!’ Dieke yells. ‘Can you hear me?’