“Well, it’s not important.”
“Weak. Your voice sounds weak, because you know, you absolutely know, that I spent that Monday evening pacing around my room, torturing myself with the desire to come clean about the damn kiss. One step, another step, then another, on and on. Till I’d reached the magic goal of my journey, my woman’s will, and, I have to add, the center of the person I am deep in my heart, in my own opinion. I went to the telephone in the upper hall. That was me. Don’t take it badly that I’m going into this with such detail, but really, I was the one who made the call and I’ve been horribly conscious of that my whole life long. It comes in moments that are like being jolted with a brief electric shock, and then before you can deal with them, they’re gone again. Maybe you couldn’t see my persuasive smile, but you could certainly hear it. You could understand my chatter and my whispers, on that Monday there wasn’t yet the slightest breath of a northwest wind to drown out anything. Wonderfully precocious little wife and mother, just listen, is what you heard? God, you really fought back. ‘Huh? What are you talking about? I don’t think I feel like it, thanks.’ I had to make a big effort to persuade young Mrs. Blaauw to flee the everyday grind for once. That’s what happened, and alas there’s no act of penance that can undo the basic maliciousness of the facts. The despicable plan crossed my path, I seized it on tiptoe, you have every right to be angry. Meantime I stand on the top floor of Tabitha House and look out like a ghost. There’s an old, bare elm in front of the house on the other side of the street, and in its branches is a whole swarm of parrots, there must be ten of them, they never stop talking. Strange. I think I’ll lie down now and have a doze.”
“No-o …”
· · ·
“Are you still there?”
“Ye-es!”
“Your voice sounds so light, Lidy, and so interested, as if you really want to know how I’m faring here.”
“Yes, well, must be because I was dreaming that the two of us were taking a walk on Sunday to the water tower. There were botanic gardens for plant trials on the other side of the bridge back then, hidden behind a wall. The early sun was tinting the sky above them to a pinkish mother-of-pearl color like the inside of a seashell.”
“That isn’t a dream, that really happened. We were still little children. But can you dream while you’re drowning?”
“And how. In fact, it’s all you do. In the dream you’re calling life, we went through the grass past the houseboats, looked at the wall on the opposite bank, and felt a pleasant, eventful sort of homesick feeling. Homesickness mostly starts when you’re in the open, and then a wall is always really helpful. We got to talking about eternity, endlessness, and from there we automatically got into the God problem, you simply didn’t understand why the most rational people made such a song and dance about it. You stood still, to pull up one of your white kneesocks, which was all wet through — the grass was wet, it had been raining — you were thinking, and you murmured to yourself, why couldn’t there be some Being that spanned everything and guided it? Your little red patent-leather purse slipped down off your shoulder. ‘I don’t see why that should be so inconvenient,’ you said, and hung the purse, which had nothing in it, back round your shoulder. ‘Me neither,’ I said. You were quiet. I could see your nose and mouth tensing. ‘Why can’t I read Netteke Takes a Cure?’ you asked finally, looking at me. ‘You know you’re not allowed,’ I replied, and named the name of a friend I hung around, not a real friend, a girl who granted me her dubious and always a little tormenting favors only during school hours. She had lent me the book under the most draconian conditions.
“‘Look,’ I said, to distract you, and pointed at the afterdeck of the General Praag right next to us, where a black bantam cock was getting ready to fly off the deck rail between some speckled hens that were waiting on the bank, frozen in a kind of primordial terror. The morning sun picked out the small male creature with its fiery-red cockscomb, its rough plumage puffed out like an actor’s cloak. ‘He’s waiting for a drumroll from the orchestra,’ I said placatingly.
“You looked at me steadfastly. You said we had made a promise always to share everything. By way of an answer, I started talking about the two white mice, which was the stupidest thing I could have done. They belonged to you, you exclusively, which was the only thing that made my reminder relevant. You had hidden them in an empty aquarium, scattered a layer of wood shavings, and put our world atlas on top to make a lid. And yes, although you would actually have preferred that I not even look at your cuddly toys through the glass, I once lifted the atlas while you were gone to have a look from on top. Terrific, not a second later, they both suddenly got their necks broken as they were cunningly scaling the sides and got hit by the heavy book when their little mama’s sister dropped it in fright.
“‘What is it?’ I asked, for I couldn’t read your expression properly. Somehow it seemed you were listening to the scuffling next to the General Praag, the bantam cock had landed. Somehow I should have known: you had picked up on my mistake, of course you had.
“‘Dumb creatures,’ you said.
“I nodded and indicated with my eyes the poultry sex going on in the grass, but you shook your head. A bit irritated, or so it seemed to me, at my simplemindedness, you began to express your loathing of white mice, those little snouts, those little teeth, those little eyes, all of it dumber than dumb, and the peak of dumbness was naturally to keep the pair in an aquarium.
“Quelle idée!’ you said, in Mother’s tone of voice, and crossed your feet in a way that meant you either needed to go really badly, or that you had come clean about something and now you were ready to fantasize a little. Oh, you were such a golden, magnanimous child! You were wearing a checked, pleated skirt that morning, a blindingly white blouse, and a striped knit jacket that had previously belonged to me. Children like you often love to theorize, completely uninhibitedly. ‘People have so little fantasy,’ you burst out plaintively. ‘It’s okay that there’s a primary color we don’t know, but it’s just pathetic and sad that we can’t imagine it.’ Beyond that, I can no longer remember exactly who took which part in our dreamy, faltering dialogues.