“Who’s there?” came a man’s voice through the speaking tube. “Viktor Poort, you old gasbag,” Frits called out, “come downstairs on the double. And make it quick. This is Frits.” “I’ll look if he’s here, but I don’t think so,” the voice answered. A few moments later another voice called out: “Commander Frits, knock and it shall be opened unto you. Come on up.” “No, you come down,” Frits shouted through the grillework, “before it’s too late. I’m in a hurry.” The door swung open and Viktor came down the stairs.
“I have seats for a quarter past nine at The Lantern,” Frits said, “and pricey, it cost me a bundle. You’re coming along, right?” Viktor turned up the collar of his jacket. “Well,” he said, “I—” “You stand there like an old woman with an ingrown toenail,” said Frits, “who won’t answer the door because she’s too afraid of catching a cold.”
“There’s so much I have to do later this evening,” said Viktor, “I don’t think I’ll be able. To be honest, I was thinking about stopping by your place after dinner, for half an hour or so.” “Come now,” Frits said, “I’ve got tickets, I paid good money for them; what a waste.”
“You’ll get rid of that ticket,” Viktor said. “It’s awfully kind of you, but I can’t. I have to stay at home, for all kinds of things. But I was thinking, after dinner, of coming by for bit. But I’m not absolutely sure.”
They said goodbye and Viktor went inside. “The evening is going to be a complete shambles,” Frits said, “that much is sure, that is eminently clear. No reason to doubt that for a moment.” He cycled home at high speed, put his bike in the storage cupboard and entered the house without removing his coat.
His father was sitting by the fire in his dressing gown. Spanning the armrest of his chair was a green plank from the cupboard, on which he had neatly arranged a number of books and papers. He was writing. Over the gown, around his waist, was a leather belt. When he looked up Frits saw that there were red spots on his forehead and cheeks, which he had rubbed with ointment.
“Well, well,” he said, “you’ve made yourself quite at home here. Next time you go to the beach, be sure to put a towel over your face. The sun can be quite beastly.” “What was that?” his father asked. “I asked where the scorched face came from,” said Frits. “Come again?” his father asked. “Those raw spots, where did you get them?” Frits asked, pointing at his own face. “Oh,” the man said, “I used a washcloth this morning, but didn’t realize how hard those things are.” “I believe,” Frits said, “that you accidentally used the scouring pads known and loved by millions.”
He sat down by the radio, put his hand out to it, but withdrew it again. He went to hang his coat in the hallway. “Has mother gone out?” he asked once he had returned. “She’s doing a little shopping,” his father replied. The clock said ten past five. “Can you believe this weather?” Frits asked, peering up at the sky. “I’d say snow is on its way,” said his father.
Frits went to the kitchen and turned on the gas beneath the pan of meat. Then he bolted the door to the stairwell and rummaged through the cupboard. “Nothing,” he murmured, “no articles of worth.” He leaned on the windowsill and looked out over the gardens. “It’s that stupid dog of Aals’s,” he said. Filling a glass of water at the sink, he emptied it, after quietly opening the window, onto a fat brown dog that was sitting before the neighbours’ garden door. The animal leapt aside, shook itself and began to bark. He closed the window.
Suddenly he heard a rattling and a pounding at the stairwell door. He turned off the gas, moved the pan to the back of the range and opened the door. “When are you going to stop that idiocy, bolting the door all the time?” his mother said, coming in with a heavy bag of shopping, which she unpacked in the kitchen.
He went to the living room and sat on the divan. A few minutes later his mother came in as well, looked into the fire and said: “I forgot to check for the newspaper. Would you go take a look?” “It hasn’t come yet,” Frits said. “Yes it has,” she said, “ages ago.” “There’s no need,” said Frits, “that’s impossible.” “All right, then,” she said, “if you’re too lazy to get up.” “What is it now?” his father asked. “Nothing,” they replied.
Frits went down the stairs, found the newspaper in the box and brought it up. “It fell through the slot just as I got there,” he said. “The clock is no longer running fast, I see.” His father held out his hand and said: “I’ll take that.” “You stick to your work,” said his mother, taking the newspaper from Frits. She sat down at the table, got up to fetch her reading glasses from the sideboard, sat down slowly again and opened the paper.
Leaning against the table, Frits looked at the reddened fingers clutching the pages. “You read like a woman,” he said, “you don’t move your eyes, you sway your head back and forth. That’s horrible, because the columns are so narrow.” “What did you say?” his father asked. “I thought I saw a name that I recognized,” Frits said, looking at the paper, “but I believe I was mistaken.” He sat down on the divan, pushed the curtains aside, nibbled on his fingertips and looked outside.
“Why did that sudden darkness and rain provide such a sense of exhilaration?” he thought. “I need to figure that out.” “In fourth class, at the start of the summer holidays,” he told himself, “we went home and I was given an empty, wooden box that had been used to hold chalk. I was standing in the hall, waiting for the rain to stop, because I had no coat with me. And I kept sniffing at that box. It was the smell of wood, fresh wood, of resin and of chalk. That much is clear, those are the facts. But how does it fit together?”
“I know,” he thought suddenly, “it’s simple. The final hours of school had to be sombre, in order to make the transition to days of freedom that much sharper.”
His mother had set the table and was bringing in the evening meal. There was raw lamb’s lettuce, potatoes, fried onions with gravy, kidney beans, and semolina pudding for dessert. They began eating without a word. “Quick, quick,” Frits thought, “say something.” “Don’t you think this weather is peculiar?” he asked his mother. “It’s horrible, dark as it is,” she replied. “Still, it’s not as cold any more, at least not that humid cold. It’s definitely not as cold any more. In the kitchen it’s all right. Normally the gravy is already hard when I’ve turned it off at four or five. But now it was still lukewarm.”
His father mixed the lettuce with the potatoes, mashing it with the back of his fork, and stirring everything together with the onions. “God, all-powerful, look upon our deeds and tribulations,” Frits said to himself, watching the hand that moved the fork steadily up and down. He felt his face grow warm. “The mashing of a meal prepared with care is considered an affront to the one who made it, Father,” he said, looking at his mother. She lowered her eyes. “What?” his father asked slowly, with a smile. “I didn’t hear you.” “No,” Frits said as his mother fixed her gaze on him, “it was something else.” “Did I tell you,” she asked, “that I have a new key to the attic?” She stood up, went to the sideboard and showed him a key with a newly filed bit, which she had taken from the tea tray. “Very good,” Frits said. “I had to hand in the old one,” she said, “to show they weren’t lost. It cost one guilder.” “That is a fair price,” said Frits.
When the pudding was served, she placed the sugar bowl on the table and waited. His father took some with his dessert spoon and sprinkled it over his plate with a tired movement. Frits felt an itching on his feet, hands and at the back of his head. “Why doesn’t he wear a shirt?” he thought. “No tie, all right, if it can’t be otherwise. But why not a shirt? Why doesn’t someone who understands such things explain it to me?” He leaned forward, the better to see how a bit of V-necked vest stuck out from beneath the blue, sleeveless jumper: the top button was in plain sight. An oblong depression was visible at the base of the throat, below the Adam’s apple.
“Tonight I’m going to The Lantern, for the late showing,” he said once the meal was finished. “What’s
on there?” his mother asked. “The Second Face,” he replied, “I’ve heard lots of good things about it. You have a bit of food on your lip.” She wiped her mouth and began clearing the table. “It is still early enough for even the first showing,” he thought. “Now I have two hours to kill. No cause for despair.”
He went and sat by the fire. His father stood in the corner beside the window and stared outside. On the floor in front of the stove were little scraps of potato. “Wait and see whether she calls me in to dry the dishes,” Frits thought. He heard his mother turn off the gas under the singing kettle, run water in the basin and place the rack on the counter beside the sink. When he heard the first object being lifted from the sop and placed in the rack, he leaned forward a bit. “Just a little longer,” he thought, “she’s probably going to dry them herself.” His father began pacing back and forth.
“Frits, could you come and help with drying?” his mother called out. He stood up, inhaled sharply through gritted teeth, and as he left the room bumped into his father, who was standing at the bookcase closest to the door. “Was that the doorbell?” he asked. “No,” Frits shouted. In the kitchen he quickly dried the plates, cups and saucers. “There’s not much washing-up this evening,” his mother said.
When he was seated by the fire again, he smelled his hands. “We are imperfect creatures,” he said to himself, “I should have rinsed them afterwards.” “The smell of my fingers, of the dishcloth, is nothing,” he thought. “A person’s breath is worse. The odour of spent ether expelled regularly by the lungs. That was well put. You have different varieties.” He used his little finger to root behind his molars. “You have,” he thought, “breath like the odour of mouldy old overcoats that have been cooked in vinegar. Assuredly so. Then the breath of someone who has eaten too many hard-boiled eggs. But the worst is the smell of someone who has been fasting for a day. That is like spoiled milk or like the bark of a tree that has lain rotting in the water. Indeed. Five past seven.”
He went into the hall, turned on the light and looked in the mirror. “Deliver me from baldness,” he said, pushing back his hair and examining the hairline. “It is a gruesome infliction.” He stopped and listened. “It makes the head look old, shiny and distasteful,” he thought, “that is the truth. But even worse is when the bare skin is cracked or covered with little bumps.” “What I do know,” he said aloud, following the movements of his lips in the mirror, “is that warts are worse. Warts, what is a wart? Let us provide a good, insightful description. Why else did I go to school, if not for that?”
He went into the side room and lit the gas fire. “A wart,” he said, pacing back and forth, “is a fleshy, entirely unrooted protuberance that tends to appear on neck, cheek or chin and which produces pronounced disfigurement. Good, very good.”
He sat down and began digging about in his ear with a pencil. “Now for the varieties,” he said, “of which there are two. The first appears, dear listeners, in the form of a low, flattened hill, hirsute, in grey or brown contrast with the skin. The second variety, however, and I suggest, ladies and gentlemen, that you make careful note of this, is fructiform, like a tiny pumpkin or cucumber, and nourished by the body through the thin stem by which it is attached.” He stood up from the writing table and asked: “Any further questions?”
“Which is worse?” he thought. “Belching? Or speaking with one’s mouth filled with bread, so that moist crumbs go shooting in all directions?” “This concludes today’s lecture,” he said aloud. “Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you a pleasant evening.”
He closed the valve on the gas fire, turned off the light and crossed the hall slowly. When he entered the living room, the radio was on. “If you turn it on,” he said, “then at least tune the damned thing. It’s between channels. Don’t you hear that scratching and crackling?” “Shit in their ears, the two of them,” he mumbled, adjusting the set. A cowboy song was ending. “There is a Jan who lives in Laren and one in Deventer too,” the announced said, “both of whom are celebrating their birthday today. Jan in Laren receives best wishes from Pollie and the Buning family. Jan in Deventer from everyone in his family. I won’t be playing ‘The Snowy Road’ for you, but I believe you’ll be pleased to hear the ‘Why Not Tango’, am I right, Jan in Deventer? After all, you’ve just come home and are feeling chipper again.”
“It’s already almost eight o’clock,” Frits thought. “Viktor will be popping by.” “Did you see the announcement, Frits,” his mother asked, “about the death of the Everts’ baby?” “No,” Frits said, “it had been taken to the hospital, if I’m not mistaken. How old was it?” “Four months,” his mother said. “Terrible, isn’t it?” “Oh,” Frits said, “I’m not so sure. Perhaps it would have gone soft in the head, or developed a propensity to scabies. No use to anyone. Good riddance to bad rubbish.” “You’re mad,” she said. “All appearances to the contrary,” Frits said, “you are wrong about that.” “What is it now?” his father asked. “Oh, he says that it’s all just as well that the Everts’ child is dead,” said his mother. “No,” Frits said, “that’s not what I’m saying at all.” “Don’t pay him any mind,” his father said, “he’s only blathering.”
“Our final request this evening is for ‘Grandfather’s Clock’, as performed by Tulleman,” the radio said, “for all personnel at the radio relay in Rotterdam and for Mrs Blijding in Hilversum.” Frits squeezed his left cheek in time to the rhythm of the song. “I need to think things through clearly,” he thought, “I need a chance to think things through.”
He went into the hall, stood before the door leading to the stairs, then suddenly put on his coat. “I’ll drop by, and get Louis to go with me,” he thought, “leave in good time.” He left the house without a sound.
From the riverside he saw a light on in Louis’s room. He rang the bell. “If you’re quick about it,” he shouted up the stairs, “you can come along to The Lantern.” A light on the landing was turned on and he saw Louis standing there, wearing a blue shirt. “That won’t be possible, I’m afraid,” he shouted back, “I have a visitor. Viktor is here.” “Of course,” Frits mumbled to himself, “I should have known.” “Then I’ll try to palm them off on someone,” he shouted back, pulling the door closed. “The day is void, and the evening without content,” he mumbled. “There’s still one chance left. Let’s stop by Jaap’s.”
He took off at a trot and turned down the canal lined with warehouses. At number seventy-one he saw Jaap and Joosje carrying the pram down the outside steps.
“I have a seat for a quarter past nine at The Lantern,” he said after greeting them, “but I believe you have other plans.” “That’s right,” Jaap said, “we’re on my way to see my parents. That’s more or less the same direction, though. Will you walk with us?”
The pram hobbled over the granite paving stones. “One seat only?” Jaap asked. “Who was the other person?” “You don’t know them,” Frits replied, “they fell ill.” “But you can get rid of it, can’t you?” Jaap asked.
“Oh yes,” Frits said, “it’s just that you never know who will end up beside you. For all you know, it could be a lip-reader.”
“What’s that?” asked Joosje, “a what?” “A common lip-reader,” Frits answered. “I believe I sense your meaning,” said Jaap. “You have two sorts,” Frits said, “as is so often the case. You have the extroverts, who laugh and explain things to those sitting beside them. Those are truly terrible.” “Yes,” Jaap said with a grin. “But the second category is much worse,” Frits went on. “Those are the ones who read the subtitles out loud. Aye-aye, Jesus Christ, what an abomination. When you have one of those beside you, you are in for it. And don’t think for a moment that you can do anything to stop them. Don’t even bother to say anything: it is not for lack of goodwill; they simply do not understand what you mean. You can say loudly to those in front and behind you: he has to keep up on his reading, otherwise he’ll forget how, but that doesn’t help. Impervious as alabaster they are. You can
start screaming until the lights go on, but then the whole cinema will come down on you. So don’t even start.”
“My,” Joosje said, “does it annoy you that much? I never really mind.” “But I do,” said Frits. Jaap and Joosje turned right. “See you tomorrow,” said Frits. He headed down a long, narrow street and reached the cinema post-haste. The doorman was just setting a large sign, reading “Sold Out”, on the pavement outside. Frits entered the foyer, and saw that it was full of people waiting. He pulled out his tickets and was looking around when someone tapped him on the shoulder. “He moves in mysterious ways,” he thought, “it is Maurits.” “I run into you at the least opportune moments,” he said. “I’m trying to get a ticket,” Maurits said, “do you know where I can get one?” “I have one left,” said Frits, “I would rather have sat next to something else, but it could be worse. One fifty-five.” “May God protect me,” Maurits said, “you have money to burn, I believe.” He paid and accepted the ticket with the reservation stub. “You’re getting your money back, and first-rate company to boot,” he said, “what more could one hope for?”
“Didn’t your girl feel like coming along, Frits?” he asked after the usher had shown them to their seats. “She can’t stand films like this,” Frits said. “Well, I’ll be,” Maurits said, “so you actually have one?” “You’re better off having one who doesn’t want to go to the cinema than not having one at all,” Frits replied. “You have none; and I don’t believe you ever will. But then you are truly repellent. How terrible that must be. What a fate.”
“Goddam it,” said Maurits, “what about my looks? What do you think of my appearance?” “It is not what one might call particularly conducive to relations with the fairer sex,” Frits said, “but I know some who are in an even worse way.” Coloured blocks of advertising appeared on the screen. “I’ve never seen this woman of yours,” said Maurits.