B007P4V3G4 EBOK (42 page)

I didn't know whether I should laugh or keep a sorry silence. I
did realise that it must be impossible to understand all that
happened and that there were things that remained mysterious,
causing a fog of fear to arise.

'It's that potty Verfhuis chap,' Werther said. 'The one who lives
on the Onderlangs.' His mother shook her head with a pitying
expression. 'It's a morbid inclination,' she said, 'a morbid inclination.'
Werther's father said nothing and went and sat in his place again. A potent fear came over me, that he would go and find that
booklet now. (I believed he would then read something from it to
me and, if I didn't understand, seal me into a barrel or a sack.)

We should go to the kitchen,' I said softly to Werther. 'I have
to speak with you urgently, alone.' We made our way there.
Silence reigned; only the gas beneath a kettle hissed quietly.
Almost no sound from outside penetrated either.

'I have made several discoveries,' I said. 'It's alright to tell you. If
you come along to my house now I can show you things that are
very important. I also have a burial vault that's real.' I desired to
get out of his house as quickly as possible. He assented but first he
wanted to go and say that he was leaving.

'You mustn't do that,' I said emphatically, "cause it's a secret.
That's how enemies could come to hear of it and they'll start to
follow us then.'

Without a sound, we descended the stairs and hurried away.
Back at my place we first sauntered round the garden. The slight
wind made the shrubs rustle almost inaudibly. We went and hung
from a branch of the laburnum until it broke off and we planted it
upright in the soil. Then Werther asked where the burial vault was.
I took him to the box room where we went and sat on an old mat
and draped jute sacking in front of the entrance so nobody would
be able to look in. 'This is the burial vault of Deep Death,' said I.
Werther said nothing and looked listlessly into the half light. 'We
have to found the club,' I said. 'Then we can make burial vaults.
For they're much needed.'

All of a sudden I remembered that I had found a dead starling
the previous day which I had hidden under leaves in a corner of
the garden. We have to go outside,' I said, 'the ceremony's about
to begin.' We sought out the dead creature after which I made a
wood fire. On this I burned the body from which foaming brown
juices bubbled up. A charred lump was what was left, smelling
strangely; I put it in a boat-shaped date box. In a little earth
mound I raised quickly, I dug a blind tunnel, the walls of which I
reinforced with bits of wood: I slid the box inside; having sealed
the opening I sprinkled the top of the mound with fine coal ash.
'The secret bird has gone into the earth,' I sang inwardly. I
repeated this sentence many times but dared not utter it out loud.

We must found the club,' I said once more. 'If we wait too long
with it there'll be enemy clubs already; you know that too.' Again
I had him come along to the box room where I now lit a candle. Then I wrote our names down in an old pocket diary I had
brought out from underneath the chest. 'Now the club exists,' I
said, having read out our names slowly. 'It's called the Burial Vault
Club, the B.V.C. Everyone who's a member, in his garden we can
make a burial vault. That's very important.'

'You understand, of course,' I continued, 'that someone has to
be the boss who, for instance, says when there's a meeting. Best to
be someone at whose place the club has been founded: Werther
nodded but I didn't believe that he was listening attentively. I got
up and went and leant against the wall.

'I'm the chairman,' I -said, 'that's already been written down.
You're the secretary but that has to remain a secret. You'll become
secretary of course, but the chairman does everything that needs
to be done: it's always like that.' Werther now asked whether the
dub would only concern itself with the making of burial vaults.

'Club members also make windmills,' I said, 'this has a lot to do
with burial vaults, as of course you understand: Cause the one who
can make a burial vault, who thought of it first, he's also the boss
of the mills. If there's someone who wants to mess up the club, his
prick'll be cut off. Let me tell you exactly what kind of club it'll be'

I, however, no longer knowing what else to say, looked for old
shoe laces, divided them between us and lit them. Having blown
them out we sniffed the smell they continued to spread, smouldering. I blew out the candle so that by swinging our arms about we
were able to make fiery lines and circles that produced a faintly
purple light in the dark: for a good while we continued to sit there
lost in thought. I felt sad. 'We should go to the sand,' Werther said.
He was going to meet Dirk.

We went on our way, the three of us.

When we reached the plain behind the dike, the wind had risen
slightly, blowing little clouds of dust along from time to time. As
we made our way, we jumped in and out of potholes during which
we searched for objects the diggers might have left behind but
there was never anything more than an insignificant plank or a half
buried newspaper.

When we reached a generous pit, quite deep, I requested them
to join me and sit down inside it. It was cold; the wind pushed a
puff of sand into our hair. 'This is the first meeting of the club,' I
said. 'The chairman is going to make a speech.' I waited a moment.
'Dirk, you have to say something and then yield the floor to me,' I
said, "cause you're to be the assistant secretary.' He, however, said nothing and plucked at the roots of some grass. Again some sand
was blown on to our heads. 'You can become assistant secretary,' I
went on, 'I can see to that. It stays a secret of course because the
chairman does everything that needs to be done. You must now
yield the floor to the chairman: He remained silent. I now addressed
my request to Werther. 'Elmer, go and make your speech,' he said.

I got up and began: 'Honourable members. The club has been
founded. It's called the So there's a club but that's not all
there is to it, not by a long chalk. It must not become a club of
which we're merely members; it must be a club with clout. A
dormant membership is no earthly good to us. And members who,
when the chairman asks them to say something, don't: they're a
complete waste of time. They'd better resign.'

'We should pull a tree down over there,' Dirk said, pointing at
the municipal gardens behind him. He took a long strong piece of
rope from his pocket.

'You're an enemy of the club,' I said. 'You must be bound.'
We grabbed hold of him, cast the noose, already present in the
rope, round his ankles and dragged him around in circles. He held
forth in a tearful voice that we should let him go free, instead of
which we clambered from the pit and pulled him by the rope over
the edge. Because the rope was cutting into his skin, he now began
to cry terribly so that we let go of him and ran away. When it
turned out he wasn't coming after us, we began to amble along
normally and continued our way across the bare plain.

'It's his own fault,' I said. 'He wants to mess up the club 'cause
he's the spy; this happens frequently, that someone first behaves as
if he wants to join the club and then goes and tells everything to
the enemy.'

We now arrived at a boggy bit of land which we called the
wilderness. Here, in a shallow brown little stream that seemed to
well up from the earth and which ran through a pool with reeds into
a ditch, we made a dam from stones causing a dirty little waterfall.
Then we tore it down again and, hidden behind elder bushes, we
threw the stones at little flocks of sparrows until we hit one. It was
impossible to tell whose throw it was. Though the bird seemed to
have been crushed, it turned out, once Werther had pushed the
stone away from it, still to be trembling slightly. We kept looking at
it glumly. 'This is the secret bird of the spies' club,' I said, "cause
they've founded one. They're very wicked; they don't dare to do
anything themselves and they send birds to collect letters.'

We stayed and waited in order to take the creature with us to
be burned once it was dead, but the movements wouldn't stop. In
the end I quickly built a little pyre from bits of old reeds and asked
Werther to lay the creature upon it. 'This is the punishment for
spying when our club's building waterfalls,' I said, once Werther
had acceded to my request. I lit the little pyre but the flames went
out each time. In the end all my matches were finished and we left
it behind, smouldering. The light was already fading to dusk. We
walked along in silence in dejected mood.

In the vicinity of Werther's house we entered a little grocer's
shop where Werther bought some licorice. I wanted to wait
outside at first but he urged me to come with him. It was dark
inside and it smelled of damp earth.

While we waited for someone to come to the front, I became
convinced that a trapdoor must be hidden behind the counter,
giving access to an extensive subterranean space. Here the earth
creatures lived who crept along between the tree roots that served
as pillars. Without Werther seeing it I held on with both hands to
a rod that ran along the counter, so I wouldn't suddenly be
dragged below ground without being able to resist.

At last a pale little woman with grey hair came forward who
went to count out the licorice. 'Excuse me please, excuse me,'
Werther suddenly asked in a slow, stupid voice. 'How do they
actually make licorice?' The woman said she didn't know.

'They make licorice from special flour,' I said. 'And from herbs
that grow under trees: those are actually the most important,
'cause there's only a little bit of flour in it: In fact, I hadn't a clue as
to its manufacture. 'I think it's odd, you not even knowing that,' I
went on. 'You're quite a dunce really:

When we got outside I said: 'You can stay in the club if you
know a lot. You'll have to get out otherwise. Members who are
stupid are no good to us at all.' We sucked the licorice and
trundled on with no clear plan. We must see to it that it becomes
a good club,' I -added, dully.

We reached the shelter at the terminus of the bus route. Here
we went and sat shivering on the muddy floor and remained silent
a good while. Finally, in order to say something, I asked how old
his sister was. 'She'll be nine,' he said. The wind had increased
slightly and slipped rustling past the wooden walls.

'I've got a brother and he's run away from home,' I said: 'he's on
a ship.' Once I had assured myself of the fact that Werther was listening, I went on: 'He's just as old as I am.' Werther now asked
why he had run away.

'It's quite a story,' I replied, 'and a very sorry one.' I waited a
moment.

'I've never told anyone before,' I continued, 'but I don't mind
telling you, but you mustn't tell anybody.' This he promised. 'Fine;
I said, 'but if I tell you and you give it away then you'll be cut to
death - you understand that don't you?' He nodded. 'It's really too
late to tell it all now,' I said, 'for the afternoon rushes to an end:
darkness is falling already.' (These last eleven words I remembered
as having read them somewhere.)

'That brother was a real rotter,' I began, "cause he always acted
mean. He's cut off fishes' heads. And then my mother locked him
up in the cellar. He climbed out through the window when it was
dark. He took almost noth'n with him, just the blankets from his
bed.' I waited for a moment and added:

'D'you think I enjoy telling you something like this? Then
you're mistaken. It's something really bad. That's why I'm so sad
this afternoon. D'you know his name?'

Once again I waited a moment. I couldn't think of a name offhand. 'He's called Andre,' I then said. 'And the ship's the Prosper:
that means they sail forwards.' (I had read the name on a dredger.)
'He's sailing far, far away but when he comes home he'll bring
back an animal and that's for me.'

A bus driver chased us from the shelter. We ambled to my
house. 'Andre once brought me back a parrot,' I said, 'which he'd
bought. It would say anything you did. But it died. All animals die
anyway.'

Having reached my house I invited him to the box room again.
'There's going to be a big festive gathering of the club at my
place,' I said: 'we need to discuss that.' When we were sitting on
the mat behind the jute sacking once more and I had lit the candle
again, I said: 'It's really, really bad what happened to my brother
then, but one mustn't always be sad. This is why the club is having
a festive gathering tomorrow afternoon at my place. I'll prepare a
wow of a programme. You must see to it you're on time,
otherwise you run the chance of arriving and it's already started.
I'll be making a big speech.'

'Can Martha come along?' he asked. 'That would be possible,' I
said slowly, in a grave tone of voice. We might make her a
prospective member; she can become a proper member later on then.'

Mute silence flowed in; the cold was making. us stiff. 'I'll show
you the photograph of that brother,' I said and I requested him to
wait while I went inside.

In the living room where dusk was already settling, my mother
was sitting near the window, snoozing. Carefully, I took the frame
in which a mass of little photographs had been arranged behind
glass from the wall. In doing so I lightly knocked both the blown
eggs hanging on either side from thin wires. (These were a large
white ostrich egg and a smaller, black egg of an emu. Each time
there was some horseplay or something was being thrown, my
mother would cry: 'Mind the ostrich egg! Mind the egg of the
emu!')

On my way to the box room I chose a small image of a boy on
bare feet beside a large dog, in a kind of park. (I didn't know who
it was.) 'This is Andre,' I said, 'this is that brother I've had so much
sorrow over and still have now.' Werther inspected the photo
thoroughly but then he also began to study the others. 'They've
got nothing to do with it,' I said and snatched the frame roughly
from his hands. Doing so, I banged it against the doorpost so that
a crack appeared in the glass, in the corner. I said nothing and
returned the photos to their place in the same unnoticed way I had
taken them in.