Authors: Karel van Loon
This morning I decided to meet his wife, before I confront him. It was a decision born more or less of necessity, because Niko’s in Borneo for three weeks – as one of his helpful
co-workers at Wandering Eyes told me. But the decision also makes my heart beat faster and my hands go clammy. Since the fruitless visit to Monika’s old doctor, I’ve become increasingly
convinced that Nico Neerinckx is the man I’m looking for. I have three reasons to believe that, which I duly noted in my pocket diary the day I located him. They read as follows:
N. N. was exciting.
N. N. was safe (regularly out of the country).
N. N. had a predilection for engaged or married women.
Now that I know he’s not at home, and that I can get to know his wife before meeting him again, all kinds of wild scenarios race through my mind. The visit to Robbert
Hubeek showed me the importance of working out whether you’re being lied to. For starters, I must now make sure that Mrs Neerinckx (whose first name is Anke) doesn’t know my true
identity, so that Mr Neerinckx (Niko) won’t know I’ve spoken to her. That way I can lay their stories side by side, and easily pick out any lies on his part. And if he
is
lying
. . . The mere thought immediately summons up the most horrendous fantasies of revenge. But things haven’t reached that point yet. I must remain calm. Think clearly. Stay keen. I must devise
a strategy to get her talking. To that end, I lock myself up in my study for a few hours with a thermos of strong coffee. By the time the coffee’s finished, I know exactly what I have to
do.
I tell Ellen I’m going out that evening for a drink, with Dees. I know she worries about my renewed taste for alcohol, that she’s afraid it will become as bad as it was the year
after Monika died – the year she saved me from. But I need the periodic narcosis of alcohol to keep me on my feet, and to provide me with the excuse of popping off to a bar. It’s as if
I’m pushing Ellen and Bo away, to make room for what’s coming, for what
has
to come if I’m not to go mad from despair and bewilderment.
The weather, to my delight, turns horrible in the course of the afternoon. Lead-grey clouds chase low across the city and the wind whips hail and rain against the windows, flogging cyclists and
pedestrians. This considerably improves my chances of being let in, at least for a moment, by Mrs Anke Neerinckx. (I was surprised by that, to find she went by the name of Neerinckx – it
always surprises me when women my age give up their own names for those of their husbands. I’ve made Ellen solemnly swear not to do that, otherwise I’ll never marry her. But perhaps
Anke Neerinckx’s maiden name was something burdensome, like Fokking. One must never be too quick to judge. In any event, her voice on the phone sounded clear and self-assured. ‘Excuse
me, I’m trying to reach the Demircioglu family,’ I said. ‘There’s no one here by that name,’ she said. ‘I’m very sorry, I must have dialled the wrong
number. Is this . . .’ And I read her number aloud, changing only the final digit. ‘No,’ she said. ‘This number ends in a five, not a four.’ ‘Oh, I’m very
sorry.’)
When I’m finally on the train to Haarlem, after forcing down my dinner, a benevolent calm settles over me. Tonight I will do only what I
must
do, without hesitation, and with a
boldness that was last mine that first time I met Monika on the tram, and asked to go with her to the Bijenkorf. Tonight I will take my life back into my own hands. Perhaps, I muse, that will be
the end purpose of this nightmare: to shake me out of the half-slumber I’ve been in so long, in fact, ever since Monika died.
I watch the new office buildings and factories in the western harbour area as they’re slowly swallowed up by the fall of darkness, and I say (so loudly that the woman across the aisle
glances over at me), ‘This is your wake-up call from the far shore of the River Styx.’
Standing in a doorway across the street, I can see the lighted windows of the Neerinckx house. Mother is putting the children to bed. At least, that’s what I assume
I’m seeing. A floor lamp is on in the living room, but the room is empty. Three windows on the top floor were lit just a moment ago, but now there are only two: one little window belonging to
what is probably a toilet or a shower, the other to a bedroom. The curtains are closed, but a band of light is shining through a crack and the fabric gives off a faint glow. Every once in a while I
see a shadow move across the yellowish-green field. Then the bathroom window suddenly becomes a black hole. A moment later a woman appears in the living room. She walks to the back of the room and
disappears from sight. Less than a minute later, she reappears, a mug in her hand. Her dark hair is pinned up. She’s wearing a green sweater and black trousers or a skirt, I can’t quite
see which. She sits down on a couch against a long wall straight across from the window. Carefully, she takes a sip. Then another. She gets up and closes the curtains (they’re trousers, not a
skirt). The curtains are off-white. For a moment I see her shadow, then nothing.
The wind is still blowing hard, but it’s stopped raining. I decide to walk around the neighbourhood for fifteen minutes. It’s a few minutes past eight, so she’s probably
watching the news. During the weather report seems a more propitious moment to ring the bell. Besides, that will give me time to run through my story one last time. Circumstances have dropped a
unique opportunity right in my lap, and I mustn’t blow it.
‘Good evening, my name is Aldenbos, Erik Aldenbos.’ ‘Good evening, sorry to disturb you.’ No, not disturb. ‘Sorry to bother you like this.’ No, better
introduce myself first, that forges a bond of trust. ‘Good evening. Aldenbos is the name, Erik Aldenbos.’
‘Good evening, I’m Erik Aldenbos. Sorry to just show up at the door like this, but I couldn’t find your name anywhere, so I couldn’t phone
first.’
I hadn’t been planning to say that, but when I eventually got to the portico I looked around and didn’t see a nameplate anywhere, so when Anke Neerinckx opened the door that line
just rolled off my lips.
She looks at me questioningly, the door open only far enough to get a good look. She’s switched on the light in the portico, and I blink my eyes in the glare. Suddenly I’m afraid
that will make me look untrustworthy.
‘I used to live here,’ I say quickly. ‘As a child. Years ago. Something happened then. Well, it’s a long story. What it all boils down to is that I hid a letter in the
attic. And that letter, well, as I said, it’s a long story, but my mother died recently and I suddenly remembered that letter, and I thought, wouldn’t it be great if I found it? And
then I thought, why not just try? So here I am.’
I spread my arms helplessly and smile at her.
‘Here, in our attic?’ she says.
‘That’s right. Between two rafters. It was hidden pretty well. We moved rather unexpectedly back then, and I forgot to take it. By the time I remembered it, I didn’t have the
courage to bother the new owners. There are a lot of things you dare to do when you’re a kid, but not when you’re an adult. But then there are also a lot of things you don’t dare
to do when you’re young, and later you think, what do I have to lose?’
She smiles, but I still don’t have her quite where I want her. She says, ‘It would have been better if you’d come during the day.’
‘Of course, you’re right,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t really planning to ring the bell. I was looking for a nameplate, as I said, so I could phone first.’
‘Our name is on the mailbox, on the garden fence. Neerinckx. With ckx.’
‘Oh, excuse me!’ I glance at the green mailbox on the garden fence. If I’d only been looking for their name, I would never have missed it. I should have stuck to the lines
I’d learned and not started prattling about some nameplate. I feel my resolve crumbling.
‘Could I,’ I ask, ‘ring you tomorrow, perhaps?’ I feel ridiculous. A liar. Tomorrow I won’t even have the nerve to ring. I’m convinced of that.
‘That would be better, yes. I’ll write down the number for you.’
She’s about to walk back down the hall, but the wind blows the door open behind her and she turns around to catch it. I see her hesitate; she’s too well brought up, too kind, to
close the door in someone’s face.
‘Please, come inside,’ she says. ‘The weather’s so horrible.’ And she smiles and holds the door open for me. I walk past her into the hall. As soon as I’m
over the threshold, I feel my confidence returning.
‘I was just watching the news, the beginning of the weather report. I don’t think they’re expecting it to get any better for a few days.’
I can’t see the television from where I’m standing, but I can hear the weatherman’s familiar voice. Anke Neerinckx goes to the kitchen from where she’d fetched the cup of
coffee or tea I’d seen earlier, and comes back with a notepad and a pen.
‘These blue areas on the radar,’ the weatherman says, ‘show that we’re experiencing some heavy squalls here and there, with rain and even some occasional hail. Those
squalls are going to increase in intensity during the night, and the wind will pick up as well.’
At that very moment a gust hits the living-room window like a big, flat hand. There’s a roaring that slowly swells to a loud clatter, then blends into a sharp, ticking sound. It’s
hailing again. Anke Neerinckx walks over to the window, pushes aside the curtain and sighs.
‘Miserable weather,’ she says. ‘Here’s our number.’
I’m still standing in the doorway between the hall and the living room. She hands me a scrap of paper with the phone number I already have. ‘Thank you, Mrs Neerinckx,’ I
say.
‘Call me Anke. It makes me feel so old when people say Mrs Neerinckx.’
‘I know how that is. Sir, that’s the worst. When people start calling you sir.’
Outside the hail pounds against the window again.
‘If you ring me late tomorrow morning, I’ll definitely be at home.’
‘You’ve done a fine job renovating the old place. Or was it like this when you moved in?’
She looks around the room. ‘No. Oh, no, we did this. There was a wall here. It was two rooms, one in front, one at the back, and the hall ran all the way back to the kitchen. But of course
I don’t have to tell you that.’
‘It must have been a very small living room. But I never saw it that way as a child.’
‘Children take the world as it comes.’
‘When you’re a child, the grown-up world is a huge place.’
I make a move to leave.
‘Anyway, sorry to have disturbed you.’
‘How far do you have to go? Do you live here in Haarlem?’
‘No, in Amsterdam. I had dinner with an old friend of mine here in town. Another connection with that letter business. But I’d better get down to the station.’
‘Yes. I don’t mean to be stuffy, it’s not that I don’t trust you or anything,’ she says, ‘but I have three little children sleeping upstairs. If they suddenly
heard footsteps in the attic, they’d be terrified. It would take me hours to get them back to sleep.’
‘Three,’ I say. ‘That’s nice. How old are they?’ She tells me their ages (one and a half, three and five) and their names (Pim, Sam and Bo).
‘Bo!’
‘Yes.’
‘Well . . . well, that’s quite a coincidence.’ I’m about to say: that’s my son’s name too, and a lot more, but I don’t. Bo! Christ! They named their
oldest son Bo!
‘A friend’s son,’ I say, in order to say anything at all. ‘In fact, the friend I went out to dinner with tonight. His son’s name is Bo, too. I was just telling him
that I didn’t realize it was a boy’s name. I only knew of Bo Derek.’ I’m amazed at how quickly the lies roll off my tongue tonight. But the end justifies the means.
I’d already decided about that.
‘I had the same thing, you know,’ she says apologetically. ‘And I despise Bo Derek. It was my husband’s idea. And he swore to me that it had nothing to do with Bo Derek.
He said it was a boy’s name, actually. And the agreement was that, if it was a boy, he’d choose the name. If it was a girl, I’d choose. That’s how it happened. Sam was my
idea.
He
claimed that was a boy’s name. So we divvied it up pretty evenly.’
She must have noticed how uncomfortable I am, but she probably thinks it’s because I’m still standing in her doorway with my coat on. For the first time in my life, though, I’m
experiencing what it’s like to be nailed to the spot.
Bo. It was my husband’s idea.
She says, ‘If you’d like to wait until the rain lets up a little, feel free to sit down. Shall I take your coat? Would you like a cup of coffee?’
‘Yes, yes please, yes.’
I’m glad to be able to get off my feet, pleased that she’s left the room for a moment.
‘What do you take in it?’ she calls from the kitchen.
‘Nothing. Black, thanks.’
On TV a little boy in a football strip is doing a dance of joy on the field. He’s paid careful attention to how his professional heroes act when they score a goal. The commercial (for a
brand of peanut butter) is endearing, even if you don’t have children of your own, even if your son isn’t your son, but the son of the man whose wife just handed you a cup of
coffee.
Christ!
I’ll have to leave my coffee until my hands stop shaking a bit. I want to get out of here. I want to search the whole house, from top to bottom. I want to run down the street, into the
rain, into the night, jump into the dark water of the River Spaarne. I want to wake her children to see how much they look like Bo. I want to tell Anke Neerinckx that her husband is a liar, an
adulterer, the father of a bastard, a pervert who names his oldest son after the child he sired by another man’s wife. I want to lay my head on her breast and beg her to hug me, to stroke me,
to take me to bed and sleep with me. I want to smack her up against the counter where she’s making coffee for me, yank down her black sweatpants and rape her till she bleeds.
‘Aren’t you feeling well?’ she asks, sounding startled.
‘Excuse me?’
‘You look so pale.’
‘I think,’ I say dully, ‘it’s the sudden change, from cold to warm. I have low blood sugar.’ As good an excuse as any.