The Season of Migration (3 page)

When we last saw each other—that is, before your recent August visit—it was soon before I left Brussels for the Borinage; I expect you remember how excited I was, after all that failed study in Amsterdam and useless training in Brussels, to finally be on my way to mining country. It was December 18, just nine months ago, when I finally arrived by train from the capital, the fare paid with the last money Father had given me when we parted the week before. For most of the ride, the view from my window was of a long procession of fields and peasant cottages, the sky over all of them gray and uniform. I sat back in my seat and let the scenery soothe me, trying to let my eyes lose focus. Remember I told you about this technique for seeing when we were boys in Zundert? It is a way to become aware of the grandness and the breadth of the scenery; when I relax my eyes this way, the landscape grows and I can see all corners of whatever is before me—I can pay attention to the great sweep of where I am rather than to the specific details. It calms me, to pull back this way, allowing me to feel as if I am not myself but simply a pair of eyes, free to see things as they really are.

I was having trouble remaining calm. For days before I left Brussels I barely slept, waking nearly every hour with a knot in my gut, the feeling that I was late for something. It was a feeling not unlike how I felt as a child on the days leading up to Christmas, but with a heavier weight to it, not pure anticipation, but anticipation tinged with fear. It was the trip I had been waiting for, it felt like for my whole life, and here I was finally on the train, the distance shrinking between me and mining country.

The train car was paneled with dark wood, the air thick with cigar smoke coming from a gentleman across the aisle. It had the feel of someone's living room, warm and close, and was somehow pleasant despite being packed with people facing forward, many of them nodding off or chatting with the person next to them. From where I sat I could see the peaks of hats over the seats in front of me, round shapes and summits of felt and feathers sticking up over the lines of the chair backs. The winter sun streamed in through the windows; a few people had propped their coats against the glass to keep out the glare, but where the rays streamed in, I could see the cigar smoke rising through the light in slow, twisting waves. I remembered afternoons in the front room at the parsonage, watching specks of dust float up and travel through the angles of the setting sun, trying to trace the lines they made to make shapes and pictures. It was hot on the train, though the window was cold to the touch. I had stripped down to my shirtsleeves.

I relaxed my eyes and saw the expanse of the country we were passing through. Two figures walked across a long field, one figure taller than the other, both of them in long black coats, tiny houses in the background on either side of them. I imagined that those two figures were the two of us, and then I thought of you treading the floors of the Goupil gallery in Paris, that place where I was no longer wanted. I saw you, your mustache freshly combed, your shoes polished and gleaming, smiling while you shook hands with a woman in a long dark dress, the familiar images surrounding you in gilded frames on the walls. It was a strange feeling, but in that moment I told myself we were both doing what we were meant to do.

The entry to mining country was marked by black pyramids of earth on the horizon and a layer of thick dark coal smoke that covered the light of the sky. The pyramids were perfectly shaped, clearly man-made, bringing to my mind the image of Egypt as we saw it in picture books as boys, yet even from a distance I could tell that these pyramids were less solid than stone. I turned to the man next to me, who had been silent since we pulled away from Brussels. “Black Egypt,” I said. This was the phrase that came to mind.

The man turned his watery eyes to me. He was brawny, tough and leathery, wearing a thick coat that could have been made from burlap and which must have been uncomfortably hot.

He grunted in approval. “Got that right.”

“What are the pyramids made of?” I asked him.

The man looked at me with surprise. “Coal slag,” he said, and then: “I suppose you've not been here before.”

I shook my head. I told him I was to be the new lay preacher in the Wasmes area, feeling a surge of excitement and doubt. I couldn't believe it, Theo, it seemed so surreal—after a year of failed study for the theological degree in Amsterdam and then sitting through those dreaded, useless evangelical training sessions in that school in Brussels, wondering desperately why I needed to know Greek in order to bring the Gospel to those who needed it most, there I was! At long last, on my way to a new land, equipped with nothing but my two hands and the book in my knapsack. I felt that I was on a path I had chosen, despite the maneuvering Father had to do to get me there; this might sound silly to you, but I was so much happier on that train than I ever had been traveling back to work at Goupil's.

The man, though, made a noise like a snort in response to my statement, the sound someone makes when they don't believe a word you've said, or when they want to laugh but don't want anyone to hear. I looked at him to discover what he meant.

“Forgive me,” the man said. “I've lived in this place a long, long time.”

I got off the train in Wasmes and watched it pull away, curve round the track, and disappear. As soon as it was gone, a boy in a dark cap, tall boots, and tweed trousers and jacket stepped out onto the track with a shovel and began to tamp down the dirt that the train had displaced. I was the only person to disembark, and when the train was gone, the boy and I were the only people in the station. I pulled my coat tight around me; it was colder than it had been in Brussels.

I asked the boy on the tracks how I should get to Petit Wasmes, and the boy pointed in the direction of the only slag pyramid that could be seen from there, great and towering and black. His breath came out of him in short white clouds. “Follow the coal,” he said. I left him there with his shovel, wondering how many times a day the boy performed this labor, smoothing out the tracks for the next train to come through and deposit its one passenger. Noble, thankless work, to be sure.

I think I told you some about Wasmes, where the train let me off, when you were here, but I don't think you were listening. I will tell you again: Wasmes is made up of a few streets of redbrick buildings streaked with dirt, cobblestones, a church, a meeting house, a prison with crumbling bricks. It is the home of the mine administration, the foremen and managers, so close to the miners but a world away. The miners live in villages at the bottom of a long hill down from Wasmes, and they rarely make the climb up to the town. As I walked through Wasmes that first time, I noticed the strange vacancy of everything—only a few people crossed the streets and no one noticed me, the curtains were pulled in most windows, and flowers crumbled in hanging window boxes. The haze of coal smoke made it seem as if night were falling; the black was so thick, I felt I could take hold of it with my hand and pull free a piece. What light there was came through the thick black in slices and arrows, and I thought of Heaven, of all things that cannot be understood, hidden from mortals behind a cover of impenetrable smoke.

My knapsack over my shoulder, I made my way to the house of one Jean-Baptiste Denis. The regional evangelical committee, on which sat Pastor Pieterszen, whom I had gotten to know in Brussels, had secured me lodging in the Denis home—perhaps Father told you this? Jean-Baptiste Denis is a baker, and one of the most fortunate men in the congregation of Petit Wasmes. His house is the only brick building in town, and sits at the crest of the hill leading down into the mining village.

At the house, Madame Denis was waiting outside for me, in a scarf and knitted wool hat, dusting soot out of the door frame. When she saw me, she clapped her hands and exclaimed, “Monsieur Vincent! You are here!” I was stunned at her warmth, never having received such a greeting from our mother and father, or perhaps anyone else ever before. Madame Denis is a large woman with glowing red cheeks, and her brown dress under her apron was marked by a purple flowered print. I wanted to fall right into her arms, but I restrained myself, giving her a tip of my hat instead. “You must be Madame Denis.”

She curtsied and replied, “So I must!” sweeping her arm across her body and smiling. “Welcome! We have been looking forward to your arrival. How were your travels? Did you come too terribly far?”

I assured her the trip was just fine but that I was relieved to have arrived. “Well, we're relieved you're here, too!” she declared, and with a gesture of her arm invited me into the house. “Come on in,” she said. “Welcome to your new home!”

Inside the house the air was warm and thick with the smell of baking bread, a most welcome and delicious smell. Madame Denis removed her scarf and hat and hung them on a peg by the door; then she led me through the large kitchen-bakery, lined with wooden shelves packed with jars of all sizes, all touched with a fine film of flour and containing all number of ingredients. I glimpsed a stack of wooden mixing bowls piled high in the sink, a hook with a handful of different-colored aprons by the door, and a fire burning in the hearth on the other side of the room. Outside the kitchen, we went through a hallway and climbed a short set of stairs to a room that she declared was mine, a small space under the eaves with a drastically slanted ceiling. I entered the room so timidly, I was almost on my toes; I could not have imagined anything more suitable. It reminded me immediately of the room where our sisters used to sleep in the house in Zundert, their neatly made beds under the slanting ceiling, and I thought of the giggles we used to hear coming from there at night when we lay in our bed, do you remember? In the room at the Denis house that was to be mine, there were also two beds pushed into either corner of the room, which had no door, only the stairs leading back down to the kitchen. Small wooden tables sat next to each bed, and wooden chests at the base of each bed. Against the wall there was a handsome chest of drawers. The wallpaper that lined the walls was a floral pattern, but it was tasteful and not oppressive.

“I hope it's all right,” said Madame Denis, behind me, watching me take in the room. “You will be sharing this room with our son Alard. That's his bed there”—she gestured to the bed in the far corner, neatly made. “He is eight, and he's a good boy. Very quiet and thoughtful, he's the wisest man in the house.” She smiled and winked at me. “Or perhaps he
was
, now that you are here.” She added, “He will be no trouble to you, I am sure, none at all.”

Alard's bed had a blue bedspread pulled across it, quilted in panels of differing shades—the bed that was to be mine had one in red of the same pattern. Everything was so neat and tidy, so perfectly presentable, I could suddenly feel the dust on my clothes from the long journey, and thought I would sully the bed if I were to lie on it. “Of course that is fine,” I told her. “I look forward to meeting him.”

“Yes,” she said, “he is out playing now with some friends, I think—I have trouble keeping track of where they go.” She leaned against the door frame, watching me put my suitcase down next to the bed—I wanted to put it on top but feared that the valise would made a mark on the spread. “Most of the boys his age,” she began, and then seemed to hesitate. She looked at me, as if surprised—she had started her statement too soon and now wished she could take it back. “Well,” she said, looking down, wiping her hands on her apron, as if that were to be her last word on the subject. Then she must have decided to continue. “Most of them have started to go down into the mines to work. Alard doesn't have to because his father is not a miner, but it means he has a lot more time to himself these days.”

I was silent, watching her, wondering if she would say more. For a moment she seemed strained, unsure what to say next, and then she recovered. She smiled at me again. “But that's enough talk for now,” she said. “I'm sure you must be tired from your journey. Why don't you settle in and have a rest before supper, which will be in just a couple of hours. The bathroom is just next door, and you should feel free to use anything you see. This is your home now.”

She turned to go, and I felt a flash of panic to be in that room alone. Of course I should bathe, have a rest, be presentable for supper, but I was too restless. The thought of lying in that bed with the red quilt in my present frenzy of excitement was unthinkable. I needed to see what surrounded us, what kind of place I was standing inside.

I called Madame Denis back. I asked her if it might be all right for me go out and explore the landscape a bit, rather than rest. “I am eager to see this place,” I explained. “I have been wanting to come here for so long.”

She seemed surprised and a little puzzled but was gracious nonetheless. I left my suitcase next to the bed and followed Madame Denis back down the stairs and outside once more. A few steps from the house, she pointed out the way down to the village and the mines, a long path that wound down the hill. I thanked her and walked quickly down the path toward the mine. I could sense her looking after me for quite a while, but I did not turn back.

*   *   *

From the base of the hill the Denis house sat on, off to the west was a landscape of sunken roads, hills, meadows, and brief patches of woods, all of it practically overrun with cottages, crisscrossing over and against one another in winding lanes that seemed to have no order at all. There were blackthorn hedges and occasional gardens, gnarled and twisted trees, all of it covered with a layer of snow and over that, everywhere, the omnipresent scatterings of soot. Off to the eastern side of the hill was a vast field, a giant black pyramid and two smaller ones, and nestled among them, the machinery of the Marcasse mine. This was no painting, Theo; I had stepped into one of God's own masterpieces.

How can I describe it? It was a squat beast, an evil-looking thing. There were a few long buildings and two chimneys, and then, extending from the tops of two of the buildings, giant iron framelike structures like the skeletons of twisted church towers, exposing on the inside their wheels and ramps and thick cables and ropes. I had seen a picture of a Belgian mine in the same geography book that told me about the Borinage—remember I showed that to you in my fit of excitement? But seeing it with my own eyes was quite a different thing. The mine was terrifying, awesome. It was dark and powerful and loomed up out of the landscape like some magnificent mythical metal minotaur. Looking at the landscape, the trees dead and nearly dead, the ash heaps, the hills of discarded coal, the huts collapsing into one another, the thick smoke pouring from the chimneys and blocking the sun, I nearly fell to my knees. What was I doing in this place? The sound from the mine was a clanking and banging and a general roar. I was far, far from Zundert now, from home, from you, my brother. I watched the mine and it seemed to come to life; it turned and shifted, and a quick horror came over me: This was what I was to minister to, this beast was what I had come here for! But no—I was here for those poor souls who worked inside of it.