Two days after my neighbor’s death, the doorbell rang. It was late afternoon, a day before Christmas, I wasn’t expecting any visitors. Concentrating, hunched over at my table, I glued a cabin to the hull of a small ship.
In the yellow glow of the gallery light, a man stood bundled up, as if he had traveled a long journey. I thought he was preaching his faith when he started talking about our father, but just before I could close the door, he held out a bouquet to me. “Because you were such a nice neighbor to my father.”
Ah, he was my neighbor’s son. A little embarrassed I accepted the flowers, I had to open my front door further, which seemed to be an invitation for the son to elaborate on the situation. The house had to be emptied, not ideal the day before Christmas, no, and then there was hassle with his brother, the youngest of the three. The son had become softer and quieter until he was almost whispering. I started to feel cold, thought about the small tube of glue that was now drying out inside, but because of that whisper the visitor finally got my attention.
What happened to his brother?
The man tilted his head in surprise. He noticed that I had the same build as his father. He didn’t say anything about his brother, but he did say something about his sister, he would send her over with some of father’s clothes, it’s quite possible that I would try on some of it.
I didn’t want any clothes, I already had enough clothes myself. But people in mourning don’t have time for what you have or don’t have. It is about what they have lost, it must be given meaning. Less than two hours later the doorbell rang again. A tall woman with a head hidden behind a pile of cardigans and shirts squeezed in where she shoved the entire pile onto my dining room table. “Just see what you can still use.”
Now I also saw her face, her red sad eyes. Should I offer tea? Tell her that I had just moved here, that I had not known her father well at all?
The daughter stood at the window and looked at the seagulls hanging on the wind. She asked about curtains. Didn’t I have curtains? Her eyes seemed to light up slightly as she looked at me and I saw everything coming together in her head: this large window, her father’s window frames of exactly the same size. She made a firm gesture when I tried to protest. Doing something good for someone else, that was also Christmas. Her youngest brother would bring the curtains and hang them, it was no trouble at all.
The evening was dark and restless. The rain hit my window in showers as I glued the ship together. There was a commotion in my neighbor’s house. If you didn’t know any better you’d think he’d returned, looking for something he’d forgotten, perhaps the cardigan I’d put on over my shirt. But dead people don’t return as ghosts. It is the stragglers who begin to wander, who stand at your door at midnight with sadness under their arms. I was just attaching the foremast, the last of the three masts, when there was a knock on my door.
In the yellow gallery light stood a boy with two rags under his arms. The ends of the fabric fluttered around him like wings as he walked silently into the living room, where he stood in front of the window and examined the frames. High in the shoulders just like its predecessors, and yet clearly the youngest of the litter. More reckless, more impatient, but nevertheless full of self-confidence. Determined to raise the curtains and set sail.
I didn’t want curtains. I wanted to look into the night and let the lights of cars comfort me, the way flames from a fireplace can hypnotize you. I was about to say all this to him when the boy turned around and looked at me in surprise. His nostrils quivered, his upper lip seemed to curl slightly.
“Is there something wrong?” I squeaked when he grabbed me and sniffed the collar of the vest. Before I could protest he clutched me tightly, two strong arms slowly squeezing the air from my body, and when his grip loosened I gasped as if someone had just dunked me underwater. He still had no intention of letting go, in the reflection of the window I saw his head land on my shoulder. Outside it had stopped raining. Blacker than the deepest sea, the sky hung above the city as I gently pressed the boy against me. No moon, no stars, no planes, only down below, way in the distance, every now and then a stray light would pass by.
Myrthe of Tournai recently published the novel A table by the window. For her debut novel Mothers of others (2018) she received the ANV debutante prize and the Lucy B. and CW van der Hoogt Prize.
Reading list