The townsman came from afar. And it showed. His clothing was saturated with the black moisture. He no longer had any hair on his scalp, his beard bristled with clotted blood. He sat on his knees in the muck and tried to shout, but all he produced were some gurgles that brought red foam to his lips.
Just ahead the mound rose from the black plain like an enormous slice of green fruit. With burning eyes he looked up against the slope. In spite of the fire raging inside his body, he grinned. The legend was true, after all. His throat swelled with emotion. He fell into a fit of coughing. With violent spasms he doubled up as if he was about to puke into his lap. Bitter juices filled his mouth. Everything hurt. Needles jabbed into his brain, his teeth wavered in their inflamed gums and his stomach burned like a blister. But he had reached his goal.
His coughing subsided. Dizzily he raised his head again. The mound. The green mound. Not just green, no smear of dull paint but glowing, living green that moved like water. He chuckled. The green mounds existed. On all fours he started to cover the last meters.
Falman heard him first. He was in the barn, gazing anxiously at Guurte, who was a bit restive that morning. He in a state of panic, of course. Her welfare was his. She had given darned good milk, no mistake, but the color of her dung pleased him less. Nothing exorbitant. A shade off. The cake just lacked that special glow that was typical of her. He had sniffed it, stirred it, even licked it, but it tasted no worse than usual.
"What ails you, lass?" he asked. The cow slowly turned her head towards him, chewing placidly. Her nose glittered like a black diamond. Falman bent over and placed his lips on the cold, moist skin.
Almost at the same time he heard the sound outside. He gave the cow a friendly pat on her rump and went to the open door of the barn. In the doorway he stopped to look at the sky. Tattered, mouse-gray clouds dragged one another along under a slightly paler upper cover. Decent weather. A fine breeze from the north-west. A promise of drinkable rain. He felt in his trouser pocket for his pipe. He might not have any tobacco but he still enjoyed sucking the stem. It calmed him. So he placed it between his lips and heard the sound again.
"Better take a look," he muttered. Without hurry he walked through the luxuriant grass towards the sound. A lapwing appeared a few meters ahead of him. Smiling, he watched how it suddenly dropped one of her wings and started to limp away. When he did not follow, she stopped, drew in her wing, rose and started to wheel around him, uttering plaintive cries. Falman walked on, carefully avoiding the little fence that he had made around the lapwing's nest.
He reached the edge of the mound and saw the man. Well, I'll be darned, he thought. Another one. How about that? He shook his head as he looked down at the human wreck crawling toward the bottom of the slope. The man could hardly be distinguished from the muck. A clump of inspired mud. He still had his weapon slung across his back. A powerful automatic rifle, thick as a branch, but covered with a black crust, which had undoubtedly made it useless. No. This townsman held little threat.
Falman allowed his gaze to wander from the man to the southern horizon. Beyond it lay the towns. He shuddered. Places of pestilence and violence, lechery and deprivation. Blessedly far. Now only the very strongest could hope to cross the plain and the few who succeeded, always arrived in the state of that wretch down there.
Sucking the stem of his pipe Falman took a few hesitant steps down. He did not like getting too close to the bottom. The black mass could be treacherous. Strange organisms dwelt in it, neither animal nor vegetable, chemical monstrosities. This was the outcome of man's tampering with creation. A black mire filled with poisonous bubbling that covered the greater part of the earth. It was a shame.
The townsman had finally reached the bottom of the mound. Shakily he stretched out a hand to the seductive stalks. Green and cool, with droplets of dew lingering here and there. Tears filled his eyes. He had come so far. His trembling fingers had almost reached the first stalks, when he caught sight of the man above him. He wanted to call out no longer had the strength. With a final effort he reached out his arms and fell headlong into the grass, unconscious.
Falman was startled. Him and his daydreaming! That poor soul needed help. He quickly went down, removed the man's weapon and lifted him. He was light as a child, skin-wrapped bones.
In the yard Falman laid him beside the pump and called his wife. She came out at once. A strapping woman, her strawblonde hair drawn tightly back so that her blushing, good-natured face stood above her black garments like a full moon. Rubbing large, ruddy hands she appeared in the doorway of the farmhouse.
"Look, wife, another," Falman called out.
She began a smile that froze halfway.
"How is he?" she asked.
"He'll make it."
"And?"
"A fine specimen. Weakened but strong and young. He might be right."
"That's good. I'll draw him a good strong broth." She went in.
Falman removed the man's clothes and washed him with little squirts from the pump. After that he carried him to the barn, laid him on a simple wooden bunk and threw a horse blanket over him. Then he returned to the house.
The man on the bunk was delirious.
"Enough," he muttered. "Please, I can't go on ... I really can't ... green is grass ... red is blood ... black is black ... It's only me: Remco. Bolke? Don't you recognize me? It's really me ..., Bolke, do you hear me? Say something. Surely you're not ....."
Remco was approaching the end of the street. He did not want to, but his legs were carrying him. Just around the corner something terrible awaited. He knew for certain. If only he could turn, stop, even cry for help. But no way. His heart flung itself against his ribs. His knees almost buckled with fear. At the corner now. Involuntarily he cowered a little, closing his eyes. Nothing. No lightning bolt of pain. No roar that chilled the blood. Nothing. For heaven's sake: take a look.
He opened his eyes and saw a naked woman sitting at his feet in lotus position, looking straight up at him. A chalkwhite face with blackrimmed eyes and bright red lips that slowly curled into a pout.
"Want to get it on?" she asked, with husky voice, while she cooled herself with a fan of playing cards.
All he could do was stare. She was naked. He stretched his neck in an attempt to catch a glimpse of her breasts, but she kept the cards in front of them. When he stooped to pull her hand away, she rolled up into a ball and bounced off, noisily like a metal drum. I'm dreaming, he thought, and fell down backwards to wake up with a little shock on the bunk.
He grinned. A dream. His grin stuck. Gradually he became aware of his lamentable state. His inflamed mouth was throbbing with pain. He could barely feel the rest of his body. Movement was entirely impossible. He closed his eyes again.
As mound so fine, the song went. He had never believed in it, but when he had finally lost all his belief in the township, a legendary mound seemed better than nothing at all. And now he was there. Or was he? In sudden fright he opened his eyes. Surely he had not dreamt that as well? He had really reached the mound, hadn't he? Overhead he saw wooden rafters recede into deep darkness. Yes, this had to be a mound. He uttered a sigh and sank back into a restless sleep.
Remco was awakened by a scraping noise. When he opened his eyes, he was overcome by dozens of unfamiliar odors. A mixture of the sour, the sweet and the bitter that almost intoxicated him. He breathed with difficulty through his mouth and slowly got used to the excess. He also heard noises of all kinds. Cheeping and grunting, scraping and fluttering, suddenly punctuated by a cracking fart. With some difficulty he lifted his head and looked about. Beside him, a wide brownish twilight teemed with animals that he could only recall from childhood pictures. Those white, leggy birds pecking at the floor were chickens. That fat, sonorously grunting beast was a pig. The large black and white brutes between partitions along the walls had to be cows. He smiled. A farm. The yellow stalks that covered the floor were straws, of course. Towards the back they were collected into rectangular blocks. A black cat was sleeping on one of them. Sparrows - the only birds he knew from the town - chirped among the rafters and fluttered to and fro on softly rustling wings.
Although the exertion hurt him, he kept his head up to continue watching, immensely enjoying the tranquil scene. Such peace. Such a difference from the town. How good life had to be here.
After about ten minutes he could not keep his head up any longer and had to lower it. He could still hardly move. My poor body, he thought, so desperately built up, so easily broken down.
He had worked on it all winter. Every spare moment in that stinking workout cellar, where the pretty boys tried to get prettier so they might be chosen as man-consort by some woman. Him they had scorned, believing him to have the same goal - in spite of his homely looks.
"Not for women," he mumbled. "No. But good all the same."
He dropped off again.
The second time he was woken by a hand on his shoulder. He looked up into the farmer's face, smiling pleasantly. He tried to smile back, but the effort drove a blast of pain through his mouth.
"Morning," said the farmer.
Remco nodded.
"Here," said the farmer. "I've got you some soup. That'll make you feel better."
Remco pulled a helpless face. The farmer nodded.
"I know, lad. I know. You're not the first."
With hard yet cautious hand the farmer helped him sit up and fed him the soup. Torture. Each sip of the hot brew seemed to explode in his mouth. With sweat breaking on his brow Remco persevered and after ten sips or so the pain faded. He gave the farmer a quizzical look.
"What did I tell you? Those are mighty herbs, lad. You'll be fine. Here, take some bigger swigs. I haven't got all day."
The farmer placed the bowl at Remco's lips and he emptied it with a few gulps. Then he sank back exhausted.
Falman tiptoed away.
When Falman came back in the kitchen, his wife quickly turned her back on him. From her posture he could see that she was wiping her face.
"Wife?" he asked softly.
"Let me be, husband." she replied in a smothered voice.
"This time it will work out," he said
She shrugged her shoulders.
"You know better."
Falman pursed his lips. Yes, he thought. I do.
"Come, come, not so glum," he said, as airily as he could.
She turned. Her otherwise so cheerful face in listless folds.
"We need him so, Falman. Ykje is already twenty-four. She's pining. Sometimes I fear for her mind. Besides, you are no longer able to cope with all the work."
"Hogwash."
"No Falman, not at all. I hear you moan in your sleep."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Let's just hope for the best. Come, we must warn the children."
Ykje cast a bored look out of the window while mom and dad explained things. She had heard it so often. Her three younger sisters had not. A strange man in the barn. So don't go into the barn, be quiet outside it, don't laugh, don't shout, don't talk. Careful. A stranger can do strange things.
Ykje looked at her sisters. With open mouths and startled eyes they listened to the explanation. They all looked like their mother: strapping lasses with strawblonde hair.
Ykje looked out of the window again, south, where white sunlight glowed between the scaly clouds so that they resembled gray floes in foaming water. The town lay somewhere under them. The wicked town. She was beginning to doubt all that wickedness. The townsmen did not seem so wicked to her. Why shouldn't they touch her? Father touched mother, didn't he? Ykje found those touches less and less wicked. Her body thrived under them. At other times it could be so tepid and lame. In the past (before dad had caught her wet-handed and threatened her with damnation) she would touch herself sometimes. It made her body come alive, as if her blood simmered, as if a frozen bud thawed inside her and blossomed out, always reminding her of dry, cracked, all-withering soil that one downpour could change back into juicy mud again.
"Are you listening Ykje?" asked her mother.
"Yes mother," she said automatically. She gave her mother a cross look. A good woman, no mistake. But Ykje would so very dearly love to see other faces around her.
"Maybe this is the right one, child," said her mother.
"Fat chance,"
"Come, come, my lass," said father. "Not so glum."
Remco got better fast. He was strong and young and the herbs did their healing work. After a week he could move about again. He desperately wanted to go out, but to his dismay Falman would not let him.
"Better this way," Falman said. "I'll explain later."
"But I feel so useless," said Remco. "Can't I help you with something?"
"Later," said Falman. "Just get stronger for the time being." He handed him a dish with steaming hodgepodge.
"You cook well," said Remco, after the first spoonful.
"Me? O, yes. Of course. Yes," said Falman and hurried to the door. He evaded all longer conversation. This grieved Remco, but he did not insist. Farmers were surly, everyone knew that. Falman would come round soon enough.
For three weeks Remco did not leave the barn. In spite of the curfew he was happier than he had ever been. He knew he was safe, with a comfortable bed and good food. Falman let him look after the animals and that gave him much pleasure. One day it all became too much for him. He sat on his bunk, with the black cat in his lap, and suddenly tears went dripping down his cheeks. He could not help it. The last half year in town had been too miserable. Especially Bolke's execution, of course. If only he had stayed away. But somehow he had felt compelled to be there. God almighty. Such horror. After a few minutes he had not dared look anymore, but the screams! He could still hear them. He would never lose those echoes again. For weeks they had sickened him, to the point of vomiting. He shuddered at the recollection, stroked the cat with angry strokes as if he wanted to rub something from its fur. The animal enjoyed the rubbing immensely and purred like a battlebike.
Remco thought back. Facing the fall, alone, while the town became colder, smoggier and darker. A dead monster that rotted away dripping in clammy mists. Everything gray: the concrete, the clouds and the air itself, with only here and there among the rubble a fire, like a feverishly blooming orchid, yellows, oranges and reds, surrounded by shivering figures jostling one another to catch a glow from it. Life? In those latrines of housing barracks, where the nights were dense with moans? Every morning in silent droves to the labor market, heart pounding in your throat because no work meant no food. And always the threat of death. Death, always death. Nobody counted a male life in town. Thirty-nine others to take his place. The fewer the better. Hence the barbaric amusements: duels, gladiator fights, races on battlebikes equipped with revolving knives, whole-scale battles, executions for the slightest offence. It did not matter. As long as the men died and were kept quiet with games in the meantime. He had only been kept going by his plan of escape. He wanted to get out of town. Cross the black plain. That was why he had trained all winter, every free moment. He had even become a member of a street gang to get some extra food. His hand fell silent in the cat's warm fur. The gang. He clamped his jaws together. Don't think about it. There had been no other way. Don't think. But still they came: the faces he so desperately wanted to forget, faces frantic with terror, hatred and despair. Mirrors of his acts. Don't think. He lifted the cat from his lap, grabbed a broom and started to brush the stable. Bolke would have understood.
Ykje was all agog. She had seen him! When she knew father was in the field and mother busy in the cellar, she had climbed to the hay loft. Through a chink in the floor she had looked. Such a fine-looking man. Young and muscular. Bald, alas, but with a full, black beard. As long as possible she had watched. All the tepid and lame feelings drained from her body. It began to glow. She forgot about the time and she was almost caught by her mother. But she had seen the man. If only he knew how to behave himself.
Out at last. Remco trembled with excitement. Falman looked at him with a grim little smile.
"We're going to plant potatoes, lad. That's cushy work."
Remco stepped through the doorway and stopped to take in the scents. So many of them! Upturned earth, grass, flowers, herbs, a steaming dunghill.
"Any work is fine," he said.
With a moist breeze blowing into their faces, they walked through the meadow. Across the luscious green a coalblack heavy horse came trotting up to them, tail raised, snorting. Remco laughed out loud. This was so grand.
"You have no idea." he said to Falman as he skipped with joy. "It's so different. So different."
Falman put the stem of his pipe to his lips.
"I guess so," he said.
Remco calmed down a little.
"Have you ever been in town?" he asked
"Heaven forbid," said Falman
"You can say that again. It's gruesome. And it's getting worse and worse. The ratio growing. The women...."
Falman stopped brusquely. Sparks in his eyes.
"No sinful talk, lad," he said gruffly.
Remco was baffled. Sinful?
"No townish talk about women," said Falman. "There is little time for talk here anyway. Silent work is double work."
Remco fell silent. Why shouldn't he talk about women? After all, it was the most important subject around. With Bolke he had rarely talked about anything else. How could it be otherwise? Such a want. You never got used to it: doing without, even though it was the commonest thing in the world. It had often amazed him. You got used to everything else. Hunger, cold, deprivation and the unrelenting threat of death. You got used to that. But never to the want of a woman.
Falman and he reached the northern side of the mound. Here lay the field where the potatoes had to be planted. The tubers were piled into large wicker baskets. Falman explained Remco what to do and he began.
Falman watched him with mixed feelings. The boy did not seem the wrong sort, but his talk was suspicious. Ykje needed a decent bloke, no pervert. These townsmen all seemed possessed by the lusts of the flesh. Oh, sure, he knew about the ratio. More men than women. So what? Shouldn't that lead to more respect for women? But enough. To work.
Silently they worked side by side throughout the morning. Remco enjoyed it immensely, although the town kept haunting him like remorse.
When the pale glow in the blanket of clouds was at its highest, Falman laid down his tool.
"Time," he said.
They sat down beside each other on an overturned basket. Falman got out the food. Rye bread with cheese and creamy milk. Remco was afraid to speak. Falman cast him an occasional searching look but said nothing.
When they had sat for some ten minutes after completing their meal, Falman got up again.
"Back to work," he said.
It went on like that for a full week. Every morning Remco was taken from the barn and locked up again in the evening. Falman did not come round yet, but Remco acquiesced in his boss's silence. Strangely enough he began to appreciate it more and more. He brooded less. His otherwise feverish brain came to rest, like a stadium emptying at the end of a game. Less and less he was tormented by the memory of Bolke, women, the cruel art of survival. He worked himself to exhaustion and relished his well-earned rest. For the very first time his existence had become carefree.
On the eighth day they had finished earlier than usual. Behind a thin sheet of clouds the pale disc of the sun hung about three hands above the horizon and set the landscape aglow in a clear and sharp clear light.
They were sitting on their upturned basked again, when Falman suddenly spoke.
"Is it really that bad, in town?"
Remco looked up in surprise. Could he talk?
"How do you mean?"
"As I say,"
Remco gathered courage.
"Yes," he said. "It is really harsh to be man in town. We are too many. Forty men to every woman. That begs for madness."
Falman sucked at his pipe and looked into the sun, which almost bleached all color from his eyes.
"A woman is not everything either," he said.
Remco gasped.
"D-d-d-do you have one?" he asked,
Falman nodded.
"Don't you?"
Remco uttered an anguished cry.
"Me? No way. Out of our forty I was always number twenty and something."
"Explain."
"At school! We were divided into groups of forty. The best had a shot at becoming male-consort. The rest could forget about a woman altogether."
Falman gazed down at the ground for a moment.
"So you've never had a woman?"
"No."
"Would you like one?"
Remco uttered a hoarse laugh.
"Does a fish like water?"
"How would you treat her?"
"Like a goddess," said Remco. "I would adore, honor and worship her."
Falman smiled.
"That's what I used to think. But those are dreams, lad."
"Oh no," said Remco. "Not for me. Not after twenty-six years among only men."
Falman gave him a searching look. Blazes, he thought, the boy means it.
"Good," he said. "Then it's time I introduced you to my daughter."
Remco went all clammy and cold. Unable to move he gazed into the pale eyes of the old man. They were partly closed against the light. Daughter? Remco felt a sickening dizziness. When it cleared he would gladly have dropped to his knees to grab Falman's hand and cover it with grateful kisses. But he controlled this urge. He had to swallow a few times before he could speak.
"You won't regret it," he said.
While he sat waiting in the barn for Ykje's arrival, Remco thought back to the only time that he had seen a naked woman. About a year ago, just after his twenty-fifth birthday. Such an event! From twenty meters, with Bolke, both on their knees among dripping shrubs in a night black as sin. Mortal danger, that country mansion of a governess. It was a miracle that they had not run into a mine, mantrap or snare. But it had been a thing they had to do. Unforgettable. Both drunk, sporting macho grins and chattering teeth in the dark. Until suddenly a window lit up in the dark wall and revealed a woman walking about in bath robe and - Strike me deaf and dumb he could still hear Bolke say - letting the robe slip from her naked body. For MONTHS Bolke and he had fed on those few minutes. Not a single impression could be lost. They subjected each other to relentless interrogations, in order to stamp the smallest details into their memories. For hours they would argue about the stance of a leg, the exact site of a mole, the amount of glitter in the sherry blonde hair. They recorded everything in the remnants of an antique telephone directory that they had bleached sheet by sheet.
Remco grinned bitterly. He had even lost the sheets. They had been confiscated when Bolke was caught. As a peeping tom.
Ten thousand heartbeats later she came. When the barn door opened it was as if the heavens split vertically. Against a backdrop of milky light her silhouette appeared, broad of hip, slim of waist, with hair in waving veils about her head. Choking on his excitement he went up to her. When she turned into the light he lost himself in her face. She spoke but he did not understand a word. Her voice was a chorus of birds, her eyes corn flowers caught in dew, her mouth a sweet whirlpool, her tightly clad breasts overripe fruit, much bigger than the two he had seen such a long time ago.
"O, may I please see them naked?" he asked, with outstretched arms.
Her face winced as if he had slapped it, but he did not see. All he saw was her rising bosom.
She unbuttoned her blouse. With a slight tremor her breasts dropped into the light. White as frosted moons.
Shuddering, Remco stretched out his hands. His fingers grasped the flesh. Soft it was, softer than anything he had ever felt. Water almost. With the palms of his hands he brushed her nipples. They swelled at once. Pink. Remco grew dizzy with delight. He had to swallow a few times. He was touching the nakedness of a woman. He, Remco, number twenty and something.
Ykje cringed before him. With tiny gestures and winks she tried to make him understand that he should stop, that it was all right but not just now. He did not see. He had only eyes for her breasts.
On the hay loft Falman and his wife sat on their knees above the chink in the floor. When Remco reached out for their daughter's flesh, Falman uttered a soft groan and his wife sighed. Without looking at each other they got up and softly clambered down the outside ladder. At the bottom they paused.
The sun was glowing behind such a thin fleece that it almost broke through. The woman closed her eyes against the light.
"Perhaps...." she said.
"What?" asked Falman.
She said nothing. Sunrays really penetrated the clouds, bathing her face in a creamy light. She kept her eyes tightly closed, tilted her head a little backwards. She seemed enchanted.
"Perhaps what?" asked Falman
The woman straightened her head again and blinked.
"No, nothing," she said.
Falman walked to the door of the barn and struck it. There was a startled cry from within. Falman grinned bitterly. His daughter knew her role to perfection. She had had enough practice. She came storming out. Falman slammed the door behind her and locked it.
She had buttoned up her blouse askew. Her swollen nipples were still outlined in the fabric. A blush colored her cheeks. She stood before him with glistening eyes. He looked at her in wonder.
"What's wrong, lass?"
She blushed even deeper and furtively bit her lower lip before speaking.
"O, father, why? Why do you make such a terrible thing out of it?"
He took a step back.
"Why?! What do you mean?"
She made a helpless gesture with her hands, as if she were pulling a bundle of straw apart.
"He wants to touch me? So what?"
Falman went white.
"So what? So what?!" He stamped a foot. His right arm shot up skyward like a misdirected shaft of lighting. His finger dug at the sun.
"Depravity," he shouted. "Foul lust. Nothing else. How often need it be said? Away, to your room."
Ykje wanted to say something else but before she could utter a word, Falman had roughly grabbed her upper arm.
"Not another word."
The young woman wrenched herself free.
"Good father. Just once more. But the next time it will be different."
He was about to strike her. She saw, lowered her head and ran off.
Panting with rage Falman remained behind. Nothing but good. How could she fail to understand? From break of dawn till close of dusk he labored. For her and her sisters. His back had become a restless strand of barbed wire. His joints creaked like rusty hinges. If only he had a son. A young, vigorous lad like ... yes, yes, like that Remco. A pox on him.
Shoulder to shoulder he and his wife returned to the house. There the woman put a pot of water on the fire and threw herbs into it, sighing all the time. Falman made as if he did not hear.
"What is it to be," she asked, after a while, very softly, "fast and merciful or slow and agonizing?"
Falman reflected for a moment. He liked the lad. In spite of everything. Perhaps he was not to blame either. The town corrupted everything.
"Make it fast," he said.
She nodded.
"I'm glad for that."
Falman turned and went out again. The sun was still shining. Somewhere over the silent meadow a lark was warbling. Falman took a deep breath. Back to work again. He wanted to walk to the barn to get the harrow. Then he heard the sound. Cheerful singing from the barn. "As mound so fine..." Falman turned and ran into the meadow, as fast as his weary legs would carry him. When he could no longer hear the singing, he stopped, clenched his fists, placed the stem of his pipe between his teeth and stood biting it till it crunched. For minutes he remained like that, a burning wetness in his eyes. Then he turned again.
"No," he muttered. "Depravity. Foul lust. Nothing else."
With long, determined steps he walked back.
Rotterdam 1995/ Drenthe 2008