Dear Mr. M (23 page)

First David started laughing, then Michael did too. Lodewijk glanced at Laura and raised his eyebrows. “How are you doing otherwise, Herman?” he said.

Then everyone had to laugh, Herman almost harder than the rest—everyone, that is, except for Miriam. It took something like thirty seconds before Laura saw it: Miriam was crying.

“Miriam?” she asked. “Miriam, what's wrong?”

She was weeping almost soundlessly, only sniffing now and then and wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. “Don't you hear it?” she said quietly. “Don't you guys hear what he's saying?”

David put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her up against him. “Miriam…”

“And you too!” she shouted, so loudly and so suddenly that it startled everyone else. “Shut your face with that ‘Miriam' shit!” She pushed David's arm off her shoulders and stood up—in two attempts, the first time she didn't push hard enough and landed back on the couch. “Fuck! Cunt!” she screamed: two words Laura hadn't expected to hear coming from this round, open face that wanted to kiss you on the cheeks all the time. “Go fuck yourselves, all of you!” She was already at the door, she yanked it open and slammed it so hard behind her that a candle fell from its candlestick on the mantel and landed on the floor; right after that came the sound of hiking boots pounding up the stairs to the attic, where another door slammed with a loud bang.

Laura looked at David; like everyone else, probably, she expected him to get up and run up the stairs after his girlfriend. But David remained seated.

“Well,” he said, “I guess that's clear enough.”

The one who did get up was Stella.

“Where are you going?” Herman asked—his voice didn't sound threatening, perhaps, but there was something about it that made Stella blink.

“Just up to her,” she said. “I don't…I don't like this at all.”

“Sit down,” Herman said.

Stella's jaw didn't quite drop, Laura noticed, but almost. “What did you say?” she asked.

“What I'm saying is that you should sit down for a bit before maybe going up to her. And in fact, I don't think you should go up to her at all.”

Laura glanced over at David, but he had his head down and was pretending to pluck at a piece of lint or something on the thigh of his jeans.

“When someone's hysterical, you have to let them calm down first,” Herman went on. “During the initial phase, you can't get through to them.”

No one said a word for quite a while after that. Laura caught herself staring at something on her lap too.

“Well, shall I go then?” Lodewijk said. “Then it's not so clearly a girl coming to comfort another girl.”

They all had to laugh at that, a laugh that broke the tension and brought relief, and they looked at each other again; even Stella, who was still standing at the door, laughed a little.

“I wish you all the success in the world, Lodewijk,” Herman said. “But I don't give you much of a chance. No, really, I think it would be better if we waited a bit.”

In the silence that followed, Laura pricked up her ears, but didn't hear anything from the attic.

“Maybe I overdid things a little,” Herman said. “I completely realize that not everyone thinks those films are funny, but you can talk about that without getting hysterical about it right away, can't you? I mean, did we fight like this last summer? Or at school, the last few months? That's what I'm trying to say. In fact, I don't think we ever argued at all before that cow came along.”

Laura glanced quickly at David again. David was no longer staring at real or imaginary bits of lint on his trousers, but at a spot somewhere on the floor; when Laura followed his gaze she saw, close to one of the table legs, the candle that had fallen from the mantelpiece.

“Aw, well,” he said, “maybe we should just let her calm down a little.”

Without meaning to, Laura looked over at Stella, her best friend, who was still standing with her hand on the doorknob—her former best friend, she corrected herself. After what happened during the summer vacation, the most you could say was that their friendship had normalized. Stella had stopped keeping Laura on the line with lengthy accounts of all-too-intimate details of her relationship with Herman, and Laura in turn had tried to do everything in her power to act
normal.
Laura hoped that one day they could be best friends again, maybe after Stella broke up with Herman, but deep in her heart she didn't believe that anymore. It was like getting a spot on your dress, or on your favorite blouse; you pour salt on it right away, you wash the blouse at two hundred degrees and the spot is gone. But the colors have faded too—you hang it in the closet and never wear it again.

Now, however, Laura and Stella looked at each other almost like they used to, and Stella rolled her eyes, breathed an inaudible sigh, and nodded toward David, who was still slouching on the couch. And Laura nodded back, to show that she agreed with her friend.
What a wimp, not to stand up for his girlfriend. Cow or no cow, any kind of man would have gone after her right away.

Lodewijk stood up. “Shall we do it then?” he said to Stella. “You can take care of the girl things and I'll represent the ‘practical boys' standpoint.”

“Maybe someone should go who's a bit more neutral,” Michael said. “Ron or me. Or Ron
and
me. I mean, you're Herman's girlfriend, Stella. And you, Lodewijk…yeah, how shall I put this…”

“Yes?” Lodewijk said, grinning broadly. “Do tell. What was it you were going to say, Michael?”

“I don't have to explain that to you, do I?” said Michael, grinning back. “At least, I hoped I wouldn't have to explain that to you.”

“I'll go with Stella,” Laura said. She got up. “Better that way. Just girls. Women…I almost said ‘woman to woman,' but that reminds me too much of my mother.”

“And then?” Herman said. “What are you two going to say?”

“You don't even want to know, sweetheart,” Stella said. “Just be glad you're not there. Right, Laura?”

Miriam was sitting on the edge of the bed, her head in her hands, her suitcase open at her feet; there were clothes in it that looked as though they had been pitched in there in a hurry. Yes, Miriam was the only one of them who brought a suitcase; that too said something about who she was, Laura knew, even though she wouldn't venture to say exactly what.

Stella and Laura did the things one does in such cases. They sat down on the bed, on either side of Miriam. Stella put an arm around her. Laura said: “I think you shouldn't take it so hard. It was nothing personal. Herman never means it personally. Right?”

At that final
Right?
she leaned forward a little to look at Stella. But Stella had just put her head up against Miriam's and didn't look back.

“I figured, I'm going home,” Miriam said through her hands, which were still in front of her face. “I wasn't going to stay here another minute. But then I thought about how late it is. There's probably no bus at this time of night, I figured.”

“But that's nonsense, isn't it?” Stella said. “To go away because of something like that. It's nothing personal, it never is with Herman.”

It took a full second before Laura realized that Stella hadn't even heard what she, Laura, had just said. Miriam was sitting up now, she'd taken her hands away from her face.

“That's me, Miss Practical,” Miriam said. “I want to go away, but the first thing I do is think about the bus schedules. That's what makes me so different from you, that's why you all think I'm a cow.”

Laura knew that one of them—Stella or she—should now say something like
Hey, where did you come up with that? We don't think you're a cow at all!
But she knew how contrived it would sound, so she waited for Stella to say it.

“You people don't even see it,” Miriam said, before the silence became too painful. “I'm probably the only one who does. That's why he hates me. And because of him, you all hate me too. No, no, you don't have to say anything, don't bother, I wouldn't believe you if you did. Tomorrow I'll be gone. Then you can all go back to your happy-go-lucky little lives without a practical cow like me around to get in your way.”

Miriam hadn't bothered to wipe the tears off her face—maybe she had just forgotten, or maybe she simply didn't care, Laura thought. The wet spots that gleamed under her eyes and on her cheeks did not make her round face any prettier, and that was putting it mildly. Laura was reminded of the little boy who lived upstairs in their building, she babysat for him sometimes to earn a little pocket money. He was about six, a spoiled little six-year-old boy who started crying whenever he didn't get his way. Laura never let him have his way, at least not right away. She would watch him as he started to cry and stamp his feet, for as long as it took to make her wonder how anyone could love an ugly child like him. Only then did she give him the lollipop or the extra spoonful of sugar on his yogurt that he'd been whining for the whole time.

“What makes us happy-go-lucky?” she asked. “And why shouldn't you be that way too?”

Now Miriam finally used the sleeve of her sweater to wipe her face; the wet spots became red smudges. “I don't really know if you want to hear that,” she said. “And whether I feel like telling you about it. Besides, Stella's with Herman. No, it's not a good idea.”

For the first time since they'd sat down here on the edge of the bed, Stella looked at Laura. “That doesn't matter,” she said, rolling her eyes a bit. “Really, it doesn't, Miriam. Even I don't like
everything
about Herman. I think those films are funny, but I know exactly what you mean. That sometimes it seems like they don't take it into account, David and Herman, how nasty the experience can be for someone else.”

“Aw, David…,” Miriam said: it seemed like she was planning to say more, but she only wiped two fingertips across the spots under her eyes.

“What?” Stella asked. “What were you going to say?”

“I don't know,” Miriam said. “I mean, I think David is really sweet, but when I'm here I also see how spineless he is. I don't know if I really wanted to see that. Whether I can go on with him now that I've seen that side of him, I mean. And then I see him in that movie with Miss Posthuma and I think:
That's not the way you are, you only do that to act cool around…around…
Oh, just listen to me! Who am I to say that's not the way he is! I've only known him for about a week.”

And what about us?
Laura thought.
Do you think we're spineless too?
She looked at the girl's round, teary face and suddenly she found it unbearable to think that this Miriam, who—it was true, she'd said so herself, hadn't she?—had known them for barely a week, was already equipped with judgments about who was spineless and who wasn't. She braced herself, in her thoughts she stood up from the bed and said something. Something like
Well figure it out for yourself, Miriam. You really are a cow. It was more fun last time, when you weren't with us.
But she didn't get up.

They hadn't heard the footsteps on the stairs, there was only a little knock and the next moment the door opened. Herman was standing there.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I hope I'm not intruding, but before things get completely out of control, I want to say something too.” He took a step forward. “To you, Miriam.” There wasn't much space in the bedroom, Herman's legs were almost touching Miriam's knees, she had to tilt her head all the way back to look at him.

“I want to tell you that I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm not going to say that I'm sorry about the movies, because David and I really had fun making them, but maybe I ranted on a bit about Miss Posthuma. I think you're right, Miriam. After all, they're people too, teachers. I went too far. I'm sorry about that.”

“Okay,” Miriam said.

And then Herman leaned down, he took Miriam's head in his hands and laid his own head on her hair. “So will you come downstairs and make us happy? David's a bit confused too, but I know he'd be very glad if you came down.”

Herman had turned his head to one side, his cheek against Miriam's hair, his face turned to Laura, not to Stella.

As he was saying that Miriam should come downstairs and make them happy, he looked at Laura and winked.

When Herman came over and walked beside her on the beach, Laura couldn't help thinking about that wink. They had left the thistles and the tidal creeks behind; David, Miriam, and Stella had almost reached the waterline. Ron, Michael, and Laura paused to wait for Herman, but he gestured to them to walk on, without taking the camera from his eye. In the distance, in the direction of Knokke, they saw a dot that could only be Lodewijk.

When Ron and Michael walked on to meet the others by the water, Laura slowed without really intending to. Herman still had the camera held up to his left eye, he kept his right eye shut. Above the sound of the surf and wind, Laura could hear a rattling from inside the camera, a toilsome rattle like an old, un-oiled clock.

First Herman filmed the beach—literally the beach, the lens pointed down at the sand. Then he walked past Laura and turned around. Standing with his back to the sea and walking backward, he slowly panned up until he reached her face.

“I'm going to tell you something now,” he said. “You don't have to say anything back if you don't want, but then at least I have it for later. On film.”

He had spoken very quietly, but Laura still glanced up past Herman at the others. They were too far away to hear anything above the sound of the waves, she thought. She looked back at the lens, and at Herman's closed right eye.

“You're the only one I've ever wanted, Laura,” he said. “Ever. I thought maybe it would go away, but it only gets worse. You don't have to say anything, it's enough if you just keep looking. I see it, I can see it.”

He halted, less than ten feet from her. There were two things she could do, Laura realized. She could keep on walking, past Herman and the camera, out of the picture. Out of his picture, out of their picture—forever. Or she could stand still.

She took three more steps, then stopped. She looked straight into the lens. She didn't say anything, she
thought
what she wanted to say.

“With me, it happened right away,” Herman said. “At David's party, the first time I met you. Was it like that right away for you too, Laura? At that party?”

She didn't answer, she didn't nod or shake her head. She kept looking straight into the lens.

Yes,
she thought,
for me too.