matter if it hurts.
He even asked her, ‘Am I hurting you?’
‘No,’ she said.
‘You look as though I am hurting you; that’s not good.’
She would try not to look like that.
‘Why are you studying Russian?’ he asked her, and she told him how it had started: that she’d read an interview with someone who talked about a book by Vera Panova and called it ‘a friendly book about nice people.’ The words had made her feel extraordinarily calm, as though she’d only just noticed that she was restless. The calmness was so overwhelming that she could no longer think about anything except the calmness, and the calmness became an obsession and turned back into restlessness again. She’d searched feverishly for the book, but it didn’t seem to be translated into Dutch. One thing had led to another and now she was a third-year Russian student. As it turned out, the book had been translated into Dutch. They’d given the wrong title in the interview.
He’d liked the story. Back then he didn’t know that the story would just fizzle out, that after three years she was still studying Russian because of that single line: ‘a friendly book about nice people.’ There should have been other reasons by now. She was like an old man who, after forty years of marriage, says something like: I married her because she had such beautiful hair.
Hans took her to museums and art galleries. They drove for hours for tiny exhibitions. He took her to restaurants where she was the youngest customer. There they’d drink lots of different wines, one after another. It was a way of drinking she was unfamiliar with. Drinking had always been a straight road, downing a lot of the same thing like you were learning a new song. Carry on at a steady pace, until you got there, until you understood it and thought: actually this song’s not that difficult, did I really need all that time, all those glasses? The business with all those different wines was a confusing slalom through her head.
He asked her things, constantly: What are you thinking about now? What’s going on? What did you feel? What does that look like?
At first it overwhelmed her. Often she would open her mouth and not say a single thing, afraid to put her thoughts into words. Until every answer seemed acceptable to him. Not a single thought was considered strange. It was new, as though she was speaking Dutch for the first time.
He bought her complicated clothes: blouses with horizontal pleats. He said everything suited her. And she thought: I could be anybody, but this is who I’ve become. She studied less and less.
It was nice when he accompanied her to her father and stepmother’s. They got along well, he took over, she could just sit back and watch. He had never met her mother. He didn’t go to the birthday gatherings she attended.
‘I don’t like parties, you mustn’t take it personally.’ Not that she did.
By the time they’d been together for six months, she had grown too fat for the blouse with the horizontal pleats. He didn’t mind, of course. He knew all her Russian songs by now too.
The evening she knows her mother is going to die, she is on her own and eats Caramac and Toffee Cups in bed. These are the sweets she eats when he’s not looking because she’d rather conceal her childish taste. She knows he is going to leave her. He can no longer bear how satisfied she is. He never needed to pursue her. She was simply there one day and he could have her. For a while things went well, he had just got divorced, and for a time he liked things that were unambiguous. A year of that was enough.
But now there’s a sick mother; things like that excite him. It’ll keep him occupied for a while. She won’t die that fast. Perhaps while that happens, they’ll be able to salvage something. Coco doesn’t know how, all she knows is that there’s still time and that’s the main thing.
In two days’ time they’re going out for dinner with her father and stepmother. Coco pictures herself telling them. She is already looking forward to it.
In her mind she hears Hans asking her, ‘What exactly is it that you’re looking forward to?’ But this time she doesn’t feel like answering.
-
ELISABETH HAS TO drop in at the framer’s on her way to the hairdresser’s. It’s still early, only Martin is there. One day the shaking just got too bad. She was standing at the big worktable in the middle—her table—she put her brush down, waited and then picked it up again. It was all right for a while after that. Then one day she ended up standing there waiting for the shaking to stop. The first time she took a sick day it felt like a longer wait, that’s all.
‘Elisabeth!’ Martin says. He smiles and comes towards her, but she holds out both hands, holds them aloft in front of him.
‘As soon as I’ve got something for the shaking,’ she says, ‘I’ll come back.’ They both watch her fingers trembling.
‘They’re just like little fishes,’ Elisabeth says.
Martin takes hold of her hands and says, ‘Good to see you.’
‘I’m not crazy, Martin, I know I’m not getting any better, but there’s stuff that can suppress it.’
‘That would be good,’ Martin says, ‘that would be fantastic.’
‘You don’t believe me.’
‘We could really use your help,’ Martin says, ‘it’s the fair next week.’
‘You don’t think they can suppress it?’
‘Elisabeth, that would be fantastic—we need you.’
‘Well, don’t count on it.’
Martin smiles.
‘Why are you smiling?’
‘Do you want a coffee?’
‘I can’t stop, I’m on my way to the hairdresser’s.’
‘Do you want much off?’ the hairdresser asks.
‘Add a few layers,’ Elisabeth says, ‘I’m letting it grow.’
‘You’re letting it grow again?’
‘Yes,’ she says.
‘That’ll take a while.’
‘In two years it will have grown out.’
‘Yes,’ the hairdresser says, ‘in two years.’ They look in the mirror. He tilts his head to the side.
‘What did the doctor say?’
‘That I should tell people.’
‘And are you?’
‘I find it difficult.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll start with a wash.’
‘I’ve just washed it.’
‘Why did you go and do that?’
‘Yeah, silly.’
‘I’ll have to wet it.’ He rolls the sink under her head. ‘How’s the shop?’
‘Busy, you know. Art fair next weekend.’
‘And are you managing?’
‘Not at the moment, you know.’
‘No, not at the moment.’
‘I shake.’
‘I noticed.’
‘Otherwise I’d be able to.’
He turns on the showerhead, ‘Is that too hot?’
‘No.’ She always says no.
‘Are they still treating you?’
‘Not at the moment.’ The shower goes