‘Berta has to be fed,’ she says. Berta is her aged dwarf goat. Melanie waddles to the garage under her own steam, reaching out to the cabinets and walls for support. She leaves her beige raincoat hanging in the closet. Without a word of goodbye to her son she closes the door to the garage behind her. Stefaan doesn’t know where Melanie got the sudden burst of energy, but he’s impressed by the force with which the garage door swings open and the speed with which Melanie drives out in the grey Fiat. He goes out to the garage, which is full of exhaust fumes, to close the door behind her.
Three hours later Melanie is back, honking at the garage door. Stefaan has just returned from the city, where he has bought a necklace for Mieke from Cartier’s. Melanie has had time to think. She is offended by the fact that she hasn’t been able to see her first grandchild yet because the totally unreliable video player won’t cooperate. ‘Didn’t you take a picture?’ She plops down in her trusty armchair. When Stefaan shows her a Polaroid, her first remark is, ‘Good gracious, that child is as cross-eyed as an otter. That’s going to give you plenty to laugh about, I can see that right now. Just start her off with her knife on the left and her fork on the right.’ She holds the photo an inch from her left eye. ‘Say, are there six toes on that foot? No? Or am I mistaken? Oh, dear! What a knob of a big toe that child has been blessed with. And that forehead—don’t even get me started. I don’t dare look at it for fear it’ll swell even more. Make sure her clothes are cut wide at the neck. And don’t feed her carrots, she’s already as yellow as a banana. Well, you can’t call her pretty, can you, such a tiny baby. Don’t look so disagreeable, tiny babies are never pretty, that’s all I’m saying.’ There’s no stopping her. She maps out the entire naked little body based on defects and curses and deformities. It’s done in many countries: a newborn child is made completely ridiculous before being released into the confusing, demanding world. The well-meaning family does it to divert the attention of the Evil Eye from the child itself.
‘And you,’ she snaps at her son. ‘What are you doing, standing there with your nose hanging out? And with a bouncing baby girl, the most beautiful child in the world. I already know what the future holds for Saaaraaah (she pronounces the name like a yawn). Didn’t think I would, did you? My own flesh-and-blood granddaughter. But son, that child is bound to be a walking disaster, I can see it all now.’
‘A what?’ Stefaan is shocked. Even though his mother’s frankly absurd, ice-cold reception has prepared him for the worst, even though he knows he shouldn’t expect anything consoling from her, this unvarnished, cruel curse is something he hadn’t seen coming.
‘What do you mean?’ Stefaan asks. His voice is hoarse with fatigue and exasperation.
An index finger flies like a pigeon from her heavy bosom and soars prophetically into the air. She, the oracle, clamps her thin lips together. Her hands land resolutely in her lap. Not another word more.
Stefaan says nothing. He himself knows what his little girl is going to be—a top manager or a top consultant, something at the top at any rate—even though at this point her legs are as crooked as a couple of old pear tree trunks. She may be the eighth wonder of the world but he’s not going to tell anyone. Anyone. Even in a stable marriage like his, as well-negotiated as a perpetuity agreement, there are premonitions that are best left unsaid, if only in order to deflate them. They’re too fragile to be sent into the world as words. In addition, Stefaan doesn’t want to exert any unnecessary pressure on people whose company he enjoys. He knows perfectly well how weighty expectations can be. Against his better judgement he begins regarding this little girl as the coat rack from which he will hang the rest of his life, starting now.
On Friday, 2 May 1980, five days after the birth, Mieke, Stefaan, and Sarah drive up the sunken road to the housing estate on the mountain. They turn into Nightingale Lane. Springtime is raging more furiously here than at the mountain’s foot. The avenues are lined with cherry trees in full bloom. Birds hop from branch to branch. A squirrel clings vertically to an oak tree on the property next to the Vandersandens.
In time, Stefaan is going to buy the lot next to theirs so that later on, when their daughter is living in their villa, she’ll have an extra big garden. She’ll play in the woods, too. Beneath years and years of fallen leaves the forgotten clothing and tents of Napoleon’s troops lie rotting. They passed through these woods and camped here for a time. At least that’s the story the real estate agent tells each of the buyers, and now they’re telling it to their own children. They live on the territory of the smallest punk ever to conquer vast parts of the world.
No sooner does the car bearing the new family ride up the driveway than the dog belonging to the neighbours across the street starts barking. He comes charging out of the villa’s open back door. The child in Mieke’s arms wakes up with alarm, startled by the fierce noise. Only a few days later the dog will have a new baby to greet in his own villa, for exactly five days after Sarah’s birth Emily is born, the daughter of neighbours Evi and Marc Vanende-Boelens, she a former model and former nurse, he a leading surgeon.
More insecure than ever about her own tried and tested beauty, Mieke sits in the passenger’s seat. Her ice-cold eyes shoot over the unmown lawn and spot a molehill belonging to the same doomed mole. As soon as Stefaan opens the car door for her, the sunlight begins caressing her blonde-brown hair. With her new acquisition clamped firmly in her arms, Mieke steps out of the car. She begins walking, still rather pale—paler than the baby pressed against her body. It takes a while to get used to the overwhelming open space, but as soon as she sees her mighty round boxwood beside the front door, Mieke knows she is home.
‘I could have sworn it was going to be a boy,’ she says to Stefaan with a trembling voice. The fact that she has just imparted life to Sarah gives her beauty extra radiance and makes her irresistible despite her loose-fitting dress, although Stefaan doesn’t dare lay a finger on her out of pure respect. Mieke plants tender kisses on the tiny girl and places her in Stefaan’s open arms. ‘Even so, I’m deliriously happy with her.’
Her silken cheeks puffed out in the fresh air, her bright little eyes squeezed shut because the sky is pouring down too much light for a newborn, little Sarah kicks against her fluffy sleeping bag. Beaming, Stefaan carries his daughter across the threshold.
-
GRANNY 1990
‘Hello, Lord, good morning. It’s been a long time, but I’m back. Let me begin by congratulating you on your amazing victory in East Germany. I heard on the radio that the Christians there had a huge win in the elections.
‘Thank you for this day. I just drank my coffee, so things ought to go well here.
‘It seems like I only come to you when I want to ask for something, or when I have problems, or when I want something else done. I realize that. But just look at me sitting here, eighty-four years old. It’s already so hard just keeping my eyes open every day that I never get around to the rest. I really believe in you, Lord, even though you don’t hear much from me. I want to be clear about that. The fact that I’m here talking to you right now is proof enough.
‘I have something to ask you. Something serious this time. I know I’ve often bothered you with trifles. Far too often, looking back on it. That time when I was fourteen and I had a home economics exam, for instance, it wasn’t proper for me to ask for your help. You would have been quite right not to help me. And I didn’t even need your help anyway. Such a simple exam. I had the best grade in the whole class. The best of forty-one girls. I can still remember how nervous I was the day before the exam. As soon as I saw the questions I knew: piece of cake. I also knew that I would never be allowed to go any further in school, that’s how smart I was. I’m not stupid, you know. How else could I have had such smart children? Thank you for that, God.
‘I’m
