at a lecture,’ said Uncle Fred, putting on his reading glasses. ‘Except he was thinner then. You often see that with overweight people. They always get fatter, seldom thinner.’
Uncle Fred studied the newspaper photo again more closely and repeated his last name a few times. ‘Cittersen van Boven. That name sounds familiar. You wouldn’t know by looking at him, but it seems to me it’s a noble name. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was from a rich family.’
For the rest of the morning Gieles couldn’t get Super Waling out of his mind. He had become a mystery. By twelve o’clock the tub of lard had attained the status of table tennis celebrity Jan-Ove Weldner. Gieles told his teacher he had stomach flu and raced home on his bike. Uncle Fred and his father weren’t there. He stormed up the stairs to the attic and googled 10,340 hits for Waling Cittersen van Boven. A huge number of the articles he wrote for the regional newspaper came to the surface. Gieles read the headlines. LECTURE ON SWISS ALPS AT PUMPING STATION. VAN MARELS CELEBRATE 50 YEARS TOGETHER. NOW: SPEED DATING AT THE PUMPING STATION. FARMER FINDS 150-YEAR-OLD SAILOR’S BOOT. GET MARRIED AT A PUMPING STATION. GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY FOR A GOLDEN COUPLE. MOUNTAINEERING MEGASTORE OPENED. PUMPING STATION RESTORED. PLATINUM ANNIVERSARY IN DEPARTURE HALL. PLAYBOY TAKES PICTURES IN PUMPING STATION. COUNTRY WESTERN SHOW AT WEDDING FAIR.
The overview went further, with many more stories about pumping stations and old married people. Gieles searched and searched, but he couldn’t find anything about Super Waling himself—whether he was from a noble family, as Uncle Fred had claimed, or whether he was swimming in money. The last didn’t seem likely. Super Waling lived in a tiny house.
Gieles heard the geese. He walked to the little window in the hallway and saw Tony in the yard. The geese were honking at him from a safe distance, their necks twisting angrily. They didn’t carry on with anyone else that way. Tony kicked some pebbles at them and lumbered to the back door with his hands in his pockets. Gieles clicked away from the stories by Super Waling and the photo of Gravitation with her almost naked torso, holding her rabbit. He also reversed the partition with the training schedule on it.
Tony stomped up the stairs and entered the room.
‘I heard you went home sick.’ He plopped down on the bed and stretched out full length. Reaching behind his back he pulled out a book.
Tony was in his second year of vocational training at the local high school after having been left back twice. Gieles had just started at the college prep level.
‘You really missed something this afternoon,’ said Tony, leafing through the Dutch-French dictionary.
Gieles spun around in his desk chair and crossed his arms, balling his fists under his armpits. Conversations with Tony usually started by him saying, ‘You really missed something.’ Usually it wasn’t anything spectacular, but Tony always managed to make him feel excluded with that remark.
‘You know Becky? Becky Boobs?’
Of course Gieles knew her. Everybody knew Becky with the big tits.
‘This afternoon they caught her in a closet with a janitor. That Moroccan. They were fucking.’ Tony made bumping movements with his hips and looked at him triumphantly with his slanted eyes.
Gieles certainly had missed something.
‘Who caught them?’ he asked with as much indifference as he could muster.
Tony noticed the agitation in Gieles’s voice and calmly continued leafing through the dictionary. ‘Boobs isn’t in here … Cunt is. Chatte, con. I leek your leetle chatte. French is for fags. Gimmie bossie,’ said Tony.
Gieles raised his eyebrows quizzically.
‘“Gimmie bossie.” That’s what that Flippertong guy says to all the babes. He’s from the Antilles.’
‘Who caught them?’ Gieles repeated impatiently.
‘That stiff from biology.’
He tossed the dictionary onto the floor and lit up a cigarette, blowing smoke rings with pursed lips.
‘You can’t smoke in here,’ said Gieles, leaning toward him with an empty cola can.
Tony kept smoking anyway, burping as he exhaled. The smell of onions enveloped Gieles’s face.
‘By the way,’ Tony began, ‘I think we’ve outgrown the first-name stuff. Real guys call each other by their last names. So, Bos, from now on I’m Keijzer.’
‘Fuck off, Tony. Give me a break.’
‘Fuck off, Tony,’ Tony said, imitating him with a whiny voice and sitting up.
‘You coming with me to the mall?’ He asked as if nothing had happened.
‘No. I have homework.’
Tony left the room, trailing smoke. Thirty seconds later he slammed the back door loudly, causing the geese to start honking all over again. Tony picked up a handful of stones. He was about to throw them when he noticed someone from the campground looking at him. It was Johan, the old man with the fossilised legs.
Gieles tried to redirect his thoughts, turning his attention yet again to the picture of Gravitation holding her rabbit up in front of her breasts. She was being provocative. Maybe she’d strip on the webcam for money.
Gieles stood up. He had to concentrate and stick to his new training schedule.
He shook off his thoughts of Gravitation and went downstairs and out to the barn, where he picked up the bamboo stick and cookie tin. The geese came up to him as soon as they heard the sound. He drove them energetically along the edge of the woods and down the grassy path to the shed. There was a pasture next to the shed where a couple of cows were grazing. In a few weeks he would move his training programme to the pasture. After all, his rescue operation was going to take place outside anyway.
He pushed open the corrugated metal door and assumed his position. The geese circled him, pestering him for food. ‘One for Tufted and one for Bufted,’ said Gieles, giving each one a piece of speculaas. He had given them names.
‘Tufted and Bufted,’ he repeated, and he thought of Super Waling, who would be disappointed if he didn’t show up for the tour.
‘Stay,’ Gieles ordered. Both geese looked at him with one eye. ‘Stay.’ Slowly he walked backwards to other side of the shed.
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7
My letter to you goes pitiful slow. There are always orderings from people. Remove goose poop. Sit the babies.
But I will not harass you further on. You have formidable problems! Your website says in Lapland almost all geese lesser white-fronted murdered by hunters. Another scandal that must be terminated. The sky is high. Fortunately human beings cannot be everywhere.
I want to write you that in my country this year many ten thousands geese were murdered, and in America 500,000 geese were murdered !!!!! With gas!!!! For the traffic of air!!!! Perhaps you are familiar with Captain Sullenberger. The formidable chauffeur of flight 1549 that emergency landed on the Hudson with geese in the machinery. Then the Americans said, O the geese must die. There are too many of them in the air. There are too few Sullys. O, then we will lead them to the chamber of
