‘Shall I go first? If we ride side by side no one will be able to get past us.’
Super Waling turned his scooter around and led the way. They rode on the bicycle path through the open countryside. The glances from the oncoming traffic did not escape Gieles. Some drivers even slowed down to get a better look at the big man.
A densely packed row of trees to hide behind would be a welcome sight. Or a field of sunflowers to divert the attention of the gawking motorists. Palm trees and an azure blue sea would make Super Waling less conspicuous. But in the polder there was nothing to hide behind. Everyone could see you. Everyone looked at you, because there was nothing else to look at. Everything was open and exposed. For the first time he hated the landscape. Gieles cycled more slowly in order to break the connection between them. But Super Waling looked over his shoulder and let Gieles catch up.
He forced himself to think of something horrible, things that were much worse. He thought about his mother’s e-mails, which were becoming increasingly sombre in tone. In the first years she described the unusual flowers she saw. She shared her surprise about strange dishes and made jokes about them (‘Sunshine, you’re not going to believe this, but yesterday I ate stir-fried mealworms!’). But now it seemed as if she had lost her astonishment and sense of humour somewhere along a sandy path.
She wrote about African women who got raped when they went to the desert to search for bits of firewood. Or about the two-year-old girl who was eaten by a dog. Ellen had seen it happen, and once she got home she just kept carrying on about it. No detail was left out. His father didn’t want her to tell such gruesome stories when Gieles was around. But his mother said these weren’t stories, they were reality. And, she insisted, it was never too early to get used to reality.
He thought about Dolly with her tired eyes. When he had gone there to babysit the week before she had been storming around, ranting and raving. Dolly had been given an offer for her house that she said was insultingly low. Even a construction shack would bring in more than that.
Just as the next gloomy thought came bubbling to the surface, Super Waling stopped.
‘Here we are!’ he shouted happily with his ageless face. They were standing side by side on the dike, looking up at the gigantic pumping station.
With all that brooding, Gieles had forgotten about the pumping station. The building looked like a failed attempt at a castle with arms growing out of it. The iron arms stuck straight out through the dungeon windows and groped for the sky.
‘Look how gorgeous she is,’ sighed Super Waling. ‘So gracious and powerful and completely untouched by time. She’s every bit a lady. More than a hundred and sixty years old.’
Super Waling cast Gieles a beaming smile.
‘Use your imagination. Forget the cars, the street signs, the traffic lights. Forget the butt ugly apartment buildings that lack every sense of decorum. Focus on her. Look at her robust cast iron arms. Those arms pumped out three hundred and twenty thousand litres of water—a minute! Now that’s what I call impressive,’ he said, riding down from the dike to the pumping station parking lot. No one else was there, much to Gieles’s relief.
‘These days we think it’s a real achievement when somebody on TV belches the national anthem. I apologise for the crude example, but people do crazy things to get attention.’ His voice broke. ‘I think it’s impressive that human beings were capable of pumping out an entire lake with only three pumping stations. An enormous lake! Where we’re standing right now! Eight hundred million cubic metres of water, Gieles! The invisible suddenly became visible. Just imagine what a sensation the bottom of that lake produced.’
Gieles tried to imagine, but the pumping station and the bottom of the lake failed to come to life. His questions kept distracting him.
Can he see his own cock?
Super Waling pulled out a bottle of water and a can of grape soda from the linen bag that was in his basket. He gave the can to Gieles.
‘I brought Part Two for you,’ said Super Waling. ‘About Ide and Sophia Warrens. I don’t know whether you’ve read the first story at all or even whether you liked it. Maybe you didn’t think much of it.’
‘Oh, no,’ Gieles replied quickly. ‘I thought it was great. I want to read the rest, too.’ Gieles felt his cheeks reddening because he had asked for Part Two with such enthusiasm. He didn’t want Super Waling to think that all he cared about were the dirty parts, so he tried to come up with a proper question.
‘The lake,’ Gieles began, racking his brains. ‘Was that really so … so dangerous?’
Super Waling smiled and took a few sips of water.
‘Close your eyes. Go ahead. No one is watching you. Close them. That’s right. And keep them closed. Imagine we’re in a sailing ship. You know, one of those ships from long ago with a big bulging wooden hull that looked as if it had eaten too much. Brown sails are hanging from the mast, but there’s not a flutter of wind. So we’re bobbing with the current, on our way to Amsterdam to deliver hundreds of kilos of peat. We warm ourselves in the watery November sun and tell each other tall tales about the Water Wolf, which was the lake’s nickname. Usually the Water Wolf keeps a low profile, but when he’s angry—watch out! His fierce waves are as high as the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, and they devour one fishing boat after another. Dikes burst, and the poor wretch with the horse and wagon who’s trying to make a run for it doesn’t stand a chance. The Water Wolf catches up with him and eats him in one gulp. Just like that! Gone! Like a snake that prefers to dine on living prey. That’s what we tell each other, but we aren’t afraid because the water is calm and we haven’t noticed that the seagulls and cormorants are flying restlessly over the surface of the lake. We’re deaf to the dogs making a racket on the distant farms. We’re blind to the eels shooting away lickety-split. The eels are as deaf as posts, but they can feel the vibrations. And make no mistake,’ he whispered—Gieles noticed that now Super Waling himself had closed his eyes—‘there are plenty of vibrations. At first the water is as smooth as a baby’s bottom, but now a wave emerges out of nowhere. A single wave, but what a wave! A tidal wave!’
Super Waling opened his eyes and gave Gieles a penetrating look. ‘The Water Wolf turns out to be an unstoppable monster who gets bigger and bigger the closer he comes. We stare with open mouths. We don’t even have enough time to get frightened or to escape, for suddenly the monster lifts us up to his full height—fifteen, twenty metres! We see our wooden houses and church towers looming up. And when the monster reaches his highest point we can even see the English coastline. For one second we seem to be standing still, but then the monster takes a nosedive. Raahhhh! With enormous force he spits us out on land, where we’re smashed to smithereens. Nothing is left intact, neither us nor our ship. We break body parts we didn’t even know were breakable. The monster slinks hundreds of metres inland and gobbles up everything in his path. When his hunger is finally appeased, he withdraws and takes us with him. Into the depths.’
Super Waling took a sip of water.
‘All that’s left of us is my copper tobacco box and your boot. That’s the way it happened. Our own tsunami on November 1st, 1755. Right here. On this very spot.’
‘How can that be?’ Gieles asked, unconvinced.
‘An earthquake in Lisbon set off a deadly tremor in the lake.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, sir.’
