The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

Author:Marieke Lucas Rijneveld [Marieke Lucas Rijneveld]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780571349388
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2020-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

I crawl under the bird net in the vegetable patch. Lien from next door stretched it out over the rows of strawberries to stop the seagulls and starlings eating them. I fall onto my knees on the damp earth. Because it’s Saturday I’m allowed to wear trousers since there’s work to be done. I carefully push aside the plants to find the best fruit, the ones that are completely red, and put them in the dish. From time to time I pop one in my mouth – they’re deliciously juicy and sweet. I love the texture of strawberries, the little seeds and the hairs on the inside of my mouth. Textures calm me down. Textures create unity, they keep something together that would collapse otherwise. Wok vegetables, cooked chicory and scratchy clothes are the only textures I don’t like. Human skin has texture too. Mum’s is beginning to look increasingly like the bird net: little compartments drawn in soft skin, as though she’s a jigsaw puzzle that’s losing more and more of its pieces. Dad’s got more of a potato skin – it’s smooth and there are a few rough patches, and sometimes a dent from a nail he’s walked into.

Once the bowl is full, I crawl back out from under the bird net and wipe the soil from my trousers. Dad’s and Obbe’s wellies are in the shed, next to the door-mat, one of them still half hanging on the boot-jack. They aren’t at the breakfast table but on the sofa in front of the TV, while it’s daytime and the screen is supposed to be black during the day. Usually there’s just snow to see then. At first I thought we might find Matthies in there, but later I discovered that Dad had simply pulled the cable out. The news was on: ‘Farms here have also been struck by foot-and-mouth. God’s punishment or bitter coincidence?’

Just like the weather, God can never get it right. If a swan is rescued somewhere in the village, in a different place a parishioner dies. I don’t know what foot-and-mouth is and don’t get the chance to ask because my mum says I should go and play with Obbe and Hanna, that this isn’t going to be a normal day like the rest, and I don’t want to interrupt her by saying that the days haven’t been normal for a long time, because her face looks just as pale as the creamy crocheted curtains in the windows. I also notice that Mum and Dad are sitting remarkably close to each other. Maybe this is a sign they are going to get naked soon and I should leave them in peace, like the way you shouldn’t separate two snails that are on top of each other because it might damage the mother-of-pearl on their shells. I put the bowl of strawberries in front of them on the dresser, next to the open Authorized Version, in case Mum gets hungry after mating and finally wants to eat again.

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