this it?”
“No,” the woman said, “it’s the house next door but the people who live there are on holiday. Can I help you perhaps?”
“Yes,” Grijpstra said. “Perhaps you can.”
“Come sit with me in the garden,” the woman said and turned her wheelchair around.
When he left the garden it was three hours later and he had eaten a good lunch. The soft voice of the crippled woman was still somewhere inside his skull, vitalizing the various parts of his brain. There had also been the peace of the garden, protected by a good hundred meters of distance from the traffic of the main road. It was almost as quiet as a glade in a vast forest. Several thrushes and a pair of small dark-headed songbirds had been close to the crippled woman and himself while they sat and talked and ate a meal of fried eggs, fresh bread and a salad. She had prepared the meal in her old-fashioned but well-organized kitchen, wheeling around in her chair but making the minimal number of movements, for she knew exactly where everything was and seemed as efficient as a highly trained nurse during an intricate operation. He had carried the tray out and they had eaten in the shadow of an oak with the birds hopping about eating bits off the table. One of the songbirds had rested on his arm for a while, looking at him with bright little eyes, moving its head and occasionally lifting a wing to keep its balance. He still felt pity for the crippled woman and the memory of her grotesque and distorted body hurt him. She had, she told him, been struck by polio when she was still very young and the treatment had come too late. Her chest was pushed up to her chin, one shoulder was raised as high as her ear and one leg was so twisted it was useless—only a weight to be dragged along—and the other was too short. He also admired the woman whose brain was clear and whose voice could understand and explain, but best of all he had liked the sound of her voice, which was like the sound of a Chinese flute. He couldn’t remember now that he had ever heard a Chinese flute but he had a picture of a young girl playing one on a balcony that overlooked a rock garden and a pond surrounded by shrubs. The picture, part of a calendar that hung in the police canteen, had thrilled him so much he had taken it home when the month was up. He kept it in his desk at home in the same file with his insurance policy and police diplomas.
The crippled woman remembered Tom Wernekink well: the boy who lived next door with his old father, a retired businessman who read the newspaper and watched football on TV. Tom had come to talk to her and he often helped her around the house; they had tea and coffee together, under the same oak and with the same thrushes and songbirds.
“He talked to you?” Grijpstra asked, for he was under the impression that the corpse that had grinned at him a few days before had never talked to anyone. But she assured him that Tom did talk and that he was intelligent and able to communicate, even if he seemed to have no friends and no one ever came to visit him or his old father. But she also told him about Tom’s negativity and his vegetative way of life. She pointed at a dead tree, lying in the garden next door. It had been Tom’s seat and she had seen him there, immobile, for hours on end. Once it was raining and she tapped her window; Tom looked up and went indoors, soaked to the skin.
“Yes,” Grijpstra said and began to get up, looking for words to thank her for the lunch and the information he had him solicited. She asked him to wait and wheeled her chair indoors, up the special ramp that a carpenter had built so that she would be able to get in and out easily. She came back with a letter that Grijpstra promised to return. He read the letter on his way back to the station in the same old streetcar that had taken him to Kralingen earlier in the day.
Dear Liza,
How are you? How is the weather? And the birds, and the oak tree? Did that stuff work
“No,” the woman said, “it’s the house next door but the people who live there are on holiday. Can I help you perhaps?”
“Yes,” Grijpstra said. “Perhaps you can.”
“Come sit with me in the garden,” the woman said and turned her wheelchair around.
When he left the garden it was three hours later and he had eaten a good lunch. The soft voice of the crippled woman was still somewhere inside his skull, vitalizing the various parts of his brain. There had also been the peace of the garden, protected by a good hundred meters of distance from the traffic of the main road. It was almost as quiet as a glade in a vast forest. Several thrushes and a pair of small dark-headed songbirds had been close to the crippled woman and himself while they sat and talked and ate a meal of fried eggs, fresh bread and a salad. She had prepared the meal in her old-fashioned but well-organized kitchen, wheeling around in her chair but making the minimal number of movements, for she knew exactly where everything was and seemed as efficient as a highly trained nurse during an intricate operation. He had carried the tray out and they had eaten in the shadow of an oak with the birds hopping about eating bits off the table. One of the songbirds had rested on his arm for a while, looking at him with bright little eyes, moving its head and occasionally lifting a wing to keep its balance. He still felt pity for the crippled woman and the memory of her grotesque and distorted body hurt him. She had, she told him, been struck by polio when she was still very young and the treatment had come too late. Her chest was pushed up to her chin, one shoulder was raised as high as her ear and one leg was so twisted it was useless—only a weight to be dragged along—and the other was too short. He also admired the woman whose brain was clear and whose voice could understand and explain, but best of all he had liked the sound of her voice, which was like the sound of a Chinese flute. He couldn’t remember now that he had ever heard a Chinese flute but he had a picture of a young girl playing one on a balcony that overlooked a rock garden and a pond surrounded by shrubs. The picture, part of a calendar that hung in the police canteen, had thrilled him so much he had taken it home when the month was up. He kept it in his desk at home in the same file with his insurance policy and police diplomas.
The crippled woman remembered Tom Wernekink well: the boy who lived next door with his old father, a retired businessman who read the newspaper and watched football on TV. Tom had come to talk to her and he often helped her around the house; they had tea and coffee together, under the same oak and with the same thrushes and songbirds.
“He talked to you?” Grijpstra asked, for he was under the impression that the corpse that had grinned at him a few days before had never talked to anyone. But she assured him that Tom did talk and that he was intelligent and able to communicate, even if he seemed to have no friends and no one ever came to visit him or his old father. But she also told him about Tom’s negativity and his vegetative way of life. She pointed at a dead tree, lying in the garden next door. It had been Tom’s seat and she had seen him there, immobile, for hours on end. Once it was raining and she tapped her window; Tom looked up and went indoors, soaked to the skin.
“Yes,” Grijpstra said and began to get up, looking for words to thank her for the lunch and the information he had him solicited. She asked him to wait and wheeled her chair indoors, up the special ramp that a carpenter had built so that she would be able to get in and out easily. She came back with a letter that Grijpstra promised to return. He read the letter on his way back to the station in the same old streetcar that had taken him to Kralingen earlier in the day.
Dear Liza,
How are you? How is the weather? And the birds, and the oak tree? Did that stuff work
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