Will, стр. 16

saw a few Sundays ago: all local boys dressed in black uniforms and marching behind a banner with crowds on either side. Lode wants to butt in, but his father lets him know with a glance that his opinion is not required. Then he moves on to the king, who has stayed in the country, and the government, which doesn’t seem at all keen to come back after fleeing to London. I say I don’t really know much about politics. With his mouth slowly chewing a beef olive, he joins his daughter in studying my expression. It becomes clear that he wants to know where I stand, whether or not I’m pro-German. But he’s so cautious about it that I, in turn, try to find out where he stands first. Do you know the joke about two hedgehogs making love? Bit by bit and very carefully. A corny joke, I know. Meanwhile I’m eating my meat just as carefully, like a nun in a white habit, because I suspect that the slightest spillage will make all-seeing Yvette burst out laughing. I feel a clamminess growing in my armpits when I see that I’ve accidentally nudged a pea off my plate. And that father of theirs just keeps on going. Whether I’ve read this in the newspaper and what I think about that and if we have a radio at home. Concerning the last one, I say that my father likes to listen to Beethoven. Blithering nonsense of course, but inside of me Angelo considers it fitting, imagining himself with a father who pulls on a pair of waders to go fishing in the cultural river, as Meanbeard would have it.

‘Beethoven…’ says Mr Metdepenningen thoughtfully.

‘The composer…’ Lode adds.

He catches a glare from his father that makes him go quiet again.

‘Music makes us more human,’ I say quickly as Yvette smothers her laughter in a napkin.

‘Most people adjust to circumstances…’ the butcher concludes slyly.

Lode has already forgotten his temporary silencing. ‘Kanonenfleisch!’ he says. ‘That’s all we are. Cannon fodder! Wir sind Kanonenfleisch!’

I can see what he’s referring to in his eyes. At least, I think I can. Since that cold winter’s night, when we led the Lizke family to Van Diepenbeek Straat, we haven’t said another word about it. Our going through it together was coincidence, a consequence of the field gendarmes grabbing us both at the same time. Normally they don’t send two probationary constables out on patrol together. That means I don’t know what he’s been through since and he knows just as little about me. In the meantime a few other things have happened. Sometime in January, for instance, I had to accompany a few ‘racial itinerants’ with an older constable. That’s the official term for Gypsies—what we call Bohemians—and they’d been daft enough to register for a temporary residence permit at the office for foreign nationals on Steenhouwers Vest. The staff couldn’t believe it. The police there on the phone to us, us on the phone to the Germans (our inspector, at least), and next thing we know, we’re off to Van Diepenbeek Straat. We managed it without too many incidents. Those Bohemians were oblivious to just about everything, my partner laughed. If you asked him, he said, they were just pissed, and it’s possible. What I’m trying to say is it’s almost routine now. Everyone keeps mum. Hardly anyone ever complains about anything; most people just keep their heads down. After all, you never know where other people stand. I hear on the street that some divisions always roster the pro-German cops together. I have no idea if that’s really true; it’s definitely not the case at our station. Of course, the few who are pro-German let their sympathies show; the rest shut up, as if there’s an agreement to not make things too difficult for each other. Not forgetting the constant menace, the threat of betrayal. You soon find out that even the friendliest of people can get you into trouble if you’ve let something slip, and Lode knows that too because he’s far from stupid. But what becomes clear at that table is just how much that whole Lizke affair is still churning around inside his head.

Yvette asks if we shouldn’t raise a toast. She’s already holding up her glass. Their father wipes his mouth as a sign of consent. We clink glasses and wish Lode good health.

‘And a good girlfriend!’ cries the birthday boy.

‘Steady on,’ says the butcher.

Yvette looks at me and points discreetly at her chin. A splash of gravy on mine. I turn red.

Back home there’s no Beethoven ringing through the living room. My emasculated father is just sitting there. My job is all that’s keeping the household afloat and my first steps towards a new life, no matter how far away it might seem, fill him with deep envy. What’s more we have a visitor. Aunty Emma, the woman who, according to my father, can’t sit straight and therefore suffers stomach problems, has dropped by. She’s drinking a glass of liqueur with my mother, her sister. What Mother lacks, Aunty Emma has in abundance: charm and vivaciousness.

‘Oh, Wilfried,’ she calls out, ‘people would pay good money just to look at you! Didn’t you have to work today? I’m dying for a chance to admire you in uniform!’

I’ve already told you that my mother comes from a posh family and that she and her sister represent the tail end of this fortunate lineage. Mother married beneath her station (by no coincidence, this mainly annoys her husband), and in the twenties Aunty Emma got a little carried away with a divorced banker, which cost her a place in her parents’ good books. We don’t see that much of her, even though she lives nearby. Our house is in Kruik Straat, which leads to Boey Straat, which leads in turn to a main road called Van den Nest Lei, where she lives in with a wealthy family. ‘Jews,’ my father confided in