Fall, Bomb, Fall E-Book

Gerrit Kouwenaar

• Herausgeber: Pushkin Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 126

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Seventeen-year-old Karel has been dreaming for something, anything, to shake up his humdrum existence. Soon his wish will be granted​.​ ​​​ When Hitler launches an invasion of the Netherlands,​​ Karel ​is almost killed in an air raid and falls in love for the first time, with a Jewish girl. But the bliss this passion brings is short lived, as his new love and her mother are forced to flee for their lives before the Nazi advance... Inspired partly by Kouwenaar's own experiences under occupation, this rediscovered literary gem tells a heart-breaking, witty and deeply empathetic story of a teenager's coming-of-age at the outbreak of war.

Leseprobe

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Contents

Title Page123456789101112Translator’s AfterwordAvailable and Coming Soon from Pushkin PressCopyright4

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1

The boy stood at the sitting room window, staring outside. His jaws chewed away mechanically at an apple. The maid on the other side of the street had just finished cleaning the windows with a chammy leather and climbed the front steps, lugging a bucket and stepladder. Her skirt lifted in the process. He caught a good glimpse of her startled thighs before the door slammed shut behind her. The boy slowly resumed his chewing. It was around five in the afternoon and the streets were deserted. The spring light was a yellowish pink and the treeless road (of which he could see exactly twelve identical houses) seemed all the more like a theatre set because of it.

The boy stared at the closed door and tried to imagine how much fun it would be if he possessed a kind of magic spell with which he could control everything and everyone. As he tried to imagine this, he felt a great urge to 8close his eyes, but restrained himself and allowed only his head to fall against the glass with a gentle thud. Oh to be omnipotent! he thought. I could wish something and really focus my mind on it and then it would happen. The maths teacher suddenly collapsing at his desk, his wooden dividers clattering to the floor. Heart attack, the doctor would say, but I’d know better. I’d spot an attractive girl and make a wish: castyourselfslavishlyatmyfeet,adoreme, and she would immediately obey my unspoken command. But I’d do good deeds, too, with my amazing powers, he added hastily in his mind. Good deeds too. I would save the world from Hitler.

But the sudden intervention of conscience was accompanied by an overwhelming feeling of boredom. He threw the half-eaten apple into the bin and turned on the radio. ‘Ode to Joy’. Everybody united in brotherhood. The Wishing Hat and the Bottomless Purse, he thought. Romanticism, he thought, schoolboy romanticism. A word from his vocabulary exercises – in the negative sense: excessively poeticising.

The boy chuckled to himself and listened to the music, wondering whether he actually liked it. No, he thought, but of course I’d tell everyone I thought it was wonderful. It’sverymoving, I’d say, resting my chin in my hands. I’d know I was lying but I’d maintain the pretence. There’s a manual on adolescence in the bookcase, a guide for unimaginative parents. It explains what an adolescent is like; these are the symptoms, it says. But in terms of appearance: mainly 9spots. I don’t have any spots and no one can check the rest, he thought with as much satisfaction as shame. He slowly turned around. His mother was sitting at the table doing her mending. She looked up and gestured silently at the teapot.

‘Yes, please,’ he said.

‘Would you pour it yourself then,’ she said.

‘You too, Mum?’ he asked. His mother nodded. As he carefully filled the teacups, he thought to himself: that’s going well, she’s stopped complaining when I say Mum instead of Mother.

‘Shouldn’t you be getting on with your homework?’ his mother asked.

‘I’ve barely any to do,’ he replied. ‘The holidays start tomorrow afternoon.’

‘That’s no reason to cut corners today,’ she said. ‘And you know Uncle Robert and Aunt Lise are coming to dinner, which always makes for a late night.’

Her son didn’t respond. They drank their tea. The boy got up and went to stare at his mirror image in the glass doors of the bookcase. As he pretended to listen to the radio, he let his gaze slide along the spines. Stijn Streuvels’ WarDiaries: the German army advancing on Flanders, the hot August sun; German cavalry –Ulansbearing lances with flags on them; metal helmets shaped to protect the back of the neck. And: Barbusse’s UnderFire. And Remarque’s TheRoadBack.10

Now there was a new war, but hardly any fighting. His history teacher had said it would come, though. The Netherlands surely would be unable to stay out of it this time. Sometimes the man had lengthy political discussions with a German girl, one of the Jewish immigrants in his class. A nice girl who wore one of those Tyrol waistcoats, a dirndl outfit like an Alpine peasant. Liselotte Stengel. Of course Germany would lose the war again. And a lot of people would die again. War is terrible, death is terrible, he thought. That run-over girl on the road. He was on his way home from school. An enormous crowd had gathered and the run-over girl, the headless girl, lay in the middle of the circle of silent, staring people. Her head was gone, there was just a pulpy red patch. You couldn’t even see any hair. A lorry had driven smack-bang over her head, a lorry with double wheels. And the driver sat on the pavement crying and nobody would look at him. One man kept shouting, ‘Make way everybody, make way. Does anyone have a sheet?’ And another, ‘Is there a doctor around?’ Like that would be any use. But nobody looked at the driver. Everyone looked at the dead girl, lying flat on her back on the road. Her feet neatly aligned, high heels, a green sweater and very pointy breasts, and no head. Was she blond, dark-haired? Who knew. But dead, oh is that what death looks like? He saw it and went home and only days later did he feel sad. It gave him suffocating dreams like in that film, a jungle film, a man swallowed by a crocodile. 11The slobbering jaws closed and only his hat was left floating. There was a dark patch on the surface of the swamp water. It was a film with an adult rating.

What if his father or mother were to die? Would I cry, he wondered. Would I mind if the war came here? He slowly shook his head. I’d love it, he thought. In fact, I want it to happen. I know it’s repugnant to wish for war, but I’d love it. It would be exciting. Excessively poetic, he thought, worse still. Abhorrent, he said, almost audibly. He helplessly rubbed his hands together and felt his whole body becoming warm.

Maybe I don’t wish for it, he thought then. Maybe I don’t actually know what I wish for, what I actually want. I have thousands of thoughts. Maybe I’m abnormal. Imagine if we got bombed, imagine German planes appeared above the city this very instant. A bomb in this stupid, colourless street would be absolutely fantastic. Burning houses, twelve in a row! Imagine the whole street going up in flames, our house too, and we’d lose everything. We’ve already got air-raid shelters. And my history teacher says we won’t stay out of it this time. We won’t stay out of the shelters where all you can do now is urinate and have sex. Air-raid shelter: thirty-five people. Mass grave. Bombs in the middle of the night when you’re asleep. Women running down the street half-naked. The desecration of corpses. A photograph from the Spanish Civil War came to mind, a hideous picture of a woman hung by fascists from a bell-rope in a church 12tower; flies swarming around a naked body with a shaved, bloodied scalp.

The boy shook his head and returned to the window before pressing his head to the glass again.

‘Get on with your work, lad,’ his mother said in a warm but insistent tone. He responded only with a grunt, thinking: she’s right. My homework. I’m perverse, I’m a lech. I wish for appalling things. Does everyone have thoughts like this? Maybe my wishes will come true. Maybe I amomnipotent, only I don’t know my own desires yet. They say we have souls. Imagine if it happened. And my homework, my homework. Yes, you’re right, Mum. You’re right. But I do so wish something would happen. I wish I dared say that I hate Beethoven. I wish Beethoven would be rudely interrupted – ladies and gentlemen listeners, a sad announcement. We are at war. Hoorah! Hoorah! Anyway, I never do my homework well enough. Your son could be one of our best pupils if only he applied himself more. He’s rather playful. Yes, playful, he plays with bombs. Oh I wish – I wish a bomb would fall.

‘Karel!’ his mother cried.

The boy didn’t make a sound. He stared at the lifeless street through the reflection of his own nose. A small child ran along the pavement rolling a metal hoop. May supreme powers inhabit me! I want that little boy to drop dead this instant. He inhaled deeply through his nose. He opened his eyes wide. I will strike him down with my death-stare, he 13thought. Fall down, die! I, Karel Ruis, say to you: die on the spot, little boy with your metal hoop. Fall, bomb, fall!

He allowed a quiet hum in the back of his throat to swell, right through Beethoven’s final chorus. The little boy disappeared skipping into the cheesemonger’s shop, The King of Cheese. The crown prince of cheese. Failed, he thought. He turned around and left the room, his head hanging.14

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Karel had installed himself at his desk in his bedroom. He opened his school diary. The motto of the day was: ‘Today is what you make of it.’ Yawning, he closed the diary and started to leaf through his history book. He paused on a photo for a while, captivated. ‘Hitler in Vienna (1938)’ was its caption. To the right a row of helmeted uniforms, one of whom was holding a raised banner. The dictator’s right hand was raised to shoulder height. A few officers looked on warily. In the background there was a monumental building that looked quite a lot like the local municipal theatre.

Karel took a pack of cigarettes from the desk drawer. He opened the window and blew out little puffs of smoke. The bell rang in the hall. The boy leaned out of the window. Uncle Robert was standing on the doorstep: a round, protruding belly topped off by a grey hat. Uncle Robert was 16carrying his overcoat over his arm, he raised his hat and dabbed his wonderfully bald head with a folded white handkerchief. Then Uncle Robert shuffled inside. Karel went to his bedroom door and opened it a chink. He heard his mother welcoming Robert.

‘Has Lise been held up?’ she asked. His mother had a husky voice which always sounded slightly accusing. The other voice was jovial and chuckled a lot. Uncle Robert had a musical voice.

‘Lise sends her apologies,’ he replied. ‘She’ll be here in a minute. She’s still shopping. Oof, it’s warm for the time of year, Cora,’ he said, puffing exaggeratedly.

‘If you want to freshen up, feel free to use the bathroom. The green towel is for guests,’ Karel’s mother said. ‘I must get back to the kitchen, but Philip will be home shortly.’

Karel heard Uncle Robert climbing the stairs and quickly shut his door, thinking: Cora and Philip, yes, that’s what my parents are called. Nice names. Names that don’t actually suit them at all. Mother never calls Father Philip and Father never calls Mother Cora. Getting married rendered them nameless. They passed their names on to their children. My brother is called Philip Lodewijk Robert and my sister Cora Alide, but I was the third child, so there wasn’t much left for me. They’d exhausted their imagination. They just called me Karel, Karel and no second names, after some senile great uncle. If there’d been a fourth child, he probably wouldn’t have been given a name at all. My mother always 17says, ‘When I was a young girl I detested boys who were called Karel; boys called Karel were always louts. Louts they were,’ my mother says. ‘And now,’ she says emphatically, ‘my own son is called that. Barmy, isn’t it?’

Yes, totally barmy. And she doesn’t say anything else, no additional explanation, nothing in mitigation, no gentle ruffling of her youngest son’s hair – nothing! She abandons her youngest son for him to fall prey to a great feeling of despair. ‘Despair!’ Karel repeated loudly. ‘World, I’m an unwelcome third child,’ he said, his nose in the air, ‘and today is going to be what I make it. But tomorrow the holidays start. Tomorrow the government has decided for me.’

He heard the soft splashing of water in the bathroom. Uncle Robert is cooling his hairy wrists, he thought. And now he’s rinsing his mouth. Now he’s spitting the water out. He’s drying his blubber-neck with the green guest towel and panting away. Uncle Robert is a very different man from my father. He doesn’t wear woollen Jaeger underwear but pale blue Interlock. He wears red silk pyjamas and he powders and perfumes himself after shaving; he keeps his shaving kit in a leather pouch with a zip. Vanity case: special scissors for trimming hair from nostrils, nailfile, iodine ointment, cotton wool, skin cream, alum block. Uncle Robert is a very different man from my father. Uncle Robert is a proper dandy, my mother says. And when he gets hot, he says oofin a terribly old-fashioned way!18

A knock on the door. Karel quickly opened a couple of books. It was Uncle Robert. The heavy man rubbed his hands together. The scent of eau de Cologne filled the small bedroom.

‘Hello Karel, how are you my boy?’ Uncle Robert cried, stepping toward him with an outstretched hand.

‘Hello Uncle,’ the boy said, shaking the clean fat hand.

‘Working hard?’ asked Uncle Robert.

‘Yes, homework,’ Karel explained, as though his uncle could mean any other kind of work.

‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ Uncle Robert said, chuckling. He continued to laugh with a deep, reverberating ‘haha’, his face cheerful. He had entered the room now, which made it seem even smaller.

‘A snug little place to study,’ Uncle Robert said, nodding vigorously. He sat down on the divan bed and cast a quick look around. He arranged himself very carefully, shoulders hunched as though he was in a tent.

‘What kind of homework are you doing?’ he asked.

‘History,’ said Karel.

‘Ah, history,’ replied Uncle Robert as he lay down on the divan bed and undid some of his waistcoat buttons. ‘Have you already got to Le Roi Soleil?’

‘We had him ages ago,’ said Karel. ‘We’re in the middle of the French Revolution now.’

‘Ooh,’ said Uncle Robert, ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité. That’s an important period, boy! Pay good attention to those 19lessons. It’s the start of our culture. Our liberal society. An exciting era! Leshommesnaissentetdemeurentlibres!’ Uncle Robert cried. He got out a silver cigar case and intently fingered a dark-brown Havana. ‘You don’t smoke cigars, do you?’ he asked.

‘No, not yet,’ said Karel. If only he’d leave, he thought.