‘Thank you,’ I murmured.
‘It is time,’ Father said.
He was putting on a brave face.
‘Time you stood on your own two feet.’
I nodded, surprised at the feeling of excitement and adventure bubbling up in me.
They gave me an envelope with money. To buy food and coals in the winter—expensive things, Father said. And a suit, as a schoolmaster should always look his best, Mother said. She had folded the slice into a sandwich.
‘You are expected at the school next week. So you can get to know the place. The pupils won’t be there of course, it’s still the summer holidays. But you’ll meet the Mother Superior, and get to see the timetable, books and so on. You can move into the house I rented for you. Everything has been arranged,’ Father said.
I thanked him. They were holding hands. I had not seen them this close together for a long time. My father’s side whiskers looked like tufts of wool torn from a sheep. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat.
The closer we got to the village of Elverdinge—the tram had just passed the stop in Brielen, the village before Elverdinge—the edgier I felt. Wheat country. Meadows with islets of daisies and buttercups. Fields of maize. Everything slowly drifted past me. Occasionally, some boys would leap on the footboard to chug along for a bit before being chased off by the ticket collector. My belly rumbled with a mixture of excitement and fear. It was one of those summer days on which the sky was blue from morning till night. A cheerfully bright pale blue at first. And later, after sunset, a deep and melancholy indigo. I could make out the grey outline of a hill on the horizon. I had never been this far to the west of the country. The tram passed the first houses, and I could hear the driver’s call over the click-clacking of the rails and the whistling steam. The ticket collector sprang to his feet, shouted ‘Elverdinge station’ and disappeared into the next carriage, shouting the same thing again.
We came to a halt opposite the Belle Vue pub. A red flag flapped above the door. Without a glance at their passengers, the stoker, engine driver and ticket collector hurried inside. I put my hand on my suitcase, which I had placed in the aisle beside my seat. Only after the last passenger had walked past—a woman carrying bags that were bursting at the seams—did I leave the carriage. I walked toward the church tower and stopped in front of a large town house. Two square herb gardens bordered by boxwood hedges flanked the path to the front door, accentuating the building’s symmetry. The door swung open, and seeing a man in a black cassock and a wooden cross on a string around his neck stroll out, I realized it was the presbytery. I wanted to go on, but the priest motioned me to wait. He hastened toward me, leaving the door ajar.
‘Mr Verbocht?’
My surprise must have been written all over my face, as he went on to explain to me in detail how he had reached that conclusion. He also knew about my appointments both at the boys’ school and with Mr Vantomme, the landlord of the house I would live in during the coming school year. To my annoyance, he’d even made inquiries about my appearance.
‘So you see, I recognized you the moment I saw you walk past,’ he said. ‘I would like offer you a cup of coffee, but I’m about to conduct a funeral and need to make some preparations.’ He said it with the same seriousness he had put into his earlier explanation. ‘I’ll pay a visit when you are properly settled in.’
‘All right, Father,’ I said.
He shook my hand and went back inside. I heard the bolt slide across. I hadn’t gone ten metres when I heard footsteps and he was standing behind me again.
‘I forgot to tell you, the boys’ school and your house are that way,’ he said, pointing his arm to the other side of the crossing where I had got off the tram.
‘You’ve been given the addresses, I hope?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I have. Thank you, Father,’ I said. I made no move to follow his instructions. He gave me a doubtful look, twiddled his thumbs for a while and eventually turned to go, glancing over his shoulder one last time before disappearing between the two angular herb gardens. I decided to continue my walk. I had not been given an exact time I should be at the school. One thing he didn’t know, at least. Further on, I came to a surprisingly plain square paved with rounded cobbles. From the corner of my eye, I saw the door of the pub on the corner opening. An old man was placed firmly on a stool in the fresh air. Bending over, he spewed a thick stream of vomit on the ground between his shoes. The man who had pressed him down on the chair, and who now seemed to be watching over him, was short but broad-shouldered. He noticed me. I said hello. The bell of the bakery door tinkled and two boys came out, digging their fingers into the white, round sides of the loaves they carried. They shot me a guilty look, stuck out their tongues and ran away. I turned round and started walking in the direction of the boys’ school.
-
THE MOTHER SUPERIOR placed the list of names on her desk. Each name was marked with a stern black dot. She read them out loud, rhythmically tapping her index finger. I listened, more to the way she read than her actual words. When she stopped and looked at me, I was afraid she would ask me to repeat the names. For some reason, one name had registered: Marcus Verschoppen. I don’t remember what made it stand out from the others, as she went on to tell me some trivialities about each of the eight boys’ backgrounds. She hoped I would remember the facts, though her tone of voice, punctuated by her ticking nail, did not seem to express much confidence. She nevertheless considered it her duty to provide a new teacher with all the relevant information. Could it have been her slight hesitation when reading the name, as if silently saying more than she put into words, making the rhythm of her ticking finger falter? She ended by saying I was in luck, I’d be able to see the boys, if I wanted to, because at this very moment they were being taught—she hastily thumbed through a little red book lying on the desk before continuing—Catechism in classroom four. Experience had shown that the boys found learning the texts by heart difficult, so they started them early, in August. I suddenly wondered how on earth my father had managed to get me a job as a teacher in a Catholic school. I wasn’t christened, hadn’t attended church as a child, had not received my first Communion and had never been instructed in religious subjects. The finger had stopped tapping and was frozen in mid-air like a hook.
‘The classroom is at the end of the corridor,’ she said. The hook straightened out as she pointed in its direction. ‘Incidentally, it will also be your classroom.’
So there I was, on a Friday afternoon under a sunny cotton-wool sky, peeking in through the window of my classroom. And there they were. Caught in a shaft of light slanting down from the tall window. My class. The boy in the first row was sitting on his own. He was wearing a smart white shirt. His hair was combed to the side, parted on the right. I would have bet my last cent on his name being Marcus Verschoppen. I recognized the twins, too: scrawny, ginger-haired boys. I looked at the sombre walls, the portraits of the Belgian Kings, the cupboard with its halo of grime, and high above the blackboard, directly over the portrait of King Leopold II, Jesus Christ.
In my mind, I started decorating the almost maliciously bare classroom with wall charts, drawings by the boys and poems. I imagined the children’s voices and the music that would bring it back to life. I would even put these abandoned windowsills to use. I jumped when a hard object hit the window with a bang, cracking the pane. It was then they spotted me—a new face, caught peering in through the window. They stared at me for several seconds, united in uncertainty, until the lips of the boy in the second row moved. Then came the laughter, collective, a bomb of voices exploding into the outdoors through the gap underneath the door. I turned and walked away.
-
‘DAVID?’
‘David?’
Opening my eyes, I saw my little brother’s head as a dark patch in the semi-darkness of the room. He was sitting upright, his knees pulled up. A