Landing Read online

  Willemien was leaning against a motorbike, talking to another girl in front of the bar. She was pale blonde and although the weather was still as frigid as it had been the day I arrived, she was wearing a knee-length skirt and high heels with buckles.

  Miguel and I had headed to the bar to warm up after freezing our feet wandering through the end-of-March carpet of snow.

  The girl that was talking to Willemien said goodbye and rode off on her bike. When the girl turned to wave good-bye to her friend I thought she’d wipe out as she turned the corner, but the girl handled her bike like Bahamontes himself.

  Willemien was left standing alone by the motorbike, like she was waiting for someone. The image of her silhouette and her smile were burned into my memory forevermore. I thought of speaking to her, of approaching her and starting a conversation, just as I had done with many other girls in recent years. But then I realized I couldn’t make conversation, all I had were words and phrases, and a terrible fear that she’d laugh at me.

  Miguel, however, could start a conversation, and, naturally, he approached Willemien. His stride was quick and confident, and I saw her smile, inviting him to speak to her, just as I wanted to. I hung back, eager to learn how to win over a woman in Dutch. But I was shocked to see they didn’t exchange a single word. He stroked her cheek with his hand, which he then wrapped around the back of her neck, and moved his lips toward hers, kissing her briefly but decisively.

  Lifetimes have passed since that moment, but I still don’t like saying that my beloved Willemien, my wife and companion throughout so many years, joys, and sorrows, was Miguel’s girlfriend back then. Miguel, the translator who combined the charm of being Spanish, as was I, with the intelligence and resourcefulness of being able to say everything he wanted in Willemien’s language, something I was light years away from being able to do.

  Summer arrived without us even noticing. Suddenly it was June and then July, but the temperature didn’t shoot up, the sun didn’t burn, the nights were still cold. Whereas Dutch people’s faces turned pink from the few rays of sun that managed to break through the clouds, ours grew paler by the day.

  At the end of July there were a few stifling days, which reminded us of our warmer summers. And it was on one of those days that we heard the good news that Philips had organized a holiday back home for us.

  On August 9, 1963 we boarded two buses, which would take us to Extremadura for eight days of vacation.

  We arrived in town at night. A crowd awaited us in the plaza. My mother and the girls were there, they had grown so much in half a year that Antonia, the eldest, was now a young woman. The first thing she asked when she saw me, before even giving me a hug, was whether I had a girlfriend yet.

  I told her I did. That her name was Willemien and that she was very pretty. Antonia was silent for a moment, then she asked,“And will she come and live with us?”

  “Of course she will, next year I’ll bring her with me.” Maria and Celia, the little ones, laughed timidly.

  My mother embraced me and thanked me for all the money I had been sending. We walked home while the girls peppered me with questions, not even giving me time to answer.

  When we arrived, Pedro and my father weren’t home and Mariana was making dinner. Antonia entered first, shouting that her big brother had a Dutch girlfriend. Mariana came into the dining room, her hands still bloodied by the chicken she had just killed. She smiled and congratulated me, and I realized things had changed while I had been in Holland. Everything was the same, but everything was different.

  They had changed the bedrooms around. Antonia now slept in my old room, so Maria and Celia no longer had to share a bed. My mother told me to sleep in the living room, on the new sofa they had bought with the money I had sent them.

  I didn’t tell them that in Someren I had seven roommates. The sofa in the living room would be just fine.

  Over dinner I told them stories about light bulbs and televisions, about the cold, the snow, and the green spring. Antonia learned to say goe-de-mor-gen while Pedro and my father watched me, wondering who was this man who had showed up unannounced for dinner.

  The next morning I went with my father to the farm to lend him a hand. The sun burned my skin, and walking along unpaved roads I felt my feet truly touched the ground. My father walked ahead of me, silent. I talked to him about what we would do with all the money I had saved, the following year when I returned. We’d buy a car, we’d build a house for me and Willemien, and another one for Pedro and Mariana. My father agreed to everything as though it made no difference, and that’s when I realized I wouldn’t return the following year.

  That was the shortest and strangest summer of my life. I enjoyed sweating beneath the sun. I enjoyed the afternoon siestas and the midnight conversations in the town plaza. I told lies full of light bulbs, while the other “Dutchmen” in town invented their own jobs, full of danger and excitement. We were selling illusions. I’m certain that summer we convinced more than a few people to come and join us in our new country at the first chance they got.

  On the way back to Holland on the Philips bus, I pondered how to finally approach Willemien.

  Returning to the routine with my broom, meals, and life in the camp in Someren was harder than I had expected. The week at home had brought my fragile command of

  Dutch to a screeching halt, and fall was already starting. Afternoons were gray and the days grew rapidly shorter. September was a difficult month.

  But then everything changed. In early October the boss called me in to offer me a position in the television department; I was flabbergasted. Despite the fact it was the news I had been waiting for since the day I came to terms with my broom, the first thought that crossed my mind when I imaged myself building televisions was that I’d miss my conversations in Dutch with the people in the admin department. My plan had been to spend a year cleaning, after which I’d request a job translating, and on that day, when I’d go to work as a cleaner and return home as a translator, my life would change completely, because I would have caught up with Miguel.

  That’s why I looked at the boss and asked slowly, choosing my words carefully, if there were other options. The man looked at me incredulously, and asked me what other options I thought there were. I realized my Dutch still wasn’t good enough, that my little dream of becoming a translator wasn’t based on reality, and I told him that I’d accept the transfer to televisions.

  The day I began to put together cathode tubes was the day I didn’t have to lie in my letters home any longer.

  Her

  “Why don’t you try to find the son who was waiting for the dead man at the airport?” Karen Abrams asked while I looked at the menu, only to order the same thing as ever.

  “Why?”

  “Maybe he could tell you something about what’s in the box.”

  “And how am I going to find him?”

  “You don’t know his last name, right?”

  “No.”

  “But you know his name is Arjen and that his surname is Spanish, yeah?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Never mind.”

  Karen Abrams always had these kinds of ideas, they seemed good at first but were pie in the sky. Then she’d go back and try to figure out a way to make them work, in some other place or time.

  “If I were you,” she said,“I would have looked for him at the airport, when he was waiting for his father.”

  “Yeah, it was a mistake not to look for him,” I lied, “I just had to leave.”

  I had decided to open the box, and we didn’t need the son for that. And in truth, I didn’t need the box either, I had enough work with my hundred people, I couldn’t handle another search on top of that. I’d never finish either of them.

  That evening I didn’t last long in Karen Abrams’s bar. On the way home I called Anneke, to let her know everything was fine. Alth
ough sometimes I didn’t, I had agreed to call Anneke whenever I was going away for a few days, and again when I got home.

  It was always difficult for me to dial her number, but once we were speaking most of the time it was alright. Once in a while Jan answered the phone, and then it was easier. Jan didn’t speak to me like a father. He never had.

  Obviously they didn’t know about my list, so I always had to make up an excuse for my trips. This time I said I had taken a long weekend to take a break from my grueling job.

  Over the years Anneke had learned not to ask me too many questions, she knew that I would tell her only as much as I wanted to.

  After our brief conversation I felt empty, but proud of having kept my promise.

  On the way home I pondered what it would be like if all my conversations with Anneke were different, if I told her more. After all, I could have told her about Ana Mei Balau.

  Jan used to say that the best jobs were the ones nobody knew about. I had never really understood what he meant until I met Ana Mei Balau. If Jan had picked up the phone that day, I would have told him about her.

  Ana Mei Balau made an impression on me. My conversation with her didn’t help my investigation, but she realized I had traveled a long way to meet her so she didn’t kick me out. We started talking and she told me how she spent her days. She spoke nine languages: Dutch, English, Spanish, Catalan, French, Italian, German, Norwegian, and Danish. I was impressed, but it was even more impressive how she used her command of these languages.

  “I discover untranslatable words,” she had said.

  “What?”

  “I look for words that exist in one language and not in another. Like the excellent Dutch word gezellig. Maybe it sounds clichéd, but it truly is a unique word.”

  “Yes, it does seem difficult to translate.”

  “But not for much longer.”

  My face said it all, I think, because I didn’t have to ask her to explain what she meant, she just carried on.

  “When I come across an untranslatable word, like gezellig, I study its symbolism and etymology. That helps me to determine the essence of the word. And that knowledge helps me invent an equivalent in the languages that don’t have it.”

  She gave me a moment to absorb what she had just said, or perhaps she was expecting me to ask another question, but nothing occurred to me. She continued her explanation.

  “I work for several European linguistic organizations, which pay me for every word I invent. Then I receive a royalty every time that word is used in print for the first few years it’s in circulation.”

  I asked her to give me an example for the word gezellig, but she said that was confidential.

  “All I have are authorial rights,” she said apologetically. “I could tell you the English translation of gezellig but then if you use it in conversation I can’t charge a penny. Because the word would exist before I register it, and it would no longer be considered my invention.”

  “The words you invent belong to you?”

  “Yes, until I sell the copyright. No one knows I’m the one who invented them.”

  “Don’t you think it’s sad that your work goes unrecognized?”

  “No. I know it’s my work and every time I hear or read one of my words I’m happy. Plus I don’t like being the center of attention.”

  “Can you tell me one of the words you’ve sold?”

  “It’s also in my contract that I can’t publicize which words I’ve invented.”

  I looked around her apartment, at the art on the walls, the books on the side table, for a clue to a new word. But I didn’t know what to look for.

  Ana Mei Balau had seemed so mysterious that, on my way home in Amsterdam, as the first few drops of rain fell on my shoulders, I wondered whether she had been putting me on. There was no proof whatsoever that anything she had told me was true. All I could do was wait a few years until, during a trip to England or Germany, I heard a word for gezellig in English or German.

  Back home, for once I went to bed early, hoping I wouldn’t toss and turn for too long before falling asleep. By two a.m. I gave up. Going to bed early didn’t help. I got up, like I did whenever a nightmare awoke me in the middle of the night. I walked around the house in the moonlight. I was always looking for something on these walks. Sometimes I found a book I had left out; I’d put it away and get back in bed. Sometimes I found the bathroom door open; I’d shut it and feel sleepy. It worked like a charm.

  That night I walked from the bedroom through the hall to the other bedroom, the kitchen, the living room. I turned on the lights and sat down at the table. Slowly my eyes grew accustomed to the brightness. I looked around me. The suitcase from my trip to Barcelona was still outside the door to my bedroom. That’s where it belonged, waiting for the next trip. I never unpacked my suitcase. The clothes and the toiletry bag inside could stay there for weeks on end, until I planned a new trip and repacked it.

  A few years ago I had met a guy who did the same with his suitcases. His parents had split up when he was just a kid, and he had always lived between two homes. He said his suitcase was his real home, his father’s house and his mother’s were just extras. He never unpacked his suitcase. He assumed that my parents had gotten divorced too, and I let him believe it.

  I looked at my suitcase and remembered that inside that red plastic shell there was more than just my clothes and my toiletry kit. There was also something I had borrowed. You might say I had stolen it, but I was certain the dead man knew I had only borrowed it. Some things go without saying. Some things you see and feel. My impulse to take the box had come from the dead man.

  It was late and the living room was cold. I got up, went over to the suitcase, and opened it on the floor. I took the box out and noticed how my clothes held the shape of an invisible box. Before shutting the suitcase again I grabbed a pair of black socks. I went back to the table with the box and the socks. I sat down, put the box on the table, and put the socks on my chilly feet.

  The box looked smaller now than it had on the airplane seat. It was about the same size as a jewelery box. Although it was painted black, on the corners you could see it was made of light-colored wood. I laid my hand on the lid and tried to sense what could be inside. I still couldn’t tell. My fingers wandered over the cold lock on the front of the box.

  Something had been left hanging in my conversation with the man: it was an unfinished dialogue; I hadn’t told him my story. Perhaps I felt I needed to give something back because I had taken the box. And I felt certain that now he could tell what I was thinking, he could see what I was doing and expected me to share a bit of my life with him, just as he had shared a bit of his with me.

  The next day I went to a locksmith. There was a small shop in my neighborhood that I always peered into when I passed by. Sometimes there was an old man inside, sometimes a younger man. No doubt they were father and son; they had the same nose. The shop was stuffed with things. The shelves along each wall served both for display and storage. In addition to making copies of keys and selling locks, they also refilled ink cartridges for printers, unblocked mobile phones, and sold hands-free kits for cars. Despite the chaos, it gave the impression of organization and harmony.

  When I entered the shop that day, the young man was alone. He took the box and quickly opened the lock with a screwdriver. He lifted the lid half a centimeter and I put my hand on top of his to stop him. It was the wrong time and the wrong place. I said thanks and told him that was all I needed. He insisted upon installing a new lock. But I didn’t want the box to remain in his hands a moment longer.

  “I’ll come back another day to put a new lock on,” I lied. I took the box and walked out the shop.

  At home I sat down on the sofa with the box in my lap. I didn’t dare lift the lid. I was about to learn the secret I had stolen from a dead Spaniard. Looking at it that way, it didn’t s
eem right.

  The lid opened without a sound.

  Him

  October arrived, the Dutch winter with it. With the cold, my linguistic walks with Miguel tended to end more frequently in the bar, where they usually segued into a round of beers. One day, when I had already said good-bye to Miguel and was about to leave, Willemien walked into the bar. Out of the blue Miguel surprised me by asking me to stick around. All three of us could have a drink together. I agreed and greeted Willemien in her language with a broken and awkward “pleased to meet you,” and she replied in Spanish.

  I was so relieved that I spent the afternoon saying stupid things just to make her laugh. And she laughed, she laughed so much that Miguel couldn’t hide his jealously beneath his neatly combed bangs. Because Miguel was intelligent and well-educated, but he had no sense of humor at all. Willemien was more interested in my jokes than her boyfriend’s boring stories. It was embarrassing. Of course I realized what was happening and I could have stopped it. But I didn’t want to, I wanted to get the girl for once, despite the fact that someone else had found her first. If she realized she had made a mistake, why not fix it? Something told me that a Dutch girl who spoke Spanish would fix it sooner than a girl from my hometown in Extremadura.

  I saw that Miguel was getting angry at me, and at Willemien, but I didn’t say anything. I saw how he kept his anger bottled up inside and how he stalked out resentfully, leaving his girlfriend alone with me; he didn’t stop us. I realized I was losing my free Dutch lessons but I didn’t make a move to stop him, because I knew I’d get something else instead.

  Willemien asked Miguel why he was leaving, and he mumbled that he had things to do. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and went to the bar to order another round, just two glasses instead of three this time. I thought Miguel was a coward, that instead of giving up and leaving he should have lost his temper, slammed his fist on the table, and kicked me out of the bar. But he didn’t. And now I know why. If Miguel had made a scene in the bar, Willemien would have smacked him in front of everybody, like she did once when I was acting cocky.