The Angel Maker Page 7

  ‘Memory!’ cried René Moresnet, as if it were a quiz. ‘That’s the memory game.’

  ‘Could you tell if they were bald?’ Jacques Meekers wanted to know.

  Freddy shook his head and said that all three had been wearing hats, the brims pulled down over their ears, shading their faces.

  ‘Naturally. Otherwise their heads would be terribly sunburnt,’ Meekers said, rubbing his own bald pate. ‘The sun can be treacherous this time of year. And what else? Did you see anything else?’

  Freddy said that what had struck him most was the paleness of their skin. Their bare arms and legs - all three were wearing T-shirt and shorts - were as white as talcum powder. As if Frau Maenhout had rolled them in it before taking them outside.

  ‘But did they seem animated?’ asked the bar owner. ‘They weren’t in wheelchairs or anything, were they?’

  ‘No idea,’ Freddy finished. ‘I didn’t see any more than that, because Max suddenly started barking.’

  ‘Well, what did you expect? - the poor dog probably couldn’t believe his eyes either. I know what I’m going to do tomorrow. It’s going to be another fine day, so they’ll probably be sitting in the garden again. Come on, let’s drink to the health of the doctor’s sons. This round’s on me.’

  Over the next week or two, Freddy Machon’s testimony prompted quite a few burghers to stroll past the house at number 1 Napoleonstrasse at a conspicuously unhurried pace. Nor were many of them disappointed, because when the weather was good, there were frequent sightings of Frau Maenhout and the children in the garden. One time the three boys were seen playing the memory-card game, the next they were listening to Frau Maenhout reading from a book, and over the course of several consecutive days they were observed working intently on a jigsaw puzzle, which according to Maria Moresnet had far more pieces than would normally be warranted for their age.

  Indoors, the doctor’s sons were also spotted more frequently. Several villagers had seen them peeking out round a door and heard them running off giggling the moment anyone tried to approach them. One evening, Rosette Baer had seen them traipsing down the hallway stairs one after the other, behind Frau Maenhout. They’d looked away shyly when they’d passed her on their way into the kitchen, but at least she had caught a glimpse of their bald heads. She had noticed, moreover, that they had bags under their eyes - pale-blue half-circles. Shortly afterwards she had casually asked the doctor how they were doing.

  ‘They haven’t been sleeping well, Frau Bayer. I think the mosquitoes are bothering them,’ he had replied, and that had been all he would say about it.

  ‘He doesn’t want to admit the truth,’ Rosette explained to Irma Nüssbaum. ‘First the poor man loses his wife, and then it turns out that his children are suffering from some strange disease as well. Men don’t know how to handle grief, you know. They just try to avoid it. It’s much easier to pretend nothing’s wrong.’

  Julius Rosenboom had seen the boys at the doctor’s house too; what was more, they had even exchanged a few words.

  ‘I’ve talked to them! I’ve talked to them!’ he shouted at his chums the next morning as he arrived in the village square. They were waiting for the bus that would take them to their school in Hergenrath.

  ‘Who?’ asked Lanky Meekers, poking Robert Chevalier in the ribs. The latter was making eyes at Greta Pick from the fifth form.

  ‘The doctor’s kids, of course!’

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Seppe the baker’s son, who had also just arrived.

  ‘I talked to the Hoppe brothers! Last night!’

  ‘Tell us, tell us!’ said Seppe the baker’s son.

  ‘I was alone in the waiting room when the door opened,’ Julius began, after glancing at the doctor’s house. ‘It’s probably that pain in the neck Frau Nüssbaum, I thought, so I kept my nose in my book. First it was quiet, but then I heard someone whispering. I looked up and there they were, right in front of my nose! All three of them! It had to be the doctor’s sons. They were all totally bald, their heads as big as footballs, and they each had scar - you know, like this.’ With his index finger he pushed a corner of his mouth up to his nose.

  ‘And how tall were they?’ asked Lanky Meekers.

  ‘At least a head shorter than those two.’ He was pointing at little Michel and Marcel Moresnet, who were waiting for the bus nearby, clinging to their mother’s hands. He added in a whisper, ‘And not nearly as chubby, either. They’re really skinny, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘And then? What happened then?’ asked Seppe the baker’s son.

  ‘One of them asked me my name.’

  ‘You didn’t tell them, did you?’

  ‘Of course I did. I was completely flummoxed.’

  ‘Were they speaking German?’ asked Robert Chevalier.

  ‘Perfect German.’

  ‘And what did their voices sound like?’

  ‘Hard to understand. As if they could barely open their mouths.’

  ‘Well, they can’t, can they,’ Lanky Meekers reckoned. ‘Because of their scar. All that scar tissue.’

  ‘It didn’t look very nice, let me tell you.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘The same kid asked me what I was doing, and I said I was studying, for school. “Where’s school?” he asked. “In Hergenrath,” I said. And then he asked, “Where’s Hergenrath?” “Over there,” I said, and I pointed somewhere. Then his brother asked, “Is it far away, over there?” “Just twenty minutes by bus,” I replied. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s far.”

  ‘I don’t think they’re all that clever,’ Lanky Meekers remarked.

  ‘No, they didn’t seem too smart.’

  ‘And then what happened, Julius?’ asked Seppe the baker’s boy.

  ‘Nothing, because all of a sudden Frau Maenhout appeared in the doorway with her hands on her hips. She seemed cross, and told the boys they weren’t allowed in the waiting room. Then they dashed out, but not before . . .’

  ‘But not before what?’ asked Robert Chevalier.

  ‘Just before they turned to leave,’ Julius continued, ‘one of them stuck out his hand and touched my upper lip. He did! As if he wanted to see if it was real. I couldn’t believe it!’

  ‘Ha! The nerve!’ Robert said indignantly. He glared at the doctor’s house, then exclaimed, ‘Well I’ll be . . .’ Keeping his eyes glued to the house, he tugged at Lanky Meeker’s sleeve, pointing: ‘There they are! At the window, on the first floor!’

  The others looked round too and they all saw the boys’ bald heads at the window. The little tykes had clearly been spying on them; they quickly ducked out of sight when Seppe the baker’s boy shook his fist at them. A few seconds later, however, the heads popped up again, in unison, as if all three were attached to the same body.

  8

  Perhaps she shouldn’t have taken such a big a step all at once, but Frau Maenhout began to nag Dr Hoppe, trying to persuade him to allow his boys to attend school after the summer holidays - they would be turning three in September. He came up with many arguments to put her off, but she was able to counter them, one after the other.

  ‘They’re too young,’ he said.

  She replied that in Belgium the minimum age for nursery school was two and a half.

  Then he said that the boys weren’t ready for school. She brushed that objection aside, informing him his sons had been ready for quite some time. In fact, she had never known any children who were as advanced for their age.

  ‘Their health won’t allow it. They tire too easily.’

  She proposed that the boys start off with half-days. It was a perfectly normal thing to do.

  The doctor went on to say that his sons might be exposed to infections at school, to which she stubbornly replied that they ran the same risk right here at home. He did not dispute that. But still he did not give his permission.

  The next time she raised the subject, she stressed how crucial it was for their social development to have contact with children their ow
n age.

  ‘They have each other,’ he answered, and then: ‘When I was their age, I had no contact with children my own age.’

  Once again he was comparing his sons to himself. It was almost as if he wanted the three of them to turn out just like him. So she asked him, point-blank, ‘What do you want them to be when they grow up?’

  He answered truthfully, and the fact that he did surprised her more than what he actually said. ‘They’ll have to continue the work I have begun. And take it to the next level.’

  Just as you would expect. In that respect he was no exception. Many parents expected their children to attain what they had been unable to achieve for themselves.

  ‘In that case you ought to send them to school as soon as possible,’ she boldly pressed him.

  But he stuck to his guns. ‘When they are six, Frau Maenhout. As soon as they are old enough for primary school. Not a day sooner.’

  Certain that the day would come when he would see for himself the advantage of allowing his sons to go to nursery school, she began to teach the three toddlers a few things through their play. They made such progress that it amazed her. The boys appeared to be even more intelligent than she had suspected. After just four weeks, despite a maximum of two hours per day to give them her undivided attention - the rest of her time was taken up with housekeeping - Michael, Gabriel and Raphael had already learned to read quite a number of words. It had not been her intention to teach them to read, but once she had shown them how letters could be linked together into words, the boys had taken it upon themselves to go hunting for words, and then tried to spell them out: in newspapers, magazines and books, on posters and folders, on paper bags, tins, cardboard boxes - in other words, anything that had letters printed on it. This had spurred Charlotte Maenhout to fetch from her old school some primers that she had used to teach reading. In no time at all the triplets had devoured the books. They played with letters the way other children their age played with building blocks or toy cars.

  It was the same when they learned to count. Once she had taught them the numbers from one to ten, the boys began counting anything and everything as eagerly as they had hunted for new words. They counted the apples in the fruit bowl, the eggs in the fridge, the buttons on their shirts, the books in the bookcase, and soon they wanted to know what came next after ten, and after that, and after that, so that in no time at all they were able to count to one hundred.

  There was no way that Dr Hoppe could have escaped noticing the progress they were making, but it was at least two months before he brought up the subject. Frau Maenhout had been assuming that he was angry with her, that he thought she was just trying to prove the need for Michael, Gabriel and Raphael to attend school. So his remark came as a surprise and at first she thought he was talking about her housekeeping.

  ‘You’ve been doing some fine work there, Frau Maenhout,’ he said.

  She was standing in the hall, getting ready to go home. ‘Thank you,’ was the only thing she could think of to say.

  ‘You are able to get more out of the children than I’d ever expected. Than I’d ever hoped for.’

  ‘The credit is all theirs. They inspire each other. To them it’s just a game.’ She was tempted to add that they worked so hard in order to forget the tedium of their existence.

  ‘Your modesty becomes you,’ said Dr Hoppe.

  ‘They’d have learned just as much with any other teacher. And just as quickly.’

  ‘Not in a nursery school. They’d be wasting their time.’

  His remark pulled her up short. It suddenly occurred to her that, thanks to her own efforts, the doctor now had a new reason not to send his sons to school. A possible solution presented itself.

  ‘I could ask if they’d be allowed to begin in a higher class. We once had a student who was gifted, like them.’

  She was thinking of Valerie Thévenet, from La Chapelle. The little girl had spent one term in a first-year class, and by the end of that time she was so far ahead of the others that the following term she had been moved up to be with the second years. Then she had skipped the third year. When she was ten, she had been sent to a boarding school in Liège, where she’d started the secondary school curriculum. The doctor’s sons were even more advanced for their age than Valerie had been. Already they belonged with the six-year-olds. She actually had no idea if the advancement would be allowed, or even possible, but she wasn’t letting on.

  The doctor shook his head. ‘That will always be an option, later on.’ He paused and, after taking a deep breath, said, ‘I should like you to continue teaching them.’

  His request startled her, and at first she didn’t know how to react. On the one hand she was flattered; on the other, she had the feeling she was being used.

  ‘You would get a rise, naturally,’ he said, confirming what he had in mind, as well as his determination to make it happen.

  ‘And what if I refuse?’ She wondered if he would look for someone else.

  ‘I don’t know. I want you to do it.’

  She didn’t know either, and was afraid to say the wrong thing.

  ‘You’ve taken me by surprise, Doctor. I need a little time,’ she said. ‘I would like to think about it.’

  ‘Please let me know by tomorrow. It’s in the children’s best interests, Frau Maenhout. And in those of others as well. Everybody’s interests.’

  She didn’t understand. ‘What do you mean? What others?’

  ‘Mankind.’

  She looked at him wide-eyed, but as always his eyes were glued to the ground. Never mind, she decided, he’s just talking nonsense. The children - that’s all that matters. It’s in their best interests. Only theirs. He’s right about that.

  She had told him what she wanted. If he really wished to have her as the children’s teacher, of course he could have her. On her conditions, however.

  First, she had insisted that he arrange to have a classroom set up in one of the unused rooms on the first floor, to give the boys the sense that they were actually going to school, then going home when it was over. The fact that this would also give her far greater freedom, and especially privacy, than she enjoyed in the kitchen or the parlour was a factor as well, although she wisely kept that thought to herself. Furthermore, she asked that her working hours be extended, for she would never be able to cram both the housekeeping and the teaching into just four hours a day. She added that if he agreed to this proviso, she wouldn’t ask for the rise he had first proposed - she was afraid that otherwise he wouldn’t agree to her demands. Afterwards she regretted it, because he had said yes immediately, without even asking how much extra time she had in mind.

  They decided that on weekdays she would be there from 8.30 until 11.30 a.m. and from five until eight in the evening, which gave her two more hours than before. How she arranged her time when she was there was entirely up to her. They also agreed that she would teach the children in French one week, and in German the next. ‘Then if they also learn to speak English when they’re a little older, they’ll be able to communicate with half the world.’

  Communication entails more than just language skills, Frau Maenhout thought to herself, but she didn’t say it aloud.

  Finally he too had a stipulation. It came as a total surprise. ‘Could you please tell them about Jesus Christ?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘About Jesus. In the New Testament.’

  ‘Tell them about Jesus,’ she repeated, frowning.

  ‘About Jesus, not about God,’ he emphasised. ‘Only Jesus.’

  ‘Just about Jesus?’

  ‘Yes, the New Testament, not the Old Testament.’

  She couldn’t believe her ears. In the first place she would never have taken the doctor for a religious sort, and in the second, she had to ask herself how she could possibly tell the boys about Jesus without mentioning God. She asked the doctor once more, just to be sure: ‘So I’m to tell them about Jesus, but not about God?’

  ‘That’s
right.’

  ‘But it can’t be done. It’s impossible.’

  ‘Nothing is impossible, Frau Maenhout. Difficult perhaps, but impossible, never.’

  She decided not to pursue the matter. She was happy enough to have permission to give Michael, Gabriel and Raphael some religious instruction, even if it did come with restrictions.

  She had one more thing to add, however: ‘I didn’t know you were religious, Doctor. You never go to church.’

  The doctor answered, ‘The church is the house of God. There’s nothing for me there.’

  ‘Then there’s nothing for God here either,’ she said - she meant it as a joke.

  But the doctor remained grave. ‘God is everywhere,’ he said. ‘In heaven. On earth and in all things.’

  It was the catechism - the answer to the question ‘Where is God?’ She too had had to learn the catechism by heart as a child, and she had also never forgotten it.

  ‘Where did you go to school?’ she asked, because she was curious, but also because she wanted to change the subject. She didn’t feel like discussing religion with him. There was little enough in the way of normal conversation anyway.