Out of Mind by J. Bernlef Read Free Book Online Page B

summer, people from Boston live here, a bald man and his small dark wife. Fortunately the door can still be shut in such a way that from the outside you can hardly tell it has been forced open. I may get into trouble over this. Without looking back I walk down the shell path, in the direction of the sea. If I return along the beach there is little chance that anyone will see me. Let's hope it will soon start snowing again and all my footprints will be covered up.
    I want to get back to Vera. I want to hold her close and say I am sorry. And that she shouldn't leave me alone like this. All these wrong things happen because I am being left alone.
    'Come on, Robert, we must go home at once.'
    A sharp wind and the sound of the sea swishing, sighing over the smooth hard sand. I watch the foaming, advancing water. Underneath, a counter-current pulls it swiftly over the sand, back to the sea. If I look at these opposing currents for a long time I grow dizzy.
    Most people talk about the 'salty sea air', but I call it the 'white scent'. Those little birds the colour of brown rope, tripping along the tide line, would probably understand what I mean.
    I am beginning to regain my feeling, my normal feeling. As if my blood is beginning to flow again. I should take such a brisk walk more often. I used to, in the winter, with Pop. Warmly dressed on our bikes along the Bergen Road to Bergen-Binnen where we would stop for a bowl of pea soup, and then straight on to the beach. There we would put our heavy bikes in the store room of a first aid post and walk all the way to Egmond and back. The Dutch wind was nastier, more biting than this one.
    I can see the tall white flagpole of the Atlantic Motel sticking out above the last ridge of dunes. Robert knows exactly which way to go. The wooden steps to the beach are half buried by snow, but the hand-rail shows precisely where they are. Robert sniffs at a yellow plastic crate that juts out of the sand.
    On the Atlantic Road I have to pause to catch my breath. Robert keeps running around me impatiently. Then we walk back towards home with the sea and the wind at our backs.
    As we pass the Cheevers' brick house I call Robert to heel. Before you know where you are he has disappeared, in search of Kiss, the Cheevers' white Pomeranian.
    Vera's light-blue Datsun is parked in front of the porch. I climb the steps and look through the window. She is on the phone. I tap against the glass but she doesn't hear. Then she suddenly sees me. Startled, she drops the phone. I wave and enter the house through the open front door.
    When I enter the front room she is sitting by the table with clasped hands. Her face looks helplessly at me, like that of a child who waits anxiously for what the grown-ups have in store for her this time. 'Let me take your coat.' She has to stand on tiptoe to help me out of my coat. I sit down by the table while she puts my coat away. She returns with a book in her hand, a paperback with a green cover. A man in a raincoat looks sideways at a brilliantly lit hotel on top of a hill. The title is Our Man in Havana.
    'Is it about Cuba?' I enquire. I know Vera is interested in politics. She is about to answer but changes her mind and sits down again, placing the book upside down on the table.
    'Maarten,' she says, 'where have you been?'
    I take a deep breath of relief. 'A long walk,' I say. 'I have decided to go for long walks more often in future. It's good for the circulation. You should have come with me but you had already gone when I left. Where have you been?'
    'I've been to see Dr Eardly.'
    That gives me a fright. 'There's nothing wrong with you, is there?'
    She puts her hands on mine. 'I went for you, Maarten. You are so restless these days. You do things and the next moment you can't remember having done them. Strange things. I went to talk about it with Dr Eardly.'
    'I feel perfectly healthy. Strange things? What kind of strange things?'
    'When I got home the whole kitchen was strewn