Read Out of Mind for Free Online

years ago. '
    'There's something I have to do,' I say. I rub my hands contentedly. 'But what?'
    'Shave,' she says.
    I shake my head. 'That too. Be that as it may . . .'
    A phrase I rarely use, be that as it may. A phrase from work, which I occasionally throw out at meetings as a life-buoy to one of my colleagues if he becomes entangled in a complicated argument. Be that as it may ... A formulation suggesting a summary that never comes. A moment of helplessness for a speaker, which causes the people around the table to avoid one another's eyes in embarrassment. Bahr, Chauvas, Johnson and that haggard-looking Karl Simic.
    I walk out of the room, up the stairs. While I am shaving I shall no doubt remember what else I have to do. Robert is waiting for me at the top of the stairs He walks ahead of me, his claws tapping on the linoleum. A dog knows your habits, knows exactly what you are going to do. I grope for the light switch in the bathroom but I cannot find it. Why is it so dark everywhere around here? Vera shouldn't be so stingy with the light.
    'Maarten,' she calls from downstairs. 'What are you doing up there?'
    I suddenly remember. Fetch wood. Of course!
    'Come on, Robert, we'll get some wood from the shed. Come on.'
    Quickly I go down the stairs. Vera stands waiting for me below, her hands on her hips.
    'Out of the way!' I call out jokingly as I take the last step. 'Robert and I are going to get you some wood.'
    'There's plenty of wood left,' she says, taking hold of Robert's collar. 'What were you doing upstairs?'
    "Upstairs is part of the house too,' I say, a little sheepishly.
    'We never go up there any more, you know that very well. And please go and shave. I don't want Ellen to see you like this.'
    I go into the bathroom. Robert has gone with Vera. He knows he always gets something from her. From me he gets only wood. A stick to run after on the beach or in the woods.
    I look at my face in the mirror over the washstand. No one can tell from it what I used to look like. Not even I myself. Be that as it may ... I wet my face, squirt a blob of shaving cream on my fingertips and with the fingers of my left hand rub the slithery foam over my cheeks and chin.
    You must make sure to pull the skin straight, otherwise the scraper gets caught in the wrinkles. Black dots in white shaving floss swirl around in the wash bowl and then disappear down the plug-hole. Beard hair. Another word for beard. Moustache, goatee, whiskers. Uncle Karel had whiskers. Until 15 May 1940. When the Netherlands capitulated, Uncle Karel shaved off his proudly up-twirled whiskers. In protest. A first and last act of resistance. At the bank where he worked everyone understood at once. First they had looked surprised when he came in with a bare face. He had run two fingers of his right hand over his upper lip and then, somewhat apologetically, shrugged his shoulders. Everyone had understood, he said. The Germans. Damned Huns. The Queen gone to England. And so the only thing Uncle Karel could do was shave off his whiskers. Almost a logical consequence of history.
    'There, now you look smart again, Maarten.'
    Don't talk to yourself. At least not when other people can hear you. When you talk you should be addressing another person, not yourself.
    It is as if I can hear two voices, women's voices. Surely we don't have company? Maybe the radio.
    Cautiously I open the door and go into the hall. Vera's voice. I try not to listen to what the voice in the living room says, and press my nails into the palms of my hands. I stand very still.
    'I'm really worried. You can't see there's anything wrong with him. But that makes it all the more alarming. Sometimes he tells me things about us that I was never part of. As if I were a different person in his eyes. And then suddenly he can't remember a whole chunk of his own past. I feel so helpless because I don't know how to help him. And it has happened so suddenly. Practically overnight he has become like this.'
    Vera