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Present Past Subjects Projects Misc
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RIDING AT THE HERRING
I wrote this short story in the fall of 1990 for the catalogue of the exhibition 'Metaphysical Interior'. The story was inspired by a stay with Kees van der Ploeg and Joel Otterson in a rented house on Schiemonnikoog, an island in the North Sea, at the end of September. Smack in the middle of the low brick wall which forms the left side of the house is a Dutch door. It still looks solid though weather beaten and the wood is painted sky blue. The lower portion of the door is shut tight, the upper portion is slightly ajar. The scent of the sea is more apparent here in the shade, where the morning air is cool, than at the back of the house, which faces the brunt of the wind and the sun's heat. The house itself stands on top of a grassy and dry bush covered dune. It is without question the tallest dune around. The very height of the house above its surroundings seems to awaken in the soul a spirit of grandiosity. From the standpoint of the house one surveys the surrounding landscape with a sense of ever widening perspective, commanding views of sea, village and beyond. Visitors to the house, even after a stay of only a few hours, report dramatic insights into their lives. There is much talk of magical transformation. The hours pass taking walks and eating and slipping into new identities. Closets are opened and ambitions of another age aired. Later they attribute this strange hyper-awareness to the physical setting: the simplicity of the gently unfolding horizons, the pastoral charm lent to the experience by the thousands of rabbits and pheasants which inhabit this place. The narrow lighthouse, which lies just to the west of the house and can be seen from the Dutch door, rises from a lower dune but is in reality taller than the house. This fact however, does little to destroy the illusion the house provides its guests. They feel as long as they remain here, they are on top of everything, the world's Masters, Lords and Ladies. Between the house and the steepish embankment runs a cobbled path, blown over here and there with sand. A trail of rabbit pellets leads from the front of the building past the sky blue door and round the corner to the back, where the path widens to form a small patio. Here on the border of patio and path sits the dog in the sunlight: an aged keeshond, once companion to many brave captains, now retired to the dunes. She sits upright and proud though her body is salted to the bone and stiffening, her head held 40 centimeters tall in the sun. From this position she provides a marvelous view of the bathing beach and the back of the house. The wind ripples the grass and the dog's fur. Sea and sand sparkle. White bathing caps and black bikinis bob in the distance. From a vantage point high up above the house, the dunes spread out like a mottled face. The little planted wood of stunted trees over there to the north make the eyebrows. Those two huge sand pits are the eyes. See! One. Two. The rosehips and that line of bushes along the road into the village are the beginnings of a shaggy beard. The house with its golden weather vane swinging in the wind is the nose. Of course! The lighthouse forms the upper lip. And the racks of drying herring on the slope behind the lighthouse are teeth. A little steam and the cry of a tea kettle escape from the crack in the blue door. A new command is issued and obeyed. The dog gingerly shifts her neck and head 45 degrees clockwise. From this vantage point the lighthouse ceases to exist. The structure's long tapered form is replaced by the squat and rusting barbecue. Two wooden deck chairs, scarcely noticed a moment ago, move now to the center of attention, while on the other side of the dog's field of vision the twin French doors lock into place and remain slowly trembling, like bubbling water, in the wind. The French doors are each set with one large pane of glass. Behind the glass of the French doors is the sitting room of the house. With its waxed wood and lace curtains, its books on the book shelf and games in the cupboard, its chairs and sofa arranged in a circle, its flowers on the table, and little seashells and arranged bits of driftwood, the sitting room of the house is a snug and cosy harbor for guests. Attractive pictures of the dunes adorn its walls. There is a guest book, where the poetically inclined enter haiku: Dutch letters Running sideways Are like a line of wild geese Flying in the sky. A fabulous telescope, by day directed towards the sand bars and sunning seals, at night swung down to the beckoning lights of the village bedrooms, stands just inside the French doors, permanently mounted to the tiled floor. Viewed from outside, the telescope's lenses spew and scatter star-like reflections through the hot and trembling glass, blinding little rainbows and lasers of light. The keeshond, at this time of morning not in the mood for unnecessary visual irritation, compensates by winding her neck and head back 5 degrees. From a height of 40 centimeters above the patio stones the contents of the sitting room remain essentially invisible. What one does see are two well made deck chairs, a low table with a pink towel draped to dry on it, and a rusting barbecue. The deck chairs appear to be made of a hard tropical wood, recently scrubbed and refinished. The canvas is worn and faded in places but has been neatly patched. By the look of them, it is to be assumed that these chairs are authentic and like so many other things in this house, once actually served duty on a ship. Nicked and scuffed, they are battered but not bowed and still very solid. And if they could speak what stories they might tell us of a glorious past! Surely they've seen their share of the tropics with its love affairs and love diseases, storms, conquests and defeats. And now in old age like the keeshond they belong to this house. Stencilled in felt pen on the canvas back of the chair to the left are the bitter letters: H. O. L. L. A. N. D. These letters are a recent addition to the scenario, inky marks left by a disgruntled guest. This graffiti is both ironic and caustic, scratch acid applied to the chair as a signature of lost faith. It expresses the utter poverty of those who have given up reason and lost hope. The cruel defeat of those who believe the ships will never return. Ships that sailed out once past Sardinia, steamed through the Straits of Magellan, to Batavia and Bengal. The lettering is red and black and executed in the same leaden hand as several pencil sketches of the dunes that hang in the sitting room. It is intended as a clever and well read stab at history. Jamming the heritage of great wealth and trade under the couch. Sad and deathly cynical, it poses a common remedy: make fun of Patriotism and the past, cut the cords of memory and splice in its place a good apology. In this case the apology is an anagram in another language: H.ope O.ur L.ove L.asts A.nd N.ever D.ies. The eyes of the keeshond blacken and pull back from the chairs. A new signal is detected, a message is trapped between her ears. She cranks her neck and head up slightly in order to test the wind. The wind is carrying smells which cut and carve clean lines in space. A hot salty sea can be smelled. And there are spicy nutmeg and clove smells, curving upward and looping around the house. A constant odor of rabbits is here. And here, a faint whiff of their almost scentless dung. The dog closes her eyes, raises her nose a little higher and sucks in the air. A surgical miracle following a century of careful breeding has allowed the keeshond to breathe through her nostrils rather than her mouth. With practice and time here on the dune she has learned breath control: to puff the scented air in one nostril, close it, let it wander around a bit, and then, puff, send it sailing out the other. The eel-like passages in the snout of the ancestor of this remarkable Dutch dog were laid out in asymmetric imitation of a 18th century Japanese garden. As she breathes, the air tranquilly floats down a map of paths and ponds, short cuts and trade routes to the Far East. A single blue eye and a patch of blonde appear at the crack in the sky blue door. There is a click. From the top half of the door descends a shower of white bread cubes, fluffy little pills, some landing on the path, some landing in the grass. The eye begins to rove in a scanning pattern, up and down, back and forth, searching the landscape for any sign of a clear and sober line. There is a rustle and a whir. Instantly, the eye drops, crashing into the ground. A family of hungry pheasants comes marching up the dune. The pheasants' tails bleeding a hundred different oil paintings as they drag them through the dry bushes and grass. Peck. Peck. Peck. The birds are ravenous in the salty air. Peck. Peck. These are plump birds with rings around their eyes and tight lips. Between them they contain the entire Golden Age: the still lifes, the hunters bag, the Haarlem dunescapes, the Gentlemen XVII. Their flashing plumes and the combination of subdued form and fiery colors reflect the adventurous spirit of the age. Peck. Peck. Cocks and hens battle it out for the last pieces of bread on the path beside the low brick wall. Slowly regaining its reason, the blue eye refocuses on the scene spread out before it; at first the eye appears to be soothed and subdued by what it sees, but then once more comes a click and all of sudden panic strikes! Widening frantically, in terror it strains to look up. A heaving and bloated salmon, jumping waterfall after waterfall to reach its point of origin, the eye tries to rise, to satisfy its craving. Something has been forgotten. Something is missing. Where are the crows? Why aren't they here? It has been said that at the center of each person's consciousness there is a house. Likewise it has been said that at the center of each culture there is a territorium. Under this particular house, bunnies in furry burrows bore endlessly into the dune. Out back, on the patio, two empty deck chairs sit in the sun. And at the door in the middle of the low brick wall, a disembodied eye, floating in a patch of blond, scrambles desperately to reach the lighthouse. It is an old game, played under the dunes by a couple on horseback. Two tall poles are set closely together in the sand. A rope is tied between them, forming a high arch. A fat herring, stuffed first with nutmeg and then larded with cloves, is hung by its tail from the rope. The lady takes her place directly before the gentleman on the horse. Together they open their mouths and the gentleman, with his arms circling the ladies waist, takes hold of the horse's reins. With a kick and a slap they gallop as fast as the horse will carry them toward the arch. As they go under they lean back their heads and snap. The game is over when either the gentleman or the lady catch the herring between their teeth.
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