Mona in Three Acts Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2014 by Griet Op de Beeck

  Translation copyright © 2019 by Michele Hutchison

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as Kom hier dat ik u kus by Uitgeverij Prometheus in the Netherlands in 2014. Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2019.

  Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542005449

  ISBN-10: 1542005442

  Cover design by Kimberly Glyder

  for you

  forever

  (“and where you are is where you are not,” T. S. Eliot said)

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  PART ONE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  PART TWO

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  PART THREE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

  —Rainer Maria Rilke

  we forget that we consist of just enough water

  to form a tidal wave

  —Dennis Gaens

  PART ONE

  1976–1978

  1

  They say your eyes get used to the dark, but here, in this tiny room in the corner of the basement, it’s pitch black. Last time, I counted out loud and I got into the hundreds and I still wasn’t allowed out, so I’m not trying that again.

  “I’m not scared.” My voice echoes in the silence. “I’m not scared, because I’m nine years old and that’s big and big girls don’t get scared.” I won’t be here for much longer. Mommy will come downstairs in a minute and let me out. I’ll say sorry and promise never to do it again.

  I’m not a good kid. Alexander is. Mommy says that a lot. She calls Alexander “my darlingest.” That’s not a real word, she made it up just for my brother. Sometimes he’s really annoying and mean, to be honest. Like the time he ruined my painting by drawing three big brown stripes right across it. When I went to tell on him, Mommy said that nobody likes tattletales and he’s still too small to realize that what he did was wrong, but you should have seen his face when he was making the last stripe. Anyway, he’s six and that’s not a baby anymore. Alexander has already called me some nasty names and whacked me on the head, which didn’t hurt of course, but still. I know he never does things like that when Mommy’s watching, so she doesn’t know about it.

  Mommy calls me “Mona-love” when I’m good. I’m good when I help with the dirty dishes or the cleaning or when I set the table. I’m good when I tidy up, when I wash my hands before eating. I’m good when I’m quiet when Daddy wants it to be quiet, or when I do well on a test at school, and other stuff like that. But sometimes I forget I’m supposed to be good. It just happens by accident. I might be drawing and I scribble on the tablecloth by mistake. Or I’m playing with Alexander in the garden, and he falls over because the game is too rough for him. Or I say something I shouldn’t say. Or I come home from school with a torn skirt, and I don’t know how it happened but Mommy has to buy a new one. Like money grows on trees. I’ve also taken candy from the cupboard when it wasn’t allowed. Which is actually stealing. When I got caught, I said I didn’t know it wasn’t allowed, which was lying. And last week I was very mean to Sophie from my class. But, well, she was making up rules that didn’t go with the game and that was why my team lost and then I called her a nasty pig. Of course I know that’s not nice, but it just slipped out. I have to learn to think before I speak, Mommy says, and she’s right. I’m not always good at that. Sophie cried and told the teacher I called her a pig, and then the teacher was really mad at me. I was scared she’d tell Mommy, but she didn’t. That was lucky.

  I hold my hand in front of my eyes to find out whether I can see it. Maybe a little bit? Or is it just because I know it’s there? I’m sitting on the floor because I can’t find the stool that’s here somewhere. The floor’s hard and cold, my bottom is already beginning to hurt a bit. Anyhow, I’m going to stay close to the floor because there are spiderwebs hanging from the ceiling, and I don’t want to get them in my hair. If I had a tissue, I’d blow my nose, but I don’t have one so I suck the snot back up. I can do that by breathing in hard through my nose. Mommy thinks it’s filthy when I do that, but well, she can’t hear it now. “A girl without manners doesn’t get anywhere in life.” She says that a lot.

  I try not to listen to the sounds down here, a strange kind of tapping and a quiet buzzing. I don’t know where they’re coming from, and I start to think there might be a monster in here or something. I know they don’t exist, but sometimes, here in this little room, I forget that. Well, not really forget, but it’s like my brain is switched off. I’m a scaredy-cat, Mommy says, I have to be tougher. She’s right, of course, but I don’t know how.

  I could be stronger—for a nine-year-old, I mean. Only not in the dark—I hate the dark, and spiders, I’m scared of them, and mice, and big dogs. But only if they’re really big. I like little dogs. Little dogs always seem friendly. Like they don’t know what sadness is, unless their owner shows them. I saw that
once, my best friend Ellen’s dog lay down with her when she was sick, really quietly. Usually he’s jumping around and wagging his tail and barking because he’s happy to see Ellen. When he was lying next to her on the rug beside the sofa, I decided that dogs might be the nicest animals in the world, along with white rabbits, those little ones, and baby goats, like the ones on the farm we went to with school. If I had a goat, I’d call it Alexander just to mess with my brother. Geese seem nice too, only Daddy once told us to be careful around them, they can bite. I thought that was weird because geese don’t have teeth. Then Daddy said they do it with their beaks, but that’s stupid because you bite with teeth, otherwise it’s not called biting, is it?

  I don’t know how long I’ve been in here already, an hour, or maybe four hours, I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll die of just sitting here getting bored. I try to crack my knuckles one by one—Daddy doesn’t let me do that, it gives you rheumatism later, he says, but I like the sound. I’m not allowed to put my hand in the bins of nuts in the supermarket either, but sometimes I do it because it feels so nice, and afterward my hand is all salty and I can lick it off, but Mommy thinks that’s gross.

  I can hear someone coming down the stairs. Phew, it’s her, I can tell from the sound of her high heels. I can’t help smiling a bit because I’m so happy my punishment is over. I have to stop smiling before Mommy sees me, otherwise she’ll think I’m not sorry. I hear her clearing her throat like she always does when she’s angry. The door opens.

  “Well?”

  My eyes shut on their own because Mommy has turned on the light in the part of the basement where she’s standing.

  “I’ll never do it again.”

  “What else?”

  “Sorry, Mommy, I’ll never do it again.” I wrap my arms around her waist.

  She taps my left shoulder twice with her hand. “Yes, yes, that’s enough. Go upstairs now.”

  I’m so happy that Mommy always forgives me each time. Only mothers can do that, I think, always forgive you whatever you’ve done. When I’m upstairs in the bright light, it takes a while for my eyes to get used to it.

  Daddy is just coming into the kitchen. “Hello, kids,” he calls out to me and Alexander. “How did you get those cobwebs in your hair?”

  I don’t answer. I don’t dare.

  “People who don’t want to listen have to pay the price.”

  Daddy doesn’t respond. He looks at me. “Everything OK?”

  “’Course,” I say and walk into the dining room. I’ll read, I think, because I have a really nice book and it cheers me up. Daddy walks past me. It looks like he’s going back to his dental office.

  “Do you have more patients?” I ask.

  “No, I have to do some other work.”

  “Can I come with you? I’ll read my book.”

  “Oh, Mona,” Daddy says.

  Before he has the chance to say anything else, I say, “I’ll be really quiet, I promise. I won’t tell you anything about my book, because it’s so exciting I just want to keep reading.”

  “Go on, then,” he says, holding the door open.

  I’m not allowed in here much, but I love Daddy’s office. It smells like the funny things he uses to repair people’s teeth. There’s a diagram of what a full set of teeth looks like, which is kind of boring, but I don’t say that. There’s a special kind of electric armchair that Daddy can move up and down with a switch. I like to lie down on it. There’s a massive lamp above it that’s really bright, perfect for reading if I position it right. I don’t want to disturb Daddy, so I hop up right away, without his help. The back of the chair is in exactly the right position. Daddy sits down at his desk and gets some files full of papers from his bag, then he begins to leaf through them, jotting stuff down from time to time.

  I like sitting here like this without talking, him working and me reading. Daddy really loves working, he hates salsify, which is a vegetable, and the new postman who sometimes leaves the newspaper sticking out of the mailbox so if it rains you can’t read it anymore, and if Daddy’s watching television, he sometimes talks to no one in particular. My dad is very clever because when he does crossword puzzles he does the five-star ones, and you can’t get any more stars than that.

  “You reap what you sow.” Mommy says that a lot too. There are lots of sayings that Mommy says all the time. You’re supposed to remember them and learn something from them—she explained that to me once.

  I wish we could stay here like this forever and that I never had to go to school and do stupid math problems, and that I never had to lie in bed without being able to sleep, and that I never had nightmares, and that I never had to go to the room in the basement, and that I never made anyone angry, and that I won a prize for being the nicest girl in the world. The clock in the hall strikes nine, loudly, like someone is banging a gong. I don’t like that sound and neither does Daddy, he says, but the clock used to belong to Daddy’s parents, so it has to stay here, he says.

  “Past your bedtime, off you go,” Daddy says.

  “Yes,” I reply. I try not to sound sad about it.

  2

  I know it’s not actually allowed because I’m not ten yet, and I have to cross the big road, but who’s going to know? Since it happened, our house has been full of people all the time. Drinking beer.

  I stand at the back door, look around, no one can see me. I close the door, run to the garage, get my bike out, and set off.

  I’m guessing it will take me about fifteen minutes to get there. It’s a lovely day: blue sky, the odd friendly cloud, an amazing amount of birds. From down on the ground, all the birds look black, from close by they’re not, though, most of them aren’t. Crows are, and blackbirds, well, the males are. Daddy taught me the French word: merle.

  I like biking, especially when the sun is shining and the warm air comes blowing at you. That’s what I think about inside my head. It’s good to think about nice things.

  I bike past the baker’s, the lady at the counter sometimes gives me candy, completely for free. When I say “Thank you, ma’am” politely—because politeness gets you further in life, Mommy says—the lady smiles, and when she smiles, you can see her golden tooth. It’s a bit scary, but because I know I don’t want to look at it, I look even more, of course. That’s like trying not to think about potato chips when you know you’re not allowed to have any, which makes you want some even more.

  I bike past Sophie’s house as well, she’s nice but a bit smelly. She smells a little like trash in the summer, and sometimes like attics where nobody’s been for a while. When the teacher made us sit together in class last year, I was kind of unhappy about it. But Uncle Artie said that if you smell a bad smell for a hundred and eighty seconds, you get used to it, that’s what scientists say. I don’t know if he really got that from scientists or if he just said that to make me feel better, but it did actually help. Each day when school started, I sat extra close to Sophie, and then I counted to a hundred and eighty, not too fast, while I breathed in hard through my nose. And then it was easier to put up with it that day. School starts again soon. I wonder who I’ll sit next to this year. I hope next to Ellen. Ellen’s my best friend and I’m hers. She hates mosquitoes, bees, flies, and card games, she loves yellow and ice cream, even in the winter, and if she has to sneeze, which she does all the time, really all the time, she sneezes at least three times, and sometimes lots more.

  I reach the crossroads, the traffic light is red. There aren’t that many cars on the road today, because it’s Sunday. Most of them are blue, I notice. Ours is green. The same green as ponds when the sun’s shining on them. When my dad brought the car home for the first time, about four years ago, I didn’t like the color. I was disappointed he hadn’t picked red or, if he had to, yellow. But it was a Citroën DS, my dad said proudly, an old car, much prettier than today’s cars. I had to agree with him. The headlights on the cars looked like eyes, like it wasn’t a machine but a person. I thought that was funny. He bought it from
a patient, he said, so he couldn’t choose the color. I got that.

  In general, I don’t like not being able to choose. Like at school, where the teacher always says what we’re going to do next. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to go to school. But then I think about always being on vacation, and then I’m not sure that would be much better.

  I’m almost there. I know where the scrapyard is because we always drive past it when we go to visit Granny. Which is lucky. The sun is in my eyes, but I can handle it. Being able to handle a lot of things is helpful in life, my mom says. Just a bit farther and I’ll be there. I get down, lean my bike on its stand, and walk around the building. It’s an ugly gray rectangle with a door, some windows, a big gate, and a flat roof. Everything’s closed, of course, which is the point and the reason I waited until Sunday. I didn’t want anyone looking over my shoulder. And I knew I’d be able to get into the yard, there are only some short posts at the side so people can’t steal the cars.

  The wrecks are at the back, on the plot next to the poplar trees. It hasn’t rained for so long that the hard, sandy soil is dusty, and back here it’s full of gravel, the small, sharp sort. One little stone already got into my sandal, but I can’t be a wimp. If I stop to get it out, a new one will just get in right away. I walk on and take a good look around. What a mess: wrecked cars and parts all over the place, there’s a funny stack of cars in the corner. They’re piled on top of each other like Duplo blocks.

  Suddenly I see it, it’s at the front left: our pond-green Citroën DS. At first I keep my distance, trying to take in what I can see. I count to sixty, which is long enough. How smashed it looks. The two left wheels are off, the front bumper has disappeared, and its whole nose is dented. It hasn’t got a windshield anymore, of course, and part of the roof is missing, mainly on the passenger side. I take a few steps closer, and then a few more. I want to look into the car. There’s not much to see on Daddy’s side, except that everything’s broken, and dirty, only the steering wheel is still there. Then I go and look on Mommy’s side, where it’s different. There’s dried blood on that funny rod above the dashboard and on the seat. A lot. The blood isn’t red, more brownish. I get even closer, my head almost inside the car. It smells of gasoline and burning meat and paint. I look more carefully and see bits of skin. And hair. Strands of Mommy’s blond hair. I stay there for a long time, just looking. Sometimes you have to take a good look.