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Great Gullet Creek
to brood here, year after year, the old congruent clouds. There’s no better place on earth to be clouds than over this wild, windblown edge of Flanders: no place where rain falls hard as willow knots, dull as North Sea froth, or with that shade of cobblestone gray — and nowhere do winds whistle this way: peaked and forlorn like muskrat calls in De Grote Geule, Great Gullet Creek. Once, in a Brueghel winter, a farmer and I sailed across Great Gullet Creek — on the anger of Flemish winds. Christmas break, 1949. I'm six. My parents leave me at the Grote Geule farm: they're going on a trip to very-far-away again, the farmers will take care of me — I must be obedient, and polite. One day, the oldest farmer packs clothes, food, and candles in a large basket. We'll spend a night in the fisherman's cabin on the creek: A surprise tomorrow, he says. All night gales pound at the walls and windows. When I wake it's still dark. I watch the farmer light the oil-lamp, dress over his striped pajamas, pull a small cross from his vest, kiss it, and put it back. He feeds the stove, throws in a match and — whomp! — flames burst out, spiked and golden, the farmer's face glows, long shadows waltz on walls, eel-nets swirl, rods and reels wave, frozen windowpanes glitter, the floor is liquid, then — clang — he slams the stove shut, and everything is small and cold again. We stand by the stove, he helps me cover my chest and back with sheets of brown paper we waxed the night before — melting candles in a tin can, then pouring two layers on each sheet: Wind-rage armors he says, handing me blue varnished wooden shoes. On the table, lit by the oil-lamp, two twigs of licorice wood, a rock of raw sugar, an orange, two chunks of black bread. He cuts the orange in two, shatters the rock with his knife, and stuffs the pieces deep into the orange halves. I chew the sour bread, suck at the sweet fruit. Outside, cold light oozes through clouds: daybreak. Scarves, cowls, coats, gloves. We slip the licorice twigs in our pockets. Warm our hands one last time by the stove, open the door to a wind sharp as nettles. Door-latch. Gate. Gate-latch. We walk toward the frozen creek, he pisses long and steamy on a mooring pole. Behind the poplars a small sun barely sifts through clouds. A brown buzzard cowers in a willow like a quilled Quasimodo. Flat-bottomed and upside-down, a rowboat lies in the frozen field. The farmer slips his hand under the prow, orders Close your eyes, then Look! Four steel blades dangle from leather straps: skates! We're going skating! We sit on the boat’s hull, he ties the skates to our wooden shoes. The wind slaps down smoke from the cabin’s chimney. Acrid ribbons of coal fumes tangle with reeds. From across the creek come broken, wind-gutted calls of village church bells, d-dong... d-dong... He looks at the sky: Skating will be good, the wind’s angry — it’s coming from Germany. We set foot on ice, January chews my cheeks, but I don’t utter a sound: he'd warned me Only city fillies fuss. He hunches like a buzzard before taking flight, grabs the sides of his coat, opens his arms wide, turns his back to the wind, lets it belt against him — propel him: he orders Crouch, grab my coat, hold on! A gust whacks me against him, he takes two wide strides, pulls me along: the wind pushes us, we’re sailing! The ice is littered with leaves, twigs, my skates send thunder through my legs, I can barely breathe. My lips and throat hurt, but I scream Faster, faster! He straightens his huge back, opens his arms even wider, his skates clatter, pelt my face with ice, we’re picking up speed, the creek sounds like a hundred drums, my eyes freeze, I can no longer see, but I’m no city filly, no city filly. When we reach the opposite bank, our faces are blue, knees so stiff we can’t straighten our legs. I'm thirsty, he gives me his licorice stick to chew, rubs his palms, blows into them, and puts them to my cheeks. Winter blows low oboe notes through the reeds. A few yards away, northern shovelers quack and ruffle their feathers, sending rust and cobalt flashes over the ice. We untie our skates, turn our backs to the creek, and walk through the potato polders toward the village of Kieldrecht. My wooden shoes slip on frozen loam, I trip, he holds me by the wrist. The winds won’t stop, they churn clouds, send them crashing into the steel blade of the horizon. We don’t speak, hurry through the village toward the café by the windmill. He pushes open the heavy oak door. A few nods and taciturn daag from stout drinking men. We head for the high delft-tiled stove, hang our coats on a chair beside it. The tables are covered with thick, ruglike tapestries, I rub my hands over their wool: they smell of must and winter, like the hem of the farmer’s coat. He orders Dutch gin, buttered bread, mugs of broth. He pours gin in my mug. We slurp and slurp. He throws back his head, closes his eyes, crosses his hands on his belly, smiles. Behind heavy lace curtains, I watch clouds shred against the church steeple. On the way back, our skates ring as he slings them over his shoulder. Winds blow night deep into the streets of Kieldrecht. Bundled silhouettes slip out of low doors, lock shutters, disappear. Bent figures hurry by on black, high-handled bicycles: Good-night farmer, they say, Good-night farmer, he answers. We hurry home through the potato polders. When we near the farm, the dog yaps, cows bellow in the barn. At dinner, I ask the farmer for the cross he hides in his vest. I kiss it, so it will keep my parents very-far- away. Outside, the Flemish winds sing. From the village steeple fall six low notes.
I sit by a larch, pen and journal in my lap. Two suns in my tea, the lemon slice the brightest. Tannin clouds the mug's sky, today's fate still steeps in its leafy depths. I count each blow of a hammer somewhere up the street, want it to stop after seven, seventeen, twenty-one, anything with a seven, but it never does, even when I give it seven last chances. I need an augury, a sign to help me believe that the pounding means something — something good. Antwerp, 1947 My parents, hoarding profits from what they call the good war, are happy: a million hammers, ten million nails are needed to rebuild Europe, and my father sells iron and steel. One’s misery is another’s happiness, he says as we drive through Pelican Street and what had been the Jewish Quarter. I am five.
Father spits out his cigarette: Nothing’s changed here, only pigeons and rats instead of Jews. I don’t know that word: joden, he says in Dutch, joden. I ask what kind of animals joden are. My parents laugh, laugh.
Voting Tongue Yet this Spring of 2000, thirty percent of the Flemish voted extreme right. In France, Austria, Germany, Israel — Israel, too — votes speak menacing tongues and millions pretend they don't hear it. And I write about a lemon slice in my tea? About needing a hammer to stop its blows in groups of seven because a priest, from behind the barbed grills of a confessional window once hissed to me: "You’ll be saved only if seven generations remember you as a good Christian"? Write about Your Times 1961. Oscar Vladislas Milosz teaches writing workshops in Brussels. I brandish my notebooks filled with Baudelaire, Aragon, Sartre —
the brightest. Today’s writing still brews in a mug's leafy depths. From which memory must I — will I — speak? Which present do I — must I — call mine? Give Yourself in Belief Glued to the pages of my journal, a letter from a friend:
Thief, 1950 Oxblood velvet drapes frame Father's office windows. Ten million hammers pound nails in Belgium France, Holland, Italy, England, Russia, Poland, and Germany — Germany, too — building roofs, barns, houses, churches, schools, railroads, and bridges after the war. Father loads iron and steel onto Antwerp's ships — he's a rich man now. I wait for him to return from meetings. I'm seven A dusk sun strokes the drapes, his mahogany desk gleams bloodred. I open a drawer, see Father's pen. I hear ships from the harbor urge me — Doo-it, dooo — so I reach for it, gold and heavy, take and uncap it, draw a line in my palm — the ink is green, a strong, hard green. The door opens, Father grabs his pen, slaps my face, knees my chest, but listen: my need to write started then, a hunger to write, to own a pen but not, but never — Summons Dusk. On a chair by the larch, my journal and pen. O small Gods of Grief, grant me to write from seven memories deep, but not in my father's tongue — but never with his pen.
In Posse:
Potentially, might be ... |
