The Sleek Skin of the Leviathan

Letters and Tops

Your Uncle Emiel will be arriving today, boys

Father at breakfast 

gave them all a stern look over

a steaming spoonful of porridge

I want no trouble from you

Yes, father

Willem?

The jerk of a head, eyes wide 

spoon halted mid-scrape

Yes, father?

Are we to have a repeat of your disgraceful behavior as Mevrouw van Braam was a guest in this house?

No

No father

A slight flush rising

guilty eyes quickly lowered and trained on the porridge bowl 

Jacob 

was unsure of precisely what Willem had done

 but it had not escaped the 

all-seeing eye of their father

not for one moment

Did father know about the night-sound, too?

I hope not. Your uncle is a naval officer, unused to disrespectful, childish behavior. Remember that, or the rod will remember your backsides.

Yes, father

That goes for all of you.

Yes, father

Mother said nothing 

a thin napkin 

patting her lips

Uncle Emiel 

Mother's brother was

the man who posted letters from places with 

names difficult to pronounce, letters

she never read aloud in the dusk of the evening

like she sometimes read aloud from 

the thick-paged, heavy Bible

The small, white letters with dark brown seals were for silent 

reading and for keeping tied together 

with a smooth green ribbon 

in a special box

                      Uncle Emiel was something for Mother alone

In the monotone days of summer

Jacob 

had spent much time playing near the juniper bushes

              making up stories and games with twigs and sticks 

that he collected 

gave names to

              This one was Mijnheer Long Neck, that one Mevrouw Giggles

The rougher games of his older brothers

which often ended in torn breeches, claps about the ears

he ignored

preferring his own company and the friends sticks and leaves became

He was a strange boy 

that's what the housemaid had said to the washerwoman

as they had stood chatting over the low wall at the side 

of the cobbled stable yard

The washerwoman had been smoking a short, fat-bellied pipe and 

Jacob 

had wanted to see it more closely

 A strange boy, she had said

He wondered what that meant

Now that the rainy days of autumn had settled in

Jacob played inside, losing himself for hours 

in the spinning of his wooden top

Occasionally one of his brothers would kick it under 

a sideboard or a bed 

to make Jacob cry

                but Jacob would only stare at the offender

                slowly get up

                retrieve his top 

                        and continue playing

And it was his top he was playing with 

when Uncle Emiel arrived in the black, swaying carriage 

the drizzle of late morning making 

the sky look like the grey, down stuffings 

pulled 

from a pillow