Arnon Grunberg: Welcome home | Reading

Mark had told his family there was no need to meet him at the airport. He hadn’t wanted to be brought there and he didn’t want to be picked up. It was hard for him, saying goodbye and saying hello at airports, he felt like his colleagues were watching him, ill at ease among children not his own, perhaps embarrassed. 

He’d told his wife: “Better if you all just stay at home. There’s no need to drag the children through that.” 

A colleague gave him a ride, and in the center of Wageningen Mark said: “Just drop me here.” The colleague replied: “I’ll drop you off at the door. That duffle is heavy enough as it is.” 

Gladiolenstraat 23, that’s where Mark lives. A house in a row of houses. Six years ago was when they bought it. The mortgage was hefty. But he and his wife both worked hard. And the future looked bright. He was up for promotion. He was talented and ambitious. But his parents-in-law still had to help them out. 

He had called his wife from Eindhoven and said he would probably be there around nine, but there had been delays. Now it’s already past ten. He didn’t want to call again from the car, and he hadn’t texted her either. Mark didn’t like to call his wife when his colleagues were around. She was bound to understand. She’d known him so long. She knew who he was. 

Finally he is standing in front of his own house. The keys are somewhere in his duffel bag, but he’s going to ring the bell, he’ll let them know he’s here. Strange that they didn’t hear the car, that they haven’t already opened the door for him. Maybe the TV is on too loud. 

He has the feeling that he stinks, as though he has a dead mouse in his mouth. He doesn’t want to present himself to his family like that. But he has no more chewing gum. There’s a drawing hanging on the front door. A big bird, or actually more like a flying dragon. “Welcome home, dear Daddy”, is written on the drawing. 

He sets his duffel bag on the ground. It takes a few second for it to dawn on him that he is the dear daddy. The dear daddy has been gone for almost five months. 

Mark looks at the deserted street, the lampposts, the cars. His street. How often had he fantasized about his homecoming? Not drawn-out fantasies, just flashes, brief moments of hope. One time, right after a firefight, he imagined what his return would be like: his wife, the homecoming, his son, his daughter. 

But the only thing he thinks now, is: they didn’t hear me arrive. He could easily walk down the street, call a taxi from a cafe. Make a run for it. No one would notice. No better moment than this. 

As though the thought shocks him, as though the wickedness of it strikes him with a force he had not expected, he rings the doorbell long and hard. Dear daddy is back. 

Right away he hears his children’s shrieks. A cheerful shrieking, but the sound of it frightens him. It sounds like his children are screaming for help. Are they actually his children?

Tijn and Tess are their names. He and his wife wanted one-syllable names. And that those names both started with a “t” was absolutely great. 

Tess was seven when he left, and she still is. Tijn turned five while he was gone. On the phone, Mark had said: “The gifts will get there when I come home.” Only now does he see that it’s not a drawing of a bird or a flying dragon, but of an airplane. 

The door opens. 

They dive into his arms. He lifts them up. Both at the same time, with a bit of effort. Afraid as he is that he might show one of them less favor, that one of them might feel slighted. 

He showers his children with kisses. He pets them. They shout all kinds of things, they ask all kinds of questions, he hears their voices, but precisely what they’re saying he can’t tell. 

Then he puts his children carefully back on the ground. 

It smells different. His house smells different. An odor that seems unfamiliar to him. 

This isn’t his house anymore. 

That’s a thought he chases off as well. 

“Just let me get my duffel here, guys,” he says. 

Mark fetches his duffel bag, comes back inside and closes the door. 

Only then does he see his wife. 

The children’s screaming just won’t stop. It keeps on going, without him being able to understand a word of it, but standing at the end of the hallway is his wife. She’s wearing her bathrobe. She’s wearing bedroom slippers. 

Bianca. 

He often calls her Kaatje. When they have sex, when he thinks about how they met, when she moves him, then she is Kaatje. 

He walks towards her. 

“Couldn’t you have called?” she asks. “You were going to get here at nine. It’s already almost eleven.” 

She sounds disappointed. Tired. Maybe angry too, in the way she can be angry. Bottled up. Under control, but still sharp. 

“The kids have been bouncing off the walls since this afternoon. They’re completely exhausted.”

She is reprimanding him. First Lieutentant Mark Gisbers is receiving a reprimand. 

He drops his duffel bag and hugs his wife. 

She squeezes him and whispers in his ear: “Sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so happy you’re home.” 

His wife smells of night lotion. Marks wishes he could smell his wife, instead of the night lotion. He lets go of her. 

On the table in the living room is a cake with a candle on it. The icing is a bilious green. Written across the top is: “Welcome, Daddy.”

Even the cake wishes him welcome. The sight of it overwhelms him, the bilious-green icing makes him nauseous, almost makes him gag, but at the same time he is touched by the fact that they have made a cake for him. His children, his wife. 

“That’s lovely,” he says. “Doesn’t that look delicious?” He wraps his arms around all three of them now, as though they were a team that has to gear up for a decisive moment in the match. He feels like weeping, but not with the children around. Staring at the icing on the cake, he pulls himself together slowly. 

He sits down and Tess climbs onto his lap. 

“You’ve already got your bathrobe on,” he says. 

“We’ve been waiting for you for hours. The kids have to go to school again tomorrow.”

He was an hour-and-a-half late. He can’t help feeling that now he will never make up for that hour-and-a-half of lost ground. 

“I had to say goodbye to some colleagues, you know how that goes,” he says. 

“Daddy,” Tess says, “this afternoon me and Mom baked this cake. For you.” 

“I see that,” he says. “How lovely. How incredibly lovely. And sweet. So sweet.” 

Tijn shows him drawings. 

He looks at them and comments on them, but he sees nothing. 

Tess jumps up and comes back with a figure made from modeling clay. “This is you, Dad,” he says. “Can you tell, Dad? Can you tell?”

“I can tell,” he says. “It’s me. How lovely, Tess. Absolutely beautiful.” 

“She made it at school,” his wife says. 

“And what’s that?” he asks, pointing at a pointy protrusion. 

“That’s your pistol,” his daughter says. 

“Oh,” he says. He nods. 

The protrusion reminds him of a penis, a sick penis. 

“You have to blow out the candle,” Bianca says. 

He blows out the candle and Bianca cuts the cake. “I promised the kids that they could have a piece too,” she says. “Then they have to go straight to bed.”

The cake is saccharine sweet. The piece they gave him was way too big, he has a hard time working his way through it. A couple of times he has to gag, he can’t help it. He hopes they don’t see it. 

When they’ve all finished their cake, his wife says: “Tomorrow Daddy is going to read you a story, but not tonight, Daddy’s tired and you all need to get some sleep.” 

Tijn doesn’t want to let go of him. “Why are you tired?” he asks. “Are you tired from the war, Dad?” 

“Yeah, that makes you real tired,” Mark says. “So tired that you have to take it easy for a long time. I need to catch up on my sleep.” 

“Let go of Daddy,” his wife shouts. 

She puts the children to bed. 

Mark is relieved. He is not capable of reading a story. Not tonight. Still, he thought it was too bad that Tijn had to let go of him. More than too bad. Unfair. Nasty. 

Only when Bianca returns does he walk over to the liquor cabinet. 

“Whisky?” he asks. “Since when do we have whisky in the house?” 

“Given to us,” Bianca says. “A present.” 

He hesitates, but pours himself a whisky. 

“You too?” he asks. 

“No, I’ll stick to water,” she says. “The kids were so hyper, I just hope they fall asleep.”

Mark goes into the kitchen. He drops the ice cubes into his glass. He has never been fond of whisky, but tonight he’s going to give it another try. 

He pours a glass of water for his wife. 

In the living room, his wife gestures to him to sit beside her at the table. 

He follows her order and lays a hand on her thigh. 

“How are things with you?” she asks. 

She takes a sip of water, she toys with a dessert fork. 

He takes his hand off her leg. 

“I told you everything on the phone,” he says. “What I didn’t tell doesn’t matter.”

He looks at the clay figure his daughter made of him. A soldier with a sick penis that’s supposed to pass for a weapon. 

“And what about you?” he asks. “How are things here?” 

“I told you everything too,” she says. “What I didn’t tell doesn’t matter.” 

He fishes an ice cube from his glass and puts it in his mouth. 

His wife puts the leftover cake in the refrigerator. Then they go upstairs. 

In the bedroom he takes off his uniform. He feels like taking a shower, but he doesn’t. He just brushes his teeth. 

He has longed for this for a long time: his wife, his bed, his bedroom, his bathroom, but now even his bedroom seems small to him, smaller and stuffier than he remembered. He wishes he could feel that longing again, reality seems defective to him. Sobering. Bianca takes off her bathrobe. She hasn’t put on any special lingerie. A pair of pink panties, a bit washed-out. A bra that doesn’t match the panties. 

She hasn’t gone to any trouble for him. 

A few weeks before he left they went to a sex shop in Arnhem and bought lingerie. 

He arrived an hour and half too late. She must have had the lingerie on, but took it off again because he didn’t call. You won’t be seeing me in my sex lingerie today, buddy, she must have thought. 

She lies down beside him. 

“Together at last,” he says. But he’s not lying down. He’s sitting sort of cross-legged, rubbing his right thumb over the calluses on his left foot. 

He looks at his cupboard. At the nightstand. 

In his fantasy it was a passionate return, he had lost himself in desire and arousal, and his wife had too. They’d had to hold themselves in check, they could hardly wait for the kids to go to bed. And despite the children they had made so much noise that afterwards they had been embarrassed. 

“I bet you’re tired,” she says. “You must be exhausted.” 

“It’s not so bad,” he replies. 

Sitting on the bed she unfastens her bra, then takes off her panties. 

She pushes him gently onto his back, tugs on his ankles, helps him take off his underpants. She sits on top of him. 

“I’ve been wanting this so badly,” she says. 

She says it, but he doesn’t believe it. Not a word of it. 

Bianca is a nurse in a geriatrics ward. 

He feels like she’s busy with one of her patients. She carries out the actions she needs to carry out. Routinely and with a certain mildness that might pass for love. This is not lust, this is a duty. 

Just as this is not his house, and not his wife; down the hall children are sleeping, but they are not his. He is occupying a vacant space. That’s all. He knows it. But his wife notices nothing about him. There is nothing to see on him. 

While she’s still sitting on him, Bianca asks: “Where you really scared over there?” 

“Of what?” 

“Of the Taliban?” 

He shakes his head. 

No, he wasn’t scared of the Taliban. He had no time to be scared. The fear began only when his colleague dropped him off in front of Gladiolenstraat 23. He doesn’t know what he fears most, losing his wife or not losing her. They’re going to have to pretend for all time. That scares him. The pretending. 

In the middle of the night he wakes up. He gets out of bed. Naked, he walks into the kitchen. There he lies down on his stomach. On the tiles. And he cries, for a long time but quietly. 

It comes as a relief, the weeping and the cold tiles. 

When he’s finished, he put his head under the cold tap. 

He opens the fridge and looks at the remains of the cake. 

The silence here is different from the one over there. A car in the distance. There is something zooming. He closes the refrigerator. 

Without turning on the lights, he prowls around his living room like a cat, as though he’s going to find something there that he’s never seen before.