Edward van de Vendel - The Days of Bluegrass Love

This is an Em Querido book

Published by Levine Querido

www.levinequerido.com info@levinequerido.com

Levine Querido is distributed by Chronicle Books LLC

Copyright 1999 by Edward van de Vendel

Translation 2022 by Emma Rault

Originally published in the Netherlands by Querido NL

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020937518

Hardcover ISBN 978-1-64614-046-6

Ebook ISBN 978-1-64614-057-2

Published May 2022

This publication has been made possible with financial support from the Dutch Foundation for Literature.

Were good friends, and its good to be you know good friends. Thats a good thing

River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho

TYCHO HAD NEVER BEEN on a planebut hed experienced a moon landing, live and up close.

I N THE ORCHARD WHERE hed been working to save up money for his ticket, hed met Nina. After a day of thinning plums, shed coaxed him to her house and to her bedroom. Theyd sat down on her bed: Nina was laughing, Tycho was talking over her, and then shed started fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. Slowly unfastening them, from top to bottomas if counting down to zero, as if pulling the petals off a flower

Tycho let the sleeves slide off his arms. His shirt fell helplessly to the floor. Nina grabbed the hem of Tychos undershirt and pulled on it. He held his hands up and said, Help! Nina giggledand took her top off. They fell back onto the bed and gently turned, their bellies touching. He could feel Nina breathing as she guided his hands to her bra clasp. He fumbled with it. She kissed him. Then she lifted herself up on her elbow, allowing him to pull the bra from between them. She arched her back and her breasts touched against his skin. For the first time, he felt that double pressure of velvet on his smooth body. Like the legs of a lunar module, carefully touching down. Nineteen sixty-nine, Tycho thought. First man on the moon

W HEN HE BIKED HOME that evening, the night wasnt blue, but palelike skin.

Yes, the moon was glowing, as pale as Ninas skin.

For years Tycho had lived in his pencil case. His days had opened and shut like his schoolbooks. He was the faceless pupil, the son whose parents each recognized half of themselves in him. He looked in the mirror twice a dayonce in the morning, and once in the eveningand during the hours in between he didnt think about himself.

Until his senior year. Thats when everyone started asking him what he intended to study. What his plans for the future were. Whether he was moving out, to the city. For a while he replied, Oh jeez, I dont know, but one afternoon he sat down, opened his computer, and typed his name forty times in a row. Tycho Zeling. Tycho Zeling. Tycho Zeling.

Then he ran to the bathroom to look in the mirror. He saw the startled expression in his eyes. He thought his nose was too small, his lips too full, and his short blond hair too lifeless, as if someone had dropped it on his head by accident. He decided to buy stronger hair gel, take a trip to America, and go a year without thinking about college.

His parents said What? and Oh and nodded cautiously.

I N THE RESTROOM AT the airport, Tycho checked the mirror to see if his hair was mussed up nicely. It was just as it should be. It had to be sticking up in different directions, like signposts pointing his busy mind toward all the corners of the world. He ran a hand through it and headed off to pee.

Men are hunters, he thought, or there wouldnt be pictures of flies in these urinals. Taking aim, a primal instinct. Such an old-fashioned idea.

He hadnt been on the hunt for Nina. With her it had all just happened. Hed liked that. Nina thought his eyes were so beautiful, so blue, so full of expectation. Shed caught them in her laser gaze, from when he first shook her hand, until they kissed. Thats what you called a weapon: more advanced, more subtle, and maybe more dangerous than his, the mans. All right, Tycho thought. Me, the man.

He went to one of the sinks and looked at himself. The door opened. Tycho quickly nudged up the faucet handle and started washing his hands. He glanced up at the reflection in the mirror. The boy who walked in was about his age and height. Dark hair, almost black, dark eyebrows too, and friendly eyes. He was wearing a bright blue T-shirt and skinny jeans. Tycho turned off the tap, turned around, and waved his hands under the towel dispenser. The boy turned too and said, Hi. You must be Tycho.

T HINNING PLUMS IS SOMETHING you do in the summer, when theyre still small and hard and green and hang in bunches. You lug a ladder into the orchard, lean it against the first tree, and climb up. You close your fingers around a bunch and tug: four, five plums come loose and fall down, thudding onto the ground. You climb up a little higher. You grab one handful after another. You grip onto a branch with your legs so you can get at the farthest bunches.

Nina is there too. You dont know her. Your boss says, I trust that between the two of you, you can manage all of these plums. He winks at you. Nina climbs into one tree, you take the other. You dont see her, all you can see is leaves, but the branches of your trees are intertwined. You talk and talk. The sun is shining and theres a warm breeze blowing.

You stay late, because it pays more. Darkness falls and you keep talking. About all sorts of things. About school. About summer vacation. About friendship. About sex. Youre really open. Its as if one word pulls out the next. As if youre seduced by your own words. The crotch of your jeans rubs against the tree trunk. Twigs against your skin. Hay fever in your stomach.

And then Nina says: Wanna come to my place? My parents are out.

H ED WANTED TO KNOW what it was like for a long time. Sometimes it had seemed like it was all his classmates wanted to talk about, but for some reason he preferred to change the subject rather than listen to them. For a while he told himself that sex was like driving lessonssomething for the future, for when he was older. Later on it just felt inconceivable. He simply couldnt picture himself walking up to a girl and starting a conversation, his eyes twinkling.

But Nina had come along and taken him by the hand. As hed cycled home that night from her place, there was a strange sort of pride in the way he pushed on the pedals. He felt like a wise old man and a young knight at the same time. Im in on it now, he thought. I know what theyre talking about.

When he got home, there was a note from his mother on his pillow: