Vandevelde Part II

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Chapter 2

Crawling home, Jos came across the lighter that was manually lighting all the lampposts. The streets were soundlessly quiet, only the sounds of owls and peregrine falcons on the tower were audible.

A little later, he reached his house, which was above the printing house that had belonged to his father the previous month but was bought by the factory owner, Van Aert, who bought it for his son to start the real work. Jos decided to peek through the windows, hoping to see something. The machines were still there, though covered in a thin layer of dust. Stacks of old, unpublished newspapers lay rotting for the animals, and the room was also quite dark.

Peeking at it depressed him and went through an alleyway to the back of the printing house, where he climbed through his bedroom window with a ladder. His room wasn't his alone, but also that of his two toddler-aged brothers. He grabbed their blanket and lay down on the cold, creaking, cramped floor, closing his eyes.

As soon as he opened it again, the sun shone directly into the room. His head pounded like a heartbeat from love. He strolled toward the stairs and stopped there, looking down, his eyes, legs, shoulders, and head tired—tired of work, tired of the surroundings, tired of life. Once his ears had recovered, he could only make out the bleating and loud cries of his brothers. He prepared himself for the daily chaotic breakfast. The stairs creaked under his feet, and immediately he encountered a rather mundane scene.

His father, Herman, sat at the table with a half-rotten sandwich in his hand, the two whining toddlers, Leopold and Frans—strange names for toddlers, but that was none of Jos's business. His mother, Lydia, was making sandwiches with whatever they had left, which wasn't much. As soon as Herman sees Jos enter, he looks angry:

"I heard you've been drinking," Herman says sternly.

Jos, still half drunk himself, is quite confused. He thinks for a moment, but his mouth was ahead of his thoughts:

"...Huh?"

"In the evening, big Jan, now too, where's your pre?"

Goddammit, he'd forgotten. Normally Herman, Jos, and Lydia pool their pre to buy something, and this time he must have wasted it on drink, you clumsy fool that he is. He sinks into the ground in shame.

"No food this week, and you're working overtime, understand?"

That wasn't really a question. It was an order. Despite all that, Lydia remained silent. Over the years, she'd learned that as a woman, it's better to just keep quiet, even though it shouldn't be that way.

"Dad, I can't work overtime—"

"What the hell?!"

Herman interrupted. He stood up and walked menacingly toward Jos, pointing.

"You'll be hanging if you contradict him again, little man."

Jos couldn't even roll his eyes, and Herman gave Jos a firm thrashing on the head, each time harder and harder, giving Jos a huge headache.

"That'll teach you... you scumbag, you'll be the one to disappear."

Jos held his head in pain and slipped outside and towards the factory. The sun greeted him brightly, and he set off for the sugar factory.