The Elder Man Read online

  “Oh… it’s all come about almost by chance really. We have a friend who lives in the region. Katherine, of course,” she said, nodding toward Van.

  “One of my very best students, and a dear friend too,” said Van, smiling.

  “And she has built herself a cob house.”

  “Very picturesque.”

  “Indeed it is. Did she get the dragon bug from you?”

  “No, no, she was obsessed with dragons long before meeting me,” said Van, laughing. “It’s not always my fault if people become a little crazy with cobbing.”

  “Well,” said Edith, also laughing, “we were planning a long holiday in France and were curious to try out cobbing, at her place, you understand. We saw all these pics of her house on Facebook, and it seemed like so much fun… but she said, if you want to learn this, go learn from the best, and she recommended we come here. She said it would be amazing. So we did. And so it is.”

  Van bowed. “And will you build your own cob house? Back in the US?” asked Armin.

  “I don’t know, to be honest. We have a very good house already. But it’s an interesting process to learn. We are involved in various charity programs. Soup Angels and such. Very hands-on. I cook. But we thought this opens some interesting possibilities to do something for and with the community.”

  “Indeed it does,” said Armin.

  “Although cooking soup is damn heroic, too, in my book,” said Van, and Armin nodded with feeling.

  “Indeed. I made hot dogs for five once, and I almost collapsed under the stress. I don’t know how cooks do it. What do you do, back home, I mean, I mean, for a living?”

  “We are both teachers. Retired. Church musicians now. I am an organist. And Edith is in the choir, and of course she is a poet too, published all over the place, you know,” said Mark.

  “Oo-kay,” said Armin, “that is something different.”

  The Americans laughed, and as they all three talked on amicably, Van watched Armin.

  He was more at ease, obviously, but he more or less constantly deflected questions about himself. Van didn’t think he was devious, but he was definitely very cautious, perhaps by habit more than intent. He was, of course, a journalist and perhaps more used to asking questions then answering them.

  Van watched him with curiosity—he liked to get to know people in his workshops, learn what made them interested in natural building. If he knew what they were looking for, he was more likely to be able to teach them what they needed. But Armin was a bit of a puzzle. He had taken to the work surprisingly well and was learning fast. He was obviously a highly intelligent young man. Van didn’t think that coming to the workshop would have been his choice, but he had bitten the bullet and put his back into it. He seemed to be even cautiously enjoying himself.

  Van had to admit that he was also looking at him with pleasure.

  Under the owlish glasses, the permanently ruffled hair, and the acne, there was a handsome face. It did show best when he was most absorbed and focused, at which times he could look both remote and aloof, almost arrogantly distant. It was a look that was both deceiving—Armin was not so much aloof as truly lost in his own thoughts half the time—and compellingly sensual. There was a lot more to this young man than the almost comically inept city-boy. He had a hidden steely strength, something almost fierce, something almost wild, something undeniably capable that had not been allowed into the light yet.

  At first Van had thought that Armin purposefully hid behind those stark glasses and nerdy poses. But in truth, he didn’t think that Armin was aware either of his latent beauty or of how cool and distant he could look at times. His nervous smile, which was coming more often now, was both shy and boyish, almost goofy in fact. He was both less handsome when he smiled and far, far more engaging. But Van could not help wondering what went on in that beautiful head.

  ****

  Armin

  That afternoon proved hazardous, fun, frustrating, and instructive for everyone.

  The very wet cob had subsided somewhat as water drained out of it, but was still a plashy mass that was too loose to work into neat cobs.

  “The point is,” said Van, “that, when all is said and done, you don’t really need to make cobs, unless you are building highly sculptural bits like arches and niches. Most plain walls can be built much faster like this.”

  He grabbed a digging fork, loaded it with a flat, ragged patty of sloppy cob, and splatted it on the wall.

  “It’s a lot easier to work the bits together when they are so wet. And gravity takes care they bond well with the previous course.”

  The next twenty minutes were chaotic. It seemed the very heart of simplicity if you saw Van doing it, but in truth, a digging fork loaded with cob was both heavy to lift and a dangerous object when swinging about fast. It was also hard to aim, until you got the gist of it. Many forkfuls of mud ended up flying right over the wall or flopping helplessly down its face. Once more Armin realized how much graceful coordination was needed to work efficiently and exactly. Van gave advice to all on how to move and corrected obvious mistakes but also said that if the fork just didn’t work for them, there was no point fighting with a tool.

  “If a tool doesn’t suit you, find a different one. Or use your hands. They are good enough. It will just take you longer, and you’ll find it’s very tiring for your finger joints. Pace yourself. Don’t try to lift too much at a time. Take pauses.”

  They all found their own rhythms in time. The wall mounted very fast indeed, so fast that Van said they would have to slow down or it would not hold its own weight.

  “A very wet wall that goes up too fast always does one of two things. It mushrooms out at the top or it splüges.”

  “It what?” said Sofia.

  “Splüges,” said Van. “German word turned into English. Always a messy mix. It means the sides of the wall bulge out like a barrel, because too much weight is added on top before the cob underneath is stiff enough to support it.”

  “My cob is splüging,” said Sofia, giggling. “It sounds funny.”

  “It does. But you don’t want it to happen, nonetheless. So let’s discuss ways to avoid that…”

  Later, Armin sat down on a pile of clay, exhausted, hungry, hot, and sticky with sweat and mud. He was also feeling oddly happy. There was a strange relief from all cares in the heavy physical work, physical work that had an obvious result, unlike the empty meaningless exercise of jogging on a treadmill or even running in the park for the sole purpose of burning calories.

  It was altogether more satisfactory to burn calories and see something come of it. It’s like burning fuel to actually go somewhere, as opposed to a car idling in a parking lot.

  He smiled to himself, and right then, Van flopped down to sit beside him. He passed him a bottle of water, not cold, but cool.

  “You look tired,” Van said.

  “I am. I really am. Totally knackered. But in a good way.” He smiled.

  Van returned the smile and nodded at the bottle. “Stay hydrated, duckling,” he said.

  Armin took a swig of water and watched the others for a minute or two. Some were taking a pause too, in twos or threes, chatting laughing, puffing. Some were still working at the wall, smoothing down the face of the clay lovingly. Michel escaped from his mother’s attention, as he tended to do at every opportunity, and came to climb into Van’s lap.

  “Hello, little guy,” said Armin, trying to make himself agreeable.

  Michel shot him a suspicious glance. He did speak English, Armin knew that, but he generally pretended he didn’t.

  “Bonjour, Armand,” the child conceded finally.

  Van grinned, mussing his hair. “C’est Armin, Mimou. Pas Armand. Ces’t un nom Allemand.”

  “Mmm,” said Michel, unconvinced.

  Armin laughed. “It’s okay. I can live with Armand.”

  The child gave a sniff and slunk off Van’s lap and went off to play with Jade.

  Armin was taken aback an
d a little piqued.

  “He does speak English, doesn’t he?”

  “Oh yes,” said Van.

  “Then, why… why doesn’t he talk to me?”

  Van smiled and shrugged. “He’s making his mind up.”

  “About what?”

  “About you. He’ll talk to you when he’s ready. Which is a basic human right. Or should be.”

  Armin gave it a moment’s thought and then grinned. “Yes. Fair enough. I can agree to that.” And then, because he had idly wondered about it since he had arrived, he added, “Is Van short for … Ivan? Or Van … Van Gogh, Van Dyke? Van … something? Dutch?”

  Van smiled. “It’s short for Silvano. You know how people are. They would end up calling me Silly, sooner or later, so I beat them to it and cut it down to Van. Or Vani. That was Michel’s idea, actually.”

  “Silvano. Is that Italian? I can’t place your accent at all.”

  Van shrugged. “I come from a lot of different places.”

  “Like the Highlander? Are you immortal too?”

  “Aren’t we all?” asked Van, grinning, and raised his own water bottle. “Cheers.”

  At the table that evening, Van said they had made excellent progress that day and, if they were not too tired, they were all invited to his own house after dinner to have drinks and chat in comfort, if they liked.

  “It’s not compulsory,” he said, smiling, but everyone was charmed by the invitation and looking forward to it.

  Unlike Armin, who was more or less a house guest, the others slept in tiny cottages scattered at the edges of the garden and had not seen the inside of Van’s house yet.

  Chapter Five

  Wednesday Evening

  Armin

  Armin lay down in the palace for a while after dinner. He just let his mind roam for a little while, relishing the quiet and silence of his little earthen cocoon. Then, because his brain was invariably too loud and busy for him to ever lie still, quietly meditating, he idly picked one of the books from the shelf, at random. It was a very old book, which was almost disintegrating. When he opened it, he saw that many passages were underlined or marked at the margin. “Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another,” said one heavily marked page. Armin looked at the cover of the book. John Muir.

  Another damn tree-hugger, he thought, trying not to fall asleep, because he didn’t think he would wake up before the next morning.

  He was exhausted, not only from the heavy work to which he was unaccustomed but even more from the intense sociability of the day. He was a man used to being alone, working alone, thinking alone. He had had, all his life—he was a geek and a bit of a nerd but not a monk—intense sexual relationships and one boyfriend he had truly loved, but he had no close friends, no real social life outside a few very specialized internet forums, and ten hours a day of face-to-face group interactions were frying his brain to a mush.

  Still, it would be rude not to show up at the evening gathering, especially since it was practically on his doorstep

  And he did feel a tickle of carefully subdued excitement at seeing Van again.

  He felt surprisingly at ease with the older man, even when Van challenged him to difficult tasks or questioned his way of thinking about things, and he relished Van’s quiet, solid presence. There was a calm to him that in another man could have been bland and heavy but in him, with his undeniable charisma, was soothing and magnetic instead.

  Also, not to put too fine a point to it, Van was not at all bad looking, considering.

  Sure, he was rather more ruggedly handsome than beautiful and was taken, disastrously taken, hitched hand and foot, wife, child and all. That was a good thing of course. An insurance against stupidity. Last thing I need is getting ideas about a barefoot, mud-spattered tree-hugger with crazily utopic ecological principles. Still, it can’t hurt to look at the man, can it?

  So he finally picked himself up, put on a clean shirt, and padded out toward the house. He was almost immediately sidetracked by a cracking noise and took a detour along the side of the building to find Van, still in working clothes and covered in dust and sweat, splitting wood with an axe.

  Whoa, ruggedly handsome and no kidding. Rugged being the operative word here. Gosh, he’s hot stuff, make no mistake.

  “Er… can I help?” he asked uncertainly, perfectly aware that if he tried to split a log with an axe he would most likely chop off his own foot at the ankle. Still, it seemed the polite thing to say.

  “Oh, Armin. Why, yes you can, actually,” said Van, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand while he leaned on the axe for a moment. “Can you take this lot inside, please? Just set it by the fireplace in the living room. I’ll join you in a minute.”

  “Of course,” said Armin, scooping up a load of rough, splintery logs. He made his way into the door of the house, backwards, pushing it open with his butt, and was immediately greeted by a babble of voices and the lovely autumnal smell of a wood fire.

  The living room was already filling. The Danish contingent had obviously arrived first. Ella and Frederic were placing some chairs and floor pillows around the fireplace, where a small blaze danced and popped noisily. The day had been hot enough, but the evening was cool, and the fire was a cheerful sight in the darkening room. The two elder girls were exploring the house quite uninhibitedly, exclaiming in delight at all the sculptures, stroking the twists and curves in the clay. It did beg to be touched, but Armin hoped Van and Allie had no qualms about people nosing into their bedroom and other private rooms.

  He arranged the wood in a niche by the fireplace obviously made for the purpose and then stood about unsure what to do with himself.

  Mark and Edith had also just come in and were still looking around uncertainly. Meintje and Rebekka were just entering the front door, Rebekka leaning lightly on Meintje’s arm for guidance. That was when Armin noticed a newcomer, a stocky fellow of about thirty or thirty-five who was standing by the door, attempting, in vehement native French, to convince Michel to come inside. Michel obviously wanted to stay in the garden playing with Maja and Jade, although it was almost dark outside.

  Finally Allie emerged from the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel and told the newcomer to let Michel stay out, if he wished.

  “Il n'y a aucun danger, Jean-Pierre. Ce n'est pas la jungle!” she said soothingly, but with a tinge of exasperation in her voice too. Jean-Pierre looked stormy and ready to reply with some heat, but in that moment, Van came into the door with another load of freshly split firewood in his arms and, among much confusion, everyone, including the children, was herded into the living room, Michel following Van like an adoring puppy, Jade following Michel, and Maja following, and half riding, Jade.

  Van, who was still in mud-spattered jeans and sweat-stained t-shirt, while everybody had changed to their best for the evening, lumped the load of wood by the fireplace, begged everyone to make themselves at home, looked into the kitchen briefly, excused himself, and disappeared.

  Everyone seemed to know Jean-Pierre already, and nobody thought of introducing him to Armin. He guessed he must have been around on the first day of the workshop, which he had missed.

  Armin peeked into the kitchen, where Allie was washing cups. “Can I be of any assistance?” he asked. He always tiptoed carefully around Allie, since their first disastrous meeting.

  “Oh dear, yes, you could dry these and bring them out, please?”

  He was lining mugs on a tray—water for tea was warming up on the stove, and Allie had gone off fetching wine for those who preferred it—when Edith walked in to ask if he needed help.

  “I am good, thanks,” he said. “Who’s the cross Frenchman?” he asked in an undertone.

  “The… oh, you mean Jean-Pierre? But of course you weren’t here on Sunday evening. He’s Allie’s boyfriend. Bit
of a surly fellow, indeed, but a good chap at heart. He drove all the way to Toulouse to fetch Meintje after she missed her train, which was very kind, especially considering the traffic they have around here on Sundays.”

  “Allie’s boyfriend?” said Armin, astonished. “But I thought Allie and Van were…”

  Edith smiled. “Oh, no, no. They are good friends, that’s for sure. But they are not together. Just colleagues. She lives somewhere near Tursac, some five kilometers or so down the road, I think. He doesn’t have a girlfriend. Which puts all the women here in a bit of a tizzy. Even the married ones, I don’t mind telling you.” She winked at him in a way that was altogether too mischievous for a church musician.

  “Oh,” he said, grinning back, delighted.

  Well, fancy that, he thought. The guy is single? How?

  He had taken it for granted that Allie lived here, with Van. She seemed perfectly at home, as did Michel. But it was true that Armin had flopped into bed so early the previous evenings that he had no idea if Allie slept in the house or left at the end of the day. It’s true that Michel is always following Van like a little puppy, and Allie does look at him adoringly all the time. But in fact I have never seen Allie and Van kissing or anything like. I just assumed… His train of thought was interrupted as he walked into the living room with his heavy tray, and Monica and P’tit Paul, the last arrivals, entered the door, and they all sat down around the fire with a fine flow of talk already going.

  Van reappeared a minute later, dressed in perfectly clean long blue jeans, a black t-shirt—new, not faded—and even socks. His hair and beard were wet and brushed. Wow, thought Armin, eyeing the older man surreptitiously. He does look more than handsome, scrubbed clean and brushed out. Extremely fuckable, in fact. And he is single. How on earth is it even possible?

  “Van, Van,” squealed Maja excitedly as he appeared, and she ran to meet him, followed by Sofia and Josefine.

  “Please, please,” they squealed, more or less together, in such a shrill cacophony that Jade started barking, which hardly improved matters. “Please, can we make a dragon before the end of the workshop? Please, we want to learn this!” This, as demonstrated by a comprehensive sweep of Sofia’s arms, was all of the sculptures in Van’s bizarre living room.