Free Shutterspeed by Erwin Mortier Page A

shopping in our time,’ Uncle grinned. ‘Still do, now and then. But we never have enough money. The babbies lie there in the shop in their wicker baskets, wearing pink and blue caps. But you’re not allowed to choose. It’s take it or leave it.’
    ‘He’s having you on,’ Aunt called from the sink. She tipped the potatoes into the colander, the steam from the kitchen curling along the rafters into the room. ‘If it was that simple …’
    I knew he was having me on. In the book Mr Snellaert had lent me there were pictures that appeared to be at odds with his talk of shops where you could buy children, including one of a woman with long wavy hair sitting on the base of a column with her lower body splayed open as if her skin had a zipper in it. Wearing a curiously serene expression, she invited the viewer to admire her innards.
    According to the book’s author, primitive man already showed a certain awareness of the genital mechanisms. Note, he instructed, the disproportionate size of the ovaries relative to the uterus.
    Despite being pretty much in the dark about ovaries, I knew Aunt would recoil in horror if I read her the bits about genital mechanisms. A few days earlier, when she was sitting by the window darning socks, I had stared at her so sceptically, with follicles on my mind, that she had asked if there was something the matter with her nose.
     
    ‘Another drop, lad?’ Uncle Werner whispered. ‘One for the road?’
    I didn’t dare say yes out loud, for fear of alarming Aunt. He poured a splash of the ruby liquid into my glass and gave himself a generous refill. The port was evidently agreeing with him.
    ‘Did they get me from that shop too?’ I asked. Through the wooziness in my head I tried to look at him sharply, to show that I knew he was having a laugh.
    ‘Course they did.’ He nodded towards the kitchen, and winked at me again. He was generous with his winks after downing a few glasses. ‘The first time your mother let me hold you in my arms, the price-tag was still dangling from your elbow …’
    He paused. I suspected another joke was in the air.
    ‘You were a free gift, dammit!’
    I tried to roar with laughter along with him, although I didn’t think much of his wit.
    ‘Werner, please,’ hissed Aunt. ‘You’re doing the boy’s head in with your nonsense.’
    She set the soup tureen on the corner of the table, put the ladle in and stirred. Uncle Werner patted his paunch contentedly.
    ‘God created the day, and mother created the soup.’ He held out his hands to receive his plate.
    ‘Buying children in a shop …’ snorted Aunt. When she had served us both she sat down and crossed herself.
    ‘You know that children grow inside their mothers. You saw those pictures of your own ma when she was expecting you?’
    ‘But Laura,’ Uncle Werner laughed. ‘We were just kidding. The boy’s no fool …’
    I saw her casting baleful looks at the glass of port beside my plate.
    ‘That shop …’ she said, lifting her spoon to her lips andblowing on it before taking a sip, ‘… they never let me in … not that I didn’t stand on the doorstep waiting and waiting … Always closed.’
    An awkward silence fell.
    Looking up from my plate I noticed that Aunt was scowling at Uncle Werner from under her furrowed brow, and that her eyes were rimmed with pink.
    Uncle sank his spoon in his soup and chewed his lower lip.
    ‘Go on, Joris, eat,’ said Aunt coolly.
     
    After lunch I caught the sound of her muffled squeals and strangely sinuous giggles drifting down the stairs. She and Uncle Werner had gone up for a rest, to settle their stomachs, as Uncle put it.
    I wondered why Aunt gave all those little yelps and why there was such a lot of creaking, as if they were chasing each other across the floorboards in the attic. Perhaps Uncle was gripping her firmly by the waist and lifting her up to give her a good shake, although it was also possible that he was lying on top of her, as I had