The Shouting in the Dark by Elleke Boehmer Page A

creaking about, listening out for her listening. If ever by mistake she makes a sound, the bedroom door opens, the mother peers into the darkness. ‘You go to sleep, Ella,’ she says, night-time breath spitting, ‘I don’t want to find you up. Go on, go to sleep.’
    One sweaty summer’s night, the father long in bed, the mother’s footsteps in the passage are louder than usual, much louder. There’s something about those footsteps that wants to be heard. Ella pushes up from her rock-hard pillow to listen. She slips out of bed, into the passage.
    In the living room a side-lamp is on. The mother in her pink nightgown is perched on an arm of the yellow velvet couch, as close as to the portrait of Aunt Ella as she can get without actually touching it, framed by its rectangle of darkness. ‘Are you – ?’ Ella begins to say, but the rush of her mother’s arms snuffs her voice.
    â€˜I didn’t mean to wake you,’ she grips her shoulders. ‘Sorry. You sounded asleep – for once. But there are nights, Ella, you know, I can’t stand it, I must come to her. I shouldn’t say this really, you’re wakeful enough yourself, but the words well up. I feel she needs me, especially now. See here, this crack in the oil-painting, around the skirt of the dress. Our dry winters. I can’t stand to think of her portrait breaking up, flaking away – when we’ve already had to lose her once. Look at her, staring down at us. Don’t leave me here, she’s telling me. Oh, it’s sometimes too much, Ella, all this, living this life she should’ve been living.’
    Ella sits down on the couch. ‘But why, Mam?’ she says, ‘I don’t see . . .? Even if it’s your sister’s picture. A crack can be fixed.’
    The mother’s profile is white against the portrait’s dark blue dress. A quick hand goes through her hair.
    â€˜Well,’ she says suddenly, and sighs, ‘Maybe the portrait’s extra-special because my sister Ella was also at one time married to your father. Before me. And after the Englishwoman called Edith who left him. And then, not long after her marriage, she, Ella, died. Cancer. So, yes, you can work it out, if she hadn’t died, you’d not have been born.’ She puts the heel of her hand to the portrait frame, as if to steady herself. ‘She was different from me, Ella, baldadig , cheekier, a proper big sister. Wouldn’t let him push her around.’ She sighs again. ‘She wasn’t musical like I am. Her soul didn’t need music and gentleness like mine does. She didn’t care about raising her voice. I can only imagine how she yelled at him. The two of them met after the war, back in Nederland. Your father was home from the Navy, from England. Friends paired them up. He was lonely and rootless with no job and they got on. She liked adventure, Ella, she grabbed opportunities with both hands. I’ll always try something once, she used to say. She even took to Africa. For her, Africa was a place where you could try things out. She wanted to set up a trading store in some dorpje , sell things like blankets to the blacks – ’
    But Ella can’t stand to see how the mother’s face is working, her forehead stretching and wrinkling, black shadows darting over her cheeks. She looks away.
    â€˜Oh, she was remarkable, Ella, unforgettable,’ the mother’s voice pulls her back. ‘Everyone said so. It was a way she had, she burrowed under your skin, saw the world from your point of view. You felt you couldn’t do without her. So that, when she died, you thought your life would end. I did, when she died. I think your father did, too. Who could replace such a person? Not a sister, no; certainly not me. When I was hollow inside for missing her.’
    She stoops forward. In the muted light it’s as if she’s leaning against the