Chapter 30: The Oath

Joost's POV

On Friday night I stood at the microphone with a folded leather cut in my hands, and my palms were wet.

Forty men sat in the front room.

Femke sat in the second chair with her plate in front of her, and her hands lay still on the table.

My son was in the kitchen with the gray-bearded patch.

I could hear a television and a loud argument about pirates.

I struck the gavel once.

"Two motions," I said. "I'll make them one at a time, and I'll take every no."

The old patch by the stove folded his arms.

He had been Pieter's friend for forty years, and he had a face for noes.

"First motion. The old ladies' chairs get a vote."

Chairs shifted all down the wall, and somebody muttered a curse.

"The plates have never voted," the old patch said.

"I know."

"Not once, in seventy years."

"I know that too." I looked at him. "I ran this table for three years with the people at it, and the best of them couldn't raise her hand."

"Jesus, Joost."

"Truus," I said.

Truus stood up, small and square in her denim vest.

"I have kept your books for twenty years," she said. "I know what every man in this room spent on bikes, bail, and funerals."

She looked at the old patch over her glasses.

"I've never once been allowed to vote on how you spend it."

Someone coughed to hide a laugh.

"Hands," I said.

Slowly they went up, one and then another, with the old patch's hand last.

"Thirty-one," Truus counted. "Nine against."

"Carried."

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