Om bar litte de tûken in kringeltsje reek ûntsnappe, begjinne dan ûnder in sunich systerjen krûm te lûken, skuorre foarsichtich de bast los, om úteinlik mei in sucht de oranjegiele gloede frij te litten dy’t as in skrutele ingel opkomt en hoeden de ûnbekende wrâld skôget.
Weurd nimt de tiid en lit it skouspul yn him omgean. Dat it him sa yn it moed taast, hjir oan de râne fan de see, fernuvert him dochs. Hy hat hjir ommers nei ta wurke.
It is in goeie dei om dit te dwaan. Simmerske drûchte; no’t it twiljocht op kommendeweis is, lit in sêfte koelte de flammen dûnsje en fleurich oerspringe. Weurd rint by de wâl del, beret. Mei de fakkel as oanwiisstôk tsjut er de iene nei de oare wylch, esk of els oan en nimt út en troch wat strewellen mei. Ien foar ien sette de jonge beammen en struken har ta in lêste útspatting ear’t se úteinlik wurch ynsakje.

It fjoer is it lêste dat Weurd noch hat. Eefkes noch. Sa’t hy hjir ea mei it fjoer foar ’t ljocht kaam wie, sil er der aansen ek mei weiwurde.
Fuort nei it barren – al rillegau hienen se besletten om net mear fan de ramp te sprekken, mar fan it barren – wie dit wat him en in lytse kliber oaren rêden hie. Klearebare gelok, dat hy by it barren stomtafallich op de goeie heuvel siet, ien fan de seldsume nagelnij opsmiten grûnbulten dy’t noch net bewenne mar heech genôch bliek te wêzen. Hy hie der net iens oan meiboud, hold dêr dy deis krekt eefkes ta. Eins hie er it rjocht dus net iens om hjir te sitten. Mar wat is rjocht by sa’n barren?
Frjemd genôch fernaam Weurd gjin panyk by de minsken om him hinne doe’t de see harren mânske bargerêch yn ien razende gjalp omklamme. Om him noait mear werom te lûken. It fielde op in nuvere wize suver befrijend, it momint dat it ûnheil him definityf útstriek oer dizze delta. Yn ien klap ferlearen de minsken har eangst om alles kwyt te reitsjen – der wie no dochs neat mear. Se koenen net oars as alle krêft en fernuft yn harsels oansprekke om opnij te begjinnen. Miskien wol as iennichsten, want safier’t it each rikte, seagen se kwealik wat boppe it oerflak útstekken. As der links en rjochts al wat lju it barren oerlibbe hienen, dan soenen dy mei gjin mooglikheid iten en swiet wetter fine kinne. Yn de fierte stieken noch twa lytse bulten krekt boppe de spegel út; lykwols spaande dêr gjin folk om, wisten se.
Mar hjir hienen se it fjoer. Mei tank oan Weurd − en in gaslieding dy’t troch it natuergeweld begûn wie te lekken. It baarnde mar krekt eefkes; mei ynmoed wist Weurd de flammen oan de praat te hâlden en in deeglik fjoerplak yn te rjochtsjen dêr’t se mei goed behear in permaninte oven fan wisten te meitsjen. Om iten te rusterjen en ark te smeien. Mei it fjoer slagge it ek al gau om wat plaskes seewetter te skieden yn swiet drinkwetter en sâlt om iten mei te konservearjen. Se wisten in ringdyk om in kwelderke te lizzen, sadat se fan in pear bunder omlizzend lân fruchtbere polders meitsje koenen. Der kaam in wetterbassin, der kamen ekers mei knollen en koalen. Foar it nustje bewenners moai genôch. Beammen waarden op en om it eilân oanplante. Ut de neiteam fan wat skiep wie nei in hoartsje al in aardich keppeltsje fee woeksen.
Eins hoege we no nergens mear bang foar te wêzen, sei Weurd nei de twadde winter hieltyd faker tsjin syn meibewenners. Linkendewei hie elk syn eigen stee bouwe kinnen. Weurd wie tegearre mei Agga yn in klinte lutsen. Se hienen it goed tegearre, mar hy liet har fierder gewurde. Se wie kreas en leaf, mar hy hie har heit wêze kinnen. Weurd fûn it genôch dat hy Agga in feilich tahâld biede koe. In libben sûnder eangst, dat wie it aldermoaiste dat er in jonge frou skinke mocht.
Weurd heugde him de foarige maatskippij as ien dêr’t de eangst foar bêst opsloech. Eangst foar de ramp dy’t dochs wol komme soe, eangst om alle wolfeart kwyt te reitsjen dy’t opboud wie, eangst foar de oar, foar it frjemde. Eangst foar de takomst. Dy eangst wurke as fergif. Oerheden fertrouden boargers net mear, boargers fertrouden har lieders en elkoar net langer; bedriuwen fûnen út dat se miljardewinsten meitsje koenen troch it folk mei algoritmen oan it ynfús fan de eangst te lizzen. Dat hie de lju en de ierde útrûpele en úteinlik ta it barren laat.
Weurd woe perfoarst net dat se mei dizze groep oerlibbers wer yn dy falkûle trapen. Se hienen in unike kâns en bou hjir in prachtige nije wrâld sûnder eangst op. De eilanners lieten it har graach sizze. Noait wer bang wêze. Dat wie de bêst tinkbere ôfrekken mei it ferline. Sy hienen it fjoer.

De wyn blaast wat fonken de see op. Weurd sjocht se nei, hoe’t se weiwurde yn de snústerige skomkopkes dy’t har fergees fan de wâlkant besykje los te meitsjen. Syn eagen eidzje fierder it wetter oer. Yn de fierte sjocht er de twa eilantsjes dy’t no befolke wurde troch syn eardere meistanners. Op hokker fan de twa soe Agga no sitte? Weurd is bliid dat de wyn fan him ôf stiet − sa komme de tsjirmjende lûden net op him ta. Eefkes hat er oanstriid … mar hy lit it sa. In pear tellen hâldt er de fakkel tsjin de deade einen fan in toarnbeistrúk, oant dy sachtjes begjint te knetterjen.
Eins is it noch bêst lang goed gien, betinkt Weurd. Salang’t se yn opbou wienen, wie elk optein. Weurd wie wiis mei de balâns dy’t se fûn hienen. In lykwicht dêr’t er wach op bleau; der wie genôch iten en drinken, waarmte en feiligens − no moasten se derom tinke dat se har gjin healwize plannen op ’e hals hellen. As se tefolle groeie soenen, soe de eangst om dat te ferliezen der ommers wer likehurd ynslûpe.
Mar krekt doe’t se alles goed en wol foarelkoar hienen, begûn de ûnrêst. Mear as in goed miel iten ferbouwe wie der net mear te dwaan op de heuvel. Der bleau tiid oer. Minsken krigen ferlet fan ferdivedaasje, begûnen elkoar ferhalen te fertellen, mâlichheden te betinken. Krekt as yn de foarlêste tiid. Weurd koe it net opkeare.
Dat it krekt Agga wie dy’t har it meast oppenearre, fernuvere him net. Se wie de jongste fan de mienskip en hie it soer fan de eardere wrâld noch net yn ’t murch. Doe’t Weurd har besocht út te lizzen wat der doedestiids misbeteard wie, begriep se it net rjocht, hied er de yndruk.

No wit er dat sy it better yn ’e rekken hie as hy. Mar no baarne de beammen. Weurd sjocht achterom. De selsboude húskes binne al ynsakke en lôgje noch wat nei. Wat sil er mei de sâltegrientekwelder dwaan? De fakkel deroer of gewurde litte? It lêste mar, tinkt er. De gielgriene koalen stean der kreas by, mar sille nea ophelle wurde. Lit de fûgels der mar mei rêde, of oars de wjirms en rûpen.
By Agga wie it ferlangst net te kearen. Se dreamde fan alles. Fan oerfloed, fan sensaasjes. Se socht kontakt mei de oaren op in wize dy’t Weurd net gerêststelde. Har sensitiviteit hie gjin kear. Hy wiisde Agga op it gefaar, mar dat hune se fuort. Oerdeis begûn se oan te gean mei wa’t ek mar by har yn de buert wie, jûns rôp se elkenien byelkoar en betocht hieltyd prikeljender spulregels foar de fertellerij en útbylderij. Se liet de lju lûdop dreame. Ynearsten wienen de minsken skruten, mar nei in hoartsje tommelen se al oerinoar hinne om de wyldste fantasijen mandélich te meitsjen. En it duorre net lang of it útbyldzjen naam ferriederlike en ferliedlike foarmen oan, oanstutsen troch Agga. Guon bedarren oan de ein fan de jûn yn oare hutsjes. De oare deis moast der omraak rjocht praten en sprutsen wurde.
Weurd sei Agga it leksum op. Hy naam dêr de tiid foar, want woe har net mismoedich meitsje. Hy hold har foar dat har ferlangst al gau de teloarstelling en útsoarte de eangst wer oanwakkerje soe.
Mar Agga reagearre mei in snútslach. Hý wie noch altyd bang, sei se. Troch de eangst sa krampeftich bûtendoar hâlde te wollen, liet Weurd krekt sjen dat er júst noch altyd bang wie foar de eangst. Dêrmei pleatste er himsels bûten it libben. Want eangst en ferlangen binne de twa motors fan it libben, fûn se.

Hy hat it net oannimme wollen. Hy wie der krekt sa wiis mei dat er syn balâns fûn hie, dy woe er net fersteure litte troch sa’n flarde. No sjocht Weurd dat se in foltreffer pleatst hat. Miskien docht it dêrom wol sa sear − mear as er feitlik tajaan wol. Hy is yntusken oan de oare ein fan it eilân telâne kaam. Hjir kin er wer frijút sykhelje, de reek waait fan him ôf. Weurd docht de mûle wiid iepen en hellet de lucht fier nei binnen ta. Sa’t Agga dat ek altyd graach die.
Agga wie de oaren begûn te hifkjen. Oft se yn harren eardere libben de eangst echt talitten hienen, of dy krekt útsletten. En it ferlangen allyksa. Dat lêste befêstigen de minsken. De ferbylding hie dea west yn de foarige wrâld. It langjen nei ‘moaier’ wie ferwurden ta stribjen nei ‘mear’. Se dreamden eins nearne mear fan. En ja, no’t Agga it sei … se hienen úteinlik neat oars mear dien as risiko’s mije, om ek de eangst út ’e wei te gean. Agga knikte. Dat hie de siel út de minske wei helle. Wylst hja foar it barren tochten dat de wrâld hurder as ea draaide, hienen se feitlik har eigen motors útset. Ja, dan giet alles om je hinne hurd.
Se begûn it oan elkenien te ferkundigjen. De siel moast werom, de motors wer oan. Omearmje de eangst, en it ferlangen likehurd. Sa’t de kristenen de himel en de hel  hienen, sa moasten sy ek. Mar dan écht. Om werklik te libjen, moasten se eangst en ferlangst ynhalearje en as soerstof opnimme yn har bloed. Allinnich sa soe alles wer streame kinne.
Elk rekke oerémis fan it idee. Se begûnen te fantasearjen. Wat is dan it langstme dat we ha? Is it wol taastber, is it woldied, is it net gewoan einleaze leafde, of gleonens? En hoe kinne we dat wekker tútsje? Agga fjurre se oan en sprek it allegear út. Sa hearden hja alle dreamen fan elkoar, geef, gol en glei. It wûn de minsken op. It duorre net lang of se hienen meielkoar in kompleet loftkastiel skepen, dat se sabeare bouden op it eastlike heuveltsje yn see dêr’t se mei kleare loft op útseagen. Elk waard der fleurich fan. Rillegau begûnen se plannen te smeien om nei it eilantsje ôf te stekken en dêr har dreamen wier te meitsjen.
No moast Weurd yngripe. Mei lede eagen hied er de minsken út balâns reitsjen sjoen. No moast er foarkomme dat se dat ûnsillige plan ek echt útfiere soenen. It soe op ’e kop ferkeard komme, foarsei hy.

Mar ergens op dat stuit is er harren kwytrekke. Weurd sjocht om him hinne. Der is net folle romte mear oer. Oeral om him hinne sûzet de reek, rûzje de flammen en knetterje de fonken. Weurd leit de fakkel del en kuiert nei de midden fan it lân ta. It fjoer omearmet him no fan alle kanten. Hy besjocht it kalm. It ôfswarren fan de eangst hat him geweldich holpen yn de earste jierren hjir op ’e bulte. Oant it momint fan de plannemakkerij om it oare eilân yn te rjochtsjen as in nirwana, hat er noait twivele. Hied er oars hannelje moatten? Miskien.
Mar wat Agga doe foarstelde, hied er gjin tel foarsjoen. Ta syn fernuvering joech se him gelyk doe’t Weurd warskôge foar de teloarstelling.
Mar har oplossing ferraste him folslein.
Dan bouwe we op it oare eilantsje de hel, sei se.
De minsken laken. Jahaa, goed idee. Se betochten fan alles. Se soenen allinnich op it goeie eilân iten en drinken ha, yn oerfloed. Op it oare eilân kaam honger en toarst. En wat se mei it fjoer betinke koenen, dat wie mâl. Fantasijen oer pine en martelingen rûgelen samar de bliere mûlen út. Prachtich. Dat soe nochal in skouspul wurde, goed foar it bewustwêzen.
Nee, sei Agga. We bliuwe der net nei sjen, we moatte it dwáán. Allegear. Om bar. De iene helte sit op it iene eilân, de oare helte op it oare. En nei in skoftke stekke we oer fan de hel nei de himel. Hieltyd hinne en werom.
Se skrokken. Se skrokken bot. Mar doe’t se der op trochstinden … it loek wol. In hoartsje lijen, dan in skoft geniet en woldied. It bloed begûn har te bûnzjen tsjin de sliepen. En ear’t se der erch yn hienen, begûnen se har al ta te rieden. In pear bouden in stevich flot en wat kano’s, oaren begûnen iten yn te pakken. Fakkels waarden kundich preparearre, sadat dy ûnder de oerstek baarnen bliuwe soenen. Want it fjoer moast mei, te’n goede en te’n kweade, nei beide eilannen.
Weurd wie ferstuivere. Hy koe der net yn leauwe en woe der net yn meigean. Mar hy stie poerlike allinnich, wist dat er dizze wylde hynders net mear yn de bak krije soe. Ergens nijsgjirrige it him ek wol. Hoelang soenen se dit úthâlde? Twa dagen, in wike, in moanne? Weurd prate mei de lju ôf dat hy klearstean soe om elk te heinen dy’t weromkomme soe, sûnder lykslaanderij.

Mar de ierde hat yntusken de sinne rûnom bereizge. Weurd hat nimmen weromsjoen. Geregeldwei hat er op jûntiid it wetter oereage. Yn de fierte seach er de reek fan it westlike eilân − dêr moat alles njonkelytsen sa skroeid wêze dat it der kwealik út te hâlden is. By noardewyn koed er it balten en tjirgjen hearre. It makke him dwyl − foaral as er net pleatse koe fan hokker fan de twa eilannen it lûd kaam. It klonk faak suver itselde. Weurd besocht him wolris in foarstelling te meitsjen fan wat him op de bulten ôfspile, mar dêr rekke er oeral fan. Hoe slim soe syn foarstelling fan it libben dêr de wierheid benei komme? Hoe djip kinne werklike pine en genot yn lea en libben trochkringe? Wat hat dat mei harren siel dien, dat se net weromkomme? Weurd waard der kjel fan. Foaral as er Agga foar him seach … makke net út op hokker fan de twa plakken − hy koe it net ferneare.
Hy hoecht net ien mear te ferwachtsjen, hjir. Se hawwe dêr eat ûntdutsen dat se nearne oars fûn hienen − net yn de foarige wrâld en net op dit eilân. Gjinien hat noch ferlet fan syn balâns, dat útholle, deade libben. De minske hat in better lykwicht fûn. Sûnder Weurd. It is klear. Lit it fjoer him mar oernimme.

One by one, each twig releases a curl of smoke before it starts to bend with a gentle hissing sound, carefully peels out of its bark and finally, with a sigh, sets free a yellow-orange glow that emerges like a shy angel gazing cautiously into the unknown world.
Weurd takes his time to contemplate the scene. A little surprised at how much it moves him, here on the edge of the sea – he’s been working towards this, after all. It’s a good day for it. A dry summer day, and in the falling dusk, a gentle breeze makes the flames dance and leap up cheerfully. Weurd walks along the shore, determined. Using his torch as a pointer, he touches it to each willow, ash and alder tree, sometimes including some shrubs. One after another, the young trees and shrubs exert themselves one last time before collapsing in exhaustion.

Fire is the last thing Weurd has left. For now, at least. Just as he once emerged here with the fire, he is about to disappear with it again.
Immediately after the event – they had soon agreed not to call it a catastrophe any more, but an event – it is what saved him and a small group of others. By sheer luck he happened to be on the right hillock when it happened, one of the rare freshly raised mounds of earth that had not yet been inhabited but turned out to be high enough. He hadn’t even helped to build it, he was just there by coincidence on that day. In fact, he doesn’t really have the right to be here at all. But what do rights matter in an event like this?
Strangely enough, Weurd could detect no signs of panic in the people surrounding him when the sea gripped their artificial hill with an angry roar. Never to recede again. In fact, the moment in which the disaster finally spread through this delta felt strangely liberating. In a single blow, the people lost their fear of losing everything – because there was nothing left to lose. All they could do now was muster all their inner strength and inventiveness to start again. Perhaps as the only survivors, for as far as their eyes could see, they could detect very little land breaking the surface of the water. Even if there were other survivors scattered here and there, it would be impossible for them to find fresh water and food. And they knew there weren’t any people on the two small lumps sticking out of the sea in the distance.
But here, they had the fire. Thanks to Weurd – and the gas pipe that had sprung a leak during the natural disaster. It was barely alight, but with great dedication Weurd was able keep the flames going and set up a proper fireplace, which they managed to turn into a carefully tended, permanent hearth. For roasting food and forging tools. With the help of the fire, they also succeeded in converting sea water into fresh drinking water and salt for food conservation. They managed to construct a dike around a small salt marsh, turning a couple of hectares of land into fertile fields. A water basin was built, cabbage patches and spud fields dug. Just enough for the small group of inhabitants. They planted trees all over the island. The offspring of a handful of sheep grew, over time, into a reasonably large flock.
We really have nothing to be afraid of any more, Weurd kept telling his fellow survivors after the second winter. Each of them had eventually managed to build an accommodation of their own. Weurd had moved into a hut with Agga. They got along well, but he left her alone. She was a sweet, pretty girl, but he could have been her father. Weurd was just happy to provide Agga with a safe place to live. A life without fear, that was the most beautiful gift he was allowed to make a young woman.
Weurd remembered the past society as one governed by fear. Fear of the catastrophe that would come anyway, fear of losing all their amassed wealth, fear of others, of the unknown. Fear of the future. That fear was like a poison. Governments no longer trusted their citizens, citizens trusted neither their leaders nor each other; companies discovered they could make billions by using algorithms to drip-feed the people a diet of fear. This had exhausted the people and the earth, and eventually led to the event.
Weurd was determined not to let this group of survivors fall into the same trap again. They had been given the unique opportunity to build up a beautiful new world, a world without fear. The people of the island lapped it up. No more fear. It was the best possible reckoning with the past. They had the fire.

The wind is blowing sparks towards the sea. Weurd watches them vanish in the grubby patches of sea foam trying in vain to free themselves from the shore. His eyes gaze out over the water. In the distance, he can see the two small islands where his former allies now live. Which one of them might Agga be on now? Weurd is glad the wind is not blowing in his direction, so he can’t hear the cries. For a moment, he feels the urge… but lets it pass. He holds his torch against the dead twigs of a bramble bush until it starts crackling softly.
Things actually went well for quite a while, Weurd thinks to himself. Everyone was excited while they were building up. Weurd was pleased with the balance they’d found. A balance he watched over; there was enough food and water, heat and safety – all they had to do now was guard against making any mad plans. Because if they grew too much, the fear of losing everything would soon creep in again.
But just when everything was running smoothly, the group was gripped by restlessness. Farming a square meal was all there was to do on the hillock. They had time on their hands. A need for entertainment grew, and people started telling each other stories, thinking up nonsense. Just like in the time that had gone before. Weurd couldn’t stop it.
He wasn’t surprised that Agga’s voice was among the loudest. As the youngest member of the community, she hadn’t yet been burned to the bone by the acid of the former world. When he tried to explain to her what had gone wrong at the time, Weurd had the impression she didn’t understand.

Now he knows she was more acutely aware of it than he himself. But now the trees are burning. Weurd looks behind him. The huts they built have collapsed and are glowing faintly. What should he do with the seawater vegetable field? Set fire to it or ignore it? The latter, he decides. The neat rows of pale green cabbages will never be harvested. Let the birds eat their fill of them, or else the worms and caterpillars.
Agga’s desire proved unquenchable. She dreamed of having it all. Of excess, of excitement. She interacted with the others in ways that Weurd found unsettling. Her sensibility knew no bounds. When he pointed out the dangers to Agga, she scoffed at him. During the day she would give free rein to her fantasies to anyone who would listen and in the evening she gathered everyone together, coming up with more and more daring rules for their storytelling and role-playing games. She made the group dream out loud. People were shy at first, but after a little while they fell over themselves to make their wildest fantasies common knowledge. And it didn’t take long for the role-playing to take on treacherous and seductive forms, incited by Agga. At the end of such evenings, people sometimes ended up in others’ huts, which would take a lot of explaining away and making up the next day.
Weurd lectured Agga. He took his time, trying to go easy on her so she wouldn’t lose heart. He told her that her desires would only rekindle the group’s disappointment, and of course their fear.
But Agga was ready with a sharp rebuke. He was still afraid, she said. His desperate efforts to keep the fear away betrayed how much Weurd himself was still frightened of it. By doing so, he wasn’t taking part in life. Because, as she believed, fear and desire are the two engines life runs on.

He wouldn’t accept this explanation. Pleased as he was to have found his balance, he wouldn’t let some little rabble-rouser disrupt it. Now Weurd realises she’d hit the bull’s-eye. Maybe that is why it hurts so much – more than he actually wants to admit. In the meantime, he has reached the other end of the island. Here, he can breathe freely again – the air he exhales is blown away from him. Weurd opens his mouth wide and sucks the oxygen as deep into his lungs as possible. Just like Agga used to enjoy doing.
Agga had put it to the others. Whether they had really welcomed fear into their former lives, or barred it from it. And with it, desire. They confirmed the latter. Imagination had been dead in the former world. The desire for ‘more beauty’ had become the pursuit of simply ‘more’. They had stopped dreaming altogether. And yes, since Agga mentioned it… all they had really done was to avoid risks, again to stave off fear. Agga nodded. This is what had killed the human soul. Before the event, they were convinced the world was spinning faster than ever, when they had actually turned off their own engines. Of course that makes everything around you speed up.
She started proclaiming it to the group. They had to get their souls back, restart their engines. Embrace fear and desire with equal strength. Just as the Christians had Heaven and Hell, they needed that too. But then the real thing. To live life to the fullest, they had to inhale fear and desire and absorb them into their blood like oxygen. Only then could everything flow again.

The idea thrilled the group. They started fantasising. What exactly is our desire? Is it tangible, is it beneficial, isn’t it just endless love, or lust? And how do we rekindle it? Agga spurred them on to let it all out. And so they shared each other’s dreams, lusty, lavish, larger-than-life. People got excited. Before long they had built entire castles in the air, supposedly located on the eastern islet in the sea which they could make out in clear weather. It lifted everyone’s spirits. Soon, they started making plans to sail across to the island and make their dreams come true.
This is when Weurd had to intervene. It had pained him to watch the people become unbalanced. Now he had to prevent them from actually carrying out their disastrous scheme. He predicted it would go terribly wrong.

But that was also the moment he lost them. Weurd looks around. There isn’t much space left. All around him are hissing smoke, rushing flames and crackling sparks. Putting down his torch, Weurd walks to the middle of the piece of land. The fire surrounds him on all sides now. He calmly takes it in. Renouncing fear was a great help to him in his first years here on the island. Until the moment they started making plans to turn the other island into nirvana, he hadn’t felt a single doubt. Should he have acted differently? Perhaps.
But then he’d never seen Agga’s suggestion coming. To his surprise, she agreed with him when Weurd warned of disappointment.
But her solution took him completely by surprise.
She said, we’ll just build Hell on the other island.
The others laughed. Yeah, great plan. They came up with all kinds of ideas. They’d only have food and drink on the good island, plenty of it. On the other island there would be thirst and hunger. And what they planned to do there with the fire was insane. Fantasies of pain and torture light-heartedly rolled off their tongues. Wonderful. That would be quite a spectacle, a useful reminder.
No, Agga said. We don’t just watch, we have to do it. All of us. In turns. Half of us are on the one island, the other half on the other. And after a while we switch over from Hell to Heaven. Back and forth.
They were shocked. They were very shocked. But after giving it some thought… saw the attraction. A bit of suffering, followed by a spell of pleasure and prosperity. Their blood started thumping in their temples. And before they knew it, they had started on the preparations. Some of them built a sturdy raft and a couple of canoes, others started packing provisions. Torches were skilfully prepared so they would stay alight during the crossing. Because the fire needed to go along, for better or for worse, to both islands.
Weurd was stupefied. He didn’t believe in the plan and wouldn’t go along with it. But he was on his own, and knew he would never be able to rein in these wild horses again. Part of him was also curious. How long would they stick it out? Two days, a week, a month? Weurd agreed with the group that he would be ready to welcome anyone back who returned, without seeking retaliation.

But since then, the earth has completed its orbit around the sun. Weurd has seen no one return. He’s regularly scanned the water at night. In the distance, he would see the smoke from the western island – it had to be so scorched there by now that it could hardly be bearable. When the wind came from the north he could hear the wailing and raging. The noise made his head spin, especially when he couldn’t tell which of the two islands it came from – their sounds often sounded almost the same. Sometimes, Weurd tried to imagine what went on on those elevations, but that only upset him. How much did his image of life there resemble the reality? How deeply can real pain and pleasure penetrate a body and a life? What has it done to their souls, that no one returned? It shocked Weurd. Especially when Agga appeared to his mind’s eye… it didn’t matter in which of the two places – he couldn’t bear it.
He no longer expects anyone back. They’ve discovered something there they hadn’t found anywhere else – neither in their former world nor on this island. No one needed Weurd’s balance any more, that eroded, dead life. Humans have found a better balance. Without him. It’s time. Let the fire embrace him.

It wie dy simmer dat se begûn wienen de jierren wer fanôf nul te tellen. De milenniumbug hie bliken dien in stoarm yn in glês wetter te wêzen, njoggentjin wie sûnder problemen yn tweintich feroare en de tweintichste yn de ienentweintichste, en ek al hienen wy oant dan ta de measte tiid fan ús libben yn de tweintichste trochbrocht en soenen wy al tritich wêze as de balâns trochslaan soe nei de ienentweintichste, dy iuw wie fan ús, en logysk dat ik it heech tiid achte om einliks in kear mei myn tonge de tonge fan immen oars oan te reitsjen, net as spultsje of út ’e grap mar serieus. Us brein wie noch net ôf, foaral dat fan dy net want jongesbreinen ûntwikkelen har stadiger, mar wy wienen grut genôch om te witten hoe’t wy in tonge yn de mûle fan immen oars stekke moasten, en no wie it allinnich noch in kwestje fan raak stekken op it goede momint. 

It wie fakânsje en wy leinen holle op búk yn in rûnte yn it gers en alle kearen as der ien lake brocht dyjinge mei syn búk de holle fan immen oars yn beweging, dy’t dêrtroch ek begûn te laitsjen en de holle dy’t op syn búk lei oan it laitsjen makke, en sa wâlen ús gniissalvo’s troch de nacht. Net ien fan ús wie superknap, al kamen der wol aardich wat út Amsterdam, mar dêr lieten se har net sa faak op foarstean, en de famkes út Doorn hienen grutte boarsten mar dy wienen bi dus dat telde net. Dy moarns hie de juf fan it teäterkamp ús twa oan twa neistelkoar set foar in oefening wêrby’t wy ôfwikseljend yn ’e fierte sjen moasten en fansiden, en se sette dy neist my, en ek al wiesto lytser as ik en net sa moai as ik my foarsteld hie, do lakest wol freonlik op de mominten dat ús blikken elkoar krústen, en do hiest in grappich petsje op, en de famkes út Doorn hienen letter sein dat wy byinoar pasten, en sa wie ik op it idee kommen datsto wolris dejinge wêze koest yn waans mûle ik foar it earst myn tonge stekke soe, en no lei ik mei myn holle op dyn búk te laitsjen, en even letter sieten ús tongen yn elkoars mûle, al fûn ik achterôf net dat wy se deryn stutsen hienen, se wienen der mear yn gliden en se bleaunen dêr tocht ik de hiele nacht, al soe ik dat no net presys mear witte. En ek do kaamst út Amsterdam, út Amsterdam-Súd, do wennest achter it Konsertgebou, en hoewol’t ik doe net trochhie datsto dy dêrop foarstean lietst wit ik no datst dat wol diest, mar dat kaam net troch dyn karakter mar trochdat elkenien dy’t dêr wenne him dêr no ienkear op foarstean liet, sels as hy einliks in beskieden type wie. Dat wie ek de simmer dat ik ûntduts dat bern út Amsterdam net plat mar just bekakt praten, mar ek dêr koenen jim neat oan dwaan, krekt likemin as dat ik wat oan myn dikke Noard-Hollânske l dwaan koe, al hie ik wol freondinnen út Heemskerk by wa’t ik it in bytsje oerdreau. Doe’t wy de oare deis wer yn ’e sinne by it marke leinen en ik fertelde dat ik op wedstriidswimmen siet, seisto mei in bekakt aksint dat dat ferklearre wêrom’t ik sa’n moai lichem hie, en alle minsken dy’t sizze dat wurden je net reitsje kinne binne wierskynlik alle kearen fergetten dat ien wat sei wêrtroch’t der safolle bloed nei harren geslachtsdielen streamde dat it in wûnder wie dat oare organen noch funksjonearren, en letter oan de telefoan seisto datst it skattich fûnst dat ik in kleur krige asto my in komplimintsje joechst, en ik hie net troch datsto tochtst datsto wizer wiest as ik, miskien omdatsto yn Amsterdam wennest, miskien omdat dyn âlders útinoar wienen, miskien omdatst in âldere broer hiest dy’t in healjier filosofy studearre hie en dêrnei opholden wie omdat hy fûn dat er al dy boeken sels wol lêze koe. Dy broer seach lykas al dy Amsterdamske minsken heech op by de kontinintale filosofen, en dan foaral de eksistinsjalisten, wierskynlik omdat dy it maklikst te begripen wienen, en dêr kaam tink ik ek dyn teory wei dat de oaren de hel wienen, mar echt ûnderbouwe koest dat net, do seist mar wat, dat wie wol dúdlik, en ik antwurde datsto foar my it paradys wiest, en dêrop lakesto, wat út ’e hichte tink ik achterôf, mar doe fûn ik it gewoan skattich hoe’tsto lakest ast myn grapkes net begriepst, en dêrnei fregest my oft ik in kear by dy op besite komme woe. It wie logysk dat ik nei dy ta komme soe yn plak fan do nei my, want do wennest yn Amsterdam, en op de dei dat wy ôfpraat hienen hie ik in haakt huodsje opset dat ik fan freondinnen krigen hie dy’t fûnen dat it by my paste omdat ik in lyts bytsje apart wie, op in positive manier, en do soest my om tsien oere ophelje fan it Sintraal Stasjon, en ik wachte ûnder dy grutte klok dy’t der no net mear is, en nei in skoftsje seach ik in frou út ús strjitte dy’t ek op ien wachte, en doe’t ik har neiswaaide omdat har ôfspraak kommen wie wie it fiif oer healwei alven, sadat it miskien tiid waard om dy even op te beljen, ik hie dyn telefoannûmer op in briefke skreaun, ek al koe ik it út ’e holle, mar as ik fuortrûn nei de telefoansel soe ik dy miskien krekt misrinne, wylsto fansels elk momint komme koest, dus bleau ik noch in tiidsje sitten te wachtsjen, en alle kearen as ik in petsje seach tusken de hollen dy’t troch de skodoarren nei binnen kamen tocht ik datsto it wiest, en alle kearen asto it net wiest biet ik op myn lippe; ik hie noch net troch dat ik lilk wurde moatte soe, en miskien hoegde dat ek net, do wiest in jonge en dyn brein wie noch net ôf, it diel dat makke wie om jin oan planningen te hâlden wurke net, en aansten soe ik dy noch belje en dan soe dyn mem sizze datsto noch slieptest, en se soe belove dy wekker te meitsjen en dy daliks nei it stasjon ta te stjoeren. Noch folle letter soe ik derachter komme datsto op my delseachst omdat ik net sels mei de tram nei dyn hûs kommen wie en omdat ik dy trije kear yn ’e wike jûns belle en altyd as ik nei dy ta kaam in raar huodsje op hie, mar op dat stuit wist ik dat noch net, ik fielde my goed mei myn huodsje en myn switterige lichem wêrfan’tsto sein hiest dat it moai wie en myn tonge dy’t ik aansten wer yn dyn mûle glide litte soe, en ik seach hoe’t de wizers fan de grutte klok opskoden nei it momint dat it petsje dat ik tusken de hollen fan de minsken seach dyn petsje wie.

It was the summer they began to count the years from zero again. The millennium bug had turned out to be a storm in a teacup, nineteen had flipped over to twenty without causing any problems and the twentieth became the twenty-first; and even though we had spent most of our lives in the twentieth up to that point and would already be thirty when the scales tipped to the twenty-first, this century was ours, and it was only natural for me to decide it was high time I finally touched someone else’s tongue with my own, not as a game or for fun, but in all seriousness. Our brains weren’t fully developed yet, particularly yours, because boys’ brains develop more slowly, but we were old enough to know how to stick a tongue in someone else’s mouth, and now it was just a matter of sticking it in at the right moment. 

It was the summer holidays and a group of us lay in a circle on the grass, heads on the next person’s stomach and every time someone laughed, they jolted the head of the next person along, who laughed too and made the head lying on his or her stomach laugh, and so our laughter wafted through the night. None of us was very good looking, several were from Amsterdam, but they only showed off about it occasionally, and the girls from Doorn had big breasts but were bi, so they didn’t count. 

That morning, the teacher at the drama camp had paired us off for an exercise in which, standing next to each other, we had to alternate between looking into the distance and to the side, and she put you next to me, and although you were smaller than me and not as good looking as I’d imagined, you smiled kindly when our eyes met, and you had a funny cap on, and the girls from Doorn said afterwards that we made a good couple. And so I got the idea that you might be the person into whose mouth I would stick my tongue for the first time, and now I was lying with my head on your belly laughing, and a little later our tongues were in each other’s mouths – although afterwards I didn’t think we had actually stuck them in, it was more like they’d slipped in, and in my mind they stayed there all night, although now I can’t be entirely sure. And you were from Amsterdam, too, from Amsterdam-Zuid, you lived behind the Concert Hall, and although I didn’t realise at the time that you were proud of this, I now know that you were – not because of your personality, but because everyone who lived there was proud of it, even if they were modest. I also discovered that summer that children from Amsterdam didn’t have a working class accent, they sounded posh, but that wasn’t your fault, and neither could I do anything about my thick Noord-Holland L, although with my friends from Heemskerk I’ll admit I laid it on a bit thicker. The next day, when we were sunbathing by the lake and I told you that I was a competitive swimmer, you said in your posh accent it must be the reason I had such a beautiful body, and everyone who says that words can’t touch you must have forgotten all the times when someone said something that made so much blood flow to their genitals it was a miracle the other organs kept functioning, And later on the phone you said you thought it was cute that I turned red when you complimented me, and I didn’t realise you thought you were wiser than me, maybe because you lived in Amsterdam, maybe because your parents were divorced, maybe because you had an older brother who had studied philosophy for six months and then stopped because he thought he could just read all those books himself.

Like all those people from Amsterdam, your brother was crazy about continental philosophers, especially the existentialists, probably because they were the easiest to understand, and I think that’s where you got your theory that other people were hell, but you couldn’t really substantiate it, it was just something to say, that much was clear, and I replied that you were paradise for me, and you laughed at this, affably I think; I thought it was cute that you laughed when you didn’t understand my jokes, and then you asked me if I wanted to come and visit you some time.

It was only natural that I should come to you instead of you to me, because you lived in Amsterdam, and on the day we were supposed to meet up, I was wearing a crocheted hat I’d been given by friends who thought it suited me because I was a little bit different, in a good way, and you were going to pick me up from Central Station at ten, and I waited under the big clock that is no longer there, and after a while I saw a woman from our street who was also waiting for someone. When I waved goodbye to her because her friend had turned up, it was ten thirty-five, so maybe time to call you, I’d written down your phone number on a scrap of paper, even though I knew it by heart, but if I went to the phone box I might miss you, you could come any minute, so I waited a while longer, and every time I saw a cap among the heads coming through the sliding doors I thought it was you, and every time it wasn’t I bit my lip; I didn’t yet realise I ought to be angry, but maybe I didn’t have to be either, you were a boy and your brain wasn’t fully developed, the part that was made to stick to plans didn’t work, and later I would call you and your mum would say you were still asleep, and she would promise to wake you up and send you straight to the station.

Much later, I would discover you looked down your nose at me because I hadn’t taken the tram to your house, and because I called you three times a week in the evenings and always wore a funny hat when I came to see you, but at that moment I did not know that, I felt good with my hat and my sweaty body which you had said was beautiful and my tongue that I was about to slide into your mouth again, and I watched as the hands of the great clock moved forward to the moment when the cap that I saw among the heads of the people was yours.

Ik sloech rjochtsôf rjochting myn ferline. Yn myn ûnthâld wie de oprydleane op syn minst twa kear sa lang, mar oantinkens wolle noch wol ris oerdriuwe. In harderachtige hûn kaam op myn auto tasjitten en begûn mei syn foarpoaten oan it portier te klauwen. Ik bleau foar de wissichheid sitten – ik koe de reputaasje fan hiemhûnen – en seach oer myn stjoer nei de buorkerijwenning dêr’t ik yn de jierren tachtich opgroeid wie. Ek it hûs like krompen mei de tiid, dat rôfdier dat úteinlik alles en elkenien in kopke lytser makket.

Underweis út Utert wei hie ik besocht my it útsjoch út myn sliepkeamersrút wei foar de geast te heljen: de peppels dy’t de leadrjochte wei rjochting it doarp omseamen, se stienen der noch, de griene brievebus op it houten pealtsje oan de strjitkant (weiwurden), de helikopterkes út ’e eskdoarn op it dak fan ús bêzje Peugeot, de einleaze maisfjilden, de sleat achter it hûs en it brede keukensrút fan de buorlju, dy’t ik nei alles wat der bard wie, sa faak ferslein en swijend oan harren tafel sitten sjoen hie. Ut myn sliepkeamer wei hie ik ek de plysjeweinen út de fierte oankommen sjoen. In kolonne fan trije auto’s wie it. Blau swaailjocht flitste tsjin ’e stammen fan ’e rigen peppels, dy’t harren skaad as traaljes oer it weidek lein hienen. Se namen allinnich myn broer mei. Gjin hânboeien, betocht ik my ûnderweis wer, wol de hân fan ien fan ’e plysjes as fan in heit op syn skouder doe’t er him nei ien fan ’e auto’s brocht. Ik hie dy moarn oan ’e keukentafel stûf folholden dat ik hielendal fan neat wist. Krekt sa’t Eelke my opdroegen hie: ‘Wat der ek bart, do wist hielendal fan neat.’
In frou op swarte túnlearzens rûn my yn ’e mjitte. Se rôp wat nei de hûn en dêrnei nei my.
Ik draaide it rút iepen. De rook fan it plattelân, in mjuks fan justjes soere kûle, stâldong en jarre, folle de auto mei nostalgy.
‘Hy docht neat, hear!’
Ik stapte út. It bist sette syn noas oan dy fan myn skuon.
‘Hy rûkt grif ús kat.’
‘Goed folk, Bessy,’ sei de frou, dy’t de hûn even by de halsbân pakte. ‘Goed folk.’
In wike earder hie ik har oan ’e telefoan hân. Se hie it gjin inkel probleem fûn dat ik lânskomme woe. Se seach der sels nei út om fan my te hearren hoe’t de wenning der tritich jier lyn fan binnen útsjoen hie.
De koarte rûnlieding op de ûnderferdjipping einige yn ’e wenkeuken. De frou stie mei har heupen tsjin it oanrjocht. Se ferwiksele in kofjefilter, spielde twa kopkes om. De keuken wie krekt as de rest fan de keamers ferboud, mar it wie net dreech om har dêr as ús mem stean te sjen. Se hie itselde golvjende brune hier oer de skouders, in lange rêch en mooglik sels wol, sa betocht ik my wylst ik myn blik oer de strakke spikerbroek fan ’e learzens ôf omheech gean liet, mooglik sels wol deselde kont – ik koe my in soad details fan mem har uterlik yn it sin bringe, mar ik wist net mear hoe’t har stuten derút seagen.
It kofjesetapparaat begûn te dampen en te protteljen en de frou kaam tsjin my oer te sitten. Har bern, fjouwer en seis, wienen krekt nei skoalle en har man wurke yn ’e stêd. Us mem soe tritich jier lyn krekt itselde ferteld hawwe wannear’t der op tiisdeitemoarn ien by har oan ’e keukenstafel sitten hie, dy’t ris yn syn âlderlik hûs sjen woe. Dat ik net foar it hûs kaam, mar foar de achtertún, it plak dêr’t myn earste en iennige paradys bestien hie, dat hie ik de frou net ferteld. Ik wist net oft se op ’e hichte wie mei wat him yn ’e maisfjilden ôfspile hie, al moast dat hast wol: it oanbuorjende doarp wie lyts genôch om dy skiednis oan nije generaasjes troch te fertellen en sa yn libben te hâlden. De bewenster fûn it hoe dan ek prima as ik dêr even om my hinne seach. As ik weromkaam soe de kofje foar my klearstean en koenen wy myn âlde sliepkeamer opsykje.

De poarte fan ’e oprit nei de achtertún wie donkerblau ferve. Der hong in metalen brievebus oan fêst. It klepke skittere yn ’e sinne. Ik die de poarte achter my ticht en stoarre de achtertún yn. De morellebeam stie der noch, it terras op itselde plak en it klinkertpaadsje rjochting de sleat hie noch deselde flauwe kromming. Dêr’t de hinneloop stien hie, wie no in grutte sânbak mei kleurde skepkes, ammerkes en jitterkes. Ik seach de barnefelders dêr wer skarreljen en hearde ús mem foeterjen, wylst se in heale tube toskpoetsersguod leechknypte yn myn mûle, hoe faak oft se noch tsjin my sizze moast dat hinnestront net om op te iten wie.
It stekje achteryn by de sleat wie der ek noch. Krekt as de sleat sels, dy’t in stik minder breed wie as de sleat yn myn ûnthâld. Oantinkens moatte blykber útfergrutte wurde om foar lange tiid yn dyn holle oerlibje te kinnen, notearre ik yn myn oantekeningeboekje. Oare oantinkens, oantinkens dy’t west hienen, ôfhannele oantinkens, skreau ik dêrûnder, groeie op in dei as grize hierren wer út dyn plasse.
It sjen fan it brechje oer de sleat grypte my oan. Trije swiere âlde spoarbylzen, dy’t ús heit mei pake tusken de sigaarstâlen fan de tuorrebouten dellein hie. It wie de brêge nei it paradys, sa’t myn broer it neamde. De bylzen wienen bros en glêd fan moas. It hûs mocht dan flink feroare wêze, dit plak fielde noch as fan my. As hie der al dy jierren net ien west en soe der ek nea wer ien komme. Ik sette in foet op in byls, teste foarsichtich oft it hout my hâlde soe. Ik stuts oer, rûkte de skerpe rook fan ’e pipermuntsjeblom en seach ús mem yn Frankryk foar de caravan sitten mei in gleske plutoaniumgriene Sirop Menthe. Oan ’e oare kant fan it sleatsje gie wat modder en gers oer yn it maisgewaaks. Ek dy rook kaam my yn ’e mjitte as in âlde freon. Yn ’e risptiid rûkte it hiele hûs nei dy hearlike sensaasje fan farsk kniesd snijmais.
Ik sprate de mais mei myn hannen, as moast ik my by in konsert troch de mannichte nei foaren kringe, en begûn troch de gongen te rinnen.

Eelke rûn foar my út oer it kromme paadsje nei de sleat. Myn broer wie trije jier âlder en twa koppen grutter as ik. Wy sprongen sûnder oanrin as ljippen oer it wetter. Ik folge him troch it gongestelsel fan ’e mais, in grien kideljend doalhôf. Eelke hie de gong deryn. Hy like krekt te witten wêr’t er hinne gie. It wie de earste kear dat ik mei him meigie. Nei in paradys op ierde, sa hie er it omskreaun doe’t er my meifrege.
Ik ferlear him dy middei net út it each, benaud om yn ’e gongen it paad bjuster te reitsjen, om der dêrnei troch in maiskniezer yn miljoenen stikjes fynhaksele te wurden; wat dêr’t ús pake my foar warskôge hie op ’e dei dat it brechje oer de sleat oplevere waard.
Eelke en ik baaiden troch hege stâlen. De blêden fan ’e mais kidelen net allinnich, se krasten no en dan ek skerp op ’e hûd fan myn bleate earms. Wy kamen út op in rûn iepen plak dêr’t knakte stâlen en lizen platwalst wienen as wie der in romteskip delkommen. Ik fielde fuort de waarmte fan ’e sinne.
Eelke liet syn broek en ûnderbroek oant oer syn skuon sakje. ‘Do ek,’ diktearre er.
Ik die wat myn broer my opdroech.
‘No moatte wy wachtsje,’ sei er.
Ik gie neist him sitten en stelde gjin fragen. It wie der deastil. Gjin fûgels, gjin wyn. Ik hearde allinnich myn eigen sykheljen.
‘Sjoch,’ sei Eelke.
Hy skylde in skutblêd fan in kolf en luts mei de râne in sneedsje yn it topke fan syn finger.
‘Skerper as mem har keukensmessen.’
‘No do.’
Krekt doe’t ik sizze woe dat ik it net doarst, klonk der in risseljen
‘Ah, dêr komme se al,’ sei Eelke kalm.
Hy pakte my by de earm en luts my omheech. Wy stienen neaken neistinoar. Ik fielde de sinne op myn liif. It lûd kaam tichter by oant de stâlen foar ús ynienen beweegden.
Achterinoar stroffelen de buorfamkes it paradys yn as waarden se deryn berne. Se rjochten allebeide har blik fuort op my.
‘Hast dyn broerke meinommen,’ sei Anna.
Ik hie noait in wurd mei de twaling fan ’e buorlju wiksele. Se wienen fan Eelke syn leeftyd.
‘Wat docht hy hjir no?’ folle Eva har sus batsk oan.
Se lieten allebeide har blik lytsachtsjend oer myn skrale bleate liif gean en begûnen har út te klaaien.
‘We dogge pimeltsje-op-kutsje,’ sei Eelke, ‘it is hartstikke maklik, moatst my gewoan neidwaan.’
De famkes gienen neistinoar op de plette mais lizzen. Eelke liet him boppe-op Anna sakje.
Eva wonk my en sei dat ik itselde by har dwaan moast, mar doe’t ik dat besocht, plofte ik dof op har búk as in ôfsmiten sânsek út in loftballon.
‘Dyn broerke is in sûch,’ rôp Eva nei Eelke, wylst se my fan har ôf rôle. ‘Ik wol net mear datst him meinimst nei ús paradys, oars komme wy hjir net wer.’
Sûnt dy middei gie ik inkeld mar nei it paradys as de buorfamkes der net wienen, oant op dy bloedhite woansdeitemiddei 19 augustus 1987, doe’t Eelke my hymjend en baaiend yn it swit op myn sliepkeamer opheljen kaam en my, mei twa skeppen út heit syn skuorke, mei it fjild yn naam. Ik hie Eelke op ’e weromreis beswarre moatten om neat oer ús paradys te sizzen. Wy makken allebeide mei in skutblêd in sneedsje yn ’e hân en drukte it bloed tsjininoar oan. It bestean fan it paradys moast, krekt as de sûnde, binnen de griene freding bliuwe.
Dy foarjûn wisten wy beide fan neat doe’t de buorman en de buorfrou mei nuodlike gesichten oan de keukenstafel sieten. Us mem hie kofje ynskonken mei in pantsje derûnder. Besite krige altyd kofje mei in pantsje derûnder. De buorfrou bleau mar mei har leppeltsje yn it kopke rieren, sels doe’t it kopke al lang leech wie. De buorman hie ús no en dan erchtinkend oansjoen.
Dat wykein waard ik wekker fan in helikopter dy’t leech boppe de maisfjilden sirkele. Ik tocht earst noch dat it in kniezer of hakseler wie. Eelke wie myn keamer ynkommen. Wy stoarren tegearre út it rút nei de maisstâlen dy’t troch de wynpûsten tekeargienen as weagen fan in woeste see. Eelke sei: ‘Wat der ek bart, do wist hielendal fan neat.’

Yn ’e moannen dêrnei seach ik faak út ’e finsterbank fan myn sliepkeamer wei nei hoe’t de buorman en de buorfrou tsjinoer elkoar oan de keukenstafel sieten. De hannen plat op it tafelswilk, de hinglampe derboppe. As buorman my foar myn rút stean seach, seach er my in momint strak oan. Dan gie er oerein en luts stadich it gerdyn ticht.
Ik die al dy jierren wat ik myn broer tasein hie: ik bleau fan neat witten. Ek dy pear kear dat wy him yn ’e strafynrjochting yn Tiel opsykje mochten, flústere er my dat ta. In wike foar’t ik achttjin waard en nei Utert gie, wie Eelke yn Tiel op syn burostoel mei tsjiltsjes stean gien en hie dy ûnder him wei glide litten.

Ik hearde in sêft risseljen achter my út ’e mais kommen.
‘Bessy, kom hjir, no, potferdoarje!’
De hûn hie my yn de gongestelsels witten te trasearjen en as hienen wy ferstopperke boarte en hie er my ôftikke, sa folge ik it bist werom nei de sleat.
‘Dy sânbak dêr,’ sei de bewenster doe’t wy de achtertún yn rûnen, ‘dêr hienen de eardere bewenners in hinneloop te stean. Wie dy der ek al doe’tsto hjir wennest?’
Ik knikte.
‘Myn man en ik woenen bêst hinnen hawwe hear, mar de bern smeken ús fansels om in grutte sânbak. Ik fûn dat eins ek wol prima. De sânbak hâldt se by it maisfjild wei, der binne dêr nuvere dingen bard.’
‘Ja,’ sei ik, ‘nuvere dingen.’
Wy dronken kofje oan ’e keukenstafel. Dêrnei folge ik har nei myn sliepkeamer oer in yndustriële, jitizeren trep. It wie noch altyd in bernekeamer, in ûnskuld dy’t my op ien as oare wize gerêststelde. Op in tafel tsjin ’e muorre stie in akwarium. Dêrboppe hong in poster fan it Nederlânsk Alvetal. Ik stoarre út it rút nei de peppels en it maisfjild. Achter my brobbele de akwariumpomp dy’t de fisken yn harren lytse subtropyske paradyske yn libben hold.

I took a right turn towards my past. In my memory the driveway was at least twice as long, but memories have a tendency to exaggerate. A sheep dog hurried towards me and began scuffling at the door with his front legs. To be on the safe side, I remained seated – I knew farm dogs had a reputation – and looked over the steering wheel at the farmhouse where I’d grown up in the eighties. The house, too, looked as if it had shrunk with time, that predator that eventually leaves everything and everyone a head shorter.
On my way from Utrecht I’d tried to conjure up the view from my bedroom window: the poplars lining the straight road leading to the village, they were still standing, the green letterbox on the wood pole on the side of the street (disappeared), the little helicopters from the sycamore on the roof of our beige Peugeot, the endless maize fields, the ditch behind the house and the wide kitchen windows of the neighbours, whom I so often saw sitting defeated and silent at the table after everything that had happened. From my bedroom I’d also seen the police cars approaching in the distance. A column of three cars, it had been. Blue flashing lights flickered against the trunks of the row of poplars, which had spread their shadows like bars over the road’s surface. They only took my brother with them. No handcuffs, I remembered on my way, just the hand of one of the agents in a fatherly manner on his shoulder when he took him over to one of the cars. That morning at the kitchen table I’d stubbornly insisted I knew nothing. Precisely as Eelke had told me to: ‘Whatever happens, you know nothing.’
A woman in black wellies walked towards me. She called to the dog and then to me.
I wound down the window. The countryside smell, a mixture of slightly acidic silage grass, manure and slurry filled the car with nostalgia.
‘He won’t hurt you, you know.’
I got out. The animal placed his nose against the nose of my shoes.
‘He can probably smell our cat.’
‘Good people, Bessy,’ said the woman, taking the dog by its collar for a moment. ‘Good people.’ 

A week earlier I’d talked to her on the phone. She’d had no problem with my wanting to come round. She was even looking forward to hearing from me how the house had looked inside thirty years ago.
The brief tour of the ground floor ended in the kitchen living room. The woman stood with her hips against the counter. She changed a coffee filter, rinsed out two cups. Like the rest of the rooms, the kitchen had been renovated, but I had little difficulty in seeing her as my mother standing there. She had the same wavy brown hair over her shoulders, a long back and perhaps even, it occurred to me as I allowed my gaze to travel over the tight jeans rising from her wellies, perhaps even the same bum – I could remember many of the details of my mother’s appearance, but I no longer remembered how her buttocks looked.
The coffee maker began to steam and simmer and the woman came over to sit opposite me. Her children, four and six, were at school and her husband worked in the city. Thirty years ago my mother would have said exactly the same if one Tuesday morning someone had sat with her at the kitchen table, wanting to take a look at his childhood home. I hadn’t mentioned to the woman that I’d not come for the house but for the back garden, the place where my first and only paradise had existed. I didn’t know if she was aware of what had happened in the maize fields, although she probably was: the neighbouring village was small enough to pass the story on to new generations and keep it alive. In any case the owner was fine with me taking a quick look. My coffee would be ready for me when I came back and we could go and look at my old bedroom.

The gate to the back garden from the driveway had been painted dark blue. There was a metal letterbox attached to it. The flap glittered in the sun. I closed the gate behind me and stared into the back garden. The sour cherry tree was still there, the patio was in the same place and there was still the same vague bend in the paved path towards the ditch. Where the chicken coop had been, there was now a large sandpit with coloured spades, buckets and watering cans. I could still see the Barnevelders scratching around and hear my mother squeezing half a tube of toothpaste into my mouth, while fussing about how often she’d had to tell me that chicken poo wasn’t for eating.
The little fence at the back was still there. As was the ditch itself, which was rather narrower than the ditch in my memory. Memories apparently have to be magnified in order to be able to survive in your head, I observed in my notebook. Other memories, done memories, complete memories, I wrote underneath, someday grow out of your skull again like grey hairs.
The sight of the little bridge over the ditch touched me. Three heavy old railway sleepers, which my father and grandad had put down among the cigar-shaped stems of the bulrushes. It was the bridge to paradise, as my brother called it. The sleepers were brittle and slippery with moss. The house might have changed a good deal, but this spot still felt as if it belonged to me. As if no one had been there all those years and no one would ever come there again either. I placed a foot on a sleeper, tested cautiously to see if the wood could support my weight. I crossed, smelled the sharp scent of the water mint and saw my mother in France sitting in front of the caravan with a glass of plutonium-green Sirop de Menthe. On the other side of the ditch, mud and grass gave way to the maize crop. That smell, too, came to meet me like an old friend. At harvest time the whole house smelt of that wonderful sensation of freshly bruised, cut silage maize.
I parted the maize with my hands, as if trying to move forward through a crowd at a concert, and began to walk along the aisles.

Eelke walked ahead of me along the curving path towards the ditch. My brother was three years older and two heads taller than me. Without a run-up, we leapt like lapwings over the water. I followed him through the aisles between the maize, a ticklish green labyrinth. Eelke was moving at quite a pace. He seemed to know precisely where he was going. It was the first time I’d accompanied him. To a paradise on earth, as he’d described it when he invited me to join him.
I didn’t lose sight of him that afternoon, fearing I would get lost in the fields, to be cut into millions of tiny pieces by a silage harvester, something my grandad had warned me of the day the little bridge was placed over the ditch.
Eelke and I waded between high stems. The leaves of the maize didn’t just tickle, once in a while they scratched the skin of my bare arms.
We came to a round, open space where broken stems had been crushed flat, as if a spaceship had landed there. I immediately felt the sun’s warmth.
Eelke dropped his trousers and pants over his shoes. ‘You too,’ he dictated.
I did as my brother told me.
‘Now we have to wait,’ he said.
I sat down next to him and didn’t ask questions. It was dead silent. No birds, no wind. All I could hear was my own breathing.
‘Look,’ said Eelke.
He peeled the husk from a cob and used the edge to pull a small cut in his fingertip. ‘Sharper than mum’s kitchen knives.’
‘Your turn.’
Just as I was about to say I daren’t, there was a rustling.
‘Ah, here they come already,’ said Eelke calmly.
He took my arm and pulled me up. We stood naked side by side. I felt the sun on my body. The sound came closer until the stems in front of us began to move.
One after another the girls from next door stumbled into paradise as if they’d been born there. Both immediately fixed their gaze on me.
‘You’ve brought your little brother,’ said Anna.
I’d never exchanged a word with the neighbours’ twins. They were Eelke’s age.
‘What’s he doing here then?’ Eva added bluntly.
They both ran their gaze scornfully over my meagre naked body and began to undress.
‘We’re going to play willy-on-fanny,’ said Eelke. ‘It’s really simple, just copy me.’
The girls lay down on the trampled maize. Eelke lowered himself onto Anna.
Eva beckoned and told me to do the same to her, but when I tried I thudded down onto her belly like a sandbag thrown from a balloon.
‘Your little brother’s an idiot,’ Eva called to Eelke as she rolled me off her. ‘I don’t want you bringing him to our paradise again, otherwise we won’t come here anymore.’
After that afternoon I only went to the paradise when the girls from next door weren’t there, until the boiling hot Wednesday afternoon of 19 August 1987, when Eelke came panting and sweating to pick me up from my bedroom and took me into the field with two spades from my father’s shed. On the way back I’d had to swear to say nothing about our paradise. We each made a cut in our hand with a maize husk and pressed the blood together. The existence of the paradise, like the sin, was to stay within the green fencing.
The evening before it happened we had no idea, when the neighbour and his wife came and sat at our kitchen table with worried faces. My mother had poured coffee into cups with saucers underneath. Visitors always received coffee with a saucer underneath. The neighbour’s wife continued stirring her spoon in her cup, even long after it was empty. The man looked at us suspiciously now and then.
That weekend I was awoken by a helicopter circling low above the maize fields. At first I thought it was a harvester or a chipper. Eelke had come into my room. Together we stared out of the window at the maize stems which formed wild waves like a rough sea in the gusts of wind. Eelke said: ‘Whatever happens, you know nothing.’

In the months afterwards I often watched from the window seat in my bedroom as the neighbour and his wife sat opposite one another at their kitchen table. Their hands flat on the table top, the hanging lamp above them. When the neighbour saw me at my window, he looked straight at me for a moment. Then he stood up and slowly closed the curtain.
All those years I did as I’d promised my brother: I continued to know nothing. Even on the rare occasions that we were allowed to visit him in the penal institution in Tiel, he whispered it to me. A week before I turned eighteen and left for Utrecht, in Tiel Eelke had stood up on his office chair on wheels and slid it out from under him. 

I heard a soft rustling behind me coming from the maize.
‘Bessy, come here now, darn it!’
The dog had succeeded in tracking me down to the maize aisles and as if we were playing hide and seek and I’d been caught, I followed the animal back to the ditch.
‘That sandpit there,’ said the owner as we entered the back garden, ‘the previous owners had a chicken coop there. Was that there when you lived here?’
I nodded.
‘My husband and I would have liked chickens, you know, but of course the children begged for a big sandpit. I thought it for the best really. The sandpit keeps them out of the maize field, weird stuff happened there.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘weird stuff.’
We drank coffee at the kitchen table. Afterwards I followed her to my bedroom, up industrial cast-iron stairs. It was still a child’s room, an innocence that was somehow reassuring to me. On a table against the wall was an aquarium. Above that hung a poster of the Netherlands national football team. I stared out of the window at the poplars and the maize field. Behind me the aquarium pump bubbled away, keeping the fish alive in their little subtropical paradise.

Dit is wat ik jim fertelle wol. Dat ik opgroeide yn in tún dy’t einleas grut like, yn in tún dêr’t alles út ’e grûn kaam wat wy nedich hiene. De sinne skynde op ús bleate lichems oant de jûn foel. Noait wie it dêr kâld. Wy wosken ús yn in heldere beek as waarden wy doopt. De iennige bisten om ús hinne wiene kleurige fûgels dy’t in sêft sjongerich lûd makken en net troch ús opfretten waarden. Ik hie in heit en in mem dy’t seine dat dit alles wie wat in minske him mar winskje koe.

Ik groeide op en krige boarsten en stelde fragen.
Ik frege ús mem wêrom’t wy neaken rûnen en gjin namme hiene. En ús mem sei dat de bân mei alle oaren, dêr’t wy yn ús ûnbidich grutte tún mei libben, net ferbrutsen wurde koe. As elk syn eigen namme drage soe, soe dat ús iensum meitsje.
Ik frege ús heit wêrom’t er alle dagen oan de râne fan in fjild siet dêr’t it gewaaks opkaam. En hy sei dat er dêr siet om it gewaaks de grûn út te winskjen.
‘Mar komme de planten dan net fansels de grûn út?’ frege ik.
‘Nee,’ sei er, ‘se komme út ’e grûn omdat se winske binne.’
En ik frege oan ús mem wêrom’t se de earms om de beammen hinne sloech. En se sei, dat de beammen dan frucht drage soene, omdat se wisten dat ek sy winske wiene.
Ik moast fan har oeral oan rûke, omdat alles hearlik rûkte.
‘Mar hoe kin ik witte wat hearlik rûkt as ik noait wat rûkt ha wat nét hearlik rûkt?’ frege ik.
‘Om’t wy witte wat hearlik is,’ sei ús heit. ‘Wy kenne it gelok en dat leit hjir.’
‘Mar hoe witte jimme wat gelok is as jimme net witte wat ûngelok is?’
‘Freegje dat net,’ sei ús mem. ‘Wês lokkich, omdatst alles hast watsto dy mar winskje kinst.’
‘Mar as ik wat oars winskje?’ gie ik troch. ‘Bygelyks dat der ris wat bárt?’
‘Dat hat gjin doel,’ sei ús heit. ‘Wat bart bringt ellinde en ûngelok. Wy ha alles wat wy ús winskje kinne. En bûten alles is der allinne mar neat. Der is gjin reden om neat te winskjen, want dan winskest neat.’
‘Dus dit is alles en fierder is der neat?’
Doe fertelde ús heit dat de heiten fan heiten fan heiten fan heiten wat trochjûn hiene oer de Offreding. Dat dêrachter wêzens libben dy’t har eagen hiene dêr’t wy ús spienen en har mûle dêr’t wy ús nâle, dat dêr wêzens wennen dy’t raasden en inoar deasloegen.
Ik frege him wat razen wie.
‘Dat is net-winske lûd,’ sei er. ‘Dat is ûngelokkich lûd.’
It wie de earste en de lêste kear dat ik fan harren wat oer de Offreding hearde, mar yn myn tinzen bleau de Offreding oerein stean. Ik woe dêr mear fan witte, al wist ik dat ik dat net winskje moast.

Op in moarn naam ik in paad dat ik noch gjinien nimmen sjoen hie. It rûn dea. Mar ik woe fierder en wrotte my in paad tusken beammen troch dy’t hieltyd tichter opinoar stiene. Myn fuotten, dy’t sêfte grûn wend wiene, rûnen skrammen op fan ûnbekende toarnen, mar ik hold fol. Ik lei tûken yn de foarm fan in krús as beakens op ’e grûn om it paad werom fine te kinnen.
En ik ûntduts de Offreding, dy’t trije kear sa heech wie as myn lichem en oerwoekere troch wylde planten.
Omdat gjinien my hjir hearre koe, die ik de mûle sa wiid mooglik iepen en liet ik al myn siken ûntkomme, en nei it fiif kear besocht te hawwen, kaam der in hurd lûd nei bûten ta. Dit moast razen wêze, de klank fan it ûngelok.
Muoisum fûn ik de wei werom nei wêr’t de beammen frucht droegen en de sinne ús bleate lichems berikke koe en de fûgels in sêft sjongerich lûd hearre lieten.
Ik ferburch de skrammen op myn fuotten foar myn âlden, troch op ’e knibbels sitten te bliuwen oant it tsjuster wie.

De oare deis naam ik op ’e nij it paad dat ik sels makke hie tusken beammen, dy’t noait besnoeid wiene, oant ik by de Offreding oankaam. En wer oefene ik in skreau, dy’t rau klonk, mar my net ûngelokkich makke.
Fuort dêrnei hearde ik takjes kreakjen, yn it ritme fan fuotstappen dy’t tichterby kamen.
Ik seach in man op my ta kommen, in man dy’t syn jonge smelle liif bedutsen hie mei klean, dêr’t ik doe net fan wist dat dy broek en himd hieten. Syn eagen en mûle sieten yn syn gesicht.
Hy skrok doe’t er my seach. Ik skrok ek en luts daliks in pear grutte blêden fan de strûk dy’t it meast tichtby stie om myn neakenens te bedekken.
De man sei wat. Hy spruts in taal mei rûge rântsjes en kromlutsen klinkers, mar ik ferstie him, want syn taal like op dy fan my.
Hy sei dat er fan de oare kant fan de Offreding kaam wie.
Hy die syn himd út en ik seach dat syn spienen spienen wiene en syn nâle in nâle wie.
Ik bûgde my nei him oer en rûkte oan him.
Hy rûkte net ûngelokkich.
Hy frege hoe’t ik hjitte, mar ik hie gjin namme.
Doe neamde er syn eigen namme, dy’t te yngewikkeld wie om te ûnthâlden.
Ik frege oft er oaren deaslein hie.
Nee, nee, dat hie er net.
Ik frege oft er ûngelokkich wie.
Nee, nee, dat wie er net.
Hy sei dat nimmen ea oan dizze kant fan de Offreding west hie, omdat elkenien miende datst hjir fuort opfretten waardst.
‘Ik yt dy net op,’ sei ik.
‘No is der wat bard,’ sei ik.
Us heit en mem hiene útholden dat der mar better neat barre koe, omdat dat allinne mar ellinde jaan soe. Mar ik seach gjin ellinde. Ik seach immen mei in gesicht.

Ik fûn doe noch dat er mar better by de Offreding bliuwe koe. Ik soe him iten en drinken bringe, as er dat winske.
‘Ik wol neat leaver,’ sei er.
En sa wachte ik alle dagen oant ús heit oan ’e râne fan it groeisum gewaaks siet en ús mem al har omtinken oan de fruchtbeammen joech. Dan slûpte ik nei de man mei de namme en brocht him griente, fruit en wetter. Wy praten oer de iene en de oare kant fan de Offreding en wy harken nei elkoar.
Hy hie de klean útdien en ik ferburch myn lichem net langer achter blêdte. Wy ûndersochten inoar mei ús hannen en lippen en tonge. En ik besefte dat hy alles wie wat ik my winske.
Dêrom besleat ik him mei nei myn âlden ta te nimmen.
‘Ik ha him fûn,’ sei ik. ‘Hy is gelok. Hy rûkt hearlik. Hy is alles wat ik my mar winskje kin.’
Mar ús heit en mem seagen daliks dat er net by ús hearde.
Hy moast werom nei wêr’t er wei kaam, seine se. Hy soe ûngelok bringe. De planten soene fertoarkje, de beammen soene har ivige grien ferlieze en de fûgels soene begjinne te razen.

Ik haw myn âlden in tút jûn en bin mei de man werom nei de Offreding gien. Dêr hise er him yn ’e broek en luts er my syn himd oan. Hy joech my in namme en brocht my nei in smelle tunnel dy’t ûnder de Offreding troch rûn.
Swijend krûpte ik efter him oan nei de oare kant.
It wie dêr kâld, it hagele.
Wy sloegen in earm om elkoar hinne en dielden it beevjen.

This is what I want to tell you. That I grew up in a garden which seemed endless, a garden where everything we needed came out of the ground. The sun illuminated our naked bodies until evening fell. It was never cold there. We washed in a clear stream as if we were being baptised. The only animals around us were colourful birds which made a soft sing-song sound and we didn’t eat them. I had a father and a mother who said that this was all a person could want.

I grew up and developed breasts and asked questions.
I asked my mother why we went around naked and had no names. My mother said our lives were inextricably linked with everything else in our immense garden. If everyone were to have their own names, that would make us lonely.
I asked my father why he sat every day on the edge of a field where crops grew. And he said that he was sitting there to will the crops out of the ground.
‘But don’t they come up themselves?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said, ‘they come out of the ground because they’re wanted.’
I asked my mother why she flung her arms around the trees. She said that the trees would then bear fruit, because they knew they were wanted.
She urged me to smell everything, because everything smelt wonderful.
‘But how can I know what smells wonderful when I’ve never smelt anything that doesn’t?’ I asked.
‘Because we know what wonderful is,’ said my father. ‘We know happiness and it is here.’
‘But how do you know what happiness is if you don’t know what unhappiness is?’
‘Don’t ask that,’ said my mother. ‘Be happy, for you have everything you could want.’
‘But what if I wanted something else?’ I persisted. ‘For instance, what if I wanted something to happen?’
‘There’s no point in that,’ said my father. ‘Things happening causes misery and unhappiness. We have everything we could want. And outside of everything there is only nothing. There is no reason to want nothing, because then you want nothing.’
‘So this is everything and there’s nothing else?’
Then my father told me that the fathers of fathers of fathers of fathers had passed down a tale about the Fence. That behind it there lived creatures whose eyes were where our nipples were and whose mouths were where our navels were, that creatures lived there who screamed and beat each other to death.
I asked him what screaming was.
‘It’s unwanted noise,’ he said. ‘It’s unhappy noise.’
It was the first and last time I heard anything about the Fence from them, but the Fence remained standing in my thoughts. I wanted to know more about it, although I knew I shouldn’t want to.

One morning I took a path I’d never seen anyone take. It led to a dead end. But I wanted to go further and made my way between trees which grew ever denser. My feet, which were used to soft ground, were scratched by unfamiliar thorns, but I kept going. I placed branches in cross shapes as markers on the ground to enable me to find my way back.
And I discovered the Fence, which was three times the height of my body and overgrown with wild plants.
Because no one could hear me here, I opened my mouth as wide as possible and let all my breath escape, and after trying five times a loud noise came out. This must be screaming, the sound of unhappiness.
With difficulty I found my way back to where the trees bore fruit and the sun could reach our naked bodies and the birds produced a soft sing-song sound.
I concealed the scratches on my feet from my parents, by kneeling until it was dark.

The next day again I took the path I’d beaten between the untamed trees, until I came to the Fence. Once again I practised a scream, which sounded raw, but didn’t make me unhappy.
Immediately afterwards I heard twigs crackling, with the regularity of approaching footsteps.
I saw a man walking towards me, a man who had covered his young, slight body in clothes, which at the time I didn’t know were called trousers and a shirt. His eyes and mouth were in his face.
He was startled when he saw me. I was startled too and immediately pulled a couple of large leaves from the nearest bush to cover my nakedness.
The man said something. He spoke a language with rough edges and warped vowels, but I understood him, for his language resembled mine.
He said that he had come from behind the Fence.
He removed his shirt and I saw that his nipples were nipples and his navel was a navel.
I leant towards him and smelt him.
He didn’t smell unhappy.
He asked my name, but I didn’t have one.
Then he told me his own name, which was too complicated to remember.
I asked if he had beaten others to death.
No, no, he hadn’t.
I asked if he was unhappy.
No, no, he wasn’t.
He said that no one had ever been on this side of the Fence, because everyone believed that you would instantly be eaten here.
‘I’m not going to eat you,’ I said.
‘Now something has happened,’ I said.
My parents had claimed it was better for nothing to happen, because it could only cause misery. But I saw no misery. I saw someone with a face.

At the time I still thought it better that he stay by the Fence. I would bring him food and drink, if he wanted.
There’s nothing I would like more, he said.
So I waited each day until my father was sitting on the edge of the fertile land and my mother had all her attention on the fruit trees. Then I stole away to the man with the name and brought him vegetables, fruit and water. We talked about one and the other side of the Fence and we listened to one another.
He had taken off his clothes and I no longer held the leaves before my body.
We explored each other with our hands and lips and tongues. And I realised that he was everything I wanted.
So I decided to take him to my parents.
‘I’ve found him,’ I said. ‘He’s happiness. He smells wonderful. He’s everything I could want.’
But my parents saw straight away that he didn’t belong with us.
He would have to go back where he came from, they said. He would bring unhappiness. The plants would wither, the trees would lose their eternal green and the birds would start to scream.

I gave my parents a kiss and went back to the Fence with the man. There he pulled on his trousers and put his shirt on me. He gave me a name and brought me to a narrow tunnel under the Fence.
Silently I crawled after him to the other side.
It was cold there, hail was falling.
We put our arms around each other and shared our shivers.

‘Us bêd is in boat,’ sei ik tsjin him en kloppe de krommels fan ’e lekkens yn ’e see. Ik rekte my út en lei in kessen ûnder ’e holle. Lâns de rânen fan it plafond tekenen har donkere fochtplakken ôf. Op ’e tafel stienen trije oan ’e râne ta fulde jiskebakken. Myn fluwielreade jurk lei yn in string op myn burostoel. Ik rôle nei him ta en tearde myn skonken oer dy fan him. Syn gesicht sêft en glânzich fan ’e sliep. Hy lake even nei my en sleat doe syn eagen wer. Ik aaide syn hân, de ieren yn syn pols, de donkerbrune hierren. De wulving fan ’e spieren yn syn boppe-earm as in dún. As ik sa lyts wie as in lúsjefers, soe ik dêr strune, even rêste tsjin it helmgers yn syn earmsholte, de wrâld besjen fan syn skouderblêd ôf.

By myn hân balansearre in kopke kofje op ’e matras. Dêrneist in pûde mei twa tsiiscroissants. In reep sûkelade dy’t juster earne ûnder ús dekbêd weiwurden wie, fielde ik no yn in hokse prippen. Ik rikte, brokkele der in stikje ôf en iet. Dêrnei naam ik in slokje kofje en begûn te digerjen yn it boek dat ik út syn kast pakt hie. Machiavelli dizze kear, en as altyd jage ik mar sa’n bytsje troch de wurden hinne. Ik lies net écht, want as ik dat die, soe ik ôfreizgje nei in oare wrâld en sa dus út dizze keamer ferdwine.
Wat ik wêze woe wie de frou yn ’e keamerjas fan har leaf, de rein op it rút, de stilte, syn drûge, waarme fel, dat er gedachteleas ien fan myn boarsten aaie soe en dat De Krijgskunst moai kontrastearje soe mei myn sêfte mûle en lakte teanneils. Lêze is folle earder in idee as in middel, wat my oanbelanget.

De see om ús hinne klotste sêft, op strjitte hearde ik de bel fan in tram, wy koenen nearne hinne. Myn telefoan stie út, de net-iepene rekkeningen yn myn brievebus waaiden fuort, yn myn búk begûn it te sjongen, einlings.

As it song yn myn búk wie alles goed.

Ik skeukte tsjin him oan.

Hy beweegde.

Hy draaide fan my ôf, syn rêch treau tsjin myn earm, goed, dit mocht, faaks sliepte hy djipper, dan koe ik it boek tichtdwaan en tsjin him oan lizzen gean en dan soenen wy ús eagen pas iepen dwaan as de jûn al fallen wie. Inkeld mar de besoarger soe him dan even fan ’t bêd jeie om de tas mei butter chicken oan te nimmen en de boarden te pakken, sels dan soe ik even ûnrêstich wurde, sa wie it no ienris, ik soe mei de foet skaaie oant er weromkaam yn ’t bêd.

It skerm fan syn telefoan ljochte op. En doe gnyske er. Ik liet it boek op it dekbêd falle en besocht oer syn skouder hinne te sjen, mar hy kearde him alwer nei my ta en sei: ‘Ik moat daalk even wat ophelje yn west.’

Ik bleau sykheljen, wat yn west, okee, hoe fier fytsen wie dat? Fiif kilometer? Dan soe er mei in hiel soad gelok in heal oere fuort wêze. Miskien in oere. Dat wie lang, mar wol oer te kommen. As er weromkaam, soe ik de lekkens útkloppe, de jiskebakken lege, ús klean opteard, muzyk opset, myn hier opnij rommelich opstutsen en wyn skonken hawwe yn ’e glêzen op it nachtkastke. Dan hoegde er allinnich de broek noch mar út te dwaan en neist my kommen te lizzen en soarge ik derfoar dat er samar wer ôfdriuwe soe, tegearre mei my, dêr gienen wy, ik soe sa hurd peddelje dat de kust yn in omsjoch út it sicht wêze soe. En dan koe it liet opnij begjinne.

‘O ja, en jûn komt Eddy by my te iten,’ sei er.

Myn fingers ferkrampen, de siken skeaten my omheech.
‘Hiest dat net even sizze kinnen?’ frege ik, mei meskes yn myn lûd. Ik klaude mei beide hannen yn it ûnderlekken.
‘Ah nee, begjin no net wer,’ sei er, hiel sunich.
‘Mar ik bin hartstikke wurch,’ sei ik. ‘En juster seist noch dat wy in rêstich wykein hawwe soenen.’ Ik sloech it dekbêd om my hinne, strak, oant myn kin.
‘Ik snap it, leave. Dat jout dochs neat. Oars bliuwst dochs gewoan lekker thús?’ Hy kaam oerein en lei syn hân op myn skonk. Ik luts ’m gau fuort.
Allinnich thús, neat ite, net sliepe kinne, de tiid traach en leech, myn fel kâld en myn soargen om jild en wurk as iisskossen yn in swarte oseaan.
‘Ik fiel my hielendal net goed,’ jammere ik no, en gie oerein sitten.
‘Ik sjoch dy moarn dochs wer,’ besocht er. ‘Gean oars gewoan lekker sliepen.’ Hy kaam oerein. Ik moast parsje, mar de triennen kamen, en doe’t dy ienkear oer myn wangen rôlen, waarden se ek hieltyd echter. It fertriet kaam efter it wetter oan, oant it my oerstjalpe en ik allinnich noch mar heale sinnen útstate. ‘Mar ik ha … ik bin … wêrom wolsto net?’ Ik hearde hoe dierlik oft ik klonk, tusken de wurden troch, leech en âljend, mar dat wie krekt goed, ik moast der gjin twivel oer bestean litte dat hy net fuortgean koe. Wy moasten op dit stuit hjir bliuwe, oars kaam neat ea wer goed.

Hy siet mei krombûgde rêch op ’e râne fan it bêd en die swijend de skuon oan. Doe gie er oerein, pakte syn jas fan ’e stoel en rûn nei de doar. Ik rôle fan it bêd, krûpte oer de flier, pakte de bokse fan syn broek. Hy bleau rinnen. Yn in opstiging biet ik him yn it ankel en liet fluch los. Dit wie net handich. Mar hy stie al stil, beferzen like it wol.
‘Au,’ sei er stadich. Ik seach nei him op, besocht oerein te klauwen om myn earms om him hinne te slaan. Ik moast sizze dat it my spiet, noch hurder gûle, wy soenen deroer prate, hoe koe it dochs safier komme, ik soe him stadich wer werom lokje nei it bêd, ik soe lyts wêze, mei in benaud stimke en senuweftige hânbewegings, hy soe foarsichtich myn hier streakje, syn skuon útdwaan, neist my krûpe en dan begûn myn búk súntsjeswei wer te sjongen. It liet soe dizze kear noch moaier wêze, want hy soe it wol út syn holle litte om my yn dizze tastân noch allinnich te litten.

‘En no is it klear,’ sei er.

Hy treau my werom op it bêd en ear’t ik derôf komme koe om him werom te heljen, sloech de foardoar ticht.

Ik bin hiel lang binnen bleaun. Ik iet fan itselde board, sliepte as it ljocht wie, hie kâlde fuotten en fet hier. Myn lekkens stiene stiif fan ’e smoargens, myn liif wie grau, op myn flier plakte in koeke fan itensresten en sigarettepeuken, de fochtplakken groeiden grillich troch oant op ’e muorren en de lucht hong blau troch alle stof en reek yn ’e keamer.
De see hie my fûn, ik libbe op in wrak, skarreljend tusken wiet, stikkenslein hout. Oprôle kaam ik myn dagen troch, deastil fan binnen, wachtsjend.

Oant ik op in dei samar de gerdinen iepenluts, it wetter brûkte om alle oankoeke smoargens út ’e plinten te weakjen, mysels skrobbe en it hier ôfknipte oant boppe de earen, út it rút hong om de lucht fan ’e strjitte op te snuven, de trep ôfgie nei ûnderen, de stoeptegels ûnder myn skuon fielde, in croissant kocht by de bakker, yn de tram stapte, lâns huzen en minsken flitste, it park yn rûn dêr’t de kastanjebeammen bloeiden, begearich in boek lies, wyn dronk mei freonen dy’t ik sêft yn harren earms knypte, in foarstelling besocht dêr’t ik om gûle moast sûnder dat ik it fernaam, sliepte sûnder pine, iet sûnder pine, in swarte wollen jurk kocht dêr’t ik my waarm en sêft yn fielde.

En doe kaam ik him tsjin. Hy seach my rinnen, myn jongeshier en myn ljochte rêchtas, myn blik op ’e beammen en myn dûnsjende fingers, myn oanstriid om nimmen echt oan te sjen, om’t ik it al sa drok hie mei mysels. Ik begryp dat hy ôfgryslik fereale op my waard.

Wy kamen byinoar, mar hieltyd gie ik nei hûs as wy lang yn bêd leinen. En hieltyd ieten wy bûten, yn restaurants, mar soms ek yn tunen en portiken. En soms belle ik him dagen net, mar sûnder selsferwyt of strategy, en as wy dan wer wol mei-inoar praten, gychelen wy om hoe’t ús stimmen klonken. En sa gienen wy fierder, sa moast dochs it libben wêze, tocht ik. Dit wie wat se bedoelden, as se oer folsleinens praten.

En op in sneintemoarn leinen wy yn bêd, de sinne skynde troch de ruten, hy rekke myn sliep oan, hoeden mei twa fingers. Ik kearde my ôf, woe it bêd út stappe, der wachte ien op my mei wa’t ik kofjedrinke soe.
En doe sei er: ‘Bliuw no.’ En luts my nei him ta. Hy seach my oan, fan hiel tichtby, mei in tear yn ’e foarholle, en dêr kaam it. Efter my swolde in weach oan, hiel heech. Hy drige oer my hinne te stoarten. Ik dûkte by him wei, hy lei in earm my hinne en treau myn holle tsjin syn boarst. ‘Ja, bliuw mar hjir,’ sei er.

En yn my, hiel leech yn my, begûn it te sjongen.

‘Our bed is a boat,’ I said to him and swatted the crumbs on the sheets into the sea. I stretched and put a pillow under my head. Along the edges of the ceiling dark patches of damp were appearing. On the table there were three ashtrays filled to the brim. My red velvet dress lay in a bundle on my desk chair. I rolled over to him and folded my leg over his leg. His face soft and plump from sleep. For a moment he smiled at me and then closed his eyes again. I stroked his hand, the veins on his wrist, the dark-brown hair. The curvature of the muscles in his upper arm like a dune. If I were as small as a match I’d stroll there, take a breather in the beach grass in his armpit, behold the world from his shoulder blade.

Beside my hand, a cup of coffee was balancing on the mattress. Next to it, a bag of cheese croissants. A bar of chocolate which had disappeared somewhere beneath our duvet yesterday was poking me in the hollow of my knee. I reached out, broke a piece off and ate it. Then I had a sip of coffee and started peering at a book I had taken out of his bookcase. Machiavelli this time, and as always, I just about raced through the words. I didn’t really read because doing so would have transported me to another world and I’d have disappeared from this room.
What I wanted to be was the woman in her darling’s dressing gown, the rain on the window, the silence, his dry, warm skin, that he’d absently stroke one of my breasts and that The Art of War would contrast nicely with my soft mouth and varnished toenails. Reading is far more an idea than a means, as far as I’m concerned.

The sea around us splashed gently, I heard the bell of a tram, we couldn’t go anywhere. My telephone was off, my unopened bills in my letterbox blew away, it started singing in my belly, finally.

When it sang in my belly everything was fine.

I cuddled up to him.

He moved.

He turned away from me, his back pressed against my arm, fine, that’s all right, perhaps he was sleeping more deeply, then I could close the book and snuggle up to him and we’d only open our eyes when night had already fallen. Only the deliveryman would rouse him from bed to collect the bag of butter chicken and get the plates, even then I’d be unsettled for a bit, that’s just how it was, I’d rock my foot until he got back in bed.

The screen of his telephone lit up. And then he chuckled. I dropped the book on the duvet and tried to look over his shoulder, but he turned to me and said: ‘I have to collect something in Amsterdam-West.’

I kept breathing – something in Amsterdam-West, okay; how far was that by bike? Five kilometres? With a bit of luck, he’d be away for half an hour. Perhaps an hour. That was long but not insurmountable. By the time he was back I’d have shaken out the sheets, emptied the ashtrays, folded our clothes, turned on some music, untidily tied up my hair again and poured wine in the glasses on the bedside table. Then all he’d have to do is take off his trousers and come and lie next to me and I’d see to it that he’d drift off again, together with me, there we’d go, I’d peddle so hard that the coast would disappear in no time. And then the song could start again.

‘Oh by the way, Eddy’s coming to eat with me this evening,’ he said.

My fingers stiffened, I fought for breath.
‘Couldn’t you have told me?’ I said, with razors in my voice. I dug with both my hands into the fitted sheet.
‘Oh no, don’t start,’ he said very quietly.
‘But I’m really tired,’ I said. ‘And yesterday you said we’d have a quiet weekend.’ I wrapped the duvet around me, tightly, up to my chin.
‘I understand, darling. It doesn’t matter though. Maybe you could just stay at home?’ He righted himself and lay his hand on my leg. I withdrew it smartly.
Home alone, nothing to eat, not being able to sleep, time dragging by and empty, my skin cold and my money and work troubles like icefloes in a black ocean.
‘I really don’t feel good,’ I whined, and I sat up.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he tried. ‘Why don’t you just go and have a good sleep.’ He rose. I had to strain, but the tears came and once they’d started rolling down my cheeks, they became more and more real. The sorrow followed the water, until it overwhelmed me, and I could only utter disjointed phrases.
‘But I have … I’m … why don’t you want …’ I heard how bestial I sounded between the phrases, low and bellowing, but that was good: I had to leave no doubt that he couldn’t leave. We had to stay here at this moment, or nothing would ever come right again.

He sat hunched at the edge of the bed and silently put on his shoes. Then he got up, took his jacket off the chair and walked towards the door. I rolled off the bed, clambered across the floor and grabbed his trouser leg. He carried on walking. On an impulse, I bit him in the ankle and swiftly let go. That wasn’t a good move. But he’d already stopped, apparently frozen.
‘Ouch,’ he said slowly. I looked at him, tried to pick myself up to put my arms around him. I was going to say sorry, cry even more loudly, we’d talk about it, how things could get this far, I’d slowly lure him back to bed, I’d be small, with a frightened little voice and nervous gestures, he’d gently stroke my hair, take off his shoes, slip into bed next to me and little by little my belly would start singing again.

‘Now that is enough,’ he said.

He shoved me back onto the bed and before I could get off it to call him back, the front door slammed shut.

I stayed in for a long time. I ate from the same plate, slept when it was light, had cold feet and greasy hair. My sheets were stiff with dirt, my body was grubby, a crust of leftovers and cigarette butts stuck to my floor, the patches of damp grew fitfully up to my walls and the air was blue from all the dust and smoke in the room.
The sea had found me, I lived on a wreck, rummaging about between damp, shattered wood. I got through my days curled up, dead silent inside, waiting.

Until one day I simply opened the curtains, soaked all the encrusted dirt on my skirting boards with water, scrubbed myself and cut my hair above my ears, leaned out my window to breath in the air from the street, walked downstairs, felt the pavement beneath my shoes, bought a croissant at the bakery, got in the tram, flashed past houses and people, entered the park where the chestnuts were flowering, eagerly read a book, drank wine with friends and pinched them gently in the arm, visited a performance which made me cry without realising it, slept without pain, ate without pain, bought a black woollen dress in which I felt warm and soft.

And then I bumped into him. He saw me walking, my boyish hair, my light rucksack, my eyes turned to the trees and my dancing fingers, my tendency to not really look at anyone because I was busy in my own head. I understand why he fell head over heels for me.

We got together but I always went home when we’d been in bed for a long time. And we always ate out, in restaurants, but sometimes in gardens and doorways too. And sometimes I didn’t call him for days, but without regret or strategy, and when we did speak to each other again we giggled at the sound of our voices. And that’s how we continued, that was how life should be, I thought. That’s what they meant when they talked about perfection.

And on a Sunday morning we were lying in bed, the sun shining through the windows, he touched my temple softly with two fingers. I turned away, wanting to get out of bed, someone was waiting for me who I was supposed to have coffee with.
And then he said: ‘Just stay.’ And pulled me towards him. He looked at me, from very near, with a frown, and then it came. Behind me a wave was surging, very high. It threatened to crash over me. I ducked away from it, he put his arms around me and pushed my head against his chest. ‘Yes, just stay here,’ he said.

And in me, very deep within me, it started to sing.

Begjin jierren tachtich naam ús heit ús mei de hiele húshâlding mei nei Kalifornië, dêr’t er in beurs krigen hie foar ymmunologysk ûndersyk. Foar him betsjutte dat tusken fjouwer muorren sitte mei syn elektroanemikroskopen, testbuiskes, weefselmeunsters, spanningen tusken kollega’s en kuiers troch stille gongen mei linoaleumflierren. Foar my en myn suske wiene it wynderige wiken fol mei sinneskyn, koarte broeken, T-shirts, skoalle en, ûnder it altyd weitsjende each fan ús mem, hiele middeis yn swimbaden, op strannen en op roltsjeredens. It wie net sasear in kultuerskok as wol ‘O echt, moatte wy dit?’ foar twa bern út Nij-Seelân, oftewol Aotearoa, dêr’t wy yn Christchurch op it Sudereilân leard hiene hoe’t it fielt as dyn lippen blau binne fan ’e kjeld, hoe’t huverige kielen praten op ’e azem fan ’e iisdraak en winterske dagen de fuotpaden oerdutsen mei it gefaarlike flues fan ’e froast.
Yn ús troch de sinne oerkoepele wrâld, alle kearen as ús mem in ôfspraak hie of der heechnedich efkes tuskenút moast, brochten wy in besite oan ús heit syn wurkplak. Hy spruts de namme dêrfan altyd út mei in begearige urginsje en spansearre dêr fierstentefolle tiid – as wie er der op in gefaarlike wize troch fassinearre. (Hy like net te fernimmen dat syn ôfwêzigens de lucht en it ljocht, ja sels it ferstriken fan de tiid yn ús húshâlding beynfloede. Ik sjoch werom en it heucht my hoe’t, yn de rin fan ’e moannen, wy trijen ús dagen hieltyd hoedener trochbrochten as hy der net wie. As hy wol thús wie, dijden de romten út, ljochten de muorren op en buorrelen de luchtstreamen yn ús keamers einlings wer fan it laitsjen.) As bern wiene wy lykwols absolút net ûnder de yndruk fan ús heit syn wurkplak, en wy hiene der in hekel oan dat wy dêr mei nei hinne sleept waarden. Wat wiene dêr mar in bytsje kleurpotleaden en se hiene net iens moai stevich tekenpapier! Fan dy blokkedoasachtige wite gebouwen krigen wy de monogrome blues.
Mar út dat oarde folboud mei kubussen kamen ek nuvere of ûnferwachte gasten by ús thús. Op in jûn wie it ús heit sels, dy’t betiid thúskaam, bleek, trystich, en op in frjemde manier kaam er ús net fertroud foar. Hy skynde benammen fan ’t sintrum te wêzen omdat in laboratoarium yn ’e buert begûn wie mei proeven op ‘in skattich lyts slingeraapke’. Wy koene der mei ús ferstân net by. Wat rotten en kninen oanbelanget wie er der al yn slagge om de molke fan minsklikens opdrûgje te litten: hy liet se ynsliepe om dêrnei har bûntfeltsjes iepen te ritsen en har nieren yn plakjes te snijen foar weefselûndersyk. As wy fregen wêrom’t er de kninen deameitsje moast, sei er: ‘It kin wêze dat it siken yn de takomst helpe sil.’ En dan, op dat ferfelende diapresintaasjetoantsje, dat er altyd opsette as er lêzingen joech: ‘Wy moatte ús bydrage leverje oan de foarútgong fan it minsklike stribjen, miskien sels in takomstige Mozart of in Katherine Mansfield foar sykten bewarje…’
‘Stribjen…’ Hy brûkte it Ingelske wurd endeavour, mar de iennichste Endeavour dy’t ik koe, wie in skip dat sa hiet en dat thús yn Nij-Seelân op in muntstik fan fyftich sinten stie. Ik tocht: reizgje mei sa’n skip, dat sjit ek net op as der allegearre sike minsken oan board binne. Mar doe realisearre ik my datst yn ús tiid ek mei it fleantúch kinst, sa’t wy dien hiene… dat ik hold dermei op it krioelen fan myn fragen te folgjen. It wie as rekken dy yn ’e knoop, as de toutsjes fan goedkeape jojo’s.
Wat ik wol trochhie wie dat it slingeraapke mei syn oandwaanlike snútsje ús heit oerstjoer makke hie. Net lang nei de dei dat er betiid thúskommen wie, moast er ús yn it wykein ris mei nei syn wurk ta nimme, en dat makke dat wy troch de ôfdieling mei de bistekoaien kamen. Us heit jage ús hastich by it krappe kouke lâns dêr’t it aapke oan in soarte fan pappegaaieskommeltsje hong. Heit seach ús oan mei in gesicht dêr’t in soarte fan skeind ferantwurdlikheidsgefoel op te lêzen stie, as frege er ús wat, dat er nimmen oars yn it gebou streekrjocht freegje koe.
Ik wit net krekt hoe’t it fierder ôfrûn mei dat meagere, boartlike slingeraapke mei syn fine, skearde kopke en ûntrêstigjend optimistyske eachjes. Mar nei syn ferdwining begûn ús heit syn proefdieren yn feilichheid te bringen en mei nei hûs ta te nimmen. Ien kear hiene wy it gelok dat it in knyn wie, net sa’n witenien mei pisplakken op syn poatsjes, lykas yn it lab, mar in prachtige, fokskleurige reade nij-seelanner, dy’t ús mem Erik neamde, nei Erik de Noarman. Erik de Reade rammele suver mei syn poaten fan ekstaze as wy mei him troch de achtertún paradearren, oan in toutsje – myn suske en ik beide yn ljochte katoenen simmerjurkjes, mei bleke streekjes yn it hier fan it gloar yn it swimbad – en wy laitsjend syn kaprioalen neibouden, fan dy fleurige komike hinne-en-wer-spronkjes op de gersstoppels.
In oare kear kaam ús heit yn it wykein mei twa kikkerts oansetten. Myn suske en ik brûsden fan opwining, want wy sieten noch midden yn ’e ferhalen oer prinsessen en gouden ballen, oer Kermit fan De Muppets, Podde fan slot Paddenburg of Jeremias Fisker, de gentleman-kikker, elegant klaaid yn syn fjoerreade flipjas wylst hy der yn syn provisykeamer in wetterballet fan makke. Wy wiene fêstbesletten om de natuerwittenskip út te daagjen en de barriêre tusken de soarten te trochbrekken troch yn petear te gean mei dy lytse blêdgriene kobolden. Wy praten tsjin har mei buorreljende wetterstimkes. Wy liezen har emoasjes ôf oan har opsette kieltsjes, as se slokkend besochten har finzenskip ûnder wurden te bringen.
Us mem makke in ymprovisearre terrarium. Se spande plestik foly – mei de nulle hie se dêr luchtgatsjes yn makke – oer in amer mei gers, takjes, bledsjes en wetter, om de kikkerts tydlik yn ûnder te bringen, oant wy in bettere behuzing foar har fûn hiene. Myn suske en ik fantasearren dat wy in paleis foar har meitsje soene en dwaan soene as wiene sy kroanprinzen.
Al siet de foly de oaremoarns noch strak om ’e amer, bliken die dat de kikkerts útnaaid wiene. Us loftkastielen wiene sa abrupt en deugdlik sloopt dat der neffens my fan ûnoantaastbere natuerwetten sprake wêze moast. Koene kikkerts ûnder bepaalde omstannichheden miskien ferdampe? Wurke it lab oan teleportaasje? (‘Blaze kikkerts harsels op?’ grapket myn dochter as ik har oer it mystearje fertel.)
Oare húsdieren ûntrêstigen ús noch mear as dy ferdwinende kikkerts, hoewol net om deselde reden as dy dy’t my tsjintwurdich soargen jout. Op in jûn brocht ús heit twaentritich radio-aktive wettersalamanders fan in lab yn ’e omkriten mei nei hûs ta. Wy hiene der in ôfgriis fan en wiene dêr tagelyk troch fassinearre. Se hiene de kleur fan bloeiende grienwieren – de gefaarlike soarte dy’t as in fata morgana bern sa ferrifelet dat sy oer wat in grut grien gersfjild liket rinne en dan al gau troch it fiverwetter oerspield reitsje. Hoe faak as wy it wetter yn har akwarium ek ferfarsken, de salamanders bleaune in nuvere rook ôfjaan, wat dompichs en sâltichs, as fan rotsjende planten, of fan it grientelaad yn ’e iiskast dêr’t it lêste bytsje spinaazje te lang yn lein hie. Guon salamanders misten poatsjes of sels har sturt. De strielingseksperiminten yn it lab wiene bedoeld om te sjen yn hoefier at de bisten by steat wiene de missende lidden wer oangroeie te litten, in eigenskip dy’t, nei útputtend ûndersyk, in revolúsje ta stân bringe soe yn de behanneling fan amputaasjes by minsken.
Alle dagen op ’e nij, ien foar ien, fûnen we deade salamanders yn harren krappe bak. Us mem, myn suske en ik skepten om bar de lykjes op mei in leppel, dêr’t soms in triuwke fan in pink by nedich wie om se teplak te krijen. Dêrnei wie it: ‘Farwol, lid fan ús salamanderfamylje,’ en spielden we se troch it húske. Us mem makke grapkes oer krokodillen yn it rioel dy’t fan radio-aktive hapkes smikkelen en mutearren yn superbisten. Wy diene ús uterste bêst om har net te leauwen, wat dreech wie, sjoen it ferhaal dat it sjoernaal dy dagen brocht. In slang by ús yn ’e buert, dy’t as húsdier holden waard, wie ûntkaam en hie de hamster fan in jonkje opiten. Der ferskynden bylden op it nijs fan in pyton dy’t stevich om in boppegrûnske telefoantried kronkele siet – foar ús wie it mar al te oannimlik dat it bûtenwenstige en it deistige nei elkoar ta skowe kinne, benearjend yn har kâlde, en tagelyk nonsjalante omearming.
Letter, as folwoeksene, fertelde ik it ferhaal oer de deade salamanders sa út en troch op feestjes. In ferhaal dêr’t it sintrale gegeven tagelyk de klû fan wie. De fertelling fielde altyd wat slop oan, omdat it as in nachtkearske útgie, tink ik. Dy earme salamanders wiene mei nukleêr materiaal behannele, se gongen dea, dat wie de ein fan in flauwe mop. As hold ik my mei opsetsin dôf en blyn foar de elektrisearjende tentakels fan it fantastyske en frjemde. Miskien wie it sels wol in blyk fan neilittichheid, fan apaty, dat ik my net earder ôffrege hie wat de bykommende risiko’s wêze koene, dat ik dêr no pas by stilstean, nei’t wy alle marteljende ûndersiken en medyske ellinde trochstien ha, no’t ús dochter hielendal opknapt liket te wêzen.
Ik tink dat der sûnder dat ûngemak nea reden west ha soe om te tinken yn termen fan neisleep, bywurkingen, kontrayndikaasjes, wurden dy’t ik earder opfong hie, útsprutsen mei de profesjonele telefoanstim fan ús heit, mar dêr’t ik him net mear nei freegje kin no’t er der net mear is.
Sûnder dat ûngelok wiene dy salamanders nei alle gedachten allinnich mar in bizarre, sâltleaze anekdoate bleaun.
Doe’t Alisha, ús dochter, tsien wie, rekke har hân beknypt tusken in swiere stielen brândoar dy’t in jonkje op skoalle by ûngelok tichtsmiet. (Sels no’t ik dit tikje wurd ik licht yn ’e holle, dwyl.) Alisha’s pink wie sa ferskriklik skeind dat dy net te rêden foel. We wiene fansels siik fan ellinde. Alisha spile bjusterbaarlik firtuoas piano. Har ekspressiviteit en lichtens fan toets wiene boppenatuerlik folwoeksen, hielendal ast betinkst dat noch har heit noch iksels oanlis foar it bespyljen fan muzykynstruminten ha. (Hoewol’t ik yn it skoalkoar graach popsongs kweelje mocht, of gitaarspylje, of sjonge, tegearre mei ús heit, op dy seldsume wykeinen dat hy en ús mem ús meinamen nei it strân, de auto oer de sneldyk fleanend as waard er oandreaun troch de opswypkjende muzyk op ’e radio.)
Nettsjinsteande ús noed en soarch yn it earstoan hiele Alisha’s wûne bysûnder fluch. De kruks sit him hjir yn it wurd bysûnder. Der groeiden nammentlik twa nije fingers út ’e sjirurgyske wûne. Mike, myn man, seit dat ik oerdriuw en spûken sjoch as ik sis dat dy fingers de griene glâns fan rivierwier hiene. By heech en by leech hâldt er út dat de nije hûd fan in etearyske trochsichtichheid west ha moat foardat dy sterker en steviger wurde soe.
Do kenst grif wol it klisjee fan dat bern sa wreed wêze kinne. Us earste reaksje op de pynlike kommentaren fan Alisha’s klasgenoaten oer har ‘duvelske klau’ wie dat de sjirurch dy ekstra finger amputearje moatte soe, prestissimo, sa gau mooglik. Mar Alisha sels wie de earste dy’t protestearre. ‘En wat as it nochris bart? Dat der wer twa fingers oangroeie, of sels noch mear?’ Dagen oanien fierden we beladen, surreële diskusjes, mar úteinlik waarden Mike en ik it iens dat wy wat earder in wûne west hie gewurde litte moasten.
In oare, yn it begjin ûntrêstende, ûntwikkeling wie dat Alisha, doe’t har hân hielendal genêzen wie, sa mooglik nóch better piano spile as foar dy tiid. Sels no noch, no’t ik dit skriuw, begryp ik neat fan myn eigen ûngerêstens. Mooglik wie it de twongen refalidaasje dy’t har in gefoel fan urginsje joech, en in earnstiger beretttens om te oefenjen en te repetearjen sadree’t se frij fan pine wie, de sûplesse yn har hân werom wie en sy dêr wer kontrôle oer hie. Miskien is elke foarsprong dy’t in finger tefolle jout niks ûnnatuerliker as, sis, in bern yn ’e hegedrukpanne grutbringe, dêr’t se twongen wurde lessen te folgjen en oefeningen te dwaan dêr’t se út harsels wei noait de yntrinsike motivaasje ta ha soene. Is it ûnnatuerliker as de atleet dy’t proteïne shakes drinkt om syn spiermassa op te bouwen? Is it slimmer as it bedroch fan it fotomodel dat har hier fervet, op dieet is of yn botox ynvestearret?
Ik fielde oars neat as ferromming doe’t wy ús realisearren dat, doe’t it Alisha slagge wie de ûntmoedigjende mutaasje ta in foardiel om te tearen, it dien wie mei de pesterijen op it skoalleplein. It wie as erkenden har klasgenoaten har bekwamens, en wiene se op in soarte fan tribale of kollegiale wize grutsk op har yn stee fan jaloersk.
Ik bin derfan oertsjûge dat de ein fan dy pesterijen ek in fertsjinste wie fan de skoalle. De leararen joegen stipe op ’e eftergrûn: se namen de pestkoppen apart, laten har oandacht ôf mei oare aktiviteiten en lieten Alisha op inkelde benefytkonserten optrede, sûnder iepenlik de oandacht te fêstigjen op har … Tsja, wat is eins it tsjinoerstelde fan ynfaliditeit? Xtra-faliditeit? Dêrnei waard se foar de hiele skoalle in soarte fan kult-stjer, sokssawat as de heldinne yn in glossy remake fan ien as oare sciencefiction-klassiker. En dat sis ik sûnder irony, echt wier, earder mei ûnwisse ferwûndering oer har fearkrêft.
Ik hear har no, op ’e piano yn ’e sitkeamer. (Dy ha wy liend fan in freon fan Mike, dy’t sei dat er it fertsjinne om brûkt te wurden troch in natuertalint mei wiere passy: altyd as er der sels op besocht te spyljen fielde er him ‘ûnbehelplik en bespotlik’.)
Alisha is foar in skoftke ôfstapt fan de toanljedders en klassike stikken dy’t se ynstudearret foar har eksamens foar Trinity College. Se pielt wat om mei in âld nûmer fan Paul McCartney dat se ûntduts op 200 More Top Songs. De melody ferglidet fan ûnskuldich nei desoriïntearjend, suver benearjend hoekich. Miskien bringt it my mear út it lykwicht as nedich is. Us heit song it faak doe’t wy noch yn Kalifornië wennen, foardat we nei Nij-Seelân weromkamen en ferhuzen nei de klamme heuvels fan Te Whanganui-a-Tara, oftewol Wellington, dêr’t de poalwyn troch alle klean hinne giet, en jin like gek makket as de earme âlde Kening Lear op ’e heide. It lân dêr’t ús âlden lang om let útinoar gongen, om’t ús heit eins mei syn wurk troud wie, it lân dêr’t er te jong kaam te ferstjerren en safolle geheimen, ferhalen en ûnbeantwurde fragen mei it grêf yn naam. Sa’t alle âlden dogge, nim ik oan, as se dy achterlitte.
De fragen lykje hieltyd mar wer de kop op te stekken: fan simpele oant wanhopige. Wat barde der eins echt mei it mankelike slingeraapke? Hasto mei ús mem dy kikkerts sels loslitten? Wisto dat der in groede op dyn hertspier siet? Wist datst eardere, myldere, hertoanfallen hân hiest en hast derfoar keazen om ús dat net te fertellen? Of wiest bang om it te ûnderkennen, ek nei dysels ta? Hat it it wurdich west, al dy jierren fan hurd wurkjen, dy’t dyn houlik stikkenmakken en dyn sûnens skea diene? Hast oait bernsbern ha wollen? En dy geheimsinnige, doeme amfibyske húsdieren… hast oait ek mar wat witten fan mooglike effekten op lettere generaasjes…? Kinst dyn pakesizzer sjen? Kinst har sjen?
Under Alisha’s toetsoanslach riigje de koele triedden fan McCartney’s song har troch it stille hûs. Se hat der gjin weet fan dat de pake, dy’t sy nea kend hat, it op syn stereo-ynstallaasje draaide en besocht de hege toanen te heljen as it op ’e radio wie. Ik leau net dat it nostalgy is wat my it gefoel jout dat de melody en de akkoarden wat oars betsjutte, ien as oare komplekse koade binne, dy’t dreech te ûntsiferjen is. Der is wat mei de tekst, mei ‘when you will see me’, mei ‘glueing my fingers together’, ‘my salamander’, ‘a song with a point’, dat giet oer ‘getting closer’.
Hoe kin in simpele sjongtekst sokke tsjinstellingen sa behindich byinoar bringe? Ik kin mar net útmeitsje oft de sterkste tried fan de song spand stiet fan tsjustere foartekens of lichtsjes sweeft mei in gouden, dryst gefoel fan freugde, fan ferromming.

(It ferhaal ‘My salamander’ komt út The Pink Jumpsuit: Short fictions, tall truths fan Emma Neale, útjûn troch Quentin Wilson Publishing, Aotearoa New Zealand.
De song dêr’t nei ferwiisd en út sitearre wurdt is ‘Getting Closer’ (1979) fan Wings, skreaun troch Paul McCartney.)

In the early 1980s, my dad took our family to California, where he had earned a grant for immunology research. For him: indoor days of electron microscopes, test tubes, tissue samples, lab staff tensions, and walking silent linoleum-floored corridors. For me and my sister: breezy, sun-washed weeks of shorts, T-shirts, school, and then, with our mother always keeping watch, afternoons of swimming pools, beaches, roller skates. It was less culture shock than Oh, so we really get to do this? for two children from southern Aotearoa New Zealand, where Christchurch had taught us the blue of winter lips, how chilly throats spoke in ice-dragons’ breath, and winters coated footpaths in frost’s perilous skin.
In our sun-domed new world, whenever our mother had appointments or a long-overdue break, we visited Dad’s workplace. He always spoke its name with avid urgency and spent far too much time there; it seemed to hold a dangerous fascination. (He appeared unaware of how his absences began to alter the air and the light, the very gradient of time in our family. I look back and think of how, as the months passed, the three of us began to edge around the days more gingerly when he was gone. When he was back, spaces expanded, walls brightened, laughter finally loosened and scudded the air currents of our rooms.) As children, though, we were singularly unimpressed by Dad’s work premises, and we hated being dragged along there. How few colouring-in pens it had, how lacking it was in thick, creamy drawing paper! Its blocky white buildings gave us the monochrome blues.
Yet weird or unexpected arrivals began to come home from that cuboid place. One night, it was our father himself, back early, pale, drawn and curiously unfamiliar. He seemed to be uneasy mainly because a neighbouring lab group had begun experiments on ‘a gorgeous little spider monkey’. We didn’t know how he could, but with rats and rabbits he’d managed to dry up the milk of human kindness: putting the animals to sleep, then unzipping their fur tummies, slicing up their kidneys for tissue samples. When we asked him, why did he have to kill the bunnies? he said, ‘One day it might help sick people,’ and then, in his boring, slide-presentation voice: ‘We must help to advance human endeavour, perhaps even save a future Mozart, or Katherine Mansfield, from disease . . .’
The only Endeavour I knew was the sailing ship on the fifty-cent coin back home. I guessed maybe it couldn’t sail far with sick people on it, but then I realised nowadays you could get a plane, just like we had . . . so I stopped following the tangle of my own questions. They just seemed to knot up like cheap yo-yo string.
What I did understand was that the gentle-faced spider monkey unnerved Dad. Not long after that day of his early arrival home, he had to take me and my sister into his work one weekend; had to walk us past it in the Core Animal Facility. Dad hurried us by the cramped cage where the monkey sat clinging to a swing distinctly like a parrot’s. Dad looked at us with a kind of hurt complicity, as if asking us something he couldn’t directly ask anyone else in the building.
I don’t know exactly what happened to the thin, child-like spider monkey, its frail, shaven skull and perturbingly optimistic eyes. But after it disappeared, Dad began to rescue laboratory animals and bring them home. Once, happily, it was a rabbit: not the white kind with urine-stained paws common in the lab, but a beautiful foxy-russet New Zealand Red that Mum named Erik, after the Viking. Erik the Red just about clicked his heels in ecstasy when we promenaded him round the back yard, tethered on a leash, my sister and I both in light cotton sundresses, hair lime-streaked from pool chlorine, laughing as we imitated his binkies, those joyous twisting sideways leaps, on the stubby grass.
Another weekend Dad smuggled home two frogs. My sister and I were fizzing, immersed as we still were in fables about princesses and golden balls; Kermit from The Muppets; Toad of Toad Hall, or Jeremy Fisher, the gentleman frog, so elegant in scarlet tailcoat yet still letting things go all slippy-sloppy in his larder. We were entirely willing to defy science, break through the species barrier and strike up conversations with these tiny, leaf-coloured goblins. We talked to them in small, bubbly water-voices. We could see the emotion at their throats as they gulped and tried to put captivity into words.
Mum improvised a short-stay terrarium. She put plastic wrap – needle-pricked with breathing-holes – over a bucket with grass, sticks, leaves and water to tide the frogs over until we found them better real estate. My sister and I thought we might make them a palace and pretend they were princes-in-waiting.
The very next morning, the clingfilm was still firmly sealed but the frogs had vanished. Our airy fantasies had been so abruptly and thoroughly punctured that I understood grave, unshakeable scientific principles must be at work. Could frogs evaporateunder certain conditions? Had the lab been working on teleportation? (‘Invisibility croaks?’ my daughter quips now, when I recount the mystery.)
Some other pets troubled us even more than those disappearing frogs, although not for the same reasons that disturb me now. One evening, Dad brought home thirty-two radioactive newts from another neighbouring lab group. They repelled and fascinated us in equal measure. Their skins were the colour of certain algal blooms – the hazardous, mirage-like kind that trick children into walking out onto what seems to be lush turf just moments before pond water engulfs them. No matter how often we refreshed the water in their aquarium, the newts also gave off a peculiar scent: dank, salty, and something like rotten vegetable matter, similar to the fridge’s bottom drawer when the last of the spinach has been believed in for too long. Some newts were missing arms, legs or tails. The laboratory’s radiation experiments had investigated their ability to regrow limbs, a trait which, if understood and harnessed, could revolutionise treatment for human amputees.
Day by day, one by one, we found the newts belly-up in their cramped tank. My mother, sister and I took turns to scoop up each small corpse in a spoon, sometimes having to nudge it into position with a pinkie, before saying, ‘Bye-bye, part of our newt-lear family,’ and flushing it down the toilet. Mum joked about crocodiles in the sewers eating radioactive snacks and mutating into Super Beasts. We tried very hard not to believe her, which was difficult, given the story on TV bulletins around the same time. A pet snake in a neighbourhood not too far from us had escaped and eaten a boy’s hamster. There were shots on the news of the python coiled heavily around overhead telephone lines: it was all too credible to us that the outrageous and the everyday might sidle up alongside one another, frightening in their cold yet casual entanglement.
As an adult, I occasionally told the dying newts story at parties – a story in which the central fact was really the punch line too. It always fell slightly flat, I guess because it went nowhere. Those poor newts were nuked; they died; end of so-not-funny joke. It seems wilfully blind of me to have stopped sensing the electrical tendrils of the fantastical and strange. Perhaps it was even neglectful, apathetic, not to have wondered about residual risks until recently; to puzzle over it only now that we’re through the trials by bullying, the trials by health system, and our daughter seems to have fully recovered.
Yet I suppose without the accident there might never have been any reason to think of terms like aftermath, side-effects, contraindications, words I first overheard in my father’s work-phonecall voice, but which I can’t ask him about now that he is gone.
Without the accident, those newts could have stayed a quirky, go-nowhere anecdote.
When Alisha, our daughter, was ten, a boy unwittingly slammed her hand in a heavy steel fire door at school. (Even typing that makes me feel unmoored, faint.) One of Alisha’s little fingers was so damaged it couldn’t be saved. We were sick with worry, of course. Alisha played piano with astonishing flair; she had an expressiveness and lightness of touch that seemed preternaturally mature, given neither her father nor I have any genuine technical musical aptitude. (Although I loved belting out pop hits in school choir, or playing guitar, or singing along with Dad on those rare weekends he and Mum took us to the beach, car flying on the freeway as if fuelled by the speed of the radio’s songs.)
Negating our initial anxiety, Alisha’s amputation site healed remarkably quickly. The problem lay in that remarkably. Ourdaughter grew two new fingers from the surgical wound. My husband, Mike, says I’m catastrophising and confabulating when I say they had the willowy sheen of riverweed. He insists it’s simply that early on, the new-grown skin seemed ethereally translucent, before it strengthened and thickened.
I’m sure you know the cliché about how cruel children can be. Our first reaction to the hurtful comments from classmates about Alisha’s ‘freak claw’ was that the surgeon should amputate the extra digit, prestissimo. Alisha herself was prompt to counter-argue, ‘What if the same thing happens? Say I grow another two fingers, or even more?’ We had fraught, surreal discussions over several days, but in the end Mike and I agreed to leave the former wound site alone.
Another initially disconcerting development was that once Alisha’s hand was healed, her playing became, if anything, enhanced. Even as I say that, I’m not sure I understand my own unease. It’s possible that the compulsory recuperation time gave her an added sense of urgency and a fiercer determination to train and practise as soon as her hand was flexible, controlled and pain-free again. And perhaps any advantage an extra finger might have given her is no more unnatural than, say, hothousing a child, forcing them to undertake lessons and drills they’d never have the intrinsic drive to pursue alone. Is it any more unnatural than the athlete who drinks protein shakes to build muscle; is it cheating any more than the model who dyes their hair, diets, invests in Botox?
I felt nothing but relief when we realised that once Alisha had turned her unnerving alteration to her musical advantage, the schoolyard tormentors stopped targeting her. It was like they recognised her ability, started to show a kind of tribal or collegial pride instead of jealousy.
I’m sure the end of the bullying was also to do with her school. The teachers have been quietly supportive: taking the tormentors aside, diverting them with other activities; showcasing Alisha at one or two fundraising concerts, without actually drawing attention to her – well, what’s the opposite of disability? X-trability? After that, she even had a sort of cult kudos round school, like the heroine in a sophisticated remake of some sci-fi classic. I say that with no tongue in cheek, I promise, but in a shaky astonishment at her resilience.
I can hear her right now, on the piano in the lounge. (We’ve borrowed it from a colleague of Mike’s who said it deserved to be used by someone with innate talent and real passion: whenever he tried to play, he felt ‘leaden and laughable’.)
Alisha’s taking a break from the scales and classical pieces she’s studying for her Trinity College exams, and fooling around with an old Paul McCartney number from 200 More Top Songs. The tune slips from sounding innocent to disorienting, almost hauntingly angular. Perhaps it unsettles me more than it should. Dad used to sing it, often, when we lived in California, before we returned to New Zealand – moved to the fog-bound hills of Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington, and the Antarctic-laden winds that penetrate all clothing, making you feel as thwarted as poor old King Lear on the heath. The land where our parents finally divorced, because really our father was married to his research; the land where he died too young, taking so many secrets, stories and unanswered questions with him. As any parent does, I suppose, when they leave you.
The questions never seem to stop banking up, though: from the minor to the desperate. What really happened to the melancholic spider monkey? Did you and Mum release those frogs yourselves? Did you know there was scar tissue on your heart muscle? Did you know that you’d had other, milder heart attacks, and did you just choose not to tell us? Or were you too afraid to admit it even to yourself? Were all those workaholic years that killed your marriage and strained your health worth the cost? Did you ever want grandchildren? And those mysteriously doomed amphibious pets . . . did you know, on any level, about the possible intergenerational effects . . . ? Can you see your granddaughter? Can you? 
Under Alisha’s touch, the McCartney tune laces through the still house like cool thread. She’s unaware that the grandfather she never met used to play it on his stereo, and reach for the high notes when it came on the radio. I don’t think it’s nostalgia that makes me feel the melody and chords submerge something else, some complex code I’m struggling to translate. There’s something about when you will see me, about finger joints, my salamander, a song that has a point, something about getting close.
How can a simple song nimbly cup such opposites together? I can’t unpick whether the strongest strand tugs dark with foreboding, or floats with a golden, reckless sense of joy, reprieve.

(From The Pink Jumpsuit: Short fictions, tall truths by Emma Neale
Quentin Wilson Publishing, Aotearoa New Zealand)

‘Jonge,’ sei ús mem. ‘Noait hei roppe foardatst oer de brêge bist.’
De brêge wie noch fier.
De dyk wie leech. Koest sjen dat de earste winterske kjeld der al wie. De strûken ferlearen har blêd, it gers waard keal, de stiennen liken hurd as stiel.
En oeral leechte.
De boerinne koe my mar ien flesse molke jaan. ‘Moarn miskien wer twa,’ sei se. ‘Hjoed hiene wy wol tsien hongerlijers oan ’e doar. Ik woe dy minsken net fuortstjoere. Do bliuwst myn fêste klant, hear. Moarn krigest wat lekkers fan my.’
Ien flesse skeelde yn it sjouwen.

In skoft lyn fytste ik noch. Alle dagen sân kilometer fan ús hûs nei de pleats en dyselde sân kilometer werom. Mar de Dútsers hiene ús fytsen yn beslach naam. Dy fan ús heit doe’t er nei hûs ried. ‘Ofstappe,’ hjitte de soldaat. Fyts kwyt. Dy fan ús mem wie útinoar helle en ferside brocht. Lykas ús koperen koalekit (dy’t se ha woene om munysje fan te meitsjen) en ús radio dêr’tst mei nei Radio Oranje út Londen harkje koest.
Dat diene we stikem op souder.
De radio stie sa súntsjes dat ús mem de helte net ferstie.
Ik hie in kear ús keninginne heard.
Se hie in rare stim.
Deftich en dochs wie it as skreaude se.
‘Dy oarloch kin noait lang mear duorje,’ seine de folwoeksenen. ‘De Amerikanen en de Ingelsken komme om ús te befrijen.’
‘En de Russen meitsje de Dútsers yn,’ sei Johan. ‘As it winter wurdt befrieze se allegear. Gjin soldaat dy’t dy kjeld ferneare kin.’
Johan wie in jier as tritich. Mei syn fersetskameraden hie er op in beruchte NSB’er sketten. Hy waard troch de Dútsers socht en dêrom wie er by ús ûnderdûkt.
Mynhear Bloem – as dat teminsten syn echte namme wie – hie mei syn maten in trein mei Dútske soldaten fan it spoar rinne litten. As er pakt wurde soe, koe er de deastraf krije. Hy soe mar trije dagen by ús bliuwe, mar wie der al in moanne. Hy bemuoide him oeral mei. Benammen mei myn opfieding. Hy fûn ús mem te leaf en ús heit te slop.

Der stie in bleek sintsje. De fjilden oan wjerskanten seagen der drûch en stoppelich út. Se wachten op it foarjier om wer fleurich en fruchtber te wurden. De wylgen stiene der by as soldaten yn gefjochtshâlding. It wetter yn ’e sleatten wie donkergrien sûnder ek mar ien rimpeling.
Ik rûn oan ’e kant fan ’e wei.
Dy rûn stadich omheech.
Ik fernaam it oan myn fuotten.
No en dan bleau ik stean om te sjen oft der Dútske soldaten wiene.
Nimmen.
Doe’t ik tichtby wie, dûkte der ynienen in lânwachter op. Swart unifoarm, gewear yn ’e oanslach. Ik wist net wat ik dwaan moast. Weromgean wie fertocht. Gewoan trochrinne as hie ik neat te ferbergjen wie noch it bêste. Miskien stie er hjir allinne mar op ’e útkyk.
Smoarge lânferrieder.
Hy wonk my.
Hy sette syn gewear op ’e grûn, de hannen as yn gebed om ’e loop teard.
Ik rûn op him ta as hie ik blierren op ’e fuotten. Hy skôge it gewear en wiisde op myn tas: ‘Iepenmeitsje.’
De rits aksele tsjin. It seildoek fan de tas wrong him yn bochten, mar hy wachte rêstich ôf. Hy seach as hie er der neat mei te krijen.
Doe’t er de flesse molke seach, waard it oars.
Ik hie de boerinne sward dat ik har adres noait ferriede soe. Hy harke wylst ik in ferhaal ophong oer alle pleatsen dêr’t ik west hie en dat ik no net mear wist …
Hy die de flesse iepen, rûn nei de leuning fan ’e brêge en geat him stadichoan leech yn it kanaal. Ik wie bliid dat ik de flesse weromkrige en trochrinne mocht.
De kat siet te wachtsjen doe’t ik de foardoar iependie.
Wy wennen yn in grut boppehûs mei in soad lytse keamers. Oan ’e oare kant wie in tsiispakhûs sûnder finsters. Gjinien koe sjen wat der yn ús hûs barde.
Mynhear Bloem hie daliks kommentaar.
‘Hast wer ris net útsjoen,’ sei er. ‘As dy fint hjir hússiking dwaan litten hie, hie ik derby west.’ Hy bromde wat yn himsels doe’t ik de kat in bytsje molke joech. Dêrnei mocht ik gelokkich nei boppen ta, nei myn eigen keamer, de moaiste fan de lege boppeferdjipping.
It wie sa’n noflike keamer.
Neist de skoarstien stie in taffeltsje dat ús mem it alterke neamde. Op in donkerread kleed stie in faaske mei papieren keunstblommen en twa mei fûgels beskildere kandelers. Ik hie se fan ús beppe krigen omdat it blau en it read fan de útsprate wjukken ferblikke wie. Wêrom’t ús mem it in alterke neamde, wit ik net. It wie myn skriuwtaffeltsje, mar dat fertelde ik net. Ik koe lang, hiel lang nei it taffeltsje sjen en betinke wat ik allegear skriuwe woe, mar ik skreau net. It betinken, it fantasearjen, wie genôch.
Tsjin ’e muorre dêrfoaroer stie myn boekekast. Us heit en mem fûnen lêzen belangryk en ik krige in soad boeken. Us heit kocht gauris yn twaddehânsk winkels. Mar hy hie in hiel oare smaak as ik. Hy hold fan reisboeken en stoere jongesferhalen. Ik fûn moaie boeken moai. Oer jonges dy’t foar in âlde swalker soargen of in jonge dy’t echt foar syn freonen opkaam. Ik lies ek graach famkesboeken. Dy helle ik stikem út ’e Iepenbiere Lêsseal. Ik ferstoppe se en lies se de jûns op bêd.
It moaiste wie om op myn keamer te sitten en neat te dwaan.
It slimste fan ’e oarloch fûn ik dat myn keamer foar elkenien wurden wie. Hy wie grut en leech en gau waarm. De koal wie op en net mear te krijen. Mei mynhear Bloem hie ús heit in kacheltsje makke dat net grutter wie as in blompot. Mei wat oanmaakhoutsjes koe ús mem dêr wat op siede. Jûns sieten we dan 0p myn keamer yn it tsjuster mei in oaljelampke byinoar. Al gau wie it myn keamer net mear. Bloem sei sels in kear: ‘Ik begryp net wêrom’t dy snotaap sa’n grutte keamer hawwe moat.’
Op in neimiddei sieten se wer allegearre op myn keamer. Us mem bakte lytse pankoekjes fan sûkerreidpulp. It smakke weeïch swiet. Mynhear Bloem fûn se hearlik. ‘Lekker,’ sei er, syn lippen ôfslikjend. ‘Dat ha jo goed dien.’
Echt honger hiene wy net.
Soms waard der troch ien fan it ferset in panfol iten brocht. Se joegen ús ek ekstra bonkaarten sadat we krekt wat mear hiene as oare minsken. Us heit, oer de fjirtich, wie te âld om as arbeider nei Dútslân te moatten en hy hie adreskes fan túnkerijen dêr’t er griente kocht. En ús mem gong alle dagen nei de folkskeuken. Joechst dyn panne en immen skepte út in grutte amer trije leppels wetterige sop. In lepfol foar ús heit, ien foar mem en ien foar my. Guon bern hiene sa’n honger, dat se wachten oant de lêste fuort wie en dan skrabben se mei in leppel de restjes fan ’e boaiem.
Ik fûn it freeslik dat it stonk yn myn keamer, mar ik doarst neat te sizzen.
Johan sanike dat er de pankoekjes lekkerder fûn as de bakte blombollen fan lêstendeis. ‘Mar,’ sei er, ‘se binne wol hiel lyts.’
Alle jûnen gong it oer iten.
‘Us beppe makke alle krystdagen in Charlotte,’ sei ús mem. ‘It wie in feest as er op ’e tafel kaam. It hiele krystdiner seagen we dernei út. Hy lei op in prachtige skaal mei reade linten deromhinne …’
‘Haw ik noch nea fan heard,’ sei Johan. ‘Wy ieten mei de krystdagen hast altyd in knyn út it hok. Us heit slachte him sels.’
‘Dat dogge se no mei katten,’ sei mynhear Bloem. ‘In pear moanne lyn ha ’k kat iten. Lekkerder as knyn moat ik sizze. Hy …’
‘Dat wol ik net hearre,’ sei ús mem. ‘Hâld op.’
‘Ast no dyn kat of dyn knyn opytst,’ sei Johan. ‘Wat makket dat no út?’
Us heit besocht om it petear in oare draai te jaan en sei: ‘Ik haw noch nea in Charlotte iten. It klinkt goed.’
‘Der gongen wol fiif aaidjerren yn. En miskien wol in liter slachrjemme! As ik nachts wekker wurd fan de honger tink ik altyd oan dy wolken sniewite slachrjemme.’
‘By ús yn Limboarch ieten wy altyd flaaien,’ sei mynhear Bloem. ‘We kochten se by de bakker, mar soms makke ús mem se sels. Altyd mei farske fruchten. De smaak fan ierdbeieflaai heucht my noch …’
‘Yn Seelân hiene we bolussen,’ sei Johan. ‘Se klibben oan dyn fingers. Sa sjerperich …’
‘Krekt as sûkerbiten?’ frege ik.
‘Nee fansels net.’
‘Hoe smakken se dan?’
Hy koe it net útlizze.
‘It is gek,’ sei ús mem. ‘En ik doar it eins net te sizzen, mar ik lês it leafst itensiedersboeken. As ik in lekker resept lês, tink ik: dat sil ik fuort nei de oarloch meitsje. Soms rint it wetter my om ’e tosken, sa …’
‘Harkje ris,’ sei Johan.
Ynienen sieten se allegearre rjochtop.
Ut ’e fierte wei klonk in sêft, licht oanboazjend gûnzjen.
‘Oerfalweinen,’ flústere mynhear Bloem. ‘Wy moatte nei boppen ta.’
Noch foardat er útpraat wie gie it loftalarm ôf.
It ôfwargeskut begûn. Sykljochten flitsten troch de loft. Koest hearre dat de fleantugen hiel heech fleagen.
‘Dy sille Berlyn bombardearje,’ sei ús heit. ‘Dat ha ik fannacht op Radio Oranje heard. De hiele stêd giet plat.’
‘Freeslik,’ sei ús mem.
‘Hielendal net,’ rôp Johan. ‘Utrûgje dy moffen. Allegear.’
‘Mar yn Berlyn wenje bern. Dat is dochs ferskriklik.’
Mynhear Bloem en Johan moasten laitsje.
We harken oant it gûnzjen fan de bommewerpers sêfter en sêfter waard en it loftalarm ‘feilich’ balte.
‘Ik freegje my ôf,’ sei mynhear Bloem nei in skoftke, ‘oft wy ús wol op ’e tiid ferstopje kind hiene as wy in oerfalwein foar de doar hân hiene.’
‘Ik wol,’ gnyske Johan. ‘Mar do bist fansels net sa fluch mear.’
‘Jo,’ sei mynhear Bloem. ‘Do hast net mei my op skoalle sitten.’
It wie tsjuster wurden.
‘Wy jouwe ús del,’ sei ús heit.
Hy bedoelde dat elk nei syn keamer moast.
Der waard opromme en ik bleau allinnich efter.
Op bêd tocht ik lykas ús mem oan iten.
Der bestie iten dat allinnich mar in wurd wie.
Pindakaas of banaan. Pindakaas wie in moai wurd. It die tinken oan eat dat lekker op ’e tonge lei. It wurd banaan wie bleek. It wurd abrikoas wie gewoaner. Miskien omdat ús heit my ferteld hie dat in abrikoas op in rôze ear like. En sûkelade. Ienris, hiel lang lyn, hie ik sûkelade iten, mar ik wist net mear hoe’t it smakke. Sûkelade wie gjin wurd mear. It wie wat. Wat dat bestie.
Krekt doe’t ik my omdraaide om te sliepen, kaam ús mem deryn. Se gong op ’e râne fan myn bêd sitten en sei: ‘Ik tink dat de minsken yn Berlyn warskôge binne. Se kinne fêst wol flechtsje foardat de stêd bombardearre wurdt. Sit der mar net oer yn.’
Ik sei net dat ik gjin momint oan Berlyn tocht hie.
‘Oer in skoftke is de oarloch ôfrûn,’ sei ús mem. ‘Dan is it wer fredich.’
Fredich wie in raar wurd.
Us mem brûkte it faak.
It die tinken oan wat fan hout.
It hie gjin smaak.
Dat wie it.
‘Op in dei binne wy frij,’ gong ús mem fierder. ‘Dan kinne wy wer alles sizze. Dan hoege wy net mear bang te wêzen.’
‘Mar wannear dan?’
‘Wit ik net. En der kin noch safolle barre.’
Se seach foar har út.
‘No ja,’ sei se. ‘Wat komt dat komt.’

‘Son,’ said my mother. ‘Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.’
We still had a long way to go.
The road was deserted. You could see that the first winter chill had arrived. The bushes were losing their leaves, the grass was growing patchy, the stones seemed hard as steel.
And everywhere was deserted.
The farmer could only give me one bottle of milk. ‘Maybe back to two tomorrow,’ she said. ‘We had ten hungry mouths at the door today. I didn’t want to send the people away. You’re my regular customer, you know. I’ll have a tasty treat for you tomorrow.’
One bottle made a difference to the load to carry.

A while back I’d still cycled the route. Seven kilometres a day from home to the farm and the same seven kilometres back. But the Germans had seized our bicycles. They took my father’s as he cycled home. ‘Get off,’ the soldier commanded. Bike gone. My mother’s was dismantled and hidden. As was our copper coal scuttle (which they wanted for making ammunition) and our radio, which could be used to listen to Radio Oranje broadcasted from London.
We did that secretly in the attic.
The volume was set so low that my mother couldn’t follow half of it.
I’d heard our queen once.
She had a strange voice.
Stately and yet as if she was shouting.
‘This war can’t go on much longer,’ said the grown-ups. ‘The Americans and the English will come and liberate us.’
‘And the Russians will give the Germans a beating,’ said Johan. ‘When winter comes they’ll all freeze. No soldier can tolerate that cold.’
Johan was around thirty years old. Along with his resistance comrades, he’d shot an infamous Nazi. He was wanted by the Germans and that was why he was in hiding at our place.
Mr Bloem – if that was even his real name – had derailed a train of German soldiers. If he were caught he might receive the death penalty. He was only going to stay for three days, but had already been with us a month. He stuck his nose into everything. Particularly my upbringing. He thought my mother too kind and my father too weak.

There was a pale little sun. The fields on either side looked dry and stubbly. They were waiting for spring to grow cheerful and fertile again. The willows looked like soldiers standing ready to fight. The water in the dykes was dark green without a ripple.
I walked along the side of the road.
It sloped slowly upwards.
I could feel it in my feet.
Once in a while I stopped to look for German soldiers.
No one.
When I was close, a Landwacht officer suddenly emerged. Black uniform, gun at the ready. I didn’t know what to do. Retreating would look suspicious. Walking on as if I had nothing to hide remained the best option. Perhaps he was just on watch here.
Filthy traitor.
He beckoned me over.
He placed his gun on the ground, his hands folded around the barrel as if in prayer.
I limped towards him as if I had blisters on my feet. He shouldered his gun and pointed to my bag: ‘Open it.’
The zip protested. The canvas of the bag contorted, but he waited calmly. He looked on as if it was nothing to do with him.
His demeanour changed when he saw the bottle of milk, though.
I’d sworn not to betray the farmer’s address. He listened as I fed him a story about all the farms I’d been to and how I couldn’t remember anymore …
He opened the bottle, walked over to the railings of the bridge and poured it slowly into the canal. I was relieved to be given the bottle back and be permitted to walk on.
The cat sat waiting when I opened the front door.
We lived in a large upper story apartment with lots of small rooms. On the other side was a cheese storage house with no windows. No one could see what happened in our house.
Mr Bloem immediately had something to say on the matter.
‘You were careless again,’ he said. ‘If that guy had searched the house I would have been caught.’ He grumbled to himself as I gave the cat some milk. Then fortunately I was allowed to go upstairs, to my own room, the nicest one on the upper floor with its low ceilings.
It was such a lovely room.
Beside the chimney was a small table which my mother called the little altar. On a dark red cloth stood a little vase with paper flowers and two candleholders with birds painted onto them. I’d been given them by my granny because the blue and red of their outspread wings had faded. Why my mother called it an altar, I don’t know. It was my little writing desk, but I didn’t say so. I could stare at that little table for hours and think of all the things I wanted to write, but I didn’t write. The thinking, the imagining, was enough.
Against the wall opposite was my bookcase. My parents considered reading important and I was given a great many books. My father often bought them in second-hand shops. But his taste was rather different than mine. He loved travel books and boys’ adventure stories. I liked nice books. About boys who cared for a tramp or a boy who really stood up for his friends. I also liked to read girls’ books. I secretly took them from the Public Reading Room. I hid them and read them in bed in the evenings.
The best thing was sitting in my room doing nothing.
The worst thing about the war was that my room became common property. It was large with a low ceiling, so it warmed up quickly. The coal had run out and we couldn’t get hold of any more. My father and Mr Bloem had made a little stove no bigger than a flowerpot. With a bit of kindling my mother could cook on it. In the evening we would then sit huddled together in my room in the dark with a little oil lamp. Soon it was no longer my space. Mr Bloem even once said, ‘I don’t understand why that brat needs such a big room.’
One afternoon we were all sitting there. My mother was cooking little pancakes with sugarcane pulp. It tasted sickly sweet. Mr Bloem loved them. ‘Delicious,’ he said, licking his lips. ‘Nicely done.’
We weren’t really hungry.
Sometimes someone from the resistance brought a pan of food. They gave us extra coupons so we had a little more than other people. At over forty, my father was too old to be forced to go to Germany as a labourer and he had gardener contacts from whom he bought vegetables. My mother also went to the soup kitchen every day. You gave them a pan and someone doled out three ladles from a large vat of watery soup. One for my father, one for my mother and one for me. Some children were so hungry they waited until the last people had left and then scraped up the leftovers from the bottom with a spoon.
I hated the way it stank in my room, but I didn’t dare say anything.
Johan grumbled that he preferred the little pancakes to the baked flower bulbs we’d had previously. ‘But,’ he said, ‘they are awfully small.’
Every night the talk was of food.
‘Every Christmas my grandmother made a Charlotte,’ said my mother. ‘It was a feast when it was put on the table. We looked forward to it all through Christmas dinner. It was served on a beautiful dish with red ribbons around it …’
‘Never heard of it,’ said Johan. ‘For Christmas we almost always had a rabbit from the hutch. My father would slaughter it himself.’
‘They do that with cats these days,’ said Mr Bloem. ‘I ate cat a couple of months ago. Tastier than rabbit, I have to say. It…’
‘I don’t want to hear it,’ said my mother. ‘Stop it.’
‘What does it matter,’ said Johan, ‘whether you eat your cat or your rabbit?’
My father tried to change the subject: ‘I’ve never eaten a Charlotte. Sounds good.’
‘Five egg yolks went into it. And probably a litre of cream! When I wake up hungry in the night, I always think of those clouds of snow-white whipped cream.’
‘At home in Limburg we always had flans,’ said Mr Bloem. ‘We bought them from the baker, but sometimes my mother made them herself. Always with fresh fruit. I still remember the flavour of the strawberry flan …’
‘In Zeeland we had cinnamon rolls,’ said Johan. ‘They stuck to your fingers. So syrupy …’
‘Like sugar beet?’ I asked.
‘No of course not.’
‘How did they taste then?’
He couldn’t describe it.
‘It’s silly,’ said my mother. ‘I’m almost ashamed to say it, but my favourite thing to read is cook books. When I read a tasty recipe, I think: as soon as the war is over I’m going to make that. Sometimes my mouth waters, it’s so…’
‘Listen,’ said Johan.
Suddenly they all sat up straight, straining their ears.
In the distance there was a soft, gently rising rumble.
‘Raid trucks,’ whispered Mr Bloem. ‘We need to get upstairs.’
Before he’d finished speaking the air raid siren went off.
The air defence guns started up. Searchlights flashed across the sky. You could hear that the planes were flying very high.
‘They’re going to bomb Berlin,’ said my father. ‘I heard it on Radio Oranje this evening. The whole city will be flattened.’
‘Terrible,’ said my mother.
‘Not at all,’ Johan exclaimed. ‘Root out those Jerrys. The lot of them.’
‘But there are children living in Berlin. That’s terrible.’
Mr Bloem and Johan couldn’t help laughing.
We listened until the roar of the bombers died down and the siren wailed ‘safe’.
‘I wonder,’ said Mr Bloem after a little while, ‘whether we would have been able to hide in time if we’d had a raid truck at the door.’
‘I would have,’ Johan grinned. ‘But you’re not as quick as you once were.’
‘Address me as Sir,’ said Mr Bloem. ‘You weren’t at school with me.’
Darkness had fallen.
‘Time to go to sleep,’ said my father.
He meant that everyone should go to their rooms.
We cleared up and I remained behind alone.
In bed, like my mother, I thought of food.
Some food was just words.
Peanut butter or banana.
Peanut butter was a beautiful word. It put you in mind of having something tasty on your tongue. The word banana was pale. The word apricot was more ordinary. Perhaps because my father had told me that an apricot looked like a pink ear. And chocolate. Once, a long time ago, I’d eaten chocolate, but I couldn’t remember how it had tasted. Chocolate wasn’t a word anymore. It was something. Something that existed.
Just as I turned over to go to sleep, my mother came in. She sat down on the edge of my bed and said, ‘I think the people in Berlin have been warned. They’re sure to be able to escape before the city is bombed. Don’t worry about it.’
I didn’t say that I hadn’t given Berlin a moment’s thought.
‘In a while the war will be over,’ said my mother. ‘Then it will be peaceful again.’
Peaceful was a strange word.
My mother used it frequently.
It put me in mind of something wooden.
It had no flavour.
That was it.
‘One day we’ll be free,’ my mother continued. ‘Then we’ll be able to say anything we want again. Then we won’t have to be scared.’
‘But when?’
‘I don’t know. There’s so much that might still happen.’
She stared ahead.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘What will be will be.’

Ik sil op reis. De man dy’t de autodoar foar my iepenhâldt, sjocht freonlik. Kreaze man. Soe er de sjauffeur wêze? It kreaket in bytsje yn ’e rjochter knibbel, as ik ynstap. De auto is leech. Sa’n lege auto haw ik noch nea sjoen, mar dat hinderet neat want de autostoel sit noflik. De autodoar giet fansels ticht. Efkes doch ik de eagen ticht en wibelje mei de stuten oer it lear fan ’e beklaaiïng. Myn rok risselet tusken it lear en it fel fan ’e stuten.
Op reis sil ik. Nei Ove. Ik hâld fan learen autostuollen omdat se fiele as de hannen fan myn leafste. Ik haw syn hannen al lang net mear field, mar hy stjoert my alle moannen in brief op tin blau papier. Soms is de helte fan sa’n stikje papier noch leech. As der gjin pinnestreken yn drukt binne, is it papier sa lekker glêd. Krekt sa glêd en sa sêft as syn hannen, as it lear. Wat noflik dat ik op reis sil yn in auto mei sokke geryflike stuollen. Dan fielt it as bin ik der al hast.
In autodoar falt ticht en sjoch, no sit dy freonlike man neist my en stekt er de kaai yn it kontakt. Wisberet. Hy wit grif it paad en dat is oangenaam want it is in lange reis. Tink ik. Noarwegen is fier. Tink ik.
Ik besjoch de man fansiden. Gôh, wat in leuke man is it eins. Ald, mar leuk, echt hiel leuk. Ik bûch in bytsje nei him ta. Hy hat in fijne rook. Hy sjocht fansiden en laket. Sa leaf dat ik der in kleur fan krij. Ik hâld eins net fan âlde minsken, mar dizze man fielt fijn om neist te sitten. As ik net op wei wie nei Ove, soe ik it mei him oanlizze wolle. Ik slach de hân foar de mûle om dy gedachte. Tilly dochs!
In gycheljen bliuwt ferburgen efter myn hân. De leuke man sjocht nei de dyk foar ús, dus ik kin him rêstich wat better besjen. Syn griis hier, de plakjes op ’e sliepen en it sêfte fel yn ’e nekke. De losse hûd fan âlde minsken. Op syn hannen op it stjoer sitte ek fan dy plakjes en dêr sit it fel ek te rom.
Soe it sêft wêze? Soe er it slim fine as ik syn hân oanreitsje? Ik lis myn hân foarsichtich op sines op it stjoer. Sêft. Frjemd, dat ik my sa flintereftich fiel by dizze man. It fel op syn hân is sêft, mar hy is dochs fierstente âld foar my. Boppedat bin ik op reis. Nei Ove. Ik reizgje yn in frjemd fertroude auto nei it lân fan myn leafste en al syn brieven haw ik by my, sadat –
‘Myn koffer!’
Ik knyp hurd yn ’e hân fan ’e leuke man. De auto slingeret en ik fal tsjin him oan.
‘Mynhear, myn koffer. Ik sil op reis.’
‘Gjin noed, Tilly. We hawwe alles meinommen datst nedich bist.’
De leuke man hâldt de eagen strak op ’e dyk. Syn stim is leaf, mar stelt my net hielendal gerêst. Ik haw net folle nedich, want ik bin op reis nei Ove. Ik hoech allinnich myn koffer mei syn brieven, mei de stikjes blau papier dy’t sêft fiele as syn hûd.
De koffer leit wierskynlik earne oars yn ’e auto. Ik ken dizze auto net, mar faak hawwe auto’s noch in romte om spul yn te stopjen. Op in plak dêr’tst net sitte kinst. Ik doch de doar iepen, mar foar’t ik útstappe kin, wurd ik nei foaren slingere. In skerpe bân stekt my yn it liif.
‘Tilly! Wat dochst?’ No klinkt de leuke man net mear sa freonlik.
‘Myn koffer.’
‘Doch dy doar ticht.’ De man rikt oer my hinne en docht it sels. De bûtenlûden klinke daliks suniger. Ik wachtsje oant er útstappe sil om te sjen wêr’t myn koffer is, mar de leuke man drukt boazich op knopkes, seit dan ‘Sa!’ en start de auto wer.
‘Myn koffer,’ sis ik noch mar in kear. ‘Want ik sil op reis.’
‘Dyn koffer leit efteryn,’ seit de man koart, en dan sêfter: ‘Do lietst my skrikke, famke.’
Hy aait my oer it wang en sjocht wer leaf, mar dêr besykje ik net te folle oan te tinken. Want ik bin op reis. Nei Ove. Mei in leuke man.
Mei dizze leuke, âlde mynhear oan it stjoer sil ik op reis. Wat in gelok dat ik sa’n noflike sjauffeur troffen haw foar sa’n lange reis. Hy rûkt lekker en hy sjocht leaf en hy hat sels oan myn koffer tocht. Ik triuw de stuten noch wat djipper yn it sêfte lear en doch de eagen ticht. Eventsjes.
~
Ik wurd wekker fan beweging. Of nee, ik wurd wekker fan in beweging dy’t ophâldt. Ik sit yn in frjemde auto, mar de stoel fielt fertroud. Sêft. Ik beweech hinne en wer oer it sêfte lear. Fel op risselstof op fel. Wat in fijne stoel. Dan wit ik it wer. Ik sit yn in auto, want ik bin op reis. Nei Ove.
It gekke is allinnich dat de auto net mear rydt. Ik sjoch om my hinne. Bûten de auto sjoch ik neat bekends, mar dat is logysk want ik bin op reis. Neist my sit in âldere hear mei de hannen op it stjoer. Wêr komt dy ynienen wei? Hy sil de sjauffeur wol wêze. In hiel leuke sjauffeur, mar dat mei ik net tinke fansels. Ik bin op reis. Nei Ove. Ik moat glimkje as ik oan Ove tink. De leuke man glimket werom.
Leaf. Hy laket leaf, mar ek in bytsje drôvich. De ronfels om syn eagen wize nei ûnderen.
‘Binne wy der?’
De man knikt en slokt en aait my oer it wang, lit de hân dêr sels lizze. Unfatsoenlik miskien, mar ik sis der neat fan omdat er sa fertrietlik sjocht. It is eins treurich, sa’n âlde man dy’t samar de hûd oanrekket fan in famke dat er net iens ken.
No ja, ik haw ek in skoftke soeze. Miskien siet er al langer neist my en hat er dêrom it gefoel dat er my goed ken. Dat hearst faker, dat âldere minsken in bytsje yn ’e war reitsje.
En it is gjin ûnplezierige man om te sjen. Nee, hy is sels hiel oangenaam om te sjen. In hiel leuke man. De hûd fan syn hân op myn wang fielt sêft. Spitich dat ik him pas opmerk no’t wy der al binne.
We binne der, mar we bliuwe blykber noch efkes yn ’e auto sitten. Ynienen moat ik in bytsje gychelje, omdat ik my foarstel hoe sêft de hûd fan dizze man fiele soe. De hûd op ’e rest fan syn lichem. Hoe’t de man der sûnder klean útsjen soe. Soe er krekt sa’n lang ding hawwe as Ove? Soe it ronfelich wêze? Oves ding is nea ronfelich, altyd grut en glêd en stevich, mar dizze man is âld. It fel om syn hannen sit los, dus miskien is it fel om syn ding ek ronfelich.
‘Kom.’
De man triuwt my omheech. Ik hie it net murken, mar wylst ik oer syn ding fantasearre, moat ik my nei him ta bûgd hawwe. Myn hân leit op syn broek. Fij, Tilly dochs. Gau lûk ik de hân dêrwei. It moat net mâlder, dat ik oars yn ’t liif wurdt. Fan in ûnbekende man noch wol. In leuke man, in sêfte man, mar âld. En ûnbekend.
Ik skodholje, want ik wol dizze leuke man út myn holle wei. Ik bin op reis. Nei Ove. We binne der sels al. En de man is trouwens ynienen fuort. Nei alle gedachten hellet er myn koffer út de auto.
Ik lûk oan ’e hendel om de doar iepen te dwaan. It slagget net. It lipke beweecht mei, mar de doar bliuwt ticht. Ik lûk deroan. Ik triuw it nei foaren safier’t ik kin. Sa hurd as ik kin. Der kreaket wat en ik haw in stik plastic yn ’e hân. Dan giet de doar ynienen dochs iepen.
‘Tilly, wat hast no dien?’
‘Hawwe jo myn koffer?’
‘Dyn koffer.’ De man suchtet, pakt myn hân en helpt my út de auto. ‘Aansen. We geane earst nei binnen om te fertellen datst der bist.’
Ik sjoch efterom. Ik moat ûnthâlde hoe’t de auto derútsjocht en wêr’t er stiet. En ik moat de sjauffeur yn ’e gaten hâlde. It is in leuke man en hy hat derfoar soarge dat ik feilich oankommen bin. Dat is hiel leaf, mar ik wol net dat er aansen wer fuortrydt. Mei myn koffer.
De man dy’t my nei Ove riden hat, hat in grutte sporttas om it skouder slein. Hy jout my in earm. Ik fyn it gek om earm yn earm mei in frjemde te rinnen, mar ik bin wurch fan ’e reis en it is in leuke man en syn earm is sêft, dus ik lit it gewurde. As ik nei him opsjoch, laket er leaf en jout my sels in tút.
‘Kom mei, famke.’
We rinne troch in skodoar en wachtsje yn in wynderige gong oant de doar efter ús ticht is en noch in skodoar iepengiet. Efter de doar stiet in frou yn in koarte, wite jurk, mei de earms wiid. Har bleate ûnderearms sitte fol mei wratten en it fel fan har hannen sjocht der rûch út.
‘Wolkom mefrou Van Boven.’
Se sjocht freonlik, mar ik sjoch net werom. Troch dat ‘mefrou’ fiel ik my âlder as ik bin, hast sa âld as dy leuke mynhear mei wa’t ik earm yn earm rin. Ik ken him leau ’k net, mar hy sjocht der teminsten leaf út. Ik krûp in bytsje tichter tsjin him oan en aai it fel op syn âlde hannen. Soe dy wite frou famylje fan Ove wêze? Unmooglik, mei sa’n fel. Wêr is Ove eins?
Dan fermanje ik my. Ast op reis bist moatst dyn doel yn ’e gaten hâlde, want foardatst it witst bist ferdwaald of wurdst ôflaat troch in wite frou mei in pokkerige hûd.
Ik bin eins net mear op reis, want ik bin der. Dat sei immen niiskrekt noch. Neffens my dy leuke man oan myn earm. Ik haw myn doel berikt. Ik bin der.
‘Ik kom foar Ove.’ Ik sjoch de frou sa strang mooglik oan. ‘Sis him dat ik der bin, dan hellet dizze man wylst myn koffer.’

I’m going on a journey. The man holding the car door open gives me a friendly look. Cute guy. Is he the driver? My right knee creaks slightly as I get in. The car rides low. I’ve never seen such a low-slung car, but it doesn’t matter as the seat position is fine. The door closes automatically. I close my eyes a moment and wiggle my buttocks over the leather upholstery. My skirt rustles between the leather and the skin of my buttocks.
Off I go on a journey. To Ove. I love leather car seats because they feel like my love’s hands. It’s been a long time since I felt his hands, but he sends me a letter each month on little blue sheets of paper. Sometimes he leaves half the page empty. Without pen lines pressed into it, the paper is so deliciously smooth. As smooth and soft as his hands, as the leather. How lovely to go on a journey in a car with such pleasant seats. It makes me feel as if I’m almost there already.
A car door falls shut and behold, now that friendly gentleman is sitting beside me. He inserts the key into the contact. Decisively. I am sure he knows the way and that’s nice, as it’s a long journey. I think. Norway is far away. I think.
I inspect the man from the side. He actually is quite a cute guy. Old, but cute, really cute. I lean a little towards him. He has a delicate scent. He looks to the side and laughs. So sweetly it makes me blush. I don’t much like elderly people, but this gentleman feels good to sit next to. If I weren’t on my way to Ove, I’d feel like flirting with him. I clap my hand to my mouth at the thought. Dear me Tilly!
A giggle remains hidden behind my hand. The cute guy is looking at the road ahead of us, so I can get a better look at him at my leisure. His grey hair, the patches on his temples and the soft skin of his neck. The loose skin of elderly people. Those little patches also appear on his hands on the wheel and there, too, the skin is loose.
Would it be soft? Would he mind if I touched his hand? I place my hand cautiously over his on the wheel. Soft. Strange, that I should feel butterflies in response to this man. The skin on his hand is soft, but surely he’s far too old for me. Moreover I’m on a journey. To Ove. I’m travelling in a strangely familiar car to my lover’s country and I have all his letters with me, so that –
‘My suitcase!’
I pinch the cute guy’s hand hard. The car swerves and I fall against him.
‘Sir, my suitcase. I’m going on a journey.’
‘Don’t worry, Tilly. We’ve brought everything you need.’
The cute guy keeps his gaze firmly on the road. His voice is kind, but doesn’t entirely reassure me. I don’t need much, as I’m travelling to Ove. I only need my suitcase with his letters, with the leaves of blue paper which feel as soft as his skin.
The suitcase is probably somewhere else in the car. I’m not familiar with this car, but cars often have a boot to put things in. In a place where you can’t sit. I open the door, but before I can get out, I’m thrown forward. A sharp band digs into my belly.
‘Tilly! What are you doing?’ The cute guy doesn’t sound so friendly anymore.
‘My suitcase.’
‘Close that door.’ The man reaches over me and does it himself. The sounds outside are instantly quieter. I wait for him to get out and look for my suitcase, but the cute guy presses buttons angrily, then says ‘Right!’ and starts the car again.
‘My suitcase,’ I say yet again. ‘I’m going on a journey.’
‘Your suitcase is in the back,’ the man snaps, then more gently: ‘You scared me, girl.’
He strokes my cheek and his face softens, but I try not to dwell on that. Because I’m on a journey. To Ove. With a cute guy.
I’m going on a journey with this cute old guy at the wheel. What luck to have found such a lovely driver for such a long journey. He smells delicious and he has a kind look in his eye and he even thought of my suitcase. I push my buttocks a little deeper into the soft leather and close my eyes. For a moment.
~
I wake to motion. No, I wake to motion stopping. I’m sitting in an unfamiliar car, but the seat feels familiar. Soft. I move back and forth over the soft leather. Skin on rustling fabric on skin. What a lovely seat. Then I remember. I’m in a car because I’m on a journey. To Ove.
The odd thing is that the car isn’t moving anymore. I look around. I don’t recognise anything outside the car, but that makes sense, as I’m on a journey. An elderly gentleman is sitting beside me with his hands on the wheel. Where has he suddenly sprung from? He must be the driver. A particularly cute driver, but I’m not supposed to be thinking that of course. I’m on a journey. To Ove. I can’t help smiling when I think of Ove. The cute guy smiles back.
Kindly. He has a kind smile, but it’s a little sad too. The wrinkles around his eyes point downwards.
‘Are we there?’
The man nods and swallows and strokes my cheek, even leaves his hand there. Ill-mannered perhaps, but I don’t say anything because he looks so sorrowful. It’s a bit sad really, an elderly man like that touching the skin of a girl he doesn’t even know.
Well ok, I did doze off briefly back there. Perhaps he’s been sitting next to me for quite a while and it’s made him feel like he knows me well. You often hear that kind of thing, elderly people growing a little confused.
And he’s not unpleasant to look at. No, he’s actually a remarkably pleasant sight. A really cute guy. The skin of his hand feels soft on my cheek. Shame I only noticed him now that we’re here.
We’re here, but apparently we’re staying in the car for a moment. Suddenly I can’t help giggling a little, because I’m imagining how soft this guy’s skin would feel. The skin on the rest of his body. How the guy would look without clothes. Would his thingummy be as long as Ove’s? Would it be wrinkly? Ove’s thingummy is never wrinkly, always big and smooth and firm, but this man is old. The skin on his hands is loose, so perhaps the skin on his thingummy is wrinkled too.
‘Come.’
The man pushes me up. I hadn’t noticed, but while I was fantasising about his thingummy, I must have leant towards him. My hand is on his trousers. Dear me, Tilly. Hastily I pull my hand away. Inappropriate, that I should feel butterflies in my belly. In response to a stranger at that. A cute guy, a gentle guy, but old. And a stranger.
I shake my head, because I want to get this cute guy out of my mind. I’m on a journey. To Ove. In fact we’re already here. And actually the man is suddenly gone. He’s probably getting my suitcase out of the car.
I pull on the handle to open the car door. It doesn’t work. The handle moves but the door remains closed. I pull at it. I push it forward as far as I can. As hard as I can. Something cracks and I’m left with a piece of plastic in my hand. Then the door suddenly opens after all.
‘Tilly, now what have you done?’
‘Do you have my suitcase, sir?’
‘Your suitcase.’ The man sighs, takes my hand and helps me out of the car. ‘In a moment. We’ll go in first and let them know you’re here.’
I look back. I have to remember how the car looks and where it’s parked. And I have to keep an eye on the driver. He’s a cute guy and he’s ensured that I arrived safely. That’s really sweet, but I don’t want him to drive off in a moment. With my suitcase.
The man who drove me to Ove has a large sports bag slung over his shoulder. He offers me his arm. I feel silly walking arm in arm with a stranger, but I’m tired from the journey and he’s a cute guy and his arm is soft, so I let it happen. When I look up at him, he laughs kindly and even gives me a kiss.
‘Come with me, girl.’
We walk through sliding doors and wait in a draughty corridor until the door behind us closes and the next sliding door opens. Behind the door stands a woman in a short white skirt, her arms wide. Her bare forearms are covered in warts and the skin on her hands looks rough.
‘Welcome, Mrs van Boven.’
She gives me a friendly look, but I don’t return her gaze. All the Mrs-ing makes me feel older than I am, almost as old as that cute gentleman with whom I’m walking arm in arm. I don’t think I know him, but in any case he looks sweet. I lean in a little closer to him and stroke the skin on his elderly hands. Could that woman in white be a relation of Ove’s? Impossible, with skin like that. In fact, where is Ove?
Then I pull myself together. When you’re on a journey you have to keep your destination in mind, because before you know it you’re lost or distracted by a white woman with pockmarked skin.
I’m not really on a journey anymore, because I’m here. Someone said that just now. I think it was the cute guy beside me. I’ve reached my destination. I’m here.
‘I’ve come for Ove.’ I give the woman my sternest look. ‘Let him know I’m here, while this gentleman fetches my suitcase.’

‘Tagong ferbean foar skriuwers’, stiet der op in grut boerd njonken de yngong fan Hôf fan Eden nûmer 1.
De skriuwer kin it paradys oproppe, mar nea yngean.

As bern ha ik mannich oere yn it paradys tahâlden. Ik wie in net sêd te krijen lêzer. Gjin Japan kin it helje by it Japan út De Stemmenrover, gjin oseaan komt De Bronzen Sleutel benei.
Lêze sa’t ik dat as bern die, dôf en blyn foar de wrâld om my hinne, kin ik net mear. As ik siik bin, gryp ik nei myn stripboeken fan eartiids en dan is it oft ik de earm in lyts eintje troch it stek fan Hôf fan Eden nûmer 1 stekke kin. Koarts en kleurde plaatsjes draaie de tiid werom nei myn bernetiid.

As bern bist kritykleas. Lykas Adam en Eva hast gjin aan fan goed en kwea, fan moade en smaak. De dingen binne sa’t se binne. Sagau’t Eva in hapke fan de apel nimt, tinkt se: wat nuver dat wy gjin klean oan ha! Wat is ús bêd eins ferfelend hurd. En soe dy roazestrúk net better in meter nei links kinne?
It folgjende momint stiet se bûten it paradys.
Yn myn libben kaam de slang binnen yn de foarm fan (nomen est omen) menear Appel, myn ûnderwizer. Hy rôp my oan syn tafel, wiisde op it boek De Vliegende Postbode en frege: ‘Nicolien, do lêst in protte. Hast dit boek lêzen? Wat fynst derfan?’
Ik swei, sprakeleas. Menear Appel hie likegoed op de muorre wize kinnen, of op syn skuon. Wat woe er dat ik sei?
‘Leuk?’ sei ik ûnwis.
Menear Appel stjoerde my werom nei myn tafel.
Ik gong oan myn rekkenwurk mei it gefoel faald te hawwen. En doe kaam der in nije gedachte yn my op: ik fûn De Vliegende Postbode hielendal net in leuk boek! It wie in blomlêzing mei koarte proazafragminten, dy’t allegear gjin ein hiene. Ik ha noch altyd it mier oan soks.
Binnen in minút wie ik in krityske lêzer wurden. Immeen dy’t oardiele, yn plak fan immen dy’t inkeld ûndergie. De klok begûn te tikjen. Ik waard folwoeksen. Paradys ferballe.

Yn it paradys is gjin tiid. Gjin blêd fertoarket, gjin bist ferâlderet, gjin stien slyt. Adam en Eva binne bern. Sagau’t Eva kritysk om har hinne sjocht, stiet se bûten it hek. Se begjint rap te ferâlderjen. Nei de berte fan Kaïn en Abel krijt Eva lêst fan de oergong en Adam fan syn prostaat. Griis en ferronfele sitte se stiif tsjininoar oan, oant it sykheljen stoppet en se oerwoekere wurde troch swammen. Har neigeslacht stridet. Kaïn deadet Abel. Folkeren ûntsteane en ferdwine. In fisk komt út see, evoluearret ta salamander en wurdt in fûgel, in minske. Klomsk sitte de minsken yn harren kâlde grot te wachtsjen op de maitiid. Dan komt der immen oerein.
‘Der wie ris …’ begjint er. Syn stamgenoaten ferjitte honger en kjeld en tiid. Se binne werom yn it paradys. Inkeld de skriuwer stiet derbûten. Hy moat fertelle, skeppe, neitinke, kritysk wêze. Hy ropt it paradys op en stiet der ivich bûten. Wannear’t in oare skriuwer it wurd oernimt, harket er mei in skeane holle en in skeptyske eachopslach. Leuk besocht, tinkt er, mar hy hat in ferkeard perspektyf keazen, hy brûkt te folle grutte wurden en dy kear yn it plot is net oannimlik.

Soe der in tuskenfoarm wêze? In plak der’t it in bytsje paradyslik is? Der’t in bytsje tiid is, mar net tefolle?
Ja, dat plak bestiet. Yn it ryk fan de smurfen is it gers grien en de loft blau. Oergeunst bestiet net, want der binne gjin rangen en stannen, gjin earmoed en rykdom. Elkenien hat deselde namme, draacht itselde pakje en is fan deselde sekse.
De God fan it smurfedoarp, de skriuwer Peyo, hat sa ferstannich west in boaze krêft te skeppen yn de foarm fan tsjoender Gargamel. Mar dy bliuwt bûten it doarp. Troch in magysk krêftfjild is Gargamel net by steat it doarp oait te finen. Dus betinkt Gargamel in list: hy ûntwerpt in smurfinne om twaspjalt ûnder de smurfen te siedzjen.
It plan liket te slagjen. As de smurfinne it doarp ynrint, ûntstiet der rúzje en striid. Mar oars as Eva offeret de smurfinne har op: se ferlit it smurfedoarp en giet om utens wenjen, eastlik fan it doarp. De sûndefal is ôfkeard.

Undanks harren identike nammen en uterlik ha smurfen in eigen identiteit dy’t troch de oaren respektearre wurdt. De loaie smurf is arbeidsûngeskikt, no, dat is dan mar sa. De fûtersmurf lijt ivich oan in poermin sin. Dêr ha se konsideraasje mei.
As de smurfen in winskput fine, binne se bûten harsels fan freugde, oant blykt dat se neat te winskjen ha. Alles is presys goed sa’t it is. Se keare werom nei it doarp, der’t de stjerren boppe de daken tinkelje en de Grutte Smurf harren hoedet en noedet.

Binne der plakken dy’t te fergelykjen binne mei it paradys-light fan it smurfedoarp? Is der foar my, earme skriuwer, in plak dat it paradys benei komt?

Mei de coronapandemy ferlear ik it gefoel foar tiid. Op moandei gong ik lykas wenst nei it swimbad, mar it swimbad wie ticht. Op tiisdei gong ik altyd mei in freondinne kofjedrinken yn de stêd, mar de kafees wiene sluten. Op woansdei die ik de wask, mar ik hoegde net mear te waskjen, ik koe yn deselde klean rûnrinnen bliuwe. Taffelkleden bleauwen yn de kast. Hokker dei wie it? Wie it wykein, fakânsje? It makke net út, want we koene dochs nearne nei ta. Myn optredens waarden ôfsein. Wie dat spitich? Of ek wol maklik? Ek dat wist ik net.
Dreamerich fytste ik troch de stille strjitten nei myn folkstún. Ik swaaide nei myn túnfreonen yn de de fierte. Wy rôpen wat, ferstiene inoar net, makken in gebaar fan machteleazens en gongen oan it wurk, elk op syn eigen lapke grûn.
Ik wie as Adam yn it paradys, allinnich. De beistruken hiene knoppen, de krokussen bloeiden, in klyster song, it bambû rûze. Ek hjir, tocht ik, hearske de Tiid, mar dan stadich. It beantsje ûntkime ûnder de grûn en rjochte him nei it ljocht. Miskien soe in klyster it griene sprútsje út de grûn lûke en pakt wurde troch in foks, dy’t ek wer stjerre soe en nei syn dea troch kraaien en mûzefangers kealplôke, wernei’t maitsen it wurk ôfmakken. Sa gong it. In machtige beweging wie geande, as wie der no neat fan te sjen. God is grut mar gjin keunstner.
Ik krige myn túnstoel, myn termoskanne en in beker en ynstallearre my by de fiver. Op de bemoaze beamstronk siet in kikker. Hy siet deastil, mar ik seach him azemjen. It oansjen fan it op en delgean fan dat lytse kieltsje skodde my wekker út de wêzenleaze sleauwens fan de lêste moannen. In djippe oandwaanlikens luts my troch lichem en siel, as koe ik de azem fan de tiid fiele en mocht ek ik begjinne mei útrinnen. Darwin noch de Grutte Smurf soene my dit gefoel ferklearje kinne, allinnich God, hoe’n bytsje smaak Hy fierder ek hie.
It paradys is in kikkert op in beamstronk.

‘No entry to authors,’ it says on a large sign beside the entrance to no. 1 Garden of Eden.
The writer can evoke paradise, but never enter it.

As a child, I spent many an hour in paradise. I was a voracious reader. No Japan can live up to the Japan from De Stemmenrover, no ocean comes close to the one in De Bronzen Sleutel, two of my favourite Suske & Wiske comics.
I can no longer read the way I did as a child, deaf and blind to the world around me. When I’m ill, I reach for my old comic books and feel I can at least stick my arm through the gate of no. 1 Garden of Eden. Fever and coloured panels turn the clock back to my childhood.

As a child, you’re uncritical. Like Adam and Eve, you have no idea about good and evil, trends and tastes. Things are the way they are. As soon as Eve takes a bite of the apple, she thinks to herself: how weird that we’re not wearing clothes! That bed of ours is really rather hard. And hadn’t we better move that rose bush a few feet to the left?
Next thing she knows, she’s standing outside paradise.
The serpent entered my life in the form of (nomen est omen) Mr Appel, my teacher. He summoned me to his desk, pointed to De Vliegende Postbode and asked: ‘You read a lot, Nicolien. Have you read this book? What do you make of it?’
I was silent, speechless. Mr Appel could have pointed to the wall, or to his shoe, for all it mattered. What did he want me to say?
‘I like it?’ I said tentatively.
Mr Appel sent me back to my desk.
I turned to my sums feeling that I’d fallen short in some way. Then a new thought popped into my head: I didn’t like The Flying Postman at all! It was an anthology with brief snippets of prose, all of them without a proper ending. It’s something I hate to this day.
In the space of a minute I’d become a critical reader. Someone who judged rather than someone who merely absorbed. The clock started ticking. I grew up. Paradise no more.

There is no time in paradise. Leaves don’t wither, animals don’t grow older, rocks don’t wear. Adam and Eve are children. As soon as Eve takes a critical look around, she finds herself outside the gate. She ages fast. Following the birth of Cain and Abel, Eve suffers with the menopause and Adam with his prostate. Grey and wizened, they sit huddled together until they stop breathing and are overgrown with fungi. Their descendants fight. Cain murders Abel. Tribes come and go. A fish emerges from the sea, evolves into a salamander and becomes a bird, a human. The humans sit shivering in their cave, waiting for spring. Then someone gets to his feet.
‘Once upon a time …,’ he begins. His fellow tribespeople forget hunger, cold and time. They’re back in paradise. Only the writer stands outside. He has to narrate, create, think, be critical. He evokes paradise and is forever excluded from it. When another writer takes over, he listens with his head tilted and a sceptical look in his eyes. Nice try, he thinks, but he’s chosen the wrong perspective, uses too many big words and that plot twist is implausible.

Could there be an intermediate form? A place that’s a little bit paradisal? A place with a little bit of time, but not too much?
Yes, that place exists. In the realm of the Smurfs, the grass is green and the sky is blue. Jealousy doesn’t exist, because there are no social classes, no rich and poor. Everybody carries the same name, wears the same outfit, has the same sex.
The God of Smurf village, the writer Peyo, was wise enough to create an evil force in the shape of Gargamel. But the wizard is kept outside the village. A magic spell stops him from ever finding it. And so Gargamel thinks up a ruse: he creates Smurfette to sow discord among the Smurfs.
The plan seems to be working. Smurfette’s arrival in the village leads to trouble and strife. But unlike Eve, Smurfette sacrifices herself: she leaves Smurf village and moves elsewhere, east of their settlement. The fall has been avoided.

Despite their identical names and appearances, the Smurfs have their own identities, which are respected by the others. Lazy is work-shy – oh well, never mind. Grouchy is a perpetual sourpuss. They’re tolerant towards that.
When the Smurfs come across a wishing well, they’re beside themselves with joy, until they realise that they have nothing to wish for. Everything is just right the way it is. They return to the village, where the stars twinkle above the rooftops and Papa Smurf watches over them.

Are there any places that are comparable to the paradise-lite of Smurf village? Is there a place for me, poor writer, that comes close to paradise?

During the coronavirus pandemic I lost all sense of time. On Mondays I always went swimming, but now the pool was shut. On Tuesdays I used to go for coffee with a friend, but the cafés were all closed. On Wednesdays I did my laundry, but there was nothing to wash. I could wear the same clothes over and over. Tablecloths remained unused. What day was it? Was it the weekend, a holiday? Not that it mattered, because there was nowhere to go. My appearances were cancelled. Was that a shame? Or kind of convenient? Again, I couldn’t tell.
In a dream state, I cycled along the empty streets to my allotment. I waved at my gardening friends from afar. We yelled something, failed to understand each other, shrugged with helplessness and set to work, each on his or her own plot of land.
I was like Adam in paradise, alone. The currant bushes had budded, the crocuses were in bloom, a blackbird was singing, the bamboo rustling. Here too, I thought to myself, Time passed, albeit slowly. The bean germinated underground and grew towards the light. Perhaps a blackbird would pull the green stalk from the soil and get caught by a fox, which in turn would die and be picked clean by crows and buzzards before maggots would finish the job. That’s how it goes. A powerful movement was underway, even though none of it was visible right now. God is great, but they’re no artist.
I grabbed my garden chair, my thermos flask and a mug and made myself comfortable beside the pond. A frog sat on a mossy tree trunk. It was very still, but I could see it breathe. The sight of that tiny throat going up and down jolted me from the mind-numbing stupor of the past few months. A wave of emotion swept through my body and soul, as if I could feel the breath of time and I too was allowed to come into bud. Neither Darwin nor Papa Smurf could explain this feeling to me, only God, however little appetite I have for Him.
Paradise is a frog on a tree stump.

Sûnt har man ferstoarn wie, hie Janke in parkyt. Net dat Durk sa’n prater west hie, mar hy liet dochs in stilte achter. It fûgeltsje koe dy mei syn kwetterjen goed folje. Eins wie it bist in waarm wolkom; it spruts har nea tsjin en it eamele net, sels net as syn fuorbakje leech wie. Al moast dat lêste ek net te lang duorje fansels.

Janke siet faak njonken it kouke dat se foar it rút delsetten hie, njonken de foto fan Durk. No en dan die se it doarke iepen en mocht Jan, sa’t se it griene fûgeltsje neamd hie, troch it hûs fleane. De earste kearen fladdere er by it rút op, drok besykjend der út te kommen, mar Janke hâlde de ruten en doarren goed ticht. Allinnich yn ’e keuken stie in lyts rútsje iepen, dat se soarge der ekstra goed foar de tuskendoar altyd ticht te hâlden.
Nei in skoftsje wende Jan. De parkyt kaam ta rêst, fleach rûntsjes troch de keamer en skarrele oer de tafel.
‘Pas op, dy kofje is hyt!’ rôp Janke doe’t Jan yn ’e buert fan har kopke kaam. Mar de fûgel naam de muoite net op de râne sitten te gean. Hy hie mear ynteresse yn har telefyzjegids, dêr’t er mei syn snaffel lytsje gatsjes yn prikte. En yn it fûgelsnobbersguod dat Janke by de bistewinkel foar him kocht. Koarn siet der op dy lytse staafkes, en huning en fruit. It bist wie der mâl fan en stode der altyd fuort op ôf as se wer nije foar him klear lei.

Se hienen it goed, Janke en Jan. Fansels miste se Durk noch, mar mei it fûgeltsje fielde se stadichoan wat lok weromkommen.
Mar doe kaam die iene dei. Hoe’t it krekt gien wie, begriep Janke noch altyd net, mar it feit wie dat Jan mei har meifleach nei de keuken. Hie se der mei har gedachten net by west? Janke wist it net, mar se seach al hoe’t har fûgel streekrjocht nei it iepen rútsje fleach en binnen in pear tellen bûten wie.
Gau iepene se de balkondoar. ‘Jan!’ rôp se. ‘Jan, kom werom!’
Mar hoe hurd en fol oertsjûging Janke ek rôp, Jan kearde net en socht in plakje bûtendoar.

Dêr siet se, njonken it lege kouke. Durk seach har fan de fotolist ôf laitsjend oan, mar Janke lake net mear. No’t se ien kear wend wie oan it sjongen fan har parkyt, klonk it tikjen fan de klok har fiersten te lûd.
It duorre dan ek net lang foar’t se op ’e fyts stapte en nei de bistewinkel ried, dêr’t se in nij, blau fûgeltsje útsocht. Se krige it mei yn in lyts doaske, dat se hoeden yn ’e fytstas lei. Thús liet se har oanwinst, Lútzen, los yn ’e kou. It bist moast wenne en fladdere wyld hinne en wer, mar Janke glimke tefreden. Sy wist: it soe wol goed komme tusken de fûgel en har.

En se krige gelyk. Lútzen wie noch oanhankliker as Jan west hie. Nei in skoftsje rûn it bist net allinnich oer de tafel, it kaam sels by har op ’e hân en op it skouder sitten. As sy har middeisiten iet, siet Lútzen op ’e râne fan har board en hapte stikjes griente mei.
Nei it iten die se gauris in knipperke yn ’e stoel. Op ’e moaie dagen kaam Lútzen by har lizzen, socht in plakje yn har hals. Earst fielde it kribeljen fan de fearkes tsjin har hûd frjemd oan, mar it waard al gau eigen. Lútzen fertroude har, woe by har wêze en sy hie wer ien om har leafde oan te jaan.
Janke wie grutsk. ‘Sjochtst wol, Durk,’ sei se tsjin de foto yn ’e finsterbank. ‘Ik rêd my ek wol sûnder dy!’

It wie op in sneon dat Janke har nei it middeisiten eefkes deljoech. Lútzen socht syn plakje wer op, lekker knus tsjin syn baaske oan. Tegearre dienen se de eagen ticht, in skoftsje mar, dan koenen se aansen de middei wer oan.
Doe’t Janke lykwols wekker waard, wie it stil yn ’e hûs. Se seach om har hinne, mar Lútzen siet net yn syn kou. Logysk, want niiskrekt lei er noch by har. Mar wêr wie er no? Janke eage de keamer troch. Durk lake nei har út ’e finsterbank wei, mar har fûgeltsje koe se net ûntdekke. Pas doe’t se oerein kaam fielde se wat, dêr, by har bil. Janke huvere fan wat se yn ’e stoel lizzen seach: in bewegingleas, lyts hoopke fearren. Lútzen, har leave Lútzen wie dea.

De hiele middei stoarre Janke foar har út. Lútzen lei op tafel, mei de eachjes ticht en de poatsjes yn ’e loft. Se koe it net opbringe him fuort te smiten, mar wist likemin wat se wol mei him oan moast. Begrave? Se hie net iens in tún, lit stean in skeppe!

De oare deis naam Janke in beslút. Lútzen krige in loftbegraffenis ûnder de rodendrum yn it park. Dêrnei fytste se fuort troch nei de bistewinkel. Ien kear noch soe se in parkyt keapje, ien fûgeltsje soe se noch in kâns jaan har lok werom te bringen, mar dizze kear soe se it oars oanpakke.
Alles die Janke der oan om de risiko’s op in betiid ferlies fan Doede ta in minimum te beperkjen. De ruten bleaunen ticht, ek yn ’e keuken. En foar it knipperke soe se middeis nei de sliepkeamer ferhúzje. Al wat yn har macht lei om te soargjen dat Doede, de lytse leave skat, sa lang as mooglik by har bliuwe soe.
No wie it de beurt oan har parkyt.
Se pakte har skjirre en naam it bist út it doaske op ’e skoat. Eefkes gie har blik noch nei de finsterbank. Wie it ferbylding of seach se echt in meilydsume blik efter Durks glimkjende gesicht?
Se skodholle en konsintrearre har wer op de skjirre yn har hân. Koart aaide se Doede oer syn kopke. Doe knipte se foarsichtich, my de tonge in lyts eintsje ta de mûle út fan konsintraasje, ien foar ien de wjukjes ôf.

Since her husband’s death, Janke had a parakeet. Not that Durk had been much of a talker, but he still left a silence. The bird was able to fill it with his twittering. In fact, the creature was a welcome addition to her home; he never contradicted her and he didn’t complain, not even when his food bowl was empty – although that shouldn’t be allowed to go on for too long, of course.

Janke often sat beside the cage, which she had placed by the window, next to Durk’s photograph. Now and then she opened the door, and Jan – which was what she had named the little green bird – was allowed to fly through the house. The first few times, he fluttered against the window, desperately trying to escape, but Janke was careful to keep the windows and doors closed. There was just one small open window in the kitchen, so she made extra sure that she shut the connecting door.
After a while, Jan got used to the situation. The parakeet calmed down, flew around the living room and walked across the table.
‘Look out! That coffee’s hot!’ Janke cried when Jan came too close to her cup. But the bird did not even bother to perch on the edge. He was more interested in the TV guide, which he poked little holes in with his beak. And in the bird treats that Janke bought for him at the pet shop. The little sticks had grain on them, honey and fruit. The bird loved them and always headed straight for them whenever she put new ones out for him.

They had it good together, Janke and Jan. She still missed Durk, of course, but with the bird, slowly but surely, she felt a little happiness returning.
But then it happened. Janke still did not understand exactly how it came about, but the fact was that Jan flew with her into the kitchen. Had she been distracted? Janke didn’t know, but she did see her bird flying straight for the open window and – in a matter of seconds – he was outside.
She threw open the balcony door. ‘Jan!’ she shouted. ‘Jan, come back!’
But no matter how loudly and persuasively Janke shouted, Jan did not turn back but instead flew off to find a place in the open air.

There she sat, next to the empty cage. Durk looked out at her from the photo frame, with a smile on his face, but Janke wasn’t smiling anymore. Now that she had grown used to her parakeet’s singing, the ticking of the clock was far too loud.

So, before long, she climbed onto her bike and cycled to the pet shop, where she picked out a new, blue bird. They gave her a little box to take it home in, which she carefully placed in her pannier. At home, she released Lútzen, her new acquisition, into the cage. The little creature needed some time to get used to it and fluttered wildly back and forth, but Janke gave a contented smile. She knew that it was going to work out between her and the bird.

And she was right. Lútzen was even more affectionate than Jan. After a while, the little bird not only walked across the table, but he would also come and sit on her hand and her shoulder. When she ate her lunch, Lútzen sat on the edge of the plate and pecked at bits of vegetable. When she had finished, she often took a nap in her chair. On nice days, Lútzen came to lie with her, snuggling into her neck. The tickling of the feathers against her skin felt a little strange at first, but she soon became accustomed to it. Lútzen trusted her, wanted to be with her and she had someone to give her love to again.
Janke was proud. ‘You see, Durk,’ she said to the photograph on the windowsill. ‘I’m doing fine without you!’

It happened on a Saturday, when Janke went for a nap after lunch. Lútzen headed for his usual spot, cuddled up cosily to his owner. Together they closed their eyes, just for a little while, and then they could get on with the rest of the day.
However, when Janke woke up, it was quiet in the house. She looked around, but Lútzen wasn’t in his cage. That made sense – he’d been lying with her just now. But where was he? Janke scoured the room. Durk smiled at her from the windowsill, but there was no sign of her bird. It was only when she got up that she felt something, there, by her thigh. Janke shivered when she saw what was lying in the chair: a motionless little pile of feathers. Lútzen, her dear Lútzen, was dead.

All afternoon, Janke sat there, staring ahead. Lútzen lay on the table, his eyes shut and his little legs up in the air. She couldn’t bring herself to throw him away, but she had no idea what else to do with him. Bury him? She didn’t even have a garden, let alone a shovel!

The next day, Janke came to a decision. Lútzen would have a sky burial under the rhododendron in the park. Then she would ride her bike straight to the pet shop. She would buy a parakeet one more time, she would give one more bird the chance to make her happy again, but this time she would handle it differently.

Janke was going to do all she could to minimise the risks of losing Doede before his time. The windows would stay shut, including the one in the kitchen. And she would go to the bedroom for her afternoon nap from now on. She would try everything in her power to make sure that Doede, the little darling, would stay with her for as long as possible.
Now it was her parakeet’s turn.
She picked up the scissors and moved the bird out of the box and onto her lap. For a second, her gaze went to the windowsill. Was it her imagination, or could she really see a look of pity on Durk’s smiling face?
She shook her head and focused again on the scissors in her hand. She gave Doede’s head a little stroke. Then carefully, the tip of her tongue poking out of her mouth with concentration, one after the other, she snipped off his wings.

Bûten wie it blau en koel, de twivelige oere tusken ljocht en tsjuster wêrop’t alles mooglik is. Yn de badkeamer brânde it lampke fan de babyfoan, glânzen de tegels. Noch hiel eefkes foar’t ik him ophelje soe foar syn badsje. Ik lei myn holle yn ’e nekke, tearde myn hannen iepen en die koart de eagen ticht. As ik wist hoe, soe ik bidde om ferjouwing foar wat komme soe.
Ik stie by it bernebad sa’t ik oan de kaai stien hie. Sa faak deroan tocht om dêr de rivier yn te gean. By de kromme stobbewylch dy’t fier oer it wetter hong. Myn lichem dêr deryn glide litte, noch even de oerhingjende tûken omklamje, en my dan stadich sakje litte oant it wetter him boppe myn holle sleat.
Stoarm wie der noch mar krekt. Ik koe doe al neat mear. In pear wiken earder wie hy út my glibbere, en hie de betsjoening ferbrutsen. Tsjin alle beloften yn, wie ik wer allinnich. Altyd as Ewald thúskaam, soarge ik dat Stoarm yn de boks lei. Mei stoffen blokken, sêfte boekjes en spuidoekjes om him hinne. En dat ik derneist siet en lake, ek al foel der neat te laitsjen en bleau it oan de oare kant fan it rút tsjuster. De maitiid wie in iere dea stoarn. Hieltyd klonk de sombere roffel fan de rein dy’t mar net ophâlde woe. Oeral yn ’e hûs hong de weemeitsjend swiete lucht fan de molke dy’t mar út my kaam, dy’t tsjin myn hûd, myn boarsten, triuwde, nei bûten woe mar dy’t Stoarm wegere te drinken.
De blauwe oere wie feilich, de bêste tiid foar syn bad. Ewald wie ûnderweis nei hûs. Ik helle Stoarm fêst út ’e keamer, it wetter fan it badsje wie waarm. Noch even, heity komt aansten thús.
Ik sette de muzyk oan om alles wat ik hearde te oerstimmen. Lou Reed, Perfect Day. Fuortendaliks wie ik wer by Julia. Myn leave, leave Julia. De iennige út it gesinsferfangend tehûs mei wa’t ik myn boartersguod dielde. Ek al woe se altyd itselde dwaan. As it oan har lei boarten wy alle dagen mei myn plestik pop mei dy hiel ljochtblauwe eagen. Oefenje foar letter. Oanklaaie, hierboarstelje. Mar ik dûnse leaver. Allinnich, of meielkoar, yn it park achter it tehûs. Ik dûnse mei de útwaaierjende hazzenútbeammen, de nuete kastanjes dy’t dêr yn de hurde grûn groeiden. Myn earmen krekt soepele, bûchsume tûken. It gerêststellende sûzjen fan it bloed yn myn earen.

Mar dy woansdeitemiddeis wie Ewald nei in kongres, it soe let wurde. Op de blauwe oere hie ik it badsje fol dien, mar kaam wer net yn beweging. Hold him allinnich mar fêst, stevich tsjin myn boarst oan en seach hoe’t de loft ferkleure. Wat letter stie ik mei de rêch nei him ta in fleske te meitsjen. Hy lei sêfte lûdsjes te meitsjen yn ’e boks, mei syn holtsje nei my ta draaid. Ynienen fielde ik dat er my oan it besjen wie. Al in hiel skoft. Ik draaide my om en in skok gie troch myn lichem. Syn eagen wienen sa oars as dat ik se koe. Nerveus struts ik it hier út myn gesicht, makke myn rêch rjocht en gie fierder mei de poeiermolke. Dat kin net. Hy wie te jong om sa te sjen. Ik tilde him op, syn lyfke sa licht, mar syn spieren spand. Hy beweegde amper en ik rjochte myn blik op syn krún. ‘Kom mar jonge.’ Longerich klamme er syn hantsjes om de flesse en hy begûn daliks, hast agressyf, te drinken, syn blik no even op ûneinich. De lampe boppe ús striele helwyt en ik seach de ljochtboarne glinsterjen yn syn each.
Hy dronk as wie er úthongere, syn boarst skokkend en pompend, en ik stie deastil, as wienen de soallen fan myn sloffen oan ’e flier fêstlime. Mei al myn oandacht seach ik nei him. Nei de krêft fan syn slokken, it klokken fan syn hals en nei it geve, blanke fan syn holtsje, it dûns yn syn nekke. Nei alles dat sa moai wie, mar dêr’t ik neat mei te krijen hie. In ûnbekende pop dy’t yn myn earmen lei.
Hy moast nei syn keamer. No. Wer op bêd moast er. Wer op bêd moast ik. Mar dochs stelde ik it út. Noch even. Ik woe even dy oar wêze, tsjin better witten yn, dy goede mem. Wat bewize oan de amper sichtbere gedaante yn it donkere oerflak fan it rút. Ik bin in mem, besocht ik. Ik bin in mem dy’t mei har bern by it rút stiet en súntsjes wurdsjes yn syn hals blaast. Mar ik blaasde neat, ik sei neat, der kaam neat. Ik stapte tichterby, seach de trochweakke tún yn, dêr’t de rein alle kleur út wei slein hie, en nei mysels yn it swarte glês, ûnbeweechlik, en al hast ferdwûn.
Doe’t ik myn blik wer op Stoarm rjochte, seach ik dat hy de eagen ek wer opslein hie. Syn blik fêstklonken yn mines. Ik ferstive, in ier op myn foarholle begûn te triljen. Dêrachter dreaunen de freeslikste gedachten. En hy seach se. Hy seach wa’t ik wie. Syn wangen en foarholle waarden sa read as it blêd fan in eskdoarn. Syn gjalp wie koart en yslik en gie oer yn in gierend gûlen sa’t ik dat noait earder heard hie. Ik wist it fuortdaliks: dit wie syn oanklacht. Wat hy seach hie in fonk yn him oanstutsen dy’t noait mear útgean soe.

Mar no stean ik hjir, en is it goed. De earste bledsjes falle. Ik fiel dat se harren ferset opjouwe en harren losmeitsje. Opmerksum sjoch ik se nei en tink: ja, no bin ik ôf. Sa is it moai. De bledsjes binne sa tin. In suchtsje, in koeltsje en dêr geane se, ien foar ien draaie se om harren eigen as oant se yn alle kalmte de ierde reitsje, dêr’t se fergean sille.

‘Ik kin dit net,’ rôp ik dy jûns yn panyk nei Ewald. Hy pakte my beet, omklamme myn triljende hannen en seach my oan, de eagen ta spleetsjes knypt en de lippen strak opelkoar. ‘Och leave pop. Do joust dysels te min tiid.’ Hy joech my in slok fan syn tee. En dêrnei sei er, mei in licht lûd, mar mei oplutsen skouders: ‘Fansels kinsto dit.’ Dat it in hiele omskeakeling wie sei er, en hy begûn in lang ferhaal oer hormoanen. Oer de húsdokter. En dat ik miskien dochs noch ris nei dy psychiater gean moast. Wylst er prate, bûgde er him in lyts bytsje nei foaren, sadat it lampeljocht de sydkant fan syn holle beskynde. Noait earder seach ik sa dúdlik de spieren fan syn hals, de weagjende groffe pezen, dy’t út syn skouders wei oan syn holle ta rûnen, syn rêstich klopjende ieren. Syn krêft hie wat dat like ysbaarlik wie as gerêststellend. Sûnder my soe it better gean.

Dat wie april. Yn maaie kaam de earste dream. Ik sliepte amper, mar as de sliep kaam, kamen ek de dreamen. De simmer wie al wekker wurden en plakte oan myn eachlidden. Myn lichem ûnder in stolp fan swijende hjitte. Miskien lei ik op bêd. Mei alle ruten iepen. Miskien wie ik yn ’e tún. Ynienen koe ik my wer oereinjaan en foar’t ik it wist beweegde ik betochtsum troch sêfte, meijaande lucht. Myn fingers skodde ik los, twigen dy’t har kromje, mar dy’t net brekke kinne. Nergens wjerstân. Myn teannen skeaten de grûn yn oan ûneinige djipten ta. As fansels glieden se troch sompige ierde en fûnen har plak yn holten dy’t op harren wachten.

Wêr’t ik no wenje, mar in meter as tsien fierderop, is Stoarm frij fan my. En ik fan mysels. Hjir stean ik oeren, dagen, moannen stil en dochs sjoch ik alles. De hiele tún. It tichte bosk dêrachter. Myn hiele libben. Elkenien dy’t my leaf is, is by my. Sels de deaden libje wer. Se sitte yn it lûdleaze twirjen fan it grien. De ljochtgiel glimmende bledsjes. Sa moai dat ik derfan gûle wolle soe. As ik dat koe. Mar gûle kin ik net mear.
En wêr’t ik no stean binne Ewald en Stoarm altyd by my. Sûnder pine. Gewoan yn ús hûs. Flakby. Tsjinoer my. Ik sjoch de tafel, de bank, it bêd. Sjoch Ewald yn ’e gong. Hy giet troch de knibbels en lûkt ús bern syn jaske út, tilt him heech op. Prakket mei in bûgde rêch grienten trochelkoar. Lêst him foar by in lyts ljochtsje. Dan stoppet er Stoarm yn en docht sûnder te wifeljen it lampke út om oan de oare kant fan de gong, yn de wenkeamer, de krante te lêzen. Hy kontrolearret net ien kear oft er noch wol sykhellet.
Fan wêr’t ik no stean bin ik einlings echt by Stoarm. Wat in gelok. By myn bern wêze. Myn soan, myn leafling, myn ferljochte geast, myn wûnder. Alle jûnen bûch ik my yn in stil rûzjen nei him oer en lústerje nei syn sêft snoarkjende azemjen. Ik bliuw de hiele nacht by him. Ynein is er, fan alles wat er dy deis leard hat, fan wat it libben no al fan him easket, en ik widzje him yn de beskermjende ljochtkring fan syn nachtlampke, kribelje syn ljochtblonde krolhierkes. Dat wat krekt in finger is past no presys yn it geultsje yn syn nekke, dat rint fan syn hiergrins oant de ferdikking op it plak dêr’t syn rêchbonke begjint. Hiel sêft krassend krabbelje ik him dêr. Myn aaien kalmearret him. Sliep, popke, sliep. Dêr bûten …

It moaiste oan wêr’t ik no stean, is dat de tiid net mear bestiet.
It is hast krekt as doe, doe’t Stoarm him noch yn my ferskûle. Hy dobbere om yn myn súntsjes klotsende waarmte, tegearre dagenlang omswalkjend troch bosken, dunen en parken. Alle tiid hie ik. Op myn gemak tekene ik myn favorite beammen nei, line foar line, en lei myn ear tsjin harren stammen oan om se dêrbinnen sûzjen te hearren. Sinkend ferdwinend yn weake, al mar útdijende tiid, oant der neat oars mear bestie as de ritmes fan sopstreamen, sykheljen, oerlûkende skaden, ljocht en tsjuster.

Wêr’t ik no bin, bin ik ek wer mei Julia. Sa’t it bedoeld wie. Allinnich wy twaen. Gjinien dy’t ús symmetry fersteure soe. Mear hie ik ek net nedich. Mear koe ik net oan. Wy studearje wer, ús libben bestiet opnij út dy einleaze rige dagen dy’t gedachteleas ynelkoar oerrinne. Wy baaie yn de wielde fan de ferfeling, it ferdwalen. Doarmje troch tichte bosken, trochkruse Europa, mei de fjildgids dendrology yn ús hannen. Optein sette wy krúskes by de moaiste beammen. Wy ûntdekke dat it yndividuën binne. Allegearre like prachtich. Hieltyd wer is der in nij skepsel dat him oan ús iepenbieret.
Op dy tochten begûnen de gedachten dêr’t ik allinnich har oer fertelde. Hoe’t ik ôfwêzich de krante lies, it nijs folge, rampen en oanslaggen seach, en tocht: in linebeam, in esk, in reade kornelle, sy sille soks noait dwaan. Dat ik tocht oan alle kennis dy’t se besieten en dy’t wy noait begripe soenen. De iik kin fiifhûndert jier wurde as er wol en ûnder de grûn gûnzet it fan de beammegeheimen. Yn it tsjuster stekke se harren kilometerslange, glêde woartelstelsels nei elkoar út en fertelle se elkoar alles.
De gedachten kamen as weagen, foaral as ik werom wie yn de stêd. Hieltyd wer dy skok. Sokke skiere gesichten, yn harsels keard. Oeral reklames, felle ljochten. En dochs wie alles dof. Kafees, flats, kantoargebouwen. In hopeleas doalhôf fan stien en stiel.

Dat der terapyen besteane, hie de psychiater sein, dy’t harren effekt bewiisd hawwe. De nijste techniken. De wurkingsmeganismen wurde ûnderboud mei sifers. Se prate mei in heldere stim, en it hechte weefsel fan har wurden ljochte op. It wie sa ferblynjend dat je, as je der even net om tochten, neat oars mear sjen koenen. Mar dat jilde allinnich foar oaren. Foar Ewald dy’t neist my siet, syn skouders wer heech, in hân dy’t dy fan my besocht te pakken. Mar ik seach út it rút en seach nei de grutske stammen fan de beammen. Seach in plataan mei in bledderjende bast en myn rêch begûn te jokjen.

Dy jûns lei ik op bêd. Syn hannen gienen foar it earst yn moannen wer oer myn lichem. Hy flústere yn myn ear dat alles goed kaam. Ik hold syn holle beet. Oer syn rêch seach ik nei bûten, nei de tûken fan de Acer pseudoplatanus yn de omlisting fan it finster. Yn myn ferbylding tikken harren punten freegjend tsjin it glês. Ik tocht oan alle soarten skors dy’t ik sjoen, field, bewûndere ha. De iene kear hurd en stiennich, dan wer sêft en bleek. Hast sûnder flekjes, plakjes of ûntsieringen, of krekt fol mei knobbelige útgroeisels, en loskommende skulfers. Allegear azemje se folsleinens. Untwurpen oant yn de perfeksje.

Outside it was cool and blue, the indeterminate hour between light and dark when everything is possible. In the bathroom the baby monitor was on: its light shining, the tiles gleaming. Just a little longer and I’d go and get him for his bath. I leant my head back, opened my hands and closed my eyes for a moment. If I knew how, I’d pray for forgiveness for what was going to happen.
I stood next to the baby bath the way I’d stood on the waterside. I’d thought of going into the river there so many times. Next to the bent pollard willow that leans out over the water. Lowering my body in, gripping the overhanging branches for a moment, then letting myself sink slowly until the water closes over my head.
Storm had only just arrived and I was already exhausted. A few weeks earlier he’d slithered out of me, breaking the enchantment. Despite all the promises, I was alone again. I always made sure Storm was in the playpen whenever Ewald was due home. Lying on his back surrounded by bibs, soft blocks, cloth books. With me sitting next to him and smiling, even if there was nothing to smile about and the other side of the window stayed dark. Spring had died a premature death. The constant gloomy drumming of never-ending rain. The house full of the sickly-sweet smell of the milk that kept leaking out of me, pressing against my skin, swelling my breasts, trying to get out, but which Storm refused to drink.
The blue hour was safe, the best time for his bath. Ewald was on his way home. I got Storm out of the bedroom in preparation. The water in the baby bath was the right temperature. Just a little bit longer, Daddy will be home soon.
I put on music to drown out everything I could hear. Lou Reed, ‘Perfect Day’. It immediately took me back to Julia. Dear sweet Julia. The only kid I shared my toys with at the home. Even though she always wanted to do the same thing. If it was up to her we’d have only ever played with my plastic doll with the exceptionally pale blue eyes. Practising for later. Dressing her, brushing her hair. But I preferred dancing. Alone or together. In the park behind the home. I danced with the spreading hazels and the chestnut trees that grew there in the hard ground. With arms like supple, flexible branches. The reassuring murmur of blood in my ears.

But that Wednesday afternoon Ewald had gone to a conference. He was going to be late. I’d filled the bath for the blue hour, but stalled. I just held him tight, pressing him to my breast and watching the sky change colour. A little later I was standing with my back to him to make a bottle. He was making quiet little sounds in the playpen, and had turned his head towards me. Suddenly I felt like he was watching me. That he had been watching me for quite a while. I turned and a shock passed through my body. His eyes were so different from how I knew them. Nervously I brushed my hair away from my face, straightened my back and carried on with the formula. It wasn’t possible. He was too young to watch things. I picked him up, his body so light, but his muscles tense. He was hardly moving and I concentrated my gaze on the crown of his head. ‘Here you go.’ He clamped his greedy hands around the bottle and immediately began drinking, almost aggressively, now staring into space. The overhead lamp was shining brightly and I saw its reflection glinting in his eye.
He drank as if famished, his chest jerking and pumping and I stood deathly still, as if the soles of my slippers were glued to the floor. Breathlessly, I looked at him.  The power of his gulps, the glugging of his throat, the down on the back of his neck and the perfect whiteness of his little head. Looking at all these things that were so beautiful but had nothing to do with me. An unfamiliar doll in my arms.
He had to go back to his room. Now. Back to bed. I had to go back to bed. But I put it off. Just a little longer. I wanted to be that other woman, despite knowing better, I wanted to be the good mother. To prove something to the scarcely visible figure in the dark surface of the window. I am a mother, I tried, I am a mother standing at the window with her child and gently breathing out little words against his throat. But I wasn’t breathing out anything, I didn’t say anything, nothing came. I stepped closer, looking at the saturated garden, which the rain had leached all the colour out of, and at myself in the black glass, motionless and almost vanished already.
When I turned back to Storm I saw that he was looking up again. His eyes fixed on mine. I stiffened. An artery in my forehead began quivering. Floating behind it were the most horrific thoughts. And he saw them. He saw who I was. His cheeks and forehead turned as red as a sycamore leaf. His scream was short and icy and turned into a shrieking howl I’d never heard before. I knew at once: this was his accusation. What he had seen had sparked a fire in him that would never be extinguished.

But now I’m standing here and it’s alright. The first leaves are falling. I feel them giving up and letting go. I follow them with my eyes and think: yes, now I’m free. It’s beautiful like this. The leaves are so thin. The slightest itching, a breeze and they’re off, spiralling one after the other until they calmly reach the earth, where they will rot away.

‘I can’t do it,’ I shouted at Ewald that night. He grabbed me, held my trembling hands tight and looked at me, screwing up his eyes and his lips too. ‘Sweetheart, come on. You’re not giving yourself enough time.’ He gave me a sip of his tea. And then he said, in a light-hearted voice but with his shoulders bunched up, ‘Of course you can do it.’  It was a massive adjustment, he said, and launched into a long story about hormones. About the GP. And that I might have to go see a psychiatrist after all. While talking, he bent forward a fraction, so the lamp lit his head from the side. Never before had I seen his neck muscles so clearly, the movement of the robust sinews that stretched from his shoulders to his skull, his calmly throbbing arteries. His strength was horrifying and reassuring at once. Without me things would be better.

That was April. In May I had the first dream. I hardly slept, but when sleep came, the dreams came too. The summer had already woken and was stuck to my eyelids. My body under a dome of silent heat. Maybe I was in bed. With all the windows open. Maybe I was in the garden. Suddenly I could sit up again and before I knew it I was moving through soft, yielding air. I shook out my fingers, twigs that can bend but not break. No resistance anywhere. My toes plunged deep into the ground, sliding smoothly through sodden earth and nestling into the hollows that awaited them.

Where I now live, no more than a dozen metres further along, Storm is free of me. And I am free of myself. I stand here motionless for hours, days, months, yet see everything. The whole garden. The thick wood beyond it. My whole life. Everyone I love is here with me. Even the dead have come back to life. They are in the noiseless swirling of the foliage. The gleaming, pale yellow leaves. So beautiful it could make me weep. If I could. But I can’t cry anymore.
And where I am now standing Ewald and Storm are always with me. Without pain. In our house. Close by. Across from me. I see the table, the couch, the bed. Ewald in the hall. He squats down to take off our child’s coat, lifting him up. Bends over a plate to mash vegetables. Reads to him by dim lamplight. Then he tucks Storm in and without hesitating turns off the lamp to read the newspaper across the hall in the living room. He doesn’t check once to see if he’s still breathing.
From where I am now standing I am at last truly with Storm. What a joy. Being with my child, my son, my darling, my enlightened soul, my miracle. Every evening I bend over him in my quiet rustling and listen to his gently snoring breath. I stay with him all night. He is exhausted from everything he has learnt that day, the demands life is already putting on him, and I rock him in the protective circle of his nightlight, tickling his little blond curls.  That which is just like a finger now fits exactly in the hollow in the back of his neck that runs from his hairline to the bulge where his backbone begins. I scratch him there very gently. My stroking calms him. Rock-a-bye baby…

The most beautiful thing about where I am now is that time no longer exists.
It’s almost like before, when Storm was still sheltering inside me. He floated in my gently sloshing warmth as we spent days wandering woods, dunes and parks together. I had all the time in the world. I could relax while drawing my favourite trees, line by line, pressing my ear to their trunks to listen to the murmuring within. Sinking into flaccid, ever-expanding time, until nothing existed but the rhythms of flowing sap, breath, passing shadows, light and dark.

Where I am now I am with Julia again too. The way it was meant to be. Just the two of us. Nobody to disturb our symmetry. All I ever needed. All I was up to. We are students again, again our lives consist of an endless series of days merging thoughtlessly together. Wallowing in the luxuriance of boredom, of getting lost. Wandering through thick forests, crisscrossing Europe with the dendrology guidebook in our hands. Delighted to tick off the most beautiful trees. Discovering that they’re individuals. Every one magnificent. Always another new creature revealing itself to us.
During those expeditions the thoughts I didn’t tell anyone but her about began. How I could absent-mindedly read the newspaper or watch the news, see disasters and attacks, and think, a linden, an ash, a red dogwood, they’d never do anything like that. I’d think of all the knowledge they possess that we will never understand. The oak can live to five hundred if it wants to and the earth below the surface is humming with secrets. In the dark the trees reach out to each other across kilometres with their smooth root systems and they tell each other everything.
The thoughts came in waves, especially when I was back in the city. Always with a shock. Such averted faces, inward-looking. Advertisements everywhere, bright lights. And everything dull all the same. Bars, flats, office buildings. A hopeless labyrinth of steel and stone.

There are therapies, the psychiatrist said, that have proven effective. Advanced techniques. Scientifically supported methods. She spoke in clear tones and the tight tissue of her words shone. It was so dazzling that if you weren’t careful, you would be blinded. But that only applied to others. To Ewald sitting next to me, his shoulders up again, a hand trying to grab mine. But I stared out of the window at the trees’ proud trunks. The sight of a plane with peeling bark made my back itchy.

That night I was lying in bed. For the first time in months, his hands slid over my body. He whispered in my ear that it would all work out. I held his head. Over his back I stared at the branches of the Acer pseudoplatanus framed by the window. In my imagination their tips tapped out a question on the glass. I thought of all the kinds of bark I have seen, felt, admired. Some hard and stony, others soft and pale. Almost without stains, spots and blemishes, or flaking and full of knots and gnarls. Every one sheer perfection. Immaculately designed.

De frou waard midden yn ’e nacht wekker. Earst fernaam sy it wekker wêzen, pas dêrnei murk sy wêrom. Pine hie har wekker makke. Lykas graaide der in fierste grutte hân nei yngewanten, lykas ûntweide dy har as farsk sketten wyld. Se tocht oan donkere organen, bluodderich fleis. In ûnbepaald skoft lang fersette se har tsjin it geweld – dat se blykber sels fuortbrocht – mei wanhopige beswarringen en in domme hân op it troffen gebiet. Mar der wie gjin hâlden oan, se sprate de eagen wiid iepen, draaide har op har rêch en dêrnei op har side, krulle harsels by einbeslút op. De helpeleaze, weake dielen ynsletten troch in koai fan rêch en skonken. Waardeloas. Se grypte krampachtich in hânfol bêdeguod en knypte, kreunde, switte, nettsjinsteande de huverige nacht. De oandrang ynienen om har terms te leegjen sette har yn beweging. Foaroerbûgd en mei in earm tsjin har búk, as koe se wat tsjinhâlde, stroffele se nei bûten mar berikte it húske net op ’e tiid. Se die har behoefte as in bist, yn ’e hoksen oan ’e râne fan it hiem. De ferromming duorre koart, se koe noch krekt nei binnen krûpe, kokhalse en spuide, in pear kear efterinoar. Nei siken happend kroep se fuort fan har eigen kjitte, sonk drekt dêrnei yninoar. It skouder foel hurd op ’e flier, krassende neilen klonken oer it hout. Smoargens of splinters lieten los. My likefolle, wie har lêste tins.
De pine hie fan har wûn, hie sels sûnder omhaal eangst ûntmantele. Der wie gjin lûd, gjin rook, gjin ljocht of tsjuster. De pine regearde en de pine hie hjir al earder west. Hy koe dit lichem, in âlde kunde. It tsjinwurkjen fan koarte doer, de besetting bernespul. Yn crescendo ferdielde de pine him oer alle lichemsparten sadat sels teannen en hierwoartels itselde songen, hurd en sûnder dynamyk. De pine woe net wat yngewikkelds, syn fersyk wie dea-ienfâldich. De pine woe omtinken. Krekt as fjoer sûgde er alles nei him ta. Die der fierders neat mei, belune net en transformearre net. Twong inkeld ôf.
Hjir, sjoch nei my. Ik bin pine. Ik kin dy alles jaan en noch makliker ôfpakke. Ik wiskje dy út. Wêrom? Ik wol datst nei my sjochst. Sjoch my, bliuw. Dêrom haw ik alles útskeakele, dyn langstmen, dyn tinken, dyn tiid. Ik moast wol en sis no sels: ek bêst lekker toch, sa wêzenleas. Do bist pine, hearlik ienfâldich. Sûnder oansjen des persoans hjit ik dy mar ien ding: direkte tawijing. Sjoch. Jou my oerjefte. Do hást gjin pine, do bist. Ah, dat is al better, do letst op. Mear freegje ik net dus neam my net in alles-easker. Do bist nimmen en nimmen hat neat te jaan. Braaf, do sjochst. Wa ast bist? Pine. Do en ik binne gelyk. De rest fan dy is ferdwûn, wei. Ferromming mei, ik sil it gjinien trochfertelle. Sis my no mar nei: ik bin pine. Ik bin pine. Ik bin –

Harrejasses, wiete poaten, Benedictus hie der in smoarge hekel oan. Fan it plakken fan syn fel oant de kjeld dy’t him yn ’e fuotten kroep en fan dêrút nei boppe truts, syn hert berikte en trochsangere nei syn brein. De iennige flek op dizze fan dauwe trochweakke moarntiid. Drave, dat wie de bêste remeedzje en dat wie it eins altiten. Fan de beamwâl ôf gong er yn spongengalop de hichte ôf, wylst er tajoech oan dy loksillige spierjokte, krêftich ôfsette mei de efterpoaten, de taangiele foarpoaten simpelwei folgen. Yn ’e moarnsskimer ferdwynde rûs, tekenen kontoeren har skerper ôf en boppedat, de lûden begrypte er better. Want nettsjinsteande de faasje heinden syn leppelearen alles op: kriskrassende flearmuzen, in heech yn ’e loft sirkeljende ûle en ûnder syn galoppearjende fuotten de nea ophâldende, piipjende ferstuivering fan fjildmuzen yn har ûntelbere hoaltsjes, mantsjes dy’t inkeld draafden op ’e flecht, de tragyk fan ûngedierte. It hege gers wie syn maat, it iepene en slute him efter him as in libbene tunnel. Oh hearlik draven! Neat, sels fleanen net, koe better wêze as dit. Under folge er de rin fan de beek, berikte it gerslân en joech einlings ta oan it rammeljen yn syn búk. It sêfte gers folle syn mage en út en troch ûnderbruts er syn kôgjen om in poat drûch te likken. Sa brocht er de iere moarn troch en pas doe’t de ljurken heech yn ’e loft begûnen te jeuzeljen en ûnder syn fuotten it reauntsjen fan de kerfdieren klonk, fûn er it tiid. Yn in draf koerste er op it komelkersspultsje ta fierderop, op ’e syk nei biten en koal. Hy kroep troch de strewellen, berikte de tún en rûkte dat der eat net yn ’e oarder wie. Sittend op ’e efterpoaten naam er de situaasje yn him op. De doar fan it hûs stie waachwiid iepen, dochs kringele út ’e skoarstien gjin reek. De hinnen keakelen oerémis in wurdebrij sûnder syntaksis. Troch in ûnfoege nijsgjirrigens grepen, kaam er rinnende tichterby, de leppelearen stiif omheech, en die in blik nei binnen.
God, dêr giet ien dea, tocht Benedictus by it sjen fan wa’t dêr lei.

Mei-ienen die de frou de eagen iepen en seach rjocht yn dy fan de hazze, dy’t siet op syn machtige efterein. Sa wyt, syn fel, en syn eagen grut as ikels. Foar’t se der in twadde tins oan wije koe, bruts it besef troch dat der wat hiel oars geande wie. Wichtiger as dizze wite hazze yn har hûs, syn gnuven en it eventuele eangjen. Se sweve – soks moast it wol wêze – se fielde har omwuolle troch in sereen ôfwêzich wêzen fan eat. De flier dy’t har sa sûnder muoite droech, de koele wyn dy’t troch it doarsgat kaam, de sinne dy’t in stripe oer har antlit luts: de pine wie fuort. Waarme pudding – oars koe se it net neame – de ynhâld fan har holle. Fierders hie se it frij kâld en sûnder oan ’e hazze te tinken, hise se harsels stinnend op en wankele op ûnfêste fuotten nei it bêd, luts de tekken oant de kin ta en rille geloksillich. De wite hazze, seach se troch har wimperhierren, hie gjin poat ferset. Allinne syn noas knipte sûnder ophâlden. Alles goed en wol, har pineleaze steat wie folle nuverder. Ja, de striesek wie hearlik sêft en se waarme stadichoan op mar wat nofliker oft se hjir lei, wat boazer se waard. Alles wie har ôfpakt, krekt sa’t de pine it foarsein hie. Neat woe se mear dwaan hjoed, net sopsiede of flierfeie. Neat wie der te fielen ek, gjin honger, toarst of oare liiflikheden. Inkeld dy stumperige loksilligens. De hazze rûn hoeden op har ta, syn neilen tikken op ’e flier. Fan tichterby seach se syn spjalte lippe en syn fel, dy’t yn werklikheid út in grut tal tinten wyt bestie. Wie dit dan it heechst helbere, hjir te lizzen, ferlost fan wil en langstme?

‘Dêr biste wer’, sei se. It wie de earste kear dat se tsjin de hazze prate. Nei eltse pine-oanfal dûkte it dier op, wachte dan yn it gat fan ’e doar wylst se grimmitich nei it plafond stoarre. Hy waard mei in rabiaat fernoegen negeard. Bannich mei it tellen fan balken, miste se it momint wêrop’t er him ôfjoech, tagelyk mei de geloksfla yn har holle. Wat har dreau wie wrake. Net him, net de boadskipper, mar de pine woe se straffe. Dwers troch har bedwelme steat seach se nammentlik sa klear as wat wêr’t it allegear op útkomme moast. Ferjitnis, mei as it sûkelaadsje op ’e oranjekoeke dat se jubeljend dit saneamde nirwana fan de ôfkearde ûndergong binnendûnsje soe. Oer har deade lyk. In dolk yn har búk, in knibbel op har kiel: dat die de pine mei har. Júst wannear’t se belies joech liet er har gean, easke der tankberens foar werom. Se hie net folle, in teheistere liif, dizze klinte. Mar dit hie se ek en dit hold se fol: se liet har net omkeapje, fersmiet dat leageneftich lok.
De hazze joech noch hieltyd gjin sjoege, ek it knippen fan syn noas hold ûnfersteurber oan.
‘Do wolst gewoan krekt itselde. Omtinken, sa is it dochs? En foar in ingel biste likegoed fierstente lyts.’
Simpele sjut, tocht Benedictus, ik hoech dyn omtinken net, wat ik wol is draven en as bewiis foar syn berettens likke er wat boarsthierren glêd. Om’t se blykber útpraat wie, sakke er troch syn poaten en wachte. Fertard troch lulkens hold se it oant de middei út, liet se in sucht en slute de eagen. In taaien ien wie it wol, fûn Benedictus. Hy tearde de tekken wat werom, sprong neist har op bêd, struts him út oer syn folle lingte en wrotte, treau dat lichem neist him oan ’e kant. It joech net mei of treau werom. Se wrakselen mei de eagen ticht en hoewol’t Benedictus folle lytser wie, hie er al gau de oerhân. Yn syn omearming joech se belies.

Benedictus, Benedictus!
Hy die de eagen iepen. It wie tsjuster en bûten klonk it wramen fan in stikelbaarch op ’e syk nei wjirms. Mar hy hie syn namme heard. Hy sprong fan bêd, fleach nei de muorre en batste der mei de foarpoaten tsjinoan, besocht himsels omheech te klauwen, draaide him fluch om, sprong werom op it bêd, dûkte derôf en trape yn syn flecht in stoel tsjin ’e grûn. It gekletter fan hout en gekras fan neilen fitere syn opwining oan en yn in amerij seach er skerp en klear it gat fan ’e doar.
Benedictus, sjoch nei my. Bliuw!
Hy sette him ôf en galoppearre nei bûten. Fuort út dat lytse hûs, allinne de himel dulde er boppe him, wyn troch syn hierren, wyn troch syn earen. Fluitsjend sykhelle hy tusken syn tosken troch, hieltyd hurder en heger. Hearlik drave, alles ferjitte. De jonge nacht, allyk it gers, wie syn maat. Hy struts him de kop en iepene tûzenen geulen en slinken om yn te ferdwinen. Hy probearre se allegear, sprong deryn en derút, gie sa hurd as er koe ek al wie de eangst sûnt lang út syn poaten streamd. De tsjindruk fan de ierde makke him fredich oant yn syn sturt. Pas boppe-oan de hichte fertrage hy en draafde nei syn favorite leger. Hy ferbûgde in pear halmen en drukte him del yn ’e betroude kûle, mei sels foar alle fjouwer fuotten útsparrings. Hy slute de eagen, werbelibbe hieltyd wer syn fantastyske sprint fan begjin oant ein. Syn boarstkas bealge as wie hy dêr noch, heuvelop jeiend, wyn troch syn hierren, wyn troch syn earen, hy knipte mei de noas en wie fuort.

The woman woke up in the middle of the night. First she became aware she was no longer asleep, and then why. Pain had woken her. An oversized hand grabbing at her insides, gutting her like freshly killed game. She thought of intestines, flesh dripping with blood. With desperate incantations and an idle hand on the tormented area, she tried to withstand the assault – which apparently was her own doing. But there was no stopping it. Her eyes were wide open now and she rolled onto her back, then onto her side, hugging her knees to her chest. The soft, vulnerable parts locked in a cage made of back and legs. Useless. She got hold of a handful of bedding, gripped it with all her might, moaning and sweating in spite of the night’s chill. The sudden urge to empty her bowels compelled her to move. Hunching, her arm pressed to her stomach, as if she’d be able hold it in, she stumbled outside but failed to reach the privy. She defecated like an animal, squatting on the edge of the grounds. The feeling of relief soon vanished, she barely managed to crawl back inside, where she heaved and vomited several times. Gasping for air, she dragged herself away from her own muck and then collapsed. Her shoulder hit the floor with a blow, the sound of fingernails scratching boards. Dirt coming loose, or splinters. Who cares; that was her final thought.
The pain had won, had ever so casually dismantled fear. There was no sound, no smell, no light or dark. The pain was in command and it had been there before. It knew this body well, an old friend. Resistance had been short-lived, the invasion child’s play. The pain divided itself in crescendo over the entire body so that even toes and hair-roots sang in unison, loudly and without dynamic. It wasn’t looking for complicated, its request was perfectly simple. The pain wanted attention, absorbed everything, like a fire. Not engaging or subsiding, nor transforming. A mere imposing force.
Look at me. I am pain. I can offer you the world and even more easily take it away. I’m erasing you. Why? I want you to look at me. See me, stay. That’s why I’ve turned everything off, your desires, your thoughts, your time. I had no choice, and let’s be honest: it feels rather nice, right, this vacuity? You are pain, delightfully basic. Without fear or favour, I require only this: undying devotion. Look. Give me submission. You are not in pain, you are. Ah, that’s better, I have your attention now. That’s all I ask, no need to call me demanding. You’re no one, and no one has nothing to give. There’s a good girl, finally focussing. Who you are? Pain. You and I are one and the same. The rest of you has vanished, gone. You’re allowed to feel relieved, I won’t tell. Now repeat after me: I am pain. I am pain. I am –

Ugh, wet feet, Benedictus detested wet feet. His fur sticking together, the cold catching his pads, then moving upwards, reaching his heart and flaring up to his brain. The one stain on this dew-drenched morning. Running was the only remedy really, a sure thing. With wild leaps, he rushed downhill from the overgrownbank, giving in to that wonderful muscle itch, forcefully taking off with his hind legs, his wiry forelegs automatically following. In the early dawn static disappeared, contours sharpened and on top of that, he had a clearer understanding of the things he heard. Regardless of his speed, his spoonlike ears caught even the faintest sounds: bats criss-crossing, an owl circling high up in the sky and underneath his nimble feet, the persistent squeaky surprise of field mice in their countless holes – little fellows who only ran to escape, vermin’s tragedy. The high grass was his friend, it opened and closed behind him like a live burrow. Oh glorious running! Nothing, not even flying, could beat this. At the bottom he followed the course of the stream and reached the pasture, where he finally surrendered to his rumbling stomach. The soft grass filled his belly, and every so often he interrupted his chewing to lick one of his damp legs. That’s how he spent the early morning. Not until the larks high up in the air started chattering and the murmur of insects rose up from under his feet, he felt it was time. He made his way to the croft further down, in search of beets and cabbage. He scurried through the thicket and reached the garden, where he could smell something was wrong. Sitting on his hind legs, he took in the scene. The croft door was wide open, but there was no smoke spiralling up from the chimney. The chickens cackled an excited, disarrayed jumble of words. Overcome by inappropriate curiosity, spoon ears pointing up, he came closer and looked inside.
My God, that one’s dying, Benedictus thought at the sight of who was lying there.

The woman instantly opened her eyes and looked straight into the hare’s, sitting on his impressive hindquarters. So very white, its fur, and eyes the size of acorns. But before she could give it another thought, she realised something else was going on. A phenomenon much more important than this white hare in her house, with its gaze, and the potential fear. She was afloat – or close to it – cocooned in the serene absence of something. The floor supporting her so effortlessly, the fresh breeze coming through the doorway, the sun streaking her face: the pain was gone. Warm pudding – no other way to describe it – filled her head. She felt rather cold as well, so without paying attention to the hare she moaned, hoisted herself up and staggered to the bed, where she pulled the covers to her chin, shivering with delight. The white hare, she could see through her eyelashes, hadn’t moved an inch, but its nose was twitching incessantly. Be that as it may, the absence of pain was a lot more puzzling. The straw mattress was indeed lovely and soft, and she slowly started to warm up, but as her comfort increased, so did her anger. Everything had been taken from her, just as the pain told her it would. What a complete waste of a day, she wasn’t in any shape to do anything, no cooking or sweeping. Didn’t feel anything either, no hunger, thirst or any other proof of having a body. Only this half-witted feeling of utter bliss. The hare approached with caution, its nails ticking on the floor. From up close she could see its split lip and its fur, which was actually made up from multiple shades of white. Was this really the best she could do, lying there, delivered from will and desire?
‘There you are again,’ she said. It was the first time she spoke to the hare. After every fit of pain, the animal would show up and wait in the doorway as she stared at the ceiling, brimming with rage. She’d ignore the animal with rabid pleasure. Fully focussed on counting the beams, she’d miss the moment it slunk away, along with the custard of happiness in her head. Revenge was what fuelled her. Her vengeance wasn’t targeted at the hare, the messenger, but at the pain. Even in her dazed condition she could still clearly see the inevitable outcome. Oblivion, with the added bonus of dancing euphorically into that so-called nirvana of destruction averted. Over her dead body. A dagger in her gut, a knee on her throat: that’s what the pain inflicted on her. It wouldn’t let her go until she gave up, even expected gratitude in return. She didn’t have much, a mangled body, her cabin. But this she had as well, and she stubbornly clung to it: she wouldn’t be bribed, and refused this delusion of happiness.
The hare remained utterly unresponsive and just carried on twitching its nose.
‘You want the exact same thing. Attention, am I right? You’re far too small to be an angel anyway.’
Idiot, Benedictus thought, I don’t need your attention, all I want to do is run, and as if to prove his point, he licked some of his chest hair, smoothing it down. She seemed to have finished talking, so he lowered himself to the ground and waited. Eaten away by anger she lasted until midday, then she sighed and closed her eyes. She’s a tough cookie, Benedictus thought. He pulled the covers back a bit, jumped onto the bed, right beside her, lay down in full length and tossed about, pushing the body next to him aside. It didn’t yield or push back. She struggled with her eyes closed, and although Benedictus was much smaller, he soon had the upper hand. She surrendered to his embrace.
Benedictus, Benedictus!
He opened his eyes. Darkness had set in, outside a hedgehog was noisily unearthing worms. But he had heard his name. He jumped out of bed, rushed to the wall and struck it with his forelegs, trying to scratch himself upwards. He turned swiftly, leaped back onto the bed, jumped off, knocking over a chair in his flight. The crashing of wood and scratching of nails boosted his excitement, and for a moment he could clearly see the doorway.
Benedictus, look at me. Stay!
He took off and sprinted out the door, away from that small house. He tolerated nothing but the sky over his head, the wind in his fur, wind in his ears. He exhaled through his teeth, whistling, harder and higher, harder, higher. The wonder of running, escaping ones mind. The young night was his friend, so was the grass. It caressed his head and disclosed thousands of trenches and gullies for disappearing. He tried them all, jumped in and out, going as fast as he could even though the fear had long left his legs. The ground’s counter-pressure calmed him right to the tip of his tale. He didn’t slow down until he reached the top of the hill, then he scampered to his favourite form. He bent a few blades and pressed himself into the familiar hollow, which even had four cavities for his feet. He closed his eyes, reliving his magnificent race from start to finish over and over again. His chest heaving as if he was still going, rushing uphill, wind in his fur, wind in his ears, he twitched his nose and then he was gone.

Yn wat der noch oer is fan ús fernielde hûs haw ik juster in brief fan myn mem fûn. ‘FOAR JASPER, AS IK DEA BIN’, stie der yn grutte letters op ’e slúf. It lei yn in laad fan har buro, dat wûndere yntakt mids de púnheapen stie. Gjinien dy’t dernei omsjoen hie. Se is no fiif jier wei, it liket al in ivichheid, mar it brief is der net minder teheisterjend troch. Ik moat besykje om it rêstich wer te lêzen.
‘Leave Jasper,’ set se útein, ‘Ik skriuw dit op dyn sechde jierdei.’ Dat is trijentritich jier ferlyn, der is yn ’e tuskentiid nochal wat bard …
‘Doe’t wy fan ’e moarn dyn kado útpakten (in tekendoaze mei hûndert potleaden, witst noch?) hasto foar it earst nei dyn heit frege.’ Ja, ik wit it noch, fan dy potleaden. Hûndert wie doe in ûneinichheid!
‘Ik haw dy noait oer him ferteld, ik woe net dat hy in plak krije soe yn it libben dat wy tegearre hiene. Mar ik fyn datsto it rjocht hast om te witten wa’t er wie en wat er foar my betsjut hat.’ Se hat my yndie nea oer him ferteld, hoe bot ik der ek op oanstie. It wie altyd dreech om gjin heit te hawwen, op skoalle fansels om’t de oare bern der wol ien hiene, mar letter feitlik noch mear, it begûn stadichoan as in gemis te fielen. Net om’t ik it mei har net goed hie, mar troch it gefoel dat ik in part fan mysels net koe.
‘It wie yn de snuorje dat it Wrâldregear oprjochte waard. Ik wurke yn New York as oersetter by de Feriene Naasjes en makke it sadwaande fan tichteby mei.’ Ja, dêr hat se my letter koart oer ferteld op it stuit dat de oarloch útbruts. Yn ús berchdoarp like dat allegear fier fuort, mar yntusken witte wy better.
‘Dêr haw ik ek dyn heit kennen leard, of krekter sein dejinge dy’t letter dyn heit blykte te wêzen, want doe’t ik fernaam dat ik swanger wie, hie ik New York al ferlitten.’ Ek dat hat se my ienris yn fage bewurdings ferteld: dat se frijwat hommels nei Europa weromkommen wie. Mar se sei doe net wêrom.
‘Ik haw him net sein dat ik fuortgie, hy hat ek noait witten wêr’t ik wenne. Ik haw him inkeld in kaartsje stjoerd om him te fertellen dat hy in soan hie en dat ik dy nei him ferneamd hie.’ Dus myn heit hjit ek Jasper. Dat ferklearret wêrom’t ik in bûtenlânske foarnamme haw.
‘It wie in Nederlanner. Ornaris haw ik it net sa stean op dat arrogante, selsfoldiene naasje, mar hy wie in útsûndering.’ Ik bin dus foar de helte Nederlanner. Ik kin net sizze dat ik dêr botte bliid mei bin.
‘Ik moete him foar it earst yn wat wy in bytsje iroanysk de “kapel” fan de oersetterstoer neamden, it wie eins mear in soarte fan ûntspanningsromte, djip ferskûle yn it labyrint fan liften, treppen en gongen: krekt as woene se leaver net dat de wurknimmers dy romte ûntdekke soene, en faaks wie dat ek wol sa.’ Mar sy hat dy romte fansels wol daliks ûntdutsen. Altyd nijsgjirrich, altyd ûndernimmend, it wie suver ûnfoech.
‘Ik kaam der gauris, it wie it rêstichste plak yn it hiele gebou en koe der yn alle frede lêze, der siet sels in lytse kofjebar en dêr rûn ik him op in dei tsjin it liif – letterlik tsjin it liif, want ik draaide my om wylst ik noch wat tsjin de kofjejuffer sei, en seach dus net der ien achter my stie.’ It begjint as in minne Amerikaanske film.
‘Myn folle espressokopke foel fan it pantsje, hy gong daalk foaroer om it op te krijen en de kofje op te dippen mei wat papieren servetsjes.’ In wiere gentleman koartsein.
‘It earste dat my opfoel: syn hannen. Hy hie prachtige lange pianofingers, ik fielde in rilling troch my hinne gean en fernaam pas in pear sekonden letter dat er wat tsjin my sei. Dy jûns gongen wy foar it earst mei-inoar nei bêd, yn syn appartemint.’ Typysk myn mem. As se wat woe, moast it ek fuortendaalks. Noait in twiveling, noait efkes de tiid nimme om in idee besinke te litten. Ik woe dat ik ek sa wie, it makket alles safolle makliker. Mar blykber haw ik myn twiveljend, foarsichtich aard dan dochs ek net fan myn heit.
‘Do bist no noch fierstente jong om te witten wat seks is, hoe’t it dy yn ljochte lôge sette kin. Ik hoopje datst it yntusken ûntdutsen hast, tsjin de tiid datsto dit lêst.’ Ja, ik haw it ûntdutsen, tankewol mem. Mem woe yn it earst neat fan har witte, it like wol as wie mem jaloersk, en pas nei lange jierrren begûn mem har te akseptearjen, yn de tiid dat wy sels bern krigen. Mar ek Myriam is der allang net mear, en de bern … Ik fetsje eins net wêrom’t ik mem har brief noch fierder lêze wol. Ik wol it ferline net sjen, ik wol net witte hoe’t mem dêr yn New York lei te hoallefoaljen mei in Hollanner.
‘Syn matras rûkte tige nei lavindel, mei wat opwinend soerichs dertrochhinne. Syn twa katten seagen ta doe’t wy frijden, hy fûn dat sjenant mar ik moast derom gnize, dy twa pear eagen makken alles allinne mar noch intinser.’ Voyeurisme, mem?
‘De oare deis seagen wy inoar wer, earst yn ’e kapel en de jûns op ’e nij by him thús. Ik bleau te sliepen, doe’t ik moarnsier wekker waard fan in kat dy’t my heal op it gesicht lizzen kaam, wie ik der wis fan: ik wie fereale, foar it earst yn myn libben.’ En se libben noch lang en lokkich yn de hearlike stêd New York?
‘It fielde lykas wie ik mysels kwytrekke. Ik libbe inkeld noch yn him, foar him, en hy foar my, yn my: dy earste wike wiene wy bûten wurktiid oanienwei tegearre, en ek op it wurk besochten wy inoar sa faak as koe te sjen. De kâns is grut datsto yn de Toer fan Babel (sa’t wy de oersetterstoer fansels neamden) ferwekke bist, want wy hiene alle dagen minstens ien kear seks op it húske.’ Ik hoech dat net te witten, mem. Ik bin mem har soan, net ien as oare freondinne mei wa’t mem har yntime geheimkes dielt.
‘En yn dyselde snuorje wie der dat megalomane, absurde politike projekt dêr’t wy as oersetters in hûdfol wurk oan hiene.’ Jim hiene dêr ôfstân fan nimme moatten, mem, dan sieten wy no net yn dizze einleaze ellinde … Ja, faaks binne oersetters gewoan mar boadskippers dy’t der fierder neat oan helpe kinne, mar in boadskipper kin dochs yn alle gefallen wegerje en bring it boadskip oer. En wie it Ferset doe net al aktyf? Mem hie har dêrby oanslute kind, mem hie freedsum of mei geweld yn opstân komme kind doe’t it noch koe, ynstee fan mei mem har gelok in soan op ’e wrâld te setten dy’t dêr net om frege hat, en dy’t no de púnheapen oprêde moat.
‘Jasper, dyn heit dus, wie it net mei my iens, hy wie in grut foarstanner fan it Wrâldregear, en miskien wie dat wol wat my oan it twiveljen sette.’ Mem, twivelje?
‘Ik wie lokkich mei dizze man, lokkiger as dat ik ea west hie en ea wurde soe’ (behalve doe’t mem in bern krige, nim ik oan?), ‘mar boppe dat gelok seach ik swier waar opkommen. Wy miene dan wol dat leafde en freonskip swierder waagje as ideeën en ideälen, mar winliken biedt ek de grutste leafde gjin ferwar tsjin fûnemintiele mieningsferskillen.’ Dus mem besocht net iens om him te oertsjûgjen?
‘Of alteast, ik wie dêr bang foar. Bang dat ús gelok oantaast wurde soe en ûndermine troch faktoaren fan bûtenôf, hokfoar dan ek.’ Is dat net de definysje fan gelok? Dat it in tydlike tastân is dy’t by einbeslút altyd fersteurd wurdt, om’t it libben no ien kear is wat it is?
‘Mar miskien dochs ek bang dat wy ússels smoare litte soene mei ús eigen gelok: dat it gelok sels de fersteurende faktoar wurde soe, in tastân dy’t wy net folhâlde kinne soene.’ Ik haw mei mem te dwaan. Mem lake my earder út as ik sei dat eat té lekker wie, mem sei dat ik it dan mar stean litte moast, no docht bliken dat mem krekt itselde dien hat: mem hat har gelok stean litten om’t mem it té lekker fûn.
‘Doe’t ik dus in wike letter nei Europa gie foar in reis dy’t ik al folle earder boekt hie en net annulearje woe, sei ik tsjin him dat ik in skoftke allinnich wêze moast om ta mysels te kommen. Dat die him in ekstreem soad fertriet, mar hy sei ta om gjin kontakt te sykjen oant ik werom wie, hy soe my fan it fleanfjild komme te heljen.’ Mar mem kaam net werom. Mem bleau yn Europa. Mem makke har eigen gelok stikken.
‘Mar ik kaam net werom, ik bleau yn Europa, sûnder it him te fertellen. Ut eangst foar de krêft fan myn eigen leafde. En dêrnei hie ik dy, en in nij gelok. Ik hoopje tige dat dyn heit ek in nij gelok fûn hat. Hy is de iennige man fan wa’t ik ea holden haw’ (útsein fan mem har soan, nim ik oan). ‘En ik hâld noch hieltyd fan him, noch hieltyd likefolle. Dat kin gjinien my ûntnimme. Sa, no witst it.’ En se ûnderskriuwt it mei har folsleine namme: ‘Dyn leafhawwende mem, Hilda Ana Brzezinski da Cunha Nogueira’.
Ja, no wit ik it. Allinnich slagget it my ek by it op ’e nij lêzen net der rêstich by te bliuwen. De wrâld stiet yn ’e brân, myn eigen libben is in púnfal en myn mem skriuwt my oer it gelok dat se net oandoard hat. Ik moat har brief ferskuorre. Ik moat hjir wei út dit hûs, wêryn’t letterlik te folle herinnerings bedobbe lizze. Ik moat fierder. It Ferset hat my nedich.

Noat fan de skriuwer: dit ferhaal is in alderearste foarstúdzje fan in roman dy’t nei alle gedachten Babelhjitte sil. It plan bestie al foár de Russyske ynfal yn Oekraïne, mar de ‘fredesoperaasje’ fan de patetyske Poetin hat alles in stik skerper yn byld brocht.

Yesterday, in the remains of our ruined house, I found a letter from my mother. ‘FOR JASPER, FOR WHEN I’M DEAD’, was written in large letters on the envelope. It was in a drawer of her desk, which stood miraculously intact amongst the heaps of rubble. No one had stopped to look at it. She’s been dead five years now, it seems an eternity, but that didn’t make the letter any less devastating. I need to try and reread it quietly.
‘Dear Jasper,’ she begins, ‘I’m writing this on your sixth birthday.’ That was thirty-three years ago, a good deal has happened in the meantime…
‘When we unwrapped your gift this morning (a set of a hundred colouring pencils, do you remember?) you asked for the first time about your father.’ Yes, I remember those pencils. Back then a hundred was infinite!
‘I’ve never told you about him, I didn’t want him to have a place in the life the two of us led together. But I believe you have the right to know who he was and what he meant to me.’ It’s true, she’d never told me about him, however much I pressed her. Not having a father was always difficult, at school of course because the other children all had one, but actually later on even more so, it gradually began to feel like something was missing from my life. Not because I didn’t have a good life with her, but because I felt like I didn’t know a part of myself.
‘It was around the time the Global Government was founded. I was working as a translator for the United Nations in New York, so I observed it from close up.’ Yes, later on she had briefly told me about that, at the point when the war broke out. In our mountain village it all seemed very distant, but we’ve since come to know better.
‘That’s where I met your father, or rather the person who would later turn out to be your father, as by the time I realised I was pregnant, I’d already left New York.’ She’d also told me that, vaguely worded: that she had come to Europe fairly abruptly. She never said why.
‘I didn’t tell him I was leaving, he never knew where I lived. I just sent him a card to tell him he had a son whom I’d named after him.’ So my father was also called Jasper. That explains my foreign first name.
‘He was Dutch. I don’t normally go for that arrogant, conceited little nation, but he was an exception.’ So I’m half Dutch. I can’t say I’m particularly pleased about that.
‘I met him for the first time in what we rather ironically referred to as the “chapel” of the translators’ tower, it was more of a kind of relaxation room, hidden away in the labyrinth of lifts, stairs and corridors: as if it was not really the intention that the employees should find that space, and perhaps that was indeed the case.’ But of course she immediately discovered that room. Always curious, always enterprising, to the point of impropriety.
‘I went there frequently, it was the quietest place in the entire building and I could read there uninterrupted, there was even a little coffee bar and I bumped into him there one day – literally bumped into him, as I turned while saying something to the girl serving the coffee, failing to notice that someone was standing behind me.’ It begins like a bad American film.
‘My full espresso cup fell from the saucer, he immediately bent down to pick it up and mop up the coffee with some paper napkins.’ In short, a true gentleman.
‘The first thing that struck me was his hands. He had beautiful long piano fingers, I felt a shiver go through me and only noticed a few seconds later that he was talking to me. That evening we went to bed together for the first time, at his apartment.’ Just like Mother. When she wanted something, she had to have it right away. Never a moment’s hesitation, she never took the time to let the idea sink in. I wished I was like that too, it would make everything so much easier. But clearly I didn’t get my hesitant, cautious character from my father either.
‘You’re still far too young to know what sex is, how it can set you on fire. I hope you’ve since discovered it, by the time you read this.’ Yes, I’ve discovered it, thanks Mother. In the beginning you didn’t want to hear a word about her, it was as if you were jealous, and it took years for you to accept her, around the time we had children ourselves. But Myriam is long gone too, and the children… I don’t really know why I feel the need to continue rereading your letter. I don’t want to see the past, I don’t want to know about your roll in the hay with a Dutchman in New York.
‘His mattress smelt strongly of lavender, intermingled with an exhilarating sour note. His two cats watched as we made love, he was embarrassed but I couldn’t help laughing, those two pairs of eyes made everything all the more intense.’ Voyeurism, Mother?
‘The next day we saw each other again, first in the chapel and in the evening back at his place again. I stayed over, and when I awoke in the morning to a cat lying down half across my face, I knew for sure: I was in love, for the first time in my life.’ And she lived happily ever after in the wondrous city of New York?
‘It felt as if I’d lost myself. I lived only in him, for him, and he for me, in me: that first week we were together the entire time outside work, and at work too we tried to see as much as we could of one another. There’s a good chance you were conceived in the Tower of Babel (as we called the translators’ tower of course), as we had sex in the toilet at least once a day.’ I don’t need to know that, Mother. I’m your son, not some girlfriend with whom you share your intimate little secrets.
‘And at the same time as translators we had our hands full with that megalomaniacal, absurd political project.’ You should have distanced yourselves, Mother, then we wouldn’t be in this endless sorrow… Yes, perhaps translators are simply messengers who can’t do anything more about it, but a messenger can always refuse to transmit the message. And wasn’t the Resistance active already at that point? You could have joined them, Mother, you could have risen up against it, peacefully or violently while it was still possible, instead of producing a son in your happiness, a son who never asked for it, and who now has to clean up the ruins.
‘Jasper, your father, didn’t agree with me, he was a great advocate of the Global Government, and perhaps that was what made me doubtful.’ You, doubtful, Mother?
‘I was happy with this man, happier than I’d ever been or ever would be’ (except for when you had a child, I assume?), ‘but I could see heavy storm clouds hanging over that happiness. We think love and friendship weigh heavier than ideas and ideals, but in reality even the greatest love cannot stand up to fundamental differences in opinion.’ So you didn’t even try to convince him?
‘Or in any case, that was what I was afraid of. Afraid that our happiness would be damaged and undermined by external factors, whatever they might be.’ Isn’t that the definition of happiness? That it is a temporary state which is always eventually disrupted? Because in the end life is what it is?
‘But perhaps also afraid we’d suffocate ourselves with our own happiness: that happiness itself would be the disruptive factor, a state we couldn’t maintain.’ I pity you, Mother. You ridiculed me once when I said something was too tasty, you said in that case I should leave it on my plate, and now it turns out you did exactly the same: you left your happiness on the plate because it was too tasty.
‘So a week later, when I went to Europe for a trip I’d booked long before and didn’t want to cancel, I told him I needed some time to myself. That caused him extreme pain, but he promised not to seek contact until I was back, he’d come and pick me up from the airport.’ But you didn’t come back. You stayed in Europe. You destroyed your own happiness yourself.
‘But I didn’t come back, I stayed in Europe, without telling him. Out of fear of the force of my own love. Then I had you, and a new happiness. I very much hope your father also found new happiness. He’s the only man I’ve ever loved’ (other than your son, I assume). ‘And I still love him, as much as ever. No one can take that from me. Well, now you know.’ It’s signed with her full name: ‘Your loving mother, Hilda Ana Brzezinski da Cunha Nogueira’.
Yes, now I know. Except even on rereading it I can’t remain calm. The world is on fire, my own life is a ruin and my mother writes to me about the happiness she didn’t have the courage for. I have to tear up her letter. I have to leave this house, where too many memories literally lie buried. I have to move on. The Resistance needs me.

Note from the author: this story is a preliminary study for a novel which will probably be called Babel. The plan already existed before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the ‘peacekeeping operation’ instigated by the pathetic Putin has brought everything rather more sharply into focus.

Der sieten trije mannen oan ’e bar; Ron koe der twa fan. Dy twa sieten neistinoar, Joop Fiskje en Lytse Bert. De tredde siet oan ’e oare kant fan de fjouwerkante bar. Tony wurke. Tony stuts syn hân nei him op. Pilske?
Lekker, sei Ron. Hy gie op twa krukken ôfstân sitten fan ’e mannen dy’t er koe. Joop, op links, line efteroer sadat er by Lytse Bert op rjochts lâns sjen koe. Hy sei: hast dyn topwiif net by dy? En dan tsjin Betje: Ron hat in topwiif.
Ron pakte syn pilske oan, naam in swolch en sette syn glês op it filtsje dat foar him lei.
Mar ik hearde wat oars oer dy, Sjonger Ronald.
Ja?
Ja. Ik hearde datst siik wiest.
O ja?
Dat is wat ik hearde.
O.
It bleau in skoftsje stil.
Joop Fiskje line no nei foaren om sa om Lytse Bert hinne sjen te kinnen. Is it wier?
Is it wier?
Datst siik bist.
Minsken binne sa faak siik.
Ja, mar do soest kanker hawwe.
O.
Hasto kanker, Sjonger Ronald?
Tony sei dat it ek wol wat minder koe.
No, sei Joop Fiskje, ik toan gewoan belangstelling. Dat is gewoan aardich, dochs? Ik bedoel it yn elk gefal aardich.
Ron joech gjin antwurd.
Ik ha noch wat oars heard, sei Joop Fiskje. Ik hearde dat dat topwiif fan dy fuort it sin derôf hie mei dy.
Dat is net wier – dat is net wier.
Mar de kanker wol dus.
Ron sei neat.
It is net neat. Ik hearde datst noch mar in moanne te libjen hast.
Ik ha hjir gjin sin yn, sei Ron, en hy frege oft er ôfrekkenje koe.
Dizze krijst fan my, sei Tony.
Nee, sei Joop Fiskje, krijst ’m fan my, mar bliuw sitten, echt, Ron, sorry. Ik fyn it oprjocht kloaten foar dy. Oprjocht.
Ron die syn beurs fuort.
Wat hat de dokter sein?
Ron seach de saak yn it rûn. Se seagen him oan. In heal jier oant in jier. Langer as ik ûnder behanneling gean, mar ik kies foar kwaliteit fan libjen.
Wat is dat dan?
Gewoan, kwaliteit. Datst noch genietest fan it libben.
Snap ik, sei Joop Fiskje.
Lytse Bert knikte.
Ik woe noch wol in kear op fakânsje mei Ria.
Mar se hat dy der fuort út soademitere.
Nee, se hat gewoan wat romte nedich om te bekommen. Mar ik woe dus noch wol in kear mei har op fakânsje.
Op fakânsje, ja? En rêdst dat, frege Joop Fiskje, finansjeel, bedoel ik?
Ik sjoch hieltyd oanbiedingen foarbykommen foar 399 euro. Dan sitst al yn in moai appartemint mei swimbad.
Hielendal wier. Ik soe gewoan boeke.
Ik ha no even gjin 400 euro.
Joop knikte. Soest in meifallerke hawwe moatte.
Ja, absolút.
En ast no ris dochst watst it bêste dochst, Ron?
Hoe bedoelst?
Hoe bedoelst, bist dochs Sjonger Ronald? Kinst dochs sjonge?
Ik ha dêr net echt sukses mei hân, Joop.
Nee, earder net, miskien, mar faaks sit dat meifallerke der wol oan te kommen, Ron. Omdat, wit ik folle, it dy no wol ris gund is.
It is dy wol gund, sei Tony.
Miskien moatst dêr ris oer neitinke.
Ik tink net dat minsken der echt noch jild foar oer hawwe om my sjongen te hearren. Dy yllúzje bin ik wol in bytsje kwyt.
Do hast dat meifallerke fertsjinne, Ron. Hast kanker. Dyn topwiif hat dy de doar útsmiten, en wolst har werom. Wolst har mei op fakânsje nimme en hast ferlet fan sinten, dus do sjongst hjir jûn. Dochs, Tony?

*

Jûns wie it drokker wurden; Tony wie klear mei syn tsjinst mar hy wie net nei hûs gien, hy wie oan de bar hingjen bleaun, oan de kant dêr’t Ron siet, om’t it dêr gesellich wie – der hinge in goed sfearke, mei in protte laitsjen, in soad bierkes. Ron hie der op syn minst wol in stik as tweintich dronken, allegear krigen. Ada stie no efter de bar en se bleau noch hieltyd trochtaapjen foar Ron en streekjes setten op de bontsjes fan oare klanten en as Ron rôp dat er ien weijaan woe, waard dat drekst ôfward, bist gek ju, en dan kaam der in opmerking efteroan as ‘do bist hjir de sike’, of ‘it is dyn ôfskied’, mar soms sei ien ek ‘it is dyn feestje’ om’t net elk wist wat der no krekt te rêden wie; it wie inkeld mar dúdlik dat elk Ron hjoed traktearre. Ron hie him der earst net noflik by by field, mar dizze jûn wie oars, net ien woe wat werom hawwe, net fan Ron.
Joop Fiskje sei dat Marco Borsato sjonge soe op Ron syn begraffenis.
Dat hat er noch net offisjeel tasein, sei Ron, en it hiele groepke lake lûd.
Mar hoe sit it no mei dy en Ria? frege immen.
Ria moat gewoan even bykomme fan ’e skrik, sei Ron, en hy hearde sels dat er it wurd ‘skrik’ net lekker mear útsprekke koe, it wie mear ‘sssrik’.
Der stie in frou yn it groepke, skean efter Ron, dy’t sei dat sy it sa net dien hawwe soe.
Ron seach oer syn skouder? Net? Hoe hiesto it dien dan?
Ast myn mantsje wiest, soe ik dy hiel lekker ferwenne ast my soks ferteldest.
O? En hoe soe dat ferwennen der dan útsjen?
Dat kin ik dy wol yn it ear flústerje.
Alle manlju yn it groepke rôpen sawat as hooo, en Joop Vissekop rôp: flústerje it earst mar yn myn ear, Lyske, ik bin Ron syn saakwaarnimmer.
Elk lake. Lyske bûgde har nei Joop ta, flústere wat en Joop rôp fuort: meitsje romte! Meitsje romte! En hy treau it groepke om Ron hinne útinoar.
Dêrmei wie it klear, de oandacht foar Ron, elk socht in kruk oan ’e bar op, allinnich Lyske bleau by him stean.
Wat hast no tsjin Joop sein, frege Ron.
Dat fertel ik dy faaks letter wol. Ik fertel it sûnder wurden.
Lyske – hjitst Lyske?
Se knikte.
Ik ha thús echt in topwiif te sitten. Ik bin hiel bot fergulde mei dyn omtinken, mar ik wol net –
Ik hear allegear ferhalen dat se dy de doar útset hat, dochs? Neffens my hast even gjin thús mear.
Ron makke in beweging dy’t de midden hold tusken it opheljen fan syn skouders en in comme-ci comme-ça. Myn thús is dêr’t ik de skuon útdoch.
No, dan sille miskien noch wol meimeitsje wêr’tsto jûn de skuon útdochst.
Ik leau dat ik neat hoech ôf te rekkenjen, dat wy kinne gean wannear’t wy mar wolle.
Lyske knypeage en sei dat de jûn noch jong wie en dat se noch wol wat gesellichheid meikrije woe hjir. Mar wy meitsje miskien noch wol mei wêr’tsto de skuon útdochst. Se rûn by Ron wei, yn ’e rjochting fan ’e húskes en hy seach har nei mei in brede laits op syn gesicht. Hy krige noch in bierke fan Ada en stiek it yn ’e loft om te toasten nei wa’t him der ek mar op traktearre hie.
Joop Fiskje kaam wer by him stean. Ron, jonge, hoe fielst dy?
Noch net siik, ast dêr nei fregest.
Goed om te hearren. Want do silst even in mopke sjonge. De minsken hjir binne der klear foar. Amsterdam sil ien fan syn bysûnderste sjongers ferlieze.
No ja, ferlieze, sei Ron.
Ja, ferlieze. Ik woe dat it net sa wie, mar kinst der net omhinne, no? Ik fyn datst dy noch ien kear de stjer fiele moatst. Dizze minsken hjir – hy makke in allesomfetsjende beweging mei syn earm – hâlde fan dy, Ron. Dat fielst de hiele jûn dochs al? Ik jou it dy op in briefke: ast no sjongst, bist in stjer sa’tst noch noait west hast. En – hy wiisde temûk nei Lyske, dy’t no by in oare man stie – dat silst ek fiele dan, datst in stjer bist.
Ron sei dat dat net sa maklik gie, ik ha myn apparatuer net by my, myn set, ik moat myn eigen mikrofoan hawwe –
Ada, rôp Joop, Aad, hast dat karaokespul noch ûnder de bar lizzen?
Karaokespul is dochs net dêr’t ik mei –
Ron, kom op, gun it dy minsken no.
Ada klapte in pear kastjes iepen en pakte in plestik mikrofoan en in cd. Ik ha dit noch, sei se, mei allinnich muzyk en sûnder sjonger. Se lei de cd foar Ron del en begûn wer te taapjen.
Dat is krekt ideaal, sei Joop, wat seisto Ron? Is dat ideaal of net?
Ron seach nei it listje achterop it hoeske. Ken ik net, ken ik net, ken ik wol, ken ik net, net, net, net, wol wol, net.
Joop pakte in bierfiltsje en skreau de nûmers op fan de ferskes dêr’t Ron fan sei dat er se koe. Komt goed, Ron, sei er, ik stean by de cd-spiler en ik skip nei de ferskes dy’tst kenst. Sit der noch wat bysûnders by? Ien dy’tst spesjaal no dwaan soest?
Spesjaal no, wat soe ik spesjaal no dwaan wolle?
No, ien dy’t mei dyn situaasje te krijen hat?
In ferske oer kanker?
No, sei Joop, dy sille der net echt wêze, mar as der ien jûn is dêr’tst de triennen op lûke kinst, dan is it dizze jûn, Ron.
Ron skodde stadich de holle, sei doe: no ja, nûmer 12.
O ja, sei Joop Fiskje, ik snap ’m, ik snap ’m.
Joop hie oankundige dat Ron oer in healoerke in hiel spesjaal optreden jaan soe en ûnder lûd jûchei wie Ron derút rûn. Hy pakte syn telefoan en socht it nûmer op fan syn soan.
Hee heit, sei syn soan.
Hee jonge, mei dyn heit. Hee, ik sil sa sjonge yn Huizinga en ik tink dat it in bysûnder optreden wurde sil. Ast delkomme wolst, mei dat altyd.
Ik wit net, sei syn soan.
Sjoch mar, hear. Wêr bist? Bytsje yn ’e buert fan Slotervaart?
Ja, bytsje.
Ik doch wat hiel moais. Ik bin der wis fan datst it hiel moai fine silst.
Okee.
Dus ik soe it hiel bysûnder fine ast kaamst.
Ik sjoch wol even, okee?
Ja, fansels jonge. Ik fyn it al hearlik datst de telefoan opnimst as ik belje. Dat ik dêr dan siik foar wurde moat, hin?
Dat fyn ik in bytsje in kutopmerking, heit. Mar ik sjoch wol even, sa’t ik al sei.
Fijn, jonge.

*

Ron sei dat er der oars noait lêst fan hie en Lyske frege oft it de kanker wie.
Nee, it is de kanker net, sei Ron. Hy siet rjochtop, sy lei noch.
Fynst my net oantreklik dan? frege se.
Bist hartstikke oantreklik. Ron sei dat er mei syn holle noch by it optreden fan fan ’e jûn siet.
It wie ek in prachtich optreden, sei Lyske.
Nee, dat wie it net.
Dat wie it wol, hear. Ik swar it dy, ik hy de triennen yn ’e eagen.
Leau ik net.
Ik swar it dy. Kom, lit ús it noch in kear probearje, kreaze keardel. Se luts him nei har ta, mar hy wurke net mei. Kom, sei se noch in kear.
Nee, sorry, sei Ron. Hoe kaam it oer – ik bedoel it lêste nûmer, hoe kaam dat oer?
De Vlieger, bedoelst?
Ja, De Vlieger.
Moai hear, hiel moai, doe hie ik triennen yn ’e eagen.
Ik leau it net, sei Ron. Wylst ik dermei dwaande wie en fan mem heit makke hie, tocht ik: no flean ik de bocht út. Hy song it: ik heeeeeeb hier een brief voor mijn vadeeeer, die hoooooog in de hemel is … Dat kin dochs net.
Fleachst hielendal net út ’e bocht. Hast dochs jild ophelle? Joop hat twa kear foar dy troch de saak west en neffens my hast in hoop sinten ophelle. Kom no mar.
Ik bedoel, it wie mar 430 euro.
Dat is dochs in moai bedrach? Ik ha dat net oer oan ’e ein fan ’e moanne, hear. No, kom by my.
Nee, sorry, ik kin it no echt net.
Godferdomme, wêrom woest dan mei my nei hûs.
Do woest my mei nei hûs.
Net as ik dit witten hie.
Ik wist it ek net – ik ha hjir oars noait lêst fan.
It kin de kanker ek wêze, dochs?
Nee, it is de kanker net. It binne gewoan tinzen dy’t net stopje. Ik fleach út ’e bocht.
Godferdomme, sei Lyske, ik bin de Stichting Korrelatie net. Ik wol in gewoan in keardel yn myn bêd.
Ron liet de skouders wat fierder hingje.
No, hup, myn bêd út dan, ferdomme, sei se, en se joech him in triuw.
Hy begûn syn klean byinoar te sykjen, rûn de sliepkeamer út, de wenkeamer yn, die dêr de broek oan. Hy wie healwei doe’t er syn telefoan út syn broeksbûse helle om te sjen oft er noch berjochtsjes hie. Hy hie gjin berjochtsjes.
Ut ’e sliepkeamer rôp Lyske: bist der no noch?
Sijk net, rôp er werom. Ik bin sa fuort.
Hy seach oan it ljocht dat se de lampe útknipt hie en hy hearde har frijwol drekst dêrnei snoarkjen. Hy stoppe syn telefoan wer fuort, pakte dêrnei syn jild en seach nei it pak eurobiljetten: 430 euro.
Oan ’e muorre hong in klok en it wie trije oere nachts. Ik bin kapot, sei er, en hy gie op it bankje lizzen.
Hy pakte syn telefoan wer en stjoerde syn soan in berjochtsje.
– ik seach dy fuortgean, fûnst it net moai?
Hy bleau mar nei it skermke sjen en seach de finkjes blau wurden. Dêrnei krige er in berjochtsje werom:
– Nee, ik fûn it net moai.
– it wie foar dy bedoeld.
– Dat makke it noch net moai. Ik fûn it nochal melodramatysk, sa’tst alles nochal melodramatysk makkest.
– ik wit net wat dat is, haha, mar is goed.
– Dat is in raar antwurd, heit.
– ik bedoel, hast gelyk.
– Okee.
Ron seach in skoftsje nei syn skermke. Doe stjoerde er:
– ik wie gelokkich doe’t ik dy seach.
En dêrnei stjoerde er:
– tankewol dat ik even gelokkich wie
En:
– dat wie lang lyn de lêste kear.
Syn soan stjoerde in pear minuten letter werom:
– Ik kin net iens begjinne mei út te lizzen wat der allegear mis is oan watst seist, mar ast oprjocht mienst datst gelok fieldest, bin ik bliid foar dy, heit. Lekker sliepe.
– sliepse
Ron lei syn telefoan op de salontafel, gie lizzen op it bankje en foel yn sliep.
=

There were three men at the bar; Ron knew two of them. The pair were sitting side by side, Joe Fisher and Bertie. The third was sitting on the other side of the rectangular bar. Tony was working. He raised his hand to Ron. Beer?
Cheers, said Ron. He sat down two stools along from the men he knew. Joe, on the left, leant back so that he could look past Bertie to his right. He said: Is your lovely wife not with you? And then to Bertie: Ron has a lovely wife.
Ron picked up his beer, took a sip and put his glass back down on the beermat in front of him.
But I heard something else about you, Singing Ronald.
Really?
Yes. I heard you were ill.
Oh yes?
That’s what I heard.
Oh.
There was a moment’s silence.
Joe Fisher leant forward now to look past Bertie. Is it true?
Is what true?
That you’re ill.
People are so often ill.
Yes, but they said you have cancer.
Oh.
Do you have cancer, Singing Ronald?
You don’t ask that kind of question, Tony said.
Well, said Joe Fisher, I’m just showing an interest. That’s being nice, isn’t it? I mean it kindly in any case.
No answer from Ron.
I heard something else, said Joe Fisher. I heard that that lovely wife of yours lost interest in you just like that.
That’s not true — that’s not true.
So the cancer is.
Ron said nothing.
It’s no small thing. I heard you only had a month to live.
I’m not up for this, said Ron, and he asked for the bill.
It’s on me, said Tony.
No, said Joe Fisher, it’s on me, but stay, really, Ron, sorry. It’s a shitty situation. Sorry.
Ron put away his wallet.
What did the doctor say?
Ron looked around the pub. They looked at him. Half a year to a year. Longer if I go in for treatment, but I’d rather have quality of life.
What’s that?
Just that, quality. Still enjoying life.
I can understand that, said Joe Fisher.
Bertie nodded.
I wanted to go on holiday once more with Ria.
But she buggered off and left you right away.
No, she just needs some breathing space. But I did want to go on holiday with her once more.
On holiday, yeah? And can you swing that, Joe Fisher asked, I mean financially?
I keep seeing offers go by for 399 euros. That’s for a nice apartment with a swimming pool.
Absolutely. I’d go ahead and book.
I don’t have 400 euros just at the moment.
Joe nodded. You’d need a windfall.
Yes, that’s right.
What if you were to go and do what you do best, Ron?
What do you mean?
What do you mean, you’re Singing Ronald after all. Surely you can sing?
I was no great success, Joe.
No, perhaps not in the past, but perhaps that windfall is on its way, Ron. Because, I don’t know, it’s time you had some luck.
It sure is, said Tony.
Perhaps you should have a think about it.
I don’t think people would really pay to hear me sing. I’ve rather got over that illusion.
You’ve earned that windfall, Ron. You have cancer. Your lovely wife has thrown you out, and you want to go back. You want to take her on holiday and you need money, so you’ll sing here this evening. Right, Tony?

*

That evening the place was busier; Tony had finished his shift but he hadn’t gone home, he’d remained hanging around at the bar, on Ron’s side, because there was a good atmosphere, plenty of laughter, plenty of beer. Ron must have drunk twenty or so, all bought for him. Ada was behind the bar now and marking them on the receipts of other customers, and whenever Ron called out that he wanted to give one away, the idea was immediately dismissed, don’t be silly, followed by a remark such as ‘You’re the one who’s ill’ or ‘It’s you that’s leaving’, but sometimes someone would also say ‘It’s your party’ because not everyone knew what exactly was going on; the one thing that was clear was that everyone was buying Ron drinks today. At first Ron had felt awkward about it, but this evening was different, no one wanted anything back, not from Ron.
Joe Fisher said that Marco Borsato would sing at Ron’s funeral.
He hasn’t officially confirmed, said Ron, and the whole group burst out laughing.
But how are things with you and Ria? someone asked.
Ria needs a moment to get over the shock, said Ron, and he could hear that he was no longer pronouncing the word ‘shock’ quite right, it was more like ‘ssshhlock’.
There was a woman in the group, behind Ron, who said she wouldn’t have gone about things that way.
Ron looked over his shoulder? No? What would you have done then?
If you were my husband and you told me something like that, I’d spoil you rotten.
Oh? And how would you go about spoiling me?
I can whisper it in your ear.
All the men in the group shouted out something like whoa, and Joe Fisher called out: Whisper it in my ear first Lizzie, I’m Ron’s agent.
Everyone laughed. Lizzie leaned towards Joe and whispered something, and Joe immediately shouted: Make way! Make way! And he pushed the group around Ron apart.
That was that, the attention was diverted from Ron, everyone found a stool at the bar, only Lizzie stayed standing beside him.
What did you say to Joe? asked Ron.
Maybe I’ll tell you later. Or I’ll tell you without words.
Lizzie — is your name Lizzie?
She nodded.
I actually do have a lovely wife at home. I’m very honoured by the attention, but I don’t want to —
I keep hearing stories that she threw you out, is that right? I don’t think you have a home anymore.
Ron made a gesture midway between a shrug and a so-so. My home is where I take my shoes off.
Well, perhaps we’re yet to find out where you’ll take your shoes off this evening.
I don’t think I have anything to pay, so we can go whenever we want.
Lizzie winked and said the night was yet young and that she wanted to enjoy the company here a while longer. But maybe we’re yet to find out where you take your shoes off. She walked away from Ron, towards the toilets and he watched her go with a broad grin on his face. Ada handed him another beer and he raised it to toast whoever had bought it for him.
Joe Fisher returned to his side. Ron, boy, how are you feeling?
Not sick yet, if that’s what you mean.
Good to hear. Because you’re going to sing us a tune. The people are ready. Amsterdam is about to lose one of its most special singers.
Well I don’t know about losing, said Ron.
Yes, losing, I wish it were otherwise, but there’s no way around it, is there? I think you should feel like the star of the show one more time. These people here – he made an all-encompassing gesture with his arm – love you, Ron. You’ve felt it all evening, haven’t you? I promise you: if you sing now, you’ll be a star like never before. And – he made a subtle gesture towards Lizzie, who was now standing next to another man — you’ll feel it too, that you’re a star.
Ron said that wasn’t so straightforward, I don’t have my equipment with me, my set, I need my own microphone —
Ada, Joe called out, Ada, do you still have that karaoke stuff under the bar?
Karaoke stuff isn’t what I —
Ron, come on, do it for the people.
Ada opened a couple of cabinets and grabbed a plastic microphone and a CD. I still have this, she said, just the music without the singer. She placed the CD in front of Ron and went back to pulling beers.
That’s ideal, said Joe, right Ron? Is that not ideal?
Ron looked at the list on the back of the sleeve. Don’t know that one, don’t know that one, know that one, don’t know that one, nope, nope, nope, yep, yep, no.
Joe grabbed a beermat and wrote the numbers of the songs Ron said he knew. It’ll be fine, Ron, he said, I’ll stand by the CD player and skip to the songs you know. Is there anything else special? Anything you’d especially like to do now?
Anything I’d especially like to do now, what would I want to do especially now?
Well, anything to do with your situation?
A song about cancer?
Well, said Joe, I don’t suppose there will be many of those, but if there’s one evening when you can bring tears to people’s eyes, it’s this evening, Ron.
Ron shook his head, and then said: well all right, number 12.
Oh yeah, said Joe Fisher, I get it, I get it.

Joe had announced that Ron was going to give a special performance in half an hour’s time and Ron had walked outside to loud cheers. He took out his phone and searched for his son’s number.
Hey Dad, said his son.
Hey son, it’s Dad. Hey, I’m about to sing at Huizinga and I reckon it’s going to be a special performance. If you’d like to come, you’re always welcome.
I don’t know, said his son.
Look then. Where are you? Anywhere near Slotervaart?
Yeah, not far.
I’ll do something really great. I know you’ll love it.
Okay.
So it would mean a lot to me if you came.
I’ll pop by, okay?
Of course, son. I’m so glad you picked up your phone when I called in the first place. Shame I had to be ill for that to happen, right?
That’s a bit of a bitchy comment, Dad. But I’ll drop by, as I said.
Great, son.

*

Ron said that he’d never had any trouble before and Lizzie asked if it was the cancer.
No, it’s not the cancer, said Ron. He was sitting upright, she was still lying down.
Don’t you find me attractive then? she asked.
You’re really attractive. Ron said his head was still at the performance that evening.
It was a wonderful performance, said Lizzie.
No, it wasn’t.
It was, seriously. I swear to you, I had tears in my eyes.
Don’t believe you.
I swear to you. Come on, let’s try again, gorgeous. She pulled him towards her, but he held back. Come on, she said again.
No, sorry, said Ron. How did it come across – I mean the last song, how did that come across?
Do you mean the one about the kite?
Yes, that’s the one.
It was beautiful, really beautiful, at that point I had tears in my eyes.
I don’t believe that, said Ron. While I was replacing the word mother with father, I thought: Now I’ve gone too far. Everyone knows it’s about a little boy who’s lost his mother, not his father. He sang the line again. You can’t do that.
You didn’t go too far at all. You made money, didn’t you? Joe went round the place and if I’m not mistaken you made a load of money. Come on now.
I mean, it was only 430 euros.
That’s pretty good though isn’t it? I mean, I don’t have that left over at the end of the month. Now come here.
No, sorry, I really can’t now.
Damn it, what did you come home with me for then?
You wanted me to come home with you.
Not if I’d known this was how it would be.
I didn’t know either – it’s never been a problem before.
It could be the cancer though, right?
No, it’s not the cancer. The thoughts just won’t stop. I went too far.
Damn it, said Lizzie, I’m not the Samaritans. I just want a bloke in my bed.
Ron’s shoulders drooped a little more.
Right, up, out of my bed then, damn it, she said, giving him a shove.
He began to look for his clothes, walked out of the bedroom, into the lounge, pulled his trousers on there. He’d got halfway when he took his phone out of his pocket to see if he had any messages. No messages.
From the bedroom Lizzie called: ‘Are you still there?’
No need to nag, he called back. I’ll be gone in a moment.
He could see from the light that she had switched the lamp off and almost immediately he could hear her snoring. He put his phone away again, then picked up his cash and looked at the stack of euro notes. 430 euros.
On the wall hung a clock that read three o’ clock in the morning. I’m knackered, he said, and he lay down on the sofa.
He picked up his phone again and messaged his son.
– saw you leave, didn’t you like it
He continued to stare at his screen, and saw the ticks go blue. Then the reply came in:
– No, I didn’t like it.
– it was meant for you
– That didn’t make me like it. I found it melodramatic, just like you make everything melodramatic.
– I don’t know what that is haha but never mind
– That’s a strange reply, Dad.
– I mean you’re right
– Okay
Ron gazed at his screen for a while. Then he typed:
– I was happy when I saw you
And then:
– thanks for making me happy for a moment
And:
– the last time was a long time ago
After a couple of minutes his son sent a message back:
– I can’t even begin to explain everything that’s wrong with what you’ve said, but if you honestly mean it that you felt happy, I’m glad for you, Dad. Good night.
– night
Ron put his phone on the coffee table, lay down on the sofa and fell asleep.

It ljocht fan de ûntsmettingsstrielen is fan in seldsume skientme. Alle jûnen gean ik nei bûten ta om it te sjen. It is net ferbean om op it balkon fan de tsiende ferdjipping  te wêzen, omdat in beskerming fan trochsichtich plestik alle besykjen om dysels yn de leechte te smiten tefoaren komt. Wy soenen it yn elts gefal net dwaan. Ik soe it net dwaan. Ik wit dat earder guon it wol besocht hawwe, mar selsmoarden binne fergetten rekke, it binne âlde ferhalen oer minsken dy’t fereale wienen op de dea of eangst hienen foar skeind wêze en iensumens. Fansels woe ik graach dat ik dêr ûnder wêze koe yn de moaie stêd, de befeilige stêd dy’t safolle koste hat om te meitsjen en te betinken nei’t it al wol tsien kear mislearre wie. Mar alle lok freget om in offer en ik bin hoe dan ek grutsk om dat needsaaklike offer te wêzen dat de paradyslike stêd en de mooglikheid ta libben garandearret. Alle perfeksje hat in regel of in grins. Dit is myn plak: ik bin in ymmune en fan de tsiende ferdjipping fan it Haadgebou ôf kin ik de stêd sjen dêr’t de lju libje dy’t ôfhinklik fan ús binne.
Wy de ymmunen witte dat ûntsnappe ûnmooglik is. It Haadgebou is it bêst bewekke fan de Sektor Súd en alle besykjen om te flechtsjen wurdt yn in pear sekonden smoard. Dêrom litte se ús de Befeilige Stêd sjen. Yn it algemien bin ik allinne by it útsjochpunt, omdat ik aparte tiden útsykje en ik selsskip leaver mij, mar inkeld, hiel inkeld, komme ymmunen my selskip hâlden. Ik wachtsje allinne op CLJ. De earste kear dat ik him seach tocht ik dat er in puber wie oant er prate. Hy is hiel meager, omdat er al twa wichtige donaasjes dien hat. Hy hat tin hier dat oer it gesicht falt. Op in kear helle er in toef hier út de mûle en hy skettere it út fan it laitsjen, wat ik noch noait earder heard hie, en dat wie in eksploazje fan blidens mei wite, likense tosken en golle lippen yn ‘e stilte fan ‘e tsiende ferdjipping. Ik lake en skriemde, ferbaasd oer de sâlte smaak fan triennen. CLJ kaam trije dagen letter werom en op ‘e nij beseagen wy it paad fan de ûntsmetingsstrielen. Se wurde lansearre út rûndraaiende silinders wei en se dogge tinken oan it sierfjoerwurk by feesten, mar se hawwe krekt wat oars. In doel, in nuttige blidens. Se feroarje fan tichtens ôfhinklik fan oft se smelle strjitten of brede strjitten of pleinen trochkruse. Se passe har oan. De ûntsmettende ljochten deadzje it firus dat oerdeis yn ‘e lucht sit. It hat safolle jier duorre foar’t se dy oplossing fûnen. De âldsten kinne har it mislearre besykjen yn it sin bringe, de wanhoop en lykas wy wurde se ek emoasjoneel wannear’t se de fuorsetting fan it bestean sjogge, wûn mei moed, krêft en skientme. Yn it begjin binne de ljochten blau as neon. Se twinge dy om de eagen ticht te dwaan sa fûl binne se. De ljochten geane dwers troch de trochsichtige gebouwen hinne en de stêd glânzet as wie dy makke fan stjerren. De Befeilige Stêd is de kosmos. Letter yn de twadde faze wurdt it blau tsjuster en is it as oft swarte fûgels ôfdale om de diken en auto’s oan te reitsjen dy’t noait ophâlde mei rûntsjes draaie. Bûten de gebouwen omkuierje is ferbean en it is ek ferbean om der op besite te gean, dêrom binne alle muorren trochsichtich. It ljocht is sa oars en sensueel as it pears wurdt en kombinearret mei tûzenen skerms, ferljochte persoanen en de reade rispmoanne, sa neamt myn dokter it dy’t in oerlibbene is fan it firus en de ferhalen noch wit fan har oerpake en oerbeppe dy’t libben yn it jier 0. Sy tochten dat se werom gean soenen nei it normale libben, seit myn dokter. Se wit net wat se bedoelden mei it ‘normale libben’, gjinien wit dat. Fansels is wat wy hawwe  no folle better as dat normale libben en gjinien twifelet deroan. De glêzen fan de huzen litte dy dat fiele: de tuten en it streakjen kinst fiele en kinst it ljocht útdwaan om yntimiteit te hawwen, hoewol’t it grutste part dat neat skele kin en har lea sjen lit. Dat is natuerlik. Minsken negearje dy moetings en se binne normaal wurden. Boppedat, as twa persoanen sûn en tegearre binne, krije se ien fan de huzen tichtby de blauwe rivier dy’tsto oan de hoarizon sjen kinst, en steane se mei alle soarch en leafde om har hinne, omdat neat wichtiger is as de fuortsetting fan de soart.
CLJ seit dat it wis is dat der in normaal libben wie en datst jierren lyn frij omrinne koest, omdat de firussen net sa lang yn ‘e loft oerlibben. Mar CLJ is swak en as wy ymmunen swakker wurde, dan krije wy oanstriid om ús ferlerne paradizen foar te stellen.
Nei de blauwe ljochten komme de reade ljochten: de jagers. Se brûke se om opstannelingen en foaral tsjinstanners op te pakken, de minsken dy’t ús de ymmunen fan it Haadgebou befrijde wolle. Se fine dat ús lot unrjochtfeardich is en dat ús offer in finzenis is. Der wurdt wol sein dat se geheime gearkomsten hawwe. Se betinke pakken om de ljochten fan de jagers te omsilen. It firus falt de fitale organen oan (en oare organen lykas de eagen of de tromfluezen) en de iennichste remeedzje binne transplantaasjes. Wy de ymmunen binne de donors. Wy binne mar mei in hiel lyts bytsje en wy binne hiel kostber. Se kinne fansels fan alles klone lykas iten, bisten en minsken, mar se kinne ús net klone en likemin ús organen dy’t it firus net oanfalle kin. De ûndersikers witte net wêrom’t dat sa is en wurkje oan ien tried wei om de oarsaak te finen, oant no ta sûnder resultaat.
De tsjinstanners fine dat ús ymmuniteit in wûnder is en dat it ús rjocht is om te libjen yn de wrâld. Se sizze dat wy net de organyske reserve hoege te wêzen foar fierwei it grutste part fan de minsken dat siik wurdt. Twa jier lyn besocht in groep it Haadgebou yn te kommen. Se waarden útrûge. No binne der hast gjin aktive tsjinstanners mear oer, dat is alteast wat der ferteld wurdt. Hoe dan ek, de reade ljochten ferkenne alle nachten de stêd. Se spoare fertochte fysike bewegingen op. De reade ljochten binne noch moaier as de blauwen en folle emoasjoneler. Se komme yn hoeken, ferljochtsje ferskowende skaden en glydzje as reindrippen oer in wiete muorre. De iene kear liket it as oft de stêd baarnt en de oare kear as oft de stêd dûnset.

As se ien fine dy’t bûten omswalket, dan sjogge se dy persoan as in tsjinstanner. CLJ fertelde my in kear op syn keamer dat it gewoan minsken binne dy’t de regels oertrêdzje, dat de tsjinstanners al eliminearre binne en dat de jacht in ekskús is. Mar wêrom wolle se der dan út?, frege ik him. Net eltsenien is lokkich mei in libben fan finzen sitte, trochtsichtigens en transplantaasjes, sei er tsjin my. Op in kear hienen wy it lok om te sjen hoe’t de ljochten in swalkjend persoan pakten. CLJ kriich my by de hân en wy seagen de nuvere dûns fan it reade ljocht mei it lichem. It ljocht draaide der om hinne. It lichem fersette him kwalik. Gjinien hie de krêft om it fan de ljochten te winnen. It reade ljocht tilde him de loft yn en op it momint dat er in hiel ein by de gebouwen wei wie, ek fan it balkon fan ús tsiende ferdjipping, liet it ljocht him ûntploffe yn de himel. Se koenen har op in oare manier deadzje sûnder dy rein fan bloed en yngewanten, sa lei CLJ my út, mar dat soe minder spektakulêr wêze. Dat soe gjin les wêze. Wy seagen it bloed fallen as rein, as triennen op it gipsen byld fan in hillige. Yn de gebouwen wienen alle ljochten oandien. Alle eagen beseagen it lichem dat kwalik noch wat minskliks hie, like read as de ljochten. CLJ liet my tasizze dat by ús folgjende moeting ik him yn detail it paad beskriuwe soe dat de ljochten folgen en watfoar spultsjes se boarten, en oft de reade strielen in opstanneling fûnen en de moanne noch hyltiten enoarm en bluodderich wie. Ik begriep dat er dat my frege, omdat syn folgende donaasje deroan kaam en ik wie bliid, omdat ik begriep dat er allinne mar syn hoarnfluezen jaan soe en dat wy noch tiid hienen om inoar kennen te learen. Wy hienen noch nachten foar ús tegearre op it balkon wylst wy deastil seagen nei de skientme fan de stêd en tegearre de giftige lucht ynazemen dy’t ús net deadzje koe.

The rays of disinfectant light are extraordinarily beautiful. I go out to watch them every night: we’re not forbidden from going out on the tenth-floor balcony, since there’s a protective barrier of transparent plastic that will put a stop to any attempts at jumping. We wouldn’t do it, anyway. I wouldn’t do it. I know that before, some people did try, but suicides have been forgotten, they’re old stories of people in love with death or suffering from terror of mutilation and solitude. Sure, I would like to be down there, in the beautiful city, the safe city that took so much effort, dozens and dozens of tries, to design and implement. But all happiness demands a sacrifice, and in a way, I’m proud to be the sacrifice needed to guarantee the paradise city and a possible life. All perfection has a rule or a limit. This is my place: I’m immune, and from the tenth floor of the Great Building I can look down at the city where those who depend on us live.
We immune know that escape is impossible. The Great Building is the most closely guarded one in the South Sector, and any attempt at flight is suppressed in seconds. That’s why they let us look at the Safe City. I’m usually alone on the balcony because I keep strange schedules and try to avoid company, but sometimes, very rarely, other immune come to keep me company. I only wait for CLJ. The first time I saw him I thought he was a teenager, until he spoke. He’s very thin, because he has already undergone two significant donations. He has fine hair that falls over his face. One time, he brushed a lock of hair out of his mouth and burst out in a peal of laughter I had never heard before, an explosion of joy in the silence of the tenth floor, his teeth white and even, his lips swollen. I laughed and cried, surprised by the salty taste of the tears. CLJ came back three days later, and again we watched the movement of the disinfectant rays. They emanate from spinning cylinders, and they recall the fireworks at festival time, but there’s something different about them. A purpose, a useful joy. Their thickness changes as they move along narrow streets or wide avenues or plazas. They adapt. The disinfectant lights kill the virus that hangs in the air for days. It took so many years to find this solution. The oldest people remember the failed attempts, the desperation, and, like us, they are also moved when they see this continuation of existence, hard-won through audacity, effort, and beauty. At first the lights are blue, and they’re like neon: you have to close your eyes, they’re so bright. The lights pierce the walls of the transparent buildings and the city shines as if it were made of stars. The Safe City is the cosmos. Then, in the second phase, the blue darkens and it’s like black birds descending to touch the highways and the cars that never stop circulating. Walking outside the buildings is forbidden; it’s also forbidden to visit others, that’s why all the walls are transparent and the light is so different and sensual when it turns violet and blends with the thousands of screens and the people lit up and the red harvest moon—that’s what my doctor calls it. She’s a survivor of the virus and she remembers the stories of her great-grandparents, who lived through year 0. They believed that normality was going to return, my doctor says. She doesn’t know what they meant by ‘normality’, no one remembers what that is. Of course, what we have now is much better than normality, and no one doubts that. The glass of the houses allows for sensation: kisses and caresses are felt, and it’s possible to dim the light for privacy, but most people don’t care anymore and they show their bodies. It’s natural: people ignore those encounters, they’ve been normalized. Plus, if two people are healthy and united, they’re given one of the houses close to the blue river I can see on the horizon and they’re attended to with real love, because nothing is more important than the continuation of the species.
CLJ says it’s true, that there was normality, that many years ago you could walk freely because the viruses didn’t live for so long in the air. But CLJ is weak, and when we immunes are debilitated, we tend to imagine lost paradises.
After the blue lights come the red ones: the hunters. They’re used to catch rebels, especially protestors—people who want to free us, the immunes in the Great Building. They think our fate is unjust, and our sacrifice a prison. They hold secret meetings, it’s said; they design suits to evade the hunter lights. The virus attacks vital organs (and others too, like the eyes or eardrums), and the only cure is a transplant; we immune are the donors. There aren’t many of us, and we are very valuable. Everything can be cloned, sure, food and animals and people, but they can’t clone us or our organs, which the virus doesn’t know how to attack. The scientists don’t know why and they work tirelessly to find out, with no results so far.
The protestors think our immunity is a miracle and that we have a right to live in the world: they believe we should not have to be the organic stockpile for the immense majority of people who get sick. Two years ago a group of them tried to sneak into the Great Building. They were exterminated. Now there are almost no active protestors, or at least that’s what people say. In any case, the red lights traverse the city every night: they detect suspicious physical movement. The red lights are even more beautiful than the blue ones, and much more exciting. They move into corners, light up restless shadows, slide like drops down a wet wall. Sometimes the city seems to burn, other times, to dance.
If they find someone wandering outside the houses, that person is considered to be a protester. CLJ told me once, in his room, that they are really just people who break the rules, that the protestors have all been eliminated, and the hunt is an excuse. Why do people want to go outside? I asked him. Not everyone is satisfied with a life of confinement and transparency and transplants, he told me. Once, we got lucky and saw the lights trap a person who was out walking. CLJ took my hand and we watched the strange dance of red light and body. The light surrounded it. The body struggled, but barely: no one has the power to overcome the lights. The red light lifted it into the air, and once it was far above the buildings, even higher than our tenth-floor balcony, it made the body explode in the sky. They could kill in another way, without that rain of blood and viscera, CLJ explained to me, but it would be less spectacular. It wouldn’t be a lesson. We saw the blood fall like rain, or like tears of a plaster saint. All the lights in the buildings were on. All eyes were observing the body, now mere human remains just as red as the lights. CLJ made me promise that the next time we met, I would describe to him in detail where the lights were moving, what kinds of games they played, if the red lights found some rebel, if the moon was still enormous and bloody. I understood he was asking me for that because his next donation was approaching, and I was happy because I understood he was only going to surrender his corneas, and there was still time to get to know each other. The two of us would still have nights on the balcony, overlooking the city that took your breath away with its beauty, together and breathing the poisoned air that couldn’t kill us.

La luz de los rayos desinfectantes es de una belleza excepcional. Salgo a verla cada noche: no está prohibido permanecer en el balcón del décimo piso porque una protección de plástico transparente  impide cualquier intento de arrojarse al vacío. No lo haríamos, de todos modos. Yo no lo haría. Sé que algunos, antes, lo intentaron, pero los suicidas han sido olvidados, son historias viejas de enamorados de la muerte o de gente que sufría el terror a la mutilación y la soledad. Claro que me gustaría poder estar ahí abajo, en la ciudad hermosa, la ciudad segura que tanto costó conseguir y diseñar después de decenas de intentos. Pero toda felicidad exige un sacrificio y, de alguna manera, me enorgullece ser ese sacrificio necesario que garantiza la ciudad paraíso y una posibilidad de vida. Toda perfección tiene una regla o un límite. Éste es mi lugar: soy una inmune y desde el piso diez del Edificio Mayor puedo ver la ciudad donde viven quienes dependen de nosotros.
Los inmunes sabemos que escapar es imposible. El Edificio Mayor es el más custodiado del Sector Sur y cualquier intento de fuga es reprimido en segundos. Por eso nos dejan ver la Ciudad Segura. En general estoy sola en el mirador porque elijo horarios extraños y prefiero evitar la compañía pero a veces, muy pocas, vienen inmunes a acompañarme. Yo sólo espero a CLJ. La primera vez que lo vi pensé que era una adolescente, hasta que habló. Es muy delgado porque ya cumplió con dos donaciones importantes. Tiene un cabello fino que le tapa la cara. Una vez se sacó un mechón de la boca y se rió con una carcajada que yo nunca antes había escuchado, una explosión de alegría en el silencio del piso diez, los dientes blancos y parejos, los labios hinchados. Me reí y lloré,  sorprendida por el sabor salado de las lágrimas. CLJ volvió tres días después y una vez más observamos el derrotero de los rayos desinfectantes. Se lanzan desde cilindros giratorios y recuerdan a los fuegos artificiales de las festividades pero tienen algo diferente. Un propósito, una alegría útil. Cambian su grosor según recorran calles estrechas o avenidas o plazas. Se adaptan. La luces desinfectantes matan al virus que se mantiene durante días en el aire. Tantos años se tardó en  encontrar esta solución. Los más ancianos recuerdan los intentos fallidos, la desesperación y, como nosotros, también se emocionan cuando ven la continuación de la existencia, ganada con atrevimiento, esfuerzo y belleza. Las luces, al principio, son azules, como de neón: obligan a cerrar los ojos de tan brillantes. Las luces atraviesan los edificios transparentes y la ciudad brilla como si estuviera hecha de estrellas. La Ciudad Segura es el cosmos. Después, en la segunda fase, el azul se oscurece y es como si pájaros negros descendieran para tocar las autopistas y los autos que nunca paran de circular. Caminar fuera de los edificios está prohibido; también está prohibido visitarse, por eso todas las paredes son transparentes y la luz es tan diferente y sensual cuando se vuelve violeta y se combina con las miles de pantallas y las personas iluminadas y la luna roja de la cosecha, así la llama mi médica, que es una sobreviviente del virus y recuerda las historias de sus bisabuelos que vivieron el año 0. Ellos creían que iba a volver la normalidad, dice mi médica. No sabe a qué se referían con “normalidad”, nadie recuerda qué es eso. Por supuesto, lo que tenemos ahora es mucho mejor que la normalidad y nadie lo duda. Los vidrios de las casas permiten sentirse: los besos y las caricias se sienten y es posible bajar la luz para tener intimidad, aunque a la mayoría ya no le importa y muestran sus cuerpos. Es natural: la gente ignora estos encuentros, se han normalizado. Además, si dos personas están sanas y unidas se les otorga una de las casas cercanas al río azul que se ve en el horizonte y se las atiende con verdadero amor porque nada es más importante que la continuidad de la especie.
CLJ dice que es cierto, que hubo una normalidad, que hace muchos años se podía caminar libremente porque los virus no vivían en el aire tanto tiempo. Pero CLJ está débil y cuando los inmunes nos debilitamos, solemos imaginar paraísos perdidos.
Después de las luces azules llegan las luces rojas: las cazadoras. Se usan para atrapar rebeldes y sobre todo protestantes, aquellos que quieren liberarnos a nosotros, los inmunes del Edificio Mayor. Creen que nuestro destino es injusto, que nuestro sacrificio es una cárcel. Hacen reuniones secretas, se dice; diseñan trajes para burlar a las luces cazadoras. El virus ataca los órganos vitales (y otros, como los ojos o los tímpanos) y la única cura son los transplantes; los inmunes somos los donantes. Somos poquísimos y muy valiosos. Todo puede clonarse, claro, la comida y los animales y las personas, pero no pueden clonarnos a nosotros ni a nuestros órganos que el virus no sabe atacar. Los investigadores desconocen el por qué y trabajan sin descanso en descubrir la causa, sin resultados hasta el momento.
Los protestantes creen que nuestra inmunidad se trata de un milagro y que es nuestro derecho vivir en el mundo: no tenemos por qué ser la reserva orgánica de la inmensa mayoría que se enferma, afirman. Hace dos años un grupo intentó ingresar al Edificio Mayor. Fueron exterminados. Ahora ya casi no quedan protestantes activos, al menos es lo que se cuenta. De todos modos, los rayos rojos recorren la ciudad cada noche: detectan los movimientos físicos sospechosos. Las luces rojas son aún mas hermosas que las azules y mucho más emocionantes. Se meten en rincones, iluminan sombras movedizas, se deslizan como gotas en una pared húmeda. A veces la ciudad parece arder y otras bailar.
Si encuentran a alguien deambulando fuera de las casas, la persona es considerada protestante. CLJ me dijo una vez, en su habitación, que sencillamente es gente que rompe las reglas, que los protestantes ya fueron eliminados, que la caza es una excusa. ¿Por qué quieren salir?, le pregunté. No todos están conformes con una vida de encierro y transparencias y transplantes, me dijo. En una oportunidad tuvimos la suerte de ver cómo las luces atrapaban a una persona deambulante. CLJ me tomó de la mano y miramos la extraña danza de la luz roja con el cuerpo. Lo rodeó. El cuerpo se resistió, apenas: nadie tiene el poder de vencer a las luces. La luz roja lo levantó en el aire y, una vez que estuvo bien lejos de los edificios, incluso sobre el balcón de nuestro piso 10, lo hizo estallar en el cielo. Podrían matarlos de otra manera, sin esta lluvia de sangre y vísceras, me explicó CLJ, pero sería menos espectacular. No sería una lección. Vimos la sangre caer como lluvia, como lágrimas de una santa de yeso. En los edificios todas las luces estaban encendidas. Todos los ojos observando el cuerpo, ahora apenas un resto humano, tan rojo como las luces. CLJ me hizo prometer que, en nuestro próximo encuentro, iba a describirle en detalle por dónde se paseaban las luces, qué juegos hacían, si los rayos rojos encontraban a algún rebelde, si la luna seguía enorme y ensangrentada. Entendí que me lo pedía porque se acercaba su próxima donación y me alegré porque entendí que iba a entregar sólo las córneas y aún nos quedaba tiempo de conocernos. Todavía quedaban noches para los dos en el balcón, mirando la ciudad que dejaba sin aire por su belleza, respirando juntos el aire envenenado que no podía matarnos.

It wurdt tiid dat wy it tajouwe: minsken binne net botte goed yn it ûnthâlden fan de dingen sa’t dy wier bard binne. As in ûnderfining in stik klean is, dan is it oantinken datselde stik klean nei’t it in kear ferkeard wosken is. De kleuren binne ferblikt, it is hielendal krompen en de oarspronklike, nostalgyske rook is al lang feroare yn de keunstmjittige orchideeëlucht fan de waskfersachter.
Dit allegear oertocht Dov Shviro silliger yn de wachtrige foar it hjirneimels. De rige like lang, suver einleas, mar op ien as oare wize streamde de tiid der oars en wie it wachtsjen folle draachliker as, lit ús sizze, foar de securitycheck op it fleanfjild of by de dokter, situaasjes dy’t Dov út soarte net koe, want hy hie altyd businessclass flein en wie altyd behannele yn prestizjeuze priveekliniken. Mar dizze bepaalde rige like him net te ûntgean. Elk like gelyk yn it oangesicht fan ’e dea, of yn it oangesicht fan ’e skepper of wa’t it ek wie dy’t dêr op harren wachte oan ’e ein fan dy ûneinige rige. Al witst it mar noait, tocht Dov, faaks wie der in spesjale yngong foar rjochtfeardigen, dêr’t hy en de oaren gjin weet fan hiene. By neier ynsjen like it him echt foar de hân te lizzen dat der in geheime vip-yngong wêze soe. It wie úteinlik net oannimlik dat de hillige faam Maria, of Mahatma Gandhi, nei de dea krekt as elk yn ’e rige stean moatten hie.
En lit dêr gjin misferstân oer bestean, it wie net sa dat der gjin beweging yn ’e rige siet. Dy skode de hiele tiid op, mar de ein kaam noch altyd net yn sicht en Dov stie hjir no al … no al … al … Dat wie it dus, doe’t wy seine dat de tiid him yn dizze rige oars hold, bedoelden wy eins dat dy net echt bestie. Of leaver, hy bestie wol, de tiid moat altyd bestean, allinnich like it Dov en de oaren net te slagjen dy yn te skatten of te mjitten. De lange frou mei de stip op ’e foarholle, dy’t foar Dov yn ’e rige stie, lei him út dat it like op it nirwana, en de âlde man mei de stjonkende azem, dy’t achter him stie, bewearde dat it sa’n bytsje wie as demintens, mar dan yn positive sin. Nijsgjirrich, tocht Dov, ik freegje my ôf wat dat is, ‘demintens mar dan yn positive sin’. Mooglik demintens dy’t dy in libben ferjitte lit dêr’tst dochs al leaver net oan weromtinkst? Mar ek dizze gedachte ferfleach ear’t er dy ôfmeitsje koe en krekt foar’t in folgjende fergeze gedachte him oantsjinne yn syn brein, foel syn each alhiel tafallich op de wite wjuk fan in ingel.
Ek de ingel, sawat tweintich plakken foar him, stie lyk as alle oaren geduldich yn ’e rige te wachtsjen. Fan fierren like hy hinne en wer te widzjen en yn himsels te praten, en miskien wie er wol oan it bidden. Hoewol, wêrom soe in ingel bidde moatte as er yn in rige foar it hjirneimels stie? Dat hiele bidden wie in standert metoade yn ’e wrâld fan ’e libjenden, mar nei de dea soest fan in ingel yn ’e himel ferwachtsje dat er op in justjes betrouberder en direktere wize kommunisearje koe mei de skepper. Dat is wat dat neier ûndersocht wurde moatte soe, tocht Dov. By libben hie er analist west by in suksesfol hedgefûns en doe’t er dêr begûn te wurkjen, wie him as earste leard datst, as ien fan de direkteuren wat sei dat net doogde of gewoan wat fan dy woe dat dy net útkaam, yn stee fan nee te sizzen of yn diskusje te gean, better sizze koest: ‘Dat is wat dat neier ûndersocht wurde moatte soe’, en geduldich te wachtsjen oant de hiele kwestje fergetten wie, of ferdwûn. Al gie it dizze kear net om in fatsoenlik ôfskypjen. Dizze kear gie it om in kwestje dy’t echt syn belangstelling luts en dy’t er foar syn gefoel útsykje moast.
De lange frou mei de stip en de âlde man mei de stjonkende azem seine Dov ta dat se syn plak yn ’e rige frijhâlde soene as hy de ingel fragen stelde. Dy tasizzing joech him genôch wyn yn ’e rêch om moed te sammeljen en op de ingel ta te stappen.
‘Sorry!’ sei er tsjin ’e ingel, dy’t him ynearsten negearre. ‘Sorry! Ja, jo! Mei ik jo wat freegje?’
De ingel, dy’t bytsje ôfwêzich like, knikte.
‘Tige tank,’ sei Dov mei in forsearre bûginkje. ‘Kinne jo my, gewoan om’t jo ingel binne en sa, faaks in oersjochje jaan fan hoe’t alles hjir wurket yn it hjirneimels? Sektorgrinzen, hierargyske struktueren, jo witte wol, alles dat echt wichtich is.’
De ingel besocht him der foarwei te winen en bewearde dat er gjin ingel wie, dat er samar tafallich wjukken hie, mar ingels binne gjin goeie ligers, teminsten net lang, en nei … nei … Goed, wy hawwe it al hân oer de nuvere manier dêr’t de tiid hjir op ferrûn, sadat Dov net echt sizze koe nei hoefolle tiid, mar op in bepaald stuit joech de ingel ta dat er in ingel wie en lei er Dov op flústertoan út dat it syn taak wie him ûnder de deaden te mingen en him derfan te bewissigjen dat alles goed gie en der alhiel gjin problemen wiene.
‘En as jo dochs op in probleem stuitsje?’ frege Dov fierder. ‘Wat wurdt der dan krekt ferwachte dat jo dogge? Is der in protokol? Moatte jo it oan immen rapportearje? It sels ôfhannelje?’
De ingel tocht efkes nei en begûn te stammerjen. As ingel wie er echt noch noait op in probleem stuite. Want ja, deade minsken sammelen har oarderlik, wat koe der no hielendal barre? Dat wol sizze, it heugde him dat der by in briefing mei him praat wie oer wat er dwaan moatte soe yn it gefal fan in oarderfersteuring, mar dat wie sa lang lyn dat er net mear wist hoe as wat.
De bleke frou dy’t achter de ingel stie, liet Dov witte dat er te lûdroftich wie en dat dat bot steurde. Se hie ûnmiskenber it fermoeden dat it hiele nuvere petear dat Dov mei de ingel fierde inkeld mar in ferlechje wie om foar te kringen yn ’e rige. Dov ferûntskuldige him fuort en lei út dat er allinnich mar efkes in lytse technyske kwestje útsocht mei de ingel en dat er dêrnei fuort wer weromgean soe nei syn plak yn ’e rige. Al koe er him earlik sein net mear yn ’t sin bringe wêr’t syn plak yn ’e rige wie. Der stie him wat by fan in âlde of lange man of frou mei in soere azem … of in stjonkende foarholle … Wilens wie de ingel fergetten wat Dov him frege hie, en Dov, dy’t dat sels ek fergetten wie, frege no: ‘Sis, hiene jim mei al dy rûnombywêzichheid en almacht en sa net wat in effisjintere operaasje opsette kinnen? Do witst wol, wat sûnder rige?’
De ingel seach Dov betize oan. ‘Rige?’ frege er. ‘Wat bedoelst krekt?’
‘Wat ik bedoel?’ gnyske Dov. ‘Ik bedoel dy, my en al dy minsken dy’t hjir al … al … ik wit net, dy’t hjir al hiel lang stean te wachtsjen. Do witst wol, dizze hiele … dit,’ en hy makke in dizige hânbeweging dy’t alle minsken omfetsje moast dy’t foar en achter harren kalm stiene te wachtsjen.
‘Dit?’ frege de ingel, dy’t syn wjukken opluts. ‘Dit, as ik it goed begrepen haw, is it paradys.’

It’s about time we acknowledge it, people are not very good at remembering things the way they really happened. If an experience is an article of clothing, then memory is the garment after it’s been washed, not according to the instructions, over and over again: the colors fade, the size shrinks, the original, nostalgic scent has long since become the artificial-orchids smell of fabric softener.
Dov Shviro, may he rest in peace, was thinking all this while standing in line to get into the next world. The line looked long, almost endless, but somehow, time flowed differently on it and the waiting was a lot more bearable than it was, let’s say, on an airport security check line or in a doctor’s office, situations that Dov, who always flew first class and was treated in prestigious clinics, wasn’t familiar with anyway. But on that particular line, there didn’t seem to be any shortcuts. Everyone appeared to be equal in the face of death, or in the face of the Creator or whoever it was waiting for them way up there at the head of the endless line. Although, who knows, Dov thought, maybe there’s another entrance for virtuous men that he and the others didn’t know about. The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed that there had to be a secret VIP entrance. After all, it doesn’t seem reasonable that when the Virgin Mary or Mahatma Ghandi died, they had to stand in line like everyone else.
But don’t get me wrong, it isn’t that the line didn’t move, it did, the whole time, except that even now, after Dov had been waiting in it for… for… so that’s just it, when we said that time in that line behaved differently, we actually meant to say that it didn’t really exist. I mean, it did exist, because time always has to exist, but it’s just that somehow, Dov and the others couldn’t seem to estimate or measure it. The tall woman with the tic on her forehead standing in front of Dov explained to him that it was like Nirvana, and the old guy with bad breath standing behind him claimed it was a little like dementia, but in a good way. Interesting, Dov thought to himself, what could be good about dementia? Maybe it’s the fact that dementia makes you forget a life you’d rather not remember anyway? But even that thought faded in his mind before he could finish thinking it, and an instant before another aimless thought replaced it, he caught sight of the white wing of an angel.
The angel was standing in line too, about twenty places in front of him, waiting patiently like everyone else. From that distance, it seemed to Dov as if he were swaying in place and talking to himself, and maybe he was even praying, although why would an angel waiting in line to get into the next world be praying? That whole praying thing is totally normal in the world of the living, but after death, you would expect an angel in heaven to communicate with the Creator in a slightly more direct, reliable way. That needs to be checked out, Dov thought. When he was still alive, he was an analyst in a successful hedge fund, and the first thing they taught him when he started working there was that if one of the managers makes a mistake or just asks Dov to do something that doesn’t sit right with him, instead of disagreeing or arguing, it’s better to say, ‘That needs to be checked out,’ and wait patiently until the whole thing blows over. But this time, it wasn’t a polite brushoff, this time it was about an issue Dov was truly invested in, and he really felt he had to check it out.
The tall woman with the tic and the old guy with bad breath promised Dov that, while he went to question the angel, they would save his place in line, and that promise was enough to enable Dov to work up his courage and go for it.
‘Excuse me!’ he said to the angel, who at first, ignored him, ‘Excuse me! Yes, you. Can I ask you a question?’ The angel, who seemed a bit distant, nodded. ‘Thank you,’ Dov said, giving a forced bow, ‘It’s just that maybe you could give me a quick description of this whole next-world operation, you being an angel and all? Territorial boundaries, hierarchal structures, you know, all the important stuff.’
The angel tried to evade his questions, claiming he just happened to have wings, but angels aren’t great liars, at least not for an extended period of time, and it took… it took… Okay, we already mentioned the strange way time passes here, so Dov didn’t really know how to say how long it took, but at some point, the angel admitted he was an angel and explained to Dov in a whisper that his job was to mingle with the dead to make sure everything was running smoothly and there were no problems.
‘And if you do come up against a problem?’ Dov asked, ‘What exactly are you supposed to do? Is there a protocol? Do you have to report it to someone? Take care of it yourself?’
The angel thought for a moment and then began stammering. The truth is that, as an angel, he had never come across a problem. After all, dead people congregate in an orderly way, so what could happen? He did remember that, during the briefing, they did tell him what to do if there were disruptions, but that was so long ago that he didn’t remember what it was.
The pale woman standing behind the angel told Dov that he was making noise and it was very annoying. You could tell she suspected that Dov’s whole conversation with the angel was just an excuse to get ahead of her in line. Dov apologized immediately and explained that he was just checking out some small technical thing and the second he finished he’d go right back to his place in line. The truth is, he no longer remembered where his place in line was. He remembered a man or woman who was tall or old or had bad breath… or a tic… and meanwhile, the angel managed to forget what Dov had asked him, and Dov himself, who also forgot what he’d asked earlier, now asked, ‘Tell me, with all this Divine Spirit and omnipotence and everything, couldn’t you set up a more efficient operation? You know, something without a line.’
The angel gave Dov a confused look. ‘Line?’ he asked, ‘what exactly do you mean?’
‘What do I mean?’ Dov sneered, ‘I mean you and me and all these people who have been waiting here with us… for… I don’t know, a long time. You know, all… this.’ Dov made a limp gesture with his hands that was meant to take in all the people standing in front of them and behind them, waiting quietly.
‘That?’ the angel asked, shrugging his wings, ‘that, if I understand correctly, is heaven.’

הגיע הזמן שנכיר בזה, בני אדם לא ממש טובים בלזכור דברים באופן שהם באמת קרו. אם חוויה היא מלבוש, אז זיכרון הוא הבגד אחרי שכובס שוב ושוב שלא לפי ההוראות: הצבעים שלו דהו, המידה התכווצה לגמרי, והריח המקורי, הנוסטלגי, של אותו פריט לבוש, הפך מזמן לריח הסחלבים המלאכותי של מרכך הכביסה.
את כל זה חשב לעצמו דב שבירו ז”ל בזמן שהמתין בתור לעולם הבא. התור נראה ארוך, כמעט אינסופי, אבל איכשהו, הזמן זרם בו אחרת וההמתנה בו היתה הרבה יותר נסבלת מאשר, נניח, ההמתנה לבדיקות הביטחון בשדה התעופה או לרופא, מצבים שדב, שתמיד טס במחלקה ראשונה וטופל במרפאות יוקרתיות, ממילא לא הכיר. אבל בתור המסוים הזה נראה שאין קיצורי דרך. נראה שכולם שווים בפני המוות, או בפני בורא עולם, או מי שזה לא יהיה שהמתין להם שם בסוף התור הבלתי נגמר. אם כי לך תדע, הירהר דב,  אולי יש איזו כניסה נוספת לצדיקים שהוא והאחרים לא ידעו עליה. במחשבה שניה נראה לו  ממש מתבקש שתהיה כניסת אח”מים סודית. הרי לא סביר שכשמריה הקדושה או מהטמה גנדי מתו הם נאלצו לעמוד בתור כמו כולם.
ושלא תבינו לא נכון, זה לא שהתור לא זז, הוא התקדם כל הזמן, אלא שגם עכשיו, אחרי שדב המתין בו כבר… כבר… כבר… אז זהו, שכשאמרנו שהזמן בתור הזה התנהג אחרת, התכווננו לומר בעצם שהוא לא היה ממש קיים. כלומר, הוא היה קיים, כי זמן חייב תמיד להתקיים, רק שאיכשהו נראה שדב והאחרים לא הצליחו לאמוד או לכמת אותו. האישה הגבוהה עם הטיקה במצח שעמדה לפני דב בתור הסבירה לו שזה דומה לנירוואנה, והזקן עם הריח הלא טוב מהפה שעמד מאחוריו טען שזה קצת כמו דמנציה, אבל בקטע טוב. מעניין, חשב לעצמו דב, מעניין מה זאת דמנציה אבל בקטע טוב, אולי זה כשהדמנציה גורמת לך לשכוח חיים שממילא היה עדיף לא לזכור?אבל גם המחשבה הזו התפוגגה במוחו לפני שהספיק לסיים אותה, ורגע לפני שמחשבה עקרה אחרת החליפה אותה הוא הבחין, לגמרי במקרה, בכנף לבנה של מלאך.
גם המלאך עמד בתור, בערך עשרים מקומות לפניו, והמתין בסבלנות כמו כולם. מרחוק זה נראה לדב כאילו הוא מתנדנד במקום ומדבר לעצמו, ואולי הוא בכלל התפלל,. אם כי למה שמלאך הממתין בתור לעולם הבא יתפלל?כל הקטע הזה של תפילה נורמטיבי לגמרי בעולם החיים, אבל אחרי המוות, היית מצפה ממלאך בשמיים שיוכל לתקשר עם בורא עולם באופן טיפה יותר מהימן ובלתי אמצעי. זה משהו שמצריך בדיקה, חשב לעצמו דב. כשעוד היה חי הוא היה אנאליסט בקרן גידור מצליחה, והדבר הראשון שלימדו אותו כשהתחיל לעבוד שם היה שאם אחד המנהלים אומר משהו שגוי או סתם מבקש מדב משהו שלא בא לדב טוב, במקום לא להסכים או להתווכח, עדיף לומר “זה משהו שמצריך בדיקה”, ולהמתין בסבלנות עד שכל העניין ישכח או ייעלם. למרות שהפעם לא היה מדובר בסתם אמירת נפנוף מנומסת. הפעם היה מדובר בסוגיה שדב היה  מושקע בה באמת, והרגיש שהוא חייב לברר.
האישה הגבוהה עם הטיקה והזקן עם הריח הרע מהפה הבטיחו לדב שבזמן שייגש לחקור את המלאך הם ישמרו לו את המקום בתור, וההבטחה הזאת נתנה לדב מספיק רוח גבית כדי לאזור אומץ ולגשת למלאך. “סליחה!” הוא אמר למלאך, שבתחילה התעלם ממנו, “סליחה! כן, אתה. אפשר  לשאול שאלה?” המלאך, שנראה קצת מרוחק, הינהן. “תודה,” אמר דב וקד קידה מאולצת, “פשוט, בגלל שאתה מלאך והכל, אולי תוכל לתת לי איזו סקירה  על כל האופרציה הזאת של העולם הבא? גבולות גזרה, מבנים היררכיים, אתה יודע, כל  מה שבאמת חשוב.”  המלאך ניסה להתחמק וטען שהוא לא מלאך ושסתם, במקרה, יש לו כנפיים, אבל מלאכים לא טובים בלשקר, לפחות לא לאורך זמן, ואחרי… אחרי… טוב, כבר דיברנו איתכם על האופן המשונה שבו הזמן כאן חלף, כך שדב לא באמת ידע לומר אחרי כמה זמן, אבל בשלב מסוים המלאך הודה שהוא מלאך, והסביר לדב בלחישה שהתפקיד שלו הוא להתערות בין המתים ולוודא שהכל טוב ושאין שום בעיות. “ואם אתה בכל זאת נתקל בבעיה?” חקר דב, “מה בדיוק אתה אמור לעשות? יש איזה נוהל? אתה אמור לדווח למישהו? לטפל בזה בעצמך?” המלאך חשב רגע והתחיל לגמגם. האמת שכמלאך הוא מעולם לא נתקל בבעיה. בכל זאת, אנשים מתים מתכנסים יחד בצורה מסודרת, מה כבר יכול לקרות? כלומר, הוא זכר שבתדרוך דיברו איתו  על מה הוא אמור לעשות במקרה של הפרת סדר, אבל זה היה כל כך מזמן והוא כבר לא זכר מה.
האישה החיוורת שעמדה מאחורי המלאך העירה לדב שהוא מרעיש ושזה מאוד מפריע. ניכר בה שהיא חושדת שכל השיחה המוזרה שדב מנהל  עם המלאך היא רק אמתלה לעקוף אותה בתור. דב התנצל מיד והסביר שהוא רק מברר עם המלאך משהו טכני קטן, ושבשנייה שהוא יסיים הוא יחזור מיד למקום שלו בתור. אם כי האמת היתה שהוא כבר לא זכר איפה המקום שלו בתור. הוא זכר מישהו או מישהי מבוגר או גבוה עם ריח רע מהפה… או מהמצח… ובינתיים המלאך הספיק לשכוח את מה שדב שאל אותו, ודב עצמו, שגם הוא כבר לא זכר מה שאל קודם, שאל עכשיו, “תגיד, עם כל השכינה והאומניפוטנטיות והכל, לא יכולתם לארגן איזו אופרציה יותר יעילה? אתה יודע, משהו בלי תור?” המלאך תקע בדב מבט מבולבל. “תור?” הוא שאל “למה בדיוק את מתכוון?” “למה אני מתכוון?” גיחך דב, “אני מתכוון לך, ולי ולכל האנשים האלה  שמחכים כאן איתנו… כבר… לא יודע, הרבה זמן. אתה יודע, כל…זה” דב החווה בידיו תנועה עמומה שאמורה הייתה להקיף את כל האנשים שעמדו לפניהם ומאחוריהם בהמתנה שקטה.  “זה?” משך המלאך בכנפיו, “זה, אם הבנתי נכון,  גן עדן.”

‘As it sear docht geane wy werom nei sekere rivieren,’ skreau Czesław Miłosz. Dêr, oan it wetter, kinne wy ‘ús siel oer de bergen en de tiid’ hinne stjoere, miende de Poalske dichter, en treast fine yn de gedachte dat alles dan wol foarbygiet, mar ek weromkeart yn in nije foarm. Wat krekt bard is sjogge wy noch frij skerp foar ús lizzen, mar wat der noch barre sil triuwt ús, mei in ûnsichtbere hân, fan achteren yn ’e rêch. Hast ûngemurken wikselje ferline en takomst elkoar ôf en hâlde harren foar de doer fan net mear as in inkeld eagenblik fêst. In rivier is as it lange lint fan de tiid, dy’t soms wyld en brûzend, dan wer kalm en bedaard by ús wei- én op ús ta streamt. Oan de iggen kinst ta rêst komme en oer foarbije foarfallen neitinke, mar ek dyn blik op nije fiergesichten rjochtsje.

Tinkend oan Arkadië, sjoch ik in lânskip foar my dêr’t de glânzjende rêch fan in rivier tusken de heuvels en fjilden troch meänderet, op wei nei it folgjende doarp, de folgjende stêd, dêr’t er sawol flechtich te gast as in permaninte bewenner is. Ik hâld in protte fan rivierlânskippen, oft ik der no sels trochhinne kuierje of se weromsjoch op skilderijen fan Ruysdael, Segers of Rembrandt. In rivier jout hâldfêst oan dyn blik dy’t oer it lânskip dwaalt. Suver fansels folgest mei dyn eagen de loop fan it wetter, dy’t even letter ek dyn gedachten meinimt yn syn stream. De rivieren dy’t op de etsen en skilderijen fan de santjinde-iuwske keunstner Hercules Segers lâns rotsige heuvels en ruïnes streame roppe sawol mankelikens as ferwûndering en hoop op. De seldsume kuierders dy’t wy yn de prachtige, troch Segers fantasearre lânskippen oantreffe, wurde troch de skjintme fan it rivierelânskip opnommen en omearme. De rivier liket harren yn ’t sin te bringen dat yn elke wetterdrip it geheim fan it hiele universum besletten leit.

As bern dreamde ik derfan om brêgewachter te wurden, krekt as myn oerpake, dy’t syn libben lang de wacht hold oer in brêge oer de Isel. Dat like my it moaiste berop fan de wrâld. Wenje, wurkje en sliepe yn in lyts húske op ’e kaai, mei altyd de rivier yn myn eachweid, dy’t alle moarnen opnij it lânskip foar my iepenet. De hieltyd trochgeande wikseling fan it ljocht op it skobbige oerflak. Altyd it rûzjende lûd fan streamend wetter om je hinne te hawwen, út en troch in brêge iependwaan en fierder allinnich mar in bytsje dreame en boeken lêze.

In Arkadië sûnder rivieren bestiet net.

Sûnt de âldheid wurde rivieren net allinnich mei de fitale krêft fan it libben, mar ek mei de tiid yn ferbân brocht. Panta rhei, sa’t de bekende útspraak fan Heraclitus al seit, ‘alles streamt’, want sawol it wetter as de tiid streame mar troch en binne oanienwei yn beweging. Sûnder wetter is der gjin libben, likegoed as dat der sûnder tiid neat te ‘belibjen’ falt. Elke sin dy’t ik opskriuw hat syn ferrin yn de tiid nedich. Sels it begjin fan in melody kin ik net bûten de tiid sjonge. Foar alles wat wy sizze, tinke, dreame en dogge hawwe wy de tiid nedich om it gewaarwurde te kinnen, sa’t wy wetter nedich hawwe om yn libben te bliuwen.

Rivieren hâlde ús net allinnich yn libben, mar fertelle ús ek oer ús skiednis. Harren stream bepaalt wêr’t wy nei ta lutsen binne en wa’t wy dêr waarden. Yn alle oarsprongsmyten, sa as yn it mear as fjirtich iuwen âlde Gilgamesj-epos, streame majestueuze rivieren, dy’t it begjin én de ein fan alles yn oantinken roppe; se jouwe foarm oan ús spesifyk minsklike bewustwêzen fan tiid. Want wy hawwe sawol weet fan it ferline as ek in fermoeden fan de tiid dy’t noch net oanbrutsen is. Allegedueren situearje wy ússels sa yn de tiid, de foarbije en de takomstige, en steane wy yn de rivier, dy’t de metafoar is foar de minsklike kondysje.
‘It wetter fan de rivier datst mei dyn hân oanrekkest is it lêste dat foarby streamt en it earste dat deroan komt,’ skreau Leonardo da Vinci, ‘en sa is it ek mei de tiid.’ Oan de iggen fan de tiid nimme wy ôfskied fan de foarbije oeren, moannen en jierren en dreame wy oer de beloften dy’t de takomst noch foar ús ferburgen hâldt. Wy sjogge dêr dreamen, leafdes en idealen oan ús foarbykommen, mar wy witte ek dat der nei it belibbe ferlies wer in nije stream yn oantocht is. Gjin drip wetter is itselde en dêrom kinne wy noait ‘twa kear yn deselde rivier stappe’ (Heraclitus), mar dochs meitsje alle drippen meielkoar diel út fan ien en deselde stream.

As bern koe ik oeren achterinoar oan in sydrivierke fan de Amstel boartsje, dy’t troch de greiden tusken Ouderkerk en Amsterdam rint. Fan in brechje ôf smiet ik in tûke yn it wetter, om dêrnei hurd fuort te draven en fierderop yn it reid ôf te wachtsjen oant ‘myn’ tûke foarbystreame soe. Soms like dat wachtsjen einleas lang te duorjen en begûn ik my soargen te meitsjen oer myn tûke. Wêr wie er bleaun? As de tûke dan einlings yn sicht kaam, stie ik te jubeljen oan ’e wetterkant. Wêr kaam dy freugde wei? Freud miende dat bern harren boartersguod mei opsetsin fuortgoaie yn in besykjen om harren ferlittingseangst – it kommen en fuortgean fan âlden – de baas te wurden. Fuortgoaie en wer weromkrije, krekt salang oant wy mei it ôfskied omgean kinne. Meastal smiet ik noch wat bledsjes en blommen achter myn tûke oan, sadat er syn reis troch ‘it ûneinich leechlân’ net hielendal allinnich hoegde te ferfolgjen.

De rivier is foar safolle skriuwers in metafoar foar de tiid, dat Olivia Laing har yn har essay To the River ôffreget oft it noch tafal wêze kin dat de skriuwkeunst yn ’e buert fan de grutte rivieren – de Eufraat, Tigris en Nyl – ûntstien is. De útfining fan it skreaune wurd en de keunst fan it ferhalen fertellen waard om samar te sizzen ‘fuorre troch rivierwetter’. Wêr’t rivieren streame, wurde myten betocht, want wa’t skriuwt nimt in dûk yn de tiid. De rivier streamt net allinnich bûten ús om, as it lânskip dêr’t wy yn wêze en wurde kinne, mar is ek de ferbylding fan de inerlike tiid, oftewol, de rivier, dat binne wy ek sels.

‘De rivier is yn ús,’ skreau T.S. Eliot yn The Dry Salvages, it gedicht wêryn’t hy nei de simmers út syn jeugd, de eilannen foar de kust fan Cape Ann (Massachusetts) weromkeart. De rivier ‘wachtet, wekket en wachtet’, yn de wurden fan de dichter, en is ‘geduldich oan in hichte ta’. Warskôgje docht er ek, foar alle mooglike gefaren dy’t hy yn syn feart meinimt: ferriederlike streamen, mistflarden, ferdrinking. Rivieren jouwe in hiel spesifike tiid oan; net dy fan de klok, mar in tiid dy’t ‘âlder is, folle âlder as de tiid fan groanometers’. De rivier bringt ús yn ’t sin wat ‘wy ferkeazen te ferjitten’ en ropt in oare tiid yn it ûnthâld werom dy’t gjin rjochte line sjen lit, mar sirkels of lussen, wêrmei’t âld en nij, wat foarby is en wat komme sil, yn ien en deselde stream oanelkoar ferbûn wurdt.

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De measte simmers fan myn jeugd ha ik oan Frânske rivieren trochbrocht, de Loire, de Dordogne, mar foaral de Súd-Frânske rivier de Gard, op in camping dy’t flak neist it ferneamde, troch de Romeinen boude akwadukt lei. Wat mear tiid der sûnt dy simmers foarbygie, wat weemoediger ik weromtink oan it plak dat myn hiele fierdere libben as in Arkadië myn oantinkens kleure. De Gard wie destiids noch in ûnherberchsume streek fan ferlitten doarpen, smelle berchdykjes en skerpe Gorges, dêr’t mar hiel selden in kano trochhinne peddele. Ik ha de oantins bewarre oan it ljocht dat om it middeisskoft hinne sa skerp en helder wie, dat it rjochtstreeks út de himel like te kommen. Ik ha de oantins bewarre oan de sterke rook fan lavindel en wylde time, en de swiete harsrook fan de pynbeammen, dy’t in tapyt fan drûge nullen op ’e grûn delleinen en dwers troch ús espadrilles stutsen. Ik ha de oantins bewarre oan it sjongen fan de krikels en it rûzjen fan de rivier, as ik nachts allinnich yn myn tintsje lei.

It wersjen mei de rivier wie alle simmers in magysk momint. Sadree’t de auto ta stilstân kommen wie, sprongen wy derút en draafden nei de rots dy’t heech boppe de rivier útstuts. Utskroeven wiisden wy elkoar op elke lytste feroaring dy’t de rin fan ’e rivier yn de tiid fan ús alve moanne duorjende ôfwêzichheid ûndergien hie. Dêr wie it strân wat breder wurden, dêr wie in hiel ein ferdwûn, en dêr wie in nije rots omheechkommen. Alles wie oars, en dochs wie alles ek itselde. It wie noch altyd ús rivier, ús plak, ús simmer. Dêrnei draafden wy as berchgeiten oer de rotsen gau nei ûnderen, om einlings de lang ferwachte dûk yn it koele wetter te nimmen.

Alle dagen leinen wy yn it wetter, swommen wy fan de iene kant nei de oare en dobberen einleas fier op ús luchtbêden lâns de jungle fan ús deidreamen, wylst de iisfûgels flak foar ús eagen oer it wetter skearden. Ik hold fan it sjongende gerûs wêrmei’t de rivier him tusken de rotsen troch wrotte en fan de ierdske, grintachtige rook fan it wetter. Ik hold fan it útinoar spatten fan it ljocht op it wetteroerflak en fan de lichte eangst dy’t my bekroep as de stream my samar in eintsje meiskuorde. Ik hold fan de hjitte fan de sinne dy’t op myn skouders brânde en de frisheid fan it wetter, dy’t myn swittende hûd ferkuolle.

In jier as fiif lyn, flak nei’t ús heit stoarn wie, besleat ik werom te gean nei dat plak oan de rivier. Noait earder wie ik weromgien, mar ynienen koe ik net langer wachtsje en gie midden yn de winter op reis. Wêrom’t ik krekt dêrhinne woe, is in fraach dy’t ik yn myn roman Rivieren keren nooit terug (2019) besocht ha te beäntwurdzjen. Ik wraksele mei it rouproses, wist net goed wa’t ik no presys ferlern hie, in leafdefolle heit of in wanhopige koartkop, en hope dat der oan de iggen fan de Gard noch in pear oantinkens op my leinen te wachtsjen, dy’t my fertelle koenen wa’t dat famke west hie, dat sa frijmoedich fan de heechste rotsen dûkte en kear op kear de wetten fan har heit terge. Ik hope dat it wersjen mei de Gard de pine oer it ferlies fan myn heit fersêftsje kinne soe, want ik hold fan de rivier, dy’t ûntsachlik en driigjend wie, like woest as sêft, sa’t ik fan myn heit holden hie.

Nei in reis fan in goed wike, wêrby’t ik earst de rin fan de Cure en de Saône yn de Bourgogne, en dêrnei hiel stadich de Rhône-delte folge, kaam ik úteinlik oan by it plak oan it wetter dêr’t myn tinte al dy simmers stien hie. Mar de rivier dy’t ik hope werom te finen, bliek net mear te bestean. De tiid wie, krekt as de rivier, tritich jier fierder streamd en hie alles ûnwerkenber feroare. Ik koe de rivier net weromfine. Op it plak dêr’t earder de brede, fluchstreamende Gard wie, lei no in rotsplato, dêr’t inkeld noch in smelle wetterstream oerhinne sipele. It duorre in skoftsje foar’t ik my realisearre dat ik nei de boaiem fan de rivier stie te sjen, dêr’t ik foarhinne altyd oerhinne swommen hie. It grutste part fan it wetter hie him, krekt as de oantinkens oan de simmers fan myn jeugd, foargoed weromlutsen.

De ienris sa sterke en wylde rivier wie troch de oanlis fan in kearnsintrale in eintsje fierderop, dy’t kuolwetter nedich hie, net mear as in smelle beek wurden. Yn it frij lizzende rotsplato sieten slinken en bassins, wêryn’t brak wetter stie en plestik pûdsjes en oar swerfôffal har fêstheakke hienen. Ik fielde in ûnmjitlike spyt opkommen, spyt dat ik weromgien wie. Wêrom hie ik myn oantinkens net koestere yn plak fan se mei de werklikheid fan it no fergelykje te wollen? Wa’t syn oantinkens achternei reizget, wurdt al gau troch teloarstellingen ynhelle.
Wylst ik oan ’e râne fan de ferdwûne rivier stie, waard ik oerfallen troch weemoed, dy ivige stream fan libbens en leafdes, fan ôfskied en fuortgean, fan ‘o en foargoed foarby.’ Tritich jier letter stie ik oan deselde rivier, mar de tiid streamde de iene kant op en myn oantinkens de oare; se lieken neat mear meielkoar te krijen te hawwen. Ik seach ferwezen om my hinne en tommele yn de ôfgrûn fan de tiid, wêryn’t ik noch inkeld each yn each stie mei wat der allegear ferdwûn wie, de rivier, myn jeugd, myn heit.

In eintsje fierderop lâns de ûndjippe, traach fierder skolperjende beek, yn de rjochting fan it Romeinske akwadukt, waard it wetter, krekt foarby de bocht, wer justjes breder en djipper. Ik gie op in rotsblok sitten, rjochte myn blik op de oare kant, dêr’t de platanen en sipressen as eardere badmasters oan ’e râne stienen en seach doe in iisfûgel oer it wetter skearen. Dy wie der dus noch wol. Ut it felle blau fan syn fearren wei skeaten daliks bylden fan eartiids troch myn holle. De mei lavindelblommen fersierde tinte. De fjurkes dy’t wy op it grintstrân stookten. It swimmen yn de nacht.

Myn oantinkens wienen foar in part ek yn it lânskip opslein, al hoe’t dat ek feroare wie yn de tiid. Se slingeren tusken de mei grintstiennen en beamtûken bestruide rivierwâl en sieten noch altyd ergens tusken de blauwe fearren fan de iisfûgel ferburgen. Myn oantinkens wienen net allinnich ôfhinklik fan myn eigen gedachten, mar hienen har ek fêsthechte oan de bamboestâlen op it strân en de sânige rotsboaiem fan de rivier. Ik bliek net de iennige argivaris fan myn ûnthâld te wêzen.

Alle tiid dy’t foarbygien wie, en dy’t it lânskip foar my op in hast ûnwerkenbere wize feroare hie, lei noch ergens ûnderhûds yn my opslein, oan de iggen fan myn bewustwêzen, en hie inkeld in dûkflecht fan in iisfûgel nedich om wer boppe wetter te ferskinen. It ferline resonearret altyd mei yn elk nij eagenblik dat oanbrekt, hoe folslein oars oft him dat ek oan ús foardocht. Tiid is streamend wetter, mar ús oantinkens foarmje om samar te sizzen de boaiem, de lytse en gruttere grintstiennen, dêr’t de rivier syn wei lâns siket. Elk momint, elke drip, hat oer de boaiem fan it ferline skrabbe, oer de sêfte en de skerp útstekkende stiennen en hat dêr wat loswrotten en opnommen yn syn stream: in stikje moas, in kerl sân; dat allegear bepaalt it momint wêryn’t wy no binne.
Skriuwend oan de roman ha ik my fan de betizing en djippe mankelikens dy’t my nei it ferstjerren fan myn heit oerfoelen losmeitsje kinnen. It skriuwen skoep de needsaaklike ôfstân – en dus de romte en it ynsjoch – wêrtroch’t der in ferhaal ferteld wurde koe, dat in kontrapunt foarme foar it ferlies, en dêrmei de hoop ynlette foar in nij begjin. Ik ha ûnder it skriuwen mannich dûk nommen yn de rivier fan de simmers fan myn jeugd, en hânfollen grintstiennen fan de rivierboaiem fandele om dy dêrnei yn myn roman oer it wetter te keilen: ‘Al it fertriet kin dield wurde as it opnommen is yn in ferhaal,’ sa’t Isak Dinesen skreau.

Op de lêste dei fan myn ferbliuw oan de Gard ferkende ik de omkriten fan Uzès, dêr’t ûnderoan de heuvel de rivier de Eure ûntspringt. Ta myn ferrassing ûntduts ik yn de delte de boarne fan dy sydrivier fan de Gard. Foar dat sêfte, mineraalrike wetter fan de Eure hienen de Romeinen oait de Pont du Gard boud. Se laten it fia fernimstich oanleine wetterrillen lâns de heuvels nei de heechste ferdjiping fan it akwadukt, dêr’t it oan de tsientallen kilometers fierderop lizzende pronkstêd Nîmes ta ferfierd waard. Dy brêge foarme de kearn fan myn heugenissen oan it rivierelânskip fan myn jeugd. Simmer nei simmer hie ik dêr ûndertroch swommen, yn it djippe, donkere wetter, dat soms gefaarlik kolke, omheechsjend nei it machtige gebou boppe my, as oft ik dêrmei in ynkyk krige yn it machtige ferline foar my. Noait earder hie ik lykwols mei eigen eagen de rivier sjoen dy’t dêr iuwen lyn oerhinne laat waard. Ik wie dan wol in rivier kwyt rekke, de Gard fan myn jeugd, mar krige der ek in nijen by, de Eure. Dy ûntdekking late úteinlik ta ien fan de slotsênes fan myn roman Rivieren keren nooit terug, wêryn’t it froulike haadpersonaazje by tafal op de boarne fan de Eure stuitet:
‘Fan alle kanten waard de delte omsletten troch bergen en kalkrotsen. Se wie yn in komfoarmige wetterdelta, omjûn troch beammen, beken en ruïnes fan âlde wettermûnen en tuorren. Kwetterjen fan fûgels yn ’e beammen, flarden felblauwe loft dêrboppe. It wie in mytysk lânskip fan rotsen, wetter en lang ferfleine tiden, as strúnde se troch in skilderij fan Hercules Segers en wie sy de iensume kuierder by de rivier. Se stuts in stiennen brechje oer, it geraas fan wetter boaze oan, en doe stie se ynienen foar de boarne fan de Eure. It heldere boarnewetter buorrele foar har fuotten mei grutte krêft út de grûn omheech. Neat dat it wetter, dat al iuwenlang troch ûnderierdske marren en rivieren omheech dreaun waard, tsjinhâlde koe. Dy skittering fan wetter, tocht se, dat sûnder ophâlden streamen, ferbreedzjend of fersmellend, deselde rivier, mar dochs hieltyd wer oars. In rivier is op elk momint unyk en feroarlik, krekt as it libben, mar syn bestimming bliuwt úteinlik altyd deselde: de see. Wyld of kalm, smel of breed, elke rivier of beek hat in bestimming, en dêrmei ek in doel en in fanselssprekkendheid, wêrmei’t er him in wei troch it lânskip siket’ (s. 222).

Rivierdal, Hercules Segers, sa. 1626 – sa. 1630 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

‘When it hurts we return to the banks of certain rivers,’ Czesław Miłosz wrote. At the water, you can ‘send your soul beyond the mountains, beyond time,’ the Polish poet believed, and find comfort in the thought that everything does indeed pass, but it also comes back in a new form. We see what has just happened clearly, but what remains to be done pushes us, with an invisible hand, from behind. Almost imperceptibly the past and future alternate and only hold on for a single moment. A river is like the long ribbon of time: wild and cascading at times, calm and tranquil at other times, flowing away and towards us. You can relax on its banks and think about past events but also turn your thoughts to new prospects.

Thinking of Arcadia, I picture a landscape in which the gleaming surface of a river meanders through the hills and fields, on its way to the next village, the next town, where it is both a fleeting guest and a permanent inhabitant. I love river landscapes, whether walking through them myself or seeing them in paintings by Ruysdael, Segers or Rembrandt. A river gives your gaze something to hold on to as it roams over the landscape. Your eyes automatically follow the course of the water, which a little later also carries your thoughts in its flow. The rivers in the etchings and paintings of seventeenth-century Dutch painter Hercules Segers, which flow past rocky hills and ruins, evoke melancholy as well as wonder and hope. The few wanderers we come across in the stunning river landscapes Segers contrives are incorporated into and embraced by the beauty of the river landscape. The river seems to remind them that each drop of water contains the secret of the entire universe.

As a child I dreamed of becoming a bridge keeper like my great-grandfather, who spent his whole life keeping watch over a bridge across the IJssel. To me it seemed like the best job in the world. Living, working and sleeping in a little house on the waterfront, with the river always in view, opening the landscape for me every morning anew. The constant change of the light on the scaly surface. Always being surrounded by the murmuring sound of streaming water, opening a bridge every now and then, and simply dreaming a bit and reading books for the rest.

An Arcadia without rivers isn’t one.

Since antiquity rivers haven’t only been associated with vitality but also with time. Pantha rei, Heraclitus’ famous aphorism, means ‘everything flows’ because both water and time flow continuously and are constantly in motion. As there is no life without water, there is nothing to experience without time. Every sentence I write needs its passage in time. I can’t sing even the start of a melody outside time. We need time to be able to experience everything we say, think, dream and do, as we need water to stay alive.

Apart from keeping us alive, rivers tell us about our history. Their flow determined where we settled and who we became there. In all origin myths, such as the over four-thousand-year-old Gilgamesh epic, majestic rivers flow, calling to mind the start and end of everything; they shape our specific human sense of time. For we are both aware of the past and have a notion of the time yet to come. We continuously situate ourselves like this in time, between the past and future, and we stand in the river, which is the metaphor for the human condition.

‘The water you touch in a river is the last of that which has passed, and the first of that which is coming,’ wrote Leonardo da Vinci, ‘thus it is with time present.’ On the banks of time, we bid farewell to the hours, months and years passed and we dream of the prospects the future holds in store. We see dreams, romances and ideals pass us by, but we know too that after suffering a loss a new flow is on its way. No two drops of water are the same and so we can never ‘step into the same river twice’ (Heraclitus), and yet all the drops together are part of the same flow.

As a child I could spend many hours playing on a small tributary of the Amstel, which flows between the meadows separating Amsterdam from Ouderkerk aan de Amstel. From a bridge I would throw a stick into the water before scampering off to a reed bed further along, where I would wait for ‘my’ stick to float past. The wait sometimes seemed endlessly long, and I started worrying about my stick. Where had it got to? When the stick eventually did appear, I would jump for joy next to the water. Why such exultation? Freud thought that children threw away their toys on purpose to overcome their separation anxiety – the coming and going of parents. Discarding and retrieving, until we can deal with the parting. I would usually toss some leaves and flowers after my stick so it wouldn’t have to continue its journey alone through the ‘endless lowlands’.

So many writers have used the river as a metaphor for time that Olivia Laing wonders in her essay To the River whether it is coincidence that the art of writing came into being in the vicinity of great rivers – the Euphrates, Tigris and Nile. The invention of the written word and the art of storytelling were as it were ‘nourished by river water’. Myths are dreamed up where rivers flow because when you write you are taking a plunge in time. The river doesn’t only flow outside us, like the landscape in which we can be and become, it is also the representation of inner time – that is, the river is also within ourselves.

‘The river is within us,’ T.S. Eliot wrote in The Dry Salvages, the poem – named after a group of islands off the coast of Cape Anne, Massachusetts – in which he returns to his childhood summers. The river is ‘waiting, watching and waiting,’ in the words of the poet, and is ‘patient to some degree’. He also warns us of all the possible dangers it brings: treacherous currents, silent fog and drowning. Rivers indicate a specific kind of time, not clock time, but ‘a time older than the time of chronometers.’ The river reminds us ‘what men chose to forget’ and recalls another time, not manifested in a straight line but in circles or loops, in which old and new, what has passed and what is to come are connected in a single flow.

*

Most of my childhood summers were spent on French rivers, the Loire, the Dordogne and especially the southern-French Gard, at a campsite near the famous aqueduct built by the Romans. As time has gone by since those summers, I have looked back more and more wistfully at that place, which has coloured my memories my whole life as an Arcadia. The Gard was still an inhospitable region at the time, with deserted villages, narrow mountain roads and craggy gorges, where canoes only rarely ventured. I remember the light which was so sharp and clear at noon that it seemed to come directly from heaven. I remember the penetrating aroma of lavender and wild thyme, and the sweet scent of resin from the pines, which dropped a carpet of dry pine needles on the ground that pierced straight through our espadrilles. I remember the singing of the crickets and the gurgling of the river when I lay alone in my little tent.

Seeing the river again every summer was a magical moment. As soon as the car came to a halt we leapt out and ran to the rock towering high above the river. Elated, we would point out the smallest change the course of the river had undergone in our eleven-month absence. The riverbank had grown a little wider here; an entire section had disappeared there; and a new rock had appeared over there. Everything was different and yet everything was also the same. It was still always our river, our place, our summer. Then like mountain goats we would scuttle over the rocks down to the bottom, finally having our long-awaited dive into the cool water.

We were in the water every day, where we swam from bank to bank and floated endlessly past the jungle of our daydreams, while kingfishers skimmed over the water right in front of us. I loved the lilting burble of the river coursing between the rocks and the earthy and gravelly smell of the water. I loved how the light fragmented on the surface of the water and the slight fear that came over me when the current unexpectedly dragged me along for a bit. I loved the heat of the sun which burnt my shoulders and the freshness of the water which cooled my sweaty skin.

About five years ago, shortly after the death of my father, I decided to return to that place on the river. I had never been back, but then I couldn’t wait any longer and undertook the journey in mid-winter. Why exactly I wanted to go back is a question I tried to answer in my novel Rivers Never Return (2019). I was struggling with the mourning process, I didn’t know exactly who I had lost – a loving father or a frantic hothead – and I hoped that a few memories would await me on the banks of the Gard which could tell me who that girl had been, who so confidently dived from the highest rocks and time and again defied her father’s decrees. I hoped that seeing the Gard again would soften the pain of losing my father because I loved the river, which was grand and threatening, savage as it was gentle, as I had loved my father.

After a journey of more than a week, first following the course of the Cure and the Saône in Burgundy and then sedately going down the Rhone valley, I finally arrived at the place next to the water where my tent had stood all those summers. But the river I had hoped to find again no longer existed. Time, like the river, had flowed on by thirty years and changed everything beyond recognition. I couldn’t find the river. The place where the broad, fast-streaming Gard had flowed was now a rocky plateau, with only a slender rivulet trickling over it. Some time went by before I realised that I was looking at the riverbed, above which I had always swum. Most of the water, like the memories of my childhood summers, had vanished for good.

A little upstream a nuclear power plant had been built, and its appetite for cooling water had reduced the once mighty and wild river to no more than a narrow stream. On the exposed plateau there were gullies and pools, containing brackish water in which plastic bags and other litter had been caught. I felt immense regret rising – regret that I had come back. Why hadn’t I cherished my memories instead of wanting to confront them with the present? When you chase after your memories you soon meet with disappointment. Standing on the banks of the vanished river I was overcome by melancholy, that eternal flow of lives and love, parting and departure, of something being well and truly over and done with. Thirty years later I was standing on the banks of the same river, but time had flowed in one direction and my memories in another; they seemed to have nothing to do with each other. I looked about in a daze and tumbled into the abyss of time, where I only came face to face with everything that was gone – the river, my childhood, my father.

A bit further towards the Roman aqueduct, just around the bend, the water in the low, slow-moving brook grew a little broader and deeper. Perching on a boulder, I gazed towards the far side, where the plane trees and cypresses stood on the banks like erstwhile pool lifeguards, and I saw a kingfisher skim over the water. So, they were still here. The cerulean blue of its feathers prompted images of the past to flash through my mind. The tent adorned with lavender flowers. The fires we made on the pebble beach. Swimming at night.

My memories were also partly stored in the landscape, however much it had changed over time. They twisted around the riverbank strewn with pebbles and branches and were hidden somewhere in the kingfisher’s blue plumage. My memories weren’t only dependent on my own thoughts but had also clung to the bamboo shoots on the beach and the sand and rocks on the riverbed. I discovered that I wasn’t the sole archivist of my memory.

All the time that had passed, and that had almost unrecognisably changed the landscape before me, was stored somewhere beneath the surface in me, at the edges of my consciousness; it merely needed a kingfisher’s dive to emerge. The past always resonates with each new moment that comes, as completely different as they might appear to us. Time is flowing water, and our memories are the riverbed as it were, the smaller and larger pebbles the river runs past. Every moment, every drop, has scraped along the riverbed of the past, over smooth and sharp-edged stones, and has churned up and absorbed something of this in its flow: a scrap of moss, a grain of sand; all of it determines the moment we are in now.

While writing the novel I was able to extricate myself from the confusion and deep melancholy that had overcome me after my father’s death. Writing created the distance – and so the space and insight – needed to tell a story, which represented a counterpoint to my loss, and this heralded the hope for a new beginning. As I was writing I took many dips in the river of my childhood summers and collected handfuls of pebbles from the riverbed and then skimmed them on the water in my novel: ‘All sorrows can be borne, if you put them in a story,’ as Isak Dinesen wrote.

On the last day of my stay on the Gard I explored the area around Uzès, which is on a hill above the source of the river Alzon. To my surprise I discovered the source of this tributary of the Gard in the valley. For the soft, mineral-rich water of the Alzon the Romans built the Pont du Gard. They transported it through ingeniously constructed water channels to the highest level of the aqueduct, and it was carried some fifty kilometres to the magnificent city Nîmes. This bridge was at the heart of my memories of my childhood river landscapes. Summer after summer I had swum beneath it, in the deep dark water, which sometimes swirled dangerously, looking up at the immense edifice above me, as though in doing so I was gazing at the immense past. But I had never seen with my own eyes the river that had been diverted over it centuries ago. I might have lost a river, the Gard of my childhood, but I had found a new one, the Alzon. This discovery eventually resulted in one of the closing scenes of my novel Rivers Never Return, in which the female protagonist stumbles on the source of the Alzon:

‘On all sides the valley is bounded by mountains and limestone cliffs. She found herself in a bowl-shaped delta, surrounded by trees, brooks and ruins of old watermills and towers. Chirping birds in the trees, above them snippets of bright-blue sky. It was a mythical landscape of rocks, water and times past, as though she were wandering through a Hercules Seger painting and she was the lonely wanderer at the river. She crossed a small stone bridge; the roaring water grew louder, and she suddenly found herself standing in front of the source of the Alzon. Out of the ground in front of her feet, the clear spring water bubbled up forcefully. Nothing could stem the water, which had been thrust up for centuries by underground lakes and rivers. This resplendence of water, she thought, this uninterrupted flow, broadening or narrowing, the same river, and yet always different. A river is singular and changeable, like life, but in the end its destination is always the same: the sea. Wild or calm, narrow or wide, every river or stream has a destination, and with it a purpose with which it seeks a way through the landscape.’ (p. 222)

River Valley, Hercules Segers, c. 1626 – c. 1630 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

Einlings begjint de moarnsdize fuort te lûken en sjoch ik foar de earste kear dat de rotsen om my hinne har as in soarte fan seemeunster ôftekenje op it oerflak fan de Stille Súdsee. In lange ûnrigelmjittige rige swartige stiennen mei grillige foarmen en fan ûnderskate grutte. It rif strekt him út fan it westen nei it easten. De kolossale stien dêr’t ik op stean, foarmet de westlike grins fan de rotsbank en leit noch gjin tritich fiemen fan it plak dêr’t myn sylboat sonken is. De see moat dêr hiel djip wêze want der is neat mear te sjen fan myn skip, sels net de toppen fan de mêst. Miskyn is er ûnder wetter wol fan in steile rots nei ûnderen gliden en sa de djipte yn sleurd.

Der is gjin doarp of hûs te sjen. Mar it is lân en ik stean op it punt dit lân te betrêdzjen. Ik fal op de grûn en slaan de fingers yn it sân. De útputting hat my kompleet útsûge. Boppe myn holle blinke palmtoppen.
Stadich krûp ik.

Wiken lizze no efter my, oanhâldend speurde en sneupte ik om op dit eilân, mar fûn gjin inkeld spoar fan in doarpke of sels mar fan in stik as wat huzen. Gjin inkelde reekplom yn ’e loft dy’t op ’e oanwêzigens fan minsken wize koe. Gjin minaret of tsjerketoer, dy’t earne boppe-út stuts, gjin wynmole op in ferlitten heuvelskant, neat. Sels gjin klinte of in wigwam, hielendal neat! As hjir minsken wenje, dan kin dat allinnich mar ûnder de grûn wêze, want boppegrûns is gjin inkeld minsklik spoar te finen.
Ik bin hjir folslein allinne, leafste. Ik soe sa graach hjir tegearre mei dy wêze wolle, allinne mei dy. Wannear komsto?

Alle dagen, by de gloede fan ’e tuoljende sinne, skriuw ik dy in brief.
Steesoan freegje ik dy, smeek ik dy, datst nei my ta komst.

Ik fertel dy hoe’t ik foar de safolste kear de heechste berch beklim, fan ’e top ôf oer see stean te sjen, yn ’e hope op in skip, mar hieltyd net wit oft it no werklikheid is of ferbylding as ik yn ’e milenfiere fierte in ûnskerp boppe-ein fan in sylmêst waarnim, en dan yn al myn opteinens aloan mar dikerje en dikerje, krekt sa lang oant my de eagen sear dogge, om dêrop wer ûntgûchele oan te sjen hoe’t de (ynbylde) sylmêst fager wurdt en stadich út it eachweid ferdwynt. Ik fertel dy hoe’t ik troch de knibbels gean en op ’e grûn fal en as in bern skokkerich begjin te skriemen. Ik mis dy, ik mis dy sa bot.

Alles fertel ik dy, alles wat ik meimeitsje. Alles wat ik sjoch en fiel skriuw ik op, yn ’e baarnende hope dat it dy berikt. Oer dat hopeleas mislearre besykjen om te ûntsnappen. Hoe’t ik moedeleas weromkaam fan dy fatale kanotocht en mei in hast-dea-erfaring efter de rêch ôfmêde yn sliep tommele yn myn hutsje en koart dêrnei wekker skrok fan in stimme dy’t sei: ‘Adam, doch watsto dwaan moatst.’
Dat wie gjin minske dy’t my taspruts, wis net – dy stimme moat fan God wêze.

Ik ferhelje dy oer de geheime skatten fan dit eilân, dêr’t God my oanspiele liet. Ik fertel dy oer de baai dy’t sierlik útrint yn in sânige lântonge fol sniewite koraalbanken. Asto hjir bist, sil ik op ’e syk nei swietrokige blommen en krûden om foar dy in alderhearlikst parfum te destillearjen. Ik lis in kofjeplantaazje oan, planten wêrfan’t it glânzich grien toaid is mei wite, swiete blommen en de tûken omhongen binne mei brúnreade beannen. De oanfallen fan griene mychhimmels trotsearjende, plôkje ik de beannen, helje it fruchtfleis derôf en lit de pitten drûgje yn ’e sinne. Mei sean wetter trek ik de aldertreflikste kofje. Ik sil riere yn dyn mok en krekt sa lang priuwe, hieltyd in bytsje sûker tafoegjend, oant de kofje swiet genôch is.

Alle moarnen strún ik mei in angel en in netsje fan seewier by de wâl del fan in kreek, ferburgen troch in seam fan ticht strewelleguod. Alle dagen fang ik sappige fisk foar dy.

Ik ûntdek swaarmen tsjoitsjende swellen, hauken, bijen, flinters, skyldpodden, krobben, huningsippende fûgels, tsjotterjende fjoerfinken, swevelgiele kaketoes, ytbere skulpen. Ek tref ik in keppel wylde geiten oan op ’e heuvels (it is in poepetoer om molke oan har te ûntfytmanjen!) en in espeltsje reuzeskyldpodden mei hearlike, streksume aaien.

Omjûn troch guirlandes en slingerplanten dy’t har yn wide bôgen tusken de beammen kronkelje, reitsje ik betûft yn allegear ambachten. Fan readbakt ierdewurk nifelje ik in tabakspiip yninoar, ik hak hout, ik ferbou riis en graan, meitsje fjoer mei buskrût, flechtsje kuorren, sjit geiten, strûp se, holje in beamstam út ta in kano, timmerje in klinte, kerf streepkes yn in peal om de dagen by te hâlden. Ach, wat soe ik dy graach dy hearlike ambachten bybringe wolle!

In eilân omearmje is net neat. Moatst derfoar fjochtsje, derfoar bliede. Mar wannear’t ik as in salamander yn myn rotshoale skûlje en by jûn de sâltige wyn syn toanen fluitsjen hear, dan wit ik datsto meikoarten by my wêze silst en dat dan alles goed is.

Wy ferbouwe tegearre in stik lân, wy hâlde skiep en lammen, lâns it strân sykje ik ytbere skulpen en yn de tûzenen rotsspelonken fyn ik fûgelnêsten mei de treflikste aaien, dy’t ik foar dy meibringe sil.
Yn de waarme tiid fan it jier rinsto út as in anjer yn myn earms en yn ’e kâlde winters skûlje wy yn ús klinte mei in selsmakke houtkachel. Jûns skepsto in klont geitefet yn in panne, setst de pûlen op it fjoer en dochst it lid derop. Mei ús lytse poppe op ’e rêch bûn, skoddest de pûlen om.

Ik meitsje foar ús koeken fan gerstemoal. Ik roasterje riis yn in ierden pot. Wy genietsje fan ús miel by in ferkwikjende seelucht.

Jûns kuierje ik mei bleate fuotten yn it waarme sân.
Op in eilân is de moanne altyd grutter en binne de stjerren talriker. Dei en nacht dream ik fan dy, ik dream fan ús kuiers yn it moanneljocht. Lizzend yn it sân, dikerjend nei de hoarizon dream ik fuort, wachtsjend op dyn kommen.

Ik ûndersykje elke kante meter, beklim tûzenris de heuvels en steande op ’e top genietsje ik fan skitterjende panorama’s dy’t alle dagen wer in oare foarm en kleur oannimme. Soms oerfalle my nachtmerjes oer kannibalen dêr’t ik tsjin fjochtsje, dan wer binne it wylde bisten dy’t my achterfolgje (en dy’t ik der soms útrin). By it fjoer fan kearsestompen bring ik dy ferslach út. Oant djip yn ’e nacht. Oant ik fan dea-ynein wêzen omfal. Ik fal yn sliep mei it lûd fan weagen en sjongfûgels en ik wurd wekker by it lûd fan weagen en sjongfûgels. Ik kin net wachtsje oant wy teagearre yn sliep falle by dy lûden.

De sinne is gleon en de rein somtiden lazerich. Ik nifelje in parasol foar dy, dy’tst yninoar klappe kinst en ûnder de earm drage. Ik oerdek him mei bistefellen, mei it hier oan ’e boppekant dat de rein derôf glide kin as fan in luifel.

Tûzenen seeswellen lizze har aaien tusken de glinsterjende koraalbrokken. Swellen dy’t har eigen jong ûnder de tûzenen yn foarm en kleur folslein gelikense piken feilleas weromkenne. Sa soe ik ek díj weromkenne, blyn, út miljoenen.

De suvere lucht, de tinteljende see fol treflike fisk, de griene heuvelkanten fol amandelblossems, kofjebeammen en mangobeammen, it wite sân, de swiete rook fan blommen en bananen, it fan dau drippend gers yn ’e moarntiid, it glânzjende poarper yn ’e jûntiid … en alle dagen de glim fan ûnfersteurde frede.
Kom dochs, leafste, kom. Ik wachtsje op dy.

Fanôf dat de sinne de heuveltoppen mei gleon giel oerjit oant it momint dat er yn fjoerread ûndergiet, stiet dit ryk ta ús foldwaan. Wat in kalmte sûnder soargen!

De gjirrichste nepert fan ’e wrâld soe op dit plakje fuortdaalk fan syn habsucht genêze. Hy kin him kroane litte ta kening fan de hiele lânsdouwe en nimmen dy’t dat ûntstride kin, mar it ferlet oan dy titel is der domwei net: der bestiet ommers gjin macht. Der is gjin baas of feint. Der is gjin jild, gjin goud. Alles is gearsmolten ta ien kalme, wollûdende biotoop.
Hjir is de frede útfûn, leave.

Myn faam, myn ûnbeflekt, ûnfergriemd, ûnbewenne herntsje ierde midden op see, folslein frij fan minsklike smoargens en plompheid, leaflik yn syn blêdrike kleed en ryk yn syn fruchtberens. Hjir wol ik mei dy wêze, leafste. Hjir sille wy bern meitsje, in húshâlden begjinne. Hjir, yn dit nije, lytse, net te trochkringen ryk te midden fan it ivige blau, en ûnder in sinne dy’t ûnferskillich foar de drôvens fan ’e wrâd alle jûnen syn tûzenen poarperen tinten oer ús útstoart. Hjir, leave, hjir begjinne wy in nij folk. In nij minskdom.

Stadichoan sjoch ik it.
Stadichoan omearmje ik it.
Dit godfergetten eilân.
Fier fuort, híél fier fuort op see. In stik ûnbedoarne ierde, mei rûzjende palmen en paradysfûgels dy’t de himel ynkleurje en wêr’t de weagen op ’e rotsen slane en de branning by ûndergeande sinne prismatysk eksplodearret. It moaiste en fredichste plak op ierde.
Stadichoan sjoch ik it. Stadichoan begryp ik it.
Wy hearre by-inoar, leafste. Wy foarmje in eilân, dit eilân. Hjir leit ús lok. Hjir, krekt hjir, wol ik mei dy de skepping oerdwaan, Eva. Komsto?

Dyn Adam

At last the morning mist begins to disperse and for the first time I see the rocks around me standing out like a kind of sea monster against the surface of the Pacific. A long, irregular row of blackish stones in wayward shapes and varying sizes. The reef stretches from west to east. The colossal stone on which I’m standing forms the western border of the bank of rocks and lies not thirty fathoms from the place where my sailing ship sank. The sea there must be extremely deep, as there is nothing more to be seen of my ship, not even the tips of the mast. Perhaps once under water it slid downwards off a steep rock and was thus carried into the depths.

There is no village or house to be seen. But it is land and I am about to enter it. I fall to the ground and beat my fingers in the sand. The effort has utterly drained me. Above my head gleam the crowns of palm trees.
I crawl along slowly.

Weeks now lie behind me, I have searched and snuffled tirelessly around this island but found no sign of a settlement, not even the odd dwelling here or there. Not a single plume of smoke in the air that might point to the presence of human beings. No minaret or bell tower standing out, no mill on an abandoned hillside, nothing. Not even a hut or a wigwam, nothing whatsoever! If humans live here, it could only be underground, as above ground there is no trace of them to be found.
I am completely alone here, my dearest. I would so love to be here with you, alone with you. When are you coming?

Every day, in the glow of the setting sun, I write you a letter.
I keep on asking you, begging you, to come to me.

I tell you I’m climbing the highest mountain yet again, that I’m looking out from the summit at the sea, in the hope of seeing a ship, but each time I’m unsure whether it’s reality or fantasy when I discern the tip of a mast in the far distance, and then, in great excitement, I continue staring and staring, until my eyes hurt, only to watch in disillusionment as the (imagined) mast fades and slowly disappears. I tell you how I sink to my knees and fall to the ground and begin to sob like a child. I miss you, I miss you so much.

I tell you everything, everything I experience. Everything I see and feel I write down, in the fervent hope that it will reach you. That hopelessly failed attempt to escape. How I returned despondent from that fatal canoe journey and, with a near-death experience behind me, fell asleep in my little hut, completely spent, and shortly afterwards awoke with a shock to a voice saying: ‘Adam, do what you have to.’
This was no human speaking to me, certainly not – this must have been the voice of God.

I regale you with tales of the secret treasures of this island where God washed me up. I tell you about the bay which ends elegantly in a sandy tongue covered in lily-white coral banks. When you’re here, I will forage for fragrant flowers and herbs to distil a delightful perfume for you. I’ll start a coffee plantation, plants whose gleaming green is studded with white, sweet flowers, branches hung with brownish-red beans. Braving the attack of green ants, I’ll pick the beans, remove the flesh of the fruit and dry the pits in the sun. With boiled water I’ll brew the most exquisite coffee. I’ll stir your mug and keep tasting, each time adding a little sugar, until the coffee is sweet enough.

Every morning I’ll stroll with my fishing rod and net of seaweed along the banks of a creek, hidden by a seam of dense thicket. Every day I’ll catch succulent fish for you.

I discover flights of chorusing swallows, goshawks, bees, butterflies, tortoises, beetles, honey-sipping birds, trilling firefinches, sulphur-yellow cockatoos, edible shellfish. I also encounter a herd of wild goats in the hills (it’s quite a trek to worm some milk out of them!) and a collection of giant tortoises with delicious, nourishing eggs.
Surrounded by garlands and creepers which twist in wide arcs between the trees, I become skilled in all kinds of crafts. With terracotta clay I fashion a tobacco pipe, I cut wood, I cultivate rice and grain, make fire with gunpowder, plait baskets, shoot goats, flay them, hollow out a tree trunk to make a canoe, construct a hut, carve lines into a pole to keep track of the days. Ach, how I would love to impart these wonderful crafts to you!

Embracing an island is no small thing. You have to fight and bleed for it. But when I hide like a salamander in my cave and hear the whistling tones of the salty evening wind, then I know that you will soon be with me and that all is well.

Together we’ll cultivate a stretch of land, we’ll keep sheep and lambs, along the beach I’ll look for edible shellfish and in the thousands of caves among the rocks I’ll find birds’ nests with the most delicious eggs, which I will bring back for you.
In the warm seasons you’ll bloom in my arms and in the cold winters we’ll take shelter in our little hut with the wood stove we’ve built. In the evenings you’ll throw a knob of goat fat into a pan, place pea pods on the heat and cover them with a lid. With our baby bound to your back you’ll shake the peas around.

I’ll make us biscuits from barley flour. I’ll cook rice in an earthenware pot. We’ll enjoy our meal in the invigorating sea air.

In the evenings I walk barefoot on the warm sand.
On an island the moon is always bigger and the stars more numerous. Day and night I dream of you, I dream of our walks in the moonlight. Lying in the sand, staring at the horizon, I dream away, awaiting your arrival.

I explore every square metre, climb the hills thousands of times and standing on the top I enjoy stunning panoramas which take on a different shape and colour every day. Sometimes I’m overcome by nightmares about fighting cannibals or being pursued by wild beasts (which I sometimes manage to elude).
By candlelight I report it all to you. Until deep in the night. Until I’m so exhausted I can no longer remain upright. I fall asleep to the sound of waves and songbirds and awake to the sound of waves and songbirds. I cannot wait until we fall asleep to these sounds together.

The sun is hot and the rain sometimes relentless. I’ll craft a parasol for you, which you can fold up and carry under your arm. I’ll cover it with animal hides, with the hair on top so that the rain can run off as it does from a roof.

Thousands of sea swallows lay their eggs among the glistening chunks of coral. Swallows who unfailingly recognise their own young among thousands of creatures identical in shape and colour. In the same way I would recognise you, blind, among millions.

The clean air, the sea tingling with delicious fish, the green slopes covered in almond blossom, coffee trees and mango trees, the white sand, the sweet fragrance of flowers and bananas, the dew-dripping grass at dawn, the shining purple dusk … and every day the smile of undisturbed peace.
Come to me, my darling, come. I’m waiting for you.

From the time the sun pours its yellow glow over the hilltops to the moment it sets in fiery red, this kingdom is at our disposal. What carefree calm!

In this place the most voracious miser in the world would instantly be cured of his greed. He can crown himself king of the whole region, with no one to dispute his claim, but the need for such a title is simply absent: after all, no power exists. There is no boss or servant. There is no money, no gold. Everything fuses into a single, calm, harmonious biotope.
This is where peace was invented, my love.

My maiden. My immaculate, untouched, uninhabited patch of earth amidst the sea, entirely free of human blot and blundering, lovely in its copiously leafy robes and abundantly fertile. I want to be here with you, my love. Here we will make children, start a family. Here, in this new, small, impenetrable kingdom amidst the eternal blue, and under a sun which, indifferent to the world’s sorrows, pours thousands of shades of purple over us each evening. Here, my darling, here we will begin a new people. A new humanity.

Slowly I see it.
Slowly I embrace it.
This godforsaken island.
Far away, so far away at sea. A patch of unspoilt earth, with waving palms and birds of paradise which colour the sky, where the waves hit the rocks and the foam forms a prismatic explosion in the setting sun. The most beautiful and most peaceful place on earth.
Slowly I see it. Slowly I understand it.
We belong together, my love. We form an island, this island. Here lies our happiness. Here, precisely here, I want to recreate creation, Eve. Are you coming?

Yours,
Adam

Shakespeare, dakleas, skrabet de kiel. It lytse selskip, dat al neat sei, falt stil. Dat jout Shakespeare gelegenheid om te bearen as sjocht er skichtich om him hinne. Dan nimt er it wurd, dat er eins al hat fan it stuit ôf dat er de kiel begûn te skraabjen.

Mar wit net wat er sizze moatte. Hâldt him de mûle. Skrabet de kiel op ’e nij, no sûnder betsjutting.

It lytse selskip is by-inoar yn in parkeargaraazje by in supermerk. Om de tiid troch te kommen. Om elkoar te fertellen oer de wrâld dêr’t se allegear yn omstappe. Omhingje, op betonnen muorkes sitte of tsjin parkearde auto’s oan leune. De rein falt út ’e himel, de wyn blaast in diel dêrfan nei binnen. Wiete betonnen flier. In trochinoar fan opwaaid ôffal achter de auto’s en de pylders. Ferpakkingsmaterialen, blikjes, mûlkapkes.

Dan freget Wittgenstein, ek dakleas, oft er in ferhaal fertelle mei. En set drektst útein:

‘Wylst der ûnder in bisteshow tusken de kninen in lyk fûn wurdt, hâldt de regisseur in foarbykommer tsjin. Hy wol wat sizze, mar der komt noch in oare regisseur oanrinnen. Dy ropt, as hat er in oerwinning behelle: Ik hie dochs sein dat ik it net ferjitte soe? Hjir bin ik dan! Yn de gong by de sliepkeamer. Dat hie ik dy noch sizze moatten: it ferhaal spilet yn in sliepkeamer. En foar in diel yn de gong by de sliepkeamer. Dêr is hy dan. En dêr steane âlde argyfkasten mei yn de laden de skibbige klean út eardere tiden. Lûk sa’n laad iepen en sjochst broeken dêr’tst noch yn fervje kinst en ûnderguod dêr’tst poetslapen fan meitsje kinst. En yn in oar laad: skuon dy’tst yn de beammen hingje kinst, as nêstkastkes foar de fûgels.’

No kriget it selskip besite fan in ûnthjittende mar wat ôfwêzige choreograaf. Dy rint yn in strakke line oer it beton, hâldt syn gong yn by ien fan de pylders, stiet stil by it opinoar taaste ôffal. Makket in heale draai op syn steanskonk, lûkt syn frije skonk by.
Hjir hie ik wol even in foto fan meitsje wollen, seit Diderot, ek dakleas.

Der begjint in rêstige koelens it tafereel yn te streamen.
Soest hast net sizze dat dizze wrâld in hel is. Yn de huzen yn de omjouwing fan de parkeargaraazje sitte de bewenners nei harren laptops te sjen en op harren tillefoans, en hoopje dat der ien wat slims sein hat. As it hiel slim is, reagearje se. Harren kanonnen skelle derop los.

In wethâlder fynt de krêft om har laptop ticht te dwaan, en begjint nei te tinken oer de taspraak dy’t se moarn hâlde moat. Se debattearret op ferûngelike toan mar altyd mei ynmoed. Dêrom hat se der ek nocht oan om har ta te rieden. Se tinkt nei oer foardielen en neidielen, fan wat dan ek, en dat neamt se: har stânpunten oerwaagje. En se lûkt har selsstannichste gesicht, ek as gjinien sjocht. Dan giet se nei har badkeamer om yn de spegel te sjen. Restanten fan har idealen binne op de ien of oare manier noch sichtber. Hoe? Faaks is it de lichte dusoarder fan har hier. Of is it de lêsbril, dy’t se achteleas op har hier set hat, as in merkwurdich diadeem. Wat te tinken fan de subsidiearre wynmûneparken? Fan de subsidiearre megastâlen? Fan de subsidiearre datasintrums? Fan de fergese bedrigings dy’t de sosjale media op har ôffjurje?
Healweis har oerwagings kommen, befynt se har net mear yn har badkeamer. Se wit net wêr’t se is. Se byldet har yn dat se foar twa by-inoar pleatste megastâlen stiet en harket nei it sûzjen fan tweintich wynmûnen. Se sit yn gedachten yn it gemeentehûs en peilt de stimming fan de boargemaster. Se fielt har in influencer. Se sit achter har laptop en wol in redefiering skriuwe. Mar der is gjin regisseur dy’t seit: doch it.

In Unbekinde rydt op syn brommer de parkeargaraazje yn. Rydt in rûntsje, jout gas en rydt de skeante op dy’t nei de earste ferdjipping laat. Rydt in rûntsje op de earste ferdjipping, jout gas en feegde troch nei de twadde ferdjipping. Wêr’t Shakespeare, Wittgenstein en Diderot yn petear binne mei de choreograaf, se neame him Noerejev. En meidat Noerejev net goed stilstean kin, is it hiele selskip oerein kommen. Se steane allegear wat hinne en wer te beweegjen. Harren steanskonken feroarje yn spylskonken wylst harren spylskonken steanskonken wurde. Ek de jonge dakleaze Van Gogh, dy’t him yn it petear byfoege hat, lykas syn maat de noch jongere dakleaze Scarlatti. En de oant no ta swijsume mar rûnom wurdearre Tesselschade.

En dêr komt de Unbekinde oan op syn brommer. Remmet ôf, jout wylst er ôfremmet noch in pear kear gas om leven te meitsjen, stiet no stil en set syn motor út.
Diderot freget: ‘Wat silsto hjir dwaan?’
De Unbekinde seit: ‘Allo, ik bin Jean-Henry. D’Anglebert. Ek yn Arkadië hearskje ik. Of lit my sizze: ik haw der ek west. Nee, better, ik haw der ek altyd west. Ik bin sa te sizzen yn de wrâld mar ek yn Arkadië. Foar my is dat itselde.’
Dat lêste is gjin folsin, it is in sucht.

Guon bewenners fan de huzen yn de omjouwing binne no foar har ruten stean gien, dy’t útsjogge op ’e wrâld. Se sjogge op nei de loft boppe de supermerk en de parkeargaraazje. Se hawwe har laptop tichtklapt en har tillefoantsjes omkeard dellein op har tafels. Se warskôgje inoar mei gebearen. Guozzen fleane oer, in ûnstabile V dy’t rjocht op in ûnbekend doel ôf fleant. En de lûden dy’t dyen foar inoar meitsje, wurde ek heard troch de dakleazen yn de parkeargaraazje. De choreograaf, ek regisseur, hâldt de wiisfinger foar de lippen. Net nedich, elkenien is stil. En harket.

Noch mear guozzen yn de loft, it binne fyftjin. Of sechtjin, of santjin. En dêr: achtentritich. Se strike del tusken de guozzen yn de greiden, dêr’t de wethâlders by fleagen yn harren tinzen tahâlde. It binne hûndert, tûzen, rêsteleas op ’e syk nei rêst.

It reint net mear. De lette sinne skynt troch de rânen fan de wolken oan de hoarizon. It is tsjuster, mar it is ek noch ljocht. Kinst stjerren sjen en de grutte moanne komt op.

Fia it koartetermynûnthâld komst yn it langetermynûnthâld. En fan dêrút wer werom yn it koartetermynûnthâld. As in mol dy’t syn gongen groeven hat en op ’e syk is net hy wit net wat. Hy komt de oare mollen tsjin en se oerlizze: yn hokker gong sille se feestfiere? As it sa fier is. Dan begjint de hiel lange termyn.

Shakespeare, homeless, clears his throat. The small party, which had said nothing to begin with, falls silent. It gives Shakespeare the opportunity to pretend to glance around furtively. Then he takes the floor, which had been his from the moment he started clearing his throat.

But doesn’t know what to say. Says nothing. Clears his throat again, this time to no purpose.

The small party has gathered in a multi-storey car park next to a supermarket. To pass the time. To tell one another about the world in which they all wander around. Hang around, perch on low concrete walls or lean against parked cars. Rain falls from the sky, the wind blows some of it inside. Wet concrete floor. Accumulation of windblown detritus behind the cars and the pillars. Packaging, cans, face masks.

Then Wittgenstein, also homeless, asks if he can tell a story. And launches straight in.

‘When a dead body is found among the rabbits during the animal show, the director stops a passer-by. He wants to say something, but then another director approaches. He shouts, as though he’s triumphed: I told you I wouldn’t forget, right? Here I am! In the corridor outside the bedroom. I should have said: the story is set in a bedroom. And partly in the corridor outside the bedroom. So there he is. And over there are old filing cabinets with drawers filled with the threadbare clothes from yesteryear. Open one such drawer and you’ll see trousers you can paint in and underwear you can use for cleaning rags. And in another drawer: shoes you can hang in the trees as nesting boxes for the birds.’

Now the party is joined by a promising but somewhat absent-minded choreographer. He walks across the concrete in a straight line, slows down beside one of the pillars, halts in front of the heaped rubbish. Does a half-turn on his supporting leg, pulls up his working leg.

I would’ve liked to have taken a photo of that, says Diderot, also homeless. A gentle breeze is beginning to sweep across the scene.

You wouldn’t know that this world is hell. The occupants of the houses near the car park are staring at their laptops and at their phones, hoping someone has said something bad. If it’s really bad, they’ll react. They’ll bring out the big guns and let rip.

A councillor finds the strength to close her laptop and starts thinking about the talk she’s due to give tomorrow. She tends to sound aggrieved but passionate in debates. That’s why she enjoys preparing herself. She thinks about pros and cons, of anything, it’s what she calls: considering her position. And she’ll put on her most nonpartisan face, even when no one’s watching. She’ll go into the bathroom to look in the mirror. Somehow or other, remnants of her ideals remain visible. How? Perhaps it’s the slight unruliness of her hair. Or the reading glasses, which she’s casually pushed into her hair, like a strange tiara. What to make of the subsidised wind farms? The subsidised factory farms? The subsidised data centres? The free threats fired at her on social media?

Halfway through her reflections, she no longer finds herself in her bathroom. She doesn’t know where she is. In her mind, she stands in front of two adjacent factory farms and listens to the swooshing of twenty wind turbines. In her mind, she’s at the town hall, gauging the mayor’s mood. She feels like an influencer. She’s at her laptop and wants to write a speech. But there’s no director to say: go ahead.

A Stranger enters the car park on his motorbike. Rides around, accelerates and ascends the ramp leading to level one. Rides around the first floor, accelerates and zips up to level two. Where Shakespeare, Wittgenstein and Diderot are having a conversation with the choreographer; they call him Nureyev. And because Nureyev isn’t good at standing still, the whole party has got to its feet. They’re all swaying back and forth. Their supporting legs turn into working legs, while their working legs become supporting legs. This includes the young homeless Van Gogh, who has joined the conversation, just like his friend, the even younger homeless Scarlatti. As well as the still silent but well-liked Tesselschade.

The Stranger approaches on his motorbike. Slows down, and while he slows revs a few times just to make a noise, stops and switches the engine off.

Diderot asks: ‘What are you doing here?’

The Stranger says: ‘Allo, my name is Jean-Henry. D’Anglebert. I’m the king of Arcadia. Or let’s say: I’ve been there. Or rather, I’ve always been there. I’m in the world, if you will, but also in Arcadia. To me it’s one and the same.’

The latter is not a complete sentence, it’s a sigh.

Some of the occupants of the nearby houses are standing in front of their windows overlooking the world. They glance up at the sky above the supermarket and the car park. They’ve closed their laptops and have put their phones face down on their tables. They warn each other with gestures. Geese fly over in an unstable V heading straight for an unknown destination. And the noises they make for one another are also heard by the homeless in the car park. The choreographer –and director – raises his index finger to his lips. Unnecessarily – everybody’s quiet. And listening.

More geese in the air, fifteen in total. Or sixteen, or seventeen. And over there: thirty-eight. They alight among the geese in the meadows, where the councillor’s mind wanders from time to time. A hundred, a thousand, restless in search of rest.

It has stopped raining. The late sun illuminates the edges of the clouds on the horizon. It’s dark, but it’s still light too. The stars are out and the full moon is rising.

Short-term memory leads to long-term memory. And from there you go back to short-term memory. Like a mole that’s dug its burrows and is looking for it knows not what. It comes across the other moles and together they deliberate: in which burrow are they going to party? When it’s time. And the very long-term begins.

I
In keurige man en in trochlibbe man sitte yn in achtertún en sjogge nei in fjoer. De trochlibbe man besiket syn nije sigaret oan te stekken mei it foarige eksimplaar. De keurige man is mei ducttape en in tsjok tou fêstbûn oan syn klapstoel. It tou snijt yn syn wolfeartsbúkje, dat yn in spierwyt, strak stive boesgroentsje stekt.
‘It is apart,’ seit de trochlibbe man. ‘It iene momint hast sa’n lytse poppe yn ’e hannen, hielendal ôfhinklik fan dy en oanienwei sykjend om kontakt. En tweintich jier letter kinne jim net iens mear op deselde bank sitte, om’t it ûngemaklik fielt as jim knibbels inoar per ûngelok reitsje. Kenst dat?’
De keurige man besiket te fersitten. Yn stee dêrfan ferpleatst er de hiele klapstoel twa sintimeter nei links. Hy sit goed fêst. ‘Sorry,’ seit er.
De trochlibbe man blaast syn reek út yn krinkjes en digeret se biologearre nei.
‘Ik bedoel, as bern learst praten, gewoan sizze watst bedoelst en watst wolst. Snapst? Mar dan – as it derop oankomt – feroaret dat stadichwei yn it útwikseljen fan lege wurden. Net prate. Allinnich gelûd. Trillingen!’
‘Myn bern binne noch wat jonger,’ mompelet de keurige man.
‘Och ja, miskien haw ik it ek wol ferkeard dien. Ik hoopje dat it by dy oars útpakt. Ik bedoel, ik ken dy fierder net, mar dochs.’
‘Tankjewol,’ seit de keurige man. Hy besiket syn bierfleske nei de mûle te bringen, mar it tou om syn lichem lit it net ta. De trochlibbe man giet oerein, nimt it fleske oer en set it tútsje foarsichtich oan ’e mûle fan syn gast. ‘Holle nei achteren. Ik hâld de hân der wol ûnder.’
De keurige man docht de mûle iepen.
Foarsichtich begjint de trochlibbe man te skinken, syn sigaret bongeljend yn ’e mûlshoeke. De keurige man klokt it bier fuort, de holle achteroer, oant er it tempo net mear byhâlde kin. Hy hikket en prúst. Bier dript him oer it kin en ferdwynt yn it boardsje fan syn wite boesgroentsje. De switplakken ûnder syn earms binne sa grut dat se ûnder syn oerinoar sleine earms út kypje.
‘Ik sil in doekje helje,’ seit de trochlibbe man. ‘Amtners kinne gewoan net sa goed sûpe, ik wie it even fergetten. Myn ferûntskuldigings.’

II
Dy moarns hie de keurige man al syn twivels hân by dat spierwite oerhimd. Moast er dat no wol oandwaan, presys op de dei fan de túnkontrôle? It lêste dat er woe wie oerkomme as in wrâldfrjemde kantoarklerk. Sa’nien dy’t ûnder in systeemplafond wei de libbens fan oare minsken dreech makket. Mar it oerhimd lei klear op ’e stoel, neist syn sokken, ûnderbroek en pantalon. Alles wie al mei soarch stoomd en strutsen troch syn frou.
Mei it oerhimd noch iepen rûn de keurige man de trep del, nei de wenkeuken.
Dêr stie syn frou de bôletrompkes klear te meitsjen. Noch tsien minuten en dan soe se de tafel dekke foar it moarnsiten en de bern wekker meitsje. Om healwei achten stipt soene se tegearre alles wer opromje – hy it ôfwaskjen, sy de iterij – en inoar hastich in fijne dei tútsje.
Hy iet twa stikjes brune bôle mei aai en avokado. Syn tinzen dwaalden ôf nei de iepen dei op de skipswerf yn it doarp, in pear wiken earder. Hy wie der allinnich hinne gien; de jonges wiene te fuotbaljen en syn frou woe de foarriedkasten oanpakke. De skipsbouwers lieten sjen hoe’t hout bûgd wurdt. Trije man sterk dûnsen se om ’e stoomde planken hinne. Se pleatsten houtklemmen, fluch en as in goed smarde masine, sûnder tuskentiids ek noch mar wat hoege te oerlizzen. Neitiid fertelde de foarman datst it yn ien kear goed dwaan moast, sûnder omgriemen en sûnder te praten. Elk moast fan tefoaren syn taak witte. Sa diene se it al generaasjes lang.
‘In bytsje sa’t myn frou en ik gjin tiid mear hawwe, om’t wy rjochtskepen bern besykje grut te bringen yn in kromme wrâld,’ hie de keurige man gnyske. De timmerman hie him meilydsum oansjoen.
‘Hallo? Siep? Binne wy der noch?’
‘Sorry, leave, ik bin noch net wekker. Hast foar my wat ekstra bôle ynpakt? Ik haw in lange dei.’
‘Hm?’
‘Ik haw in lange dei. It is túnkontrôle.’
‘Wêrom moatsto dat wer dwaan? Giet der ien mei?’
‘Nee, it is mar in lytse wyk.’
‘Mar ek in minne wyk.’
Syn frou klikte de bôletrompkes ekstra feninich ticht. Dat die se altyd as se yn noed siet. Eins algeduerigen, foaral sûnt de bern der wiene. Soms hearde hy it lûd op kantoar noch hieltyd. By de foardoar knope se syn boesgroentsje ticht, hielendal oan it boppeste knoopke ta.

III
It fjoer knisteret lûd. Ut en troch falle der lytse fonkjes op ’e klean fan ’e mannen. De trochlibbe man jout der neat om, de keurige man sit noch altyd fêstbûn op syn stoel. Neist swit en bier sitte der no ek lytse brângatsjes yn syn wite boesgroentsje. It boppeste knoopke snijt him yn ’e kiel.
De keurige man seit: ‘No ja, ik kin it net moaier meitsje. It ûnkrûd moat fuort, it wytguod nei it stoart, even dy jiskepûden yn ’e kontener, kattestront opromje, en sa mear. Dogge jo dat net, dan binne wy needsake in túnman te stjoeren en de kosten op jo te ferheljen.’
‘Ik ha gjin sinten foar túnark.’
‘Mar jo ha wol sinten foar in grutte telefyzje.’
‘Dat komt om’t ik gjin túnark haw.’
‘En in kuolkast yn ’e foartún?’
‘It is winter, dat ding brûkt in soad stroom.’
‘Dochs sil dyn tún opromme wurde moatte.’
De trochlibbe man komt oerein. Hy giet foar de keurige man stean. Syn joggingbroek sit los om syn heupen. De toutsjes dêr’tst de boarde mei ferstelle kinst, hingje der wurkleas by. Unhandich fimelet er dermei om.
‘Asjeblyft, net dwaa-’
‘Nee, ik wol dy wat sjen litte.’
De trochlibbe man giet noch wat tichter by stean. Syn knibbels reitsje no de skonken fan ’e keurige man. Hy lûkt oan ’e linkerkoarde fan ’e broek. Oan ’e oare kant ferdwynt it toutsje dêrtroch yn ’e elastyske bân. De trochlibbe man peuteret it útein op ’e nei tefoarskyn; it puntsje fan syn tonge stek him út ’e mûle. Dan sykhellet er djip, lûkt syn búk nei binnen en bynt de beide toutsjes oaninoar fêst. Sa gau’t er sitten giet, sjit de strús wer los. Selsfoldien sjocht er op, as hat er krekt in prestaasje fan formaat levere.
‘Sjoch, sa giet dat dus. Betelje ik de iene rekkening, dan haw ik gjin jild foar de oare. Keapje ik túnark, dan haw ik gjin iten. Gean ik op ’e knibbeltsje it ûnkrûd te liif, dan haw ik gjin enerzjy mear foar sollisitaasjebrieven. Skriuw ik gjin sollisitaasjebrieven, dan bin ik hielendal de sjaak.’
‘Ik begryp it,’ seit de keurige man.
‘Nee, dat dochst net. Mar ik wurdearje it datst it besikest.’

IV
Dy moarns wie de trochlibbe man de dei begûn mei in kop Senseo en in heale joint. Hy moast earst mar nei de winkel. Hy die de jas oan en socht syn kaaien. Wêr wiene dy dochs? Net ûnder de folders op ’e salontafel. Hy rûn nei de keuken, socht op ’e itenstafel, fersette kofjekopkes mei oansette boaiemkes brune dridze. Stie it hjir juster ek al sa fol?
De kat miauke om iten.
‘Ja, ja – kalm mar.’
Hy helle in iepen blikje kattefoer út ’e kuolkast, spielde de foarke ôf ûnder de hjitte kraan en skepte it fleis yn it Tupperware-bakje dêr’t er justerjûn stamppot soerkoal út iten hie. Dat hie de buorfrou makke. Dy wie ek mar allinnich en sûnt har mageferlytsing koe se net folle mear ite, sei se. Se sei it wol fjouwer oant seis kear deis. Soms liet er dêrom de gerdinen ticht. De kat flaaike him tsjin ’e skonken. ‘Baaske giet nei de winkel. Mar earst even romte meitsje hjir.’
De trochlibbe man makke in waarm sopke en smiet der safolle mooglik smoarge ôfwask yn. De mouwen fan syn jas waarden wiet, mar om dy no wer út te dwaan wylst er dochs sa nei bûten gean soe, dat sloech ek nergens op. Wyld begûn er te skrobjen, mar de smoargens op ’e boarden like wol ynbaarnd. Boppedat stie it ôfdriprek noch fol mei skjin guod fan de wike derfoar. De trochlibbe man drûge de hannen en drukte it Senseo-apparaat op ’e nij oan.
Earst kofje.
Middeis appte er syn soan. Hy siet op ’e bank by it keamersrút, noch altyd yn ’e jas. Der ferskynden twa blauwe finkjes, krekt as by syn oare berjochten. Unbeäntwurde gjalpen yn ’e woestyn, lykas de berjochten fan minsken dy’t fia Marktplaats nije leafdes, reisgenoaten en kuiermaten besochten te finen.
Noch wat út te hâlden op it wurk? Fijne jierdei, gr Heit. Noch belang by dy fiskangel + wat derby heart? Kaam Richard tsjin, dy fan de middelbere, hy docht de groetnis. Hy wie der net iens wis fan oft syn soan noch wol itselde nûmer hie.
Miskien kamen alle berjochten al moannen lang oan by ien as oare opperteur dy’t de telefoan kocht hie op ’e swarte merk. Hy soe belje kinne om te sjen wa’t der opnimt. As der al ien opnimme soe. En as er syn soan dan oan ’e lijn krije soe, dan soe er sorry sizze en ‘fansels hâld ik wol fan dy’ en al dat soart dingen mear. Mar no moast er earst nei de winkel.

V
De measte minsken hiene de gerdinen noch ticht, ek al wie de keurige man let begûn oan syn omgong. It wurk wie yn wêzen simpel: alle foartunen yn it oan him tawiisde gebiet beoardielje oan ’e hân fan in checklist. Wie der sprake fan hinderlike begroeiïng (sichtber fan ’e dyk ôf), omslingerjend ôffal (bygelyks: jiskepûden, wytguod, ôftanke meubels en sa) of fernieling (bygelyks: sneuvele ruten, ferrotte stekjes en sa) dan moast er oanbelje en in formele warskôging útdiele.
It probleem wie dat net ien iependie. Guon hiene de bel ûnklear makke. Oaren hiene de doar beplakt mei leuzen as: BLIUW FAN MYN BEL OF en WURD WEKKER!!! MEDIA = FIRUS. Ien persoan siet by it rút en stoarre him oan sûnder de doar iepen te dwaan, sels nei trije kear oanbeljen. De keurige man hie swaaid en dêrby syn notysjeblok tusken it metershege ûnkrûd falle litten.
Yn ’e middei trof er in túntsje oan dat oan werklik alle betingsten foar in skrobbearring foldie. In trochlibbe man yn in winterjas die iepen. Om ien as oare reden wiene syn mouwen trochweakke. It wetter wie oan syn earmtakken ta oplutsen, mar it like him neat skele te kinnen. Fuort begûn de man te praten, in sjekje bongeljend yn ’e mûlshoeke.
‘Ik woe krekt nei de winkel.’
‘O, it duorret net lang, it giet even om de steat fan jo foartún. Ik sjoch dat it wat oergroeid rekket. By de korporaasje wolle wy de minsken stimulearje om har eigen wyk op oarder te hâlden, dat is foar elkenien wol sa noflik.’
‘Kom der mar yn. Ik bin Harco, trouwens.’
‘Dat is net noadich, it giet inkeld om it perseel om it hûs hin-’
Ear’t de keurige man der erch yn hie, griep de man dy’t himsels Harco neamde him by de boppe-earm. Op ’e nij foel syn notysjeblok op ’e grûn. Hy woe bûge om it te pakken, mar de greep wie sterker as er ferwachte hie. ‘Bakje derby,’ easke de man. ‘Gewoan, fan mins ta mins.’
De greep waard lichter.
De keurige man digere nei syn notysjeblok. Hy hie der noch gjin inkelde persoanlik oerbrochte warskôging yn notearje kinnen en briefkes yn ’e brievebus wurken simpelwei minder goed, hie út eardere omgongen bliken dien. ‘In bakje kin gjin kwea,’ besleat er. ‘Dan kin ik fuort hearre hoe’t wy jo it bêste helpe kinne, dêr binne wy by de korporaasje altyd benijd nei.’
De trochlibbe man luts him deryn – de keuken troch – streekrjocht nei de achtertún. Dêr skynde de sinne noch oant let yn ’e middei en wie it kreas opromme, bewearde er. Wol ferûntskuldige de trochlibbe man him foar de rommel yn ’e keuken. Hy hie drok west mei de grutte boadskippen, dêrom.

VI
It fjoer smeult nei. De trochlibbe man en de keurige man sitte tsjininoar oer en sjogge nei de gloeiende stikken hout. Op ’e grûn lizze in bultsje tou en wat stikken ducttape. De lucht fan frituer walmet út it skuorke.
‘Wêrom hiest my eins fêstbûn?’
‘Omdatsto sa’nien bist dy’t fan ’e klok is. Altyd jakkerje, fleane, drave. Krekt as myn soan. Nergens mear tiid foar, hielendal net foar in petear.’
‘Dat is miskien wol wier, ja.’
‘Harkje, hoe hjitst eins, mynhear de kontroleur?’
‘Siep.’
‘Bist gelokkich, Siep?’
‘Ja, ik wit net. Ik tink dêr net sa oer nei.’
‘Wat fynst aardich om te dwaan?’
‘Pfoe. Ja, ik ha lêsten in drone kocht. Noch net sa hiel folle oan takommen. En no ja, te rinnen mei de frou, dat soarte dingen. Se sil wol yn noed sitte, trouwens, ik moat sa al fuort -’
‘Siep, moatst hearre. Wy binne net sa ferskillend, do en ik.’
De trochlibbe man knypt de eagen ta skreefkes en bestudearret syn gast. Dan pakt er in bitterbal, set de tosken deryn en flokt ynmoedich.
‘Te hyt?’
‘Nee, gewoan godferdommese lekker. Nim der ek ien.’
Unwis pakt de keurige man in bal út it Tupperware-bakje. Op ’e boaiem sit hurde brune smoargens fêstplakt.
‘Tankjewol. Lekker, hear.’
De trochlibbe man glunderet. Hy stekt syn sigaret op ’e nij oan en seit: ‘Earlik, ik woe ek gewoan ris in echt mins sprekke. Fan de ynstânsjes, witst wol. Sjen oft jim no echt … sá binne. Sa’t se sizze.’
‘Hoe?’
‘Gewoan, jittikmigers. Ferklikkers. Nazi’s.’
‘Aha.’
‘Mar do dochst ek mar gewoan dyn bêst, eins.’
De keurige man digeret nei it oerbleaune stikje bitterbal. Op ’e ûnderkant fan ’e bal sit ek al goarichheid, it liket wol wat op kattefoer. Dan skrabbet er de kiel en seit: ‘Ja, mar wêrom eins? Wêrfoar?’
‘Brek my de bek net iepen.’ De trochlibbe man giet oerein, ynienen ûnrêstich. ‘Mar ik moat no echt nei de winkel. Dy giet sa ticht.’
De keurige man kloppet it panearmoal fan ’e broek. De trochlibbe man drukt him in lêste bitterbal yn ’e hannen en pakt in ferheistere boadskiptas út it skuorke. Ut ’e doariepening wei wiist er nei it oergroeide blomperk op ’e hoeke.
‘Sis, heart dat stik ek by myn ferantwurdlikheden?’
‘Nee,’ antwurdet de keurige man. ‘Dat is mienskipsgrûn. Dat moatte wy mei-inoar dwaan. Gjin noed.’

I 
A spruce man and a world-weary man are sitting in a back garden, looking at a fire. The world-weary man is trying to light a new cigarette with his previous one. The spruce man is bound to a folding chair with duct tape and a thick rope. The rope is cutting into his middle-class paunch, which is clad in a brilliant-white, crisply starched shirt.
‘It’s mad,’ the world-weary man says. ‘One moment you’re holding a tiny baby in your hands, completely dependent on you and constantly looking for contact. And twenty years later you can’t even sit on the same couch because it’d feel awkward if your knees happened to touch. D’you know the feeling?’
The spruce man tries to shuffle. Instead, he moves the entire folding chair two centimetres to the left. He is tightly bound. ‘Sorry,’ he says. The world-weary man exhales circles of smoke and stares at them mesmerised.
‘I mean, as a kid you learn to talk, to say just what you mean and what you want. You know? But then – when it comes to the crunch – that slowly turns into exchanging empty words. Not talking. Just sound. Vibrations!’
‘My children are still a little younger,’ the spruce man mumbles.
‘Ah well, maybe I also did it wrong. I hope things work out differently for you. I mean, I don’t know you, but anyway.’
‘Thanks,’ the spruce man replies. He tries to lift the bottle of beer to his mouth, but the rope around his body prevents him from doing so. The world-weary man gets up, takes the bottle and carefully places the lip against his guest’s mouth.
‘Bend your head backwards. I’ll keep my hand beneath it.’
The spruce man opens his mouth.
Carefully the world-weary man starts pouring, his cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. The spruce man gulps down the beer, his head bent backwards, until he can’t keep up with the flow. He coughs and splutters. Beer trickles over his chin and disappears into the collar of his white shirt. The sweat marks beneath his armpits are so large that they can be seen beneath his folded arms.
‘I’ll get a cloth,’ the world-weary man says. ‘Civil servants just aren’t any good at downing, I’d forgotten. My apologies.’

II
That morning the spruce man had been in two minds about this brilliant-white shirt. Should or shouldn’t he wear it, on the very day of the garden inspections? The last thing he wanted was to come across as an otherworldly office clerk. One of those who sit beneath a modular ceiling and made other people’s lives difficult. But the shirt had been ready on the chair, next to his socks, underpants and trousers. Everything had already been meticulously steamed and ironed by his wife.
With his shirt still open, the spruce man had gone downstairs to the open kitchen, where his wife had been preparing the lunch boxes. In another ten minutes she would prepare the breakfast table and wake the children. At half-past-seven on the dot they would clear up everything together – he the washing up and she the breakfast things – and hurriedly kiss each other goodbye.
He had eaten two brown sandwiches with egg and avocado. His thoughts had wandered to the open day at the shipyard in the village, a few weeks ago. He had gone alone; the boys had been at football and his wife had wanted to sort out the store cupboard. The shipbuilders had shown how they bent wood. A group of three men had danced around the steamed planks. They had placed wood clamps, swiftly and like a well-oiled machine, without having had to discuss the least thing during the process. Afterwards the foreman had said that you had to get it right the first time, without dawdling and without talking. Everybody had to know their tasks beforehand. They had been doing it like this for generations.
‘A bit like how my wife and I no longer have time to talk because we’re trying to raise upright children in a crooked world,’ the spruce man had chuckled. The carpenter had looked at him pityingly.
‘Hello Siep? Are you still there?’
‘Sorry, darling, I’m not awake yet. Did you pack me some extra bread? I’m going to have a long day.’
‘Mm?’
‘I’m going to have a long day. Garden inspections.’
‘Why do you have to do that again? Is someone going with you?’
‘No, it’s just a small area.’
‘But a bad one too.’
His wife had snapped shut the lunch boxes with extra vitriol. She always did so when she was worried. In fact, constantly, especially since they had had children. Sometimes he could still hear the sound at his office. At the front door she had buttoned up his shirt, right up to the top button.

III
The fire is crackling loudly. Every now and again little sparks fall on the men’s clothes. This doesn’t bother the world-weary man; the spruce man is still tied up on his chair. As well as sweat and beer, there are now also tiny burn holes in his white shirt. The upper button is chafing his throat.
The spruce man says: ‘Well, I can’t make the situation sound better than it is. The overgrowth must go, the white goods must be taken to the dump; the bin bags put in the container, clean up the cat shit and so on. If you don’t, we’ll be forced to contract a gardening company and send you the bill.’
‘I don’t have the money for gardening tools.’
‘But you do have money for a large television.’
‘That’s because I don’t have gardening tools.’
‘And a fridge in the front garden?’
‘It’s winter – that thing uses tonnes of electricity.’
‘Even so, your garden will have to be tidied up.’
The world-weary man gets up. He stands in front of the spruce man. His sweatpants hang loosely around his hips. The drawstrings for adjusting the waistband hang idly by. He awkwardly fiddles with them.
‘Please, don’t do –’
‘No, I want to show you something.’
The world-weary man shifts a little closer. His knees touch the spruce man’s legs. He pulls the left drawstring on his trousers. This causes the string on the other side to disappear into the elastic band. The world-weary man picks out the end, with the tip of his tongue sticking out of his mouth. Then he inhales deeply, pulls in his belly and ties the two strings together. As soon as he sits down the bow comes undone. Filled with satisfaction he looks up, as though he has produced a magnificent achievement.
‘Look, that’s how things go. If I pay one bill, then I don’t have money for the other one. If I buy gardening tools, then I don’t have food. If I get on my knees and weed the garden, then I don’t have the energy to write job applications. If I don’t write job applications, then I’m really in for it.’
‘I understand,’ says the spruce man.
‘No, you don’t. But I appreciate that you’re trying to.’

IV
That morning the world-weary man had started his day with a cup of instant coffee and half a joint. He first had to go to the shop. He had put on his jacket and looked for his keys. Where were they? Not under the leaflets on the coffee table. He had walked to the kitchen, looked on the breakfast table, moved around coffee cups with dried brown residue. Was it also this cluttered yesterday?
The cat had miaowed for food.
‘Yes, yes – hush, hush.’
He had fetched an opened can of cat food from the fridge, rinsed a fork under the hot water tap and scooped the meat into a Tupperware tub in which he had eaten mashed potatoes and sauerkraut the evening before. The neighbour had made it. She was also on her own and could no longer eat as much since her gastric bypass, she had said. She said so four to six times a day. Which is why he sometimes kept his curtains closed. The cat had rubbed against his legs.
‘Daddy’s going to the shop. But first he’s going to make some space here.’ The world-weary man had filled the sink with hot soapy water and chucked as many dirty dishes into it as possible. The sleeves of his jacket had been soaked but taking it off hadn’t made much sense as he had been about to go out. He had started scrubbing furiously, but the dirt almost seemed to be fired into the plates. To boot, the dish drainer had still been cluttered with clean dishes from the previous week. The world-weary man had dried his hands and turned the kettle back on.
First coffee.
In the afternoon he had messaged his son. He had sat on the sofa by the sitting-room window, still in his jacket. Two blue ticks had appeared, as with his other messages. Unanswered cries in the desert, like messages sent by people trying to find new romances, travelling companions, hiking buddies on Craigslist… Still sticking it out at work? Enjoy your birthday, cheers Dad. Still interested in the fishing rod + accessories? Bumped into Richard, from secondary school, he says hi. He didn’t even know for sure whether his son still had the same number. Perhaps all the messages had been received for months by some or other good-for-nothing who had bought the telephone on the black market. He could call to see who picked up. Or whether anyone would answer at all. And if he were to speak to his son on the phone then he would have said sorry and ‘of course I love you’ and things like that. But he first had to go to the shop.

V
Most people’s curtains were still closed, even though the spruce man had started his rounds late. The job was basically simple: assess all the front gardens in the area allotted to him according to a checklist. If there was obstructive vegetation (visible from the street), rubbish lying around (e.g.: bin bags, white goods, unwanted furniture or the like) or damage (e.g.: broken windows, dilapidated gates or the like) he would have to ring at the door and give a formal warning.
The trouble had been that nobody opened their door. Some of them had disabled their doorbells. Others had plastered their walls with slogans like: STAY AWAY FROM MY DOORBELL and WAKE UP!!! MEDIA = VIRUS. One person had sat at the window and stared at him without opening the door, even after he had rung the bell three times. The spruce man had waved, in the process dropping his notebook amongst the towering weeds.
In the afternoon he had come across a garden which truly satisfied all the conditions for a reprimand. A world-weary man in a winter jacket had opened the door. For some reason, his sleeves had been soaked. The water had risen to his elbows, but it hadn’t seemed to bother him. The man had started talking immediately, a fag hanging out of the corner of his mouth.
‘I was about to go to the shop.’
‘Oh, it won’t take long, it’s just about the state of your front garden. I see that it’s getting a little overgrown. We at the housing corporation want to stimulate people to keep their neighbourhood in order, which is nice for everyone.’
‘Come in. I’m Harco by the way.’
‘That won’t be necessary, it’s only about the plot around the hou–’ Before the spruce man had realised what was happening, the man who had called himself Harco had grabbed hold of his upper arm. Once again, the notebook had fallen to the ground. He had wanted to stoop to pick it up, but his grip had been stronger than he had expected. ‘Cup of coffee,’ the man had offered. ‘Just person to person.’
His grip had loosened.
The spruce man had gazed at his notebook. He hadn’t been able to note a single verbal warning, and previous rounds had shown that notes in the post box simply didn’t work as well. ‘A coffee can’t do any harm,’ he had decided. ‘Then I can hear directly how best we can help you, something that always interests us at the corporation.’
The world-weary man had dragged him inside – through the kitchen – straight towards the back garden. The sun shone until late in the afternoon there and it was neat and tidy, he had claimed. The world-weary man had apologised for the mess in the kitchen. He had been preoccupied with the big shop, had been the reason.

VI
The fire is still smouldering. The world-weary man and the spruce man are sitting opposite each other and looking at the embers. On the ground is a small pile of rope and some bits of duct tape. The smell of a chip pan wafts from the shed.
‘Why did you actually tie me up?’
‘Because you’re one of those people who keep time. Always running, flying, on the go. Like my son. No time for anything, certainly not for a conversation.’
‘Perhaps that’s true, yes.’
‘Listen, what’s your name actually, Mr Inspector?’
‘Siep.’
‘Are you happy, Siep?’
‘Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t really think much about it.’
‘What do you like to do?’
‘Gee. Yes, I recently bought a drone. Haven’t got round to it much. And, um, going for walks with my wife, things like that. She’ll be worried by the way; I’ll have to go in a minute –’
‘Siep, you must listen. We’re not so different, you and me.’
The world-weary man narrows his eyes and studies his guest. Then he takes a meat croquette, bites into it and swears vehemently.
‘Too hot?’
‘No, just damned tasty. Have one too.’
Unsure, the spruce man takes a ball out of the Tupperware tub. There is hard brown gunge stuck to the base.
‘Thanks. Delicious.’
The world-weary man beams. Relighting his cigarette, he says: ‘Honestly, I just wanted to speak to a real person for once. From the authorities, you know. See if you’re really… like that. Like they say.’
‘Like what?’
‘Just, sourpusses. Snitches. Nazis’
‘Aha.’
‘But you also just do your best, really.’
The spruce man stares at the remnants of the croquette. There is also gunge on the base of the ball; it looks like cat food. Then he clears his throat and says: ‘Yes, but why exactly? For what?’
‘Don’t get me started.’ The world-weary man gets up, suddenly unsettled. ‘But now I really must go to the shop. It’s closing just now.’
The spruce man brushes the breadcrumbs from his trousers. The world-weary man thrusts a final croquette in his hand and grabs a battered shopping bag from the shed. From the doorway he points to the overgrown flowerbed around the corner.
‘Hey, is that area also my responsibility?’
‘No,’ the spruce man replies. ‘That’s common land. We have to do it together. Don’t worry.’

Se stiet by de goatstien dy’t se krekt mei de úttrekbere slang skjinspuite hat en sjocht op fan it giele skûteldoekje dat rûkt nei wat freesliks en út oer de oprit. In momint lyn tocht se noch datst oan it skjinmeitsjen bliuwst, opromje, waskje, dat dat is wat soargjen is, kofjegrom fuortspiele, de kerlen kofjepoeier ûnwillich, as opjage, stúmjende bisten en it holle lûd fan wetter op rustfrij stiel en ynienen wie har heit dêr en it momint fan ûnfrede foargoed fuort, dat wol sizze: dat momint, dát gefoel fan ûnfrede. Har heit, syn sêfte, hingjende wangen, in hamster, Goeie hûn, sei er tsjin har; knyn tsjin har mem. En noch. Op de heldere dagen — de heldere mominten. Hooplik fan ’e middei.
Hoe let is it? Kertier oer njoggenen. Isabella sil hjir om tsien oere wêze en noch net alle wask is drûch. Se hat noch wat foar har, in kado foar har bern yn Brazilië.
Se azemet djip út, bewust. Konsintrearret har op de hege hage by it grintpaad lâns, de wyn is deryn te sjen. De toppen binne te heech, de tinne takjes soeikje, en ast achterút it paad del rydst, reitsje de legere tûken mei útstutsen hannen dyn auto, leauwigen dy’t mei de fingers de seame fan Syn klaad sykje. Behalve dan, dat dy auto fansels de úteinlike dea betsjut fan al it grien yn de wrâld. Of soene de beammen en strûken no krekt better groeie fan alle koalstof en wiene it de fûgels en de minsken, wie it dit leechlân dat foar de dea opskreaun wie? Komt it wetter oant healwei de kastanjebeam ta te stean?
It hout ûnder har hânpalmen fielt sêft oan, te sêft; it hat tefolle wetter hân. Witst noait wêr’tst op fertrouwe kinst: jins ûnthâld is in kompostbult dêr’t alle dagen wer wat nijs op útstoart wurdt, wat derûnder leit broeit, ferrottet, baktearjes en skimmels, feroaret wêzentlik fan substânsje, feroaret wa’tsto bist; ast sjochst wat der no yn de kronkels fan it brein fan har heit bart; it lichem hat syn eigen wil of wei, dy’tst tegearre bewannelest — tegearre, dyn geast en dyn liif, al hat se ergens ris lêzen dat dyn geast de stimming op it feestje fan dyn lichem is en is se dy wurden noait fergetten.
Doe’t se fan ’e moarn om kertier foar sânen wekker waard, fan Richard, dy’t tsjintwurdich om ’e dei foar syn wurk te swimmen giet, fernaam se it wer: it neare gefoel op har boarst. Se wachte even — wat? tweintich sekonden, se hie nei de wekker sjen bliuwe moatten — en jawis, dy lûde slach, in ekstra slach, as it slaan fan it healoere fan de klok op har mem har sekretêre, eartiids. Syn klean hat er klearhongen oan ’e wandlampe op ’e gong, boppe de optearde, opsteapele trainingsklean dy’t er ûnderweis nei it swimbad draacht. Hy jout har gjin tút mear. Hy lit har sliepe. Dat is in opsje. De oare opsje, tinkt se, is dat se der gewoan net is, foar him. Dat net allinnich alles wat se docht mar wa’t se is foar him ûnsichtber is.
Janet Sobel makke al lang fóár Pollock har grutte doeken mei fervespetters. Allinne gie hy der mei de eare fan troch. Om’t froulju — en harren wurk — ûnsichtber binne. Trije kilometer fierderop, yn in lyts kistke dêr’t se net te lang oer neitinke kin, leit har dochter, oardel meter ûnder de grûn en nimmen wit noch har namme.
De echoskopiste hearde gjin hertslach mear, rôp de dokter derby. Se stjoerden har wat letter nei hûs. Fjouwer dagen dêrnei koe se weromkomme en waard de befalling ynlaat. Fjouwer dagen! Se joegen har in middel om de fleagen op te wekken. En no leit har dochter yn ’e grûn, ûnder in grien bêd fan moas. Se hiene har yn it sikehûs kalmearringstabletten meijûn, en slieppillen. Mar de trep makke har dwyl. Se begriep neat fan de stilte yn ’e hûs. Ljocht makke har mislik, se woe der fanôf wêze. En wat oerdeis ien ding wie, wie nachts wat hiel oars, dan hearde se de stilte dy’t ûnder de deistige stilte lei.
Justerjûn op bêd lies se oer it ûnsichtbere, mar krúsjale wurk fan baktearjes en skimmels ûnder de grûn, de basis fan bosken, en tocht oan harsels. Ergens tusken dat bosk en har selsbyld en de kompostbult yn har holle, yn har heit syn holle, ergens yn dat bosk, yn de kompostbult, yn har holle, leit in dolk fan in argumint, de learen hoes justjes oantaast mar it limmet blinkend, helder, skerp. Se kin der net by. Se is te wurch, te drok.
In jier as fiif, seis lyn, Aniek wie seis, yn dizze keuken dwaande mei har húswurk.
Mem, wurkje der ek froulju yn ’e polityk?
Ja, fansels.
Wêrom steane der dan allinnich mar manlju op de plaatsjes?
En it wie echt sa, alle politisy yn it wurkboek wiene manlju. Froulju: briedmasines, sûnder namme of gesicht, dy’t, yn it gesicht fan de westerske skiednis, noch mar krekt stimme mochten.
It gefoel ûnsichtber te wêzen, net heard en net sjoen; in pear jier lyn gie se derfoar yn terapy, in Hawaïaanske ferjouwingsterapy yn it hûs fan in ynternist út Soest — Vrieling!, dat wie it —, de kahuna en syn froulike gefolch sliepten yn it túnhûs. Se hie fan har heard fia in freondinne dy’t yn skieding lei, har man in Israelyske konsertfioelist, in maestro, in sjeny dy’t noch gjin aai bakke koe en noch foar de skieding ta werklikheid wurden wie tegearre wenne mei syn meast resinte minneresse, in frou fan begjin tweintich.
Sânenfjirtich! Sânenfjirtich is se! Har heit trijensantich, dus. Aniek tolve, takom jier giet se al nei de middelbere skoalle. As se witten hie hoe hurd de tiid gean soe, as se witten hie hoe wier de klisjees wiene, hie se it oars dien. Net de bern, fansels net, mar se wie skilderjen bleaun. No skilderet se ek, mar se hie it sa dien, dat se eksposearjen bleaun wie, dat der njonken Aniek noch immen west hie dy’t him ynteressearre foar har wurk.
En wer! Dat hert. Dy fersnelling, in dûbeldslach. Ynazemje. Sân sekonden. En rêstich, djip útazemje. Alve sekonden lang. Ien, twa, trije, fjouwer, fiif, seis, sân en ien, twa, trije fjouwer fiif —
Dy terapy hie har ek neat brocht, útsein dan it ynsjoch dat se al har lilkens oer it patriargaat op de mislieding fan de kursuslieder projektearre.
Mei rjocht, tocht se.
Op har plak set, holden troch de safolste korpulinte man mei in messiaskompleks. Der is gjin ferjouwingsterapy dy’t dit oplost, gjin terapy, punt. Allinnich in revolúsje. En sy is dêr te wurch foar, te âld —
Unrêst. De eagen op it paad. It readboarstje. It ljocht. Har heit syn wangen, dy’t har dus yn it sin komme sa’t se no binne: sêft, hingjend, mei de lichtste, wite stoppels. Se woe dat se it skilderje koe, it ljocht, de loft, krekt sa’t it no is. Swier fan tonger. Wat in frjemd waar wie it dizze moanne, rûzich as it moed fan in bern. Klimaatferoaring. Hie ek te krijen mei de ûnsichtberens fan Mem Ierde as útrûpele entiteit, sa yn dit earste jier fan de ienentweintichste iuw. Dus úteinlik …
In houten oanrjocht. Wat tochten de eardere eigeners? It rottet yn griistinten fuort. Nim dan in nije keuken, mem, ropt Christiaan, de âldste, hy ropt it al jierren, as is it in broadsje dat je bestelle, mar Aniek wol it net, Aniek wol net iens dat har mem de laden fan de kast yn de hal meitsje lit. It is net dat se fan ferfal hâldt, har jongste bern; Aniek hâldt gewoan net fan feroaring. Se hat sûnt har pakes diagnoaze ek net mear mei west nei Zutphen. It is no in lyts healjier bekend, tinkt se, sa ûngefear, wat har heit hat. Dêrfoar foel it ek al op: de skrassen op ’e auto, de fergetten boadskippen, de lilkens, dat frjemde telefoantsje dêr’t er yn sei dat er de krante net langer ûntfange woe; hy fûn datst yn in hoeke treaun waard.
As de rein aanst falt sil it wite grint bûten donker kleurje, wiet wêze, sa’t it eartiids wie, fuortbewegend op de bêding fan de rivier. En no leit it hjir, in fisk op it drûge, happend nei wetter. Rivieren bewege, wâlkanten bewege, sels de grûn dêr’tst op rinst, leit los. De grûn ûnder dyn fuotten, ek al net te fertrouwen.
In klikkend lûd, twa kear, as in gewear dat laden wurdt yn in Twadde-Wrâldoarlochsfilm mei John Wayne of Richard Burton, Aap dy’t in poat troch it kattelûk stekt. Hy wachtet mar even, se geane aanst ú—t. Aniek neamde doe’t se krekt prate koe alle bisten aapkes: Stip nei de pleats: aapke, aapke, aapke. In besite oan de bistetún (dat barbaarske ynstitút!): aapke, aapke, aapke. Elke hûn, elke húskat, it knyn fan ’e buorlju: aapke, aapke, aapke. De pup? Aapke.
Se hie nea sa min sliept as de wiken, moannen, nei Aniek har berte, sels no noch net. Alle nachten wer gie it loftalarm ôf, Londen yn ’e Blitz. Trije, fjouwer, fiif kear nachts siet se rjochtop yn bêd en moast derút. It rjochtop sitten gie troch, sels nei’t it gûlen opholden wie. Auditive hallusinaasjes, hie de húsdokter sein. Jo tinke dat jo jo dochter gûlen hearre, sels as dat net sa is. Kranksinnich hurd, hie Richard dy jûns sein. Hy moast lûd laitsje om syn eigen grap, om alles dat útelkoar foel.
Wat die er yn dy tiid? Richard? Hy wie dwaande karriêre te meitsjen, bleau lizzen, yn it waarme bêd, om’t er de oare deis in wichtige ôfspraak hie. In readboarstje fljocht no lâns de griene gevels fan de hage. Allinnich sy kin dizze fûgel sjen, sa. Dêroer neitinke.
Se tinkt oan wat har mem sei as de bakjes op ’e tafel kamen en se nei fla rikte: Moatsto wol in neigesetsje? Wêrom nó? Dit oantinken?
Kinst as minske altyd ergens oars wêze. In seine, ast mei in jonge dêr’tst de rook net fan ferneare kinst yn syn heechslieper leist, mar ek in flok, want komselden is eat inkeld wat it is: dûse, de sulveren messen ôfwaskje, de hûn útlitte en in begraafplak besykje, in readboarstje besjen troch it keukensrút. De fingers fan it iene momint rikke oer dagen hinne, jierren, en reitsje in oar momint oan, gripe it fêst. En wat sei har heit tsjin har mem? Sei er, Lit dat bern? Noch sa’n flok: de winsk dy’t de heit fan dyn tinzen is. Mar goed, sa wrakselet elkenien mei oantinkens. Se moat oan ’e slach: de wask yn ’e masine, mei Aap de heide lâns, boadskippen helje. En do wolst noch skilderje hjoed. Of net?
Jezus, dy lucht. En ynienen, in skerp lûd, glês dat springt. It kofjesetapparaat. Dat rûkte se! In pot mei barsten. Richard dy’t fan ’e moarn foar twa koppen kofje set hie, dy opdronken hie, en nei alle gedachten fergetten wie de waarmhâldstân út te setten. Ién ding. Hy moat íén ding dwaan, moarns! Se draait har nei it apparaat, klikt it oranje lampke om.
En de buorman dy’t de griene bak by de dyk set. De griene bak, net ferjitte. Isabella sil hjir oer in healoere wêze.
Se draait har nei it fornús, pakt de teetsjettel op, set de radio oan. En dan stiet se der wer, by de goatstien, oan it oanrjocht, foar dit útsjoch. It roppige lûd fan de lege tsjettel, in pianokonsert op ’e achtergrûn. Se fynt de muzyk fan Sjostakovitsj gaoatysk. De muzyk fan Prokofjev is ék gaoatysk, mar makket har net sa nerveus as dy fan Sjostakovitsj. Richard krijt fan de bank faak kaartsjes foar it konsertgebou. Soms sitte se sa tichtby it poadium datst it swit op de noasbrêge fan de pianist sjen kinst. Ast dat ienkear sjoen hast, hearst yn de muzyk ek de konstante langst fan de komponist, fynst de sporten werom yn de fingers fan de muzikant, yn de toetsoanslach fan de pianist, en wa’t dy langst heart, útfierd, heart ek alle smoarde, net-spile klanken. Se moat nei har atelier, foardat Isabella der is de kar meitsje mei hokker skilderij se hjoed fierder wol. Nei’t se de tsjettel oer it fjoer setten hat — tik, tik, tik — rint se werom nei de goatstien en smyt it giele doekje fuort yn it jiskefet ûnder de skoarstien.
Se hie in bûnzjend hert, lang foardat se wekker waard. Se rekke yn ’e sliep, waard twa oeren letter wekker, Richard neist har, it lûd fan de oseaan, de weach dy’t him mei wat tsjinsin weromluts en dêrnei wer fol oerjefte oer it strân útstoarte. Trije kertier lei se wekker, seach nei de fluorisearjende wizers fan de wekker. En wer dat ûnrêstige hert, oars as normaal. As knikkerts diskear, dy’t fan in trep rôlen. En dêrnei, har dream: sij en John yn harren sliepkeamer, mar oars: in rêstjaande kleur blau op ’e muorren, en bûten beammen dy’t mei har griene tûken de romte kleuren, sêft tsjin it rút soeiken, loksillich it glês streaken as in minskehân in hûn, en syn tonge tusken har skonken en it waarme gefoel yn har ûnderbúk en doe kaam se klear, yn har sliep, mar ek echt, en dêrnei, doe’t se nei John ta woe, om him fêst te hâlden, om har troch him fêsthâlde te litten, siet se ynienen fêst, mei har fuotten, en wie Susan dêr, en wiene de bern der ek en moast se ûntkenne wat der krekt bard wie mar Susan noch de bern leauden har.
Der binne nachten dat er yn har dreamen stil de keamer ynkomt en by har op bêd lizzen komt en dat er har fêsthâldt en dat der fierder neat bart.
En soms hat se dreamen, nachtmerjes, mei bylden fan wat se oerdeis besiket te ferwurkjen. Har lichem as dat fan in heiden, in heks, en it iennichste middel om wat te bewizen: sûnder te razen yn de hjitte fan it lûd fan de flammen opgean, toane dat se in minske is mar te grutsk om dat ek nochris te sizzen, te grutsk om har pine op dy wize sjen te litten. (Mar ek, tinkt se no, om de bern net foargoed mei har geraas op te skypjen. Foargoed, oant ek by harren de ferfrommeling en de ferrotting begjint.) Wa’t goed sjocht, kin sjen dat se brânt.
De losse tegeltsjes ûnderoan de trep. In ûnbestimde plestik pûde njonken it kastke yn de hal. Se wykt út foar de doar, har skouder rekket it keunstwurk fan de sittende frou mar it glês beskermet de oaljeferve op papier en yn de spegel boppe it fonteintsje yn de hal, foar de wc oer, flak foardat se yn it ljocht fan de spotsjes fan it waskhok stapt, sjocht se harsels, en bliuwt stean. Dit is sa’t de rest fan de wrâld har sjocht — it hier pluzich, en drûch; de lyntsjes njonken har eagen; de ieren ûnder har eagen; en de mûle, skrale lippen mei te min kleur — troch har eagen, dan. En dat seit neat, seit Richard dan, oer hoe’t de rest fan de wrâld dy werklik sjocht.
Dan heart se Isabella har kaai stekken yn it slot.

She is standing in front of the sink which she has just sprayed down with the extractable sprayer and looks up from the yellow dishcloth which smells of something awful and out over the driveway. A moment before she had been thinking that you keep cleaning, tidying, washing and that is what caring is, washing away coffee grounds, the grains of coffee powder recalcitrant, like hounded, bucking animals and the hollow sound of water on stainless steel and suddenly her father was there and the moment of discontent was gone for good, that is: this moment, this sense of discontent. Her father, his soft, droopy cheeks, a hamster, Hallo dog, he said to her; rabbit to his mother. And still did. On the clear days – in the clear moments. Hopefully this afternoon.
What is the time? Quarter past nine. Isabella will be there at ten o’clock and not all the washing has dried yet. She has something for her, a present for her children in Brazil.
She exhales deeply, consciously. Concentrating on the tall hedge along the gravel driveway; the wind is visible in it. The tops are too tall, the thin twigs sway, and when you reverse down the driveway, the lower twigs touch your car with outstretched hands, believers reaching for the hem of His robe. Except of course, this car ultimately meant death to all the green in the world. Or would all the trees and bushes grow better from all the carbon and was it the birds and people, this low-lying country which was doomed? Will the water rise halfway up the chestnut?
The wood beneath her hand palms felt soft, too soft; it has had too much water. You never know what you can rely on: your memory is a compost heap onto which something new is tipped every day, everything beneath it heats up, rots, bacteria and fungi, fundamentally changes in substance, changes who you are; if you saw what was happening now in the folds of her father’s brain; the body has its own will or way, that you take together – together, your spirit and your body, even though she once read somewhere that your spirit is the mood at your body’s party and she has never forgotten these words.
When she had been woken at quarter to seven that morning, by Richard, these days he goes for a swim every other day before work, she had felt it again: the oppressive feeling on her chest. She had waited a moment – what? twenty seconds, she should have kept looking at the alarm clock – and sure enough, that loud gong, an extra gong, like the half-hour stroke of the clock on top of her mother’s secretaire in years past. He had hung up his clothes on the wall lamp in the passage, on top of the folded pile of workout gear he wears to the swimming pool. He no longer gives her a kiss. He left her sleeping. That is one explanation. The other explanation, she thinks, is that for him, she simply isn’t there. That not only everything she does but who she is is invisible to him.
Janet Sobel had been making her large canvases with splashes of paint long before Pollock. Only he took all the credit. Because women – and their work – are invisible. Three kilometres away, in a little coffin which she couldn’t think about for too long, her daughter lies, one-and-a-half metres below the ground and nobody knows her name anymore.
The ultrasound operator no longer heard a heartbeat, called in the doctor. A little later they sent her home. Four days later she was allowed to return for an induced labour. Four days! They gave her a drug to cause contractions. And now her daughter lies in the ground, under a bed of green moss. In the hospital they had given her tranquillisers to take with her and sleeping pills. But the stairs made her giddy. She couldn’t make sense of the silence in the house. Light nauseated her, she wanted to be rid of it. And what was one thing in the daytime was something quite different at night, when she heard the silence which lay beneath the daytime silence.
Yesterday evening in bed, she had read about the invisible but crucial work bacteria and fungi did beneath the ground, the basis of forests, and she had thought of herself. Somewhere between that forest and her self-image and the compost heap in her head, in her father’s head, somewhere in that forest, in the compost heap, in her head, was a dagger of an argument, the leather scabbard slightly damaged but the blade gleaming, clear, sharp. She can’t get to it. She is too tired, too busy.
Five or six years ago, Aniek had been six, doing her homework in this kitchen.
Mum, do women also work in politics?
Yes, of course.
Then why are there only men in the pictures?
And it was true, all the politicians in the workbook were men. Women: incubators, lacking a name or face, who, in the course of western history, have only just been given the vote.
The feeling of being invisible, unheard and unseen; she had had therapy for it a few years ago, Hawaiian forgiveness therapy at the home of a physician from Soest – Vrieling!, that was his name – the kahuna and his female retinue slept in the summer house. She had heard about them from a friend who was going through a divorce, her husband an Israeli concert violinist, a maestro, a genius who couldn’t fry an egg and had moved in with his most recent lover, a woman in her early twenties, even before the divorce was through.
Forty-seven! She is forty-seven! So, her father is seventy-three. Aniek twelve, next year she will go to secondary school. If she had known how fast time would go by, if she had known how true the clichés were, she would have done things differently. Not the children, of course not, but she would have carried on painting. She still paints now, but she would have made sure that she had kept exhibiting her work, that there was someone other than Aniek who took interest in her work.
And again! That heart. That quickening, skipping a beat. Inhale. Seven seconds. And exhale slowly, deeply. Eleven seconds long. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven and one, two, three, four, five –
That therapy hadn’t done anything for her, except make her realise that she had projected all her fury at the patriarchy on the course instructor’s deceit.
Rightly, she thought.
Put in her place, kept there by the umpteenth corpulent man with a messiah complex.
There isn’t any kind of forgiveness therapy that would sort this out, no therapy, full stop. Only a revolution. And she is too tired for that, too old –
Agitation. The view of the driveway. The robin. The light. Her father’s cheeks, which she recalls as they are now: soft, drooping, with the lightest, white stubble. She wished she could paint it, the light, the air, exactly as it is now. Foreboding a storm. How strange the weather had been this month, as tempestuous as a child’s mind. Climate change. Also had to do with the invisibility of Mother Earth as an exploited entity, in this first year of the twenty-first century. So, finally…
A wooden worktop. What had the previous owners been thinking? It is rotting away in tints of grey. Then get a new kitchen, mum, exclaims Christiaan, her eldest, he has been saying it for years, as though it is a sandwich that you ordered, but Aniek is against it, Aniek doesn’t even want her mother to get the drawers of the cabinet in the hall repaired. It isn’t that she likes dilapidation, her youngest child; she just doesn’t like change. Neither had she come along to Zutphen since her grandfather’s diagnosis. It had been known for half a year by now, she thinks, just about, what her father has. It was already noticeable before then: the scratches on the car, the forgotten shopping, the anger, that odd telephone conversation in which he had said that he no longer wanted to receive the newspaper; he felt that you were pinned down.
When it rained in a while the white gravel outside would darken, be wet, as it used to be, moving forward along the riverbed. And now it lies here, a fish out of water, gulping for water. Rivers move, banks move, even the ground you walk on isn’t fixed. The ground beneath your feet, not to be trusted either.
A clicking sound, like a gun being loaded in a second world war film with John Wayne or Richard Burton, Monkey sticking a paw through the cat flap. He will have to wait a moment, they are about to go o-u-t. When Aniek first learnt to speak she called all animals monkeys: Spot Goes to the Farm: monkey, monkey, monkey. A trip to the zoo (that barbaric institution!): monkey, monkey, monkey. The puppy? Monkey.
She had never slept as badly as the weeks, months after Aniek was born, not even now. The air-raid siren went off every night, London in the Blitz. Three, four, five times a night she sat bolt upright in bed and had to get out. She kept sitting bolt upright, even when the crying had stopped. Auditive hallucinations, her GP had said: you think you hear your daughter crying even when it isn’t so. Insanely loud, Richard had said that evening. He had had a good laugh at his own joke, at everything that was falling apart.
What had he been doing at that time? Richard? He had been making a career for himself, stayed in bed, the warm bed, because he had an important meeting the next day. A robin now flew past the green gables of the hedge. Only she can see this bird, like this. Think about it.
She thinks of what her mother had said when putting the bowls on the table, and she had reached for the custard: Should you be having pudding? Why now? This memory.
You can always be somewhere else as a person. A blessing, if you are in a bunkbed with a boy whose odour you can’t stand, but a curse too, for seldom is something merely what it is, showering, washing the silver knives, taking out the dog and visiting a cemetery, watching a robin through the kitchen window. The fingers of one moment reach over days, years, and touch another moment, and grasp hold of it. And what did her father say to her mother? Did he say, Leave the child? Another one of those curses: the wish is the father to your thoughts. Anyway, everybody struggles like this with memories. She must get going: the laundry in the machine, take Monkey round the heath, do the shopping. And you also want to paint today. Or don’t you?
Christ, that stench. And suddenly, a sharp sound, glass breaking. The coffee machine. She smells it! A cracked pot. Richard, who had made two cups of coffee that morning, had drunk them, and had probably forgotten to turn off the warmer switch. One thing. The one thing he had to do in the morning! Turning towards the machine, she switches off the orange light.
And the neighbour putting the organic waste container on the curb. The organic waste container, don’t forget. Isabella will be here in half an hour.
She turns to the stove, picks up the teakettle, turns on the radio. And then she is standing there again, at the worktop, with this view. The voracious sound of the empty kettle, a piano concerto in the background. She finds Shostakovich’s music chaotic. Prokofiev’s music is also chaotic, but it doesn’t make her as nervous as Shostakovich’s does. Richard often gets tickets for the Concertgebouw from the bank. Sometimes they sit so close to the stage that you can see the sweat on the bridge of the pianist’s nose. Once you have seen that you can hear the composer’s constant yearning, recognise the practice in the musician’s fingers, in the pianist’s key strikes, and when you hear that yearning, performed, you hear the throttled, unplayed sounds too. She must go to her studio, choose a painting to carry on with before Isabella arrives. After she has put the kettle on the hob – tick, tick, tick – she walks back to the sink and chucks the yellow dishcloth in the dustbin beneath the chimney.
Her heart had been racing, long before she awoke. She had slept in, had woken up two hours later, Richard next to her, the sound of the ocean, the wave which had retreated with some reluctance and then crashed once more on the beach with absolute commitment. For three quarters of an hour, she had lain awake, looking at the fluorescent hands on the alarm clock. And that agitated heart again, different from usual. Like marbles this time, rolling down a staircase. And then, her dream: she and John in their bedroom, but different: a calming tint of blue on the walls, and outside trees coloured the space with their green branches, gently swaying against the window, blissfully stroking the glass like a human hand would a dog, and his tongue between her legs and the warm sensation in her groin and she came, in her sleep, but in reality too, and then, when she wanted to go to John, hold him, be held by him, all at once she was stuck, by her feet, and Susan was there, and the children were there too and she had to deny what had just happened, but neither Susan nor the children believed her.
There are nights that he silently enters the room in her dreams and lies down in bed with her and he holds her and nothing else happens.
And sometimes she has dreams, nightmares, with images of what she tries to process by day. Her body like a heathen’s, a witch’s, and the only means to prove something: being absorbed by the heat of the sound of the flames without screaming, showing that she is a human but too proud to say it again, too proud to show her pain like that. (But also, she thinks, not to burden her children forever with her screams. Forever, until they too start wrinkling and decaying.) If you look hard you can see that she is aflame.
The loose tiles at the bottom of the stairs. A non-descript plastic bag next to the cupboard in the hallway. She side-steps the door, her shoulder touches the work depicting a sitting woman, but the glass protects the oil painting, and in the mirror above the washbasin in the hallway, opposite the loo, just before she walks into the light from the spotlights in the laundry room, she sees herself and halts. This is how the rest of the world sees her – her hair frizzy and dry; the creases next to her eyes; the veins beneath her eyes; and her mouth, thin lips with too little colour – in her eyes, in any case. And that says nothing, Richard then says, about how the rest of the world really sees you.
Then she hears Isabella putting her key in the lock.

‘Getfer … Dit fyn ik dus écht goar!’
Jildau lûkt in fiis geschicht en skoddet even hiel wyld mei de holle. Dan bûcht se in bytsje foaroer en pjukt mei har foarke yn ’e giele griente om dy’t op har board leit.
‘Dit smakket nei gers. Of nei modder. En it stjonkt ek noch! Bah! Ik yt dit écht net, hear!’
‘Net sa raar, Jildau,’ seit heit, ‘dat heart net sa. Hast it wol oer iten.’
‘Ik neam dit gjin iten,’ seit Jildau, ‘dit liket mear op bargefoer.’
‘No ik fyn koalraap wol lekker,’ seit Sipke. ‘En mem sei dat it hiel sûn is en dat der allegear fitaminen yn sitte.’
Jildau sjocht har broer oan. Lekker? Mient er dit no? Of makket er in grapke?
‘Fynsto dít lekker, Sipke?’ freget se.
Sipke knikt. ‘Ja hear. In minsk hat no ien kear fitaminen noadich en dy sitte hjir yn. En ast mar genôch fitaminen ytst, dan krijst ek gjin skuorbúk!’
‘Skuorbúk?’ Jildau sjocht Sipke ferbaasd oan. ‘Wat is dát no wer?’
Sipke, dy’t krekt in hap nommen hat fan syn koalraap, docht demonstratyf syn mûle in eintsje iepen en wiist der mei syn foarke nei.
‘Hjir! Allegear fitaminen!’ prommelet er. ‘Sjochst se wol?’
Jildau knypt gau har eagen ticht en lûkt wer in fiis gesicht.
‘Dat hawwe wy op skoalle hân,’ giet Sipke fierder, as er syn mûle wer leech hat.
‘Juf fertelde dat de minsken op ’e VOC-skippen froeger siik waarden en deagongen  omdat se gjin farske griente krigen. En dus ek gjin fitaminen. Bedoarn wetter, dat krigen se. Oars neat. No, en dan krigen se dus skuorbúk.’
Dêr skrikt Jildau wol wat fan. ‘Skuorbúk? En giest dea, ast dat hast?’
Sipke knikt. ‘Ast gelok hiest net, mar ast pech hiest wol.’ Hy laket even.
‘Mar ast dea gongst, krigest wol in seemansgrêf en dát wie dan wer in gelokje.’
Mem sjocht Sipke ferheard oan. ‘In gelokje? Wat bedoelst?’
Sipke lûkt syn skouders op. ‘No, as ik dea wie, soe ik leaver yn ’e see lizze dan ûnder de modder.’
As Jildau ‘modder’ heart, rûkt se nochris oan de koalraap op har board en sjocht heit oan. ‘Fynsto koalraap lekker, heit?’
Heit is even stil. Dan leit er syn foarke del en sjocht Jildau oan.
‘Tsja Jildau, wat sil ik sizze. Mem hat har bêst dien om ris wat oars as oars te meitsjen. En hjoed is dat dus koalraap wurden. Ik moat earlik bekenne dat ik dat ek noch nea earder hân haw.’
‘Dat is gjin antwurd op har fraach, Fokko,’ laket mem. ‘Fynst it lekker? Dat freget Jildau.’
Se sjocht heit oan, mar dy seit neat. Dy sjocht nei de koalraap op syn eigen board, wêr’t er noch net in hap fan hân hat.
‘Dan wit ik wol genôch,’ seit mem. ‘Witst, ik tocht: lit ik ris wat oars op ’e tafel sette as slaad of woartels of spinaazje.’
Mei in opskepleppel hellet se in hapke koalraap út ’e panne en hâldt it omheech.
‘Dit neame se tsjintwurdich in fergetten griente. En Sipke hat gelyk: der sitte in protte fitaminen yn. Eartiids waard dit in protte iten. Myn pake en beppe ieten it ek faak. Dy fûnen it hearlik.’
Jildau slacht har earms oerelkoar en sjocht mem boas oan.
‘Ik yt it yn elts gefal net! En ik hoech ek gjin fitaminen. Dy fyn ik ek fiis!’
Dan slacht se ynienen hurd mei har fûst op de râne fan har board. Mei in bôge fljocht in kwak koalraap troch de loft en ploft del op de flier.
‘Sa hat it wol genôch west, Jildau,’ seit heit kalm. ‘Ik haw no myn nocht en mem ek, tink ik. Gean mar nei boppen, nei dyn keamer.’
‘Mar ik wol noch yochert ha’, seit Jildau.
‘Nee, dat dogge we hjoed net. Ik sei: it is klear sa! Nei boppen, do! Roef-roets!’
Jildau sjocht nei heit. Dy is lilk, dat kinst wol sjen.
Se sjocht even hiel boas werom en stapt dan driftich fuort. Mei in klap lûkt se de doar achter har ticht en se stampt ekstra hurd op de treppen.
Heit is lilk? No, sy is noch folle lilker! En dat allegear troch dy fize koalraap.

As mem in skoftke letter by har op ’e keamer komt, docht Jildau krekt oft se sliept. Ek heit kipet noch even troch de doar fan har keamer en freget sacht oft se al sliept. Jildau heart it wol, mar seit neat. Krekt goed. Dat is syn eigen skuld.

Jildau docht dan wol krekt of sliept se, mar sliepe, dat slagget har hielendal net. Want ast lilk bist, kínst net sliepe. En Jildau is noch hieltyd lilk. En: klearwekker. Foarsichtich glydt se út har bêd om by de wasktafel wat wetter te drinken.
It wetter is kâld, mar yn elts gefal net bedoarn, lykas it wetter op dy seeskippen dêr’t Sipke it oer hie. Want ast bedoarn wetter dronken hiest, dan koest dea gean en in seemansgrêf krije. Wat soe dat wêze, in seemansgrêf?
Se hat gjin idee. Moarn mar even oan Sipke freegje. Dy wiisnoas sit al yn groep 7 en wit alles. Dat seit er teminsten.

As heit en mem op bêd gean, is Jildau noch wekker. Se docht gau har holle ûnder de tekkens as heit en mem noch even by har sjogge.

En dan, even letter, fielt Jildau ynienen har búk. Dy docht wat sear. Soe dat miskien fan dat kâlde wetter komme dat se dronken hat?
Of soe se … hoe neamde Sipke dat ek al wer? Skuorbúk. Soe se miskien skuorbúk hawwe? Want ast gjin griente ytst en ek gjin fitaminen, dan krijst skuorbúk.
Ja, dat sei Sipke ommers.
Jildau tinkt nei. Se hat hjoed hielendal gjin griente hân. En dus ek gjin fitaminen. Want de apel, dy’t mem har meijûn hie foar skoalle, dy hat se net opiten. En dy fan juster ek net. Doe hie se ommers fan Saskia in sjerpwafel krigen.

Skuorbúk. Hoe soe dat fiele? En hoe kinst sjen ofst dat hast? Soenen der dan samar skuorren yn dyn búk komme?
Jildau knipt har bêdlampke oan en skoot de tekkens oan ’e kant. Mei triljende hannen knopet se har piamajaske los. Der is gjin skuor te sjen, mar pine yn ’e búk hat se noch wol. Miskien is dat wol it begjin. Miskien hat sy ek pech en komt dy skuorbúk aanst.

Hiel hoeden skoot Jildau har bêd út en docht de sliepkeamerdoar iepen. It is hielendal stil yn ’e hûs, se sliepe allegear.
Op har teannen slûpt se nei ûnderen en giet nei de keuken. Foar de kuolkast bliuwt se stean. Har hannen trilje at se de kuolkastdoar iepen docht.
Yn hokker griente soenen de measte fitaminen sitte? Jildau wit it net.
Dan hellet se in tomaat út ’e kuolkast en besjocht him fan alle kanten. It griene stâltsje mei it stjêrke sit der noch oan.
Se docht de eagen ticht en nimt dan in grutte hap. It is net allinnich tomaat. Se fielt dat se ek it stâltsje yn ’e mûle hat en allegear lytse pitsjes. Mar se spuit it net út,
want dêr sille ek wol fitaminen yn sitte.

Der leit fierder noch in komkommer yn de kuolkast. Jildau lûkt it plestik derôf en nimt in pear grutte happen. Mei skyl en al, want dêr sitte miskien ek wol fitaminen yn.
Yn de grientebak ûnderyn de kuolkast sjocht se noch mear griente lizzen.
Jildau hellet der in plestik pûde mei spinaazje út en skuort him iepen.
Even moat se slokke, mar dan proppet se har hiele mûle fol. It fielt wol raar om sa op dy drûge blêden te kôgjen, mar se fynt it net fiis.
Dan sjocht se boppe yn ’e kuolkast in glêzen bakje stean mei in stikje sulverpapier der oerhinne.
Jildau pakt it derút en sjocht deryn. It is it oerbleaune restje fan de koalraap fan dizze jûn. Se rûkt der even oan. It rûkt no net mear nei gers, of nei modder.
Se suchtet en docht dan de eagen ticht. Mei har hân skept se it klikje koalraap derút en proppet it yn ien kear yn ’e mûle. Se kokhalzet al wat, mar dan slokt se it sa troch.
Krekt as se noch in hap nimme sil, giet it ljocht yn ’e keuken oan. It is mem.
Dy seit neat, mar giet neist Jildau op ’e kâlde keukenflier sitten. Sûnder fierder wat te sizzen slacht mem har earm om Jildau hinne.
‘Ik hie sa’n pine yn ’e búk,’ flústeret Jildau. Har stim trillet en se fielt dat der samar triennen oer har wangen rinne. ‘Wat tinkt mem, soe ik skuorbúk ha?’
Mem sjocht har oan en laket even.
‘Do skuorbúk? Tinkst dat? Wolnee, leave skat! Tuerlik net!’
‘Mar ik haw wol pine yn ’e búk,’ flústeret Jildau, ‘en dêr begjint dat mei.’
‘Miskien hast pine yn ’e búk fan al dy griente dy’tst opiten hast,’ seit mem sacht en faget foarsichtich de triennen fan Jildau har wangen.
‘Sil ik dy no mar wer op bêd bringe?’
Jildau knikt en tegearre gean se nei boppen. Mem stoppet Jildau lekker ûnder en leit har knuffels neist har holle op it kessen.
‘Is mem no net lilk mear?’ freget Jildau.
Mem skodhollet. ‘Nee hear,’ seit se en se hellet in bledsje spinaazje út it hier fan Jildau.
‘En heit dan? Is dy noch lilk?’ flústeret Jildau.
Mem skoddet wer de holle. ‘Nee hear,’ seit se, ‘heit woe noch even by dy sjen, mar doe leisto al te sliepen.’
Se laket even en dan flústeret se: ‘Heit woe even tsjin dy sizze dat hy dy koalraap ek net lekker fûn. Hy hat der sels ek neat fan iten …’
‘Echt wier?’ freget Jildau. ‘Fûn hy it ek net lekker?’
Se laket even, mar dan giet se ynienen oerein en pakt de hân fan mem beet.
‘Mem … haw ik echt gjin skuorbúk?’ flústeret se.
‘Nee famke! Wier net!’ seit mem.
‘En kin dat fannacht ek net mear komme?’
‘Nee, gjin sprake fan!’ seit mem.
‘Dan haw ik dus écht gelok hân,’ seit Jildau en se giet wer lizzen.
‘No, we moatte it allegear mar gau ferjitte,’ seit mem, ‘en do moatst dy no deljaan, Jildau. Moarnier moatst wer nei skoalle ta en dan binne wy dy koalraap wer fergetten, ôfpraat? Fergetten griente hjit dat ommers …’

‘Yuck… This is so gross!’
Jildau pulls a disgusted face and shakes her head wildly for a moment. Then she bends forward a little and picks with her fork at the yellow vegetable on her plate. ‘This tastes of grass. Or mud. What’s more, it stinks! Bah! No way am I eating this!’
‘Stop exaggerating, Jildau,’ says Dad, ‘that’s rude. This is food we’re talking about.’
‘I don’t call this food,’ says Jildau, ‘this looks more like pigswill.’
‘Well, I think swede is delicious,’ says Sipke. ‘And Mum says it’s really healthy and packed full of vitamins.’
Jildau looks at her brother. Delicious? Does he mean that? Or is he joking? ‘You think this is delicious, Sipke?’ she asks.
Sipke nods. ‘Yeah, I do. A person needs vitamins and this contains them. And if you eat enough vitamins, they’ll stop you getting scurvy too!’
‘Scurvy?’ Jildau looks at Sipke in surprise. ‘What’s that?’
Sipke, who has just taken a bite of his swede, demonstratively opens his mouth some way and points inside with his fork.
‘Here! All vitamins!’ he murmurs with his mouth full. ‘See?’
Jildau closes her eyes tight and pulls another disgusted face.
‘We had it at school,’ Sipke continues, once he’s swallowed his mouthful. ‘Our teacher told us that people on the ships of the Dutch East India Company became ill and died because they didn’t get any fresh vegetables. So no vitamins either. Fetid water, they had that. Nothing else. Well, so then they got scurvy.’
Jildau feels a little scared now. ‘Scurvy? And did you die, if you had that?’
Sipke nods. ‘Not if you were lucky, but if you were unlucky then yes.’ He laughs a moment. ‘But if you died, you were buried at sea and that was a piece of luck.’
Mum looks at Sipke in surprise. ‘A piece of luck? How do you mean?’
Sipke shrugs. ‘Well, if I were dead, I’d rather lie in the sea than under the mud.’
When Jildau hears the word ‘mud’, she smells the swede on her plate again and looks at Dad. ‘Do you like swede, Dad?’
Dad is quiet for a moment. Then he puts down his fork and looks at Jildau.
‘Er, Jildau, what can I say? Mum’s done her best to make us something tasty. And today that was swede. I have to admit I’d never had it before either.’
‘That’s not an answer to her question, Fokko,’ Mum laughs. ‘Do you like it? That’s what Jildau is asking.’
She looks at Dad, but says nothing. He looks at the swede on his own plate, of which he hasn’t yet taken a single bite.
‘Enough said then,’ says Mum. ‘You know, I thought: why don’t I serve something different from lettuce, carrots or spinach for a change.’
With a serving spoon she takes a bite of swede from the pan and holds it up. ‘This is what they call a forgotten vegetable these days. And Sipke’s right, it’s packed with vitamins. This used to be eaten a great deal. My granddad and granny ate it frequently. They loved it.’
Jildau crosses her arms and looks at Mum crossly.
‘Well I’m not eating it in any case! And I don’t need any vitamins. I think they’re disgusting too!’
Then she suddenly bangs the edge of her plate hard with her fist. A lump of swede flies through the air and splats onto the floor.
‘That’s enough, Jildau,’ says Dad calmly. ‘I’m done with this and I think Mum is too. Go upstairs, to your room.’
‘But I still want yoghurt,’ says Jildau.
‘No, we’re not doing that today. I said that’s enough! Upstairs with you! And quick!’
Jildau looks at Dad. He’s angry, you can see that.
She looks back angrily for a moment, then stomps away. She slams the door behind her and stamps extra hard on the stairs.
Dad’s angry? Well, she’s far angrier! And all that for that disgusting swede.

When Mum comes to her room a little while later, Jildau pretends to be asleep. Dad also peeks in and asks softly if she’s already sleeping. Jildau hears, but she doesn’t say anything. Serve him right. It’s his own fault.
Jildau might be pretending to sleep, but actual sleep doesn’t come at all. Because if you’re angry, you can’t sleep. And Jildau is still angry. And wide awake. Cautiously she slips out of bed to drink some water at the basin. That water is cold, but at least it’s not fetid, like the water on the ships Sipke was talking about. Because if you’d drunk fetid water, you could die and be buried at sea. What would that be like, being buried at sea?
She has no idea. Ask Sipke tomorrow. That know-it-all is already in year 6 and knows everything. So he claims, anyway.

Jildau is still awake when Dad and Mum go to bed. She quickly hides her head under the covers when Dad and Mum look in on her.
And then, a little later, Jildau suddenly feels her stomach. It’s a bit sore. Could that be from the cold water she drank?
Or might she have… what did Sipke call it again? Scurvy. Might she have scurvy? Because if you don’t eat vegetables or vitamins, then you get scurvy. Yes, that’s what Sipke said.
Jildau ponders this. She hasn’t had any vegetables today. So no vitamins either. That apple Mum gave her to take to school, she didn’t eat that either. Nor yesterday’s. After all, yesterday Saskia gave her a syrup waffle.

Scurvy. How would that feel? And how do you know you have it? Could it cause a tummy ache?
Jildau switches on her bedside lamp and pushes her covers aside. Hands trembling, she unbuttons her pyjamas. There’s nothing to see, but her tummy still hurts. Perhaps that’s the beginning. Perhaps she’s unlucky and the scurvy is on its way.

Very carefully Jildau shuffles out of her bed and opens her bedroom door. It’s silent in the house, they’re all asleep.
On her tiptoes she creeps downstairs and enters the kitchen. She stops in front of the fridge. Her hands tremble as she opens the fridge door.
Which vegetable contains the most vitamins? Jildau doesn’t know.
Then she takes a tomato from the fridge and examines it from all sides. The green stem with the little star is still attached.
She closes her eyes and takes a large bite. It’s not just tomato. She can feel that she also has the stem in her mouth and lots of tiny pips. But she doesn’t spit it out, because there will be vitamins in it.
There’s also a cucumber in the fridge. Jildau pulls the plastic off and takes a couple of big bites. Skin and all, because perhaps there are vitamins there too.
In the vegetable drawer at the bottom of the fridge she sees even more vegetables.
Jildau takes out the plastic bag of spinach and tears it open.
She pauses to swallow first, but then she stuffs her mouth full of it. It feels a bit strange, chewing on those dry leaves like that, but it’s not disgusting.
Then she sees a glass bowl higher up in the fridge with a piece of aluminium foil over it.
Jildau takes it out and looks inside. It’s the leftovers of this evening’s swede. She sniffs it. It doesn’t smell of grass anymore, or of mud.
She sighs and closes her eyes. With her hand she scoops some leftover swede out and stuffs it into her mouth in one go. She wretches a little, but then swallows it down. Just as she’s about to take another bite, the light goes on in the kitchen. It’s Mum.
She doesn’t say anything, but sits down next to Jildau on the kitchen floor. Without saying anything more, Mum puts her arm around Jildau.
‘I had such a tummy ache,’ Jildau whispers. Her voice trembles and she suddenly feels tears running down her cheeks. ‘What do you think, Mum, could I have scurvy?’
Mum looks at her and laughs.
‘You, scurvy? Is that what you think? No, darling! Of course not!’
‘But I do have a tummy ache,’ Jildau whispers, ‘and that’s how it starts.’
‘Perhaps you have a tummy ache from all those vegetables you’ve eaten,’ says Mum softly, carefully wiping the tears from Jildau’s cheeks.
‘Shall I take you back to bed now?’
Jildau nods and together they go upstairs. Mum tucks Jildau in nice and cosy and puts her cuddly toys beside her head on the pillow.
‘Are you still cross, Mum?’ asks Jildau.
Mum shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says, and she pulls a spinach leaf out of Jildau’s hair.
‘What about Dad? Is he still cross?’ whispers Jildau.
Mum shakes her head again. ‘No,’ she says, ‘Dad wanted to look in on you but you were already asleep.’
She laughs and then whispers: ‘Dad wanted to come and tell you he didn’t like that swede either. He didn’t eat any of his either…’
‘Really?’ asks Jildau. ‘Didn’t he like it either?’
She laughs for a moment, but then she sits upright and grabs Mum’s hand.
‘Mum… do I really not have scurvy?’ she whispers.
‘No, darling! You really don’t!’ says Mum.
‘Could it still come on in the night?’
‘No, absolutely not!’ says Mum.
‘Then I’ve been really lucky,’ says Jildau and she lies down again.
‘Well, we should all forget the whole thing as quick as we can,’ says Mum, ‘and you need to go to sleep now, Jildau. You have school tomorrow morning and then we’ll have forgotten about that swede, okay? They are called forgotten vegetables after all…’

Doe’t wy de lêste bocht fan de stream útfearen en tusken de oerhingjende tûken fan in treurwylch troch, sicht op de âlde filla krigen, wie it Patrick dy’t rôp: ‘It liket it paradys wol.’ Patrick wie mei Johnny, Ralf, Tiffany, Berber en Grace útkeazen as dielnimmer oan de Reis nei it Paradys. Hy begriep, sa like it, as earste wêr’t it ús yn essinsje om te dwaan wie.
Reis nei it Paradys wie oars as de measte opfiedkundige útsjes fan Stichting De Takomst. Gewoanwei stiet by jongereinprojekten it probleem sintraal: dielnimmers komme út in sosjaal swak fermidden, binne mishannele, seksueel misbrûkt, hawwe in rêchsekje mei ADHD, PDD-NOS of in oare ôfkoarting, en as it tsjinwierret binne en hawwe se alles tagelyk. Doelstelling fan de helpferliening is sokken safier krije dat se net al te jong gewelddiedich wurde, oan ’e drugs reitsje of oare kriminele paden ynslaan.
Wat de dielnimmers oan Reis nei it Paradys mienskiplik hiene, wie dat se oant no ta altyd út hannen fan De Takomst en oare helpferlieners bleaun wiene. En dat se allegear njoggentjin of tweintich jier wiene. It iennichste dat wy as begelieders fan te foaren wisten, wie it slachte – de helte jonges, de helte famkes – mar ek dêr wiene wy mei it erkennen fan in hieltyd gruttere genderdiversiteit net wis fan. Oft heit boufakker wie of musikus, mem skjinmakker of heechlearaar, wy wisten fan neat. Yn ’e praktyk in frijwat oerstallige geheimsinnichdoggerij, safolle tiid giet der meast net oerhinne ear’t de dielnimmers oan sokke projekten it ien en oar priis jouwe oer harren sosjale eftergrûn. In gymnasiast mei akademysk oplate âlden uteret him ornaris oars as in vmbo-learling út in arbeidersfermidden.
Reis nei it Paradys wie der net om de dielnimmers in útwei te bieden út harren problemen, mar om harren útsicht te jaan op in moai, yn it geunstichste gefal, ideaal libben. Yn âlde, earmoediger tiden dreamden minsken fan in libben sûnder materiële soargen en sûnder wurkdagen fan tolve oeren; wat bliuwt der yn rikere, paradyslike tiden foar minsken oer om fan te dreamen? Dat wie it idee.

Filla Riviersicht is oan de ein fan de njoggentjinde iuw boud as bûten foar in famylje dy’t ryk wurden wie mei de hannel yn koloniaal guod. Sûnt de jierren sechstich waard it brûkt om út hûs pleatste bern ûnderdak te jaan, trije jier lyn is it restaurearre en hat it wer de alluere fan in rikeljuswente krigen. It hiem wurdt foar in grut part yn beslach nommen troch in stik bou – prei, blomkoal, andyvje, ierdbeien, der is gjin nee te keap –  en in hôf mei apel-, parre-, prûme- en kersebeammen. Ek is der in kas mei komkommers, paprika’s, tomaten en druven. Oait moat it hiem de bewenners fan Riviersicht foarsjoen hawwe fan hast al it iten en drinken dêr’t se ferlet fan hiene.

Ralf stapte as earste de wâl op. Hy makke it foarste tou fêst oan in apelbeam, by it oereinkommen stjitte er de holle tsjin in leechhingjende apel. Hy luts de apel fan ’e tûke, naam in hap en smiet him fuortendaliks sa fier as er koe it wetter yn.
‘Meist him wol opite. It is gjin ferbeane frucht.’
‘Hy is is hartstikke soer.’
Rillegau soe bliken dwaan dat Ralf net de iennichste wie by wa’t it wurd ‘paradys’ oare assosjaasjes oprôp as by my, harren begelieder.

Under de tee ferdielden wy de taken. Johnny en Tiffany soene yn ’e tún op syk nei jirpels en griente, Patrick en Grace soene dêr in miel iten fan siede, Berber en Ralf, soene nei ôfrin kofjesette en ôfwaskje.
It wie Patrick, deselde dy’t filla Riviersicht ‘it paradys’ neamd hie, dy’t it earste hoekje fan it troch De Takomst boetsearre ideaalbyld bikke. Yn ôfwachting fan de jirpels en griente fan Johnny en Tiffany, blêde er in pear minuten yn in krante op de grutte tafel fan de wenkeamer, die er mei Grace in slach troch it hôf en gie er neist my op ’e túnbank foar de serre sitten. ‘Wannear krij ik myn mobyl werom? Ik ferfeel my dea.’
Geduldich lei ik him út dat se fjouwer wike sûnder mobyltsje moasten en dat er dêr sels mei ynstimd hie. ‘O ja, dat is ek sa.’
Hy gie oerein, rûn in pear meter nei foaren en draaide him om. Mei de earmen heech en wiid út elkoar, as rôp er alle goaden yn ’e himel oan, spriek er plechtich: ‘Hjir begjint it paradys.’ Dêrnei liet er de earmen sakje. Suver saaklik heakke er der oan ta: ‘En wy moatte it sels ôfmeitsje.’
Patrick joech him op ’e leuning fan de túnbank del en sei: ‘As ik it goed begrepen ha, is it oan ús om út te finen wat der noch oan dit rikeljusplak ûntbrekt om der in paradys fan te meitsjen. En dêr binne wy folslein eigen baas yn.’’
Ik knikte. ‘Dat is wêr’t it yn dit eksperimint om giet: sjen hoe moai de wrâld wurdt as seis jonge minsken dy nei eigen goedtinken ynrjochtsje.’
‘As wy it iens binne oer wat wy oanpasse wolle, hoege wy dat earst net my dy te oerlizzen.’
‘Dat is kearn fan it hiele projekt. Jim ha fjouwer wike de tiid om fan dit paradyslike plakje in echt paradys te meitsjen.’
‘Ik haw in geweldich idee,’ sei Patrick. ‘Ik rop de oaren by elkoar om demokratysk ta in beslút te kommen. Hoechst nergens oer yn te sitten, it wurdt hjir hiel moai.’

Hy rûn nei de grientetún foar oerlis, ik gie de hûs yn om oer de fêste telefoan – ik hie myn mobyltsje ek ynlevere – ferslach út te bringen oan kollega Afke fan De Takomst.
Twa oeren letter hearde ik in auto it hiem opriden. It wie it lêste dat ik ferwachte hie, want de ferfiermiddels dêr’t wy ús fjouwer wike mei rêde soene wiene sân fytsen en de elektryske sloep dêr’t wy mei kaam wiene.
Troch it rút fan de wenkeamer seach ik hoe’t de seis dielnimmers út in âlde BMW rûgelen. Patrick wie, nei’t er earst noch in plom dûnkergrize reek troch de útlit jage hie, de lêste. Doe’t er my foar it rút stean seach, rôp er: ‘Hoe fynst him? Fiif bankjes, gjin jild of wol?’
Wat moast ik? Ik koe wol in ferhaal hâlde oer myn eigen foarstelling fan it paradys en dat âlde, fersmoargjende diselauto’s dêr gjin plak yn hiene, mar dat wie no krekt net de bedoeling fan dit eksperimint. It paradys fan de dielnimmers wie it útgongspunt en dat mocht ik net beynfloedzje.
‘O ja,’ hold Tiffany twa plestyk pûden omheech. ‘Wy ha pizza’s meinaam. Dy griente yn de tún seach der ôfgryslike fris út, mar doe’t ik in krop sla út ’e grûn skuorde, seach ik daliks in grouwe slak. Ik sei tsjin Johnny: “Wy helje pizza’s.” Wy ha foar dy in Campagnola spesjaal meinaam. Of bist gjin fegetariër?’

Nei in ûnrêstige nacht, mei in soad ferkear tusken de manljus- en frouljussliepkeamers, giene fiif fan de seis dielnimmers nei de tún om ûnder lieding fan in pensjonearre túnker te learen hoe moai en befredigjend it wêze kin om jins eigen iten te ferbouwen. Allinne Johnny wie mei de BMW nei it doarp, in pear kilometer fierderop. Hy soe, nei in demokratysk nommen beslút, yn opdracht fan de oaren it ien en oare regelje om de filla noch paradysliker te meitsjen as dy al wie.
Túnker Jabik lei ús it nut fan it dievjen fan de tomaten út, die foar hoe’t it moast en sette ús oan it wurk. Berber lake my ta en sei dat se noait tinke kinnen hie dat se nochris aardichheid oan sok dom wurk krije soe. ‘Neat moaiers as dyn eigen iten ferbouwe.’
‘Spitich datst gjin pizza’s ferbouwe kinst,’ sei Grace in smiet in hantsjefol leaten fan in tomateplant yn in amer.
Ik hie wat sizze wollen oer tomaten as ûnmisber yngrediïnt foar in pizza, mar krekt op dat momint hearde ik in lûd út ’e fierte dat my bekend foarkaam sûnder dat ik it daliks thúsbringe koe. De fiif tomatedievers wisten net hoe gau’t se by de útgong fan de kas komme moasten.
Ik rûn har efternei, ik wie healwei it hôf doe’t ik yn ’e gaten krige wat it lûd dat ik net thús bringe koe feroarsake. In oranje betonauto lege syn giel-grize lading op in stik grûn njonken it hûs. Fjouwer mannen yn oranje overals en Johnny stiene derom hinne, dwaande om it beton te egalisearjen. In stik grûn fan rûchwei tsien by trije meter hiene se mei planken ôfset.
It die my sear oan ’e eagen, dat beton tusken de restaurearre serre en de bêden mei slaad en andyvje, mar neffens de projektregels wie ik ferplichte om elke mooglike ynterpretaasje fan it paradys te respektearjen. Dochs koe ik net neilitte om te freegjen hoe’t al dat beton it paradys tichterby brocht.
Johnny: ‘Moatst dat noch freegje? Nergens op dit hiele hiem kinst fatsoenlik in auto kwyt sûnder yn it paad te stean of yn it gers wei te sakjen.’
‘Mar wêrom sa grut?’ frege ik.
‘Wat tochtst?’ Tiffany glimke suver triomfantlik. ‘Wy wolle allegear in auto. Ast in paradys kreëarje wolst, moatst foarút tinke.’

Twa dagen letter gie ik moarns foar achten de doar al út foar in twadaagse gearkomst fan de stêf fan De Takomst. Ik wie der – om’t se my tasein hiene dat se serieus wurk meitsje soene fan it útbouwen fan it paradys – net gerêst op hoe’t ik filla Riviersicht de oare deis wer oantreffe soe.
Om healwei fiven de oare deis stapte ik nei in frijwat oerstallige konferinsje út ’e trein wei op ’e fyts, in kertier letter ried ik it hiem fan de filla op. Wat ik by it passearen fan de homeiepeallen seach, rekke my hurder as ik foar mooglik hâlden hie. In tredde part fan de grientetún wie ferdwûn ûnder in laach beton en yn twa stikken opdield mei in tennisnet. Patrick en Berber dûbelen tsjin Ralf en Grace. Ralf sloech krekt in bal yn it net doe’t ik ta stilstân kaam. Tiffany rûn op my ta. ‘Hoe fynst it?’ frege se.
Se fernaam dat ik sa hurd net wist wat ik sizze moast. ‘Wy ha der goed oer neitocht, sei se. It is net allinne in tennisbaan, wy kinne ek folleybalje en fuotbalje, race mei modelautootsjes en as wy in feestje hâlde, ha wy genôch parkearromte foar de gasten. Earst koest der allinne griente ferbouwe, dy kinne wy likegoed yn ’e winkel keapje.’

De wyks dêrnei kamen der alle dagen ien of twa auto’s by, de freeds stiene der seis auto’s op it nije parkearplak. Stik foar stik disels fan op syn minst fyftjin jier âld. Se hiene de auto’s betelle fan it jild dat se op Marktplaats foar de fytsen bard hiene.
De sneons dêrnei siet ik jûns om in oere as tsien te krantlêzen doe’t Berber my nei bûten rôp. Noch foardat ik in jas oanlûke koe, hearde ik in lûde knal en waard de keamer fan bûtenôf ferljochte.
‘Kom gau,’ rôp Berber my ta. ‘Hast noch neat mist.’
Op itselde stuit jage Johnny in fjoerpylk de loft yn, dy’t in ein fierder heech yn ’e loft útelkoar spatte yn hûnderten ljochtpuntsjes. Patrick stiek de folgjende oan, dêrnei wie Tiffany oan bar. Mei de holle yn ’e nekke stiene se alle seis sichtber genietsjend nei in útbarsting fan ljocht en kleur te sjen.
Tweintich minuten letter wie de lêste pylk de lucht yngien en praten wy, elk mei in fleske bier foar ús en de swevellucht yn ’e noas, noch wat nei.
‘Wy binne justerjûn, doe’tsto al op bêd leidest, eefkes goed de djipte yngien,’ begûn Berber. ‘Wat fine wy no echt belangryk yn it libben? En: wat fine wy no echt moai om te dwaan?’
Ralf naam it fan har oer. ‘Wy witte ek wol dat wy neat te kleien ha. Ferlike mei leeftydsgenoaten yn earme lannen ha wy it hartstikke goed, mar dêr giet it no net om. Dat wy ha ús gewoan ôffrege: wat hindert ús om it libben te lieden dat wy it leafst wolle? Patrick is gek fan fjoerwurk. Of net Patrick?’
‘It is it moaiste dat der is. It paradys is my foar in plak dêr’st altyd fjoerwurk ôfstekke meist.’
Grace: ‘In eigen tennnisbaan, noait wachtsje oant der in baan frij is, dat is foar my it ultime genot. It paradys.’
Johnny: ‘Ik wol bêst in eintsje ride foar in potsje tennis, mar dan moat der wol genôch parkearromte wêze. As ik earst in ein rinne moatte, hoecht it om my net.’
Berber: ‘Wy binne de twa dagen datsto fuort wiest aardich opsketten, of net? Fjoerwurk, tennisje, parkearromte en geregeld in pizza.’
Se pakte har fleske bier fan it taffeltsje foar har om te toasten. ‘Op it paradys.’

Nei fjouwer wike starte ik de elektromotor foar de weromreis. Goed hûndert meter fierderop seach ik, tusken de oerhingjende tûken fan de treurwilch troch, werom op it paradys. Of op wat, neffens de wurden fan Patrick, it paradys wol like hie. Ik siet as iennichste yn ’e sloep. De oaren wiene earder op ’e dei al ôfset. It nije parkearterrein lei der ferlitten by.

As we rounded the last curve in the river and caught a glimpse of the old villa through the overhanging branches of a weeping willow, it was Patrick who called out: ‘This place is like paradise.’ Patrick, along with Johnny, Ralf, Tiffany, Berber and Grace, had been selected as a participant in the Journey to Paradise. He was the first, or so it seemed, to understand the essence of what we hoped to achieve.
Journey to Paradise was different from most of the Future Foundation’s educational trips. Usually, in youth projects, the focus is on the problem: participants come from a socially disadvantaged background, have been physically and/or sexually abused, have a history of ADHD, PDD-NOS or some other acronym, and if they’re unlucky, all of these at the same time. The aim of the foundation is to get these children to a point where they don’t become violent at a young age or start taking drugs or embark upon other criminal paths.
What all the participants in the Journey to Paradise had in common was that until then they had always stayed out of the clutches of the Future Foundation and other care providers. And that they were all nineteen or twenty years old. The only thing we supervisors knew in advance was their gender – half of them boys, half girls – but, with the recognition of increasing gender diversity, we weren’t even sure about that. We had no idea if Dad was a builder or a musician, or if Mum was a cleaning lady or a professor. In practice, this secrecy was somewhat superfluous. It doesn’t usually take that long for the participants in such projects to start revealing this and that about their social background. A grammar-school student with university-educated parents generally expresses himself differently from a working-class student at a vocational college.
Journey to Paradise was not there to offer participants a way out of their problems but to give them a prospect of a beautiful life, in the best-case scenario even an ideal one. In older, more impoverished times, people dreamed of a life without material worries and without twelve-hour working days; in richer, more paradisiacal times, what is left for people to dream of? That was the idea.

Villa Rivierzicht was built in the late eighteenth century as a country retreat for a family who had become rich through trading in colonial gold. Since the 1960s, it had been used to house children who had been removed from their homes; three years ago it was restored and once again has all the charm of a rich person’s mansion. Most of the land is occupied by a vegetable garden – leeks, cauliflower, endive, strawberries, you name it – and an orchard with apple, pear, plum and cherry trees. There’s also a greenhouse with cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes and grapes. Once upon a time, the garden must have supplied the residents of Rivierzicht with practically all the food and drink they needed.

Ralf was the first to step ashore. He tied the front rope to an apple tree. As he stood up, he bumped his head on a low-hanging apple. He pulled the apple from the branch, took a bite and immediately threw it as far as he could into the water.
‘You’re allowed to eat it. It’s not forbidden fruit.’
‘That thing was totally sour.’
It would soon become clear that Ralf was not the only one for whom the word ‘paradise’ had different associations than it did for me, their supervisor.

As we drank tea, we divided up the jobs. Johnny and Tiffany would look for potatoes and vegetables in the garden, Patrick and Grace would use them to cook a meal, Berber and Ralf would make coffee afterwards and do the washing-up.
It was Patrick, the same one who had called Villa Rivierzicht paradise, who chipped off the first piece of the idealised image created by the Future Foundation. While waiting for Johnny and Tiffany’s vegetables, he spent a few minutes leafing through a newspaper that lay open on the big table in the living room, went for a walk around the orchard with Grace and then sat down beside me on the bench in front of the greenhouse. ‘When can I have my phone back? I’m bored to death.’
Patiently, I explained to him that they were going to have to do without their mobiles for four weeks and that he had agreed to that arrangement himself. ‘Oh yeah, you’re right.’
He stood up, walked a few metres and turned around. With his arms outspread, high and wide, as if invoking all the gods in heaven, he spoke solemnly: ‘This is where paradise begins.’ Then he lowered his arms. In a matter-of-fact tone, he added: ‘And we have to finish it ourselves.’
Patrick dropped down onto the arm of the bench and said, ‘So, if I’ve understood this correctly, it’s up to us to find out what’s missing from this rich people’s place to make it a paradise. And we are completely in charge.’
I nodded. ‘That’s what this experiment is all about: to see how beautiful the world can become when young people are free to organise it as they see fit.’
‘And if we agree about what we want to change, we don’t have to discuss it with you first.’
‘That’s the core of the whole project. You have four weeks to make this heavenly place an actual paradise.’
‘I’ve got a cool idea,’ Patrick said. ‘I’ll call the others together so we can reach a democratic decision. Don’t you worry. This place is going to be really beautiful.’

He headed to the vegetable garden for a discussion, and I went into the house to use the landline – I’d handed in my mobile as well – to report back to Afke, my colleague at the Future Foundation. Two hours later, I heard a car driving up to the house. That was the last thing I was expecting – the vehicles we’d have to get by with for four weeks were seven bikes and the electric boat we’d arrived on.
Through the living-room window, I saw the six participants climbing out of an old BMW. Patrick, after sending a plume of dark-grey smoke out of the exhaust pipe, was the last. When he saw me at the window, he yelled: ‘What do you think of it? Five hundred. Bargain, huh?’
What could I do? I could have launched into a story about my own notion of paradise and said that old, polluting diesel cars had no place there, but that wasn’t the idea behind this experiment at all. The participants’ paradise was key, and I wasn’t allowed to influence things.
‘Oh yes,’ said Tiffany, holding up two plastic bags. ‘We brought pizzas. Those vegetables in the garden looked super fresh, but when I pulled a lettuce out of the soil, there was a big fat slug on it. So, I said to Johnny: “Let’s get pizzas.” We got a Campagnola Special for you. You are a vegetarian, aren’t you?’

After a restless night, with a lot of toing and froing between the ladies’ and the gentlemen’s bedrooms, five of the six participants went to the garden to learn, under the guidance of a retired gardener, how wonderful and rewarding it can be to grow your own food. Johnny had driven the BMW to the village, a few kilometres away. The others had put him in charge of arranging a few things to make the villa even more like paradise than it already was. Jabik the gardener explained to us the value of pruning tomatoes, showed us how to do it and put us to work. Berber smiled at me and said she’d never imagined she’d find such stupid work fun. ‘Nothing better than growing your own food.’
‘Too bad you can’t grow pizzas,’ said Grace, tossing a handful of suckers from a tomato plant into a bucket.
I had been about to say something about tomatoes as an essential ingredient for a pizza, but right at that moment I heard a sound in the distance that sounded very familiar, even though I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. The five tomato pruners couldn’t get to the exit of the greenhouse quickly enough.
I ran after them and was halfway across the orchard when I realised what was making the sound I couldn’t place. An orange concrete truck was emptying its grey load onto a piece of land beside the house. Four men in orange overalls stood around it with Johnny, busily levelling the concrete. They had used planks to block off a piece of ground about ten by three metres.
It hurt my eyes to see that concrete among the restored greenhouse and the beds of lettuce and endive, but according to the rules of the project, I was obliged to accept every possible interpretation of paradise. Still, I couldn’t help but ask how all that concrete brought paradise any closer.
Johnny: ‘You really need to ask? There’s nowhere around here to put a car without it being in the way or sinking into the grass.’
‘But why so big?’ I asked.
‘Why do you think?’ Tiffany smiled almost triumphantly. ‘We all want a car. If you want to create a paradise, you have to think ahead.’

Two days later, I left the house before eight in the morning to go to a two-day staff meeting at the Future Foundation. The participants had promised me that they’d get down to serious work on expanding their paradise, so I was somewhat concerned about the state in which I’d find Villa Rivierzicht on my return.
At half past four the next day, I got off the train after a rather unnecessary meeting and hopped onto my bike, and fifteen minutes later I rode up to the villa. What I saw as I cycled between the gateposts and up the driveway hit me harder than I could have imagined possible. A third of the vegetable garden had vanished under a layer of concrete and been divided in two by a tennis net. Patrick and Berber were playing doubles against Ralf and Grace. Ralf hit a ball into the net as I came to a stop. Tiffany walked towards me. ‘What do you think?’ she asked.
She could see I didn’t quite know how to respond. ‘We thought about it carefully,’ she said. ‘It’s not just a tennis court. We can play volleyball and football too, and race model cars and if we have a party, we’ll have plenty of parking space for the guests. Before, all you could do here was grow vegetables, but you can just as easily buy them from a shop.’

The week after that, one or two more cars came along every day, and by Friday there were six cars in the new carpark – each one of them diesel-powered and at least fifteen years old. They had paid for the cars with the money they’d got for selling their bikes online.
The following Saturday I was reading the newspaper at about ten at night when Berber called me to come out. Before I’d had time to put my coat on, I heard a loud bang, and the room was lit up from outside.
‘Quick,’ Berber shouted to me. ‘You haven’t missed anything yet.’
At that moment, Johnny shot a rocket into the sky, and it exploded into hundreds of points of light high up in the air. Patrick lit the next one, and then it was Tiffany’s turn. With their heads tilted back, the six of them stood visibly enjoying the explosion of light and colour.
Twenty minutes later, the last rocket had been sent up into the sky and we were sitting and talking, each with a bottle of beer in front of us and a sulphurous smell in our noses.
‘Yesterday, after you’d gone to bed, we had a pretty deep conversation,’ began Berber. ‘What do we think is really important in life? And: what do we really enjoy doing?’
Ralf took over. ‘We know we’ve got nothing to complain about. Compared to people of our age in poor countries, we’ve got it good, but that’s not the point. So, we started wondering: what’s preventing us from living our lives as we want to? Patrick loves fireworks. Don’t you, Patrick?’
‘Most beautiful thing in the world. Paradise for me is a place where you can always set off fireworks.’
Grace: ‘A tennis court of my own, never having to wait for it to be free. That’s my ultimate pleasure. That’s paradise.’
Johnny: ‘I’m happy to drive a bit for a game of tennis, but there has to be enough parking space. If I’ve got to walk for ages first, then I can’t be bothered.’
Berber: ‘We made quite a bit of progress in those two days you were away, didn’t we? Fireworks, tennis, parking space and the occasional pizza.’
She picked her bottle of beer up off the table in front of her to make a toast. ‘To paradise.’

When the four weeks were up, I started the electric motor for the return journey. About a hundred metres away, through the overhanging branches of the weeping willow, I looked back at paradise. Or at what, according to Patrick, had seemed like paradise. I was the only one in the boat. The others had left earlier that day. The new carpark was deserted.

Doe’t se opstiigden, kûndige de piloat troch de lûdsprekker oan dat it waar op har bestimming, it eilân San Andrés, poerbêst wie mei sinne en in skjinne loft. Maria tocht dat se by de ôfdaling troch it rút hinne in paradys sjen soe fan wite strannen en in turkooisen see dy’t te sjen wienen op de ôfbyldings op Google.
Dochs wie by it lanjen alles griis. De loft, de see, de strannen. Sels de gebouwen en de fegetaasje wienen mat en sûnder glâns. Jose Miguel, dy’t ûnder de flecht oan it lêzen wie op syn iPad, die de holle omheech en seach troch it rútsje.
‘It reint.’
‘It is mar wat motrein,’ sei Maria.
It grutste part fan de reizgers kaam al ûngeduldich oerein, noch foar’t de fleanmasine stil stie. Maria en Jose Miguel stienen yn de rige en moasten in skoft wachtsje. Yn plak fan in tunnel om fan de fleanmasine nei de terminal te kommen, stie der in âlderwetske trep. Sa gau as se út de fleanmasine stapten, fielden se de sâlte en waarme lucht yn har gesicht slaan. Op it oanjûne paad op it platfoarm letter it pripjen fan de motrein.
De rige by kontrôlepost fan de dûane wie sa rommelich dat it wol in kloft minsken by in konsert like. It duorre in ivichheid. Se waarden opwachte troch in grutte frou mei foarse bewegings, dy’t har identiteitsbewizen en toeristekaarten kontrolearre en frege hoe lang as se bliuwe soenen en wêr’t se tahâlde soenen. Se sette der in stimpel op en sûnder fierder wat te sizzen, joech se har de papieren werom. Fan dêrút kamen se yn in smelle romte mei smoarge muorren en twa ratteljende bannen. Har rêchpûden fan itselde model, harres pears en sines oranje, draaiden al yn ’e rûnte. Se krigen se beet en gienen doe yn in oare lange rige stean dy’t einige by de bagaazjeskanner fan de plysje. Dy gie noch stadiger as de foarige.
It wie der grôtfol. Bern draafden, froulju wapperen harsels ta mei de toeristekaarten, manlju switten, jongfolk makke selfies. Der wie gjin airco en de waarmte wie plakkerich. Weagen mei de roken fan bakte hin, seewier en sketen kamen oansetten. By Jose Miguel brutsen by de fleet op ’e lippe trochsichtige drippen swit út as blierren. Maria sei neat tsjin him, net dat er him skjinmeitsje moatst, neat oer hoe waarm, ik bin wanhopich, lokkich hawwe wy tiid genoch foar de ferbining mei Providencia, wannear sil dit oer wêze. Se wappere harsels allinne mar ta mei de toeristekaarten.
Uteinlik kamen se by de bagaazjeskanner. Se hoegden de rêchpûden net iepen te meitsjen. Se gienen troch in gong dy’t einige yn in berch taksisjauffeurs en manlju dy’t har toeristyske tsjinsten oanbeanen. Famke, wêr kin ik jim hinne bringe? Binne jim al teplak? Myn broer, krij dit kaartsje mar, it is sûnder ferplichtings. Maria en Jose Miguel gienen fierder en rûnen doe troch de lofthaven nei de baaljes fan de loftfeartmaatskippijen.
Se gienen yn in nije rige stean, joegen har rêchpûden oer, krigen de ynstapbewizen foar de flecht nei Providencia en sochten doe de wachthal op de twadde ferdjipping. Wer in rige. Wer in bagaazjeskanner. Wer troch de dûane. Jose Miguel syn earmsholten wienen dweiltrochwiet en Maria hie it gefoel as hie se in maraton draafd. Se gienen fierder troch Duty Free en troch de earste wachthallen fol mei minsken, koffers en kabaal. Lokkich wienen der yn har wachthal mar in pear reizgers en de airco draaide op folle toeren, wat in ferroming wie. Se sieten op de earste rige mei stuollen, tsjinoer in grut rút dat útseach op de oare wachthallen. De ruten nei bûten ta sieten oan wjerskanten.
‘As se roomservice hawwe, dan soenen wy wol op de keamer ite kinne,’ sei Maria. ‘Der is in balkon mei útsicht op see.’
‘Asto dat graach wolst.’
‘As se gjin roomservice hawwe, dan geane wy nei it restaurant ta. Dat is hielendal iepen en leit oan see.’
‘Soe it sa wêze kinne dat it waar yn Providencia better is?’
De motrein wie der net mei opholden. Ut de ruten oan de sydkant koest de wiete fleanmasines op it platfoarm sjen, it skaad op ljochtskyndei en de tsjustere wolk dy’t it hiele útsicht bepaalde. De motrein wie miskien wol fûler wurden.
‘Ik bin der wis fan dat it dêr godlik is,’ sei Maria
Jose Miguel joech gjin antwurd. Hy krige syn iPad en sette útein mei lêzen. Maria beseach de minsken yn de oare wachthallen troch it grutte rút hinne. Toeristen ferbaarnd troch de sinne mei dreadlocks en t-shirts oan mei it eilân San Andrés, Colombia, motiven fan palmbeammen en de kleuren fan de flagge fan de Rastafari’s derop. Se smeke it neat, it universum en de tipelsinnige baas fan de ferskynsels yn ’e atmosfear dat it ophâlde mocht mei reinen, dat de loft yn Providencia helder wêze soe en dat se de supermoanne opkommen sjen koenen boppe de see, as wie it makke fan fantastyske en enoarme leagens, in montaazje, in klearebare aansicht en striemin fan smaak. It kaam net by har op om in foto te meitsjen. Allinne om it spektakel te besjen en besinke te litten, sa’t it ûnthâld it bewarje koe yn har holle.
Se krige har mobyl en socht om de waarfoarsizzings. Se wie begûn om se te besjen fan it momint ôf dat se te witten kaam fan de supermoanne. Se gie troch om se te besjen wylst se de reis organisearre en se beseach se alle kearen as Jose Miguel sei dat it net sa’n goed plan wie, dat it yn novimber alle dagen reinde en dat se better yn Bogota bleaunen. Maria tocht dat de rein yn novimber allinne mar in útflecht wie dy’t him wol goed útkaam, want hy woe altiten yn Bogota bliuwe. De foarsizzing wie altiten itselde: rein.
Maria hie fjirtjin berjochten op Whatsapp, allegear op de chat fan har âlde stúdzjegenoaten. Ien hie der in meme opset en doe kaam der in wetterfal oan reaksjes, stickers, emoji, LOL, mear memes. Maria skreau wat in geweldige meme LOL. Se fertelde mem dat se al op San Andrés wienen. Se gie op Facebook, joech in pear likes, makke in pear opmerkings, felisitearre ien dy’t jierdei wie en folge in foarstelde link nei in artikel oer in isolearre stam yn it Amazonegebiet.
De isolearre stam, sa lies se, waard ûntdutsen doe’t in helikopter ûnderweis nei in post yn de jungle út ’e koers rekke troch in stoarm. Der wienen foto’s út de loft wei makke. De ynhiemske stam yn muldoek, sûnder hier, de holle foar in part skeard of parten mei hiel swart hier en gesichten en liven read of mei donkere motiven opskildere. Ien dy’t it âldst like, hie in sierlike en kleurige toai op ’e holle. Bern, froulju, manlju. Guon mei in bôge rjochten har pylken nei de ynkringers boppe har yn ’e loft. Oaren makken sinjalen mei de hannen. Wer oaren seagen allinne mar, in pear fan har ferskûle ûnder de blêden. Op alle gesichten stie ferbazing of miskien wie it in kombinaasje fan eangst en nijsgjirrichheid. Maria tocht dat se deadseangst yn in bern sjen koe dy’t de lange stam fan in palmbeam beet hie. Se hie it bern graach treaste wollen, in kalmearjend gebear meitsje, it witte litte dat de minsken dy’t har fûn hienen net ferkeard wienen, dat se lykas har ferbaasd wienen, dat se bliid wienen om har sûn en sterk te sjen en har ferwar yn de jungle mei har wize fan libjen, dat se allinne mar in pear foto’s meitsje soenen, dy’t as in oantinken wienen, mar dan bûten de holle, dat dan eltsenien har sjen koe en dat se har meikoarten gewurde litte soenen.
Oan de rjochterkant wie in rubryk mei as titel ‘meast populêr’ mei links nei oare artikels. Se klikte ien oan mei in foto fan omfallen beammen. It gie oer de ûntbosking fan it reinwâld en de epidemyen dy’t net te ferklearjen wienen, hyltiten faker foarkamen, de ynhiemske bisten útputten en ier of let oer de wrâld har ferspriede soenen ûnder de minsken. Se siet yn ’e pine, in soart fan druk op it boarst, in dizenige eangst foar de takomst fan it deabenaude bern fan de Amazonestam en fan de minskheid. Se draaide har nei Jose Miguel ta. Hy wie konsintrearre oan it lêzen en hie net yn ’e rekken dat se nei him seach.
Wylst er lies, biet er him op ’e lippe. Hy hie him moarns skeard en it burd dat Maria sa moai fûn, wie al oan it groeien. Se tocht dat fannacht alles goed komme soe, dat yn Providencia, by de see en de supermoanne, oerweldige troch dat spektakel, se inoars hân beetkrije soenen, earst allinne mar by de fingerseinen en úteinlik har fingers ferfrissele as weefsel.
Se seach op de klok. Har fleanmasine hie 25 minuten lyn fuortgean moatten.
‘Jose, sjoch ris op de klok. Soe it kinne dat ús fleanmasine al fuort is en wy dat net yn ’e rekken hienen?’
Jose seach omheech fan syn iPad en seach om him hinne.
Maria kaam oerein. Se rûn nei in reizger ta op de rige neist har, in frou dy’t in eilanner like mei in bern op ’e earm en in tas mei ruften op de stoel neist har.
‘Is de fleanmasine nei Providencia al fuort?’
‘Nee.’
‘Dit is dochs de wachthal om fuort te gean?’
‘Ja.’
‘Binne der gjin minsken fan de loftfeartmaatskippij?’
‘Dy binne noch net oankaam.’
‘It is al let.’
‘Ja.’
‘Hoe sil it no fierder?’
Mei in gebear sei de frou dat se dat net wist. Maria gie werom nei Jose.
‘Wy komme net op ’e tiid oan.’
‘Wat sei dy frou?’
‘Se wist fan neat.’
Yn de oare wachthallen wienen likemin meiwurkers fan de loftfeartmaatskippijen. Twa rigen achter har lake in meagere man op leeftiid mei dreadlocks oant op de mul ta wylst er op syn tillefoan seach.
‘Menear, nim it my net kwea ôf,’ frege Jose Miguel him. ‘Witte jo wêrom’t wy noch net fuort binne?’
De man seach omheech fan syn tillefoan, skodholle en die syn eigen ding wer. ‘De flecht duorret kwalik in heal oere,’ sei Jose Miguel. ‘Dus helje wy it miskien wol.’
‘Fiifentritich minuten,’ ferbettere Maria him. ‘En se hawwe sels ús noch net oproppen om oan board te gean.’
‘Ik wit net wat ik tsjin dy sizze moat.’
‘Kom op, sis it mar.’
‘Wat moat ik dan sizze?’
‘Dat it gjin goed plan wie, datsto my warskôge hast.’
‘Ah Maria, wat haw ik dan ynsinuearre?’
‘Do bist oan it tinken, dat is dúdlik. Do bist lilk op my, do hast neat oars dien de hele reis as my ûntrinne.’
‘Ik moat it wurk fan myn studinten trochnimme. Moarn is it ynleverjen fan de sifers.’
‘Jose, sis it mar.’
Se stie oerein en hy siet. Hy rjochte him ta har:
‘Ik sei dy dat it net in goed plan wie, dat ik net fan reizgjen hâld, dat ik in protte wurk hie en dat ik leaver yn Bogota bleau …’
Maria kearde har ôf en skode ûngeduldich mei de foet.
‘Do wolst altiten leaver yn Bogota bliuwe,’ sei se sêft.
‘Wat is dêr mis mei dan?’
Maria rûn frustearre fuort, mar kearde har doe om en gie werom.
‘En moatst it no ferpeste foar dy en foar my? Kinst gewoan net besykje om te genietsjen?’
Jose Miguel seach mei de iPad yn ’e hân net nei Maria, mar nei it grutte rút.
‘Wat dan genietsje? Fan dat fantastyske útsicht? Fan dy plestik stuollen? Fan de airco?’ In frou hoaste. ‘Fan de firussen fan minsken?’
Maria seach lilk op him del:
‘It plan om tegearre de supermoanne by de see te sjen.’
‘Dat koenen wy yn Bogota ek sjen.’
‘Mei dy berûne loften dêr?’
Jose Miguel lei de iPad op de stoel neist him del, die de earms oerinoar en stoareage har oan. Hy sei neat, mar it wie dúdlik wat er tocht. Se ferdigene harsels:
‘Hoe koe ik witte dat it hjir itselde wêze soe?’
‘It is novimber.’
‘Yn novimber binne der dagen mei sinne.’
‘It is de moanne …’
Se ûnderbruts him:
‘Dat wit ik wol, dat hasto my wol tûzen kear ferteld, de moanne mei de measte rein yn it jier.’
‘En hoe dan ek hasto de tickets kocht en it hotel betelle. Sûnder dat myn miening dy wat skele koe. Al dat jild …’
Se woe net fierder gean mei rúzje meitsje, harkje nei wat komme soe, it gesanger oer al dat jild yn it jiskefet fuortsmiten, al dat jild dat se sparje moatten hienen foar it appartemint, in appartemint dat se nea, hoefolle at se ek sparren, keapje koenen. Se rûn nei de ruten mei útsicht op it platfoarm. It hie gjin sin. Nea soenen se it iens wêze, kalm en lokkich, net mei de supermoanne en likemin sûnder de supermoanne, net yn Bogota en likemin yn in paradys mei strannen fan wyt sân en in turkooisen see, net op in oar plak yn it universum, nea. Se moast it akseptearje. Se snapten inoar net, se wienen te ferskillend.
Op it platfoarm wie it sa tsjuster dat de ljochten oan wienen. It wie fiif oere middeis en it like wol nacht. Ynienen seach se de rein yn de kegels fan de ljochten. Krêftich en gewelddiedich, oanboazjend troch de sniestoarm. In stoarm. Wis, hy balte as in wyld bist. Asto it yn de wachthal net heardest, dan kaam dat allinne mar omdat it gebou sterk wie en it grutte rút dat fan tsjok glês wie, kaam út op in gong en dy kaam wer út op in oar rút fan tsjok glês. In stoarm sa’t se dy net hân hienen yn Bogota of alteast, sy koe it har net yn it sin bringe fan de lêste tiden. Se treaste harsels mei it idee dat se dêr likemin de supermoanne sjen kinnen hienen.
In stim begroete har lûd. Maria draaide har rjochting de stim. It wie in meiwurkster fan de loftfeartmaatskippij. Fanwege it minne waar, sei se, wie it fleanfjild ticht en de flecht annulearre.
‘Oant wannear?’ frege in man mei in bril op en in bouhelm yn ’e hân.
‘Oant moarn.’
‘Wêrom net wachtsje oant de rein ophâldt?’ frege de frou dy’t hoaste.
‘Dat kin net mefrou. Yn Providencia hat de lâningsbaan gjin ljochten en fleanmasines kinne net oan ’e grûn komme yn it tsjuster.’
Maria dy’t noch by it rút stie, gie werom nei it grutte rút. Bûten wie de fuery fan de stoarm. Yn de wachthal de protesten en it gekrimmenear fan de reizgers, dat hyltiten minder waard oant se it úteinlik opjoegen. Mei de eagen op it rút rjochte beseach Maria hoe’t de reizgers de wachthal útgienen, stadich en sleau. As kij, tocht se. Jose Miguel kaam neist har stean.
‘Sille wy gean?’
‘Ik moat it hotel belje om te sizzen dat wy net komme.’
‘Se witte al wol dat it fleanfjild ticht is.’
‘Wy moatte hjir in hotel hawwe.’
Hy besocht om har te treasten:
‘Ynienen oer in skoftsje skjinnet de loft ôf en kinne wy hjirwei it strân sjen.’
‘Ja,’ sei se sûnder oertsjûging.
In stoarm gisele oer de wrâld hinne en al rillegau soe it nacht wurde. Maria gie by it rút wei en sûnder nei Jose Miguel te sjen en sûnder dat it har wat skele koe oft er achter har oan kaam, sleat se oan by de lêste reizgers dy’t de hal útgienen.

When they took off, the pilot announced that conditions on the island of San Andrés, their destination, were optimal, with clear sunny skies. María assumed that on the descent she’d see the white sand and turquoise sea paradise pictured in all of the Google images.
When they landed, though, everything was gray. The sky, the sea, the beaches. Even the buildings and vegetation looked opaque, washed out. José Miguel, who’d been reading on his iPad throughout the flight, looked up and glanced out the window.
‘It’s raining.’
‘Just a little drizzle,’ María said.
Most of the passengers, feeling impatient, stood up before the plane had stopped. María and José Miguel waited in line, and it took for ages to get off the plane. Rather than a jetway to the terminal, there were old-school boarding stairs. The moment they set foot outside, they were hit with hot salty air. Then, following the route indicated on the tarmac, came the prickly drizzle.
The line at migration control was so chaotic it more resembled the crowd at a concert. And took ages. A large woman with brusque gestures attended to them, checking their IDs and tourist cards, asking how long they’d be staying and where. She stamped their cards and, without another word, handed back their papers. From there they proceeded to a narrow hall with dirty walls and two juddering carousels. Their backpacks, which were the same brand – hers purple, his orange – were already circling. After grabbing them, they joined another long line for the police baggage scanner. This one was even slower than the last.
The place was packed. Children ran. Women fanned themselves with tourist cards. Men sweated. Younger folks took selfies. There was no air conditioning and the heat was sticky. The smells of fried chicken, seaweed and fart came in waves. Miguel had clusters of tiny sweat droplets on his top lip, like transparent blisters. María didn’t say a thing, not wipe your lip, or it’s so hot, or I’m losing my mind, or it’s a good thing we have enough time for the connection to Providencia, or when is this going to end. All she did was fan herself with the tourist cards.
Finally it was their turn at the scanner. No one made them open up their backpacks. They emerged from a corridor into a crowd of taxi drivers and men offering tour-guide services. Where am I taking you, friend? Do you have lodging? Here’s a card, brother, no commitment. María and José Miguel dodged them and continued on, staying inside the airport, to the airline counters.
They stood in line once more, handed over their backpacks, took their boarding passes for the flight to Providencia and went to find the departure lounge on the second floor. Another line. Another scanner. Another migration control checkpoint. José Miguel’s armpits were soaked, María felt like she’d just run a marathon. They passed the Duty Free, passed the first departure lounges, full of people, suitcases and noise. Fortunately, theirs had only a few passengers and the air conditioning was on full blast: a relief. They sat in the first row of chairs, before a pane of glass with a view of the other lounges. Windows to the outside were on the left and right walls.
‘If there’s room service, we could eat in the room,’ María said. ‘It has a balcony overlooking the sea.’
‘Sure.’
‘If there’s no room service, we’ll go to the restaurant. It’s open-air and faces the sea.’
‘I wonder if the weather in Providencia will be any better.’
It hadn’t stopped drizzling. Through the side windows they saw wet airplanes out on the tarmac, dusky light in the middle of the day, and black clouds that extended as far as the eye could see. The drizzle, maybe, had gotten a little heavier.
‘I’m sure it’s glorious.’
José Miguel didn’t reply. He took out his iPad and started reading. María set about watching people in other lounges through the window. The tourists burned to a crisp in the sun, with cornrows and San Andrés Island, Colombia t-shirts with palm trees and Rastafarian flag colors. She implored the Void, the Universe, the fickle authority of atmospheric conditions for it to stop raining, for the Providencia sky to be clear and for them to be able to see the supermoon rise over the sea, looking utterly unreal, shimmering and massive, a montage, a kitsch postcard. She wasn’t planning on taking a single photo. Just gazing at the whole spectacle, absorbing it, to etch the memory in her mind.
María pulled out her phone and looked at the weather forecast. She’d started checking it regularly ever since she found out about the supermoon. And kept checking as she planned the trip, then checked again every time José Miguel told her that it wasn’t a good idea, that in November it rained every day, that they’d be better off staying in Bogotá. María thought the November rains were just an excuse this time, since he always wanted to stay in Bogotá. The forecast hadn’t changed: rain.
María had fourteen WhatsApp notifications, all from her old college friends’ chat. Someone had posted a meme, and then came the slew of reactions, stickers, emojis, LOLs, more memes. María wrote Great meme LOL. She told her mother they were in San Andrés. She opened Facebook, gave several likes, made a few comments, happy birthdayed someone and followed a suggested link to an article about an isolated tribe in the Amazon.
The isolated tribe, she read, was discovered when a helicopter headed to a jungle station had been forced to deviate from its course because of a storm. There were aerial photos. The indigenous in loincloths, with hairless bodies, their heads partially shaved and the parts with hair jet black, faces and bodies painted red with dark motifs and one, who looked to be the oldest, with an elegant colorful crest. Children, women, men. Some, with bows, aimed arrows at the invaders in the sky. Others pointed at them. Still others simply stared, some hidden in the foliage. All of their faces showed shock or perhaps a mix of fear and curiosity. María thought she saw terror in the face of a boy holding on to a palm tree’s long trunk. She’d have liked to comfort him, offer a reassuring gesture, let him know that the people who’d discovered them weren’t bad, that, just like them, they were shocked, that they were happy to find them so robust and healthy, holding on to their way of life in the jungle, that they were just going to take a few photos, which were like memories except outside your head, so that everyone could see them, and soon they’d be left in peace.
To the right, in the margin, was a section called ‘trending’ with links to other articles. She clicked on one, which had a photo of some droopy trees. It was about jungle deforestation and the increasingly frequent inexplicable epidemics that decimated native animals and sooner or later spread to humans. She felt anguish, a sort of tightening of her chest, a vague fear for the futures of the terrified boy from the Amazon tribe and for all of humanity. María turned to José Miguel. He was focused on his reading and didn’t realize she was looking at him.
José Miguel bit his lip when he read. He’d shaved that morning and his beard, which María loved, was already sprouting. She thought that everything would be fine that night, that in Providencia, with the sea and the supermoon, gazing at such an astonishing spectacle, they’d be overcome, hold hands: first just their fingertips brushing lightly, then their fingers interwoven like cloth.
She looked at her watch. Their plane should have taken off twenty-five minutes ago.
‘José, look what time it is. Do you think the plane took off without us noticing?
José Miguel looked up from his iPad, glanced around.
‘Are there no airline employees around?’
María got up. She approached the passenger in the next row, a woman who looked like an islander, was holding a small child in her arms and had a diaper bag in the next seat.
‘Did the plane to Providencia already take off?’
‘No.’
‘This is the right gate for it, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘And there’s nobody from the airlines?’
‘They haven’t gotten here yet.’
‘But it’s already past the time.’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you think is going on?’
The woman gestured to say she had no idea. María went back to José Miguel.
‘We’re not going to get there in time.’
‘What did the woman say?’
‘She doesn’t know anything.’
There were no employees in the other boarding lounges either. Two rows behind them, a skinny older man with dreadlocks down to his waist was laughing at something on his phone.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ José Miguel said to him, ‘do you know why we haven’t taken off?’
The man looked up from his phone, shook his head and went back to his business.
‘It’s only a thirty-minute flight,’ José Miguel said, ‘we might still get there in time.’
‘Thirty-five’ María corrected, ‘and they haven’t even started boarding yet.’
‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’
‘Go on, say it.’
‘Say what?’
‘That it wasn’t a good idea, that you warned me.’
‘Come on, María, have I even hinted as much?’
‘You’re thinking it, I can tell. You’re furious with me, you’ve ignored me the entire trip.’
‘I have to read my students’ essays. Grades are due tomorrow.’
‘Say it, José.’
She was standing; he was sitting. Her looked up at her:
‘I told you that it wasn’t a good idea, that I don’t like traveling, that I have a ton of work, that I wanted to stay in Bogotá…’
María looked away and began tapping one foot impatiently.
‘You always want to stay in Bogotá,’ she said quietly.
‘So? What’s wrong with that?’
Frustrated, María began to walk off, then immediately turned and came back.
‘Do you have to make us both miserable? Can’t you even attempt to enjoy it?’
José Miguel, iPad in hand, was not looking at María but through the window.
‘Enjoy what? This magnificent view? These plastic chairs? The air conditioning?’ A woman coughed. ‘People’s viruses?’
María glowered down on him in rage.
‘The idea of seeing the supermoon together, at the sea.’
‘We could have seen it from Bogotá.’
‘With that sky, always so overcast?’
José Miguel set his iPad on the seat next to him, crossed his arms and stared right at her. He didn’t say a word, but it was obvious what he was thinking. She became defensive.
‘How was I supposed to know it would be the same here?’
‘It’s November.’
‘There are sunny days in November.’
‘November is the…’
She interrupted him:
‘I know, you’ve said it a thousand times, the rainiest month of the year.’
‘And yet still, you bought the tickets and paid for the hotel. Without even taking my opinion into consideration. All that money…’
She didn’t want to keep arguing, didn’t want to hear what came next, the song and dance about all that money down the drain, all that money they should have been saving for the apartment – an apartment they’d never, no matter how much saving they might do, be able to afford. She walked to the windows overlooking the tarmac. It was pointless. They’d never see eye to eye, never be carefree and content, supermoon or no supermoon, in Bogotá or a white-sand-turquoise-sea paradise or any other part of the universe, ever. She had to accept it. They didn’t get one another; they were too different.
The lights on the tarmac had come on, it was so dark. Five o’clock and it looked like the middle of the night. Suddenly, in the cones of light shining down from the lamps, she saw the rain. Hard and violent, buffeted by the gale. A real storm. No doubt it was howling like a wild animal. The only reason they couldn’t hear it was because the building was solid and the window – thick paned – gave onto a hallway, which in turn had another thick-paned window. A storm unlike any in Bogotá, or at least none that she could remember anytime recently. She consoled herself, thinking that they wouldn’t have been able to see the supermoon anyway.
Someone made an announcement. She turned to the voice. It was a woman, an airline employee. Due to the weather conditions, she said, the airport was closed, the flight canceled.
‘Till when?’ asked a man with glasses holding a hardhat.
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Why not wait for the rain to stop?’ asked the coughing woman.
‘I’m afraid that’s not possible, señora. The runway in Providencia isn’t illuminated and they can’t land in the dark.’
María, who was still standing by the window, turned to look through it. Outside, the storm’s fury. Inside, the passengers’ objections and lamentations, slowly dying down until, finally, they resigned themselves. With her eyes glued to the window, María sensed the passengers beginning to empty the lounge, slow and listless. Like cattle, she thought. José Miguel came up beside her.
‘Should we go?’
‘I need to call the hotel and tell them we’re not going to make it.’
‘They must already know the airport is closed.’
‘We need to find one here.’
He tried to console her:
‘Maybe it will clear up in a bit and we can see the moon from the beach here.’
‘Maybe,’ she replied without conviction.
A storm was lashing down on the world and soon it would be night. María stepped away from the window and, without looking at José Miguel, without caring whether he followed her or not, joined the last few passengers ambling out of the lounge.

Cuando despegaron, el piloto anunció por el altavoz que en el destino, la isla de San Andrés, las condiciones eran óptimas, con sol y cielo despejado. María pensó que durante el descenso vería por la ventanilla el paraíso de playas blancas y mar de color turquesa que mostraban las imágenes de Google.
Al momento de aterrizar, sin embargo, todo estaba gris. El cielo, el mar, las playas. Hasta los edificios y la vegetación se veían opacos, deslucidos. José Miguel, que durante el vuelo estuvo leyendo en su iPad, por levantó la cabeza y miró por la ventanilla.
‘Está lloviendo.’
‘Es una lloviznita,’ dijo María.
La mayoría de pasajeros, impacientes, se levantaron antes de que el avión se detuviera. María y José Miguel estaban en la cola y tuvieron que esperar bastante tiempo. En vez de un túnel para pasar del avión a la terminal había una escalera de las antiguas. Nomás salir del avión, sintieron el golpe del aire salino y caliente. Luego, por el camino demarcado en la plataforma, los aguijones de la llovizna.
La fila en los puestos de control migratorio estaba tan desordenada que parecía la muchedumbre de un concierto. Fue eterna. Los atendió una mujer grande de ademanes bruscos, que les revisó los documentos de identidad, las tarjetas de turismo y les preguntó cuánto tiempo se quedarían y dónde se alojarían. Puso un sello y, sin decir más, les devolvió sus papeles. De allí pasaron a una sala estrecha de paredes sucias y dos bandas que traqueteaban. Sus morrales, del mismo modelo, morado el de ella y naranja el de él, ya estaban dando vueltas. Los agarraron y, a continuación, otra larga fila que terminaba en un escáner de maletas de la policía. Esta avanzaba aún más lento que la anterior.
El lugar estaba repleto. Los niños corrían, las señoras se abanicaban con las tarjetas de turismo, los señores sudaban, los jóvenes se tomaban selfies. No había aire acondicionado y el calor era pegajoso. Llegaban oleadas de olores a pollo frito, algas y pedos. A José Miguel le brotaron sobre el labio una multitud de goticas de sudor transparentes como ampollas. María no le dijo nada, ni que se limpiara, ni qué calor, estoy desesperada, menos mal tenemos tiempo para la conexión a Providencia, cuándo se acabará esto. Solo se abanicaba con las tarjetas de turismo.
Por fin llegaron al escáner. No les hicieron abrir los morrales. Salieron por un corredor, en cuya boca se aglomeraban taxistas y hombres ofreciendo servicios turísticos. ¿A dónde los llevo, amiga? ¿Ya tienen alojamiento? Mi hermano, tome esta tarjeta sin compromiso. María y José Miguel les hicieron el quite y siguieron por dentro del aeropuerto hasta los mostradores de las aerolíneas.
Hicieron una nueva fila, entregaron sus morrales, recibieron los pases de abordar del vuelo a Providencia y fueron a buscar la sala de embarque en el segundo piso. Otra fila. Otro escáner. Otro puesto de control migratorio. A José Miguel se le habían empapado las axilas y María se sentía como si acabara de correr una maratón. Avanzaron por el Duty Free y por las primeras salas de embarque, llenas de gente, maletas y ruido. Por suerte, en la que les correspondía a ellos solo había unos pocos pasajeros y el aire acondicionado estaba a tope, lo que fue un alivio. Se sentaron en la primera línea de sillas, frente a una vidriera que daba hacia las otras salas. Las ventanas hacia el exterior quedaban a los lados.
‘Si hay room service podríamos comer en el cuarto,’ dijo María. ‘Tiene un balcón con vista al mar.’
‘Como quieras.’
‘Si no hay room service, vamos al restaurante. Es todo abierto y frente al mar.’
‘¿Sí será que en Providencia el clima está mejor?’
La llovizna no había parado. Por las ventanas laterales se veían los aviones mojados en la plataforma, la penumbra a pleno día y la nube negra que se extendía hasta donde alcanzaba la vista. La llovizna, tal vez, se había hecho más fuerte.
‘Seguro allá está divino,’ dijo María.
José Miguel no contestó. Sacó su iPad y se puso a leer. María se dedicó a observar a través del vidrio a la gente de las otras salas. Los turistas ardidos por el sol, con trencitas y camisetas de San Andrés isla, Colombia, con motivos de palmeras y colores de la bandera rastafari. Le rogó a la nada, al universo, a la caprichosa autoridad de los fenómenos atmosféricos, para que dejara de llover, para que en Providencia el cielo estuviera despejado y pudieran ver la salida de la superluna sobre el mar, como si fuera de mentiras, brillante y descomunal, un montaje, una pura postal de mal gusto. No pensaba tomar ni una sola foto. Solo contemplar el espectáculo y absorberlo, para que la memoria quedara guardada en su cabeza.
Sacó el celular y buscó el pronóstico del clima. Lo había empezado a revisar desde que se enteró de la superluna. Lo siguió revisando mientras planeaba el viaje y lo revisaba cada vez que José Miguel le decía que no era una buena idea, que en noviembre llovía todos los días, que mejor se quedaran en Bogotá. María pensaba que la lluvia de noviembre era solo la excusa para esta ocasión, pues él siempre quería quedarse en Bogotá. El pronóstico estaba igual: lluvia.
María tenía catorce notificaciones en WhatsApp, todas del chat de excompañeros de la universidad. Alguien había puesto un meme y luego venía la cascada de reacciones, stickers, emojis, jajajás, más memes. María escribió qué meme tan bueno jajaja. Le dijo a su mamá que ya estaban en San Andrés. Fue a Facebook, dio varios me gusta, hizo un par de comentarios, felicitó a un cumpleañero y siguió un enlace sugerido a un artículo sobre una tribu aislada del Amazonas.
La tribu aislada, leyó, fue descubierta cuando un helicóptero que se dirigía a un puesto selvático tuvo que desviarse de su rumbo por causa de un temporal. Había fotos desde el aire. Los indígenas en taparrabos, lampiños, con las cabezas parcialmente afeitadas, las partes con pelo negrísimas, las caras y los cuerpos pintados de rojo o con motivos oscuros y uno, que parecía el más viejo, con un penacho elegante y colorido. Niños, mujeres, hombres. Algunos, con arcos, apuntaban sus flechas hacia los invasores suspendidos en el cielo. Otros los señalaban con la mano. Otros más solo los miraban, entre estos unos escondidos bajo el follaje. Las caras de todos eran de asombro o acaso de una combinación de miedo y curiosidad. María creyó advertir terror en un niño que se agarraba al largo tallo de una palmera. Le hubiera gustado confortarlo, hacerle un gesto tranquilizador, dejarle saber que quienes los habían descubierto no eran malos, que, igual que ellos, estaban asombrados, que se alegraban de verlos saludables y robustos, resistiendo en su forma de vida en la selva, que nomás iban a tomarles unas fotos, que eran como memorias, solo que afuera de la cabeza, para que todos pudieran verlas, y que en breve los dejarían en paz.
En el margen derecho había una sección llamada ‘Más popular’ con vínculos a otros artículos. Pinchó uno, cuya foto mostraba unos árboles caídos. Era sobre la deforestación de las selvas y las epidemias inexplicables cada vez más frecuentes que mermaban a los animales endémicos y tarde o temprano se extenderían a los humanos. Sintió angustia, una especie de opresión en el pecho, un miedo impreciso por el futuro del niño aterrorizado de la tribu amazónica y el de la humanidad. Se volvió hacia José Miguel. Estaba concentrado en la lectura y no se percató de que ella lo miraba.
Cuando leía, se mordía el labio. Esa mañana se había afeitado y la barba, que a María le encantaba, ya le estaba brotando. Ella pensó que esa noche todo estaría bien, que en Providencia, ante el mar y la superluna, frente a semejante espectáculo, sobrecogidos, se agarrarían de la mano, primero apenas un roce de las yemas de los dedos y al final los dedos entrelazados como en un tejido.
Miró el reloj. Su avión debería haber salido hacía veinticinco minutos.
‘Jose, mirá la hora. ¿Será que el avión ya salió y no nos dimos cuenta?’
José Miguel levantó los ojos del iPad y buscó alrededor.
‘¿No hay nadie de la aerolínea?’ dijo.
María se levantó. Fue hacia la pasajera de la fila de al lado, una mujer que parecía isleña, con un niño de brazos y una pañalera en el asiento de al lado.
‘¿El avión a Providencia ya salió?’
‘No.’
‘Esta es la sala de la que va a salir, ¿cierto?’
‘Sí.’
‘¿Y no hay nadie de la aerolínea?’
‘No han llegado todavía.’
‘Ya es tarde.’
‘Sí.’
‘¿Qué pasará?’
Con un gesto, la mujer dijo que lo ignoraba. María volvió a donde José Miguel.
‘No vamos a llegar a tiempo.’
‘¿Qué dijo la señora?’
‘No sabe nada.’
En las otras salas tampoco había funcionarios de las aerolíneas. Dos filas detrás de ellos, un hombre flaco y maduro, con rastras hasta la cintura, se reía mientras miraba el teléfono.
‘Señor, perdone,’ le dijo José Miguel, ‘¿usted sabe por qué no hemos salido?’
El hombre levantó la vista del teléfono, negó con la cabeza y volvió a lo suyo.
‘El vuelo apenas dura media hora,’ dijo José Miguel, ‘de pronto sí alcanzamos a llegar.’
‘Treinta y cinco minutos,’ corrigió María, ‘y ni siquiera nos han llamado a abordar.’
‘No sé qué decirte.’
‘Dale, decilo.’
‘¿Decir qué?’
‘Que no era una buena idea, que me lo advertiste.’
‘Ay, María, ¿acaso insinué algo?’
‘Lo estás pensando, se te nota. Estás furioso conmigo, no has hecho sino evitarme todo el viaje.’
‘Tengo que leer los trabajos de mis estudiantes. Mañana es la entrega de notas.’
‘Jose, decilo.’
Ella estaba de pie y él, sentado. La encaró:
‘Te dije que no era una buena idea, que no me gusta viajar, que tenía un montón de trabajo, que prefería quedarme en Bogotá…’
María desvió la mirada y empezó a mover un pie con impaciencia.
‘Tú siempre prefieres quedarte en Bogotá,’ dijo en voz baja.
‘¿Y qué?, ¿eso qué tiene de malo?’
Frustrada, María se alejó, pero enseguida dio la vuelta y regresó:
‘¿Y tenés que amargarte y amargarme? ¿No podés hacer el intento de disfrutar?’
José Miguel, con el iPad en la mano, no miraba a María sino a la vidriera.
‘¿Disfrutar qué? ¿La vista magnífica? ¿Estas sillas de plástico? ¿El aire acondicionado?’ Una mujer tosió. ‘¿Los virus de la gente?’
María lo miró desde arriba, con rabia:
‘La idea de ver la superluna juntos en el mar.’
‘La podíamos ver en Bogotá.’
‘¿Con esos cielos tan nublados de allá?’
José Miguel puso el iPad en la silla de al lado, se cruzó de brazos y la miró con fijeza. No dijo nada, pero era obvio lo que estaba pensando. Ella se defendió:
‘¿Cómo iba a saber que acá estaría igual?’
‘Es noviembre.’
‘En noviembre hay días que hace sol.’
‘Es el mes…’
Lo interrumpió:
‘Ya sé, me lo dijiste como mil veces, el mes más lluvioso del año.’
‘Y de todas maneras compraste los tiquetes y pagaste el hotel. Sin que te importara mi opinión. Toda esa plata…’
Ella no quiso seguir discutiendo, escuchando lo que seguiría, la cantaleta sobre toda esa plata tirada a la basura, toda esa plata que debían haber ahorrado para el apartamento, un apartamento que nunca, por más que ahorraran, podrían comprarse. Fue hacia las ventanas que daban a la plataforma. Era inútil. Nunca estarían de acuerdo, tranquilos y contentos, ni con superluna ni sin superluna ni en Bogotá ni en un paraíso con playas de arena blanca y mar de color turquesa ni en ningún otro lugar del universo ni nunca. Tenía que aceptarlo. No se entendían, eran demasiado distintos.
En la plataforma estaba tan oscuro que las luces se habían encendido. Eran las cinco de la tarde y parecía de noche. De pronto, en los conos de luz de los faroles, vio la lluvia. Poderosa y violenta, zarandeada por la ventisca. Una tempestad. Seguro bramaba como una fiera salvaje. Si adentro no se oía era solo porque el edificio era sólido y la ventana, de vidrio grueso, daba un pasillo y este a otra ventana de vidrio grueso. Una tempestad como no las había en Bogotá o por lo menos no, que ella recordara, en los últimos tiempos. Se consoló pensando que de cualquier manera allá tampoco habrían podido ver la superluna.
Una voz saludó en voz alta. María se volvió hacia ella. Era una funcionaria de la aerolínea. Debido al mal tiempo, dijo, el aeropuerto estaba cerrado y el vuelo, cancelado.
‘¿Hasta cuándo?’ preguntó un señor de gafas que llevaba un casco de construcción en la mano.
‘Hasta mañana.’
‘¿Por qué no esperar a que pare la lluvia?’ dijo la mujer que tosía.
‘No se puede, mi señora. En Providencia la pista no tiene luces y los aviones no pueden aterrizar en la oscuridad.’
María, que seguía junto a la ventana, volvió al vidrio. Afuera, la furia de la tempestad. Adentro, las protestas y los lamentos de los pasajeros, cada vez más débiles hasta que, por fin, se resignaron. Con los ojos fijos en la ventana, María percibió que los pasajeros empezaron a vaciar la sala, lentos y desganados. Como vacas, pensó. José Miguel llegó a su lado.
‘¿Vamos?’
‘Tengo que llamar al hotel a decir que no vamos a llegar.’
‘Ya deben saber que el aeropuerto está cerrado.’
‘Tenemos que conseguir uno acá.’
Él trató de consolarla:
‘De pronto en un rato escampa y la podemos ver en la playa de aquí.’
‘Sí,’ dijo ella sin convencimiento.
Una tempestad azotaba al mundo y ya pronto se haría de noche. María se apartó de la ventana y, sin mirar a José Miguel, sin que le importara saber si él la seguía, se sumó a los últimos pasajeros que dejaban la sala.

De tiid hat waarme hannen
knypkes yn dyn skouder wannear’tst
trochgiest
witst wat dit is it is alles watst wollen
hast oant fier foarby
de pinegrins
mar it is of dit of dêrbûten en
dit salang’t de grins yn stân bliuwt
dizze langst giet net oer suverens mar
soarch is in relaasje
it yn stân hâlden fan ôfstân
der wol en net wêze
it is simpel
de iene logika troch de oare ferfange

It kostet my in soad om dy te skriuwen. It spyt my datst dêrop sietst te wachtsjen. Ik ha my loslûke moatten út in krêftich organisme dêr’t ik mar in ferfangber orgaan fan bin, in sel, of noch lytser: in mitochondrion. In mitochondrion hat gjin eigen stim, it is inkeld in brommend motorke dat enerzjy generearret om wer ôf te stean. Brommmm. Ik kin dy net skriuwe as mitochondrion, ik ha my losmeitsje moatten om wer dy heldere ik te wurden dêr’tst wat fan hearre wolst. Mar dizze ik bestiet allinne noch foar dy. Kinst dy ôffreegje oft wat ik dy fertel wat mei de werklikheid fan myn ûnderfining fan dwaan hat.

Bûten raze de bommen, binnen dreunt de muzyk hurd genôch om se te oerstimmen. Wy sliepe tsjin de muorren. Ast tsjin de betonnen muorre leunst, falst yn ’e sliep mei it sêft pulsearjen fan beats en ûntploffingen yn ’e rêch. Lûd is oanreitsing. Alles bart hjir yn deselde romte, binnen minge libben en dea, dei en nacht, sliepe en weitsje har sûnder ôfskiedingen, membranen en maskers. Gesichten switte yninoar oer, alles dript en stringelet, we binne in tútsjend, krioelend, sloarpjend mycelium dat de wrâld rotterij neamt mar wêryn’t mear libben trillet as yn dyn tolve fjouwerkante meter fertutearze achtertún.

Wy sitte net opsletten, wy kinne gean en stean wêr’t wy wolle, mar ik ha noch gjinien fuortgean sjoen. De doar funksjonearret as feilichheidsklep, út en troch puft der immen nei binnen ta. De regel – mar gjin wet – is om ien email wyks te ferstjoeren. De measte minsken komme net út de stêd, mar út it achterlân. Se ferskine op in dei yn de doariepening mei in ferwyldere blik, blauwe plakken en net folle wurden. De skiednis litte se bûten lizze. We witte dat it dielen fan ferhalen hielje kin, we ûntkenne net hoe wichtich it is om heard te wurden, mar wat der achter de muorre yn dyn wrâld bart past hjir ienfâldichwei net, it slacht dea, fersûpt yn it wite gerûs dat alle klanken fermôget. We kinne hjir neat reparearje. Gerjochtichheid al lang opjûn. Der ûntbrekt in ramt dêr’t wurden yn begrepen wurde kinne, de taal fan bûten is net deselde as binnen. Hjir prate we mei tentakels en oanreitsingen. Myn eigen bagaazje is lang lyn oplost yn stjoerleaze atomen yn myn holle, ûntploft as in supernova fan dopamine.

It slagget my dus net om dy te missen, ik ha it besocht. Skea en skande transformearret hjir yn enerzjy. Us wrâldsje is materialistysk, net yntellektueel. Focht. Ierde. Beweging.

Salang’t ik mitochondrion bin.

Ik tocht dat myn ferline oplost wie, mar doe’t ik my hjoed einlings losweakke om achter de kompjûter sitten te gean, waard ik oerspield troch oantinkens oan wat ik achterlitten hie, oan dyn wrâld, dyn rook, en de skiednis stie mei waarme boezem klear om my wer yn har op te nimmen. As ik it net as died fan soarchsumens sjoen hie om mei dy yn kontakt te bliuwen, hie ik dit nea skreaun. Soarch: wat de relaasje mei bûten yn stân hâldt. Ik wist ynienen wer hoe’t ik bûten omdoarme, myn eagen drûch en read fan wurgens, myn geast ferflakke troch oerdied. Ik lies al jierren gjin boeken mear, te wurch, ik dronk gjin alkohol mear, sels te wurch foar selsdestruksje. It absolute nulpunt hie ik berikt. As in geast stapte ik deryn, hoewol’t ik uterlik ûntagonklik like; ik leau dat ik oantreklik wie, doe. It wiene de waarme triljende muorren dy’t my sêfter makken en my derfan oertsjûgen dat ik bliuwe moast, de klamme waarme hannen dy’t my ferwolkommen en bemoedigjend knetten ta foarmleas, warleas, brommend wêzen. Stadich hold ik op te bestean, mar krige der libben foar werom. Loftwoartels en synapsen.

Wat kin ik dy fertelle. In barren, in ferhaal hat in barren nedich, dat is wat men dan foarm neamt. Lêsten foel it stil hjirbinnen. Ien luts de stekker derút en mei in lûde knal ferdampten de muzyk en it ljocht. Yn it tsjuster sei nimmen wat. Der binne gjin ôfspraken of regels, gjin protokol foar wannear’t de plenners ynbrekke, mar elkenien fielde de driging. De azem fan de oaren struts my oer it gesicht. Ik doarst net te bewegen, mar hie krekt myn earm ûnder in oar lein, dy’t troch it gewicht begûn te prykjen. In puber skrabbe de kiel. Ik rûkte eangst en urine. Witst noch doe’t wy yn ’e bosk rûnen en ûngemurken op in jachtterrein bedarre wiene? Neist ús fleach in fûgel fuort en do lutst my del en wy leine mei ús liven op ’e deade blêden, ús hymjen tufte wolkjes yn ’e loft. Ik krige oanstriid om te gibeljen, mar seach oan dyn earnstich gesicht datst it miendest, hiest wat sjoen, of hiest dit earder meimakke, dyn holle lei net op ’e blêden, holdest dyn gesicht in sintimeter boppe de grûn om better harkje te kinnen, dyn noas read fan ’e kjeld yn ’e loft. We huveren, ik wist net wêrom’t we bang wêze moasten en dochs wie ik it. We strieden tsjin dyn geasten dy’t foar my ûnsichtber wiene; ik seach allinne watfoar effekt se op dy hiene. Mar no, yn ’e stilte yn ’e bunker dêr’t wy yn befrearen, hjitte ik se wolkom, de geasten, se skoden by ús oan, diene mei oan ús kommuny. Doe’t myn eagen wend rekken oan it tsjuster bestudearre ik foar it earst mei oandacht de gesichten fan myn kammeraten, en de betingsten foar it bestean fan ús organisme begûnen my te daagjen.

Uteinlik gie de stekker der wer yn. We twongen it ôf, rekken ûngeduldich fan it wachtsjen. Wy kinne net lang ús siken ynhâlde. Earst begûnen we sels lûd te meitsjen – in hakke tikke op ’e grûn om ritme te meitsjen, in fûst sloech op in boarst. I like padoem tsj I like padoem tsj. Foarsichtich begûn it organisme wer te pulsearjen, hieltyd hurder, we beukten tsjin de muorre, dronken waarden we fan ús beats, fan ús lichems dy’t dit yn gong set hiene, we fielden ús ûnoerwinlik, sterker as ea. De swiere tentakels glieden fan my ôf, myn bloed mocht wer streame. Ik seach troch myn teisters, de muorren draaiden om my hinne oant ik gjin naden mear seach. Kom ús mar heljen, wy binne net bang, jimme soene bang foar ús wêze moatte, kom ús mar heljen, wy libje net foar de takomst, alles wat wy binne is wat der al is, hjir no, it is bard it hat west.

Doe’t ik de lûdsynstallaasje ynspektearre, fûn ik in famke achter in speaker yninoar dûkt, de earms op slot en beskermjend om har gesicht. Wat ea in wyt t-shirt west hie, kleefde om har boppelichem. Ik wist dat se kjel wurde soe as ik har oanreitsje soe, dat ik hûkearze njonken har del en azeme rêstich yn har nekke. Se reagearre net, mar ik fielde har lichem ûntspannen. Sa bleaune wy in skoftke sitten, sûnder wat te sizzen. Letter soe se my fertelle dat dit har twadde bunker wie, dat se earst in skoftsje earne oan see sitten hie. De groep yn de bunker oan see wie útinoar fallen doe’t immen de oaren derfan oertsjûge hie dat se nei bûten ta moasten, de sinne yn, dat it feilich wie dêr, dat de moanne op harren wachte, fjilden fol blommen, dat der in taak foar har lei. In groep ferkenners wie derop útstjoerd en nea weromkaam. Guon tochten dat alle ferkenners omkaam wiene, oaren wiene der wis fan dat de bunker fergetten wie, opjûn, dat it blommefjild bûten alles wie en mear, dat it libben dêr wêze moast. It rûn út op in grut gefjocht dat in pear dagen duorre en wêryn’t hast elkenien ferwûne rekke. It famke draaide har gesicht nei my ta sadat ik har fermôge noas sjen koe. Ik frege har wêrom’t se ús opsocht hie, wêrom’t se noch yn de bunkers leaude. It leauwe achterfolge har, sei se, as in geast dy’t har net mei rêst liet. We moatte allegear kieze, it is dit of dêrbûten. Se hie it gefoel dat der hjir in foarskot naam waard op in takomst dy’t miskien wol noait komme soe. Mar in foarskot wie teminsten wat. De takomst draaft altyd foar ús út, wy ha inkeld it no.
We koene inoar no hast net mear ferstean, de muzyk wie wer op âlde sterkte. Ik joech har in hân en luts har oerein. Yn ’e flitsen fan ljocht seach ik momintopnamen fan har sylhûet, de frjemde bochel dy’t foar har noas trochgie. Ik streake har skouder en dêrnei rekke ik har kwyt. Weromjûn oan de tentakels, oan it komplekse organisme dêr’t ik mitochondrion fan bin.

Se hie it blommefjild trouwens fûn, it bestie, mar se hie der net komme kinnen. It wie ôffredige, der waard tagongsjild frege. Dêr moasten wy hurd om laitsje.

Time has warm hands
squeezes your shoulder when you
move on
you know what this is
it’s everything you’ve wanted
to far past
the pain threshold
but it’s either this or outside it and
this as long as the threshold remains
this longing is not about purity but
care is a relationship
the maintenance of distance
being and not being
it’s simple
exchanging one logic for another

It costs me a lot to write to you. I’m sorry you’ve been left waiting for that. I’ve had to pull myself free of a powerful organism of which I’m only a replaceable organ, a cell, or even smaller: a mitochondrion. A mitochondrion has no voice of its own, it’s simply a little humming engine that generates energy only to relinquish it again. Hummm. I can’t write as a mitochondrion; I’ve had to free myself to become again that lucid self from whom you’re eager to hear something. But this self remains in existence only for you. You might wonder whether what I tell you has anything to do with the reality of my experience.

Outside, bombs are raging, inside the music is booming loudly enough to drown them out. We sleep against the walls. If you lean against the concrete wall, you fall asleep with the soft pulse of beats and explosions in your back. Sound is touch. Everything here happens in the same space. Inside, life and death, day and night, sleep and waking blend without partitions, membranes and masks. Faces sweat into each other, everything drips and entwines, we’re a kissing, teeming, slurping mycelium that the world calls rot but in which more life quivers than in your twelve-square-metre neglected back garden.

We’re not shut in, we can go wherever we like, but I’ve never seen anyone leave. The door functions as a safety valve; from time to time someone puffs inside. The rule – not a law – is to send one email per week. Most people don’t come from the city but from the interior. They appear one day in the doorway with bewildered expressions, bruises and few words. They leave history outside. We know that the sharing of stories can heal, we don’t deny how important it is to be heard, but what happens behind the wall in your world simply doesn’t fit here, it fizzles out, drowns in the white noise that decomposes all sounds. We can’t repair anything here. Justice was given up long ago. A framework is lacking in which words can be understood, the language of outside is not the same as inside. Here we talk with tentacles and touches. My own baggage has long since dissolved into drifting atoms in my head, exploded like a dopamine supernova.

So I can’t manage to miss you. I’ve tried. Pain and struggle are transformed into energy here. Our world is materialistic, not intellectual. Moisture. Soil. Movement.

As long as I’m a mitochondrion.

I thought my past had dissolved, but when I finally detached myself today to go to sit at the computer, I was inundated by memories of what I’d left behind, of your world, of your smell, and history stood ready with a warm bosom to embrace me again. If I hadn’t regarded it as a caring act to stay in touch with you, I would never have written this. Care: that maintains the relationship with outside. I suddenly remembered how I wandered about out there, my eyes dry and red with exhaustion, my mind flattened by excess. I hadn’t read a book for years, too tired; I no longer drank alcohol, too tired even for self-destruction. I’d reached absolute zero. I stepped inside like a spirit, although externally I seemed unapproachable; I believe I was attractive, then. It was the warm, vibrating walls that softened me and convinced me I had to stay, the clammy warm hands that welcomed me and moulded me encouragingly into a shapeless, defenceless, humming creature. Slowly I ceased to exist, but I got life in return. Aerial roots and synapses.

What can I tell you? An event – a story needs an event, that’s what people call form. Recently silence fell in here. Someone pulled the plug, and with a loud bang the music and light evaporated. In the darkness nobody said anything. There are no agreements or rules, no protocol for when the planners break in, but everyone felt the threat. The breath of the others swept across my face. I didn’t dare move but I’d just laid my arm underneath someone else and the weight made it start to tingle. A teenager cleared his throat. I smelled fear and urine. Do you remember when we walked in the forest and entered hunting grounds without noticing? Next to us a bird flew up and you pulled me down and we lay on our stomachs on the dead leaves, our panting breath puffing little clouds into the air. I wanted to giggle, but saw from your serious face that you meant it, you’d seen something, or you’d experienced this before, your head was not lying on the leaves, you lifted your face a centimetre above the earth to be able to listen better, your nose red from the cold in the air. We shivered, I didn’t know why we should be afraid, yet I was. We fought against your ghosts, which were invisible to me; I only saw the effect they had on you. But now, in the silence in the bunker in which we froze, I welcomed them, the ghosts, they joined us and took part in our communion. When my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness I studied the faces of my comrades attentively for the first time, and the preconditions for the existence of our organism began to dawn on me.

Eventually the plug went in again. We made that happen, becoming impatient with waiting. We can’t hold our breath for long. First we started to make noise ourselves – a heel tapped on the ground to create a rhythm, a fist thumped on a chest. I like pa-boom tsh I like pa-boom tsh. Cautiously the organism began pulsating again, louder and louder; we banged on the wall, we grew drunk on our beats, on our bodies that had set all this in motion. We felt invincible, stronger than ever. The heavy tentacles slid off me, my blood was able to flow again. I peered through my eyelashes; the walls spun around me until I no longer saw any joins. Just come and fetch us, we’re not afraid, you ought to be afraid of us. Just come and fetch us, we don’t live for the future, everything we are is what already exists, here now, it’s happened, it has been.

When I inspected the sound equipment I found a girl behind a speaker, curled up, her arms locked protectively over her face. What had once been a white T-shirt clung to her upper body. I knew she’d be startled if I touched her, so I crouched down next to her and breathed calmly at her neck. She didn’t react, but I felt her body relax. We stayed there sitting like that for a while, without saying anything. Later she told me this was her second bunker, that she’d first been somewhere near the coast for a while. The group in the bunker at the coast had fallen apart when someone persuaded the others they had to go outside, into the sun, that it was safe there, that the moon was waiting for them, fields full of flowers, that a task awaited them there. A group of scouts was sent out and never came back. Some thought all the scouts had died, others were certain the bunker had been forgotten, abandoned, that the field of flowers outside was everything and more, that life must be there. It ended in a big fight that lasted several days and in which almost everyone was injured. The girl turned her face towards me so that I could see her rotting nose. I asked her why she’d sought us out, why she still believed in the bunkers. The faith pursued her, she said, like a ghost that wouldn’t leave her in peace. We must all choose; it’s this or outside. She had the feeling that here an advance was taken out on a future that might never come. But an advance was at least something. The future always runs ahead of us; we have only the now.
We could hardly understand each other any longer. The music was at its old volume again. I gave her a hand and pulled her upwards. In the flashes of light I saw snapshots of her silhouette, the strange lump that passed for her nose. I stroked her shoulder and then I lost her. Given back to the tentacles, to the complex organism of which I am a mitochondrion.

She had found the field of flowers, by the way; it existed, but she’d been unable to enter. It was fenced off, entrance money was charged. That made us laugh out loud.

Alle jierren bring ik yn ’t neijier in dei of tsien troch yn in wytpleistere húske mei blauwe blinen, it leit op de eastlikste punt fan Kreta. Dat plakje fielt net allinnich oan as de ein fan ‘e wrâld, mar ek as in jierliks útstapke nei de ivichheid. Men rekket hjir al rillegau it paad bjuster yn ‘e tiid, dagen fan ‘e wike en jiertallen ha gjin betsjutting yn it ljocht fan de argeologyske opgravingen yn dizze kriten. In hoannestap fan it húske ôf leit in labirint fan muorkes dy’t net heger as de knibbels rikke, ôfbrokkele bouseltsjes fan op syn minst trijetûzen jier âld. It binne oerbliuwsels fan wat ienris in Minoysk paleis wie. De grûn dêr’t ik op rin is antyk, hjir hat Theseus de Minotaurus ferslein, ik stean op ‘e kliffen dêr’t Daedalus syn soan Ikarus twa wjukken oanbûn hat.
Op ‘e lêste kilometers fan de reis wynt de wei him yn lussen by in berch del en komt út by de baai, in griene oase fan reiden, tamarisken en fruchtbeammen fol mei rypjende granaatappels en griene sitroenen dy’t noch giel kleurje moatte. It strân fan grintstiennen leit beskûle tusken twa berchkammen, dy’t stadichwei hichte ferlieze, en op hûndert meter út ‘e kust ûnder wetter ferdwine. Oan it strân tingje trije restaurantsjes nei de geunst fan in krappe klandyzje, it binne mar in stikmannich reizgers dy’t hielendal hjir oan ta ride. Fan it begjin fan de middei ôf draait by elk restaurantsje in yn marinade klearmakke hin en lammefleis yn de bûtengril, yn ‘e fallei hinget de swietrook fan it brette fleis.
It eilân hat syn foarm te tankjen oan in omheechtwongen stienmassa, bergen dy’t by it ûndergean fan de sinne de kleur fan brûns en roast krije. Allinnich oer de see fine myn eagen in rjochte kym, de skerpe streek dy’t in skieding makket tusken it kobaltblauwe seewetter en de loft. Yn falleien waakse olivebeammen, de spjalte stammen binne yn ‘e rin fan de iuwen in pear kear om harren spil draaid en waakse as koarkelûkers de kant fan de sinne op.
Elke hjerst fyn ik alles hjir krekt sa werom as ik it in jier lyn efterlitten haw. Dat der yn dizze rûzige tiid noch plakken binne dy’t net feroarje, beskôgje ik as in woldied. It wytpleistere hûs hjit my wolkom as in trouwe freon, by wa’t ik my fuortdaalk thús fiel. De bougainville op it terras pronket wer bûten roai. By elk suchtsje seewyn struit er in hantsjefol blombledsjes út oer it terras, flinterfyn, knisterjend as floeipapier. It hûs stiet yn in útbuorren; in pear brekfallige skuorkes, fiif huzen, de trije restaurantsjes oan it strân en in lytse kapel, dêr’t nacht en dei in kearske baarnt. Ferkearsboetes komme nea oan, want dit hûs hat gjin adres. Dit buorrentsje is sa lyts dat it net op in kaart optekene is. It paad dat by it túnstek lâns rint, hat gjin namme en neist de doar mist in hûsnûmer.
Alle dagen lykje hjir op inoar en sadwaande is dizze tiid hjir ien grut ritueel, alles wat ik doch is wer itselde as yn foargeande jierren: lêze, mei myn freon swimme, in kearske baarne yn ‘e kapel. It is net nedich en meitsje in plan foar de wike, ik hoech hjir net yn termen fan problemen en oplossingen te tinken, hjir kin ik gewoanwei ‘wêze’.
Alle moarnen wurd ik wekker yn in fredige stilte, dy’t stadichoan opfolle wurdt troch in meldij fan koperen klokjes. It tingeljen betsjut dat der in keppel geiten yn ‘e buert is. Soms galmet it holle, kraskjende lûd fan in raven boppe de baai en op ‘e eftergrûn is altyd it kalme suchtsjen fan de see te hearren.
Wat bin ik wiis mei dit toarre en ûnbarmhertige eilân, mei de troch de sinne teskroeide heuvels. Fan fierrens sjogge de bergen der sêft en tagonklik út, mar alle kearen wer ûnderfyn ik dat it stiente like skerp is as koraal. As ik in eintsje te kuierjen gean, boarje de puntige rotsen har yn ‘e soallen fan myn berchskuon. It liket oft elke stien my sizze wol dat ik hjir neat te sykjen haw, ik bin te weak, ik bin fan in te swak skaai. As ik my ferstap en hâld sykje, helje ik my de hannen iepen oan de skerpe richels. Tusken de rotsen waakse toarre, stikelige strûken. Ut ‘e fierte lykje de kroandeade strûken in sulverkleurich drûchboeket, mar as ik in tûkje ôfbrek en it tusken myn fingers fynwriuw, komt der in skerp aroma frij fan sealje of roasmaryn. Wat toar en dea like, hat binnenyn wol deeglik piid en libben, konsintrearre as de smaak en rook yn in bûljonblokje.
De tiid fertichtet him; tsien dagen, tweintich dagen, in moanne, ik ferjit hoelang’t ik hjir al bin. De hytste oeren fan de dei sit ik op it terras. Ut it skaad wei sjoch ik nei de bergen, nei de see dy’t der op alle oeren fan de dei oars útsjocht. Yn ‘e ieremoarn liket er fan sulver en nei’t de sinne heger komt en in oare ynfalshoeke krijt, kleuret it wetter donkerblau. Even foardat it begjint te tsjusterjen, weaget it wetter as in siden lekken, yn pearse en ljochtgiele kleurskaden.
De sinne skynt oerdeis sa fel dat er oan ‘e ein fan de middei wurch is en betiid ûndergiet, om healwei seizen hinne begjint it te skimerjen. Dat is it momint dat de hiemhûnen yn ‘e fallei yn koar begjinne te byljen, it liket hast oft se de nacht as in fijannige ynslûper beskôgje. Mar hoe fûl at se ek tsjin it ynfallende tsjuster blaffe, der is gjin kearen oan. Om’t der gjin strjitlampen binne, is te sjen hoe’t de himel mei stjerren bestruid is. As ik oan ‘e tsjustere kime in flakkerjend ljochtsje foarbyglydzjen sjoch, tink ik oan in oare noarderling, de dichter en skipsdokter Slauerhoff, en stek ik de hân nei him op. Myn groet moat in iuw oerbrêgje, de tiid tusken no en dy nacht dat er by dit eilân lâns fear en it fan ‘e see ôf beseach:

Kreta

Under nacht fol stjerren lei de see hem del
Stiller as in gouden flues, in sulvren fel.
Elts suchtsje wyn like foargoed wei te driuwen.
It swiere skip slagget der net yn fierder te kliuwen
Troch it lichte, it kleare, fan wjerstân frij,
En it eilân, stadich, fear foarby.

As wie ’t in skip stil en djip fersonken,
Dêr’t de seilen fan yn it moanneljocht blonken,
Skoden syn wytbesnijde toppen sacht
bylâns de fiere wâlden fan de nacht,
Troch de moannesirkel en de stjerreswermen
Meitroaid, weinommen fan kust en bergen,

Like skerp ôfsnien en losrekke fan dy kontreien
As myn boaiemleaze libbensdreamerijen.

Op ús bêd, finzen ûnder de klamboe, lêst myn freon my alle jûnen foar út de Grykske myten. It kearsljocht, dêr’t er it boek yn syn hannen mei byljochtet, ferdûbelet syn profyl ûnbidich op ‘e muorre, de kreaze rjochte noas en syn bewegende mûle, it muskitenet in breidswale. Ek al fal ik no en dan yn ‘e slûge, dochs heint myn ûnderbewuste brokstikjes op. Oer Odysseus, dy’t him oan ‘e mêst fan syn skip fêstbine lit, fan roeiers dy’t waaks yn ‘e earen stopje om te ferhinderjen dat se tajaan sille oan de lokjende sangen fan de Sirenen.
Hiel inkeld komt it sliepende stiente yn beweging. Wylst ik oan ‘e tafel sit en in boek lês, begjint samar ynienen de grûn ûnder myn fuotten te grommeljen. It liket earne fan djip yn ‘e ierde wei te kommen, it beart as in ûndergrûnske tongerbui. Mei’t de rôljende tonger tichterby komt, begjinne de letters oer de bledside te dûnsjen. Myn freon snijt tomaten, mar syn hannen falle stil. As beferzen sitte we foar elkoar oer, wachtsjend op wat der komme sil. De teekopkes trilje op har pantsjes, hieltyd wat lûder. De lampe dy’t oan in koarde boppe de tafel hinget, komt as in pendule yn beweging. Net folle letter skuort in krêftich skokjende weach ûnder de betonnen flier fan it hûs troch. Tafel, kasten en boekeplanken, alles wat nea fan ’t plak komt, skoddet fûleindich hin en wer, lyk as de muorren en de stoel dêr’t ik op sit, sels myn skonken trilje mei. Wankeljend flechtsje ik nei bûten ta. Fan it terras ôf sjoch ik de oare húskes en de kapel dúnjen. Fierderop liket sels it berchmassyf te wâljen, mar miskien is dat omdat iksels trilje? Ik stean op in rôze kleed, de bougainville hat by ’t soad bledsjes ôfskodde. It wurdt my dwyl yn ‘e holle. Like gau as it opkaam, ebbet it geweld no yn ‘e fierte wei. Alle opstode stof sakket del, alles stiet wer deastil op syn plak. Gjin gerop of geraas of sirenes, neat. Myn freon sit noch by de tafel. It biuwt stil, sa stil dat ik oan mysels begjin te twifeljen, is dit wol echt bard? It moat wol sa wêze, want it hert bûnzet my fan eangst benaudens, de adrenaline jaget my troch de lea. In ierdbeving sa krêftich as dizze soe yn ‘e stêd dêr’t ik wenje grutte panyk feroarsaakje, mar hjir fielt it as moast it eilân even prûste. Hielendal oerstjoer sjoch ik om my hinne en ik realisearje my op ‘e nij: yn dizze wrâld fan goaden, myten en oerâld stiente docht in minskelibben der net ta. Sels in ierdbeving is hjir neat oars as in rimpeling yn ‘e ivichheid. Op de ien of oare manier stelt my dat tinken gerêst. Ik gean werom yn ‘e hûs, jou myn freon in tút, krij myn boek en lês fierder.

Every autumn I spend ten days in a plastered white cottage with blue shutters, at the most easterly point on Crete. This place doesn’t just feel like the end of the world but also like an annual trip to eternity. A person can easily lose their way in time here; days of the week and years pale into insignificance in the light of the archaeological excavations in this region. A stone’s throw from the cottage is a labyrinth with knee-high walls, crumbling structures that are at least three thousand years old. They are the remnants of what was once a Minoan palace. The ground I am walking on is antique, Theseus defeated the Minotaur here; I am walking along the cliffs where Daedalus fashioned two wings for his son Icarus.
In the final kilometres of the journey the road snakes from a mountain and ends at the bay, a green oasis of reeds, tamarisks and fruit trees filled with ripening pomegranates and green lemons yet to turn yellow. The pebble beach is sheltered between two mountain ridges which gradually descend and disappear beneath the water a hundred metres from the coast. Along the beach three tavernas compete for scarce clientele; very few travellers drive all the way here. From noon a chicken and lamb meat turn on a spit on the outside grill at every taverna; the roast fills the valley with delicious smells.
The island owes its contours to upwardly thrust layers of rock, mountains which colour bronze and rust as the sun sets. Only at sea do my eyes find a flat horizon, the sharp line dividing the cobalt blue sea water from the air. In valleys green olive trees grow, their fissured trunks have wound around their axes several times over the centuries and grow like corkscrews towards the sun.
Every autumn I find exactly what I left behind a year ago. That there are still places that don’t change in the tumult of this age is to my mind a blessing. The plastered white cottage receives me like an old friend, with whom I feel at home right away. The bougainvillea on the terrace is again blossoming profusely. With every gust of sea breeze it strews a handful of petals over the terrace, wafer thin, rustling like tissue paper. The house is in a hamlet – a few tumble-down barns, five houses, the three tavernas on the beach and a small chapel where a candle burns day and night. Traffic fines never arrive because this house doesn’t have an address. The hamlet is so small that it isn’t drawn on any map. The path running past the garden fence doesn’t have a name and there is no house number next to the door.
Every day is like another here and in this sense this stay is one big ritual, everything I do is a repetition of previous years; reading, swimming with my Love in the bay, lighting a candle in the chapel. There is no need to plan the week; I don’t have to think in terms of problems and solutions here; I can simply ‘be’ here.
Every morning I awake in a peaceful silence that is slowly filled with a melody of copper bells. The tinkle betrays the presence of a flock of goats. Sometimes the hollow squawk of a raven resounds above the bay and the calm sigh of the sea can always be heard in the background.
How I love this harsh and arid island, its sun-scorched hills. From a distance the mountains look soft and approachable, but time and again I discover how the rock is as hard as coral. When I go for a hike the jagged rocks bore into the soles of my climbing boots. It is as though every stone wants to make clear to me that I have no business here; I’m too tender, my species isn’t hard enough. When I stumble and look for a hold I scrape my hands on the sharp ledges. Parched, thorny shrubs grow between the rocks. Together, the utterly lifeless shrubs form a silvery dry bouquet, but when I break off a twig and crush it between my fingers, it releases an intense scent of sage or rosemary. Something that had appeared barren and dead does indeed have vitality at its core, compressed as taste and scent in a stock cube.
Time condenses; ten days, twenty days, a month, I forget how long I have been here. I spend the hottest hours of the day on the terrace. From the shadows I behold the mountains, the sea whose appearance changes every hour of the day. In the early hours of the morning it appears silver, and as the sun climbs and changes position, the water turns a dark blue. Just before darkness falls, the water ripples like a silk sheet, in shades of purple and pale yellow.
The sun shines so fiercely during the day that it is tired by the end of the afternoon and sets early; it starts to get dark around half past five. That is when the guard dogs in the valley all sound the alarm in force; it is as though they consider the night a hostile intruder. But no matter how loudly they bark at the descending darkness, it can’t be halted. Thanks to the absence of street lighting, the sky is strewn with stars. When I see a flickering light glide across the dark horizon, I think of another northerner, the Frisian poet and ship’s doctor Jan Jacob Slauerhoff, and I raise my hand to him. My salutation has a century to bridge, the time between this moment and that night when he sailed past this island and viewed it from the sea:

Crete

Sea lay stiller under starry night
Than a golden fleece, a silver hide.
Every breath of wind seemed to die down
And the heavy ship could not push on
Through that lucid void of brine and sky.
Then I saw the island sailing by.

Like a still ship, sunk in depthless dreams,
Topsails shining in the moon’s bright beams,
Snowy peaks came drifting, slow and white,
Through the far-off woodlands of the night,
Swept by lunar disc and stellar host
High above the mountains and the coast,

Distant and detached from earthly strife
As my groundless dreams are from my life.

In our bed, confined beneath a mosquito net, my Love reads to me every night from the Greek myths. The candlelight with which he illuminates the book in his hands reproduces his profile enormously on the wall, the beautiful straight nose and his moving mouth, the mosquito net a bridal veil. Though I doze off every now and then, my subconscious picks up details. About Odysseus being bound to the mast of his ship, of oarsmen stuffing wax in their ears to prevent them from succumbing to the Sirens’ enticing singing.
Very occasionally the sleeping rock stirs. While I sit at the table reading a book, out of nowhere the ground beneath my feet starts growling. The sound seems to come from somewhere deep in the earth, it sounds like an underground thunderstorm. As the rolling thunder gets closer, the letters start dancing across the page. My Love is cutting tomatoes, but his hands halt. We sit across from each other as though frozen, waiting to see what is to come. The teacups shudder on their saucers, more and more vigorously. The lamp hanging from a cord above the table starts moving like a pendulum. Not much later, a powerful shock wave passes under the concrete floor of the house. The table, cupboards and bookshelves, everything that never moves from its place shakes violently, as do the walls and the chair I am sitting on, even my legs vibrate with it. Reeling, I run outside. From the terrace I see the other houses and the chapel heaving. Further away, even the massif seems to ripple, but perhaps that is because I am trembling? I am standing on a pink carpet, the bougainvillea has shed a mass of petals. It makes my mind spin. As suddenly as it arose, the violence now fades away in the distance. All the dust that had been thrown up settles, everything is motionless back in its place. No screams or sirens, nothing. My Love is still sitting at the table. It stays silent, so silent that I start doubting myself – did this really happen? It must be so because my heart is pounding with fear, adrenaline is racing through my body. An earthquake as powerful as this would cause great panic in my hometown, but here it feels as though the island just had to sneeze. In despair I look around and realise again; in this world of gods, myths and ancient rocks, human life doesn’t matter. Here even an earthquake is nothing more than a ripple in eternity. Somehow that thought reassures me. I walk back into the house, kiss my Love, pick up my book and carry on reading.

Translation Slauerhoff’s poem ‘Crete’ by David McKay

Myn âlden hienen in pleats op de terp fan in ôfhandich Frysk doarpke middenmank útstrekte lannen. Allegear greiden mei slinken, greppels, hichten en lichten, wiete en drûge stikken, dêr’t ferskate soarten gerzen en oare krûdachtige planten groeiden, dy’t in grut part fan it jier bloeiden. Yn ’e maitiid wie it lân om it boeredoarp hinne op guon plakken in giele see fan hynsteblommen, de pinksterblommen bloeiden al foar Peaske, dêrneist seachst in protte wite koweblomkes, simmers kleurde surk de fjilden read en yn ’e hjerst waarden de weidlannen fersierd mei bûterblommen. It wie it fûgelrykste gebiet fan Nederlân. Boppe elk pûnsmiet song wol in ljurk. Woest yn it lân achter ús pleats by alle nêsten del? Dan hiest in deitaak! Der wienen bijen en flinters yn oerfloed. It fee rûn as it waar it taliet fan maart oant novimber ta bûtendoar fredich te weidzjen. Oan de opfeart stie in fraaie Amerikaanske wynmotor dy’t it wetterpeil yn de polder regele.
Net ien syn jonge jierren wienen kostberder as dy fan my, omdat ik opgroeide yn in utopyske krite. Myn boartersplak wie in tún fan tsientallen hektares. Alle yngrediïnten foar in gelokkige bernetiid wienen oanwêzich. Leafhawwende âlden, hûnen en katten, ek kij, hynders, skiep en geiten dy’t ik persoanlik koe, dêr’t ik in bân mei hie.
God bestie doe werklik, elkenien leaude. Gjin wûnder, de minsken hienen alle reden om te leauwen, want se seagen deistich Gods wûnderbaarlike skepping yn folle pracht om harren hinne. Alleman prate allinne mar Frysk, prachtich Frysk. It Nederlânsk wie as it wiere in frjemde taal, dêr’t men net folle mei yn oanrekking kaam, yn dy tiid hie nimmen telefyzje.
De bern krigen sels ûnderwiis yn it Frysk. Ik siet yn in oanbuorjend doarp op skoalle. Us master wie in freonlike, rêstige man dy’t meinimmend fertelle koe. Yn myn ûnthâld wienen we faker oan it sjongen, nifeljen, boetsearjen en oan it harkjen nei Bibelske ferhalen as dat we rekkenjen en taal hienen. Op myn achtste gong ik mei in moai rapport oer fan de twadde nei de tredde klasse.
Yn datselde jier kamen in stik as tsien nije learlingen op it skoaltsje. Beukers fan fiif oant seis jier, sy foarmen de earste klasse; de earste, twadde en tredde klasse sieten yn itselde lokaal en hienen deselde master. Under de nijkommers wie in opfallend leuk famke mei in leaf gesichtsje. Se hie it hier meastal yn flechtsjes. Ik sjoch har noch foar my yn har skarlekkenreade jurkje sûnder mouwen. It famke hite Janny de Jong en sy wie de dochter fan de koster yn it doarp dêr’t ik nei skoalle gong.
It duorre net lang of ik wie folslein troch har betovere. Se naam besit fan sawat al myn harsensellen. Koe ik it wurd fereale al? Gjin idee, ik wist doe yn alle gefallen net dat dat soarte heftige gefoelens op ’en doer slite en foarbygean, ik miende dat myn nije geastessteldheid altyd bliuwe soe. De langst nei it bekoarlike famke mei de flechtsjes wie oerstjalpend. Janny waard it middelpunt fan al myn tinzen, op skoalle, mar ek thús. Oant doe, yn de earste en twadde klasse, hie ik de bêste learling west, dêrnei sakke ik ôf nei it trochsneed nivo.
De oanlûkingskrêft dy’t sy op my útoefene wie enoarm. Nettsjinsteande dat, of better sein krekt dêrtroch, wie ik te bleu om har te benaderjen. Moannen besocht ik op it skoalplein sa ticht by har yn ’e buert te kommen as myn eangst it taliet.
Foar in folwoeksene liket in fol boartersplein in gaos fan razende bern. Nim fan my oan: se witte eksakt wat se dogge. Ik wist it teminsten wol. Meastal boarte ik sa’n tsien meter fan Janny ôf. As sy oan it knikkerjen wie, of as sy mei stoepkryt tekene op it skoalplein, doarst ik wat tichterby te kommen, dan draafde ik soms deun achter har lâns. Yn it klasselokaal foarme de twadde klasse in feilige buffer tusken har en my.
Op in woansdeitemiddei, doe’t alle bern frij wienen fan skoalle, kaam ik min ofte mear troch in stjoerd tafal einlings mei har yn kontakt. Tegearre mei in freontsje wie ik te boartsjen gien by it stroomhokje yn har doarp, skean tsjinoer de tsjerke, ticht by it hûs dêr’t sy wenne.
Hoewol ’t ik fansels stikem hope dat ik har dêr treffe soe, waard ik kjel as in hazze doe’t sy mei in freondintsje yndied opdaagjen kaam.
Gelokkich wist myn freontsje fan neat, bernlik naam er de kennismakking foar syn rekken; yn ’t earstoan stie ik der mar wat by, wierskynlik mei in reade holle. Stadich rekke ik lykwols myn ferlamming kwyt, ik libbe wat op, begûn it sels aardich te finen. De leafde like it te winnen fan de eangst.
Ik wit net mear presys hoe’t it gong, hoe’t it kaam, we boarten mei ús fjouweren, pleagen inoar en oan ’e ein fan ’e middei, nei’t har mem har thús roppen hie, krige ik samar in tútsje fan har op it wang.
It ierdske paradys waard it himelske paradys. Al it moaie om my hinne waard noch moaier, waard omtsjoend ta it moaiste datst dy foarstelle koest. Yn ’e loft dreaunen wite wolken sa’t gjin keunstskilder se oait skildere hat. Klysters songen en it klonk of ingels songen. Yn in rûs sweve ik nei hûs.
Net te leauwen: ik, dy’t my as bern oeral oer ferwûndere, sels oer it lytste, ik hie in tút krigen fan Janny, it famke dat ik oanbea, in hegere foarm fan gelok wie ûntinkber. Janny, ik hie Janny moete en sy hie my tute, it wie net te befetsjen. Sy wie alles foar my, ik fertoeve mei har yn ’e sânde himel, de eufory like sûnder ein.

As bern hie ik nochal wat talinten. Ik koe goed knikkerje, mei LEGO boartsje, ponnyride, mei pylk en bôge sjitte, hynsteride, sleatsjespringe, ús heit helpe op ’e pleats, autopetsje, ferskûlboartsje, ik blonk yn alles út. Letter kaam it besef dat de konkurrinsje yn in lyts doarp net grut is, dêr bist al gau de bêste. Hawar, no die bliken dat ik ek it talint hie om fereale te wurden. It gefoel yn my wie alles omfetsjend en alles oerhearskjend. Yn myn realistyske deidreamen barden fantastyske dingen. We knikkeren, boarten mei LEGO, rieden op ponnys, we dienen alles tegearre. Ik foel sels mei Janny yn ’e sliep, waard mei har wekker, sa yntym as ik it mar betinke koe, de hiele dei wie se by my, amper fan echt te ûnderskieden.
Yn it werklike libben feroare der net folle, spitigernôch, der feroare neat te’n goede. De firtuele Janny waard fertroud, foar de echte Janny dêrfoaroer wie ik as gefolch fan de tút noch banger wurden. Op it skoalplein doarst ik noch altyd net op har ôf te stappen. Hie sy in prinsesse west, of it suske fan Jezus, dan soe ik net banger wêze kinnen ha. Fanwege dy ekstreme ferlegenheid gong it op it lêst ûnûntkomber by de berch del mei my, dat koe net oars. Ik wie mysels net mear.
In pear wike nei ús triomfantlike moeting krige Janny ferkearing mei in jonge fan har eigen jierren, in klasgenoatsje, Hein Gietema. Myn ferealens en leafdesgelok gongen oer yn leafdesfertriet, hokker emoasje net minder ynkringend wie. En op ’e nij tocht ik dat ik dat gefoel noait wer kwytreitsje soe.
Oan myn soargeleaze libbentsje wie hoe dan ek definityf in ein kommen. De poarten fan de himel wienen sletten, it paradys feroare yn ’e wrâld sa’t dy yn werklikheid is, net moaier, net lilker. Neigeraden ik âlder en de wrâld grutter waard, kaam ik derachter dat it libben alderminst in feestje is, dat minsken as it derop oankomt inoar nei it libben stean, dat God net almachtich is. Mar dy tút fan Janny namen se my net ôf.
Der folgen mear tuten fan oare famkes doe’t ik in puber waard en der folgen oare yntimiteiten mei fammen yn myn adolessinsjeperioade. Dat wie noflik, befredigjend, enervearjend of plan-út geil, mar it helle it net by it tútsje fan Janny.
Al ridlik gau nei de legere skoalle wie ik har trouwens út it each ferlern, trochdat har âlden ferhuzen nei in stêd bûten de provinsje. Sels ferliet ik it doarp op myn achttjinde om der selden werom te kearen.
Yn myn studintetiid yn Grins dielde ik it bêd mei tsientallen jonge froulju. Hieltyd fanatiker of wanhopiger socht ik nei genot. Doe wie de skamte fier te sykjen. Ik gong mei twa of mear froulju tagelyk op bêd, soms wienen der manlju by, ik gong nei eroatyske massaazjesalons, hoeretinten en mei partners nei peareklups, ik partisipearre yn gangbangs, die oan sm (passyf en aktyf), ik smookte joints, naam pillen. Neat gong te mâl. De prikkels waarden hieltyd fûler, it effekt hieltyd minder.
Soe ik dat ek allegear dien ha as ik as bern noait tute wie troch Janny, freegje ik my no wolris ôf. Underwilens rekke ik fierder en fierder fuort fan dat iene glorieuze momint yn it begjin fan myn libben.
As jong folwoeksene ferhuze ik nei de Rânestêd. Dêr socht ik behalve yn seks myn heil yn sport, literatuer en keunst. Der wienen goede ûnderfiningen by, topûnderfiningen, in soad mominten fan gelok makke ik mei. Sa spile ik ris remize tsjin in ynternasjonale skaakmaster. Mar sels al hie ik wûn fan ’e wrâldkampioen skaken, dan noch soe it gelok minder yntins west ha as nei dy earste tút. Faak tink ik deroan werom, oan it teare tútsje fan dat leave famke mei har flechtsjes, út en troch biedt it my wat treast.

De lêste jierren wenje ik wer yn Fryslân, yn in âldereinflat oan de râne fan in grut doarp dat yngeand fergalle is troch nije, ûnsjogge hûzen, krekt as myn bertedoarpke en safolle oare doarpen. Myn trije etaazjes tellende flat is in ôfgryslike pûst, mar detonearret amper fanwegen alle oare pûsten. It âlde wurdt ferfongen troch it nije, want jild spilet gjin rol. De betegele tunen binne kreas fersoarge, dêr wurdt mei pronke, de blommen en planten stean yn potten. Mar hoefolle iken en ipen en mear fan dat soarte ymposante beammen binne der net roaid yn de ôfrûne jierren, omdat se yn ’e simmer wenningen fertsjusterje soenen en omdat ôffallen hjerstblêden tsjintwurdich beskôge wurde as túnôffal? Ik ken hjir net folle minsken; yn it doarpke dêr’t ik hikke en tein bin, ken ik gjinien mear en ik ha der yn tiden net west.
Ut myn flat wei sjoch ik út oer de fjilden, mar der is gjin aardichheid mear oan. De blom- en fûgelrike greiden út myn jeugd binne fergien. De gersfjilden fan doe binne ferwurden ta in ferfeelsum, gifgrien biljertlekken. Elk perseel is freesd, egalisearre, drainearre en ynsiedde mei Ingelsk raaigers; de iennichste plant dy’t der groeie mei, al it oare wurdt sjoen as ûnkrûd. It ynsektebestân is ysbaarlik ôfnommen. De greidefûgels binne praktysk útrûge, it is unheimisch stil yn it lân as der gjin trekkers brulle. De útmergele kij sûnder hoarnen, fan wa’t de libbensferwachting yn in heale iuw keldere is fan fyftjin nei fiif jier, stean it hiele jier troch op stâl. De hoarizon wurdt ferpest troch in grut tal draaiende wynturbines dy’t soms tweintich kear heger binne as in pleats of tsjerketoer. Foar it útsjoch hoech ik moarns de gerdinen net iepen te dwaan.
Eartiids hie dit doarp trije tsjerken. Ien derfan is sloopt, in oare omboud ta wenhûs en de tredde tsjerke fungearret no as doarpshûs. God stoar mei de skientme fan de skepping.
Alles wurdt minder, takelet ôf, ek myn âlde liif. It tal sykten en kwalen dat ik ha, giet yn heech tempo omheech, se binne al hast net mear te tellen en se wurde omtrint mei de dei slimmer. Ik bin dôfachtich, ympotint, myn bloeddruk is te heech, nachts moat ik trije kear fan ’t bêd ôf om te pisjen, myn fingers binne dôf en myn teannen gefoelleas, ik ha in pear TIA’s hân, it rinnen giet muoisum en gean sa mar troch. Myn libben wurdt hieltyd ûngeselliger, de wrâld lytser, stadich feroaret myn bestean yn in hel.
Lykas it gea fan myn heitelân is myn memmetaal op stjerren nei dea. Wat men tsjintwurdich Frysk neamt, is in totaal oare taal as dy’t myn âlden en omkes en muoikes en âld-doarpsgenoaten praten. It idioom is fierhinne hielendal ferdwûn, gâns Nederlânske wurden en útdrukkingen kamen derfoar yn it plak. Sels de oerbleaune Fryske wurden sprekt men hjoed-de-dei út mei in Nederlânsk aksint, benammen de jongerein. It probleem is dus net dat hieltyd minder minsken Frysk prate, mar dat de minsken dy’t it prate it hieltyd minder prate, minder goed. De prachtige taal dy’t it Frysk oait wie, is degenerearre ta in neatsizzend taaltsje, in soarte fan dialekt, ryp foar eutanasy.
Gjin minske dy’t it wat skele kin. Se binne bliid mei stees mear jild, bettere auto’s, fluggere kompjûters, smartphones, iPads en oare gadgets. De minsken stoarje har blyn op byldskermen. Foar in moai lânskip gean se nei it bûtenlân.
Mei ôfgriis sjoch ik hoe’t myn oerheid op it stuit fassistyske trekken fertoant. Se biedt dy (skyn)feilichheid foar frijheid, mar ast net yn ’e beage rinst, bist net feilich foar har, dan lit se har smoarge kop sjen. De polityk is siik, it gros fan de politisy walchlik. Der wurdt manipulearre by it libben. De ligers en bedragers dy’t it bêste lige en bedrage, krije de measte stimmen. Ik sjoch der net fan op, want ik fernuverje my al jierren nergens mear oer.
It tútsje fan Janny is sa lang lyn, sa fier fuort en it rekket hieltyd fierder op ’e achtergrûn. Ik kin de ûnderfining ûnmooglik weromhelje, net sa’t ik it destiids belibbe ha. It leaflike famke mei de flechtsjes kin ik noch foar my krije, it tútsje is foar in part ferdizene, krekt as it gefoel dat ik derby krige. Omkeard kin ik glimkjend weromtinke oan pynlike yngrepen by de toskedokter, glimkjend, want de pine fan doe kin ik likemin neifiele.
Soe Janny noch wolris oan my tinke? Nee, ik tink dat se net iens mear tinkt oan Hein Gietema. Nei alle gedachten is se fol fan de bernsbern. As se noch libbet!
Feitliken is selsmoard foar my de bêste opsje. Hoe faak ha ik it net oerwage? Der giet gjin dei foarby dat ik gjin balke en tou foar eagen sjoch. Alle ellinde wie dan foarby. Soms tink ik dat it tútsje fan Janny my tsjinhâldt.
De lêste tiid is der wat dat my noch in bytsje op fuotten hâldt. It is de hoop dat as ik op myn stjerbêd lis – ûnder ynfloed fan morfine, losslein fan de werklikheid, yn ’e bernskens faaks – dat der dan in moaie en leave ferpleechster is dy’t har hân even op myn foarholle leit, of myn hân in hoartsje fêsthâldt. En dat ik dan noch ien kear deselde sensaasje ûnderfine mei as doe’t Janny my lang, lang lyn tute achter it stroomhokje by har âlderlik hûs. Dat is it iennige dêr’t ik noch foar libje. It stjerbêd is myn paradys.

My parents had a farm on the terp of a remote Frisian village surrounded by sweeping countryside. It was all meadows with streams, ditches, hillocks and hollows, wetlands and dry spots, where various kinds of grasses and other herbaceous plants grew, flowering for much of the year. In the springtime, the land around the farming village was a yellow sea of dandelions in some places, the Whitsun flowers, or lady’s smock, were already blooming before Easter, and you saw a lot of daisies too; in the summertime the fields were red with sorrel, and in the autumn the meadows were adorned with buttercups. It was the richest area for birds in the Netherlands. A lark sang above every acre. Want to visit all the nests in the meadows behind our farm? It was a day’s work! There were bees and butterflies in abundance. The cattle – weather permitting – grazed peacefully outside from March to November. On the canal, there was a beautiful American wind engine, which regulated the water level in the polder.
No one’s early years were more precious than mine because I grew up in utopian surroundings. A garden of dozens of hectares in size was my playground. All the ingredients for a happy childhood were present. Loving parents, dogs, cats and also cows, horses, sheep and goats that I knew personally, with whom I had a bond.
God existed for real back then, and everyone was a believer. No wonder – people had every reason to believe, as they saw God’s wondrous creation in all its splendour around them every day. Everyone spoke only Frisian, beautiful Frisian. Dutch was a foreign language, with which there was little contact; no one had a television in those days.
The children were even educated in Frisian. I went to school in a neighbouring village. Our teacher was a friendly, peaceful man and a captivating storyteller. In my memory, we spent more time singing, doing arts and crafts and listening to Bible stories than we did on sums and grammar. When I was eight, I moved up from the second to the third year with a good report.
That same year, about ten new students came to the little school. Children of five or six – they were in the first year; the first, second and third years were in the same classroom and had the same teacher. Among the newcomers, a remarkably pretty girl with a sweet face caught my eye. She usually wore her blonde hair in plaits. I can still picture her in her scarlet sleeveless dress. The girl was called Janny de Jong, and she was the daughter of the sexton in the village where I went to school.
It didn’t take long for me to become completely enchanted by her. She took possession of almost all of my brain cells. Did I already know the expression ‘to fall in love’? No idea, but I certainly didn’t know back then that such intense emotions eventually wear off and pass. I thought my new state of mind would last forever. My longing for the delightful girl with the plaits was overwhelming. Janny became the focus of all my thoughts, not only at school, but also at home. Until that point, in the first and second year, I’d been the best student, but after she arrived, I dropped to average.
The attraction she exerted on me was enormous. Even so, or rather, precisely because of that, I was too shy to approach her. For months, I tried to get as close to her in the playground as my fear would allow.
To an adult, a packed playground seems like a chaos of screaming children. Take it from me – they know exactly what they’re doing. At least, I did. I usually played about ten metres away from Janny. If she was playing a game of marbles or drawing with chalk on the playground, I dared to go a little closer, and sometimes I would run past, just behind her. In the classroom, the second years formed a safe buffer between her and me.
On a Wednesday, when all the children had the afternoon off school, I finally met her properly, by way of a more or less staged coincidence. Together with a friend, I had gone to play by the electrical substation in her village, across from the church, close to the house where she lived.
Although I had of course been secretly hoping to see her there, I was shocked when she actually showed up with a friend.
Luckily my friend knew nothing about it and, in the way that children do, he took care of the introductions; at first I just stood there, probably with a red face. Slowly, though, I shook off my paralysis, perked up, even started having fun. Love seemed to have won over fear.
I can no longer remember exactly how it happened, how it came about; the four of us were playing together, teasing one another and at the end of the afternoon, after her mother had called her to come home, she suddenly gave me a kiss on the cheek.
Earthly paradise transformed into heavenly paradise. All the beauty around me became even more beautiful, magically transformed into the most beautiful sight you can imagine. White clouds, unlike clouds ever painted by any artist, drifted through the sky. Blackbirds sang, and it sounded as if angels were singing. I floated home in a daze.
Unbelievable: I, who as a child marvelled at everything, even at the smallest of things, had received a kiss from Janny, the girl I adored; it was impossible to imagine any higher form of bliss. Janny, I had met Janny and she had kissed me – it was beyond comprehension. She was everything to me, I was in seventh heaven with her, the euphoria seemed infinite.

As a child, I had quite a few talents. I was good at marbles, at playing with LEGO, riding ponies, shooting with a bow and arrow, riding horses, jumping over ditches, helping my dad on the farm, racing around on my scooter, playing hide and seek – I excelled at everything. It was only later that it dawned on me that there’s not much competition in a small village – it doesn’t take much to be the best. Anyway, now it turned out that I also had a talent for falling in love. The feeling within me was all-encompassing and all-consuming. Amazing things happened in my realistic daydreams. We played marbles, played with LEGO, rode ponies, we did everything together. I fell asleep with Janny, woke up with her, as intimate as I was capable of imagining; she was with me day and night, and it was barely distinguishable from reality.
Sadly, in real life, little changed. There was no change for the better. The virtual Janny became close and familiar, but the kiss had made me even more scared of the real Janny. I still did not dare to approach her in the school playground. I could not have been more afraid if she had been a princess or the sister of Jesus. Because of that extreme shyness, things inevitably went downhill for me in the end. I wasn’t myself anymore.
A few weeks after our triumphant encounter, Janny started going out with a boy of her own age, someone in her year, Hein Gietema. My besotted happiness turned into heartbreak, and the emotion hit me just as hard. And once again, I thought I would never lose that feeling.
My carefree life had come to an end. The gates to heaven were closed, paradise transformed into the world as it is in reality, no more beautiful, no uglier. As I grew older and the world grew larger, I discovered that life is anything but a party, that people are ultimately out to get one another, that God is not omnipotent. But no one could take Janny’s kiss away from me.
There were more kisses from girls when I entered puberty, and other intimacies followed during my adolescence. That was pleasant, satisfying, exciting or downright dirty, but none of it came close to Janny’s kiss.
Soon after primary school, I lost touch with her when her parents moved to a city outside the province. As for me, I left the village when I was eighteen, and I rarely returned.
In my student days in Groningen, I shared my bed with dozens of young women. I sought pleasure, ever more fanatically or desperately. Back then, there was little shame. I slept with two or more women at a time, and sometimes men were involved too. I visited erotic massage parlours, brothels and went with partners to swingers’ clubs, I took part in gangbangs, got into S&M (passive and active), I smoked joints, swallowed pills. Nothing was off limits. The stimuli became more and more intense, the effects less and less.
I sometimes wonder now if I would have done all that if I had not been kissed by Janny as a boy. Meanwhile I was moving further and further away from that one glorious moment at the beginning of my life.
In my twenties, I moved to the Randstad, where I sought refuge not only in sex but also in sport, literature and art. There were good experiences, great experiences. I had many moments of happiness – like the time I drew a game of chess against an international master. But even if I’d beaten the world champion, the happiness would still have been less intense than after that first kiss. I often think back to it, to that tender kiss from that sweet girl with her plaits. Sometimes it offers me a little comfort.

In recent years, I’ve been back in Friesland, living in an apartment for the elderly on the edge of a large village that has been thoroughly spoiled by new, ugly houses, just like the village where I was born and so many others. My three-storey block is an appalling carbuncle, but it barely stands out because of all the other carbuncles. The old is replaced by the new because money is no object. The paved gardens are well kept, people show them off, the flowers and plants are in pots. But how many oaks and elms and other such impressive trees have been uprooted over the years because they cast shade on houses in the summer and because fallen leaves are considered garden waste these days? I don’t know many people here; I no longer know anyone in the village where I was born and raised, and I haven’t been there in ages.
From my flat, I look out across the fields, but there’s no pleasure in it anymore. The meadows of my childhood, full of flowers and birds, have disappeared. The grassy fields of back then have become a dull, acid-green billiard cloth. Every plot has been cultivated, levelled, drained and sown with perennial ryegrass, the only plant allowed to grow there; everything else is considered a weed. The insect population has decreased alarmingly. The meadow birds have practically been exterminated; it is eerily quiet out on the land when there are no tractors roaring. The emaciated cows without horns, whose life expectancy has plummeted from fifteen to five years in half a century, spend the whole year in sheds. The horizon has been ruined by a multitude of spinning wind turbines, some of them twenty times the height of a farmhouse or a church tower. There is no point opening the curtains in the morning to look at the view.
This village used to have three churches. One has been demolished, another converted into a house, and the third now serves as a village hall. God died along with the beauty of creation.
Everything is dwindling, deteriorating, and that includes my old body. The number of illnesses and ailments I suffer from is rapidly increasing; it’s hard to keep count of them, and they are getting worse by the day. I am hard of hearing, impotent, my blood pressure is too high, I have to get up three times at night to pee, my fingers are numb and there’s no feeling in my toes, I’ve had a couple of TIAs, walking is difficult and so on. My life is becoming more and more miserable, the world smaller, and slowly my existence is turning into a hell.
Like the landscape of my youth, my mother tongue is as good as dead. What people call Frisian nowadays is a completely different language from the one my parents and uncles and aunts and people in the village spoke. The idiom has all but disappeared, replaced by so many Dutch words and expressions. Even the remaining Frisian words are spoken with a Dutch accent these days, particularly by young people. So, the problem is not that fewer and fewer people speak Frisian, but that the people who do speak it are speaking it worse and worse. The beautiful language that Frisian once was has now degenerated into a meaningless jargon, a sort of dialect, ready for euthanasia.
And no one gives a damn. People are happy with more and more money, better cars, faster computers, smartphones, iPads and other gadgets. People stare boggle-eyed at screens. If they want to see a beautiful landscape, they go abroad.
With sorrow, I see that my government is currently showing fascistic traits. They offer (false) security in exchange for freedom, but if you don’t fall in line, you’re not safe – then the government shows its ugly face. Politics is sick, and the majority of the politicians are repulsive. There is so much manipulation going on. The liars and the deceivers who are best at lying and deceiving receive the most votes. That doesn’t surprise me because nothing has surprised me in years.
Janny’s kiss is so long ago, so far away, and it is receding more and more into the background. It is impossible for me to recall the experience, not as I felt it at the time. I can still remember the sweet girl with the plaits, but the kiss has partly faded, along with the feeling it gave me. On the other hand, I can smile as I think back to painful procedures at the dentist’s, as I can no longer feel the pain I felt back then either.
Does Janny ever think about me? No, I imagine she doesn’t even think about Hein Gietema anymore. She’s probably occupied with her grandchildren. That’s if she’s still alive!
In fact, suicide is the best option for me. How many times have I considered it? There is not a day that goes by when I don’t picture a beam and a rope. Then all the misery would be over. Sometimes I think it’s Janny’s kiss that’s preventing me.
Lately there’s another thought that’s kept me going a little. It is the hope that when I’m on my deathbed – under the influence of morphine, detached from reality, maybe senile – there will be a kind and beautiful nurse who will place her palm on my forehead, or hold my hand for a while. And that I’ll feel once again the same sensation as I did when Janny kissed me, long, long ago behind the substation by her parents’ house. That’s all that I’m still living for. The deathbed is my paradise.

Doe’t de hjerstwyn begûn te waaien en de blêden op myn lichem falle liet, stiene de beammen neaken en har slanke fingers wiene goed te sjen. Al har skjintme en tier feroare yn in dizige dream dy’t inkeld in swiete neismeits efterliet. Ik koe sjen dat de eagen fan de beammen stadichoan ticht foelen en har griene blik ferdwûn. Ut en troch hearde ik midden yn ’e nacht harren gekreun, lykas wiene se oan it dreamen. Dreamen oer de maitiid, blossem, fruit. Hok oare dream soe it wêze kinne? Hoe oars soe in beam dy’t de hiele winter ûnder in laach snie sliepte oerlibje kinne? As it oan my lei, soe ik de beammen oant de ein fan ’e winter omearmje, dat se fanûnder myn glibberige hûd neat mear fernimme soene fan dizze kjeld. En dat se, oant ’e maitiid, ûnderdompele wêze soene yn myn wetter. Mar de beammen lieten my, krekt as al it oare, winterdeis iensum efter. De winter wie it seizoen fan fuortgean. In seizoen dat gewoan oergean moast en de maitiid berikke moast.
Mei it begjin fan ’e kâlde tiid fan ’t jier wie oeral stilte en ûnwittendheid. It wie as luts de natoer ynienen har feestjurk út, smiet se har ûnnoflike skuon yn in hoeke en foel se dronken, wurch en foldien nei in lang feest yn sliep.
Winterdeis koe ik nóch it lûd fan de keppel, nóch dat fan de hoeders hearre. De tinten fan de nomaden waarden ferset. Fan de berch nei de bedelte, fan de heechflakten tichtby de toppen nei de legere fallei. De stam hold it grutste part fan de dei ta yn ’e grutte tinten. Soms kamen der dochs wat minsken op my ta om wetter te heljen, mar se seagen net mear nei my wylst se harren pot mei wetter follen. Harren blik bleau rjochte op ’e tinte dêr’t se nei longeren en dêr’t se gau wer nei weromkeare woene. Harren fingers sakken net ferduldich myn hûd yn, mar gongen safolle mooglik út ’e wei om my oan te reitsjen. Se bedutsen it hiele gesicht mei in grouwe sjaal en allinnich harren eagen wiene te sjen.
Hjerstmis en winterdeis wie ik lulk en kâld troch de ôfwêzichheid fan de nomaden. En eltsenien wie bang foar de útbarstingen fan myn lulkens. Se wiene bang dat ik se oanfalle soe en har tinten weitôgje soe. Earne fier fan my fuort brochten se de nachten troch. Myn lulkens boaze oan en de winter waard ûnmeilydsumer. By winterdei hoeden de jonge mannen har keppels yn in syktocht nei fretten foar har fee. Se woene dat de keppel safolle mooglik farsk gers te fretten krige en namen har bisten mei op dagenlange tochten. De froulju bleauwen efter, tegearre mei de âlderein en bern, oan myn oever mar djipper yn ’e fallei.

Der wie mar ien persoan dy’t net bang wie, noch foar my noch foar de winter. In frou mei harte-eagen dy’t, lykas wie it noch simmer, neist my sitten bleau. Se sette in rjochthoekich houten weeftou en in pear kleaunen kleurde wol op ’e grûn en siet mei de rêch nei my ta op in stikje kelym. Mei har fuotten oerinoar teard weve se sûnder belies nije kelyms en tapiten. Ik seach dat har fingers read waarden fan ’e kjeld en somtiden klemde se de tosken opinoar. Mar se bleau sitten en weve troch, sels oant midden yn ’e nacht, dan sette se in lytse lantearne njonken it houten weeftou en skildere se bylden mei kleurrike knoopkes. It wiene bylden fan blommen en fûgels, yn read, oranje, giel. Bylden fan alles dat der op dat stuit net wie. De iennige kleuren dy’t ik winterdeis seach, wiene de kleuren fan de tapiten fan dizze frou. Se weve en song súntsjes in liet dat hieltyd klonk as it lûd fan ’e wyn. Ik wie bliid dat der njonken it lûd fan myn lulke drippen, noch in oar lûd te hearren wie op ’e flakte. Soms draaide se har om fan it tapyt ôf en seach my oan.
Wat seach se yn my? Wat kinst yn in rivier sjen útsein in wjerspegeling fan de wrâld deromhinne? In wjerspegeling fan de beammen, wolken, loft en gesichten dy’t doare him benei te kommen? Wannear’t it houten weeftou fol stie mei kleurrike knoopkes en de lêste tried ta ôfrûning lein wie, knipte se de skearingtriedden troch mei deselde skjirre wêrmei’t se de triedden fan ’e knopen ien foar ien al ôfknipt hie. Wannear’t in tapyt klear wie, sloech se it om de drûge, kâlde stamme fan in beam en bûn se de úteinen fan ’e skearingtriedden stevich oaninoar. It neakene liif fan de beam waard bedutsen mei knopen en blommen. Ik tocht by mysels: as de dreamen fan ’e beammen te sjen wêze soene, dan soene se der sa útsjen. Fol blossems, fûgels en kleuren. Faaks dreamden de beammen mei har stammen. It wie krekt as hie dizze frou de dreamen fan ’e beammen weve. Ik seach nei dizze frou en har tapiten. Soms hold se in baarnend stik hout yn ’e hân wylst se reaunte. De stilte waard hieltyd ferbrutsen troch it lûd fan ’e tapytkaam, mar dy ôfbrutsen stikken stilte krûpten al gau wer tusken de knopen fan it tapyt. Se hold it baarnende hout njonken it healôf weefde tapyt, dan seach se nei de fûgels en blommen. Troch it ljocht fan it súntsjes baarnende hout dat op har antlit foel, koe ik de kleur fan har wangen sjen: in mjuks fan giel en read, lykas de opgeande sinne. Dêrnei seach se nei de beammen, nei de himel dy’t donkerblau wie en soms nei my.
Se neamde my ‘Bulaq’. Wannear’t se nei my eage, hie ik it gefoel dat se my sjen koe. Se seach my, nettsjinsteande alle refleksjes op myn betize gesicht. Tagelyk mei al myn drippen. Los fan al de drippen. Se rôp my en ik wie net langer lulk. Ik wie gjin glydzjende trien mear. Ik wie Bulaq, stream, baltend en altyd libben.

Har gouden blik kalmearre my as de sêfte hannen fan ’e sinne. Under har waarme blik foelen al myn drippen yn sliep en ferjitte ik it seizoen en de tiid. Ik wie wer deselde raande snieflok op ’e top fan ’e berch, of deselde drip dy’t, op in simmermiddei, nei oerenlang hoederswurk oer har waarme wangen glide en har wurgens oan ’e hannen fan ’e wyn oerlange. Ik song mei har mei. It lûd fan ús flústerjen wjerklonk oer de flakten en fersteurde de sliep fan de dronken en ôfmêde winter. De winter prottele en slute dêrnei de swiere eachlidden wer. De beammen waarden lykwols net wekker út har kleurrike dreamen. It byld fan de sliep op har stamme bleau hingjen oant de maitiid.
Tusken de dreamende beammen, fier fan my ôf, sieten de nomaden, waarm fan inoarrens azem, yn ’e tinten fan de wol dy’t simmerdeis skeard wie en fan Korsi. Korsi, dy’t bedutsen wie mei grutte tekkens mei dêrûnder in bak fol gleone koaltsjes op in tsjokke laach jiske, dy’t har waarmte stadich ôfjoegen. De waarmte kaam ek fan in tsjettel fol wetter dat altyd oan ’e soad wie. De nomaden ûndergiene de winter en makken harren ree foar de maitiid en de simmer. De âlde en ôfmêde winter wie te gast en se moasten dy gast foar in skoftke ferneare, sadat se har, krekt as elk oar âldminske, ynienen ferfele soe en dernei langje om wer nei hûs te gean.

De beammen dreamden troch oant ’e maitiid; ik gong en kaam werom. Ik wie en ik song.

When the autumn wind began to blow, causing the leaves to drop on my body, the trees were naked and their slender fingers clearly visible. All their beauty and splendour transformed into a misty dream that left nothing but a sweet aftertaste. I could see the eyes of the trees slowly fall shut and their green outlook disappear. Now and then, in the middle of the night, I heard them groan, as though they were dreaming. Dreaming about spring, blossom, fruit. What other dream could it be? How else could a tree that slept all winter, covered in snow and buffeted by bitter winds, possibly survive? If it were up to me, I’d hug the trees until the end of winter, so they wouldn’t notice the cold beneath my slippery skin; so they’d be submerged in my water until spring. But the trees, like everything else, left me alone in winter. Winter was the season of departures. A season that simply had to pass and make it through to spring.
The beginning of the cold season brought silence and oblivion. It was as if nature suddenly slipped off her pretty frock, flung her uncomfortable shoes in a corner and fell asleep drunk, tired but happy after a long party.
In winter I could hear neither the herd nor the shepherds. The nomads’ large tents were relocated, from the mountain to the valley, from the plateaus near the peaks to the valley below. The tribe spent the best part of the day inside, but now and then a few people came over to fetch water. They no longer looked at me while they filled their pots with water. Their eyes remained riveted on the tent they longed for and wanted to hurry back to. Their fingers didn’t patiently sink into my skin, but avoided touching me where they could. They covered their faces with thick scarves, so only their eyes could be seen.
In autumn and winter, I was angry and cold in the nomads’ absence. And everybody feared my fits of rage. They were afraid I might attack and take their tents. They spent their nights somewhere far from me. My anger grew and winter became more merciless. In winter the young men herded their flocks in search of food. Wanting their animals to eat as much fresh grass as possible, they travelled for days on end. The women stayed behind, with the elderly and the children, on my banks, but further down in the valley.

There was only one person who wasn’t afraid, neither of me nor of winter. A woman with doe eyes remained by my side, as though it was still summer. She placed an oblong wooden loom and a few skeins of coloured wool on the ground and sat on a piece of kilim with her back to me. With her legs crossed, she tirelessly wove new kilims and carpets. I noticed that her fingers turned red with cold and sometimes she clenched her teeth. But she stayed and kept weaving, until deep into the night, when she set a small lantern beside the wooden loom and painted pictures with colourful little knots. They were images of flowers and birds, in red, orange and yellow. Images of everything that the world lacked at that moment. The only colours I saw in winter were the colours of this woman’s rugs. While weaving, she softly sang a song as constant as the sound of the wind. I was pleased there was another sound on the plain beside that of my angry droplets. Occasionally she turned away from the rug and looked at me.
What did she see in me? What can you see in a river besides a reflection of the world around it? A reflection of the trees, clouds, sky and faces that have the courage to go near? When the wooden loom was full of colourful knots and the final weft had been threaded through, she cut the warp with the same pair of scissors she’d used earlier to cut the knotted threads one by one. When a rug was done, she wrapped it round the dry, cold trunk of a tree and tied the warp ends tightly together. The tree’s naked body was covered in knots and flowers. I thought to myself: if the trees’ dreams were visible, they’d look like this. Full of blossoms, birds and colours. Maybe trees dream with their trunks. It was as if this woman had woven the trees’ dreams. I watched this woman and her rugs. Sometimes, she held a burning length of wood in her hand while she hummed. The silence was constantly broken by the noise of the weaving comb, but soon those broken bits of silence crept back in among the carpet’s knots. She held the burning wood close to the half-woven rug, peering at the birds and flowers. The gently burning wood illuminated her face, allowing me to see the colour in her cheeks: a mixture of yellow and red, like sunrise. Then she looked at the trees, at the dark-blue sky and sometimes at me.
She called me ‘Bulaq’. When she gazed at me, I had the feeling that she could see me. She saw me, despite the many reflections on my troubled face. Together with all my droplets. Separate from all those droplets. She called to me and I stopped being angry. I was no longer a sliding tear. I was Bulaq, river, roaring and always alive.
Her golden gaze calmed me like the tender hands of the sun. Under her warm gaze, all my droplets fell asleep and I forgot what season and time it was. I became once more that melted snowflake on top of the mountain, or that droplet which, one summer afternoon, after hours of herding, slid down her warm cheeks and surrendered her fatigue to the hands of the wind. I sang along with her. Our whispers echoed across the plains and disturbed winter’s drunk and tired sleep. Winter grumbled and closed her heavy lids again. The trees, however, didn’t wake from their colourful dreams. The image of sleep on their trunks lingered until spring.
Among the dreaming trees, far from me, the nomads sat in their tents of wool sheared in summer, warmed by each other’s breath and the korsi. The korsi, covered in big blankets and under it a brazier full of hot coals on a thick layer of ash, slowly giving off their heat. Warmth, too, came from a kettle filled with water that was always on the boil. The nomads suffered winter and readied themselves for spring and summer. Old and weary winter was visiting and they had to put up with this guest for a while, until, like any other elder, she suddenly grew bored and longed to go home.

The trees carried on dreaming until spring; I came and went. I was and I sang.

D♥ bist sa moai, de moaiste bist♥

Se skreau de wurden dy’t de hiele dei al yn har songen. Wurd foar wurd, sa sierlik en oandachtich as se mar koe. It fielde as rekke se mei elk wurd dat út har pinne floeide in hân oan, in gesicht. Nee, net samar in hân, net samar in gesicht. Syn hân, syn gesicht. Kinst immen streakje mei in pinne? Ja, dat koe, want se die it. Se lei har hân op ’e wurden en beweegde der mei har fingers oerhinne.
‘Wat dochsto no?’
Lieve joech har in por ûnder wiskunde en wiisde nei de wurden dy’t se yn gedachten yn har wiskundeskrift skreaun hie.
‘O, neat. Bytsje kliderje.’
Mar Lieve seach har sawat oan. ‘Ik sjoch hertsjes …’
‘Sst,’ systere se. As bern foar of achter harren dit hearre soene, wiene de rapen gear. Dan soe se de rest fan ’e wike allinnich mar geklier oer har hinne krije. ‘Ella is fereale! Ella is fereale!’ Miskien moast se oerwaagje it Lieve te fertellen. Dan koe se fan har easkje dat se har stilhold. Dat soe se grif dwaan, want sy wist ek fan Lieve en Omar en dêr kletste sy ek net oer. Dus.

Trije dagen koe se him no. No ja, kenne … Se hie him woansdei besjoen fan in ôfstân, doe’t er yn ’e kantine in broadsje bestelde, doarde him net oan te sprekken. Se wist net iens hoe’t er hiet. Hy wie nij op skoalle. In jonge út ’e stêd, dat koest sa sjen. Syn kapsel wie dryster, syn klean orizjineler. Hy droech no ris gjin spikerbroek en ek gjin gympen. Hy hie in krêmkleurige chino en donkerblauwe fiterskuon. Hiel elegant. En in hoody, mar dan net sa’n grouwe, lompe mei razende wurden derop, mar ien fan fijne djipreade stof dy’t soepel om it liif foel. Hy hie donkere krollen en syn hier wie op ’e sliepen wat opskeard, sadat de krollen boppe-op syn holle fleurich dûnsen. Allinnich de kleur fan syn eagen hie se noch net besjoen. Dêrfoar moast se tichterby komme en dat doarde se no krekt net.

‘Dy nije jonge,’ flústere se Lieve even letter yn ’e gong yn it ear.
‘Bedoelst dy lange mei dy donkere krollen?’
Ella knikte.
‘Huh? Dy fyn ik no krekt in bytsje … no ja, truttich of sa.’
‘Ik fyn him krekt saaaaaa leuk! Witsto hoe’t er hjit?’
Lieve helle de skouders op.
‘Kensto ien dy’t him ken, dan?’
Mar Lieve skodholle.

Se treuzele dy middeis om nei de bus te gean, hoopjend dat se him sjen soe by de lockers, de garderobe of by de fytsen. Mar hy kaam net en de knoop yn har mage waard mei de minút grutter. Se suchte.
By de bushalte stjitte se har waarme azem tsjin it glês fan de abri en skreau mei har wiisfinger opnij de wurden D♥ bist sa moai, de moaiste bist♥ en makke der in foto fan mei har telefoan. Samar.
Wie se mar in dichter! Lêsten, by Ingelsk, hie menear Stellinga in gedicht fan in Shakespeare foardroegen, in dichter fan hûnderten jierren lyn, dat er út ’e holle koe. Se koe har allinnich de earste sinnen yn it sin bringe:

‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.’

Fierder wist se it net krekt mear, mar wol wat de konklúzje wie: Shakespeare rekkene derop ferneamd te wurden, sadat it gedicht foar altyd bewarre bliuwe soe en dus dyjinge dêr’t it foar skreaun wie foar altyd trochlibjen bliuwe soe yn dy wurden.

Ien ferlykje mei in moaie, sinnige dei. En dan sizze: nee, nee, do bist moaier as dat. Moaier as in simmerdei.

Wauw.

Himelsk, fûn se it. Jaloerskmeitsjend ek. Koe sy mar sa skriuwe, sa wurden fine foar wat se fielde en tocht. Sy kaam net fierder as dy pear wurden:
D♥ bist sa moai, de moaiste bist♥. 

De bus siet grôtfol. Se stie achteryn en seach hoe’t de dei stadich yn ’e sliep foel. Hast desimber. Net bepaald in summer’s day. Wêr koe se him mei ferlykje? Mei ien? In sanger? In influencer? Mei eat? De sinne? In prachtich skilderij? Te ôfkôge! Se skodde de holle en seach dat in wat âlder man yn ’e bus dêr freonlik om lake. Se krige in kaam. Se moast normaal dwaan! Mar hoe moast dat ek alwer?

Dy jûns, nei de stamppot boerekoal, pakte se har godstsjinstboek. Moarn in toets. Se nestele har mei har rêch tsjin ’e sintrale ferwaarming, in kop tee yn ’e oanslach. Goed. It Paradys:
Adam, earste mins, Check.
Eva, wat mei in ribbe. Check.
Beam om te witten fan goed en kwea. Apeltsje. Check.
It Paradys: it plak dat it begjin wie fan alles, ‘de masterproef fan de Godlike skepping,’ stie yn it boek. Check.
It plak dêr’t alles perfekt wie. Dêr’t blommen bloeiden, bisten weiden, dêr’t gjin oarloch wie en gjin pine. Check, check, check.

Mar se fernaam dat se lies sûnder te lêzen, besocht te ûnthâlden sûnder ek mar wat op te slaan. It mocht dan sa wêze dat yn it Paradys de sinne altyd skynde, tocht se, mar sy wist no dat der wat wie dat moaier wie as dat. Moaier as de meast paradyslike sinne. Yn wiskundetermen, it Paradys yn it kwadraat. Want hy …

Se sucht en moast dêr doe ek in bytsje om laitsje, want sûnt trije dagen die se neat oars as dat. Belachlik eins. Se koe him net iens. Miskien wie hy allinnich mar oan ’e bûtenkant as in simmerdei. Wie er fanbinnen glûpende kâld as in dei yn febrewaris mei lege temperatueren, mei izel en wyn. Se moast dêr achter sjen te kommen. Mar hoe?

De oare moarns rûn se spand nei de bushalte om nei skoalle te gean. Spand fanwegen dy toets dy’t se min leard hie, mar foaral fanwegen it idee him miskien te sjen. Se huvere. De dei wie kâld, kâlder as de dagen dêrfoar. Gelokkich kaam de bus flot en wie der romte genôch. Se skode op in stoel oan ’e rútkant en sakke wei yn dreamerij. Se soe op him ôfstappe. Dat koe se bêst. Se soe gewoan ‘hallo’ sizze. Of, as se doarde, ‘Hallo, bisto nij op skoalle?’ Suffe sin fansels, want dat wist se heus wol. It moast der wol in bytsje spontaan útkomme, uteraard. En dan soe se sizze dat se Ella hiet en him freegje wat syn namme is. Gewoan: ‘Hoe hjitst?’ Twa wurden. Hoe dreech koe it wêze?

De bus stoppe by in halte. In kâlde wyn kaam deryn. Se luts har sjaal wat heger om ’e nekke en stoarre nei bûten. Oant se in freonlike stim hearde: ‘Is dy stoel frij?’ Se knikte, eins sûnder op te sjen, oant de stim opnij spruts: ‘Do sitst dochs ek op it Gregorius?’
No seach se op. Se seach yn twa prachtige brune eagen, dy’t freonlik nei har seagen.
Leave santjin. Hy wie it. Hy! Se moast wat sizze. Makket net út wat. Eat. Mar wat? Hy frege wat. Dochs? Shit, shit, shit, shit. Wat frege hy?
‘Sorry,’ sei se mei in nuver heech lûd. ‘Wat fregest?’
‘Ik sit sûnt koart op it Gregorius,’ sei er. ‘Do dochs ek?’
Se woe sjen, mar se koe net sjen. Hy wie te ticht by. Fierstente ticht by. Syn jas rekke har jas. Syn knibbel rekke har knibbel.
Se knikte.
‘Ik miende al dat ik dy dêr sjoen hie,’ sei er. Syn lûd wie moai. Syn eagen wiene moai. Sels syn knibbels wiene moai. Se moast wat sizze. Wat freegje. O, man!
‘Ik hjit Berend,’ sei er en stuts syn hân út.
Syn hân! Se stuts har iene hân út en lei de oare op har búk, dy’t hiel nuver fielde.
‘Ella,’ sei se.
Ek al wie it noch sa kâld bûten, syn hannen wiene waarm. Se hie him oanrekke.
‘Moaie namme,’ sei Berend.
Se knikte, mar doarst him net mear oan te sjen. Te folle. Te fluch.
‘Fynst it in leuke skoalle?’ frege Berend.
En se knikte wer. ‘Bêst wol. De kantine hat lekkere broadsjes.’
Wat in ûnnoazele sin. Se koe harsels wol foar de kop slaan. Wat in muts wie se ek! Sitst neist de leukste jonge fan ’e hiele skoalle, kinst alles sizze watst wolst, begjinst oer de broadsjes.
Berend lake nei har. ‘Absolút,’ sei er. ‘It binne prima broadsjes.’
De bus remme ôf. Berend gie oerein, Ella ek. Doe’t de doarren iepengiene, rûnen se achterinoar it trepke ôf en de strjitte op.
‘Brr,’ sei Berend. ‘Kâld, hin? Ik ha it net sa op ’e winter. Jou my de simmer mar. Neat sa fijn as in simmerdei.’
Ella begûn te strieljen. ‘Hast neat,’ sei se.

Ien kear binnen moast Berend de trep op, Ella bleau ûnder.
‘Oant letter,’ wist se derút te parsjen.
‘Ja, letter!’ sei Berend.

Wylst er fuortrûn, koe se de wurden dy’t yn har songen net langer ûnderdrukke. Se spruts se súntsjes út, hiel, hiel súntsjes. Sa súntsjes dat er it ûnmooglik hearre koe. D♥ bist sa moai, de moaiste bist♥. Mar wylst se dat lêste wurd flústere, draaide er him om en lake.

No ♥ne, no ♥ne is as lovely as you

She wrote the words which sang in her all day long, word for word she wrote them, as gracefully and attentively as she could. It felt as if with every word which flowed from her pen she touched a hand, a face. No, not just any hand, not just any face. His hand, his face. Could you stroke someone with a pen? Yes, you could, for she was doing it. She laid her hand on the words and moved her fingers over them.
‘What are you doing now?’
Lieve nudged her during maths and pointed to the words she’d written in thoughts in her exercise book.
‘Oh, nothing. Just messing around.’
But Lieve gave her a meaningful look. ‘I see little hearts …’
‘Shh,’ she hissed. If the children in front or behind heard this, there’d be trouble. Then she’d be constantly teased for the rest of the week. ‘Ella is in lo-ove! Ella is in lo-ove!’ Perhaps she should consider telling Lieve. Then she could insist she kept her mouth shut. She’d be sure to do it, because she knew about Lieve and Omar too, and she didn’t gossip about it. Well then.

Three days, she’d known him now. Well, yeah, known … On Wednesday she’d watched him from a short distance as he ordered a sandwich in the canteen, she hadn’t dared speak to him. She didn’t even know his name. He was new at school. A boy from the city, you could see it right away. His haircut was more daring, his clothes more original. He didn’t even wear jeans or trainers. He wore cream-coloured chinos and dark-blue lace-up shoes. Very elegant. And a hoody, not one of those thick, bulky ones with screaming words on it, but one made of fine deep-red material which draped loosely over his body. He had dark curls and his hair was shaved slightly at his temples, making the curls on top dance joyfully. It was just the colour of his eyes she hadn’t had a chance to examine yet. For that she’d have to get closer, and she didn’t dare do that.

‘That new boy,’ she whispered a little while later into Lieve’s ear.
‘You mean the tall one with the dark curls?’
Ella nodded.
‘Huh? To me he seems a bit … well yeah, a bit dorky somehow.’
‘I think he’s gorgeous! Do you know his name?’
Lieve shrugged.
‘Do you know anyone who knows him, then?’
But Lieve shook her head.

That afternoon she dawdled on her way to the bus, hoping to see him by the lockers, cloakroom or bikes. But he didn’t come and the knot in her stomach grew larger by the minute. She sighed.
At the bus stop she blew her warm breath onto the glass of the shelter and with her index finger again wrote the words No ♥ne, no ♥ne is as lovely as you and took a photo with her mobile. Just like that.

If only she were a poet! Recently in English, Mr Stellinga had recited a poem by a certain Shakespeare, a poet from hundreds of years ago, which he knew by heart. She only remembered the first phrases:

‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.’

She couldn’t remember details of the rest now, but she did remember the conclusion: Shakespeare counted on becoming famous so that the poem would always be preserved and thus the person for whom it was written would always live on in those words.

Comparing someone with a lovely, sunny day. And then saying: no, no, you’re lovelier than that. More lovely than a summer’s day.

Wow.

Sublime, she thought it. Enviable too. If only she could write like that, find words like that for what she felt and thought. She didn’t get any further than those few words: No ♥ne, no ♥ne is as lovely as you.

The bus was packed. She stood at the back and watched the day slowly fall asleep. Almost December. Not much of a summer’s day. What could she compare him with? With someone? A singer? An influencer? With something? The sun? A magnificent painting? Too hackneyed! She shook her head and saw a fairly elderly man on the bus respond with a friendly smile. She blushed. She had to act normal! But what was that again?

That evening, after the kale and mash, she picked up her religious studies book. Test tomorrow. She nestled with her back against the heater, a cup of tea in hand. Good, Paradise:
Adam, first human. Check.
Eve, something about a rib. Check.
Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Apple. Check.
Paradise: the place that was the beginning of everything, ‘the masterpiece of Divine creation,’ it said in the book. Check.
The place where everything was perfect. Where flowers bloomed, animals grazed, where there was no war and no pain. Check, check, check.

But she noticed that she was reading without reading, trying to remember without really retaining anything. It might have been the case that in Paradise the sun always shone, she thought, but she knew something that was more lovely than that. More lovely than the most heavenly sun. In mathematical terms, Paradise squared. Because he …

She sighed and couldn’t help laughing a bit, because for three days that was all she’d been doing. Ridiculous really. She didn’t even know him. Perhaps he was only like a summer’s day on the outside. Perhaps on the inside he was like a biting cold day in February, with low temperatures, black ice and wind. She’d have to find out somehow. But how?

Next morning she walked to the bus stop to go to school feeling tense. Tense because of that test, which she’d revised badly, but mainly at the thought of perhaps seeing him. She shivered. The day was cold, colder than the day before. Fortunately the bus came promptly and there was enough room. She shuffled into a window seat and sank into dreams. She’d approach him. She could do that. She’d simply say ‘hello’. Or, if she dared, ‘Hello, are you new at school?’ Stupid line, of course, since she knew that perfectly well. It would have to come across a bit spontaneous, of course. Then she’d say she was Ella and ask him his name. Simply: ‘What’s your name?’ Three words. How difficult could it be?

The bus stopped at a shelter. A cold wind blew in. She pulled her scarf a bit higher around her neck and stared out. Until she heard a friendly voice: ‘Is this seat free?’ She nodded, without actually looking up, until the voice spoke again: ‘You go to Gregorius too, don’t you?’
Now she looked up. She was looking into two magnificent brown eyes which looked back kindly. Heavens. It was him. Him! She had to say something. Something, never mind what. Something. But what? He asked something. Didn’t he? Shit, shit, shit, shit. What did he ask?
‘Sorry,’ she said in an odd, high-pitched voice. ‘What did you ask?’
‘I recently started going to Gregorius,’ he said. ‘Don’t you go there too?’
She wanted to look, but couldn’t. He was too close. Much too close. His coat was touching her coat. His knee was touching her knee.
She nodded.
‘I thought I’d seen you there,’ he said. His eyes were lovely. Even his knees were lovely. She had to say something. Ask something. Oh, man!
‘I’m Berend,’ he said and he held out his hand.
His hand! She held out one hand and placed the other on her belly, which felt really weird.
‘Ella,’ she said.
His hands were warm despite the cold outside. She’d touched him.
‘Lovely name,’ said Berend.
She nodded, but didn’t dare look at him again. Too much. Too fast.
‘Do you like the school?’ asked Berend.
And she nodded again. ‘It’s pretty good. The canteen serves tasty sandwiches.’
What a stupid line. She wanted to slap herself on the forehead. What a dimwit she was! There you are sitting next to the most gorgeous boy in school, you can say anything you want, and you start on about the sandwiches.
Berend laughed at her. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘The sandwiches are fine.’
The bus slowed to a stop. Berend stood up, Ella too. Then the doors opened, they walked one by one down the step and onto the street.
‘Brr,’ said Berend. ‘Cold, isn’t it? I’m not so keen on winter. Give me summer any day. Nothing as lovely as a summer’s day.’
Ella beamed. ‘Almost nothing,’ she said.

Once inside, Berend had to go upstairs, Ella remained on the ground floor.
‘See you later,’ she managed to squeeze out.
‘Yeah, later!’ said Berend.

As he walked away, she could no longer repress the words singing inside her. She spoke them softly, very, very softly. So softly that he couldn’t possibly hear. No ♥ne, no ♥ne is as lovely as you. But as she whispered that last word, he turned and smiled.

Kânsen, tink dy ris yn, ynkoarten soe er grutte kânsen krije, syn mooglikheden wiene praktysk sûnder ein. Hy hie oars gjin praat as oer dy kânsen dy’t er sûnder mis yn it foarútsjoch hie. Se moast net miene dat it no net goed mei him gie, gjin misferstân dêroer: prima sels, folle better as dat sy har yntinke koe. Sy hie fansels gjin idee fan syn mooglikheden, lit stean fan de kânsen dêr’t er op doelde, se woe allinnich mar dat er har sa fluch mooglik teplak brocht – wêr moast se ek alwer hinne: nei de redaksje, by ien op besite, nei de skouboarch? – Wol se dan net witte wat er docht? – Och, foar harsels is it antwurd op dy fraach wol dúdlik, mar se seit it dochs mar net: wer sa’n ergerlike sjauffeur dy’t freeslik sit te âldwiivjen, dizze grdontsjik. Grdontsjik is ien fan de pear Armeenske wurden dy’t se ken, jargon dat se leard hat fan freonen en nettsjinsteande it tekoart oan klinkers in stik sjongsumer en freonliker as it Russyske wurd bombila, hoewol’t it krekt itselde betsjut, ien dy’t as sjauffeur wat besiket by te fertsjinjen. Wy binne hjir yn Moskou, dêr’t de helte fan ’e auto’s in taksy is. Hoechst de hân mar op te stekken en fregest: ‘Hoefolle?’ – ‘Wat hast derfoar oer?’ – Nee, hy is gjin bombila, hy eamelet mar troch, dat fehikel dêr’t se no yn ride is net syn eigen auto, dizze is fan it wurk, syn eigen masine, sa neamt er it, is echt hiel wat oars en hy is net fan doel dy nei de barbysjes te helpen op dizze rotdiken fol kûlen, mar hy hat har echt net meinommen foar de sinten. – Sa’t er praat; gjin stedsman, hy liket net joadsk, mar is ek beslist gjin Rus – Komi, Tsjoevasj, Oedmoert, lyts fan stal, mar mei nei eigen sizzen geweldige kânsen yn it foarútsjoch. Hy praat fluch, justjes hastich en syn styl fan riden is ek wat rimpen, mar fierder wol yn oarder, syn antlit is net echt ûnkreas, mar is sûnder útdrukking. Hy hat rjocht op in auto mei sjauffeur, giet er fierder, mar hy docht leaver alles sels. Om dit soarte moetings, faaks? Wat kin har dat skele? – Wolle jo hjir stopje? – Wat seit se derfan, in lunch miskien, hjir as dêr in hapke ite? – Heare god, sis, hat er himsels wol ris yn ’e spegel besjoen? – Mar okee, net sneu wurde. En hoe’t er har besocht te fersieren, lit ús it sa mar neame, dat wie net misledigjend, mar earder nayf, fantasyleas, freeslik ûnnoazel. Gjin lef, gjin yntelliginsje of talint, mar geweldige kânsen – dêrmei besocht er har yn te palmjen, te ferlieden. It iennichst minsklike trekje dat se wol grappich oan him fûn, wie in spraakgebrek dat wat bernliks hie, hy sliste in bytsje. Se hie besocht him twahûndert roebel te jaan, of tweintichtûzen – se wit it net mear, yn wat jier giene der ek mar wer in pear nullen fan ’e roebel ôf? – mar hy wegere. Hastich treau er har syn kaartsje mei syn telefoannûmer derop yn ’e hân en hy sei derby dat er dat nûmer noait oan ien joech, hast noait, dus as se har betocht … ja, fansels, merçi.
Oerwinningen as dizze, dêr keapest neat foar, en se soe ek noait wer oan dy lytse grdontsjik tocht hawwe – hoefolle mannen hiene dêrfoar en dêrnei net achter har oan sitten, hoewol komselden sa ûnnoazel as hy – as net dat iene bard wie, dat foarfal dat har libben foar altyd feroare. Moarnsier wiene se kommen – seis man en in hûn – har achttjinjierrige dochter waard yn in auto set en fuortfierd, harren appartemint waard fan ûnderen oant boppen oer de kop helle, en wylst se midden yn in ferbouwing sieten en mienden dat de gaos net slimmer koe – ja, dat koe dus wol. Se siet yn noed oer har dochter, leaude net dat dit mei harren barde, mei har, se skamme har om de steapels ûnderguod, âlde brieven, famyljefoto’s dy’t oeralhelle waarden en dêrby kaam noch it gefoel dat se fjochtsje moast – belje nei advokaten, dy dweilen de hûd fol skelle – en dat har libben foarby wie. ‘Wat sykje jim, hearen?’ Hearen, godnochta. ‘Ik wol witte mei wat rjocht oft jo myn wenning trochsykje.’ Op grûn fan in oarder – sjoch hjir. Ekstremisme, terrorisme, anargisme, berjochten op ynternet, dat heart se wol as it safier is. De hûn wie de ienige dy’t noch in bytsje normaal die: dy rûn wat om, snuffele hjir en dêr en joech him doe del. Se joech it bist wetter. ‘Wat is dit?’ freget de man dy’t de lieding hat en foar it earst klinkt der wat fan ynteresse yn syn lûd. In echte prof is it, yn in âld tas yn in boppekast hat er yn ’e stikkene fuorring in kaartsje fûn – namme, achternamme, telefoannûmer – datselde kaartsje, dus. ‘Jou hjir!’ se raamt him it kaartsje út ’e hannen en sûnder ek mar in tel nei te tinken oer wat se sizze wol, bellet se. ‘Wa ish dêr?’ Dat karakteristike slislûd. It petear duorret amper twa minuten en allinnich sy hat it wurd: skrieme, flokke, smeekje, dit is net it momint foar skrutelens. En dan seit er op dyselde ûnferskillige toan as dêr’t er har op oer syn grutte kânsen ferteld hie: ‘Jou de telefoan even oan dejinge dy’t de lieding hat.’ Dy rint derút en komt fuort letter werom: ‘No, as se foar tiisdei net it lân út is, giet se foar in hiel skoft de finzenis yn. En dat nûmer belje jo noait wer, begrepen?’ Dan gnysket er: ‘Meld jo mar op it buro om dat leave famke fan jo op te heljen. Caesar, hjir.’ It libben is lullich – In opskrift earne op in skutting, wa’t it derop kalke hat is net bekend; fan de goeie dingen, de bêste dingen, is de makker meast ûnbekend. Dat is by rymkes sa, by sprekwurden, by grappen.
Sûnt binne der al wat jierren foarbygien, hiel wat jierren, want har dochter is wilens ôfstudearre oan de universiteit fan Lille, Moskouse freonen en freondinnen fan har dochter, allegear krekt as sy út goede fermiddens, hawwe harren tiid yn de finzenis of it kamp wilens útsitten, guon de hiele termyn, oaren in part derfan – se hienen sân oant tolve jier krige – en sels is se nei withoefolle aventoeren en omswervingen yn in eigen hûs yn it suden fan Frankryk bedarre. En fansels, al dy jierren hat se fan in distânsje, út ’e eachshoeken wei, om sa mar te sizzen, de karriêre folge fan har – sa moast se it dochs mar neame – har woldwaner, de bombila-grdontsjik. Mei ôfgrizen hat se dy karriêre folge. Want wêr dan ek, yn Afrika, yn Azië, of sels yn it heitelân, altyd blykt er yn it middelpunt te operearjen fan in ûntinkber, ûnfoarstelber kwea dat alle godlike en minsklike regels skeint. Oant de dei dat har each falt op in berjochtsje dat him in stjer takend is, in oarder, al foar de twadde kear, mar no postúm. Dat hy ‘yn in besykjen de bemanning te rêden’ ensafuorthinne – net botte oannimlike poepelerij sûnder ek mar ien oertsjûgjend detail, mar soks soe hjir ek net op syn plak wêze; hy wie in heroyske dea stoarn en mei him noch in hiel soad oaren. En it is har, lykas de kommentatoaren, folslein dúdlik dat al dat offisjele gejeuzel inkeld as doel hie it walchlike, it skandalige dat der werklik bard wie, te ferheeljen, wei te stopjen – in dronken dea by it jeien, in politike moard, of sokssawat. Wat apart, tinkt se, bykleure en bepoeiere leit er no mei syn geweldige, ûnbegrinze kânsen yn in lúkse kiste te wachtsjen oant er ûnder de klanken fan prachtige muzyk, dêr’t er nei alle gedachten noait fan holden hat, begroeven wurdt op it moaiste begraafplak datst dy foarstelle kinst, neist skriuwers, keunstners en komponisten. Soe se dan wolle dat it berjocht oer syn ferstjerren falsk blykt te wêzen? Nee, dêr moat se mar net oer neitinke, foar har hat er goed west, wylst er oaren allinnich mar ellinde op ’e hals jage hat, ôfgeande op de freeslike dingen dy’t oer him skreaun en sein wurde. Goed: mar begruttet it har dan om dizze lytse man mei syn bernlike spraakgebrek? Se hat dan úteinlik miskien net har libben oan him te tankjen, mar wol hiel folle: de frijheid fan har dochter, en dit hjir allegear yn Súd-Frankryk. Ja, miskien is it spitich. In bytsje.

Opportunities, you understand? Soon he’d have enormous, almost limitless opportunities. He kept insisting on those opportunities – opportunities that would open up for him soon, that lay just around the corner. She should know, though, he added, that he was doing just fine as is, better than fine, better, in any case, than she could imagine. She, of course, hadn’t the slightest intention of imagining his current opportunities, much less the ones at which he was hinting. All she needed was for him to deliver her as quickly as possible – who can remember where, after all this time? The editorial office, a party, the theater. So what, she doesn’t want to hear who he is? Oh, she knows well enough, but she won’t say it: another annoying, chatty driver, a ‘grdonchik’ – one of a handful of words of Armenian slang she’d picked up from friends. Despite the cluster of consonants, ‘grdonchik’ was still, in her opinion, far more euphonious, more affectionate than the Russian ‘bombila,’ although it meant exactly the same thing – a private cabby. This is Moscow in the nineties, every other car is a cab. Raise your hand and someone’s right there: ‘How much?’ ‘How much can you spare?’ No, he’s no ‘bombila,’ the fellow yammers on, and this isn’t his car – he gets this one through his job. His own vehicle’s totally different, of a whole other order, and he isn’t about to ruin it on these roads. He didn’t pick her up for the money, either – pronounced ‘eee-ther,’ with a kind of Jewish intonation, though he clearly isn’t a Jew. Then again, he also doesn’t look Russian: maybe Komi, Chuvash, Udmurt? A small man, but with enormous, in his words, opportunities ahead of him; a rapid, choppy manner of speech, matched by a rapid though generally careful manner of driving; a face that isn’t exactly ugly, just expressionless. He’s entitled, he says, to a personal driver, but he prefers to do everything himself. For the sake of encounters like this, maybe? But what’s it to her? ‘Stop over there.’ So that’s it? Maybe she’d like to have lunch or dinner, ‘get a meal’ together? Oh God… Have you looked at yourself in the mirror? No, she doesn’t want to offend him. His courtship, let’s call it, wasn’t arrogant, but rather naive, automatic, terribly foolish. He tried to seduce her not with a show of prowess, of wit, or of talent, but with big opportunities. The only appealingly human thing about him was his speech impediment, a childish one: his s’s sounded like sh’s. She had tried to leave him two hundred, or maybe twenty thousand (she can’t remember what the money was worth back then), but he refused to take it. Instead he handed her a card with his personal number, saying he never gave this number out, to anyone, hardly ever, so if she happened to change her mind… Oh, certainly – merci.
Victories of this sort don’t bring even a hint of joy, and she would never have remembered the pintsize ‘grdonchik’ – considering the number of men who had hit on her before and after, although seldom quite so clumsily – if not for an incident, an occurrence that changed her life forever. They showed up at her door early in the morning – six men and a dog – put her eighteen-year-old daughter in a car and took her away, and then turned the apartment upside down. She was having the place renovated and it seemed to her that it couldn’t have been more of a mess, but apparently it could. She was afraid for her daughter, felt all this was happening to someone else, not to them, not to her, and was ashamed – embarrassed by the piles of underwear, old letters, photographs. She also knew she needed to fight, of course – to call lawyers, say nasty things to these goons – but her life seemed to be over. ‘What are you looking for, gentlemen?’ Gentlemen, right. ‘Listen, on what basis are your searching my apartment?’ On the basis of an order – see for yourself. Extremism, terrorism, anarchism, social media records. When the time comes, she’ll hear all about it. The dog alone behaved itself more or less decently: walked around, sniffed a few things, then plopped down. She gave it some water. ‘What’s this?’ the one in charge asks her, sounding, for the first time, the least bit interested. A real professional: he had found a card in the lining of an old purse – name, surname, number, that very card. ‘Give it here!’ she snatches it from his hands and, without giving herself time to figure out what exactly she wants to say, makes the call. ‘Yesh,’ with the characteristic ‘sh.’ Their conversation hardly lasts two minutes, and she’s the only one talking: tears, vows, pleas – not the moment for shyness or discretion. He finally says, in the same dispassionate tone in which he’d told her about his opportunities, ‘Pass the phone to the one in charge.’ The man goes out, then comes back: ‘Alright. We’ll lock her up for a long time if she doesn’t leave the country by Tuesday. Never call that number again, got it?’ He grins: ‘Go over to the station and pick up your darling. Caesar, come.’ They leave. ‘Life’s fucking sense…’: a half-finished inscription on a fence, author unknown. The good things, the best ones, are often anonymous.
A number of years passed – quite a few years, because her daughter had since managed to graduate from the university in Lille, while the daughter’s Moscow friends and acquaintances, boys and girls from good families just like hers, had managed to serve out their sentences in prisons and camps – they were given from seven to twelve years – while after numerous adventures and travels she herself had ended up in her own house in the south of France. And, of course, all these years she’d been following, peripherally, out of the corner of her eye, the career of (it must be said) her benefactor, the ‘bombila,’ the ‘grdonchik’ – following it with horror, since here and there, in Africa, Asia, and even at home, he was invariably to be found at the center of some unthinkable, unimaginable evil, in violation of all divine and human laws. Until finally she comes across an announcement that he’s been awarded a hero’s Gold Star, his second – this time, however, posthumously. ‘In an attempt to save the crew’ and so on, and so forth – implausible nonsense, without even a single believable detail, which is of course never the point – ‘he died a hero’s death,’ along with some number of people. And to her, as to all commentators, it’s perfectly obvious that all this official chatter is intended only to conceal, to drown in itself the shameful, disgusting truth of what had actually happened – a drunken death while out hunting, a political murder, or something of that sort. How strange, she thinks: he’s lying there in a deluxe coffin, powdered and made up, with his enormous, limitless opportunities, waiting to be buried in the best cemetery next to writers, artists, and composers, all to the sounds of beautiful music that he probably never liked. And would she want to find out that the announcement of his death was false? No, better not to ask oneself such a question. He had done her a favor, been good to her, while to everyone else – judging by the terrible things they write and say about him – he had been exclusively bad. Alright: does she feel sorry for this little man with his childish speech impediment? After all, she owes him, if not her life, still a very great deal: her daughter’s freedom, this south of France. Maybe she does. A little.

Вообразите себе, возможности, скоро у него будут большие, практически неограниченные возможности. Он настаивал именно на возможностях, которые перед ним откроются, непременно, причем в самые ближайшие времена. Пусть она имеет в виду, говорил он, что у него все хорошо и теперь, прямо отлично, много лучше, во всяком случае, чем она может себе представить. Она, разумеется, никак не представляла себе ни теперешних его возможностей, ни тем более тех, на которые он намекал, ей и всего-то надо было от него, чтоб довез поскорей — сейчас и не вспомнишь, куда: в редакцию, в гости, в театр. — Ей, что же, выходит, не интересно послушать, кто он такой? — О, она, кажется, знает, но не станет произносить: еще один приставучий болтливый водитель, грдончик — одно из нескольких слов по-армянски, жаргонных, которым ее научили друзья. «Грдончик» несмотря на проблемы с гласными — куда благозвучней, ласковей, чем «бомбила» по-нашему, хотя означает ровно то самое. Это Москва, каждый второй автомобиль тут — такси. Только поднимешь руку и: — Сколько? — А сколько дашь? — Нет, он не бомбила, — этот все продолжает бубнить, — и машина, на которой они сейчас едут, она не его собственная, а служебная, у него самого имеется совершенно другая тачка, другой, как он выразился, аппарат, но он не собирается его на наших колдобинах убивать, а подобрал он ее не потому, что нуждается в дéньгах — с ударением на первый слог, очень по-местечковому, хотя уж кем-кем, а евреем он быть не мог, но и на русского не похож — коми, чуваш, удмурт, маленький, но с громадными, по его словам, возможностями впереди. Быстрый, дробный такой говорок, и быстрая, но аккуратная в целом манера вождения, лицо хоть и не безобразное, но и не выражающее ничего. Ему, продолжает он, полагается личный водитель, однако он предпочитает все делать самостоятельно. Уж не ради таких ли вот встреч? Впрочем, ей-то какое дело? — Остановите вон там. — Так она?.. Пообедать, поужинать, «вместе покушать». О, Господи. В зеркало давно смотрел на себя?  — нет-нет, зачем обижать? — да и его ухаживание, так это назовем, было не наглым, а каким-то наивным, автоматическим, глупым до чрезвычайности — не удаль, не ум, не талант, а большие возможности — вот чем он пытался ее соблазнить, привлечь. Из человеческого, пожалуй что, только дефект речи, детский какой-то: он смешно выговаривал букву «ша» . Попробовала оставить ему то ли двести рублей, то ли двадцать тысяч — она совершенно не помнит, какие суммы были тогда в ходу, — отказался. Сунул ей карточку, с личным номером, сказал: он этот номер вообще никому не дает, никогда, почти, так что если она передумает… — О, непременно, мерси.
Победы, подобные этой, не приносят и тени радости, и она никогда бы не вспомнила низкорослого грдончика — мало ли кто волочился за ней до и после, хотя так нелепо, как он, мало кто, — если б не случай, не происшествие, навсегда изменившее жизнь. Утром рано пришли — шестеро и собака, восемнадцатилетнюю дочь ее посадили в машину и увезли, а квартиру перевернули вверх дном, хотя у них шел ремонт и, казалось, сильнее переворачивать некуда — выяснилось, что есть, еще как. Страх за дочь, ощущение того, что все происходит не с ними, не с ней, стыд от сваленных в кучу белья, старых писем, фотографий родных и чувство, что надо бороться, конечно: звать адвокатов, говорить гадости этим жлобам, но жизнь, в общем, кончилась. — Что вы ищете, господа? — какие они к черту ей господа. — Граждане, на каком основании вы производите обыск в моей квартире? — На основании ордера — вот. Экстремизм, терроризм, анархизм, записи в сети Интернет, когда надо будет, ей объяснят. Только собака вела себя более или менее пристойно: походила, понюхала и улеглась безучастно, она дала собаке воды. — Это что? — спрашивает ее старший, и впервые в его голосе слышится интерес: профессионал, обнаружил в старой сумке на антресолях за рваной подкладкой карточку — имя, фамилия, номер — ту самую. Дайте сюда! — она выхватывает карточку из рук старшего и, не дав себе времени сообразить, что именно хочет сказать, звонит. — Слушаю, — с характерным «ша». Разговор их длится едва ли минуту-две, да и говорит-то одна она: слезы, клятвы, мольба — не время стесняться. Он наконец произносит все тем же бесстрастным тоном, которым рассказывал ей про возможности: — Передайте трубку старшему. — Тот выходит, потом возвращается: — Значит, так. Закроем ее надолго, если до вторника не выедет из страны. По номеру этому никогда не звоните, поняли? — Усмехается: — Идите в отделение, забирайте свое сокровище. Цезарь, за мной. — Ушли. «Жизнь отымела смысл» — надпись, сделанная на заборе, автор надписи неизвестен: часто хорошее, самое лучшее автора не имеет — как частушка, пословица, анекдот.
И теперь, спустя сколько-то лет, немало, потому что дочь ее за это время закончила университет в Лилле, московские подруги и друзья дочери, такие же, в общем, девочки и мальчики из хороших семей, успели отсидеть в тюрьмах и лагерях, кто весь срок, а кто — часть его, им дали от семи до двенадцати, а сама она после многочисленных приключений и переездов оказалась в собственном доме на юге Франции, — и, конечно, все эти годы она краем глаза, боковым зрением следит за карьерой своего — необходимо признать — благодетеля, водилы-бомбилы, грдончика, следит с ужасом. Поскольку то там, то сям, в Африке, Азии, а то и на родине, он непременно оказывается в центре какого-то немыслимого, непредставимого зла с нарушением всех божеских и человеческих правил, пока наконец на глаза ей не попадается сообщение о том, что его наградили звездой, орденом, во второй уже раз, но теперь, однако, посмертно. Что, пытаясь спасти экипаж и так далее — малоправдоподобная чушь без попытки поместить в нее истинные подробности, впрочем, им и не место тут, — он погиб смертью храбрых и с ним еще столько-то человек. И ей, как и всем комментаторам, совершенно ясно, что вся эта официальная болтовня должна только скрыть, утопить в себе то позорное, гадкое, что случилось на самом деле — пьяную смерть на охоте, политическое убийство или что-нибудь в том же роде. Как странно, — думает она, — подкрашенный, припудренный, он лежит теперь со своими огромными, неограниченными возможностями в дорогущем гробу и ждет, когда под прекрасную музыку, которую вряд ли любил, его похоронят на самом что ни на есть лучшем кладбище рядом с писателями, артистами и композиторами. А хотела ли бы она, чтобы сообщение о самой гибели его оказалось ложным? — нет, такой вопрос себе лучше не задавать, ей-то он сделал только хорошее, тогда как всем остальным — только плохое, судя по тому, какую про него пишут и говорят жуть. Хорошо: жалко ли ей этого маленького человека с детским дефектом речи? Она ведь ему обязана пусть не жизнью, но — очень и очень многим: свободой дочери, этим вот югом Франции. Может, и жалко. Чуть-чуть.

Yn de stêd mei de tûzen poarten binne tûzen tunen. En yn dizze tûzen tunen jouwe de minsken fan de stêd oerdiedige feesten. Ast, as in feale gier, heech boppe de bemuorre sitadel opstige soest, soest de festiviteiten yn it troch riviersiggen omsletten gebiet sprankeljen sjen, as wiene it pearelsnoeren op sêft fluwiel.
De feesten nimme de nachtlike tunen yn. Tinten en luifels strekke har fan de tûken fan âlde beammen ôf út, en de fochtige griene moassen binne bedutsen mei tapiten dy’t sa weve binne dat se der útsjogge as greiden fol blommen. Lampeglêzen mei fjoermichjes hingje skriks en skrank tusken it beamte, as dûnsjende planeten. Guon, lykas Asper, de fioelist, wenje dizze feesten alle jûnen by, om harren hinne de klanken fan it hynstehier dat oer de snaren strykt, harren fingers bepoeiere mei hars.
Alle manlju en froulju fan ’e stêd – en elkenien tusken dy beide utersten – toaie har mei de meast ekstravagante klean. Se drage brokaat, borduerd mei safolle kralen en spegeltsjes dat it wol harnassen lykje, sa stiif. De learene learzens binne bestikt mei wylde blommen en stjerren. Se drinke goudene wyn en ite fruit dat fan fierôf lizzende eilannen komt. Elkenien dy’t de feesten bywennet, ferberget syn gesicht achter gigantyske bistekoppen fan beskildere en fergulde papier-masjee. Allinne de muzikanten en de kelners litte har minsklike gesichten op de feesten sjen, en allinne de muzikanten en de betsjinners is it ferbean om te dûnsjen.
De riken neame har stêd Tauri, en it libben is dêr, nettsjinsteande de dûnspartijen en de feesten, rêstich en foarsisber. Oeren nei it opkommen fan ’e sinne komme de ynwenners fan Tauri fan bêd, gapjend en mei in kleur as jiske, om nei har ûnproduktive wurksumheden, har gearkomsten en lunches fan sân gongen te gean. It is in stêd fol mei bankiers en accountants, politisy en prinzen. Foarname dieven. Har doel, har besteansrjocht bestiet út neat oars as it binnen heljen fan mear jild, it ferheegjen fan har banksaldy, it bemachtigjen fan gruttere bûtenpleatsen. Yn Tauri is it besit fan in hûs mei fjirtich keamers foar in man allinne wat om grutsk op te wêzen.
Tauri, mei syn mei goud opsnolke leanen, wite byldhoude paleizen en har kreas oanleine tunen herberget in twadde stêd. Sjochst it allinnich ast dêr berne bist, en it hat gjin namme. Asper neamt it thús, of de stêd ûnder, mar it plak sil nea yn skiednisboeken noch yn atlassen opnommen wurde. De stêd ûnder bestiet net. Foar de Fal wiene beide stêden miskien mear yntegrearre, mar de Fal feroare alles. De dochs al delikate machtsferhâldingen ferskoden.
De Fal makke dat de stêd ûnder ferdwûn.
It is de tredde jûn fan in feest dat organisearre wurdt troch de keninginne-keapman fan de 89^e Poarte, en Asper hat harren fingers dôf spile. Swit dript fan harren foarholle en harren kin de stank fan de oare muzikanten rûke. Nimmen kleit oer pynlike earms of de einleaze werhelling fan noaten, har lege magen en drûge kielen. Hja binne ûnpersoan, hja bestean net of lije net. Dit is de rol fan dejingen dy’t yn ’e ferkearde stêd berne binne. Mei in hânbeweging makket de maestro lang om let in ein oan it optreden, en in farske set muzikanten sammelet him, klear om har plak yn te nimmen.
Asper ferlit de feestromte en folget it selskip nei de leger lizzende keamers fan it paleis, dêr’t harren harren talage yn ’e foarm fan op gleone koaltsjes bakte bôle, losse tee en hjerring ûntfange sil. Sa gong it tûzen kear earder en sa sil noch hûnderttûzen kear gean oant Asper te âld is om te fideljen, en harren troch ien fan ’e poarten nei de woestine dreaun wurdt as proai foar de gieren.
Diskear hat Asper te lang omdreutele, wurch en hongerich, en it is by fersin dat harren de ferkearde gong yn stroffelet, en yn ien fan de withoefolle net-brûkte keamers fan it paleis bedarret.
‘Shit’, seit Asper.
Der bestiet gjin straf foar sa’n leech-by-de-grûnske died, benammen om’t de minsken fan Tauri har net yntinke kinne dat in ûnpersoan as Asper it yn harren holle krije soe in keamer yn te gean dy’t net foar harren bedoeld is. Oan ’e oare kant, as ien fan de bewenners Asper fine soe, soe it net lang duorje foardat der in geskikte sanksje foar sa’n oertrêding betocht wurde soe.
Asper kuert nei bûten ta en lûkt harren dan wer werom. Fan tichteby klinke lûd de stimmen fan feestgongers, machtich en ryk, it paad werom blykt ôfsletten te wêzen. Harren nimt in oare trochgong, bedarret op ’e nij yn in lúksueus ynrjochte keamer. Oeral dêr’t harren sjocht, sjocht Asper allinnich harren eigen snústerige refleksje, donker en meager, te grutte eagen yn in úthongere gesicht. Der is gjin kâns dat harren ûngemurken troch it paleis nei bûten slûpt of nei de tunen werom kin.
It mei sa wêze dat Asper troch ûnderfieding in groeiachterstân oprûn hat, yn in keamer wennet dy’t troch gerdinen yn noch tsien keamers ferdield is, neat oars yt as hjerring en drûge bôle, mar harren is wis en wrachtich net dom. It duorret net lang foardat harren, op syk nei bút, troch it doalhôf fan lege sliepkeamers en suiten jaget.
Stadich, safolle knopen en linten net wend, lûkt harren in jurk oan, makke fan goudgiel guod, besiedde mei topazen en granaatstiennen en tigereagen. It moat in jurk wêze, wiid genôch om harren tehavene fioelekiste fol skrassen ûnder de enoarme rokken ferside te bringen. Yn in lange keamer fol fersierde maskers siket harren de papier-masjee kop fan in wite hazze út, ien beskildere mei prachtige grizen en sulvertinten, en set de kop sa op ’e holle dat de ûnderkant op harren smelle skouders rêst. Asper docht in wite kraach om ’e nekke. As harren yn ’e spegel sjocht, is it in ôfgryslik gesicht, en bekoarlik tagelyk.

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Dit is net it earste feest dat Asper bywennet, mar it is harren earste as gast. Harren ken alle dûnspassen. Yn ’e stêd ûnder dûnset men deselde gavottes – dribbelje, swaaie en swiere – al binne de passen hoekiger en woester as dy fan de bewenners fan ’e stêd boppe. Hoeden, om harrensels net te ferrieden, sweeft Asper troch de balseal, harren fuotten sjitte oer sêfte tapiten, harren rokken swaaie om ’e ankels. Harren fioelekiste bonket tsjin ’e knibbels.
De minsken fan Tauri ite en drinke, dêrby dogge se har maskers wat omheech, mar sa dat se harsels nea ferriede sille. Asper folget har foarbyld en triuwt swiete sêfte beien yn ’e mûle. As in mes snijt de honger troch harren hinne as harren foar it earst meloen en toarnbeien priuwt, en ek lytse, sûkerswiete gebakjes, rynsk fersierd mei roazesjerp en sûkelade. Asper spielt de rykdom fuort mei goudene dranken en fernimt amper noch hoe deadlik útput oft harren eins is.
Yn it hert fan it feest dûnset de wite hazze op it ritme fan harren klapperjende tosken.
As in yn it read klaaid hart mei in swarte kop harren by hân nimt, wurdt Asper oerweldige troch in wanhopich gefoel fan ferromming dat harren by de jurk ek in pear bypassende fingerwanten stellen hat. It oanreitsjen fan harren tinne en ilige fingers soe harren fuortdaliks as ûnpersoan ferret hawwe. It hert bûnzet Asper yn ’e kiel as harren de bûging fan it hart beäntwurdet en sa de útnûging ta de dûns akseptearret.
‘Do bist nij hjir,’ seit it hart. ‘Ik werken dy net.’
Asper besiket de opmerking fuort te laitsjen. ‘Is dat net wêr’t it om draait?’ It ritueel fan de maskerades stammet ommers út ’e tiid fan de Fal. Allinnich dyjingen dy’t har in masker permittearje koene, oerlibben de besmetting. Sa ha de riken it ûntholden.
‘Miskien.’ As in twirre liedt it hart harren by de folgjende dûns. ‘Earlik sein fyn ik it allegear slim ferfeelsum.’
‘Wat? Dit?’ Al draaiend swaait Asper yn ’e rjochting fan de festiviteiten, wêrnei’t harren wer yn de earmen fan it hart lutsen wurdt. It hart harren hoarnen binne bedutsen mei goud en de glêzene knikkerts, dy’t harren eagen foarmje, glinsterje ûnder it skynsel fan de fjoermichjes, mar harren earmen binne waarm en Asper kin it bûnzjen fan harren hert troch harren jas hinne fiele. ‘Ik nim oan dat it foar de kelners en it orkest ferfelend wêze sil, mar foar ús?’ Asper laket. ‘Hoe kin immen ferfeeld reitsje troch skientme en wielde?’
‘Is it skientme?’ It hart liedt Asper nei in tafel beladen mei sûkere fruchten, lytse iistaartsjes, kristallen gleskes mei rjemmewite likeuren. Der binne sulveren pinnen mei meloen en tinsnien fleisguod, en Asper nimt ien. It wetter rint harren yn ’e mûle as harren it masker wat oplichtet om mei de tosken in blokje meloen fan de pin te skowen.
‘It iennige wat ik sjoch binne maskers. Op ’t lêst soest wolris in echt minsklik gesicht sjen wolle, de hân fan in minske’, seit it hart. ‘Miskien soe de wrâld better wurde as de Fal weromkaam.’
‘Sjoch dêr,’ knikt Asper yn ’e rjochting fan de muzikanten – reade beswitte gesichten, de kragen dy’t jokje yn har nekke, meager en mei lege magen – ‘en sjochst hiel it minskdom dêr’tsto sa’n ferlet fan hast.’
‘Miskien’, is it, leechachtsjend skouderlûkend. Asper folget harren hart fan it strieljende lampeljocht troch in tsjustere nis nei in ferskûle lizzende feranda mei in brede glêzen doar. It hart triuwt de doar iepen en winkt Asper de stilte yn.
Nerveus, mar ek benijd, ferdôve troch wyn en lekker iten, rint Asper harren hart efternei nei in keamer fol mei fearen en oare frjemde planten. Even hopet Asper dat se de koele fochtige lucht fan de keamer tsjin har ferhjitte hûd fiele kinne soene, muoiteleas sykhelje sûnder it benearjende masker. It hart soe in punt ha kinne.
‘Wy hawwe it feest ferlitten,’ seit it hart, ‘en de regels hâlde ús net langer tsjin.’ Harren tilt de hartekop fan ’e skouders en skoddet it hier los. Yn it skimerljocht kin Asper sjen dat harren hart in jonge man is, de soan fan in bankier, of miskien in ordinêr prinske. Om ien as oare ûndúdlike reden makket it harren fertrietlik en in bytsje teloarsteld.
De man is net ûnoantreklik, al hat er in wat langwerpich gesicht, en wurdt er by syn sliepen al wat keal. Oer in pear jier sil syn jeugdige skientme ferflein wêze, en sil er der útsjen as alle oaren, oanfretten troch syn eigen oerdied. It masker sil syn favorite wapenútris wêze. Hy set it hartemasker op in lytse glêzen tafel en rikt nei foaren om de eangstige kop fan de wite hazze fan Aspers skouders te nimmen. Harren is der klear foar, de spieren spand.
De man stiet mei de wite kop yn ’e hannen en stoarret dernei, djippe tearen yn ’e foarholle. ‘Ik werken dy n…’ mar noch foardat er syn sin ôfmeitsje kin, hellet Asper út en raamt de sulveren pinne yn it sêfte fleis ûnder syn kaak.
Bloed floeit en lûkt troch it reade jaske oant it donker kleuret, en de man lit de holle sakje, de eagen wiidiepen fan ûntsetting, te ferbjustere om te skreauwen. Even letter slingeret er, wankelet, sakket dan op ’e grûn yninoar. Hoflik docht Asper in stap fansiden, harren rokken risselje.
Harren stoarret nei it bloed dat út it lyk fan ’e rike menear floeit, faget de pinne sekuer skjin en ferberget it yn harren mouwe. Algau komt harren hert, dat slacht as dat fan in bang knyn, wer ta rêst. In weach fan kalmte en helderheid siicht oer harren del. Asper slikket harren tomme, faget in lyts bytsje bloed fan de papieren holle en set de hazzekop werom te plak. It masker op giet harren werom nei it bal om wyn te drinken en seldsume fruchten te nuttigjen oant de stjerren by it himelferwulft ferdwine en de hoarizon opljochtet yn sulvereftige en rôze tinten.

#

Yn de stêd mei tûzen poarten binne tûzen feesten. En alle jûnen spilet Asper op ’e fioele, harren fingers fleane oer de snaren, harren hert tynt. Alle nachten stelt harren in masker om in oar hart, in oare hauk, in oare hûn te ferlieden.
Harren dûnset en drinkt en jout harren mage syn gerak mei fruchten en gebak en fleisguod, en as de dage oan ’e loft komt, easket harren in hege tol foar in stêd dy’t net bestiet.

In the city of a thousand gates are a thousand gardens. And in these thousand gardens, the people of the city throw lavish parties. If you were to ascend like one of the gryphon vultures to a point high above the walled citadel, you would see festivities spangled through the contained acreage of her embankments like strings of pearls dropped on soft, rumpled velvets.
The parties fill the night gardens. Tents and canopies stretch from the boughs of ancient trees, and the wet green mosses are covered with carpets woven to look like meadows filled with flowers. Glass-blown lamps filled with fireflies criss-cross the gardens, planetary dances. Some, like the violist Asper, attend these parties every night, cocooned in the sound of horse hair across catgut, their fingers powdered with rosin.
All the men and women of the city – and every person between these extremes – dresses in their most extravagant finery. They wear brocaded silks, embroidered with beads and mirrors until they are as stiff as armour. Their leather boots are stitched with wildflowers and stars. They drink golden wine and eat fruit shipped from distant islands. All who attend the parties hide their faces behind giant papier-mâché animal heads painted and gilded and buttoned. Only the musicians and the servants are allowed to wear their human faces at the parties, and only the musicians and the servants may not dance.
The rich call their city Tauri, and it is, despite the dances and the parties, a staid and predictable place. Long after the sun rises, the people of Tauri rise from their beds, yawning and ashen, and go to their make-work, their meetings and seven-course lunches. It is a city of bankers and accountants, of politicians and princes. High-born thieves. Their goal, their reason for existence, is only to acquire more money, bigger bank balances, larger estates. It is a point of pride in Tauri for a single man to own a house with forty rooms.
There is another city that lives between Tauri’s gilded avenues and white-hewn palaces, its delicate gardens. You cannot see it unless you were born into it, and it does not have a name. Asper calls it home, or the undercity, but it will not be recorded in history books and atlases. The undercity does not exist. Before the Fall, perhaps, the cities were more integrated, if still unequal, but the Fall changed everything. It shifted the delicate balances of power.
The Fall made the undercity disappear.
It is the third night of a party thrown by the merchant-queen of the 89th Gate, and Asper has played their fingers numb. Sweat marks their brow, and they can smell the stink of their fellow musicians. No one complains about their aching arms or the endless repetition of notes, their empty stomachs or their parched throats. They are unperson, they do not exist or suffer. This the role of those born to the wrong city. Eventually, the maestro ends their performance with a flourish, and a fresh set of musicians gathers, ready to take their place.
Asper follows their pack out of the party to the lower rooms of the palace where they will be handed their stipend of ash-baked bread, loose tea, herring. This has happened a thousand times before and will happen a hundred thousand more times until Asper is too old to play, and they are herded from one of the gates into the desert, and left for the vultures.
This time, Asper has dawdled too long, tired and hungry, and it is only accident that causes them to stumble down the wrong hallway, into one of the many unused rooms in the palace.
‘Shit,’ Asper says.
There is no punishment for an act so vulgar, mainly because the people of Tauri would never imagine that an unperson like Asper would ever dream to set foot into a room that was not meant for them. On the other hand, if any Taurian did find Asper, it would not be long before they thought of a suitable sanction for this transgression.
Asper peers out, and then draws back again, the voices of nearby revellers chime with wealth and power, blocking their return. They take a different passage, find themselves in another lavish room. Everywhere they look Asper sees only their own grubby reflection, dark and pointed, eyes too wide in a starving face. There is no chance they will be able to sneak out through the palace or return to the gardens without being noticed.
Asper may be stunted by malnutrition, may live in a room partitioned by curtains into ten more rooms, may eat nothing but herring and hard bread, but they are far from stupid. It takes only a moment before they begin hunting through the maze of empty bedrooms and suites until they have found their prize.
Slowly, unused to so many buttons and ribbons, they armour themselves in a dress of tawny gold, beaded with topaz and garnets and tigers-eyes. It must be a dress, one wide enough to hide their scratched and battered violin case under the voluminous skirts. In a long room filled with decorated masks, they select the papier-mâché head of a white hare, painted with fine silvers and greys, and place this over their head to rest on their narrow shoulders. Asper binds their throat with a white ruff, and when they see their reflection, it is both hideous and charming.

#

This is not the first party Asper has attended, but it is their first as a guest. They know all the steps of dances. In the undercity, they dance these same gavottes and trots and reels, though theirs have a hard-edged ferocity the Taurian’s lack. Careful not to give themselves away, Asper glides through the dances, their feet flying over soft carpets, their skirts swirling about their ankles. Their violin case knocking against their knees.
The people of Tauri eat and drink, raising their masks fractionally so that they never give themselves away, and Asper copies them, pressing sweet soft berries into their mouth. A hunger sharp as knives rises in them at that first taste of melon and blackberries, of little baked pastries oozing with syrups and chocolates. They wash this richness down with the golden wines, and the bone-deep exhaustion they have been carrying drops away, almost forgotten.
In the heart of the party, the white hare dances to a song of teeth.
When a red-jacketed, black-headed stag takes their hand, Asper is filled with desperate relief that they stole the matching gloves too. The touch of their thin and calloused fingers would have betrayed them instantly as an unperson. Heart pounding in their throat, they accept the invitation to dance, and return the stag’s bow.
‘You’re a new guest,’ the stag says. ‘I don’t recognise you.’
Asper tries to laugh the observation away. ‘Isn’t that the point?’ they say. After all, the ritual of the masked balls is as old as the Fall. Only those who could afford masks survived the contagion. This is how the rich remember.
‘Perhaps.’ The stag whirls them through the next part of the dance. ‘To be honest, I find it all very boring.’
‘What, this?’ Asper waves at the revels as they spin, before they are drawn back into the stag’s embrace. Their horns are tipped with gold, and the glass marbles of their eyes glitter under the firefly lamps, but their arms are warm, and Asper can feel the thud and shudder of their heartbeat through their jacket. ‘I suppose it must get boring for the servants and the orchestra, but for us?’ Asper laughs. ‘How does one tire of beauty and luxury?’
‘Is it beauty?’ The stag leads Asper to a table laden with sugared fruits, tiny iced cakes, crystal glasses of mint-white liqueurs. Melons and slivers of meat are speared on silver sticks, and Asper takes one, salivating as they lift their mask a little to pull a cube of melon free with their teeth.
‘All I see are masks. Eventually one wishes for the reality of a human face, a human hand,’ the stag says. ‘Perhaps the world would be better if the Fall returned.’
‘Look there,’ Asper nods to the musicians, red-faced and sweating, their collars itching against their necks, their bellies tight and small, ‘and you will see all the humanity you need.’
‘Perhaps.’ They are dismissed with a shrug, and Asper follows their stag away from the blossoming lamp light into a shadowed alcove leading to a hidden porch with a wide glass door. The stag pushes the door open and beckons for Asper to follow them into the quiet.
Nervous now, but also curious, lulled with wine and good food, Asper goes with them into a room filled with ferns and other strange plants. For a moment, Asper wishes they could feel the cool moist air of the room against their flushed skin, breathe easily without the slow constriction of the mask. The stag may have a point.
‘We have left the party,’ the stag says, ‘and the rules no longer bind us.’ They lift the stag head from their shoulders and shake their hair loose. In the dim light, Asper can see that their stag is a young man, a son of a banker, or perhaps a slumming princeling. For some reason they cannot explain, they find themselves feeling sad, and a little disappointed.
The man is not unattractive, albeit a little long in the face, and prone to balding at his temples. In a few years, his flush of youthful good looks will have eroded, and he will look like all the rest of them, bloated on his own excess. His mask will become his favourite piece of armour. He sets the stag mask down on a small glass table and reaches forward to lift the white hare’s startled head from Asper’s shoulders, and they ready themself, muscles tensing.
The man holds the white head, and stares, his brow furrowed. ‘I don’t know yo–’ but before he can say more, Asper punches forward with the silver fruit spike, ramming it up into the soft meat under his jaw.
Blood spills and darkens the red jacket, and the man drops the head, his eyes wide with shock, too stunned to scream. After a moment he sways, staggers, then crumples to the floor, and Asper neatly sidesteps him, their skirts swishing.
They stare at the blood pooling now under the rich man’s corpse, then carefully wipe their fruit stick clean, and slide it up their sleeve. After a moment, their heart stops its rabbit-frightened pulsing and settles. A wave of calm and clarity descends. Asper licks their thumb, wipes a small spatter of blood from the papier-mâché hare’s head, and sets it back in place. Masked, they return to the dance to drink wine and eat rare fruits until the stars slide down the bell jar of the sky, and the horizon is stained with peach and silver.

#

In the city of a thousand gates are a thousand parties. And each night Asper plays, their fingers flying over the strings, their heart swelling. Each night, they wear a stolen mask, and seduce another stag, another hawk, another hound.
They dance, and drink, and fill their belly with fruits and pastries and cured meats, and when the dawn draws close, they exact the price of a city that does not exist.

Wat is in ferhaal?
Der wie ris in fûgelflapper dy’t it gelok fange woe. Hy tocht: as it my slagget it gelok yn myn netten te krijen en yn stikjes te ferpartsjen, dan kin ik it ferkeapje en wurd ik ryk. En as ik ryk bin, dan bin ik gelokkich, sadat ik sels gjin gelok mear hoech te keapjen, sadat ik jild oerhâld en noch riker wurd en noch gelokkiger. En sa streamden syn tinkkronkels oant yn ’e ivichheid fierder.

Der wie ien probleemke, of eins twa: de fûgelflapper wie berne yn in lân dêr’t gelok offisjeel op ’e swarte list fan dekadinsje stie en dêr’t it wurd ‘ik’ ferbean wie. Altyd wie der wol wat dat wichtiger wie as gelok of it ik; revolúsje bygelyks: yndustriële revolúsje, wrâldrevolúsje, flewielen revolúsje, nasjonale revolúsje, der kaam gjin ein oan. De fûgelflapper kaam út in famylje fan dissidinten, yndividuen dy’t al desennialang fûgelflapper wurden wienen. Dat berop wie net populêr, it fertsjinne net in soad en de beropsgroep wie sa goed as ûnsichtber yn it sosjale libben. Sa kaam it dat de fûgelflapper sinnen brûke koe dêr’t wol fjouwer kear it wurd ‘ik’ yn foarkaam, sûnder dat er oppakt waard. En sa kaam it ek dat er sokke aparte ideeën hie as besykje it gelok yn syn netten te fangen om it te ferkeapjen.

Sa lang as er libbe, seach de fûgelflapper al dat de minsken net gelokkiger waarden fan al dy revolúsjes dêr’t se hieltyd foar yn ’t spier moasten. Al die elkenien it foar de bûtenwrâld útskinen as dienen se neat leaver as mei flaggen swaaie en troch strjitten marsjearje, har gesichten waarden ûnderwilens griis en har skouders krûm. Hast net ien dy’t it lûdop doarst te sizzen, heechút flústerjend yn de lytse keukens fan de lytse wenten dêr’t se yn taholden, mar de minsken hienen oer it algemien leaver gelok as revolúsje, dat wie foar de fûgelflapper sa helder as wetter. Yn syn eigen lân soe de hannel yn gelok lykwols net sûnder risiko wêze, dat it like him better om te begjinnen mei it opsetten fan in bloeiend bedriuw yn in lân dêr’t minsken ree wienen in soad jild del te tellen foar in bytsje gelok. Dan koe er it letter wol nei syn eigen lân smokkelje en it dêr ynearsten op ’e swarte merk ferkeapje, foardat de rop om gelok sa oerweldigjend wurde soe, dat de regearing ek wol oerstach moatte soe.

Der siet neat oars op of slûp de grins oer en gean op reis, op syk nei in plak dêr’t gelok wichtiger wie as wat dan ek. Underweis koe de fûgelflapper dan moai eksperimentearje mei metoaden om it gelok yn syn netten te fangen. Behalve dy netten naam er net in hiel soad mei. Hy frijde noch ien kear ynmoedich mei it famke-foar-ien-nacht mei wa’t er al in ivichheid elke nacht frijde. Doe skode er syn swarte slippers oan ’e bleate fuotten, hyste syn netten op ’e rêch en gie op ’en paad. Hy reizge nei it westen, omdat dêr de sinne ûnder gie. It koe hast net oars of dêr soenen minsken wenje dy’t ferlet hienen fan gelok.

#

Wat is it tsjinoerstelde fan in ferhaal?
Dêr sit se, de brêgewachter, altyd op itselde plak oan de rivier. Al in ivichheid ferlyn is de wipbrêge feroare yn in draaibrêge en nei it ferstjerren fan har mem is de draaibrêge feroare yn in fêste brêge, sadat sy gjin brêgewachter mear hoecht te wurden en ek gjin dochter mear hoecht te krijen dy’t nei har ferstjerren brêgewachter wurde sil. Sûnt it ferstjerren fan har mem sit se dêr, altyd allinnich op itselde plak oan de rivier, of – as it winterkâld is – op de boppeferdjipping fan it brêgehûs, yn de grutte sliepkeamer mei it rút oer de folsleine breedte, mei útsicht op de meanderjende rivier en har uterwaarden. By sinneskynwaar, mei stjalprein, yn wâlen fan mist of by strykljocht: altyd is it in machtich gesicht hoe’t it wetter kronkeljend har gong giet en har fan nimmen of neat wat oanlûkt.

De brêgewachter hat fan natuere in soad geduld. Dat sit yn de famylje. Alles wat de muoite wurdich is, freget in soad geduld, en sy wit dat, al in ivichheid. Sûnt har mem ferstoarn is, sit se simmerdeis dus oan de rivier en winterdeis foar it rút fan de grutte sliepkeamer en skildert se de beam midden yn har útsicht. It is in âlde treurwylch dy’t mei syn woartels yn it wetter stiet, al in ivichheid, moerallinne tusken de waaibeammen dy’t oerwâldzje op dit plak oan de rivier.

Sûnt de brêgewachter begûn is de wylch te skilderjen, lit se dei en nacht de gerdinen iepen, om alle oeren dat se wekker is sjen te kinnen wat har net loslit. Alle dagen in sneinsskilder. De grutte sliepkeamer is de moaiste keamer fan it brêgehûs, fanwegen it útsicht, fanwegen it oerweldigjende moarnsljocht én fanwegen de samling glêzen aaien yn it finsterbank. Glês, dat docht wat mei it ljocht; ek al komt it net fan ’t plak, elke minút skynt it oars út.

#

Wat is revolúsje? – A
‘Ik’ sizze sûnder datst bang hoechst te wêzen, tocht de fûgelflapper. Dat hie er leard yn de tiid dat er ûnderweis wie en it hie him sa’n soad enerzjy koste, dat it der noch amper fan kaam wie te eksperimentearjen mei it fangen fan gelok.

Doe’t de fûgelflapper de brêgewachter moete, yn it lân fan de fêste brêgen, hie er it gefoel dat er opnij berne waard, op in oar plak, yn in oare tiid, yn in wrâld dêr’t ‘ik’ sûnder mear bestean mocht. De brêgewachter hie him al oankommen sjoen, troch it grutte sliepkeamersrút op it easten. It wie in mylde dei yn ’e hjerst, dat se hie him útnûoege om mei har oan de rivier te sitten, bôle mei bûter en seesâlt te iten en wyn te drinken. Doe’t er har by fersin lyk yn de blaugriene eagen seach, koe er ynienen net mear betinke wêrom’t it ek al wer sa wichtich wie om ‘ik’ sizze te meien.

‘Wolst in bern fan my ha?’ frege de fûgelflapper.
‘Nee,’ glimke de brêgewachter, ‘dat hoecht net. Sûnt de brêge in fêste brêge wurden is, hoecht der gjin brêgewachter mear te wêzen, dus hoech ik gjin bern mear op ’e wrâld te setten. It is wol goed sa. Mar ik soe it wol fijn fine ast by my bliuwe soest. Dêr hoechst my neat foar te jaan, dêr hoechst neat foar te dwaan.’

Dat brocht de fûgelflapper wol wat fan ’t stik. Hy woe altyd stomme graach wat jaan en wat dwaan. Foaral no’t er ienkear leard hie om ‘ik’ te sizzen sûnder bang te wêzen, woe er graach wat betsjutte yn ’e wrâld en foaral net fergetten wurde, oant yn ’e ivichheid. Mar hy hoegde allinnich mar yn de blaugriene eagen fan de brêgewachter te sjen of hy joech him del en burch syn netten op yn ’e kelder fan it brêgehûs.

Wat is revolúsje? – B
Wekker wurde neist immen by wa’tst bliuwe wolst en dy’t by dy bliuwe wol, tinkt de brêgewachter, immen mei wa’tst âld wurde wolst en dy’t mei dy âld wurde wol, op in dei dat it sneid hat en der in sêft en suver ljocht troch de tinne gerdinen falt, sa sêft as it skaad fan lange eachteisters op sinnebrune wangen.

It is net sa’t it heart: wenje yn it brêgehûs mei immen oars as dyn eigen bern. Dat wit de brêgewachter al sa lang as se libbet. Dat wit se fan har mem, dy’t it wist fan har mem, dy’t it wist fan har mem en sa fierder oant yn ’e omkearde ivichheid fan it ferline. Mar de brêgewachter libbet net yn it ferline. Sûnt de brêge in fêste brêge wurden is, is alles oars. Se moat it libben libje om te witten hoe’t it moat.

Yn oare tiden hie se ‘ja’ sein tsjin de fûgelflapper, ‘ja, jou my in bern’, en sa gau’t it bern op ’e wrâld kaam wie, hie se de netten fan de fûgelflapper kreas yn in reistas by de achterdoar set. No tinkt se it allinnich mar: ‘ja’, it is krekt de see, ‘ja’, it komt elke kear oant in oare hichte en witst noait krekt wêr’t dat fan komt, ‘ja’, is it de moanne, de wyn, it sin? – ‘ja’, it moaist is it as it wetter oer de dyk slacht, ‘ja’, mar dat bart net al te faak, miskien mar goed ek, oars komme der noch ûngelokken fan, ‘ja’, útstel gjin ôfstel wurde litte, dat is de keunst.

#

Wat is ivichheid? – A
Witte dat dyn bern dy net ferjitte sille en dyn bernsbern ek net en dy har bern ek net, sels net al bist al in ivichheid dea, tocht de fûgelflapper. Sa siet de wrâld no ienris yninoar, of net? Mar de brêgewachter hie him leard wat it wurd ‘geduld’ te betsjutten hie: neat ferlangje, neat ferwachtsje, der frede mei ha dat de rivier streamt mar datsto stilstietst.

Doe’t it winter waard, stie de fûgelflapper hieltyd faker skoften en skoften foar it rút fan de grutte sliepkeamer te sjen, dat rút op it easten. Ta syn spyt wie de brêgewachter opholden de wylch te skilderjen. Se hie al har wurk nei de kelder brocht en de stoel mei de rêch nei it rút ta set. Op in dei daalde de fûgelflapper ôf nei dy kelder, om te sjen hoe’t dat wurk derby lei. Mar yn stee fan har wurk, fûn er syn eigen lege netten én in plomkebiezem fan strúsfûgelfearren. Dêrmei begûn er de glêzen aaien yn it finsterbank ôf te stofjen, stadich oan, hiel foarsichtich, ien foar ien. Glês, dat docht wat mei it ljocht.

Op in izige winterdei seach de fûgelflapper troch it rút op it easten al fan fierren in man oankommen op in fyts, in swart figuerke dat hieltyd grutter waard. De man hie in brief by him foar de fûgelflapper, in brief út it lân dêr’t it wurd ‘ik’ ferbean wie. Ungeduldich skuorde de fûgelflapper de slúf iepen, lies de brief, lies de brief nochris en nochris. Underwilens stie de tiid stil.

Wat is ivichheid? – B
In dream hawwe dêr’t gjin ein oan komt, tinkt de brêgewachter. Yn dy dream is it in dizige sneintemiddei yn ’e hjerst. Yn it stedsje oan ’e ein fan ’e rivier is in âld havenkafee. Der wurdt benammen brún bier ferkocht, op ’e bar stiet in kistke mandarijnen mei it blêd der noch oan en yn ’e kelder spilet in tango-orkest. Yn it goudene ljocht fan echte kearsen draaie pearkes fan alle leeftiiden om inoar hinne, sliep tsjin sliep, liif tsjin liif. De mankelikens spielt har om ’e hegehakkeskuon, as in rivier dy’t yn ’e iere maitiid de kaaien ûnder wetter set. Op in taffeltsje by de doar stiet in blau glêzen faas mei izich wite roazen, foar de leafhawwer, foar al wa’t fersliten wurde kin foar in leafhawwer.

In libben libje dêr’t neat oan feroare hoecht te wurden, winsket de brêgewachter. Moarns falt it ljocht fan de sinne krekt op it plak dêr’t de swarte slippers fan de fûgelflapper steane, oan syn kant fan it bêd, troch it rút op it easten. As der sinne is, teminsten. De brêgewachter kin it net helpe, it is net sa’t it heart, mar sûnt koart tinkt se sa no en dan oan de takomst, oan de maitiid. Tusken it súntsjes risseljende wylgeblêd troch sjocht se it blikkerjen fan de rivier, wit se it weagjen sûnder ein, om de woartels fan de wylch hinne. De teisterlange tûken swaaie stadich hinne en wer: in ivich dach sizzen. De brêgewachter wit as gjin oar dat dizze rivier útkomt yn see.

#

Wat is gelok? – A
Wekker wurde mei de dûnkerreade dream fan it driuwen yn in skûlliif noch farsk yn ’t sin, tocht de fûgelflapper. Hy wie it net sels, wist er fuortendaliks by it wekker wurden, mar it wie wol fan him. Elke minút fan de dei moast er tinke oan har, mar mear noch: oan wat der binnen yn har foarmkrige. Hoe dit te fertellen? Net alle ferhalen binne gaadlik om ferteld te wurden. En soms wurdt dat wat op it earste each in ferhaal liket, sels it tsjinoerstelde fan in ferhaal.

Op in izige nacht yn desimber kaam de fûgelflapper oan op it fleanfjild. Skoften en skoften stie er yn in lange rige foar de baly dêr’t se kaarten ferkochten foar de foarlopich lêste flecht nei it lân dêr’t it wurd ‘ik’ ferbean wie. Der jage in sniestoarm om de barakken en de loftferkearstoer, as in swerm oerstjoere bijen om in bijekoer. Rinnendewei hie de fûgelflapper it lân fan de fêste brêgen berikt, fleanendewei soe er weromgean nei wêr’t er weikaam. De swarte slippers hie er neist it grutte bêd stean litten.

Yn syn reistas sieten net allinnich syn lege netten, mar ek de brief dy’t er krigen hie, de brief dy’t sa wûnderbaarlik syn wei fûn hie fan it lân dêr’t it wurd ‘ik’ ferbean wie nei it brêgehûs, de brief fan it famke-foar-ien-nacht. Hieltyd wer sochten syn fingers it papier, de drager fan it boadskip dat alles feroare hie, alles feroarje soe. Gelok wie al dyn kaarten ynsette op de ivichheid.

Wat is gelok? – B
Wekker wurde mei it moarnsljocht fan in dei yn desimber mei farsk fallen snie, tinkt de brêgewachter, in sêft en suver ljocht dat dwers troch de tinne gerdinen hinne de glêzen aaien yn ljochterlaaie set. Neist har yn it fierstente grutte bêd leit de fûgelflapper, oprôle as in net foldroegen frucht. Se lit har finger oer syn rêchbonke gliidzje. De leave lytse draaibonkjes lizze ûnder syn hûd as túnbeantsjes yn ’e húl.

Yn alle oare keamers fan it brêgehûs bart oars neat as it delkommen fan stof op it stoflike.
De brêgewachter sil dêrnei harkje, sa goed as se kin, krekt lykas se de wylch skildere hat, sa goed as se koe.

‘Wat is gelok?’ tinkt de brêgewachter lûdop. ‘Ja’, wat der ek west hat, ‘ja’, wat der ek komme sil, ‘ja’, gelok is altyd no.

What is a story?
Once upon a time there was a birdbagger who wanted to bag happiness. He thought, If I can catch happiness in my snares and divide it up in pieces, then I can sell it and I’ll be rich. And when I’m rich, I’ll be happy, so I won’t need to buy more happiness for myself, so I’ll save money and be even richer and even happier. And his musings flowed on and on like this endlessly.
Just one little problem, or two in fact: the birdbagger had been born in a country where happiness was on the official blacklist of decadence and where the word ‘I’ was forbidden. Something else was always more important than happiness, and more important than ‘I’: revolution, for example, industrial revolution, world revolution, velvet revolution, national revolution, there was no end to it. The birdbagger came from a family of dissidents, individuals who had been birdbaggers for centuries. It wasn’t a popular line of work, it didn’t pay well, and birdbaggers were next to invisible in polite society. That was why the birdbagger could use the word ‘I’ as many as four times in a single sentence without being arrested. And that was also why he had such unusual ideas, like trying to bag happiness and sell it.
Throughout his life, the birdbagger saw that all the revolutions people were expected to fight for didn’t make them happier. Even if everyone was just doing it for other people, it looked as if there was nothing they loved more than waving flags and marching through the streets, their faces turning gray and their shoulders hunching. Almost no one dared to say it out loud – at best, they would whisper about it in the little kitchens of the little apartments they stayed in – but most people preferred happiness to revolution. To the birdbagger, that was as clear as water. In his own country, however, the happiness trade would be a risky business, so he decided it would be better to start by setting up a flourishing company in a country where people were willing to pay much more for a bit of happiness. Then he could smuggle it into his own country later and sell it on the black market at first, until the demand for happiness became so overwhelming that the regime would have to give in.
So his only option was to sneak across the border and become a traveler, in search of a place where happiness was more important than anything else. Along the way, the birdbagger would have plenty of opportunities to experiment with methods for bagging happiness. Besides his snares, he didn’t take much with him. He had one last one-night stand with the woman he’d been having one-night stands with every night for an eternity. Then he slid his black slippers onto his bare feet, picked up his snares, and hit the road. He traveled west, because that was where the sun went down. The people who lived there just had to be in need of happiness.

#

What is the opposite of a story?
There she sits, the bridgekeeper, always in the same place by the river. An eternity ago, the drawbridge was turned into a swing bridge, and after her mother died, the swing bridge was turned into a fixed bridge, so that she wouldn’t have to be a bridgekeeper anymore and wouldn’t have to have a daughter who would become a bridgekeeper after she died. Ever since her mother’s death she’s been sitting there, always alone in that same place by the river or – in the cold of winter – on the upper floor of the bridge house, in the master bedroom with a window covering the whole width of one wall, with a view of the winding river and its floodplains. By daylight, in the pouring rain, through veils of mist, or in the raking beams of the low sun, it is always moving to see the water still meandering along, without a thought for anyone or anything.
The bridgekeeper is patient by nature. It runs in the family. Anything worth the trouble demands great patience, she’s known that for an eternity. Ever since her mother died, she’s spent her summers on the riverbank and her winters by the window of the master bedroom, painting the tree in the middle of her view. It’s an old weeping willow with its roots in the water, and it’s been there for an eternity, all alone among the poplars that predominate in this place by the river.
Ever since the bridgekeeper started painting the willow, she has left the curtains open day and night, whenever she’s awake, so that she can see what will not let go of her. Every day she’s a Sunday painter. The master bedroom is the most attractive room in the bridge house, because of the view, because of the flood of morning light, and because of the collection of glass eggs on the windowsill. Glass – it does something to the light. Even if it never moves from its place, every minute it radiates something new.

#

What is revolution? (A)
Saying ‘I’ without having to feel scared, the birdbagger thought to himself. That was something he’d learned during his time on the road, and it had cost him so much energy that he’d hardly found time to experiment with bagging happiness.
When the birdbagger met the bridgekeeper, in the land of fixed bridges, he felt he was reborn, in a different place, in a different time, in a world where ‘I’ was simply allowed to exist. The bridgekeeper had seen him coming through the bedroom window, which faced east. It was a mild autumn day, so she had invited him to join her by the river for bread with butter and sea salt washed down with wine. When by accident he looked her straight in her blue-green eyes, he could no longer remember why it was so important to be able to say ‘I.’
‘Would you like to have a child with me?’ the birdbagger asked.
‘No,’ the bridgekeeper replied with a smile, ‘there’s no need for that. Now that the bridge is a fixed bridge, it doesn’t require a keeper, so I don’t have to bring a child into the world. I’m quite content. But I’d like it if you stayed with me for a while. You don’t have to give me anything or do anything in return.’
That threw the birdbagger a little bit off balance. He had always loved to give and do things. Now that he had learned to say ‘I’ without being afraid, he wanted to make a difference in the world and, most of all, not be forgotten, for all eternity. But one look into the bridgekeeper’s blue-green eyes was enough to calm him down, and he put away his snares in the cellar of the bridge house.

What is revolution? (B)
Waking up next to someone you want to stay with who wants to stay with you, thinks the bridgekeeper, someone you want to grow old with who wants to grow old with you, on a day when snow has fallen and a soft, pure light enters through the thin curtains, as soft as the shadow of long lashes on suntanned cheeks.
This is not how things are supposed to be: living in the bridge house with someone who is not your own child. The bridgekeeper has known that all her life. She learned it from her mother, who learned it from her mother, who learned it from her own mother and so on, into the backwards eternity of the past. But the bridgekeeper does not live in the past. Since the bridge has become a fixed bridge, everything has changed. She will have to live life to learn how things must be.
In a different era, she would have said yes to the birdbagger, ‘yes, give me a child,’ and as soon as the child had come into the world, she would have packed the birdbagger’s snares neatly into a travel bag and placed it next to the back door. Now all she can think is ‘yes,’ it’s like the sea, ‘yes,’ it reaches a different height each time and you never know exactly where it comes from, ‘yes,’ is it the moon, the wind, desire? – ’yes,’ the best part is when the water sloshes over the dike, ‘yes,’ but that doesn’t happen so often, probably all for the best, otherwise accidents could happen, ‘yes,’ to play for time but not miss your chance, that’s the art of it.

#

What is eternity? (A)
Knowing your children won’t forget you and neither will your grandchildren or their children either, even after you’ve been dead for an eternity, the birdbagger thought. That was how the world was put together, wasn’t it? But the bridgekeeper had taught him the meaning of the word ‘patience’: desiring nothing, expecting nothing, finding peace with the river flowing while you stand still.
When winter came, the birdbagger could be found more and more often staring out of the window, the east-facing window of the master bedroom, for ages and ages. To his disappointment, the bridgekeeper had stopped painting the willow. She had taken all her paintings down to the cellar and placed the chair with its back to the window. One day the birdbagger went down to that cellar to see how the paintings looked there. But instead of the paintings, he found his own empty snares, and an ostrich-feather-duster. He took it upstairs and started dusting the glass eggs on the windowsill, very slowly and carefully, one by one. Glass – it does something to the light.
On an icy winter day, the birdbagger saw through the east-facing window that a man was approaching on a bicycle, still in the distance but getting closer. The man had a letter with him for the birdbagger, a letter from the country where the word ‘I’ was forbidden. The birdbagger impatiently tore the envelope open and read the letter, read it again and again. Meanwhile, time stood still.

What is eternity? (B)
Having a dream that never ends, the bridgekeeper thinks. In that dream, it’s a hazy Sunday afternoon in the autumn. In the town at the end of the river is an old waterfront café. It sells mainly brown beer, there’s a crate of mandarin oranges on the bar, unpeeled, and in the cellar a tango orchestra is playing. In the golden light of real candles, couples of all ages are wheeling around each other, temple to temple, flesh to flesh. Melancholy swirls around their high-heeled shoes, like the river, which floods the buildings alongside it in the early spring. On a table by the door is a blue glass vase of icy white roses, for lovers, for whoever can pass for lovers.
To live a life in which nothing needs changing – that’s the bridgekeeper’s wish. In the morning, the sunlight through the east-facing window reaches the exact spot where the birdbagger keeps his slippers, on his side of the bed. When it’s sunny, that is. The bridgekeeper can’t help it, it’s not how things are supposed to be, but recently, she’s been thinking now and then about the future, about the spring. Through the rustling leaves of the willow, she sees the glittering of the river, she knows its waters lap without end at the willow’s roots. The branches, long as lashes, brush slowly back and forth, in an endless goodbye. The bridgekeeper knows better than anyone that this river flows to the sea.

#

What is happiness? (A)
Waking up with the dark red dream of drifting in the womb still fresh in your memory, the birdbagger thought. It wasn’t him, he knew the instant he woke, but it was his. Every minute of the day, he couldn’t help thinking of her, but more than that, of what was taking shape inside her. How could this be told? Not all stories are made for telling. And sometimes what seems to be a story at first can even turn out to be just the opposite.
One icy night in December the birdbagger arrived at the airport. For ages and ages, he stood in a long line at the counter where tickets were sold for the last flight, for the time being, to the country where the word ‘I’ was forbidden. A snowstorm was raging around the hangars and the air traffic control tower, like a swarm of excited bees around a beehive. The birdbagger had reached the land of fixed bridges on foot; he would return to the place where he came from by air. He had left his black slippers next to the large bed.
His travel bag held not only his empty snares, but also the letter he’d received, the letter that had so miraculously found its way from the country where the word ‘I’ was forbidden to the bridge house, the letter from his one-night stand. His fingers kept groping for the paper that bore the message that had changed everything, that would change everything. Happiness was staking everything on eternity.

What is happiness? (B)
Waking up to the morning light of a December day with freshly fallen snow, thinks the bridgekeeper, a soft, pure light that passes straight through the thin curtains and sets the glass eggs ablaze. Beside her in the oversized bed lies the birdbagger, curled up like an unborn babe. She runs her finger along his backbone. His sweet little vertebrae lie beneath his skin like broad beans in a pod.
In all the other rooms of the bridge house, nothing is happening but dust drifting down onto furniture. The bridgekeeper will listen to the sound, as well as she can, just as she painted the willow, as well as she could.
‘What is happiness?’ the bridgekeeper thinks aloud. ‘Yes,’ whatever has been, ‘yes,’ whatever will be, ‘yes,’ happiness is always now.

Se is allinnich en wachtet ergens op, of op immen. Se is âld en jong tagelyk, in wielderige, elegante skientme, mar ferâlderet hieltyd flugger en flugger no, it begjin fan ’e tiid. De beammen om har hinne soeikje súntsjes yn ’e boskwyn. It ljocht filteret troch it blêdte en bedekt it gers mei gouden en wite spikkels. Se hat wat fergetten. It is by har wei wat it is en se komt oerein. Se hat lang genôch wachte no. Fuotsje foar fuotsje, stapke foar stapke foarút. De fûgels sjonge fan in oerwinning, mar safier is it noch lang net.
Har eagen weidzje alle kanten op, lykas har tinzen. Tusken al it grien sit pears, in blom, yn bloei. Se is folle heger as it gers deromhinne en hat grutte, hertfoarmige kroanblêden en in sulveren hert. Har helderheid giet fier út boppe dy fan it sêfte rôs tusken de strûken. It is in natuerlike lieder, keninginne fan it strewelleguod.
Se rint troch, wisberet om foarút te gean, wêr’t it paad har ek hinne bringe mei. Pearze eagen achter in grien masker hâlde har skerp yn ’e gaten en bestudearje har nijsgjirrich.
Underwilens stiet de sinne heger oan ’e himel. De iere moarn is foarby en de dize oplost. Se swalket troch de wyldernis, mar giet nergens hinne. Yn krinkjes rinne en nergens in útwei, yn dizze wrâld fan einleaze wegen en leagens dêr’t gjin ein oan komt. Har grutte eagen, as dy fan in hert, binne fan triennen wiet. Se siket om hoop, mar alle hope is ferlern — lykas sy. Wêr sil se no hinne?
Har fuotten, dy’t ynearsten stadich foarút gongen, stean no stil en sjitte woartel op in plak dêr’t it optilt fan âlde ierdske wêzens. Allegeduerigen op ’e siik draait se har om. In somber gefoel sakket del yn har hert.
In iensume fûgel, sjongleafhawwer, lit in melodytsje hearre, fjouwer noaten, foar wa’t de oerwinning binnenhelje. Fortuna kaam werom.
It sinneljocht, yn al syn gloarje, lit it famke in klaverkefjouwer sjen en foarseit har in nije takomst. Mar de reis is pas begûn, sjoen yn it ljocht fan de ivichheid. Griene eagen folgje har, wachtsje yn spanning ôf. Se rint hurder no, se wit wat har bestimming is. De takomst temjitte wylst de goudene sinne heger en heger riist. Der komt har wat yn it sin, se stiet stil.
Se fergeat wat, eat dat se nedich hat — no. De Sturt fan ’e Hûn. In suverjend ljocht, in halssnoer, in juwiel, fuortbrocht troch de ierde en langst fan ’e himel. Wêr is it bleaun? Dizichblauwe eagen sjogge fan út de loft wei ta en ynienen sakket in gedaante del. In wolk, in Fae, mei wjukken as dy fan in do en irisearjende fearren as dy fan in akster. It famke beseft dat skyn bedrage kin.
De Fae praat, syn stim swiet as huning: ‘Do sikest wat, en watsto sikest is yn myn besit. Mar om it werom te krijen, freegje ik wat yn ruil. Wat seist derfan?’
Se fronselet de foarholle. ‘Wat fregest?’
It gniist. ‘In geunst. Foar watsto no ha wolst, sil ik letter wat weromfreegje.’ Fertrou de Fae net, sis har neat ta, galmet it yn har holle. Spitich, mar har oardielsfermogen is fertroebele en se mist har lytse stjerke. ‘In goede died, yn ’e wrâld dy’t komme sil,’ seit se, ‘yn ruil foar it halssnoer dat ik weromkrij.’
‘Sa sil it wêze. Dat it jo mar mar net yn ’e swierrichheden bringe mei.’ It knypeaget en de wolkens lûke fierder, dreaun troch de wyn.
De Fae is ferdwûn en se giet fierder. Kuierjend troch de bosken tinkt se oan har leafste, heech tusken de stjerren. No binne se foar altyd fan elkoar skieden, mar ienris, lang lyn, wiene se ien: nea twa helten, beide folslein, makken se elkoar kompleet en follen se elkoar oan.
Oaren beskôgen it as gaos, mar is dat net hoe’t alles begûn?
Ut gaos kaam oarder fuort, en oare tsjinstellingen. De wrâld bestiet út kontrasten en elkenien moat leare om yn frede mei elkoar te libjen, sûnder oarloch, konflikt of wapentúch. Blykber is it dreech foar harren; se seach it bloedferjitten, en nimt waar hoe’t it bloedferjitten almar trochgiet.
Yn dizze wrâld en yn dizze tiid is de nachtlike himel fol mei stjerren fan hoop en wurdt de dage befolke troch herten fol eangst foar takomstige mislearringen. O, wie der mar in manier om der … gewoan wat oan dwaan te kinnen, sadat elkenien leafde kenne soe … Se skodhollet. Leafde oerwint en ferneatiget tagelyk. Se moatte sykje en fjochtsje en foar harsels soargje. Underwilens kuere rôzereade eagen hoeden troch it strewelleguod. Yn it lêste jûntiidsljocht krije roazen in goudene gloede. De bosken flonkerje yn ’e sêfte toanen fan ’e ûndergeande sinne, as yn in mearkebosk, as it dat net al wêze soe.
Se rint troch, it halssnoer stevich yn ’e hannen. De edelstien, as kompas, Poalstjer, wiist har it paad, foarstlik lytse dame yn ’e jûnsskimer.
De sinne tutet de wolken en nimt ôfskied. De nacht falt, de himel rekket bedutsen mei alderhande kleuren pears en blau en swart, wurdt opsierd mei sulverwite stjerren, dy’t stadichoan ferskine.
It tsjuster iepenet him, as in oesterskulp, en de wolken iepenbierje in glânzgjende pearel, in glinsterjend himellichem. In folle moanne, keninginne fan ’e nacht en stille minners.
It ljocht berikt de kâlde boskgrûnen amper. Se moat troch. Ut har eachhoeke wei sjocht se wat bewegen. Waarmte. In gloede. Oranje skynsels yn in blauwich ljocht. Ynsekten litte harren nachtlike lûden hearre. Dan litte se harsels sjen, ljochtsje op. In weach, in mystike swaarm fjoermichjes, lytse fjurrige michjes, dy’t har troch de donkerste oeren liede.
It is as litte de oranje eagen in glimke sjen. ‘Ferljochtsje de nacht, freondinne, en set de striid fuort’, lústeret in stim yn ’e wyn.
Fiif folgje no, en fiif sille noch folgje. Oeral eagen, lilkaardige Fae: in bloeiende pearse, in lokkige griene, in dizichblauwe, in moaie rôze, in fjurrige oranje.
Fiif Fae, mar de bestimming is noch fier fuort.
En it famke wit dat se yn it fizier holden wurdt, de eagen fan ’e skiednis binne ûnmeilydsum yn har oardiel, mar dat jildt ek foar dy út in mooglike takomst wei, weromsjend op alles wat ea west hie, wêze kinnen hie en wêze moatte soe.
De dame fan ’e stjerrehimel glimket slûchslim. In obstakel blykt it paad fan de moasgriene, de fruchtbere, de rjochtfeardige ôf te sluten.
Op ’e nij is it in Fae, in slûchslimme Sfinks mei grize eagen gniist en grommet: ‘Los myn riedseltsje op en do kinst trochrinne, do earmsillich wêzen. Dangelest mar wat om, en dyn reis is om ’e nocht.’
‘Dat is it net. Jou my dyn riedsel op.’
It gniist en twinkelet. ‘Doe’t de Pleagen oer de minskheid kamen, en Genede it ryk fan de stjerliken ferliet, wat bleau harren as iennichste noch oer?’
Se sizze dat Hoop it iennichste wie dat achterbleau yn ’e kanne, dy’t troch in nijsgjirrige frou iepene waard, wylst it ûnheil fan alle Pleagen de herten en sielen fan minsken fertarre.
De eagen fan it famke fonkelje. Alle kleuren fan ’e reinbôge sitte dêryn en se skitterje yn it tsjuster.
‘Der wie Leechte, oars neat; alles wat der earder wie, wie ferdwûn.’
De Sfinks grommet. Grize eagen dije út en feroarje yn tongerwolken.
It gniist en kriezet en raast: ‘Hoop, do lytskert!’ It raast en pipet en jankt.
It famke hâldt de foet by de kûle. ‘Hoop bleau net allinne achter, even letter wie se der foar de stjerlingen. Se hâldt de herten fêst fan de lytse en ierdske wêzens. Sy sille it nea oerjaan, net foar al it kwea yn de wrâld, want Hoop stiet altyd oan harren kant. Se sille fjochtsjen bliuwe. Gjinien is oait hielendal allinnich – wy hawwe elkoar.’
De Fae befriest, it krôlet syn fûsten, in keakeljende laits. ‘Oant sjen, do suterich wêzen.’ Yn in sucht is it ferdwûn. No folgje seis pear eagen de fuotstappen fan de freonlike en rjochtfeardige.
Iuwen wurde mominten en ynienen is de nacht foarby. Alle moarnen sjonge iere fûgels har melodyen en meitsje se har rûntsjes.
Har mage rommelet.
Fierderop iepenbierje iere sinnestrielen in iepen plak mei yn ’e midden in apelbeam. Dizze bosken binne gefaarlik, wit se, mar diskear wint de langst it. Se rint op ’e beam ôf. ‘Goeie. Hallo, lea … bliuw dêr stean.’ In slangeftige Fae mei bloedreade eagen glidet om ’e tûken hinne en sjocht op har del.
‘Is dit jo beam, mynhear?’ freget se.
‘Ja, ja, dit is myn teare, lytse jonge beamke, mei soppige fruchten. Bist der wis fan datst der ien fan nimme wolst?’ It griene famke glimket. ‘Ik soe graach in apel fan dyn beam ha wolle, ast my tastiest, myn freon.’
De slang hâldt de kop skean en syn skerpe eagen mei de splytfoarmige pupillen bestudearje de lytse dame.
‘Ah … ik ken dy. Nim. Nimme moatst, jaan silst, ek al sil it tsjin dyn wil yngean, en ik hoopje fan herte datst likegoed ûntfange silst.’ De Fae lûkt him werom yn ’e griene beamkrún en ferberget him tusken de blêdrike mystearjes fan it ferline.
Se stoarret nei de apel yn har hannen. ‘Dat hoopje ik ek. Meastal binne se selssuchtich’, seit se tsjin harsels, en nimt in grutte hap.
De sinne stiet ûnderwilens heech, dat se beslút om yn it skaad te bliuwen. It is waarm. Rûkt se reek? In skrokken foks fljocht foarby, ûnderweis nei in oare takomst.
It famke is op har iepenst. Se wie der al bang foar: der is yndied ergens brân, mar it giet te hurd, yn in omsjoch hat it fjoer in ferneatigjende krêft.
It fertart de beammen, de bosken, de wyldernis. Yn it suden falle ûnbidich grutte swartbleakere beammen útelkoar. East en West brâne, yn skarlekkenread en karmozyn. De edele fonkelstien liedt har nei it noarden.
Se rint troch it strewelleguod, stiet dan stil. In glinstering hat har oandacht lutsen. In beamke, noch net skansearre, lyk neist har. Lauriergriene eagen sjogge har wanhopich oan. In smeekbea berikt de earen fan it famke, amper te hearren, in lústering yn it ferneatigjende tumult.
‘O, asjebleaft, help my. Asjebleaft. Rêd my.’
‘Ik kin dy net rêde’, antwurdet se. It flugge fjoer hat har oerrompele, earlik sein, har ferrifele. It kaam folle flugger as dat se tocht hie. No komt se tiid te koart. It komt, it komt al. Alles fertarrend. Hurder, fjurrich. Hongerich. It sil alles op syn paad opfrette en de takomst folslein ferdylgje.
Hoeden brekt se in tûke ôf. ‘Lit it in teken en in symboal wêze. Wy sille it besykje, we gean troch.’
De lauriergriene eagen litte in glim sjen as se stadich yn jiske feroarje.
De loft is griis no en fol snie. Se kin net mear gewoan rinne, se moat drave. Beamsoppen en triennen komme út de himel delfallen. In fjoersee dy’t alles ferbrânt. Har oanstekt. Tusken de boskreuzen troch, allegear yn fjoer en flam, draaft it famke nei foaren. Wêrhinne? Hjir groeie minder beammen. De rook fan reek sit noch yn har noas. Jiske yn har hier. It benearjende wjerljocht, tongerslaggen, en achter har miggelet it earder sa blomrike blêdte del yn ’e foarm fan jiske. Drave. No. Hurder.
De wyldernis giet oer yn gerslân, hjir en dêr ferspraat oer de flakte binne jonge beamkes te sjen. De sinne skynt. Hjir groeie koweblomkes en hynsteblommen. Sinneblommen tuorkje boppe alles út, de iene noch grutter as de oare. It famke dwaalt wat om, ferheard en fol ferwûndering.
Heldergiele eagen gean iepen en toane har in nije wei. ‘Fertrou op harren herten en sielen. Lit har jaan en waakse, en elkoar fertrouwe.’
De lytse moasgriene dame glimket, al is it mei pine yn it hert. ‘Dat wol ik graach.’ Der knipperet in wyt ljocht. In wite flinter twinkelet, freon fan elkenien. It skitteret en glinsteret, as briljant, yn it ljocht fan ’e takomst. Sy folget. Wite eagen bestudearje har.
Der komme noch tsien en der sille noch folle mear komme. Oeral eagen, ferrifeljende Fae: in bloeiende pearze, in lokkige griene, in dizichblauwe, in moaie rôze, in fjurrige oranje, in hoopfolle grize, in smaaklike reade, in symboalyske donkergriene, in heldergiele, in freonlike wite. En dochs is de bestimming noch fier en ferburgen.
En it famke wit dat se yn ’e gaten hâlden wurdt. De eagen fan de skiednis binne ûnmeilydsum yn harren oardiel, mar dat jildt ek foar de blik út in mooglike takomst wei, weromsjend op alles wat ea wie, of kinnen hie en wêze moatten.
In gersfjild leit foar har fuotten. Achter har stiet de wrâld yn ’e brân.
In nije moarn sjocht de dei ûnder eagen, de wrâld.
Sy, it moasgriene famke, de foarstlike dame, de rjochtfeardige fan ’e bosken, har namme is Gaia.
Achter har leit de skiednis, altyd hongerich easket se it hjoed. Easket alle tiid op dy’t wy noch hawwe, fol langstme ús patroanen kear op kear te werheljen, ferneatigjend en rampsillich.
En dy iene geunst, dy lêste útdaging, moat noch komme. De himel sjocht altyd ta. Sy is Gaia en de takomst leit yn ús hannen.

She is sitting alone and she is waiting for something, or someone. She’s old, and young, lush, lady-like beauty, but aging faster and faster now, the beginning of time. Trees around her sway softly in the forest winds. Light filters through the leaves, covering the grass in specks of gold and white. She has forgotten something. Unable to recall what it is, she gets up. She is done waiting. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time, forward. The birds sing of a victory, but it is still far away.
Her eyes wander, as do her thoughts. Between all the green, there is purple, a flower, a flourishing one. It is much taller than the grass around it, and with big, heart-shaped petals and a silver core. Its brightness exceeds that of the soft pink in the bushes, this one is a natural leader, queen of the shrubbery.
She keeps walking, determined to go forward, wherever her path may lead. Purple fae eyes behind a green mask, follow her keenly and study her curiously.
The sun is higher up in the sky now. The early morning has passed and the dew is gone. She hikes through the wilds, but nowhere she goes. Circles and circles and no way out, endless lines and endless lies in this world. Her big eyes, like eyes of a deer, are filled with tears. She searches for hope, but it is lost – as is she. Where to now?
Her feet, moving steady at first, now stand still, taking root in a place full of ancient earthly beings. She seeks and seeks and turns around. A feeling, heavy, sinks to the bottom of her heart.
One lone bird, lover of song, drops a melody, four notes, for the harvesters of victory. Fortuna has returned.
In all its glory, sunlight shows the girl a four-leaf clover, telling her of a new future. All that, but the journey is still young, in the midst of ages. Green eyes watch, eagerly waiting. She moves quicker now, she knows where to go. Into the future as the sun rises further, golden and bright. Then, remembering, stops.
She had forgotten something, and she needs it back – now. The Dog’s Tail. A purifying light, a necklace, gem of the earth and wish of the sky. Where is it? Blue misty eyes watch from the sky, and suddenly, a figure comes down. A cloud, a Fae, with wings like a dove and iridescent feathers like a magpie. The girl knows appearances can be deceiving.
The Fae speaks, with honey on its tongue: ‘You seek something, and that which you seek I possess; but to have it back, I want something in return. What do you say?’
She frowns. ‘What is it you ask?’
It grins. ‘A favour, for you want something now, and I’ll want something then.’ Do not trust the Fae, do not give them anything, echoes in her head. Alas, her judgement is clouded, and she wants her little star.
‘An act of kindness for you, in the world to come,’ she says, ‘and in this moment, I will have my necklace.’
‘So it shall be. May it bring no further trouble for your person.’ It winks, and the clouds move on, chased by the winds.
The Fae has disappeared, and she continues her journey. Strolling through the forest, she thinks of her love, up high, between the stars. They are forever separated now, but once, long ago, they were one; never halves, whole each, completing and complementing.
Others deemed it chaos, but is that not how everything began?
From chaos, order sprung, and other opposites. The world is made of them, and all must learn to coexist in peace, without war, conflict, or means of combat. Apparently, it is hard for them; she saw, and still sees, the bloodshed.
In this world and time, the night sky is filled with hopeful stars, and the daylight inhabited by hearts flushed with fear of future failures. Oh, if there was a way to just … do something about that, for all to find love … she shakes her head. Love is as victorious as it is destructive. They must find and fight and fend for themselves. Meanwhile, pink eyes cautiously narrow from below the bushes. Roses turn gold in the last light of the day. The woods shimmer in the soft tones of the sunset, as if it were a fairy-tale forest, if it was not already.
She keeps going, holding the necklace tightly in her hands. The gem, compass, Polestar, tells her where to go, little lush lady in the twilight.
The sun kisses the clouds and says goodbye. The night falls, covering the heavens with purples and blues and blacks, adorned by silvery stars, slowly appearing.
The dark opens like an oyster, and the clouds reveal a shiny pearl, shimmering orb. A full moon, queen of the night and silent lovers.
Barely any light reaches the cold forest grounds. She has to carry on. Something moves in the corner of her eye. Warmth. Orange tones in bluish light. Bugs make their nightly noises. Then they reveal themselves, lighting up. A wave, a mystical swarm of fireflies, little fiery ones, guiding her through the darkest hour.
Orange eyes seem to be smiling. ‘Set the night alight, and soldier on, my friend,’ a voice whispers in the wind.
Five follow now, and five will follow further on. Many eyes, mischievous Fae: purple flourishing one; green lucky one; blue cloudy one; pink lovely one; orange fiery one.
Five Fae, but the goal is faraway.
And the girl knows she is being watched, the eyes of history are relentless and judgemental, but so are those from some futurity, looking back at all that once was, or could and should have been.
The lady of the starry skies smiles shrewdly. An obstacle has come in the way of the forest-like, fertile, fair one’s path.
A newcomer Fae, a Sphinx with grey eyes, grins a cunning growl. ‘Solve my little riddle and you may pass, idle one; you are idling anyway, your journey is in vain.’
‘It is not. Speak your riddle.’
It chuckles and twinkles. ‘When the Plagues came to mankind, and the Graces left the mortal realm, what was left, all alone?’
They say Hope was all that was left in the jar, opened by one curious woman, as the Plagues of many evils devoured the hearts and minds of men.
The girl’s eyes sparkle. They contain all colours, and shine in the dark.
‘There was Emptiness, all alone; for what was there before, had left.’
The Sphinx snarls. Grey eyes grow into thunderstorms.
It sneers and screeches and shrieks: ‘Hope! Small one, you should have made a single sound!’ It screams and squeals and squawks.
The girl stands her ground. ‘Hope was not left all alone, she came to the mortals moments later. She holds the hearts of the small and earthly. They will never give in to all the evils in the worlds, as they have ever-giving Hope on their side. They will keep fighting. No one is ever all alone − we have each other.’
The Fae freezes, it clenches its claws, cackles. ‘So long, idle one.’ It is gone in the blink of an eye, and now, six pairs of eyes follow the friendly fair one’s footsteps.
Ages become moments, and suddenly, the night has passed. Morning birds sing their morning melodies, and make their morning rounds.
Her stomach rumbles.
Up ahead, the early rays reveal an open spot, with an apple tree in its centre. These are dangerous woods, her mind knows, but desire wins this time. She walks up to the tree. ‘Hello. Hello, hon … hold it right there.’ A snake, serpent-like Fae with blood red eyes slides around the branches and looks down at her.
‘Is this your tree, sir?’ she asks.
‘Yes, yes, this is my fine, small sapling, with juicy fruits. Are you sure you’ll have one?’ The green girl smiles. ‘I would like to have one of your tree’s apples, if you will allow me, friend.’
The snake tilts its head, and its sharp eyes with slit pupils study the little lady.
‘Ah … I know you. Take. Take you must, give you shall, albeit against your will, and receive, I dearly hope you will.’ The Fae retreats into the green crown of the tree and hides within leafy mysteries of the past.
She stares at the apple in her hands. ‘I hope so too. They are usually selfish,’ she says to herself, and takes a big bite.
The sun is higher up again now, so she decides to stay in the shade. It is hot. Is that smoke she smells? A spooked fox flies by, heading towards a different future.
The girl has grown wary now. Something is indeed burning, as she feared, but too quick, far too destructive already.
The fire consumes the trees, the woods, the wilderness. The green giants are blackened and crumbling South of her. East and West are burning, in scarlet and crimson. The pure gem is leading the way North.
She steps through the shrubbery, then stops. A glimmer has caught her attention. One little tree is still unharmed, right next to her. Olive eyes look at her, desperately. A plea reaches the girl’s ears, barely a whisper in the tumult of destruction.
‘Oh, please, help me. Please. Save me.’
‘I cannot save you,’ she replies. Frankly, the rapid fire has surprised, deceived her. It came much faster than she anticipated. Now, she is running out of time. It is coming, coming already. Consuming. Faster, fiery. Hungry. It will eat everything on its path and devour the future whole.
She gently snaps off one branch. ‘Let that be a sign and a symbol. We will try, we will keep going.’
A smile within the laurel eyes as they slowly turn to ash.
The sky is snowy and grey now. She can’t simply walk anymore. She has to run. There is tree sap and tears falling from the heavens. Fire is raining down and burning up. Burning her up. Through the forest giants, all ablaze, the girl sprints forward. Where to? Less trees grow here. The smell of smoke is still in her nose. Ash in her hair. Behind her, the once flowery foliage falls at the frightening flash and crash of thunder. Forward. Now. Faster.
The wilds turn into grasslands, with only small saplings spread out over the plains. The sun shines. Daisies grow here, and dandelions. Sunflowers excel, one growing even taller than the other. The girl wanders around, astonished and full of wonder.
Yellow bright eyes open, showing a new path forward. ‘Trust their hearts and souls. Let them give and grow, and trust each other.’
The little leafy lady smiles with heartache. ‘I want to.’
A white light flashes. A white butterfly winks, friend of all. It shimmers and shines, brilliantly, in the lights of the future. She follows. White eyes study her.
Ten follow now, and many more to come. Many eyes, mischievous Fae: purple flourishing one; green lucky one; blue cloudy one; pink lovely one; orange fiery one; grey hopeful one; red appetizing one; laurel symbolic one; yellow bright one; white friendly one. And yet the goal is distant and concealed.
And the girl knows she is being watched. The eyes of history are relentless and judgemental, but so are those from some futurity, looking back at all that once was, or could and should have been.
A grassy field lies before her feet. Behind her, the world burns.
A young tomorrow faces the day, the world.
She, the girl, the lush lady, forest-like, fair one, is Gaia.
Behind her, history is hungry, it wants the present. It wants all the time we have left, eager to repeat our patterns over and over again, destructive and disastrous.
And that one favour, one last challenge, is still to come. The heavens are always watching. She is Gaia and the future is in our hands.

Ite is ûnfoarstelber yntym. Dochst wat yn ’e mûle en litst dat ta yn dyn lichem. Dêr bringt it, ast it no wolst of net, allerlei sensaasjes en gewaarwurdingen tewei; priuwst wat fertrouds of wat datst net kenst, wat oarspronkliks of krekt ienheidswoarst, dyn lichem jûcheit om mear, mear fan dat iene, of keart it preaune teloarsteld de rêch ta.
Soms, hiel soms, liedt priuwen ta in wiidfiemjende, hast mystike ûnderfining. Dit makke ik ris mei by in whiskypriuwerij. In freon en ik hienen al in pear oeren omrûn yn ’e grutte hal dêr’t de priuwerij wie, mei ús priuwglês fan kream nei kream, om safolle mooglik whiskys út te probearjen. ‘Dizze is lekker,’ seinen wy. Of: ‘Hm, krûdich!’ Wy besochten it ferskil te ûntdekken tusken Japanske whisky (‘wol knap’), of op portfetten ripe (‘swietich’), of whisky mei seewier (‘silt’). Hoe mear soarten wy preaunen, hoe djipper wy yn ússels ôfdale moasten om de smaken te tsjutten. Hieltyd muoisumer fûnen wy wurden om de mannichte oan yndrukken te beskriuwen.
Omskriuwingen feroaren no yn: ‘Wauw, hjir bart wat dat ik net hielendal begryp’, of: ‘Dizze wol deryn sûnder te klopjen’. Dêrnei spuiden wy it priuwslokje kreas út, sadat wy net smûsterich reitsje soenen. Ien kream hienen wy foar it lêst bewarre. Wy telden ús lêste jild en keazen nei lang hiftsjen en skiftsjen in whisky fan tweintich euro it glês: tritich jier âld, Skotsk, bottele yn in tige lytse oplaach. Wy stieken behoedsum de noas yn it glês, rûkten deroan, walsten de floeistof rûn en namen foarsichtich in slokje.
Wy seagen inoar oan. Ien fan ús skeat fol. Wy seinen neat mear.
Ik wit net wat myn maat meimakke, mar ik wie tute troch wat dat tritich jier lein hie te rypjen yn in kelder yn de Skotske heechlannen. Ik waande my ynienen yn in hiel grutte, âlde tsjerke, mei in prachtich beskildere plafond en in houten Jezusbyld dêr’t ik fan gûle moast. En net wist wêrom. Ik hearde dêrbûten, op in ferlitten pleintsje ek noch ien prachtich sello spyljen, wylst earne yn ’e fierte in keppel swarte skiep in heuvel ôfdraafde, op wei nei de stâl. Sa’n mannichte oan ferheven yndrukken twingt stilte ôf.

Al sa lang’t my heucht bin ik bûtenwenstich ynteressearre yn iten, drinken, priuwen en alles wat dêrmei te krijen hat. Ik jei op ultime priuwûnderfinings. Soms fyts ik de heale stêd ôf sykjend nei dy iene spesjale hazzenútoalje út de Piemonte, of besteegje ik dagen oan it meitsjen fan in yngewikkelde saus, dêr’t mear as tweintich – it leafst min te krijen – yngrediïnten foar nedich binne. Op fakânsjes yn it bûtenlân sjoch ik it measte út nei in besite oan de pleatslike supermerk. Mei deselde opwining dêr’t ik betiden in besite mei bring oan in museum, om’t ik wit dat dêr de keunstwurken hingje dy’t ik al jierren bewûnderje, kin ik in Spaanske supermercado yn rinne. Myn hert begjint flugger te slaan by it skap mei de fiskkonserven. Myn eagen glide lâns de kleurige, ambachtlik eagjende ferpakkingen. Moksels yn escabechemarinade, glêsieltsjes yn knyflok, inketfisk yn eigen inket, kokkels yn tomatesaus. Ik stel my foar hoe’t se smeitsje sille, hoe’t se der útsjen sille op myn board. Ik wol alle blikjes iepenmeitsje. Slút my mar op yn sa’n supermerk. Ik soe sliepe kinne yn in romte mei safolle soarten iten. Ik soe myn bêd spriede by de blikjes ansjofisk en potsjes oliven, my waarmje oan de 35 soarten oliifoalje, myn wang flije tsjin de farskbakte bôlen, my burgen fielen midden tusken al dy rokige hammen en ûnderskate soarten tsizen. Al dy ripe oandacht, leafde, histoarje, ambacht, waarmte. Ik wol deryn wenje.

Dizze leafde foar iten ha ik net fan hûs út meikrigen. It iten by ús thús ferrûn neffens itselde kâlde stramyn as de tsjerketsjinsten fan de grifformearde tsjerke dêr’t ik alle sneinen hinne moast. Ik learde al gau om sûnder protteljen ta my te nimmen wat my foarset waard, neffens in fêst ritueel, yn in foarskreaun tiidsbestek, middenmank de keppel. Om’t wy thús mei ús tsienen wienen, wie it jûnsiten net mear as in needsaaklik fiedingsmomint dat sa fluch en effisjint mooglik ôfhannele wurde moast. Us mem skylde alle middeis fjirtich oant fyftich ierappels, makke ien soarte griente klear en waarme it kofleis of de gehakballen op, dy’t oan it begjin fan ’e wike alfêst yn grutte hoemannichten gearstoofd wienen. It iten duorre sawat tsien minuten, ynklusyf bidden foarôf en bibellêzen plus tankbea neitiid.
Ik wraksele mei dit tiidskema. Doe’t ik lyts wie, boarte ik foaral mei myn iten. Ik prike de ierappels, lei de beantsjes der kreas omhinne, makke goatsjes foar de sjú, iet der in hapke fan en makke dan wer in nij lânskip. Us mem hie gjin each foar myn kreativiteit en foaral gjin geduld. As ik myn ierappels noch net op hie as it al tiid wie foar it neigesetsje, dan gie de yochert der gewoan oerhinne en ik mocht net fan tafel ear’t ik alles opiten hie. Ik kin my de smaak fan yochert, mei dêryn krommelige ierappels, de weeïge smaak fan blomkoal en de fette fleissjú, noch goed yn it sin bringe. En myn kokhalzjen. ‘Opite,’ sei ús mem.
Yn dy tiid hold it ferhaal út ’e bibel oer de sûndefal my nochal yn de besnijing. Adam en Eva libje lokkich yn it paradys, oant sy – dêrta ferlokke troch de duvel – ite fan in apel dy’t groeit oan ’e beam om te witten fan goed en kwea; de iennichste beam dêr’t God se fan ferbean hat om te iten. It iten fan ’e apel hat grutte gefolgen; Adam en Eva sjogge ynienen dat se neaken binne en wurde ferdreaun út it paradys.
Dit ferhaal rôp gâns fragen by my op. Wie it dan ‘sûndich’ om kennis te nimmen fan goed en kwea? Mochtst net it iene boppe it oare ferkieze? Waardst ûngelokkich fan it meitsjen fan ûnderskied?
Mei taknypte eagen brocht ik de foarke nei de mûle en negearre de byhearrende sensaasjes safolle mooglik; de iennichste wize om it miel troch te kommen.

Yn myn middelbereskoalletiid iet ik foar it earst by in freondintsje yn in oar doarp. Dêr ferrûn it iten hiel oars as by ús thús. Yn ’e keuken fan har âlden wie it gesellich, it rûkte der krûdich en eksoatysk en der mocht praat wurde ûnder iten. Ik krige selsmakke ierappel-preisop mei pofte knyflok en roastere hazzenuten. Har mem joech my der in partsje sitroen by dat ik deroer útparsje koe. ‘Mar allinnich ast it lekker fynst hear,’ sei se derby. Der stie biologyske bôle mei nuten en rezinen op tafel. Har âlden fregen oft ik it lekker fûn. Ja, ik fûn it hearlik. En oft ik ek in neigesetsje hawwe woe? ‘Graach,’ sei ik, myn hannen skruten yninoar teard op skurte. Ik blikte fluch even fansiden, nei myn freondinne. Se siet te iten as wie dit de gewoanste saak fan ’e wrâld.
In pear wiken letter naam se in heale rezinenutebôle foar my mei, fan har mem,  om’t ik dat sa lekker fûn hie. Ik bewarre it yn in laad fan myn buro, mei in stik brânnetteltsiis dat ik fan in oar freondintsje krigen hie, fan hár mem, om’t ik dat sa lekker fûn hie. Ik smokkele in mes mei nei myn keamer, snie plechtich in plakje fan ’e bôle en belei it mei de tsiis. Mei myn eagen ticht preau ik wat wûnderliks: it swiete sêfte fan rezinen, it knapperige ierdske fan de hazzenuten, it sâltige en rjemmige fan de tsiis, it gerzige en krûdige fan de brânnettel. Dêrnei burch ik it wer op yn myn buro. Der siet leafde yn dat laad, en dy wie fan my.
De geheime itenswaren yn myn laad liken yn de dagen dêrnei in waarm ljocht ôf te jaan. As ik jûns yn it tsjuster yn sliep besocht te kommen, ynsnuorre troch de fierste strak spande lekkens, tocht ik oan ’e rezinebôle en de brânnetteltsiis.
Wie dit faaks wat Adam en Eva ûnderfûnen, nei’t se iten hienen fan de ferbeane frucht? Waarden se ferdreaun út it paradys of fielden se har dêr net mear thús no’t se ûnderskied meitsje koenen tusken goed en kwea?
Iksels hie in oare, moaiere wrâld preaun en fielde my ynienen in ferdreaune op it plak dêr’t ik thúswêze moatte soe.
Wurdst dan ûngelokkich fan it meitsjen fan ûnderskied? Kinst dy in wrâld dy’t dy net oanstiet net eigen meitsje troch de yndrukken derfan safolle mooglik binnen komme te litten en dy ûnderfining sa eksakt mooglik besykje te tsjutten? Want priuwe is in moeting tusken dy en de wrâld. Krekt troch yndrukken ynkomme te litten kinst dysels ûnderskiede.
Sa waard de rezinebôle mei brânnetteltsiis myn beam fan ’e kennis fan goed en kwea. Myn thús wie gjin paradys, sa bliek, mar yn dat ferdreaun wêzen fûn ik it paad nei hûs.

Eating is incredibly intimate. You put something in your mouth and allow it into your body. There it causes all kinds of sensations and experiences, wanted and unwanted; you taste something familiar or something you don’t recognise, something original or rather dull, your body cries out for more, more of that one thing, or turns its back on the flavour in disappointment.
Occasionally, very occasionally, tasting leads to a more comprehensive, almost mystical experience. I once encountered this during a whisky tasting. A friend and I had already been walking around for a couple of hours in the large hall where the tasting was taking place, carrying our sampling glass from tap to tap, to try out as many whiskies as possible. ‘This one is delicious,’ we said. Or: ‘Hmm, aromatic!’ We tried to identify the difference between Japanese whisky (‘pretty good’), or whisky matured in port barrels (‘slightly sweet’), or whisky with seaweed (‘briny’). The more styles we tried, the deeper we had to descend within ourselves to distinguish the flavours. We found it increasingly difficult to describe the multiplicity of impressions. Descriptions now turned into: ‘Wow, there’s something happening here that I don’t entirely understand,’ or: ‘This one’s trying to enter without knocking’. Then we spat out the sample sip, so we wouldn’t grow foggy. We’d saved one particular stand for last. We counted our remaining cash and after a long while humming and harring we picked out a whisky for twenty euros a glass: thirty years old, Scottish, bottled in a very small batch. Cautiously we poked our noses into the glass, sniffed at it, rolled the fluid around and carefully took a sip.
We looked at one another. One of us was overcome with emotion. We said nothing more.
I don’t know what my companion experienced, but I was kissed by something that had been maturing for thirty years in a cellar in the Scottish highlands. I could suddenly picture myself in a really big old church, with a magnificently painted ceiling and a wooden statue of Jesus that made me cry. Without knowing why. Outside, in a deserted little square, I could also hear someone playing the cello beautifully, while somewhere in the distance a flock of black sheep ran down a hill, on their way to their stall. Such a multitude of elevated impressions instils silence.

As long as I can remember I have been disproportionately interested in eating, drinking, tasting and everything that goes along with those things. I chase after the ultimate tasting experience. Sometimes I cycle halfway round the city in search of that one special hazelnut oil from Piedmont, or spend days making a complicated sauce, requiring more than twenty ingredients – preferably items that are difficult to obtain. On holidays abroad I look forward most of all to a visit to the local supermarket. The excitement I sometimes feel visiting a museum, knowing it contains works of art I’ve admired for years, is the same as the excitement with which I walk into a Spanish supermercado. My heart beats faster as I near the shelf with the tinned fish. My eyes glide along the colourful, artisanal-looking packaging. Mussels in escabeche marinade, glass eels in garlic, squid in its own ink, cockles in tomato sauce. I imagine how they will taste, how they will look on my plate. I want to open all the tins.
Lock me up in a supermarket like that. I could sleep in a room with so many kinds of food. I would spread my bed next to the tins of anchovies and jars of olives, warm myself on the thirty-five varieties of olive oil, rub my cheek along the freshly baked loaves, feel sheltered among all those fragrant hams and different kinds of cheese. All that matured attention, love, history, craftsmanship, warmth. I’d like to live in it.

I didn’t develop my love for food from my upbringing. Meals in our home followed the same cold pattern as the services at the Reformed church I had to attend every Sunday. I soon learnt to take in what was put in front of me without grumbling, following a fixed ritual, in a prescribed timeframe, amidst the flock.
Since we were a family of ten, dinner was no more than a necessary feeding moment to be dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible. Every afternoon my mother peeled forty to fifty potatoes, prepared one kind of vegetable and reheated the ribs or meatballs that had already been stewed in large quantities at the start of the week. The meal lasted about ten minutes, including praying beforehand and Bible reading plus grace at the end.
I struggled with this timetable. When I was little, I mostly played with my food. I mashed the potatoes, placed the peas prettily around them, formed ducts for the gravy, ate a bite and then made a new landscape. My mother had no eye for my creativity, still less patience. If I hadn’t eaten my potatoes when it was time for dessert, then the yogurt was simply served on top and I wasn’t allowed to leave the table until I’d eaten everything. I still remember the taste of yogurt with crumbled potatoes in it, the faint flavour of cauliflower and greasy meat sauce. And my retching. ‘Eat up,’ said my mother.
In that time I was quite preoccupied with the Bible story of the fall of man. Adam and Eve live happily in paradise, until – tempted by the devil – they eat of an apple which grows on the tree of knowledge of good and evil; the only tree from which God has forbidden them to eat. Eating the apple has major consequences; Adam and Eve suddenly see that they are naked and are driven from paradise.
This story raised many questions for me. Was it ‘sinful’ to acquire knowledge of good and evil? Couldn’t you choose one over the other? Would it make you unhappy to distinguish between them?
Eyes tightly closed, I brought the fork to my mouth, ignoring the accompanying sensations as best I could; the only way to get through the meal.

While at secondary school, I ate at a friend’s house in another village for the first time. There the meal went very differently from at home. It was cosy in her parents’ kitchen, it smelt spicy and exotic and talking was permitted while eating. I was given homemade leek and potato soup with puffed garlic and roasted hazelnuts. Her mother gave me a lemon wedge to squeeze over it. ‘Only if you like it that way though,’ she added. There was organic bread with nuts and raisins on the table. Her parents asked if I was enjoying it. Yes, it was delicious. And would I like dessert? ‘Yes please,’ I said, my hands folded shyly in my lap. I stole a glance at my friend next to me. She sat there eating as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
A couple of weeks later she brought me half a loaf of raisin bread, from her mother, because I’d enjoyed it so much. I kept it in a drawer of my desk, along with a piece of nettle cheese I’d been given by another friend, by her mother, because I’d liked it so much. I smuggled a knife and cheese slicer to my room, reverently cut a slice of bread and topped it with cheese. Eyes closed, I tasted something wondrous: the soft sweetness of raisins, the crunchy earthiness of the hazelnuts, the salty creaminess of the cheese, the grassy herbal notes of the nettles. Then I hid it again in my desk. There was love in that drawer, and it was mine.
Over the days that followed, the secret food in my drawer seemed to emit a warm light. When I was trying to sleep in the evenings in the dark, hemmed in by excessively tightly stretched sheets, I thought of the raisin bread and nettle cheese.
Might that have been what Adam and Eve experienced, after they had eaten of the forbidden fruit? Were they banished from paradise, or did they no longer feel at home, now that they could distinguish between good and evil?
I myself had tasted another, more beautiful world, and suddenly felt uprooted from the place which should have been home.
Does distinguishing make you unhappy? Can’t you take ownership of a world that doesn’t please you by letting in impressions of it as much as possible and describing the experience as precisely as possible? For tasting is a meeting between yourself and the world. It is precisely by allowing impressions in that you can distinguish yourself.
Thus the raisin bread with nettle cheese became my tree of the knowledge of good and evil. My home was no paradise, it turned out, but in being uprooted I found my way home.

Foarme troch ûnderfinings dy’t altiten ûnbeneamd bleaun binne, wiene heit en mem der net gerêst op dat it libben yn Nederlân altiten itselde paad nimme soe. Nea giene se konkreet yn op oarsaken dy’t ús derta twinge kinne soene, it sei gewoanwei himsels dat de ûnleauwigen, dy’t wy íroemiën neamden, ús der op in dei út sette soene. Fan ’e klok mei ynboude muezzin, de brune jierrensantichhoekbank mei in donkergrien lekken deroerhinne om de slytplakken oan it sicht te ûntlûken, oant de kleurige keunstblommen dy’t út ’e parlemoeren fazen omheechstutsen, om mar net te swijen fan it glêswurk fan Marokkaanske makkelij dat yn ’e fitrine oerdiedich stie te blinken, alles wie healsliten en neat wie ús dierber. Of dochs wol?
Ik kin net mei wissichheid sizze dat de dingen barre om’t se dat kinne en net om’t se dat moatte, mar neffens Moes koe it net oars as dat men earder of letter krekt dêr rekke wurdt dêr’t men it kwetsberst is.

We wennen yn in rychjeshûs mei oan ’e iene kant in tsiental identike huzen en oan ’e oare kant in fiiftal fan deselde huzen. De gevels hienen in monumintaal oansjoch troch de betonnen kolommen en lateien dêr’t se op rêsten, de grutte skeane dakken skeaten fan de wenkeamer oan ’e túnkant ûnder in hoeke fan fiifenfjirtich graden strak it loftrom yn, op ’e stjerren ta. Heit wie krekt nei boppen gien om himsels ree te meitsjen foar de jûnsbea, doe’t de doarbel trijeris gie. Mem en Moes wienen krekt yn in diskusje tangele oer wa’t no wat gizele hie, it folk it leauwe of it leauwe it folk. Mem lake derom, hertlik en sûnder ferwyt, sa’t se wol faker die by de dingen dy’t har earstberne bewearde, dêrnei sei se dat ik mar efkes sjen moast wa’t der oanbelle.
Dêr stie in man, yn in grize oerjas dy’t him oant op ’e knibbels kaam, mei yn ’e rjochterhân in brúnlearen tas. Achter him ljochte it miggelige healtsjuster op troch strjitlampen dy’t ien foar ien oansprongen. ‘Is jim heit of mem ek thús, jongkeardel?’ Hy seach der net yndrukwekkend út, al wie er hiel lang.
‘Hoesa?’ frege ik.
‘As ynspekteur fan ’e Keninklike PTT Nederlân bin ik belêste mei it útfieren fan in regionaal ûndersyk nei it beteljen fan sjochjild. Past it as ik der efkes yn kom?’
Ik maneuvele dat er even wachtsje moast en liet de doar op in kierke stean – in iepening fan sa’n tsien sintimeter, miskien noch wat minder. De doar hielendál tichtdwaan wylst m’near stie te wachtsjen, wie ûnbeleefd. Hy soe miene kinne dat er net wolkom wie en dat wie net goed. Mar ik moast ek soargje dat er der net in útnûging yn sjen soe, en dochs wie dat krekt wat barde. Sûnder ôfwachtsjen slûpte er as in dief nei binnen ta.
Noch ear’t mem freegje koe wa’t der oanbelle hie, sloech ik alarm: ‘In ároemi! Hy stiet al yn ’e gong! Hy is sels de hûs ynkaam!’
Mar ús mem sei: ‘Hearken, lit dy man der dan hielendál yn komme! Lit him plaknimme yn ’e wenkeamer, dan set ik tee.’
Syn oanwêzigens fielde fuort frjemd oan, fûn ik. Miskien kaam it troch syn lingte. De húskeamer like derfan te krimpen. En dan noch te betinken dat er himsels suver in heale meter koarter makke, wat men by lange lju wol mear sjocht as se ûnder minsken komme dy’t net sa lang binne.
‘Soe ik even fan jo húske gebrûk meitsje meie?’ frege er.
Moes lei freonlik út dat m’near efkes wachtsje moast. De wc boppe wie beset troch ús heit, en de oare, hjir yn ’e gong, wie stikken. ‘Der is wat mei de stoartbak. Kom mar mei, dan lit ik it jo sjen.’
De ynspekteur toande ús syn hiele repertoire oan freonlike gebearten om sjen te litten dat er ús leaude, mar op syn bar koe Moes der gjin twifel oer bestean litte dat wy fatsoenlik folk wienen. ‘Sjoch’, sei er, wylst er stie te roppen oan in toutsje dat oan ’e stoartbak hinge, ‘hy docht it net. Jo moatte dus net tinke dat ik liich of sa.’
M’near de ynspekteur skodde de holle en lake mei alle foarkommendheid dy’t syn lange liif opbringe koe. ‘Nochris, ik ha gjin reden om oan te nimmen dat jo lige. Ik kontrolearje telefyzjes en gjin wc’s,’ sei er.
It wie myn taak om myn broer te assistearjen, dat ik wiisde ús gast in plak op ’e bank om sitten te gean. Wylst er romte foar de skonken socht, frege er: ‘Jo binne Turksk?’
‘Sis mar “do”,’ korrizjearre Moes selsfersekere, wylst hy en ik ús bêst dienen om de tafel in pear sintimeter fan de bank ôf te krijen. ‘En wy binne net Turksk, wy binne Marokkaansk.’
‘Marokkaansk. En hoe lang wenje jim al yn Nederlân?’
‘Goed fiif jier.’
‘Dan kinsto knap Nederlânsk prate!’
‘Is dat in komplimint?’ woe Moes fuortdaalk witte.
‘Jawis.’
Moes skodholle minlik en sei: ‘Ik fyn fan net.’
Der foel in stilte. De ynspekteur gie der net daalk op yn, as woe er earst by himsels neigean wat er niis eins heard hie. Hy wie oprjocht ynteressearre, mar Moes krige er net goed hichte fan. Hie er no te krijen mei in jong sjeny of mei in jeuzelkont? Op ’t lêst frege er: ‘Wêrom eins net, as ik freegje mei?’
‘It is gewoan in maklike taal, fyn ik. Wa’t seit dat Nederlânsk dreech is, dy wit gewoan net wat dreech is. Neffens my is gjin libbene taal sa dreech dat men der fiif jier foar nedich hat, al hielendal net as it in taal is dêr’t men yn wennet en opgroeit. Wy binne hjir opgroeid en wy ha yn ien jier Nederlânsk leard. Witte jo hokker taal oft dreech is? De taal fan ’e Koran. Dat is no werklik in taal dêr’t men fan sizze kin: “Oei, dreech!”’
En ik tocht: Oei, dêr gean we wer! Sa’t MacGyver yn de telefyzjesearje fan dyselde namme in satellyt optúcht mei in Switsersk bûsmes en in paperclip, sa koe Moes elts petear yn in tel ombûgje nei in spotske ferhanneling oer godstsjinst. Héarlik fûn er dat.
De man hinge achteroer, sloech foarsichtich de iene skonk oer de oare en frege hiel geleard: ‘Komt soks faaks troch it feit dat de taal fan de Koran net mear yn ’e swang is?’
Moes knikte. ‘Ik ha noait witten wat ik sei ûnder it bidden. Miskien frege ik God wol om de ferneatiging fan alle ûnleauwigen, wist ik folle!’ Hy lake.
De ynspekteur frege troch: ‘En jim heit en mem dan? Hoe stean sy deryn?’
‘Jo bedoele oft se moslims binne? Fanséls binne se moslims, wy binne ek moslims!’
‘Kinne se lêze en skriuwe?’
Moes sei gjin ja en gjin nee. ‘De Koran is gjin lêsboek, lykas de Bibel. De iennige en lêste oersetting fan ’e Koran dy’t ik sels lêzen ha wie in kadootsje fan in moskee yn De Haach, dêr’t ik jierren lyn op besite wie om’t ik meidie oan in resytkriich foar bern. – Jo witte wat dat is, in resytkriich? Dat is in soart wedstryd wêrby’t minsken de Koran sa moai mooglik besykje te resitearjen, op in sjongerige wize. Mar yn ’e ynlieding fan dy oersetting nimme de oersetters harsels foar om allerhanne misferstannen út ’e wrâld te helpen, se behannelje allegearre fragen en dat dogge se frij knap. Op ’e fraach wêrom’t der ferskate godstsjinsten binne wylst der mar ien God is, skriuwe sy: Om’t der doe noch gjin telefoan, radio of telefyzje wie.’ Moes sette grutte eagen op ear’t er himsels hurd op ’e knibbels sloech fan it laitsjen.
De ynspekteur frege: ‘Do fynst dat ûnsin?’
‘Fanséls fyn ik dat ûnsin. Minsken dogge fan alles om oars te wêzen, krekt op de plakken dêr’t se mei-inoar libje moatte. Kristenen skowe de joaden de skuld fan de krusiging fan Kristus yn ’e skuon en gean sneins te bidden yn stee fan sneons. In pear iuwen letter roppe moslims de freeds út ta de dei fan God. Joaden, kristenen, moslims, se komme allegearre út deselde sânbak. En dan ha ik it noch net iens oer al dy subkultueren fan al dat jongfolk hjoed-de-dei, dat him ôfset tsjin alles wat boargerlik of mainstream is.’
De ynspekteur knikte ynstimmend. As in kannibaal dy’t fan syn meiminske yt om wat fan dy syn krêften binnen te krijen, sa friet er de wurden fan myn broer, mei earen en eagen. It klikte.
‘Binne jo kristlik?’ frege Moes.
‘Grifformeard,’ ferdútste de man. ‘Mar ik ha it grifformeerde leauwe altiten hiel tsjuster en deprimearjend fûn. Ik bin der eins altiten noch wol wat bang fan. Ik fyn it sa bysûnder datsto mei sokke spotlust oer dyn leauwe fertelle kinst.’
Op dat stuit sette ús mem ús in tsjinblêd fan fergroomd metaal foar, mei dêr in sierlike Marokkaanske teepot, trije kleurige teegleskes en in skaaltsje koekjes op. Doe ferdwûn se wer yn ’e keuken. Wylst Moes de gleskes folle en ik it skaaltsje mei koekjes foarhold, bekende m’near dat er noch net earder sa iepenhertich te wurd stien wie troch Marokkaanske minsken. Alhiel út it neat frege er:
‘Jo binne yn ’t besit fan in telefyzje?’

Fjouwer jier nei ús oankomst yn dit lân krigen we lang om let in telefyzje. Myn broer en ik wienen bliid en optein, mar ek wer net sá bliid en optein. Ommers, elk dy’t wy koenen hie al lang en breed in telefyzje, guon Marokkanen hienen sels al in djoere Philips kleuretelefyzje yn ’e hûs, ek al wiene se letter nei Nederlân kaam as ús. Us telefyzje wie healsliten, swartwyt en fan in B-merk dat nimmen koe. Oprjochte blydskip, strieljende grutskens en weardichheid fielden wy pas in pear moannen letter, doe’t ús heit thúskaam mei in twaddehâns VHS-fideorecorder fan Sony en in fideokassette mei de film al-Risala derop. Dat wie in epyske film oer it ûntstean fan de islam en yn it bysûnder oer Hamza, dy’t in neef fan de profeet Mohammed wie en boppedat in nommel kriichsman. As hienen we in suske krigen, sa útskroeven wienen we. Us heit en mem seagen ek mei. Alle jûnen sieten we foar de telefyzje. Famylje, freonen en kunde út ’e buert, ynklusyf de Nederlânske buorlju, dêr’t we net in soad kontakt mei hiene mar dy’t we mei Marokkaanske koekjes en dadels te freon holden, om’t hja no ienris buorlju wienen, de hiele wrâld wie wolkom om del te kommen en mei te sjen, yn ’e folop te genietsjen fan de heechsteande Hamza en syn nommele, ûnbaatsuchtige striid foar de islam.
Moes wie al oereinkaam om se sjen te litten, de swartwyttelefyzje en – sûnder dat derom frege wie – de film, doe’t ús heit de keamer yn kaam. ‘Wa is jim gast?’ frege er, mei de rook fan muskus.
Moes lei út wa’t dit wie en wat er hjir die: m’near wie wie in amtner dy’t witte woe hoe’t ús telefyzje derút seach. En wêrom hie m’near dan sa’n belangstelling foar ús telefyzje, frege heit doe. Moes sei dat er dat net krekt wist, mar dat it nei alle gedachten wat mei syn wurk as ynspekteur te krijen hie. Wat ús heit sûnder wifkjen op de man tarinnen die, mei de wurden: ‘Wy gjin telefyzje. Asjeblyft, wy moslims.’ Syn earm en wiisfinger lieten der gjin misferstân oer bestean hokker kant oft de man op moast: de doar út. ‘Fuort!’
‘As moslim meie jo net lige, m’near,’ wist de ynspekteur. Want de telefyzje stie yn ’e kast tsjin de muorre en dêr stie er al fan it momint ôf dat we ’m yn ’e hûs helle hiene, tegearre mei de fideorecorder. Koest ’m net sjen troch it skodoarke fan it telefyzjemeubel, mar men koe jin wol yntinke dat er dêr stie, en dat die de ynspekteur dus ek.
Lykwols, der wie gjin wet of lear dy’t fereaske dat in telefyzje yn it dêrta ornearre kompartimint fan de wandkast stean moatte soe en heit hold de finger stiif op de foardoar rjochte. ‘Fuort!’
‘Earst wol ik sjen wat der achter dat skodoarke sit, m’near.’
Heit liet neat fan him easkje, net wêr’t wy by wienen en net yn syn eigen hûs. ‘Fuort!’ sei er wer. ‘Dizze myn hûs, net dyn hûs, do hufter!’ En sa treau er de ynspekteur stap foar stap de doar út, de rein yn.

‘Ik sis it jim earlik,’ begûn heit om de earnst fan wat no komme soe te ûnderstreekjen. We sieten om ’e tafel dêr’t Moes ik noch net in oere lyn mei de ynspekteur sitten hiene as hie it in omke west. Der baarnde ljocht boppe ús, mar der wie gjin ljocht. De wenkeamer, ús wenkeamer, bleau tsjuster en kâld, as wie ús hûs ús hûs net. ‘Ik sis it jim earlik: hie it oan my lein, dat hiene we dat ding net yn ’e hûs helle. Hy soarget foar problemen. Dat ha ik altiten al sein, mar jim woene net harkje. En wêrom woene jim net harkje? Jim woene Maradonna sjen. Mar wat ha we oan fuotbal as we dea binne? Miene jim soms dat de Ivige ús aanst freget om in baltsje heech te hâlden? Ik fied jim dochs net op om ûnwittend te wêzen? En, nee, it giet my der net om dat ik gelyk ha, want ik sis it jim earlik: ik soe leaver ûngelyk ha. Of miene jim noch altiten dat telefyzje sa ûnskuldich is?
Telefyzje is tydlik. Maradonna is tydlik. Us libben op dizze wrâld is tydlik. We sille hoe dan ek út ’e dea opwekt wurde om rekkenskip ôf te lizzen foar wat we yn it libben dien ha. As de ingels fan ’e dea freegje wat jim yn it libben dien ha, wat is dan jim antwurd?’
Doe kamen ek noch syn boaze geboaden:

1) ‘Nimmen wurdt tenei de hûs yn litten, útsein goekunde fan de famylje.’
2) ‘De doarbel wurdt útskeakele. It moat dien wêze mei dat allerûnhuerichste gerinkel. De minsken moatte mar oanklopje, krekt as earder.’
3) ‘Allinne ik, jimme heit, doch de doar tenei iepen. As ik der net bin om iepen te dwaan, dan Moesa. As hy der ek net is, dan Salam. As ik, Moesa en Salam der allegeare net binne, dan bliuwt de doar ticht.’
4) ‘Jimme mem is it net tastien om de doar iepen te dwaan, want op har swakke skouders rêst de eare fan it hûs.’
5) ‘En de telefyzje giet net mear oan. Kwea is er yn wat er sjen lit, en kwea is er yn syn ferbrûk fan stroom, en stroom kostet jild.’

Aldergeloks wie mem al begûn mei it útsprieden fan it grutte gebedskleed oer de flier. Se liet heit rêstich útprate en sei doe dat er ús mar foargean moast, wat er ek die. Moes ik giene doe achter him stean en mem naam plak achter ús. Mei-inoar bidde wie soenna, oanrekommandearre, sa’t it ek soenna wie om lekker lang te bidden. Moes hie der it mier oan as heit fan dy lange teksten resitearre, mar ik fûn it moai. Einliks rêst!