Joris Iven: 'Je ging de verkeerde richting uit...'

 

YOU WENT IN THE WRONG DIRECTION…

 

To Katherina M.

 

My father has asked me to send you his prayer card.

I have often followed in his footsteps, also when he

visited you. One afternoon, we spent

a whole afternoon lazing around

in Brasserie Le Soleil,

sipping at our glasses, playing billiards, phoning.

Hell has a past, it has a name

and a face.

It lies down at te end of the A604,

on the other side of the Maas,

turn right, exit Boverie.

Everything is grey there, the sky, the hills, the houses. Clouds of smoke

rise up from cooling towers and storage tanks. Chimneys, electricity masts,

antenna towers have dropped down in the city like arrows of god. The sombre

Cockerill Sambre. You wandered in the poverty of textile workshops,

collapsed roofs, smashed windows. You dreamt

you were far away in Las Vegas. The lorries that left the Lager

were chock-full. Young men, emaciated bodies, ravaged hearts.

Fremdarbeiter, Fremdkörper. You did not want to travel with them.

You came all the way here from Kassel on your own, you went

in the wrong direction, and you didn’t

go quite far enough.

We made the wrong decisions,

Kathya, we made the wrong decisions.

You ended up stranded

on the Place des Tourterelles.

Couldn’t you have found some other spot in the whole world, you lame-winged

turtle dove? I see you standing with this letter, this card, in your hand,

six floors up, by the window. In your field of vision

grey barracks of natural stone, trash cans, willow trees,

rusty playground gear. A bent old woman goes inside,

a daughter unloads shopping from her car. The square is deserted.

The wind decides the rhythm of the rain. Droplets stick to the glass

for a moment,

and then slide slowly off.

The panes go misty.

You recall

that afternoon with my father.

Years of searching, tossing and turning and not being able to sleep

fill the room. A shaft of light falls in –

and explodes in the glass chandelier

above the table.

On the cabinet the photo of your likeness trembles. No one says

anything about a daughter, a walking stick, a hearing aid.

It was that damn brain haemmorhage that crippled you.

You feel giddy, even when lying down.

You have arthritis.

Your gestures slow down.

I give you a cigarette

and you say:

this is all I need.

 

To see the original, go to 'Onderdak', Parnassusreeks · 23, pp. 104-105