ALS: 'Sprookje'

15.11 fairytale

This week things were very busy at the cheesemonger’s market stall. I stood for some time behind two seasoned gentlemen who to my surprise were talking about the omnipotence or impotence of God. The weather was bleak, windless, a pale, weak sun. One of the men I knew vaguely – a GP. The other was unfamiliar, but I could see he was cultivated and wealthy. The GP said: ‘When in doubt, I choose God.’ The other one replied:

that was possible until 1945. It then emerged that millions of people had been annihilated. God had permitted this, the Almighty had not intervened. In 1945 it became clear that ever since his coming into being he had been a fairytale. Since then, I regard belief as a crime.

I was surprised that this was a topic of conversation in the thronging row of people at a market stall. I saw that a couple of lone old ladies were shuffling uneasily, and were considering following the urge of their feet – no cheese this week, then. Later though I saw small groups of cheese-buyers eagerly attacking each other and I gradually realised that religious strife had always existed amongst believers: the Hook and Cod Wars of medieval Holland, Catholics and Protestants, Shiites and Sunnis. But this time outsiders were also involved, unbelievers – and that is really something quite different.

Frans August Brocatus: 'While the other flowers...'

Terwijl de andere bloemen toekeken

zag ik met bijna dichtgeknepen ogen

hoe de klimrozen leken te smelten.

Ik hield mijn adem in en volgde twee

blinkende torretjes op de rand van de waterput,

ze aarzelden, waren ineens  verdwenen.

Onder de bomen stuurde ik de schaduwen weg

en ik tekende in een plots ontstane plas van licht

het pas gevonden nest van een winterkoninkje.

While the other flowers looked on

I saw with almost half-closed eyes

how the rambling roses seemed to melt.

I held my breath and followed two

tiny beetles on the rim of the well,

they hesitated, had suddenly disappeared.

Under the trees I sent away the shadows

and I drew in a suddenly created splash of light

the newly found nest of a winter wren.

ALS: 'Noorse oppas'

12.11 norwegian babysitter

In 1986, Nico Scheepmaker hears a story about a girl that was frightened by a malicious Norwegian babysitter who tells her that each human being is only granted a limited amount of voice during his or her lifetime, and that you thus end up with a shortage of voice if you talk too much. The story seems familiar to Scheepmaker, he has read it somewhere only recently. He searches in his impenetrable room full of books, files and loose papers – metres high. He is obsessed by the story of the girl and her Norwegian babysitter. He is quite sure he has read it not more than two days previously. He looks in all his books, newspapers and files of the last two days. Finally, he suddenly recalls Conversations with Jean Piaget, the famous Swiss child psychologist. Apparently, Piaget has a room just like Scheepmaker’s, he says to his interviewer: ‘As you know, Bergson has established that disorder simply does not exist! There are only two types of order: geometrical order and vital order. My order is clearly vital!’

The interviewer asks if he is actually able to find anything in that utter shambles. Piaget says: ‘If you have to search, you search. That takes up less time that tidying every day.’

The interviewer asks: ‘But what if the room is cleaned?’

Answer: ‘This room is never cleaned!

‘Never?’ ‘Never!’

‘But your wife?...’ ‘She is kind enough to leave it alone!’

I have no proof, but think that Nico Scheepmaker has probably frequently searched through his chock-a-block room for the girl and her babysitter. With the support of Bergson’s two kinds of order and Piaget’s certainty that no cleaning will ever take place.

ALS: 'Wolf'

17.09 wolf

Yesterday morning around sunrise I was splitting the day’s portion of firewood. More or less by chance I was wearing boots with steel toecaps. Luckily for me, for when the axe broke, the heavy head ended up on my foot – no injury. My first reaction was indignation, fury even. Strange, I ought to have been glad I hadn’t been wounded. Earlier in the week I had also met with setbacks. Two of my five chickens had died. I’d seen it coming – they were old birds. In my chicken coop the most frequent cause of death is a fox or polecat – old age is a rarity. Active perpetrators have my preference, with old age it’s hard to feel indignation, only resignation, a dull feeling. Finally, someone had made a dent in my car in the parking lot. It was a respectable citizen, his card was stuck behind a windscreen-wiper. Even here I felt dissatisfied, I’d much rather have groused about an unknown perpetrator.

These three incidents – the splitting axe, old age, the dent – completely vanished at the pleasure I felt this morning when I read in the newspaper that a wolf from Germany had killed two sheep near a small village in East Groningen. After this act of nature, it had returned to Germany. The name of the village is Hungry Wolf.

zkv92

ZKV92

lacunae

‘Your head’s like a sponge,’ ma says. I never know if this is a compliment, that it sucks up information at an impressive rate, or a criticism, that the holes in it are so large that information passes through without a squeeze.

I’ve done a lot of squeezing over the years. I have seven language systems to keep functional. The magnificent seven. No room for any more. Hasn’t been for years. They are my stalwart band of wayward warriors under their English commander. If the commander forgets a word, they can provide a clue. Or rather a clew, to lead me through the maze.

I’ve just seen the first boat in this year’s single-handed boat race, Silverrudder Challenge, pass by on the sound. Half an hour later another comes past. Rush hour.

I want the Danish word. It refuses to come. I try to latch onto the word in the other languages. Lacunae. Holes. Desertion. I’ve been monoglotted.

I sit still. Breathe slowly and deeply. I see rowing boats, those we could hire as kids and sail for half an hour on the pond. We would be called in when our time is up: ‘Come in Number 3!’ One by one the boats come in, their names alongside their numbers on the prow: myldretid, rusningstid, rushtid, Spitzenzeit, spitsuur, heure de pointe.

‘Time for tea,’ ma says.

zkv91

ZKV91

ibsen à la carte

On 18 July 1970, Clive Barnes wrote a review in The New York Times on two interpretations of ‘Hedda Gabler’ by Henrik Ibsen – by Miss Worth (in Ontario) and Miss Smith (in London). He found them extremely different but equally valid. The latter was directed by Ingmar Bergman, whose interpretation ‘eloquently scales down the play to a point where heroism is an illusion and tragedy a lapse of good manners’. Bergman’s ‘total concern is the sad littleness of life’. No heroics, no passion, like that of the Hedda played by Miss Worth. ‘Miss Smith is something both more wary and more vulnerable. She is suburban rather than patrician […] and there is a dry bitterness, a kind of sad humor, to her portrayal that in context is both sardonic and pathetic.’

It sounds convincing, but it wasn’t quite the case. I know. I was there in London. And saw Miss Smith in action – Miss Maggie still-going-strong Smith, to be more precise. She was electric on stage, dominating it by refusing to do so. And since I was brought up to believe that ‘heroism is an illusion and tragedy a lapse of good manners’, I was surprised that I could be so convinced by any play whatsoever, with my built-in distrust of ‘theatricals’. More means less if a concert by one classical guitarist on stage seems more powerful than a symphony orchestra at full throttle. Bergman took liberties with Ibsen, because he had his own obsessions and demons he wanted to get across. Miss Smith did the job.

ALS: 'Ontheffing'

17.05 exemption

I talk to the fluorescent man about exemption. His clothes are luminous, he can be seen from a great distance, he is entitled to exemption. In our neighbourhood, the secondary road N436 is being serviced, all motorised traffic has fallen silent – where there was always a din, everything has gone quiet. All the intersections are being watched over by luminous men and a single woman. I am a local resident – the term residential exemption applies to me. While I talk to the man about his family, where he lives and his mother, I realise for the first time that striving to gain exemption is of great importance in our kind of society. An official invalid does not have to pay parking money. A policeman has discretionary powers – in specific instances he is allowed to act as he sees fit. If you deal in apples, you eat apples. A car comes along, the controller makes his excuses, he opens the barrier, there is a woman behind the wheel, she delivers newspapers, she is allowed to cross the N436. He explains to me that a newspaper is a vital necessity, it is entitled to exemption. I ask him who decides that. His answer is: I do. A quarter of an hour later, the next car comes along, I see to my dismay a Polish number plate. I see him listen to the driver, he shakes his head, his lips do not move. The car turns round and drives back again. The man comes over to me again, he says without a trace of triumphalism: foreigners, I couldn’t understand them. That’s how it is – anyone who can’t be understood won’t get exemption.

ALS: 'De strik'

22.03 the noose

Le danger du succès, c’est qu’il nous fait oublier l’effroyable injustice du monde.

Il ne faut pas croire que la paresse soit inféconde. On y vit intensement, comme un lièvre qui écoute.

Le lièvre se blottit dans la haie, regarde les chiens dépistés et, tout à coup, sent que quelque chose le serre à la gorge: le collet.

the danger of success is that it causes us to forget the frightful injustice of the world.

So wrote Jules Renard on 13 January 1908 in his journal. When I read this, I happened to have a friend who had invented something which led to his becoming rich. I knew that he used that money to support people who had been devastated by some frightful injustice. On the quiet, he didn’t advertise the fact.

That same day, Renard wrote:

one would be wrong to think that laziness is unproductive. In such a state one lives intensely, like an alertly listening hare.

It occurs to me that I never see a hare any more. As I sit at table, I look outside across a large expanse of land. Earlier I often used to see hares frolicking, running, leaping over each other, lying there deathly still – that’s all over. No one is able to explain to me how this has come about, I can’t even blame the hunter, for there isn’t one. No hare, no hunter.

I leaf a bit through the journal. On 8 September 1907 he writes:

the hare snuggles up in the hedge, keeps an eye on the hounds that have lost the scent and, suddenly, feels something seize it by the throat: the noose.

A.L. Snijders: 'Tachtig'

11.01tachtig

In Woerden I am reading aloud short stories for eighty women in a small room – I’m the only man. I’ve been invited by the Woerden branch of the Dutch Association of Housewives, which has been in existence for eighty-five years. I’m well-prepared, I start with a story about a young man who is lying in his antique boat in a harbour that is designed for this type of boat. In a similar craft alongside is a female neighbour – they look at each other through the portholes. Her husband notices this, his jealousy is not destructive, in such a case he exerts himself a little more in matters of the heart. Not in vain – he regains pride of place. He cannot relax, however, for the neighbour is still there. But precisely this neighbour is content, for he is fond of women who are faithful. The housewives also approve, for all eighty of them clap their hands.

In the interval it would appear that I have been mistaken – only seven-nine have done the clapping. The one exception comes up to me in the interval and asks if I can’t pep things up a bit. After the interval, I have a story about a religious community in the Nevada desert. A strictly observant Buddhist couple live there in a plain tipi. One evening a tarantula enters the tent, the size of a hefty male fist. The woman is paralysed with fright, she mouths to her husband: ‘Kill it!’ He does not do so, she knows as well as he does that the whole of creation is sacred, that the taking of a life is the worst possible sin. The following day, she annuls their marriage. Now all the housewives clap. I can hear it – this time it really is all eighty of them.

Martinus Nijhoff: 'Mozart'

MOZART

The early sunlight quivers in each cypress,

Drifts like a long blond shadow through the grass

And, shivering, streams through high panes of glass,

Brightening the boudoir of the greying countess.

Each day's the same as that which has just yielded,

– Hear the bird trill above her though confined –

Once more her styled, white-powdered head's inclined

Over bright-tinted needlework, fine-gilded. 

At always the same hour someone's admitted

Who bows in silence and sits down to play,

And from the faint spinet's old heart each day

A tired sonata's faded scent's emitted.

Over the yellow keys she sees hands stalking,

– The themes expire yet constantly revive –

And through a window views the bridge, the drive,

The tiny coaches, those who are out walking. 

To see the original poem, go to here