While my mother was visiting me in the quarantine barracks for TBC patients, where I was hospitalised I asked her: ‘Why doesn't daddy ever come?
‘He has to work. You know that, don't you?’
‘Yes, but not in the weekends, does he?
‘Daddy loves fishing. And he wants to watch Ajax play football on Sundays.’
He visited me once or twice. Once when it was my birthday. He grabbed a chair, sat by the foot end of my bed and stayed put. He pinched my foot. ‘There, you old geezer,’ he said, ‘yet another year .‘
My mother started crying when he said that.
‘I don't need those alms,’ my father shouted out. ‘Have him me pay a proper price.’ It was about coal that had been delivered. My mother had closed my bedroom door because of the dust. I could hear everything from my bed. There were men walking to and from the front door to the hall cupboard that gave access to the basement via a hatch. That’s how they brought in the coal, enough for the entire winter, my mother said. I had been home for a few weeks. I had been cured of the contagious disease. Every now and then I was allowed to get out of bed, walk to the toilet while holding my mother's hand and eat yoghurt, brown bread and fruit for lunch in the living room. My mother wanted it that way because I often spilled my food and she had better things to do than change my bed linen.
I didn't like being in the room. Either my brother and sister were arguing or I wasn't allowed to say anything because they had to do their homework. They would sit there with a pen in their mouth, looking outside because they were thinking. My bedroom was the place for my books. That's where I could read about Bolke de Beer. He had a chain with a big iron ball attached to his leg. He had been taken prisoner and had to perform in a circus. If he didn't, then he was beaten. I kept looking at the picture, the big sad head of a bear. I was halfway finished.
‘Then ask for a rise,’ my mother shouted. ‘You're afraid of your own brother-in-law.’
‘Get lost, woman,’ my father shouted, ‘your family treats me like shit.’
‘Tell him,’ my mother shouted, ‘go to him and tell him how you feel, then you're a man.’
‘Do you think it makes any difference? You're even more stupid than I thought. That show-off would rather wait for you to come begging. Then he can be the rich brother with his damn coal and money to buy clothes for the boy.’
‘Leave the boy out of this,’ my mother shouted. ‘You’ve let him down all this time. You never went to see him. Never.’
‘I've seen enough death and suffering.’ My father sounded different all of a sudden, as if he was saying something nobody would believe. ‘It's killing me. You can't understand it. You'll never understand it.’
I heard the front door slam shut .
That evening my father came to me and sat by me on the edge of my bed. He had brought a sketchbook. ‘Do you want to see what I drew?’ he asked.
‘You were arguing, weren't you?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Sometimes your mother and I argue. Don't worry about it too much. It always passes.’ He showed me a drawing of my mother with a flower in her hair.
‘She's beautiful,’ I said, ‘like a princess.’
‘A goddess,’ my father said, ‘your mother is my goddess’.
My father celebrated his birthday on Sunday. My mother had made a little bed on the couch in the living room. ‘That way you can be here,’ she said.
‘Then they won't be here and in your bedroom all the time,’ my father said.
Halfway through the afternoon my uncle, the owner of the factory my father worked at, stopped by. He came with aunt Sophie, a nice woman with a posh voice.
‘We can only stay for a little while,’ my uncle said. ‘Because of the dogs.’
‘Don't be ridiculous,’ my aunt said. ‘We've only just arrived. The dogs have waited before.’
They gave my father a book: The way to making friends and having good relationships. My uncle had written something in the front, with big letters. My uncle had poor eyesight and used a magnifying glass to read and he wasn't allowed to drive a car. ‘Out of friendship and for instruction,’ he had written.
After dinner a few women, colleagues of my father's dropped by. They worked at the packing department. They laughed about the book. ‘I'll put it in the toilet,’ my father said. 'I'll use it when I can't poop.’
‘Godfried means well,’ my mother said. ‘You may even learn something from it.’
‘I'm not going to learn anything from your family,’ my father said. 'I'd rather they pay me a decent salary.' I asked my father what he did for a living.
‘Your own son doesn't even know?’ a tall woman with bright red lips asked. ‘You’re not ashamed of your job, are you?‘ She leaned forward and then ran her hand through what little hair was left on my father's head.
My father walked out of the room and came back with a pack of coffee. There was always a supply in the back of the kitchen cabinet. My mother would sometimes sell a pack to the neighbours or give one to the milkman who stopped by with his cart every day.
My father opened the pack and took out a handful of beans. ‘These beans are naturally green and I make them go brown,’ he said. He threw one of the beans into the shirt of the woman sitting opposite him.
‘Have another shot,’ she shouted and she pulled down her collar.
‘I don't want any coffee yet,’ the tall colleague yelled.
The women laughed out loud.
My brother and sister grabbed beans and tried to throw them into the glass of fruit juice standing on a table next to me.
‘Stop that immediately,‘ my mother yelled.
My father went to the kitchen and came back with another bottle of wine.
My father and mother were in the corridor and woke me up.
‘You let me down again,’ my father hissed.
‘Shut up,’ my mother exclaimed. ‘Think of the children. They have heard enough filthy talk for one day. Go to the factory sluts. They really like you, don't they?’
‘They’re not sluts,’ my father said. ‘They’re decent women.’
A little while later I heard them giggling.
‘You need to wash your feet first,’ my mother said.
‘Tomorrow is Liberation Day,’ my mother said. ‘I’ll take you to Middenweg. There will be a parade with music. Tonight we’ll be quiet for a few minutes to remember the people who died during the war.’
It was night and I had to pee. I heard somebody sobbing in the room. I peeked around the corner. I saw my dad on the floor, a shadow in the dark, the room was filled with smoke from his cigarettes.
‘What's wrong, dad?’ I asked and crawled towards him in the dark.
‘Bombs,’ he said, ‘bombs everywhere. Cologne is burning.’
Suddenly my mother was behind me. She sighed. ‘Does it never end?’ she said. ‘Off to bed, both of you.’
‘I'm so afraid,’ my father said.
