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Authors: Carla Van Raay
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boy, her fifth gift from God. We could see the storks up on the rooftops, standing on large untidy legs, looking out over the neighbourhood. Plenty of room for babies in their nests. Storks delivered babies hanging in nappies from their beaks.
The soldiers looked tired, but were filled with the excitement of going home. They were surely dreaming of the welcome that awaited them. The carriage was crammed full and the smell of woollen khaki uniforms was not unpleasant. I was enjoying sitting in the middle of this welter of male energy. It was when one of the soldiers caught my eye that I began to falter. He gave me an affectionate look, no doubt thinking that here was a Dutch child for whom he had fought the war; in seeing me he found a reason to justify the awfulness he had been through. I could feel his friendliness and good intentions, but I couldn’t stop the blush, as livid as the shame that lived in my innermost being, from spreading across my cheeks and face. I was wretched. I couldn’t bear to look around and longed to get off the train.
I HAD A Jekyll-and-Hyde father, but my mother had several sides to her also and her moods generally set the feeling of the house. What especially redeemed her in our eyes was her sporadic sense of humour, dispelling darkness as suddenly as the sun lights up the countryside. Then, her quirky, unexpected way of putting things sent us into fits of laughter. The house seemed transformed and evil an impossible reality.
Her wittiness attracted visitors to our house. Even when she was in her eighties and considered senile, she could suddenly throw off forty years and quip about life in the nursing home as if she were out on a picnic. Even though she was mostly sedated to relieve the pain of severe rheumatoid arthritis and the effects of syphilis, visitors were often delighted by her unexpected and funny remarks.
Mama loved music and often switched the wireless on. Classical music made her happy, and when I was little I watched her laugh as she worked, making the most of her day when her husband was away at work and she had the house to herself. She sang children’s songs, war ditties, arias even, and at those times her brightness lifted our spirits.
A very special treat was to go shopping with my mama when I grew tall enough to walk arm in arm with her, as was the custom for women in Holland. It was a delicious closeness for both of us, and she would talk animatedly and cheerfully as we walked and shopped. Life became light again for me too, when I experienced the temporary happiness of forgetting myself.
Mother consulted the priest because she didn’t want so many pregnancies. The priest told her that she had no right to refuse the husband she had promised to honour and obey in holy matrimony. So my mother had to cave in to my father’s sexual demands; but she, the clever vixen, knew howto get back at him, the uneducated one. She had the ability to taunt him with words. He had only brute muscle against the power of her cutting derisive intellect.
My mama rarely approved of anything my papa did. She taunted him so much about playing his beloved violin that in the end he threw it against the wall and broke it. It could only be fixed at great cost, so he sold it to the repair man for a paltry twenty-five guilders—the violin that had been his personal Stradivarius. Did he gnash his teeth then, and weep when no one saw him, for letting his woman get the better of him? Or did revenge find its way through violence?
One day, during a more serious spat than usual, they both forgot that the neighbours would be listening through the walls. My mother mocked him in a loud jeering voice and dared him to kill her. This was something new. The insults had been flying for some time, and now the two of them were spinning in a vortex of bitter reprisal. We six children were crying out loud, sitting forlornly in a row on the kitchen table. Our parents were in full view through the kitchen door into
The soldiers looked tired, but were filled with the excitement of going home. They were surely dreaming of the welcome that awaited them. The carriage was crammed full and the smell of woollen khaki uniforms was not unpleasant. I was enjoying sitting in the middle of this welter of male energy. It was when one of the soldiers caught my eye that I began to falter. He gave me an affectionate look, no doubt thinking that here was a Dutch child for whom he had fought the war; in seeing me he found a reason to justify the awfulness he had been through. I could feel his friendliness and good intentions, but I couldn’t stop the blush, as livid as the shame that lived in my innermost being, from spreading across my cheeks and face. I was wretched. I couldn’t bear to look around and longed to get off the train.
I HAD A Jekyll-and-Hyde father, but my mother had several sides to her also and her moods generally set the feeling of the house. What especially redeemed her in our eyes was her sporadic sense of humour, dispelling darkness as suddenly as the sun lights up the countryside. Then, her quirky, unexpected way of putting things sent us into fits of laughter. The house seemed transformed and evil an impossible reality.
Her wittiness attracted visitors to our house. Even when she was in her eighties and considered senile, she could suddenly throw off forty years and quip about life in the nursing home as if she were out on a picnic. Even though she was mostly sedated to relieve the pain of severe rheumatoid arthritis and the effects of syphilis, visitors were often delighted by her unexpected and funny remarks.
Mama loved music and often switched the wireless on. Classical music made her happy, and when I was little I watched her laugh as she worked, making the most of her day when her husband was away at work and she had the house to herself. She sang children’s songs, war ditties, arias even, and at those times her brightness lifted our spirits.
A very special treat was to go shopping with my mama when I grew tall enough to walk arm in arm with her, as was the custom for women in Holland. It was a delicious closeness for both of us, and she would talk animatedly and cheerfully as we walked and shopped. Life became light again for me too, when I experienced the temporary happiness of forgetting myself.
Mother consulted the priest because she didn’t want so many pregnancies. The priest told her that she had no right to refuse the husband she had promised to honour and obey in holy matrimony. So my mother had to cave in to my father’s sexual demands; but she, the clever vixen, knew howto get back at him, the uneducated one. She had the ability to taunt him with words. He had only brute muscle against the power of her cutting derisive intellect.
My mama rarely approved of anything my papa did. She taunted him so much about playing his beloved violin that in the end he threw it against the wall and broke it. It could only be fixed at great cost, so he sold it to the repair man for a paltry twenty-five guilders—the violin that had been his personal Stradivarius. Did he gnash his teeth then, and weep when no one saw him, for letting his woman get the better of him? Or did revenge find its way through violence?
One day, during a more serious spat than usual, they both forgot that the neighbours would be listening through the walls. My mother mocked him in a loud jeering voice and dared him to kill her. This was something new. The insults had been flying for some time, and now the two of them were spinning in a vortex of bitter reprisal. We six children were crying out loud, sitting forlornly in a row on the kitchen table. Our parents were in full view through the kitchen door into
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