album. 'Dr Eardly recommended this. A way of putting your memories in order,' she says, sitting down beside me, turning a thick black page covered in photographs, while I stare in silence at the pictures with their scalloped edges.
I recognize the ripple of the wind in a pond, poppies flowering by a roadside, clouds above the sea with dark, frayed, stormy linings, the cropped grass of a lawn with a group of people on it in light, summery clothes, their arms around one another's shoulders. And smiling, of course, always smiling, as if life in the past was one long happy party. When photography was still something special and a print relatively expensive, everyone smiled when having his photograph taken. As if the picture would then be worth more.
Vera puts her forefinger on male and female figures and mentions names. Kitty, Janet, John, Fred. Three years ago, in Rockport.
I remain silent.
'You should concentrate more,' she says. 'You know it all, but you must try harder.' She taps briefly with a gleamingly lacquered nail against my forehead.
I pull the album towards me and turn the pages back. Then it is as if a mist clears.
'Look,' I say. 'This was the boat elevator at the Postjesweg. Other people called it a ferry, but it wasn't, it was an elevator. The market gardeners from the Sloterpolder used to assemble here with their punts and flat-bottoms to go to the market. One by one the boats entered a kind of steel trough. Then the big cog-wheels overhead began to turn and each boat was lifted by thick cables into the Kostverlorenkade, swaying and trembling. Sometimes as many as forty boats were waiting, beside and behind one another, laden with vegetables and fruit in those flat crates they used to have.'
'And this was taken from the window at home. Where you see all those green-houses and wooden shacks another world began, a water world full of punts, flat-bottoms, rafts and white foot bridges across the ditches. In the winter you could skate there endlessly. Frisian runners. Can you feel them still, pinching your feet, with those tight, brightly coloured straps and those stiff leather heels?'
I look at Vera. She nods. 'I remember it all,' she says. 'I went there with you often enough.' I am so happy to hear her say this that I want to go on talking, without the photographs.
'At the beginning of the war you could still sometimes get stuff from the market gardeners in the polder, but in the last two years they had become price conscious. The heirlooms some people took there, in return for a head of lettuce or a few bunches of carrots!'
'You were lucky to have that job,' she says.
That is true. People working in the municipal buying department were closer to the fire. You knew when something or other arrived by barge. Then it was sometimes possible to fix things before distribution began. Of course it wasn't right, but everyone did it. In a way we were all of us petty crooks in those days, and the crazy thing was that it suited everybody perfectly. It brought a lot of suspense and excitement into people's lives.
'Do you ever think of those days now?' I ask.
'Rarely,' she says.
'It's things from the war I remember best,' I say. 'They're sharp, as if everything was standing still then, as if nothing moved.'
'Yes,' she says. 'That's how I feel too. Days that never came to an end. Maybe it was partly because of the hunger. Hunger and cold.'
'Pea soup!' We both say it at the same time, that utterly Dutch concept. Pea soup. And it makes us laugh.
'Those bay windows were no good,' I say. 'After the war practically all of them had to be replaced. They jutted out too far, they caught too much wind, certainly in that storm we had that time.'
'I had no idea it was so dangerous.'
'Peas,' I say, 'I'd managed to get hold of half a pillowcase full.'
'We were as happy as kings. I was so nervous, as if I was cooking dinner for the first time, I was so scared I might spoil something.'
'Fred had crawled under the table, the
I recognize the ripple of the wind in a pond, poppies flowering by a roadside, clouds above the sea with dark, frayed, stormy linings, the cropped grass of a lawn with a group of people on it in light, summery clothes, their arms around one another's shoulders. And smiling, of course, always smiling, as if life in the past was one long happy party. When photography was still something special and a print relatively expensive, everyone smiled when having his photograph taken. As if the picture would then be worth more.
Vera puts her forefinger on male and female figures and mentions names. Kitty, Janet, John, Fred. Three years ago, in Rockport.
I remain silent.
'You should concentrate more,' she says. 'You know it all, but you must try harder.' She taps briefly with a gleamingly lacquered nail against my forehead.
I pull the album towards me and turn the pages back. Then it is as if a mist clears.
'Look,' I say. 'This was the boat elevator at the Postjesweg. Other people called it a ferry, but it wasn't, it was an elevator. The market gardeners from the Sloterpolder used to assemble here with their punts and flat-bottoms to go to the market. One by one the boats entered a kind of steel trough. Then the big cog-wheels overhead began to turn and each boat was lifted by thick cables into the Kostverlorenkade, swaying and trembling. Sometimes as many as forty boats were waiting, beside and behind one another, laden with vegetables and fruit in those flat crates they used to have.'
'And this was taken from the window at home. Where you see all those green-houses and wooden shacks another world began, a water world full of punts, flat-bottoms, rafts and white foot bridges across the ditches. In the winter you could skate there endlessly. Frisian runners. Can you feel them still, pinching your feet, with those tight, brightly coloured straps and those stiff leather heels?'
I look at Vera. She nods. 'I remember it all,' she says. 'I went there with you often enough.' I am so happy to hear her say this that I want to go on talking, without the photographs.
'At the beginning of the war you could still sometimes get stuff from the market gardeners in the polder, but in the last two years they had become price conscious. The heirlooms some people took there, in return for a head of lettuce or a few bunches of carrots!'
'You were lucky to have that job,' she says.
That is true. People working in the municipal buying department were closer to the fire. You knew when something or other arrived by barge. Then it was sometimes possible to fix things before distribution began. Of course it wasn't right, but everyone did it. In a way we were all of us petty crooks in those days, and the crazy thing was that it suited everybody perfectly. It brought a lot of suspense and excitement into people's lives.
'Do you ever think of those days now?' I ask.
'Rarely,' she says.
'It's things from the war I remember best,' I say. 'They're sharp, as if everything was standing still then, as if nothing moved.'
'Yes,' she says. 'That's how I feel too. Days that never came to an end. Maybe it was partly because of the hunger. Hunger and cold.'
'Pea soup!' We both say it at the same time, that utterly Dutch concept. Pea soup. And it makes us laugh.
'Those bay windows were no good,' I say. 'After the war practically all of them had to be replaced. They jutted out too far, they caught too much wind, certainly in that storm we had that time.'
'I had no idea it was so dangerous.'
'Peas,' I say, 'I'd managed to get hold of half a pillowcase full.'
'We were as happy as kings. I was so nervous, as if I was cooking dinner for the first time, I was so scared I might spoil something.'
'Fred had crawled under the table, the
Similar Books
