wind was making such a din. It roared in all the chinks and cracks.'
'It was lucky he'd crawled out of harm's way when it happened.'
'I can see you now,' I say. 'Your hair flying in all directions because of the wind suddenly crashing in, and that plate of soup in front of you, suddenly full of splinters.' 'A miracle we weren't hurt ourselves,' she says.
'I was furious. Especially because I couldn't blame it on the Huns.'
'We put the soup through the sieve, but we daren't take the risk.'
'You were about to,' I say, 'you were standing in the kitchen straining the soup. You slowly and carefully poured it into a funnel over a sieve you had put on top of the saucepan. You cried when I said you had to throw the soup away.'
'Such things you never forget.'
'No,' I say, 'such things stay with you forever.'
She turns a few more pages. 'Here,' she says, 'in the tea garden, do you remember? The camera moved because I was scared Fred would fall from that branch.'
I nod. I see myself, about thirty-five years old. I am wearing a sweater with a dark horizontal stripe, and shapeless grey pants. With a half-blurred face I look up at a child that sits astride a stripped branch. I nod again. I would love to know.
'Usually you took the photos,' she says. 'That's why there are so few of you.'
'I wasn't much of a photographer, though. And I often forgot to take the film out and take it to the store.'
'Do you remember that time we were given the wrong ones? Quite by chance I knew those people. I saw the woman occasionally at the grocery store, at De Gruyter's, that clean, tiled store where it always smelled so deliciously of roasted coffee which they ground for you in a big round grinder with a silver funnel on top.'
'I know,' I say, 'but I can't remember what was in those photos.'
'Neither can I, except that they weren't our holiday snapshots. We'd been to the Veluwe. Kitty wasn't born yet.'
'And ours? Did we ever get those back?'
'No. I gave the others to that woman. The grocer knew where she lived.'
'This one is in the wrong place, it should be much further back. We were only just married, everything is new, you see?
We were so proud of our home. In those days it was all very modern, with those tubular steel chairs and that stern oak dresser with red lacquered doors.'
'Pop's desk,' I say, pointing at another photograph. She nods.
'And now it stands here,' she says. 'On the other side of the world. I wanted to sell it, but you insisted it had to come. Why was that?'
I look at the desk. 'Some pieces of furniture from your childhood remain important to you in some way. You feel a kind of link with them, it's hard to say exactly why. I remember I was allowed to draw at it on Sundays. A white sheet of paper on a baize-green blotter full of inkstains and little marks of letters Pop had blotted. If you looked at them for a long time you could see all sorts of shapes in them, animals, faces. I used to copy them.'
She turns the pages. These have captions, that makes looking at them a lot safer.
'Winterswick, 1952,' I read aloud. 'What shabby clothes those children are wearing.'
'There wasn't anything else. They weren't that cheap, actually. Fred had just recovered from pneumonia, that's why he looks so thin. And Kitty became sick two days later. Scarlet fever. I spent most of the holiday indoors in the boarding house. You went for lots of walks. First on your own and later with your mother who came down for a week.'
'That can't have been much fun.'
'Oh, yes, it was. It was the first time she really accepted me. Ever since that week I got on well with her. Look, here she is standing in the garden at the boarding house. Heaven, yes, "The Turning-point", it was called.'
Don't panic. After all, she remembers everything. So this is my mother. If I want to know anything about the past I can always ask her. 'Mother,' I say, and I look at the bespectacled woman who leans with broad hands on a white garden gate. 'There probably was no
'It was lucky he'd crawled out of harm's way when it happened.'
'I can see you now,' I say. 'Your hair flying in all directions because of the wind suddenly crashing in, and that plate of soup in front of you, suddenly full of splinters.' 'A miracle we weren't hurt ourselves,' she says.
'I was furious. Especially because I couldn't blame it on the Huns.'
'We put the soup through the sieve, but we daren't take the risk.'
'You were about to,' I say, 'you were standing in the kitchen straining the soup. You slowly and carefully poured it into a funnel over a sieve you had put on top of the saucepan. You cried when I said you had to throw the soup away.'
'Such things you never forget.'
'No,' I say, 'such things stay with you forever.'
She turns a few more pages. 'Here,' she says, 'in the tea garden, do you remember? The camera moved because I was scared Fred would fall from that branch.'
I nod. I see myself, about thirty-five years old. I am wearing a sweater with a dark horizontal stripe, and shapeless grey pants. With a half-blurred face I look up at a child that sits astride a stripped branch. I nod again. I would love to know.
'Usually you took the photos,' she says. 'That's why there are so few of you.'
'I wasn't much of a photographer, though. And I often forgot to take the film out and take it to the store.'
'Do you remember that time we were given the wrong ones? Quite by chance I knew those people. I saw the woman occasionally at the grocery store, at De Gruyter's, that clean, tiled store where it always smelled so deliciously of roasted coffee which they ground for you in a big round grinder with a silver funnel on top.'
'I know,' I say, 'but I can't remember what was in those photos.'
'Neither can I, except that they weren't our holiday snapshots. We'd been to the Veluwe. Kitty wasn't born yet.'
'And ours? Did we ever get those back?'
'No. I gave the others to that woman. The grocer knew where she lived.'
'This one is in the wrong place, it should be much further back. We were only just married, everything is new, you see?
We were so proud of our home. In those days it was all very modern, with those tubular steel chairs and that stern oak dresser with red lacquered doors.'
'Pop's desk,' I say, pointing at another photograph. She nods.
'And now it stands here,' she says. 'On the other side of the world. I wanted to sell it, but you insisted it had to come. Why was that?'
I look at the desk. 'Some pieces of furniture from your childhood remain important to you in some way. You feel a kind of link with them, it's hard to say exactly why. I remember I was allowed to draw at it on Sundays. A white sheet of paper on a baize-green blotter full of inkstains and little marks of letters Pop had blotted. If you looked at them for a long time you could see all sorts of shapes in them, animals, faces. I used to copy them.'
She turns the pages. These have captions, that makes looking at them a lot safer.
'Winterswick, 1952,' I read aloud. 'What shabby clothes those children are wearing.'
'There wasn't anything else. They weren't that cheap, actually. Fred had just recovered from pneumonia, that's why he looks so thin. And Kitty became sick two days later. Scarlet fever. I spent most of the holiday indoors in the boarding house. You went for lots of walks. First on your own and later with your mother who came down for a week.'
'That can't have been much fun.'
'Oh, yes, it was. It was the first time she really accepted me. Ever since that week I got on well with her. Look, here she is standing in the garden at the boarding house. Heaven, yes, "The Turning-point", it was called.'
Don't panic. After all, she remembers everything. So this is my mother. If I want to know anything about the past I can always ask her. 'Mother,' I say, and I look at the bespectacled woman who leans with broad hands on a white garden gate. 'There probably was no
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