скачать книгу бесплатно
I head back towards the centre, brave the traffic along the Coolsingel Canal and turn off into a side street called Doelwater Alley. I park there and look over at the ‘swimming pool’, as the mint-green tiled police station is known.
But I don’t get out of my car.
My eyes sweep the alleyway and the square in front of the police station, searching for Bilal. He isn’t here. Of course he isn’t here, but he might come out from behind a parked car once I get out of mine.
I don’t really expect that to happen, but my heart pounds away all the same and I wonder whether I’ll be able to get any words out once I’m inside.
I need to get a grip on myself. A glass of iced water would do me good, but all I’ve got is a mouldy tangerine lying next to the gear stick.
I take a deep breath. Would Bilal really have stabbed me? I’ve known him long enough not to believe that. Yet, that look in his eyes when I provoked him…Who knows what I triggered in him? Even though I have a good relationship with most of the students from immigrant families, I’ll never truly understand them.
I imagine Bilal being interrogated – he might have to spend some time in a prison cell – and then I see the Bilal I’ve always known, an arrogant but intelligent boy who is probably already regretting what he did. Maybe Jan is right and I’d only make it worse by reporting it.
I don’t know how long I sit in my car, but at some point I wake up from my stupor and drive home.
5. (#ulink_87e72afe-4975-5184-a967-3362dd23db79)
I’ve always felt the need to make the world a better place. As a five-year-old, I took the new kids at school under my wing, and this protectiveness carried on into middle and high school. For the bullied kids, my support made the difference between a quiet, unremarked existence and being the butt of classroom jokes. I was popular at school and other children followed my lead.
When I was fifteen, I started working on the school magazine. Before that, no one read the magazine; afterwards I’d see copies in school bags and on the tables in the canteen. My complaints about teachers discriminating against the immigrant students made me a kind of school heroine.
I’d take on anyone, whether it was about headscarves being tolerated in the classroom or smoking on school grounds.
I’ve only ever wanted to help.
As I drive home, I remember Bilal’s face as I fled the classroom, the aggression in his eyes, the complete arrogance of his manner. What I usually see with my Moroccan and Turkish students is that they’ve lost all sense of direction. These kids are born in the Netherlands, they grow up watching Sesame Street and Disney cartoons, but feel that they’re considered second-class citizens. They don’t feel Turkish or Moroccan, but don’t feel Dutch either. Caught between the culture of their parentage and the country they live in, they’re wrestling with their identity, anxious because there are no jobs to go to when they leave school, angry because they feel discriminated against.
If a student is having problems, I offer to buy them a drink, sit down with them, and discuss what’s going on, while respecting their social codes. We almost always find a solution. My teacher training didn’t prepare me for today. We were taught pedagogy and maintaining discipline, not how to handle aggression or violence.
I’m almost home when I think of how empty it will be there: the silent rooms, nobody to tell my story to. Should I go to Raoul instead? It’s ten past three, he’ll be in a meeting right now. To Elisa’s then? If she’s busy she’ll make time. You can always drop in on her.
Elisa is my twin sister. We’re identical twins, but I’m fifteen minutes older; perhaps that’s the reason I’ve always protected her – first from the school bullies and later from a crowd who liked to spike your drinks with ecstasy and cadge money from you.
When Elisa set up a photography studio, I soon realised that her lack of business acumen would stand in the way of success. She wasn’t assertive enough to get new clients and she let the clients she did have barter her prices down. In any case, the studio didn’t attract much custom. Not that it really mattered, neither of us has to work. We come from a wealthy family; wealthy and old and noble. It’s not something that particularly interests us – we never talk about it.
But money can’t buy everything. Our parents always impressed on us that we should study and get jobs, that it was more comfortable to have wealth, but that shouldn’t be the guiding principle in life. We weren’t spoilt as children; we got the same pocket money as the others, did Saturday jobs and had to take on a paper round if we wanted extra money. It was an education I feel deeply grateful to my parents for.
I would have got by on my salary, but my husband’s company would never have got off to such a flying start without the cash injection from my parents. I wonder whether Elisa could actually make a living from her photography.
To help her along I regularly have a series of portraits of Valerie taken. She never wants to charge me, but of course I pay the going price.
My husband has a successful software company and I asked him to give Elisa as many advertising commissions as he could. It turned out he’d been doing that all along, which I should have known because Raoul and Elisa get on really well.
I’m happy about that because Elisa is just as important to me as Raoul, perhaps even more so. The idea that identical twins have a special connection is true for us.
I’m often asked what it’s like being a twin. It’s a curious question. It’s not that I’m unaware of how unusual it is to have an identical twin, but other people’s reactions always remind me of how disarming our likeness is. I do see the physical resemblance, of course, but we are so different in nearly everything else. For example, Elisa is sportier than me. I rarely wear trousers, and she rarely wears a skirt. I’m extroverted, energetic and spontaneous; Elisa is relaxed and self-contained. I like shopping and going out, she’d rather go for a long walk in the countryside, and I could go on…
Elisa’s studio is on Karel Doorman Street, next to the Coolsingel Canal and Raoul’s offices. I park at Software International because finding a parking space in the centre of Rotterdam is nigh on impossible. When I get out of my car, my eyes follow the fire escape up to the third floor, to Raoul’s office. I half expect his face to appear at the window, as if he might have sensed that I need him, but he’s not there. Should I text him? Perhaps the meeting has finished or was cancelled.
I hesitate for a moment and then decide not to. Even if Raoul isn’t in a meeting, he doesn’t like to be disturbed at work. We made a deal about sharing the household chores and looking after Valerie and he never breaks it. If it’s my turn to do the shopping and I forget the milk, I have to go back to the shop to get it, I mustn’t bother Raoul. If I have a problem picking up Valerie from school, it’s not his problem. It works the other way too though: I can always count on him getting Valerie to school on time each morning, with her gym kit, a boxed drink and a biscuit. She’s just turned six and is in the second year of primary school. Two weeks ago she went on a school trip with her class. I was on a course that day, so Raoul was the one who carefully read the instruction sheet from the school and made sure that Valerie had everything she needed. They were first in the queue at the playground waiting for the bus, and when I got home from my course, she’d already had her bath and was eating her dinner. That’s what Raoul is like. You know exactly what you’re getting with him. Right now I only want one thing – to tell him what happened, and for him to comfort me and reassure me that I did the right thing by not going to the police.
I cross the Coolsingel in low spirits and walk towards Karel Doorman Street. Elisa occupies the ground floor of a small, narrow building with Elisa’s Photographic Studio painted on its window in pretty black lettering. It’s not a very imaginative name for someone as creative as my sister, but she thinks it works.
I push open the door and a bell tinkles. I always feel like I’ve wandered into an old-fashioned grocer’s shop, like the ones in the television adaptation of Pippi Longstocking. When we were children, Elisa and I used to be mad about Pippi Longstocking. For at least a year I got up to the same kind of tricks as Pippi, with Elisa following in my wake like a second Annika. Whenever I hear the theme tune, I get the urge to do something rebellious.
The front room of the studio is empty. That’s to say, the walls are covered in photographs, but Elisa isn’t here.
‘Elisa?’
‘I’m out back.’
I make my way out the back. She’s at her computer, dressed sportily as usual, wearing khaki trousers and a white sweater. Her brown hair is gathered up in a ponytail and she pushes one escaped curl away from her face.
‘Hey, sis,’ she says. ‘Don’t you always finish much later on Mondays?’
‘Yes,’ I say simply.
My twin looks at me in alarm. ‘Has something happened?’
Elisa (#ulink_dcbe5897-f59a-5558-9b22-d233f023becc)
6. (#ulink_c10d8229-6eb2-5fc7-8120-c08d523d3145)
The emptiness is waiting for me after the funeral, a terrible, apathetic emptiness. In the first few weeks after her death, I was too dazed for it to really sink in. It was as if I’d run full speed into a wall and just stood there swaying, too stunned to feel the blow.
I didn’t hear a word of my father’s funeral address, which made me more keenly aware of his pallid face and quivering voice. I tried to listen, leaning against my mother, mute with distress. She gripped my hand; her other arm was wrapped around Valerie. Raoul sat doubled over, his face buried in his hands.
Every pew in the church was full. And the sea of flowers! Lilies everywhere, giving off their heavy, sweet smell. The procession to the grave crossed a sun-drenched yard. It was early May and already twenty-five degrees.
We stood around the coffin, Raoul in his black suit, holding Valerie’s hand. She wasn’t crying; she didn’t seem to understand. She clutched a lily, Lydia’s favourite flower, which she didn’t want to leave behind at the grave. We let her take it. She’d already done a drawing which we’d put inside the coffin.
I remember the warmth, the birdsong, the fresh green leaves on the trees, and Raoul’s tears when he threw the first shovel of soil onto the coffin. My father’s contorted face, and my mother, who appeared impassive, a heavy dose of valium helping her get through that day.
I was wearing an orange and pink skirt and a matching sweater, and the boots Lydia had bought for me. Both inside the church and in the graveyard, I’d been conscious that I looked like I was going to a party and I felt many shocked glances directed towards me, which made me feel ill at ease. Should I have worn black?
It was only after the funeral, at the restaurant, as I caught my reflection in the window, that I understood the real reason behind those glances. I looked so much like Lydia right then. It shocked me too.
The last time I saw my sister, I was aware of the irreversibility of each passing second. I studied her dead face through a mist of tears – my twin sister.
They sometimes say that people who have died look like they’re asleep, but it’s not true. Lydia looked like what she was: dead. Her eyes were closed, her hands were folded and her skin pale. But the most shocking thing was the rigid way she lay on that white satin.
Suddenly the meaning of the expression ‘deadly silence’ sank in. And of the word ‘forever’.
Before the funeral I was numb. Afterwards my new reality began to take shape. Despair overwhelmed me and dragged me under. For the first few weeks, I barely felt like I existed. May had promised a beautiful summer, but I spent the month in bed, staring at the white walls and ceiling. White is a comforting colour: so calm, empty and pure.
I found myself in a state that could be called neither sleeping nor waking. In any case, real sleep was elusive. The nights were only distinguishable from the days by a paper-thin film. Sometimes I barely knew whether I was awake or dreaming. I listened to the silence, to the indescribable lull in which I found myself, safe in my own little world.
Before her death, I had felt that something was about to happen, something that would have far-reaching consequences for me and for those dear to me. Something unnameable, but nevertheless unavoidable. The feeling had been strongest when I woke up in the mornings.
When I woke up that Monday at the end of April, I remained very still and didn’t open my eyes. As if my childish refusal to look at the day would have any influence! Of course I did have to open my eyes eventually. My gaze went first to the alarm clock – it was still early – and then to the ceiling. For a quarter of an hour I looked at that white surface and tried to rationalise my feeling of discomfort. Where was it coming from?
Lydia.
Something had happened to Lydia.
I could have thought about any number of people who were dear to me: my parents or Thomas or Raoul. But Lydia’s name was the one that burned itself into my mind and, in a fit of panic, I grabbed my mobile from the bedside table and called her. There was no ring tone, it wasn’t switched on.
But of course it wasn’t, it was a quarter past eight, her first lesson had already begun.
Had I dreamed something that had made my head so full and heavy? It was possible; if only I could remember the dream, it might explain the feeling that something was wrong.
That day I was going to Capelle aan den Ijssel, to photograph a wedding with Thomas. Thomas is a photographer as well, and his sister, Laurien, was the bride.
By the time I got out of the shower, I was late. I raced out of the house dressed in green combats and a white sweater, my hair still wet. I grabbed my stuff, it was all there ready – my camera, tripod, light reflector. I was soon in the car; it belonged to my friend Sylvie. She lives and works in Rotterdam, where she can walk everywhere, so she lends it to me at times.
If you are a photographer, there’s always some family member with something to celebrate and they remember you just in time. Because of course you don’t charge them the full rate – you wouldn’t do that to family. You’d be invited anyway, so while you’re there, you might as well take pictures, right?
I’m positive that another professional photographer wouldn’t get as many requests for ‘just one more shot with Uncle Jim’ or of the five girlfriends of the bride with their children, who look so pretty in their new clothes.
A commissioned professional records only the official events: the church, registry office, reception and a few posed pictures in the park. They wouldn’t be asked to stay until the bitter end, because that would be much too expensive. But you, dear friend or family member, you can’t leave until the grand finale – the guests standing in a ring around the married couple, waving their lighters in the air, bellowing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, which you can’t join in with because you’re supposed to be taking pictures of it.
I hate weddings and so does Thomas. That’s why we go together. We’ve agreed never to shoot them alone.
So off we went together that Monday, which was a good distraction from my vague sense of dread.
‘Do you think you’ll ever get married?’ Thomas mumbled.
We’d greeted the bride and the rest of Thomas’s family in his parents’ house and were drinking coffee while we waited for the groom to arrive. We sat a little apart and barely had to lower our voices through the constant chatter of Thomas’s mother and grandmother.
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘I can imagine you in a white dress,’ Thomas said, a touching seriousness in his brown eyes.
I looked away with a smile on my lips, it was something I couldn’t imagine at all and for various reasons the subject made me feel embarrassed.
‘It would suit you.’
‘I’m not getting married.’ My voice sounded a little too harsh and the crash as I put my cup down on its saucer was perhaps a little over the top, but Thomas didn’t seem bothered.
‘I know that,’ he said calmly. ‘It doesn’t mean that much to me either. Why shouldn’t you just live together? That’s much simpler, isn’t it?’
‘But our society is set up so that it’s easier if you get married,’ I said. ‘If you just live together there’s a lot more red tape to get the same rights.’
Something that looked like pain flashed across Thomas’s face. ‘Red tape? Rights? What on earth happened to romance and being faithful until you die?’
‘They don’t exist. You’ve settled down until you die, that’s all.’
Thomas glanced at his sister. ‘But Laurien looks really happy.’
‘Wait and see whether her fiancé turns up,’ I said, and he had to laugh.
I didn’t really think the groom would fail to show up, that’s just the kind of conversations Thomas and I have – a little rebellious, kicking against the establishment. If we’d been young in the seventies, we would have fitted in quite well. I pictured Thomas cycling to the registry office, dinking his bride-to-be. Or even better, Thomas carrying his bride on a delivery bike, swerving along the canals. Only I didn’t see myself as that bride, though for some time I’d been getting the impression that Thomas did.
We’d been hanging out together for years because we’d both gone to art college in Amsterdam; even back then we’d been really close.
‘There’s Cyril. Thank god!’ Thomas winked at me and stood up. He took his camera from the table and walked outside. I began to mount my camera on the tripod.
7. (#ulink_66c9f3c5-009f-5870-8ec7-366750151a44)
Thomas is a great guy, but he’s difficult, a real artist. You wouldn’t call him handsome; his eyes are a bit close together for that and his face is long and thin, but his dark eyes and athletic build make up for quite a bit. If he had a more cheerful personality, he might be really attractive, but Thomas and light-heartedness don’t go together. When we were students, he was a loner. He suffered from depression and he didn’t make friends easily. During his depressive episodes, which could last for weeks, he would withdraw and become unreachable. I only discovered that when I got to know him better, and it was years before he told me that his father had had similar mood swings. His father committed suicide. Thomas wasn’t as bad as that, thanks to drugs and intensive therapy, but you would never call him carefree.
I didn’t like him at first. I thought he was a grouch, an egoist, uninterested in other people – but then one day he came to my rescue. I was in a crowded tram, blocked in by the crush of people and unable to get away from the man behind me, who took the opportunity to make a grab at me and have a feel. People around me saw it happening, but nobody said anything or intervened, until Thomas pushed his way over to me. I hadn’t known he was on the tram. At the next stop he pressed the button to open the doors, punched the guy in the face and threw him out, shouting after him, ‘Go fuck your mother, you prick!’
There was a round of applause in the tram, but Thomas sat back down with a miserable look on his face. When the tram was less packed, I made my way over to thank him, and that afternoon we worked together on a project at the art college. It was the beginning of our friendship.
It was an unusual kind of friendship, none of the other students understood why I hung out with Thomas. I didn’t really understand it that well myself. I’d probably felt sorry for him at first, until I got to know the real Thomas and made a friend for life.
‘If you go back and process the pictures we’ve taken, I’ll take care of the reception and the party,’ Thomas said to me early in the afternoon. The lunch was over, the guests were leaving the restaurant and the bride’s curls had already dropped out of her hair.
‘I don’t mind helping you. I’ve still got space on my card.’
‘It’s fine. You look a bit tired, are you feeling all right?’ Thomas’s eyes glided over my face in concern.
‘I didn’t sleep very well last night.’
‘Well, get an early night then. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Thomas put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me towards him, holding me tighter and for slightly longer than was strictly necessary. Not that it bothered me, but I wondered if he considered every instance of bodily contact as a point in his favour.
I knew the feeling, only it wasn’t Thomas who inspired it.
I drove back to Rotterdam, to Sylvie’s, and left a note of thanks under the windscreen wipers, then caught the tram to Karel Doorman Street. I’d have preferred to go home and settle down on the sofa with a cup of tea and packet of fudge – my addiction – but I’d promised Thomas I’d get to work on the pictures straight away.
I unlocked the studio door and went through the exhibition space to the back where I’ve got an office and a small kitchen. The kitchen opens onto a badly kept garden. It’s overrun with weeds, which always winds my father up. My father loves gardening and made several attempts to tame the plants shooting up in all directions, but each time he came back, he had to start all over again. Finally he had to accept that this garden would never amount to much unless he spent more time in it, and he already looks after the garden of my summer house in Kralingen, as well as Lydia’s, which is huge. And his own garden.
I looked over my computer screen at the garden and sighed. First a cup of tea.
I made a pot of camomile tea – I swear by herbal tea when I’m anxious – and took it out into the garden.
It’s actually quite nice. I don’t like stylised flower beds and themed areas. Just give me a garden that’s alive, even if it’s so exuberant you can hardly get into it. Lawns with a few rickety bistro chairs are not really my thing.
I wandered through the jungle, pulling out a few random stalks, and finally went inside to do some work.
For a while I concentrated so hard that I forgot everything else. Even my tiredness slipped away. When the doorbell rang, my concentration was shattered and the uneasiness rolled over me again. I didn’t need to get up to see who it was.
‘Elisa?’ Her voice was higher pitched than usual.
‘I’m out back!’
Lydia’s footsteps came towards the office, dragging a little. I swivelled around in my desk chair and got up. Lydia appeared in the doorway, groomed from top to toe as usual, with a tight black skirt and a fairly sexy black wraparound top. She seemed tired and irritated.
