Tonio (13 page)

The higher the beer-mat draft, the more paralysing my
ergasiophobia. Beyond that fussing with scissors and tape, my work amounted to nothing. Yes, I wrote erotic letters as a warm-up exercise for the ‘real work'. (Admittedly, passages from those epistles did find their way, much later, into the novel.) I had more or less doubled our living expenses and halved my responsibilities as paterfamilias and breadwinner. At home, Miriam and the baby were at the mercy of the management cowboy. When I left the Kloveniersburgwal in the late afternoon, I did not always follow the ‘responsible' route to the tram stop in front of the Bijenkorf. More and more often I cut hurriedly through the red-light district in the direction of the Spui and its cafés.

So the spring of
'
89 plodded along in a sort of padded emptiness. Restiveness reigned. Where had my choice for the ‘everyday', unobtrusive life as husband and father gone wrong? Café visits hardly ever resulted in anything spectacular except for the liquor bill.

3

As hot as it was, Miriam trembled quietly and rhythmically — something in between a shiver and a shudder. As far as her shaking head would allow, she focused on a point on the floor in front of her, like you do when you're nauseous and the room is spinning and you're determined not to throw up.

‘Minchen, I've just thought of something … That work space on the Kloveniers back in '89, that was a big mistake.'

Miriam did not look up, did not answer.

‘I was so disillusioned. Huize Oldenhoeck, happily settling into that enormous apartment with you and Tonio, I had set my sights on it. Just like you did. And suddenly that goon with his Stetson and sledgehammer. Remember him?'

Miriam nodded, but it wasn't clear whether she was really listening.

‘I understand my own disenchantment,' I continued, ‘but that was no excuse to take refuge in bars, to miss out on so many evenings with Tonio … that magical hour before he went to bed … how he bonk-bonk-bonked over to me on his knees and elbows when I came into the hall. Always laughing.'

Miriam laid her hand on my thigh and gave it a weak squeeze. ‘Don't torture yourself,' she said softly.

4

In mid-June 1989, I took a taxi to the Kloveniersburgwal. The lease was up as of 1 July. I had loaded my things into the boot, with the exception of the collage of notes, which I preferred to keep with me on the back seat. As I carried it down the stone steps, I only realised then how heavy all that glue made it.

I wanted the kind of vacation I imagined at the close of a working year: easy-going, without alcoholic bacchanals or daredevilry on motorboats and water skis. Tender togetherness with my little family, from sun to shade and back again. Occasional swimming or walking. Nothing more outlandish than a bottle of cold rosé at lunch under a parasol. Musing on the work that would resume after the summer … finally, writing with fountain pen again instead of a glue stick …

Agreeable visions, but it was Miriam who went in search of a house in France to rent for six weeks. She found a former
maison d'école
in the Dordogne, near the medieval town of Monpazier. The house, which belonged to the borough of Marsalès (all of its older residents had gone to school there), was not far from a campground popular with Dutch families. There was an artificial swimming pond with a sandy beach where Tonio could play. Couldn't get more low-key than this, and it was exactly what we had in mind. What
I
had in mind, at least.

We travelled by bus, which left from Stadionplein in Amsterdam in the early morning. At the back of the coach was a storage area for bicycles. Miriam had brought her bike, with child seat: this way we'd be more mobile with Tonio, who had just celebrated his first birthday and who had only now started experimenting with walking on his own.

I had negotiated a double-wide seat at the back of the bus with the tour leaders (that is, the two alternating drivers) so that I could stretch out on the folded-down seat backs with Tonio at night.

After an hour-and-a-half of sleep, Tonio sat straight up. The coach raced, far too fast for my liking, through the French night. His eyes wide open, dummy sucked tightly into his mouth, Tonio kept his gaze fixed on the front windscreen at the end of the aisle. Through it, the world came rushing toward us at full speed: dizzying shadow patterns, the headlights of oncoming traffic, the dotted lines of the street lamps bending every which way … his tiny body heaved and rolled with the shock absorbers. Leaning back and supporting myself on the palms of my hands, I wound my legs lightly around Tonio to prevent him from taking a tumble during unexpected curves. He gazed greedily, curiously, but cautiously as well and even a tiny bit frightened. Sometimes, he turned his head briefly and questioningly in my direction, as though asking me to explain this wildly careering bedroom full of strangers.

‘Okay, little fella, now it's time to go to sleep.'

Every time I gently nudged him down, he bounced back up like a jack-in-the-box, his big eyes glued to the windscreen. He simply had to keep looking.

Perhaps I underestimated the fearfulness of a one-year-old. It prevented me from getting any shuteye myself. Of course bus accidents always happened to other people (who, according to the tour operators responsible, were ‘at the wrong place at the wrong time'), but never to us. But the drivers also were putting in long hours, without a break, I'd sussed that out by now. Pit stops at a roadside restaurant consisted of the off-duty driver shunting the passengers to and from the toilets, while his colleague waited at the wheel of the purring and palpitating bus with its oversized tyres. This, in combination with the breakneck speed, did considerably cut down on travel time, while the drivers still earned their complete wage.

Tonio and I spent most of the night awake. I watched him, and he never once took his eyes off the teeming motorway. Gradually the dummy came into action; it had been clamped firmly in his jaw and I had to prise it out of his mouth in order to give him his bottle of water. His sucking meant he was relaxing. Tonio's eyelids started drooping just as it began to get light above the hills on the eastern horizon. By the time the sun was visible, Tonio was fast asleep. I laid him carefully between my legs. The jack-in-the-box mechanism had shut down. He slept until we arrived in Marsalès. Daybreak was apparently the sign to his small, frightened soul that the danger of night had subsided.

Damn it, Tonio, how I wish that early this morning, before daybreak on the Stadhouderskade, I could have mustered up the same vigilance as back then.

5

‘What a horrible complex. Huge.' Hinde rushed into the room. ‘I got totally lost.'

She was pale, her eyes wide with fear. ‘To start with, the taxi driver set me off at the wrong entrance.'

She held a pack of cigarettes. ‘Yeah, I just had to have smokes. Otherwise I'd never make it through the day.'

I suggested going back outside so she could light one up. But before we made a move to leave, the sisters fell tearfully into each other's arms.

The courtyard, an open terrace built atop a lower floor of the hospital, radiated the heat of the noonday sun. A perfect Whit Sunday. We sat on a bench between the planters, but before long we all felt that the sun was too strong. There were some outdoor chairs further up. We dragged them into the shade. The sun continued to reflect intensely from the light-grey paving stones, large windows and gravel-cement planters.

‘Gotta do this today,' Hinde said, lighting a cigarette. Soon thereafter the young nurse hurried over to us. My heart clenched. I felt on my shoulder how Miriam stiffened, gasping for breath. That the nurse came charging at us like that, her blonde hair flapping in the sun, could only mean that there was news, bad news.

‘Ma'am,' she said, panting slightly, ‘you're not allowed to smoke here.'

‘I don't normally,' said Hinde. ‘It's just that my nerves … this whole mess …'

‘I really do understand,' the young woman replied, ‘but this is a no-smoking area, no matter what. So please …'

‘I'll put it out.'

Poor Hinde. She was forbidden even this one transgression in her new life. The nurse headed back — no longer running, but more like trotting — to the glass door, back to Tonio's sedated hell.

6

We were dropped off at the campground reception, which was run by the Dutch couple who rented us the
maison décole
. We'd be taken to the house later in a minivan once it was available, but for now we could wait at the campground's outdoor café. The bus drivers were already there. Instead of having a lie-down they went straight for large glasses of Heineken from the tap, while the departing campground guests dragged their luggage to the coach, which would leave in an hour's time for the Netherlands — with the same two drivers at the wheel.

Miriam and I were draped over our chairs with sleep deprivation, but the café itself was abuzz. Two girls of around ten, one a bit bigger than the other, descended with squeals of excitement upon Tonio, who couldn't really walk yet and tried to keep himself standing by grasping table legs and chair backs. No problem: the little ladies took turns lifting him from the ground and carrying him, happy as could be, hither and thither. A real-life baby doll, with a real-life full nappy, no less — their holiday enjoyment was sealed. Only a pity that there weren't two of these golden-locked cherubs.

Meanwhile, a distinguished-looking, white-haired older man appeared on the scene carrying a camera. I had already spotted him when we arrived: he had probably gone back to his tent to fetch his camera. He approached our table, almost quaking with emotion, and pathetically beseeched us if he could take a picture of Tonio.

‘Honest to goodness,' he said hoarsely, ‘I have never seen such a beautiful child. I simply
must
photograph him.'

‘Go on then, just one,' I said.

The man commanded the little girl who had just lifted Tonio up over her head to put him on the ground. He clamped himself to her leg and smiled at the camera, just as he'd been taught. The photographer, in all his creakiness, threw himself to his knees in front of Tonio and took a close-up. He groaned, but I suspect it had nothing to do with his uncomfortable position, because he kept on clicking. He shifted his knees.

‘Such a beautiful child,' he cried. ‘I just can't get over it.'

Miriam and I glanced at each other. I got up, went over to the man and said, while laying a hand on his shoulder: ‘That's probably enough, sir. Why don't we let the girls play with him now?'

I helped him up. He was teary-eyed. Another photo of Tonio, who was back in the arms of the other little girl.

‘If you'll just give me your address,' the man said, ‘I can send you a few prints. Here's a pen.'

I felt the sleepless night buzzing through my head. Was I seeing danger at every turn? Was the whole world out to threaten Tonio?

‘Later,' I said. ‘We've only just arrived.'

‘That's just it,' said the man. ‘I'm just about to go back to Amsterdam with the bus.'

‘Then if I might give you a bit of advice,' I said, ‘keep an eye out that the drivers take enough rests.'

Another Dutch campground guest rescued me, taking me for the Dutch writer and former chess champion Tim Krabbé. ‘I've always wanted to play chess with you,' he said. ‘Can I invite you for a game tonight? Here on the terrace. I've got everything with me. A timer, too.'

7

The girls were the Van Persie sisters from Rotterdam. Lily (nine) and Kiki (going on twelve). They were staying at the campground with their divorced mother and younger brother Robin, who was just about to turn six.* It was mostly Lily, with her broad mouth and uncombed curls, who took Tonio under her wing, and with a gusto I had seldom seen in a girl that age. As soon as she laid eyes on Tonio, she would insist he be removed from his pushchair. She agreed to stay within sight of us, his parents, as she carried the tyke to and fro, but refused to give him back. Tonio was too heavy for her girlish body; he kept sliding down her chest, and Lily would then shimmy him back up as far as he'd go. With any luck, Tonio would throw his arms around her neck, giving her a bit of extra grip.

[* Robin van Persie would later become a well-known soccer player and a member of the Dutch national team, and is at present a star striker for Manchester United.]

Tonio loved all the attention and cuddling. With his head up close to Lily's, his laugh was broad and drooly, and he panted with flirtatiousness. And the important thing was: he and Lily were on the same wavelength. It was as though, their heads close together, they were continually in conversation.

Lily had the distinct misfortune that Tonio learned to walk during those first weeks of the holiday. As soon as he realised that his place was down there with both feet on the ground, he would thrash wildly in Lily's arms until she gingerly set him down — and not just in the hard grass, where he'd soon plop onto his rear, but near a large object, a table or chair, which he could hold onto as he walked around it. Best of all were the metal supports of his stroller, because they had wheels — he was mobile.