Het laatste gezicht

Het laatste gezicht

De ziekte van vandaag
boetseert en transformeert
mijn oude trekken
tot mijn laatste gezicht.
Ze zeggen, oh, je bent vermagerd,
ja, de dagen duwen mij
en dragen me als ezels
naar een laatste totentrekken,
het ultieme gezicht.

Er zijn wolken en bomen,
kasseien en vuur
er valt zoveel natte stilte
om en rond de oude dingen
en de vingers van de tijd
vol knobbels en uitslag
betasten alles wat nu wegvalt
tot alleen nog overblijft
het allerlaatste gezicht.

24/7/12

Tijd

Het verdriet kwam in dromen
omdat je de dagen
zorgvuldig gevuld had
het liet je wenen om verlies
dat overdag verborgen bleef
want je wist elders te kijken.

Vrouwen met sterrenogen
samen met jou op een hellend vlak
sprekend over verre reizen
en verloren telefoons.

Wij denken, wij gaan ergens heen
maar dat ergens is meest nergens.
De tijd woedt in ons en snelt
de dagen en de jaren
wij staan stil en onbeweeglijk
wijl tijd woekert ijl in ons
het landschap en het dorp verandert
maar ik sta roerloos als een steen
en de tijd die stroelt en woelt
maar zonder mij,altijd.

18/7/12

The best client

The best client I ever had was Norman Hackett, an Englishman who was CEO Europe for an American enterprise that did something with plastics that Norman never even wanted to discuss because he thought it was too pedestrian and boring to go into, but a man has to make a living and, if possible, for high wages, so he did. His office was actually in Sweden but he and his family had purchased this house in Lange Leemstraat because, clearly, this street is the very epicentre of Europe and all it stands for, that much is clear to even the meanest intelligence. Anyway, as soon as he was more or less settled he started to drop by in order to “browse” and he made a point of never leaving the shop without having made a purchase which of course endeared him to this lonely bookseller. We soon resorted to the typical English humour that consists of irony and sarcasm where it’s important to be as coarse and gross as possible in well-formulated and hauntingly insulting sentences. This can be fun but also quite tiresome if at one point you can’t change gears to another level, which is unfortunately the case with plenty of Englishmen, but with Norman it was different because he’d also mastered a quite different register where sensitivity and good nature ruled so he ended up calling me “my dear boy” and usually left with a heartfelt “god bless”. I remember one time he’d been so mercilessly sharp with me that I retorted, as I tought underneath my breath, with a heartfelt ‘sod off, you twat’ but he’d heard me and burst out laughing and in fact this insult sealed our mutual friendship and affection forever, which is funny when you stop to think about it, but very much in character for the both of us. For him of course it was fun to deal with a Belgian who could deal with him pun for pun and linguistically match him whim for whim. In betwixt his worldwide business travels he stopped over more and more often and kept inviting me to spend Friday-evenings with his wife and family when present, but I figured these where just polite figures of speech, good old English courtesy you know and easy to ignore as being merely formulaic. But he kept insisting and one Friday evening when I was driving home to eat alone for the thousandth time and to watch dull TV I passed his house with its inviting lights and there happened to be a rare free parking space and I slipped into it and figured it just had to be that way. I was treated to an extremely warm welcome and we’ve never looked back. From that day on I dined there every Friday when Norm was around and the whiskey flowed freely and the food was quite un-English and very refined with an authentic French touch. Several years passed that way quite pleasantly and of course I also envited Norman and Maggi to my place and to several restaurants to return their gregarious hospitality. Then they decided they wanted to buy a place in southern France to go and live there until Norman’s retirement which was due in a few years. In fact, all he needed for his job was the proximity of an airfield, a TGV station, and all the rest could be dealt with by a good computer link and the telephone. So they left for the south for a weekend and the next Monday they phoned me in order to tell me they’d bought a place near Montpellier and that Piers, the eldest son who lived near Nimes, was going to do it up and that was that. Fast work indeed !
When a good deal of the work was done, Norman and I drove south to give it all the once over and of course, as always with the Hacketts, there were a number of guests there and I remember a copious meal on the terrace with Scottish friends of the family.
In the summer of 1996 everything was ready for the big move and when Norman was in my store for the last time he said ‘where will I ever find a shop like yours again ?’ to which I could only reply ‘where will I ever find a client like you again ?’ and we embraced nearly in tears and overflowing with emotion. It was then he extracted a promise from me to at least visit them twice a year and that’s exactly how it went. Maggi picked me up in the bucolic Nimes train station and then we drove to the village of Gallargues gossiping and nattering away, just happy to be in each other’s company. Staying with them was a splendid experience because the guest quarters where at the top of a winding stair that gave out on a pleasant guestroom with a television and adjoining bathroom. So we could eat together and listen to music and chat and joke but everyone still had his or her own privacy which is pleasant enough when you’ve left puberty behind you. Concerning this music, I must admit it was Norman who familiarised me with opera which before I had thought posh and hollow, now I own a great collection of it and enjoy it thoroughly and I have him to thank for it.
It was on one of my stays here that I underwent the full consecration as a family-member. It went like this; in the large kitchen - there was a smaller one as well, where we usually had breakfast - there was a huge oak table that was very useful as nearly every day there were guests and some of them quite special. One of the governors of the Bank of England used to visit and Norman’s best friend was David Steel (now Sir David, Lord Steel) the former leader of the Libdems who was the first chairman of the Scottish Parliament. David was so famous that he had his own puppet in the crazily popular TV show Spitting Image and made several appearances in Have I got news for you, which kind of makes you public property. But Norman also invited the neighbours who were just plain country people and the cleaning woman could join the meal as well so to speak, no snobbery here. But now for the so-called consecration; ‘the real ones, the inner circle’ were allowed to carve their names in the oak table and when my turn came up I was really moved because they really considered me a family member now which is quite something for a lone wolf like me.
At every visit I brought with me an exquisite choice of artbooks and great literature for my now former client as a small recompense for his and Maggi’s generous hospitality.
Of course we had our bad moments as well, Norman could have a really evil temper on him and then we called each other the worst names in the universe but we always made up as friends, real friends, always do.
And then, one morning, Maggi’s phone-call came “Norman’s had a stroky thing” which was her typically English way of saying that on a business trip to his Philadelphia headquarters he’d suffered a stroke and was partly paralysed. Maggi asked me what the hell she should do and I said the only possible choice was to get to the States as soon as possible, what else ?
There was a long period of revalidation over there and then he was flown to Montpellier on a special flight with two accompanying nurses who delivered him to the house in Gallargues in an ambulance and then asked, “will that be all ?” and returned to the States. If something serious like that happens to you it’s best to be insured to the hilt and luckily old Norman was. The right side of his body was nearly completely paralysed but fortunately there was no mental damage although of course that was often jokingly referred to, what do you expect ? All kinds of therapy were tried but in the final end they seemed not to make any difference so it was decided to sell the house and move to a brandnew luxury flat in the centre of Béziers. There also I kept visiting although his situation rendered him sometimes quite bitter and unpleasant which must have been really hard for Maggi, because Norman was a great guy but he also could have a hellish temper on him and all this physical havoc didn’t make things better of course.
Towards the end he hardly left bis bed and slowly started going blind which is the worst kind of fate for a manic reader of course, then incontinence set in and its concommitant humiliations which he jokingly talked about on the telephone but it didn’t take a mind-reader to detect the deep distress of course. Thank god his oldest son worked as a nurse in one of the local hospitals and he was at hand to help out but for Maggi it must have been quite heavy.
A few weeks ago I figured we hadn’t talked to each other for quite a while, so, on a Saturday-night, I called and talked to a clearly somewhat sozzled Maggi who said they took him to the hospital at the beginning of the week and then brought him back home a fews days later, and then again that afternoon he’d been taken back to hospital, but she figured it still wasn’t serious. So I thought things would be OK, but, alas, a few hours later he died, fortunately with Matti, his eldest son, by his side. And so my best client was brought to his ultimate resting place a few weeks before my life’s work, my antiquarian bookstore, closes. It seems appropriate and symbolic but I would have liked not to have to live with this wrenching twist of fate. But as Norman would have said, ‘that’s just how the cookie crumbles my dear boy’ and I just wish I could have hugged him one last time.

Ephemeral blues

You know the excitement of sex

and also the boredom of it

you know that habits do vex

the reason so many do split 

What was once so enticing

is no longer and won’t be

what was once so exciting

now makes you feel like a zombie

    I remember the urge

    we just had to merge

    then we fell asunder

    love felt like a blunder

    what else is new ?

    Ephemeral blues !

You know the fun and the passion

the must, the shall, the will be

and then in the strangest of fashions

it seems her attention does kill me

The need and the greed, all the longing

that must at all cost be indulged

just end and you both feel it’s wrong and

the bad news must now be divulged

     refr.

1/7/12