E-Book, Englisch, 355 Seiten
Roemer Off-White
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-1-917126-10-6
Verlag: Tilted Axis Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 355 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-917126-10-6
Verlag: Tilted Axis Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
In 1966, at the age of nineteen, Astrid Roemer emigrated from Suriname to the Netherlands. She identifies herself as a cosmopolitan writer. Exploring themes of race, gender, family and identity, her poetic, unconventional prose stands in the tradition of authors such as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. She was awarded the P.C. Hooft Prize in 2016, and the three-yearly Dutch Literature Prize (Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren) in 2021.
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Two
Tuesday is deep-cleaning day at the downtown church. It is Father Teloor’s parish, the one where, as adults, her children became Catholics again. Bee goes to polish brass at the church near her house, but her heart and soul belong to the church downtown. When her time comes, it’s where she wants the mourners to pay their last respects. And she’s there again for the first time in weeks. She’s set herself up in the Saint Anthony Chapel: left transept, second row, first bench. The cleaning crew always does this chapel first for the weekday visitors who drop in for a donation, a prayer, a votive candle. Saint Anthony of Padua performs miracles and brings back what is lost. And to top that off, he’s also the patron saint of women and children, lovers, spouses, sailors, the poor. She reads and rereads the engraving. Of course, she isn’t the only one who comes here for solace: tea lights are burning all around her, and the glass coin jar is nearly full. Behind her, spread out among the pews, are four women and a man. The cleaning crew is making muffled noises in the background. After the six Sunday masses, a thorough cleaning is necessary, partly because people accidentally leave things on and under the pews. There are also people who leave something behind on purpose to get rid of it anonymously. She found a purse full of money—once, years ago—and women’s jewelry too. In both cases, there was a handwritten letter with a request. But most of the time, no note is included. The cleaning crew hand everything they’ve found over to the priest. And the church keeps mum. Even during sermons, not a word about “found objects.” Anyone who absentmindedly left something behind is always welcome to come and pick it up. A few times, they’ve found something truly scandalous: once the corpse of a baby. Then the police were called in. The cleaning crew has a code of silence. She smiles because she can clearly hear them talking to each other. They’re supposed to whisper, not raising their voices unless it’s an emergency. Every Tuesday afternoon, the choir meets to prepare for the next Mass, and the organist, a heavyset brown man, comes between twelve and two. He makes the church organ resound in an almost deafening manner. They know her. Most of them also knew her children. Especially Winston and Rogier. Winston used to come with his wife on Sunday mornings, and sometimes Rogier brought his girlfriend along to evening Mass. In front of Saint Anthony, she can let everything she misses flood back into her mind again. In a whisper, she asks the wooden saint with the dark brown cloak over his shoulders to bring her father back, and as the statue looks down at her, she closes her eyes and waits. Her father, Julienne, is standing next to her. The same questions always come up. Father doesn’t answer. Then she asks, No response from her father. She was always at his heels in the house where she wasn’t allowed to stay, because Mother wasn’t coming back and Mother’s brother, Mr. Cru, a brusque locksmith, was planning to move in with his boys. A young girl didn’t belong in a household of men, Father said when he took her to live at the convent. The nuns knew her already from school, and there were other girl boarders. She was still too young, but her father paid double, and he’d built and painted a wooden bed and a wooden chest to store all her things. He often traveled for work and was usually away for months at a time. A new job with new possibilities, admittedly in French Guiana but with men from his own country. He wanted to make sure his daughter was in the safest possible hands. He visited her as often as he could. He brought her presents. He told her their house was getting a fresh coat of paint for her brother Scott, who planned to marry. The chest in her bedroom filled up with colorful feathers, puppets made of rubber, animal fangs, a wooden cup, a pan flute, and woven clothes. The nuns were willing to turn a blind eye as long she didn’t talk about it with the other boarders. She didn’t. Throughout her years at the convent, she shared a large room with a nun. She still doesn’t know if the nun was young or old. The other girls slept in the dormitory, each on the same kind of narrow bed with storage cubbies. Eating together. Playing together. Going to church services together early in the morning. Suddenly, she turned sixteen. Her father Julienne had a marriage partner for her. The young man was tall and skinny like her brothers, but their skin was the color of pancake batter, while he was as dark as a raisin. A narrow face with wide eyes, and the whites shone so bright that all the black within them seemed like twilight, like something unsettled. He spoke like someone from the capital—softly, clearly, often. Yet she couldn’t tell Mother Superior exactly what he’d said. Maybe his tropical uniform was a little too large. Maybe his boots were a little too shiny. Maybe his teeth were a little too perfect and his mouth a little too wide. But when the nun asked if she was willing to marry the young man, she gave a clear . “Yes, Sister, I will.” What they’d hoped for at the convent would never come to pass—she wouldn’t become a nun. The wedding would take place within a year. Father was making arrangements for a trip to a big city in France, because his hearing was getting worse and he wanted to consult a doctor in his country of birth. He had a lucrative job in Cayenne, recruiting workers for a large French construction project in French Guiana. Her father would never return to his job and house in Nieuw Nickerie. His letters, which contained important news, took far too long to reach his sons. The wait was almost unbearable. One day her youngest brother, Napo, went to visit him and never came back to Gouverneurstraat again. Mother’s brother Mr. Cru, unmarried and taciturn, kept what was left of the family warm, and maintained the enormous brick and wooden house as best he could until one of the boys was ready to start a family. Never happened. The beautiful house grew paler, emptier. Her father Julienne visited to set up her marital home with furniture that he’d bought at auction and refurbished. After the wedding ceremony, she and Anton rode in an automobile, horns blaring, to their new home: a rental under army management. It was only then that she truly understood her husband was a career soldier. Then her father took her to place flowers at her mother’s grave. And that very night, after the wedding reception, he boarded a ship to the country he’d left behind as a seventeen-year-old boy, with no intention of ever returning, he’d told them, because his parents had seen so much bloodshed and were worried it would happen again. She springs to her feet. The sound of the organ thunders through the church. She thanks Saint Anthony for the memories. When talking doesn’t hurt, she can spend the whole day gabbing; even when she’s alone, she grumbles to herself, and the stream of words usually veers into songs of praise. One day, her husband Anton bought a big radio, a radio cabinet, and two easy chairs with arm and back rests. He upholstered the chairs and properly installed it all in the living room in Jacobusrust with the words, “Bee, this is mine, so no touching, but one chair is for you.” And without consulting her, he took the two rocking chairs—the ones they’d had since she was pregnant with Rogier—out to the back yard and burned them. “You just don’t listen to me,” she chided, and he retorted, “Bee, I’m a man.” He meant he wasn’t like those women from her book club, the ones who cooked and baked and brewed drinks, talking and laughing the whole time. Anton was twenty-one when he took her as his wife before God and country, and he’d never touched a girl. Her father couldn’t have found a more decent man for her.
It’s Tuesday; yesterday she went with Imker to bring Laura some lukewarm but still perfectly delicious chicken and potato soup. Now she finds a place to sit tucked away from everyone. God can find her here, in this forgotten place with no statues, no figurines. In this spot she once caught the organist with one of the cleaning ladies; she still can’t make sense of what she saw, even after giving birth to five children herself. In any case, all the memories of those years full of life will soon fade; disease doesn’t spare memories; they will die the very instant she does. She asked Laura why she had to cry after every visit. “Because you love me” was the answer. And her daughter kept repeating it, as if she wanted to make clear what mattered to her. “Because you love me, Mama.” And Imker nodded too. And Laura explained, “Mother, I make you so sad, you see?” It was crowded. So many visitors on a Monday afternoon, and more staff members walking around than usual. Her granddaughter did her best to focus on Laura and establish a rapport. She’d never been able to get permission to see more of the place where Laura lived than the visitors’ hall. “Would it be all right if I combed your hair?” Bee was startled. Would Imker’s proposal upset Laura’s fragile moment of balance? She looked reproachfully at Imker: No response from Laura. “Would it be all right if I came to visit without Grandma?” With the sweetest possible smile, Laura answered, “Bring me cigarettes. And a pretty skirt.” Wordless eye contact. “Will a pretty skirt make you happy?” But then Laura broke the silence, and she knew exactly what would come next. And it came. In a voice as gentle as an evening breeze, Laura sang in English, “I’m glad that you’re happy with...
