A war for father and son
Andre van der Veeke
l.
The war was over. I could be born. After the materni
ty-nurse slapped my buttocks, I started yelling and
didn't stop. I cried for ages. I cried for days and
nights. I terrorized my parents, grandparents and my
auntie who lived in. Neighbors knocked on the walls,
or stamped on the ceiling. I brought the residents of a
whole housing-block to despair. My parents thought
fondly back to the wailing of the air raid-sirens during
the war. My high-pitched squeal was worse, more
compelling and certainly more agonizing, because it
came from their own flesh and blood. Something was
the matter with me. My mother sought the cause of
this misery within herself. She doubted the quality of
her milk. To thin, to blue, to watery? War milk?
The doctor, who came from another neighbor
hood, had forbidden her to feed me too often. Let him
scream, its good for his lungs, was his advice. My
parents lived in with my mother's parents. As was
normal in those days, most certainly in a bombed city.
My grandparents were quiet, civilized people. They
did not quite grasp what they were in for. They drifted
on a pink cloud, desiring for continuity. They wanted
grandchildren. Life began to take its human shape, so
why take fate into account? How could fate weigh less
than five pounds? Within two weeks, their first
grandchild's howling drove them out of their house.
They retreated to a gloomy attic, between furniture
and clothes from the past. Naturally, I had no clue as
to what I was doing. I did not know the power of my
despair and raging wails. I was only quiet when drin
king from my mother. Then, everybody in the house
and neighborhood would sigh of relief. The sudden
silence was sometimes so overwhelming that my hou
semates cringed. What could they do in the short
while I was silent? My parents would later tell me
about these things, in carefully chosen words. Causes
for my deviant behavior were never mentioned. Even
gentle speculations were to be avoided. They had fro
zen this dreadful period in their memory, and would
not allow it to thaw. When the change came?
How old was I when I began to behave normally?
That's what I was curious about. My parents avoided
my compelling questions .They pretended they did not
know the answer. Later, they insinuated that truth was
of minor issue in this case. It was obvious that I
thought up an answer to my questions. My post-war,
chronic fits of crying were due to discontent and
jealousy, was my own juvenile theory. I was an angry
baby, because I had missed the war, that greatest spec
tacle of the 20th Century. Later, I heard about the pro
blems of second-generation war-victims. (Was I the
very first case?)
Years before, 1 had adapted my dad's war experiences
as my very own. This wasn't very difficult, every week
he told of his time in captivity. Friday-evenings were
kept open for this purpose. He always began to recant
after our Roman-Catholic meal of bread. When my
brothers and I tucked in to the weekly treat, thick
powdered, custard-rolls, he told of hunger and bombs.
All those events that were important to him: his
deportation to Germany in 1944, together with two
brothers, his imprisonment and his escape, all things
passed. Because of our age, he did not want to be too
gloomy. Dennis the Menace and friends in Germany,
that's what his stories added up to. All stories had a
funny ending. My father and his brothers always out
smarted the Germans. ("After you" my father would
say to a German Officer, on leaving the camp-provi
sion room. The German went first, allowing my dad
to snatch a sausage from the hook, and stuff it down
his pants.)
As we grew older, the gist of his stories started to
change. Slowly, there became space for real misery,
such as the long hours of morning-roll call in the win
ter cold. Or the painful beatings with rifle-butts
during the daily walk to the trenches of Bentheim.
It was in this period that I came to notice that my
father was falling into repetitions. I didn't really mind
it, but I did wonder whether Dad himself was aware
of it. Or couldn't he be bothered, and just started
17 Zeeuws Tijdschrift 2004/6-7
