He is dead quiet, while Ibi to his cheek krabt, he feels its nail on his skin, he holds his breath and he tries to recall his life when he was still not had daughters, when he was still no function when he had as much as he had to admit a posteriori by the space wafted as an uncommanded projectile, a projectile that in addition to the editor only house boss was.
The day that ship's steward at the notary public the purchase contract for this House, he decided to rent out the upper floor, otherwise it was cramped, the money, are meager salary. The house was always going to be too large for him, even for a family.
He leased initially mostly to business travellers, for a month or a quarter. Men who worked throughout the day and in the evening exhausted on bed fell again early morning hastily to disappear in their carefully coated suits.
The floor was decorated with cheap but manageable furniture. Especially the view was overwhelming. The Vondelpark. When a ship's steward the apartment showed, he always insisted on to the Vondelpark, and that in such a way as if it was from him. Presumptuous park, presumptuous front garden.
When the businessman than said: 'Yes, this is good, I take the', was hastily a handwritten contractje brought out if they wish each month could not be renewed automatically.
'If you pay in cash,' said ship's steward at the conclusion of the contract for a tone as though he offered something special what nobody else got, 'on the first of the month, if you pay in cash, you get five percent discount.'
Five percent discount. That wanted to tenants.
So climbed a ship's steward on the first day of the month the flights of stairs to get to collect the rent, which generally all recent Xmas line up for him in a small envelope. And if not, he continued to wait, had a chat, and loved climatic considerations, because he spoke about the weather like and seemingly passionate. And he waited. He had patience. To the lessee at last to his purse handle to the agreed amount to count.
Missing the business travellers. ship's steward, was always a reason for the lock is not completely having to pay back, or better said: not at all. A crack in the wallpaper, a door knob that was off cases, a crack in the marble of the sink. 'I am sorry,' he said, 'but as it was not here when you withdrew three months ago. This is something I have to have it repaired. I find it annoying, but this is going to cost money.'
Not that ship's steward malicious was, but he had the money, he was so shy. His future depended. Later also the future of his daughters. What was freedom if you had no money to pay for that? Only the rich were fairly and even that is not always.
Occasionally jokte he was a bit, he did not like, but he jokte with verve. He pointed to holes in the ceiling which had been already, stains on the wallpaper that even though were not new, or he had the cutlery in the kitchen — he also rented the specifications — and suggested blandly told that there knives and forks were gone. With this small lies to abide did the shame are introduced.
He hated the lessee who is not of itself said: 'we will than the half of the lock but leave it on?'
Or why not the entire deposit? He hated the tenants who forced him to lie, because they were so stingy, because they were asking for. So he that his study German had completed successfully — although he was not promoted, but that was a detail and there were explanations for — was forced by the upper floor of his house to scrape looking for new defects. He got better things to do had to negotiate about how much it would cost a wall from two to four to witten. There were tenants who said: 'Otherwise i buy tomorrow as a pot of paint and then I do it yourself. That saves you a lot of concerns and me money.' But that was not the intention. It was not the wall or the paint, but to the lock which could not be returned. That was there is no longer.
Agile talked ship's steward around it, he drove over, he sighed, he jammerde, he raised pity on and then, apparently without cause, he was aggressively. 'If we cannot agree to your departure, which lock but, but we will not succeed you, because you have no right to the lock, you do not have a leg to stand on, you have it here run down.' He shook his fist and he thought he went on in the negotiating as another in a film, a book, a play. There were moments that he lost itself, than he had to order, also to take a deep breath. Thereafter it was the weather. A man must be self-control, otherwise do others for him.
As that his parents had been through, somewhere in the nineties, in hindsight perhaps already in the eighties, still had become more disconcerting. It was not a dementia, it was something else, a disease without a name. Because he was not so well knew what he had to let go of a ship's steward his parents but paralysis. He has had to ensure everything, the manage money, the house and the garden. He showed their power forward to its own account on booking. He had the necessary. Really immoral could not be said, because his parents were paralysis. The lawyer had assured him. That word said everything. Paralysis.
Hofmeesters father had a tool shop in Geldermalsen, his mother had sung in a choir, but that she had no money earned. The singing was its indulgence.
And he, the only son, was widely acknowledged, that was what you had to do, that was what was expected of him. Climb up. Because only the wealthiest members were not pushed around.
Hofmeesters parents were pushed around, that you could see them, that you could smell to them.
Come back to rest he could smile on that the tenant five days longer in the apartment had may continue without something was brought into account. And in the end he said: 'You know what. I ask you the extras lost, but we forget the lock just. Sandy about it. Sand on the lock. Satisfied as?'
He fell as quickly as possible than the stairs and the dormant feeling of self-contempt he could only be suppressed by itself there for the umpteenth time to convince you that he did for his family. First time for him and his wife, later especially for his daughters. For their future. Saints, he had ever heard in the church, have a past necessary. A future sinners. His daughters were the exception to this rule: they had a future and they were not yet sinners.
Gradually started the tenants to stay longer than a few months. It saved him the effort of the search for a new occupier, every quarter. The engagement of an agency that an alarmingly high rates for inept service early he had sworn anyway.
Ship's steward did it self. He was looking for the tenant as a groom for his daughter, as meticulous. He spelde ads in almost all newspapers to find the right one for you. The quietest, the netste, the most reliable, the cleanest. Preferably a which had another address elsewhere, that only a pied-à-terre searched in another city was registered. He made a great effort for its extra income from the hands of the tax. Because freedom and hunger were each other's enemies. And although he never had known hunger, had the fear of hunger with which he was raised and do not leave him.
What stayed was the ascent of the staircase on the first of the month when the tenant of the envelope containing the agreed amount not in time to ship's steward in the letterbox had pushed. That was the recurring ritual in his life. His worship. So the only way he lodged the supreme being. The first of the month he purportedly collected on what it was.
If he was then descended, always with the feeling that he had smeared, he had money after in the house room in order to be subsequently to mountains in a safe place until there is enough to the discreet disappear to an account outside the Netherlands. First Luxembourg, later Switzerland. And if he counting and deer Ellen, was he regularly by the thoughts of financial independence. About to fall, that was the, the thoughts about him fell, do not let him. That kind of moments he was held hostage by his own visions. He calculated how many years he still had been removed from this independence. He had the months. If illness and death but not earlier than financial independence. It was a matter of decades. Perhaps less. As the exhibition climate organiser.