We cruised past the West Indies House, situated on the Herenmarkt on the right bank of the Brouwersgracht. That’s where we were married on 24 December 1987, while Tonio was already taking shape inside Miriam’s belly. Here, on that frigid winter morning, my father nearly fell into the water from a sudden attack of dyspnea. After the marriage ceremony, he wobbled, hacking and gasping for air, over to the water’s edge to hoick a gob of bloody saliva into the canal. I saw, in the nick of time, from the way his eyes rolled back into his head, that he was having a dizzy spell, and just managed to prevent him from teetering into the canal. Pulmonary emphysema. He was just sixty-two, but half of those years had been spent chain-smoking. He never did quit. Secret chemical substances in each cigarette insured that his lungs, overgrown with glasslike slime, would open up — until the next cigarette.
We were planning to go to the Sonesta Hotel, next to the Koepelkerk, for champagne, but the upshot of the palaver was that I went to the reception desk to cancel the reservation while the rest of my family helped my half-dead father into a taxi. I did not want to write him off as a bad fairy in drag, but it was clear that the ceremony, intended to legitimise the foetus, had been jinxed.
29
The new gravestone had not provided closure. More than any single day between 23 May and now, today, the 13th of July, was one of pantonioism. This was, of course, also because we hadn’t left the house just for a trip to the goat farm or Buitenveldert Cemetery, and were back in the city proper for the first time since that dinner on the Staalstraat. Tonio was everywhere. Everything exuded Tonio. Even the most insignificant objects, the most unimportant occurrences, revealed a trace of his soul.
30
‘If he keeps on like this,’ Miriam shouted into my ear, ‘I’m going to be sick.’
The punt hardly slowed in the frothing turn that took us onto the Prinsengracht, lurching sideways without interrupting its Japanese bows. Miriam grabbed onto me and said: ‘I’m really gonna throw up.’
When we had passed under the bridge and straightened our course, I turned halfway toward our friend at the rudder and motioned to him to slow down. Maybe he only understood my signal when he saw Miriam retching.
July 1994. The boat trip from our village on the Ibiza coast to Ibiza Town was scheduled to take an hour. En route, said the brochure, we could enjoy views of the rocky coast as we sailed past. A mirror-smooth, deep-blue sea … white lassoos of sea foam around the megaliths jutting out of the calm waves … cold drinks on board included in the price …
The Spanish skipper tore to Ibiza Town in less than half an hour, while the man who was supposed to provide the drinks had already positioned himself with the fire hose, ready to rinse away the gall of passengers who had gotten seasick within the first ten minutes. The bow slammed against the water surface with a force that a whale’s fin couldn’t have matched. Miriam was the first one to throw up, immediately followed by Tonio (out of solidarity with his mother). Grinning, and adopting a fiendish routine, the steward stood there, legs spread, hosing down the deck. The boat lurched so violently that Miriam and Tonio were unable to aim their puke, and consequently sullied themselves.
Later, as we walked along the quay (still sick to our stomachs), we saw the crew lounging on coils of rope, thoroughly enjoying a leisurely lunch thanks to the extra half-hour they had robbed from the tourist riff-raff.
The six-year-old Tonio was so horrified at having to witness his own mother vomit that he went into a panic at the thought of the return voyage.
‘I don’t want Mama to throw up.’
In the end, we took a taxi back to the bungalow — an hour-and-a-half trek, including inexplicable traffic jams, over winding inland roads. At first, the driver only sniffed with distaste, but later he launched into an all-out rant against his sour-smelling passengers.
Once home, the hardships were soon forgotten. Before dinnertime, Tonio and I thought up a new chapter for our book Reis in een boom. The boy had climbed into the chestnut tree behind his house and refused to come down, despite the pleas of his father and mother. Yes, at night, when his parents were asleep, he did climb down — to fetch tools and planks with which to build himself a treehouse. He carried out the construction during the day, doing his best to imitate a woodpecker with his hammer and nails.
‘… to mislead his parents.’
‘What’s a woodpecker?’
‘You know. Woody Woodpecker.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘When the treehouse is finished … a kind of cabin … then he can start his travels.’
‘Yeah, but Adri … a tree … how can you travel in it? A tree doesn’t have wheels. It has roots … way deep in the ground.’
‘And that is the secret of our story. A secret only you and I know. Omigosh, just imagine, if everyone knew the secret … then every Tom, Dick, and Harry could write a story like this. Uh-uh, this is our story. Yours and mine.’
‘Will my name be on the book, too?’
‘Of course — the author’s name is always on the front cover. And the title page. So there’ll be two names. Yours and mine.’
If I were worth my salt as a writer, I would be able to describe Tonio’s expression at the realisation that he might write his own book. With me. His face darkened a bit, perhaps as he realised the hurdles of such an undertaking.
‘Yeah, but Adri … I don’t even know the tree’s secret. Does he turn it into a ship?’
‘No, the tree stays put, with its roots anchored firmly in the ground. And the boy still travels.’
‘So what’s the secret?’
‘When you get onto a train or a boat, and you go travelling on it, what’s the first thing you notice?’
‘That you’re moving … or sailing.’
‘Exactly. You move forward, and that means your surroundings change. First the train chugs past the houses, then fields and meadows. The secret of our tree is that it never leaves its spot, but that it keeps getting new surroundings. So it’s as though that boy in his tree travels all over the world. With a constantly changing view from his treehouse.’
31
What was I doing here, in the middle of all this mass hysteria? Wanting to finish off what I started on 26 June 1988, when I made an about-face because I didn’t dare abandon the newborn any longer?
My intuition had not deceived me. I got home and found Miriam in panic. The maternity-support worker had given Tonio his bath, whereby a plaster on her finger came loose. She showed Miriam the cut, which had opened up again in the warm water and was bleeding profusely. The silly woman had mentioned in passing that she had also been nursing a terminal AIDS patient for several months. After my phone call to the clinic, she was recalled from our employ and fired on the spot. We were told that the nurse was a chronic fantasist, and that she never should have been placed with us, but this only augmented Miriam’s (and my) disquiet. I should never have gone to the football homecoming that afternoon.
32
Grasping the gunwale, I crouch-walked to the stern. I had to step over two cross thwarts along the way. The host-captain made a beckoning gesture at the handle of the rudder, assuming, apparently, that I wanted to take over from him.
‘The Pulitzer’s mooring is just up ahead,’ I said. ‘Could you let us off there? Miriam and I want to go into town on foot.’