Eigen vertaling van mijn verhaal: 'De content uitnutten langs multimediale kanalen', uit mijn bundel 'Het verbond tegen meedogenloos mooie jongens, en andere zwartgallige verhalen'.
My own translation from Dutch of a story that is part of my short story collection 'Het verbond tegen meedogenloos mooi jongens, en andere zwartgallige verhalen' ('The alliance against ruthlessly handsome boys, and other grim stories').
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As he gets off the metro, everything instantly feels familiar. He routinely walks through the gates, then enters the draughty hall of the small train station where the metro stops as well.
He ignores the kiosk with the tins of cold cocoa and the greasy cakes, childish treats that he for many years was unable to resist, even as an adult. He is a able to resist them now. In fact, he has learned to curb more or less all of his impulses - except the one that has brought him back here after such a long time.
The purpose of this venture? Hard to say. Whatever it is, he is willing to put a lot at risk. Time is running out after all, he's almost an old sod.
Old sod? Well he could have chosen a more charitable wording, but what the heck: he's had enough of shying away from harsh truths, of hiding behind prudish euphemisms. So no, he isn't a "senior", not even an "elderly person", he's just an o-l-d s-o-d, got it?
Well, he almost is.
Nothing around him attracts his particular attention, he walks on with that same determined gait he naturally possessed during those years that he used to come here daily and felt important and useful.
Just outside the station he pauses, sees the bicycle shed, the small bus station next to it, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, as the song goes, even the numbed office throng hurrying home to morph back into a human sate of existence, now that the working day is done. Het probably is the only one right now experiencing a bittersweet sensation of homecoming here.
It's the métier at hand that he's worried about. However capable she may be, there's always a possibility that it will go wrong, it's bound to go wrong one day, and wouldn't she inevitably drag him along in her downfall? Will he feel the urge to resist? If so, then why is he on more or less intimate terms with her in the first place? To offer her a safe haven in those rare and rather short-lived moments that the destructive joyride of her life has worn her down? Not quite.
He passes a viaduct over which the train tracks run, notices the graffiti that was commissioned years ago by the municipality, and finds that the artwork has been severely damaged, but has not become uglier to his taste.
He glances at the untrimmed bushes where he has often emptied his bladder, even though a proper toilet was no more than a five minutes' walk away. Maybe in those days he already had that primitive urge to walk out of step. Or to share a secret with the bushes by leaving something behind.
He walks past a windowless grey brick wall, turns right at the corner and there they are, the office buildings of yore, side by side, moored to the curb like bulky ships, lapped by asphalt instead of water, and among them the premises especially so familiar to him, since for years on end they stood for a steady income, colleagues, appreciation, and the pleasure of seeing himself in print every day.
The building has been empty for years, the sense of security has evaporated with the approach of old age. Hardly enough money to live on, no more colleagues and appreciation, no proof of his existence in print, and even wife and daughter gone on to unknown and supposedly greener pastures after all these setbacks ... and yet, he feels resurrected. He senses her by his side. The girl of the many métiers.
He quickens his pace, and then finds himself in front of the building that was once the head office of his former employer. A thick glass wall with two revolving doors, an empty reception hall behind it.
He looks around. Not a soul in sight, so he pushes against one of the doors. It doesn't budge, but to his relief the other one does. He notices that the lock has been forced, and grins meaningfully.
Once inside, he initially feels a certain unease. He tells himself he's not really trespassing. He's come here to claim his memories - nothing wrong with that, now is there? By the way, are there any cameras around, CCTV or whuddaya call that shit? Don't worry about them, she has assured him, and naturally he assumes she knows what she's talking about.
On the right, on a table, there's an aimless stack of keyboards, on the left he sees the former reception, the slender counter a platform where no stranger will ever find himself marooned anymore. In front of him, in the vast reception hall, there's a few seats where to his knowledge no one ever chose to sit.
He glances upwards. The atrium, eight floors high, towers above him. There's a glass elevator shaft in the middle, with a bridge on each floor, connecting the former editorial rooms on either side of the atrium.
An immense carcass this building is, and he oddly feels at home in it. Carcasses can harbour life too, in fact at times they teem with it. Parasitic life, small scavengers, like him, the old sod, and his adventurous date.
With some difficulty he climbs over one of the entrance gates on the way to the elevator. His knees creak. He feels rather ridiculous, what with his backpack filled with goodies, magazines and books. Laptop prohibited, candles and blankets mandatory. Pathetic, one might think, but what does one know?
He presses the elevator button. What a childish thing to do, since, of course, the doors wouldn't open.
He'll have to climb the skeleton of this carcass through its spine - the stairs, that is. Never mind, he's quite a vigorous old sod, even according to her, although that observation is invariably followed by a raucous, mischievous laugh. He certainly feels that he's gained something in return for all the self-control he's painfully acquired, albeit no common sense, or else he wouldn't be climbing the stairs of a building he has no business being in, right? He chuckles and suddenly feels excited, liberated. He has come here to introduce the orphaned child that is his past to a fresh young mother.
On the fourth floor, where he once worked, he halts. He sharpens his ears, but hears nothing yet, though he knows that in all probability, there's another scavenger present in the carcass.
The voices of bygone days stay quiet too.
This mirthless merry-go-round of empty boasters, this nasty monkey house of shrieking careerists, whatever you want to call it – it seems to have been silenced for all eternity. Deservedly so, he can't help thinking.
Then there's the deafening sound of a safety alarm. It stops, and starts again. He clings to the railing, feels a deep shiver in his shoulders, an ice-cold clamp around his heart, a dirty warm flame shooting through his gut. After the sound seems to finally have stopped he is relieved to find that he didn't shit his pants. Not yet.
He quickly runs down the bridge, in western direction, into the passage that leads to the editorial rooms, and dives into the toilet there. He locks the door, pulls down his pants and underpants in one swift move, and immediately produces a long turd. Bone-dry it is, smoothly sculptured by naked fear.
He sits there for a while, his heart pounding. Desperation creeps up his legs, his private parts shrink. The ringing is still in his ears. Soon he will be caught. Moisture fills his eyes.
Then he remembers a few sentences from an undigested past.
You know, it's all a matter of leveraging the content through multimedial channels.
Through what channels? He repeated incredulously.
Multimedial channels! And if you can't handle that, buddy, then starting up an outplacement process may be the last thing we can do for you. You and all the other old sods have been messing around for long enough now, loitering the years away, playing with your dicks, violating the interests of the News Consumer.
He shuffled back to his desk. And thought:
'The content', well, well, well.
'Leveraging', no less.
'Along multimedia channels', strong stuff indeed.
'The News Consumer?' Now you watch your mouths, you scum!
Anyway, an outplacement process could only mean one thing: he was about to get sacked.
Now, years later, he wonders where all the big levers have gone. What blessings the multimedial channels have brought about.
Nothing, niente, nada, nichevo, right?
But wait a minute: he did not come here to get dragged out of the Johns with his pants down. To be made a fool of once again. This time he is determined to leave the building in a dignified fashion. In cuffs if need be, but with his head held high. And hopefully with the girl of the many métiers by his side, his reckless princess in shackles as well, but all the more rebellious and heroic for it. Yes, they will make a flamboyant pair.
When he wants to flush, he realises the water is shut off. Let that turd petrify, little does he care. He sneaks out of the toilet, holds his breath for a moment, sucks in the silence once again. He walks past the coffee machine with the plastic cups partially eaten away by ooze in the recess above the roaster, and reaches the large room he knows so well.
All the desks are still there, most of the computers are gone. He inspects the cupboards, finds some piles of newspapers, opens one, browses through the brittle, yellowed contents until he comes across something that catches his attention: "No memory will ever comfort Marguérite Hélie."
It is the headline of a report from a village in Normandy, which he wrote a quarter of a century ago, in honour of the 50th anniversary of D-Day. There she was, pictured with one of her illustrious liberators, the American general Omar Bradley: Marguérite Hélie as a young woman. Smiling courteously at her, Omar Bradley takes a glass from a tray that she holds out to him. A sweet memory, but not one that could redeem the grief for loved ones killed, the study she had to give up, the forced marriage after the war, the wasted life in a cavernous little dwelling in the damp Normandy countryside.
Marguérite Hélie has no doubt long been dead, but he has not forgotten her. He has not forgotten anything of all those years he had the privilege of seeing himself in print every day.
And then, finally, he hears something. The call he has been hoping for all this time. And which he has feared too. A pearly voice singing boyishly, though clearly not belonging to a boy. Something about fighting for your right to party. Well, he could have expected anything: from playing bass in an avant guardish noise band, to bellowing out an ancient Beasty Boys hit, and all the doggone métiers in between.
He looks in a direction he has avoided so far, sees his former desk, sees her head above and behind it, the coarsely knitted woollen cap, the blond hair gorgeously escaping it, the cool yet sparkling eye, the legs insolently flung on the table, the sturdy workers shoes with the package of semtex next to them.
His prettiest parasite. The most welcoming disruption of his reclining years. This is where the party starts, and where it will end. She waves at him now, and he waves back.
©Carl Stellweg
Meer info over mijn verhalenbundel 'Het verbond tegen meedogenloos mooie jongens': https://www.boekscout.nl/shop2/boek.php?bid=12649.
Meer info over mijn verhalenbundel 'Het verbond tegen meedogenloos mooie jongens': https://www.boekscout.nl/shop2/boek.php?bid=12649.
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