Second Person Singular by Fred Baggen

Fred Baggen

Second Person Singular For a very special girl from my youth

Synopsis: The first day of the autumn holidays. A teacher, somewhere in his forties, finds in his attic the diary he kept when he was nineteen. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s crammed with observations, notes and poems â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the result of three long years of writing about his strong, unanswered feelings for a young girl who was barely old enough for love. His shyness and the difference in age became a barrier and kept them from sharing a future life. In the end, she disappeared from his sight forever. Now that he reads his notes again since all these years, the memories suddenly reappear, more vivid and attractive as ever. Being happily married now, he will once again need to distance himself from the muse, who of course is no longer the young girl he still sees with his inner eye. But how does such a process work? How does one get rid of a shadow from the past? Which part does Lonneke play, the cute pupil from his class, who so hauntingly resembles the sweetheart of his youth?

My life is like a book I keep leafing back to ascertain what it was all about… — From my diary

9 The asymptote

It’s an ordinary school satchel. Made from calfskin, softened by the years, and with greasy edges. My wife has repaired the stitching again and again, and each time she delivers the relic to me, she has a compassionate look in her eyes. ‘Why don’t you just buy a new one?’ she asks, or points out that all modern teachers nowadays – even if they’re over forty, like me – wear these small rucksacks. But I can’t. I’ve never been the rucksack-type-of-guy, and I can’t part with the school satchel I’ve had since the first form. This satchel contains the spirit of my youth. It is conveniently moulded after the shape of my hip (the bag’s handle broke off years ago) and it reeks of tanned leather and the paper typically used for covering school books. Because that’s what I still do: I cover my books. You could say that’s sentimental, or even old-fashioned. And you would be right, of course. The number of my pupils who have one as well, is limited to the fingers of one hand. But the modern equivalents come with hard plastic stitched into edges and handle, for extra strength. Even if these things live through the next decade, they will never possess the same worn features of durability like mine, with its bone-dry crackle texture. My vero cuoio does me proud. It has seen the seventies. I have to admit: the locks are rusty, one is even missing a little pin. I lost the keys when I was still a student. Locking the satchel is not possible, and I don’t really care. Colleagues have warned me about the risks of losing the test papers which I run over at home – the risks, they say, not only for you, but also for your pupils. But I never leave that satchel unattended, I drag it along everywhere I go.

In the back compartment there’s a stack of tests from the pupils of 2B; the middle section, with its completely ravaged underfelt lining, contains a newspaper and my handwritten minutes from the board meeting, and in the front section I keep the books for the lower school, my lunchbox (the palette of smells belonging to a school satchel is not complete without the aroma of brown bread and cheese, which so miraculously manages to escape through the airtight cover), and Lonneke’s school agenda, which she forgot yesterday, being in a great hurry all of a sudden. Typing out the minutes can wait until the next meeting, and I’ll examine the tests sometime next week. The sun shines brightly through the windows. It’s the first day of the autumn holidays. When I got home yesterday, I took my satchel upstairs to my study, and put it on my bureau – as always, for my wife hates things lying around in our sitting room, which she, very modern and very stubborn, calls the ‘living’. With equal obstinacy, I keep using the conventional Dutch word for it, ‘woonkamer’. English has already integrated way too much in our daily language here in The Netherlands. Now my wife and her friends are on a short trip to London, no-one in this empty house is going to chide me if I left my possessions lingering on the floor, but as I’m used to do, I have taken it upstairs, out of anyone’s sight. ‘When I’m away next week, would you consider cleaning up your study?’ she asked, when I drove her to the airport yesterday evening. I said I would, but not without a frown. Anyone would be filled with apprehension about such a task. My study is all chaos. Piles of books on my bureau, taken from the bookshelves to look something up quickly; some of them are only partially read, most of them not read at all, some are even still shrink-wrapped in cellophane. I will have to put all of them, one by one, back on the shelves, or even have to create space in them really cramfull bookcases. One of them is filled with novels – mostly Dutch writers, alphabetically arranged, and each author categorised chronologically –, the other exclusively contains non-fiction, each shelf its own theme; foremost books about Dutch literature, of course in alphabetical order again, and other books I bought long ago, about subjects no longer of interest to me (books I have never been able to dispose of), books about subjects which I thought would one day interest me, and several books which I couldn’t remember the reason for buying at all. Each and every book neatly arranged alpha

betically, thematically and chronologically, and large-sized to small in reading direction. My bookcases are very well organised, but my bureau (my wife says ‘desk’) is a mess, and so is the floor. Especially since we discovered a leakage in the roof of the adjacent lumber room, and I had to hastily remove my personal archive, which mainly consists of paper and other non-waterproof materials. Since that day, the floor in my study is littered with carton boxes which are full of even more books, and drawings, the coin collection from my youth, document files, seven volumes of old Donald Ducks, the cuddly toy I was given by my grandmother when I was four or five. Things from the past. I’ve always kept looking back and cherished my memories. And this morning, in between those boxes, along the path which is kept free on the floor covering (which in the current situation is a strange choice of words, for at the moment the floor covering is the least covered part of the floor), I walked to my overloaded bureau, remembering my wife’s request and intending not to disappoint her. I started with the least dreadful piece of labour: the books. Once they stood nicely lined up on the shelves, I had killed two birds with one stone: the bookcases looked impeccable again, and the bureau top was almost entirely visible. Regarding the floor – I didn’t care for now. We’ll have to wait until the plummer has repaired the leak. For a second, I hesitated whether I should quickly check my incoming emails, or keep on tidying my room. Once I would start up my computer, I knew there would be no more cleaning for the rest of the day. I glanced at the satchel. Examining tests? Not a good idea to start the holiday. Ignore satchel. First of all, I wanted to see wood pattern all over the bureau top. Not only remove all the books, but also CD’s, a battery charger, paper works, everything. Finally, wipe it off with a moist dishcloth; most probably I’d like some coffee by then. That prospect was of much help. It took me about three quarters of an hour before I allowed myself to approach the coffee-maker. With my favourite cup and an extra biscuit I went upstairs again and viewed my room, much to my fulfillment. But hey, I carefully avoided looking at the floor. Aside from the floor, I said to myself, the room was a picture. Next, I took all the papers from school out of my bag and put them away, out of my sight for the next few days. I was about to switch on the computer, when the pink thing at the bottom of the

satchel attracted my attention. Lonneke’s agenda. That was around noon. I never got to reading emails for the rest of the day. Lonneke from 2B, youngest daughter to Mrs. Van Boven, our classic languages teacher, looks every bit like the girl from my teenage dreams, over twenty years ago. Just like her, Lonneke has these typical girlish arms: long and thin, while her elbows allow her arms to be hinged backwards quite to the extreme. Lonneke doesn’t have the slightest notion of the existence of an anachronistic look-alike, and if not for the difference in age, they could pass for twins: same eyes, same hair, same giggle – quite eerie. The main difference is that Lonneke wears braces, only visible when she smiles. I know Lonneke better than her likeness. Since today, I know Lonneke better than I want to. To me, it was immediately clear, on the very first day at school after summer holiday; surrounded by pupils who were happy no longer to be first-formers, I unlocked the classroom door and ushered them inside. Lonneke entered the room gesturing wildly. She wore brandnew clothes, more pronounced blue eye shadow, and apparently she was fully enjoying the attention of her classmates. Indeed, some kind of metamorphosis had taken place during the summer months, a time pre-eminently fit for becoming anew, and in Lonneke I witnessed a new phase of maturity, which she abundantly tested when the first occasion was there. All around her was a halo of energy and light. In the first form, a year previously, she had never been a more than average presence. Like most girls of her age, she wore her hair long; in primary school they have waited a long time before it has grown shoulder length or longer, and the next few years even just the mention of scissors is taboo. Her clumsy movements are identical to those of other children (I won’t be caught saying ‘kids’), she too overindulged herself in blatant behaviour, just to attract as much as possible attention. It’s precisely the same ambivalent vulnerability which is so aptly expressed in the song ‘Meisjes van dertien’.1 I have made a tradition of playing that song once a year in the first form. Each time one of the boys thinks it appropriate to either stare, gesture or shout at a physically ripening girl, when the line ‘Not yet a woman / yes, upper half, little bits’ comes by. Last year, 1 Song by Paul van Vliet about thirteen-year-old girls, no longer child, not yet a woman.

one of the boys must have been reading ahead on his text sheet, and when the particular line came, he sang along in a grotesque voice, while looking at Tamara, the girl next to him: ‘Already a woman / yes, upper half, brittle tits.’ But girls these days are not like the girls from my times. Young as they are, they’ve seen and heard too much already. ‘This will remain a motherfucking fantasy for you, little poof!’ she yelled at him, and while doing so, she took her rather voluptuous breasts in her hands and lifted them one by one, much to hilarious laughter and whistling. The boy in question was the son of (or rather: was raised by) a male couple, and the inevitable prejudices are difficult, if not impossible to fight. I chose not to intervene, or things might only get really embarrassing for the boy. In all the fuss, the last verse of the song went completely unnoticed. Like the others, Lonneke couldn’t helped laughing, but later, in the staff room, a colleague told me about Lonneke, who had asked the boy not to make fun of Tamara, who seemed to find it hard to cope with her sturdy physique. That’s Lonneke: intelligent, engaged and anti-injustice. What Tamara has there, Lonneke has here. Seeing the look-alike of the girl from your youth on a daily basis, certainly feels strange, especially when you’ve never really succeeded in forgetting the overwhelming amourous feelings. Being a teacher, a situation like this is even more unpleasant. Furtive looks will be interpreted falsely, and teenage girls master a not to be underestimated warning system: the time it takes for me to type ‘in a jiffy’ on my cell phone, they already have alarmed all of their friends. You’re branded before you know, until a fellow teacher takes you aside in the empty staff room, and man, when confronted with the message, it scares the hell out of you: dear colleague, there’s been some rumours… such and such… use your senses, don’t add fuel to the fire… our school has always been a respectable institute, don’t blow it… it’s just so you know what’s doing the rounds… et cetera. From that instant, in every movement on the schoolyard, in each frown on a girl’s face, you think you recognise suspicion. The little jokes you always made now seem inappropriate, or evidence for future indictments. Pats on the back (the literal ones) are out of the question. No physical contact! Have all your charms, once appreciated, turned against you? Silent faces in the classroom. Are they paying full attention to what you’re teaching, or are they just waiting for a slip of the tongue, a possible faux pas? Giggling, whispering. Is this all just your imagination? Could it be you’re just paranoid? To be short: your authority has vanished. But you’ve got 10

nothing to hide, and so you add fuel to the fire. Not in the first form, where young girls’ fantasies tend to be taken for reality; in the sixth form, it should be possible. At least, you think so. ‘When the Dutch dictionaries banned the old spelling of the word “sex”, and it was no longer spelled s-e-x, but s-e-k-s, the word tragically lost its mystique, became sexless. Put them next to each other, even a blind eunuch can see the difference. Sex. Seks. While the first is associated with frizzy pubic hair, or moaning and groaning between the sheets, the latter lacks many such qualities. “Seks” is somewhat hybrid, a bit saltless, unable to evoke the imagery usually associated with the three-letter syllable. Could that be the reason why? The number of letters? What we called dirty words when we were children, mostly consisted of three letters.2 Not to say that “sex”, or its four-letter counterpart, are dirty words. But inside those three letters, entire stories were hiding. “Sex” is one of those ballpoints from my childhood, miraculously revealing a nude model when you held the pen upside down. “Sex” is a private matter. “Sex” carries an inherent promise, a primeval force. “Sex” is sexy. “Sex” gets, once you’ve seen the word a dozen times, an authoritive quality that transcends any dictionary. “Sex” is simple. “Sex” is fragile. “Sex” is beautiful. “Sex” is brief. “Sex” is what it is. Luckily, the English language hasn’t fallen victim to the phonetical change management. Since our society has outlawed “sex”, its four-letter substitute is the sad alternative. “Seks” is around every corner, on the internet and on TV. “Seks” is ekstremely dull.’ Most pupils have an impassive look in their eyes. They probably had a different idea regarding the material for the exam this year. And they certainly have never heard the word ‘sex’ (or ‘seks’) so many times in class, let alone from the mouth of the teacher. I continue to read. ‘It’s a well-known fact that the phonetical spelling was very fashionable in the days of, say, the Simplisties Verbond.3 From the late sixties up to the Beatrix-era, popular Dutch texts made an abundant use of it: “kommersjeel”,4 “30 sentjens”5 (the price for a copy of 2 Contrary to English ‘dirty words’ consisting of four letters, in Dutch they’re limited to only three. 3 ‘Simplisties Verbond’ (Simplistic Agreement), a fictitious organisation, created by a Dutch humouristic duo, popular on TV from the mid-seventies until the early nineties. 4 As opposed to ‘commercieel’ (commercial). 5 As opposed to ‘30 centjes’ (30 cents).

Hitweek), and yes, also “sex”. The Van Dale dictionary, edition 1970, has it with an ‘x’. Ten years later, when I was in the first form myself, our Kramers dictionary stipulated it should be spelled with -ks, although -x was allowed too. Confusion was even bigger in 1990, when dictionaries made the distinction sexboetiek and sexfilm, but seksistisch and seksueel. Oh well. Some song titles on Doe Maar’s debut album from 1979 are a good example of phonetical spelling. -ct and x from the official spelling were changed into -ks: in the credits we read about Mr. so-andso who was responsible for the produksion of the album, which was miksed by Mr. something-or-other. On their second LP the opposite happened: -ks from the official spelling was changed into x again (Nix voor jou)6, and symbols now replaced entire words (De laatste ×)7. The band was among the first to combine digits and text signs: 4us, Sinds 1 dag of 2.8 Artists like Prince adopted this concept a little later.’ I’m placing the sheet on my table and look at my class. Each of them seems to have read carefully while I spoke. ‘Does anyone know of another example?’ Silence. Then, hesitatingly, a hand is put in the air. I’m nodding in its direction. ‘Nothing compares 2 U,’ someone says from the back of the room. Yep, I know that one. I’m writing it down on the blackboard. Girls’ hands, wide open, high up in the air. These children have no intention of awaiting their turn, they just yell: ‘U’re gonna C me.’ ‘When 2 R in love.’ Prince is still among the favourites indeed. My chalk scrapes across the board. ‘Watskeburt?!’9 a boy’s voice barks. Very good, noted down. More corny stuff: gr8, w8ting 4u, 2nite, WTF, love u 4eva, ^5.10 My class dictates the spelling, I chalk. But my treatise raises unexpected questions in some members of my audience: ‘Sir, what does “Simplisties Verbond” mean?’ 6 As opposed to ‘Niks voor jou’ (Not fit for you). 7 ‘De laatste ×’ = The last time. 8 ‘4us’ (Virus) is the title of Doe Maar’s fourth album; ‘Sinds 1 dag of 2’ (Since a day or two) was their breakthrough hit single. 9 ‘Watskeburt?!’ is a corruption of ‘Wat is er gebeurd?’ (What’s happened?), and the title of a popular song by Dutch rap group De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig (Youth of Today [not to be confused with the New York punk band]). 10 High Five.

Sometimes, when I feel like it, I deliberately depart from the curriculum and discuss such linguistic subjects with my students. What I’m trying to do is develop a debate, not unlike the hellenistic age, when great minds and their disciples held long conversations in the shadows of marble stoas. I want my students to participate, to think. Only the fifth and sixth forms are ready for this free approach, the younger pupils aren’t – with only one positive exception: Lonneke. She wants to be a writer one day, so she told me at the beginning of this trimester, during one of those moments after class was over, and she lingered for five more minutes at my table and talked about her favourite books, her eyelids nervously fluttering. Rejoiced about her enthusiasm, I told her about my interest for writing short stories, and even poems, when I was about her age. Becoming a professional writer had never occurred to me, I said, but when she answered that it was never too late to realise such ambition, I wondered whether she was just chitchatting, or whether she somehow had known about my true desires in the literary field. Wisely, I decided not to take notice of her remark. Instead, I mentioned that my Dutch teacher had read one of my stories aloud, in front of the entire class, and that one of my fellow classmates had commented about her being able to say someday that she had been in the same class with me, who in the meantime had become a famous writer. My teacher offered me the opportunity to use his typewriter, and get my story published in the school paper. Intimidated by all the eyes fixed on me, I declined. Thus, I had missed my first publication, even when it was only third-rate stencil-work. Lonneke had been listening with admiration, her eyes focused on mine every bit of a second. Yesterday she has forgotten her agenda, and today I have been reading it, sitting at my prim and proper bureau. I wish I had not, for now I’ve seen a different side of her, I’ve come too close; the barrier of observation from a distance between adult and child is evened out, and even the almost identical, long cherished mind image of the girl from my youth seems to have been affected by Lonneke’s sudden, new appearance. This is how it happened. Yesterday, just hours before the autumn holiday was to begin, I knew right from the start that this lesson would be trouble. A week of free time was all that occupied the pupils’ minds. Something was already in the air when class 2B entered the room. Pulling and pushing. Laughter. In came Lonneke, blushing deeply; one way or another, she was the centre of all the fuss. 13

The commotion stopped abruptly when they saw me sitting behind my table. Suppressed giggles. I started the lesson discussing homework, gap exercises dealing with adjectives and adverbs, followed by a section history of literature. The last part of the lesson was dedicated to reviewing a task which I give them two weeks ago: write a poem about any subject of your choice. Those who dared, could read their poem in front of the class. I looked around. No volunteers. Someone said: ‘Lonneke!’ ‘Anybody has the guts to step up themselves?’ I asked. ‘Lonneke has a really nice poem,’ one of her friends said with a naughty smile. ‘Well, Lonneke?’ I said. Reluctantly, she slid from her chair, a piece of paper in her hand. She moved forward and looked at me, all red in the face. I waited for the class to become silent. ‘Go ahead,’ I said. ‘Er… it’s called “Dream Chair”,’ she whispered. Then she recited her poem, a bit nervous, but gradually her voice regained its strength: ‘Negligently, I’m going under in a seething silence It reverberates just your voice Like the breakers on the beach it washes through me, slumbering My gaze grown still, I descend and see your image Your eyes spark hot bullets through my heart A roaring fire pounding in my throat And while the steaming sun is watching me I gather silent flowers for only you Tranquil words inside my head drifting like an autumn breeze which lacks the courage to blow in your direction.’ Someone clapped, one guy whistled through his fingers. A few others clapped their hands, the rest followed. The inevitable ‘whoohoo!’ resounded through the room. 14

‘That was nice, Lonneke, thank you,’ I said. She beamed with pride. Immediately, two other girls volunteered; each of them read their poems. But halfway the third one, everyone’s attention decreased. Despite my requests to be quiet, the hum of voices grew into a crescendo. I raised my voice, the declamation was rudely interrupted. Right before my eyes, from the second to the third row, and further backwards, something went from one grabbing hand into another. Lonneke set up a cry. Her agenda. I restored the order and summoned one of the boys in the last row to give it back. Five minutes later – same scenario. Once more Lonneke’s possession went through hungry hands. She shrieked. Her agenda flew through the air. This had to stop. I stepped forward, took the agenda and placed it on my table. ‘And now this thing will stay right here until the lesson is over,’ I said with a severe look. Lonneke’s neck was all red, she stared aimlessly. All of a sudden, without a word, she moved her chair back, and left the classroom. Tears? She never came back; when the hour had ended, one of Lonneke’s friends took her bag. Not until the room was empty and quiet, I noticed the agenda. On my table. No one can blame me for taking the thing with me, meaning to give it back to Lonneke after the vacation. No one can criticise my decision to take this object – so extremely important for girls their age, being less agenda than diary, mirror of their deepest secrets – and protect it from prying eyes. No one, too, could have foretold my inability to safeguard the treasure. No one could have imagined what else, besides the usual stirrings of the soul, I was about to find in the girl’s diary. Afternoon had just commenced; after emptying my satchel, I’ve been staring a while at this odd, brightly coloured little book, weighing it uncomfortably in my hand. A funny little feather, seemingly originating from a kiwi or a bird of paradise, but in reality just a waste product of freshly slaughtered western poultry, adorned the cover. The pink plastic lock, merely there for symbolic reasons, had been broken off. I opened the glossy cover and started to turn the pages, carefully. The agenda’s contents matched my expectations exactly: personalia, friends’ addresses, even those of a few boys who had been given permission to enter their names in this holier than holy young girl’s chronicle, furthermore a school timetable, pages crammed with celebrity stuff, hot spots in the big city and an editorial mishmash of 15

‘tips and trucks’ to look better. Yes, trucks. Even school agendas have errors, I’m not even surprised anymore. People who are in the editing department of these products, stem from a generation which was educated in a time when the quality of the schools was already going downward, a time when reading was regarded old-fashioned (with the exception of scanning those detestable sms messages) and when knowing how to spell correctly didn’t seem important anymore – you know, there’s a spellchecker in Word, sir. It is no longer required to excell in linguistics, and voila, these are the results. Then, after leafing through even more superfluities, I was halfway the agenda and finally, there it was: the first week of the school year. And the second. An elaborate, girlish handwriting, homework written down in different colours. Slowly, towards september, her writing became sloppy, as I knew it from last year’s tests. My interest faded, what followed now were blank week days, all the way up to July of next year. I thumbed through the remainder of the pages. The displacement of air, spreading a hint of perfumed ballpoint ink or chewing gum paper, made me light-headed. Some things never change. At the back cover, in a partially hidden compartment, I discovered several paper sheets, folded together. They’re right here now, on top of my tidied up bureau, next to the agenda. Occasionally, I take them in my hands for a few seconds, in utter astonishment of the things I’ve just read. No, this is not supposed to be read by others. Both the story that Lonneke has written, and the other secret thoughts she has committed to paper, are strictly private. I have read them, maybe because I believed I had certain rights, as if seeing myself as the young writer’s mentor; maybe because of Lonneke’s likeness to that unforgettable girl from my youth. Nothing wrong with the story, though. Lonneke certainly has talent. I have read. I’m reading again. The story displays unmistakable parallels with her own life, although the main character has a different name. On top of the page is the title: When the Lilac is About to Blossom. Her story exhibits the insecure phase which almost all adolescents experience when the time has come to embrace love, the big moment when she knows that she’s ready for ‘the first time’. She’s based the title on a remark made by the mother’s character, who has told her daughter about the birds and the bees. During one of these conversations, she has just pressed her child always to use preservatives. Mom has bought a pack of condoms, she hands it to her daughter who, unluckily, isn’t prepared for this unexpected candour, and 16

takes refuge in giggling, and then grumpiness. Time for a different strategy. Only continence is a safer preservative, mother says, but she knows the reality of today. She starts to recount her own experiences, aged twenty and studying Greek and Latin, in the fashion of Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the classic poet who was inspired by, among others, Greek mythology. First, she compares the vagina with a sacred flower; the beautiful, sweet-smelling lilac, already known to the ancient Greeks as a symbol for innocence. Purity. Vernal love, the very first love. Perhaps the im-pos-si-ble love, as Lonneke’s narrator’s voice feeds the dead serious mother’s monologue. What follows is a comic dissertation, told by the daughter, who ridicules her mother’s Ovidian metaphor, meant to warn her against the consequences of unsafe sex; in her own words (and henceforth, obviously Lonneke, the young future writer, exaggerates quite a bit) she delivers a rendition of the story which her caring mother just told her: the myth of the wondrously beautiful nymph Syrinx, who was chased down by the forest god Pan. Lonneke and her generation know their way around. We had books and libraries, they have Wikipedia. Anyway: Pan was horny and while he wandered through the woods, his enormous erection was very much like the branches of the trees. He was notorious for popping up out of nowhere and get laid with the virgin of his choice. One day, when Pan saw the girl of his dreams, ‘a nymph called Syrinx, whose modern equivalent would be the most beautiful girl of the class’, as Lonneke puts it, he fell in love at first sight. He just had to have her. As he was accustomed to do, he suddenly appeared, his heavy throbber all ready for the works, while the nymph dreamyeyed admired her reflection in a little pond. Thrilled by that sight, Pan grabbed his crotch and said, with a gravelly voice: ‘My oh my, sweetheart, look at you!’ The girl was scared stiff for a moment, but she recovered quickly, being used to similar flirtations by other hot-blooded satyrs. But never had she given in to the temptations of the flesh. She commanded him to leave, for he was too ugly to her taste, with that mossy laurel wreath on his cornuted head. Not to mention this disgusting thing between his goat’s legs! But all that Pan cared for was getting laid, the semen almost dripped from his bush beater. He jumped in Syrinx’ direction, but she was faster and she escaped out of the forest, until she reached a small stream. When Pan had almost caught up with her, already wringing his hands because of the forthcoming pleasure, the nymph kneeled on the bank of the river and prayed to her water sisters to make her invisible. 17

Right at that moment, Pan grabbed her from behind, ready to mount her (doggy style, as Lonneke unnecessarily specifies the situation). But Syrinx’ wish had already been granted, so the lecher was not holding the nymph’s love handles, but instead just a bundle of hollow reed canes. The water sisters had preserved Syrinx’ virginity forever, by changing her into a flexible, rustling littoral plant. ‘Fuck!’ yelled Pan, while he quenched his overheated rod in the water. He took a deep sigh, and his breath made the canes of reed rustle, which sounded hauntingly beautiful, and he became instantly enamored. The husky sound made him believe it was Syrinx herself who encouraged him to court her perpetually. So he cut the reed, and made himself a wind instrument consisting of reed canes from different length, both shorter and longer as his ever erect member, and he kept blowing his reed pipe all day long, to surround himself with the voice of his unattainable muse. Only when he was to bang a lascivious nymphet, he carefully layed the instrument aside for a while, but as soon as he was satisfied, he immediately picked it up and carried on piping. Even in his sleep he embraced his shepherd’s reed, which the ancient Greek called ‘syringa’. This was all he had, the only tangible object to remind him of the girl of his dreams. After this sarcastically-spiced verbality from the mouth of the juvenile daughter, Lonneke steers the heroine of her drama into obligingness: she accepts her mothers’ gift. Affectionally, without a sign of pompousness or misplaced jokes, mom gives it to her daughter. ‘Here you go, sweetheart, please use them when the lilac is about to blossom,’ she says softly. The story is actually quite good, I thought after the first reading, especially for a girl of her age. But she will never learn about my opinion. I’m not supposed to know this tale. After having read the story, I folded the sheets together, smiling. Not bad, Lonneke. Or was my judgment weakened by the surreptitious character of me reading her little secrets? I re-read the story, tried to imagine the girl sitting in front of her computer, how she arrived at web pages dedicated to nurseryman’s wisdom concerning lilacs, at wiki’s about the Roman poet, where she discovered he had to pass his last years in exile, and where she learned about the myth he wrote about Syrinx and Pan – the ancient Greek version of Ina Damman and Anton Wachter.11 My judicious capacity was clouded. I was confused. 11 Main characters of the Dutch novella ‘Terug tot Ina Damman’ by Simon Vestdijk (1898-1970). Anton tries to win Ina’s love, but sadly fails to do so.

Thus I had been sitting and thinking this afternoon, after reading Lonneke’s story, and now I’m thinking still. I searched for my old diary and found it in one of the boxes on the floor. It’s in an even worse state than my satchel, but exceeds its worth beyond any measure. It. Contains. The. Secrets. Of. My. Youth. I flip the pages carefully, while reading what I have entrusted to the paper long ago. All the tears in the paper, the yellowed edges and the dog-ears are sincere and pure, they symbolise the chronic wounds of a broken boy’s heart, a heart only to be healed gradually by writing about the weapon which had inflicted the wounds: love.

Second Person Singular The first day of the autumn holidays. A teacher, somewhere in his forties, finds in his attic the diary he kept when he was nineteen. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s crammed with observations, notes and poems â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the result of three long years of writing about his strong, unanswered feelings for a young girl who was barely old enough for love. His shyness and the difference in age became a barrier and kept them from sharing a future life. In the end, she disappeared from his sight forever. Now that he reads his notes again since all these years, the memories suddenly reappear, more vivid and attractive as ever. Being happily married now, he will once again need to distance himself from the muse, who of course is no longer the young girl he still sees with his inner eye. But how does such a process work? How does one get rid of a shadow from the past? Which part does Lonneke play, the cute pupil from his class, who so hauntingly resembles the sweetheart of his youth? Fred Baggen (1967) wrote his novella Second Person Singular as a song of praise for that once-in-a-lifetime lovesickness which, once it has happened to you, exerts an inescapable power and becomes a true obsession, overwhelming everything in and around you and may leave you longing for that feeling for the rest of your life.