Ventoux. Bert Wagendorp

He went over to the photo and pointed at Peter. ‘He has been marked out, but he doesn’t yet know it. To paraphrase Death in the poem: ‘That on Ventoux I saw the man / I must fetch at night in Isfahan.’

      ‘Carpentras.’

      ‘Doesn’t rhyme.’

      I touched Peter’s face with my finger.

      -

      V

      Joost made a valiant attempt to explain the rudiments of string theory to me. We were sitting in Huis De Bijlen. He faltered now and then and waved his hands about. Then he stopped abruptly. ‘I can’t explain string theory. For the simple reason that there are no words for it. And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with the theory.’

      The fact that even Joost could see there were no words for something proved that we were in a deeply abstract world.

      ‘It’s a mathematical concept so complicated that there aren’t many people in the world who really understand anything about it. I sometimes don’t even know if I understand the real finer points. And I’m not talking about the reality behind the theory itself, because that is far too complex to be thoroughly understood by anyone. I am making a contribution to the mystery. There are scientists who call string theory a religion.’

      ‘But what good is it to you, if it can’t be explained?’

      ‘Do you remember we used to sing something like “We see Thy Glory, but we cannot fathom it?” It’s the same with string theory. Fathoming it is no sinecure, and sometimes we can’t even see a thing. That makes it nicely complicated.’

      I gave up.

      ‘It’s another world. One in which time and space no longer exist, with nine, ten, or perhaps even eleven dimensions. We’re thinking about something we can’t imagine.’

      ‘So you just sit at your desk all day, thinking?’

      ‘That’s what it comes down to. Pen in hand, though. Beer? Yes, beer. Drink up a bit, you’re being a real girlie.’

      We had completed the update. Joost was still married to the American woman he had met when he was studying at Yale. I remembered the wedding card, with a saxophone on the front. One of his daughters was studying chemistry, the other planned to go to art school.

      I told him that I never saw my ex-wife anymore and that my daughter was studying Dutch.

      ‘Chip off the old block. She’ll soon drop out and become a journalist, I assume. Messy divorce?’

      ‘No. By mutual agreement, as they say. We were through.’

      ‘Glad to hear it. Fancy-free has its advantages. God, that wedding of yours. What a business. At a certain moment David had to get me off the table. If you don’t come off now, I’ll knock you off, he says to me. And he lifts me just like that, with one hand. Strong as an ox, David.’

      ‘I remember.’

      ‘I was so ashamed, the next day. I sent you a card with my apologies.’

      ‘Never arrived. Or else it was immediately thrown away by Hinke.’

      ‘Do you know what I was wondering the other day? What on earth her name was.’

      Joost’s father had died, like mine. But his mother was still living in the old house, with her huge collection of jazz records.

      ‘I still think of your father a lot,’ said Joost. ‘He once said to me that you mustn’t let life call the tune. Strange how you remember things like that so vividly.’

      ‘He was talking to himself.’

      ‘We often talk to ourselves when we talk to other people.’

      ‘Does your mother still smoke cigars?’ Joost’s mother was different from mine in every respect, and that was best symbolized by her cigar—not just any cigar, but a big one.

      ‘The most expensive Havanas. The look on your face the first time you came to our place. Your eyes nearly rolled out of your head. She got them from Hajenius in Amsterdam.’

      ‘I wasn’t used to that kind of thing.’

      ‘My mother played saxophone, smoked Havanas, and was already drinking malt whisky before you could find it in Holland. She got it from an Italian friend, or rather, from her Italian lover.’ He said it casually. ‘The guy was one of the owners of Caffè San Marco in Trieste. We called in every summer on our way to our Italian holiday cottage. And he came regularly to Amsterdam. Most beautiful café in the world, by the way.’

      ‘Did she have lovers, then?’ I heard myself ask. Stupid. I was nearly 50 now, a veteran crime reporter, and still Joost had managed to catch me out. The son of the bohemian mother shocked his bourgeois friend.

      ‘Of course she did.’

      ‘Christ, Joost, how was I supposed to know that? I thought mothers were mothers, not lovers.’

      ‘If you ask me, she still has them. And she still smokes cigars. The woman is fed up with everything. Fine by me.’ He downed his glass in one. ‘Crime journalism, yes. I read a piece by you on drugs the other day. Nice article, had a good laugh. Though that may not have been your intention. Hypocritical bastards with their War on Drugs.’

      ‘Hey, funny you should have read that.’ I knew the piece he was talking about.

      ‘Yes, I thought right away: I’ve got to give Pol a call. But you beat me to it.’

      For convenience’s sake, I believed him.

      ‘Beer,’ he said. ‘First I’ll go and get us two beers. Thirsty weather, tonight. Do you know how many brain cells are lost after each glass of beer? Two million. Can you imagine that. So that makes another sixteen million fewer this evening. Deadly drug, alcohol. Okay, two beers. Double trouble, haha!’

      ‘Do you still cycle?’

      ‘Definitely,’ said Joost. ‘Together with a couple of guys from the faculty, in the summer, once a week. I reckon I’m in better shape than when I was 20. We should go to Mont Ventoux again. David with that car of his. David. I wonder how David’s doing?’

      ‘I see him a few times a year. And I get ten emails a week.’

      ‘Gotta look him up again sometime. Good old David.’

      It was my turn to get beer.

      ‘André,’ he asked as I put the glasses on the table, ‘have you ever heard anything from André?’

      I looked at him and drank a slow mouthful.

      ‘You were talking about that piece of mine. The one about that drugs case. Do you remember the name of the accused?’

      ‘No, of course I can’t remember all the names in a piece like that.’

      ‘André. André T.’ The glasses clinked as Joost’s fist came down. I knew that his eyes would grow larger, his mouth would fall open, and that he would lick his top lip with the tip of his tongue.

      ‘Holy fuck,’ said Joost, eyes wide. ‘Holy goddamned fuck. Fucking André. Into fucking drugs.’

      ‘He was already involved when I got married. Do you remember the Porsche he turned up in?’

      ‘I scarcely spoke to him at the time. All I remember was that he had a dreadful blond babe with him.’

      ‘That’s right. Mandy.’

      Joost looked at me and, undoubtedly for the first time in ages, shut up for thirty seconds. I enjoyed the hubbub in the background immensely.

      ‘And?’

      ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘The prosecutor didn’t have a chance.’

      ‘Oh. That’s good to hear. Well done, André. Did you talk to him?’

      ‘Two