{"id":24997,"date":"2016-12-01T10:44:34","date_gmt":"2016-12-01T09:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/?page_id=24997"},"modified":"2017-08-03T14:33:23","modified_gmt":"2017-08-03T13:33:23","slug":"sample-translation-will","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/foreignrights\/authors\/jeroen-olyslaegers\/jeroen-olyslaegers-will\/sample-translation-will\/","title":{"rendered":"Sample translation – WILL<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeroen Olyslaegers – WILL<\/em><\/p>\n

A sudden fall of snow<\/p>\n

A sudden fall of snow. It makes me think of the war. Not because of the cold or other discomfort but because of the brief silence the city gets in her clutches. Great sheets of it are coming down now. It\u2019s night. I hear the sounds congeal into muffled nothingness. And then a person like me has to go outside, lad. Old or not. I know everyone thinks: soon he\u2019ll fall and break his hip. Soon he\u2019ll be lying with his paws up in a hospital bed in Sint-Vincentius. And that\u2019ll be the end of him then, finally felled by a bacterium that\u2019s cultivated mainly in hospitals. It\u2019s strange how elderly people get infected with other people\u2019s fear. Out of that fear they have themselves shut away in nursing homes, have themselves fed on lukewarm drivel and anodyne pap, a bingo evening of kiss-my-balls and a Moroccan girl at their ass with a piece of toilet paper. Everybody can keep their fear. I\u2019ve never felt fear, not really, and you can\u2019t teach this worn-out ape new tricks. Outside the snow creaks under my lace-up boots. No, none of those classy shoes but my old-fashioned laced boots, which I\u2019ve treated respectfully for years, had patched up dozens of times and waxed practically every week, walking boots that now let me walk backwards into the world of time. A few flakes are still swirling down. Recently I saw a blown-up photo of snowflakes in one of the newspapers in the reading room at the library. All pi\u00e8ces uniques<\/em>, these snowflakes, worlds constructed by pure mathematics, all just falling at random onto my coat and woollen hat. No, I\u2019m not going to write a poem about it. Nobody reads them anymore and my keg\u2019s dry. The snow changes the city, forces her not only into silence but perhaps into reflection, into remembering \u2013 for me at least. When it snows I see better. When it snows in the city you know what she really means, what she\u2019s lost, what she wants to forget. She gives up the illusion of time gone by.
\nIn front of me the Stadspark lies gleaming in white. I wait, shut my eyes for a moment. The yellow light of the street turns blue, as blue as the painted glass of the old gas lamps. Imagine a city with almost no light. A faint blue glow in the streets, testament to a terror of the fire that might fall from the sky. Any of us lucky enough to have a torch with us on night duty saw light as a privilege that wasn\u2019t the business of any German, wartime or not. It was dark enough already, after all. I remember it made the Germans furious, not being able to get that under control. They had to threaten idiotic fines and eventually the death penalty before the city\u2019s residents began to be a bit less nonchalant about what they did with their light. I\u2019ve seen Feldgendarmes fly into a rage when they saw us using unhooded torches. Sabotage! And this… and that. Back at the nick our inspector looked at us: \u2018Come on, lads… Keep it serious.\u2019 No reprimand, we had to keep it serious and that was it. Anyhow, the Stadspark bathing in dim blue light, that\u2019s where we were. But I turn right. I slowly walk into the Quellinstraat. Your great-grandfather no longer sees shop windows. I look at the city the way she really is, a naked woman with white fur round her shoulders, the kind that one surgeon after another can\u2019t keep his paws off: a better bosom, then another face. Magnificent buildings have been flattened here, office blocks have gone up in their place. Did you know there used to be a grand hotel on the corner of the Keyserlei, close to the opera? Built by a German back before the fourteen-eighteen war. Ever learn anything at school about Peter Beno\u00eet? Probably not, which is fine by me. They used to teach you names and dates; now they act as if that was a mistake. But there\u2019s not a cat, then or now, who\u2019ll give you the whack round the ear that history really is. The bastard thing is that it never stops, not really. It goes on and on. Peter Beno\u00eet is a street-name these days. When I was at school we virtually had to go down on our knees to him. \u2018He taught our people to sing.\u2019 A true hero, in other words. There was a statue of him, the once-worshipped composer, right across from the opera house, surrounded by what people used to call Camille\u2019s swimming pool, named after a mayor that you\u2019ll certainly never have heard of and I actually only vaguely remember myself. The maestro, the man who once gave his people singing lessons and who stood there immortalized in bronze, looked out over a pool that was mainly for drunks to piss in. The statue\u2019s been relocated, the so-called swimming pool demolished and as for the grand hotel, where during the Second World War smart German officers drank aperitifs with their sweethearts, there\u2019s now a concrete monster towering over not very much. So was it better in the old days, granddad? I can already hear you thinking that. Incidentally, should we ever see each other again, should the family that I helped to create and that now wants nothing to do with me allow it, I\u2019m certain you\u2019ll call me \u2018grandpa\u2019. The word \u2018granddad\u2019 is dying out. But of course it wasn\u2019t any better in the old days. It was just as bad. Imagination is everything. In the beginning there wasn\u2019t the word and it certainly wasn\u2019t with God. In the beginning was the image of darkness, don\u2019t you forget that. I stop for a moment in the middle of the street. Two big black banners hang on a building that no longer exists. Each has two runes like bolts of lightning. I\u2019m standing outside the headquarters of the Flemish SS. Those uniforms \u2013 we coppers were crazy about them. One of my colleagues got into trouble for failing to salute a crackpot in black. It wasn\u2019t even a German, although obviously he\u2019d have preferred to have first seen the light of day in say BimBamBavaria. Grandstanders. So many different uniforms. You couldn\u2019t make head or tail of it. When to salute and when not? I swear it often made me grind my teeth. Some of those poseurs had zero respect; for folk like that I might as well have been standing there in the buff. At the end of the street I turn right. It must be about four in the morning. Still absolute silence, still the snow falling and not so much as a cat to be seen. Apart from a drug addict anyhow, asking me for a euro. Kiss my ass, I say. Hey, old man, he drawls. I look deep into his red-rimmed eyes and tell him I\u2019m already gnawing at his soul like a hellhound full of tapeworm and he\u2019d better make his getaway before he\u2019s all mine. Your great-grandfather eats riffraff like him for breakfast, you know that? You don\u2019t believe me? You will. More\u2019s the pity, perhaps. Who can say. A quick recce. To my right, at the end of the Keyserlei, is the central station, the railway cathedral known as the Middenstatie, although nobody calls it that any more. To my left, on the corner of the Keyserlei and the Frankrijklei, is Caf\u00e9 Atlantic and above it Hotel Weber, the headquarters of the Feldkommandatur. All those men in field grey swarmed inside there, triumphant at first, dragging themselves from one swank dinner to the next, always received with due respect, their boss for example bending over a folder of pen drawings of our city, offered to him as a gift by a mayor who winked like an owl on sedatives… All that carry-on, and within only about three years they were playacting their own past triumph as much as anything, since they must have been all too well aware that their so-called thousand year Reich was already into injury time by then. Now I turn right, down the Vestingstraat. It\u2019s cold. I\u2019m about twenty. Fifty metres ahead is the main police station for the sixth district, my district. Someone behind me calls out, \u2018Wilfried!\u2019 That\u2019s not really my name, but I\u2019ll explain that to you later. Lode, name of Metdepenningen, catches up with me and slaps me on the shoulder. Does his name mean anything to you? It might. But I\u2019m not going to lay all my cards on the table at once. Keep reading and everything will become clear. \u2018Freezing my balls off, mate.\u2019 Lode slips, almost twists his ankle \u2013 I only just manage to grab him by the elbow \u2013 and curses. We\u2019ve recently finished our training together. Just three months of listening to bullshit and we were auxiliary constables. What it came down to was that we had to pay attention to anyone with a stripe more than we had and keep our uniforms clean. During those months I watched Lode grimly suck his pencil and stare at the blackboard. Every time a question was asked he raised his hand. An eager beaver, for sure; an attractive young man, too. Pitch-black hair, mischievous smile, son of a butcher just behind the Astridplein. He was the one who got our friendship started. The sort of guy who after a week declares that you\u2019re mates for life. \u2018You teach me something new every day…\u2019 I can still hear him say it. Smack at the moment we\u2019re starting to go up those couple of steps to the nick, two Feldgendarmes stride out. They look at us and one of them bellows, \u2018Sofort mitkommen!<\/em>\u2019 Some clich\u00e9s are simply true. All those Germans in uniform spoke like that. So we do, we go with them, knowing by then that there\u2019s no other choice. Normally we needed to report for duty before receiving our orders, but when a Feldfucker bellows, you follow. We step into the Pelikaanstraat and head south. Lode and I walk behind the two uniformed supermen in complete silence, like two punished children. The Germans have been here barely seven months and it\u2019s as if they\u2019ve had the game to themselves for years. The city has laid herself down in front of those men with her legs wide open. There are rules for everything. Pedestrians going from the Middenstatie to the Meir have to walk on the right, people wanting to go in the other direction are supposed to take the left side of the pavement, and woe betide you if you push against the current by accident. If anyone had predicted such a thing in the years before the war, we\u2019d all have rolled about, hiccoughing away our guffaws in foaming beer. But one squeak from the master race and everyone does as they\u2019re told. In fact they\u2019re pleased. Order at last! We cross the street and go under the railway line into the Kievitswijk. Two streets further on we stop at a house with a flaking front wall. One of the Feldgendarmes shakes the powdery snow from his coat and knocks forcefully at the front door. The second one glances at us with a look of \u2018you\u2019re about to see something now\u2019. But nothing happens. The knock actually seems to have made the house quieter. Then the fist hammers on the door again. This time we hear a bit of noise. Somebody comes down the stairs whimpering in a language I don\u2019t understand. The door creaks open. Through the gap we see an ominous face with big eyes. He gets the front door slammed into his head as the pair of them shove it further open. \u2018Chaim Lizke?\u2019 one of the two bellows. We hear mumbling. The Germans step briskly into the hallway and one of them gestures to us to stay outside and shuts the door. \u2018Evading the labour draft, most likely,\u2019 I whisper. Lode says nothing. He stamps his feet to drive out the cold. It\u2019s his bad luck that he can\u2019t afford the sturdy laced boots I have on my feet. You need to know that the supply of uniforms at the time was \u2018a magpie nest\u2019, as they say in this city. Those with money for enough textile coupons looked better than most. It was one more thing that drove the Germans crazy. A few years later we all had to buy new uniforms they\u2019d designed. That made things even worse, since by then nobody besides a few of the inspectors was in a position to purchase the stuff. We all tried to wear something that at least looked good from a distance and hoped we wouldn\u2019t catch it in the balls from this one or that one. Meanwhile there\u2019s pandemonium in the house. Shouting and wailing. We hear children shriek. A cupboard falls over. Someone thunders down the stairs. More shrieking. But the orders bellowed in German are loud and clear above it all. The door swings open again and there they stand, the Lizke family. Five half-dressed children of between four and twelve, a weeping woman with a headscarf pulled lopsidedly over her coiffure and the father of the family, staring at the floor as blood seeps from his swelling ear. An array of Israelites, Angry Beard would mock. You\u2019ll be meeting him later in this story. I\u2019m going to tell it to you like it is: I\u2019ve no idea what those people stirred in their cooking pot, but the result did not make too good an impression. They reeked.<\/p>\n

Now, it also needs to be said: sometimes I almost keeled over when I saw Lode. That lad could stink of blood and entrails \u2013 it was indescribable. I\u2019m sensitive to smells, always have been. My father used to say I had the nose of a pregnant ewe. Funny, of course, but I could have smashed his head in every time he let that one slip, usually at a party with plenty of sozzled listeners.<\/p>\n

One of the Feldgendarmes beckons us over and points at a piece of paper, underlining an address with his gloved finger: Van Diepenbeekstraat. That\u2019s where we need to go and they don\u2019t know how. Lode avoids my look, as if he\u2019s not there. The street isn\u2019t too far from where I live. Along the railway and then back under the bridge on the Van den Nestelei? I nod at the Germans. It\u2019s an address is in the seventh district, not our area, but I\u2019m not stupid enough to tell them that. So here we go. The two of us in front with one of the Germans alongside; behind us the foreigners and the other Feldfucker. The woman goes on crying while her husband murmurs gentle words of encouragement, in Polish I think, but it could be Hebrew or whatever. The Feldgendarme hisses something and we hear him give the man a clout. There you go \u2013 all the kids sobbing again. I\u2019d have set about it quite differently, Lode too I suspect, but what are we in all this? City guides for all weathers. It\u2019s very slippery now, the snow no longer creaks underfoot and it\u2019s turned the streets into skating rinks. The Germans are attempting to set a pace that a family with little ones simply can\u2019t match. One child after another falls on its bum. Another stop, another bellow, another kick, even more crying. Lode is still saying nothing. I watch his face tense. Looking back, it makes me think of the sea. At that point I\u2019d never seen the sea, but when I went there later and lay on the beach, nibbling at a waffle and pretending the experience was thoroughly worthwhile, I saw a family with numerous progeny beat a sudden retreat, with all its bags and deck chairs and parasols and all the children hysterical, faces red as tomatoes. The father exploded. He dragged one of his youngest children across the sand while carrying one of his daughters under his other arm and his wife had a child in either hand too, looking with embarrassment at the angry faces of bystanders. I swear I saw it snow then, at a temperature of thirty degrees. And I\u2019m certain I heard someone bellow something in German. \u2018Wier zind bald daar<\/em>,\u2019 I say to one of the Feldgendarmes. Mangled German, I know, but I\u2019m so sick of the whole ridiculous situation by this point that I make use of their language for the very first time, if only in an attempt to moderate the rising anger a little, because it doesn\u2019t do anyone any good, it\u2019s really not going to scare these Israelites into skating like crazy. It\u2019s true, too, what I said: we\u2019re almost there. We\u2019ve just turned into the Van Diepenbeekstraat. \u2018That lady and those children must be evading the labour draft as well, right?\u2019 Lode whispers. His vocal cords are trembling. \u2018Kiss my ass, kid, really. Is that any way to behave?\u2019 I don\u2019t say anything. What am I supposed to say? He\u2019s telling me something I know. But we go along, we walk with them; dutiful and spruce, we accompany that reeking rabble to an address on a scrap of paper. The moon comes out and makes the ice on the streets gleam like silverware. And then it happens. One of the children, a little chap of about twelve, pulls free of his father\u2019s hand and dashes ahead. He races past us. I don\u2019t know why. We hear the father bellow. The Feldgendarme walking beside us does nothing for a few seconds. He\u2019s as surprised as we are by the little fellow hurrying over the ice on his thin legs like a newborn foal that\u2019s only just managed to stand. It\u2019s not five seconds before he slips over. Even before he can scrabble to his feet the Feldgendarme catches up with him and gives the lad such a kick in the ass… Unbelievable. We see him slide across the ice like a sledge until he smashes headfirst into a lamp post and lies there. The Germans split their sides, and it would indeed be a comical sight, were it not that the mother lets out a howl as if someone is twisting a serrated knife in her stomach. She collapses. Her husband clasps his hands together, weeping, and raises them in the air as if the Almighty with a burning sword might restore order at his request or at least be dragged out of standby mode by that gesture and watch what\u2019s going on down here. \u2018Aufstehen!<\/em>\u2019 comes the command, to both the mother and the boy ahead of us. The German at the front is about to go over to him, but Lode is quicker. It\u2019s as if he\u2019s wearing skates, he\u2019s that fast. He reaches the spot, kneels down and curls his whole body around the boy like a cocoon, like a snail\u2019s shell made out of muscle. He doesn\u2019t let go, not even at a prod from the still smiling Feldgendarme who says, rather quieter now, \u2018Schon gut.<\/em>\u2019 The German jabs him again, then kicks Lode\u2019s backside almost playfully. Lode bellows: \u2018Suck my balls, you bastard!\u2019 You can tell from his voice that he\u2019s crying now too. I can see part of his face, bright red, his beautiful pomaded black hair falling in shafts over the boy\u2019s face, his white helmet lying a metre away upside down in the snow like a yawning chamber pot. The German loses his sense of humour, curses and reaches for his truncheon. Before I know what\u2019s happening, my hand shoots out and my fist clamps like a vice around the Feldgendarme\u2019s wrist. We look at each other, the German and me. What saved me there, lad, were those few seconds of astonishment on the face of the Feldfucker. He can\u2019t take in the fact that this is happening in this laughable country they\u2019ve occupied with almost no trouble at all. In those few seconds he can\u2019t absorb it, in this city they\u2019ve sat upon with their fat asses. A stupid brat like me in a ridiculous uniform squeezing his wrist and looking him straight in his arrogant mug is a scene playing out on a different planet. Okay, so I let him go and he does nothing. He carries on staring while his companion yanks the mother onto her feet, holding the children off. The father of the family looks at me and Lode as I pick his helmet out of the snow, put my hand on his shoulder and gently help him up with the boy in his arms. He watches me brush snow off the weeping Lode and sees Lode\u2019s fingers wipe the blood from his son\u2019s forehead and then pull the lips of the boy\u2019s half-open mouth into a pout as if he\u2019s about to give a drowning child mouth-to-mouth. Then the boy\u2019s eyes open a little and Lode gives a deep sigh as he presses that spindly body still closer. He doesn\u2019t want his helmet. Without saying a word or looking at us, he strides off with the boy in his arms and his head proudly raised and we follow him, all of us silent, including the Germans, like in a family quarrel when the drunken father emerges from his boisterous intoxication and looks at the havoc with a suddenly paralysed voice. Even two colleagues of ours, who are waiting at the entrance to the old army bed depot, the final destination of this wild hike, say nothing when we arrive. They\u2019ve seen none of what happened, although they probably heard the bellowing. They stand there pale and stiff at the sight of Lode without a helmet and with that child in his arms, like the resurrected and probably now less than famous Hollywood hero Errol Flynn, and it even makes them forget to salute the Germans. Before being dragged inside with his family, the father carefully takes his son out of Lode\u2019s arms, looks into my comrade\u2019s eyes and murmurs something. And then they\u2019re gone, swallowed by the hollow darkness that prevails in the building, as if they never existed. We\u2019re left standing outside, Lode and me. It would be better simply to make ourselves scarce, but my mate doesn\u2019t feel like doing that yet. He swallows, neatens his hair, takes his helmet out of my hands and then calmly asks the guards whether they\u2019ve got any cigarettes on them. We smoke while it haltingly starts to snow again. One of the guards, a copper of about thirty with a bushy moustache, known to everyone as Swivel-Eyed Gust because his eyes turn in all directions after the downing of five glasses of stout, says the whole lot of them shut up in here will be put on a train for Limburg tomorrow, Sint-Truiden to be precise. No one asks what\u2019s going to be done with them there. \u2018And I\u2019ve got to travel on the train with them,\u2019 Swivel-Eyed Gust adds. \u2018Quite a job, that\u2019ll be. Anyhow, I get a few extra cents for it, so I\u2019m not complaining.\u2019 Lode draws the smoke deep into his lungs and asks how much. \u2018Forty-five francs,\u2019 Gust answers. \u2018That\u2019s not bad money,\u2019 says Lode, pitching his stub into the snow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Translated by Liz Waters<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeroen Olyslaegers – WILL A sudden fall of snow A sudden fall of snow. It makes me think of the war. Not because of the cold or other discomfort but because of the brief silence the city gets in her clutches. Great sheets of it are coming down now. It\u2019s night. I hear the sounds…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1135,"featured_media":24898,"parent":24895,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-24997","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24997\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/24898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}