{"id":37881,"date":"2020-03-24T11:29:52","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T10:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/?page_id=37881"},"modified":"2020-03-24T11:29:52","modified_gmt":"2020-03-24T10:29:52","slug":"sample-translation-daddys-hand","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/foreignrights\/authors\/bart-chabot\/bart-chabot-daddys-hand\/sample-translation-daddys-hand\/","title":{"rendered":"Sample translation – Daddy’s Hand<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bart Chabot – Daddy’s Hand<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chapter 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spring came early that year; so early that spring itself could barely keep up. I was on my way back from meeting an old friend, walking to my car, which I had parked at the end of the afternoon in front of the Peace Palace. The streets fit me like the fingers on a glove.<\/p>\n

Across from the French embassy, I saw a moped coming towards me. The kind of moped I knew from my younger years: not a Puch with chopper handlebars, like the one I\u2019d owned myself for a spell, but a low-rider: a Kreidler, Z\u00fcndapp or Berini.<\/p>\n

The mopedist looked at me: that is to say, the helmet turned in my direction. Then the driver laid off the gas, braked and pulled up to the curb. A Kreidler.<\/p>\n

The helmet came off and I saw that the driver was a woman.<\/p>\n

\u201cBart?\u201d she said. \u201cAre you Bart Chabot?\u201d<\/p>\n

She was wearing white sneakers. Beneath her leather jacket she had on a pair of white trousers. Was she some kind of nurse, Florence Nightingale in the flesh?<\/p>\n

She put the moped up on its stand. This was going to take a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry for bothering you,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

I said it was no problem, I was used to being approached by complete strangers. What could I do for her?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s none of my business, and I\u2019m not supposed to get involved, it has nothing to do with me…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just came from your father.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was getting close to nine; there was almost no traffic, except for a city bus that drove by, virtually empty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just bathed him, your father, and put him in bed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s lovely,\u201d I said. \u201cI appreciate it very much, ma\u2019am…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy name\u2019s Nicolette.\u201d She held out her hand.<\/p>\n

\u201c…you taking care of my father,\u201d I said, shaking her hand.<\/p>\n

How long had it been, I asked myself, since I\u2019d seen my father or talked to him? Twenty years? Twenty-two?<\/p>\n

The same went for my mother. I hadn\u2019t been in contact with my parents for at least twenty years. You\u2019d almost think something had gone wrong between us.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand,\u201d Nicolette said, \u201cthat you don\u2019t feel like talking to them anymore, either of them. You must have a good reason for that, I don\u2019t doubt that, but…\u201d<\/p>\n

From high above the rooftops came a familiar cawing that I hadn\u2019t heard all winter: the seagulls had returned.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow is he doing?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cBadly,\u201d Nicolette said. \u201cTo be perfectly frank. Very badly. Your father is senile, so senile that he\u2019s been admitted to the locked ward at the nursing home. Didn\u2019t you know that? Oh, I feel so bad for him. He\u2019s not as far gone as the others. Your father insists on dressing neatly when he\u2019s in his chair… even though, all around him… He\u2019s surrounded by old people who can\u2019t control their bowels, while your father… When we dress him in the morning, he always wants to wear a suitcoat, and a cravat. He doesn\u2019t care about the necktie anymore, but… Decorum. He just sits there all day in his Sunday best, while beside him and all around him…\u201d<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take much imagination to see my father sitting in his wheelchair, listing to one side, with decay and decline raging all around him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe talks about you often, all the time. You have a sister too, right? Every time, he starts in about you. \u2018I have a son, Bart..\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yes, we know, Mr. Chabot, you told us that.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yes, but…\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018We know all about it, Mr. Chabot, about your son. We\u2019ve heard that. But right now we\u2019re here to give you a bath.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The sky over the rooftops looked bluer than blue; wrap it and you could put it up for sale, as is.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen he pulls out his wallet, the poor man. He keeps two clippings in there, both of them about you. He unfolds them and reads them aloud to us, he\u2019s been doing that for years. That\u2019s no problem, really; we just get on with our work while he\u2019s reading. We don\u2019t even hear it anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s pulled out those clipping and folded them back up again so often, they\u2019re almost falling apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicolette looked at the helmet she was holding, and at the moped.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour mother tells me you\u2019re not in contact anymore. Listen, I don\u2019t know what happened between you: like I said, I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve got your reasons, but… It\u2019s so pitiful, the way he sits there like that. If you ask me, he doesn\u2019t have a whole lot longer to live. Think about it. You\u2019d be doing him such a favor if you came by. It would do him so much good to see you again, you have no idea. That\u2019s all I wanted to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

I thanked her for everything and said again that I really appreciated all she was doing for my father.<\/p>\n

Nicolette zipped up her leather jacket and lifted her helmet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, all the best. We\u2019ll see. Nice talking to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

She started the Kreidler and rode off, down Laan van Meerdervoort.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Maybe, I mused as I walked on, I should let bygones be bygones and go to visit him. A feud could continue to the grave, but it didn\u2019t have to be fought out into or even past that. Besides, the nursing home was just around the corner from my house, within walking distance. The distance wouldn\u2019t be the problem.<\/p>\n

All right, I told myself, I\u2019ll go visit him one of these days, Nicolette could count on that, then we\u2019d see how it went.<\/p>\n

But before I covered that distance, I had to finish my new book. The deadline was looming. No matter what, that book just had to be finished. After that, I\u2019d have more time on my hands.<\/p>\n

First the book. Then my father. That was the order I\u2019d do it in; not the other way around.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I climbed in, it was as though the car sensed there was something going on. I didn\u2019t have to pull the door shut; it closed almost by itself.<\/p>\n

I thought about my father, who had worked his way up from nothing to the position of consul, in Vancouver and Chicago, something he was very proud of; and I thought about how he was wiling away his days right now. I thought about him longer than I had for years; so long that it grew dark before I realized it. I had to head back home, before someone in the family called to find out where I was hanging out.<\/p>\n

I started the car and was about to pull away from the curb.<\/p>\n

No lights were on behind the windows of the Peace Palace.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chapter 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s okay, Bril,\u201d I told our dog, who \u2013 old and gray \u2013 only left his kennel to eat or be let out, but who was staring at me now.\u00a0 Was there something wrong with Master?<\/p>\n

I was home alone, and looked up again from the newspaper spread out in front of me on the kitchen table. What did this dog want from me, anyway? I\u2019d made myself clear enough, hadn\u2019t I?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s okay, Bril,\u201d I said again. Bril sighed and laid his head on his front paws, but kept staring at me, there was no fooling him. We understood each other perfectly, the dog and me.<\/p>\n

That I was reading the personals was pure coincidence: rarely if ever did I turn to the obituaries. Once you started reading those you were on the wrong side of the borderline.<\/p>\n

Well, coincidence… Why was I reading these announcements anyway?<\/p>\n

One of our sons, Maurits, had a classmate, Philip, a boy from our neighborhood. Philip\u2019s mother and I often used to walk our children home from school together; until Odille had to turn right and I went left. After high school too, our kids kept in touch, so we knew that Philip was going to university in Groningen.<\/p>\n

Great was our shock when Maurits came back from the playing fields on a Sunday afternoon. \u201cHave you heard already?\u201d<\/p>\n

No, Yolanda and I said, what would we have heard about?<\/p>\n

\u201cPhilip came back from vacation yesterday with a bunch of guys from the club. When they got to The Hague, his friends wanted to go on to Groningen. Philip was tired from the long drive and went to bed. He was going to follow them today, by train.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut something stopped him,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s putting it mildly, Dad,\u201d Maurits said. \u201cYesterday, around five, Odille went to the bottom of the stairs to call him down for a drink. He didn\u2019t answer. She goes upstairs, knocks on his door, no answer, she goes in. He was lying there asleep, she thought. If only that had been true. Odille went over to him… She didn\u2019t panic, she used to be a nurse, but she called the ambulance right away. They got there fast, and so did the police. Too late. Philip died in his sleep. They\u2019re still trying to figure out what caused it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The kitchen fell quiet. He and Philip weren\u2019t just classmates, they\u2019d been on the same soccer team for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going upstairs,\u201d Maurits said, \u201cto my room. Oh, before I forget… the funeral\u2019s on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n

We listened to Maurits\u2019 foosteps moving slowly up the stairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s five-thirty,\u201d I said. \u201cWhat would you like to drink?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Philip\u2019s death announcement came in the mail that morning: the card was leaning against the peppermill on the kitchen table, and I read what I already knew and put it back carefully so it wouldn\u2019t slip away.<\/p>\n

Would Odille and Ruud place an obituary for their son? Not unlikely. In the NRC<\/em> , it seemed to me: Ruud was a successful businessman. And when would the obituary be run: yesterday, today, tomorrow?<\/p>\n

I put aside De Volkskrant<\/em>, picked up NRC<\/em>, opened it and flipped through to the obituary columns.<\/p>\n

The first three were about Philip\u2019s untimely death. I read the texts, also the ones from his roommates and the fraternity Philip had belonged to, and I read them again. My hand was moving to turn the page when my eyes glanced off the top of the page. \u201cChabot,\u201d I read, and \u201cG\u00e9,\u201d with the relevant dates underneath. It didn\u2019t take me long to figure out who this was about.<\/p>\n

My father was dead.<\/p>\n

It was because of Philip\u2019s death that I found about it. That was nice of Philip, but he could have saved himself the trouble.<\/p>\n

My father, when he was alive and well, had been awarded the \u201cOrder of Merit of the Italian Republic\u201d, I read. And: \u201cOfficer in the Order of the Oak Crown\u201d in Luxemburg. That was news to me. Never knew my father had anything to do with Italy or Luxemburg, or they with him. And what was Luxemburg\u2019s Order of the Oak Crown all about? It was almost enough to make a body curious.<\/p>\n

Bril was snoring: until Yolanda and the kids came home, I had only myself to turn to.<\/p>\n

I had lost a lot of friends, friends dearer to me than my father; but still, it was my father. I felt like getting up to make coffee or, better yet, to pour myself a glass of wine, but I couldn\u2019t get away from my chair, it stuck to me and wouldn\u2019t let go.<\/p>\n

I stared at the paper without reading the ad, and then at the garden and the houses across the way. There was laundry hanging from one of the balconies there, flapping in the wind. They would bring it back inside before dark.<\/p>\n

National Geographic<\/em>, which he\u2019d given me a subscription to when he was still living in Chicago, still came in the mail even two decades later: the final thread that bound us. I appreciated his gesture: the magazine itself I always passed right along to our four sons, who were pleased to clip photos out of it for their essays at school. My father and I may have had irreconcilable differences, but he did not cut the umbilical a second time.<\/p>\n

So it hadn\u2019t happened, going to see him, and it wasn\u2019t going to happen anymore either. That chance was gone.<\/p>\n

I felt no rage at what he had once done to me: the past was too far past for that. What had happened, happened: nothing could be undone or erased.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, no special feelings came up.<\/p>\n

When my father died, I hadn\u2019t finished my book yet. That novel would appear only months later.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Six months after he died, National Geographic<\/em> stopped coming in the mail, with no explanation; as though the magazine had been disbanded from one day to the next. To my surprise, the boys never asked about it.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t miss the magazine, just as I had never missed my father for a moment.<\/p>\n

One night I put all the back volumes in boxes out on the curb, where they were taken away the next morning by a vehicle from the department of sanitation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chapter 14<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right before my father was to come home from the office and we would sit down to dinner, I ran away from home. Not that I had any idea what to do or where to go. I was nine and hoped that some sort of solution would reveal itself all by itself. Anything was better than home. I crossed Theresiastraat and a little further along went left down Koningin Marialaan.<\/p>\n

When I rounded the corner onto Bezuidenhoutseweg, I saw my father coming towards me. I didn\u2019t know where to turn.<\/p>\n

My father\u2019s appearance and, coming closer, the look in his eye frightened me so badly that I stood nailed to the ground. Would he take me apart limb by limb right here on the spot, leaving the sidewalk covered in torn-off arms and legs? I figured he was up to it. The risk of being caught in the act by someone looking out a window was the only thing that could keep him from tearing me to pieces.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now you come with me, you,\u201d he hissed. \u201cWe\u2019ll talk about this when we get home.\u201d<\/p>\n

At home I was sent to my room right away, without dinner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll come up in a bit,\u201d my father said. \u201cSo we can have our little talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

My sister stared straight ahead to keep from being distracted in any way, at a neutral spot on the wall, and at the Siemens radio console that she\u2019s never paid much attention to before; she could more or less guess the consequences of my aborted breakout.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My bedroom door flew open and my father stepped in. I did not piss in my pants. If you turned off your brains as much as possible, the circuits and the wiring, almost nothing could touch you.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave I made myself sufficiently clear?\u201d my father said when he was finished with me. \u201cOr do I have to be even clearer with you, to make sure it gets through that thick skull of yours? I\u2019d be pleased to, you know. Wouldn\u2019t want you to be left with any further questions. It\u2019s up to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was just about to close the bedroom door behind him, when he reconsidered and turned around.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think you can still sit?\u201d he said \u201cYeah? Too bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That night I crept out of bed, so as not to wake my sister, and went to look at the night sky. The stars were not far away, they were actually close by, and much realer than a lot of what happened and went on around me.<\/p>\n

I would do that more often, climb out of bed at night and look at the stars.<\/p>\n

Sometimes they came so close that, if you opened the window, you could reach out and touch them. But I had the feeling the stars weren\u2019t waiting around to be touched by me, to be sullied by my fingers.<\/p>\n

After a few weeks the stars had become not so much neighbors as friends, and I believed they felt the same way too. You could reckon on them blindly. As long as a cloudy sky didn\u2019t throw a wrench in the works, they came to light each night and took all the time in the world for you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After I ran away from home, my father stopped calling me by my first name, simply referring to me as \u201cignoramus\u201d, \u201cnumbskull\u201d and \u201ctotal imbecile\u201d, or merely pointing at me and saying: \u201cThat, there\u201d; as though in fact I wasn\u2019t there at all.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t belong in the company of humans. I wished that I could dig a deep tunnel under the ground, like the Vietcong, that the American troops would never find.<\/p>\n

But I was not a member of the Vietcong.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d I heard my sister say to a girlfriend on the phone one afternoon, when our parents were on fall vacation and had dropped us with our grandmother in Scheveningen, \u201cI hope they die in a crash. I lie awake at night and pray that their VW will fly out of a curve, right into a tree. Then I\u2019d finally be rid of them. \u2018Dear God,\u2019 I pray, \u2018make it happen, a fatal accident, please, please, please.\u201d<\/p>\n

So it wasn\u2019t just me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chapter 15<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cG\u00e9,\u201d my mother said to my father one Sunday afternoon, \u201cisn\u2019t it about time you taught the boy to ride a bike? It\u2019s quiet outside now, during the week you come home from work and you\u2019re tired, you keep putting it off. His bike\u2019s been in the shed for I don\u2019t know how long, but ride it himself, not a chance. What a waste: you know how much that bike cost. Can I leave that up to you, to teach him how? Then I\u2019ll go do something about the laundry.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bike had been my birthday present, back in September, but that was months ago. Winter had always been the wrong time to learn. \u201cNo,\u201d my father said whenever my mother started in about it, \u201cit\u2019s too cold for the boy.\u201d But now spring was on its way.<\/p>\n

Reluctantly, my father put aside the newspaper and rose up out of his Sunday easy chair.<\/p>\n

\u201cMove it, you,\u201d he commanded.<\/p>\n

I followed him into the hall excitedly. It was finally going to happen: I was going to learn to ride a bike. Later, once I knew how, I could cycle all over the city, with no help from anyone, and I could go everywhere, to anywhere-my-heart-desired. Babe in Dreamland that I was. Everything was a struggle, so learning how to ride was too.<\/p>\n

We went out back, to the shed, and pulled out our bikes. Mine glistened even more sparklingly than I remembered from the morning I got it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth hands on the handlebars,\u201d my father said, \u201cand climb on.\u201d He was already seated. Copying him, I swung my right leg over the crossbar. But the cranks were in the wrong place, my right foot shot off the pedal and my left foot left the ground, a moment of imbalance, then I fell over on one side, bike and all. It made a smack, but not loud enough for my mother to suspect anything was wrong and come out onto the back balcony. My father mumbled something I couldn\u2019t hear and got off his bike to help me up. It took me a while to make it clear that the cranks needed adjusting. Or that the saddle needed to be lowered. He opened the door of the shed again with a sigh and went looking for a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. There went his free Sunday afternoon. And we didn\u2019t have all that much time left for My First Bike Lesson: Mass at the church on Bezuidenhoutseweg started at five, and my mother insisted that we eat dinner beforehand, otherwise her \u201cevening was shot\u201d, and it was her free Sunday too, after all.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t get far: no farther than Eerste van den Boschstraat. Cycling was one thing, but braking and coming to a halt was another. I didn\u2019t have that technique down pat, and for the second time I went crashing to the ground. My father peered around embarrassedly \u2013 had any of the neighbors seen the luckless fall? \u2013 as though he were the one who had crashed his bike.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThat was fast, you two,\u201d my mother said. \u201cSo, how did it go?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA complete mess,\u201d my father said. \u201cHe just couldn\u2019t do it.\u201d He shook his head at so much idiocy. \u201cWhat else would you expect?\u201d he added, more to himself than to my mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were gone for less than hour, G\u00e9,\u201d my mother said. \u201cAre you sure you gave it enough of a chance?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTeach him to ride a bike? A complete waste of time. He\u2019s too dumb, even for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

My mother said nothing; the afternoon was going swimmingly.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe can\u2019t do a damn thing, the jerk,\u201d I heard my father bluster. \u201cThat kid is nothing but trouble. It\u2019s enough to make anybody fly off the handle. He\u2019s a complete waste.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without deigning to glance at me, he walked back to the living room. He could get along without my presence for a while.<\/p>\n

My mother looked at me as though she\u2019d given up on believing in me anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you do it?\u201d she said. \u201cIs it really that difficult? Couldn\u2019t you try just once not to ruin everything? Well you\u2019ve done it again this time, you\u2019ve got your father livid. Is it really too much for you to do something normal for once, is it too much to ask to even just go for a little ride on the bike? What am I supposed to do with you, for god sake? \u201c<\/p>\n

In my mind, I gave myself a guilty look. To be honest, I had no idea what they were supposed to do with me. Go on like this for a bit and the whole Sunday afternoon was blasted to high heaven. Better to make myself invisible, by going to my room.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what, G\u00e9?\u201d my mother shouted from the kitchen. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you pour me a glass of sherry?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou?\u201d said my father after yet another run-in. \u201cThe place where they bury you when you die, the grass will never grow there again.\u201d<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t all my father wanted to get off his chest.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour mother and I still regret the day you were born, you know that?\u201d<\/p>\n

He looked at me in disgust, as though I were some unrecognizable thing they\u2019d dredged up out of a nearby ditch and that he was supposed to identify, but that had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never should have brought you into the world, your mother and I. I just wish I could wipe it out, your birth. I wish I could turn back the clock.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was as though, years and years later, the hell of the English bombardment was still smoldering in the house.<\/p>\n

I was starting to feel cold, very cold.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Bart Chabot – Daddy’s Hand     Chapter 1 Spring came early that year; so early that spring itself could barely keep up. I was on my way back from meeting an old friend, walking to my car, which I had parked at the end of the afternoon in front of the Peace Palace. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1135,"featured_media":0,"parent":37871,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-37881","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37881","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=37881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37881\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}