De Joods-Nederlandse schrijfster Ida Vos (meisjesnaam Gudema) werd geboren in Groningen op 13 december 1931. Zie ook mijn blog van 13 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 12 december 2009.
Arrestatie
Grijs wit-glimlachend
staat hij daar
-achter glas-
mijn vader
hoe verder ik
van het raam
weg moet
temeer komt hij
me nader
vermoeid beweegt
hij beide handen
en ik denk
dit is de laatste keer
een zaaiend grijs
geschenk
Buikpijn
als ik buikpijn had
vroeger
legde je je handen
ongeveer ter hoogte
van onze navel
en de pijn verdween
ik heb mijn handen
op jouw buik gelegd
maar ik kon de pijn
niet weg nemen
in één nacht waren
mijn handen te klein
geworden
terwijl ze toch groter waren
dan toen ik buikpijn had
vroeger
Ida Vos (13 december 1931 – 3 april 2006)
De Russische schrijver Jevgeni Petrov werd geboren in Odessa op 13 december 1903. Zie ook mijn blog van 13 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 12 december 2009.
Uit: The 12 Chairs
„There were so many hairdressing establishments and funeral homes in the regional centre of N. that the inhabitants seemed to be born merely in order to have a shave, get their hair cut, freshen up their heads with toilet water and then die. In actual fact, people came into the world, shaved, and died rather rarely in the regional centre of N. Life in N. was extremely quiet. The spring evenings were delightful, the mud glistened like anthracite in the light of the moon, and all the young men of the town were so much in love with the secretary of the communal-service workers’ local committee that she found difficulty in collecting their subscriptions.
Matters of life and death did not worry Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, although by the nature of his work he dealt with them from nine till five every day, with a half-hour break for lunch.
Each morning, having drunk his ration of hot milk brought to him by Claudia Ivanovna in a streaky frosted-glass tumbler, he left the dingy little house and went outside into the vast street bathed in weird spring sunlight; it was called Comrade Gubernsky Street. It was the nicest kind of street you can find in regional centres. On the left you could see the coffins of the Nymph Funeral Home glittering with silver through undulating green-glass panes. On the right, the dusty, plain oak coffins of Bezenchuk, the undertaker, reclined sadly behind small windows from which the putty was peeling off. Further up, “Master Barber Pierre and Constantine” promised customers a “manicure” and “home curlings”. Still further on was a hotel with a hairdresser’s, and beyond it a large open space in which a straw-coloured calf stood tenderly licking the rusty sign propped up against a solitary gateway. The sign read: Do-Us-the-Honour Funeral Home.
Although there were many funeral homes, their clientele was not wealthy. The Do-Us-the-Honour had gone broke three years before Ippolit Matveyevich settled in the town of N., while Bezenchuk drank like a fish and had once tried to pawn his best sample coffin.
People rarely died in the town of N. Ippolit Matveyevich knew this better than anyone because he worked in the registry office, where he was in charge of the registration of deaths and marriages.“
Jevgeni Petrov (13 december 1903 – 2 juli 1942)
Jevgeny Petrov (rechts) en Ylya Ilf (links)
De Franse schrijver Jean Rouaud werd geboren op 13 december 1952 in Campbon (Loire-Atlantique). Zie ook mijn blog van 13 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 12 december 2009.
Uit: Les Champs d’honneur
« La pluie est une compagne en Loire-Inférieure, la moitié fidèle d’une vie. La région y gagne d’avoir un style particulier(…)Les nuages chargés des vapeurs de l’Océan s’engouffrent à hauteur de Saint-Nazaire dans l’estuaire de la Loire, remontent le fleuve et, dans une noria incessante, déversent sur le pays nantais leur trop-plein d’humidité. Dans l’ensemble, des quantités qui n’ont rien de considérable si l’on se réfère à la mousson, mais savamment distillées sur toute l’année, si bien que pour les gens de passage qui ne profitent pas toujours d’une éclaircie la réputation du pays est vite établie: nuages et pluies. » p 15 puis plus loin « Les premières gouttes sont imperceptibles. On regarde là-haut, on doute qu’on ait reçu quoi que ce soit de ce ciel gris perle, lumineux, où jouent à distance les miroitements de l’Océan. Les pluies fines se contentent souvent d’accompagner la marée montante, les petites marées au coefficient de 50, 60, dans leur train-train bi-quotidien (…) Le ciel et la mer indifférenciés s’arrangent d’un camaïeu cendré, de longues veines anthracite soulignent les vagues et les nuages, l’horizon n’est plus cette ligne de partage entre les éléments, mais une sorte de fondu enchaîné. Le pays tout entier est à la pluie: elle peut sourdre des arbres et de l’herbe, du bitume gris à l’unisson du ciel ou de la tristesse des gens. »
Jean Rouaud (Campbon, 13 december 1952)
De Engelstalige en van oorsprong Zuid-Afrikaanse schrijver en officier Laurens Jan van der Post werd geboren in Philippopolis op 13 december 1906. Zie ook mijn blog van 13 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 12 december 2009.
Uit: A Japanese Story-Teller
„Somewhere near the centre in a sort of market-place, I noticed, among all the tumult of movement and babble and talk, what appeared to be a place of calm and orderly arrangement of men, women and children, squatting or sitting on their knees, apart from the rest and deeply absorbed in something seemingly invisible. I was strangely drawn towards them and compelled to ask Mr Tajima to take me there.
The not inconsiderable group of people, so absorbed that they did not notice our arrival, were there at the feet of a man sitting on a yellow mat talking in a low, clear voice. He was dressed in a golden kimono, held with a broad sash woven of green and red round the middle. It was a far more abundant garment than usual, and lay with ample folds around him that overruled any shape or movement of his body within, and fell wide to the ground to disguise even the way he sat. In this sense he was more like a monument of singular authority rather than the man himself. This authority was immeasurably increased by the head and face above the dress. It was the face of an old man with features of a cast so old that it seemed beyond measure of antiquity that I possessed regarding the history of Japan. He looked, in fact, like one of those philosophers, statesmen, poets or resolved servants of the earliest emperors of China, serving, in exile from the people they loved and all that they valued, on the frontier of some remote province among the barbaric subjects of their imperial masters. They did so with such absolute committment that some of the most moving and healing poetry of classical China before its age of `troubles’ came from their philosophical brush to convey a quality which seemed personified in the man now talking with such hypnotic power to the little gathering. His skin was like an ancient parchment, covered with innumerable creases and lines as of sensitive writing describing a long record of complex experience of life, and so exacting a metamorphosis of its hurt, injury, conflict and, perhaps even most demanding, the pull of its pleasures.“
Laurens Jan van der Post (13 december 1906 – 16 december 1996)
De Canadeese schilderes en schrijfster Emily Carr werd geboren in Victoria op 13 december 1871. ook mijn blog van 13 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 12 december 2009.
Uit: Klee Wyck
„The lady Missionaries expected me. They sent an enormous Irishman in a tiny canoe to meet the steamer. We got to the Ucluelet wharf soon after dawn. Everything was big and cold and strange to me, a fifteen-year-old school girl. I was the only soul on the wharf. The Irishman did not have any trouble deciding which was I.
It was low tide, so there was a long, sickening ladder with slimy rungs to climb down to get to the canoe. The man’s big laugh and the tippiness of the canoe were even more frightening than the ladder. The paddle in his great arms rushed the canoe through the waves.
We came to Toxis, which was the Indian name for the Mission House. It stood just above hightide water. The sea was in front of it and the forest behind.
The house was of wood, unpainted. There were no blinds or curtains. It looked, as we paddled up to it, as if it were stuffed with black. When the canoe stuck in the mud, the big Irishman picked me up in
his arms and set me down on the doorstep.
The Missionaries were at the door. Smells of cooking fish jumped out past them. People lived on fish at Ucluelet.
Both the Missionaries were dignified, but the Greater Missionary had the most dignity. They had long noses straddled by spectacles, thin lips, mild eyes, and wore straight, dark dresses buttoned to
the chin.
There was only two of everything in the kitchen, so I had to sit on a box, drink from a bowl and eat my food out of a tin pie-dish.“
Emily Carr (13 december 1871 – 2 maart 1945)