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 en ook mijn blog van 13 december 2010.
Heilig
Wat heeft ze in de tijd dat ze is ondergedoken al veel mooie boeken gelezen over heiligen. Over de heilige Bernadette, over de heilige Jeanne d’Arc, over de heilige Theresia. Zo heilig zou ze willen zijn, maar ze is niet katholiek. Een joodse heilige zal er wel nooit zijn geweest.
‘Ik wil katholiek worden,’ zegt ze tegen tante.
Tante is heel verrast.
‘Meen je dat?’ vraagt ze. ‘Goed, de pastoor weet toch dat jullie hier zijn. We zullen vragen of hij vanavond eens komt praten.’
‘Ik wil ook katholiek worden,’ zegt Esther.
‘Goed, over jou praten we ook,’ belooft tante.
’s Avonds zit meneer pastoor bij hen in de keuken.
‘Ria en Maaike willen katholiek worden,’ zegt tante.
‘Dat is een goeie keus,’ knikt meneer pastoor. ‘Morgen ga ik met de ouders praten. Jullie horen van mij.’
De volgende dag praten ze over gedoopt worden.
‘Jullie mogen voor één keer mee naar de kerk,’ zegt tante. ‘En ik ga jullie schoenen poetsen en je krijgt bloemen in je haar.’
Ze worden er helemaal vrolijk van. Ondergedoken zijn en toch naar buiten gaan. Hoe kan dat?
‘Als ik gedoopt ben, word ik later heilig,’ zegt ze. ‘Net als Bernadette en Jeanne en Theresia.’
Meneer pastoor brengt een droevige boodschap mee.
‘De ouders willen niet dat ze gedoopt worden. “Later, als ze zelf kunnen beslissen en ze willen nog,” heeft de vader gezegd.’
Ze moet vreselijk huilen. Daar gaat het uitje naar de kerk. Daar gaan de bloemen, en heilig worden kan nu ook niet.
‘Ik zie dat je huilt,’ zegt meneer pastoor. ‘Dat is goed. Nu zijn jullie martelaren voor het geloof. Voordat de heilige Bernadette en de heilige Jeanne en de heilige Theresia heilig werden verklaard, waren ze martelaren. Dat zijn jullie nu ook. Ik heb van tante gehoord dat jullie iedere dag bidden. Blijf dat doen.’
‘Amen,’ zegt ze.
‘Amen,’ zegt Esther.
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 en ook mijn blog van 13 december 2010
Uit: The 12 Chairs
„The desk at which Ippolit Matveyevich worked resembled an ancient gravestone. The left-hand corner had been eaten away by rats. Its wobbly legs quivered under the weight of bulging tobacco-coloured files of notes, which could provide any required information on the origins of the town inhabitants and the family trees that had grown up in the barren regional soil.
On Friday, April 15, 1927, Ippolit Matveyevich woke up as usual at half past seven and immediately slipped on to his nose an old-fashioned pince-nez with a gold nosepiece. He did not wear glasses. At one time, deciding that it was not hygienic to wear pince-nez, he went to the optician and bought himself a pair of frameless spectacles with gold-plated sidepieces. He liked the spectacles from the very first, but his wife (this was shortly before she died) found that they made him look the spitting image of Milyukov, and he gave them to the man who cleaned the yard. Although he was not shortsighted, the fellow grew accustomed to the glasses and enjoyed wearing them.
“Bonjour!” sang Ippolit Matveyevich to himself as he lowered his legs from the bed. “Bonjour” showed that he had woken up in a. good humour. If he said “Guten Morgen” on awakening, it usually meant that his liver was playing tricks, that it was no joke being fifty-two, and that the weather was damp at the time.
Ippolit Matveyevich thrust his legs into pre-revolutionary trousers, tied the ribbons around his ankles, and pulled on short, soft-leather boots with narrow, square toes. Five minutes later he was neatly arrayed in a yellow waistcoat decorated with small silver stars and a lustrous silk jacket that reflected the colours of the rainbow as it caught the light. Wiping away the drops of water still clinging to his grey hairs after his ablutions, Ippolit Matveyevich fiercely wiggled his moustache, hesitantly felt his bristly chin, gave his close-cropped silvery hair a brush and, then, smiling politely, went toward his mother-in-law, Claudia Ivanovna, who had just come into the room.
“Eppole-et,” she thundered, “I had a bad dream last night.”
The word “dream” was pronounced with a French “r”.
Ippolit Matveyevich looked his mother-in-law up and down. He was six feet two inches tall, and from that height it was easy for him to look down on his mother-in-law with a certain contempt.
Claudia Ivanovna continued: “I dreamed of the deceased Marie with her hair down, and wearing a golden sash.”
The iron lamp with its chain and dusty glass toys all vibrated at the rumble of Claudia Ivanovna’s voice. “I am very disturbed. I fear something may happen.” These last words were uttered with such force that the square of bristling hair on Ippolit Matveyevich’s head moved in different directions. He wrinkled up his face and said slowly:
“Nothing’s going to happen, Maman. Have you paid the water rates?”
Jevgeni Petrov (13 december 1903 – 2 juli 1942)
Jevgeny Petrov (rechts) en Ylya Ilf (links) in New York, 1935
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 en ook mijn blog van 13 december 2010
Uit: Comment gagner sa vie honnêtement
« Sur la question de savoir comment gagner sa vie honnêtement, on n’a presque rien écrit qui puisse retenir l’attention. » J’avais noté la réflexion de Thoreau dans un petit répertoire téléphonique rouge tenant dans la paume d’une main, où je collectais pêle-mêle les noms de personnes, peu nombreuses au vrai, qui ne me disent plus grand-chose aujourd’hui, sur lesquelles j’essaie vainement
de coller un visage, mais qui peuvent-elles bien être ? à quelle occasion avais-je trouvé utile de solliciter leurs coordonnées ? et d’autres, beaucoup plus connues, auxquelles je n’ai jamais fait faux bond, quand, d’ordinaire, c’est moi qui ne fais pas montre d’une fidélité exemplaire. Et cette permanence du sentiment est liée essentiellement à la notoriété de celles-ci, ce qui pourrait faire de moi un adepte du name-dropping, mais pas au sens où on l’entend couramment, de ces convives qui
prennent un vif plaisir à semer tout au long du repas la liste glorieuse de leurs relations. J’étais bien trop pauvre pour m’approcher des lumières du monde, bien trop démuni, et d’ailleurs je n’en éprouvais aucun désir, ces fumerolles alimentées par des émanations éphémères ne m’éclairaient pas, n’étaient d’aucun secours à ma désolation.
Non, en fait, ceux-là, consignés dans mon carnet rouge, je les annexais d’autorité, sans leur demander leur avis. Alors que je n’étais rien, je profitai de mon extrême solitude pour dialoguer avec eux et leur demander conseil et soutien. Et en dépit de leur immense renommée, jamais ils n’ont failli. Ils ont toujours répondu présents.
Ils constituent encore aujourd’hui les éléments inamovibles de ma garde rapprochée.
Ainsi à la lettre C, au milieu de quelques adresses auxquelles je ne me suis jamais rendu — mais qu’estce que j’aurais bien été faire à V. —, on trouve Chateaubriand (François-René) (vicomte de) Saint- Malo 1768 – Paris 1848. Pas de téléphone, en visà-vis, bien sûr, mais il me suffisait de lire la date de sa mort pour entendre le vieil écrivain alité, le corps tordu par l’arthrose et les rhumatismes, réagissant aux coups de canon de la révolution de 1848 qui avaient percé sa surdité, et lâchant dans un dernier souffle :
C’est bien fait, à l’attention du monarque exécré qui avait trahi la cause des Bourbons en écartant du trône le souverain légitime, le petit comte de Chambord, baptisé avec l’eau du Jourdain, rapportée dans une fiole par ce même Chateaubriand au retour de son périple à Jérusalem, lequel, vexé peut-être que son eau précieuse n’ait pas fait de miracle, savourait à sa dernière heure, comme un plat froid, ce nouveau revirement de l’histoire qu’il ponctuait par ce mot à double fond.“
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 en ook mijn blog van 13 december 2010.
Uit: A Far Off Place
„After such a night Francois would know that he was even closer to Nonnie. Just the merest touch of her skin startled him with its message, as if one skin enclosed them both. And his being closer to her, to Nuin-Tara and to Xhabbo, sustained him when away alone hunting. He would remember the physical nearness of Nonnie and the look of trust with which Xhabbo would always watch him go in the morning. It was the same look Xhabbo had given him the day he rescued him from the lion-trap. It was a look Francois had seen elsewhere only in Hintza and the animals who had never before looked into the eyes of other men. He remembered Mopani telling him about this very look that one sees, as he put it, “only in the virgin eyes of the children of nature. It is a look one must never betray, little cousin.”
He could almost hear the beloved voice itself there in the desert where he walked alone: “One can perhaps betray oneself if one must, and hope some time for pardon from life, and one can betray the men of the twentieth century because they have all betrayed one another for so long that they have some kind of terrible immunity to betrayal. But for people of nature and animals and birds still capable of such a look, there is no such immunity, and betrayal is death to them as it is ultimately to the betrayer.”
Intangible as all these feelings and intimations and recollections were, they did Francois more good than any amount of medicine, ammunition or the help of others could have done. Once they were recognized, welcomed and made at home in his daily reckoning, he would be reassured, composed and more resolute. And he would come back, tired as he was, night after night, with whatever little of food he had gathered from the desert, eagerly looking forward to seeing those dear, trusting faces, dismayed though he would be by noticing again how ill and thin they looked, asking only that they should open their eyes and show him that the ancient, first look of trust was still there.“
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. Zie ook mijn blog van 13 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 12 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 13 december 2010
Uit Old Attic
„THE ATTIC was no older than the rest of the house. Yet, from the first to me it was very old, old in the sense of dearness, old as the baby you hug and call “dear old thing” is not old in years, but just in the way he has tangled himself round your heart, has become part of you so that he seems always to have existed, as far back as memory goes. That was the way with my attic. Immediately I came into the house the attic took me, just as if it had always “homed” me, became my special corner-the one place really my own.
The whole house, my flat, even my own studio, was more or less public. People could track me down in any part of the house or even in the garden. Nobody ever thought of tracking me up to my attic.
I had a fine bedroom off the studio, but I kept that as a guest room, preferring to sleep in my attic. A narrow, crooked little stair in one corner of the studio climbed to a balcony, no more than a lower lip outside the attic door. If people could not find me about house or garden, they stood in the studio and shouted.
Emily Carr: Tree in Autumn
Out I popped on the tiny balcony, high up on the studio wall, like a cuckoo popping out of a clock.
In the attic I could wallow in tears or in giggles; nobody saw.
There was an outer hall and front door shared by the doll’s flat and my own. If the doorbell rang while I was in my attic, I stuck my head out of the window in the gable without being seen, and called, “Who? Down in a second!”
That second gave me a chance to change my face. Those experienced in landladying told me, “Develop the ‘landlady face,’ my dear-not soft, not glad, not sorry, just blank.”
Emily Carr (13 december 1871 – 2 maart 1945)