“Als ik een mens was
En geen steen
Ik wenste jullie
Om me heen”
Until this day, when I still didn’t know where the end of the world was located, and how did it look, and how did it smell like, and how did it feel to touch it, or rather, merely brush it, so scared was I that it would all break if I dared so much as to breathe louder than I whispered, I thought it was an invention of man –for how could the world end, it’s just as ridiculous as saying, for instance, that men do not live forever, that love may fade and taxes may not be paid-. Of course I should have known, and I am ashamed I didn’t, that from all lands under the sun,
Holland would be the one who’d keep it safe. But as I stood there and everything cleared, fast, as fast clouds playing around the sun, now you can see it, now you can’t, we’re teasers, and I faced the void, I knew for sure that I had never been there, still the same sea voice that said “you don’t belong here” as it crashed against the dike would also say, as it retreated, “but you may”. The sea is no good oracle: it speaks with too many voices. I can hear him inside, like all sailor’s daughters can, a much softer sea than this one; still the big brother acknowledges the insignificant one, and talks to me, it laughs at me, he says, speak in Dutch to me.
I speak to him. He doesn’t mind the lacking words –the ocean understands, and awaits only for eternity-, and my unspoken voice drags no accent, since it flies from heart to sand, from south to north, from sea to sea. The big brother of all seas is wise and old and speaks in many tongues, in all the tongues of men, but in every land he changes his tune. Ik heb je al gezien, I say, measuring my clumsy words, dan was je wat warmer. He sighs. Wat is het met jou gebeurd? But he won’t answer that. So I try something easier. -Is het hier, het eind? Het eind van alle dingen?
I can almost swear he’s laughing at me; but I’m not sure.-Neen, hier ligt het begin. And if the big brother of all oceans says so, it must be true. I look around, as he requests, but there is nothing to be seen. Kijk nog eens, he insists. He insists, that’s why I know he exists. Then the nothingness emerges. It is indeed the very beginning, where everything awaits to be done and named. Sailors know that the sea tells many truths; I know that too, I think I may have read it somewhere in a
London tale. But he speaks again, and all fades to silent:-ga nu, mijn kind, jij komt toch wel terug I try to conceal it from him. But the sea knows. Go in peace, and in peace I go. Maar ik kom wel terug.
