The Corpse on the Dike by Janwillem van de Wetering Page B

such fun drinking Pernod with him. He is a bit like me, I think, poor fellow. But he is weaker, so he will survive. He was saying that he will probably get married, rent a flat and have children. He doesn’t really want to but life is too strong he says; it’s got him by the scruff of the neck and is shaking him. They’ll take photographs at his wedding and they’ll paste them in an album that he’ll show to his friends and relations. Oh, poor gentle Karel. But who am I to sneer at him? Perhaps I want the same thing, although I doubt it I really doubt it, Liza. And I doubt whether he wants all this family life and happiness and coziness and good cheer. Does anybody want it? Once the human animal was a hunter, lived in the forests and had a good time. Life was short. I read somewhere that the skeletons found in a grave a million years old all belonged to young people. There wasn’t a skeleton to be found that had held a life older than twenty-five years. They ran about and had their adventures, and then a bear caught them, or the flu, or the plague, or the jealous lover. They had their skulls crushed when the fun was still on. And now we build concrete boxes and look at two-dimensional pictures that move, and we have an early night four times a week. It can’t be right.
    The biggest riddle—to me—is that I am sometimes quite happy. Two weeks ago, for instance. The chief clerk, a secondhand clown who you must never meet, brought me a whole heap of forms to be filled in and I was actually grateful. Can you imagine, dear Liza? I was grateful. The forms were some new model and I was looking forward to filling them in. Poor crazy me.
    I had an adventure yesterday. I was walking about on the beach looking for a woman I’d met the night before—a nice woman with a nice figure. She had been alone and I had said something about the moon and the sea. I’d had a flask of cognac with me. She’d had a sip and I’d had a sip and it all ended the way I had wanted it to end. She hadn’t seemed to be very enthusiastic but she had made the right movements and what more does a tourist want? Love in the moonlight on a deserted beach, heigh-ho and a bottle of Yo. I thought she might be on the beach again but that was silly of me, of course, for she had told me she was a nurse and would be on duty during the day. Anyway, I was ambling about when I saw a sand hill, a very steep hill and I climbed it to enjoy the view of the sea. The view was fine and I fell asleep. When I awoke I had moved to the edge of the hill; suddenly I felt myself rolling down. I didn’t think it was so bad at first, but then I saw that I was heading for some sharp rocks and that I was actually in danger of losing my life. And I was frightened. I didn’t want to lose my life. I, Tom Wernekink, wanted to live. Wasn’t that a surprise? I managed to live, as you can see, for this isn’t a letter from the Other Side, conveyed to you through the good offices of Madame Raqama, who will go into a trance at the drop of a hat and a twenty-five guilder note. I, your friend Tom, am writing the letter in my own spidery, illegible and unbalanced handwriting.
    But it made me think. It destroyed my daydream of the Ideal Suicide. Karel and I worked it out the other day, plunging through a bottle and a half of Pernod. It was a complicated daydream but not quite impossible, I think. I’ll try to describe it to you.
                  1) I study the currents and the times of high and low tide.
                  2) I buy three bottles of sleeping pills—no reason to be stingy—and a large bottle of the very best cognac.
                  3) I wait for the moon to be full; suicide is an act of lunacy and the first four letters of the word LUNA name our old friend, the round, mysterious, gently frightening body that rules the night.
                  4) I go to the beach.
                  5) I swim—holding on to the