and Lotte walked about stiffly, like fallen angels, in white organdie dresses with flounces and ruches. Koen, still a baby when Lotte had fallen through the ice, refused to wear long trousers to hide the grazes on his knees.
At the photographer’s request, their mother, with the newborn in her arms, seated herself in the middle of the bench and, in the interests of the composition, she was flanked by the organdie dresses. The others stood behind, a climbing rose pricking them in the back. ‘Lovely …’ he murmured, studying the tableau vivant in his lens, ‘er … isn’t sir to be part of it?’ ‘Sir is in a bad mood,’ said Lotte’s mother, ‘so we don’t want him in the photograph.’ ‘Could there be a little smile perhaps?’ They did their best to forget the big spoilsport and troublemaker and stared straight at the camera; the young swallows piped, a light breeze wafted the scent of lilacs, the photographer bent behind his magic box – the whole situation could have been agreeable if that lacuna had not existed there in the middle behind the bench, a missing figure who let his hands rest on their mother’s shoulders. The photographer implored them to laugh. Forced attempts – only Mies smiled attractively, like a film star, eyeing the lens with a sensuous expression; Koen was scratching open the scabs on his knees.
At that moment Beethoven’s Ninth began through the open window, booming and massive. The volume was turned up as far as the loudspeakers could manage. The photographer held his temples in his hands and shut his eyes pathetically. I cannot concentrate like this, he gestured. For the first time Lotte experienced a piercing, sweet-poisonous emotion that she could not yet define as hate. She looked over the photographer’s head to the tops of the conifers that were moving gently in the breeze and wished furiously that her thoughts had the power to kill. ‘Laugh!’ cried their mother, prodding and pinching them, ‘laugh chaps!’ She showed her radiant smile, all teeth bared (didn’t she want to tear him topieces?). Her eyes joined in too, she was beside herself with pleasure . ‘We’ve got one more child,’ she shouted above the Scherzo, ‘a big, stubborn child, in there.’ She gestured towards the window with her head, laughing sideways. A cloud passed in front of the sun, the photographer raised his long black arm to the sky and pushed it away. He held his breath and pushed the shutter in.
Lotte’s father did not always opt out. He put up fierce resistance when she was sent to a Christian school because the state schools were not accepting any more pupils. He looked at his wife with utter disgust as though she had enrolled Lotte at an institution for the mentally handicapped. ‘You’ll see,’ she said laconically, ‘that in her case religious stuff will go in one ear and out the other.’ She was proved right, though not in the way she meant.
The Bible had the appeal of the forbidden. Just as some girls sneaked into a bioscope with painted lips to watch an adult film breathlessly, Lotte was secretly thrilled by the Bible, which certainly also carried the ‘over eighteen’ label, with all that death and killing, adultery and fornication it poured over the innocent reader. What tame reading matter her father’s favourite book was in comparison . Diligently she studied the stories of blood and miracles. Attempts to exchange ideas with her classmates ran straight into a wall of indifference. They had absolutely no thoughts about it; they were brought up on religion like a daily dose of cod liver oil. Similarly with the minister’s daughter, with whom she shared her bench, the Bible was not a subject for contemplation but a duty, a soporific aspect of Sundays – weekly imprisonment in the gloomy confirmation classroom next door to the church. Their blind, uninterested acceptance of it as a ragbag of stories, presented as ‘what actually happened’, shocked her. With her
At the photographer’s request, their mother, with the newborn in her arms, seated herself in the middle of the bench and, in the interests of the composition, she was flanked by the organdie dresses. The others stood behind, a climbing rose pricking them in the back. ‘Lovely …’ he murmured, studying the tableau vivant in his lens, ‘er … isn’t sir to be part of it?’ ‘Sir is in a bad mood,’ said Lotte’s mother, ‘so we don’t want him in the photograph.’ ‘Could there be a little smile perhaps?’ They did their best to forget the big spoilsport and troublemaker and stared straight at the camera; the young swallows piped, a light breeze wafted the scent of lilacs, the photographer bent behind his magic box – the whole situation could have been agreeable if that lacuna had not existed there in the middle behind the bench, a missing figure who let his hands rest on their mother’s shoulders. The photographer implored them to laugh. Forced attempts – only Mies smiled attractively, like a film star, eyeing the lens with a sensuous expression; Koen was scratching open the scabs on his knees.
At that moment Beethoven’s Ninth began through the open window, booming and massive. The volume was turned up as far as the loudspeakers could manage. The photographer held his temples in his hands and shut his eyes pathetically. I cannot concentrate like this, he gestured. For the first time Lotte experienced a piercing, sweet-poisonous emotion that she could not yet define as hate. She looked over the photographer’s head to the tops of the conifers that were moving gently in the breeze and wished furiously that her thoughts had the power to kill. ‘Laugh!’ cried their mother, prodding and pinching them, ‘laugh chaps!’ She showed her radiant smile, all teeth bared (didn’t she want to tear him topieces?). Her eyes joined in too, she was beside herself with pleasure . ‘We’ve got one more child,’ she shouted above the Scherzo, ‘a big, stubborn child, in there.’ She gestured towards the window with her head, laughing sideways. A cloud passed in front of the sun, the photographer raised his long black arm to the sky and pushed it away. He held his breath and pushed the shutter in.
Lotte’s father did not always opt out. He put up fierce resistance when she was sent to a Christian school because the state schools were not accepting any more pupils. He looked at his wife with utter disgust as though she had enrolled Lotte at an institution for the mentally handicapped. ‘You’ll see,’ she said laconically, ‘that in her case religious stuff will go in one ear and out the other.’ She was proved right, though not in the way she meant.
The Bible had the appeal of the forbidden. Just as some girls sneaked into a bioscope with painted lips to watch an adult film breathlessly, Lotte was secretly thrilled by the Bible, which certainly also carried the ‘over eighteen’ label, with all that death and killing, adultery and fornication it poured over the innocent reader. What tame reading matter her father’s favourite book was in comparison . Diligently she studied the stories of blood and miracles. Attempts to exchange ideas with her classmates ran straight into a wall of indifference. They had absolutely no thoughts about it; they were brought up on religion like a daily dose of cod liver oil. Similarly with the minister’s daughter, with whom she shared her bench, the Bible was not a subject for contemplation but a duty, a soporific aspect of Sundays – weekly imprisonment in the gloomy confirmation classroom next door to the church. Their blind, uninterested acceptance of it as a ragbag of stories, presented as ‘what actually happened’, shocked her. With her
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