by Arthur Japin
Cornelius sat on the ground, hunched over his wounded shame. He raised his head, but he did not speak, nor did he try to stand up; he merely glared at me. His look was accusatory, disappointed. I began to feel I had let him down. He still did not move. I am alone, his eyes told me, and that is how I shall always be. He continued to stare. I could not bear it any longer and kicked him smartly, just to make him react. But he neither moved nor spoke. I dropped to my knees and grabbed him by the lapels, but did not have the strength to shake him. Don’t despise me, I wanted to say. The words tore at my throat, but no sound came out. Don’t despise me. And yet it was he who had acted despicably.
The coachman stood by with the lantern, watching in disbelief. It was absurd. I had grabbed Cornelius’s ankles and was pressing my forehead on his boots, overcome by a sense of defeat even greater than his. I detected the old smell of sheep’s fat and, for an instant, yearned for the afternoons when we sat side by side polishing our shoes while he told me unlikely stories: I was his slave, and yet by the same token, by pretending to believe him, I was his master.
I came to my senses when I heard Linse, Kwame and Lebret approaching. Not to add to Cornelius’s humiliation, I held them back, telling them that all was now in order and that we should continue our journey forthwith.
Three days later, after supper on a Tuesday evening, a young man came to the door with a message from Lebret asking me to meet him at once.
I was composing my fortnightly letter to Weimar. Sophie and I corresponded about certain tenets of philosophy. Her tone was consistently elated, while I aimed at a more balanced tenor. (Even now I can remember the sentence which I broke off to answer my friend’s summons. “Do not our tears serve the same purpose as valerian tincture?” I had written. “As long as we are happy we are wide awake, so as not to miss even the most fleeting moment. But weeping makes our eyelids heavy. A great weariness comes over us, dulling the cause of our misery. All we want is to close our eyes, for grief takes a heavier toll than hard labour . . .” Even the flourishes on the final words are etched in my memory.)
I laid down my pen and quickly drew on a greatcoat. Lebret lived with Wenckebach in student lodgings across town. I was almost there when I was accosted by a man in a cape. I was surprised, for at night my dark complexion tended to frighten people off rather than inspire confidence. However, this man said he was a stranger in town and asked me the way. I was giving him the directions he required when he suddenly leaned heavily on my arm, as though he were feeling faint. I steadied him. He took a few staggering steps, moving away from the street lantern. Hardly had I sensed danger when I was set upon by his cronies. Judging by the treatment I received there must have been three or four of them. My arms were pinned to my sides while the ring-leader battered me with his fists. My money was taken. Eventually I sank to the ground. The cobbles were damp. I remember the relief of the cool stone against my wounded forehead. I lay quite still. After a few moments the villains left me for dead. I heard their footsteps recede, but one of them hung back. He placed his boot on my temple and brought down his full weight upon it. I had never harmed him and yet, out of sheer cruelty, he had felt the urge to grind me underfoot. I felt something crack. There seemed to be blood running from my nose into my eye socket, and I blinked a few times to clear my vision. All I saw was a blur. At the back of my throat I tasted a briny sweetness, as though I were shedding tears inside my body. For a split second, before my sense of smell was dulled by the taste of salty blood, I caught a whiff of past comradeship. I clamped my hands around the ankle as I had done a few days earlier, but did not have the strength to hold on.
I regained consciousness in a hospital bed in Rotterdam. The first thing I did was sniff my fingers. The smell of sheep’s fat had gone. My hands had been disinfected, for fear that I might rub dirt into my bloodshot eye. There was someone sitting to my right: a chief constable. He asked me to describe what had happened. I was unable to make out the man’s features, however I twisted my head, but I could see Kwame, who was sitting on my left, massaging my arm consolingly. I told the chief constable that I had not seen my attackers’ faces, which was true. I also said I had no idea who they might be, and reported the sum of money that was missing from my pocket. He enquired whether I had any personal enemies. I protested that I did not, whereupon he said, quietly, that a wooden club had been found on the scene of the crime, in which the following words had been carved: “For the Prince of Apes.”
I declared that since my arrival in Holland I had not noticed any hostility towards my race, and advised him to ignore this line of investigation. Then I turned to Kwame and snapped that he was rubbing my arm too hard. Shocked, he withdrew his hands at once.
The chief injury proved to be internal, and the physician wished to keep me in hospital for observation. He applied a poultice against further bleeding. Every hour cold compresses were laid on my right eye. That night and the following days passed in darkness. There was nowhere I could turn for distraction from the thoughts tormenting me.
When Kwame left to go home, I begged him not to tell anyone of my misadventure. I sent the chief constable a message to the same effect. But the very next day I received a visit from Linse, Lebret and Wenckebach, who had slipped away from their lectures to see me. I enquired casually about the urgent summons from my friend that had lured me out of the house the previous evening. My suspicions were confirmed: it had not come from Lebret. I made light of the affair to avoid troubling them, and thanked God that they knew nothing of the offensive inscription on the club.
That night I became so agitated by the fever and the loneliness of my situation that I began to imagine what would happen if my humiliation were made public: my father clapping his hands over his eyes, my mother convulsed with grief and falling into Mrs. van Moock’s arms; van Drunen saying he had always feared it would come to this; Anna Pavlovna stamping her feet to make the king call for the death sentence; Crown Prince Willem Alexander shrugging his shoulders while he waltzed with Loulou, and Sophie . . . Sophie discovering deep inside her the same dull ache that paralysed me.
I awoke bathed in perspiration. The idea that she should share my pain was unbearable. Pity is more painful than a beating, for it wounds two people. However well-intentioned, a show of compassion can have the effect of patting a bruise. You become aware of injuries you didn’t know you had sustained.
From the moment we arrived in Holland, Kwame and I were conscious of people laughing behind our backs. In that sense we were no different from a hunchback or a beggar, an overweight schoolboy or a redhead. Nothing escaped us.
Shopkeepers stared, hesitated, and then pretended to have noticed nothing out of the ordinary. When we entered a room conversations flagged or turned to a childish mode in which long words were avoided. Courtesies were mouthed with a fleeting look of dismay. As soon as I set foot in an eating-house the customers patted their pockets, no doubt unawares, to feel for their purses. When I strolled down the street mothers took their children by the hand, with a nod and a faint smile. Coachmen soothed their horses. Farmers’ wives made the sign of the cross. These reactions seemed innocent enough; indeed they were barely noticeable. And look at it this way: even in a packed concert-hall, the seats beside me remained unoccupied, so at least I always had plenty of legroom.
The difference existed, there was no denying it. It was emphasized by the sentiments it aroused, whether they were enthusiastic or hostile. Both responses kept me alert. The greatest danger of all is when people pretend not to notice any difference. Far from mentioning it, they go out of their way to treat you as an equal, to put you at ease. You do not see your own shame until it is reflected in the eyes of others.
What can we do, we who are different from the rest? That was the question drifting across my mind as I lay blindfolded in my hospital bed. During the night I pondered the advantages and disadvantages of the options open to me. When my bandages were finally removed, I could see only two:
1. Stand out. Cu
ltivate that which makes you different from those around you. Understand where the differences lie, for better or worse, but maintain your eccentricity, cherish it as the unique property it is. This struck me as an infinitely lonely road. Each step would require a fresh struggle with fate. Curiously, this was the road favoured by Cornelius: stand up and fight. But to be able to do that you must have faith in yourself. However hard I looked, I could not find it. Besides, the idea of fighting a never-ending battle repelled me.
2. Blend in. Count the differences and ease them out of the way wherever possible. That entails constant adjustment of the personality, disguising it, altering it to fit that of the other. Take note of what you value in your environment and imitate it. Seek attention only for the few attributes you have in common with the other, and try to conceal the rest. In spite of what Cornelius’s boxing lessons had taught me, my nature, at that lonely moment, told me to settle for compromise.
Kwame took the first path, I the second. The one seems brave, the other cowardly, but that is nothing but prejudice, the facile judgement of one who has never stood alone. Battling with the self is no easier than battling with the rest—just less noticeable.
Nevertheless, the poinsettia will never blend in with the tea bushes.
Since that time, my eyesight has been impaired. The righthand corner of my field of vision is missing. The rest too is somewhat hazy, like opening your eyes under water. I was prescribed spectacles, by which my sight was slightly improved. As soon as I had been fitted with lenses of the correct thickness, I was discharged from the eye hospital.
When I returned to my lodgings in the boarding school, I found my room exactly as I had left it. On the table lay the letter I had been writing to Sophie. I sat down and dipped my pen in the inkwell. I re-read my last line: “All we want is to close our eyes . . .” I signed my name with a lopsided flourish, which looked as if I had been drinking.
Shortly after this incident Kwame abandoned his studies at the Royal Academy. He was making little progress, it is true, but I could not see any lack of ability.
In August 1845, much to my amazement, he enrolled in the Military College at The Hague. He had not mentioned his plan to me or any of our friends. Kwame, the gentlest man I knew, wore military dress ever after. He was to be a soldier.
I pursued my studies satisfactorily, and my friends Linse, Lebret, Wenckebach and I seized every opportunity to visit Kwame in The Hague. We were under the impression that he made few friends among the military. From time to time he would accompany his fellow cadets on drinking bouts and other outings, but he always seemed to have reservations. He did not rejoice in such behaviour, like other young men of his age. Indeed, the discipline seemed to agree with him remarkably well.
I wrote him a long letter congratulating him on the way he had adjusted to his new career, to which he replied with a brief note. “The rock lies immutable in the river,” he wrote. “It remains constant, whether it is caressed by soft moss or lashed by heavy rains. Thickets of bamboo grow alongside, tall and dense. Rock and bamboo are equally exposed to the violence of nature. The one survives because it is solid and immutable, the other because it is hollow and pliant.” I did not know what to make of this and by return post I sent him a silver pencil and a notebook to carry in his kitbag, because the Almanac for that year was running a competition for the best nature studies.
In September 1846 one of the members of the Five Columns Club bade farewell to the academy. We, as members of the Phoenix society, were beholden to elect a new honorary member from our midst to replace him. Someone suggested Crown Prince Willem Alexander, for, besides being the patron of our academy, he also attended lectures once a fortnight. When he declined the honour—“I seek knowledge and social entertainment, not committee stuff and nonsense”—there was much ado, for the privileges attached to membership of the exclusive club, like the social duties, were not inconsiderable. Moreover the Five Columns Club was veiled in secrecy. Some believed it was a masonic lodge. It was rumoured that members were initiated according to ancient rites that dated back to the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule, and which were normally the preserve of the aristocracy. Linse and Lebret showed little interest in competing for the position, but were willing to offer financial support for my candidature. I threw myself into the fray. The privileges meant little to me, but my aim was to be singled out as primus inter pares, and I set out to achieve my ambition as if my life depended on it. There was much rivalry among the candidates. Fortunately most of them soon dropped out of the race either from lack of funds and sympathy, or because of vulgar gossip. After a few weeks, which cost me a fair amount of money, there were only four of us left: Alphons Wenckebach and Hendrick van Voorst tot Voorst, who had the advantage of being well-born, and Cornelius de Groot and myself. Speeches and debates were held, during which Hendrick gave a disappointing performance and subsequently withdrew his candidature. Then Alphons came up with a master-stroke: he invited all the students of his year to a hunting party on his parents’ estate. Although Cornelius shot a deer and a wild boar, both he and I fell behind in popularity. Neither of us had relatives who could help our cause in comparable style.
I wrote to Sophie explaining the situation. She offered me the use of the Queen’s Pavilion, but I could not see what good a beach party would do in the rainy weather we were having that autumn. She also conveyed news of me to her mother. For the first time in a year, I received a missive from the palace. It was an invitation to the unveiling of the equestrian statue of William the Silent. After some gentle persuasion I was granted permission to bring along some of my fellow students. This was a twist in my favour, although the ceremony itself was ruined by a cloudburst. The common folk ran for shelter, but Queen Anna did not wish her husband to interrupt the ceremony and we were all obliged to remain seated on the grandstand during the downpour. Her chamberlain of long standing, Baron Mackay, made frantic attempts to hold an umbrella over Her Majesty’s head, which embarrassed him so deeply that he resigned from her service the following day. All in all, the occasion had the desired effect. The weather cleared and the festivities were even grander than at the coronation. The royal city was lit up as never before, thanks to new-fangled gas lighting that cast straight beams along all the facades. Even the orangeries were illuminated, and the streets glowed with thousands of lamps of every size and description.
Not long after that, I received notice of my admittance to the Five Columns. Wenckebach and van Voorst tot Voorst congratulated me. Cornelius de Groot was deeply offended. He gave up his membership of the student society and eventually vanished from our circle.
My investiture was to take place on 1 March, in the presence of Willem Alexander. The expenses were to be paid by me. I appealed to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who granted me the necessary funds so wholeheartedly that there was no cause for embarrassment on my part. The final hurdle was a formality: the speech I was to give on the festive occasion itself. It had to be entertaining and also edifying. I was already making mental notes for a discourse on drilling techniques when I received a message from the chairman instructing me as to the subject of my talk: the land I had come from, no less. For the next week I did not sleep a wink.
Meanwhile a suit had to be purchased, my hair modelled, a commemorative coin struck and, in keeping with tradition, a small portrait made for inclusion in the gallery of honour. Willem Alexander was strongly in favour of using the new invention of Daguerre, which he had recommended to us earlier. I offered to pay for a similar portrait to be made of Kwame, but he still found the idea distasteful, believing that the technique divested the image of its soul. I repeated my offer a few days later, telling him how much I missed him now that he was spending such long periods at the barracks. It was the truth. I wrote to him of the date and time of appointment with the portrait studio, and begged him to be there. I wished to carry his likeness with me.
On the appointed day Kwame did not turn up. Fortunately Lebret had come with me, so I had no time
for despondency. I was wearing a new silk waistcoat, yellow with red stripes, and around my neck an elaborate red choker checked with yellow. To make sure that I kept quite still during the long exposure time, the artist strapped me to a wooden frame, at the top of which was a clamp for my head. Rods were inserted into my sleeves, one of which was fastened to a high chair-back, and the other to a lectern. To mask the stiffness of my pose in a pretence of reading, I was given a book to hold in my right hand. Only then did the man turn to his camera obscura.
While I stood there unable to move, a message was brought in from Kwame. I was glad, thinking he had merely been delayed. Lebret was so kind as to read the words to me:
I am sorry, Kwasi. Our lives are not meant to be held captive in pictures. If you want to see my face, just look at your memories. There you will find the Kwame you hold dearest.
I did not move a muscle during the entire sitting.
Dear Sirs, dear fellow members! While the office that you have so graciously bestowed on me is most gratifying for the edification and experience it will a ford me, it is also a most daunting proposition. When I cast my eye over my lack of familiarity with the tasks so admirably performed in the past by my peers, when I reflect on the extent of my intellectual ability and capacity for work in comparison with theirs, I am filled with trepidation at the honour of membership. Yet the difficulties inherent in the task that lies ahead are as nothing compared to the far greater, nobler pursuit of serving the interests of the Five Columns Club . . .
I think I must have drafted about twenty preambles. Some of them lasted three-quarters of an hour. They were so elegant that I could have simply appended the concluding remarks without anyone noticing that the entire speech was nothing but flattery. That was the easiest part. Next I had to marshall all my powers to describe my country. The necessary facts and figures I looked up in the library, as everyone could have done.
