a bed in amsterdam … (part 9 of a serial)

If we happened to stay on the Dutch woman’s bed recently it is an accident that might never have occurred if we hadn’t met outside the National Gallery, where we talked and had a relationship of some kind all those decades ago. An indescribable relationship I realize now. We, the Dutch woman and I, translated poorly across our two languages, never quite managing to speak, a shared fantasy that of identity that we believed we could translate across. We were young and unable to imagine anything beyond a few days, a few weeks into the future. But now, here we, (should I say my wife and i) are visiting, sleeping in her bed, in the bed her mother had brought from Algeria when she was expelled into Europe during the 20th C. The bed we slept in, are sleeping in is all that remains of her mothers life from from from that time. Helene slept on it her mother explained to me when I was with the Dutch Woman. Why did she bring that bed with her, leaving only a few days before she would have been expelled with nothing. The only other things her mother left her are the stories, culture, ideologies and myths from her youth. The cleaner polishes the brass frame of the bed. It gleams. When we were together we never slept in the bed. We alternated between her bed in Amsterdam and the beds I rented in London. This bed has managed to avoid being melted down, which would have been a tragic fate for such a gleaming brass bedstead. Whilst we (my partner and I) are there, for the few days we feel like indirect descendants from a diaspora like her mother. Yesterday whilst we prepared to go and explore the city, we talked and the Dutch woman showed us the piles of papers, notes and photographs of her current writing project which is focused on documenting the life of her mother and her own relationship with her, she spreads them out over the bed on top of the white duvet cover. There is a portrait of a smiling Helene sitting on the bed. And there on the corner of the bed are some photos of a youthful me standing there with my arm around her mother laughing at something she or her mother had said, she shows us some of the pages that relate to our early life together, more photographs, how very young we both look. But here we are talking about her project, she is looking for other diasporas, ones unrelated to her mothers exile from North Africa, her coming to stay with her Dutch daughter was predictable (rather than to accompany her brother who has moved to far eastern Mediterranean with what little money he could keep.) “I’ve seen enough ghettos” she said. And here we are, a beautiful day is once more spreading out before us and once more we wonder what to do with it, whilst she works on creating some order out of her personal history, we wonder what to do with it. How will she describe her mothers trajectory across the hemisphere? […] Today we will stroll through the streets and at sometime we will reach a brasserie and after eating something we will stroll on in a long circular walk that will take us back to the point of origin. In a few days, perhaps the day after tomorrow, we will leave and travel south […]

For us, my partner and I, language is as material as our bodies. Finally <perhaps> we have only one choice left, to pick up our bags and head back to catch the ferry home, back to the ends of the earth. leaving her with her partner and growing children. We should leave soon, now, without taking the time to walk around the streets of the city again. Taking our luggage, taking bottled water and some fruit perhaps. Are we ready to trust the lies and disinformation that we would identify and encounter on the way, driving south from Amsterdam, passing by Brecht on the way to the ferry. We will come across burning fields, the early floods of the year, the salt marshes drying in the sun, and as we arrive at the ferry we will stumble upon the end of the world and emerge unscathed, in few moments when we might have noticed it, been able to think about it, we have turned onto the ramp and parked in the bowels of the ship. We are still in working condition as we head out to sea… From the coolness of the dutch landscape we spend the day on the Pride of Breman and in the late afternoon drive off the ship, waving passports and smiles, to emerge in the sunshine of the familiar heatwave. We drive past the reminders, drive on the left and admire the green football pitches as we listen to the radio for the first time in weeks, the sunlight grass stretches to the horizon, trees and hedges pointing the way onwards. Now we only need to let the psychogeographic control system guide us home. We let ourselves be guided, crossing the lowlands, driving alongside the 100 foot ditch, passing cathedrals, bookshops, cafes and memorials. Passing through and by towns, villages and along the event horizon of the orbital motorway. We have a long way to travel. We talk of her exchanging sentences and phases with the dutch woman, “it was surprisingly pleasant and easy though I found her touching you difficult” and her brass bedstead, “I prefer our bed, it’s more comfortable and has no history.” Then later, “How did you live with her? Could the two of you speak when you were young?” “No, we could not translate between us…” “unlike us then…” She is smiling at him. He thinks, rightly, that she only smiles at him like that. During the early evening as the sun sets we are watering the thirsty plants in their pots. The breakfasts are as strange as the Korean breakfasts we will be having in a few weeks time…