Childhood: Two Novellas by Gerard Reve

Author:Gerard Reve
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Coming of Age, Literary, Classics, Fiction
ISBN: 9781782274582
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 1949-01-11T14:00:00+00:00

Amsterdam, Jan.—-Apr. 1949

THE FALL OF THE

BOSLOWITS FAMILY

My first encounter with the Boslowits family was at a children’s party, a Christmas celebration at the home of friends. On the table lay paper napkins printed with little green and red festive figures. A candle was lit at every plate, held upright in a hole cored from a half-potato which, placed face down, was wrapped cunningly in matte green paper. The same decoration had been applied to the flowerpot, which held the Christmas tree.

Hans Boslowits was sitting close to me, and he held a slice of bread over the candle flame. “I’m making toast,” he said. There was a boy playing the violin as well, which almost made me cry, and I thought for a moment about giving him a kiss. I was seven at the time.

Hans, who was two years older, toyed in seeming nonchalance with the branches of the Christmas tree, until one of the candles lit the branch above, causing it to crackle and burst brightly aflame. There was loud shouting, mothers ran up, and all those anywhere near the tree were forced to sit down at the table, or go to the adjoining room, where several fell to playing dominoes on the floor.

Both the brothers Willink were there too, sons of a scholarly couple who made them wear their hair closely shorn, for they felt that an individual’s appearance was not of the essence and that in this way cleanliness could most easily be maintained, while no time of value need be spent on combing. The trimming of it their mother did each month with her own clippers, which constituted a considerable monetary saving.

It was wonderful to be around them, for there was nothing they did not dare to do. Some Sundays they came to our house to visit, along with their parents. I would venture out into the neighbourhood with them and toss, as did they, a stone, a rotten potato or a horse’s turd into every open window. A delicious fever of friendship liberated me from all fear.

At this particular Christmas party, they entertained themselves by holding a burning candle at an angle above someone’s hand or arm, until the hot grease dripped onto the victim’s skin and they would leap to their feet with a scream.

Hans Boslowits’s mother saw it and said: “I don’t think that’s nice, not in the slightest.” His father smiled, though, because he appreciated the inventiveness and had no need to fear that anyone would play the same trick on him, for he was crippled and paralysed by illness from the waist down. From that evening on, we called them Aunt Jaanne and Uncle Hans.

I greatly longed to observe the crippled man’s departure, for I had seen him carried in by two guests, and the sight of it had fascinated me deeply. But when eight thirty came I had no choice but to go home with my parents.

Four days later, still in the midst of the Christmas holidays, I went with my mother to visit the Boslowitses.

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