Mama Tandoori by Ernest Van der Kwast

Author:Ernest Van der Kwast
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC019000, FIC051000, FIC014000, FIC008000
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2017-08-10T04:00:00+00:00

THE DEATH OF GRANDMA VOORST

We have Dutch relatives, too: Dutch aunts and uncles, grandpas and grandmas, nieces and nephews. The Van der Kwast family is characterised by bald men with moustaches, women without a sense of humour, and children with an interest in insects. The family doesn’t boast a single drunkard, not a single artist, not a single poetic soul.

At one point, a certain Arie van der Kwast wasted his time drawing up a family tree, which can be admired online. Growing on it are names such as Eugenia, Johanna, and Helmerus, which bring to mind stern individuals who saw life as a duty. There was no such thing as pleasure, or else it was forbidden. Either way: the family tree contains not a single colourful person who took pleasure in life. No, none of that, please.

The family tree consists of a sturdy trunk, which splits into neat, straight branches and a modest number of twigs. There’s no uncontrolled growth anywhere and it’s all blood and soil, from the root up to the crown. We’re all made of the same stiff pale wood. Look at a Van der Kwast dancing, and you’ll see a jumping jack puppet. Our hips won’t budge.

And then my mother bursts in on the family, and the family tree starts swaying dangerously; the heavy suitcases, the broken radios, and the rusty bikes cause the old branches to moan and groan. Johannas down the ages call for an axe.

One of those Johannas is my great-grandmother, my father’s grandmother. At the start of the twentieth century, she married a doctor. She was more than fifteen years his junior, still a girl, really. That’s all I know about her biography. By the time I’m first deposited in her lap, she’s well into her eighties. Her bones jab into my buttocks.

My brother and I call her Grandma Voorst, because she lives in Voorst, in an old people’s home we’ve been visiting a lot lately. Since Grandma Voorst has grown demented, she’s also grown milder.

As well as the hard bones, I remember Grandma Voorst’s hair. I’d never seen such white hair in my life — whiter than the snow that fell from the sky in bucket loads during the majestic winter of 1985. We’d have to wait more than ten years for the next big white winter, but by then we’d almost stopped being children. You grow a little, and the world loses its magic.

We’d go to Voorst at least once a month, travelling the long distance in our first car, a red Lada with rust marks. Every now and then the exhaust would emit dark clouds and a couple of neighbours had to push-start the vehicle. My mother always egged them on in Hindi: ‘Jaldi! Jaldi!’ When the engine finally started, my brothers and I had to jump in, and off we’d drive in our spluttering car.

On the way there, the three of us sat in the back seat, playing games such as ‘I Spy with My Little Eye’. On

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