Translation - The Night Mother by Carel Donck

It was about ten thirty New Year’s Eve and I only had a couple of hours to live.

Had I known? Was it a premonition? It’s easy to say in retrospect but I do recall a sense of panic – as if I was drowning, as if everything was slipping away.
The children were restless. Mark had wanted to go to a friend’s house but they lived on the other side of town. He couldn’t stay overnight and someone would have to take him there and pick him up. Gerard didn’t think driving across the city after midnight was a good idea, so Mark stayed at home.
Furious, he was difficult and unruly all evening and stayed in his room on his computer; not in the mood to be sociable. Never mind -I thought – we’ll manage without you. New Year’s Eve isn’t that important.
Still, the tension got to me. I ran back and forth through the house, from the pantry to the kitchen, the kitchen to the telephone, from the telephone back to the kitchen. Astrid wanted to make olliebollen so a huge pan of oil stood on the stove. It was the first time she was allowed to stay up all evening and you had to have olliebollen.
She’d brushed aside my suggestion we get them from the bakery. They were easy to make, she’d done it at school – she’d help me. So I’d bought olliebollen mix, currants and raisins and a couple of bottles of cooking oil. Together we made the batter and were soon covered in spatters. Normally I would have enjoyed it, even played up to it, but tonight it was just irritating. I snarled at her to be more careful; not to spill things, to stay away from the pan of hot oil.
Grabbing her by the arm I pulled her away. I didn’t think I’d been rough but she was startled and started howling pitiably. I steered her out of the kitchen; – finally by myself. Quickly I made roughly twenty-five olliebollen while wondering who it had been before on the telephone. I’d answered and said my name, there’d been a short silence during which I heard soft music in the background, and then they’d hung up. A wrong number? Probably. But what was that music? It seemed vaguely familiar – something from the past, something with a male voice ….
In the meantime Gerard tried to coax Mark downstairs saying that we were going to play a game and needed him. What sort of a game, Mark wanted to know. Gerard didn’t know, we’d think of something.
His efforts were in vain and I knew he was getting annoyed. I fished the last crumbs from the oil just as he started up the stairs, swearing under his breath. “Ready!” I yelled, opening the kitchen door and carrying the huge bowl into the living room. (...)

It’s always extra busy at New Year’s. Down there there’s partying, explosions, drinking and arguing. Chaos spreads across the country like a rolling wave and after a few days the drowned are washed ashore.
Put like that it doesn’t sound too bad but for us it’s hard work. Finding available rooms, registering names and numbers, passing them onto central – all as quietly and quickly as possible.
I take care of departments K and L, thirty rooms in all. Don’t underestimate it, when they’re all occupied you have your hands full.
And I haven’t even started with the video recordings. They begin at the same time and that’s what makes it so difficult. You have to be everywhere at once.
One of the newcomers, a young woman will definitely go and look. I’ll bet on it. She doesn’t want to sleep or rather, she sleeps restlessly. She rolls her head from side to side, groaning now and then and I can see movements beneath her closed eyelids. I know the signs. It means it’s happened too quickly, there’s too much trapped energy. She’ll have to sleep a long time before she’s free from that.

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Tags:

amsterdam, arbeiderspers, carel, donck, dutch, english, faith, holland, hunter, mother, nachtmoeder, netherlands, night and translation