as a point in his favour.
I knew the feeling, only it wasn’t Thomas who inspired it.
I drove back to Rotterdam, to Sylvie’s, and left a note of thanks under the windscreen wipers, then caught the tram to Karel Doorman Street. I’d have preferred to go home and settle down on the sofa with a cup of tea and packet of fudge – my addiction – but I’d promised Thomas I’d get to work on the pictures straight away.
I unlocked the studio door and went through the exhibition space to the back where I’ve got an office and a small kitchen. The kitchen opens onto a badly kept garden. It’s overrun with weeds, which always winds my father up. My father loves gardening and made several attempts to tame the plants shooting up in all directions, but each time he came back, he had to start all over again. Finally he had to accept that this garden would never amount to much unless he spent more time in it, and he already looks after the garden of my summer house in Kralingen, as well as Lydia’s, which is huge. And his own garden.
I looked over my computer screen at the garden and sighed. First a cup of tea.
I made a pot of camomile tea – I swear by herbal tea when I’m anxious – and took it out into the garden.
It’s actually quite nice. I don’t like stylised flower beds and themed areas. Just give me a garden that’s alive, even if it’s so exuberant you can hardly get into it. Lawns with a few rickety bistro chairs are not really my thing.
I wandered through the jungle, pulling out a few random stalks, and finally went inside to do some work.
For a while I concentrated so hard that I forgot everything else. Even my tiredness slipped away. When the doorbell rang, my concentration was shattered and the uneasiness rolled over me again. I didn’t need to get up to see who it was.
‘Elisa?’ Her voice was higher pitched than usual.
‘I’m out back!’
Lydia’s footsteps came towards the office, dragging a little. I swivelled around in my desk chair and got up. Lydia appeared in the doorway, groomed from top to toe as usual, with a tight black skirt and a fairly sexy black wraparound top. She seemed tired and irritated.
I pushed my hair back out of my face.
‘Hey sis,’ I said cautiously. ‘You don’t usually finish until much later on Mondays.’
‘Yes,’ she said simply.
Then I knew for sure. ‘Something has happened,’ I said softly.
I’m no longer surprised that I don’t need to explain much to Elisa. A single word, a single glance at my face is enough for her to know that I’m not paying a social call.
‘Lydia? What is it? Here, have my chair.’ She pushes me into her place and strides into the kitchen. Within a few seconds she’s back with a glass of cold water, exactly what I need. I drink deeply while my sister stands there with her arms crossed and peers down at me.
‘What happened?’ she says again, as soon as I’ve emptied the glass.
‘Bilal Assrouti.’
Only my parents – who’ve both taught difficult children in the past – can understand what it feels like to matter to another person, to make a difference, and what you have to go through to get there. Apart from my parents, Elisa and Raoul are the closest people to me, but they’ve never understood what drives me to work in a profession that takes so much energy and delivers so few rewards. That’s my own fault for being so open about how bad it can be. I don’t tell them enough of the nice things that happen: the flowers my class gave me on my birthday, how they sing the national anthem in the proper Dutch way, with their arms around each other, to prove that they’ve picked up something from my lessons.
When I talk about my work, the most memorable things are the bad things: one of the students punching Vincent in the jaw, or the attitude of some of the students when I wear a short skirt. I’m afraid I’ve dropped the name Bilal more than once because Elisa reacts immediately. ‘Bilal? What’s he done?’
I look at her for a while without speaking and she crouches down next to me. ‘You’re not hurt, are you?’
‘No,’ I whisper. ‘He only threatened me. With a knife.’
Elisa takes my hand, but she doesn’t have to do that for me to know that I’m not on my own in this. I feel some of her life-force and energy flowing into me and I take a deep breath.
‘Tell me about it,’ Elisa says gently.
I tell her. Every detail, every minor and major incident of the day. I don’t even leave out my own ill-advised reaction to Bilal’s provocative behaviour and Elisa listens without interrupting. When I’ve finished at last, she says, ‘Lydia, this is not your fault. Please understand that. I’m wondering why you’re here instead of at the police station. Or have you already been?’
‘No, that could have enormous consequences for the school.’
My sister gives me a look of incomprehension. ‘For the school? And what about you? This has enormous consequences for you too!’
‘Bilal is going to be suspended and transferred to the other site,’ I say. ‘I won’t have to see him anymore.’
‘Is that all?’ Elisa says in astonishment.
‘He didn’t stab me,’ I remind her. ‘He only threatened me.’
‘Only threatened!’
‘We have to deal with worse things at school, you know.’
‘And so it’s normal? I don’t understand this.’
‘I’ve never had a problem with that boy, Elisa. Not of this magnitude, in any case. In some ways, I’ve only got myself to blame. If I hadn’t looked at his crotch, he wouldn’t have flipped. A thing like that is an enormous provocation in the Moroccan culture.’
‘So what. We live in Holland, and it’s not normal here for a teacher to be called a whore because she’s wearing a short skirt.’
‘I do know that, but I have to work with these boys day in, day out. You still have to take their views into consideration.’
‘I suppose it’s easier to blame yourself.’ Elisa shrugs. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
She goes into the kitchen without waiting for an answer and I stare out of the window at the neglected back garden. She’s right, of course, it is much easier to blame yourself. If you blame yourself, you feel less powerless.
Elisa returns with two steaming mugs of tea.
‘What next?’ she asks.
