had come across André at the beginning of 2012, in the dossier of a coke case in which ‘senior civil servants and other prominent people’ were possibly involved. I heard myself saying, ‘Hey, André’.
I went to the trial and waited until the accused came in. André had shaved his head. He looked sharp, in a suit that had undoubtedly cost more than my entire wardrobe. His eyes scanned those present. I saw from a barely perceptible nod of his head that he recognized me. I think he knew I would be there before he had seen me.
A few weeks later he was acquitted. André looked at me more openly now and smiled. Undoubtedly he had also read my look and interpreted it accurately: good work, you won, well done, man.
A week later I read an article about Professor Joost M. Walvoort and his work on string theory. He was a nominee for the Spinoza Prize, worth one and a half million euros. ‘A tidy sum, which you can really do something with as a researcher,’ said Joost in the paper. I knew exactly how he had said that and how he had looked—a mixture of nonchalance and smugness.
I looked for Joost’s name on the website of Leiden University. ‘Prof. J.M. Walvoort (Joost),’ it said. ‘Theoretical Physics’. I could see from the accompanying photo that the years had not left any excessively deep marks. He was looking confidently into the lens, with that slightly mocking expression.
I keyed in the number and he answered immediately.
‘Bart here.’
‘Hey Pol, you again?’ As if I had him on the line for the fourth time that day. On the bike Joost called me Pol, because the sound of it suggested Flemish cycling aces. He was Tuur.
‘I thought: I should give Joost a call.’
‘Great. How’s things then? Prick still completely in order?’
That’s the nice thing about old friendships. The fact that you call up your scholarly friend after twenty-five years and he inquires first of all about the health of your prick.
‘Exceptional,’ I replied.
‘Good. Shall we go for a few beers again?’
‘That’s why I’m calling you.’
‘Nice. Just say when.’
I mentioned a date.
‘Fine. In Amsterdam where you are or in Leiden where I am? Or don’t you live in Amsterdam anymore? Alkmaar? Then let’s do it on my patch in Leiden. Huis De Bijlen, do you know it? Eight o’clock. We’ll have a bite to eat first. Nice!’
With him it was no sooner said than done, and he took control, as if he had rung me or had at least been on the point of doing so.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘It’ll be nice to see you again, Joost.’ I hadn’t changed a bit either, immediately ready to accept Joost’s leading role.
‘Okay. If you like you can sleep over. Loads of room.’
He still had that slight Amsterdam accent.
I didn’t say that three days before our date, I was due to go cycling with André.
-
II
In 1970, Eddy Merckx won his second Tour de France. I was 6, watching TV with my father, and saw Merckx, the cycling marvel. ‘The cannibal,’ said my father. ‘So young and already so good. He’s going to sweep the board. No one can compete with him.’
I reversed the handlebars on my bike and did a circuit through the neighbourhood. I imagined that I was Merckx on the Tourmalet. I looked back: no one! I’d left them all for dead. I stopped outside André’s house.
He was lying on the sofa reading a Billy’s Boots comic.
‘André, let’s be racing cyclists.’
‘Huh?’
‘Let’s be racing cyclists like Eddy Merckx. You know, from the Tour. We’ll reverse your handlebars, too.’
‘My father’s already a racing cyclist. I’m going to be a footballer.’
It was the first time that one of us didn’t immediately jump aboard the other’s fantasy.
‘Shame.’ If André didn’t want to know about cycling, there was no point in my getting involved. ‘Swim?’
‘Right.’
But that summer the seed was sown. From that moment on, cycling catered for years to my need for heroes.
The urge to sit on a racing bike again came back later. That was after I had read The Rider by Tim Krabbé. I was fifteen, read it in one sitting, and knew instantly what I had to do. True, it would have been better if I had pursued the sport from the age of six, but Merckx was a late starter, too.
I took my savings out of the bank, borrowed another two hundred guilders from my mother, and bought a Batavus from Van Spankeren’s cycle shop. Joost and André looked at me pityingly. Cycling was still a sport for thickos who shouted unintelligibly into the microphone. But I didn’t care. I joined a training group that left from the Zaadmarkt every Sunday morning for a ride of about eighty kilometres. The guys gave me some funny looks the first time. They immediately commented on my unshaven legs and my football shorts, but they accepted it for this once.
Then they started riding me into the ground. I had kept up for about ten kilometres when I saw them pulling away from me. They didn’t look back; of course they knew it would happen, it was an initiation ritual. During the following week I rode out a couple of times by myself, hoping that it would go better the next Sunday. I actually could keep up for a little longer in my new cycling shorts, but not that much longer.
On the fifth Sunday we went to the Montferland. On the way, Kees Nales told me that he had climbed Mont Ventoux. Mont Ventoux! I knew the mountain from the stories about Tommy Simpson, the Jesus of cycling, who suffered for all doping sinners and died on the Bare Mountain.
But Kees Nales had survived. I was deeply impressed and resolved there and then, as our wheels whooshed towards Montferland, that I must also climb Mont Ventoux.
‘How was it,’ I asked, ‘Mont Ventoux?’
‘Tough.’
‘Had you trained a lot for it?’
‘Nah.’ I didn’t yet know that cyclists always say that they’ve done scarcely any training.
‘Do you think I could do it?’
Kees looked at my legs, which still weren’t shaven. ‘You don’t look like a climber. More of a sprinter, if you ask me.’
We got to Beek. Just outside the village, in the Peeskesweg, was a steep length of asphalt. The lads immediately stood out of their saddles and started sprinting up. Only Kees Nales looked around one more time to see whether I wasn’t perhaps a sprinter, after all. But I knew after the first hundred metres. I felt the strength draining out of my legs.
‘I’m
