Judas Page 7

  I felt lucky to be with this great philosopher.

  Shortly before Jaap and I moved in together, Cor and Wim were arrested in Paris. At La Santé Prison, my mom told my brother I was living with a man twenty years my senior, and my sister told Cor. They told them I’d left out of the blue and phoned a week later to tell them I had moved in with Jaap, and that was exactly what had happened. I was living my own life without sharing it with them.

  When they returned from Paris, I was told their reactions. “That pervert could have been her father,” Wim had said, and Cor had burst out laughing. “She’s just like Wim. He’s always after old spinsters, too.”

  “Don’t worry, it’ll be over soon enough,” my mother had said. “Can you imagine Assie vacuum cleaning? Believe me, it won’t last.” But what everyone predicted didn’t come true. Jaap and I stayed together.

  During the day, I went school and he kept house, got groceries, did laundry, and every night put a great meal on the table for me and his eight-year-old son. This adorable little guy had lost his mom, and now suddenly had me as a new family member. I became attached to the boy and to the life that comes with raising a child.

  Jaap told me he wanted to have children with me, and I thought, Why wait? We were already caring for one child, why not care for two? Unlike me, my baby would grow up in a warm and loving family with a truly affectionate father.

  I was nineteen years old and seven months pregnant when I graduated from the athenaeum. My family was sitting in the auditorium: Jaap and my stepson, ten years old by then. Two months later, our daughter was born. We named her Miljuschka.

  Two years after Miljuschka was born, our financial situation went from precarious to collapsed. Jaap couldn’t support our family by selling his art, and he’d been benefitting from a program in which the government bought artists’ works. When the arrangement was cut, we were left penniless. Jaap was forced to leave the seclusion of his workshop, and he began selling fantasies.

  Over the next few years, he wandered from one self-made cultural project to the next; sometimes they earned money, but usually they didn’t.

  But he always gave himself an important title with an “assistant” at his disposal. He was busy all the time.

  Meanwhile, I did the housekeeping because Jaap no longer had time. I took care of the children, and I worked as a cleaner to get us by.

  Nevertheless, I was quite happy with our way of life; personal growth was still more important to us than material wealth. I wanted to study philosophy, and Jaap encouraged me. My family didn’t like that at all. To them Jaap was a sissy because he allowed me to continue my education, and I was a bad mother for putting my daughter in daycare when she was three years old. I was enraged by their ridiculous traditional ideas. “No, what YOU did worked out so well!” I yelled at my mother. “Your entire life, you’ve been slapped all over your own home. You raised four emotionally disabled children, and now you want to tell me how to raise mine?”

  I started studying philosophy, but a couple of years of financial misery and then a car accident made me choose another future for myself. I started studying law. Jaap was appalled. He was afraid I would change, but I managed to convince him I was only doing it to end our worries for the future.

  In 1992, Cor and Wim got out of jail and started doing business right away with their friend Rob Grifhorst, a successful businessman who was for a long time suspected of involvement in the Heineken kidnapping. Grifhorst bought the sex and gambling venues that the late Joop de Vries had built up in Amsterdam’s red-light district from de Vries’s daughter Edith. She sold her Zandvoort beach club to Grifhorst, too. As many family members as possible—from our family and Robbie’s—were involved in the company, because family doesn’t steal from itself.

  Cor van Hout in the Veenhuizen prison (1991)

  Sonja, Cor, and Francis in Zandvoort (1992)

  Robbie searched within his own circle for a suitable candidate to run the beach club. After deliberation with Cor and Wim, it was decided Jaap was most suitable.

  I had serious doubts. I knew this would drag my family’s influence into our new family, and that was exactly what I’d been trying to avoid all these years. We were penniless, though, and we couldn’t go on like that. Wim was opposed to the idea of involving Jaap in the “family business,” but Cor thought I should be given the opportunity for my partner to earn some money. My partner, not me, for I was a woman and women weren’t supposed to work.

  Jaap liked the idea of working by the sea, so we moved to Zandvoort and lived in a cabin next to the restaurant on the beach.

  The beach club had a large terrace and so-called units where guests could sunbathe behind glass, shielded from the wind, and order food and drinks from the extensive menu. On sunny days, there were more than forty employees in the kitchen and waiting tables, and we worked twenty-hour shifts.

  Jaap had never managed a hospitality business before, and even though it was a lot of work, he did well. Hiring personnel, managing sunbed rentals and supplies, keeping the books—he took care of everything.

  Wim kept a close watch on Jaap, and every couple of days he stopped in to make him account for gross turnover, costs, and profits. Jaap had to monitor personnel closely, for Wim wouldn’t have one penny stolen.

  After one of his conversations with Jaap, Wim came to me. “Come with me for a second,” he said, and we walked away from the pavilion. “What was yesterday’s turnover?”

  “Didn’t Jaap already tell you?” I asked.

  “Yes, Jaap already told me, but I want to hear it from you,” he said firmly.

  “I don’t know. I guess it was fine; it was quite crowded,” I replied, slightly taken aback.

  “Crowded?” he repeated gruffly, and he started yelling. “That’s nothing, Assie! I want to know numbers! Numbers! Is this Jaap guy stealing from me or something, since you won’t tell me?”

  That startled me. “No, of course he isn’t stealing from you,” I said.

  “And how do you know, when you don’t even know the numbers!” he screamed even louder, and poked his finger into my chest.

  His logic was tight, but it was based completely on distrust. “How can you think Jaap is stealing from you? You don’t really think he’d ever do such a thing, do you?” I said.

  “Yeah, Assie? That’s what you’re thinking. The man is a poor sod, he’s never had a penny in his life, and suddenly he sees all this money. That’s what turns people into thieves, right?” he laid it out for me in the manner of a schoolteacher.

  I tried to protest, but everything I said only fed Wim’s anger. “You know, Assie, I do so much for you. I make sure your man can make a living, I do it for you, because you are my sis. And you are nothing but an ungrateful fucking punk! You listen to me now, for I’ll say it just once. I won’t be robbed by him. I’m not a retard! What is he thinking?”

  Jaap was no thief, and I wasn’t going to just take it in silence. “Jaap is not stealing from you!” I yelled. “How dare you say such a thing!”

  I saw his eyes turn dark. He walked right up to me. “Say what?” he asked, standing really close to me. “Are you talking back to me? Well? I’m warning you, one more smart remark…” and he lifted his hand.

  I was afraid he would hit me, and I cringed to avoid it.

  “That’s right,” he grinned. “You’ve been warned. Mouth off at me again and you’ll get it.”

  The same way Jaap had to monitor the crew, Wim made me monitor Jaap—without him being aware of it—thus driving a wedge between me and my partner.

  From that point on, I felt tense whenever I saw Wim. His mood was unpredictable; one moment he could be sweet as honey, the next aggressive. I never knew what to expect from him.

  I deeply regretted letting him into my life, but I couldn’t blame myself, either. After all, what did I know about him? I was seventeen when he went behind bars for nine years, and mother of a family with two kids when he got out. During the years in between, I had
painted a rosy picture of him based on the moments when he’d been there for me. But it was only now that we were actually getting to know one another.

  That same year, the summer season had ended and we’d just returned to Amsterdam when the doorbell rang.

  Oh, no, it’s him again, I thought.

  “Thought you’d gotten rid of me, sis?” he said cheerfully when I opened the door.

  I was just glad he wasn’t cranky.

  “I need you to do something for me. Walk with me.”

  I got my keys and he stepped into the hallway with me. “You need to watch this lady for me,” he said.

  “What lady? What do you mean?” I asked.

  “This lady is in trouble and should stay indoors for a couple of days.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  His mood changed. “You shouldn’t be asking questions. You should just do it. Or is it too much to ask to help me out?”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Just stay with her for a couple of days and make sure she doesn’t pull any stunts. Get your stuff and come along!”

  “But, Wim, I can’t just leave. I’ve got a family! What am I supposed to tell Jaap?”

  “Jaap! Jaap! Always this fucking Jaap! Jaap is all you think about! Listen to me. If you don’t do as I tell you, I’m in trouble. And if I’m in trouble, Jaap will be in trouble. I’ll make sure he gets the shit beaten out of him!”

  This scared me.

  “Okay, I’ll do it. Just give me some time to arrange for somebody to watch Miljuschka.”

  He’d gotten his way and calmed down. “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

  In the car, on our way to “this lady,” Wim was cheerful again. Too cheerful.

  “You’re such a sweet sis,” he said, a sneer on his face.

  “Whatever,” I said. “Just don’t think I’m enjoying this.”

  “Oh well, I have to do things I don’t like, too. There’s nothing wrong with that. You should be glad you get to do your darling brother a favor!”

  I wasn’t glad. I felt stupid for letting him blackmail me like this, for letting him scare me into obeying him. I hated myself, because he had the power to overrule me. All those years he was in jail, I’d built up my own life and identity—then he got out and shattered both.

  At the apartment door, Wim quickly added, “She’s a heavy coke user and has to detox. Right now she wants to kill herself, so you should keep an eye on her. She can’t go anywhere.”

  He unlocked the door. A woman was sitting in the living room. I recognized her right away. She was the redhead who was on the beach all the time, and whom I’d caught Wim kissing in the restroom while his wife and daughter, Beppie and Evie, were out on the beach sunbathing.

  What the hell? I had to look after his girlfriends now? I had to leave my daughter behind for this? A small, chubby toddler with blond spiked hair appeared from a bedroom.

  Wim pushed me forward. “In you go—why are you just standing there?” He gave the redhead a kiss and said, “This is my sis. She’ll stay with you for a bit.”

  So I stayed with the redhead. She told me her husband had been shot to death recently. Fortunately, she’d met Wim. He was the love of her life, and he was going to leave his wife.

  Wim came around regularly. They behaved like lovebirds one moment and the next, Wim was shouting at her and she was screaming about how she was going to kill herself. Every time, the little girl would cry along with her mother.

  Wim came by again while I was playing with the toddler in her room. I heard screaming and a door slam. As usual, the redhead started crying hysterically, and the little girl ran toward her. I walked after her. The door swung open again, and Wim stormed toward the redhead. The toddler stood crying in the middle of the living room.

  Wim stood towering right in front of the child and yelled, “Shut the fuck up, piece of shit! Won’t stop crying. There she goes, yelping again, fucking retard! Whining all the time!”

  I looked him in the eye at that moment and saw who he was.

  I walked over to him and pulled him away from the sobbing girl.

  “That’s not okay, Wim. You’re leaving right now,” I said, and he let me push him out the door. That night, I prayed to God for the first time in years. “Dear Lord, I am grateful for my mom, sister, younger brother, Jaap, and my children, and now I ask You to get Wim locked up again. Amen.”

  At the end of the summer season, the guys sold the beach club and Jaap was out of a job again. But they had another one for him.

  To test him, they took him to Spain and put him up with a couple of hookers, to see whether he would withstand the temptation.

  He did. Jaap was faithful to me and declined the girls. He had passed the test. He was fit to run the guys’ sex club.

  Jaap had always been fond of the fringes of society. He said this whenever he tried to photograph prostitutes behind their windows. Now I was afraid this would be the end of our relationship, that he would be captured by this lifestyle.

  And he did change. All of a sudden, Jaap had turned into the “man” my family always complained he wasn’t.

  Life in a sex club takes place mainly at night. Jaap worked long hours, and, “being a man,” he wasn’t accountable to me for his schedule.

  I’d sensed for a while that the work was gobbling him up and he was no longer the Jaap I knew. He wasn’t happy with the salary he was getting, and Wim suspected Jaap’s bookkeeping had developed its own creative license. I found out when my brother came to our home and asked for clarification of the numbers. It ended in a huge fight, and my brother left the house in a rage. I had to come with him.

  “He’s stealing, that fucking asshole. He’s actually stealing from me!”

  “I don’t think so. He’d never do that.”

  Wim had no way to prove it, but he sensed tens of thousands being pocketed every month. Jaap was discrediting me within my family.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. “They’re giving you a chance to earn money, and you’re robbing them? Do you have any idea what might happen? Wim won’t accept being stolen from.”

  Jaap responded with the usual quasi-cool that I’d always taken for intelligence. “I haven’t stolen anything, and besides, there’s no such thing as property.”

  Jaap had turned from an intellectual into a criminal. He couldn’t keep doing this, though. I knew my brother.

  “Stop it,” I said. “This will end badly.”

  I traveled to see Sonja at her house in Spain for a two-week vacation. I was afraid to tell her anything, out of shame, and also out of fear of what would happen if Wim managed to prove his suspicions.

  Jaap was to arrive a couple of days later, at which point Sonja was going to leave and I’d stay in her mansion with just him and Miljuschka. I was having doubts about the relationship. Jaap had changed. I felt alienated, and I wanted to use this vacation to get close again. Jaap arrived in the afternoon. He said he had to make a phone call.

  “There’s the phone,” I said. But he couldn’t call from the house—it had to be from a telephone booth. I pointed one in the neighborhood out to him. I thought it was weird, but I just said, “I’ve got a migraine, so I’m off to bed.”

  Jaap went to make his call. Miljuschka was already asleep, and I took the risk of leaving her alone for a few minutes. I snuck out after him, took a different route, and stood behind him unnoticed as he talked on the phone.

  “I love you, buttercup,” he said into the receiver.

  Did I just hear him say “I love you”? I came forward, grabbed the phone from his hands, and asked, “Can I say something to her, too?”

  Jaap was thrown completely off guard as I took the receiver. I said, “Hello, who is this?” and the call was disconnected.

  Jaap looked at me like a schoolboy caught stealing from the cookie jar.

  This was the last thing I’d expected. I ran back to the house and Jaap came after me. He pleaded, “Let me explain—it’s not
what you think.”

  His behavior disgusted me. I walked up to him and pushed him into the swimming pool. Every time he swam to the edge and put his hands on the rim to climb out, I stomped on his fingers. “You just keep on swimming!” I shouted.

  Now Jaap was afraid of me. “Can I please come out?” he begged. “I’m getting cold!”

  “You want to come out?” I said. “Just a second.”

  I went to the knife drawer in the kitchen and took out the largest and sharpest knife. “You still want to come out?” I asked, and waved the knife in his direction. I was out of my mind.

  Jaap wouldn’t take the risk and stayed in the swimming pool.

  “You are such a slut,” I said, and at that same moment, I heard a soft voice. “Mommy, what are you doing?”

  I looked up and saw Miljuschka standing on the balcony overlooking the pool. She had woken up and heard the noises outside. I was startled and realized she had never seen me like this before; she was the only one I always managed to keep my calm with. She’d never seen what could happen when the abused child inside of me was awakened. And I didn’t want her to.

  “It’s nothing, honey. Mommy is a little confused,” I replied. “Come out now,” I told Jaap. “I won’t hurt you.”

  Jaap hoisted his fat ass out of the swimming pool and I went up to Miljuschka to reassure her.

  “I’m sorry, honey. Mommy and Daddy are having a fight and Mommy lost it a little bit. But I’ve calmed down now.”

  “Okay, Mommy,” she said. Her mother always did what she said, so she had no doubts. I never promised anything I couldn’t live up to. Same thing this time: I didn’t hurt Jaap, but our relationship was in pieces.

  Jaap told me it was a one-off thing, the girl worked for him, and he had taken her home once when a client had hit her. They’d done a little kissing, nothing else. It was harmless and he couldn’t live without me.