On 20 December Alexander Baldal was born. In
Nijmegen, Holland, at 11:30 AM, son of Joseph Baldal and Magdalena Cornelia
Hagendoorn. I was the third child after Anne Marie and Joseph Johan Jacob.
My first birthday party in
December. I remember nothing.
The fifth day of May, the war with
Germany is over. No memory of myself yet.
I am 2 years old, the family has
moved to Oegstgeest, nearby Leiden, in the west of the country. No memory of
self at all.
In December I’ll be 4 years old. We went with the 4
children in the two-door dark blue little Opel Olympia to the beach in
Noordwijk or Katwijk to make long walks, eat ice cream, buy fresh rolls, and
have fun. It was often cold and windy, the sea green-gray. Dead jellyfish lay
on the beach. We throw them all over.
1947 Pig year,
3 years old, kindergarten, the
only thing I remember was that the maid Beppie, or Bep, brings me in the
stroller to the play school on the Warmonderweg.
4 years old, 5 years in December,
We went by train to Eindhoven to
celebrate grandfather’s birthday (from mother’s side), with the whole family. I
remember “het Silveren Seepaerd” a classical restaurant. Grandfather had had
the railway station’s restaurant. His style was old-world, luxury, silver,
uniformed waiters, the works. His birthday is on the last day of the year, so
the party is combined with New Years party. I went downstairs to get bottles of
wine and champagne from the cellar.
5 years old, going 6 in December.
I do not remember anything much of those times. I do not give the milk money
for the play school to the woman teachers but buy ice cream for it on the
corner from the entrance to the Leidse Hout, a park with trees and walkways. There
was the ERMI ice cream three wheeler with a old man selling the icicles on wooden
sticks. Deep in his tin lined insulated car with dry ice he kept the wanted
delicacies.
Primary school in Oegstgeest. This
year or the next I started at the “Lagere School” in Oegstgeest, de Terwee school on the Terrwee weg
Elize Rebecca is born this year,
first called Elsje, later when she grew up and married, Rebecca. No clear memory
of these times at all.
I am 7 years old. I became 8 years old on 20
December.
Lagere School. Do not remember a
thing of these times. I must have been at school learning writing and reading
and all that.
9 years old, I think, around this
time, I learned sailing from Egbert Lubbers, who was a boy in my school class
and who lived in the Spaargarenstraat, where our garden was. He had a sailing
canoe, type Corjaal, a narrow two seater, paddles to get through narrow waters,
a short mast for a gaff sail, a mid-sword that could be lowered and raised, a
jib, a rudder, everything to sail about in miniature. We sailed from Warmond to
the “Kager Plassen”. I learned from ‘Eppie” all the basic tricks to sail a
boat, how to make some basic knots and handle ropes, which served me very well
later in life. His parents rowed a “wherry”, a narrow, long sleek boat with a
sliding chair for the rower, a seat facing forward in the back for the person
steering with a small rudder operated by thin ropes. It had very long oars, went fast and was
light. One day when Eppie and I went in his sailing canoe through a narrow
water, towards the open lake, there were two pit bulls barking at us, I tried
to hit one to make it go away, but it bit the paddle and never let go anymore.
I pulled the paddle with the pit bull on it under water, but it bit the paddle
right in pieces, and came out of the water with the wood in his jaws. A real
nasty doggy. What a bummer. From the sailing I remembered to sit in front, we
sat one behind the other, the midsword between my legs or no, I sat on the high
side, wherever the wind came from. It had a gaff sail, that means a short mast
with a long stick on the peek of the mainsail. The jib was thus not high,
attaches to the masthead which is only
three quarter up the main. Still it could pull in the young boys hands and I
held it often stiff and strong. I learned to sail the right way, without
winches yet, just a cleat and a sheet. What a great time on the lake it was.
I am 9, going 10 years old
Still at the primary school in
Oegstgeest. De
Openbare Lagere School.
1955 Goat year,
10 years and no real memoirs,
maybe Aad Timmermans was my friend already. I sat high on his shoulders and he
carried me to fight another young lightweight on the shoulders of another power
boy. I remember playing marbles, having a sack full at times, and none but two
at other times. Aadje’s full name was
Adriaan of course, he was my adjudant I now realize, I always had a guy who
stood by me in to help, protect, assist and even fight for me if I was attacked
by bullies.
1956 Monkey year
12 years in December, what
happened those years???
12 years old. 13 in December. Was it
this year that my father got a stroke? It was so serious that he never really
recovered, he went to various hospitals, starting in Wassenaar, Leerdam,
Utrecht and more. He came home a year or more later, dragging a leg and his
right arm and hand were lame. His speech was affected, his mouth dribbled and
he had become another person altogether. I had never known him at all, and
didn’t know him much afterwards. But I loved him better after he came back from
his sickness. I was at school at the Rijnlands lyceum, misbehaving, giving my
mother more trouble than she needed. Unruly to the max, rebellious total
because my freedom was at stake, my expression of loving the world, the father.
I was often by mother Timmermans and her 4 boys, they were my good friends. The
third, Aad would defend me at the school when I had made someone angry or they
tried something on me, as I was small and a little frail. I could never swim like him, but he was my man,
whenever force was needed. This year I went to the lyceum, a high school that would
prepare for the academy later or the university. I was considered intelligent
already then.
Now 14 years old I was at the “Rijnlands
Lyceum” Rebellious like shit, I remember fights with the teacher English, she
went so desperate that she was ready to jump out of the window.
14 years and going 15 I was kicked
out of school. Jan de Kater came with a cigar he had stolen from his father. He
shit in his pants when we smoked it and our first cigarette, we where nasty
kids, in wintertime we walked the thin ice and in summer we shot with air
pistols on the cows. I did not want to follow the religious hour, bible
lessons, I questioned every word and statement of the bible. Had the first
interests in sexual matters, sold condoms to other students, during Bible
lessons. Had impertinent questions about the religions. Got removed from school for bad behavior. No
violence, but rebellious and adverse to the trend. Five boys like me got
removed from the Rijnlands Lyceum. We broke into the school one night and
emptied the foam fire extinguishers and did some vandalism.
15 years, private lessons at home,
then to the Hague, Scheveningen, de Zonnebloem School. Somewhat numbed into a
life without goal, young, living without vision yet.
At school in Kijkduin, somewhere
close to Den Haag. From home to school went as follows: Wake up around 7 am, go
downstairs to the kitchen, put the gas under the pan with the porridge, eat it,
dress in outside coat, take the bicycle out of the shed and paddle to the train
station in Leiden. Take the twelve-minute ride to Den Haag, jump on bus 19 all
the way to the end, which takes about 40 minutes, and walk 15 minutes to the
school building. Every day 5 days a week,
I continue school, examination tests are
coming up. One evening mother asks me to
put some letters in the mailbox which is situated opposite our house. We live
in the Regentesselaan 46, by the Emma pleintje. Next to the big, red, cast iron
letterbox is a blue machine that dispenses stamps. You have to insert coins,
turn a handle and collect the stamps from a little window, lick them, glue them
on the envelops and throw these in the slit of the big red box. In order to free
hands I laid the letters on top of the stamp machine. Put the dimes and quarts
in the machine, turned the handle and took the stamps out the little glass door
in the bottom of the machine. When I had the stamps to put on the letters, I
felt on top of the machine to get the letters, and I felt something else also,
that happened to be a purse. Without looking I quickly put it in my pocket,
finished my business, and went back home. Upstairs in my room I opened the
purse, and found a lot of money, it was more than 700 guilders. I had never
seen so much money. The next day was the day of the examinations for the end of
the school period. I hardly slept that night and in the early morning I went to
Den Haag as usual, and threw the empty purse in a letterbox near the train
station. The mail service would take care of that, it contained papers,
addresses, whatever, and instead of taking a bus to the examination place as
usual, I took a taxi, maybe for the first time in my life. I felt elated,
confident and over and above myself. I finished the tests much faster than all
the other kids and instead of eating my prepared sandwiches like all the
others, I fed the birds in a little park nearby and went to have lunch in the
restaurant close by. There the teachers and inspectors also went for lunch and
every body ate in style. I ate two fried eggs sunny side up with bacon and ham
on bread, wow. Finished the tests and went home. Next day I found out that I
had passed the test with no room for error, I reached just on the limit. One
more mistake would have made me fail.... The summer recess had come, vacation
time. The weather was good, I went sailing with the son of the village druggist
in his Z24, a red painted ‘Vrijbuiter’, a sleek, fast little thing with a jib and a full battened
sail. It was built during the war years and some limits in the measurements
were allowed, so that all the few Vrijbuiters that got built were all pretty
different. Then I found big BM from a friend of my brother Jos. I had all the
money remember. With some of it I rented the BM. An old Mercury outboard came
with it, antique looking, maybe one of the very first outboards ever made. I called the boat: “De Schuifpeen”, which
means the “Sliding Carrot”. With all that money I was rich beyond comprehension,
and who the friends were I don’t recall, but they were there. I had a crate (24
bottles) of beer on the foredeck and another on the aft-deck. Moored off at the
“Bonte Koe”, which means: “The Spotted Cow”. Soon I had the nickname: “Het
Bonte Kalf”, meaning the spotted calf. Bont means also wild, as we say in
Holland: “Make it not too bont”, means: don’t go it too wild, take it easy. One
day, a sunny morning, I moored the “Schuifpeen” at the dock of the restaurant
disco-bar De Bonte Koe, where I had the
waiters serve me breakfast on board, around 11 am. A man who was sitting on the
terrace came up the pier and asked if he could see the old outboard engine that
was behind on the transom. It was an odd old engine, brand name Mercury, with
two handles, one for gas, acceleration and one for rich or lean. It had a four
blade screw. It started by winding a thin rope around the flywheel on top and
then pulling it. One had to experiment, according to the weather, the
temperature, rain or shine, how to set those two to make it run. It was noisy
and smoky, but it ran. I called it my cream whipper, and mysteriously it
worked, while it had been on the attic of my friends home for almost twenty
years until I had discovered it there under an inch of dust. The man identified
himself as the country’s agent general for Mercury motors and wanted to buy it.
He wanted it for the showroom of his company. It would be maybe the oldest
Mercury in the country. After much beer and talk we made a deal. In place of
the old relic the man gave me a brand new one, latest model, more power, less
noise and smoke, a modern miracle. I used it until the end of that season and
then gave it back with the boat to my brother’s friend. I do not remember doing
anything special the rest of that year
My somewhat recovered father had secured me a
job. I start working on the “Rotterdam”, at the time the fifth biggest cruise
ship of the world. It was made to just pass through both the Panama and the
Suez Canals. I made trips with the “Rotterdam”, from Rotterdam to Le Havre, to
Southampton to New York. The ship stayed three days there, in Hoboken. Then one
week at sea again, two days in Rotterdam and back to sea. I started as bellboy.
I was dressed in a funny uniform, green pants with a silver stripe on the
outside of the legs, a short jacket with silver buttons and on my head a
pillbox. Than I was also elevator operator, and guide to bring people to their
cabins and the restaurant and the various bars on the ship. It had 11 floors
from the top to the waterline and 7 floors, decks they are called on a ship,
under the waterline. My quarters were up front, port side, high over the
waterline. The crew cabin housed 6 of us, most having the same rank in the same
line of work. We were somehow the lowest of the civil crew, but there were
lower ranked crewmembers than we, like the Spanish workman who we paid a little
to clean out our cabin, change sheets and towels and keep it tidy. The crew bar
was located in the crew mess room, and opened from 11 AM. I remember that for
every door I opened the passing passenger would press a quarter in my hand.
Four quarters in a dollar which was 3.60 guilders those days, a lot of money.
The crew bar was only a hole in the wall were we could buy drinks and take it to
the table or wherever. We could drink as much as we wanted as long as we came
sober on the job. The price for a glass of foaming beer was 8 dollar cents! We
would sit in the cabin and send one of us to the bar to fetch one plateau full.
The one who went down did not have to pay, and took two dollars to come back
with 24 glasses. It happened that I was on my way from the mess to the cabin
with a plateau full of glasses on my shoulder together with a boy from another
cabin in the same area. We had to negotiate various doors, staircases and
corridors. The ship was moving a lot, outside we had an atlantic storm. Some
beer spilled over me, but I managed to hold my course. The staircase was made
of open iron web, and when the boy 2 decks higher than me crashed and his
plateau with 24 glasses came down, I had to move out of the way fast, or I
would have been showered with beer and small bits and pieces of glass. Later I
worked in the restaurant as a beginning waiter and became a member of the crew
show. I was a wild young crazy fellow and when I had a good drink I could dance
on my hunches like I had seen the Russian Cossacks do. The cold war was very
real those days and anything Russian was always a little strange, suspect or
kind of forbidden and frowned upon. So, me being the only one who could dance
on my hunches for real, the show organizers made a Russian show. I did the real
Russian dancing, and the other guys sat on a low bench pretending to dance,
throwing their legs up and down. That activity and the constant work with heavy
loads running up and down stairs on a moving ship resulted later in having bad
knees.
The trip around the world on the
“Rotterdam”. It started in New York took only 80 days. After the book of Jules
Verne. From New York to Southampton and le Havre to take on more passengers. We
made the boat Cruise ready. Straight to Gibraltar, the Rock of the British,
stolen from Spain when England was mighty and terrorizing the rest of the
world, they called it Ruling The Waves... Well I was ruling the waves and
looked with wonder and awe upon my world. High ranking crewmembers got
passenger cabins in the aft lower part of the ship. We had only half the
capacity of guests on board. Maybe a few less than 800 and we had 800
crewmembers. One on one. Very luxury, not exactly the Titanic, but still very
high class. In Gibraltar I got permission to go ashore, called shore-leave. I
took a tour like a tourist, sightseeing. I did see a monkey, and some
Englishmen. Nice old fashioned shop signs and white and black checkered caps on
police men. On we went to Malaga and
took on some passengers. Then to Menton, or Marseille for more guests. On to
Milan, in Italy. I went ashore and met Italian poor hustlers offering black and
white photographs of naked women. My first contact with pimps. It was cold, the
locals where wearing old fashioned long heavy coats, everything was cold,
almost freezing in a place that is built for heat, for a blazing sun, not for a
cold howling freezing wind. In Athens it was also cold and I didn’t get off the
ship. We never stayed more than a day or so in port and in no time we were back
at sea. Now the weather got better. Real sunshine and arriving in Cairo I hung
over the railing to see what happened. Egyptian boys diving in the water next
to the ship when passengers threw coins over board, they seemed to have an
endless supply of quarts in their pockets. I had little time, but could walk
the pier beside the ship and there I tried to resist the dozens of hustlers.
They offered Players, English cigarettes in sealed new tins, which later
happened to be filled with paper and sawdust. Little giraffes and camels, made
from genuine camel leather, only to later, when coming in moist surroundings,
to fall apart because they were made of papier mache.
Through the Suez Canal. Although I
had to work, I could look out now and again. Majestically the giant luxury
floating palace which is my home now, slides through the desert. Pyramids are
far away, but camels are close by and walk along the shore of the channel. My
first contact with this new reality. A great lake in the Canal made for a stop.
Passengers went to the pyramids, I stayed and worked the restaurant very much.
I had to work breakfast, lunch and dinner shift. We had 4 ranks in the restaurant
hierarchy, I had started at the lowest, called commie. I had to clear the
stations of used things, and bring them away. I worked from 4 sets of 4 tables
and two stations that held all the plates, cutlery and all else. There I put
the food, which I got from the kitchen. A commie was not allowed to come close
to the tables with eating passengers. The “commie de rang”, the next rank up,
would put food from the station on the tables. The “chef” would hand it out,
put it on the plates and the “chef de rang”, the highest of the four, only
walked around with a broad smile, asking if the food was good, and took the
compliments, and tips, and he cut the meat. Complaints went to the cooks, the
chef de rang had never done anything wrong. The “chef” ladled the soup, the
“commie de rang” took away the dirty plates, put them on the station from where
I, the commie, brought them away, down the rolling stairs to the dish washing
factory. Many a good piece of exquisite food was never touched and if the
others had not taken it, I could indulge. The older workers knew how to order
food for themselves, I was still a beginner, and working hard. So hard that I
collapsed later, after Hong Kong, about that later. I became commie sommelier,
that is the helper of the chef-sommelier, the wine-steward. Once, when I was
attending the Captains Table, something of interest happened. It was a kind of privilege
for special invitees. Every night
different people ate at the Captain’s table and I was to fill the glasses with
wine. That night the people, all in smoking and gala dress, were ceremonially
seated on their appointed places. The table was laid for twelve guests in top
style, three crystal glasses by each set of plates, three silver forks, knives,
and spoons bordering each plate. Starched napkins in silver napkin rings, all
in good order. The first Mate had a pretty lady next to him, then her husband,
then the first engineer with a nice woman and her husband. Then some other
first class passengers and at the head of the table the Captain, like his
officers, in his gala uniform with all his stripes. Next to him sat an
obviously very rich widow. She wore rings with diamonds as big as the
Koh-I-Noor on each finger, shiny golden bracelets on her arms. Around her neck
a large golden chain with a sparkling diamond pendant, and on her earlobes ear
hangers that must have cost a fortune each. Her lips were over-painted blood
red, her skin was a sickly pale powdered white. On her head she had deep, dark
red hair and a small tiara to top it all off. The small talk had started, I had
filled the wineglasses, and while standing between the Captain and the lady I
could smell her penetrating perfume, something between camel sweat and jasmine.
I stood at a safe distance to see if any glass needed refilling when the soup
came. A great silver tureen was placed in the middle of the table and the chef
started ladling the soup on the deep plates. The weather was calm and the ship
hardly rolled at all. The spoons went clickety click and the red head asked for
pepper. The first mate handed it to her and she shook it onto her soup plate.
Then she suddenly looked up, hand with pepper dispenser in hand, poised stock-still,
and sneezed. Se sneezed with such violence that her head went backward and then
forward with such power that her red wig tiara and all, flew of, and landed
with a splash right in her plate of soup. Spatters of soup landed on the
captain who shoved his chair back and waved his napkin in the air. The
consternation on the table was complete. Not knowing if I kept my face in check
I shot forward, and covered the lady’s dripping front with my professional
towel that I always had over my right arm. She was in shock and did not move. I
stepped back, and the chef took over. He helped the bald, hairless woman up and
away from the table. They disappeared as quickly as possible out of the
restaurant. He came back a few minutes later and announced that the lady would
continue her dinner in her cabin, thank you everybody, please bon appétit. The
captain removed a few drops of soup from his front and also stood up to leave.
He held a short speech to explain he had
to change and wished everybody a pleasant dinner.
In Aden I was allowed off for a
day. So I walked the medieval place, Arab to the core. I was on a market were
many long dressed dark skinned men where milling about. A commotion in a corner
of the huge open space that held the market caught my attention. I slowly edged
close enough to see a podium, a stage with a chair on it on which uniformed
people led a man in shackles. He was put on the chair and his arm bound to the
armrest. A man in white long coat did something on his arm, I could not see the
details, people were standing and pushing to see better in front of me. A
little later the man in the white coat held a severed bleeding hand in the air.
The man was a thief and his right hand was amputated as punishment. I was
shocked and disgusted, I went back on board a little sick over what I had seen.
Then the “Rotterdam” sailed on to
Bombay. I had shore leave and was going ashore with two of my colleagues. I had
learned from the old hands that it was a good place to bring whiskey and cigarettes
on land here as they were worth their weight in gold. I closed the arms of my
jacket with a few stitches of strong twine and put a bottle of Johnny Walker
and a carton of Marlboro in each arm. Slung the jacket loosely over my shoulder
when I walked stone faced past passport control and my friends and I climbed
down the gangway and into a tiny Morris Minor taxi. I tried immediately to sell
a bottle to the taxi driver. But he had no money enough and would bring us for
a few packs of cigarettes to a place where someone would buy my stuff. We came
to the deep dark center of Bombay. The streets were narrow, and people milling
all over. My friends and I went into a building that was almost dark inside. A
room with couches and pillows, easy chairs and elaborate carved wooden panels,
curtains and staircases. Barred windows from small rooms looked out into this
room and behind every window was the face of a woman. The club owner came
forward and we started to negotiate the price for the two bottles and the
cigarettes. Some money changed hands and a woman took me to one of the little
rooms. It was no more than a big bed and she closed the curtain before the
window. Then she made me lay down and removed my shoes, my shirt and my pants.
With only my under pants still on she started to put oil on my body and stroked
me sensually and I relaxed. She rolled me over on my belly and massaged my back
strongly and she removed my briefs. Then she undressed and in the dim light I
could see that she was very beautiful and young. Her firm breasts stood out
pointedly and her body shone like golden. She put me on my back and started to
massage my body. Her naked skin touched me everywhere and she stroked my penis
softly. I was hard as a stick and pointing straight up. She started touch to my
face, while she sat over me and while she massaged my eyebrows she lowered
herself onto my prick. She moved ever so slowly up and down on my stiff member
and I was being lifted into heaven. I touched her breasts, she came forward
enough to kiss them and I buried my face between the lovely soft mounts. Then
she went down on me deep and pushed her bush onto my bush, so deep and so
tender. She trembled all over so arousing, that I could not help but explode
deep inside her pussy. She stayed a while longer on me and stroked my face and
my body while she slowly climbed off me. She laid next to me and I felt like a
god. Then she produced a small towel and a basin of water and started to wipe
my face, my breast, my belly, my penis, and the rest of me clean. I fell asleep
and woke up refreshed many hours later. It was just before daybreak. She helped
me to dress and I went down the few steps into the big room. I saw the owner of
the place lying on a couch being massaged by a blind man. He seemed to sleep.
Then I found out that my friends had already left and I went out into the
street. It was still dark and many people were on the pavement, sitting, and
lying down. I walked slowly between the many people still sleeping on the
sidewalk. Covered with a cloth some were waking up. Others slept on. A truck
with an open back slowly overtook me on the road. It went only slightly faster
than I and two men walked alongside it. Every time they came upon a person
lying on the pavement, they would kick it on the feet. If the person moved,
they went on to the next one. If the person did not move they would lift the
cloth from the face and stir it. I saw how they lifted a body up together and
threw it on the back of the truck. There were a dozen or so bodies already… I
found a small Morris Minor taxi and went back to the harbor. The taxi left me
to walk the last few hundred meters and there was a tattoo shop on the
pavement. Three men sat around a box with about a hundred batteries in it. They
were all connected together and powered a tool that was made of an old-fashioned
house bell. The ones that ring when you press the button outside. This thing
had no bell. But three needles attached to the vibrating point. I looked at the
pictures of the possible designs. The men made me sit down and wanted me to
take a tattoo. I took a pack of cigarettes out of my pocket and asked if that
was OK. And yes, that was enough payment, I was to choose on. I took a picture
of an old three mast schooner. That took about an hour to get onto my right
upper arm. It has been there ever since. I got my tattoo with a tall ship on my
right upper arm. For a pack of Marlboro, on the quay right in front of the
boat.
Rangoon or Bangkok, with the Canal
Boats, the temples, the girls.
Then to Singapore, where I learned
to eat with chopsticks at the night market.
Manila in the Philippines where I
went to the Scandinavian Club, with a young woman. Stories that tourists got
mugged and robbed went around, that fingers were cut of to get rings from
tourists, and more of that kind. I never gave it any attention and went ashore
all the same, alone.
Hong Kong, where was a drinking
water shortage and the boat produced water and pumped it to the shore for the
time we were in harbor.
Osaka, Kobe, Hiroshima, I went to
the museum of the Atomic Bomb, saw pictures of the devastation.
Hawaii, Tsunami
San Francisco Black Hawk Night
Club
Acapulco, the high jumps in the
sea from the rock, in the fjord.
Panama, with the animal sex shows,
Curacao, with Campo Allegro, the
whore village.
Jamaica, with the double dancing
in the jungle hangar
New York where a Dutch coin of one
cent fitted the subway entry slot, it had the same size as the tokens. I had
met friends who let me use a bed in a guest room in their house, 11th street,
where I got my very first blow job from the sweet black girl that did the
cleaning twice a week. She did me while I was on the toilet, going to shit. She
took my member in her mouth and sucked me empty in no time, smiled and told me
I was handsome.
And after that I escaped to the south of
France to get away from the army service. My father comes to persuade me to go
anyway. Did I go this year or next? Hard
to remember. Once I was in, it took me two
weeks to get out of the army again.
Back to France, I meet an Algerian
guy at the Youth Hostel and go to Algiers with him it was around Christmas
In Algiers we disembark after a
stormy trip with most of the passengers seasick and puking, it was a horrible
trip in the hold of the old steamer; our tickets were the cheapest... We were
not allowed on deck, it was a bit scaring. Thinking about what happens in case
the ship springs a leak; the passengers in the hold were prisoners... My newly
acquired friend lived a bit outside the big town Algiers. We went to the house
of my friend where we sleep and do nothing. Really not a thing. I cannot do anything
and so I started to learn the local language. French could be spoken by most,
but the people self spoke Arabic, Algerian, whatever. So I had my little book,
and pen, and asked every body what the word was for this and for that. Having
lost my eyeglasses when I was cutting wood at the youth hostel in La Ciotat,
France, I could see near, but not far. That was no problem writing, but I could
not see that the man in the family house did not like me talk to the females in
that house. Coming from a western civilization, culture I did not yet know the
customs in Algeria. My friend who had taken me with him had suddenly
disappeared. When I found out that he was gone, I was told that the military
police had come to fetch him for his obligatory time in the army. Now what? I had
no idea what to do, where to go when the father gestured me to come with him.
He pointed to my little valise, and we went in his small car to town. There he
stopped somewhere in the center and made me step out. And he drove away. That
was that. In an unknown town, without money, without any one I know.
I stay a while; get a new pair of eyeglasses
after the one I lost in the wood breaking accident at the youth hostel in La
Ciotat. Boy scouts helped me when I went to look for the embassy of Holland
when my friend has disappeared and I was on my own, in a strange country
without money. The Embassy says: you made it to here, you’ll make it back and
gave me nothing. Sitting on the curb of the street were the embassy was located
a young boy came to me and offered me tea and some sweets. I explained my
situation and I could sleep in the garage of the house. It was an expensive
neighborhood and every house had a big garden with a garage, built for and by
the French who had departed after the independence war was won by Algeria
against France. That was not many years ago and the richer people that I spoke
to did not all agree to the present state of affairs. With sadness in their
voices did they recall the good old times....Then, after having spent some days
there and gotten money that the boys collected to buy a pair of eyeglasses I
went to the local youth hostel and had to sneak in after closing time, as I had
no money to pay, I slept on an empty cot, sneaked out through the window again
before daylight and entered a little later as a visitor. There I met a German
young man, Hans, who was sympathetic. He let me taste my first marijuana, kif
from Morocco, light and pleasant to the palate. It made me explore the stars in
the night when we laid on our back on the roof of the youth hostel. Stargazing
in the clear African night is a wonderful experience. We found a job as extras
in a movie being made by the Algerian TV company, about the war against France.
I had to be dressed in a French Military camouflage uniform and shoot with a
fake sten-gun on passing farmer like civilians. Garden hose rain sprayed a jeep
that had no engine where I had to turn the wheel as if driving while the
cameras were turning. It was boring, the waiting in between shoots was long,
but the pay was good and I could now stay at the hostel for real. When the
movie job was done I traveled, I mean hitch hiked with the German young man to
Tunisia. The way was long and the money small, and we slept in local bath
houses, “hamams”, very cheap and convenient. In the evening, after a day of
mostly walking, hitching rides on trucks, in open pick-ups, in overfull long
distance taxis, like a Peugeot station
car with 10 or 11 people squeezes in the back, seats would be removed to make
space, baskets with live chickens, bundles on the roof, sacks and pots and what
not stuffed every where. We would end up in any kind of place. A village, a
small town, a mere conglomeration of buildings and all we had to do is ask for
the “hamam”. The bath house would always have lots of hot water, towels and
mattresses. One would get a place, undress, wrap in the towel, get a piece of
soap and enter the hot room. . Splash water over the body, sitting on a low
stool, soap and wash and rinse. Often a person would be there to scrub your
back and mostly offer a body massage that cost near to nothing. After being
thoroughly cleansed from the day travels, one lay on the mattress, with a cup
of sweet tea and some cookies or sweetmeats and fall asleep under the provided
towel. At daybreak one would get a kick on the feet to wake up, and with or
without a morning tea be put out on the street. That trip overland was very
special, the first time in an Arabic country. I sometimes blew my penny
whistle, a small flute with 6 holes that I can play a lot of melodies on. Hans
painted with chalk on the pavement, huge Maria’s, and other figures, so we
could beg with dignity. On this trip, in Oran I had to eat a roasted goat head,
suck out the eyes, crack it open and eat the cooked brains, a delicacy when
hungry. Before reaching the border we had no lift and started to walk the 20 or
so remaining kilometers. Somewhat later, it had become dark deep night a
pick-up truck took us in the back and stopped at the border to Tunisia, on the
road to the town of Hammamet, after exchanging some money and contraband
watches with the border guards, we came to a small village, got a sleeping
place and were put out on the road in the early next morning. On the way to Tunis along the seacoast, it
was beautiful. We ended up in the big town Tunis, Avenue Bourgiba. Every thing
was called Bourgiba, a Hotel, a street, a park, a kind of cigarette, the money;
it was all “Bourgiba”, the name of the president. When we, German Hans and I
where on the street painting and begging a white European passed by and dropped
a big banknote in our tray. Looking up with wonder he smiled and invited us for
lunch and coffee in a classy restaurant. It does not look good for Europeans to
beg, he said and he would take care of us. He was a rich architect, engaged by
a wealthy Tunisian to built some houses and he was bored because there was
nobody to talk to, to exchange intelligence in that so different a culture. Later we where in his
house and he introduced us to some drug that made one high. It was “Romilar”
from la Roche. Originally a cough medicine, but when you took 20 pills instead
of one, you started hallucinating and laughing and having a very good time.
That we did and I remember not much but the fantastic colored rainbows at the
seaside, splashing water and playing in the shallow sea. Some days later, we
lived now all in his apartment; we went to a place called Cartagena, north of
Tunis. There we went to a horse stable where he had his horse and took us to go
horseback riding. I had never sat on a horse. Hans said that he had. Ulli took
his own horse, selected for me a meek, elder lady horse, and for Hans a young
eager Arab. And there we went. Out in the open, my horse was calm, quiet and
obedient to my pulls at the reigns; it was even a bit dull. Hans’s horse was
jumpy and did all kind of turns and pulled hard this way and that. Ulli’s horse
and he knew each another well, they went ahead and came back to see how we were
doing. After a while I saw that Hans had problems as his horse was young and
wild and I offered to change, he takes mine and I take his. And that we did.
Wow, what a difference, to have a power pack between your legs. I liked it, but I could not control it very
well, I had no knowledge about horse riding at all. Still, I had the distinct
feeling that I had done this before. Surely it was a memory from a former life.
Trotting went painful, I could not get the rhythm and when the horse went up, I
went down, and the contact was painful. A little later, Ulli was far ahead, I
went galloping, or better said, the horse took off with me. That was nice, much
more comfortable, now it was like the horse was steady and there was hardly any
contact between the saddle and my bottom. We were flying, the wind through my hair,
the clop, clop of the hoofs on the hard packed sandy ground, the sea on the
horizon, palm trees far away, it was a dream. I had done this for sure in a
former life, I could feel it. My left foot came out of the stirrup, I could not
find the stirrup back with my foot, we went so fast, everything was moving. Bad
news, the stirrup on its leather strap hit the horse’s side hard, it went even
faster, the stirrup hit my head, and it hit the side of the horse again and
again, the young horse went in a frenzy of speed, it was incredible. And my
head got hit again, until I managed to catch the flying stirrup and stuffed it
between my left leg and the horse. Under while we were flying at top speed over
the plain. Ulli tried to follow me, a joke, we were too fast. My right foot slipped
out of the stirrup as well and it started to fly up and down. It started to
swing up and down like the other one had done. I tried to catch it and pressed
my legs tight around the little horse, but it was too much. The stirrup hit me
and then I fell off. And found myself on the ground looking after the horse
running free, in a cloud of dust, far away.
How long it took for Ulli to get it back I do not remember, but I was
getting up and started walking in the direction they had taken off. Some time
later they came out of the horizon and now the horse had run itself out and was
a bit quieter. I was back on top right away. Never felt so good. After that one
time, I never ever, during my whole life, fell off a horse again. It was a
marvelous day, I learned something of great value and importance: the feeling
that I had lived before. That feeling was so strong that it made the scenery
look timeless, as if we had been there hundreds of years, as if my friends were
not friends from the twenties century but from eternity. Alexander the great
had been there at Cartage and I felt that I had been there, that my name
carried something of the inherited past. That evening the pain came. The
unfamiliar exercise took its toll and without the powerful painkiller that Ulli
provided I would have suffered terribly. As it was, the evening past like we
were royalty, me basking in my victory over the horse, in the company of
friends in an Arabic country in a spot that my name giver had conquered
centuries before. What a feeling. We discussed the lack of marijuana, kif,
ganja, grass, and it came up that we or one of us would go to Morocco to get
some in order to find some kif, something to smoke other than the tobacco that
was available. The water pipes that were in every coffeehouse should have
something better to burn we thought. I myself had no experience with grass
other than the little that Hans had had with him in Algiers and that was
finished long ago.
And so it came to pass that I all alone
went west, all the way to Morocco. The idea was that I would go and return with
some kif as the marijuana is called there.
I did do the trip, hitching rides
on buses, private cars, long distance taxis and anything else that went my way.
It was an amazing feat for a young fellow alone with hardly any money, just a
little provided by the Swiss. Finally arriving at the Moroccan border, my money
was all finished, or good as finished. In the little town close to the border I
could still find a sort of guest house, and a room the size of the bed with
hardly room to get in. I slept the night through and woke up early morning from
giggling, and women's voices. Looking out I saw the inner courtyard with small
tables and chairs, some with a man or two, except one where three young women
were joking with a young man. When they saw me, they called me over and I got a
small cup of sweet tea and believe it or not, a pipe of kif. They smoked their
morning puff and automatically invited me in. I smoked a few puffs, excused
myself and went back to bed. And slept until 11 am. Then started my Moroccan
adventure which lasted three month. After waking up and getting out in the
streets I walked aimlessly around, not knowing what to do or where to go. Not
much later I was met with the guy who sat with the women in the hotel patio. He
took me to a place with bread and soup. A cauldron at least a meter across was
built in a place, a fire was burning underneath and a man was stirring it with
a huge wooden spoon, more looking like a rowing oar than a spoon. It made a
nice thick pea soup and the half loaf of bread was freshly baked. It was the
beginning of three month in Fez. I got an old jelabah, a dress that one enters
from the bottom, puts arms and head first, and that covers the whole body, with
arms and a capuchin, a hood. It covers the wine bottles I carry in my trouser
pockets, which I have to carry into the inner Arab city. Alcoholic drinks are
not permitted and soldiers are watching everybody entering through the gates in
the city wall.
Here my story needs to be followed
up, a lot more is to tell, a lot happened before I returned to Europe.
After I was back in Holland, maybe
in this year did I find the magic lamp and did I know Francis de Waal, who went
with a guy called Klaas. She lived in the general Vetter Street. She had a
sailing boat, called BM, which I sailed on the Y, the Amsterdam harbor. Her
father had a place on the Loosdrechtse Plassen, and she went years later with
Jorjen Mikmak from Haastje Repje...I always wanted her; she had such small firm
breasts and freckles, and raven black hair. I never got her...
Amsterdam, opium, amphetamine van de
mysterious Germ Schut, who came into my life one day when I worked in “Broodje
van Kootje”, trying to live with a terrible hangover. He offered me a little
white powder in my coffee. It worked wonders and in no time I was feeling like
new. That whole day I worked, cleaned, did everything efficiently, singing,
happy, without eating anything, feeling great. The hangover like never existed.
Later Germ took me to his house where he showed me the laboratory in his
kitchen where he made the white powder, and he gave me so much of it that I put
it in a salt shaker and had it in the pocket of my white working coat. I put it
once in the coffee from my boss, who then started to show me how to clean the
cutting machine, he got so carried away that after he cleaned the machine he
started to clean the walls, the cupboards and the floors. He asked me if I
didn’t want to take off, because he felt so good that he could carry on alone.
Germ himself and his friends would
know that I had the powder and they came in asking coffee or a sandwich
“special”, which meant I was to shake a little of what I learned was
amphetamine powder on it. It was not yet illegal and many people used it. I
heard that that stuff was made first in the second world war in Germany where
the pilots that had to fly to England to drop bombs and then fly back used it
to stay awake on those too long trips. Hitler lost the war, in spite of his drug,
I did not use it very long, it gave me the shakes, made me feel colder than it
was already and too active, doing things that were done already. In modern
times that cheap nerve wrecking stuff has been replaced with the more
sophisticated cocaine, which does virtually the same, it activates, takes away
hunger and fatigue but gives me the nerves.
I live on the third floor of a house in
Rapenburg, called: “Hospital Little Lexington” , meet my future to be wife Margona
en her sister Carina, I am a junky then. Take lots of opium and amphetamine and
help other junks to shoot the stuff in their veins. When I go there it is winter
in Sweden, I recover, cold turkey style. Living at the house of Margona’s
mother with the “kakelung”, the built in corner stove with tiles all the way to the ceiling in
which we burned wood that gave a wonderful warmth so that you could be naked
inside.
1967 Goat year
Then starts the most amazing trip with the two
girls, without money, hitch hiking
through Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, and
Afghanistan, back through Iran, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Italy, France and Belgium.
Carina met her future husband Jannie, and Marcus was conceived in July or June
on a French mountain slope near a little river, so romantic, it was perfect. I
have to elaborate on this trip a lot, so much happened, me with two beauties in
the Arab world.
I am 23 years old, getting 24 in
December.
I am in Sweden, I marry Margona
Berit Margarita Eriksson on 2 February in Malmo. April 7 Marcus Pinocchio gets
born. When I am in the room next to where the child gets delivered, I see
myself unconsciously making the classical greeting towards the place he got
into our world. Right arm outstretched 45 degrees into the sky, Hail my boy.
Welcome.
I found out that I was a better than good baby
sitter. Margona went out dancing and fooling around. I could feel it when one
night I went after her and saw her kissing this boy Joren and I made a bad row.
The relation ended after 5 years, we divorced.
This year I visit the artist Sture
Johannson, and his friend K.G., who was studying psychology. He had in his
house in the woods cases full of books, gotten from shops to further his
studies. I found my truly magic book there, titled: the “Secret lore of Magic”,
by Idries Shah, and he gave it to me as a present.
Sture created at that time already
a painting with a computer. Together we made a huge painting on a long paper
roll. It hung later in the Malmo Museum.
I ordered psilocybin cacti,
Lophophora Williamsee, from a flower shop, to complete the cactus collection of
my aunt, I told the shopkeeper. He got them from Switzerland but could not buy
less than 24 in a box. No problem, I took them all. Once they had arrived, I
cleaned them with Sture and we cut them in slices. The cat that lived in that
house came curiously and hit a cutting with his paw, and became crazy, run all
over the place, hung in the curtains, run over the ceiling, even upside down.
1969 Rooster year, I’m 24 getting 25
I am still in Sweden, am in a school
to learn Swedish and small appliance repairs. Visiting the house of K.G. in the Swedish jungle, bush
sometime, I realized that I did not want to learn an