A symphony in three parts: understated, very passionate and held-back prose. I witnessed restraint, tension, non-communication, loneliness, sexuality, the search for identity, recognition, remorse, and more. The story captures a time in which the aftermath of WWII is still very present. A very cleverly written tale which made me realise how ignorance and reticence can distort reality and, sadly, destroy trust.
She had been eleven when they moved to the east of the country, and Louis – the oldest – thirteen. Hendrik was small for his age at ten, a hollow-cheeked and melancholy boy. Isabel hadn’t thought he remembered much of those early days in the house. They mostly spoke of what came before: their childhood in Amsterdam, Father before he got sick, the smell of the city in December, a toy train that went round and round.
But he was right somehow. An odd angle of thought that hadn’t struck her before – they’d moved into a finished house, a full house. Nearly everything laid out: the sheets, the pots, the vases in the windowsills.
'But it was Mother’s…'
