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An ode to art Remco Campert The Satin Heart emco Campert’s apparent R25mildness and light ironic touch towards affairs of the heart have been altering gradually with the onset of old age and its infirmi- ties, and the inevitable approach of death. The time comes for a reluc- tant final reckoning. In Het satijnen hart (‘The Satin photo Klaas Koppe Heart’), this is the prospect facing the well-known painter Hendrik After a long career, Remco Campert (b. 1929) is still van Otterloo, who bears some re- one of the most popular writers in the Netherlands. semblance to Karel Appel. He has He started as a poet but from the sixties on, he also lived for art and enjoyed the fruits wrote novels, such as his highly successful debut Het of fame, but he has never started a family or entered into any seri- leven is vurrukkulluk (‘Life is Grrreat’, 1961). His style is ous relationship with a woman. The one attempt he made, involv- tinged with irony and his work is often autobiograph- ing the hairdresser’s daughter Cissy, ended in drama, and he ical. In 1979 Campert was awarded the P.C. Hooft Prize painted his last major work: a self-portrait, on the night she left for his poetry. 2006 saw the last of his popular news- him. paper columns in de Volkskrant: in the autumn of his It is only years later, when Hendrik sees Cissy’s obituary in the life, Campert has found inspiration for new novels, newspaper, that his conscience starts to bother him. In conversa- including the warmly received Een liefde in Parijs (‘A tions with his only friend, the equally renowned painter Jon- Love in Paris’, 2004). gerius Jr., he invariably calls Cissy a bitch, and yet she clearly left deep wounds in his soul. The only other person with whom Hen- drik has a more or less normal relationship is his half-sister Babette, who regularly comes by to care for him. For all their This flawless book is proof that as he gets older, Campert’s grumbling and grousing, there is a strong bond between the two, skill as a novelist is not waning but waxing. elsevier dating back to an experience thirty years before. Campert’s style, which has become increasingly spare and In the language of Het satijnen hart Campert manages to unadorned, was made for the character of Van Otterloo, a man of conjure up a terrifying fear of death which is ultimately few words. For a long time Van Otterloo has questioned the role conquered by a will to live. That will to live, or creative urge, that art has played in his life. Yet when his frustrations threaten is indistinguishable from the artistic calling. to get the upper hand, his longing to return to art is all that keeps nrc handelsblad him going, and it even gives him new energy. This makes The Satin Heart intriguingly contrary, as settling scores with the artist The gentle Sunday’s child of Dutch literature is beginning to becomes an ode to art. stick up for himself. de volkskrant publishing details rights translated titles Het satijnen hart (2006) De Bezige Bij Wie in einem Traum (Als in een droom). 190 pp Van Miereveldstraat 1 Zürich; Hamburg: Arche, 2006 nl6–61071 dw Amsterdam Eine Liebe in Paris (Een liefde in Parijs). rights sold tel. +31 20 305 98 10 Zürich: Arche, 2005 Singel 464 Germany (Arche) fax +31 20 305 98 24 The gangster girl (Het gangstermeisje). nl6-61017 aw2Amsterdam e-mail [email protected] London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1968. Also in tel. 31 20 620662661 website www.debezigebij.nl Czech (Odeon, 1968) fax +31 20 620671679 No holds barred (Liefdes schijnbewegingen). e-mail [email protected] London: Rupert Hart- Davis, 1965 / website www.nlpvf.nl Mayflower Books, 1968 Sample Translation The Satin Heart (Het satijnen hart) by Remco Campert (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2006) Translated by S.J. Leinbach REMCO CAMPERT – THE SATIN HEART 9 ’ve finally settled on stupid cow. I prefer it to fucking cunt, which Jongerius Junior finds a tad vulgar. Besides, Cissy’s cunt was the best thing she had, a Iprecision instrument which she could switch on and off at will. The problem was not her cunt but her head, which was filled with thoughts of money and status and male attention. That diseased mind of hers ruled her defenceless cunt, a faithful handmaid, victim of her mistress’s whims. Actually her cunt was a paragon of innocence. I was raised not to refer to women as ‘stupid cows’, or even to think about them in those terms. But when the aforesaid stupid cow pulled up stakes and left me, I began to question the saintliness of the opposite sex. In Jongerius Junior’s opinion, I’ve just gone over to the other extreme. He thinks I generalise. ‘Oh, give me a break,’ I snap back at him. ‘They’re incapable of doing or wanting anything. Their whole lives revolve around driving men crazy. If there weren’t any men, women would be hopelessly lost. Women’s lib is a crock, just a trick to attract our attention.’ ‘You’re stuck back in the fifties with your ideas about women. Know what your problem is? She hurt you, and you want to hold onto that pain. That’s your way of keeping a piece of her.’ I’d never thought of it that way. I start off denying it. ‘That’s ridiculous. I’m not a masochist.’ Jongerius Junior senses that he’s touched a nerve. ‘She wanted to have a child with you, you once told me. Could that have anything to do with love?’ ‘Love! Ha! To her, a child was a gold nugget, a bit of collateral. Something she could use to sink her claws into me and my money. Take that student of yours, Fiona. She talks of nothing but money too. If she gets her kit off – which I’ve yet to see happen – do you reckon she’ll do it because she finds you attractive? No, she’s NLPVF • For information purposes only • All rights reserved 2 REMCO CAMPERT – THE SATIN HEART out for your money and your fame, take my word. And I’m sure she can see through that line of bull about wanting to paint her.’ ‘Maybe,’ Jongerius Junior admits, ‘but what of it? I’m realistic enough to accept that. The fact is, you’re nothing but a dyed-in-the-wool idealist.’ That’s news to me. When Cissy and I lived together she went shopping a couple of times a week in the most fashionable and expensive street in Amsterdam. She’d rummage through the racks with the other women, aided by shop assistants who were, if possible, even more common than the clientele. I was sometimes allowed to go along on these excursions, and I would sit there, perched on a small, elegant chair while she picked out her clothes. She wanted to flaunt it, being the famous artist’s woman, having even more money to spend than the TV stars who frequented this street. I revelled in it: the artist in the prime of his life with the beautiful young girlfriend that everyone envied. If there was an unusually costly purchase, my job was to frown disapprovingly. When I walked down the street with Cissy, there was something in her step, the swaying of her handbag, that gave you the impression you could possess her, that she was for sale. And she knew it. ‘They look at me like I’m a hooker.’ Hidden in my shadow she ogled every man in well-tailored trousers. I noticed all right, but I looked on like a good-hearted uncle, blindly convinced that her devotion was unconditional, just as I lived under the delusion that the power of my art would never fail me. When I met her she was seeing a racing-car driver. His milieu, in which women were regarded as necessary toys, had become too confining for her. Only in the world of art could she truly shine; artists knew what beauty was and what beauty was entitled to. She picked me up (as I later took to describing it) at a dinner following the private viewing of an exhibition in Brussels. She was sitting in the far corner of an immense table with her boyfriend the driver who owned a nightclub, where we wound up later that night. I was in the place of honour in the middle, wedged in between the wife of the Dutch ambassador (the ambassador himself was NLPVF • For information purposes only • All rights reserved 3 REMCO CAMPERT – THE SATIN HEART unavoidably detained, as ambassadors often are), and my friend Monsanto, the art historian who discovered me and Jongerius Junior and wrote essays and articles that secured our position among the great artists of the twentieth century. After a time I started to have the feeling that, even from a distance, I was being stared at. I looked in Cissy’s direction, vaguely at first, as if I were simply taking in the scene. I continued to feel the glow of her big brown eyes as I turned back to the ambassador’s wife who painted watercolours of flowers that she would ‘never dare show a living soul’, a confession that turned into an invitation to visit the ambassador’s residence. A moment or two later I could not resist sneaking another look at that face which stood out more and more from all the other faces.