Love and love,
Your Cocoon.
Stratford-upon-Avon
Saturday, 18 April 1964
André, lovely man,
My bright and morning star – I suppose I can no longer deny you. Thank you for your dream letter – angel – God, Stratford-upon-Avon. Submerged in history here – genuine historical event of the big man. “Stop chatting up the tourists.” “Say good day to the foreigner” … People in the beautiful, charming pubs of Stratford. And tomorrow we’re going to “Sweet Shakespeare”. And tonight, our memory night, I am lying here in a cottage built in 1500 … God, did you see that stuff? The women in these parts say … “I told myself I’ll be down to 140 pounds by April 23rd …” That is so wonderful. Everyone is involved. The whole town is focused on the great event – the celebration of the great poet – I went to the theatre, early in the afternoon – behind the scenes where they were still diligently learning their lines – I’m here for the weekend with David Lytton and his wife and four little ones (they live here) and they take me everywhere.
Dearest André, you’re being missed, do you hear, you’re being missed. This is after all a big moment for me, and you have no idea how much I’ve already learnt – by the way, have met among others John Collins – leading artist and décor-artist, and Julia Hastings – 84 years old and a character so complex that I don’t dare write about her yet. I’m having a meal with her tomorrow at The Dirty Duck or The Black Swan – whichever you prefer. God, and just recently we were walking along the Avon – here sat [John] Keats, and [William] Wordsworth too … and so many others … and I, insignificant, miserable IJ. But fascinated, fascinated, fascinated … I had no idea …
Darling, I got your cable saying you’re coming to Spain – July or December. Rather come now. Come in July. The year is so short and so much and so new and so unique and you must come and share it … there are no questions any more … ask your heart … and come and come now and come quickly … live inwardly at a tempo that would madden both dog and cat in grimly bourgeois, miserable South Africa without background without words without love. Do a programme about writers … Laurens van der Post (“The Man Who Cares”), David Lytton (The Goddam White Man, cousin of Leipoldt) (“The Lord of Life”) and T.S. Eliot (“International Poet”) … so far … You must come and help and come and share. No God, it can’t go on like this, you there, whipped across your wounded eyes. Have a lovely sleep my prince, with love and urgent request for the last time and yet for always –
Cocoon. Cocoon.
Ned. Zuid-Afrikaanse Vereniging
141 Keizersgracht
Amsterdam C
Monday, 27 April 1964
My dearest André P. Brink,
My God, darling, I’m here. I came by aeroplane and I have a genuine true-blue old-fashioned room in the attic. It is clean and nice with a double bed that takes up just about the whole room – in any case, it’s better to write to the address above because I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay here – it is in any case close by and the noble highly esteemed [K.E.O.] Von Bose is looking after me and is sending me to Elisabeth Eybers at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning for an … interview? Now that I’m in Amsterdam, at the Café Eijlders – I know how much I hated London: God, it takes everything – it was impossible for me to live and exist there … I couldn’t so much as buy a stamp for your letters there … it was as if I couldn’t even speak the language. The constant dinners and “entertainment” of it too.
But now I’m fine again and like the cat, I’ve landed on my feet. Suddenly everything is expansive and good. I am so glad I decided to come here and to meet you here. What further plans are there and are you furious that I didn’t write sooner? Believe me, child, England was not easy. And I was so busy enjoying it and “appreciating” it, I was very much like a freed lunatic. And now I’m off to buy a whole lot of food and then return to my wonderful own attic room, own room, at last! after months! I miss you so. And I am so excited about your faith and neverending letters … Can’t you maybe be here before June? (Tried to call B[ert] Schierbeek; sick; Simon Vinkenoog is out of jail: it was because of dagga: tomorrow I’m going to beat up De Bezige Bij!) Thank you for being so well behaved, thank you thank you for everything and that you’re here. I’ll write you a proper letter tomorrow. In the meantime, till then, you – remain.
Your
Cocoon. Cocoon.
{PS: I am horny too. IJ.}
Tuesday, 28 April 1964
ARRIVED CARE OF NED ZUIDAFRIKAANSE VERENIGING KEIZERSGRACHT 141 AMSTERDAM STOP ENCHANTING [STOP] LETTER FOLLOWS LOVE = COCOON
Queen’s Birthday
Thursday, 30 April 1964
My darling pet,
Thank you for your little letter, which SA House sent on to me and which relieved the loneliness. Because this beautiful city is probably the loneliest in the world, and these first few days have been hard. Haven’t met any writers yet – well, Elisabeth Eybers, went and had tea with her on Tuesday morning. She is an attractive person, but seems to live a completely isolated life and doesn’t go around with the [?]. (I found out Simon was in prison because of dagga, but he’s free again!). Tomorrow I’m going to De Bezige Bij to find out about Lobola. When I called, Bert Schierbeeck was ill and I hope he’ll be there tomorrow. In the meantime, formal evenings here and there where you’re offered the strangest food – inedible, like a bowl of peanuts and a piece of cheese – you’d starve here, man! And then of course the television replaces all conversation – I’ve just come from a little evening like that and saw Romeo and Juliet in Dutch and laughed so much at the Hollanders’ guttural Ggggod! Instead of Dear God … Ag, my André.
What’s the news there and what are the feelings about your Spain trip? You are so dearly devoted and I sometimes feel so unworthy – because I still lurch between my two loyalties and I wish you could come immediately and put a stop to it. Jack is so very angry with me now because I write so seldom that he sent me a resentful note about a week ago which made me feel absolutely miserable. You’ll just have to bear with and tolerate me. Distance and absence are so terribly destructive unless one is constantly on guard. And this stay in Amsterdam seems so futile at the moment – and so I’ll be starting at the University on Monday already (last lectures of the year).
Thank you dearest man, precious heart, that you are so patient with me in this time of little writing, almost-not-knowing, wind-blown full-well knowing. Everything will be okay once you’re here – that, at least, I know. And even though I said in January that if you do come back you should come back free, I now know that we need this chance to be together – we owe it to ourselves and to life. So you must come soon to your lonely cocoon and distressed heart. As my ouma might have said: For you I would do anything … Darling, I wish I could write down and convey all the interesting and exciting strange things. Do you see me do you hear me … I have a new room in the Hotel de Maas, but only until tomorrow – then the search continues. There isn’t room for a mouse in Amsterdam, because it’s the Queen’s Birthday and 1 May … something to do with tulips. People here are always celebrating something … they celebrate their summer of now-and-again watery sunlight. But tonight the heart is more important, this pining heart without a harbour. How is your heart and how are you confronting your life and your leaving? Do you still know what I look like? Yes, I’m wearing both little rings and guess what, the blue pyjamas. And I’m lying here on a big clean white bed and I’m winding the curl around the pen.
If only you could lie here beside me my moesie-man, everything would become clear again and tenderness would like a wave spill onto the shore. But now I must wait, wait, so long, so strange, so far and will it really happen, my guardian angel, that I will walk out one morning and go off to greet you at Schiphol, as if we’d never been separated in this strange mystery, and will the separation, my star-crossed, deliver something that will, after all, remain strong and creative with us? How can the heart lie like this and [?] in
the new life, but tonight I feel like Romeo, banished and removed from everything I love. But now you mustn’t upset yourself – communication at such a distance is difficult and defective, stay serene until you can come and tell me everything and remain a beautiful prince in my love and longing,
Your Cocoon.
Grahamstown
Sunday, 3 May 1964
My own Cocoon,
It’s early Sunday morning. Quiet autumn weather outside. The days are pure poetry. Are you lying fast asleep in a double bed in your little attic room, finally in an intimate space that you can call “home” again after all your “toil and wandering”?
Your dearest letter of yesterday made the past while’s quiet longing so very poignant. Your lovable helter-skelter letters from England felt very far away, despite the enchantment. And now you’re suddenly so close again.
Spain is now very much a reality, so close by. AND. I have been given an extra week’s leave; and will therefore be leaving Madrid for home only on Friday 7 August.
HAVE YOU BOOKED YET?
My love, all of it, is beginning to feel so full of nuance, tenderness and passion that it cannot be conveyed on paper. If I say: I love you, it sounds like a proposition. If I say: I lust for you, I feel unbearable lust for you, and then it sounds blatant. What does such a statement convey about everything else, besides: to be with you; to lie next to each other and talk; to play with your hair, and your cheeks; to kiss your closed eyes and take your earlobe between my lips; to say hello to everything: soft mouth of rapture; smooth, speckled shoulders; narrow, dark, elongated back; arms that clutch so softly and so tighly; those hands with their lovably untidy nails; your round, tender breasts with their tiptop nipples that stand and wait pert and erect for a thirsty mouth; the vulnerability and rumbling of your tummy; your little hips that fit so well between mine; your extended legs with their shiny little hairs in the light; your fine feet, with the leucodendron; your nice cool bum. And, finally, the opening up, the ecstasy of our deep hello to each other, in your hungry, caressing little cocoon.
God, my darling, how does one wait another six weeks? But we shall light up our little flame of chastity and bathe in its glow. And then, on 20 June, we celebrate.
Please get me a room nearby. Best of all, of course, will be if they don’t object to my moving in with you.
And then our play-play dream of earlier will become true as I take your little hand in mine and walk with you through the streets of Paris; we’ll drink at sidewalk tables, sit in the shade of the Luxembourg Gardens, roam along the Seine and through the Notre Dame, saunter up and down narrow, crooked little lanes. And return to our room, Monsieur et Madame, and fuck ourselves half-stupid.
It’s just too good, too lovely to be true. Afterwards I’ll be able, like Simeon, to say: Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace …
And Spain: fishermen’s villages, sea and sun, old Moorish castles, the elongated shadow of Don Quixote. I’ll be the “spare, gaunt-featured” Don who charges into windmills, with my horse Rocinante. We can christen our car Sancho Panza. I’m arranging for a hired car in Barcelona so we can drive wherever we want.
“Blessed are those who love each other, because they will see Spain.” (Reading for today.)
Elders Bewolk en Koel is done; finished it yesterday. 103 pages. A good deal of revision is still needed; the ending needs sharpening, too. But I feel happy. The poison has been expelled. And I think, I hope, there’s something of “evil beauty” in there, something of a contrast between the lyrical and the terrifying, which the book must have in order to be anything.
Ag, but then there’s censorship, too …
Beloved one, lovely you: write everything. About everyone you meet (what’s Eybers like?), everything you see.
Don’t go to the Vijf Vliegen: I want to take you there!
Go see the Volendam.
Let me know if I can bring along any books or other stuff for you.
Sleep with me. I’m sleeping with you, a lot. A last little kiss for the little clip between the lips of the purse. And the sign of the cross, with piety, over your forehead and your heart.
With love, always,
André.
Monday, 4 May 1964
Freedom Day Tomorrow
Dearest André, Treasure, Letterman, Redhead, Heart of the dawn, Hello! Hello my fish! Hellooo little fiiiiish!
I am so happy – I received a letter (eventually) and this afternoon, a room. A beautiful room, just below the Kommunistiese Gebou near the Leidseplein and here is the address: 477 Prinsengracht, Amsterdam C. But for now, write to the association until I’ve let you know the name of my landlady too, I think it’s Mrs Bosse or something like that. She’s old and lovely, a big doll sits in her witch-room, and she writes poems. This is what the room looks like and look, my pet, there’s a big drawer under the bed I can squash you into. Because you’re going to stay here with me. A hotel in Amsterdam, that will not work!
It’s big. It’s authentically Amsterdammish, with thousands of little stairs, creepy corridors, but away from all the swarming, with a view on to roofs and its own rooftop where one can apparently (in summer) lie and tan. I was completely disheartened about the room situation and then I got it through Dutch acquaintances: and him you know too: the lord H. Brinkman. You had to accompany him once at Potch. Do you remember? You were about third year, he says, and rather shy. I’ve landed safely among some theology students who have healthy self-doubt and who invited me on their bicycles and the backs of their scooters to cosy little pubs on the Leidseplein. And do you know what? I’m probably going to perform in an Afrikaans woman’s programme for Radio Wereldomproep Hilversum. In any case, I have to make them a programme about IJ whose arrival they announced. So you can see for yourself how the Lord guides.
I get homesick for London sometimes and I’m going there again for the weekend. And I’ll also learn Spanish when I’m peacefully in my room again – so that we can at least see on the tape how it is in Spanish too. Bring your Elders Bewolk en Koel with you, remember, and also proofs of Orgie, which I must edit with a razor blade. And don’t work yourself to death like that, because I want to brag with you and so you mustn’t be so thin and you must have long hair. Think about that and in the meantime put away the scissors. Everyone here thinks you are astonishingly beautiful, from the photos.
Thank you for the motto idea. Do you think this is sufficiently dignified: “En vergeet maar / van geregtigheid dit bestaan nie / van broederskap dis bedrog / van liefde dit het geen reg nie” [“and please forget / about justice it doesn’t exist / about brotherhood it’s deceit / about love it has no right”]. I’ll send you the whole poem. Everything’s still so mixed up because of all this moving around. Sorry about “Waterfal”. It was a poetic slip. You can print it anyway. One should in any case read it more than once. And don’t be too placid over there. Does she know you’re coming to me? Of course. But doesn’t she say anything about it? How on earth does one live ...? And now I’m getting sad again. But I await you in all joy and cheerfulness. No, you are not completely distant, liefsteling. Because see, I am already used to you. And I’m even beginning to believe that you love me! But come quickly then. I’m booking everything tomorrow definitely for our pilgrimage. Come soon and surely; I miss your moesies and little laugh and papie and your beloved hands always,
Your Cocoon.
477 Prinsengracht
Amsterdam C
May 1964
Darling André,
I am neglecting you terribly in not writing. You must please forgive me, because I still feel so horribly dislocated in this strange life here, which at the moment makes no sense to me. Thank god for you and Spain! Did I tell you that I’ve received another bursary – from the Ernest Oppenheimer Trust? And listen, I’ve booked with KLM like this:
Amsterdam – Paris: 22 June with flight KL 401 (9 am)
Paris – Barcelona: 26 June flight AF 527 (11.50 am)
Barcelona –
Madrid: provisionally IB 211, as you said. Fixed up.
And then return to Amsterdam.
But André, I don’t want to come back here. Do you know, I’ve only met one poet and that was Elisabeth Eybers and she lives completely isolated and is always busy with God-knows-what. With the other people I’ve met, absolutely no contact at all on whatever level. But don’t be too concerned. Today the weather was nice and I went wandering around. Did you ever do that? Strange, hey? And on Friday night I went to look at the whores at the Walletjies. At the Zeedijk. Reclaimed land. But I don’t really want to send you such a negative letter. Because there are nice moments everywhere – and there is longing and love and dedication. And I bought myself a nice light coat for the plane, and a striped dress that buttons up the front because you’ll be impatient – like me. Tomorrow I’ll be going to a gymnasium where one can at least take pleasure in one’s body. There’s no mirror in my room and everyone finds it very annoying when you take a shower (there’s a mirror at the shower in the kitchen). I find it really necessary to be in touch with my own body. Otherwise it’s just like a nun – precisely.
On Friday I was also at Radio Wereldomroep. They did a voice test and if it is successful they want me from August for a year – in other words until August 65. I met Abraham [H. de Vries]’s fiancée at my function in Johannesburg. Your description more or less fits, but as bad as that she cannot be. You say “if you’re struggling, go and speak to the man whose name I sent you”. I don’t recall any such a man at all, my dearest boy. And I am STRUGGLING. Not with accommodation, but with the whole goddamn affair they call life and I have never needed you so much. To just be able to see your young familiar bright face again among all the old antique buildings they boast about! André, it’s not always so serious – I mean this spiritual need – but maybe today especially because it was a nice day and I had to gather all my warmth into a bunch of red tulips that I could give my weather-beaten old landlady.
Flame in the Snow Page 38