‘Back to that questioning,’ I said. ‘Did the man deny that he was speeding?’
‘Not categorically,’ Hendriks answered. ‘But he said he had kept to the speed limit. This is corroborated by his passenger, but he’s what we call an unreliable witness, because he might be biased in favour of the driver. There were other witnesses. A pedestrian and a taxi driver. They gave first-hand — that night, I mean — accounts, and will be questioned again in the course of the inquiry.’
‘Might technical investigation reveal any new facts?’ I asked. The smell of the cookies started intensifying. ‘You warned me yourself over the phone about those yellow outlines drawn on the road surface … so I assume …’
‘Oh, certainly.’ Officer Windig took over. ‘The force of the impact, the angle at which the bicycle and the automobile collided, these things still have to be thoroughly investigated. The results might take some time. The car has been impounded, and is in the lab together with the victim’s bicycle, where they’re being subjected to a battery of tests. For instance, the bike may have left an imprint in the car body. A detail like that can help up fit together the pieces of the puzzle.’
‘Moreover,’ continued Hendriks, ‘CCTV films have emerged from a security camera on the Max Euweplein. From Holland Casino, if I’m not mistaken. They’re in our possession, and are being studied. We’re talking about images taken from quite a distance, but they still might shed some light on the situation.’
‘As long as I don’t have to see them,’ Miriam said. ‘I cherish the very first photo taken of our son, when he was in the incubator. A faded Polaroid. I hardly even dare look at that …’
With security-camera images in the back of my mind, the kind you saw on TV family-search programmes or of jeweller or petrol-station robberies, I tried to envision the last moving documentation of Tonio’s life. Jerky images of him cycling into view — only to be obscured by the equally jerky images of a charging BMW. How did I know he’d been hit by a BMW? Because I’d always hated that vulgarly expensive make.
‘By the way, what kind of car was it?’ I asked, in fact only to have my BMW suspicion confirmed.
‘A Suzuki,’ officer Hendriks said. ‘A red Suzuki Swift.’
Hendriks took a folder out of the leather bag he had wedged between his feet, and laid it on the table. In order to make more room, he slid the plate of cookies in my direction, which made the buttery smell all the more penetrating. He opened the folder and thumbed through a stack of papers, until he found a situation sketch of the Hobbemakade/Stadhouderskade intersection, complete with a childlike drawing of a red compact car.
‘My responsibility for this accident only seems to be getting bigger,’ I said.
The officer gave me a quizzical look.
‘He’s writing a book about the murder of —’ Miriam began. I looked at her and shook my head. It did not seem like an opportune moment to inform the Amsterdam police force of a novel about the murder of a female officer in Amstelveen. ‘You tell them,’ she said.
‘I’m working on a novel,’ I explained, ‘in which three Suzuki Swifts play a role. Right before the story begins, a red Suzuki Swift is repainted black. Just because. To add to the suspense, throw the reader a red herring. The red Suzuki in your drawing is about to be dunked into black paint.’
‘No, really, I think you’re mistaken …’ It was all a bit too non-explicit for officer Windig. ‘Oh, you mean … or …’
‘The gentleman is referring to the hearse,’ Hendriks said softly. He spread a number of photos of the intersection out on the table. They were Google Earth printouts, taken by daylight. ‘Just to give you an overview of the traffic situation. Don’t worry, there’s nothing upsetting in them.’
In order to study the satellite pictures more thoroughly, I had to lean forward in my chair, bringing my nose right above the plate of butter cookies. No matter how fresh they were, if you had no appetite (for instance, because the situation sketch next to them had arrows pointing to where your son was killed by a car), the sweet smell at once turned rancid.
13
A Holland Casino security camera had captured Tonio’s fatal fall on CCTV, while inside, the Wheel of Fortune spun, and then came to a standstill. Rien ne va plus. And so the end of his conscious life was immortalised on film. Just like the violent death of Tonnis Mombarg, from Homo duplex, was registered by a traffic camera of the Department of Public Works and Water Management.
I was reminded of the first time Tonio was filmed. He was two. Having just returned to the city from that cursed Loenen, we resided on the Leidsegracht. I was to be interviewed in the living room by a team from Flemish television. The interview hadn’t begun yet; we were still working out the details. Tonio sat next to me on the sofa, to all appearances interested only in his bottle of warm chocolate milk, which he sucked with dozy, sighing satisfaction. As soon as they gave the ‘roll ‘em!’ sign and the camera began to hum (television cameras still hummed back then), Tonio rose theatrically from the sofa. More or less obliterating his seated father from the eye of the camera, he gaily flung back his curly head, his bottle planted almost perpendicularly in his mouth. It was a film role he had thought up all on his own.
With the Holland Casino images, his career as a spur-of-the-moment film actor had come full circle.
14
In my fantasy, I had seen Tonio career recklessly toward his fate over the Max Euweplein footbridge so many times that, as gruesome as it was, I could hardly shake the image. It was even harder to get used to a new situation sketch, even though it was nearer to the truth.
Tonio did not come from Paradiso, not from Jenny, and did not cycle down the footbridge on his way to the Vondelpark entrance across the road. His accident took place at the row of traffic lights a full curve further, with him coming from the opposite direction: from Zuid, from Hobbemastraat, back from club Trouw.
Likewise, the image of a flashy BMW with tinted windows held tight in my mind’s eye, not willing to be replaced by that beefed-up shopping cart, a Suzuki Swift. This car (in black) become a national icon due to the incessant replays on television of an attempted attack on the royal family — repeated shots of that wrecked little car, with its shattered and bulging windows, looking as though it was wrapped up in a cobweb, rocking with its sprung bonnet like a broken-winged crow. It had rammed blindly into the eyeless De Naald monument.*
[* The attack on the Dutch Royal Family occurred on 30 April 2009 at Apeldoorn, Netherlands, when a man drove his car at high speed into a Koninginnedag (Queen’s Day, the national holiday) parade. The vehicle, a black Suzuki Swift, drove through people lining the street watching the parade, resulting in eight deaths (including the assailant) and ten injuries. It missed the royal family’s open touring bus and crashed into a obelisk-shaped monument, The Needle, at the side of the road.]
15
The death of a boy we thought we had done such a fine job of protecting — didn’t this fact provide irrefutable evidence that the world was a life-threatening whirlpool of chaos?
Tonio perished in the middle of one of western civilisation’s safest cities, on a nearly traffic-free night, surrounded by signs meant to rein in disorder: arrows and crosswalks painted on the asphalt, traffic signs, flashing stoplights, speed limits. After Tonio was run over like random road kill, the quasi-organised world immediately resumed its course.
I pointed to the stoplights. ‘I understand these are turned off at night. Is that a money-saving measure?’
‘No,’ said Hendriks, ‘it’s got nothing to do with economising. It’s a question of safety. At night it can be more dangerous at certain intersections to leave the traffic lights functioning. The cyclist gets impatient waiting at a red light, wonders why he needs to wait for green when there’s nothing coming, and … he goes ahead and crosses. And, sure enough, a car unexpectedly approaches, which accelerates to make
it through yellow. No, trust me, they’ve thought this one over.’
‘Were the stoplights turned off altogether,’ Miriam asked, the only one of us with a driver’s licence, ‘or were they flashing?’
The policemen glanced at each other. ‘That’s not entirely clear,’ Windig said. ‘We would expect them to be flashing. But that’s being looked into. You’ll be given a definitive report of all the results of the investigation … in due course.’
The discussion turned to the details of the collision itself. It was clear that Tonio had not been run over; he was hit and thrown. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Miriam cringe every time the description became too graphic.
‘The victim,’ officer Hendriks said, ‘had a … well, he was pretty badly wounded all along his left side. We gather this from the photos taken by the forensic photographer directly after the victim’s death.’
‘That’ll be where the crushed lung came from,’ Miriam said. She shook her head. ‘His insides were totally mangled.’
‘And his spleen,’ I added. ‘It had to be removed. First, half of it, then later the rest.’
The police officers seemed surprised that we were so well-informed as to the details of Tonio’s injuries. ‘The AMC always tells us as little as possible,’ Winding said. ‘They assert their oath of medical confidentiality. Professional secrecy.’
‘But you’ve got the pictures from the forensic photographer,’ I said. ‘What is your conclusion, based on the photos, of Tonio’s injuries as a result of the accident?’
‘We suspect,’ Hendriks said, ‘that the victim collided with considerable force against the car door-frame. There’s a dent in the body that appears to confirm this.’
‘Was his death a case of pure bad luck?’ I asked. ‘I mean … taking a particularly bad spill?’
‘It doesn’t take a car going more than thirty kph to make an accident like this — hitting a bicyclist — a fatal one,’ said Windig. ‘Let’s say he was going fifty.’
‘There are experiments with air bags for cyclists,’ added Hendriks, ‘but that’s still some way off.’
His remark brought about a silence in which the sickly-sweet smell of the biscuits became almost unbearable.
‘What sort of lad was Tonio, actually?’ Windig asked suddenly, addressing Miriam. The question was so out of context that she drew into herself, embarrassed. For some time, all she did was stare down at her knees.
16
‘Oh, just, you know …’ Miriam said at last, ‘just the kind of kid you’d least wish this kind of accident on. Sweet, handsome, talented. Always ready to lend a hand, sometimes endearingly lazy. A son you never argued with. Even if we’d wanted to, he’d never let it get that far. I love movies, so if Tonio would show up on my birthday with a couple of DVDs, that in itself would have been sweet and all. But, no, he included a book with all the films of the past century. Twice as thick as a phone book. That’s the kind of boy Tonio was. A bag of contradictions, sure. One time, he would show up on his way to a party wearing his tux jacket. The next time, also en route to a party, he’d have two week’s worth of beard, and his hair in a ponytail. No pigeonholing him. He and I, we were buddies … real friends … cohorts, if necessary. Strolling through town together. On the lookout for men in shorts with the ugliest calves. “Where’s my calf-shooter?” we’d chime out, each trying to outdo the other. One day, he was just turning into an adolescent, he decided we had to go and get ourselves a calf-shooter at the Bijenkorf. His disappointment when it turned out there was no such thing! But to go shooting spitwads with a rubber band at ugly white calves … no, he was above that. He was just sweet and friendly and helpful, and proud if he could help someone out. Yeah, what can I say? Just the opposite of all those antisocial creeps you guys have your hands full with here. And to be run over on the street … in the middle of the night, just like that … Such a waste.’
Miriam just let the tears flow. The men from the Serious Traffic Accident Investigation Unit reminded us that, despite our initial refusal, we were eligible for Victim Assistance. The driver of the red Suzuki had been offered it as well, and he’d accepted.
As for the investigation, it would take some time. Once everything had been examined, we would come back for an ‘evaluation’. Before then, too, we were welcome to come back ‘for a bit of counselling’. We could have complete access to the photos of Tonio’s injuries, although they suspected we would only be ready to see them in a year or so, at the earliest. Miriam and I looked at each other: she shook her head, almost imperceptibly.
I turned to officer Hendriks. ‘You said on the phone that they’d taken some of Tonio’s blood for tests. Does it appear he’d had too much to drink?’
‘We don’t have the exact details yet,’ he answered, ‘but that alcohol was involved, yes, that much we know.’
I recalled what Goscha had said about the rounds in quick succession, and I remembered hearing Dennis say: ‘With one shot of tequila in between …’
‘He just wasn’t paying attention,’ Miriam said. ‘After a night on the town …’
Tired, beat, a bit drunk, with that techno-boom still ringing in his deafened ears — add it all up, and no one could stop me adding to it that as he pedalled along he was also lovingly musing over Jenny.
17
It appeared that no one was to blame for Tonio’s death, at least in a legal sense. (My self-incriminations were another story.) But was I required to go along with the vision of blind, dumb fate as the cause? Or could I, instead of taking a fatalistic stance, occasionally feel wronged to death?
My son, my only child, goddamn it, had been mown down like a dog on the street, on a public thoroughfare. Men at conference tables had determined, supported by statistics, that at that time of night it was better to turn off certain traffic lights, or set them to warning flashes. It was all about statistical probability.
Had Tonio’s safety been optimally guaranteed? Granted, as a twenty-one-year-old cyclist, he had his own responsibilities — but still relative to the traffic scheme of the city of Amsterdam, which ultimately was the responsibility of the traffic controllers. Otherwise we could just as well run amok across a bare asphalt surface minus the lines, arrows, signposts, and lights, we could play bumper-car without the rubber bumpers, and end up, all of us giggling, scattered about the graveyard.
An accident like Tonio’s — it was the statistician’s calculated risk. According to their calculations, more nighttime accidents happen at certain intersections with a fully functioning traffic light than with only a yellow flashing light. But … someone, in this case Tonio, had to absorb the minimal risk of a switched-off traffic light.
Fate? He has been torn away from us. A kid like him flung dead on the pavement must never be categorised as ‘one of those things’. You must not accept it, ever, even if fate wears a blindfold, and is led and prompted by the laws of probability.
18
Hendriks and Windig accompanied us out to the front hall. They were the most courteous and attentive policemen I had ever encountered. I could not help thinking that they knew much more about the progress of the technical investigation than they had let on. They had learned this, of course, at their division of the police academy: feed the truth to the shocked survivors in phases, also when it concerns the victim’s own errors.
We crossed the street back in the direction of the pet shop, where our supplier was still seated on his bench, smoking and drinking, now on his own. I was so lost in thought that I reached for the door handle of a green car that resembled ours parked in front of his shop. I opened the door on the passenger’s side: on the seat lay stacked-up bags of cat litter.
‘Go on,’ called the pet-shop owner. ‘Take it, it’s yours. As long as I can have your house in return.’
I raised my hand in a sign of apology, and followed Miriam to our own car, just aro
und the corner of the Van Breestraat.
19
‘So is this civilisation?’ I said to Miriam, summarising my disgust. ‘A society, a community, a city … is supposed to be a triumph over disorder. It is an organisation that is supposed to leave nothing to chance. Chaos always manages to find a chink to squeeze through. But managing, organising, containing chaos is supposed to be the main goal. Right? I can accept that at night a flashing yellow light is less risky than red and green. Human psychology … Of course, there are always risks. With Tonio and that Suzuki, it didn’t work, that experiment with the flashing yellow. Tonio was a victim of the exception to the rule. The system suffers a lesser defeat for the greater good. The terrible part is that society accepts its loss as a matter of fact … silently … It’s just part of the calculation. And as a result, no one bothers about us. No apologetic word, nothing. Ice-cold silence. We just keep paying our taxes for the nighttime operation of the traffic lights. No one loses any sleep over it. We are expected to accept our loss just as they accept theirs. As an industrial mishap.’
What had happened here descended on us like such an unspeakable horror that it proved impossible to adopt a fatalistic attitude. There was no way to go on without an answer to the question of guilt. Someone or something — a responsible authority — had to have this on their conscience. Since I couldn’t find anything or anyone that fitted the bill, I landed upon myself. I was the guilty party.
20
‘What happened to us,’ I say once we get home, ‘most resembles a miracle … in the iniquitous, Catholic sense of the word. Minchen, it’s so unfathomable, so far removed from everyday events, that it is no less than a miracle. Your son is sent heavenwards with a massive thwap. You’re struck rigid by disbelief. You run back to the village pump, and everyone else reacts just as incredulously. Flabbergasted. Dismayed. Some of them try to explain the miracle in terms of physics. Even if the car had been going thirty, the cyclist still wouldn’t stand much chance. Quod erat demonstrandum. But for us it remains a wonder. Our One and Only grabbed out of our midst, never to return. An event that has no parallels, except for previous morbid fantasies. And that is what makes it so obscenely miraculous. A vision come true. It can’t be. It mustn’t be.’
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