The Storm (35 page)

“God forbid! If you could see what I see…. I had already read in the Seegeranie Foundation’s quarterly that the underwater area around Schelphoek in front of the coast of Schouwen could stand comparison with any tropical aquarium. I have to say the editors were right. Whole forests of pale blue sea anemones, lilac, and yellow trumpets and red and yellow tubiflora waved to and fro like curtains in the undertow between the streams and the sandbanks. Most of us, Armanda, think that fish just swim. In the position I find myself occupying, I see dozens of speckled examples with teeth and horns, staring
fixedly, and doing exactly that. But right in front of me are two enormous lumpsuckers with upstretched yellow chins, kissing. Incredible creatures! Meanwhile I’m moving slowly across the seabed. A powerful undertow will pull me into the silt there, which in turn will deliver me the following week to the marshy bottom behind the remains of the destroyed dike, where my body will find a resting place for at least thirty years. I think about my family. Odd, that I can only see their faces in such a blurred way.

“A few men, a few women, a few children, farewell! Whether I chose you or whether you were assigned to me, I somehow felt I was in the right place. At this moment I discover, quite soberly, that it’s actually true what writers and prophets have been saying for thousands of years: in that other world, so close that all you need to do is stretch out a finger, you will find those again whom you want to find again, and moreover they will be—because otherwise what would be the point, you know?—remarkably well disposed toward you. Now that my soul is leaving my mouth in the form of a butterfly, just the way we saw it in the Allard Pierson Museum on one of those red-figured Greek vases, I recognize your face. Oval, with a round chin. Your smile confirms my hope that we’re going to start telling each other stories right away.”

“Oh, yes!”

“It turns out better than expected, huh?”

“Yes, no big job.”

“No. Quite easy, actually.”

“Or?”

“Mmmm.”

“Oh, you’re asleep!”

“Am not!”

“Really?”

“Ab-so-lutely not!”

Born in the Netherlands in 1941, Margriet de Moor led a career as a classical singer before becoming a novelist. Her first novel,
First Gray, Then White, Then Blue
, was a sensational success across Europe, winning her the AKO Literature Prize, for which her second novel,
The Virtuoso
, was also nominated. She has since published several other novels, including
Duke of Egypt
and
The Kreutzer Sonata
. Her books have been translated into twenty languages.