Het duister dat ons scheidt

I was still reading through my pile in the living room, with books people had lent me or given me. I had reached a Dutch novel by Renate Dorrestein: het duister dat ons scheidt (the dark that divides us), which my sister had given me. I had been reading two books at the same time, as I thought the other one was a bit too chewy for a bedtime reading. And this was fiction.

Warning: spoiler alerts.

I didn't know what to expect. It just started with a new housing project by an old small village. (Well actually, there is one scene before that, but I'll skip over that for now.) It is the late 70s or early 80s, and the new housing estate is full of young couples that all have children at roughly the same time. Of this part of the book, the protagonist is the collective voice of all these children. It follows them for six years. All children except one: Loes, who lives in the old part of the village, and who the children look up to.

I quite liked this part! You get the sense of the pioneer mentality, and the sense of a new slate for all these people that moved to a new neighbourhood, all at the same time. And then the novelty wearing off. And the children not quite understanding what the adults are doing and why. And then the suburban standards in the housing project contrasted with the more unconventional household Loes is growing up in. That's enough of a book for me! But then things got spectacular.

The father of one of the children gets murdered, and Loes’ mother ends up in jail for it, although in the book there are hints that she just took the blame, and that it was Loes who actually did it, although she is only six years old. She stays where she is; her mother was living with two men who are assumed to be tenants, but who actually are Loes’ mother’s partners (yes both of them), and therefore probably also Loes’ father (just one of them, obviously, though). The men are barely domestic gods, but they make it work somehow.

All the children in the village turn against Loes with her murderous mother. And six years of relentless bullying starts. That was hard to read! She just puts up with it.

At the end of the six years, Loes’ mother returns; probably released early for good behaviour. And then the family dynamic turns a bit strange. The newfound equilibrium is broken, the mother has changed, and things can never get back to what it was. Loes’ mother also finds out her daughter is being bullied, and wants to put an end to it. Unfortunately, she only ends up being bullied alongside her daughter. And she decides they have to leave. Leave to somewhere entirely different. And they pick the Scottish island of Lewis. And entirely different it is.

Loes has unlearned to socialise with other kids, but she finds solace in the baby next door. Overtime, though, she does end up in the community of local children. In the beginning she just keeps her head down. It doesn't entirely work, and there is a bit of a vision of even worse abuse than what she had been trying to escape. But it doesn't come to pass! The kids here are less cruel. Sometimes one gets ostracised, but that never seems to last very long.

In spite of the new environment, harmony never really returns to the family, and at some point, the mother just leaves. It is suggested later that she wants acknowledgement for her sacrifice, but never gets that to the degree she would like. And then just gives up on the situation. And again the remaining three make it work somehow.

In the last part of the book, Loes is 18, and is about to go to Amsterdam, to get a qualification in childcare. She gets there without problems, but her past is never far behind, of course. And she also finds out that her mother now has a job in the jail where she used to be imprisoned. And she decides to go and meet her. And they have a discussion about everything that has happened. Only then do both Loes and the reader get the final jigsaw pieces. The reader finds out that it was the two men who committed the murder, with Loes witnessing. Loes find out what the reader has known for a long time; her mother had had a heated affair with the murdered man, way before he moved into the housing estate. He may very well have been her father.

This makes Loes think a lot, obviously. She realises that in a way, she always let the other kids just bully her because she felt guilty for letting her mother take the blame for the murder. If you are guilty, you deserve punishment, right? And she thought the murder was mainly to protect her. Now she realises it might have been ordinary revenge on a love rival. Her mother may not have sacrificed herself for her daughter, but for her partners! And on the other hand; these partners might have stayed around only for her; not for her adulterous mother. A lot of her perspectives are abruptly changed.

The book ends there. The reader doesn't find out if Loes finds her feet in Amsterdam. And is basically left to ponder things for themselves.

Did I enjoy it? Yes and no! It was a very gripping book, but as I mentioned; the bullying scenes are difficult, even though most of them are never specified but largely hinted at. There is some glimpse of redemption at some point, though, but I figured the summary would be a bit long if I included that. 

I tend to like my books with less action, but this one kept me thinking about it for quite a while afterwards. And that is a success! So altogether I would say this was a good choice. Not all good choices have to be easy…