Rotterdam, Monday, March 4, 1991
A most extraordinary thing happened to me today. I am writing it down because nobody is taking me seriously and I must get it out somehow.
It happened this afternoon. During my lunchtime stroll I got caught in a hail storm and took shelter in the historical museum. Although I am not particularly keen on art or culture I decided to have a look round while I was there. I wandered about without much interest, just passing the time really, while hail stones clattered against the windows. I was miserable. Pauline and I are going through a bad patch. Sometimes I wonder if we'll ever get out of it again. Worst of all, the kids always side with her. Home is a hostile environment nowadays.
Anyway, the museum. Going into one of the rooms I was startled by what - for a split moment - I took to be my reflection in a mirror. It turned out to be a painting. An old one. From the seventeenth century. Normally I would have smiled at my mistake. But not then. On the contrary. I stood aghast because, ridiculous though it may sound, this was not a painting of some ancient lookalike. This was a painting of me. I did not doubt it for a moment. Briefly I relaxed at the thought of some elaborate hoax by imaginative friends, but I had to discard it, for the simple reason that I have no friends who would go to such trouble for me. Besides, I had never visited the museum before and would probably never have visited it at all without the hail storm. The painting also looked much too authentic for a joke. I read the small card beside it. Gerrit Pieterszoon Bakker, it said. 1652
Just then a warden strolled in on creaking shoes. A small, chubby man with a droopy face and gray, woolly curls. I went over to him.
"Excuse me, sir, but could you tell me something more about that painting over there?"
He smiled eagerly.
"My pleasure, sir. But..." His eyes widened. He whistled between his teeth. "Well, I'll be darned," he said. "You look exactly like him, sir. Related?"
"Sorry?"
"Are you related to Mr Bakker over there?"
"Not that I know of."
"Uncanny," the warden said, visibly awed.
"Do you know anything about the person in the painting?" I asked again.
"Mr Bakker? Well, I know something. Quite a character. What do you want to know?"
"Everything really."
The warden chuckled.
"That's quite a bit more than I know."
"Where was he born?"
"Ah. That we do know. In Middelburg. He came here in later life. There's an application for citizenship in the archives. In those days you had to be a resident for some years before you could obtain full citizenship."
Somehow this answer calmed me a bit. I don't know why. But my lookalike's birth in some cozy little 17th-century town made things less unhinging.
The face in the corner looked at me mournfully. It hung at the end of a row of other notables. All dressed in rigid black, with large white ruffs that created the impression that their heads had been lopped off and put back on large plates. None of them looked very cheerful but my face expressed a strangely haunted look. A look of doom.
"I don't look very cheerful, do I?" I said.
The warden frowned.
"I, sir?"
"Yes," I said. "That's me, in that painting. Don't you see?"
The warden drew back from me a little.
"Not very likely, sir. That painting is over three hundred years old."
"Still, it's me."
"It looks like you. True enough. But you would not want to be him. He came to a very sticky end."
I caught my breath.
"How?"
"Murdered, sir. Not long after this painting was made. Quite a story. Some foreign vagabond did away with him and tried to take his place, but he was found out by a wet nurse. He confessed under torture and died a horrible death on the scaffold. The funny thing was that Mr Bakker was already in grave danger from another angle. He had been accused of alchemy and all kinds of evil doings that would have put him on the scaffold if proven true."
Just then a beeping sound emerged from the warden's breast pocket.
"Oops," he said, reaching for the pocket as he turned away. "Call to duty. Back in a minute, sir." He ambled out of the room, shoes creaking shrilly.
I was left to gaze at the painting. It was me. I knew. How could I fail to recognize my own face? I had seen it in the mirror almost every day of my life. But never with such a look of desperation as in the portrait. As if I were gazing into the very maws of hell. Stricken beyond hope. While I stood and watched a chill came over me. A foreboding, as if a black shutter was being rolled down between me and the future.
I shivered. The hail had subsided. An oblong of sunlight materialized on the wooden floor, a yellow rectangle that made me think of a grave filled with molten gold. It vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. I turned to the window. A big tree, a horse chestnut, stood just outside it, still bare but with buds swollen, white and erect. Promises of life. I was just beginning to feel very sad about Pauline again when creaking footsteps announced the return of the warden.
"Sorry about that, sir," he said. "Where were we?"
"You were telling me about the man in this portrait."
"Ah! Yes. Gerrit Bakker. I believe we have a file on him in the archives. Are you familiar with old Dutch handwriting?"
I shook my head.
"No. I thought as much. Well..." he rubbed his chin between thumb and forefinger, as if caressing an invisible goatee. "I could help you there, but I would have to do it in my spare time."
"I'll gladly pay you for your trouble," I said quickly, but this made his jowls sag with dismay.
"But sir, what do you take me for?"
We made an appointment for the next day. At his place. He'd bring the files, although he assured me this was highly irregular.
Back at the office, half an hour late, I was still in a state of bewilderment. I tried to tell a few colleagues what had happened but they failed to grasp the enormity of the event. Nobody could even begin to understand that the portrait was me.
"Okay. So this oldtimer looks like you. What's so special about that?"
Things are no better here at home. When I tried to explain my experience to Pauline she displayed her usual symptoms of boredom: lots of sighing, pouting and eye-rolling. The kids just smirked. That's why I am writing this down. I'm convinced that this thing is very extraordinary. I just feel it. The painting was me. Period. Nobody would doubt it if it weren't for the date. But that, of course, is quite an enormous if. I suppose I can't blame the others. I'm lost for explanations myself. Could it be that I am the perfect reincarnation of Gerrit Bakker? I never believed in that kind of stuff. I wonder if there is someone I could turn to for help. But who?
While I'm writing this, the whole event suddenly seems preposterous. Perhaps I was wrong after all. Perhaps I only thought it was me. Some kind of hallucination. Perhaps Pauline's coldness is driving me out of my mind. That would teach her. Selfish bitch. How do these things happen? The chilling of love, I mean. She was so devoted to me at first. I was Mr Wonderful. She even called me that. Now everything I do only exasperates her. Shit.
Tuesday, March 5, 1991
This afternoon Mr Puffelen, the warden, phoned me at the office to postpone our appointment. His sister is ill or something. I had half a mind to cancel the whole business, but I could not think up any good excuse and so agreed to seeing him next week. I no longer give a damne about the portrait. Mainly because Pauline dropped a time bomb in my lap this morning. She is thinking about divorce. "Thinking, mind you, that's all. I want you to think about it too." It made me sick. Physically. I was only just able to keep from throwing up. Of course I braved it out, pretending not to be shocked. This naturally infuriated her. We had a terrible row and afterwards I could not care less whether or not there were old paintings of me in every damned museum in the world. What does it matter? My life is about to fall apart. I can just imagine myself visiting the kids once a week, heartbroken and getting salt rubbed into the wound with every meeting.
Thursday, March 7
Mr Puffelen phoned again. He wanted me to come around this evening. Pauline and I had just patched things up a little. She thought we should give it another 6 months. So I was in high spirits when Puffelen rang and decided to go over to the old geezer, more to please him than myself.
He lives in the older part of town, Delfshaven, one of the few quarters where some remnants of 17th century architecture are left. Along a canal, lined with lime trees and spanned by a wooden drawbridge, his gabled house stands among a picturesque row of others, each with a different gable.
It turned out that Mr Puffelen only rents a room in the house. On the second floor at the top of a very steep and narrow staircase. The room was large, with a stuccoed ceiling and tall, glass-in-lead windows. It was quite cozy. Books lined the walls. A small gas heater stood dwarfed in an ornamental fireplace, its flames bright orange. The mantelpiece was laden with sports trophies and black-and-white photographs of a younger Puffelen in a soccer outfit: tight shirt and baggy shorts. The center of the room was occupied by an outsize dining table with claw-and-ball feet and matching chairs.
Puffelen had laid out the papers on the table top. Very carefully. To my disappointment they were few. Three sheets crammed with gothic print. An old letter, plastified. Two bundles of papers with illegible handwriting. A few photocopies.
Puffelen seated himself smugly behind his table like a father Christmas about to hand out goodies. In my happy mood I thought it rather sweet to see the old man so pleased with himself.
"What we have here is quite an extensive collection, relatively speaking." He put on a pair of glasses. "Now let me see."
It was rather chilly in the room. The heater was burning at full blast, hissing. Outside the wind wailed. The deep drone of a television set could be heard under the floorboards.
"A copy of the register of birth. A letter by Mr Bakker applying for citizenship of our good city. The conveyance for his house. A letter to the burgomaster accusing our friend of alchemy. And here, very unique, a transcript of the sharp interrogation of the vagabond that killed him. Most interesting."
I sat and smiled. Pauline wanted to go on. All was well in the world. Just to show some interest I asked what a sharp interrogation was.
"Torture, sir. This vagabond, Mr... er... now, what was his name... er... Smit was put through quite a lot of agony."
My smile stuck. I felt my blood itch.
"Smit?" I whispered.
The old man nodded eagerly, but stopped on seeing my dismay.
"What's wrong, sir? Are you all right?"
I took a deep breath.
"My name is Smit."
He blinked. His face went blank for a moment.
"Oh." he finally said. Then he shrugged. "So what? A coincidence. Just a coincidence. After all, Smit is a common name, if you'll pardon me saying so. Surely no need to get excited."
I could not speak. I was on the brink of passing out. I had pushed the portrait to the back of my mind in the last few days, but now the full force of its existence came back to me.
"Sir, please!" said Puffelen. "Don't get into such a state. It's nothing. It can't be. This happened hundreds of years ago."
I smiled wanly.
"Of course. You are right. Please go on."
He scraped his throat.
"This transcript served as proof that the vagabond had murdered our friend. Legally speaking it is a farce. Anyone would have confessed anything under this kind of torture. But our Smit held out quite a while. He denied everything, even while his fingers were being squashed to a bloody pulp. But the boots were too much for him."
"Boots?"
"Yes. Pieces of wood actually, placed before and behind the lower leg and drawn together till the bones fracture."
I gulped. Puffelen fell silent.
"I am sorry sir. I'll spare you the details. Anyway. After the boots had been applied the vagabond confessed everything. Look, this is his signature, at the bottom here."
He held the paper up. And there, at the bottom of this tattered, timeworn parchment, with a dark smudge, blood as likely as not, stood my very own signature. With a groan I hid my face in hands. Madness! Sheer madness. I jumped up.
"This can't be true." I shouted. I lunged for the paper, but Puffelen quickly drew it back.
"Careful! These papers are priceless."
"Damn your papers," I shouted. "It's a prank, isn't it? A cruel, wicked prank. Who put you up to this?" I stood trembling with rage.
"Oh, dear," muttered the old man, casting a nervous look at the door. "Please control yourself, sir. Please!" His whole bearing bespoke such complete innocence that my anger burst like a balloon. I sank back in my chair. Puffelen began to inch his way to the door, obviously terrified by my outburst.
"Forgive me," I said softly. "Don't be alarmed. I'm okay again. But let me show you something." I dug my wallet from my inner pocket and took out a credit card. I flung it on the table.
"Please compare my signature with that of Mr Smit."
Still a bit wary, Puffelen returned to the table. He picked up the card and held it beside the document. His mouth sagged open. He sat down in his chair with a bump.
"I don't believe it," he said. Then a sly look overspread his features.
"Perhaps you're the one playing a prank?" he said.
"Do you see me laughing?"
He shook his head.
"No," he said. "And besides you could never have known about the signature. This file has not been consulted since … let me see, ah, here it is: 1944."
I was trembling again. My portrait, my signature. In 1652. What could it mean?
For a long time neither of us spoke. Mr Puffelen got out a bottle of brandy and poured us both a bumper. Silently we sat and drank, while the tv below us droned and moaned. After we had emptied our glasses, Puffelen scraped his throat again.
"However bizarre all this may be, it still happened hundreds of years ago. I don't see much cause for concern."
"Maybe you're right."
"Of course I'm right. It's just very weird. You have a kind of doppelganger in the past."
I grinned. The brandy was taking effect. The old man was right. No matter how incredibly strange, it was just ancient history. No need to spoil the present, especially not now Pauline wanted to go on. Ah, that thought swept away all my confusion. Suddenly I only wanted to be with her. So much that it ached. I took leave from Puffelen and returned home as fast as I could, determined never to bother myself with Bakker and my historic double again.
This is funny, I never kept a dairy, but now that I've started I'm enjoying it. It's as if it's giving a deeper meaning to my existence. I think I'll keep it up.
Sunday, March 10
Not much to write about. Pauline and I are doing splendid. Yesterday we made lists of the improvements we would like to see the other make. They were a bit lopsided. My list for Pauline only numbered 5 wishes. Hers for me ran up to 21. Oh, well, that's not all bad because it gives me something tangible to work on. The kids are going out of their way to please me. Maybe I should be annoyed because they follow their mom's lead so slavishly. But why complain when the going is good?
Sunday, March 24
The reason why I did not write in the last fortnight is simple. I was in hospital. I had a nasty fall, banging my forehead against a curbstone. It left me unconscious with a gaping head wound. There were even fears of brain damage, but they were unfounded, thank heavens. I will be left with an ugly scar, though. Pauline was wonderful. We seem to have overcome all our problems. Only this morning she said she had never realized how much she loved me until she was rushing to the hospital when I had fallen.
The whole incident with the portrait seems silly now. What do I care whether someone in the past looked like me or not? I'm amazed at the fuss I made. I guess it was just a reaction to the strain my marriage troubles were causing me. Still, it has brought me some dividend. While in hospital I had Pauline bring me books about Holland in the 17th century. Fascinating stuff. I had never realized how powerful our little country was in those days.
Monday, March 25
Horror! My conviction that the portrait was just a silly reaction has been cruelly shattered. What I am about to write will sound incredible but I stand by it all the same. I saw Gerrit Pieterszoon Bakker today. Either that or coincidence has gone haywire.
When I went to the office this morning, I had the uncanny sensation of being followed. Ridiculous of course. Who would want to follow the bookkeeper of a small law firm? All the same, I did feel followed till I reached the office. There the feeling left me.
I had lunch in a small neighborhood restaurant. While I sat pondering a tricky accounting problem that had been plaguing me all morning, I felt watched again. I looked up and turned cold. In a neighboring section of the restaurant, behind a pane of glass, a face that bore a striking resemblance to mine was gazing at me intently. It ducked away the moment our eyes met. Several seconds I sat paralyzed. Then I was on my feet and running. But the man had vanished. There was a table obviously left in a hurry. Food untouched. I ran outside and looked about. Not a sign. Badly shaken I returned. A waitress was standing by the deserted table. Blonde, big, tight-skirted.
"Have you seen the gentleman who sat here?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"I heard he had bolted. Funny. They usually do that after they have eaten."
She cocked her head a little.
"Hey, you look a bit like him."
I nodded.
"Yes, I know. But I was sitting over there. You can check with the waiter."
"That's all right. I can smell it."
"Smell?"
"Yes, that other bloke had the most godawful pong. As if he had not washed in weeks."
"What?"
"He had this terrible stink. Sour, unwashed. B.O."
I tottered and had to steady myself by grabbing hold of the table. One of the things my recent reading had taught me about the 17th century was that people did not wash their bodies in those days. Shakily I returned to my table. I could not eat. I had a couple of Scotches, trying to convince myself that I had imagined everything. But how could I imagine the waitress smelling an unwashed body? I phoned the office to take the afternoon off and made my way to the museum. At the time I did not realize what I was looking for, but the moment I saw the portrait I knew. It did not even come as a shock. Subconsciously I must have expected it. The face in the portrait, my face, had a scar on its forehead, small enough to have gone unnoticed before, but unmistakable now.
Puffelen found me as I sat, defeated, in a window seat, gazing at my likeness, fingering the bandaid on my forehead. The wound had not even healed yet. But the portrait displayed an old scar. Hence it had to portray the future. That was how I would look in time. In some future past.
Puffelen was genuinely dismayed at my presence.
"Oh, Mr Smit," he exclaimed. "Not again?"
His concern touched me. Not a bad sort, Puffelen. I nodded.
"Alas, Puffelen, again."
"But why? After all, it's only a picture."
"Look closely at the picture, Puffelen. The forehead."
He went over.
"There seems to be a smudge."
"A scar, Puffelen. A scar, like mine." I pointed at my bandaged head.
He shook his head.
"Impossible."
"But true all the same."
As I said it the reality of all this madness overwhelmed me. There was no doubt. No doubt whatsoever. I jumped up but my knees buckled and I sank to the floor, shaking feverishly. Good old Puffelen reacted like a trouper. He took me out to the museum garden, believing I was in need of fresh air. The garden was just a court-yard enclosed by brick walls and surrounded by the din of the city but still offered some kind of tranquility. Spring had come. The horse chestnut was just opening its buds into delicately cupped claws. Sparrows were chasing each other in a mad frenzy of chirping. A bumblebee rode a beam of sunlight.
"You must really get a hold of yourself, Mr Smit," Puffelen said. "No matter how great the coincidence..."
"No Puffelen, the scar proves, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that I am the man in that portrait."
"But how?"
"Time travel," I said.
Puffelen blinked three times, stupefied. He started on a little chuckle but without any conviction and broke it off. Evading my gaze he twiddled his fingers. He looked like a small boy caught redhanded at some mischief.
"There's no such thing," he muttered.
I felt strangely calm, resigned almost.
"My thoughts exactly, but we cannot ignore the facts. Inexplicable, yes, but facts nonetheless. Somehow or other I am going back to the seventeenth century. I shall have my portrait made, be tortured and executed. You told me yourself that this Bakker was suspected of alchemy. He practised dark secrets. Why not time travel? Our fiction writers generally presume that time travel is a modern or future invention. Why should it? Of late I've done some reading about Holland in the 17th century. Doesn't it strike you as peculiar that this puny Republic acquired such awesome power? Isn't it strange that it stopped witch trials a hundred years sooner than any of its neighbours? Our explanation has always been that we Dutch had become too tolerant and enlightened to put up with that kind of nonsense. But could it not be quite the reverse? Could it not be that witches and magicians had gained control? Surely the growth of the republic was magic. A few little towns, forever quarreling among themselves, lorded it over vast kingdoms such as Spain, France and England. And what about our supremacy in art? In that brief century there were more gifted painters in Holland alone than the whole world has produced since. Coincidence? Or pacts with the devil? Think on it, Puffelen. I am convinced. You told me yourself that Bakker was to be tried for his life. What easier escape than to find a lookalike to take his place? Especially if he was able to travel through time to find a perfect match… " I chilled, suddenly realizing that he would need two lookalikes. One to take his place alive, one to take his place murdered.
To my amazement Puffelen began to weep. He hid his face in hands and shook with sobs. I placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Hey? Puffelen. What's this?"
He looked up, blubbering, eyes wide.
"I'm scared, Mr Smit. Terrified. I have been scared from the very beginning. I can't handle this. You're right. Facts are facts. But I don't understand. If your theory is right, this is some terrible evil. Just terrible. Bakker must know what a cruel fate he is forcing on you."
I nodded.
"Of course, that was the whole idea. So he might escape that fate."
He jumped up.
"You must escape. Run."
I smiled, still so very strangely calm.
"There's no point."
"Of course there is. There must be."
"Look at the portrait, Mr Puffelen. There is no escape. That portrait is the proof. That portrait could not exist otherwise. My fate has already been sealed."
"You must do something. Hide."
"Where can I hide if Bakker can find me even in the mists of time?"
Puffelen had no answer. He just gazed at me. A look of boundless compassion softened his features.
"Gee, Mr Smit. I'll miss you. Being a warden is a lonely business. I enjoyed our talks."
I smiled.
"So did I, Puffelen. So did I."
There was little left to say. We shook hands and parted.
Now I am in my study, writing this. Pauline went to bed early. She had a headache. Again. I fear our second honeymoon is coming to an end. I'm exasperating her again. I saw her bite her tongue (so to speak) several times this evening. She's about to erupt once more. This business with the portrait is affecting me in two, almost completely opposite ways. At times it seems so fantastic that I can easily dismiss it with a smile. At others it appears so real that my stomach churns with fear. Then I can almost smell the torture chamber, feel the seething agony of my bones being crushed. It's like that now. I'm very frightened. Sweating although it's cold. Especially because I don't know when it will come or how. But come it will. I'm sure. Sooner or later, I'll see that foul-smelling man again. Gerrit Pieterszoon Bakker. The portrait is irrefutable proof. I am to be returned to the past to be tortured and executed for a crime I did not commit. Oh god. It can't be true. I don't believe it. Not really. I suddenly realize that I never spared a thought on losing Pauline and the kids if this incredible event should happen. What can that mean? Oh God, what am I to do? Who can help me? Ridicule is all I can expect. Maybe I had better commit suici... (I was interrupted there. I thought I heard something on the landing. There was nothing, of course. I must try to control myself. I'm driving myself insane. Now I can even imagine a smell. Sour yet bitter. I'll just go and have another look.)