IT WAS THE DAY WE BURIED COR. SONJA AND I WERE VERY TIRED, AND we were lying on her bed discussing the burial.
“It went exactly as Cor would have wanted it,” said Sonja.
“Yes, I think so, too. I think he would have liked it very much.” I switched off the light. “Let’s go to sleep.”
Less than five minutes later I heard Sonja’s voice in the darkness. “Did you do that, As?”
“What, Son?”
“No, I thought not, but I wanted to be sure.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Cor came and kissed me. I felt his lips on mine.”
“Are you okay, Son? Are you not losing it a bit?” I was worried.
“Not at all. Really, he is still here. He won’t leave us alone. You know I don’t believe in miracles, but it’s really true. He came to give me a kiss.”
I understood what she was saying. I felt Cor’s presence in the room, too. Being a rational person, I didn’t want to acknowledge it, but after Sonja told me, I was sure. He was still here.
“Sweet dreams, Cor,” Son said. I was quiet for a minute and then echoed, “Sweet dreams, Cor.”
Immediately after Cor was assassinated, I moved in with Sonja. Living with her, I saw firsthand how Wim dictated Sonja’s life now that Cor was gone. Her house was his house. He walked in and out and brought with him a holdover from his Klepper and Mieremet posse—Sandra.
Sonja had to look after her so he could occupy himself unhindered with his other women. And if Sonja was unable to do it, Francis had to step in.
Sandra wasn’t the only woman she had to entertain, though she was the one Sonja loathed most passionately.
And entertaining his various women was not Sonja’s only task. Wim’s life was in danger, and Sonja had to drive him around in his bulletproof car whenever he felt like it. Sonja would have to get the car, which was parked in a garage in Amstelveen, off the street, so that they couldn’t place any bugs or bombs underneath it.
“It’s extremely ironic, isn’t it, Son? You of all people helping him to survive,” I said when Sonja suddenly had to skip dinner because Wim wanted to be driven somewhere.
“It drives me crazy sometimes,” she replied.
“How do you cope with it?”
“I do it for the kids. They keep me going. I would have killed myself a long time ago if it wasn’t for them. I would have crawled up next to Cor.”
She left the table. “I need to go before he starts asking where I am.”
Shortly after the funeral, Wim said to me, “You know, As, it’s for the best. They cry for two months, and then they forget about it. That fat one was a fucking asshole anyway.”
He had told Sonja the same thing, and later I read the same sentence in Endstra’s back seat conversations.
Meanwhile, on the day of the funeral he had been crying with us on the sofa, displaying his so-called grief for everyone. A great actor.
He also wanted to “contribute.” He overheard a discussion between Sonja and the undertaker about a small bill she still had to pay but which she could not cover at that point. Wim immediately saw an opportunity to strengthen his alibi and had me transfer the amount from his account, and he subsequently told everybody he had paid for the funeral.
Soon afterward, he had me come to Stadhouderskade to meet him.
“Walk with me,” he said. “Any news?”
“No, no news.”
“Okay, fine. Hey, As, that money I paid for the funeral, I really think it’s a waste of my money. It’s clean money, so I have to get it back into my account, you see.”
I felt a knot in my stomach. Did he say waste? Yes, of course it was a “waste” now. He had already accomplished his goal. He had broadcast everywhere that he had contributed, and in criminal circles he had claimed, for convenience’s sake, that he had paid for everything.
“I actually loaned it to her, didn’t I, because she was short of money.”
All of sudden it was a loan. Well, okay. She didn’t want him to contribute anyway.
I had only been able to convince her to accept the money because otherwise I feared he would catch on that we saw him as the perpetrator.
That same day the money was in his account. Sonja was glad she could transfer it back to him.
The attacks on Cor had made it impossible for him and Sonja and the kids to function as a normal family. After the first one in 1996, being together was no longer easy or normal.
For a long time, Sonja and the kids would see Cor only briefly, at various secret locations. Cor started drinking more after each attempt. Despite all the lows, they stayed together, connected for twenty-five years by their love and trust, the children, and all they had been through together.
Cor’s death ended that period. Sonja thought she could know no greater loss.
But she was wrong.
A few days after the funeral, Peter R. de Vries, one of Holland’s most famous investigative journalists and a friend of Cor’s, came to see Sonja. We were sitting at her dining table when he said he’d like to share something about Cor, but he didn’t know if he’d be doing the right thing. He wanted to keep nothing from her, but maybe she didn’t want to know.
“Of course I want to know,” Sonja said.
“Okay, well. Cor had an affair with someone at my office.”
I saw Sonja’s face turn red, but she remained calm. She asked how it happened, and after Peter answered, she said, “I’m glad you’ve been honest with me. I now understand why some people at the funeral were acting so mysteriously.”
Sonja saw Peter out, and as soon as the door was shut, she started to cry uncontrollably. “The bastard! How could he do that to me? And carry on the affair for two years!”
Cor was no saint, she had known that; she had dragged him out of brothels more than once. But this was different. This was a relationship, and he’d never done that to her before. He had taken this woman to his house in Nigtevecht and to Sonja’s house in Spain, where they had spent time in Sonja’s bed.
After finding out about this relationship, she wanted to see what the woman looked like.
Sonja’s grief about Cor’s affair was clear to Francis. She too wanted to know what this other woman looked like.
We went to see Peter de Vries, to ask if he had a picture of her.
“Yes, I think so,” Peter replied.
“Can I see it?” Sonja asked.
He looked for a photo and handed it to Sonja.
Sonja was silent on the way back. “How are you, sis?” I asked.
“It hurts a lot. I’ve been played for a fool. For two years. Everybody knew except me. It feels like a knife in my back.”
“Yes,” I said, “I understand.”
“No, As, you don’t. You could confront Jaap when he had an affair. You could shout at him, hit him. I can’t do anything. Cor is gone, and I’m left behind with so much anger and incomprehension. I hold that against him the most. You have no idea how that feels.”
When we got home, she went to bed. We heard her crying all night.
The next morning, she brought me toast and jam and sat down on my bed.
“As, I have been thinking carefully. I’m not going to have twenty-five years’ worth of memories destroyed by what happened. It’s the way it is, and I don’t love him any less.”