AFTER FEELING TERRORIZED FOR MONTHS, SONJA AND I HAVE AGREED to meet with Wim. We’ve come to the agreed-upon meeting place. From here, we will follow his car. He’s driving ahead of us toward a dark park.
Sonja is scared. Shortly before, Wim had asked Mom for Sonja’s current address—she wasn’t sleeping at home, for safety reasons—but she had refused to give it to him, afraid that he would do something to Sonja. Wim was furious with “the old one,” she was a fucking bitch. Earlier he had visited Sandra. She was sleeping, and when she woke up, a man wearing a helmet was sitting on the edge of her bed, staring at her. He scared her and asked for Sonja’s address. She had contacted us immediately.
After seeing my mom, he came to me. I didn’t know it, either; I never look at house numbers. We were all on alert.
Wim asked me to call her because he wanted to resolve the conflict about the film rights. Sonja and I meet him at the agreed-upon place in Laren, and he gestures us to follow him. He parks in a neighborhood on the edge of a moor.
S: “Where’s he taking us? He’s not going in that spooky forest, is he?”
He shows us where to park. We stop the car, get out, and walk toward him. He’s on the side of the road pissing, as usual. A conversation follows about a buddy who was arrested with eighty thousand euros on him and whether this might affect him. Sonja walks behind us, because she can’t know what Wim and I are talking about.
W: “Nice out here, isn’t it?”
I don’t like it at all. I find it a very scary place, unsafe, but I try to keep the mood easygoing.
A: “Lovely! Good choice! Nice place.”
As if he doesn’t know that Sonja is following us like a slave, because he specifically insisted she come, he says to her:
W: “How did you get here?”
A: “Ha-ha, just popped up out of nowhere.”
W: “How is that possible? I suddenly see you again.”
S: “Yep, it’s me again, that pain in the ass.”
Then the question:
W: “Hey, what’s your house number where you live?”
S: “Why, it’s two twenty-six. You should know that by now.”
W: “I keep forgetting. Two twenty-six.”
S: “Will you come to my door again?”
And then, pretending to be funny:
W: “No…it’s for when I come and get you.”
S: “If you want to come for me, yeah.”
A: “Ha-ha.”
I’m still trying to keep the mood light, but I don’t trust it. What will happen here?
S: “Yes, that’s it.”
W: “I have to know that.”
S: “Yes, I thought as much, I think. Hey, what’s going on here?”
I keep laughing loudly because I’m so nervous. We’re in a secluded place. I don’t feel comfortable at all in this leafy environment. He’s toying with her fear, playing with his prey. Things could get really serious all of a sudden. I’m always afraid that I won’t see it coming. Then he says to her, smiling:
W: “Come here. I have this spot here.”
S: “Yes.”
A: “Ha-ha.”
S: “I wouldn’t be surprised with you. I swear, you’re mad…”
I hear panic in Sonja’s voice, right through her faked lightness.
A: “Ha-ha.”
S: “Yes, really, I do, you know…”
W: “Dig.”
A: “Please don’t think that I’m playing a game here, Box.”
I’m afraid Sonja thinks that I set her up. She does think so, briefly.
S: “No, yes, I will—”
W: “Both of you, dig.”
S: “Now I’m really starting to get scared, you two…”
W: “No need, you won’t feel a thing. Two seconds’ work.”
A: “Are you kidding, you’re my darling sis.”
S: “I don’t care anymore…”
W: “Yeah, it doesn’t matter anymore, but when it gets closer, everything’s different.”
Another threat. I keep laughing. We keep walking. It’s pitch dark, I’ve never been here. He knows the way. He starts moaning about the film again. I don’t like the location. I try to act silly.
A: “Ouch, I almost stepped into your hole, Wim.”
S: “Ha-ha.”
W: “No, that’s farther along.”
They’re supposedly jokes, but under these circumstances…What is he going to do?
A: “Can we please stop about those film rights?”
W: “Why stop? Why do we always have to stop, when it’s your fault?”
A: “Hey [and together with Sonja] ‘your fault’—both of us? Ha-ha.”
I keep laughing, but I can think only one thing: that I am exposed, that he’s onto me. He realizes I am unconditionally faithful to Sonja. He counts me among his adversaries; I’m persona non grata. Desperate to get away, I say,
A: “Hey, piss off. I’m going to my car. You fight this out between you.”
S: “No, you’re not leaving me here alone with him, you hear?”
W (jokingly): “Come on, I have one pit, just one.”
Relief again. I’m still in his good books. He keeps talking. Peter extorted him, and so he reported him.
W: “Just have to tie my other shoelace.”
He kneels. I’m overcome by a weird feeling of panic. I look around me.
A: “I meant to say, is this some kind of signal?”
He just laughs…
W: “I’m looking for this pit…I’m just looking…”
Pff. I’m relieved.
A: “You need more light? I have a little flashlight somewhere. My guess is you’re in the wrong forest; this is the gnome forest.”
W: “Well, I’m not going to start digging again. We’ll come back next week.”
S: “I’m not coming back here, that’s for sure.”
W: “Let’s just forget about this, but don’t think you’re smart now, okay?”
A: “Is it solved now?”
W: “We’ll stop. Let’s try and act normal. No more lies, Boxer. And when I say do something, then you do it. Got time tomorrow?”
Now the cat is out of the bag. She has to do something for him, something he doesn’t want to do himself. This theater of fear was conducted so he could be sure she wouldn’t refuse him. He can use her again for a while.
While we’re leaving, he drives past our car. I open the window and he calls out—as some kind of finale to this horrible evening—“Boxer, I will leave the pit open. I’m leaving it open, you hear?”