THE BELL RANG. AND THERE HE WAS AGAIN.
I felt all the energy drain from my body. I felt so tired. I wanted out, but I was so deep in. This would never come to an end.
We walked down Maasstraat, and during his monologue, he laughed about how he had frightened Sonja again. “She’s so scared, really scared.”
I walked next to him and looked at that grin on his face. Somebody who enjoys hurting others so much has no right to keep on living, I thought.
Enough is enough.
I am going to kill him.
Sonja was at the gym. They also had a physiotherapy practice, where I had my first appointment.
Sonja was having coffee, and she joined me.
“Today I am going to blow him to pieces,” I told her. “I’m getting my weapon later.”
“Don’t say that. You are doing no such thing. You can’t do that to Mil, to the little ones. They will lose you.”
But even that didn’t outweigh my feelings, which screamed for an end to all this. I didn’t want to depend on others anymore, didn’t want to keep looking for another way to stop him. “I’ll do it myself. I should have done it much earlier.”
Liquidate or be liquidated was an essential part of our lives. Cor was Wim’s target; Wim was the target of Mieremet, Endstra, and Thomas van der Bijl, among others. We lived with that imperative, and it had taught me what was needed to avoid liquidation and what was needed to execute one.
Know where somebody is going to be, and know when. It’s impossible to wait for hours on a street corner until someone arrives at his house; it’s too conspicuous. And being conspicuous means running the risk of attention from the police or vigilant citizens, and the possibility of being recognized later. It should be done relatively quickly. Arrive, do the job, and leave.
In and out, as Wim said.
Knowing where the target is and when sounds obvious. But it’s not easy, and it’s the reason so many liquidations rely on betrayal. That betrayal is often by someone close: somebody says where the target lives, where he goes, what his habits are, the locations he visits regularly, and when he goes there.
The where and when was never my problem: I saw Wim when he wanted. Every day I had the opportunity. All I had to do was show up for an appointment, get near to him, and take him off-guard. For an untrained shooter like me, that last part was the most important.
I know how to handle a weapon, but I can’t shoot to kill from five meters away. I would have to be as close to him as possible and, without him noticing, put the gun to his stomach and pull the trigger.
I needed the element of surprise so he wouldn’t have a chance to resist. A shot in the stomach wouldn’t ensure a fatal end, but it would take him so much by surprise that I’d have time to fire my fatal shots. That’s how I had thought it out, and, by way of practice, had visualized it.
“You shouldn’t do it,” said Sonja.
“I don’t know why not,” I replied.
I really had no reason not to do it. It was as if I didn’t have a moral compass. Just like him.
When I thought about it, I felt no repulsion or fear. I felt nothing at all. I thought it self-explanatory: he was a malignant growth that had to be removed. I understood he was capable of killing because he didn’t have that moral compass, either. The only thing that had stopped me all this time was my daughter’s words: “Mom, I don’t want a killer for a mother.”
She apparently had a moral compass and absolutely didn’t want this. I tried to understand her, but I honestly couldn’t grasp it, rationally or sensibly. Sonja understood Miljuschka very well. She didn’t want it, and couldn’t do it, though it would be more logical for her to do it. It was about her husband, her children.
It was a discussion we’d had before. I thought she should stand up for her children, whatever it took. But she couldn’t.
“I’ll do it,” I said, ending our conversation. “At home there’s a bag of clothes for you to bring me when I’m at the police station.” I would not try to get away with it; I’m not like him. I would take responsibility and turn myself in. I realized that I would go to prison, but that prospect was way more attractive than to go on living with him.
I walked up the stairs to my appointment with the physiotherapist. It was the last thing on my mind, but the man was always swamped, and I was there with Sonja’s help. She’d explained to him that I desperately needed treatment, and he had specially squeezed me into his busy schedule. No way I could cancel.
After my appointment, I’d pick up a weapon, a small revolver, just right for me. I would have to avoid any police stops, or they might find the gun before I had used it.
I knocked on the physiotherapist’s door.
“Hello,” a tanned, muscular man said. “Are you Astrid?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m Vincent. Please sit down.” He gestured to the treatment table.
I did, and he asked me where it hurt. “In my calves,” I said.
“Your calves are your second heart,” he said. He felt them. “I see why you hurt. There’s a lot of tension in them.” His hands started the treatment, and I could hardly stand the pain.
“Astrid, you’re at a crossroads in your life. Your calves keep you from going a certain way, and that tension creates your pain. Maybe you should follow an entirely different road.”
I thought, What is he on about? He can’t know what I’m up to, can he? “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Maybe you should let go of everything happening in your life right now and look at it from a different perspective. We are all energy. And sometimes this energy is disturbed by the energy of others.”
Stay with your own energy, he was saying. Don’t let it get distorted.
I felt caught. Why was he talking about this? Was he trying to tell me in a roundabout way that he knew what I was up to and that I had to give up on it? I got the jitters. “I’m just a bit tired,” I said. “And I am so busy.”
“You’re tired because others take away your energy. You don’t have to solve everyone’s problems.”
Wow! That last one hit me. I had to be crazy. Why do I make such an effort to help others? To help Sonja, Peter—why? Let everybody solve his or her own problems.
Vincent had, just before the fatal moment, changed my mind.
Sonja was waiting for me downstairs. I went to her.
“I’m not doing it. I’m not going to prison just because I so desperately want to solve things for everybody. You don’t do anything, the Justice Department doesn’t do anything. It’s not my problem. He’s your husband; they’re your children. You solve it. If he threatened my child, I’d do it immediately, but it’s your call.”
“I’m glad,” Sonja said. “I’m glad you won’t do it.”
She was sincerely happy. She’d rather have the terror continue, not being able to do what was necessary to end it. I didn’t understand her. How different she was from Wim and me.
I drove home. I had been on the verge of killing my brother, something I should have dreaded. But it felt righteous. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. You hit me, I hit you back.
Now, in hindsight, I think, I wish I’d done it. I would have been free sooner, I would have gotten maybe nine years and been out in six for good behavior. Young enough to build a new life.
Now I’ve got a life sentence, whether he’s ever convicted or not. The regret will go on forever.