WE HAD TOLD OUR KIDS MUCH EARLIER WHAT WE WERE DOING AND THAT we might eventually be testifying. Although we had promised the Justice Department not to tell them, it was impossible to keep it a secret from them till the last moment. Our actions would have an enormous impact on their lives, and they had every right to think this through and not be confronted with it suddenly. If they thought we’d better not do it, we would quit immediately.
They were witness to our doubts, the times that we decided not to pursue it, and the times we decided to go ahead with it. But now was the moment when we had to make a choice.
We pointed out again that there was a strong possibility that we’d have to pay for this action with our lives.
Francis said at once, “Do it! He’s going to kill Mama anyway, so she’d better be one step ahead of him.”
Richie totally agreed. But that reason didn’t cut it for me. My position toward Wim was different: I was his ally. How could I justify to Miljuschka putting my life at risk without yet being in acute danger, like Sonja?
“You know what the consequences are if I do this, sweetie?” I asked her.
“Yes, I know, Mom,” she replied softly.
“I have to decide now.”
“Yes…”
“I can’t think of a single reason that outweighs the risk I’ll be taking. I shouldn’t do it, because I know how this is going to end, but still…”
“I understand, Mom. Sometimes you’ve got to do the right thing.”
We already knew Gerard’s point of view on the matter. Sonja and I had asked him back in 2011, before Wim was released, if he’d testify if we did. But back then he’d said: “You’re not going to survive, so why do it? What’s the point?” That was still his position. “What’s the point of all three of us dying? At least I can take care of Mom when you’re no longer here.”
There was still someone else who needed to know.
“We’ll have to tell Mom,” I told Sonja.
She agreed, and we decided to drive straight over there.
“Are you nervous?” she asked me.
“Yes, kind of. We have been working on this for more than two years, but if Mom is against it, we can’t pursue it. In that case we’ve had all this misery for nothing, and we’re facing many more years of it. But hey, it’s her child. She decides.”
“And you know what she’s like.”
“That’s why I’m afraid of her reaction. She has always buried her head in the sand and justified his behavior.”
We arrived at my mother’s house. She was waiting for us at the door, always glad to see us.
“How nice of you to come by,” she said. “Make yourselves comfortable. Tea?”
“Sure, Mom,” I replied.
“I’ll have some, too,” said Sonja.
I got straight to the point. “Mom, we’d like to talk to you for a bit.”
“What is it now?” she asked.
“Yes, well,” I said. “We’re going to testify against Wim.”
“Testify how?”
“Well, tell what he has done.”
She immediately looked worried. “That’s not very clever. He’ll never accept it.”
“I know, but it has to stop sometime. You know that it’s Son’s turn one of these days, and I don’t want to wait for that,” I said.
“Then you should do it,” she said resolutely.
Sonja and I looked at each other in surprise. Was she throwing in the towel that easily?
“But be aware that if we do it, chances are that he’s going in for life,” I said.
“Let’s hope so, or he’ll be chasing you.”
Sonja and I again looked at each other in astonishment. This was her son. “Do you know what you’re saying, Mom?” I asked to be sure.
“Assie, what do you think? He is threatening Sonja, he is threatening my grandchildren! That is unheard of! Do you think I don’t know what he is made of? I am scared to death that he will get you. I would much rather have him inside prison walls. I wouldn’t know what to do if anything happened to you. I would rather hang myself!”
“Okay, I’m glad you support us. For a minute there I was afraid you wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t? As, he has brought nothing but trouble to everybody. And now he wants to get at my child and my grandchildren? He’s my son, and it hurts to say it, but he’s an animal! I’ve had no life because of him, right? Always visiting, always with those crazy women of his. Always shouting and cursing when things don’t go his way. I didn’t even dare maintain a normal relationship with Roy, afraid of him running into Roy and kicking him out the door.”
My mother had met Roy a couple of years after the divorce. He dropped by the fruit stall where I worked, and my mother got to talking with him. Every week he came back and asked how she was doing. He was a tall, handsome man of Surinamese descent. They started seeing each other.
Wim didn’t like that. He didn’t want his mother to date a “negro.”
It was a disgrace. She anxiously kept it a secret from Wim for thirty years. She didn’t have the chance to have a normal relationship, and now she was alone.
“Did you know that Wim was responsible for Deurloostraat?” I asked.
“No, you never told me. Really?” she asked.
“Yes, it was him.”
“What a bastard. I still see it happening, right in front of my eyes. It’s been so long, but it still keeps me awake sometimes. Then I’ll see, bang, bang, bang, there on the car window. I hear Son screaming, Richie crying. I see Cor’s blood everywhere. I’ll never forget it. That’s all I needed—how is it possible?”
“But, Mom, let it sink in a bit what I’m saying: When we testify, chances are he’ll get a life sentence. Do you realize what that means? That you’ll never be able to visit him, never be able to call him, because he will use any contact with you, in any way, to track us down. Do you understand? When you say yes, you will be saying goodbye to your eldest son. Can you do that?”
I saw tears in her eyes.
“See, you start crying at the mere thought.”
I started crying, too, and said, “Son, we won’t do it!”
My mother was trying to control her tears. “But, As, it’s not so strange that all this saddens me so much, is it? It saddens you, too. I will have a lot of sorrow for the rest of my life, but it has to be done. This has to stop.”
“Are you sure?”
“Very sure.”
“Will you think of me as a traitor?”
“You, a traitor? Why? For helping your sister? Because you stand up for your nephew and niece? Are you crazy? You’re no traitor! He’s a traitor! He’s got the Nazi blood of your grandfather.”
Apart from my mother, there was one more person I had to take into account in our decision to condemn Wim to life in prison: his son Nicola.
If I’d had the least idea that I’d hurt this little boy by taking his father away from him, I might not have done it. Maike and her mother raised him, and Wim called him his “white source” (legal money source) because he was the heir of Maike’s father, a wealthy real estate tycoon.
Maike, whom Wim still considered part of his harem, had called to meet me when Wim was arrested and nobody knew of our role as witnesses. During this meeting, she asked if I’d help her to stop Wim from seeing Nicola. She was terribly worried about what would happen if Wim was released, and she hoped that he’d stay behind bars for good.
I figured that it wouldn’t be too traumatic for Nicola if Wim were put away for longer, and that I wouldn’t be robbing a little boy of a loving father if his father got a life sentence.
That relationship was no reason not to testify.
The day before it was made public, Sonja and I went to see Maike to tell her what we had done. For Nicola’s sake, we wanted her to know beforehand so she could be there for him if he needed her.