THE GUESTS WERE greeted upon arrival at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam by Natasha and Yvonne, two of the cousins, who were dressed in traditional kit — a knitted pouch, aprons, short shawls and clogs. Sherlock came in from Myanmar wearing a skirt. Michel’s wife, a seamstress with les grands couturiers, designed the wedding dress. Throughout the hour-and-a-half trip to Huis Bergh castle overlooking the Rhine River from the Dutch side of the border, the two cousins narrated the history of Hannah’s village, describing Kilder, a dependency of the Hanseatic town of Bergh since 1340.
The wedding itself was held in Huis Bergh, a thirteenthcentury castle that was once the home of Count Willem van den Bergh, who in 1556 married Maria van Nassau, the sister of William of Orange. Later, Huis Bergh served as residence of the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburgs and, as it turns out, Hannah’s grandfather, who was the live-in handyman at the castle. The Habsburgzal, where the minister celebrated the rite, was resplendent with oil canvasses of cross-eyed Habsburgs, Van Dyck canvasses and an array of wild game stuffed and stuck on the walls. Primitive, barbaric and lush, as only the Teutons can do it. Perfect for a party, and still five years before birth tourism and snowflakes and Australian cooking shows arrived to signal the final decline.
The reception was held in the Teunissenzaal on the Kelderweg, situated in the village centre, beside the church. Benny provided a colourful indoor fireworks display that briefly ignited a set of curtains but was successfully extinguished. Cousin Rob was the singer, a postman rightfully celebrated from Zeddam to Wiel for his commanding Righteous Brother baritone. Cousin Rob had placed a jumbleletter bulletin board advertising with asynchronous letters his next gig in Zeddam, where the old Tower Mill could be viewed. After persistent lobbying, he agreed to drop “Lyin’ Eyes” as the opening dance in favour of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” the second of his three-song English repertoire prior to reverting to his trusted series of polonaises.
About an hour into the programme, we were placed on two stools, back-to-back, bound in ribbons, and lifted by a cortège of male guests before the assembled invitees. Later in the proceedings, Sherlock would say: “I had no idea your in-laws were Jewish.”
“They’re not,” I responded, “at least not officially,” knowing that it hadn’t escaped Sherlock’s notice that my mother-in-law-to-be could be the twin of Anne Frank, and that the Anne Frank house is littered with photos of the Hollanders, one of whom appears to be Annie herself. But, Jewish, just because every uncle is a Mel Brooks lookalike? Fuggedaboudid — they go to church, don’t they? So what if they don’t know their family history back further than fifty years. So what if we were being hoisted in a traditional hora dance, surrounded by achterhoekers whose accents suddenly sound Yiddish?
The following day, there was a village parade in our honour, and a king and queen of the wedding were named. Then we proceeded onwards to the shooting gallery, where Duiven won the shooting competition. Benny conducted the Achterhoek tradition of “shooting the girl out of the village,” a ritual detonation of bombs in milk urns in the middle of a field to commemorate the event.
And then suddenly the three-day party was done and dusted, except no-one wanted to leave Amsterdam.
After another thirty-six hours, the phone would ring, and I’d find Raphaël crumpled into a psilocybin-induced paralytic ball under an Amsterdam hotel bed, locked in a fierce debate with a spider.
Within months, Jette would finally perform her final Houdini dive from a bridge too far.
Sid, out in the Tsilhqot’in wilderness, would fire off his favourite Winchester one last time and die an aboriginal legend.
Fred would disintegrate, beamed into thin air by the asbestos at Ground Zero, like Scotty, the Star Trek hero he loved imitating.
Gary would run away from Francis at the age of 78 and hook up with a black widow of indeterminate sex who would steal all his money and head for the Canary Islands.
Denise would contract lymphoma and yet somehow survive.
Hein’s fall off his beloved bicycle would turn out to be a result of MS.
Sabrina would forge Bob’s signature for opiates, and then in the cruellest of ironic fates, opiates would slay one of his own.
The Bataclan terrorists would narrowly miss Sylvie on boulevard Voltaire, and Michel in the Petit Cambodge, though the Charlie Hebdo killers would snare Cabu and Wolinsky in their infernal net.
It was a freeze-frame, a Kodak moment, of the 1934 Soviet Central Committee before the purges. Or the 8-ball scene in The Deer Hunter, with Robert de Niro and Christopher Walken shooting combos on the pool table, while dancing and singing, “I Love You Baby.” Which is strange, because that was the song that immediately followed the chair dance. And, just like in that scene of The Deer Hunter, everybody looked overjoyed and ready to cry simultaneously.
As Sam the waiter poured out Freddy’s twentieth beer, Fred turned to Sid and said: “My wedding sucked.” Nobody from Kilder could understand anyone from elsewhere. The Frenchies formed a clique apart — the Striches, the Marets, the Guillets — bringing an elegance to the proceedings.
Everybody just knew this wasn’t the beginning of something. It was the end of something. Something that was finished, gone forever. For lack of a better word, it was the end of the twentieth century.