Bella Italia Read online

  Before Petra could respond, she was startled by a hard knock on the store’s front door. Petra wanted to get up, but Liesbeth stopped her. “You stay right there. I will take care of it.”

  She knew it was useless to resist.

  While Liesbeth walked out into the store, Petra closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and thought about what to do with her life now. She knew that she needed to talk to Hans, and maybe with Irene, but the prospect of it all weighed her down. Right after they had returned from Italy, she had promised herself she’d handle these situations really well. But she had no idea what that really meant. How could she know? She wanted to stay strong for the sake of everyone else—that’s why she had a family—but she now began to see that this was the very opposite of “let’s get through this together.”

  20

  November

  Hans let his fingers glide across his patient’s back muscles as he slowly drifted off, deep in thought. The man lying on his stomach on the massage table was Johan Hogendoorn. This big man, well into his forties, had worked in construction over the past two decades and had been a regular client at his physiotherapy practice during the past few years. Their conversations rarely ever ran deep, something he actually found pleasant. They knew the names of their wives and children and their vacation destinations, but not much more than that. Something he appreciated, especially on a day like today. He found his thoughts drifting off regularly and felt rather distracted from his work. It was convenient that he could, in a matter of speaking, treat this patient while he was on autopilot. As a serious professional, he actually deplored functioning that way, but no one really seemed to notice today. He stared straight ahead and felt his fingertips glide across the shoulder muscles. Usually after they finished their program with a few exercises to loosen up the muscles, he would end the session with a massage. Johan thoroughly enjoyed this, something Hans could understand, seeing as how Johan was someone who so severely physically strained his body day after day.

  “That feels great, Hans.”

  “Good. That’s the idea.”

  Slowly his hands moved down, to right above the hip. Carefully he kneaded the muscles on the side of the body, a body that had endured so much already, over the past few years. He also began to feel a certain kind of relaxation himself, which he needed badly.

  He was still grateful each and every day that he wasn’t in the position Mats’s parents were in. The thought of the situation being reversed made him sick. Oh, he felt such deep sympathy for those people. The suffering they experienced must have been unbearable. … He told himself that his own situation paled in comparison, but he also couldn’t deny the fact that the tensions were rising at home.

  According to Irene Gerritsen, Niels’s recovery process was steadily improving. Even though he didn’t doubt her expertise, he did question her conclusion. Because what did steadily improving actually mean? Sure, he was doing better in certain aspects. For example, he had become a lot less introverted than he had been in those weeks following that horrible night. He smiled more often, sang along to a song on the radio once in a while, and came out of his room a little more often. But all that progression couldn’t hide the fact that he had still not spoken a single word about what had happened exactly on that terrible night. Well, not to them anyway. But he also kept his mouth firmly shut when Irene asked him anything about that night. Though she was still convinced that he would talk about it eventually, when that would finally happen was just as unclear to her. But she refused to force it, because that always backfired, as she knew from experience.

  But what had Niels experienced that night? The anger inside, which accompanied Hans like a debilitating virus and only left him alone when he slept, seemed to become stronger. He had to concentrate on his work. His hand glided up along the spine and landed in between the shoulder blades. While his fingers kneaded the muscles, he saw how the light and creamy massage oil glistened. The image suddenly gave him a déjà vu. The drops of oil on the shiny skin reminded him of the homeless man’s face, after he had pulled him out of the water. His rage was pounding through his skull. Without noticing, his fingers began to dig deep into his patient’s muscles while he saw the homeless man’s throat before him and wanted to strangle him. No, had to strangle him, because the bastard only deserved instant death. A child killer didn’t deserve a fair trial. He should suffer the same fate as his victim had.

  “Hey, Hans. What are you doing back there? Are you trying to ruin my weekend or something?”

  Hans was startled by Johan’s unexpected reaction. His eyes went from Johan’s worried face to his back. It was covered in red blotches where he had massaged him too hard. He could even see a few white fingerprints. Jesus, he needed to take a break. What was he doing? He quickly tried to recover by making a silly joke. “I knew it. Construction workers are all just a bunch of wimps.”

  “Right, let’s trade places for a few days and see how you do?” the construction worked said jovially. “You’ll end up in a thousand pieces, massaging your own limbs for the next few weeks!”

  They laughed, Hogendoorn because he could see the humor in it and Hans from sheer relief.

  In a very controlled manner Hans drummed on his patient’s shoulder blades and let his hands move across his whole back in the same rhythm. “Sorry, big guy,” he said when his hands reached his lower back.

  Hogendoorn took it all in stride. “No problem, man. Every once in a while something slips out of my hands as well, high up on the scaffolding.”

  “Then I really hope that everyone working at that construction site wears their hardhats,” Hans answered, continuing with the final part of the massage.

  When Hogendoorn was gone, he slumped down in his chair. He had made a serious mistake. He couldn’t let that happen again.

  21

  Hans parked his car in the street, opposite Niels’s school. He and Petra got out and walked silently to the building’s entrance.

  They were wondering what Wim Kuipers, the school principal, as well as Niels’s teacher, had to say to them. Yesterday he called them with a request to come in for a chat. To reassure them, he had told them directly that there was no need to worry, but that he would appreciate it if they could have a talk as soon as possible.

  Because Kuipers had no problem meeting them during the early-evening hours, they didn’t need to enlist the help of coworkers to trade or take over a shift. Cora and Aad, Petra’s parents, were thrilled to spend an hour at their house to keep an eye on things. Hans and Petra weren’t very comfortable with the idea of leaving Niels all alone.

  Wim Kuipers may have very well said not to worry, but this meeting was one outside of the regularly scheduled parent-teacher conferences. Before the school year had begun, they had informed Kuipers of the events that had taken place at Lake Garda. Kuipers had listened to their story with great interest and sympathy and had promised to keep a close eye on their son.

  The receptionist welcomed them and called Kuipers to announce that they had arrived.

  Within no time at all, he appeared and shook their hands. “Good evening, thank you for coming so quickly.”

  They walked into his office, where he sat down behind his desk. “Take a seat, please. Would you like something to drink?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Good. How are you two doing?”

  “Given the circumstances, we are doing reasonably well,” Hans answered as he sat down. “But it remains a difficult and challenging time for our family.”

  “I can imagine,” Kuipers said. He was a man in his late fifties and had worked in education for many years. In part due to cutbacks, his function at the school was a combined one, and he served as both a teacher and the principal of the school. He worked a lot of extra hours and his commitment and involvement were both great and apparent. Kuipers was loved by his students and colleagues because of his versatility. He was sincere, patient, and friendly, but also took serious action when a situation called for it
. Wim Kuipers was a man you could trust and rely upon.

  “As you know, I would like to talk about Niels. Again, nothing alarming has happened, so please don’t be overly concerned about that, but I can see that he is not doing well.”

  “And you are worried about that,” Hans responded quickly.

  “Worried … worried may be a big word. It’s just that I can see he is not quite himself, but when I try to talk to him about it, his answers are mostly evasive. So, that’s why I was wondering how he is doing at home. How therapy is going? Don’t get me wrong; I’m not trying to say it should all be better, but I’m trying to gain some insight into how things are going overall and the best way to interact with Niels, in a way that serves him best. I also assume that Niels doesn’t tell you everything that happens at school, and so I thought it best that we talk about it together. First, I would like to give you some examples of his behavior at school, so you can understand what I mean.”

  Hans and Petra looked at him with great anticipation.

  “I have noticed regularly that Niels, regardless of the subject at any given moment, at first gives it his full attention. But then slowly I see his attention fade away, and he seems to disappear into a different world. This doesn’t happen with every subject, but certainly happens with some regularity.”

  “He daydreams,” Petra concluded. “That used to happen to me when I was younger.”

  Kuipers nodded. “Many students daydream, but not so often. If that were all it was, I wouldn’t have asked you to come in to talk about it. There is more to it.”

  After those last few words, Hans decided to swallow his questions. Kuipers noticed and continued his story.

  “During his lunch break in the schoolyard, Niels doesn’t seem to have one steady group of friends. One day he’s talking to this one, then the other. My impression is that he doesn’t have any best friends anymore, but certainly doesn’t have any enemies either. But it is interesting to see that his reactions to different situations can vary so much.

  “Last week a group of boys from his class were reenacting an action movie in the schoolyard. There were a lot of hand gestures and so-called fight scenes. At first Niels joined in, but when a fellow classmate specifically took aim at him, he completely fell apart. He made a lot of uproar without ever being hit. He got up and looked angrily at the boy. Without saying another word he walked off and started a conversation with a group of nearby girls. His initial response seemed a bit exaggerated; it didn’t seem to make any sense for him to be so angry since the boy had been two yards away from him, so he could never have actually touched him. Boys will be boys, but apparently Niels couldn’t handle it.”

  Hans sighed. “What a strange story. I think he must have felt threatened in some way. He has become a lot more sensitive since this summer, but he is pretty closed at home too.”

  “Take your time to let it sink in for a moment,” Kuipers said. “I will give you another example.”

  They nodded. It was smarter to just listen than to keep interrupting the conversation.

  “In the schoolyard again, about for days ago, the following happened. Niels was talking with a group of his classmates. The topic was soccer. Who had the best team in the world? Everyone had their say. Out of the blue, Niels raised his voice and shouted that they had it all wrong and that no one understood. No one team was the greatest, but that it was always a different team, depending on the year. When I thought that things might escalate, I called Niels over and asked him to go and water the plants in the classroom after the lunch break. He nodded quickly, walked away pouting, joined a group of younger boys, and totally ignored his own group. However, once they were back in the classroom, there wasn’t even a trace of Niels’s earlier outburst. He started class just as he had before lunch and gave the boys with whom he had fought in the schoolyard a friendly smile, like nothing had happened.”

  “At any point during his outburst did you think he might use violence?” Hans wanted to know.

  “I wasn’t entirely sure. By intervening, I wanted to prevent it from escalating any further. But I can assure you that Niels came across as very aggressive. The aggression also came out of nowhere and then disappeared just as fast after I spoke to him. As if he made a decision to let it go at once. Maybe that is a result of the therapy, and it is something quite difficult to do for someone his age, but he seems to become angry much faster than he did last year.”

  “What he experienced in Italy was far beyond something difficult for someone his age.”

  Kuipers nodded. “I am very aware of that, every day. That is why I try to keep a close eye on him as much as possible.”

  “Is this something new?” Hans wanted to know.

  “Yes, these examples are new. When I really sat down and thought about it, many more situations popped up in my mind. Situations you would normally dismiss, even when it concerns a special boy like Niels. Everyone can have a good or a bad mood. When it comes to my students, it is about the process of growing up and slowly become an adult, learning how to handle the fun and the not-so-fun situations that inherently come with that process. But with Niels, his mood swings of sudden anger and then calm behavior appear to be structural.”

  “What part of it is structural?” Petra asked. “Because I don’t see the connection. The one doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the other.”

  Kuipers let out a heavy sigh. “That is exactly what I am trying to find out. It seems structural to me, because he has been different since the summer and hard to figure out. At first glance, I see a perfectly normal young boy, who functions well in class and gets good grades, but yet … something seems off. Where with another child you might think: he is aggressive, he is way too defensive, that one is hyperactive, or that one is slowly becoming depressed, that is not the case for Niels. With him, all these qualities are continually taking turns. It is not even noticeable unless you know him very well or are paying close attention. But it is there. If any other child had shown this kind of behavior I may not have even phoned the parents, or maybe I wouldn’t have noticed it, but in Niels’s case I really wanted to discuss it with you.”

  Hans and Petra both nodded. “So, what do you think about it?”

  Kuipers made a dismissive hand gesture. “Obviously, I have my thoughts and suspicions about it, although I don’t ever like to voice them, because if I voiced all of my opinions, I would find myself skating on thin ice. I know that Niels is seeing a psychologist, and I hope she can do something with this information. Drawing conclusions is not part of my job description as a teacher and as principal of the school. I would like to hear from you how things are at home, so I can take that with me when I judge the situation as a whole.”

  Petra began to explain that Niels had withdrawn at home, much more than he ever had before. That he played less with the neighborhood children and sometimes retreated and seemed irritated when they tried to get him to come and play outside. But they had not noticed any real aggression at home.

  Kuipers nodded while they spoke. He recognized the pattern, and it coincided with what he saw Niels do at school. When Petra finished he surprised them with the question about how they were doing personally.

  “Who, us?”

  “Yes, you two must have had quite a scare yourselves. How have you handled that?”

  Petra could feel Hans staring at her. She avoided his glance on purpose. “Good, considering the circumstances. Of course, we didn’t experience what Niels experienced, and we just think it’s horrible he had to go through it. We are doing everything in our power to get him back to his former self.”

  “I understand that, and I can see how involved and concerned you both are when it comes to him. But what I mean to say is how are you handling your own feelings and thoughts? It’s very important not to forget yourselves, so you can continue to be there for Niels.”

  “Of course,” Hans said. “We are aware of that. But Niels is most important. So you don’t have the impression that he i
s achieving less because of the daydreaming? I know how much he loves to go to school, and it would really upset him if he found out if that is also going badly.”

  Hans had definitely managed to change the subject and take the magnifying glass off their personal problems, because he simply didn’t feel this was the time or place to start this conversation with Kuipers. He found the whole conversation strange. On the one hand, Kuipers said that they didn’t need to be worried, but, on the other, he did ask them to come by to discuss how strange Niels was acting. After Kuipers began to wind down the conversation with all of Niels’s achievements in class and describing how he was really a very good boy, Hans suddenly felt a real need for some fresh air. Once they had said their good-byes to him and walked outside, Hans took a very deep breath. Petra looked at him. It was clear to them that they should inform the psychologist as soon as possible.