The Boy Between Worlds: A Biography Read online

  PRAISE FOR ANNEJET VAN DER ZIJL

  FOR An American Princess, TRANSLATED BY MICHELE HUTCHISON

  “Light and gracefully written, [An American Princess] dances through a century of history, costing out the American dream like a feminine complement to the National Theatre’s absorbing Lehman Trilogy.”

  —Hilary Mantel, from the Guardian’s “Best Books of 2018”

  “Set against the tumultuous history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this biography is certainly entertaining, but it is also a fascinating story about a remarkable woman’s indomitable spirit and will to survive. A concise, thoughtful, and well-researched biography.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Readers will love this captivating true story of triumph, tragedy and the pursuit of the American Dream.”

  —She Reads

  FOR The Boy Between Worlds, TRANSLATED BY KRISTEN GEHRMAN

  “A heartbreaking tale of two unusual lovers . . . A story that takes your breath away and leaves the reader astonished.”

  —Aleid Truijens in De Volkskrant

  “A moving story . . . A portrait of a unique love that beautifully evokes pictures from the past.”

  —De Telegraaf

  “Van der Zijl tells a compelling story and knows how to develop the characters in this love story using the social and historical background of their lives . . . A beautiful book.”

  —Hans Renders in Het Parool

  “A beautiful portrait . . . Her story moved me to tears.”

  —HP/De Tijd

  OTHER TITLES BY ANNEJET VAN DER ZIJL

  An American Princess

  Text copyright © 2004, 2009 by Annejet van der Zijl

  Translation copyright © 2019 by Kristen Gehrman

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as Sonny Boy by Nijgh & Van Ditmar and Em. Querido’s Uitgeverij in the Netherlands in 2004 and 2009. Translated from Dutch by Kristen Gehrman. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2019.

  Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542007313 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1542007313 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781542040099 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1542040094 (paperback)

  Cover design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant

  Unless otherwise noted, all photos are courtesy of a private collection.

  First edition

  For my sister, Sietske van der Zijl

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  Official, academic history . . .

  MAP

  THE RIVER, 1923

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  THE SEA, 1945

  AFTERWORD

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ARCHIVES AND INSTITUTES CONSULTED

  SOURCES

  ABRIDGED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  When there are grey skies

  I don’t mind the grey skies

  You make them blue, Sonny Boy

  Friends may forsake me

  Let them all forsake me

  I still have you, Sonny Boy

  You came from heaven

  And I know your worth

  You’ve made a heaven

  For me right here on earth

  And the angels, they grew lonely

  Took you because they were lonely

  Now I’m lonely too, Sonny Boy1

  “Sonny Boy” from the film The Singing Fool, sung by Al Jolson, 1928

  Official, academic history has, as I said, nothing to tell us about the differences in intensity of historical occurrences. To learn about that, you must read biographies, not those of statesmen but the all-too-rare ones of unknown individuals.2

  Sebastian Haffner, Defying Hitler: A Memoir

  THE RIVER, 1923

  Waldemar was a swimmer. At not yet fifteen, he could already swim the twelve and a half miles from Domburg, past the forgotten plantations and busy loading docks, all the way to his mother’s large house on the Waterfront. This was the marathon route, reserved for the very best swimmers in Paramaribo—and the smartest ones at that, for the Suriname River was like a crocodile with one eye open: calm, but deadly. On his way to school in the morning, the water sloshed languidly against the banks as the river flowed to the sea. But by the time Waldemar came home in the afternoon, the water level had dropped by several meters; the river’s muddy bowels were left glistening in the sun, and the Sabaku herons would be searching for food among the stranded boats. And when night fell, it was as though the river had suddenly been pulled upstream by a mighty invisible force, and its waves would lick the trunks of the almond trees growing along the Waterfront.

  The river played just as mysterious a game with the wind. Sometimes she’d obediently conform to the wind’s wishes, other times she would stubbornly fight against it, her waters rippling and churning, stewing from all sides. A stealthy killer, that’s what she was. And there wasn’t a family in Suriname who didn’t have an overly confident son or nephew who had been swallowed up by Paramaribo’s lifeline. Still, they kept diving in, the boys with their slender brown bodies, shooting through the water like fish. Because conquering the river was like conquering the world—it brought respect in the eyes of classmates and furtive glances from the giggly groups of girls in pristine white dresses who hung out in the main square on Sundays.

  Waldemar was known as a quiet boy, sometimes even aloof. He wasn’t a daredevil like his older brother, nor was he spoiled royalty like his little sister, who was all too happy to flaunt her position as the daughter of one of the richest men in the colony. But when he swam, something extraordinary happened. Even the biggest talkers on the docks would fall quiet, and everyone’s eyes would become fixated on the wondrous whirl of boy and water. It was as if he and the river were playing together.

  Waldemar was never scared of the hungry river, for he knew her like no one else. When he was just a little boy, he would study her from the veranda and be lulled to sleep by the sound of her waves. And as he grew older, he discovered how she was constantly pulled back and forth by the moon and ocean, and how, even when the wind raged against her, she stubbornly tried to carry out her tides. He knew the movements of the water like the rituals of his mother’s household. Swimming, he’d learned, wasn’t only a matter of muscles. It was about respecting the river, taking advantage of her whims and fancies, knowing where to swim and, above all, when.

  Once every four weeks, a steamboat from the Royal West-Indian Mail Service left for Holland. The flags on the festively decorated ship flapped in the wind, and a farewell cannon was fired from Fort Zeelandia. The passengers on deck craned their necks to catch one last glimpse of their loved ones down below. Waldemar and his friends would hop in a little boat and follow in the ship’s frothy wake for miles, all the way to Fort New Amsterdam, where the Suriname River swirled into the equally mighty Commewijne, and one could just make out the blue of the ocean. After shouting a final farewell to the passengers, the boys would untie the ropes and paddle back to the city. But not Waldemar. He would dive into the brackish water and swim home. Stroke by stroke, yard by yard, he’d f
ind his rhythm and effortlessly cleave through the water. He swam, cleansed by the current, until there was nothing left but himself, son of Suriname, raised by the river. She carried him. The water was his friend.

  1

  November in Holland

  Nowhere on earth can be so wet and dreary, the countryside so sodden and desolate, the streets so deserted in the pouring rain, as Holland in late autumn. And never is a big city so comforting—its steamed-up café windows offering endless promises of warmth and shelter before the winter sets in. It’s the time of year when love can sneak in on stocking feet and creep into the hearts of the very people who feel old and tired, whose hope for better days is threatening to collapse under the weight of the past.

  Rika Hagenaar-van der Lans had a hundred reasons to be tired in the autumn of 1928. She was tired of endlessly bickering with her husband, who refused to accept that she had left him for good and assumed she was going to come crawling back to him with her tail between her legs. She was tired of her fruitless attempts to build an independent life as a woman with four young children and no profession or means of survival. She was tired of her family, who had taken her in, but who had made it abundantly clear that a union before God shall never be broken, and certainly not by someone who—and this was the real crux—had made her own bed and now so vehemently refused to lie in it.

  As if Rika could ever forget how, as a young woman, she had done everything in her power to be able to marry, “till death do us part,” the man who had now become the antithesis of her dreams. At the time it had all seemed like a romantic fairy tale, a sort of Romeo and Juliet, but set in a conventional middle-class suburb of The Hague around the turn of the twentieth century. Hendrika Wilhelmina Johanna, or Rika for short, was born on September 29, 1891, the oldest daughter of Catholic potato merchant Jans van der Lans. Her mother had descended from a family of ill repute, which might have been why she was so Victorian in her views—tough on oneself, tough on others. “She was like the strong woman from Scripture,” as her prayer card would later read.3 She ruled over her five daughters and three sons with an iron fist, fully backed by God and the Roman Catholic Church, while her husband devoted himself to his business and, with visible satisfaction, assumed the role of an indulgent paterfamilias.

  The Van der Lans daughters were a striking lot: beautiful girls with a strong presence, constantly quarreling and trying to outdo each other, but at the same time inseparable. Rika was the eldest and therefore predestined to become her mother’s faithful assistant, but she wasn’t cut out for the role. She was too much like the heroines from the books all the girls were reading in those days: too sensitive and emotional for the stringent, noisy environment she’d been raised in, but also too inclined toward the kind of independent thinking that was considered far from suitable for a young girl of her time. There was a certain sense of restlessness about her, and her striking, nearly black eyes were constantly searching for something more than the everyday monotony.

  As a young girl, Rika was devoutly religious. She grew up in a time when the church and parents conspired to make children profoundly aware of how indebted they were to those who had raised them, and year after year, children diligently scribbled the same sappy texts their dear priest found so endearing. In commemoration of her first holy communion, in 1903, Rika wrote a thank-you letter to her parents on angel-decorated stationery:

  How could I ever repay all that He has done for me and continues to do for me today? The entire debt I shall never be able to pay, but I will do everything in my power. This morning I prayed to Jesus to pour out his divine blessings upon you. Believe me, my Dear Parents, never shall I forget you in my prayers. I will stay true to God and continue on the path of righteousness.4

  In the photo taken to celebrate the occasion, twelve-year-old Rika looks like a true bride of Christ. Nothing in her eyes would lead one to suspect that she’d ever long for anything other than the “divine pleasure” of Christ5 that she—in her own words—learned to taste that day. Four years later, she looked at Willem Hagenaar through the same eyes, with the same earnest devotion, and there was no indication that she’d ever long for anything other than him.

  Willem was nineteen when he first laid eyes on the oldest Van der Lans daughter. With her delicate face and plump arms, she looked like she’d stepped right off a postcard; it was love at first sight. He was a tall student with an intense gaze, the very image of the kind of man Rika had dreamed of marrying. Their love held little promise for the future, however, because Willem’s father was a Protestant headmaster with an intense aversion to all things papal. On top of that, he considered the Van der Lans family ordinary middle-class folk at best. Rika’s parents were equally horrified by the thought of their daughter marrying outside of her faith. In their eyes, marrying a Protestant would plunge her into a state of irrevocable mortal sin.

  When it came out that, despite it being strictly forbidden, the young couple was continuing to meet in secret, Rika’s mother took drastic measures. At the age of seventeen, Rika was sent to Sacré Coeur, the Catholic boarding school in Moerdijk on the other side of the Hollands Diep river, a good thirty-seven miles from The Hague. Her solution seemed to work. Rika’s letters home were well mannered and pious, with no mention of the young Hagenaar. Meanwhile, however, the forced separation did nothing but fuel the clandestine love affair. Determined, Willem endured one technical exam after the other in pursuit of his childhood dream: a job at the Rijkswaterstaat, the state agency for water infrastructure and a very fashionable place to work at the time. As the organization responsible for the country’s roads, bridges, canals, and dikes, the Rijkswaterstaat was a driving force behind industrialization, which was essential for Dutch well-being, especially now that the kingdom’s colonial sources of income were drying up.

  In 1911, Willem passed the Rijkswaterstaat’s entrance exam. The first thing he did was jump on his bike and pedal all the way to Moerdijk at breakneck speed. When he got there, he climbed over the high wall separating the school from the sunny outside world, pushed his way through the shrieking girls and shocked nuns until he found Rika, and took her with him. The young couple turned up in The Hague the next day. Rika had officially run off with her lover for the night, and in doing so, given up her honor forever. On both sides, there was little the parents could do but consent to their marriage.

  In their wedding portrait, Willem looks decidedly triumphant, while his bride stares dreamily into the camera with her gazellelike eyes, lost in the ultimate romance of the moment. True love had prevailed, just like in her books and the silent movies she had seen at the cinema. But no matter how dreamy she looked, Rika was no pushover. Given that her parents had refused to attend the ceremony and forbidden her brothers and sisters to attend as well, Rika and Willem rode by her parents’ house in the wedding carriage after the ceremony so they could at least see how beautiful the black sheep of the family looked in her virginal white wedding gown. This only added to Mrs. Van der Lans’s outrage.

  The young couple moved into a villa that belonged to the Rijkswaterstaat in Apeldoorn, a small city in the Veluwe forest that, since the introduction of a canal, had developed into the center of the national paper industry. It was here that Rika gave birth to her first son, in 1915, who was named after his father. Two years later came a daughter who, as a peace offering toward the family in The Hague, was named after Rika’s mother, Lambertina. The tension between Rika and her family had abated, mainly because the Van der Lanses had enough Roman Catholic pragmatism in their hearts to realize that a lifelong excommunication of their favorite daughter wouldn’t do anyone any good. So, they lit an extra candle for her soul on Sundays and took tremendous pleasure in their first grandchildren, who—much to the Van der Lanses’ delight and the Hagenaars’ chagrin—were being raised Catholic.

  It was an era of optimism. The factories were churning, the chimneys were smoking, and daily life was being transformed by one exciting invention after the other—from electr
icity to automobiles to radios and portable gramophones. Shortly after little Bertha was born, Willem was transferred to Den Bosch. The Den Bosch branch of the Rijkswaterstaat was known for being exceptionally social, and the young Hagenaar couple was welcomed into the circle with open arms. They were an attractive duo and seemed to be a perfect match for each other. Both exceedingly charming, both vain, and both lovers of fine clothing, going out, and dancing, they seemed to fall ever more passionately in love—like two “turtledoves,” as Rika’s sisters teased.

  Rika and Willem took to the rich Roman Catholic life in the Brabant capital like fish to water, and in 1921, their third child was born. The little boy was named Jan after his maternal grandfather and perhaps also after the impressive Saint John’s Cathedral near their home. One year later, Willem commissioned an official family portrait. He was a successful man in the prime of his life with three beautiful children and a wife whose mischievous look was enough to make any man envy him. It seemed as if nothing or no one could ever stand in the way of their happiness.

  As they say, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and the Rijkswaterstaat was no exception. The agency took excellent care of its employees, but its head office decided what they did and where they lived. And in the fall of 1924, the agency decided to move Willem Hagenaar up a rung on the career ladder. He was promoted to the position of dike warden of Goeree-Overflakkee, an island in South Holland that, for the entirety of its existence, had been dependent on a complicated system of seawalls, dunes, and dikes to keep out the capricious North Sea. Thus, the Rijkswaterstaat envoy was an important man, even more important than the local mayor. In December, shortly after the birth of their fourth child, Henk—or the “carnival baby,” as he was lovingly called because he must have been conceived during the festival season—the Hagenaar family moved to Goeree.

  The bare, windswept island couldn’t have been more different from elegant Den Bosch. Although it wasn’t very far from the major cities in the western Netherlands, Goeree was still extremely isolated. The only contact with the outside world was via a ferry that traveled between Middelharnis and Hellevoetsluis once a day. Goedereede was a small town behind the dike with a few shabby shops and nothing of the luxury that Rika had grown accustomed to in Brabant. The islanders were conservative through and through and so devoutly religious that they went to church twice on Sunday. They regarded the modern trends that were gaining steam in the big cities with tremendous suspicion. It seemed as if time had come to a halt, and it wouldn’t be starting up again anytime soon.