After three weeks, when Cady knew every path in the wood like the back of her hand, the doctor asked her if she would be pleased or upset at the idea of being able to go out by herself. Cady was thrilled. ‘Can I really?’
‘Yes, you can. Now, off you go and don’t let us ever see you here again,’ he joked.
So, when Cady was ready to go, she picked up her walking-stick and went through the door alone. It was strange – she was so used to having Nurse Truus beside her. Still, on this first day she wasn’t supposed to go any further than the gate. After half an hour, the ward nurse saw her come in with her face lit up and her cheeks redder than usual.
‘I see you enjoyed your walk! You must be glad to be rid of us!’
‘You know I’m not,’ Cady replied. ‘But it’s so nice to be able to do something on my own again!’
The nurse nodded sympathetically and advised her to go back to bed.
From then on, she could be seen out in the park every day, and soon things were going so well that she was also given permission to go beyond the gate.
The sanatorium was located in a very quiet neighbourhood. There were hardly any houses, just a few villas about ten minutes away from the sanatorium and about ten minutes away from one another.
On one of the side paths, Cady had discovered a bench in the form of a log, and she brought along a few blankets to make it more comfortable. She now went there every morning to read or daydream. Often, when she had a book with her, it would slip out of her hands after only a few pages, and she would think to herself, ‘What do I care about that old book? Isn’t it much nicer to sit here and look around? Isn’t it better to think about the world and everything in it instead of reading about what’s happening to some girl in a book?’ Then she would take a look around, at the birds and the flowers, or let her eyes follow an ant scurrying over the ground with a tiny little stick, and she would feel happy. She dreamed of the time when she’d be able to run and jump and go wherever she wanted to, and came to the conclusion that her accident, which had brought her so much misery, also had its good side. Cady suddenly realized that here in the wood, in the sanatorium and in the silent hours in the hospital, she had discovered something new about herself. She had discovered that she was a person with feelings, thoughts and opinions of her own, completely independent of other people, who were individuals just like she was.
Why hadn’t she realized that before? Why had it never occurred to her to think about the people around her, not even about her own parents?
What was it that Nurse Ank had said? ‘Perhaps your mother’s been through so much that she prefers to avoid painful subjects.’ And hadn’t she answered, ‘What does a daughter know about the lives of her parents?’
Where had her rather bitter answer come from, when she was sure she’d never thought about the matter before? And yet, wouldn’t she say the same thing now? It was true, wasn’t it? What does a child know about anyone’s life? She could have said the same about her friends, her family, her teachers. What did she know of them other than the side they presented to the outside world? Had she ever had a serious talk with even one of them? Deep in her heart she was ashamed of herself for this, though she had no idea of how to go about getting to know any of these people better; and besides, she decided, what good does it do me to have their trust if I can’t help them with their problems? And though she knew that she had not known how to help, she also knew that confiding in another person could be a great comfort and relief. Not long ago, she herself had missed having someone she could ‘really’ talk to. Didn’t this account for the oppressive loneliness she sometimes felt? Wouldn’t it have weighed less heavily on her if she’d had a girlfriend to whom she could tell everything? Cady knew with utter certainty that she hadn’t done enough for other people, but she was also sure that they had never given her so much as a second thought.
Cady looked up and realized that she hadn’t been listening to a single sound the whole time she’d been sitting there. She quickly picked up her book, and in that one morning read more than she had ever read in the wood before.
Chapter 5
CADY HAD A naturally cheerful disposition and liked to talk. Still, the reason she was lonely was not because there were too few opportunities for her to confide in others. No, that wasn’t it. Her feeling of being alone had to come from somewhere else!
Oh, oh, she was lost in thought again. Stop it, Cady, you’ve circled back to that same point so many times your head is starting to spin. Cady gave herself a mental nudge and had to laugh at how crazy it was: now that there was nobody to give her a good scolding and she apparently couldn’t do without one, she had to scold herself.
Suddenly she looked up, having heard footsteps approaching. Never before had she encountered anyone on this little-used path. The footsteps came closer and closer, until a boy of about seventeen emerged from the wood. He nodded a friendly greeting and walked on.
‘Who on earth could that be?’ she wondered. ‘Maybe somebody from one of the villas? I suppose so, nobody else lives around here.’ After Cady had reached this conclusion, the subject was closed as far as she was concerned, and she forgot all about him until he passed by again the next morning, and every morning at exactly the same time for several weeks.
One morning, when Cady was seated on her bench as usual, the boy came out of the wood, stopped in front of her, held out his hand and said, ‘I’m Hans Donkert. Actually, I feel as if we know each other already, but perhaps it’s time we introduced ourselves.’
‘My name is Cady van Altenhoven,’ Cady replied. ‘And,’ she added, ‘I’m glad you finally decided to stop.’
‘Well, you see, I didn’t know if you’d think it was ridiculous for me to keep going by without saying a word, or for me to speak to you, and in the end I was just so curious that I took the plunge!’
‘Do I look like the kind of person you should be afraid to talk to?’ Cady inquired in a mischievous tone of voice.
‘Now that I’ve seen you close up, no,’ Hans teased her back. ‘Anyway, I just wanted to ask you whether you’ve moved into one of the villas or whether you’re a patient at the sanatorium…though that hardly seems likely,’ Hans added quickly.
‘It doesn’t?’ Cady couldn’t help asking. ‘Well, I am from the sanatorium. I broke my leg and badly injured my arm and foot, and I’ve been convalescing for six months.’
‘It was really that bad?’
‘Yes, I was stupid enough to get hit by a car. But don’t be alarmed – even you didn’t think I looked like a patient!’
Hans did find it a bit alarming, but thought it advisable to avoid the subject. ‘I live in The Pines, the house back that way,’ he said, pointing his forefinger in the direction from which he had come. ‘You might have thought it strange, seeing me go by here every day, but it’s holiday time and I’m home from school, and every morning I go over to see one of my friends to keep from being bored.’
Cady made a move to get up. Hans noticed and immediately offered her his hand, since she was having a little trouble rising from her seat. However, Cady stubbornly refused his assistance. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got to practise getting up on my own.’ Hans, who wanted to help in some way, took her book and used that as an excuse to escort the nice girl back to the sanatorium. They said good-bye at the gate as if they were old friends, so Cady was not at all surprised the next day when Hans arrived earlier than usual and sat down beside her on the log.
They talked about all kinds of things, though the conversation never went beyond the superficial, and Cady, who thought that Hans was incredibly nice, was sorry that they never touched on anything but everyday topics.
One morning they were sitting together on the log, not far from each other, and the conversation started to drag for the very first time. Finally, neither of them said another word, but they just sat staring into space. Cady, who had been engrossed in her own thoughts, suddenly looked up, since she had the feeling that she was being watched.
Hans had been looking at the sweet face beside him for quite a while, but now their eyes met and they looked at each other longer than they had intended – until Cady realized what was happening and quickly looked down at the ground again.
‘Cady,’ said the voice next to her. ‘Cady, can’t you tell me what’s going on inside you?’
Cady didn’t answer, but thought for a moment. Then she said, ‘It’s so hard, you wouldn’t understand, you’d probably think it was childish.’ All of a sudden Cady became discouraged and her voice trailed off.
‘Do you have so little trust in me? Do you think that I don’t have thoughts and feelings that I usually keep to myself too?’
‘I didn’t mean to imply that I don’t trust you, it’s just so hard. Even I don’t know what I should tell you.’ They both looked down at the ground with the gravest of expressions. Cady noticed that Hans was extremely disappointed in her, and she felt so bad about it that she suddenly said, ‘Do you also feel like you’re alone a lot of the time, even when your friends are close by? Alone deep inside you, I mean.’
‘I think everyone our age feels alone from time to time, some more than others. I do too, but up till now I haven’t been able to talk about it to anyone. Boys don’t tell each other these kinds of things as easily as girls do. They’re much more afraid of being misunderstood or of being laughed at.’
He fell silent and Cady looked at him for a moment. Then she said, ‘I’ve thought about it so much. Why is there so little trust between people? Why are they so reluctant to avoid “real” words? Sometimes all it takes is a few sentences to clear up a problem or misunderstanding!’
Again neither of them spoke for a while. Then Cady suddenly seemed to have reached a decision. ‘Do you believe in God, Hans?’
‘Yes, I certainly do!’
‘I’ve been thinking about God quite a bit lately, though I’ve never told anyone before. When I was a little girl, my parents taught me to say a prayer every night before I went to bed. It became a habit, like brushing my teeth. I took God for granted. I mean, I never thought about Him, because all my wants and needs were taken care of. Now that I’ve had this accident and I’m often alone, I’ve had more than enough time to ponder all kinds of things. One of the first nights I was here, I got halfway through my prayers and realized that my mind was on very different matters. So I did something I’d never done before. I started thinking about the underlying meaning of the words and discovered that there’s much more to this supposedly simple child’s prayer than I ever suspected. Since that night, I’ve been saying other prayers, things that I myself thought were beautiful, not just a standard prayer. But a few weeks ago, I was halfway through my prayers again when a thought struck me like a bolt of lightning: “Why should God help me now, in my hour of need, when I all but ignored Him in better days?” This question kept haunting me, because I knew that it would only be fair if God were to ignore my prayers in return.’
‘As far as that last bit is concerned, Cady, I can’t say that I agree with you. When you were at home, leading your carefree life, you weren’t reciting meaningless words on purpose, you just hadn’t given God a lot of thought. Now that you’re turning to Him because you’re frightened and hurt, now that you’re really trying to be the person you think you ought to be, surely God won’t let you down. Have faith in Him, Cady. He has helped so many others!’
Cady gazed thoughtfully at the trees. ‘Hans, how do we know that God exists? Who or what is God? No one has ever seen Him. I sometimes have the feeling that all those prayers are disappearing into thin air!’
‘If you’re asking me who or what God is, I have only this to say: No one can tell you who God is or what He looks like, because no one knows. But if you’re asking what God is, my answer would be: Take a look around you, at the flowers, the trees, the animals, the people, and then you’ll know what God is. Those wondrous things that live and die and reproduce themselves, all that we refer to as nature – that’s God. He made them all just the way they are, and that’s the only image of Him you need. People have lumped this miracle together into one word: God. But any other name would do just as well. Don’t you think so, Cady?’
‘Yes, I understand all that, and I’ve also thought about it. Sometimes, when the doctor at the hospital said to me, “You’re getting better. I’m almost certain you’ll make a full recovery,” I felt so grateful, and apart from the doctors and the nurses, who else should I feel grateful to but God? At other times, however, when I was in a lot of pain, I believed that what I was calling God was actually fate, and my mind kept going round in circles without ever arriving at an answer. But whenever I asked myself, “Well, what exactly do you believe?” I knew without a doubt that I believed in God. Quite often I ask God for advice, if that’s the right term, and I know with utter certainty that the answer I’m given is the only right one. But, Hans, isn’t it possible that the answer somehow comes from inside me?’
‘As I already said, Cady, God has created mankind and every living thing just as they are. Our souls and our sense of what’s good and right also come from Him. So the answer to your questions comes from within yourself, as well as from God, since He made you the way you are.’
‘You mean that God speaks to me through myself?’
‘Yes, that’s precisely what I mean. And now that we’ve discussed God, Cady, we’ve actually shared quite a few of our innermost thoughts. Give me your hand and let this be a sign that we’ll always trust one another, and that if either of us should ever have any problems and want to talk about them, we’ll know where to go!’
Cady promptly held out her hand, and so they sat, hand in hand, for a long time, while a delightful calm came over both of them.
Ever since their conversation about God, both Hans and Cady felt that they had struck up a friendship that went much deeper than any outsider would have guessed.
In the meantime, Cady was so used to writing down in her diary everything that went on around her that this gradually became the best way, aside from talking to Hans, to express her thoughts and feelings.
One day she wrote: ‘Even though I now have a “real” friend, I’m not always happy and cheerful. Does everybody have such mood swings? Still, if I were always cheerful, I might not spend enough time thinking about all the things that are worth thinking about.
‘Our conversation about God keeps running through my head. Often I’ll be reading in bed or in the wood, and I’ll think, “What do you mean, God speaks through me?” and I’ll end up having an entire discussion with myself.
‘I believe that God speaks “through me” because He gives each person a little bit of Himself before sending them into the world. It’s this part of us that distinguishes between good and evil and answers our questions. This little bit of God is just as much a part of nature as the blossoming of flowers and the singing of birds.
‘But God has also given people passions and desires, and these desires are in conflict with goodness and justice. As Hans said, “Our sense of what’s good and right also comes from God.”
‘Does everyone really have this? What about criminals? I’m pretty sure they do too, except that little by little their desires have won out over goodness and justice and their passions have therefore become stronger than their sense of what’s right. So can people destroy all the goodness God gave them? Can there be none of that goodness left? Or do even the worst criminals, the ones the world looks upon as wicked to the core, still have a bit of goodness deep down inside that might shine through some day?
‘And yet not every sense of what’s good and right can be trusted, for what else is war but two sides going to battle over what each thinks is right?
‘War…how on earth did the subject of war come up? For weeks everybody has been saying that we’re on the brink of war.
‘But I’m not through yet.
‘So far, all those who have tried to impose their version of what’s right on others have failed. After a few years, or even longer, p
eople always want their freedom and their own rights back. This is because having to obey one concept of right is inherently unjust. God has given each of us a unique sense of right, so when we are forced to live under someone else’s for years and years, we run the risk of losing our own. But not everyone can be crushed. Sooner or later the longing for freedom is bound to assert itself.
‘Without realizing it, I’ve gone from justice to freedom, but I believe that it is only when these two are combined that something great will happen.
‘Who knows, perhaps one day people will listen more to that “little bit of God” – known as a conscience – than to their own desires!’
* Written at the back of the second volume of Anne’s diary.
Cadys Life: Fragment
THE NEXT MORNING was a typical, grey April day. It hadn’t started to rain yet, but the barometer was as low as it could go. Cady didn’t wake up until ten o’clock, and she listened as Nurse Ank described the circumstances of her fall in more detail. She was washed and given a little porridge, then she fell asleep again. And so it went for four whole days: Cady woke up from time to time, ate a bit and went back to sleep. She wasn’t in a lot of pain, and except for having to lie still, she didn’t feel uncomfortable.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, Cady was wide awake for the first time when her mother came to see her. Up till now Mrs van Altenhoven had always found her daughter asleep, and had sat at her bedside for a quarter of an hour before going away again. Now she was surprised to be greeted cheerfully with: ‘So, Mum, you finally decided to visit?’