The portable gramophone from the winter of starvation by Jaap Harten

The portable gramophone from the winter of starvation was the only weapon I had against the Calvinism of my resident aunt who was lamenting the old-fashioned way or browsing in her old bible for to comfort our lads with a edifying word. She read: 'As having nothing, and yet possessing all things' (2 Cor. 6:10) and peeping meanwhile at the stew which my mother had made of beet. 'Strike the hated kraut on his head!' Wilhelmina called via the illegal channel, but we just kept drinking surrogate coffee and our handmaiden screwed the kraut. I had in the attic my mythical world without Wagner or Lohengrin and his swan. I played records of Zarah Leander, bombarded by my aunt, who sometimes caught the sound, into a bass with a bosom. I cycled on a bike with wooden tyres and hummed the forbidden music of the enemy who fell apart in Russia. I did not think about death; I was fourteen and randy. (Original title: 'De koffergrammofoon uit de hongerwinter' - From the collection: 'Wat kan een manser betalen?', 1977 - Uitgeverij Querido, Amsterdam)

Jaap Harten [1930]