A flexible Doomsday prophet — Dirkjan Horringa

I would like to share my amazement with you: what caused Dirk continually to predict the utter collapse of Holland, or really the entire world, with the zeal of a true Doomsday prophet? The country was going to perish from unfunded government debts, pension liabilities that because of the continuously diminishing number of working people could no longer be provided for. The world was going to perish from a disaster with oil released through the melting permafrost of the Russian tundra’s. The oil would catch fire and consume all the oxygen, worldwide, in the atmosphere. When he was with us last Christmas, we went through the numbers to see whether that tallied. The outcome was that there was oxygen in abundance, that there wasn't any danger from that quarter, but he wouldn't have any of it. My calculation wasn't up to standards and he didn't have his periodic table with him. He wanted Putin to solicit his services as a consultant and that the papers would pay attention to it. In short, he was a committed bad-luck prophet.

All the same he wasn't a gloomy man at all. On the contrary, he was able like no other to adapt to new situations. During the last years he was all the time confronted with new disabilities. No longer being able to walk to the café; OK, so we'll take a cab for those 200 meters, and pay the driver ten Euros for him not to feel taken in. No teeth any longer; OK, so we'll eat pulpy things from now on such as cooking-pears and smoked salmon. I have really never heard him complain. To feel free, self-reliant and respected, that was what counted for him. If someone told him that he now really had to eat his bread, he would be defiant. But when in the home for the elderly he wasn't properly able to leave his room, he started practicing with his wheelchair, and would whirl pirouettes in it in the hallway because of the regained freedom it brought him. That was last week… Characteristic also is his reaction when my wife Annemieke told him she wanted to set up shop as an undertaker. He applauded her setting up as a free entrepreneur. “You can use me as a guinea pig”, he said. Could he know that he would pass away right in the first week of her new profession?

I do have to say that, originally, I didn't have a good relationship with him at all. You all probably know that by preference he saw himself as the centre of the universe. Having children suited him fine enough, because it simply provided him with a bigger audience for his heroic feats. If he felt like it he could go out on fantastic exploits with us, sailing up the Biesbosch with a boat for instance. But for the rest, the women would have to deal with that, he couldn't be bothered with it. And to show any interest for what motivated his children as people, well, that simply wouldn't occur to him.

He was enthusiastic about me going to study biology, it was the area of his own interest. But when I got passionately involved in the student music scene, and announced wanting to make music my profession, he was sorely disappointed. He even spoke of “lotus eaters”. It may be that I acted on design, entering some area of aspiration that wasn't his, where I wouldn't feel his presence. And so we both had our own lives and didn't really have anything in common. From time to time I would see him, and then afterwards would always feel down, dejected, sad.

Some time in, I think, 1994, I couldn't bear it any longer and visited him at the Prinsengracht, where he was living then. I stated to him that I felt frustrated with our dismal communication. He looked at me with his blue eyes and said: “Oh, is that true?” He was authentic in asking that. That was the beginning of a turn-around in our relationship, a breakthrough that allowed me, but him also, to feel joy again in our contact. I now had the opportunity to question him about his youth, his period of living in hiding during the war, about why he had made his marital life so complicated. These were confiding talks, which I never before had believed we would be able to have together. We listened together to the music that I would be occupied with. And then he would surprise me by listening to, for instance, Dvořák's Waterman attentively and then say sensible things about it. He followed with interest the building of my harpsichord. Proper craftmanship would fascinate him boundlessly. The most recent years have brought us closer together, fortunately, and he absolutely must be given credit for that, as it shows how he was able to change and adapt.

My conclusion is: Dirks black prophecy-mongering was no rigidity of mind, it wasn't the complaining of an old man passed by by life; it was rather the powerless way of an old man to express his commitment. And now that isn't necessary anymore.