On the drive to Stuttgart, you told me a story about how you needed to brief the men on the Submarine as you were preparing to deploy. It was a cold February and men were walking around outside the sub without coats. Also, there were many hazards in the area, and people weren't wearing protective head-gear. Also, there were flammable liquids around so it was very bad for men to smoke on the pier. It was your responsibility as XO to make sure that all the men knew the seriousness of the situation: and you lectured them firmly and urged them to comply. In spite of your stern attitude, the men started to snigger, and laugh. You became upset. Didn't they take you seriously? Didn't they understand how important this was? Gradually, you became aware that the CO had projected a picture on the wall behind you. It was a photo someone had taken of YOU, shivering in the snow next to the Submarine, bare head and in your shirtsleeves, smoking a cigarette.
I laughed so hard when you told me this. Sometimes now I still laugh when I think of this story.
Later, on the drive, you became very angry with me. You had some idea about me: that I had taken many lovers before you, and you thought I was lying to you when I told you I had not. You insisted that you would forgive me if I told you that the number was 30 or 40. But my count was the same as yours and, as far as I was concerned, you were the only man I would ever share my bed with for the rest of my life. I don't remember why this was such a fight but I think it had something to do with the collision between your vision of me and the reality. It is very easy to have an idea about someone which is untrue. I noticed that this happened frequently: the longer the time we spent apart, the more you forgot who I was - and the more startled you were when you saw me again. I was still the same woman who made you laugh and who was driven by logic and intellectual curiosity. You kept on trying to believe that I was irrational or stupid or driven by the selfish strange need to possess or be financially cared-for. I got the sense that this was the type of woman you were familiar with. But I am a rational soul. I am not stupid or selfish. I try very hard to approach the world with goodness (but not niceness). And I didn't need anyone to take care of me financially. My salary was twice yours (although I never told you this) and I was very employable in any country. As far as I was concerned, I was happy to give Isa every penny I earned for the rest of my life as long as I could spend the rest of my life with you. I would have lived in a box if it meant that I could wake up beside you. I would have very happily been poor if I could enjoy and be with the man I had loved from the first moment I saw him.
We got in a water fight at the hotel. The sink was outside the shower area and you launched an all-out water-war. I am not as committed a person as you so, in spite of the fact that I had the advantage (the shower-heard), you won the battle because you weren't afraid to drench the room in so much icy water, we were practically swimming.
You spent time with my friends. Drove us into the City. We ate the heaviest, nastiest, greasiest German food available and we drank German Beer. Ed tried to wheedle and pry information out of you because that's what he does. Later, we snuck back to the hotel lobby to spend time with Marie. Marie still talks about this meeting because she was so impressed by you: your perception, your clarity of thought, the way that you and I had hearts only for one another. She remembers the advice that you gave her: to go the the man she loved, no matter the cost. She remembers what your face looked like as she described her Submariner friend: you saw yourself in 20 years after a lifetime of compromise and a loveless marriage. In the car on the drive back to our hotel, you raged about Marie: you said she should leave her husband; that her children could not benefit to be in a situation where the parents did not love one another as you loved me.
Strangely, one of my favorite parts of this trip was the visit to the military museum. I'm sorry to say that the primary interest for me in such museums is coldly academic (I enjoy the engineering advances) but I really LOVED this experience because it allowed me to catch this strange glimpse into Sjors that I knew about but which I did not understand the passion of until that moment: your madness for history. I knew about this a bit because I saw the tomes you read. I'd even begun to read some WWII history books (still do, interestingly enough) and you'd given me a copy of "birdsong", a book that creeped me out because of the tunnels and the story of doomed love - maybe I should have taken THAT hint from you! ;)
You told me about the role of artillery in battle and difference between the German Panzers (the word for Armour) and the British Tank (part of a clever mis-direction campaign). You told me about both sets of grandparents who had been active members of the Dutch Resistance during the war. This took the wind out of me and I looked on you with different eyes then. I saw the people you came from: people who fought so hard for what they believed in. I saw you as the natural offspring of such courageous men and women. I felt then the real sense that you would have been part of their gang, as well. I was overwhelmed with love for you.
I wanted to hook into this aspect of you after that. While you were deployed, I read several books on WWII and I researched old magazines and other artifacts of interest. I was so excited when I found the "Newsweek" with the Dutch Submariners on the cover, and an old postcard with the photo of the original Zeeleeuw, and the brass compass from the US infantry. I bid for these things and bought them on e-bay for you.
I was so happy to see you when you returned. You were uncertain of me at first, I think, because you tended to forget the truth about me when you do not see me. But your hands shook when you opened the box with the "Newsweek" Magazine and you saw what was inside. I think you understood that I saw you. That I really understood something about you that was so important to you.
That is what I remember about you. You are a complex man, Sjors. I have always enjoyed your complexity.
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