The Misfortunates - Dimitri Verhulst

'a funny kind of love'

translated by David Colmer

I discovered Verhulst by accident after taking a punt on his rather wonderful novella Madame Verona Comes Down The Hill. I knew back then when I read it that it was something of a departure from Verhulst's previous output and Portobello Books are now publishing the autobiographical novel that he published in the same year. At the bottom you will be able to see a trailer for the film version from 2009 which confirms the shorthand precis on the back of my proof: Think Shameless with mayo on the chips. This coming of age tale is narrated by Verhulst himself (yes, he uses his own name) beginning at the age of thirteen when he lived with his father, his uncles and his grandmother in the onomatopoeically named Aresendegem (presumably the arse-end of some small town) in Belgium, 'a town the great cartographers forgot, an ugly backwater, but a great place for drizzle and pigeon fancying.'

Now, I nearly gave up on this one, I'll be honest. After the first couple of chapters I got the sense that what I was going to read were a series of vignettes based on Verhulst's own chaotic upbringing. Colourful characters, entertaining set-pieces, all very good but not enough to maintain my interest throughout. What comes along to save it at first is the set-piece to end all set-pieces. We've all played some kind of drinking game in the past I'm sure but the Verhulst's have slightly larger ambitions. In a chapter entitled The Tour de France an extraordinary drinking competition is created by the young Girder, ruled out of the official world-record drinking competition by his age, in line with the famous bike race. 19 stages with 5km equal to a standard glass of alcohol, meaning that 'even a reasonably short stage of 180 kilometres would involve drinking 36 standard glasses of alcohol. Against the clock' There are even three jerseys to earn.

The yellow jersey was for the leader and eventual winner...the greenn jersey for the explosive sprinter: the neck-it king. And the polka-dot jersey could be captured in the mountains, where you proceeded by guzzling strong drinks like whisky and vodka.

What follows is a drinking marathon of epic proportions during which Girder's mother, seeing her son return home each night looking 'as pale as a corpse and with a beard of dried vomit' worries about his new found enthusiasm for cycling and buys him a brand new racing bike (which eventually finds its way to scrap metal dealer to help pay for all the booze). The descriptions of this sustained drinking binge come with all the seriousness of sports commentary and for Girder it is all about the pursuit of what Dino Buzatti called The Idea, all of this mock-seriousness providing plenty of entertainment for the reader.

There is another strong chapter to follow in which, after a visit from the bailiffs and the removal of their television, the family visit the house of some Iranian neighbours ('So these were foreigners') so that they can watch Roy Orbison's comeback concert, A Black and White Night, Dimitri's father being a die-hard Orbison fan. What follows is something of a culture shock for the Iranians and an emotional high point for the Verhulsts, one of the many episodes in which joy and triumph are found in the most unlikely situations. These peaks and the liberal sprinkling of humour are important in what could have been a grim book and even something like the memory of helping his mother (absent now and referred to as a whore) with her moustache removal - 'an enormous operation that always made me think of a religious rite in a country I don't ever want to visit.' - is one filled with some kind of love.

And that's what this novel ends up expressing: a funny kind of love. Near the end we hear the famous family story about Dimitri's birth, how his father was down the pub after too many false alarms, finally cycled to the maternity hospital and left 5 minutes later with baby in hand to take his newborn son on a tour of the town in the basket of his bicycle.

Sister Philomena in the corridor, barking at my father: 'Where do you think you're going with that child?'
Me in his arms.
'It's my son, I'll take him wherever I like.'
'Mr Verhulst, he was only born this morning.'
'He's my son. If you want kids of your own to boss around, chuck your wimple over the hedge and hike up your dress, the rest'll take care of itself.' And he carried me out the door.

This is not a particularly responsible family and yet they have their moments. For all the high jinks there are of course serious moments. There is no doubting the concern on the day when his father announces he wants to go into rehab.

My father now tasted like beer and his armpits smelled like it too. Maybe he had already noticed the whites of his eyes growing yellow, his steady loss of weight. A drinker's coffin is seldom a heavy burden, undertakers are always glad to carry them, and our family would have saved a lot of money if we'd been able to pay for our funerals by the pound.

And along with death it is of course the promise of new life that also heralds the need to grow up and become responsible. When Dimitri stupidly gets someone pregnant it marks the beginning of a new life, particularly as it is someone whom he doesn't really love and with whom he has no future.

How could I have been so sure, for all those years, that my fertility would adjust itself to my convictions, that the unwillingness in my brain would metastasize in my testicles? A character like me could only have been devised by Greek tragedians or by the scriptwriters of the kind of soap operas that put the logic of character development on the back burner in favour of general stupidity.

There is a general stupidity to this novel and a sense that it isn't really a novel at all, falling somewhere between memoir and short stories, all of which means that I wasn't nearly as enthused by this book as Madame Verona. That said, I'm glad I gave it a chance. Like the Tour de France it has various stages, some of which suit some riders better than others.

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'a duet with absence'

Madame Verona Comes Down The Hill
by Dimitri Verhulst

After a childhood spent in foster care and institutes Verhulst wrote stories and novels that dealt with his youth, finally breaking through with a novel called Problemski Hotel which focused on the lives of residents in an asylum-seeker's centre in Belgium. Changing tack completely with this novella he has written something that reads like a fable of old, a paean to love and loneliness, a book which seems to have a random structure but which slowly and successfully assembles itself into a portrait of an isolated community.

The Madame Verona of the title has lived with her husband, Mr Potter, in a house that sits on a hill overlooking the village of Oucwegne, 'a gutter in the earth's crust'. Brought together by music, he a conductor, she a pianist, they have lived in an artistic isolation which many in the village expected to end when Mr Potter hung himself from a tree in the forest, unwilling to allow his fatal illness to run its course. But his final act beforehand had been to cut and collect as much firewood as he could, allowing his wife to perform one last act in his memory. The novella starts almost at its ending.

It had seemed like an inexhaustible supply, but that morning in February Madame Verona had laid the last log on the fire. The last piece of firewood that he too had held in his splinter-pierced hands. There had been less and less to hold that he too had held, because if things don't rot, they break, and when she pushed that last log deeper into the fire with the poker, she decided to go down the hill. As a symbol, a meaningless act set opposite a meaningless fact, but more beautiful.

Her descent towards the village is an important event, especially for the men. Not only is she an uncommonly beautiful woman but Oucwegne is a village beset by a kind of curse; all the children born, bar one, have been male. The men have had to content themselves with trips to the nearest town and its whorehouses to satisfy their yearning for coupling but for many men the return of Madame Verona heralds the chance to capture the highest prize. When it is known that Madame has had the tree from which her husband hanged himself cut down it seems that she has finished her mourning and will return to the village soon.

Silence is often more intense after its return. When a tree accepts its defeat. creaks and capsizes, all life flies up and off. There's crowing and cawing, branches crack, it rains feather and down, rabbits flee to their underground shelters. All things considered the titan's contact with the actual ground is quiet, people generally expect it to be louder. It's mainly the rest of the forest that kicks up a fuss and makes a racket. And once the creatures have assessed the damage, silence comes back. Eyes and leaves turn to the light that has never shone so brightly here. A place has come free, the struggle can begin, because the space will be occupied by something or someone. It's like that for trees, it's like that for people.

But she has plans for the tree. She instructs a luthier to fashion her husband's beloved instrument, the cello, from the wood. The tree having been freshly cut, it will take time for the wood to dry and season but Madame has not only patience but enough firewood to last her the twenty year wait.

That sense of community I mentioned is created in several ways. There is the social aspect, the village united in its love of drink and table football, social standing and grievances worked out on that enclosed green surface. There are the professional/personal relationships, for example the nearest doctor being a journey away the village have tended to rely on the vet for their medical needs. The fact that many of the older men of the village knew her as the little daughter of the sweet-shop owner adding to their embarrassment when it comes to examination. There is also a great section that explains the time when a cow was made mayor, an episode that typifies that feel of fable and the skill with which Verhulst is able to say so much about village life with so little. At only 145 generously-spaced pages this book does what all good fables should: keeps its strong themes running throughout and fills your mind with images and character. After such a volte-face it is intriguing to think what Verhulst might write next. I see that he has also written poetry and one other standout moment for me was a verse written by Mr Potter for Madame. All of which makes Verhulst seem like a Belgian Adam Foulds. I wonder what he'd make of that.

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