Juditha Triumphans

Juditha Triumphans * Hugo Pos (bio) Translated by Ina Rilke (bio) Louise offered me a ride to Eindhoven, where we were both going for a meeting of the LBK. She had been living in Amsterdam for several years, and she was far more involved with developments in Suriname than I was. It was late November and as the year drew to a close our conversation almost inevitably veered to the aftermath of the December murders, by which is meant the massacre of fifteen alleged opponents of the military regime the night of December 8, 1982. A foundation was immediately set up in the Netherlands to provide some material assistance for the victims’ families. I was chairman of the foundation. One of the victims’ relations was Connie, who had managed to get away to Holland via French Guyana. A good-looking, vibrant young woman, she had not adopted the anxious, withdrawn manner characteristic of most refugees, even though she still had relatives in Suriname who were at risk. Connie had lived with Michael, a lawyer and former student of mine when I was teaching at the law school. They had two children: a boy and a girl. During our journey I mentioned to Louise that I was surprised and saddened that I never heard from Connie any more. I had first met her at the memorial service for the fifteen dead in the Moses and Aaron Church in Amsterdam; it had been an emotional ceremony, during which prime minister Den Uyl had addressed the crowd with tears in his eyes. When Connie caught my name—I had already been living in Amsterdam for about ten years and we had never met before—among the condolences being offered to the row of bereaved relatives, she asked me to come and sit beside her on one of the front benches. “He spoke about you so often,” she said. A few months later I visited her in Deventer, where she had found accommodation. She was an enterprising young woman: helped by the minimal contribution of the foundation she had followed a course in dressmaking or hairdressing, I can’t quite remember which. The children were doing well at school. Her vivacious and attractive appearance must have drawn attention in Deventer, but I didn’t get the impression she cared much about that kind of thing. Once a year, on the day of remembrance when people gathered in silence in front of the Suriname consulate in Amsterdam, she would come to visit me. I always looked forward to her visits, despite the sorrowful occasion for them. However sporadic our face-to-face contact, we always knew where we stood. There was something we had in common. We were linked by a combative spirit, I’d say, if that doesn’t sound too sentimental. Louise, who as I already mentioned kept in close touch with Suriname, told me the latest news. Connie had taken the children to Suriname—it was 1989 by now—for a holiday or to visit relatives. One Sunday morning, when she and the children were having a picnic by the pool at Hotel Torarica, she had met Anton G., chief of the Commander’s cabinet. Anton was a close friend of Commander Bouterse, which was why he had been appointed to this important post. [End Page 696] So this explained why I hadn’t heard from Connie for so long. She had married Anton and it didn’t stretch the imagination to picture Commander Bouterse as a regular visitor to their home, a family friend, after all, and no doubt the children addressed him, in traditional Suriname fashion, as Uncle. Uncle Bou. I cannot deny that this news shocked and pained me. Not for a moment had I thought that Connie, who had always taken such an uncompromising stand, would ever go over to the enemy. Never having met Anton, never even having seen a photograph of him, I dismissed the idea out of hand that she could have seen anything in the man, let alone fallen in love with him. Erotic, sexual attraction? Out of the question. The way I saw it, if Connie had wanted a man, or indeed a husband

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