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thorns was pressed into his head.
    All these images were so new and vivid and brutal. It was the horror story of all time and I could feel myself starting to faint. ‘After Jesus had suffered this way, he was nailed to a cross. A soldier hammered a big nail through each of his hands and each of his feet.’ Bang, bang, bang! went the hammer in my head. ‘Then they lifted the cross upright and, after a while, another soldier took a spear and drove it through Jesus’s heart to make sure that he was dead.’ I felt a stab in my chest, wanted to vomit.
    It was impossible to understand these things. My head slumped to the desk, unable to look at the teacher any more. Then the teacher added, almost casually, that Jesus had suffered all that for our sins. We children had caused his death! I had caused his death!
    The thick, hot, dark, heavy shame of my sins hit my soul. I felt that I, more than anyone else, had hurt Jesus. Why was this? Because of the dreadful thing that had happened in our coal shed at home.
    The coal shed was attached to the kitchen and accessible from the tiny enclosed courtyard which also housed the toilet, called the WC, though there was no water in the closet. I had to pass the coal shed to get to the toilet.
    Our toilet was a simple thunderbox, which was emptied into the backyard, which in turn grew magnificent vegetables. The smell of the box was so offensive that I learned to defecate in a big hurry, to get the job over and done with before I had to breathe. When my father was on the toilet it was unbearable even to be out in the open courtyard. Maybe it was his cigar-smoking, or his meat-eating, or the beginnings of the cancer in his bowels—or his frequent bad temper. Whatever the cause, the stench was overwhelming.
    The coal shed doubled as a workplace for my father, who made and mended our shoes and created toys for Christmasand birthdays. My father was so good at toy-making; that was his Dr Jekyll side. He made me a go-cart, a wonderful doll’s house and a rocking horse, and he painted them in bright colours. We were told that Black Pete, Saint Nicholas’s helper, also hid in the coal shed, to find out if we were being good children or not. He was only there in the few weeks before 6 December, which is the children’s feast of Saint Nicholas in Holland. But most of the time I felt safe in the coal shed, visiting my papa occasionally to watch him at work.
    One day he called me in there and shut the door quickly without turning on the light, so that the only light that came through was between the uneven planks at the bottom of the door. His hand was rough on my shoulder and I could feel it shaking as he pulled me further inside, his fear transferring itself in a sickening rush to my body. I had never seen him like this before.
    My father’s face was contorted in a terrible way and he could barely get his words out. His hands found their way first around my shoulders, shaking them violently, and then suddenly around my neck as he began to strangle me. His tone was ugly, reminding me of the kind of talking that was not allowed in our house. Oh, the intense sorrow at this sudden rejection, with no idea of the reason. Couldn’t he see my face? I adored him! My papa! Please don’t do this, Papa! I’m your little girl! Don’t hurt me! I love you! But my father was very afraid. He could not see his six-year-old daughter suffocating in his hands; all he wanted was to make himself feel safe.
    ‘Don’t talk to anyone about this…’ he panted, poking a finger into my mouth to indicate what he meant, unable to say what had never been admitted to in daylight. The words came thickly from his twisted mouth, reverting to thedialect he had learned on the streets. ‘Don’t talk about it! Especially not to the priest! Understand? Nobody!’ The veins in his forehead were standing out and his eyes were wild. He was grinding his teeth. Suddenly, he let me drop to the sooty floor. I fell in a bundle at his