Stubborn and eloquent, in the Rosmalen black box

Even after the week in which Rosm alen is the grass tennis capital of the Netherlands, there are fixed values, such as The man in the black book (and cupboard) . More than a cupboard, because on the side is a poem by Marino van Liempt, who also turns out to be the manager (and author of, among other things, Man in the light black ).

The Black Cabinet attracts the better books: Zweig in German, Conrad in English, Claus in Dutch. And The Dutch Maiden by Marente de Moor, the novel whose award for the AKO literature prize in 2011 was a surprise, but which now makes you wonder why other possible winners were ever put forward. Speaking is Janna, a young fencer who is sent to learn in 1936 on the estate of Egon von Bötticher, an old friend of her father, near Aachen.

You can imagine all sorts of historical and political contexts for it, and they are all there, but initially you have enough with De Moor's sentences, which turn even the smallest observation into an adventure. Take the encounter with a group of cattle: "If you came closer, they would work themselves up and you could hear the sloshing and bubbling in those big bodies, the machinery was working at full speed. They would not let you pet them, but they would wrap their flexible tongues around your feet and drool half-digested grass over them."

Janna has a somewhat stubborn eloquence, which you often encounter in De Moor's characters. "The mother must have been beautiful once. Now she was no longer so sure of herself. Yet she still let her eyelashes tremble when she took a sip of wine, she held her head like a porcelain jewel on her thinly stretched neck." That mother is the mother of identical twins - beautiful, flawless boys - who have also been brought to the estate to receive fencing lessons. Threat: the conscription that hung over the heads of young Germans in 1936.

More than by these two beautiful peers, Janna is immediately fascinated by her teacher. Von Bötticher's face is dominated by large scars: the result of war and sports. He is such a primarily self-involved man who seems to suggest deep roots. He lets Janna fence against her reflection (no pleasure: "I was not my taste," she says) and uses his pet rabbit to gnaw open a letter from Janna's father.

It turns out that a lot has happened between the two old friends. Janna's father is the doctor who treated Von Bötticher's injuries, which the latter has his own thoughts about. Because should damage really be avoided? "Pain? Your father doesn't want to know anything about that." The contrast between the doctor and the fencer also represents that between the 'cowardly' Netherlands that did not fight in the First World War and Germany. Can you participate in life if you remain neutral, if you are not prepared to be damaged?

In this way, De Moor guides you with a sure hand from the small to the large. Somewhere in the forest, Von Bötticher kicks over a mushroom. "The tenderness with which he tried to put the broken cap back on the stem threw me off my stride." Later, he explains his action: "This mushroom has suffered damage, but now at least its spores have been spread." In this novel, anything can happen on a forest path.