The Haarlem-born writer, who died in Amsterdam fifteen years ago, started a relationship with Kat, six years his senior, shortly after the Second World War, says auctioneer Jeffrey Bosch on NH Radio. The couple stayed together for about three years.
During that period, Mulisch wrote several love letters to Kat. According to Bosch, these are very personal documents that were probably never intended for publication. When he reads a fragment on the radio, this becomes immediately clear.
“You don’t know how much I love you, or maybe you do. If you only knew how I longed for you all the time you were gone. I love you Ada, like I could never love anyone again,” said a letter from 1952, when Mulisch and Kat had been separated for a while.
‘A kind of voyeur’
All letters are in a suitcase, which also contains unpublished stories, poems and even a play by Mulisch. The whole ended up at the auction house through an acquaintance of the now deceased Kat.
“It comes from someone who received the suitcase during Ada’s lifetime,” says Bosch. “A few people brought the suitcase and asked if we wanted to take a look at it. When they came by, everything was still unsorted. But I immediately saw that it was incredibly interesting.”
While sorting and reading the pieces, Bosch felt particularly privileged. “These are things that you don’t see in normal life,” he says enthusiastically. “You feel like a kind of voyeur, but at the same time it is about someone who was active in public life as an artist and has revealed a lot of himself in his books. This adds something, it makes it extra interesting.”
Not a bargain
Anyone interested in the suitcase can bid next week: the whole thing will then go under the hammer at Bubb Kuyper.
It won’t be a bargain, Bosch warns. “I have valued it at 10 to 15,000 euros. But I am almost certain that this is on the conservative side. In terms of content, it is an extremely valuable document.”