Peter Middendorp wrote a penetrating novel about a man who struggles with his conscience

Peter Middendorp has a pronounced preference for characters who are not blessed with a great ability to bond, to feel related to their loved ones. Take the adolescent from Emmen who is speaking in Trusted Affordable, the tragicomic novel with which Middendorp broke through in 2014. He feels no affection for his father, hardly sees his mother, has no real friends and acts like an ice bunny when he sleeps with a girl for the first time. In You are mine (2018) we are guests in the mind of a rapist and murderer who, during the many years that he is not associated with the crime, continues to function ‘normally’ in his family and in his work.

In Cousins the cards are slightly different. Robert Oosterhof (narrator and main character) hates his father and you can understand that, because he sold his son quite a few blows and sent him, to name a few, without batting an eyelid a bill for the floor he had in the house. of his son. His mother is quantity negligeable and his partner should expect little from him.

Deep in trouble

Unlike the adolescent from Trusted Affordable and the killer out You are mine Robert is indeed capable of bonding. And not just a little: he is deeply attached to his ‘double cousin’ Arie (their fathers are brothers, their mothers sisters). Arie is his mainstay, his example, his guide, his protector, his safe haven, his mother and father, and perhaps even more: ‘He could just put an arm around me on the couch next to each other. I always immediately dived into his neck, the soft space between head and shoulder.’

Thanks to Arie, Robert ends up in the weed trade. The real deal is Aries pakkie-an. Robert just needs to make his workspace available as a storage place for the weed. But then Arie changes tack. He wants to start a family and earn his living with a regular job. He sells his business to a seasoned professional, for whom Robert will now work. After a while he wants to give up for about the same reasons as Arie, but suddenly it turns out that he is in so much trouble with the drug lord that he is no longer sure of his life. He goes into hiding with Arie without informing him of what is going on. His ‘near-brother’ is horribly affected by that decision.

Guilt and self-pity

Robert is left orphaned with a conscience that won’t leave him alone. He describes his action, which also put his pregnant partner in danger, as ‘cowardice without a bottom’. He also blames himself for not realizing that he could not just get out of the drug trade and he feels deeply guilty.

But self-blame and guilt aren’t the only feelings that arise. Not only does Robert go deep in the dust, he also stands up for himself. For example, he cites extenuating circumstances (he would not have been sufficiently aware of the danger), bounces the ball back to Arie (who should not have left him alone in the drug trade) and occasionally wallows in self-pity (Arie had to knowing how bad it all is, ‘the fears I’ve been through, the regrets, the guilt, the loneliness’).

Cousins shows not so much how a heavily burdened conscience tries to come to terms with itself as how such a conscience tries with all its might to survive. Middendorp has given shape to this process in all its complexity in a penetrating way. Too bad he lets Robert’s story take a rather strange turn towards the end. But the final scene is majestic.