You Must Be Very Intelligent Read online

  “Are you joking?” I ask, genuinely stunned and truly unable to imagine anyone wanting to have sex with Quasimodo.

  He looks surprised. “What about a blow job?” he asks

  “No,” I say very clearly, wondering if his dick is as warped as his nose, and his scrotum as crumpled as his forehead… but feeling far from keen to find out.

  “Too bad. Well, I had nothing to lose.”

  “What about dignity?”

  I had felt good about the young guy giving me his number. And now Quasimodo says I am actually in his league. It’s always yin and yang with sexual self-esteem. But, hey-ho, the signals are lively in Edinburgh…

  © Springer International Publishing AG 2017

  Karin BodewitsYou Must Be Very Intelligent10.1007/978-3-319-59321-0_2

  Chapter 2

  Karin Bodewits1

  (1)Munich, Germany

  Karin Bodewits

  Email: [email protected]

  “So, do you have to say now if you want to take it?” Daniel asks, handing me an ibuprofen and an espresso.

  He sits down next to me on the uncomfortable sofa in his parents’ living room – beautifully designed and expensive, but useless.

  “It seems he just presumes I will take it.”

  “You sure you want it?”

  “How could I not? It’s an excellent opportunity, isn’t it?”

  “It is a good university. BUT, they are chemists… all freaks.”

  “The research group looked normal to me.”

  “The rest of the department won’t be!”

  “I haven’t seen them, but it will be fine. Plus, I will spend lots of my time at the hospital labs.”

  He is struggling to be happy for me. We have been dating since pretty much the start of our biology studies. We were in the same year but in contrast to me Daniel hasn’t finished his master’s yet – not even close to it. I’ve always been quicker than him, had higher marks in every topic, and my internships were fancier than his. He never speaks about it but clearly it frustrates him to always be second – out of two. Plus, I knew by now what I wanted to do with my life. I had a clear goal in mind. I wanted to be a scientist. Daniel, however, was still trying to figure out what to do with his life and how he could make a difference, or even just find some motivation.

  I give him a hug and let my hand slide under his T-shirt.

  “It will be fine,” I whisper in his ear.

  “You’ve got a fever, Ka. Just lie in bed.”

  “I’m sick of lying around,” I lie.

  I would love to lie down but I know that as soon as my body is touching a mattress, Daniel takes the opportunity to lie down next to me and do nothing for the next few hours, or days. The few times I had been sick during our relationship have all, apparently, been good reasons for Daniel to only oxidise as well. It is so dispiriting that I prefer to stay up myself.

  My head is soon spinning and I ask Daniel to get me some more coffee and ibuprofen.

  On his return, I ask him how his week has been; staying such a long time with his parents, which he hasn’t done for years. He had also been in Shanghai, spending some time at the university there, and we returned to Europe together. Our ways had separated at the airport. He had gone to his family in the South and I went to the North. I know his parents’ house is not the most uplifting place to be. Their lack of interest in Daniel is quite a phenomenon to behold. Just when he wants to answer my question we hear the keys turn in the lock of the front door. It is either his mum, dad or the cleaner. The footsteps on the wooden floor in the hall sound like a woman’s heels – his mum presumably.

  Daniel comes close and whispers right into my ear. “Moving with you to Edinburgh sounds very appealing to me right now.”

  Daniel comes from a much more urbane and sophisticated family than I do. I was raised in a small village in the economically dead North-East of the Netherlands. My parents have a middle class income and belong, along with the farmers, to the upper echelons of local society. But compared to Daniel’s family they are rustic people with simple lives. Daniel had been raised in a mansion in a central location of a city in the south of the Netherlands. His parents studied, mine didn’t. My parents were careful with money, whereas his were throwing heritage overboard. There had been loads of money in his family for over a century, moving from one generation to the next. His parents still got a fair share of the wealth, although Daniel’s grandfather blasted most of it. Apparently there would not be anything left for Daniel and his two younger sisters.

  My parents acquired their possessions by way of hard graft. My grandfather from my mum’s side was never able to buy the rented farm he ran his whole life and never possessed anything much beyond a small house and a car. My other grandparents lived in a heap of rubble that had been declared “unliveable” by local government before my dad was even born. There was nothing to inherit from my family, at least not financially. My parents were very down to earth, not flamboyant, quite hardy, perhaps a little cold. His parents were flower power hippy dilettantes until well into the 1980s. His mum claimed to have carried the Red Book during her student days but nothing today suggested a communist mind-set. They were capitalist consumers indulging whims with every Euro they could spend. The only thing that my and his parents had in common was that neither had any doctorates in the family – I could be the first.

  Of course our roots made Daniel and me different. Since the age of 14, I had side jobs to pay for my studies and other expenses. From peeling flower bulbs to working in a kebab shop or call centre, and later as a teaching assistant, I have seen many things. Daniel had never worked for anything in his life; his parents, so far, had paid for everything, including backpacking trips. A quick call home was all it took to top up his bank account. Daniel knew Esquire etiquette, I did not know it even existed. I had spent my youth catching frogs and climbing trees, while he visited museums and cultural festivals. I saw the Alps, he saw the world. He is a dreamer and a materialist envisaging wealth. I am practical and don’t give a damn about money.

  “Hi Karin, how are you?” his mum asks.

  Though most people close to me call me Ka, she is still, after years, calling me by my full name.

  She hasn’t taken her coat off yet and doesn’t look at me, just sort of senses me, while she rips open some envelopes she grabbed from the mailbox on the way in. She only really looks at me when we happen to smoke a cigarette together under the cooker hood.

  “Fine yes, just came back from Edinburgh.”

  “How was the city?” Daniel asks as his mother doesn’t react.

  “Didn’t see much of it, went on one of those ‘hop on-hop off’ buses this morning to catch a little.”

  Daniel is trying not to smirk. He knows how deathly I must have felt jumping onto one of those buses. We’ve been dating for so long that we can link precise emotions to every facial expression and vocal inflection. We are not only partners but also, over the years, we have become friends – inseparable buddies. To me it became kind of boring to know each other that well, and I couldn’t help desiring a fresh, exciting new partner. Ideally I could keep Daniel as my comfort zone, and have a new partner on top. I know this is not possible, unless I live a constant lie, and I am a little perturbed to be having such fantasies at all.

  “From what I saw it is a lovely town,” I add.

  “What did you do there again?”

  Her eyes are unwaveringly focused on a letter while she talks to us.

  “I interviewed for a PhD position at the University of Edinburgh.”

  She finally glances up, in our direction.

  “Did you get it?”

  “Seems like it, yes. I just need to decide whether to take it or not.”

  She smiles at me and sounds satisfied, “We will have a doctor in our family.”

  Before bed I phone my parents to tell them about the interview and inform them that I had just sent an email to accept the position. My mum sounds excited an
d I can envisage my dad smiling on the other side of the line. I guess my parents are not only happy that I am going to study at such a famous university but that there is now also a clear end-date to me living with them. They are no longer accustomed to having a daughter in the house, and I am pretty sure the amount of stuff I had spread over their floor, due to the lack of a wardrobe, is bothering them quite deeply. We all knew beforehand that this could only work temporarily.

  After the phone call, I lie down. I fall asleep in Daniel’s arms. I am dreaming about having sex with a grey-haired guy with a crooked back on the half-pipe mattress. Oh dear.

  Part II: Year 1

  © Springer International Publishing AG 2017

  Karin BodewitsYou Must Be Very Intelligent10.1007/978-3-319-59321-0_3

  Chapter 3

  Karin Bodewits1

  (1)Munich, Germany

  Karin Bodewits

  Email: [email protected]

  I still have time to smoke a cigarette on the platform before the train departs. It is a warm September morning, but I feel shivers rippling over my body. Between the skin on my back and the tank top I am wearing there is a thin layer of cold sweat. I did not have time to shower before leaving and I’m still wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday. I had spent the night hopping from one pub to the next and by the time I got back to my parents’ place it was time to wake them up to drive me to the station. I have been smoking all night yet this cigarette is making me sick. I feel out of it: Am I leaving to become a mature PhD student, in the prestigious University of Edinburgh?

  I nestle into a seat and cover my shaking body with a thick winter coat. Just before Amersfoort I’m stirred awake to see the train conductor wearing an expression which suggests it was an annoying effort to rouse me. I hand him my ticket and hope to get it back as soon as possible so I can continue sleeping.

  “Young lady, you cannot use a discount ticket before nine in the morning.”

  I look at my mobile. “But it’s 8:45 a.m…” I mumble and try to look coy.

  “I can either give you a fine of thirty-five euros, or you get out in Amersfoort and wait for the next train.”

  “In Amersfoort?” I whisper in disbelief.

  “What’s wrong with Amersfoort?”

  “I’m not sure, it just never occurred to me to get out there.”

  He shakes his head and walks away.

  The wait in Amersfoort seems to be the longest twenty minutes of my life. I feel even colder than before and my eyes are heavy. I smoke another cigarette amid the other addicts, all corralled around a smoker’s pole in a little cluster of shame. I know I must be swathed in odours of alcohol, sweat and cigarettes. If I were more awake I might find the grace to be embarrassed.

  My mind wanders to yesterday evening. I am overwhelmed by a feeling of happiness. It was wonderful seeing my friends after a year so far away. They had celebrated with me, we had partied together. At the same time I felt somehow detached from my home country, my family and my friends. During my long sojourn abroad I had missed parties, dinners and opportunities to offer real support when people I love needed it. However, I collected lifelong memories and had experiences I will always treasure. And straight away I am leaving again, to the next distant stop. And I want to. I want to see the Highlands, the Shetlands and the Orkneys. I want to get there. And I feel proud and privileged to be studying at such a globally renowned university.

  Just before noon the plane lands in Edinburgh. I look out of the tiny window while we’re taxiing to the terminal building. It’s a small airport, nothing compared with Schiphol or Paris. I stuff the half-full pack of Marlboro in the puke bag in the little net in front of me, to be left behind. The stewardess announces that the doors of the aircraft are now open: Here I go, entering a new phase of my life.

  I make my way to the apartment I found two weeks ago; a nice place on the second floor of a typical Edinburgh tenement on Gorgie Road, though this is not a salubrious address. It is a busy street in a working class area. The mixture of people suits me well but, more pertinently, so does the cheap rent in this very pricey city.

  It had taken me a while to find a place. Daniel joined me in Edinburgh a week after the interview to look for a flat. We based ourselves at the Mortonhall Caravan and Camping Park on the south side of the city. We hadn’t wanted to camp but there was a profound lack of alternatives – hotels and B&Bs were either booked out or ridiculously expensive. It had been August and the annual Fringe Festival was in full flow. It is the biggest arts festival in the world so the city was mobbed and there were wonderful street performances going on all over the town centre. It was enchanting.

  However, Edinburgh doesn’t need the colourful layer of artsy characters to mesmerise. It is simply one of the most beautiful, dramatic cities on Earth; a higgledy-piggledy warren of old streets and historic buildings, grand and quaint, together with massive slabs of greenery – including some genuinely quite wild stuff – makes up the Old Town in the centre. It is situated beside the elegant, expensive New Town – in which the “newer” buildings are mid-Victorian. The sense of the ages and the hilly vistas wow every student, tourist and worker who chance upon this beguiling city. Further, it is propped up and preserved by old money; Edinburgh town centre is prohibitively expensive for many people which – naturally and unfairly – is rather sexy.

  The first flat we visited had brown wooden walls with purple and yellow furniture. “That’s very nice,” Daniel had said.

  “Do you think I look like a bunny and want to live in Easter colours all year round?”

  The second flat was painted deep blue and had a fishing net with shells suspended from the roof.

  “But that one was nice, right?” Daniel asked, after closing the front door.

  “I am not a six year old, and I am not planning to run a beach café. I hope to be a doctor, that place was ridiculous.”

  The next flat was doable, but had a sleeping bag and a piece of cardboard lying at the doorstep. The potential flatmate, who seemed weird, confirmed that most evenings a junkie sleeps there.

  Then there was a small room in a “girl’s house.” The old nun welcomed us at the door by announcing instantly that I was not allowed to bring guys home, unless we were married. Right… uh… hm…

  We visited a few more flats, which were either oppressively miserable or afflicted with other glaring problems. On the third day we finally found one to my taste but it was unfurnished and, apart from clothes and a laptop, I didn’t possess anything. I phoned my parents and asked if they were willing to pay for some IKEA furniture on top of the bike they promised to buy me?

  “I either have to step over a junkie every time I want to enter the flat and live with a freak collecting coke cans, or I need to buy my own furniture,” I explained.

  “Is there really nothing else on offer?” my mum asked.

  “Yes, there is. But the landlady looks like Marilyn Manson dressed up as a nun, Jesus will be hanging in my room and there are Bibles lying around everywhere.”

  “Please go for the non-furnished option,” mum replied.

  My parents are not prone to pull out the cheque book at every chance but when we put on the screws they always come good. And I knew they would never countenance a Christian house. They had raised me as an atheist and always made it abundantly clear that religion wasn’t their thing. When I was sixteen the new, apparently more readable translation of the Bible came out and I had asked to get it for my birthday, just out of interest. I wasn’t planning on joining a church. I just wanted to have a clue what was written in the book that such a large part of the population finds meaningful. My parents told me if I really wanted it, I had to buy it myself. I went to the bookstore and noticed the Koran was significantly shorter and would leave less of a mark in my wallet, so I bought and read that instead.

  “Does that mean you donate a few more euros to my existence?” I asked.

  “This time, yes.”

  My mum had hesita
ted before she spoke. Daniel and I jumped on the bus to IKEA straight away to get some basics. We bought a bed, a dining table with two benches, a desk, a comfy chair, a few plates, cups and cutlery. By evening the apartment looked habitable though only the bed was assembled while everything else languished in those forbidding IKEA boxes.

  I walk to the large window in the living room and look out over an educative farm for children. During the next three years I will hear the cocks crowing in the morning, the pigs chewing on metal chains and the cows bellowing. Occasionally I will stroll round the farm, when I crave fresh air and desire the company of dumb animals. However, I will mainly enjoy their presence from behind the glass window on the other side of the road. With one leg resting on the window sill and the other on the ground, I often stare in the direction of the farm. The overweight children on the premises display a remarkable lack of interest in the animals, at least before they have been turned into Big Macs, bangers and chicken nuggets. A few parents saunter among the enclosures on sunny days while the children gaze longingly at Snickers bars and Irn Bru in the vending machine. Even the impressive playground attracts very little interest from the kids; physical activity simply doesn’t square with their shapes.

  Next to the City Farm there is a pub with a sign indicating that all its patrons are Hearts supporters. Hearts, the oldest football club in Scotland’s capital city, plays in Tynecastle Stadium, one hundred metres up the road. During the season they play, on average, every second week. On match days I like to lean out the window, watching the teenagers, families and elderly, all making the pilgrimage to the stadium. Very occasionally young guys burst into a short supportive song but it peters out quickly; generally the march is surprisingly quiet, faintly reverent. When the ball enters the net I hear an explosion of joy, but I can never tell which team scored. The primordial euphoria is presumably balanced by deep sadness from the opposing supporters, but I only hear the happiness. It will not be until the last year of my PhD that I will sit in the stadium, just once, watching an emotionally charged game between Hearts and Glasgow Rangers. That will be the day I learn many new Scottish insults, such as fuck trumpet, paedophile pal, shit gibbon, bloviating flesh bag and so eloquently on. Interestingly, traditional homophobic swearing is broadly unacceptable on the terraces nowadays, but new targets are under strident attack.