Free The Twins by Tessa de Loo

Egoist. Salon socialist.’ He protested weakly, looking in vain for arguments with which to defend himself. She, driven to despair by the sudden irresponsibility he hid behind, punched him. The children saw him stagger; they fled over the bridge into the wood to build a hut as an alternative to the parental home. The building activities were drawn out as long as possible in the hope that the war would have subsided when they crossed the bridge in the reverse direction. Hours later, hungry and agitated, they walked gingerly back to the house. From the wood they could already see their parents sitting on the garden bench under the climbing pear tree, arms wound around each other and blissful smiles on their lips – equilibrium had been restored.
    The children did their homework in the back room; the gramophone was silent whenever their father was out on a tour of inspection . A company Harley Davidson took him round the outskirts of the district. He raced along majestic avenues in his long leather coat, leggings on his calves, his eyes protected by huge goggles, the flaps of his cap fluttering against his head like the wings of a drunken bird. When he got home and had taken off his rig, he took a volume of the collected works of Marx or Lenin from the bookshelf and flopped into an armchair with it.
    Suddenly the sliding doors would open. ‘What are you doing?’ he said sternly. ‘Homework.’ ‘Which subject?’ ‘Dutch history.’ ‘Close those books, you can learn much more from this. Listen: “… Wherever a part of society possesses the monopoly of the means of production, the labourer, free or not free, must add to theworking time necessary for his own maintenance and extra working time in order to produce the means of subsistence for the owner of the means of production, whether this proprietor be the Athenian perfect gentleman, Etruscan theocrat, civis Romanus, Norman Baron, American slave owner, Wallachian Boyard, modern landlord or capitalist.”’ He cast a meaningful glance at them over the cover of Das Kapital ,decorated with floral stems. ‘Understand, the worker labours by the sweat of his brow so that the rich can dedicate themselves entirely to doing nothing. That’s how the world works. Get that into your heads.’ And he continued his lecture, which could last for hours when he got into his stride, until they were released by their mother, who would assign them imaginary tasks. When they complained about having to weed the kitchen garden he rubbed their noses in the fate of people of their age from the previous century. ‘At two, three, four o’clock in the morning children of nine to ten years were dragged out of their unhealthy dormitory towns and forced to work for their mere subsistence until ten, eleven, twelve at night, while their limbs wasted away, their bodies bent, their features dulled and their human countenances stiffened into expressionless masks, just one glimpse of which was terrifying.’
    He treated guests with more subtlety. First he tempted them with heavenly music. When he had entirely hooked them and their souls were enfeebled by emotion, he turned the volume knob low and, as though in spontaneous inspiration, opened a book which just happened to be lying ready there all the while. Some politely managed to do a bunk in time, others got into strenuous disputes that lasted deep into the night. He only really provoked genuine resistance when, in the early hours, with the imposing loudspeakers in the background as proof of his resourceful intellect, he made known his opposition to the monarchy. Spurred on by the gin, they were prepared to go a long way with him in his arguments about historical materialism; they were even prepared to turn a blind eye to his philippics against Christendom, but as soon as theroyal family was mentioned he was stepping over a boundary: this was implacably opposed. His music, alcohol and powers of persuasion were no match for their love of the House