Free Tonio by Jonathan Reeder Page A

toe. ‘Hey, your favourite shirt. I thought I’d washed and ironed it for this weekend … for if you went out …’
    â€˜I’ll change it soon. So it’ll stay clean.’
    â€˜Okay, we’re off,’ I said. ‘Now Tonio, good luck. Or should I say: good shooting.’
    I shouldn’t have thrown him such a knowing look, because he cast his eyes down, groaned softly and mumbled: ‘Pl-l-lease.’
    7
    The trees on our street were now yellow-green, their crowns bursting with seed pods. We drove via sun-drenched Amsterdam-Zuid to Amstelveen.
    â€˜Funny,’ Miriam said. ‘When he photographs, he thinks nothing of stretching out on his stomach in the dust. In the mud, if need be. Now he puts on his best shirt.’
    â€˜Sometimes a photo shoot is more than a photo shoot.’
    There were considerably more fishermen on the bank of the Bosbaan than the last time we drove here, and they no longer huddled so timorously in their shelters, which resembled something midway between an umbrella resting on its side and a one-man lean-to. Where the Bosbaan’s water dead-ended, we could really plunge into the woods — a churning mass of fresh green vegetation, snipped-up sunlight, and lacy shadows.
    â€˜Just look at the spring,’ Miriam said.
    At the goat farm café, we ordered the house classic for lunch: tuna salad on a nearly black multigrain roll. Goat buttermilk. Manure-scented tranquillity.
    â€˜Strange to think,’ Miriam said, ‘that I used to bring Tonio here to see the newborn goats and piglets. Now it’s where he shoos us off to so he can have the whole house to himself and that girl. I have to say I rather like it.’
    The situation apparently had a rejuvenating effect on us: after lunch we set out on a ramble, each of us holding a cone of goat’s milk ice cream. We walked to the blue bridge, under which the rowing lake narrowed, and hung over the railing, dreamily watching the few kayaks and water bikes out this early in the season.
    â€˜Gosh, that Tonio,’ Miriam said. ‘Media Technology … and then right away he picks up his photography again. He’s doing well. I’m so glad. If I think back to two, three years ago …’
    â€˜I was a little hard on him, I guess, chewing him out for his lack of ambition. At his age I was no better.’ First one job after the other for a year, then two aborted studies: psychology and law. And after my philosophy bachelor’s: two half-doctorates, philosophical anthropology and aesthetics — two halves, unfortunately, don’t make a whole. So much for my own goals.
    â€˜I’ve got a hunch Tonio will finish his degree.’
    â€˜Or else he’ll do other amazing things.’
    We strolled back towards the parking lot. ‘Half past three,’ said Miriam, as we passed the goat farm. ‘No, we can’t do that to him.’
    â€˜Oh, Tonio’s a pretty efficient photographer. He doesn’t go for the scattergun approach. When he had to snap me for De Groene Amsterdammer he sat me down at an antique Remington, tossed a few rolls of telex paper around. I heard a few clicks, and assumed he was taking some proofs. “Ready when you are,” I said. But he already had what he was after.’
    â€˜You just said a photo session is sometimes more than a photo session. Come on, let’s go have a drink at the goat place. Grant him this one afternoon.’
    8
    When we got home at around five, Tonio was packing up his cameras in a large plastic bag. The girl had just left. A whiff of cigarette smoke hung in the house.
    â€˜And … any luck?’ I asked.
    â€˜We’ll see,’ he said. ‘I can judge the digital shots pretty well on the computer. But I took some analogue ones, too, and for those I’ll have to wait for the prints.’
    â€˜Pop out back before you go,’ I said.
    One of the styrofoam reflectors was