one can't escape the past

Around the time of Sinter Klaas (The Dutch Saint Nicholas which is celebrated on December 5), a certain mood descends on me. It’s not so straightforward to explain, but can be best described as a foreboding yet calm feeling. It’s connected to certain events in the past some four years ago. It’s a very long story, and I won’t delve into much details of it, but the essence of what unravelled to become a crime and a subsequent court case, I can tell.

Years ago, in a relationship with my ex, we had the unfortune to cross our paths with a man who was a solicitor, or so we were told. In fact he came recommended to my partner, for a rather trivial but what at the the time seemed like an important matter. For about a year he worked on the case of my partner, and frankly as it didn’t relate to me, I didn’t take much notice of it. There was only one time, out of the blue that I had the strongest of notions that something wasn’t right. It was about 6 months before it all came to light and we were sitting enjoying our lunch on the market square in Haarlem. I recall, having just had my lunch brought in, when I knew something was wrong. I told my partner not to have anything to do with this man, and go to another lawyer. I couldn’t say why, but it would bring us bad luck. We ended up having an argument, and I walked out of lunch and went home packing my bags.

Of course, I only came as far as the door, and the impact was lost, since my partner assured me all was well. Later that autumn, I started getting more suspicious. We had already sold our house and bought another. My partner’s lawyer had already told him the good news that he had settled the case, and a compensation was being worked out. But the money never came. I started getting fretfully nervous and I was checking everything I could on our solicitor. After several weeks of googling, and calling around to people that were involved in the case, the evidence pointed to everything being made up. There was no court case, there was no settlement, and worst of all money was missing. Money which we needed for the purchase of the new house.

If the last months had been like watching a train crash in slow motion, these where the final milliseconds of that impact. One argument succeeded another, and after gathering as much intelligence as well as opinions from trusted people around us, my partner eventually agreed to go to the police. There the next chock was in store. The solicitor was no solicitor after all but had operated as such for a long time, and several reports were filed against him. I believe our case became the decisive factor, and a year after it had all unravelled, it became a court case which we won. But the damage was already done at that point.

This time of the year, four years ago, I was stuck in a small apartment where we were living temporarily in wait of the exchange of the new house. The walls of the one bed room apartment literally felt like they were caving in on us. My daughter who was then only 6 years old, who should not have been subjected to this cruel treatment, could feel it all too well. That Sinter Klaas she received some gifts from my partner’s so-called lawyer. I was furious, but as we didn’t know what we knew only a week later, we courteously accepted them. That I had to explain I had threw them all away to my daughter a week later, was the least of my concerns.

The aftermath was not so insignificant either. We both lost our jobs, a great deal of savings, our house, and most of our friends. But it also taught me a great deal of human nature, acceptance, hope, despair, humility but most importantly never to give up.

So needless to say Sinter Klaas leaves a certain bitter taste to me. This Sinter Klaas is the first one though with my new family all of us gathered. Perhaps it will be the one were I learn to love Sinter Klaas again.