MARLENE

Diary of my Wonder Years

Translation : Bart Andriessen

About the author:

I am Edgard (Eddy) Adriaens, born 21.09.1953 in the Flemish city of Aalst.   I grew up with my parents and six brothers and sisters in the suburb of Terjoden.   After my high school studies I worked for 14 years in a few SMEs in Aalst as correspondent and assistant (sales) executive. After that I worked for 18 years as a relation manager with the bank Bacob and, finally, after the bank’s merger with the Dexia Bank, as a helpdesk operator with Dexia. 

(Mary Hopkins)

PROLOGUE

“If you are going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.”

(Scott McKenzie)

I come from a world where the long haired youngsters – what was called “long haired” back then – were called Beatles, beatniks or hippies and were looked at in the street.  In this world “Hair” filled the parents with disgust.  “Hair” of course being the distinctive feature of our resistance against a generation and a system that offered the young nothing but hypocrisy and in which the weird dreams of George Orwell seemed to be taking a vast shape.  We were progressive and leftist because imperialism and nationalism, the law of Peace and Order, reached such an extent that it forced us to react, and in between it all we were summoned by the school principal because our hair was too long. 

I come from a world in which the Kennedys were assassinated, just like Camilo Torres, Che Guevara and Martin Luther King.   A world in which the “First Nation” sacrificed a whole generation in Vietnam for the unbridled ambition of its leaders; in which Israel and the Arab countries fought yet another war; in which Bernadette Devlin begged for equal rights on the Irish barricades; in which Nyerere was worshipped and in which young folk in the cafés talked more about politics than about cars, TV or sport.  At least that is, in “our” cafés. 

I come from a world in which a part of that youth was dressed in flared trousers and Indian cotton shirts, preferably canary yellow, red, orange and lilac and if possible all those colours mixed up.  For a long time however, the majority swore to the classic Sunday costume, the kind of which even The Beatles wore during their earliest TV performances. 

In due time, the possibilities of Texas jeans as everyday wear were discovered and as schools started to give up their resistance against this kind of dressing, the streets were coloured in blue.  Meanwhile, for the girls – and actually no less for the boys – Twiggy showed the mini fashion in the unsightly Carnaby Street.  And whilst more and more girls experimented with thread and needle, the female teachers surveyed in certain schools with a rule on the playgrounds: skirts maximum 15 cm above the knee, you know.

In this world smoking was still a “must do”, since the relation with cancer was still only a vague hypothesis.  The only argument against smoking was better than all publicity together: “it looked sloppy!” James Dean showed us just how sloppy one could look and we properly copied that.

In my world the cultural gap between youngsters and adults was absolute.  Our music was totally different, we thought, from everything our parents knew.  Everybody was occupied one way or another with music, and we were all convinced - with justice – that exceptionally original and beautiful music was being produced.    There was Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, Nina Simone was young, gifted and black and Bob Dylan was alongside Mahalia Jackson, obligated church music. Whether you preferred The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Chicago or rather The Beatles or The Bee Gees, it all determined which pub you frequented and who you bumped into.

During the immediate years after 68, schools were being plagued by endless waves of strikes.  Then, it was the teachers, if not the pupils who were on strike.  We sang “We shall overcome” till long after, and the critical spirit, the urge to have a say in anything we participated in, became stronger by the minute. 

Never before had the older generation experienced this: a crusade of children, their children who openly discussed all the holy commandments and taboos of the world and who considered it a task, tearing down the old values and no expense was spared.

The newspapers wrote about the crisis the authorities faced, but we were young and we thrived on the confusion of the elderly.   Those days the established authority often was but a joke: kids were better educated, better read and better informed.   Parents, city clerks, police officers and teachers didn’t know how to react: they had no experience with our kind of attitude.  Nor did they have an answer to our questions, since our questions often enough were what they were asking themselves.  They doubted the system and its streamlined theories and techniques just as much as we did! It was merely the way in which we expressed our discontent and how we overreacted, because us being young, that filled them with fear: this could not end right!

Meanwhile we skimmed through “The little red books”.  Those basically all said the same thing: “If you don’t want imperialistic Neo-Nazis to stay in control, then NOW was the time for a change and ignore their stupid signs.   You can walk on the grass.   You just have to figure out yourself what kind of world you want, then organise yourself and make your dreams become realities.” Did not Ghandi show a quarter of a century before how to do it?

During my youth, the impact of the Second Vatican Council still had to be digested.  For a brief moment there had been great hopes that we would finally get a Church with a human face.  But when Pope John XXVIII died, most of our illusions died with him: the religious fairytales were put back in place one by one.   The church simply asked us to forget about our hopes and dreams and to turn the clock back to the fifties.

Instead, we became the first generation for centuries that dropped out massively.  All of a sudden you had practising and non-practising Catholics, while the interest for other religions and convictions reached its peak.  From Hare Krishna – which was very popular in my world - to the Scientology Church, from pantheism to public atheism ...   All of a sudden, religion was a topic amongst the young.   Only, it was not the kind of religion, or the kind of debate the church and its catholic schoolteachers wanted us to reflect on.   So what?  God is Great, Hallelujah!

“Mortal sin!” the indoctrinated yelled, out of love and care for us.  They felt a strong urge to try and save us, because they really saw us going to hell, which, to us, made their efforts all the more ridiculous.  So the cracks in the Church walls grew bigger and bigger.  Churches went empty and there were less and less priests.  Those who did try to improve the church from within had to accept its dogmas and taboos and lived and preached according to its rules.  Thus they remained part of the lie they were battling.   More and more they got tired of being used and abused and a growing number of priests resigned from office.

In our world the conviction grew that “Love” was the only constructive element in the world and “Sin” was everything that was detrimental to it.  “Beautiful People” Melanie sang in her early youth and John Lennon, a working class hero, discovered the woman, the “nigger of the world”, and ruminated and repeated the dream of millions into the simplified one-liner success of “Imagine”.    Meanwhile, Woodstock and Wight amazed the world.   But in reality these were no more than commercial lies based on the quality of its performers and on the bubble of the massive free love parties. 

When “Love Story” was declared the most successful movie of a generation, we felt the wave of revolt and renewal was running out of steam. The movie did not give us anything: maybe it was nice, but it was also corny, deliberately dramatic, two-dimensional and over simplified, making it typical for the mass production ideas of the consumption society in which we risked to be drowned.  The fact that the book, the movie and the music all became such massive hits was no doubt indicative: the ultimate proof of the pointlessness of our ideals.  The “Mourir d’aimer” of this movie and others like it, endeared my generation because it had nothing to do with napalm over Vietnam or helping Somoza in Nicaragua and because escaping reality has always been the easiest option for the masses, but also because we were young after all and hopelessly searching for “LOVE, NOT WAR”. 

“Mit Siebzehn hat man noch Träume”.  In 1970 I turned 17.  I had never heard a bad song from Creedence Clearwater Revival, I considered myself a melancholic romantic and a non-conformist. I was light-hearted and lived rather chaotically.

Thanks to an occasional side income and some black magic, I was able to spent tons every week on cigarettes and booze from whatever little I received as a weekly allowance.  Still I had to scratch to get around. I didn’t practise any sport, didn’t have any hobbies, and had no idea what to do after school.  Perhaps I rode home after school, perhaps I didn’t.  Perhaps I went out during the weekend, perhaps I didn’t.  Perhaps I did my homework, perhaps I didn’t.  Perhaps I studied but until I actually started; I was the last one to know.  I didn’t plan anything, had no ambitions, no goals.  I just lived.

Part of my life occurred in Terjoden, a working class community bordering Aalst where I was born in 1953.  A gloomy suburb without any history, quickly constructed when a railway station had been built in neighbouring Haaltert, alongside the provincial road from Aalst to Geraardsbergen,.   

The rest of my life I spent in Aalst, a medium sized city in the heart of Flanders, where I went to school – or rather was wagging school – and where I hung out in the weekends in a discotheque called “The Caspuciero”.  Or with soccer player Vander Elst, where I was made a member of the “James Dean Friends Club”, without ever having any knowledge what this Club did, except distributing access cards and stamps for the dance hall situated behind the pub.

During the weekdays the bars in the Korte Nieuwstraat and those around the Station square brought me comfort when the theory courses in school were on.

Aalst, is of course Carnival.  There are those who think that Carnival is a public feast taking place the days before Ash Wednesday.  In reality, every day is a bit Carnival in Aalst, because every Carnival guild is always in need of money and every ball they organised to collect funds was just as well Carnival.

Aalst was also the Belfry, where the artists from the local academy – and the occasional other – exhibited their works.  Although the supplied exhibitions disappointed me time and time again, I could never resist the sign saying “exhibition”: the chance to see one beautiful sculpture, one beautiful painting, was an irresistible attraction and drew me inside, into the Knights Hall, or downstairs in the mediaeval crypt, where I usually ended up in utter disappointment staring at - and not grasping the meaning of - three sawed broom sticks wrapped in chicken wire with a sign in front saying “Andromeda”. 

Aalst, finally, was also the “Bon Marché”, a major department store where I wandered when all my money was gone, going endlessly through books and listening to records in the music department.

In this life, without wanting to, as it always goes, I met Marlene.  The impact Marlene had on my emotional life was total.  My life became Marlene: two pair of eyes, two mouths, four hands, one belly. Everything else became extremely vague for me.  Marlene was my love, my obsession, the mirror of my dreams.  But just as well my oracle and the mirror of my helplessness.  The next pages are all about this strange and astonishing experience.

Chapter 1

“Get Ready”

(Rare Earth)

Can you imagine anything more wretched than having to go back to school after working a holiday job for two months? Isn’t it somewhat degrading to turn in your paycheck for a new set of schoolbooks after feeling responsible for your job for two months? Economically you’re thrown back to being totally worthless from one day to the next, feeling  like a fish caught in a net, waiting to get stuffed and contribute to the modern consumption society.  On top of that my moped was parked in the garage with a broken gas cable and of course I got out of bed too late to catch the bus.  No wonder I was already in a shitty mood that Monday morning, the fourth of September, when I found myself hitchhiking to the local trade school.  Officially: “The National Institute for Higher Education in Trade and Administration”. The school’s name was amply sufficient to scare the living daylights out of any self-respecting human being.   Probably based on a Russian conference about the success of the last Five-Year Plan.  Not to mention the fact we would have to write down that school litany in our notebooks these first few days.                

But as soon as I found myself within the ‘safe’ walls of the school, I started feeling a whole lot better: that traditional first day of school atmosphere with its unbelievable bickering and fussing suited me just fine.  People offer you cigarettes that often, one begins to wonder if they’re earning commission from the tobacco companies.    

Some pupils were chomping their fingernails, in suspense of their re-examinations results.  The girls commented on your clothes, the length of your hair or your tan, or told you who’s new, who isn’t coming back and why. 

Some women really have a nose for those kinds of novelties and they usually get most stuff right.  They smell their sources and know their clients.  Only the sieving of the less interesting details regularly went wrong.  How could it be any different with our – the blokes - small talk, being an impossible task, when it’s their biggest specialty? Part of the blokes were trying one-upmanship, and when you fell in their trap, you were in for a treat with the craziest Wild West stories about ‘mighty’ holidays and countless love adventures with girls coming straight out of  Playboy Magazine.

I avoided the monkey troop cliques with a cheerful but distant “hello” and continued in my search for someone more “human”.

The bright green eyes of my friend Udo received a lot of attention from a few giggling girls, but as soon as he noticed my body odor, he headed towards me.   

‘Well, Pithecanthropus erectus how are you?’

Apparently, his urge for knowledge had incited him into a hunt for the history of our origin.  Sometimes, when we were both in the mood, we amused ourselves by using as many polished words as possible.  “Boasting” we called it and quite funny! I thought I could get away by answering, “underdeveloped Mylodon”, but decided to show off a bit myself.

‘You can address me as Sir Australopithecus and forget about the erectus. Some of us do evolve.’

‘Hmm, you do know that you’re evolving backwards, don’t you? Your Australopithecus lived a long time before my Pithecanthropus!’

Obviously, I had underestimated the competence of his reading matter.

‘But let’s not drivel on that.  Have you seen Rudy yet? The chap grew a beard.  And did you know Willy’s sister is joining this school now?’

Beards were lost on me: mine flatly refused to emerge.  Willy’s sister didn’t really interest me either. In fact, Willy wasn’t my cup of tea at all so I didn’t expect any fireworks from a sister of his.  Willy was a big, somewhat silent boy, who kept himself aloof in class and who was capable of incredible feats like digging the garden of a teacher.  But then, who cares about the shrubbery on the face of an old acquaintance or the sister of an insignificant classmate, when all that mattered was who’s new in class.           

If I didn’t want to lose my gratuity completely, I had to attend Religion classes and ran the risk of being saddled with a couple of despicable elements in the class.  While those kids hailing from the more dynamic and progressive families tended to opt for Ethics, the well-behaved ones, whose parents saw the Light From Above, preferred Religion.  Since I fell in that category, I was dying to know who ended up where.

‘No, you’re not the first one I’m talking to.  Any ideas about the changes in our class?’ I asked.

‘Don’t even mention it mate’, Udo said. ‘I’ve been trying for a week now not to think about our fantastic class, then you turn up and rub my nose in it.  One good advice: don’t put your hopes up, and things will probably not turn out all that badly.’

‘Thanks for bucking me up. ‘

Meanwhile, Danny and George had noticed us and were walking cheerfully towards us to mingle in, and then the bell rang before they even got to us. 

A few minutes later, it turned out Udo didn`t get things that wrong. On the first row I noticed some bloke who looked like a living fossil with a nose like a beak and ears like an elephant’s, frantically writing down the tutor’s welcome speech.   Udo had noticed him as well.

‘Say, is that your twin brother there?’

‘Get some glasses for those mole eyes of yours,’ I replied.   

‘Sorry, but didn’t you say I could call you Australopithecus?’

I burst out laughing.  1-0 for the bastard and the kickoff wasn’t even given!

But more new pupils drew my attention: on my opposite I saw a well built female painting her name with big, angular characters on the cover of a brand new and nicely covered notebook, using red and green, creating a colorful artwork. And in a lost corner on the other end of the classroom, a new guy the size of a telephone post, was chattering away with two veterans in front of him.  The more I stared, the more I started liking him.  Not bad! But about three tables in front of me, I discovered what appeared to be the most intriguing new comer; obviously female.  Definitely not easily classifiable, because all I saw was a piece of her dustcoat and the back of her head with brown hair, tied up in a little bun. 

Two exceptionally long hours separated us from break.  Two hours, during which she didn’t even glance one single time.   Not even when the teacher warned me and Udo not interrupt his lessons again or “we could forget about picking our seats in class”.   Nonsense with his again: this was the first time he met us.  So either he was brainwashed, or thought that barking at us would suffice to escape the inevitable ordeal that he had coming. Anyhow, not a living soul was thinking of making a racket during those first delicate hours, so needless to say I was bored to death.  The bell didn’t even start ringing when I bashed the door open and stormed out to the playground with the umpteenth cigarette in my mouth. 

Marlene (Diary of my Wonder Years)

by Eddy Adriaens

Synopsis

 On the first day of the new school year, Eddy meets Marlene, a new class mate, and instantly falls in love with her.  In no time, the two become inseparable.  Eddy is euphoric about the relationship, but feels somewhat troubled by the intensity of his own feelings.  Things are no different for Marlene: she’s walking on clouds, but at the same time cautious and even suspicious because of Eddy’s reputation, which her brother does not cease to remind her of. 

 Actually, Marlene’s suspicions are not completely without reason:.  Already on his first evening out without her, Eddy dates another girl.  Shocked by his own behaviour, Eddy flees away.  Fortunately, Marlene never finds out about the incident.  Other aspects of Eddy’s behaviour however do bother her: when she complains about his rude and antisocial attitude, he realises that he is putting their relationship at risk, and tries to fit in.  Soon however, he finds himself in yet another showdown of forces with one of the teachers.  Marlene becomes afraid that she will eventually become a victim of Eddy’s behaviour and asks him to keep more distance at school.  She even considers breaking up, but cannot imagine life without him and affirms quite emotionally her choice for him. 

 Eddy is taken back by the level of her doubts.  More so still when he accepts Marlene’s invitation to visit her at home, only to discover that she does not even dare to talk about their relationship with her parents and that she is still doubting the sincerity of his feelings.  This lasting uncertainty and lack of trust, combined with the fear of losing each other, generates a continual tension between the two youngsters, which clouds the beautiful moments they share and sporadically erupts in real “doubt-attacks”. 

 Meanwhile, they increasingly isolate themselves: in school they have eyes for each other only and also outside the school they invariably spend their time alone and always at the same place.  Hence, the relationship soon assumes a weighty character, and they enjoy themselves less and less.  At the start of the new year, Marlene decides to put an end to the relationship. 

 Initially this does not seem to form a major problem to either one of them.  But when Marlene observes how well Eddy enjoys himself without her  - and he soon finds out that the fun which Marlene envies him for leaves him unsatisfied and lacking for content, the two grow towards each other again.  At one moment, they make up again, but Marlene reconsiders her decision immediately.  Feeling turned down, confused and disappointed, Eddy asks Marlene to avoid all contact between each other.   

 When Marlene refuses to avoid each other completely, they make an attempt to interact as usual class pals.  This attempt quickly dissolves when Marlene gradually increases the intimacy of their contacts at school.   After some time, they almost behave as if they are going together.  However, when Eddy invites Marlene to be his girlfriend again and date also outside school, she refuses

 Again Eddy withdraws feeling refused and depressed.   He tries to desperately find relief in flirting with other girls, but in fact remembers all too well how little satisfaction he got out of this on the previous attempt.  When Marlene watches him kissing another girl, she reacts with disbelief and horror to his behaviour, but after a couple of days tells him that she’s still in love with him.  One week later however, he finds her in close embrace with a boy and decides that this time everything between them is effectively and definitively over.   

 Now, they finally succeed to keep distance of each other.  In the class, ties grow between Eddy, Rudy and Marc.  Every now and then, by chance he and Marlene still have an occasional private conversation.  At each such occasion, the air fills with tension.  At one time it even looks like the two are going to pick up their relationship, but they are interrupted at the crucial point, and later don’t resume their conversation. 

 At the end of the school year, Eddy leaves again for Oostende.  He loves his vacation job at hotel Brabant, especially because, in the evenings, he is responsible for the bar.  Although he is free each afternoon, two weeks go by before he makes it to the beach for the first time.  Initially he is just boring himself there.  After a couple of days, he gets to know a girl at the beach.  Two days later already, she does not show up for their rendezvous.  Next, he has something with a guest at the hotel, but the girl is returning home already only a few days later.  Finally, his luck turns when he meets Maryssa during an evening walk on the dyke.  Maryssa is the kind of girl he could fall in love with.  But soon he learns that she is always surrounded by friends and that it is almost impossible to spend a few moments with her alone.  After a discussion about this, he tells Maryssa that this is not the kind of relationship he is looking for, and walks away.

 Just then Stephanie arrives at the hotel, “the prettiest and most friendly girl he’s ever seen”.  Against his own expectations, the girl falls in love with him and they have a wonderful time together. When Stephanie returns to England, the two continue to write each other on a daily basis.  The last days of the vacation, he spends his afternoon on the beach with Maryssa and her friends.   Meanwhile, the Hall family and their daughter, Deborah, arrive at the hotel. But by then the holidays are finally over and he returns home.
 
At the start of yet another school year, Eddy is still under the spell of Stephanie, with whom he is maintaining a daily correspondence. Stephanie invites him to visit her as soon as possible and late September he leaves for England. The visit is a total failure.  When he returns home one week later, the relationship is definitely over. This unexpected turn of events hurts him deeply. The only place where he feels ok is at school, where he joins a couple of friends, amongst whom Marlene, who study a little dance for the prom.   

Unexpectedly Marlene asks him to go with her again ... until the end of the school. The proposition deeply shocks Eddy.  Actually he would like very much to get back with Marlene, but does not want to enter into a pseudo-relationship with a predetermined end date. He refuses. But the refusal hurts.

Fortunately, a few days after the incident, he learns to know Rolf, the son of a German man, an aunt of his is about to marry. The two amuse themselves very much during the Christmas holidays and from that moment onwards, Rolf will come regularly to Belgium.

By the end of January, at the prom, Eddy meets Arlette and starts dating her. Because she is not going to school in Aalst and rarely goes out in town, his weekend-activities too shift away from Aalst. The relationship also has its consequences in Eddy's class: Elly, a class mate, is a neighbour and friend of Arlette’s.  Moreover, Elly is going with Marc, with whom Eddy already has a pretty good contact.   So, he increasingly spends his time at school with them. He also maintains the contact with Rudy, whom he regularly visits.  On such occasions, he often sleeps over at Rudy’s.  To his astonishment, Marlene now also asks Rudy to go with her until the end of the school. Rudy accepts.  Fortunately, the relationship between Rudy and Marlene remains very limited and does not affect the bond between Rudy and Eddy. When a group of American students come to visit the school and one of them is staying with Rudy, the two even pull together with increasing frequency.

Eddy, Arlette, Marc and Elly also enlist with the new volleyball club in Arlette's village. As Arlette is not allowed to go out every weekend, this looks like a good way to see each other regularly on Sunday mornings. The school year goes by quickly. When Eddy is asked for a vacation job in Spain, he hesitates. Arlette regrets that he will be gone during the holidays, just when she will be more free to go out, but still supports him in his decision to accept the job.

The summer job is a total disaster. Eddy feels exploited and returns back home early in August, partly also because he is worried since Arlette stopped writing after only a couple of letters. Initially it looks as if he has no reason to worry, but when he can only see Arlette at local dances, where their relationship must be kept secret, he insists that she stops hiding their relationship. Arlette refuses: she enjoys the attention of the other boys,  wants to amuse herself as much as possible and certainly does not want to do anything that could lead to a fight with her parents, and hence to being grounded. They therefore decide to stop seeing each other.

The rest of the vacation, he bores himself to death. He feels depressed and even considers emigrating. In order to save some money, he accepts the first job offered to him. By now, Rudy is the only class pall with whom he is still keeping contact.  During the Christmas holidays, the two hitchhike to Germany, visit Rolf and then return with Rolf to Belgium by car.   On their return in Belgium, he takes Rolf along to the Christmas party of the volleyball club, where he begins a relationship with the young Brenda.  Bored of depending on others for his transport, Eddy buys a second hand car.  The relationship with Brenda does not last long, however.  After a couple of months, he has to put an end to it after being informed that she is having a second boyfriend at school.

Rudy now tries to mobilize them for a trip to Nepal. But then he gets a call from Arlette, who has abandoned her studies. He takes her home and keeps visiting her regularly ever since.  After Arlette breaks up with her boyfriend, the two even start going out together.  But Arlette is not ready yet to commit herself seriously.  Eddy remains hopeful, but in the meantime accepts an invitation from Deborah and leaves for two weeks to England. He spends a fantastic time at Deborah’s, but sees no future in England for him and returns to Belgium at the end of his vacation.

Stimulated by Rudy, he then decides to return to school if Arlette does not change her mind at short notice. Arlette hesitates, but when she realizes that he is determined not to visit her again unless she commits herself to him, she chooses to go with him.

The book

Eddy’s wonder years are a time where high peaks alternate with deep abysses. Some experiences inspire him and give him wings, but there are also periods of deep self-doubt and discouragement. At the beginning of the book Eddy is 17 years. Almost all the people he meets are working on their fu