Ode to Bet van Beeren | An ode to Bet van Beeren

Dear Bet,

‘That's where she lay,’ I say to my friend. 'Day and night, for three days. There she lay on the billiard table, laid out in an open coffin. Her head raised for good. At the foot of the bed countless white roses.'

Here on the Zeedijk you left your permanent place. An American hearse drove you to the New Ooster Cemetery. You had appreciated the sound of the roaring engine. Six crows lowered you into a dark hole. Pretty tight for someone who needed her freedom. Behind the bar, no one could ignore you, but in the cemetery, people have to search for your grave. Everything is grey: the tombstone, the letters, the gravel. You are not here. Even though your family has had ‘Here rests our all unforgettable and dear sister’ engraved on the stone.

You are honoured in other ways. In a poem by Gerard Reve, you eat a mackerel in the sun with knife and fork. In a novel by Albert Mol, you let the ladies dance with the ladies and the gentlemen with the gentlemen. The interior of your café became a triple monument. The original is stored in the Stadsarchief on Vijzelstraat, a copy can be admired in the Amsterdam Museum and Zeedijk 63, where my friend and I sat down at a table with a Persian rug and a candle in a brown glass, lives on as a copy of your café. With white adhesive letters the window reads café ‘t mandje. since 1927. bet van beeren. 

When coming out, the people around you are as important as who you are becoming. Why does someone decide to take you under his or her wing? Why does someone care about you? Why does someone encourage you to move on, to become someone. Why does someone always look at you differently than others?

From behind the bar, you offered all gays and lesbians a smile, a hand gesture or a greeting. That was all it took to be a free haven. Young men and women you gave non-committal advice. In your café, you found a great love or a dabble without an app. Sometimes you deployed your full body as a ruler to protect your guests from outside danger. A shout, a fist, a glance. As long as there could be dancing.

Early this morning, my friend and I were walking down Tweede Nassaustraat. We were staying with a friend for a few days, in a flat opposite Westerpark. The shops were still closed, only the dirk was open. At Toko Hangalampoe, a boy (hoodie, sweatpants, white socks in flip-flops) suddenly detached himself from the lowered shutter. He shouted ‘Faggots! We passed him quickly without saying anything, without making eye contact. 'Faggots! Faggots!’ he shouted after us until we had disappeared from his field of vision.

You called your café ‘’‘t Mandje’‘’ because your mother brought you food in a basket (mandje in Dutch) every day. From her, you learnt the most. To feed you and your siblings, she became a street vendor. With only your father's street vendor salary, you couldn't manage. You helped your mother peddle. You learned how to charm customers. You learnt to master the rules of street life. That's how you managed to stand your ground on the Zeedijk for decades.

But people say you were also lonely. That you couldn't commit anyone to you. That you tended to buy friendship and love. This kind of supposed loneliness is always directed against gays and lesbians, because what people don't say: you, as an unmarried person, are not part of a happy family life.

When my boyfriend and I walk through Leeuwarden - our hometown - we never hold hands. We watch for glances. Do they see it by our walk? By our dress style? By our gestures? You were not afraid of anyone. You dared to be the ultimate cliché of a male lesbian.

‘She had short hair.’

‘She rode a motorbike.’

‘Sometimes with a woman on the back.’

‘She drank gin.’

‘She smoked cigars.’

‘She wore a leather jacket.’

‘And sometimes a sailor suit.’

There is an anecdote about which Wikipedia is silent. When Major Bosshardt of the Salvation Army walked into ‘t Mandje, all your guests invariably had to contribute to the collection. After a guest gave a hundred guilders one evening because he thought you were such a good woman, the Salvation Army soldier remarked that you also had your faults. You faultlessly sensed which faults she was talking about. You grabbed Major Bosshardt and threw her out into the street. ‘Ugly bitch, goddamn it, get out!’ you shouted. 

That I fall for men is something I have known since childhood. That I kept that knowledge hidden until I almost left home was just as clear. Tolerance has its limits in rural Friesland. I was ten and cried, ‘Later I'm going to live in Amsterdam.’ My mother: ‘You'd better not get into that city.’

We didn't know who you were then.

As I take a sip of the white wine, I see you standing behind the bar as ever. Airily dressed. There is a certain sheen to your hair in the sunlight. There are rainbow colours in it, tiny, soft rays of light of exactly the same colours you occasionally see in dew. The jukebox is playing, never the radio. I recognised you at first not by your face, but by your posture. The actions you routine, a body in control of everything. With your gaze you welcome us. I do not approach, but I drink in this image. For a moment, there is no future and no past. No boys breaking free from lowered shutters. The footstep of strangers through years erased every trace of you. And yet here you are, still in your permanent place.

Heartfelt,

Bart Temme