JANS
(Translation of “Jans” from Peper en Zout by Ds M.E Voila, Kok: Kampen (n.d.), a book about the experiences of a Dutch minister in about the 1950’s.)
Jans. That’s her name. And for me, that simple name represents a formidable presence.
This week it was rough
again. I wouldn’t want to speak ill of her, because she’s a good girl, my wife
says. But if I’m honest, there are moments when I dislike all those “good
girls” who, with all their goodness, tyrannize the whole household—me included.
Because, to be even more
honest: I’m afraid of our housemaid. I’m not afraid of anyone, no—but I am
afraid of Jans. Afraid of her look, in which a whole world of contempt can lie.
Afraid of her “see-I-told-you-so-you-poor-fellow” air when she finds something
I’ve been searching for hours. Afraid of the merciless decisiveness with which
she announces that I may not go into this or that room because it’s being
“done.” Afraid, too, of her sharp tongue, her lack of respect for my person and
my office.
My wife is also afraid,
but only that she might leave—“and you know you can’t get anyone nowadays.”
So we live under the reign
of Jans.
And she is formidable.
When she arms herself with broom and dust mop, it’s as if the Pleiades are
bearing down on you. She is broad and tall and, in certain places, of
considerable depth. She has a chin like the bumper of a modern army truck and
hands that conceal a crushing strength. An Amazon, a Hippolyta, a tank.
It does me good to be able
to say this for once. Because this week was particularly bad. To put it
briefly: on Sunday I preached an old sermon. Not very old—only about three
years. Nobody noticed, which says some things about both my congregation and my
sermons.
Nobody? Except Jans. For
she—apart from other “talents”—also has the memory of an elephant. But I hadn’t
thought of that at the time.
Those whom the gods would
destroy, they first blind. Cheerfully—at least outwardly, for after an old
sermon you always have a slightly uneasy feeling—I stepped into the living room
after the service and laid my sermon on the sideboard. I had a friendly word for my wife and for our children. I was behaving in that familiar way that marks a conscience looking for reassurance in the normal behaviour of others. Half an hour later I went to the sideboard
to fetch the sermon. It wasn’t there.
“Jans! Jans!”
Jans appeared. Her
expression should have warned me.
“Jans, where’s my sermon?”
“I’ve already put it away
in your study.”
Still I suspected nothing
of my approaching downfall, and in my hubris I had the audacity to ask, “And
how do you know where that sermon belongs?”
“I’ve known that for three
years already, Pastor!”
There’s a time to be
silent. This was one of them. We both stood there—but how differently. The air
was full of her triumph, and I, badly wounded, left the battlefield for my study.
“You know what you’ve
got,” says my wife, “and not what you’ll get.”
Well, what we’ve got, I
know for sure: an Amazon, a Hippolyta, a tank.
