24th of April 1966.

Dear Guy,

I am now two weeks before my twelfth birthday and yesterday when I came home from the boarding school a strange event or shall we call it an incident took place.

It was sunny and warm for the time of the year and I was sweating a bit, not unusual at the beginning of your adolescence I would say, while waiting for the bus.

I don't remember if I was using my key, I don't even remember if I had a key of the house, or if my mother came down the stairs to open; did I ring?  Maybe she threw the key holder from the window upon the staircase.  I remember walking up to the living room situated above the garage. I was still sweating.

What I also remember, this because of the returning action that takes place every week, is the embarrassing embrace with my mum, an act that breathes something erotic, but again on the verge of adolescence, corporality gets a different significance.

I'm not sure but I could notice a degree of nervousness with my mother but after forty seven years this can be a late interpretation of a convulsive movement.

After exchanging the usual trifle she announced on a fake key tone that she had something important to tell me. Faster than the announcement I was told my father died and meanwhile buried. It was clear that the time between the two events must have been as short as the speed the words were pronounced.

Silence.

Not sure if my later love for opera finds its origin in that moment yesterday.

Certain is that when I was attending a few years later some opera performances I was enjoying the dying heroes' long aria before the slow curtain drop.

The next phrase, or was it a mixture of words in a random order, sounded something like (There is) bread (and) spreads ... kitchen cupboard...

Well, Guy, it was yesterday two weeks before my twelfth birthday, on the edge of my adolescence and the sweat suddenly was ice-cold.

I wish I could remember if the spread was sweet or bitter but I know the knife moves were filled with hate.

Yours,

Guy.