'INKTLAP' (5 june 2004)
In my weblog of 19 April you could have read that my mother was not a very gifted seamstress.
But one thing that she did make for me was an article which in Dutch is called inktlap.
"inktlap"
The inktlap was inherent to the use of the kroontjespen (see picture). Before putting the kroontjespen away that you'd used to write with, you were supposed to wipe the ink off, which you could do with an inktlap.
"kroontjespen"
When my mother made an inktlap , she cut pieces out of old clothes and sewed these together with yarn and a button.
Initially, I was quite proud of what my mother had made. But later my classmates appeared to have much more sophisticated specimens factory-made of cloth that absorbed ink so much better than mine.
My inktlap was usually made of cloth that must have made great trousers, but was absolutely unfit for absorbing ink.
Later I wondered why my mother, who had a generous nature, should have saddled me with such shoddy goods? The answer probably lay in the fact that my father never gave her enough money. I remember when my mother went to the market, she often used to run like mad so that she could use the tram ticket for the return trip as well.
Later, after my father had died, she took her own kind of revenge, not on my father, who was so much compelled by habit that he was unable to change. But more on her long years of being cut short. She spent the money that my father had saved so parsimoniously, in a way that can at least be called lavish. Not only did she give generous tips to everybody who came to deliver anything, but she also presented almost anybody who came to visit her, with some money.
She spent it so generously that if she had lived much longer, she would most probably have ended in poverty.
