VIERDE BEDRIJF
DE VERWOESTING
Lavenderstraat, Utrecht — maart tot 25 april 2026
Waarin een koning afstand doet van het koninkrijk dat hem vrijwillig werd gegeven. Waarin de liefde haar eigen architectuur ontmantelt met zorgvuldige, gewone handen.
SCENE I
He Was A King In Her House.
Eurydice speaks to the audience directly.
EURYDICE
I want you to understand what I gave him. My keys. My bank account. His toiletries stocked. His wardrobe space made. Six poems written for him. Daily cooking. Sunday dinners for his father. Yasmina's voice calling his name in his garden. He was a king in my house. Treated as a king. Loved as a king. And he hired a detective for the woman before me. He accused me of a second account while checking other women. He called me the master of turning things around while turning everything around himself. I trusted where he could only investigate.
SCENE II
The Last Ordinary Night. The Bed Dismantled.
The night before the boys trip. Gijsbert fixes the bed. Wrong size. He dismantles it. Then they make love. As usual. Then breakfast. Then he leaves.
EURYDICE
He came the night before he left. To fix the bed. He assembled it with his hands and it was the wrong size. So he dismantled it. Piece by piece in the half-finished room. And then — the bed gone — we made love. As usual. As if nothing was ending. As if the wrong-sized bed was just a practical problem. He tried. He got it wrong. He took it apart. That is the whole story. In one night. Breakfast. He sat at my table. Ate what I made. As if this was simply — Tuesday. He left for the boys trip. I packaged up the bed frame. Wrong size. To be returned. Doing the practical work of an ending he hadn't yet announced. Love dismantles.
SCENE III
The Weeks of Distance. Choosing the Lights. Eurydice Decides.
She chooses the lighting for the house while he barely calls. Then — she forces his hand.
EURYDICE
I choose the lighting. I stand in each room and think: what warmth, what angle, what would make him walk through the door and feel — immediately — that he is home? He does not call much. He is with his friends. He was looking forward to it. No. Not this. Not the hanging. Return my things. Not: come back. Not: please. Return my things — because a woman who forces clarity cannot be left in fog indefinitely.
SCENE IV
April 25th, 2026. The Oleanders. The Hug. The Day.
Gijsbert at the door. Nervous. Sweating. A pot of oleanders. He always brings flowers.
GIJSBERT
These are for you. For the beautiful memories.
EURYDICE
Before I can think — I hug him. I show him how happy I am to see him. He is happy that I am happy. I feel it. The three of us in the April sunshine. Yasmina in her green shirt. Photos cheek to cheek. Later — the intimacy. His body telling the truth his words sometimes could not.
SCENE V
The Checklist. The Departure.
The loan. The joint account deleted. The social media — unfollowed. He came prepared. He came with oleanders. Both are true.
GIJSBERT
I will not be coming again, Eurydice.
EURYDICE
There it is. The sentence. Final. Clear. I look at the oleanders. For the beautiful memories.
EURYDICE
I know.
He goes. The MG starts in the street. 36 minutes to Almere. He will watch Quintin play football. Eurydice puts the oleanders in water. The bat house stands in the garden. Unmounted. The play has one act remaining.
End of Act IV
Je leest De Leeseditie, de gratis online versie. Download het volledige manuscript (PDF).
Een heldere, per pagina opgemaakte printversie van de leeseditie — inbegrepen bij een Reader-lidmaatschap.
Dit is een werk van fictie. Personages, gebeurtenissen en omstandigheden zijn gefictionaliseerd.