These are the last words said on platform 4 at railroad station Gardermoen Oslo, 7 May 2009, 19.53 shortly before Sluik took a local train into the centre of the city. Alone.
I have been hesitating if I should continue this. I really have been wondering over and over again if there is any use in reconstructing something that is history. From or in the past I mean by that. Oh, history is such a heavy and loaded word most of us get to peep at from a distance or even just hearsay. Who amongst us does get close to it? Yes, Pina Bausch died this week. A person said about her that he thought some people are eternal and just can not die and she was one of them according to that person. People die every day by thousands not leaving much traces and soon they fade away totally. Of course new people are born too. Ha, I sound like Senis when I re-read those last sentences. I guess I have been under his umbrella for a while and too much.
It is behind feasible and verifiable: Sluik was near the Benfica fields the first week of February 2009. I however not and this is why I can not confirm Senis' claim they met there the first time. I know now of their shared admiration for Eusébio da Silva Ferreira and would not be surprised that the claim is right but I just do not know and for that reason I start my story a little later.
So they first met Tuesday 17th of February 2009 on the Natland estate. I do not recall the exact time but I guess it was late in the evening and close to midnight with a hiding half moon, so dark and kind of dreary. Previously that day a load of snow had fallen which covered the valleys and hills. It sucked up the sound from afar and clarified each crisp step made by Sluik in the virginal fresh white carpet while seemingly aimless walking around. It was cold but friendly cold. I guess the carpet kept some warmth as well. Earlier on that day Sluik had build a huge snowball lamp with candle lights on the porch of the backside of his cabin house.
The light which reached far over the land contributed to the seemingly endless warmth spreading over the small mountain that day. He went out for a walk having a presentiment the world had expanded somehow. He did not know what that actually could mean. But he had his sorrows too. Was he ever without that self-imposed burden? Above the crispy sounds of the squeezed snow under his feet I could clearly hear him talking loud to himself in circles in between his practice of whistling indefinable tunes: I am a bad chess player. I really am a bad chess player. There is nothing that can be done. Live with it. Live in it, I say. Just not capable of looking too many steps ahead. That is it. Bad chess I play. Should not pretend I know the rules. I know some moves of all the chessman... but of the women too? I guess women might be better chess players than men. They just do not show it do they? But is that not exactly why they are the better ones? I am a bad chess player. I really am poor.
Only when he came closer to his cabin he realized he had passed at least a double dozen of snowmen which had been erected by the children during the day.
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