Sanne van Hek 4.11.1978-6.4.2020
“How often she has gazed from castle windows over
And watched the daylight passing within her captive wall
With no-one to heed her call”
Kad smrt postane samo broj. Bezimena. Bezlična. Navikavamo se da brojimo. Ne znamo imena, ne vidimo lica iako znamo da nijedna smrt nije bez očiju koje nas gledaju. Brojimo i ne mislimo. Brojimo bez osjećaja. Zanimaju nas samo naši bližnji. Koliko neko treba biti blizu da bi bio važan?
A onda iznenada, u jeku pandemije, dok ljudi razmišljaju kako sačuvati vlastiti život, čak i oni čiji se ostatak nekog hipotetičkog života piše malim, najmanjim slovima, iznenada se jedna smrt izdvoji i zaboli sama više nego bezbroj drugih.
U ponedjeljak, 6. aprila, daleko od Sarajeva, Sanne van Hek je počinila samoubistvo. Kažu da je otišla mirno. Dok se sav svijet krije od virusa, Sanne sebi oduzima život. Nije je bilo briga za virus. Sanne je brinula umjetnost, muziku. I ta je briga bila totalna. Trevor je rekao da ono što ona radi sa ritmom niko nije radio. Nisam to sam zapazio, ali vjerujem Trevoru, ne samo zato što zna, već i zato što ne priča svašta.
Poznavao sam je nedovoljno, ali je bila jedna od onih osoba koje odmah primijetite. Ne znam da li je to pronicljiv pogled, ili stav, ili opći dojam, ljepota. Ali ne vidimo svi svu ljepotu isto.
Dok ovo pišem pokušavam udaviti bol kao zmiju. Gušim se u klišejima koje ispisujem. Govorim o Sanne koja je bila sve samo ne klišej, njena je umjetnost bila sve osim klišeja. Volio bih da sam veliki pjesnik, u ovoj noći punog mjeseca, pa da bez porođajnih muka na svijet donesem sonet u kojem će se bar malo zrcaliti tuga što me plavi kao voda. Potapa me. Sve sam dublje. Bol je sve tuplja. A mjesec me gleda svisoka, kao da samo mene čeka.
Nisam pjesnik da pjevam o ljepoti. Nisam poeta da ispjevam poemu i posvetim je njenim sjenama u nadi da ću ih izbrisati svjetlom riječi. Nisam dokučio pola od onoga što je svirala. Bar pola. Ali ono što jesam bilo je sasvim autentično, samo njeno.
“Samoubistvo je najvažnije filozofsko pitanje.” Ili bolje, jedinstven odgovor na sva pitanja. Dok gomila mediokriteta bludi svijetom, dok horde polutaleneta defiliraju scenama, kao da prečesto oni najizuzetniji ne mogu naći svoje mjesto u svijetu, niti mogu naći sam svijet koji se šaren i ružan prostire pred njima. Previše je mojih prijatelja počinilo samoubistvo. Bili su posebni, svoji, bez svog mjesta u svijetu i bez želje da ga dalje traže.
Ipak, sasvim slučajno, dok sam Harisu pričao o njenoj smrti rekao mi je da je na pitanje o samoubistvu svog prijatelja Bekima direktno iz nesvjesnog progovorio – to je njegov izbor i ja to poštujem.
Zagrlio sam ovu ideju kao davljenik pojas za spasavanje. Kao jedini spas na pučini mraka.
Znam da je utjeha samo utjeha, i da ništa ne mijenja stanje stvari. Ali i utjeha je nešto.
***
“How often she has gazed from castle windows over
And watched the daylight passing within her captive wall
With no-one to heed her call”
When deaths become mere numbers. Nameless. Faceless. When we start getting used to counting them. We don’t know names; we don’t see faces, although we do know that no death is without eyes that are watching us. We are counting deaths without emotions. Caring only for those close to us. How close someone needs to be – to be important?
And now, suddenly, in the midst of the pandemics, while people are concerned only with saving their own lives – even those people whose parts of some hypothetical lives is written with tiny, with the tinniest letters – suddenly, one death distinguishes itself and, alone, it hurts more than numberless others.
On Monday, 6 April, far from Sarajevo, Sanne van Hek committed suicide. They say that she left peacefully. While the whole world was trying to hide from the virus, Sanne took her own life. She cared not for the virus. Sanne cared for art, for music. And that care was total. Trevor once said that what she was doing with rhythm, nobody could do. I didn’t notice it myself, but I trust Trevor, not only because he knows, bit also because he is very sparing with words.
I didn’t know her well, but she was one of those persons who you immediately notice. I don’t know whether it was her insightful eyes, or her attitude, or the general impression she made, her beauty. But we don’t see beauty in the same way.
Writing this, I am trying to strangulate my pain as if it was a snake. I am suffocating in the clichés I am putting on paper. I am speaking about Sanne who was everything but a cliché; her art was everything but a cliché.
I wish I were a great poet, in this night of full moon, to deliver to the world, easily and without labors, a sonnet that would slightly mirror, at least, the sadness that is flooding me like water. Immersing me. I am sinking deeper and deeper. The pain is duller and duller. While the Moon is staring at me from above, as if it is waiting for me.
I am not a poet to write about beauty. I am not a poet to write a poem and dedicate it to her shadows, hoping that I would erase it with the light of words. I have not grasped even half of what she used to played. Not a half. But what I have understood is that they way she played was utterly authentic, hers alone.
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.” Or rather, the only meaningful answer to all the questions. While a mediocre crowd is drifting in this world, while hordes of semi-talents are defiling on stages, it is as if only too often the most exquisite can’t find their place in this world, nor could they find the world itself, that motley and ugly world stretching before them. Far too many of my friends have committed suicide. They were special; they were unique, without their place in the world and without desire to continue searching for it.
Nevertheless, it was a coincidence that, when I was telling Haris about her death, he said to me that, when he was asked about the death of his friend Bekim, he responded directly, out of the depth of his unconscious: it was his choice and I respect it.
I have embraced this idea like a drowning man trying to grab the lifebelt. As it is the only salvation in the billows of darkness.
I know that consolation is just consolation, and that it changes nothing. Yet, consolation is still something.