De Kempervennen

De Kempervennen is a holiday park in Brabant that shifts from a place of routine service work to the setting of a shocking discovery and, later, Peter’s attempted retreat. Its cottages promise privacy, but the story repeatedly turns that privacy into exposure: a worker finds a neglected child and signs of violence, while Peter’s solitude is interrupted by the arrival of people and conflict he hoped to leave behind.

Setting and Access

The park is reached by a narrow, straight road through the woods, approached from the direction of Westerhoven-Eersel. At night, Peter drives along it with only his headlights illuminating the way. The sight of the park’s lights and its brightly lit reception marks a sharp change from the dark road: he enters what he experiences as a cheerful, welcoming world after arriving tired, hungry, and intent on being alone.

At reception, Peter is the only new guest that evening. He has no reservation, but the receptionist offers to find him a cottage if he pays for a midweek stay, even though he may leave the next morning. She marks Eekhoorn 1553 on a map and explains the route: past the barrier, about three hundred metres straight ahead, then left into a dead-end lane, with his cottage at the end on the right. The practical directions give his hoped-for solitude a precise destination.

The park is holding business breaks that week. Most cottages are occupied by businesspeople attending meetings or workshops during the day, so the receptionist warns Peter that the grounds may seem quiet. That quiet is not emptiness: the cottages are in use, but their occupants are elsewhere for much of the day. The distinction suits Peter’s purpose. He wants a place of his own, and the park’s scattered cottages appear to offer privacy without requiring him to travel far from the reception and its services.

A Workplace and a Scene of Discovery

De Kempervennen is also the workplace of an unnamed park employee who has worked there for more than two years. Delivering breakfast bread is part of his ordinary routine. When a bag remains hanging from the door of VIP holiday cottage Eekhoorn 1553, he assumes that its guests have left early and that reception has failed to tell him. His irritation is directed first at the staff behind the counter, whom he imagines gossiping and painting their nails rather than organizing the work properly.

The cottage’s details initially seem to support a mundane explanation. Coats remain on the rack, along with firewood and women’s shoes; the newspaper in the old bag is from the previous day. The employee decides not to investigate further and returns to his van for fresh bread. Only then does he see the small child crawling nearby, apathetic and chewing a large yellow pacifier. The child’s dirty face, matted blond curls, soaked and stained greenish pajamas, slipping diaper, and worn stuffed toy turn a routine delivery into an emergency.

The employee carries the child outside and is afraid it may be dead or in a coma. When the police car and ambulance arrive, a medic checks the child and tells him that it is alive, though apparently malnourished and dehydrated. A shout from inside the cottage calls attention to another survivor. The employee follows the medic into the bungalow, where blood has soaked the carpet and his shoes stick to it. The discovery unfolds by degrees: a man is slumped against the kitchen counter, apparently having dragged himself there; in the living room, two women lie entwined on a red sofa, one folded protectively into the other. Broken wine glasses, a bottle, an untouched cold platter, and partly smoked cigarettes suggest that the evening had begun convivially before the pine coffee table was overturned. A Walther 9x9 mm police pistol lies beside a bloodied man near the fireplace. The holiday cottage’s domestic furnishings make the violence more jarring, not less.

Peter’s Search for Solitude

Later, Peter reaches the park after asking for directions at a bar. He tells the receptionist he is travelling, exhausted, and hoping for a cottage. She explains the business-break arrangement and identifies Eekhoorn 1553 as his accommodation. Peter agrees to the midweek price, takes in the information about what is included, and follows her instructions to the cottage. The park is therefore not simply a backdrop he passes through: it becomes a chosen temporary home, selected because it offers him distance from other people while remaining accessible by car.

After he has settled in, Peter tells Eva that he is at Center Parcs De Kempervennen in Brabant and says she can call on the way so he can guide her there. He adds that she need not do so, presenting his location as easy enough to find. His invitation complicates the original wish to be entirely alone: the cottage is a retreat, but not an absolute withdrawal from his relationship with Eva. The contrast between the solitary arrival and the later offer to guide her makes the park a space where separation and connection remain in tension.

Privacy Interrupted

The cottage’s temporary shelter does not hold. When Rebecca appears, Peter opens the door to find her in a grey coat with Sem pressed tightly against her. Her apologetic, distressed arrival changes his response from happiness at seeing them to alarm that she has brought problems with her. She says she could not do otherwise and begins to cry. Peter realizes that he has been drawn into a trap; Steef then emerges from the darkness and prevents him from closing the door. Steef’s anger and Rebecca’s admission that he forced her to tell everything transform the threshold into the point where Peter’s attempted refuge is breached.

Across these episodes, De Kempervennen gathers together sharply different uses of the same kind of space. Its cottages are places of work for the employee making deliveries, private holiday accommodation for business guests, an emergency scene in which police and medics confront violence, and a hideaway Peter chooses for himself. Yet none of these spaces is sealed off from what happens beyond its door. The overlooked breakfast bag signals a crisis inside; the cottage Peter selects for solitude becomes the setting for an unwelcome confrontation. The park’s bright reception and carefully mapped directions promise order and ease, while the cottages hold the story’s most disturbing reversals.