Lonneke

Lonneke is a patient on the PAAZ whose experience of mental distress is inseparable from the first weeks of caring for her baby, Bor. The book presents her in brief but consequential scenes: at first as a woman Emma can barely identify through the fog of the morning, then as a mother holding an infant on the ward, and later through Dimitri’s account of the fear and hallucination-like experiences that preceded her admission. Her presence makes the ward’s patients not only people receiving care, but people whose family lives and responsibilities continue inside and beyond its doors.

Identity and Introduction

Lonneke first appears during a ward meeting about rules and announcements. Emma’s attention is dulled by the morning’s mental fog, and she only slowly recognizes the woman across from her: a plump, Indian-looking woman staring blankly ahead. The staff member Leny says that colleagues have reported Lonneke passing a drill to other patients too often. Emma initially mishears the word and cannot make sense of the exchange, a small comic interruption that also establishes how little she can take in at that moment. Lonneke is introduced less through explanation than through the ward’s everyday business and Emma’s uncertain perception of it.

The next encounter gives her a name and a different context. Emma returns to a room to find Lonneke sitting unusually still in a chair in the corner, with a bundle in her lap. A small arm emerges from the bundle: Bor is there. Linda recognizes him and asks to hold him, while Emma remains startled and keeps her distance, lifting the stack of papers in her hands as if to avoid approaching. Lonneke looks uneasily at the baby in her arms as he looks around at the people nearby. The scene sets her apart from the ward’s usual image of patients gathered for activities: she is there with an infant who needs care, and the two are visibly present in a place organized around treatment.

Bor and Life on the Ward

Bor is not simply mentioned as part of Lonneke’s life outside the PAAZ; he enters the ward with her. Linda admires his fingers and toes, and the narrative’s attention shifts briefly to the very small, physical details of a newborn among the patients. Emma’s first response is apprehension, not welcome. Her effort to keep away from the bundle contrasts with Linda’s eagerness to hold him, showing different reactions to the unexpected presence of a baby in the ward without suggesting that Lonneke herself is responsible for Emma’s discomfort.

On a walk across a little bridge, Bor’s stroller rolls ahead while Lonneke talks with Iefke, Beatrice, and Celine. Dimitri and Michiel bring up the rear in silence. Emma sees the patients together as a sad group, but also as a beginning. In that brief outdoor scene, Lonneke is part of a small social circle rather than an isolated figure: she speaks with other women while the stroller carries Bor alongside them. The ordinary rhythm of a walk and conversation holds together with the unusual circumstances of a mother and infant on a psychiatric ward.

The Crisis Behind Her Admission

Dimitri later describes what life at home had been like after Bor’s birth. Lonneke had been home for only two weeks following the delivery. During the day she was frightened and saw things; at night she would sit bolt upright every few hours, screaming that the house was on fire and that Dimitri had to save the baby. He cannot say whether these episodes were dreams or hallucinations, and his uncertainty matters: the book does not give Lonneke’s experiences a more definite description than the account supports.

Even when Dimitri knew there was no fire, he felt he had to get up and check. He could not rule out the possibility that Lonneke had heard or smelled something he had missed. The repeated vigilance wore him down, and he says that her admission was a relief; if the situation had continued another day, he felt he too would have been ready for an institution. His account makes clear that Lonneke’s crisis affected the whole household, while also revealing the practical burden on a partner who was trying to care for both her and their child. The admission offered respite from that cycle of fear and checking, though the evidence does not turn it into a simple resolution.

Relationships and Return Home

Dimitri’s account is the clearest window onto Lonneke’s home life. He speaks about her fear without treating the imagined fire as a deliberate act, and his description shows how concern for her and concern for Bor were entangled. At the same time, his exhaustion is part of the story: supporting Lonneke had become difficult enough that he was close to collapse himself. The family’s needs therefore appear as connected rather than competing, even as the ward takes on a role in supporting them.

Lonneke also comes and goes in relation to the ward. At one point she enters the lounge pulling a small suitcase, while Dimitri sets two bags on the table. Later, Iefke hopes that Lonneke is back at home with Bor, remarking that having a baby is no small matter. These moments indicate movement between the hospital and home, but the narrative does not specify the circumstances or timing of each transition. What remains visible is that Bor and Dimitri are part of Lonneke’s presence on the ward, and that her care cannot be understood apart from the family life to which she returns.

Narrative Significance

Lonneke’s brief appearances widen the book’s picture of psychiatric hospitalization. The baby in her lap, the stroller crossing the bridge, and Dimitri’s account of checking for a fire give concrete form to the way distress continues to involve other people and ordinary responsibilities. Her story is not presented as a detailed clinical portrait: the reader hears little directly from her, and the nature of her experiences remains partly uncertain. Instead, the narrative lets objects and practical acts—a bundle, a stroller, two bags, repeated checks—show the demands surrounding her admission.

Her presence also unsettles the separation between patient and caregiver. Lonneke receives care on the PAAZ while remaining Bor’s mother; Dimitri supports her while describing how close he came to needing help himself. The resulting picture resists a neat boundary between the person in crisis and the family around her. Lonneke’s limited but recurring place in the book gives that complexity a human scale, without claiming that the ward resolves it or that her return home ends the difficulties.