Teacher and Restaurateurs Were Flight 17 Victims
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Version 0 of 1. AMSTERDAM — Hiding behind glasses of beer and flirting with nihilism, the aspiring writers, the sportsman, the teacher and the childhood friend were trying to cope with their feelings of irreplaceable loss. Their friend Laurens van der Graaff, 30, a tall, blond Dutchman who dreamed of writing a grand novel, and his girlfriend, Karlijn Keijzer, 25, a doctoral student in chemistry at Indiana University, had died en route to Indonesia for a summer vacation. They were two of the 193 Dutch passengers on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down on Thursday flying over eastern Ukraine. Mr. van der Graaff’s friends gathered Sunday at Café de Zwart, an Amsterdam watering hole popular among writers and journalists. It overlooks Spui, a square here where tourists roam in fluorescent shorts, unaware of the sadness many of the Dutch are coping with after such a tragic loss. Mr. van der Graaff had a knack for making friends wherever he went, said his childhood friend, Wim Amels, also 30. During a year as an exchange student at a high school in DeMotte, Ind., he was elected prom king. “He was just impossible to dislike,” said Nina Polak, whose debut novel, “Do Not Dread the Waves Below,” Mr. van der Graaff had taken along on his doomed trip. Leaving his home town, Bergen, on the North Sea, after high school, Mr. van der Graaff began studying political science and, later, Dutch literature at the University of Amsterdam in an effort, his friends said, to avoid becoming a teacher, like both of his parents. He joined the student rowing society, Skøll, and in 2008 was elected its president. “He loved the spotlights,” said his rowing buddy, Young-kon Lambeck, 29, “and everybody loved him.” Ms. Polak remembered when, in 2010, nervous and “dressed like an Abercrombie & Fitch model,” Mr. van der Graaff walked into the modest office of Propria Cures, a satirical student literary magazine and a training ground for aspiring writers and cultural critics determined to eloquently thrash those they had succeeded. “We still don’t understand how such a nice guy could be such a merciless writer,” said Jim Glerum, 27, a friend and an editor at the literary magazine. Mr. van der Graaff criticized several celebrated Dutch writers in articles in the underground magazine, and his friends said he was a good writer. But they said he had always felt he lacked literary depth. In the end, he decided to become a teacher, and a very passionate one at that. His friends, along with the owners of Café de Zwart, toasted Mr. van der Graaff’s memory on Sunday before they fell silent thinking of their friend’s large, lifeless body lying in a wheat field in eastern Ukraine. They tried to laugh and reason away their tears. “His body is abstract now,” said Mr. Amels, maintaining a stiff upper lip. “Still, I’m sure his parents want to have his body here,” Ms. Polak said. “The idea that he is being moved around, by those rebels who don’t love him — I don’t know,” said Mr. Lambeck. “It’s just wrong.” Across the Netherlands, people have come together to share stories of their loved ones and contemplate their loss amid a distant conflict. In Rotterdam, mourners gathered at a restaurant, Asian Glories, whose charming host, Jenny Loh, and her husband, Shun Po Fan, the cook lovingly nicknamed Popo, died aboard Flight 17. Their son, Kevin, is now left alone to run two popular restaurants. Many of the Netherlands’ top chefs were to participate on Monday in a memorial vigil in Rotterdam for Ms. Loh, a Chinese Malaysian, and Mr. Fan, who was from Hong Kong. They had moved to the Netherlands more than 30 years ago. “Their dream was to please their guests,” said François Geurds, 38, the owner of FG Food Labs, one of the Netherlands′ few restaurants with two Michelin stars. Mr. Geurds said that years ago, when he was starting out, he would save his money to spend on meals at Asian Glories, where he learned to expand his tastes and became close friends with Ms. Loh and Mr. Fan. “They were just the kindest people,” he said. “If it could bring them back, I’d give them both my Michelin stars.” Mr. Geurds said that if their bodies were recovered, Ms. Loh would be buried in Malaysia and Mr. Fan in Hong Kong. “They need a proper burial,” he said. “We need to bring them back.” |