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‘All the better,’ said David. ‘People like that.’

‘They’ve all gone crazy. But they’re getting what they want.’

And so East-West Travel Agency acquired another arm, Eastwest Adventures, headed by the world’s biggest home-body, David Castelen.

I didn’t have to look up David on a university website or use a lawyer. I saw him whenever I was in Zutphen, about three times a year, to visit my father when he was still alive, or when I was in the area for the paper.

After an hour or so I could hear my Eastern accent re-emerging, as if my tongue was glad to be able to form the innate sounds once more. Every so often the thought of returning resurfaced. Like the Greek emigrant who has made a pile in America and, after completing the task, returns to his village on an island in the Ionian Sea. Old Hoffman, who has seen the world, has become wise and returns to his roots. It would be nice if André and Joost did the same, then we could play cards in Annie & Wim’s café.

In the thirty-five years that David had lived in the town, he had succeeded in becoming a full-blooded Easterner. He spoke to the people who came to his travel agency in faultless dialect and no one thought it was odd.