The Real Red Riding Hood

by Madeleine Kando

I just spent two weeks in Little Red Riding Hood's house. It is as tiny as you imagined it, reading about her in those children's books. It sits at the end of a country lane, in the middle of the 'polders' in the Northern tip of Holland, since this is where Red Riding Hood has moved to in her golden years. She still wears her red cape, but only when she goes out in the windy Dutch weather. It gives her silvery grey hair, of which she is particularly proud, an extra shiny appearance. She hasn’t grown much since you read about her, but her hips and thighs betray her age; they have settled in a comfortable voluptuousness, which actually gives her a specially endearing appearance.

The bricks on Little Red Riding Hood’s house are painted white with all the window trims a bright shade of red. The tiles on the roof are the color of fresh squeezed oranges, matching the bricks that form a little path around her house.

A large chestnut tree is standing guard, so close to the house, that its large leaves brush against the windows, as if to say 'don't worry Little Red Riding Hood, I'll protect you when the Northern wind comes.’ But sometimes it is the wind that wins the battle, pelting the orange roof with large chestnuts that it has ripped off this beautiful, old tree.

A rosebush has taken root next to the entrance, one pink flower partially covering the glass door. It is in bloom when I arrive, a speck of pink to welcome me. Red Riding Hood's garden is magnificent, bushes of every imaginable shade of green, flowers that seem to just grow because they want to please her. A small nude statue is reclining on a piece of marble darkened by the rain. The Dutch light is angling down, giving everything a delicate hazy tone. Red Riding Hood has chosen a perfect spot for her retirement.

She said she would be detained and has given me a small key with a red tag to let myself in, so I walk around the house. It fits the keyhole on the backdoor perfectly. It opens onto a kitchen with low hanging beams and a cooking stove decorated with a flowery design. There are old-fashioned nutcrackers lining the wall, cast iron pots and pans, many objects that I have never seen before and a beautiful dark wooden table. A large pepper grinder in the shape of a baseball bat hangs next to the door, probably to deter burglars.

The living room is bathed in sunlight this late afternoon. The wooden floor creaks under my steps and suddenly, the loud chime of a grandfather clock pierces the silence. I have traveled back in time and entered a world that only exists in children’s books.

The landscape that surrounds Red Riding Hood's house, the Dutch 'polders', is as flat as a pancake. Someone has taken the trouble to shave off the surface with a razor blade, slicing off anything that resembles a hill or a bump. Horses and sheep co-mingle on the thick, lush grass and flocks of wild geese loudly announce their group landing to share the bounty of this fertile soil.

I take a walk on the polders, since Red Riding Hood hasn’t come home yet. All I hear is the singing of bicycles passing me by and the occasional car, as it maneuvers its way on these tiny specks of asphalt that were really built for nothing larger than a tractor of a horse drawn hay wagon. My Boston days seem a million light years away, now that I am soaking up this fairy tale like environment.

This part of Holland is populated with sturdy, down to earth folk. They call themselves ‘uit de klei getrokken’, (pulled out of the clay) and the Little Red Riding Hood I am really writing about is one of them. She has aged somewhat since you read about her, but she is still doing what she does best, which is taking care of grandmother. The grandmother is my own 103 year old mother, who lives down the street from Red Riding Hood, in an assisted living complex.

Red Riding Hood’s real name is Marja and her husband's name is Marinus. He is a sculptor but Marja has all the makings of a professional angel, just like the fairytale Red Riding Hood, who risked being eaten alive, just because her ridiculously naïve mother told her to cross the forest to bring food to her grandmother.

You see, the big bad wolf is always lurking close by, when it comes to 103-year-old grandmothers. He knocked on grandmother's door at the assisted living several times already, and with his sweetest voice, tried to charm his way in, promising to take grandmother’s chronic foot pain away, or telling her that bathroom accidents would be a thing of the past, if she only would let him in. But Little Red Riding Hood made minced meat of him. She is there when grandmother is hungry and when she needs her medicine. She does the dishes and checks her email. The wolf can wait, she says, he will always come in, in the end, but not yet, not under HER watch.

On a nice day, Red Riding Hood will take grandmother for a ride into the village, for a cup of coffee or a 'borreltje'. She keeps track of her appointments, since grandmother still has many visitors, people who admire her former work as a photographer. Yes, I take my hat off to Red Riding Hood.

And now that I am flying back home to Boston and leaving my very very old mother in Little Red Riding Hood's care again, I want her to know that I am grateful. I know what she will say when or if she reads this. She will giggle a little 'a la Marja 'and say: 'Nou, doe niet zo raar. Ik ben toch Roodkapje niet en zeker niet een engel.' (Don't be silly, I am not Red Riding Hood and definitely not an angel’).

But that's alright. Angels never know that about themselves, that they are angels. If they did, they wouldn’t be angels, would they? leave comment here