ANDR RIEU

My Music, My Life

MARJORIE RIEU

A NDR R IEU

M Y M USIC , M Y L IFE

Dedicated to Bomma and Bibi, who contributed greatly to my success, though sadly it came too late for them to witness.

Marjorie Rieu

Andr Rieu
My Music, My Life Translated by Diane Webb

HAPPINESS!

t must have been my lucky day, that day I went to visit Marjorie for the first time, thirty-eight years ago. I had been staying with an aunt of mine in Hilversum for a week, and had gone to the station to buy a one-way ticket to Maastricht. At least, that was my intention, but after Id scraped together all the change from my coat and vest pockets and spread it out in front of the ticket-office window, it turned out not to be enough to take me all the way to my brand-new sweetheart. Hum.. Now what? I looked questioningly at the girl behind the window. She drummed with her fingers on the counter and threw a meaningful glance over my shoulder at the people who were beginning to line up behind me. I thought it over for a moment. Oh well, I said to myself, Ill just have to buy a ticket for as near as I can get. How far can I get on this much? I asked the girl, who was becoming impatient. Just a minute, she said, and her adding machine began ticking. Eindhoven, she replied with cool calculation, not realizing when she answered that the turn my life would take and my future career were hanging in the balance. Apparently the gentleman standing behind me in line had more feeling for the tragedy of the situation. Maybe hed noticed me because of the enormous fur hat I was wearing, the kind with ear flaps you can pull down and fasten with cords under your chin. Or maybe it was the violin case I was always carrying that had drawn his attention to me. I really dont know. In any case he tapped me on the shoulder, smiled, and asked in a friendly voice, Where would you like to go? To my girlfriend in Maastricht, I answered, surprised. May I offer to pay for the rest of your trip? I didnt know the man at all, but his face inspired such confidence that I completely disregarded the strict command Id heard so often as a child Never accept gifts from strangers! and gladly accepted his offer. I gratefully took the ticket for the whole trip from Hilversum to
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Maastricht and dashed to the train, which I managed to catch just in time. What luck, in fact, that that wide red plastic strip on the ground the line that is supposed to guarantee your privacy nowadays in banks and airports hadnt been invented yet. Because in that case Im afraid that my life would have taken a very different turn, and not at all for the better. Now that fate had driven me into the arms of Marjorie, who was waiting for me exactly at the appointed time on the platform in Maastricht, I was convinced that our being together would bring me happiness. Unfortunately, Ive never been able to find out who that nice gentleman was, whose generous gesture laid the foundation of my current success and happiness in life. I think if I were to see him again I would recognize him immediately. Who knows, he might even read this and remember the incident. (In that case, please get in touch with me, I still owe you a train ticket!) That time I traveled from Hilversum to Maastricht alone. The trip took two hours, which seemed like an eternity. Marjorie and I made the return trip together, and it took twenty years! It was an exciting, sometimes difficult, but mostly pleasurable trip which seemed to fly by because we were together. After twenty years I was back again in Hilversum, the Hilversum this time, the home of Dutch radio and television broadcasting and therefore the Mecca of every Dutch artist. All the success I now enjoy I owe to our having fought for it together. It wasnt always a conscious effort, of course, not as if wed said, well put our shoulder to the wheel and in twenty years well be a success, because it just doesnt work that way. We simply let things take their natural course. In the beginning we both just let ourselves drift, trying out one thing and another, floating along with the current until we ended up in a stream that suited us. It took some time before we realized which direction we wanted to swim, but from that moment on we both started to work, consciously and concertedly, on promoting my personal career.

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Marjorie and I the year we met each other for the first time.

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