Little Tony

The wife of an illiterate farmer hires a beautiful woman to teach him how to read and write. Farmer Brand can't read and he is quite happy with that. His wife, Keet, who has to read him all the subtitles on the television, isn't. She decides to hire a teacher for him. This is a beautiful young woman, called Lena. Brand falls in love with her. To his puzzlement and dismay Keet encourages him, because as she says she doesn't want a husband with another woman in his head. She wants their love to grow stale. She also wants Lena to give Brand and her a son. The love between Brand and Lena does not grow stale easily and after the birth of little Teun, their strange menage a trois comes to a dramatic conclusion. —Hanne van Essen <zeldesse@euronet.nl> Brand, an unemployed illiterate in his fourties, lives with his wife Keet in some desolate corner of the Dutch countryside. Keet, being tired of having to read the subtitles on television out loud so Brand can understand what's going on, one day decides he should learn to read for himself. She hires Lena, an attractive woman in her thirties, to do the teaching. Lena and Brand develop a passionate relationship, and Keet decides to let it happen because she wants her husband to be happy. She even goes so far as to claim she never actually was married to Brand: it all was just a game, she's just his sister. Lena then moves in, and soon takes over. But after a while she gets pregnant and bears a son, Kleine Teun ("Little Teun"). Then Keet, who can't have children herself, finally caves in and decides Lena has to be eliminated ... —Homme A. Piest <piest@pobox.leidenuniv.nl>