by J. J. Kapka
Having comfortably ensconced herself in one of the numerous hotels that were nothing so much as converted townhouses that bordered the many canals in the city, Maddie set out to explore Amsterdam. With no particular agenda other than to see what looked interesting, she decided to follow her street’s picturesque canal to the first major intersection and then turn in toward the heart of the city. Maddie found herself immediately taken with the charms of the surrounding environs: the large but homely houseboats anchored at intervals along the water, the beautiful lace-inset curtains in so many of the windows, even the hoists projecting from the attics, meant to leverage furniture up through the windows as the houses were too narrow to get anything up the staircases.
As in Paris, however, she found it prudent to keep one eye trained on the ground so as to avoid the inevitable dog droppings; more than once she engaged in a last-second hop-skip-and-jump to avoid contact with one of the mounds. Did the owners think they were bestowing a gift upon the city? Was that why those few thought they couldn’t be bothered to clean up after their pets?
Some half hour later, still meandering along the canals, she came upon a line of people snaking outside of what appeared to be yet another residence. Upon closer inspection, Maddie discovered it was the Anne Frank house, which was on her list of things to see. Backtracking to the end of the line, she resigned herself to a long wait, albeit a pleasant one, in the sun-dappled comfort of the summer’s afternoon.
Within a few minutes, a group of boisterous young male backpackers had taken up the rearguard position behind her. She amused herself listening to the cadences of their conversation in a language she guessed was Dutch. In fact, she got so involved with her pseudo-eavesdropping that she forgot to shuffle forward and was startled when one of the young men poked his face around to her side and politely asked if she was still in line.
“Oh, yes, I’m sorry. I was…distracted,” Madison stammered with a slight blush. She hurriedly moving forward, simultaneously taking in the tall young man with jet-black tendrils of hair framing a ruggedly handsome face.
“Oh, are you American?” the man asked.
Maddie nodded. “Where are you from?”
“My friends and I are from Antwerp.”
“Antwerp?” Maddie asked, confused. “But that’s so close to here. I would have thought you’d have visited Anne Frank’s house long before this.”
The young man nodded. “Yes, we have. But it was on a class trip when we were about ten years old, not really old enough to understand what we were seeing. We’re about to backpack all around Europe this summer, and we decided to make a good start by seeing the highlights of our own country first.”
Maddie murmured appreciatively. Following the direction of his eyes, she realized that she’d again held up the line and quickly moved forward. The man dropped back to his friends, and they took up their conversation where they’d left off.
As the line gradually worked its way up to the entrance, Maddie studied the outside of the house. The tourists were let into the house in smallish groups. Once she’d paid her admission, Maddie went inside, at which point she was cut off from the backpackers behind her.
The self-guided tour through the house was sobering. Reading Anne Frank’s diary when she was a teenager had been a heavy dose of reality for Maddie. Now, seeing the rooms where the family had hidden and been forced to conduct their lives in close quarters made an added impact and shortened the distance to that long-ago time. Maddie envisioned herself in Anne’s place, dealing with a reality that was so frightening and horrific. She wiped away unbidden tears at seeing some of the relics of the young life which had been cut so brutally short.
Emerging into the sunlight again after the tour, Maddie was at a loss for what to do. After the gravity of what she’d just seen, she didn’t really feel up to another museum. She needed to let it all sink in for a while before exploring something new.
She wandered down the street, a bit distracted, when a delicious smell wafted up from a short basement stairway. She turned her head and peered down to discover the source. The sign in the doorway announced a pannekoeken restaurant. Curiosity, not to mention an empty stomach, overcame her initial reticence at eating right now.
Crossing the threshold, she encountered what appeared to be a convivial arrangement of large wooden tables and benches at which a number of people already sat partaking of a mouthwatering array of pancakes encased in all manner of substances. Maddie eagerly let herself be seated at an empty table and was handed a menu consisting of an amazing selection of both sweet and savory pancakes. Torn as to which kind she should order, she decided in the end to try a savory pancake first, relegating the tasting of one of the sweet varieties to dessert, should she still be hungry.
She ordered the mushroom, cheese, and bacon pancake, along with the locally brewed Amstel beer. When the waitress finished, Maddie bent her head over the menu again, having elected to kill the time by deliberating on her possible dessert choice. She’d only just let her eye meander past the lemon-and-sugar-flavored pancake when she was startled to find that some additional people were about to be seated at her table. Looking up in dismay because her solitude had been disturbed, she was amused to find that her tablemates were to be the same four backpackers who’d been behind her at the Anne Frank house.
The man who’d originally spoken to her smiled down at her as he slid onto the bench directly opposite her. “What did you think of the museum?” he asked.
“Overwhelming, actually,” Maddie replied.
“Yes, I would say so, too. Such a sad story, but only one of millions like that during that time.”
Pleasantly surprised at the apparent depth of his feelings, Maddie mentioned the thoughts that had been going through her head as she’d taken the tour. They were interrupted by the waitress coming to take her tablemates’ orders, which succeeded in somewhat lifting the heavy mood of their conversation. They then introduced themselves.
“My name is Peter,” said the one to whom she’d been talking. “And this is Hans,” he said, with a nod to the tall blond drink of water sitting next to him. Next, he introduced George, sitting next to her, with bushy black hair, and finally, Jan, sitting on the other side of George. The latter’s curly, dark brown locks framed a sweetly freckled face. He reached across George to shake her hand, just as the others had done in turn.
Maddie told them her name, where she was from, and where she’d been thus far. Having dispensed with the introductions, her tablemates launched into an animated conversation on the pros and cons of the various cities and their respective itineraries. When the waitress brought their beers, they were all thirsty enough to down the first glass before their meals arrived, so they quickly ordered another round to accompany their food.
The second round arrived with their main course. Maddie was taken aback by the full-sized platter set before her. The pancake was nearly twelve inches in diameter and rolled around the filling, which was oozing out of the edge at either side. As she eagerly cut into the middle, the springy pancake gave way to reveal a rich mélange of cheese, bacon, and mushrooms emitting a hearty aroma that perfectly matched the taste of the freshly brewed beer.
They all set to the task of devouring their respective pancakes with the abandon of the truly hungry. In between mouthfuls, they still kept up the patter of their conversation, which consisted of disputing various recommendations or wholeheartedly urging each other to visit this or that city or museum or country town.
By the time the waitress checked back with them to see if they wanted anything else, they’d been through their third round of beers. The guys eagerly ordered a number of tempting dessert pancakes. Maddie was having such a good time conversing with her fellow diners, she decided to join them in dessert, though she had been thinking she would be good and not have any. Forget my waistline, she thought.
When the waitress returned bearing the groaning tray of tempting dessert pancakes, Maddie took one look at hers and threw cau
tion to the wind. Perched in front of her was a pancake similar in size to the first, although this time it lay flat in all its glory, heaped with a glistening mound of kirsch-marinated cherries and their syrup, with a hearty dollop of whipped cream, called Schlag, starting to melt down in rivulets through the hills of freshly picked cherries.
“Oh, this is amazing,” Maddie avowed around a mouthful of decadence. Only then did she gaze about to see what the others had gotten. George’s pancake had pears and chocolate sauce. Peter’s had rum-soaked raisins and ice cream. Jan’s had sautéed apples, ice cream, and whipped cream. Finally, Hans’s had the simplest toppings: sprinklings of lemon juice, lemon peel, and sugar.
As they all looked around, they were simultaneously seized with the same idea, which was to reach out and try one another’s choices. With the effects of their fourth beer having taken hold, the exchange of pancakes came to resemble a small-scale food fight. Forks clanged in midair, fruit fell onto the table and floor, and chocolate smeared across their chins as they jostled each other in their eagerness to try all the choices before the others got to them. It didn’t take long before they dissolved in tears of laughter at the ridiculous sight of their competitive pancake spearing.
By the time the plates were empty, the sight of the others licking their fingers, while inadvertently smearing more gobs of various syrups and juices on their faces, made it even harder to control their merriment. It was only the arrival of the waitress with the checks and a rather stern look on her face that finally enabled them to get a grip on their demeanors, clumsily search out their wallets, and pay the bill.
When they rose from the table as a group, the beer took its final toll by making them even more lightheaded than they already were. They could barely march in single file to the door and stumble up the stairway.
Maddie grasped the railing at the top and tried to orient herself, while simultaneously restore order to her hair and clothes. She started to wave goodbye to her congenial dinner partners as they formed a loose grouping and began to walk down the street.
When Peter glanced around and saw her still standing there, a look of consternation passed over his face. “Aren’t you coming with us?” he asked worriedly.
“I, er…where are you going?” Maddie asked confusedly.
“We’re going…” Peter started, and then looked around at his friends, hoping for some kind of a cue, but it was obvious they were as befuddled as he was. “I don’t know,” he finally replied flatly. “But wouldn’t you like to come with us anyway?”
Maddie couldn’t help but burst out laughing. After a few seconds of quizzically trying to figure out what she was laughing about, they all joined in, which somehow became the signal for them to re-form around Maddie, grab her by the elbows, and usher her down the street with them.
After a couple of minutes of sporadic laughter from one or the other of them as visions of their riotous dinner passed through their heads, Hans pulled up short. “I know what we can do,” he exclaimed.
“What?” they all replied in chorus.
“Let’s take the Amstel tour,” he volunteered, as though this was the most logical thought in the world at the moment.
“What?” George started, before apparently having a change of heart and then nodding his head in assent.
Maddie couldn’t imagine that they needed any more beer in their overloaded systems, but she couldn’t quite bear the thought of parting with them at this juncture. The switch from drunken camaraderie to just drunken, solitary wandering was not the sobering that she needed at the moment, so she, too, voiced her agreement.
~~~
July 6
The whole group unsteadily marched off with only a vague notion of whether they were heading in the right direction. After a few minutes, some sense of logic prevailed, and Jan reached into his backpack to extract a map and a guidebook. After some consultations regarding routing and direction, they made an about-face and set off once again for the brewery. Some short ten minutes later, they landed in Amstel’s foyer and settled in to wait for the next tour.
The time passed quickly enough as they huddled together in conversation about nothing much in particular. A half hour later, they finally went through the doors, now sober enough to take sufficient note of the information on the beer-brewing process and to occasionally stop and stare in awe at the enormous vats holding untold quantities of the same substance that was sloshing around in their bellies at this very moment.
By the time they exited the brewery and entered the tasting room, Maddie and her companions were sober enough, and thirsty enough, to think that perhaps one more round would be just the thing to cap off the afternoon. They bellied up to the bar, grabbed a mug, and thoughtfully drank that first round, rolling the beer around on their tongues in newfound appreciation of the process of blending hops, yeast, and fermentation.
By the second beer, their respect for the process had grown somewhat dim and had yielded to the surer appreciation of taste and aftereffects. Indeed, the third round cast the final vote in favor of taste versus mechanics. Before that decision could be confirmed with a fourth round, they found themselves rounded up and led to the door by the barman, who inexplicably mentioned something about them being too loud.
Really? Maddie was puzzled. Looking around, she realized her drinking buddies were just as surprised as she was at this turn of events. Surely, Maddie drunkenly mused, the barman’s ears are a bit sensitive. However, the gazes and mutters of the crowd through which they were led seemed to suggest that perhaps there was relief descending on the room at their imminent departure. Humph! Maddie snorted indignantly.
Finding themselves standing without a purpose in the still-bright summer evening light, Maddie and the young men simply started walking aimlessly. None of them said anything aloud about their condition, but there seemed to be a common, unspoken consensus that a bit of fresh air, without a beer in sight, might be exactly what the doctor ordered.
Rather than consult a map, let alone try to read it in their inebriated state, the group wandered up and down the streets. The only common thread to their wanderings seemed to be that they favored streets along the picturesque canals, and there were many of these in Amsterdam. Or maybe there are just a few, Maddie thought, but we’re too drunk to know we’re walking in circles.
After about three hours and a few stops for strong coffee along the way, they finally managed to walk themselves into a state of near sobriety. Maddie noticed that they had also begun to wander off the well-worn canal street paths and were now in an area surrounded by dozens of restaurants of every conceivable variety. Almost as one, they came to a stop and shuffled around in a circle. Gazing up at the various signs, the boys started to express vague yearnings about food and being hungry again. Maddie completely agreed with that impulse.
George then planted himself in front of her. “Rijstaffel,” he said.
Maddie stared hard for a few minutes, trying to determine what it was he really meant to say. She thought that for the most part, the effects of the beer had worn off, but maybe George had a somewhat slower metabolism than the rest of them. Before she could say anything, he said it again, louder. Inexplicably, they all started saying the same thing with eager nods of their heads.
Oh man, Maddie realized, it must be me. I’m a lot worse off than I thought I was.
Out loud, she said, “I give up. I can’t for the life of me understand what any of you are trying to say. I know I must still be a little wobbly, but what the heck is this reeztafoul?”
The guys all turned and stared at her for a minute before bursting into laughter. Finally, Peter grasped her arm and informed her that rijstaffel really was a word, and what it meant was “rice table,” a dish with its roots in the Dutch trading days in Indonesia. He assured her she’d love it, and she assured him she’d try it, and further, would be grateful to attach a mental image to this curious word.
They ambled down the street a bit until her cohorts could agree on a suita
ble venue at which to initiate her into her first rijstaffel experience. After scanning the menu pasted on one of the many doors they’d stopped at, the four young men came to a consensus that this would be the one to try and pulled open the door. Feeling a welcome blast of super-cold air, further jolting the remaining beer vapors out of their heads, they piled into the small entryway and asked for a table. As history has a tendency to repeat itself, it wasn’t long before they’d again recharged their beer capacity to accompany the mouthwatering delights that were set before them.
It turned out that rijstaffel consisted of a dizzying array of various spicy dishes—meat, vegetables, and substances in between—laid out on a long silver tray with square and rectangular indentations. The trick was to put a scoop or two of rice on your plate to offset the various levels of spiciness and then work your way through about twenty different small tastings, all of which added up to a very filling meal.
Maddie found her stomach groaning with satisfaction by the end, both from the repeated tastings and the beer. She’d particularly liked the little skewers of satay with peanut sauce that had been part of the presentation. The sauce was both sweet and spicy without being cloying, and the chopped-up peanuts in it lent a satisfying crunch to each bite.
Once again, Maddie’s group found themselves exiting doors on a cloud of beer fumes and having no set direction in mind. At least they’d found a pattern and were sticking to it. In keeping with their modus operandi, they set off in what was becoming their habitual wandering mode, only now it was dark, and the shops had closed.
That made it all the more curious when they turned onto one of their beloved canal streets and found the shop windows were lit. Only this time, the lighting was mostly red and dim. On closer inspection, Maddie realized they’d wandered into the famous red-light district, where the ladies of the night—and reportedly day as well—displayed their wares, sitting in their windows. She found it bizarre, but fascinating all the same. As shocking as it was to happen upon this seamy side of life, at the same time, it all seemed so matter-of-fact in the way the women dispassionately sat in their windows, waiting for their customers. Those customers, meanwhile, browsed among the windows as though they were shopping the aisles of a department store.