The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories (Penguin Modern Classics)

by Joost Zwagerman

  4

  The Baron owed his nickname to his renounced nobility. His grandfather, a believer in egalitarianism, had wrought his own little French Revolution by dumping his title in the dustbin of history. It was a loss that caused his grandson to suffer phantom pain. He still had a family coat of arms, but no title to go with it, so he cherished his surname all the more for its noble ring. You know all that. The dead don’t have Alzheimer’s.

  You needn’t listen; I’ll carry on talking anyway. For my own benefit. To furnish my space. I don’t miss them, for all that they were dear to me. Tico called me Don Anselmo for some reason, I think it had something to do with a film we’d seen together, El Cochecito. Tico and Merel. He had a touch of the Indies about him; the formal, overseas accent still lingered. Father in the Colonial army. Sergeant, but no matter, formality assured. Colonial hang-ups. Forever insecure about making the grade. We’re from Madura, if you know where that is. Think Bali, Lombok, Soemba, the whole Indonesian archipelago. And Timor, half-Portuguese. People forget that. Tico was friends with Nieges. Ah, Nieges, expert on the patina of age, remember? A question of chemicals. Bury an item in the ground with a drop of this or that and it’ll age all on its own in no time. Tico didn’t obtain his degree, but he knew enough to be of assistance to Nieges. They saw each other during the day, which I found odd. Alexander was busy with his internships at the same hospital where the Prodigy worked. Merel, Dodo and Ollie were involved in something they’d call fitness now. The Doctor spent his days in chess cafés. I never saw any of them during the daytime, for me they belonged to the evening. The circle of friends, the faces in the yellow lamplight, the smoke. And you. I can see you before me now, nothing to it, one can project any image one likes on the polder. Which reminds me of what you said about time being compacted, because things went too slowly for you. Perhaps it was just a throwaway remark, which I’m blowing out of proportion. And yet. I have the time to think about such things now. The first film I saw by Antonioni was with you. Antonioni and Bergman, both of them dead now too. It’s as if I never saw another film since. I lost interest. In those days it was all left-wing radicalism, you were supposed to show solidarity with any number of causes, sign manifestos, march for peace, outrage was mandatory. That didn’t bother us much, but the indignation was everywhere. University buildings occupied by students, rebellion in the theatre, sugarcane cutting in Cuba, marches for Cambodia, police crackdowns, and all that time we were busy with shoe and banco, a bunch of deserters washed up on an island. No trace of all the general mayhem in those films, which is probably why they made such an impression on me. They were not about social issues, just about people. Individuals. A distasteful word to me even today, but no matter. Solitary souls. Someone riding a tram going down a deserted street. The solitude amid the turmoil. 1964, 1965, I’m not sure. Il deserto rosso. Monica Vitti standing with a man at the base of a towering metal scaffold, two tiny figures, so small you would think they were nameless. It was then you dug your fingernails into the palm of my hand. That’s exactly it, you said, we don’t mean a thing. Who do we think we are? We’re being shredded, erased. Our stories are the same everywhere, they have no meaning. I now have that film on DVD, and several others. I watch them at night in here, where I’m sitting now. And each time that scene begins I can feel your hand. Antonioni spins out the moment, the wasteland, the wall, the metal framework, the agonizing diminution. That evening you didn’t join us at the gaming table. I was holding the bank with considerable success, and at one point I looked up. You were standing behind the Prodigy, your expression curiously intense, you gave me a little nod and at once made a gesture with both hands drawing in the entire circle, two quick waves and a swipe to the side, as if you were throwing us all out of the window.

  After that you left.

  5

  Our famous escapade took place a bit later. It was the Baron’s idea. There was an uncle somewhere near Rouen where he was to deliver something or whose signature he needed, I forget which. So then why not make the most of it and have a go in a real casino, at Deauville? Not everyone was available. The Prodigy had weekend duty, Ollie wouldn’t let André go. That left ten of us to pile into two cars: my old Renault 16, the Baron’s cat-back Volvo. Move over, Don Anselmo. You were in the Volvo, next to Nigel. It was strange seeing them all in broad daylight. The Doctor had a mildewy look. Belgium was grey. We made a detour to Saint-Omer, because Nigel wanted to see the church labyrinth there. I have never felt much at ease in churches, least of all Roman Catholic ones. Nigel and you were already there. You were standing at the centre of the labyrinth, which extended across the nave like some strange board game. I still have a postcard of it. From his hand gestures I could tell he was tracing the paths in his mind.

  His face was very white; I don’t believe he ever saw the light of day.

  I was too far away to hear what he was saying, but he was talking a lot, contrary to his taciturn habit. I say, Paula, got some breadcrumbs? called Tico, visibly startled by his voice echoing through the church. I watched you trying to follow the path out of the labyrinth and not succeeding. It’s getting dark, folks. That was the Baron. He had been against the detour, but had been voted down, everybody insisted that a labyrinth in a church was not to be missed. Why is this region called Picardy, Dodo wanted to know, there’s nothing picaresque about it. Not a knave in sight. Just the lingering smell of war.

  Two wars, Gilles said. Graves in their millions around here. And it’s not Picardy.

  The light was slowly fading. The trees lining the road had white bands painted around the trunks, which lit up one by one. The rain drummed against the windows; inside the car all was quiet. It wasn’t until we arrived at the casino that we all woke up. Il Barone: ties on. Yessir.

  Entrance hall, fitted carpets, chandeliers. Passports, entry forms. I glanced round at my companions. A scruffy-looking bunch. I don’t know about nowadays, but back then entering a casino was quite intimidating. There was a gravity about the place, a solemn atmosphere of destiny and fate, addiction and castigation. And of sheer, unmerited luck. I said so out loud, and you, standing in front of me in the queue, looked over your shoulder and said: Some people are born better-looking than others. Our names were entered in imposing ledgers. I always think they’ll refuse me entry, Tico said. We queued again for chips. After that we all dispersed, as though by prior agreement. Superstition, not wanting to stand close to anyone you knew, not wanting to push your luck. Nigel made for the poker table, which I didn’t dare. Casino poker was out of my league. Gilles and the Baron opted for baccarat, which came closest to our shoe, while the rest of us sought out the roulette tables. You stayed by my side at first, watched the bets being placed and said: Yet another labyrinth. After that we lost sight of each other. It was a large space, and it struck me that we had spread out like an army patrol combing enemy territory. Roulette was a game I think I always played to lose, which was, paradoxically, the only way I occasionally won. Not that night, though. I did what I always did, a pathetic combination of adventure and caution. French francs, a hundred of which seemed a lot of money back then. Oh, for the days of the quaint old currencies! Guilders, marks, lire … I staked a hundred straight up on twenty-three, and another hundred on red. I knew I’d carry on like this until I ran out of steam. Twenty-three could be trusted not to come up at all, and if black came up a couple more times (no earthly reason why it shouldn’t, statistically speaking, Nigel would say) I’d stake all my remaining chips on a random number. In retrospect I realize I was aiming to lose, just to get it all over with. Because what I really wanted to do was watch. Very few people gamble for fun, there’s always more to it. You can tell by the twitching muscles in jaws, the sidelong glances, the way a player suddenly stands up to leave or gives an over-generous tip. But the croupiers held a special fascination for me, the dealers of fate and doom, the spine-tingling undertone of metaphysical ennui in their voices. Big words, Don Anselmo. Sheer boredom, more like. Mesdames, messieurs,
rien ne va plus. Still one of the best sentences ever spoken. The flurry of last-minute bets, split on two-three, split on zero, then the final, prohibitive, rien! The baleful stillness until the white, spinning ball drops and bounces, a sound without comparison. Two kinds of players: those who look and those who listen. Cinq, rouge, impair and manque. What was it you once said at Dodo’s? You were holding the bank, your hand on the cards, no more bets, ladies and gentlemen, here goes: cancer, car crash, divorce, misery, love and passion, a diamond as big as the Hilton … Nobody laughed. We weren’t stupid, we had already thought of that ourselves.

  After half an hour all my money was gone. I saw you in the distance, side by side with your fate, but we were not to know that then. He raised his champagne to you, you clinked glasses. You struck up friendships wherever you went. I did not go over to you, but wandered off towards the other tables. Nigel, white as a sheet, as ever. Dostoevsky in Baden-Baden.

  Even he lost. Gilles and the Baron had already left the baccarat table. Tico turned his trouser pockets inside out and held them wide between finger and thumb. The Doctor had a piece of paper covered with scribbled figures, his unbeatable system, but lost all he had. Only Dodo and Merel were still playing. If we all end up losing, said Tico, we won’t have any money for petrol. Go and tell that to Merel, we said, tell her to stop, she’s still got chips. But Merel refused: she wanted to take her own sweet time going broke.

  In the end you were the only winner. The rest of us, losers all, had gravitated to your table. No credit cards in those days, no money out of the wall. Stop now, said the Baron. That was the wrong thing to say. You gave him one of those special looks of yours, took a sip of champagne. We stared at your stack of chips, trying to guess the value. Ten thousand at least. For Chrissake, Paula, save some for our dinner. We didn’t much fancy your new friend. He had tattoos on the backs of his hands. Miniatures, a bit like the runic signs they brand into bulls. He said something to you, and you laughed. As if you’d known him for ever. An accent, Spanish or Italian. You motioned to the croupier, circled your finger round the pile in front of you and then pointed to twenty-three, which had just come up. My number. He raked in the chips, totted them up in a flash the way croupiers do (like stirring a pile of shit, the Writer said later) and exchanged them for larger, higher value ones. He held one up to check your approval. It was a gold chip. Everyone was watching now. You nodded. He slid the chip towards you, and prepared to send the remaining, lesser chips after it with that obscene, off-hand croupier’s gesture saying it’s not money lying there. But it is money. I could hear Tico groaning under his breath when you signalled: Keep the change. Damn, there goes our dinner, he hissed between clenched teeth. Pour les employés, merci, Madame. What about us, then? Aren’t we in her employ? I have always wondered what sort of relationship croupiers have with money. They don’t get their salary paid in chips, after all. Very few of them play. They’ve seen a thing or two. All eyes were on you. Faîtes vos jeux. Tattoo placed a stack of chips on the table. A top-line bet on the zero with one, two and three, to be precise, then he filled the corners, and finally put a high-value chip straight up on zero. You didn’t move, just stood there holding your golden chip, and I knew what you had in mind. So did Tico, apparently, because I could hear his stifled moan: No, Paula, no. But you had already done the deed, with slow, almost priestly deliberation. Twenty-three. My number. Zero came up. No one spoke, Tattoo was the only player with stakes on and around zero. So his payout naturally included that golden chip of yours. A thousand francs. Had the twenty-three come up you’d have made thirty-five thousand. The croupier pushed the mound of winnings over the table towards Tattoo, who fished out a gold chip and slid it towards you. You accepted it without batting an eyelid, as if you and he had been at it for years. You did not exchange looks. Faîtes vos jeux. Tico let out another moan, a dog mourning its master. Nigel was watching, so was Merel.

  The atmosphere was tense. Then came the old flicker of complicity between the croupier and the player, a female player, because it only happens with women, really. A game of eyes. Just a fraction of a second, an attempt at exorcism that everyone knows is futile. The force of the hand sending the numbered wheel spinning round, the ball bouncing, skittering, bouncing again until it finally drops, caught in the small cell with the sacred number.

  Twenty-three. Things moved at high speed after that. It still hurts to think that those were the last moments we saw you. You slid your winnings to the man beside you, who slid them back: thirty-five thousand, just sitting there. Tico moaned again, Nigel stared at a point over our heads, Gilles lit a cigarette. You nodded to the croupier, pushed a chip in his direction, divided the thirty-four remaining ones into two equal stacks. Meanwhile Tattoo stood up, waited. You turned round, kissed Tico, kissed Merel, kissed me, ran a fingernail down my neck, handed one of your stacks to Dodo and dropped the other in your handbag. For a rainy day, you said to no one in particular, and stalked off with your man. Much good it’ll do her, murmured the Baron as you vanished through the revolving door. We all knew you wouldn’t be back. You had left your stake on the baize, pointing to me. I ought to have pocketed it; instead I placed the gold chip on red. Black came up. There are no secrets.

  Outside, it was still raining. Someone suggested taking a walk along the beach.

  The girls weren’t keen, so they stayed behind in a bar-tabac on the boulevard near the casino.

  Gusts of wind, and the other sound, that of surf. For a while we stood there getting wet. Then Tico said: I didn’t like the look of that guy. Nigel made no comment, neither did I.

  Ever woken up in a French seaside resort in the off-season? Hotel Sleepless Nights, hangover, view of the sea, gulls, driving rain. Petit déjeuner with apricot jam and those little wrapped squares of butter from Holland. Six months later: Hotel Corona de Aragon in Zaragoza goes up in flames. Pictures of people behind the top-floor windows waving their arms as if there’s a party going on. Eighty-nine dead. Nearly all Spanish, a few Germans, a Colombian, and one Dutch national. Just one.

  Translated by Ina Rilke

  17

  Remco Campert

  The Kid with the Knife

  De jongen met het mes

  You only had to snap your fingers and it was party-time. Summer or winter, it made no difference, the evenings and nights reeked of alcohol. At 3 a.m. anything was possible: you could do a handstand on a genever bottle, fly to New York, get a job as a farmhand and lie in the corn, become stinking rich overnight and, years later, full of champagne, drown in a swimming pool on a moonless night.

  In the summer when dawn broke with birds singing and clean streets and a pale sun, you drove to the beach; your hands sweated salt and alcohol and fresh ink from the morning paper. In the evening you returned home heavy as lead, shoes full of sand, your muddled brain bursting with headache: you’d slapped a girl, broken with a friend, laughed and yelled, your dilated pupils were black lagoons swarming with mosquitoes. Your thoughts had disintegrated into isolated words – key words, which you kept on mumbling, because you were afraid you would cease to exist if you forgot these words as well.

  And you fell asleep until you were woken up by the next party.

  Dick laid his hand on Wessel’s shoulder.

  ‘There are some people here who aren’t drinking,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’ Wessel asked.

  ‘There’s one over there,’ Dick said, pointing to the couch.

  ‘That tall fellow? Who is he? What’s he doing here?’

  ‘He’s a friend of Erik’s. Erik brought him. But that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s that he’s not drinking. There are limits.’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ Wessel said.

  ‘Erik,’ he said, after he’d tracked him down. ‘Erik, there’s a tall fellow sitting on the couch who’s not drinking. Rumour has it you invited him. Who is he and what’s he doing here, if he doesn’t drink?’

  Erik glanced at the couch.

  ‘He’
s a really crazy kid,’ he said. ‘He’s a photographer.’

  ‘Where’s his camera?’ Wessel asked.

  ‘Right,’ said Dick. ‘There’s that too.’

  ‘He didn’t bring it. He was afraid it would get smashed.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Wessel. ‘Was he afraid of that? So he didn’t bring it, then? Is he more of a landscape photographer?’

  ‘He’s a really crazy kid,’ Erik insisted.

  ‘Photographers are never crazy,’ Dick said.

  ‘Kids who are afraid of getting their cameras smashed aren’t crazy. They’re disgustingly ambitious. Kids who are ambitious are never crazy.’

  ‘I only like war photographers,’ Wessel said.

  ‘He takes very beautiful photos,’ said Erik.

  ‘What does he take photos of, then?’ Dick asked.

  ‘The Leidseplein youth,’ said Erik.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The Leidseplein youth.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s the kids who hang out on the Leidseplein.’

  ‘Why does he take photos of that lot?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s what he does.’

  ‘There’s never any war on the Leidseplein,’ said Wessel.

  ‘Figure it out for yourself, then,’ Erik said as he walked off.

  Wessel looked at the kid, who was sitting on the couch. He was holding something shiny.

  ‘Dammit, he’s got a knife,’ Wessel said. ‘Do you see it, Dick? He’s a kid with a knife.’

  ‘Maybe he is a really crazy kid after all,’ Dick said.’ But he doesn’t drink. I still think that’s unforgivable.’