Purgatory

by Guido Eekhaut

  “We ought to pay more attention to the Middle East,” he suggested, not really knowing what the problem was. “Despite current armed conflicts in the region, several of these economies are worth following. But the present instability—”

  “Ought?” Maxwell said.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Maxwell?”

  “You said, ought. Ought to pay more attention.”

  “Well, of course, we should, Mr. Maxwell,” Pieters hurried to explain. “We will certainly pay much more attention . . .”

  “Think Tunisia, Pieters,” Maxwell said. “Think Egypt. Think the whole of North Africa. All these countries are so desperate to belong to Europe. To become one with Europe. Sooner or later this will be a reality. One large, pan-European market, without internal borders, from Helsinki to Cairo. That’s where this company is heading, Pieters. Toward our prominent role in a grander Europe.”

  “Of course, Mr. Maxwell. Of course we are.”

  “Nice to hear you’re on track, Pieters,” Maxwell said. “That you are with us on this.” He handed the portfolio back. “Let’s look at this again at a later time, shall we?”

  After Pieters had left, Maxwell considered other problems. Things more important than the grand new pan-European market that was never going to happen. In 2020, nobody would be interested in the European market anymore. Such worldly matters would by then be superfluous. He knew there was little time left and still so much to do. Those wanting to be chosen still had to purify their dark, diseased souls. Sacrifices would have to be made, grand ones. A vengeful god looking down on you and measuring your effort, that wasn’t something you could ignore.

  And then there was the old enemy, the church, which had chosen to deviate from the true doctrine, thereby slowing all ongoing projects. Projects so many people had died for.

  The members of the church would not be saved. They would not. He would make sure of that.

  Maxwell turned around and watched Amsterdam. He was furious now. He had already taken revenge on some members of the church, but that would not be enough. It needed to be completely defeated. His hunger for revenge was not yet stilled. He needed to consider his soul. Would the planned sacrifices be enough? Probably not. Never enough. But he would try.

  There was the one sacrifice they all had been working on for so long. The one that might appease the Lord. An offering of truly apocalyptic proportions.

  He would continue preparations, despite the danger from the police. Of the AIVD and that ridiculous Bureau. They would, at some point, find out about his plans, but by then it would be too late. Their plans. The society’s plans. There had been risks in involving so many members of the society, but he had no choice. So many things to do. He could not do it alone. He knew the risk. People might talk. He assumed they would all be loyal to him and to the society, but still, so many people were idiots and, in the end, could not be trusted.

  Many were like Pieters. Slaves, and permanently afraid. The sort of combination he preferred.

  There had been a few new people. People he knew would lead the cause forward. People like Serena. Her passion for the society was nearly unparalleled. He needed more like her. Difficult to find. Given what would happen in 2020, she was one of his best assets. But also afterward . . .

  Because if 2020 didn’t work out, there would have to be a plan B. Another apocalyptic scenario if the first failed. He’d need young people like Serena.

  17

  THE STORM HIT THEM with an intensity none of them expected. It was as if a giant truck slammed into the camp.

  Then there was chaos.

  The only thing Linda was aware of was the immense sound filling the universe and the wind grabbing her and trying to drag her away. She had known storms along the Dutch coast, severe winter gales with rushing waves of seawater. This was nothing like that. This was all dust and sand and almost no air to breathe and the force of an alien life-form pushing at her.

  In the corner of one of the tents, the one with the steel structure that she hoped would withstand the storm, she crouched close to a couple large wooden crates, with the other members of the team beside her. She could hardly see anything but the canvas of the tent flapping wildly. The world was a swirling vortex of sand and dust. She wondered why they hadn’t taken refuge in one of the trucks, as the soldiers had done.

  Too late for that now.

  Nothing would be left of the refugee camp. None of their improvised tents or huts could withstand such a storm. Many people would die today, and others would lose everything. All efforts to keep these people here, and in relative safety, would now be in vain.

  Some time later, when the wind fell and the noise died down, she glanced at her watch and saw that only twenty minutes had passed. It had seemed like hours. Deafening hours. The dust and sand settled quickly, forming layers on top of everything, boxes and crates and tents and people. When she got up and looked outside, the landscape had returned to a more primitive state, fully a desert now, no longer any traces of shrubs or trees. Angular forms stuck out of the sand where the camp had been.

  Some of the stronger tents had remained intact, more or less, mostly those of the military and of the medical team, although much of the canvas had been torn or ripped. The trucks were partially covered with sand. Boxes and equipment were evidence of an alien city half hidden in the desert.

  In the camp proper, figures started to move in between the tattered remnants of structures as if new life-forms rose from the dry dust. The storm front moved away from them, indifferent to the suffering it had caused. Overhead, the sky had cleared.

  “What an awful mess,” one of the doctors behind her said.

  She didn’t respond. She would now have to make an inventory of the remaining material and supplies, but she knew the expedition was doomed. Too many things would be broken, the organization itself disrupted. And the refugees would probably not stay. When the trucks and aircraft came, the team would likely be moved, out to Mombasa or wherever.

  She went looking for Lieutenant Odinga but couldn’t find him.

  Then she noticed a figure moving through the remains of the camp, one among many figures, but this one convulsively bent, as if in pain. She at once recognized the prisoner, the man the soldiers had found in the hills. In his right hand, he held a rectangular object, like a box with a handle. He was free but made no move to leave the camp. He passed broken tents and collapsed sheds, cautiously observing his surroundings. Suddenly, he stopped. He stood no more than two hundred yards from Linda. He began to fumble with the box—it looked more like a metal can—and then made a sweeping motion, holding the can in both hands. He sprayed a liquid over a group of people, mostly women and children, who squatted helplessly among the remains of their tent.

  At once she understood what had been in the can.

  She ran forward. She wanted to stop the man but knew she would not reach him in time.

  The man then threw something at the refugees, who started to get up, panicking. A muffled explosion and reddish flames flared up among them.

  Two, three soldiers ran past Linda and began to extinguish the flames with pieces of canvas and sand. Someone grabbed her hand and held her back. She had eyes only for the man, who just stood there, observing his victims, fascinated by the screams and the fear.

  Again someone pulled at her arm, and she realized she was still trying to reach the victims, although the fire had died down.

  Odinga stood next to her. He had drawn his pistol.

  The prisoner turned toward them. He observed Linda and the lieutenant as if unsure about what to do next.

  Odinga raised his gun and shot the prisoner in the head.

  “I should have executed him right away after we found him in the hills,” Odinga said. “I should have known he would be dangerous.”

  He sat on an empty crate, head down. Linda sat on a metal folding chair she had recovered from the rubbish. It was a strange artifact, one of the last vestiges of a long-lost Western civilization, one of t
he last links to the industrial world.

  She wanted sensible answers from him but understood there were no longer any sensible questions.

  “These cults are very old,” Odinga said, looking at her now. “Coptic influences, probably. Or much older. Christians from the earliest ages, who took inspiration from older Egyptian cults. And Gnostics, on the other hand. Gnostic apocryphal writings, never fully understood. Few remember the traditions except for a scattered number of scholars who have studied the desert communities, here and farther north. People here have returned to their natural religions, but are still influenced by Christianity. Earlier Christianity, that is, not the missionaries’ brand. There’s this cleansing by fire thing, it goes all the way back to old religious practices. Fire is a powerful symbol.”

  “That’s what he was trying to do? Purify these people? Or himself?”

  Odinga merely continued gazing at his feet. She wondered how much of the truth he would be telling her and how much would be lies. “Who knows, Miss Weisman? An outsider, contemplating these Christian myths, might be struck by the unfortunate cruelty of its god. I am talking, of course, about the God of the Old Testament. Of the books of Judaism. Things get somewhat better with the arrival of Christ, but then there’s the matter of consuming his flesh and blood during Mass. I’m not sure what other cultures make of that.”

  “It’s merely symbolic.”

  “Everything is merely symbolic. The cleansing by fire is merely symbolic. Still, it’s a reprehensible practice, wouldn’t you say? Not something any civilized society would allow. But then, these people, they are highly fatalistic. And wouldn’t they be? Their life is not their own. There is little hope for them for a fulfilling life, even under the best of circumstances. Maybe things might get better when a man tells them they must burn other people and redeem themselves in the eyes of some god.”

  “That’s cruel. For them as well.”

  “These are not the times for these people, Miss Weisman. This is now the time of the West. Of Western society. Look at it. Western society has killed hundreds of millions of people during the last century, or caused people to be killed. By fire, often. Massive wars, the size of which this continent has never seen. Nuclear weapons, unimaginable for most people here, engulfing whole cities. There’s your cleansing by fire.”

  “Still, you shot the man, Lieutenant. You rejected his point of view in doing so.”

  “Yes, I did. Of course I shot him. It’s a clear thing. I protect the refugees from his madness. I do not question his beliefs, only his madness.” He furtively glanced at the remains of the camp. “But it seems I have failed. I could not protect them, not against another madness.”

  “You couldn’t have stopped the storm,” she said.

  He got to his feet. “I will have to inform my superiors, ma’am. A lot of people died today. I heard the two UN representatives died as well. Soon everybody will have left. I don’t know where they will go. They will probably disappear in the desert. That’s what deserts do. They dissolve people.”

  “You are not their god,” she said.

  She didn’t know why she said it. It seemed . . . excessive.

  “No,” he said. “Apparently, I’m not.”

  18

  VAN GILS HATED DOING this sort of fieldwork in the middle of winter, ringing bells and more or less randomly speaking to people—not certain what Eekhaut or Dewaal wanted. He wore his leather jacket against the cold and thought about his wife, probably warm and cozy at home, drinking tea with honey and watching TV. Or reading a book. He was looking forward to his retirement, going on extended vacations with her and not having to walk the streets anymore and visit pubs and talk to people he was not interested in.

  He had many years on the beat behind him, more than enough, and he was almost too familiar with large parts of the city and the people who lived there. He had old cronies and drinking partners in many of the inner-city bars and pubs, even those that now were mostly frequented by young tourists looking for soft drugs—in the wrong place. As often as possible, he could be found in De Pijp, south of the city, mostly an area for students and artists and free spirits of any kind. For many, this was the last real vestige of Amsterdam from the fifties and sixties, before mass tourism—and fancy shopping—invaded the center.

  It was late, nearly five, and already dark. He would be home in an hour. A hot bath, hot food, a glass of wine, nothing special but exactly what he needed at the end of work. But duty called. It called, sounding exactly like Chief Dewaal.

  Now. Adriaan Basten. The document in his pocket told him the boy had no social life worth mentioning and would probably be forgotten by now, so soon after his death, by the few people who knew him. In this way, he was no different than most of the human population. And yet good old Van Gils had to roam the streets and sniff around. Fortunately, the man had lived in the center of Amsterdam, not in any of the dreary suburbs.

  Van Gils knew that even an isolated figure like Basten would leave traces. There would be people who remembered him in the area where he lived. A nice young man like that never went unnoticed. Amsterdam was a city, but it was also a village. It wasn’t like, say, London or Paris or any other large Western city, where people were mere ghosts. It was a city of neighborhoods where people interacted daily, night and day. More than in the suburbs where they went only to sleep. A particularly stubborn kind of people lived in the city center, despite the high prices of real estate. Even those living just outside the center, say in Oud Zuid* or toward Rembrandt Park (and even beyond that), could easily feel part of the real Amsterdam, not least due to fast and convenient public transport—trams and, of course, bikes.

  Van Gils knew a lot of people in these neighborhoods.

  Basten hadn’t been picky about where to live, though he wasn’t the only Amsterdammer who didn’t have a problem with living in the red-light district of the city. This was one of the things that made Amsterdam exceptional: its easy mix of people of different ethnic backgrounds and social profiles. Even socially mobile young people lived in areas that at night were mostly frequented by street workers and their customers. Although over the last two decades these areas were becoming more genteel, forcing out the seedy bars, replacing them with more upscale premises, and driving up prices.

  Still, most of the street workers were dark-skinned, exotic, belonging to a mixed ethnic background, and most spoke several languages. Some of them, Caucasian, came from former Eastern Bloc countries, probably misguidedly believing there was much money to be made here in this free and prosperous city. Van Gils knew you needed to avoid people whose gaze never really focused, who never really connected with you.

  Local police would, of course, do nothing about those who were here illegally, being on the take themselves. They would do nothing about the hard drugs circulating in the bars, so long as no bodies piled up behind the dumpsters. They would do nothing about pimps mistreating their girls so long as the girls survived. Some of these cops had retired early, moving to some subtropical island, sometimes with their favorite prostitute in tow. Others hadn’t made it. Their last permanent residence was a small patch of grass at the local cemetery.

  This was the dark side of Amsterdam, much like the dark side of any large city.

  But at least you could buy your stash of soft drugs freely and unhindered. And not too expensive, either.

  Van Gils had kept his hands clean throughout his career. It was not a matter of principle with him, nor of self-esteem, but of caution. He knew that once you were drawn into the game, you never got out. In the end, there would be either an early grave or retirement abroad, beyond the grasp of local crime.

  He walked along Oude Hoogstraat. It was probably the coldest winter in years, or so people said. Lately, they complained about everything—the world was warming up, Holland would again disappear under water, polar bears were starving, winters were too cold and wet. A new ice age would be coming, or perhaps not. People mostly were addicted to bad news. They liked
to read books about the impending global disaster, either through overpopulation or rising waters. Or something else. Anything would do. Any sort of apocalypse.

  Harry’s pub was still open. Harry had no last name, never had one, but everybody knew who Harry was and what Harry had done. His pub was typical of the neighborhood: small and dark, a little bit squalid but not really dirty, furniture bought at knock-down prices. Harry had quite a few foreign beers on tap, mostly Belgian. If you were hungry, he’d serve you bitterballen or vleeskroketten or fries with peanut sauce.

  Belgian fries, not French. There’s no such thing as French fries, Harry would always tell his American visitors. Fries were invented in Belgium. Even he, a Dutchie, would admit that.

  Harry had been a sailor when shipping companies still used Dutch sailors. When there had still been ships registered in the Netherlands. He’d been around. Had been in all the major ports. In all the bars. Knew all the girls.

  What most people didn’t know, but what Van Gils knew all too well, was that Harry made sure the boys at home never were short of stuff. What the stuff was depended on who needed what. Cocaine, amphetamines, heroin, hashish, uppers, painkillers. Whole pharmacies full of stuff. Whatever you needed, Harry could provide.

  He had done two stretches of five years, but even then, Harry made sure the boys never lacked stuff. Harry was good at what he did. At some point, Harry was no longer a sailor, on account of Malaysians being cheaper. After that he had stopped providing stuff to his friends because the Russians told him his competition was no longer acceptable. They worked on a larger scale than he, anyway, and could easily undercut him. He listened carefully to their arguments and bought himself a pub. He no longer provided stuff but bought illegal vodka and cigarettes from the Russians. They were best pals. Everyone made a profit.

  Harry knew everyone. Everyone that mattered in the area. He didn’t know the mayor or the chief of police or the editors of the major newspapers, but he knew people with real information. No one farted anywhere in this part of Amsterdam that he didn’t know about it. He could even tell what the man had eaten the night before.