“I suppose you’re going home?” Frits asked. “I was just on my way into town.” “That is a diplomatic way of saying: I don’t hold it against you that I have run into you,” the other said. “I suppose you could say that, Maurits,” said Frits.
“In any case, you’ve played another nasty trick on me, Egters,” the man said. “God forbid! Whatever have I done?” Frits asked. “Yeah, damn it, Lande and that crone of his at the door.”
They stood grinning at each other. “Let’s go for a cup of coffee,” said Maurits, “you have time for that, don’t you?” “Well, if it doesn’t take too long,” Frits said. “There’s somewhere I have to be this afternoon.” “I know a quiet place to sit on Zonsteeg,” Maurits said. They went down a crowded thoroughfare, crossed two canals and entered a café along a narrow alleyway. A radio behind the bar was murmuring softly. They sought out a quiet corner and sat down at a table with an orange reading lamp. Frits ordered coffee.
“So what is the story?” he asked. “Why did you swipe that money? Did he get it back?” “Yes, man, damn it, of course he got it back,” Maurits said, “but only after you shot off your big mouth again.” “All right, we will get to that in a bit,” Frits said. “So why did you pinch it? Because you couldn’t resist?” “I’ve hit rock bottom,” Maurits said with a grimace. “I’ve hit solid rock bottom.” He leaned back. “I’m penniless. I spent too much and I still have so many payments to make.” “But what about the criminality?” Frits asked. “Is there no money in that any more?”
“You must be joking, I live in utter respectability, I haven’t lifted a thing for weeks,” said Maurits. “In fact, I’m studying very hard, I plan to take my bachelor’s next year already.” “So what got into you, to make you take that money?” Frits asked. “Any fool would know that it could be marked.” “All that moaning and groaning,” said the other, “you shouldn’t have gone off blathering. And then that old hag, out to make a ruction on the stairs, that was all I needed. She said that you had said that I had a criminal bent, that you knew much more and that you considered me capable of anything. That’s no way to talk, damn it.” “I never,” Frits said. “Come now, don’t try to kid me,” said Maurits.
“I will tell you exactly what I said,” said Frits. “I said you were a person who experienced moments of weakness, and that they should understand that. And you know very well that I am not the kind of person who says: I know much more than that. I’m not the kind of gasbag who would say something like that. I say: I know this or I know that, or I say nothing at all. My having said: I know much more than that, well they dreamed that up themselves. People always try to hoodwink you; you should know that by now. They send up a balloon, to see how you react.”
“And not that I was capable of anything? Or that they should take care? Or that I had a criminal bent?” He slurped back saliva as he spoke.
“What nonsense,” said Frits, “what a load of twaddle. I said that you were weak and that you did not hold the property of others in particularly high regard. But criminal—the word never crossed my lips. They were only trying to get your goat. What I said was: God only knows what a person will do, one can never know beforehand. That’s true, isn’t it? Everything is in His hands.” They laughed.
“Besides,” Frits went on, “if I had wanted to do you in, I could easily have done so.” Maurits leaned over closely now and pulled back his lips, revealing his gums. “Have I ever told anyone what happened there on that canal? Or about that telephone? I don’t talk about that. Never, to no one.” “Damn,” Maurits said, placing his right hand on the table. “Stubby fingers, gnawed nails,” Frits thought. “You had better keep your mouth shut,” said Maurits, “you talk too much.” “Come now,” Frits said, “I know what I’m saying. Don’t worry. Besides, I have a great respect and fondness for you.” Maurits grimaced.
“Do you know what that reminds me of?” Frits said suddenly. “Of my grandfather, who’s dead now, the old fart. He told me once, very gravely, that a man had told him something and made him promise never to breathe a word of it to anyone. That man was already dead, my grandfather said. And I asked him: so what was it, exactly, that he told you? And he said to me: I can’t tell you, I promised.”
They grinned. Maurits ordered two coffees. “What do you actually think of me?” he asked, when the waiter had removed the empty cups. “You know very well,” Frits said, “that I hold you in high regard. Your acuity is amazing, incisive, but unfortunately you have chosen the road that leads to destruction. Prompted largely by feelings of humiliation and a lack of self-esteem, which is what produces the hatred. A textbook example.”
“And what about my face?” asked Maurits. “A keen face,” Frits said. “If you started wearing spectacles, rimless ones and flat at the top, you would have a fantastically hard-bitten, penetrating face. That eye of yours will always be a burden, of course.” Maurits fell silent. “Have you read that book by that American writer, with the fellow from the garage who had only one eye?” “No,” Maurits said, leaning his chin on one hand. “The fellow had an empty socket,” Frits said, “but never covered it. Pus ran out of it. And always whining about how he could never get a woman. But he had only himself to blame. A neat patch over it, a clean face, that was all. You have only yourself to blame.”
“And what about my hair?” Maurits asked. “Well, you’re starting to go bald at the corners,” said Frits. “Not at all,” Maurits said, running a careful hand over his coarse but thinly grouped hairs. “I’ve started having it massaged lately. That makes it grow like mad. I’ve notice that, that more of it is coming in. Can’t you see?” “But you rub some kind of goo on it, grease or something,” said Frits, “that’s awfully bad for it. You shouldn’t use anything on your hair except for water. That has been proven.” “Do you think that’s really true?” Maurits asked. “You can put as much energy as you like into your hair,” Frits went on, “but if you smear greasy filth on it, it won’t help. It plugs the pores, the scalp becomes inflamed.”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said, about those spectacles,” Maurits said. “But I never know whether you are pulling my leg. I can never figure that out.” “I do pull a leg now and then,” said Frits, “but about those spectacles, I mean that.” “And what was it you said again?” Maurits asked. “Spectacles with no rims,” said Frits, “oval lenses. The earpieces attached directly to the glass, and each lens flattened on top; a good gleam to them, you’ll see that I’m right.” Maurits was silent. “Let’s get out of here,” Frits said. He paid the bill. On the way back, they took the same route they had followed there.
“Those waiters earn a mint,” said Frits as they picked their way along a narrow stretch of pavement, “that’s a good job to have at the moment.” “I used to have an evening job, helping out in a bar,” Maurits said, “at the Clivia.” “Is that a fact?” Frits asked. “That’s news to me. When was that?” “Until last week,” said Maurits. “You have to work awfully late then, don’t you?” Frits asked, “but it pays wonderfully.” “Yes, that’s true,” said Maurits, “but it’s horrible. One evening this big, fat fellow was in there again, drunk as a lord. He was short of breath, I could tell. So I ask him: would you like some ice? He says: Yes, on my head. Everyone laughing. So I took a bowl of it and dumped it on his head. They all laughed till they split, but I caught hell. You can’t keep that up.”
“And where does your money come from these days?” asked Frits. “Petty crime?” “You and your crime,” Maurits said. “But if you happen to come across something that’s not nailed down, you don’t leave it to fend for itself, do you?” asked Frits.
“At home I’ve got a nice coat you could buy,” Maurits said. “Do you have a moment?”
“Wait a second,” said Frits, feeling around in his coat, “I’ve still got that sugar.” He pulled the orange paper from his pocket, shook out a few sugar cubes and offered one to Maurits. They walked on, sucking on the sweets without talking.
“I
already have a good coat,” said Frits. “And besides, it seems rather risky to me to walk around town wearing a coat that I cannot call my legal and indisputable property. I could hardly say: I bought and paid for it myself, from the firm of Maurits Duivenis, tailors. What kind of a coat is it? Where did you get it? I’m awfully curious.”
“Traded it without consulting the former owner,” Maurits said. “I had a raincoat that was awfully old and tattered, covered in stains. I traded it in at a café on Weststraat. For a nice, heavy gabardine. A stroke of misfortune for that fellow, of course, when he saw that old rag of mine hanging on the stand.” He burst out in giggling laughter.
“But when it comes to bicycles,” Frits said, “I must warn you against that anew. There are really too many risks involved. They can put you away for a year.”
“But tell me, in all earnest,” asked Maurits, “what do you think of me?” “I shall always follow your exploits with great interest,” said Frits. “I continue to hope that you will get far in life. But the fact of the matter is, you can’t keep anything to yourself. When we used to walk to school together in the morning, even then you used to tell me everything. About that cupboard, I’ve kept my mouth shut about that. And that fire in the underground bike shed, that too. And about that handcart. It’s not a problem as far as I’m concerned, but you never know what other people will do.” “But I don’t tell them nearly as much as I do you, either,” said Maurits.
Close to Frits’s house they bade each other farewell with a wave of the hand. Frits closed the door to the hallway and bolted it, added coal to the stove and sat down by the window. He kept getting up and walking to the kitchen for a drink of water, then sitting down, looking out of the window and getting up for a drink again. “The sun has lost a good deal of its strength already,” he thought. It was two o’clock.
He rolled a cigarette and, unable to locate his lighter, lit it with a match, then started a fire in the heavy glass ashtray. He added matches, wads of paper and fallen tulip petals to the blaze, until the smoke rolled through the room and the flame was as high as his hand. With a rapid movement he placed the hot ashtray on the stove, waited until all the combustibles had been consumed, then put an end to the smoke by laying a book atop the ashtray. “That is that,” he said, opening a window. The smoke rose quickly up the wall; he watched the trails of vapour and ash as they went. After closing the window, he went into his room and remained standing before the bookcase. “Today would be an excellent opportunity to arrange things in here,” he thought. Until a quarter to four he remained seated on the bed, shivering and leafing through book after book.
He grew hungry, got himself some bread in the kitchen and examined the store of goods in the pantry. He opened a tin of salmon, ate the contents with a tablespoon and stuffed the empty tin beneath the rubbish, all the way at the bottom of the bin. Then he ate half the kidney beans that were lying on a plate, took three slices of cheese from a paper wrapper and ground them slowly between his teeth. After that he raised a bottle of milk to his lips and took six big gulps. “Still, this is hardly what one could call a meal,” he thought. He took a chunk of lard from a tin, melted it in the frying pan and dipped bread into it which, sucking air through his teeth to temper the heat, he devoured in huge bites.
Then he went to the fire, sat down and began to think. “I want to see a Christmas tree,” he thought. “Viktor has one, I’m sure of that.” He remained sitting for a few hours, and turned on the radio. On the medium wave he found nothing to his liking, the long-wave band was filled with static, but on the short wave he found a Polish station playing martial music. He leaned back on the divan as darkness fell. “That’s what I’ve forgotten,” he thought, went into the kitchen and boiled an egg, hung the saucepan, nice and clean, back on its hook and, after eating the egg, threw the shells into the fire. “I can’t show up at Viktor’s any earlier than seven,” he said aloud.
Entering the hallway, he turned on the light, examined his face closely in the mirror and squeezed out a few blackheads and a small pustule beside his nose. “The pores are wide and coarse,” he thought, “the hairs are bristly, to be sure, but too far apart. That is why I cannot grow a moustache.”
When he returned to the living room, a woman was speaking on the radio. He ran through the frequencies, then switched back and forth only between the short and long waves, slapped the side of the set and turned it off. He combed his hair, brushed his teeth and left the house. It was a quarter to seven.
Following the river past Louis Spanjaard’s door, he crossed the bridge and rang the bell at a tall house on the far side, with two towery extensions. A woman’s voice came through the speaking tube, then an electrical mechanism clicked and the door opened. He climbed three broad flights of stairs, past windows of coloured glass, and was met at the top by a young man with a ruddy face, curly black hair and spectacles. He had on a corduroy jacket and was rubbing his hands together. “How are you this evening, Commander Frits?” he asked. “Come further. It’s damned cold out here.”
They entered a room lined with bookcases. A heavy carpet covered the floor. The room was heated by a pot-belly stove. “Shall I turn on some more lights?” he asked. “No,” Frits said, “only a waste of electricity.” A reading lamp with a white shade was lit on the mantelpiece.
“How is it going?” the young man asked, “how are things at home?”
“Very bad,” Frits said in a cheerful tone, “very bad, Viktor. Let us call a spade a spade. Let us, when something is bad, say: bad.”
“I see,” said Viktor. “In a word: bad. And how are your parents?” “A very shrewd question,” Frits replied. “Rather like asking, when there’s a thunderstorm: what’s the weather like at the moment? No, no, that’s a lame comparison. In any case, miserable.”
They were sitting close to the stove, which Viktor poked up with a length of wire. “Yes, I’m listening,” he said. “It gets on my nerves,” said Frits. “I’m only waiting for them to hang themselves or beat each other to death. Or set the house on fire. For God’s sake, let it be that. So why hasn’t it happened yet? But let us not despair. All things come to those who wait.”
“I see, I see,” said Viktor, staring at the floor.
“Affliction cometh forth,” Frits said in a solemn tone. “Everything cometh forth, gradually, nice and slow, but it cometh. Porridge for dessert every evening. My mother puts the sugar bowl on the table. With a little spoon in it. For a level bowl of porridge you need, say, three spoons full. But listen to this. Are you listening?” “Yes, of course,” said Viktor, “I am all ears.”
“Pay careful attention,” Frits said, rising to his feet. “Everyone takes sugar from the pot with that little spoon. What does my father do? He digs out the sugar with his own dessert spoon. Still clean and unused, I’ll admit, but it drives me mad to see it, I’m going crazy! I feel like bing, pow, hitting the roof. Lord God Almighty, does that make sense to you? Or not?” He sat down again. “Tell me honestly.”
“I understand completely,” Viktor said, “it is difficult. To be truthful, I recognize that. I think your parents are fine people. They stand head and shoulders above a great many others I know, by reason of their goodness. It seems to me—”
“But everything cometh forth,” said Frits, “one huge, demonic extravaganza. I only wish that I could stir it up, fan the fires. Lessons in disembowelment. If things have to come that far, then let it be quickly. Am I keeping you?”
“Oh no,” said Viktor, handing him a box of tobacco. “Roll one of mine. I don’t want one.” “Still, I hope,” said Frits, sliding his chair up closer and leaning over, “that I will come home one day and find him hanging neatly, like a fine side of beef, in the doorway. Between the sliding doors. That would be any easy spot to place hooks for a pair of gymnastic rings. Bestow this upon us, oh Lord. What a world.”
“What does he do with his tie? What about that?” Viktor asked. “His tie, you mean his necktie?” “Yes, what does he do with th
at?” “When he is at home all day,” Frits said, “he doesn’t wear one at all, no, he spends the whole day without it. What are you driving at?” Viktor stared into the flames. “Well, sometimes, he’ll put one on, but then he stands before the mirror for half an hour, tugging at it and adjusting it. What does that mean?”
“When someone stops wearing a tie,” said Viktor, “or spends a long time picking one out and a long time tying and adjusting it, then he is not in a good way.”
“That diagnosis is news to me,” Frits said, “top-notch. But the fact that someone is not in a good way was already known to me. It offers no new insight. How are your studies coming along?”
“I have an exam this month,” Viktor said. “I truly don’t understand,” said Frits, “how you could choose such a senseless subject: classical languages. How the hell did that happen? Why not law or medicine? How do you stand it?”
“That, I believe, is something to which you will never reconcile yourself,” said Viktor with a smile. “My day will be complete,” said Frits, “when you pass your bar examinations and argue your first case. There can be no doubt about it, you will end up doing law, mark my words. Sooner or later that is what it will be.”
“Viktor, are you two coming in for tea?” a woman’s voice called out. They crossed the landing and entered a large room with light wallpaper. The unpainted wooden chairs were upholstered in grey wool. In the corner by the door was a black piano, in the corner across from it a playpen with a child sitting in it and rocking back and forth. “Lidia, Herman, both in good health, I hope,” said Frits, shaking hands with a young woman with big eyes and a tall, thin young man.