'And I need her make-up kit, and a comb, and a brush.'
They heard Zhaver crash up the stairs.
Beelema locked the front door. He closed the curtains and placed a chair in the middle of the room. He arranged the lights.
Titania came in and was directed to the chair. She sobbed pitifully.
'I can't help it that I fell in love. And that he never notices me. Never wants to notice me. Because I'm a street girl. Heeheehee.'
'Don't cry, Titania.'
'Heeheehee.'
Beelema talked into her ear.
'This is your big day, Titania. The prince is coming.'
'What prince, heeheehee?'
'Prince Frits the First. He loves you but he doesn't know that yet, because he doesn't know your true shape. We're going to work on your true shape. You're not what you think you are. You are a princess.'
'Yes?'
'Yes. Easy now, Titania. You're an easy princess. Lovable on a high level, as I'm about to indicate. Here, a little here, and a little here too, close your eyes or 111 glue your lashes together, this shit is sticky, and a little there, oops, rub it away a mite. Aren't you incredible now? And you'll have a small accident, and the prince will be there to save you and take you to his castle. It's a bit empty his castle, but never mind, there'll be a mattress I hear, and that's all you need. A round of fahdee-foozle, a shower together, a bowl of soup and a sandwich shared in the main chamber, or in the royal kitchen maybe, and your souls will be linked. You'll never work again, Titania. We'll miss you maybe but nobody is irreplaceable, we'll find another so that the clients can have a fresh view, two fresh views, haha. Don't pull faces, Titania, or I can't do your mouth.'
Borry Beelema worked on and continued his monologue. He rubbed color on her cheekbones and wiped most of it away again. He stood back.
'You'll have to be tragic, Titania, and decent, but sensual.' He bowed down, adjusting lipstick. 'Sit still, I've got to concentrate, or we get nowhere.'
'Morons,' Grijpstra said, 'and not an exception among them. If they're in Amsterdam, they're morons. Sometimes I think I see a normal person, but the fault is mine. I've let myself be persuaded by weakness, by unhealthy idealism, but it won't happen again.'
'I'm a little nauseous,' de Gier said. 'Maybe it's the matches. Don't you have any gum, Zhaver? Who would ever have thought that I would chew gum? And to think that I stopped Seeny on the corridor the other day and bothered her, and now I do it too.'
'Here you are,' Zhaver said. 'This is supposed to taste like sour apples. Who is Seeny?'
'A constable from the radio room,' Grijpstra said, 'a well-shaped girl, but since he grabbed her by the throat and broke her jaws open and removed the gum from behind her back teeth, she doesn't like him anymore.'
'Quiet!' said Beelema. 'I've done it, Titania. From here we can proceed. The beginning is easy enough, you'll go outside, and so do we, to take care of you, for you're too lovely to be on your own now. All sorts of types are about and they all have loose hands, my work is not to be spoiled. We'll be with you, although we won't be in sight, and Zhaver will phone Frits. He does have a telephone, I hope, or did she take that too?'
'There was a phone on the wall,' de Gier said.
'Splendid, that's all we need. Zhaver phones and says that he has, what do we have? Knockwurst? That he has some nice knockwurst for him, that we're about to close but that he can come in for a moment. He is home, see?' Beelema lifted a curtain. 'The light is on.' He dropped the curtain. 'Frits comes here, and Zhaver feeds him the sausage. Then Zhaver says it's been a long day. Frits leaves again. And then you cross his path, Titania, and have your accident'
The girl smiled.
'Right away?'
Beelema arranged a hair that had jumped free of his careful arrangement.
'No, no, no. No hurry, please. First there'll be some conversation. He never saw you in this outfit, he won't even recognize you. I've changed and exaggerated, your eyes are bigger and your ears are all out. So you say, 'Hello, Frits,' softly and nicely, polite-like, but a little more. Say it, Titania.'
'Hello, Frits.'
'Okay. That'll stop him but that's not enough. He's got to be with you, so you touch his arm. Let's see, I'm Frits, I pass you; say it…'
'Hello, Frits.'
'Perfect, hold my arm now, see? He's stuck, never to free himself again. And now, a few steps ahead, there's this brick sticking up, and you stumble and fall. Pay attention now, Titania, this is where it goes, you've got to grab him with sex, it's your only weapon in the end. He's got to think of the actual insertion, he's got to really want the ultimate contact. Do you get me?'
'Can't we kiss? I like kissing too.'
'Yes, sure. It'll be a start, you can do that too, I don't mind. So you fall and pull up your dress, all the way up, he looks right into you, but only for a moment, for then it's gone. You pull your dress down again, if you stay there in your full glory, you overdo it, it'll be the end of it. Get me? Let's try. Move up, gentlemen, take your stools. Sit up straight, your heads will have to be on the same level as if you were standing. You're the committee. All set?'
'We're the committee,' Grijpstra said.
Titania stumbled and fell. Dress up, dress down.
'No,' Grijpstra said. 'I didn't see anything. Too fast.'
Beelema agreed. 'Well try again.'
Later.
'Are you crazy?' Titania said. 'I won't fall all night. And I'm not on show for nothing, certainly not underneath. Have you all gone out of your minds?' She took a deep breath.
'Don't say it!' Beelema had raised his arms. 'That's it. You're in the right frame of mind now. Let's go.'
11
It was Saturday night and the lush heat of summer hung under a clear and starry sky. Two red-beaked geese floated in the Emperorscanal and had almost reached the bridge at the edge of the Brewerscanal. The herring-stall on the bridge had closed.
Grijpstra and de Gier stood next to the stall and peered cautiously around it. Kiran sniffed at a tree. Beelema and Zhaver were present but invisible. A couple, arm in arm, approached slowly. The woman, clearly visible in the light of the bridge's lampposts, emitted a serene beauty from every particle of her body and clothing. She talked to the man in a low voice. She stumbled and fell. Frits Fortune reacted in fear and concern, he bent down, his arms reached. Titania groaned. Her skirt, made of pure and delicate wool and matching her long and elegant jacket, slipped up, ignoring the limits of decency.
A gentleman, in a three-piece summer suit and wearing an old-fashioned expensive felt hat, cycled toward the bridge. One of the pedals of his cycle clanged against the metal chain guard. The geese appeared at the other side of the bridge and greeted their new view, honking softly. Titania corrected her unruly skirt. Frits Fortune, with diminishing fear and growing concern, lifted the fallen woman and remembered how, in clear and almost touchable detail, the lady's thighs were soft and pink, and how they held and would still hold a promise of curly down that in turn protected a moist NO, he would think no further. He asked if she had hurt herself. She said she had, poor Titania.
On her feet, she leaned into his arms. The geese honked loudly, the cyclist was close. Beelema and Zhaver stepped back into the shadows between a pickup and a van, Grijpstra and de Gier held on to each other. Titania's lips pursed, opened slightly, her long lashes partly hid her soft and inviting eyes. Frits's mouth drew close to Titania's, the cyclist braked, the cycle fell, the object the cyclist pointed was made of blue steel.
'HO!' Grijpstra shouted.
