‘If the people in this bar found out about all the things that have been going on here right under their noses… Do you think we’ve been twiddling our thumbs these last few years? You think we didn’t know what was coming? Men like me know when the time is ripe to make ourselves useful for the ideal we believe in. I got paid two thousand francs a month for almost four years. It was simple. I kept my ears open in the right places and collected information about the harbour. And this is where I always arranged to meet him.’
‘Who?’
‘Mein Freund Gregor… a real carrot-top. German, of course. I have a feeling you’re going to meet him too one day.’
‘They can lock you up for that.’
‘Not any more, they can’t. Another beer?’
Before he’s stood up, a woman joins us at our table.
‘So, fungus face? Forgotten me, have you?’
Into the underworld: over to the other side of Paarden Markt, then down a narrow, diagonal street onto Falcon Rui to get to Falcon Plein, Ververs Rui, Schipper Straat and then further north, across Brouwers Vliet to Spanjaard Straat and the quays of Bonaparte Dock. Not very salubrious. We go from clip joint to seedy bar: Meanbeard, your great-grandfather and a lady called Jenny who sometimes needs assistance on the cobblestones because of her heels and the amount of booze in the fading glory of her body. Her scent lingers. Meanbeard is greeted with enthusiasm in every dive. For me, at that time, it’s still an unfamiliar part of town, definitely at dusk, but Angelo, who has burrowed deep inside me, is in his element. Everyone here zigzags from hole to hole, giving him ample opportunity to plumb the depths of their bullshit. Everybody takes while they’re being taken in this bottomless crater. It’s the first time I’ve seen this many soldiers and sailors in one place. The men from the Kriegsmarine are the most boisterous. In the distance in the daytime they look like little boys in monkey suits, with blue stripes around their white collars and comical hats on their heads. From far away you expect acrobatics: you can already picture them playing the fool in the ship’s ropes, hanging off gun barrels, tossing caps. But up close in a crowded bar they stick together, hardly able to stand while they try to squeeze women’s breasts or bums. Here the white of their uniforms takes on a rancid edge and you can smell their sweat. They’re on a bender, knocking glasses over before they’ve drained them completely and looking for trouble. The city is theirs.
‘Our Jenny’s in a bad mood,’ says Meanbeard.
The three of us are sitting wedged in together at a very cramped table. Now and then one of us gets splashed with beer or has to lean out of the way to dodge an elbow.
‘Leave me be…’ Jenny mumbles while trying to light a cigarette. For all I know she’s over forty; for all I know she’s younger than me. Her lipstick shines deep blue in the bar’s green light. Her blonde hair looks yellow. There are crumbs stuck to her lashes. ‘Just leave me be…’
‘Tell my young friend here why you are in such a bad mood.’
She waggles her index finger. ‘Don’t, sweetie. It’s nothing to do with this lad.’ She’s almost begging.
‘From now on she has to get a medical check-up twice a week.’ The beer has tinged his voice with a casual cruelty. Jenny slaps the table hard, making the glasses jump, but immediately afterwards her strength fades again. She plays with the ruby-coloured ring on one of her fingers.
‘Ooph,’ I say, ‘not cancer, I hope.’
Brief silence. Jenny and Meanbeard look at me, then burst out laughing.
Jenny bends forward and he slaps his knee.
‘Priceless!’ Then he reaches for her handbag. ‘Wait, I’ll show you!’
Jenny immediately fights back like a lioness. ‘Let go of that!’
Meanbeard parries her effortlessly and, laughing, continues his search.
‘You bastard,’ Jenny roars. She gets hold of one of the loops of her bag and tugs it, sending the entire contents spilling out over the floor. Little bottles, compacts, screwed-up handkerchiefs, cards and a purse. She feels under the table like a blind woman, but again he outwits her. Triumphantly he holds up a book.
‘You have to see this,’ he winks. Under the table, Jenny gathers up her things, digging her nails into my knee for support. She doesn’t realize that Meanbeard has found what he was looking for. In a haze of booze and lust, some of the sailors stare at her bum in the tight green skirt, her fishnet stockings and her cheap patent-leather shoes, her defencelessness.
On the book it says ‘Health Pass’, followed by ‘Department of Vice’. Inside there are stamps with ‘St Elisabeth’s’ written alongside each in fountain pen. Jenny emerges from under the table, snatches the book out of
