Postcards From No Man's Land (5 page)

Then the eyes open, and Jacob sees that the child is himself.

POSTCARD

Old and young,

we are all on our last cruise.

R. L. Stevenson

‘IS ER IETS?
Kan ik je helpen?’

An old woman addressing him from the foot of the steps. Round face with kind eyes, shapeless long green coat, sky blue umbrella protecting from the rain her crinkly grey hair tied back in a bun, empty linen shopping bag dangling from her other hand.

‘
Voel je je niet goed?
’

‘Sorry?’

‘English?’

He nodded.

‘Are you all right?’

He nodded again, shrugged, then, thinking she meant he shouldn’t be there, stood up. ‘I’m in your way?’

‘No, no.’

‘Sheltering from the rain.’

‘You looked unhappy.’

‘I’m okay. It’s, well … Been mugged.’

‘Och! Were you hurt?’

‘No. Just upset. Angry mostly.’

‘What did they take?’

‘Anorak. Money. Everything, to be honest.’

‘Oh dear!’

He started down the steps, but stopped two from the bottom when the woman said, ‘Can I help?’

He thought of what he’d intended to ask at the Anne
Frank house and said, ‘If you have a phone book …?’

‘Yes.’

‘The people I’m staying with live in Haarlem, but my rail ticket was in my anorak so—Well, they gave me the address and phone number of their son, who lives in Amsterdam. That was in my anorak as well—But he should be in the phone book …’

‘I’ll have a look. What is the name?’

‘Van Riet. Daan van Riet. I think he lives near the railway station.’

‘Van Riet. Near the station. I’ll have a look.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Wait there, please.’

Instead of coming past him up to the door, as he had expected, she turned and, seemingly, set off down the street. Wondering where she was going, Jacob stepped on to the footpath, only to see her round rear end disappearing in to the tendrils of overhanging ivy and rambling roses, which, along with numerous pots of red and white flowered plants, luxuriantly wreathed the basement windows. She was climbing down into the basement through one of the pair of windows he now saw was also a door which had a protective iron grille in front of it that opened out in to the street. It was, he thought, like the entrance to a gated cave or an enchanted grotto.

Very soon the old woman reappeared, looking out from just above pavement level.

‘
Hallo!
’ she called. Then, seeing Jacob peering at her through the encroaching foliage: ‘There you are!’ She held up the open phone book. ‘Many Van Riets. But one with the beginning letter D near the station in Oudezijds Kolk.’ To Jacob the name sounded like chewed vowels and sloshed consonants. ‘I’ll try it,’ she went on. ‘Wait on the steps. You’re getting wet.’

Which was true, though the rain had eased off and the sky was brightening. He was curious to see more of her
subterranean home, but did as he was told and returned to the porch.

While he waited a sleek white glass-roofed tourist boat with the word Lovers in large letters on the side ghosted by on the canal, half full of gaping sightseers sitting in fours at little tables, some with cameras or camcorders raised to their faces like snuffling snouts. Camhogs, he thought, on the scavenge. Sitting alone at the back, a beautiful black dreadlocked girl of about his own age, hand propping up head, stared dully at him until the boat was almost past, when she gave a sudden radiant smile and a little wave. He raised a hand in reply and instantly felt more cheerful.

The rain stopped.

A leggy young man, very tanned, in tight white showoff mini-shorts and flapping pink T-shirt cycled by, a small pugdog sitting in a basket attached to the handlebars, ears back, grinning, head-to-wind.

A red Alfa Romeo drove fast along the opposite side, its arrogant noise echoing across the canal.

At last the woman reappeared at the foot of the steps, empty linen bag dangling from one hand again but without her umbrella.

‘No answer. I tried three times.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I’ve written the address and phone number.’ She handed him a piece of paper.

‘You’ve been very kind.’

He looked away, not knowing what to say next, wanting help but not wanting to ask for more. There was the kind of awkward silence that comes between strangers when one has tried to help the other and has not succeeded, leaving both feeling guilty and irritated.

He decided he would go on to Anne Frank’s house.

But before he could move, the old woman said, ‘It isn’t good you should stay there. I’m going for coffee before shopping. Would you like to join me? We can try again from
the café in a while.’

He could not prevent himself from accepting.

‘What is your name?’

‘Jacob. Jacob Todd.’

‘Please call me Alma.’

He nodded, smiling.

They were seated either side of a table on the mezzanine floor of Café Panini on a broad street with trams in the middle that Jacob recognised as the one he’d run down when chasing Red Cap. Coffee and hot croissants were brought by a robust young waitress, henna dyed hair cut very short, whitened face, lips painted purple, white singlet hugging braless small breasts, black leather mini-skirt, black stockings, Doc Marten boots. Obvious from the way she and Alma gabbed that they knew each other and were talking about him. As she left she gave Jacob a wicked smile that brightened his spirits even more than the girl waving from the boat.

‘A student,’ Alma said, enjoying the exchange, ‘she works here to pay for her studies. Now, I suggest we enjoy our coffee, then I’ll try Van Riet again. If he’s there, I’ll show you how to get to him. If not … well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. You agree?’

‘I agree,’ Jacob said, matching her sunny tone.

He eased his shoulders inside his clammy sweatshirt and tucked in to his croissant with an over-eager appetite. Then, aware of Alma delicately sipping her coffee and observing him closely, gave her his best appreciative smile, politely tasted his comfortingly hot coffee and said, ‘Thanks for this. It’s very good.’

‘I come here every morning. For coffee, to read the newspapers, and to talk to anyone I know. A good place for meeting interesting people. Very popular with writers, actors, musicians. When you’re old and live alone, as I do, it’s important to keep in touch.’

Jacob looked around. Only a couple of blubbery middle-aged men sitting on their own, smoking cigarettes and reading newspapers. Formica-topped tables, in tasty shades of blue, green, yellow and orange. Black metal seats. Thick beams in the ceiling painted yellow. Original art on cream walls: etchings, brush drawings of horses. The wall at his side was top to bottom a mirror reflecting himself and Alma and the tables on his other side. Italian designer version of a working-men’s caff? Making a point, or a pretence anyway, of being anti-bourgeois unposh?

‘And what about you?’ Alma asked. ‘Are you on holiday?’

‘Kind of. My grandfather was wounded in the Battle of Arnhem. Some local people looked after him. But he died. I’m going to visit his grave at the battle cemetery.’

‘You’ve been to Holland before?’

‘No. Well, I was brought once by my parents when I was a baby, but I don’t remember that.’

‘And the people you’re staying with in Haarlem?’

‘The family of the woman who looked after my grandfather. She and my grandmother have kept in touch. Really, it was my grandmother who was supposed to come now but she couldn’t. She fell and broke her hip.’

‘I’m sorry. You’ll attend the commemoration of the battle next Sunday?’

‘My grandmother thought I should see it.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m named Jacob after my grandfather.’

Remembering home he suddenly became inward and didn’t want to say any more about all that. He dabbed flakes of croissant on to a finger-end and licked them away.

‘Have mine,’ Alma said, passing her plate, ‘I’m not hungry’, and waited while he had made the usual polite noises before asking, ‘And how did you get mugged?’

‘I was having a drink in the … Leidseplein?’

She said it, he repeated it, she chuckled. ‘Better!’

‘Well, there, anyway!’ They laughed together at his
incompetence. ‘I’d put my coat over the back of my chair. Suddenly it went flying past me! I chased after the guy who took it. Just a kid, really. Well, my age, roughly. Had a red baseball cap on. Backwards, naturally!’

‘Naturally!’

‘He ran this way and that way, and up this canal and down that one, along one street, across another till I was completely lost. Chased him down this street, as a matter of fact. I remember the bridge just outside.’

‘Vijzelgracht.’

‘If you say so!’

Alma smiled indulgently. ‘You must try.’

‘I will, I will. Promise!’ Maybe it was the coffee that was making him cheeky, or more likely the relief he was feeling. But he could see Alma was enjoying it too. ‘Couldn’t catch him. I’m not a great runner and he was wickedly fast. But the odd thing is, I’m sure he wanted me to chase him.’

‘What made you think so?’

‘He’d wait sometimes till I’d nearly caught up and then off he’d go again. Why would he do that? You’d think he’d want to get away as quick as possible so he couldn’t be recognised later.’

‘Perhaps for fun.’

‘Fun?’

‘He sounds to me like a regular thief, not just someone doing it because he’s desperate for money to get drugs, which is the reason for most of the muggings in Amsterdam, of which there are a lot, I’m sorry to say. In cities everywhere these days, so I’m told. But if you mug people as a job, let’s say, perhaps it becomes …
vervelend
… tedious?’

‘Boring?’

‘Exactly. Boring. Every job has its boring times. For a thief too. Making a good chase out of it, making it a chance that he might get caught, adds some spice. And perhaps he liked the look of you. Thought you a worthy challenge. You
should feel complimented.’

‘Oh, thanks! Some compliment, to steal everything I’ve got.’

‘And then give you a run for your money.’

He laughed. ‘Your English is very good.’

‘You English! Always impressed by anyone who can speak more than their own language.’

‘About all I can manage is holiday French.’

‘People learn what they have to. The English can always get by because your language is international. We Dutch have a minority language surrounded by countries with major languages. And historically we are traders. We have to speak other people’s languages to survive.’

‘Still, I wish …’

‘It’s only a matter of application. If you lived in the country for a while, it would be easier for you.’

‘Maybe I will. I want to do something between school and whatever I do next.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘What I want to do? Not yet.’

Alma took a sip of her coffee. ‘I’m still thinking about your thief. Perhaps in his mind, he wasn’t stealing.’

‘What, then?’

‘He made it into a game, a competition. He gave you a chance. He won. So he took the prize.’

‘Hey, whose side are you on!’ Though meaning a joke, there was an edge in his voice.

‘Yours, I think, wouldn’t you say?’

He felt a hint of rebuke.

‘Sorry. Wasn’t being ungrateful.’

‘I understand. It’s a shock, something like that. I only mean, you aren’t hurt. You’ve lost a little money, a few unimportant other things. Your pride is bruised, but is pride so precious? I’ll see you get back to your friends, then all will be well again, and soon what has happened will be just a good story to tell. But the boy who stole your things,
what about him? What kind of life does he live? And who looks after him?’

‘Sounds like you’d have helped him just as much as you’re helping me, if he’d been the one you’d found on the steps.’

‘I imagine he’s a street boy who lives on his wits. You had something worth stealing, he probably has nothing. Why should I help you and not him?’

‘You’re like my grandmother. She always puts the other side.’

‘Is that such a bad thing?’

‘No. Just a bit galling when you’re on the receiving end, that’s all.’

‘I don’t mean to lecture you. A failing of the old.’

‘You’re not. I’d agree if we were talking about someone else.’

‘Always easy to be wise when you’re only an onlooker. Would you like another coffee?’

When he hesitated she added, ‘I usually have two.’

After she had ordered she said, ‘I remember the war, you see, the occupation. Especially the last winter before the liberation. We call it
de hongerwinter
. It was terrible. Food was desperately scarce. And fuel for the fires. People burned their furniture, even the wood in their houses—doors, panelling, floors even. There was nothing. Even the German soldiers were hungry. So they behaved badly sometimes. They hadn’t until then. In the first years of the occupation, at least where I lived here in Amsterdam, I could walk about on my own and not fear them. I was a young woman, only eighteen, nineteen, but I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t like them. Hated them, in fact. But they were very strict about behaving properly to us. People forget that now. Unless you were a Jew of course. For them, it was always dreadful. What was done to them …’ She raised a hand from the table and let it fall again. ‘Unforgivable.’

She was silent for a moment, collecting herself.

‘But what I wanted to tell you is that though it was awful at the end, we were all in it together. Now it isn’t like that. Most of us in your country and mine are well off and comfortable compared with those days, yet we allow it to happen that great numbers of our young people are homeless. Abandoned to live on the streets. Even here in Holland, where we pride ourselves on looking after our children, it’s happening more and more. I see them begging and sitting in doorways looking like bags of old rubbish. We are told not to give them money, that they are dangerous and it only encourages them and they spend it on drugs. But I don’t care. If I can, I give something. Not to all of them, there are too many. To ones I think might benefit.’