Read Online Outsider in Amsterdam by Janwillem van de Wetering - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Janwillem van de Wetering
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go out of fashion, to Yugoslavia or a Greek island, on a charter plane. They visit dirty whores and drink jenever made in a chemical factory. Your health!”
He raised his glass unsteadily, spilling a little jenever.
“Your health!” de Gier said and raised his glass obediently.
“They do whatever the bounder wants,” Grijpstra continued. “And when they have celebrated their sixty-fifth birthday, they shake hands and go away and you’ll never see them again but it doesn’t matter for they reproduce faster than they disappear. They are fond of rubber stamps and forms and name plates on the door, with an indication of their rank or degree. They like medals and titles and privileges. But they never have any rights, only duties. The duty to save and to buy and never mind what they do, the bounders will make money. It matters little what type of politicalsystem you apply to them, they will stay idiots, and when the bounder drives past they shout Hurray. Keeping time and arranged in rows. Hurray hurray hurray!”
Grijpstra had shouted loudly and the other guests joined the cheering.
“You see,” Grijpstra said, “just as I have been telling you. But we still have the third group. It’s a very small group. Do you know who I mean?”
“No,” de Gier said, “but please tell me.”
“The small third group,” Grijpstra said, “is the group of the well-meaning. The gentlemen. The idealists. They have good ideas and they are often very intelligent. They don’t push and they never do anything out of turn and they give the impression that they don’t manipulate and that no one manipulates them.”
“But that’s very nice,” de Gier said. “So there are some nice people after all.”
“No,” Grijpstra said, “you never heard me say that. I called them the well-meaning. I meet them every now and then and I study them very carefully. Extremely carefully.”
“And what do you see?” asked de Gier.
“Yes,” Grijpstra said and rubbed his face with a tired hand. “I don’t know really. I don’t see very much when I study them. But I don’t trust them at all. These well-meaning people are no good either, I am sure of it.”
De Gier had often thought about Grijpstra’s three groups and the older he became and the more he experienced, the more he believed in Grijpstra’s theory. But he left some room on the side. De Gier didn’t like theories that seemed to be watertight. De Gier believed in a miraculous surrealist world and he didn’t want to give up his faith, mainly because the existence of this miraculous world seemed to be confirmed to him, and quite regularly, by the inexplicable beauty that echoed, he thought, in the perception of the half-conscious dreams he was subject to. It was happening again, right now,while he walked past the Prinsengracht’s water. A seagull kept itself suspended above the hardly moving surface of the gracht, seemingly effortless, by the merest flick of its spread wings. A gable silhouetted sharply against a dark grey rain cloud, an old woman fed the sparrows throwing an ever-changing shadow-pattern on the cobblestones. “A miraculous world,” de Gier thought. Very beautiful. Perhaps the world is no good, but I am here. I walk here and I am doing something and although it probably serves no purpose, it’s interesting. Fascinating even.
It was warm in the street and he was glad when he saw the Haarlemmer Houttuinen and knew that the coolness of the large house was waiting for him. But before he entered he had seen the car parked on the sidewalk in the same place as he had parked the police VW the night before, and a little later he recognized the detective who greeted him in the corridor, a detective from the Bureau Warmoesstraat.
“Now what?” he asked his colleague.
“Breaking and entering,” the colleague said and took him to the restaurant where van Meteren and the four helpers of the dead Piet sat quietly around a table.
“Hello,” de Gier said to van
He raised his glass unsteadily, spilling a little jenever.
“Your health!” de Gier said and raised his glass obediently.
“They do whatever the bounder wants,” Grijpstra continued. “And when they have celebrated their sixty-fifth birthday, they shake hands and go away and you’ll never see them again but it doesn’t matter for they reproduce faster than they disappear. They are fond of rubber stamps and forms and name plates on the door, with an indication of their rank or degree. They like medals and titles and privileges. But they never have any rights, only duties. The duty to save and to buy and never mind what they do, the bounders will make money. It matters little what type of politicalsystem you apply to them, they will stay idiots, and when the bounder drives past they shout Hurray. Keeping time and arranged in rows. Hurray hurray hurray!”
Grijpstra had shouted loudly and the other guests joined the cheering.
“You see,” Grijpstra said, “just as I have been telling you. But we still have the third group. It’s a very small group. Do you know who I mean?”
“No,” de Gier said, “but please tell me.”
“The small third group,” Grijpstra said, “is the group of the well-meaning. The gentlemen. The idealists. They have good ideas and they are often very intelligent. They don’t push and they never do anything out of turn and they give the impression that they don’t manipulate and that no one manipulates them.”
“But that’s very nice,” de Gier said. “So there are some nice people after all.”
“No,” Grijpstra said, “you never heard me say that. I called them the well-meaning. I meet them every now and then and I study them very carefully. Extremely carefully.”
“And what do you see?” asked de Gier.
“Yes,” Grijpstra said and rubbed his face with a tired hand. “I don’t know really. I don’t see very much when I study them. But I don’t trust them at all. These well-meaning people are no good either, I am sure of it.”
De Gier had often thought about Grijpstra’s three groups and the older he became and the more he experienced, the more he believed in Grijpstra’s theory. But he left some room on the side. De Gier didn’t like theories that seemed to be watertight. De Gier believed in a miraculous surrealist world and he didn’t want to give up his faith, mainly because the existence of this miraculous world seemed to be confirmed to him, and quite regularly, by the inexplicable beauty that echoed, he thought, in the perception of the half-conscious dreams he was subject to. It was happening again, right now,while he walked past the Prinsengracht’s water. A seagull kept itself suspended above the hardly moving surface of the gracht, seemingly effortless, by the merest flick of its spread wings. A gable silhouetted sharply against a dark grey rain cloud, an old woman fed the sparrows throwing an ever-changing shadow-pattern on the cobblestones. “A miraculous world,” de Gier thought. Very beautiful. Perhaps the world is no good, but I am here. I walk here and I am doing something and although it probably serves no purpose, it’s interesting. Fascinating even.
It was warm in the street and he was glad when he saw the Haarlemmer Houttuinen and knew that the coolness of the large house was waiting for him. But before he entered he had seen the car parked on the sidewalk in the same place as he had parked the police VW the night before, and a little later he recognized the detective who greeted him in the corridor, a detective from the Bureau Warmoesstraat.
“Now what?” he asked his colleague.
“Breaking and entering,” the colleague said and took him to the restaurant where van Meteren and the four helpers of the dead Piet sat quietly around a table.
“Hello,” de Gier said to van
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