Dutch T(h)reat
 
Chapter 5

Some music.

"The Sounds of Silence," by Simon and Garfunkel and Garfunkel and Garfunkel.

All four of the ladies had delicate little china saucers on their laps, and delicate little china cups on their saucers, and delicate little expressions of distaste on their faces, like I was a particularly virulent strain of the HIV virus and they were scared to death they might catch me.

Well, three of them, anyway. The fourth one, the bicycle lady, was actually sort of sweet. She must have been somewhere in her sixties, but her skin was still smooth and youthful, except for her hands, which must have been 30 years older than the rest of her. She had clear gray eyes and what I think they call a retroussé nose and high cheekbones; her hair was a fugue of blacks and grays, trimmed short and lightly waved. She wore a plain gray skirt and a white blouse with ruffles at the throat, and she for one seemed more curious about me than ready to call for the exterminator.

She had some English, too, I remembered, so, when I finally broke the uncomfortable silence, it was to her I spoke.

"Ah, my name’s Jack Farmer," I said. "I come from America. You know, the United States? I’ll be staying next door in the Wooden House for a couple days, while Mr. Rombach’s away."

She gave me an encouraging smile and opened her mouth to reply, but, before she could get a word out, the crone in the bed jumped in.

"I am Mevrouw Moen, and this is my house," she said sourly. Her English was accented, but clear. Her voice was firmer than I’d expected, seeing as how she was supposed to be an invalid. I don’t know what was wrong with her, but her temper and her tongue at least seemed to be in perfect working order. "The Begijnhof is for women. I do not approve of a man sleeping here. If Gerrit Rombach was concerned about his cat, he could have left it with me."

I could see why he hadn’t, although the sister probably would have wound up doing the little work that was involved, anyway, if he had. I’ve never liked people who refer to babies and animals as "it."

"Ja, nou, Ans," the bicycle lady said soothingly, "het gaat maar om ‘n paar dagjes." Then she remembered I couldn’t understand her and gave me what must have been a translation: "It’s only going for a few days."

That consolation didn’t cheer Mrs. Moen up much, but whatever else she had to say about the matter she kept to herself. She was really an unattractive woman. Blowsy, sort of gone to seed, with rough features and deep frown lines and her thin lips set in a permanent scowl. Only her steel-gray hair and pale-green nightgown were carefully arranged, and I suspected the sister had been responsible for brushing and combing the former and washing and ironing the latter. The human race hadn’t done Mrs. Moen many favors during her seven decades on the planet, and she had clearly devoted her declining years to evening up the score.

"I am Ellen Antonie," the bicycle lady introduced herself, and, indicating the other two women, she presented them as Mevrouw Boonstra and Mevrouw de Klerk. "Mevrouw Boonstra, U spreekt geen Engels, as ik ‘t goed heb?"

Mrs. Boonstra put the tips of her fingers to her lips and giggled. "Geen woord," she said shyly. She was a tiny creature, with a network of fine lines that reminded me of fragile porcelain radiating from the corners of her mouth and eyes. Blue veins stood out along her legs and the sides of her neck and the backs of her slender hands, and even her hair had a blueish tinge to it. Her light-brown skirt and flowered blouse were lovingly cared for.

"Mevrouw Boonstra" – Ellen Antonie had to pause and search for the phrase she wanted – "she isn’t speaking any English. No words."

I grinned sheepishly at the lady in question. "I don’t speak any Dutch, either," I said, louder than I needed to. Why is it we treat people who don’t happen to know our language as if they're either deaf or retarded? If they don’t understand us at 10 decibels, they're not going to understand us any better at 60, are they? But, for some mysterious reason, we automatically pump up the volume, anyway. "I’m sorry."

She giggled again, shook her head, and retreated behind the protection of her teacup.

That left Mrs. de Klerk, who was probably the oldest of the four, a tall, reedy woman in fawn slacks and a loose-fitting shirt under a perfect cap of snow-white hair, her watery brown eyes magnified behind thick bifocals. Her lipstick and rouge were badly applied, and managed to emphasize the mannishness of her features, rather than softening them. When she spoke, her deep tones didn’t surprise me. "Rietje de Klerk," she admitted grudgingly. She seemed about as pleased to have me spending the week in the Begijnhof as that old debbil Moen.

So there we were, four Jills and a Jack, and I’ll tell you what: it was not a festive occasion. There were only three chairs available, there were only four cups, so the ladies of the club sat there sipping tea and giving me the eye, and I shifted my weight from foot to foot uneasily, feeling more or less like a museum exhibit that’s just turned out to be the work of a forger instead of an authentic Old Master.

Ellen Antonie made an effort to keep the conversation rolling, but she wasn’t getting a lot of help from her friends. She had the house six doors down from Mrs. Moen, she said, #27, while Mrs. Boonstra was in #19 at the far end of the bleaching green and, if I looked out the window, I could see Mrs. de Klerk’s place at #40, to the left of the time tunnel, with its back to the Spui. (I can’t figure out how to spell the way she pronounced it, but it came out sounding something like an Irishman saying "Spow" after biting into a lemon.)

Moen had lived in the Begijnhof the longest of the four, since the early ‘70s – although there were a number of women not included in the present company who’d been there even longer – and Boonstra was the new kid on the block, having arrived in 1981. The way Ellen Antonie explained it, when a resident died, her house reverted to a central organization, which quickly turned it over to whoever happened to be next on their waiting list of deserving local spinsters. What with Amsterdam’s chronic and critical housing shortage, the Begijnhof’s units were avidly coveted. Antonie herself had been on the list for eight years before she was offered #27, and she was one of the lucky ones: there were fewer than 50 houses in the complex, and at any moment there were literally hundreds of golden girls in third-floor walkups who would sell their souls for just a spot on the waiting list.

How come they didn’t stick several women into each house, I wondered, doubling or tripling or even quadrupling the possible population? From what I’d seen of them, the buildings were plenty big enough – and too big for a single individual to rattle around in alone.

Nobody had an answer to that one, and even Ellen Antonie seemed to find the suggestion scandalous. The Begijnhof houses had been one-woman residences ever since they were built for the original Beguines, the Sisters of St. Begga, and no one was about to start messing with three centuries’ worth of status quo.

I found all this pretty interesting, actually, and Ellen Antonie seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to practice her limited English – but Moen was getting huffier by the minute, and de Klerk was squirming uncomfortably in her chair, and poor Mrs. Boonstra just sat there with her empty cup on her lap, trying to pretend she wasn’t completely mortified by her inability to make any sense whatsoever out of the gibberish we were talking. There was a decided chill in the warm summer air: half a degree colder, and somebody’d’ve had to scrape the frost off Mrs. de Klerk’s glasses.

By the time I’d been there 15 minutes, I had the distinct feeling I’d overstayed my welcome by about a quarter of an hour, so I lied about what a pleasure it’d been meeting them all and started making I’m-afraid-I-must-be-going noises.

Ellen Antonie invited me to drop by #27 sometime and visit; she was the only one of them it really had been a pleasure meeting, and I promised her I would. Mrs. Moen and Mrs. de Klerk made a point of not seconding the bicycle lady’s hospitality, bless their imitation hearts, and of course Mrs. Boonstra didn’t have any idea what was going on. When she saw me centimetering towards the door, though, she looked so relieved I was afraid she’d have a coronary right then and there.

I made my escape, and, at the bottom of the stairs, I found the sister waiting for me. She was trying to keep a straight face, but as soon as she saw me she collapsed in silent laughter.

"You look like you’ve been in a war," she gasped. I did not return her smile, and she cupped her hands over her mouth and took in a breath and sighed it out again. When she dropped her hands, she was wearing a mask of exaggerated solemnity, but she was having trouble keeping it in place.

"I’m so sorry," she said. She was holding her breath, and the words came out half-strangled. "I just couldn’t resist bringing you up there. Can you forgive me?"

How could I not forgive her? She was so damn cute I wanted to run away to Rio with her, and forgiving her seemed like an important first step in that direction.

So I nodded and sniffed out a half-hearted laugh of my own, which was all it took to set her off again. Chuckles erupted, tears spilled, and before long she was hugging herself tightly and groaning in real pain. My dignity was fairly well shot by then, so I gave up and got hysterical right along with her.

I guess it was pretty funny.

When the sound of wooden chairs scraping wooden floor reached us from above, she grimaced and pointed at the ceiling and put a finger to her lips. I got the message: if we could hear them, chances were that they could hear us, too, so maybe we’d better cool it.

We cooled it, and, when Antonie, Boonstra and de Klerk came tramping down the steps in alphabetical order, we were the picture of two sober young people having an earnest discussion of European unification, or whatever it is that sober young people discuss earnestly in these troubled and troubling times.

The ladies traded polite Dutch with the sister, but I might as well have been the Invisible Man for all the attention I got – except, of course, for Ellen Antonie, who switched over to English for long enough to remind me of my promise to visit her. And then they were gone.

"See that?" I said. "The party just wasn’t any fun any more without me."

"I really am sorry," the sister murmured sympathetically. "Was it very awful?"

I made a face. "I would give it about a 9.9 on the scale of awfulness," I said. "Mrs. Antonie’s pretty friendly, but the other three?" I blew out air and shook my head. "Tigers. And I hate to break it to you, but your boss is the worst of the bunch."

She pursed her lips. "I know. I have to live with her, remember?" A sudden smile lit up the hallway. "She’s not always cranky, though. Only when she’s awake."

That seemed as good a time as any to pop the question, so I screwed my courage to the sticking-place and went for it. "Uh, listen," I said, "I was wondering. Would you do me a favor?"

"A favor?" She tilted her head to one side, curious.

"Yeah, well, the thing is, why I came over here in the first place was to ask you – "

I hesitated, tongue-tied.

"To ask me what?"

"Well, I’m brand-new here in Amsterdam, see, and it’s practically dinner time, and I haven’t hardly had a bite to eat all day, so I was thinking – well, like, I thought maybe you could recommend a restaurant I could go to."

A pair of brilliant sapphires glittered at me. "Of course," she said, "I’d be glad to. That’s not much of a favor, though, after what I put you through."

I swallowed and took the plunge. "I wasn’t finished. See, I don’t know my way around town at all, either, so I was hoping you could sort of show me how to get there. Have dinner with me, I mean. If you’d like to. If you can get away."

She leaned toward me and touched my arm. "I was afraid you weren’t going to ask me," she said. "Look, I’ve got Mevrouw Moen’s supper all ready for her. Let me bring it up and tell her I’m going out and get a sweater from my room, and I’ll be down in five minutes."

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