“We’ll begin here,” announces Aaron in practiced English. “This, esteemed public, is not only the Red-Light District’s narrowest street; it is the narrowest street in all of Amsterdam. Exactly three feet wide! Only three feet! The name is... De Trompettersteeg. Yeah, you try to pronounce that.” He falls silent, because he knows that laughter and murmuring will arise as the tourists actually try to say the passageway’s name.
An overly ambitious man with a face ruddy from drink begins to cough as he tries to push the last, so undeniably Dutch, syllable out of his throat.
“That G sound,” Aaron finally continues, as the exuberant group quiets down, “saved lives during the Second World War. The Germans couldn’t pronounce it, so the Resistance forced traitors and infiltrators to say the word Scheveningen, where the Sch sounds just like the G. Those who couldn’t do it properly were Germans and therefore risked losing their lives. So remember the name Scheveningen.”
Waldemar shakes his head benevolently as the flush-faced man is thumped roundly on his back after struggling to say the new word.
“Let’s go on,” instructs Aaron. “After we emerge through the passageway, be carefuclass="underline" the ladies are here to earn money, not to be ogled. And do you remember what I said at the start of the tour?”
The sightseers respond like good children on a school trip: “Don’t take photos!”
Waldemar mumbles the words along with them, checking his watch. He knows that this is the last group that will be led through the district tonight. The neighborhood is growing calmer, more shadowy, the night is asserting itself.
Aaron beckons again, and someone from the herd ventures a hesitant first step into the dark passageway, toward the red-lit and seductive temptations. “I’ll follow behind and continue my narration.”
“It’s like entering the gates of hell, where purgatory awaits you,” says the red-faced man, and his words hurt Waldemar. One by one, the tourists disappear into the passage. Aaron brings up the rear, his feather swaying above their heads, his staff tapping on the cobblestones.
“Why don’t you tell them what happened there!” yells Waldemar, but no one hears him because no sound issues from his mouth.
No fucking photo’s!! is misspelled on the passage’s wall; the big graffitied letters are meant to be artistic, but their message is clear. Of course, Aaron’s herd can’t help themselves. As soon as they reach the windows, they gape at the young women. The red lights hide all their flaws, and their white lingerie, which really doesn’t cover anything, shines brightly. The tourists stare and stare and stare.
“They’re actually quite pretty,” a woman whispers in surprise to her husband as they pass the voluptuous, beckoning bodies. He nods a bit too enthusiastically, to which she responds with a frown.
The red light is out at one of the windows; the paint is peeling, and the window is dirty and covered sloppily with brown packing paper from the inside. Aaron passes it by, as he’s passed it a hundred times before.
Waldemar lingers by the side of the canal for a long time.
Later, as the tourists tumble into their beds, what remains are the drunkards, the bullies, and the pimps, who appear like rats in the night to collect cash from their women.
Waldemar knows them all.
It’s a few days later, and there he is again. Waldemar saunters through the district at his characteristically placid pace. He wasn’t gone during those intervening days, but nothing noteworthy happened, so they can be safely ignored.
Tonight, at the end of his usual circuit, Waldemar stops at the Trompettersteeg. Quick footsteps can be heard from the direction of No fucking photo’s!! and Ivan, a plump young man, not yet thirty, with bushy eyebrows and a freshly rolled joint hanging carelessly from his lips, exits the passage. A modish name-brand bag hangs from his shoulder, and he’s carrying a wad of brown packing paper under his arm. Ivan the pimp walks by Waldemar and bumps into his shoulder without looking at him. No apology follows, and the young man carelessly drops his bundle of paper at the side of the canal as he walks away, leaving the penetrating scent of hashish, never really absent for long in the district, hanging around Waldemar’s head.
Soon Waldemar loses sight of the young man, who becomes an unrecognizable silhouette, indistinguishable in the crowds.
Waldemar bends over and picks up the paper. He smoothes it out, then folds it as neatly as possible and puts it under his arm. Slowly, his gaze shifts to the passageway’s entrance, and the voices in his head fade away in an anxious premonition of what’s about to happen.
He strolls into the passageway, up to the window where the packing paper had hung. The red lamp is on again above the door, soft and flickering irregularly. A poor attempt has been made to clean the window, and there she stands. Her eyes are hazy and evasive, her pose inexperienced. Waldemar’s face pales as thoughts and memories and love and hate all fight with one another in his head.
People pass him cautiously; his wide frame is making passage through the narrow alley difficult. Although she looked away from him at first, the girl’s curiosity triumphs. She lifts her head, doesn’t seem unfriendly. Waldemar gestures to the door handle, which she turns from the inside, cracking the door slightly.
“Fifty,” she says hesitantly.
Waldemar says nothing and points inside.
Unpracticed, she makes the international sign for money, rubbing her index finger and thumb together.
Waldemar, who has been standing there with his hands in his pockets and legs spread, shows her his right hand, which holds a bundle of banknotes.
That works. She opens the door wider and lets him in, then pulls the curtains shut.
“What do you want?” A light, unrecognizable accent wafts through her words; it could be foreign but could as easily come from the eastern part of The Netherlands.
Waldemar doesn’t want anything. He looks around the room.
The girl stands expectantly beside the bed and finally lays a questioning hand on his forearm.
“You know what?” says Waldemar.
“What?”
“Let’s just sit down.”
He bends and sweeps his hand over the bed, but remains standing when she doesn’t make a move to sit.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Katja,” she answers uncertainly.
“You chose a good name, Katja. A good working name.”
“It’s my real name.”
“Oh.”
A short silence follows.
“You shouldn’t let just anyone in,” says Waldemar.
“Maybe you should go,” she says, suspicion winning out over uncertainty.
Waldemar takes a step forward and grabs her by the arms, just below her shoulders. His dark eyes hold her in a penetrating gaze. “You have to go,” he says, laying the paper — which she hasn’t really paid attention to — on her bed.
This confuses her, and she tries to get loose. “Why should I go?”
Waldemar doesn’t notice the swelling panic in her voice, simply because he hasn’t expected it. “It’s dangerous here,” he responds. “Look, this has to go up on the windows again. No one belongs here anymore.”
Now her shoulders are shaking and he can see fear in her eyes, so Waldemar takes his hands away. “Don’t be afraid, sweetheart. I don’t want to frighten you.”