“Sure is raining,” Japi said. “Can I put my jacket somewhere? Wait a minute, have to put this down first.” He took a package wrapped in newspaper out from under his jacket — books, you could tell — and put it on the table. “So, is there somewhere to hang this?” he said, handing me his jacket. He leaned his hat against my little cooking stove.
“One minute, old man,” I said, and I took his jacket and hat out to the common area, hung the jacket next to my own wet clothes, and shook out the hat and put it on the floor in the corner.
Japi was already seated, squeezing out his pants legs and looking around. “To what do I owe the pleasure, sir?” “Just call me Japi,” he said. He unwrapped the package and put Le Lys dans la vallée down on the table. “There you go, friend.” “Thanks,” I said, “and what are those?” “Oh,” Japi said, “some of Appi’s books.” “Is Appi reading the Handelsblad these days?” “No,” Japi said, “the paper is from my old man. There’s a want ad in there.” “A want ad?” “A want ad, look, I just got it from the old man.”
“‘Seeking assistant clerk for a busy export business’—got that? a busy export business—‘thorough knowledge of modern languages, steno, typing. Applicants with prior experience in export’—hear that? prior experience! — ‘will enjoy preferential consideration.’ Enjoy preferential consideration, I like that one. ‘Salary: 300–400/yr. Apply at #1296, Handelsblad ofc.’ It’s like Floris the Fifth. Floris the Stiff more like it. Floris the Stiff jumps over the Overtoom. Never heard that? Why do you think they filled in the Overtoom canal? They got tired of seeing that stiff guy jumping over it all the time. The 300–400 a year sounds nice to me, the rest not so much.”
“You think you’ll answer the ad?” I asked. “Think?” Japi said. “I have to, according to the old man. He says it can’t go on like this. I don’t see why not. Am I a burden on him? I’ve slept at home only twice this month, he doesn’t give me a cent. Look at this.” He stuck out a leg. I saw a brand-new yellow shoe. “What the devil, I know those shoes.”—Where had I seen yellow shoes like that? — “They’re a bit darker now because of the water,” Japi said, and he stuck out his other foot next to the first. “From Appi! And why? Because I’m not a burden on my old man, I go around in my old shoes till they have more holes than a sieve. Appi’s a good guy. Can’t paint, and never will, that’s for sure, but you can count on him. He didn’t have any socks on hand, I’m barefoot in these shoes,” Japi said, and good-naturedly pulled up a pants leg to show me his naked leg. “And he has books. I couldn’t get through all those books if I read night and day for a year.”
Appi’s father had a butcher shop that was doing well, he could afford it. And Japi was right when he saw that Appi would never learn how to paint. His father would later get him a job painting houses, signs, and billboards.
I made tea. Squatting next to the burner, I poured the water into the teapot and put it on top of the kettle. Japi sniffed.
“Smells good,” he said, and turned all the way around, scooting his chair over so he could sit with his nose right above the teapot. “I had a fight with Bavink,” he said. “Really?” I said. I had heard from Hoyer that they were roaming around everywhere together, day and night, that they slept in the same bed — Japi under the covers and Bavink on top — and took turns drinking jenever out of the one beer glass Bavink had left. “I busted his stove Sunday night.”
In one night he had heated it so hot that it broke. And still he kept piling more coal in and poking it around and kept looking at the belly and smoking his pipe, with the stove between his knees so to speak. And he didn’t say anything, until Bavink suddenly saw that there was a huge crack in the belly and raised hell. Japi let him thunder on, he stood up and moved his chair away, Bavink opened the grate with the poker and burned a hole in the floor with the glowing coals he dragged out. And when Bavink was still raging, Japi said “You and your stove” and coolly left and went back to his old man’s house and put on one of his brother’s clean collars and got a piece of pie from his mother that was left over from dessert. He spent one night at home and the next afternoon he ran into Loef on the street, he’d already met him too. Loef, who later drowned swimming, just when he was starting to make something of himself — he took Japi back to Bavink and said, “Here Bavink, I have a stove-buster for you.” And Bavink had laughed. And Japi went straight to the shelf and found a new bottle of Bols in the usual place, “next to Dante.” And the three of them knocked back most of the bottle and then Japi cut thick slices of Bavink’s bread to make sandwiches and then all three of them were off to Amstelveld and they bought a new stove for seventy cents (it was Monday), a prehistoric model, and they got it home in a wheelbarrow, the three of them.
I handed Japi a cup of tea. He drank it out of a mixing bowl, I didn’t have a cup for him. He groaned in contentment and banged the bowl down on the table. “What I could really use now is some bread,” he said. “Don’t mind me, I think I can find it.” He’d had his eye on my cupboard for a while. “Hey,” he said, “did you know you have meat in the house?” Did I know! He was already putting some sausage on the bread. “Sausage on bread — the people’s victuals.” My sausage, my treasure, the object of my reveries of luxury: the ham I was saving for tomorrow. Of course Japi went straight for that. I have to admit that he didn’t forget about me — he gave me two slices of sausage on every slice of bread. There was enough for that. And Japi ate. How he could eat! The bread was there next to him on the table and he just sliced away. I started to enjoy it. “Don’t be shy, Japi, there’s enough money.” Japi hadn’t noticed the money yet. “Damn!” he said. “It’s a pot of gold! They must have printed another one of your pieces.” I nodded. “As well they should,” he said. “What else are those people good for besides paying our expenses, I’d like to know. I’ve also written a thing or two in my day.” He stuffed his mouth full of bread and sausage and wiped his hands on the newspaper before crumpling it up. “I shouldn’t be writing anything, though, it’s not like I’m any good.”
Then out from his inner pocket came an old, moldering, nasty-smelling newspaper with the creases worn through. It was The Vlagtwedde Sentinel and he showed me an article with “Letters from Amsterdam” at the top. He’d written six, he said, but his brother had lost the other five. Japi helped himself to another slice of bread. “You don’t want any more?” he asked. I declined and Japi took the last quarter pound of my sausage. “The people’s victuals” seemed to agree with him. “Did it at night,” Japi said with his mouth full, pointing to the paper with his knife. “After hours. I always had to go back to the office in the evening. Sometimes I had to hold my head under the faucet to stay awake. Now I’d say no thank you. What do I care? Nothing. It only tires you out. I’d rather just walk around and look at people and the carriages and the houses. And especially at the pretty girls and the fresh-faced brides. You can always pick out women who have just gotten married, you can tell right away. And then I think about the fun I don’t have with all those dear creatures. I’d rather do that than write about it. What do the numskulls care what I see. They just shuffle down their own streets, staring down at the ground with tedious faces stuck to their heads because it’s a lost cause, life is so hard, it makes them miserable. What have they ever done for me? Let ’em keep their couple dollars.”