The old woman drew level with his table and lifted the cloth again.
‘Nice plump eels, sir.’
‘I can see they’re nice plump eels, but I can’t be dealing with them just now.’
‘Food is scarce these days, sir. Save them for later.’
‘I’m going on a journey, I can’t take them with me.’
‘Well, what if I wrap them in newspaper?’
‘No, thank you.’
He felt in his pocket and offered her a guilder.
‘I didn’t come here to beg, sir!’
She made her way past him to the table behind.
Half past one. He had finished his meal and couldn’t very well linger in the restaurant. How to kill time until five?
Without really looking about him, he set off towards Dam Square, dragging his feet.
Uncle Bart must now be on his way to his lawyer, he thought, that old friend who’s been his business adviser for the past forty years, an old man like Uncle Bart himself. And he’ll say: of course, Bart, I’m entirely at your disposal! But you must understand, simply going to the Germans and demanding explanations, an old man like me, walking right into the lion’s den … Look here, Bart …
And so he witters on. Doesn’t go to the Germans. Better wait and see, he says. Here, take a look at this underground newspaper, I’ve got the latest issue of Het Parool for you. You can keep it, but don’t leave it lying around! The Krauts are finished, that’s what it says! Uncle Bart returns home, placated. How long before he gets restive again, though? A week? Probably less. He doesn’t know what to think, but he’s as pig-headed as ever, like in the old days when Aunt Fie finally got him to the registry office and they left Ria’s pram with the porter! That was a good deed, to his mind, no: a Deed. With a capital letter! Something to be proud of later on. But why did he really do it? He did it because in those days you couldn’t go around taking potshots at anyone you didn’t like, not like now. Born at the wrong time, that was his trouble!
Osewoudt walked down Kalverstraat and turned right towards Spui. The electric clock on the corner by the church showed two o’clock. Osewoudt reached the University Library, just past the church, and stopped.
When I left secondary school, he thought, Uncle Bart talked about me going to university. If I had taken him up on it I might have been spending my days reading books in this very building. I wonder what it’s like inside? Would it be open to the public?
He halted at double doors of pale oak. No signs saying anything like RING or KNOCK. He pushed the right-hand door and it yielded. He entered a marble vestibule with a porter’s lodge on the left, in which an old man sat pasting small circles of white paper on to the spines of books. Osewoudt doffed his hat, but the old man glanced at him only briefly before continuing what he was doing. Up a few steps and he found himself surrounded by oak; a strong smell of floor polish wafted towards him. Behind a counter sat a woman in a white apron, knitting. A sign at last: CLOAKROOM COMPULSORY. Osewoudt laid his hat on the counter and took off his coat. The woman put down her knitting, handed him a thick brass disc with a number, took his coat and hat and hung them on a rack.
An oak staircase, lit only by a leaded window on a small landing. More stairs. Glass doors left and right. He looked through the door to the left and saw a gathering of intellectuals, some standing still and others strolling about. He looked through the door to the right and saw long tables occupied by people reading books. But what shall I read? he thought, as he went in. The walls were lined with books, even the spaces between the windows were fitted with bookcases. Wooden stepladders stood here and there along the stacks.
An elderly scholar wearing pince-nez left his chair, moved the library steps to another stack, took down a book from a high shelf and returned to his seat. So you were allowed to take a book from any stack you liked! No need to ask anyone for permission either! Osewoudt had reached the first reading table. On his right he had seen a woman sitting at a vast desk, like a schoolmistress presiding over a classroom. The supervisor, apparently, but not a very watchful one, as she was engrossed in a book like everyone else.
Osewoudt paused deliberately for a moment or two, looking intently in her direction, almost hoping she would beckon to him and ask what he wanted. He hadn’t yet decided what he would say. But the woman looked up from her book, saw him, and carried on reading. She had dark, fairly thick woolly hair, which looked as if it hadn’t been combed but simply gathered at the nape of her neck. She was not particularly young, but her glasses were decidedly ancient: thick round lenses in a gold wire frame. She wore a green woollen dress, as green as the baize of her desktop. It could even be the same material, he thought, people run up clothes from the strangest fabrics these days, maybe there was some baize left over. She can’t be earning much.
He advanced into the room. Some readers glanced up at him distractedly, their minds still on the books before them. He looked away, anxiously hoping to spot a title he would be bold enough to take to a vacant seat at one of the tables.
Some of the stacks had labels indicating the subjects ranged on the shelves. The labels seemed to demand his diploma, but he didn’t have a diploma in any specialised subject. Once I’d done my school exams I never opened a book again. Flogged all my textbooks to the boys in the next year. Good riddance, I thought at the time. Am I sorry? He was now at the far end of the reading room and his gaze slid over the readers’ backs. Why would I want to be like them? I might not have been bright enough for university anyway, or not bright enough to be brilliant. And then if I’d ended up at a desk like that supervisor I might well have thought: I’d just as soon be a tobacconist.
He now noticed the clock over the door through which he had come in. The clock said five past two. Three hours to wait; but not here. He retraced his steps as quickly as he dared. The supervisor now drew herself up and made to approach him, but he just grinned and went out of the door. At that moment someone emerged from the opposite door across the landing. It was Zéwüster, clasping a booklet.
‘Hey!’
Osewoudt had raised his voice, but his cry was somewhat stifled.
Zéwüster stood with his hand on the banister and one foot already extended to go down the stairs. He gave Osewoudt a quizzical look.
‘Hello Zéwüster!’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You are Zéwüster aren’t you? … I am …’
His voice trailed off, against his will; it was as if Zéwüster’s eyes transfixed him, as if he had lost the ability to move or speak. His forehead went ice-cold.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Yes, Zéwüster. Surely you remember?’
His voice faltered again, the last words trapped in his chest.
‘You are mistaken, my name is de Bruin.’
Osewoudt now stood beside the other man, with his hand on the other banister, ready to start down the stairs, and a kind of rage made him overcome his paralysis.
‘If your name isn’t Zéwüster why not just say: I am not Zéwüster. Whether you’re de Bruin or de Wit or anything else doesn’t matter to me!’
A trio of students squeezed between them and went down the stairs. Zéwüster followed, quickening his pace and overtaking them without a backward glance. Osewoudt went down the stairs as well. The three students stopped to retrieve their coats. But Zéwüster did not stop at the cloakroom, he strode towards the marble vestibule, booklet in hand. Hatless and coatless, he went out into the street.