I went over to the window and opened it. The concrete square was lit by the pale glow of the streetlamps and the bright letters of the BASIS sign on the other side. There was a hot, heavy, subtropical humidity in the air. All the way to the right I could see a piece of the turquoise dome atop the small concrete mosque. The crowns of the chestnut trees had a muted luminosity of their own, and the metal satellite dishes on the nearby balconies shone white through the darkness. It was unusually quiet. I was soothed by the sight. Perhaps I had come home after all, I thought.
And then out of the darkness into the semidarkness of the concrete there emerged the figure of a man. He made his way slowly and with difficulty, as if wading through the ocean. Suddenly he flicked something that looked like a cigarette butt to the ground, and there was a sharp retort. It was a firecracker. Not realizing that he was being observed, the passing stranger had left his mark upon the night: he had sent a message with no content only to vanish into the dark. As he disappeared, he seemed to be walking at a slight angle, like a dog.
CHAPTER 4
The cyclone had set the house down, very gently — for a cyclone — in the midst of a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of green sward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. A little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long in the dry, gray prairies.
I left the flat and headed toward the metro station. I was almost there when I felt a blow on my back, a blow so powerful and unexpected that it knocked the breath out of me. A second or two later I felt a determined tug at my bag, which was hanging from my shoulder. My shoulder blade kept the strap from slipping off, and I turned, pulling back the bag, to see three small boys with satchels on their backs. They were coming home from school. They could not have been more than ten. One of them, I saw, had a toy pocketknife in his hand. He lowered his eyes and dropped it. All three had the dark, sullen look of grown men. I can’t tell how long we all stood there motionless. Two or three seconds at most. Clearly none of us knew how to deal with the situation. But then the strongest of the three took over and, opening his mouth wide and aiming his black pupils at my face, he let out a long, piercing cry full of hate. The hate was as unexpected and powerful as an electric shock. It came from some unknown depths, some unknown darkness; it came from light-years away to crash before me, bare and sharp as a knife and completely divorced from the situation and the boy, whose lungs, throat, and mouth served merely as a chance medium.
The boys turned and fled. They had an awkward, childlike, flat-footed way of running, and their satchels bounced up and down on their backs. Once they felt they were at a safe distance, they stopped and turned. The sight of me still standing there rooted to the spot and staring after them elicited several mocking gestures on their part, after which they burst into high-pitched giggles. Their first attempt at theft may have been a failure, but this part was great fun. I stood there watching them until they moved on.
I opened my hand to find I was holding the knife. I couldn’t remember having bent to pick it up. Staring at it, I realized the incident that had just played itself out was both moving and dreadful. The boy’s hate-driven scream still echoed in my ears.
It was late afternoon. The dusk was magnificent, the sun pouring its warm terra-cotta glow over everything. The pain had subsided, and I set off, still clutching the knife, but no longer clear as to where I was headed. I used deep breathing to suppress the incident, which could have happened to anybody, in any part of the city, anywhere. I thought of myself living in the largest dollhouse in the world, where everything is simulation, nothing is real. And if nothing is real, then there’s nothing to be afraid of, I thought, and felt a certain spring come into my step. It was almost as if I were walking on air.
Madurodam unraveled before me like a skein of wool. I couldn’t get over the fact that everything looked new: the bonsai imitating mighty oaks, the patches of grass imitating luxuriant lawns. Everything was suddenly clear as crystal, plain as the nose on my face. The Madurodamplein was rice-paper thin. A bluish horizon glowed in the distance. Looked at thus, the heart of Amsterdam had the form of a partially bisected cobweb. First came Magere Brug, whose filigree made me think of a dragonfly, then the De Waag Chinese fish market with its wriggling catch, then the Waterlooplein flea market. The scenes flashed by before me, fragile, lacelike, limpid like the caps on the girls’ heads in the painting by Nicolaas van der Waay. I saw canals overhung with shady trees; I saw the façades of the houses along the canals — the Herengracht, the Keizersgracht, the Prinsengracht, and Singel in neat rows like pearls; I saw Mint Tower, the flower market, and Artis and took in the heavy, warm, intoxicating sight of the Botanical Museum. The entire city lay before me, a city of sky, glass, and water. And it was my home.
In front of the small Anne Frank Museum I saw an earthworm of a line. Inside I saw myself standing in front of a monitor absorbed in its video quiz: 1. Whom did Anne first share her room with? 2. Whom did she have to share it with later on? 3. What did Anne do to liven up her room? 4. Who built the bookcase? 5. From which country did the Frank family flee? 6. Were all Anne’s girlfriends refugees?
I suddenly realized that the house at Prinsengracht 163 bore a distinct resemblance to the houses that obsessed me in my nightmares, and it was with a sense of relief that I mounted the virtual stairs, opened and closed the virtual doors, and left the house simply by pressing the Esc key. I no longer had anything to fear: escape was always an option.
I pictured a Hague Tribunal the size of a matchbox, with tiny judges in tiny gowns, tiny defendants and witnesses, tiny counsels for the defense and the prosecution, miniature surrogates simulating a life in which right and wrong exist. In actuality, there are no right people and wrong people, no good people and bad people; there is only the mechanics of it all, the operation. And the only thing that counts is action; action is all. For the windmills to turn, as small and lively as the city’s sparrows; for the bridges to go up and down, for boats to buzz along the canals like remote-controlled flies; for tiny prostitutes in the red-light district to open and close the curtains of their displays, as neat and meticulous as those old-fashioned barometers; for tiny mounted policemen to make their rounds on horses no bigger than white mice. And as long as the curtains open and close, as long as the windmills turn, as long as the bonsai grow, as long as the blood flows through our filigree veins and into our filigree hearts, everything is just fine. The language of Madurodam has no words for fatality, destiny, or God. God is the mechanics; fatality is a breakdown. Now that I have settled down here in Madurodam, be it of my own free will or not, this is something I must understand.
1. What was the name of the country in the south of Europe that fell apart in 1991? a) Yugoslovakia, b) Yugoslavia, c) Slovenakia. 2. What was the name of the inhabitants of that country? a) The Yugoslavs, b) the Mungoslavs, c) the Slavoyugs. 3. Where do these people, whose country has been disappeared, live now? a) They are no longer alive, b) They are barely alive, c) They have moved to another country. 4. What should people who have moved to another country do? a) They should integrate, b) They should disintegrate, c) They should move to yet another country.