Kevin didn’t know what to say. There was no point arguing with this by-the-numbers bureaucrat. He would use the week to get his family settled.
“Mrs. Kelly will see you out,” Schmidt said briskly as he rose from his desk, signaling that the meeting was over. “You can give her your phone number here in The Netherlands.”
Kevin saw someone get up from one of the other desks in the room. “Right this way, sir,” said a gray-haired, plump woman, who Kevin took to be Mrs. Kelly.
Kevin followed the woman out into the corridor. She had a notebook in her hand, and she took down his phone number.
“You brought your family here as well?” Mrs. Kelly suddenly asked him in an accent that sounded Irish.
“Yes, I have.”
“It’s a shame about your job offer and the funding.”
“Yes, it is. I was really looking forward to working here.”
“Well, perhaps something will come up.”
“I sure hope so,” Kevin said with a forced smile. He opened the door and turned to say goodbye to Mrs. Kelly.
“You know,” she said, handing Kevin some papers, “maybe you can work as defense counsel. Their funds have not been frozen because, of course, those arrested must be given a lawyer. If you’re interested, fill out this application.”
“Thank you,” Kevin said, taking the application.
Lowering her voice, she said, “I’m sorry about what happened. Please don’t judge us all by him. Get your application back to me and I’ll see that it gets to the right place.”
Mrs. Kelly had a gleam in her eye as she turned back toward her office.
The warmth of the sun felt good on Kevin’s face when he left the building. The Tribunal was a cold place with its own set of strange customs and rules. Nevertheless, Kevin was excited about the glass-enclosed courtroom with the judges in red satin. He wanted to be working in that courtroom on the other side of the glass. He had no doubt he’d be more professional than the prosecutor he had seen at work in there today.
He took a tram from the Tribunal to the Central Station, and then switched to a bus to the suburb of Wassenaar. The public transportation system in Holland was excellent. As he rode on the bus, Kevin noticed that every street had a bicycle lane. People of all ages were riding bicycles.
When he got back to the row house in Wassenaar, it was noon. Diane and Ellen were still asleep, no doubt jet lagged; it was still only 3 a.m. California time. Unable to adjust to the 9-hour time difference, they’d been in and out of bed all night.
Kevin put the defense application in a drawer. He did not want to defend war criminals. He had been on the side of the good guys his whole career. He didn’t move here to defend some mass murderer.
Kevin prowled around their new home, looking for something to eat. It was lunchtime and he was hungry, but they hadn’t yet gone grocery shopping. He went into his bedroom where Diane and Ellen were asleep. He moved the curtains, allowing some light to stream in.
Ellen’s eyes opened. “Where am I?” she yawned.
“In the city of Wassenaar, province of South Holland, country of The Netherlands, continent of Europe,” Kevin replied. “Does that answer your question?”
Diane stirred at the sound of voices. “What time is it?” she groaned.
“Twenty past twelve in the afternoon,” Kevin answered. “You two need to get up or you won’t be able to sleep tonight. And I’m hungry.”
Ellen stretched her arms high in the air. Kevin couldn’t resist. He struck quickly, tickling under her arms, and then on her sides. She squealed, then squirmed out of Kevin’s grasp and ran up the stairs to the third floor.
“Missed me, missed me, now you got to kiss me,” she taunted.
Kevin started up the stairs.
“You guys!” Diane called. “Someone’s going to get hurt on those stairs.”
Looking at the stairs, Kevin realized Diane had a point. The stairs in the row house were extremely narrow and steep. It was the Dutch way of saving space. They were geniuses at that sort of thing.
“You can’t come up to the ‘Ellen level’ without permission,” Ellen yelled down.
“Well, get dressed while you’re up there,” Kevin yelled back. “We need to go grocery shopping or I’m going to start eating the candy you brought with you.”
“Don’t you dare, Daddy!”
One hour and two threats later, the Andersons drove the few blocks to the “Albert Heijn” store, the local supermarket. When they got there, Kevin wrestled with the shopping carts stacked up outside, trying to get a cart. He backed off when he saw a line of people waiting behind him. The person behind him calmly approached the cart, put a coin in a slot near the handle, and easily separated the cart from the others.
Diane and Ellen, standing nearby, howled with laughter. Diane mercifully fished a Dutch guilder from her purse and Kevin managed to score them a shopping cart.
By now, Kevin was famished. He piled all kinds of groceries in the cart as they made their way down the aisles.
“Let’s try some of this,” he said, adding canned herring to the cart.
Diane and Ellen stuck with familiar American brands, and lots of vegetables.
When they had filled their cart, Kevin maneuvered it toward the checkout counter in the front of the store. He was disappointed to find that the line was long, but they patiently waited their turn. Just as Kevin was about to begin unloading the cart, a kindly old woman said to him in English, “You haven’t weighed your vegetables.”
Kevin looked at the woman. Was she some kind of a nut?
“Americans make that mistake all the time,” she said. “There are scales over by the vegetable section.”
Kevin was suspicious until the woman picked up one of her own vegetable bags and showed him a pre-printed price sticker.
“Thank you very much,” he said.
He moved their cart out of the line and headed back to the vegetable section, wondering if anyone would notice if he took a bite out of an apple.
Diane and Ellen followed him, cracking up.
“They’re your vegetables,” Kevin said in mock sternness to Diane and Ellen. “You guys weigh them.”
Diane and Ellen pulled the vegetables out of the cart and weighed each of them.
Then they headed back to the checkout area. The line was even longer.
“We’ll wait outside,” Ellen announced, grabbing her mother’s hand. “I’m bored.”
When Kevin finally reached the cashier, he dutifully unloaded the cart full of items. He relaxed when he saw that the cashier was ringing them up. He wondered where the bagger was as his groceries stacked up behind the cashier.
“Who bags the groceries?” he asked as he paid the cashier.
“You do,” the cashier replied curtly.
“No problem,” Kevin said. “I didn’t know. We just moved here.” He scanned the counter again. “Where’re the bags?”
“You have to bring your own.”
“What?” Kevin exclaimed a bit too loud. “Really?”
“Yes,” the cashier replied. “That is how we do it here in The Netherlands.” The man’s English was excellent.
Kevin looked with despair at his huge mound of groceries. He searched frantically for Diane and Ellen. In desperation, he said to the cashier, “What should I do? I don’t have any bags.”
“You can buy some over there,” the man replied, pointing to an odd looking machine against the wall.
By now, Kevin would have gladly paid a small fortune for grocery bags. He ran over to the machine while the other customers waited in the ever-growing line at the checkout counter. Kevin felt his face getting red as he fumbled with the coins for the bag machine. He raced back over to the counter with five bags, praying that they were enough. Kevin threw his groceries in the bags as fast as he could and loaded them into the cart. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and staggered out of the supermarket.