Герман Кох - Amsterdam Noir

“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.”

“But why? Why is it dangerous here?” She looks straight into his eyes for the first time and sees his years of madness. “Why?” she repeats.

Waldemar’s chin trembles and he glances away, because he can’t handle her innocence and fear. He sighs and manages to put into words the thing he has never wanted to say: “A girl was killed in this room. Someone like you. A beautiful, sweet girl. Didn’t they tell you that when they brought you here?”

A shiver goes through her body. “No, he didn’t say anything. Here?”

“Yes, in this room. In that corner. I’m sorry. No one can ever come here again.”

Waldemar wipes the tears from his eyes, shakes his head, and suddenly grabs her by the arm. “You have to leave here. Now.”

He takes her to the door and opens the curtains. A prostitute on the other side of the narrow passage sees Waldemar pull Katja from her room with a crazed expression and drums angrily on her own window.

“You have to leave here. It isn’t safe, it’s not safe here,” he mutters urgently, unaware of the commotion unfolding around him. Aaron, who has just walked into the passageway with a fresh group of tourists, stops, so as not to put his clients at risk. The drumming prostitute pushes an alarm button. Lights flash, and a siren drowns out everything else in the street. People cover their ears, but Waldemar sees, hears, feels nothing. He drags Katja through the passageway, convinced that the devil is at her heels. He pushes people aside; Aaron tumbles against the wall, his hat rolls away, its feather crushed by someone’s shoe.

Waldemar plows through the tourists, and there stands Ivan. Immovable, unwilling to lose his newest acquisition because of the district’s village idiot. His hand rests loosely in his trendy designer bag, his joint dangles from his mouth, a disdainful smile rests on his lips.

Waldemar’s desperate eyes are focused on the light at the end of the passageway. He runs straight ahead and crashes into Ivan, knocks him into the passage wall. Waldemar hesitates, growls like a wounded animal, and looks back — not at Ivan, from whom he now has nothing to fear, but at Katja. She runs surprisingly quickly in her high heels; he scarcely needs to pull her along. The light comes closer. Waldemar turns back once more, they’re almost there, and now he pulls his daughter close. This time he’s there in time to save her, and she knows it, because she hugs him tightly and smiles. The white light dances like a spirit at the end of the passageway.

“Go!” screams Waldemar, as they finally burst onto the Oudezijds Voorburgwal, and the tourists and junkies and johns scatter out of their way. “Go, my darling sweetheart!”

Their hands part. His daughter runs, runs, runs, and when she is almost out of sight, he sees her ascend, lift up into the sky.

Waldemar can still feel her warmth in his hands, and he watches her rise up with a smile.

In the passageway, Aaron finally spots his hat on the ground. When he reaches for it, his gaze falls on Ivan, who is sitting under the graffitied wall. Ivan stashes his switchblade back in his bag, but Aaron sees it, glimpses the red on its blade. Slowly, Aaron picks up his hat, smoothes its feather as best he can, and returns it to his head. He hoists his staff and slams the end of it against Ivan’s head, and the pimp loses consciousness and collapses to the ground like a rag doll. Aaron grumbles with satisfaction as he hears the first sirens approaching. He regathers his flock, who have observed his actions with alarm, and they follow him out of the alley, silent, impressed.