Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM 1998

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28

Our plane arrived early, at 9:00 a.m. I felt little sense of our dropping and the fog was so dense that my first sight of the Netherlands was the tarmac, which we hit with a startling unexpectedness. Customs was quick, scarcely more than a formality. In the Philadelphia airport I’d changed some of my US money into guilders, which allowed me to hit the ground running, as is my preferred style. I quickly found the train station, bought a ticket to the Amsterdam-Zuid station and went down one level. A train was waiting for me. This was almost too easy; could it actually be the right train? I popped on board and scampered up to the upper level, hoping to see as much of the Netherlands as I could before we pulled into the city. It was so choked with smoke here that I immediately withdrew to the bottom. The only other occupants of the car, a quartet of twittery British women, had no idea if the train stopped at Amsterdam-Zuid, but I stayed on anyway. (It turned out to be the wrong train, which took me directly to Central Station instead.) My first real glimpse of the countryside showed me a flat, plain landscape. We rapidly passed from the country to the outskirts of the city. Enormous, impersonal apartment houses stood along straight, empty streets. I’d heard much of Holland’s beauty, but there was little evidence of it here. We finally pulled into Central Station.
I emerged into the wide plaza in front of the station and was instantly shocked at the sharp iciness of the air; the bone-chilling dampness felt like deep winter. The city was unexpectedly open here. American cities rise in blocks, European ones in Gothic spires. Amsterdam’s were enchanting in the haze, shooting into the frigid sky. But I could revel in the sights later; I wanted nothing more than to drop my bag off at the hotel. The number 24 tram seemed to come closest to the hotel, so I went back inside, located the ticket seller and bought a strip ticket, good for several rides. I waited in the damp chill for the tram, aware suddenly that a cold was coming on. It seemed to be a mild one, but trudging around in the cold weather might easily aggravate it into something worse. I loftily decided to ignore it.
Finally, the tram pulled up to the stop. I knew it would eventually reach Le Meridien Apollo, or at least the immediate neighborhood, so I kept my eye on the map to chart my progress, but I was reluctant to pull my gaze from the city. Amsterdam looked more truly foreign than Hong Kong. The signage told me nothing: Dutch is almost as unintelligible as Chinese. As the tram trundled through the frigid streets, we passed the Albert Cuypmarkt, filled with milling people. I decided that would be my first stop as soon as I checked into the hotel.
I got off the tram at a bridge crossing a canal about two blocks from the hotel. Le Meridien is in a quiet neighborhood, and its surrounding hedges and gardens give one a feeling of privacy. I checked in and left immediately to walk back to the market by an alternate route, along the Boerenwetering Canal. I crossed the bridge at Ruysdaelstraat. Ahead lay the market, in a plainish working-class neighborhood.
The Albert Cuypmarkt is said to draw as many as 40,000 people on a Saturday, a boast I have no difficulty believing. The first beautiful sight to catch my eye was the glorious array of flower stalls, banks and banks of flowers at absurdly low prices, a kaleidoscope of bright color. There were endless tulips of course, daisies, lilies, roses, and flowers unfamiliar to me. The market deals mainly in clothing and all manner of fresh foods. The cheeses, for which Holland is famous, were the most tempting: cases and cases crammed with huge wheels of gouda and edam and creamy exotics from all over Europe. And the seafood! They seemed to offer everything the sea can produce, from the delicious to the thoroughly disgusting. I longed to load my arms with cheeses, meats, vegetables and the flowers that lay in such profusion. But my condo was too far away for this to be practicable. To stave off hunger I bought a black currant soft drink, tart and sweet and intensely flavorful — and for only one guilder, about 54 cents. My only other purchase was 3 pairs of socks (one was woven with the message “Drunk, Stoned, Horny — I’m Amsterdammed”). My favorite stall featured quirky antiques, which seduced me into the shop behind it. If the market had been my last stop on the trip instead of the first, I might have bought something.
After my tour of the market, I felt it might be necessary to go back to the hotel briefly, but no, there was my salvation, a public urinal, standing in the middle of a small plaza. This three-sided contraption looked like an elongated, space-age vagina worked in aluminum. One does one’s business practically in the open air. Normally I am the shyest of the shy, but what the hell, I didn’t know anyone in town so I stepped up. From there I walked back toward the city’s center and encountered the Bloemenmarkt. This is a long series of stalls situated along one canal. Most of the stalls sold souvenirs, but the main focus was on flowers, with bags and boxes of flower bulbs on display, amaryllis, iris, and of course a bewildering variety of tulips, seemingly in every color but paisley.
I was in no special hurry to eat, but I was eager to try Indonesian food first. Luckily, for my first meal in Amsterdam I found Jaykarta, in the southwest corner of Rembrandtplein. I tucked into a plateful of spicy, slightly sweet chips, peppery with curry. Then I had a spring roll, which came covered with sauce. I knew this was a mistake when the main course arrived. This item, prosaically described as the mixed noodle special, was enormous. It was composed of several kinds of noodles, all in a rainbow array of warm reds and golds. There were chunks of lamb, of beef, and some other meat I chose not to speculate upon, a chicken leg, a fried egg, peanuts and, incongruously, a few dill pickle slices. When the very reasonable bill was settled, I was given a small portable lidded ashtray, though I would have much preferred souvenir matchbooks. I saw none of these in any of the later restaurants, either. Strange, in this city in which almost everyone seems to smoke — if not tobacco, other more ambiguous substances.
Around the corner from Rembrandtplein was the Rokin, a long commercial promenade stretching all the way up to Central Station. On the side streets, set aside for pedestrians, I stopped at the little shops of the Nieuwe Zijde, on the lookout for souvenirs for the office gang. Halfway up the Rokin I found myself in the large square ringed by the Nieuwe Kerk, the Konenklijk Palace, and the Peek and Cloppenburg Department Store, with a Madame Tussaud’s on the penthouse level. This great civic space feels like the heart of the city.
Behind the Palace and across the busy Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal was a magnificent old gothic structure, the Postkantoor, now converted into the Magna Mall, four floors of splendid shops. I got what I usually treat myself to at Logan airport, a good shoeshine, from a gnomelike little man with fingers that fluttered over my shoes with the breathless finesse of a pickpocket.
As I emerged from the building, the first rain began. This abomination was to be with us for the rest of the day and all of the next but I was determined that it wouldn’t slow me down.
It didn’t.
Though it was only late afternoon, the city was already growing darker. I set out for the Oude Zijde district, in the direction of the Oude Kerk (Old Church). I found a tea and coffee shop on Warmoerstraat and stepped in to buy a tea tin for Sarah. I knew the infamous red-light district was nearby, and thinking I could find it without the aid of my map, began a trek toward the southeast, over a couple of canals. Here were shops suggesting that even Amsterdam has, in its modest way, a Chinatown. Heading west, then north again, I stumbled on the Red Light District.
This covers several city blocks, centering on the Dudezijds Canal, and “red light district” is not just a casual generic term. The very air appears to be red – especially on a rainy evening — every wet surface reflecting the neon signs winking luridly from the houses. Dozens of young men prowl the narrow streets in a somewhat tentative manner, as if deciding whether or not to rent a girl for an hour. The girls themselves must surely hit the streets too, but they‘re more prominently on display in little chambers lining the street. These, the famous Walletjes, are fronted by picture windows, and the girls sit or stand there, posed provocatively. Most of them have installed black lights, which emphasize their brief white bikinis. The display affords the potential customer the opportunity, I suppose, of window-shopping. Self-service pimping, if you will: very efficient.
It all looked more funny than furtive. I schlepped around the area, frequently ducking into shops, if only to get out of the increasingly bitter cold. I was thankful I’d worn more than the light suede jacket I’d considered bringing. By now, I wanted to find a bar, to see if I could meet someone. I got tremendously lucky.
Le Krocodil caters, the guidebooks say, to the over-40 set. I had no interest in wandering around among the younger, more narcissistic crowd, and when I walked into Le Krocodil, I knew I’d made the right decision. The bar is roughly twice the size of my living room, not too smoky, and the bartender immediately leaned over the bar to ask me what I wanted. I ordered a Heineken. No sooner had I taken a sip than I realized I’d caught someone’s eye. He stepped up and introduced himself.
Rene Haak is about my age, handsome and slightly stocky, with short iron-grey hair and a crisp short beard. After a brief chat, he introduced me to his partner Hans, and to a friend who was with them. This was Michael, with an interesting, slightly goofy face, and obviously far along in his cups already. Rene asked me what I was looking to do in Amsterdam. I replied as frankly as I could, “Oh, see some art, perhaps meet somebody nice.” (I phrased this last part in a slightly different way.) He advised me to try out two bars in the Nieuwe Zijde, The Web and The Cuckoo’s Nest. In the dim light, Hans managed to locate them on my map and circle the approximate locations for me. They bought me another beer and we talked further. Hans said that they would be at either of the two bars the next night and I should seek them out. A Sunday, the action began earlier, around six.
I began the long trek back to the hotel, hoping to stumble upon a good restaurant along the way since I’ve traditionally had good luck in my dining serendipity. I strolled down the Ferdinand Bolstraat toward the hotel, but I saw no eating places that tempted me. I knew the direct way back, but couldn’t resist my impulse to look into strange corners; I headed further south. If I were to cross this canal, I thought, I can approach my hotel from another angle… no, let’s try this way… This little game began to pall when I realized I was pretty hopelessly lost. Suddenly looming above me was the tower of a new hotel, but it turned out not to be Le Meridien. Consulting my map, I realized I had wandered outside its boundaries. I ducked into a Japanese restaurant, and the waitress blithely directed me down a long, dark street. It didn’t look dangerous, but it certainly didn’t look as if it would lead to my hotel, so I continued along till I was even more lost than before. At a little brasserie, a languorous blond boy lounging at the end of the bar gave me further directions. I found myself in a quiet neighborhood of rather nice homes and I indulged in my hobby of glimpsing the private lives of strangers. Open windows are fair game if one keeps one’s glances brief.
Finally, my hotel loomed ahead, shimmering like a mirage in the chilly night. I dropped my bag off, except for the Patricia Highsmith thriller I was reading, and headed back toward a nearby street where I was certain I’d find any number of restaurants, a short stroll of some six blocks. I was astonished to note that even in this quiet neighborhood away from the center of the city, there was a line of windows where whores stood striking their business poses. As I passed their windows, nodding a friendly hello, each fille de joie reacted predictably with a come-hither gesture or a hopeful stirring to action. An observer across the street might have noted the ripple effect as I walked along. I decided it was kinder not to get their hopes up, so from then on I fought down my curiosity and ignored them completely.
Here was the street to check out, the Ceintuurban. A number of little restaurants beckoned. I had gone deeply into Asian at lunch, so I was pleased to see a Brazilian restaurant, Do Carioca. The place was crowded, and it looked as if I might be turned away. But they took pity on me, the poor orphan in the storm. The waitress, a frank-faced brunette with a wide smile, showed me to a table. The barman was a somewhat heavy-faced but handsome Brazilian who made me warm for a little companionship. The menu was in Dutch (incomprehensible) and Portuguese (a trace better), so I took a chance. My nodding acquaintance with Portuguese led me, luckily, to grilled tuna, well-done but marinated to a melt-in-your-mouth tenderness. It came with two salads and a baked potato with sour cream, to which I’m exceedingly partial. Instead of chives, the cream was chunky with coarsely chopped scallions, a new taste treat. By the time I’d finished this glorious repast I was stuffed, so dessert was no temptation whatsoever.
I walked back to the hotel past the whores, who again lurched into action, gamely posing and gesturing. I felt an odd impulse to actually try one out, just as a new experience. But it was no real temptation. And I certainly have never been buy-sexual. Back at the hotel, I sank into a hot tub and came close to falling asleep in the soapy warmth. In bed at last, I slept the sleep of the blessed – or the happily worn-out.


SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29

I woke at 8:30, popped in and out of the shower, and crossed the street to the Apollolaan, a stately street of large beautiful apartment houses. My ultimate goal was the Rijksmuseum. Of course, I kept an eye cocked for a breakfast place, but the only possibility I could see open was an outdoor bakery stand, and I wanted to sit and have a leisurely coffee, too. I happened on a street that looked like it would be lined with cafés, but smart dress shops predominated. The few eateries there were closed.
Presently I stumbled across the Brasserie Van Gogh. It was warm and welcoming, agleam with soft golden tiles and burnished copper. An immense hammered brass samovar burbled away behind the bar. I ordered a coffee (double) and bacon pannenkoeken. This was a happy accident, and must have been purely Dutch. It was a single, plate-size affair, thinner than a pancake, thicker than a crepe, with three strips of bacon imbedded in it. It came with ‘syrup’, which was actually thick molasses, sharp and sweet. After I finished, I was joined by a huge golden retriever, who came over to have his (her?) ears scratched, and lay down at my feet. I never did determine if the dog came in with someone, or whether it was the presiding spirit of the place.
Around the corner from the brasserie was the huge Neo-Gothic Rijksmuseum, one of the world’s great temples to art. I walked around to the front and went in. There was no clear direction to go, so I just wandered into the first gallery I saw. It was a lithography exhibit, which I enjoyed more than I expected. From there I wandered through an endless series of galleries featuring 16-18th century furnishings, paintings and sculpture. The most absorbing part of this collection was the series of carved church figures from the middle ages. My far-and-away favorite was Saint Ursula and her virgins. The lady in question, with tiny, pert features crowded into the middle of a perfectly huge face, strode forward in her rich gown, caparisoned like a circus pony. Her headdress, or turban, ballooned out behind her like the skull of some extraterrestrial creature. Under her cloak huddled her virgins, tiny little ladies with pale faces and protruding eyes. The whole effect was more amusing than reverent to my twentieth century eyes.
Drawn by tinkling music, I passed through a door into a vast central gallery. Besides some rather large works of art on the wall, the main feature of this gallery was the museum shop. The music came from a street organ, crawling with brightly painted folklorish figures. The handle was being turned by a line of delighted children, all clearly having the time of their young lives. After checking out the museum shop, I passed on to the other wing of the museum. Here were an uncommon number of Rembrandts. There were lesser painters of landscape sprinkled among the greats and I especially liked a landscape of Brazil done in the seventeenth century, with its tangle of jungle greenery looking very contemporary. And of course there were rooms and rooms of typically Dutch genre painters (“The Merry Fiddler” “The Merry Peasant,” “The Merry God-knows-what-else”). After such an excruciating display of merriment, a huge display of rape and throat-cutting, “The Massacre of the Innocents,” came as a welcome corrective. But I especially liked “The Wedding Portrait” by Frans Hals, one of the chief perpertrators of the generic jollity.
My favorite paintings however, in spite of Rembrandt’s undeniable genius, were the Jan Vermeers. These coolly observed scenes of domestic life, unstained by sentimentality, glow with soft filtered northern light.
Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” was in a gallery not entirely of its own, but it might just have well have been. One of the great subjects of that joyously martial age was the large painting of a military company, and several of these were displayed around “The Night Watch.” The contrast between this masterwork and the other anonymous assemblages of soldiers could not have been greater. These large solemn catalogue portraits were born dead, while Rembrandt’s great canvas throbs with life and activity and meaning.
I had lunch in the museum café. From the small salad bar, I chose three: egg salad, julienned vegetables, and ham and artichoke hearts, all delicious. In addition, I had a kroket and a saucijzen broodje. The former looked like a fat fish stick, but inside was sort of a creamy meat-and-potato filling. The latter was sausage wrapped in pie crust and melted on my grateful tongue. The only moment of real misery I had on the trip was when I realized I must choose only one of the dazzling display of desserts. I chose an Advocaat torte that made my knees buckle at the first bite. (Advocaat is an eggnog-flavored liqueur.) Afterward I explored the galleries in the lower region of the museum, 19-20th century furnishings, including a cornucopia of art nouveau furnishings. Then I briefly stopped back at the museum shop for a spot of Christmas shopping.
Dazzled by what I’d seen, and not yet suffering from art overload, I passed around the the back of the museum through an ornamental garden, to the South Wing. This museum, almost complete in itself, features Asian art, a passionate enthusiasm of mine. On the upper floor was a splendid exhibit of Van Gogh’s paintings. This exhibit included much of his student work, in which he is already leaping ahead of his contemporaries stylistically. By the time I’d devoured the paintings and sculptures in this wing, art overload was at last beginning to set in.
On the way back to the hotel, I stopped at a confisserie to buy chocolate letters for some of my friends in the office. These initials, worked in chocolate and studded liberally with nuts, are a typical treat given in this preholiday period. I liked the clerk, a middle-aged woman with a wild baroque nest of black hair and kind eyes. For myself, I bought a small chocolate mouse which I nibbled as I walked back to Le Meridien.
I can never stay long at a hotel, so I wandered back to the street by the Albert Cuypmarkt and caught the trolley downtown. By this time, my only real aim was to wander about and let the city’s charms seep into my bones. I walked down the Leidsestraat and found myself in a large plaza bisected by trolley lines, the Leidseplein, a small city of restaurants, bars and nightspots. Many of them were obviously geared to Americans. Indeed, The American Hotel was just around the corner. Dominating the square, however, was the Theatre De Stadsschouwburg, an enormous gothic pile bristling with towers and turrets and all manner of mittel-european doodads.
Despite being rather footsore, I kept walking, checking out every bookstore, every little square and bridge. Eventually I found myself in a long narrow square in which stood an outdoor art market. Most of what was on display was arts-and-craftsy stuff of no interest, but I liked immensely a sculpture in nuts, bolts, and levers, of an alto saxophone.
At around six, I walked up the Niewezijds Voorgurgwal towards the Niewezijds Kolk, hoping I could find The Cuckoo’s Nest. There it was, its dimly lit sign blinking next to the Betty Boop Juice Bar. I walked in.
The Cuckoo’s Nest is a narrow dark bar, but already, just past six, it was filled with men. Immediately I saw Rene. Hans was elsewhere, ‘misbehaving,’ Rene said with affection. He asked me what I’d been doing, and where I was eating. I told him I was sampling the variety of international restaurants. He declared that I wasn’t like other Americans, that in his experience, we tended to want American food when abroad. I understand what he means, but personally, I think more of us are adventurous than he gives us credit for. Rene then offered to show me the downstairs, a dark and steamy world of its own. Here, delicious lust is given free play.
Back upstairs, we were joined by Hans. It’s their custom, on Sunday nights, to do the bars, then repair to a nearby Italian restaurant where they have fallen into the cherished habit of always ordering the same thing. I was under no such constraints. I ordered a salad with tuna, singing with lemon juice, and a plate of seafood with pasta in a mild red sauce.
Getting to know them turned out to be one of the greatest pleasures of the entire trip. Hans, on closer acquaintance, is as charming as Rene. He has a large head, slightly prominent ears and large, sleepy, very sexy eyes. His voice is deep and gentle and like Rene, his English is perfect. Both have very slight accents which add to the charm. We had a lovely long visit, and exchanged addresses, e-mail too. They said if I should ever return to Amsterdam, I should stay with them. I certainly hope to return. Rene and Hans live in Amstelveen, a suburb to the southwest.
Back to the bar for more chat and beer (Rene is a most affectionate sweet talker), then I reluctantly said goodbye to my new friends and walked to the trolley stop in the Rokin. I didn’t want to ride all the way back, so I stopped and walked the last half mile, down the Ceintuurban. As I was strolling past Do Carioca, my waitress of the night before was closing up. She remembered me and said she hoped that I would come back again the following night. A café across the street was still open, so I ducked in for half an hour, to sit with a coffee. It was simply too early to go back to the hotel. I prefer to avoid them, except for sleeping. When I did go back, I read Patricia Highsmith till midnight.


MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30

I walked down the Van Baarlestraat in the general direction of the Stedelijk, the museum for contemporary art, assuming it would open at ten. Just ahead, a beacon of warmth and sweet smells, was a wonderful bakery, Simon Meyssen, Broodbakker. There are a chain of them around Amsterdam, all richly decorated with green and butterscotch tiles. The pastries, a wonderful panoply of pleasures, tempted me to buy more than one item, so I did: two appel rondos. These delicacies are little tart shells filled with a layer of marzipan, then chopped apples and almonds, sweet as honey and richly fragrant. I got a cup of coffee from a vending machine (an odd lapse in an establishment so dedicated to the pleasures of the palate), and settled down at a counter beside a tallish blond young man with green eyes and a rather self-satisfied smile. He greeted me cheerily. He had such a carefully groomed English accent that I was surprised when he told me he was from Germany, in Amsterdam for work. We chatted briefly, then I turned my attention to my appel rondos, trying not to cry out orgiastically as I ate them. Presently my companion left. I’d told him I was from Boston, so he said at parting, “Say hello to Charles Emerson Winchester.” I didn’t have time to tell him that the good doctor had lost his license as the result of a botched vasectomy and was now conducting wine tastings.
I bopped on down the Van Baarlestraat toward the Stedelijk, hard to miss with its stately towers thrusting into the leaden sky. The weather was, needless to say, still wet and cold. Arriving at the dot of ten, I saw that the museum didn’t open until eleven so I had an hour to kill. Luckily, wandering through the neighborhoods of the Museum Quarter was the best way I could satisfy my omnivorous eye. I walked up the Willemsparkweg, in thrall to the wild variety of detail so common to Dutch houses. The first thing to catch my eye (after the American-style Crazy Horse Saloon) was in the window of The Van Hoorn (burglar alarm) Company. It was a light sculpture, a wall-mounted arrangement of translucent lozenge-shapes, constantly changing colors, blinking on and off.
All along the Willemsparkweg are small shops and offices, so I set off into the side streets. I believe that a beginning architecture student could profit hugely by taking a trip to the Netherlands to expose himself to Dutch domestic architecture. Even in this quiet corner of the city one can find the little quirks and oddities that delight the most casual eye. The buildings in this quarter appeared to be, in general, the products of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I turned one corner to find a series of buildings, all different, and all sporting art nouveau tilework. The first one was a small neighborhood hotel, The Atlas, of such charm that I was sorry I had checked into the relative anonymity of a large five-star hotel. This hotel is an architectural gem, quietly embellished with art nouveau elements, a perfect floral bouquet of a building.
At the end of this block, the street curved. Nestled into the curve was an outcropping of the Vondelpark, which I had hoped to walk into only after I had sated myself on the less wild parts of the city. Here was my chance.
The pathway was muddy enough to require my fanciest footwork, but I managed to steer clear of the worst spots till I reached the pavement. The cold was bitter and moist, good for the complexion I suppose, but for not much else. I walked along trying to ignore the weather, eyes and nose running, cheeks aflame, thighs numb — and blissfully happy. In the middle of the park was a large penned area with llamas, cattle, and some other animals too far away to identify. I stopped to admire a sculpture which clearly owed something to Picasso. It was a large concrete slab in the shape of something evoking a fish, a bird in flight, and even a bull. It was substantial enough, but gave an impression of lightness and grace.
Suddenly I heard an unearthly sound, like some huge wind instrument from the bowels of hell. It was a dog, a large hound that had broken away from his owner. It was making straight for another dog, which in turn broke away from its owner. But instead of fighting, the two circled one another howling, while the two owners fretted and called out unsuccessfully to get their respective dogs back. The cold air echoed with the unearthly cries of the hound and the more treble notes of the other dog. Pure music.
I was not exactly lost, but my sense of direction had again deserted me. But I heard street sounds – the Van Baarlestraat? I checked the map. Yes, for here at the end was a huge brick building, a catalog of styles grafted one onto another and another, which was identified as the Filmmuseum. Tucked into the back of it was a little outdoor café, closed for winter, the Café Vertigo. (So the Dutch are as appreciative of Hitchcock’s masterpiece as I am.)
I emerged from the park. There in an island in the middle of the street was a large church, plunked down in the middle of the neighborhood. I got back onto the Van Baarlestraat and moseyed down it (still too early to be admitted to the museum) and ducked into a coffee and tea merchant’s to get warm for a moment. When a bit of pink had returned to my cheeks, I walked on down the Van Baarlestraat to the Stedelijk Museum of contemporary art.
They were charging less than half the admission price, because the museum was in some state of upheaval. The work in a couple of sections was touring, and other galleries had exhibitions being installed, but there was enough art left to give me ample pleasure. The night before I had seen a shop selling hallucinogenics, and briefly considered doing the museum under the influence of one of the milder variety of magic mushrooms. They would, I think, have been quite unnecessary. The first gallery was devoted to the work of a group of modern Dutch artists, generally abstract expressionists edging toward figurative art, Jorn, Appel, Corneille, and Constant. Another gallery showed a playful experimentation with the idea of computerized clothing, featuring red mannikins hovering about the room. A harried ex-flower child with a bristling mustache, presumably the artist, gave me a dazzling sexy smile and hurried into another gallery. I quickly passed through the next exhibit, which dealt with photos of amputees, a subject I cannot look at. Sorry, but to me, art’s for pleasure. In the opposite wing on the ground floor was a pageant of late twentieth century painting and sculpture. The most impressive to me was an assemblage by the American Edward Kienholz, “The Original Beanery.” This was a walk-in sculpture, of an old-time bar and grill, its inanimate patrons slumped all around, as if transfixed in wax. On closer inspections, even their once-removed humanity was questionable. Over the bar hung a sign, Fagots (sic) Go Home. Lights from a jukebox and various beer signs gleamed dully in the half-light. Outside by the door was a yellowing newspaper in a vending rack with the sad headline, “Heart Attack Takes Gracie Allen.”
I trotted up the wide stone staircase to the upper floor. Most of this was in a state of flux, and I could only go into the two large front wings. This satisfied me perfectly, as it was a veritable Who’s Who of modern painting. The most effective piece I saw was a large painting, “The Horde,” by Max Ernst, the most criminally undervalued of the twentieth century giants of painting. He is by far the most gifted of the surrealists, easily eclipsing the arch-fraud Salvador Dali. “The Horde” is a landscape of darkling, almost-human figures tumbling across the canvas under a rich violet-blue sky. I found myself going back to it again and again.
Across the way was a final series of galleries, first a roomful of Willem de Koonings, then more work of the earlier modern period. The one that grabbed my interest and held it was “Bal Tabarin” of Jan Sluijter, possibly the most vibrant painting I’ve seen. Painted in 1907, it shows a writhing assembly of dancers in a Paris dancehall. Rock music might be playing, to judge by their gyrations, but given the date it was certainly ragtime.
I went through the superior museum shop, then taking a last glimpse of “The Horde,” I walked downstairs and into the brightening day.
I found a trolley stop outside the building, and rode toward the center of town. The tram took us past the Metz and Co. department store, so I disembarked and rode the elevator to the top. Metz and Co. is small in area, but has six floors, all with well-designed – and rather expensive – merchandise, but I didn’t need anything anyway. Back on the street, I wandered toward my goal, Anne Frank’s house, stopping in strange little shops featuring antiques, moorish lighting, etc. Walking along the Rozengracht looking for a good restaurant, I was delighted to see a huge hole open up in the clouds, the rich azure sky revealing itself at last. Sunlight poured through like honey. With a spring in my step, I sauntered along glorying in the warmth, but alas, in fifteen minutes the clouds had knitted the hole closed again. The closer I approached to the Anne Frank Museum, the fewer eateries I found. I wanted to keep it light, since the previous evening I’d seen a Peruvian restaurant I had hoped to try for my last meal in town. Finally I found The Café de Prins, a little neighborhood place filled with people.
The tables were all occupied, but the place was of the informal type in which patrons shared. I sat down opposite a somewhat creased-looking man (though younger than me) who made sure the bartender, who was also the only waiter, attended to me. The place reminded me of Doyle’s in a vague way, dark and mustardy, but with tall windows at the back that looked out onto the backs of houses crawling with vines and topped by tilted tiled roofs. All over town I had seen signs advertising the arrival of the beaujolais nouveau (“C’est arrivee!”), so I ordered a glass. The waiter gave me the type of sidelong glance that told me I’d ordered something not quite nice, and growled that he was bringing me a glass of Spanish red wine instead. It turned out to be perfect with what I ordered, the vegetarian tagliatelle. This was heavenly, a savory alfredo sauce sprinkled with walnuts topping the generous serving of noodles. Two kinds of salad were served.
The Anne Frank house was directly across the canal. I paid my admission and went up the narrow stairs. This museum almost defies commentary. Anne Frank’s presence is very close here, and the horrors of Nazism hang about the very corners. What impressed me most about the quarters of the Frank and Van Pels families was the size of the apartment. It was really quite spacious. The most affecting room of all was Anne’s narrow bedroom, with its faded pictures of film stars, many of them American, still pasted to the walls. It was unsettling to think of the hidden families forced to stay in these hermetic rooms while just outside was a beautiful, fascinating city into which they were unable to venture. In the museum shop below, Shelley Winters’s Oscar for her performance in The Diary of Anne Frank rests in a glass case, an affecting and generous donation to the museum.
In the Anne Frank Museum, one feels the extreme vulnerability of being human. In its haunted rooms, we are all Jewish.
For the rest of the afternoon I wandered without purpose, just letting the atmosphere of the city fill me. My eventual goal was the Nieuwe Spiegelstraat. Rene had told me that antique shops were concentrated there, and he was very, very right. The most pleasing, because its wares were the most affordable, was a shop specializing in antique tiles. Even tiles made in the seventeenth century were priced within reason, but I saw nothing I absolutely had to have, in any of the shops.
I headed up a long street, surprised to see the Rijksmuseum standing at the end of it. The wheel-spoke arrangement of the city’s streets and canals kept my sense of direction off-balance the whole time I was there. I was nowhere ready to go back to the hotel, so I turned back toward the center of town, eager to see some parts of the city I hadn’t yet. I headed for the Oude Zijde, up narrow night-lit canals. A pall of magic had settled over the city with nightfall, so I could ignore the increasing cold. In one shopping area drug dealers stood on virtually every street corner quietly offering their wares, but oddly enough, I felt quite safe. By six o’clock, most of the shops were closing. Whenever I saw one open, I made for it, and thus I stumbled, quite by accident, on a brief but unforgettable interlude.
I stopped in front of the window of a toy shop, the Hans Brinker Village. My eye was caught by the sight of a dozen or more flying machine toys, handmade, all on long springs depending from the ceiling. They were all rigged up to a motor, and all gently bounced in the air, their wings flapping in slow motion. I looked more closely into the shop. In place of the customary blaze of garish packaging and cellophane one finds in an American toy shop was something new, or rather, old: a glorious toy-ness. Dolls and castles and stuffed animals and puppets lay about in prodigious profusion. An air of wonderment hung over the interior of the shop. I walked in.
A wave of gorgeous sound filled my ears, a pure and lovely soprano voice soaring above a female chorus. Combined with the cozy atmosphere of the shop, the music had an almost piercing sweetness. I wandered through, not looking at the toys so much as letting the combination of sight and sound fill my being. At last, the song was over. I spoke with the clerk, who identified it for me, the Nun’s Chorus from Casanova, an operetta by Johann Strauss II unfamiliar to me. The owner was closing up, so I had to go, but he very kindly wrote the title down for me, and played the selection again as I reluctantly went back out into the night.
I walked back to The Warmoesstraat to see how the sinful sections of the city were getting along without me. I passed a black boy hurling some incomprehensible grievance into the night; even his few companions seemed to be steering clear of him. Most of the shops were closed, but by now I could feel a bit of hunger nibbling at my edges. I walked back in the direction of Central Station, but found nothing that appealed to me. I hadn’t explored the section of the city north of the Central Station, but the cold wind turned me back after a few blocks. I knew there were many restaurants ringing Rembrandtplein, so I headed for it. I walked around the square checking out the various restaurants; the most inviting seemed to be the Rhapsody, specializing in southern French and Dutch food. I was seated at a cozy, lamplit table next to the bar, and ordered a glass of red wine and the fixed tourist menu. Nothing was specified on this, but I figured a little mystery wouldn’t do me any harm. The meal began with a mushroom soup, rich and buttery and thick with sliced mushrooms. Then came a fine steak au poivre, in a red wine sauce, crunchy with mild pink peppercorns. It was quite tender, and a touch rarer than I generally like it, but the light was rosy enough to disguise the color. This was accompanied by fresh vegetables and two salads. As I was finishing up, an attractive young man came out to attend to something at the bar. He looked down at me and asked me if I’d enjoyed the meal – which I had. He turned out to be the chef. He friskily whisked my plate away and brought back dessert, three scoops of ice cream. The one in the middle was cinnamon, an unusual choice.
When I’d finished, the young chef came back to my table, eager to talk. His name was Jooris, He was eighteen and blond, with small round ears sticking out from under his curls. He is passionately fond of music and movies. Like me, he prefers the more subtle type of film in which people react to one another rather than movies featuring noisy chases and special effects. But he did confess to a fascination with things American and he longs to visit New York someday. We talked for fifteen or twenty minutes. He was stuffed to overflowing with opinions and artistic prejudices. In someone older, his flood of assertion would have been overbearing, but in one so young the effect was one of effortless charm. I settled my bill, he shook my hand and I left, full and happy and pleased to have spent my time so agreeably. Very friendly people, the Amsterdammers.
It was still fairly early. Although I was wincing with every step, I elected to forego the tram. I took a different route back, along a canal lit with stringed lights, the Lijnbaansgracht. I crossed this and got onto a street I’d hit earlier. At the end of it was the last great sight I was to see in Amsterdam: the Rijksmuseum at night, illuminated against the deep purple sky. The subtle reds and golds softly glow, giving it an even statelier and more magnificent appearance than by day. It seemed bigger, too.
I walked slowly down the Hobbemakade to my hotel, not only because I was tired, but because the night was magical in spite of the cold, and it was my last tour through the city. Back at the hotel, I asked to be awakened at eight, and arranged for the airport bus in the morning.


TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1

For the only time, I had breakfast at the hotel, a buffet of eggs and bacon and plump mushrooms and pancakes, washed down by a pint or so of coffee. I checked out without any difficulty and went out to wait for the bus. This was the only time the cold was really, depthlessly miserable. But I didn’t have long to wait. The bus whisked me up and we began the long circuitous ride to the airport. At the Hilton we picked up one passenger, a young woman whose first words were “God, I can hardly wait to get out of this city!” I found this hard to credit, but apparently she had been completely undone by the cold. She was from New York and must have been in her late thirties. She had a plain and rather pudding-y face made almost beautiful by large, lustrous blue eyes, circled by black, black lashes. She was inclined to jabber; I wanted to look over the city for the last time, delighted by the warm, quirky architecture. I began to be alarmed when we passed the same hotel for the fourth time, but eventually we headed into the countryside and were soon at the airport.
The process of customs was quick and painless. I bought a few gifts and exchanged the last of my money and we were on our way. All the way back across the Atlantic I read the 1998 Best American Essays, stopping only to watch one of the movies for a while. It was a beloved oldie, Sullivan’s Travels. Back over North America, I saw with pleasure the familiar landscape pass below me. We flew over Cape Cod, a beautiful long lazy arabesque of land, fragile as a cobweb from above. Nantucket appeared even flatter, a wisp of crescent floating in the sea.
The wait in Philadelphia was brief, but neccessitated a wild dash across the airport to catch my next plane. I was back in lovely old Boston by five and home by six. The taxi trek from the airport to Jamaica Plain was an expensive nightmare – courtesy the Big Dig. But after such a delicious trip, doing the last leg via subway would have been anticlimax. For almost four days I’d hiked around Amsterdam, attempting to cram as much experience in as possible, devil take the consequences. I poured a glass of wine and settled into the sofa pillows, wondering what price the gods would exact, dead certain that my cold would develop into pneumonia or worse.
By the next morning it had disappeared altogether.