Will, стр. 74
Her voice keeps getting thinner and her stories impossible to follow.
I give up. I sigh. I lose myself in the festival hall of yesteryear and the events that once took place in this monstrous, golden, consumerism-steeped shithole.
On the corner of Brialmont Lei, where it’s already hard to imagine that not so long ago Jewish children with yellow stars sewn onto their coats walked past on their way to school, Omer Verschueren is waiting for us. The lawyer I witnessed in all his glory when he was smashing the windows of the Oosten Straat synagogue with an iron bar doesn’t recognize me. The puffed-up bastard needs to be crushed one day. It would be a shame if he got to draw his last breath peacefully in bed.
‘Call me Omer,’ he booms. This time, thank God, Meanbeard skips the song and dance about introducing me as his great literary friend. Instead he asks his mate with a wink if he has ‘everything’ with him.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ the lawyer answers, patting the left side of his chest.
I turn my collar up against the biting wind, rub my hands to warm them and ask what we’re going to do.
‘Play detectives!’ Meanbeard giggles.
‘That’s right, young friend,’ the bear growls just as cheerfully. ‘He’s Sherlock Holmes and I’m his Doctor… what’s-his-name…’
‘Elementary, my dear Watson!’
*
The doors are wide open. A long queue starts out on the Meir and winds into the building, past the wainscoting, under a yellowish light, deep into the broad lobby where it branches out to five neatly lined-up tables, with two civil servants at each with lists of names in front of them, stacks of ration books and an array of stamps next to open inking pads. People used to come here to dance; now it’s a distribution centre for ration books. We turn down a side street and go through a door that opens onto a corridor at the back. Meanbeard whispers something to a caretaker, a little fellow with tufts of hair growing out of both ears and little shaving cuts above a greyish collar. Startled, he jumps to his feet and leads us to a small room in the belly of the building. No windows. Nothing on the walls. A bare bulb. Two simple chairs and a steel table. Without a word he leaves us there.
‘What time is it, Omer?’
‘Dead on ten o’clock.’
Omer stretches and tosses his overcoat at the table. Something heavy falls out of his jacket onto the chair. Omer reaches for it and puts it on the table.
‘You acting in a gangster film?’
‘You’re right,’ the lawyer says, putting the pistol back in a deep inside pocket.
‘He has a permit,’ Meanbeard winks. ‘Me too, by the way…’ And he flashes his inside pocket with a butt sticking up out of it.
‘I’m leaving,’ I say.
The two of them look at me. Meanbeard gives a paternal shake of his head.
‘What you’re going to do is very simple. Go and join the queue. That’s all.’
‘My mother’s already picked up our books.’
‘All you have to do is keep your eyes open. There’s a big chance all hell’s going to break loose. Some people are going to try to slip away. It’s very likely there’ll be people you know amongst them, people from your station, but in civvies. Just keep your eyes peeled. We’ll do the rest.’
‘And what if I’m recognized?’
Omer laughs. ‘Nobody’s going to want to see anything or recognize anyone. You get me?’
Someone knocks discreetly on the door.
‘Sir?’
‘Come in.’
The caretaker with the tufty ears nods timidly in the doorway.
‘I’ve told the men inside you’re here. I had to come and tell you that somebody’s presented three books. Two of them with names on the list you provided.’
Meanbeard rubs his hands together theatrically. ‘Tell them to take him aside for now.’ The caretaker nods timidly again and closes the door behind him.
‘What kind of list?’ I hear myself asking.
‘Our friend Wilfried doesn’t quite get it.’
Omer shrugs and scratches one of his armpits. ‘Not everyone knows the tricks of the trade…’
‘It’s actually very simple. First of all we’re not rid of the Jews yet. That’s because, second, there are still idiots who believe they should help them. And third, we’ve found out that those idiots are so idiotic they think it’s enough simply to queue up with the Yids’ ration books and then provide them with food. How crass can you get? And now get out of here, Wilfried. This isn’t your place. Go and join the queue.’
I go back out through the corridor and emerge in the narrow side street, where a removals truck is now parked together with an army truck from the Field Gendarmerie and a car in which I recognize the Oberscharführer, dressed in civvies and sitting in the front next to the driver. He gives me a vague smile when he sees me. I hide my red face deep in my collar. It’s the first time our paths have crossed since the commotion in the Hulstkamp. I think: ‘It’s a game, stay calm, this is manageable.’ But of course, I don’t know anything for sure.
Close together, whispering to each other, I hear the mumbling of the people who are waiting. Nobody looks at me. Some of the women have