Amsterdam Stories by Nescio

time he saw her having a drink with the colonel at an outdoor table. The colonel was acting very smug and looked savage and overbearing. She gave Japi the eye behind the colonel’s back. She had lung problems and her months were numbered. Still, lively as ever. But had a hard time walking.
    And what were Japi’s plans? Still a freeloader? He freeloaded on his office, he said; the last day of every month he went and got his money.
    Was he going to turn into such a ferocious worker again?
    Oh, no. He had driven himself too hard. He’d aged fifteen years in the last three or four.
    Then he lit a fresh cigar, one of mine, an expensive one with a band. I was doing well in those days. He took the band off.
    He had toiled away, seen his share of misery. It started in Marchienne-au-Pont and Charleroi. He’d gone there for fun, with Jeanne. After three days she had had enough; he stayed. He showed me a little photograph: a grinning death’s-head, the daughter of a worker in a glass factory. Seven children, five dead, and the sixth died while he was boarding there, she was the one in the photo. There he had learned to look, had seen what work really is. He’d always known how to have a damned good time spending money while other people earned it. Now he let it get to him and drove himself hard. Thought about becoming a socialist. He’d worked for his bread, been hounded, hounded and oppressed by people and by necessity, just like everyone else. He’d worked nights; in Amsterdam he came home from the office at one or two in the morning, then sat up, brooded, scribbled, written whole novels and burned them.
    What could he do? What did they accomplish with all that? He let it get to him, dreamed up fiery speeches and ferocious articles while he sat in the office and worked on his boss’s business, worked hard, everyone was amazed at the quantities of work he could put away. The world was still turning, turning exactly the way it always had, and it would keep on turning without him. He let it get to him. Now he was more sensible. He washed his hands of it. There were enough salesmen and writers and talkers and people who let it get to them—more than enough.
    And they were always afraid of something and sad about something. Always scared to be late somewhere or get a scolding from someone, or they couldn’t make ends meet, or the toilet was stopped up, or they had an ulcer, or their Sunday suit was starting to wear thin, or the rent was due; they couldn’t do this because of that and couldn’t possibly do that because of this. When he was young he was never that stupid. Smoke a couple cigars, chat a little, look around a bit, enjoy the sunshine when it was there and the rain when it wasn’t, and not think about tomorrow, not want to become anybody, not want a thing except a little nice weather now and then.
    You can’t sustain that. He knew that. It couldn’t last, it was impossible, you’d need a mountain of money. And he didn’t have one. What his old man might leave him wasn’t worth the trouble. And he, Japi, thought that was just fine. Now he spent his time staring. It’s not like it’s possible to accomplish anything anyway. He still hung around the places he used to like and spent his time staring into rivers. He got through several weeks staring in Dordrecht. In Veere he sat up on the roof of the Hospitaal for days. He’d spent September in Nijmegen.
    And then, with a few variations, he repeated his old reverie about the water, how it flowed eternally to the west, out toward the sun every night. In Nijmegen there was a doctor who had taken the same walk at the same time every morning for fifty-three years—over the Valkhof hill and down the north side and up the Waalkade to the railroad bridge. That’s more than 19,300 times. And always the water flowed to the west. And it didn’t mean a thing. It must have flowed like that for a