Amsterdam Stories Read Online Free PDF

“Is Appi reading the Handelsblad these days?” “No,” Japi said, “the paper is from my old man. There’s a want ad in there.” “A want ad?” “A want ad, look, I just got it from the old man.”
    â€œâ€˜Seeking assistant clerk for a busy export business’—got that? a busy export business—‘thorough knowledge of modern languages, steno, typing. Applicants with prior experience in export’—hear that? prior experience!—‘will enjoy preferential consideration.’ Enjoy preferential consideration, I like that one. ‘Salary: 300–400/yr. Apply at #1296, Handelsblad ofc.’ It’s like Floris the Fifth. Floris the Stiff more like it. Floris the Stiff jumps over the Overtoom. Never heard that? Why do you think they filled in the Overtoom canal? They got tired of seeing that stiff guy jumping over it all the time. The 300–400 a year sounds nice to me, the rest not so much.”
    â€œYou think you’ll answer the ad?” I asked. “Think?” Japi said. “I have to, according to the old man. He says it can’t go on like this. I don’t see why not. Am I a burden on him? I’ve slept at home only twice this month, he doesn’t give me a cent. Look at this.” He stuck out a leg. I saw a brand-new yellow shoe. “What the devil, I know those shoes.”—Where had I seen yellow shoes like that?—“They’re a bit darker now because of the water,” Japi said, and he stuck out his other foot next to the first. “From Appi! And why? Because I’m not a burden on my old man, I go around in my old shoes till they have more holes than a sieve. Appi’s a good guy. Can’t paint, and never will, that’s for sure, but you can count on him. He didn’t have any socks on hand, I’m barefoot in these shoes,” Japi said, and good-naturedly pulled up a pants leg to show me his naked leg. “And he has books. I couldn’t get through all those books if I read night and day for a year.”
    Appi’s father had a butcher shop that was doing well, he could afford it. And Japi was right when he saw that Appi would never learn how to paint. His father would later get him a job painting houses, signs, and billboards.
    I made tea. Squatting next to the burner, I poured the water into the teapot and put it on top of the kettle. Japi sniffed.
    â€œSmells good,” he said, and turned all the way around, scooting his chair over so he could sit with his nose right above the teapot. “I had a fight with Bavink,” he said. “Really?” I said. I had heard from Hoyer that they were roaming around everywhere together, day and night, that they slept in the same bed—Japi under the covers and Bavink on top—and took turns drinking jenever out of the one beer glass Bavink had left. “I busted his stove Sunday night.”
    In one night he had heated it so hot that it broke. And still he kept piling more coal in and poking it around and kept looking at the belly and smoking his pipe, with the stove between his knees so to speak. And he didn’t say anything, until Bavink suddenly saw that there was a huge crack in the belly and raised hell. Japi let him thunder on, he stood up and moved his chair away, Bavink opened the grate with the poker and burned a hole in the floor with the glowing coals he dragged out. And when Bavink was still raging, Japi said “You and your stove” and coolly left and went back to his old man’s house and put on one of his brother’s clean collars and got a piece of pie from his mother that was left over from dessert. He spent one night at home and the next afternoon he ran into Loef on the street, he’d already met him too. Loef, who later drowned swimming, just when he was starting to make something of himself—he took Japi back to Bavink and said, “Here Bavink, I have a