Outsider in Amsterdam Read Online Free PDF Page B

Grijpstra took a sip, breathed deeply and immersed himself again in the opaque, sticky substance of an unexplained death of an Amsterdam citizen.
    “And this Hindist business, what does it mean?”
    Van Meteren felt through his pockets and found a pack of cigarettes. It contained one cigarette only. He offered it to Grijpstra.
    Grijpstra shook his head. “It is your last.”
    “Never mind,” van Meteren said. “I have some more somewhere, and if not I can get some downstairs in the shop, I have a key.”
    “Hindism,” de Gier said.
    “Yes,” van Meteren said. “Hindism. I have been curious too, but I have never quite understood what Piet meant by it. Something between Hinduism and Buddhism perhaps. Piet’s own homemade religion. It’s quite intricate and bound up with right eating and tea and meditation. The room next door is a temple. There are cushions on the floor and twice a week people sit still on it for an hour or so. Piet is, or was, the priest and had his own special cushion, richly embroidered. He sat closest to the altar. Perhaps he really thought of himself as a prophet, a teacher who had something to show to the new people, the young offbeat types of today. But he was losing interest and he was running short of disciples. Hardly anyone showed up for the meditations and he had to put up with a lot of criticism from the people who work here. Nobody stayed long. The ones you have met, the girls and Johan, and Eduard, whom you’ll probably meet later, are all newcomers, they haven’t been here for longer than six months at the most and I think they only stay because they can’t think of another place they want to go. They’ll leave as soon as something turns up. Piet wanted to create an oasis of peace, a quiet place where people can getstrength and where they can forget politics and money-making. Find their souls, their real selves. He had invented a special routine, the whole house has been redesigned for that purpose. The bar is an entry; people go easily into a bar. But finally they’ll end up in the meditation temple, at least that was the general idea. The barkeeper would have to listen to the guests and direct them, tactfully and gradually, to the higher regions, the restaurant with its clean food and pure fruit and vegetable juices, and the temple with its spiritual air. And Piet would be the divinity in the background, working through others and guiding them without showing himself much. Perhaps he really thought that way in the beginning but he must have lost faith and found himself weak. The arguments must have hurt him and his own lack of strength. I have listened to a long lecture he delivered once; the subject was that one should never eat meat. But afterward he sneaked out and I saw him buying some hot sausages off the street stall around the corner.”
    “Ha!” de Gier said. “But surely he couldn’t have been that much of a failure. This place looks reasonably successful. It is clean for one thing and the restaurant was almost full. He must have been making some money and some people must have admired him one way or another.”
    “Sure,” van Meteren said, “and the atmosphere here is quite pleasant. I have always been reasonably happy here and it would be a pity if it’s all over and done with now. And Piet’s ideas were all right, but he wasn’t the right man to put them into effect. Perhaps if he had admitted that he was a beginner himself and had lost some of his pride. He wanted to be a great master and it must have been a shock to him when people belittled him. His own wife called him a lesser nitwit when she left, the others called him other things. He has been walked over a lot lately …” He didn’t finish his sentence.
    “Who else lives here?” Grijpstra asked.
    Van Meteren counted them off on his fingers. “His mother,eighty-three years old, second door on the right from here, not altogether sound in mind.”
    “Old age?” asked Grijpstra.
    “No, not just