| The Art of Compromise |
| This flag has been the regular object of petty theft, or rather, it was its predecessor that got nicked together with that of the neighbours. This one I recently recovered. It all happened in a flash: I noticed a tatter where no tatter should be, heard the noise of boisterous adolescents, hurled myself down the stairs into the street, plunged headlong into a group of bald-headed individuals and snatched back my flag with an annoyed gesture. Only the flag bearer, who seemed the sort of person for whom fare-dodging was of the order of the day in the sense that it would probably surprise him to have anyone actually inquire after a ticket, for he might not even be averse to buying one if only he knew how, turned his head in my direction. The rest of the posse purposely moved along, on the look-out for a fun hang-out. Clearly they didn't consider the flag as booty but rather, as a welcome contribution to their general sense of well-being, like a ray of sunshine after a week's rain. After all the purpose of a flag is to embellish life, and if it is capable of enhancing the quality of life for some 20 bald-headed adolescents I'd almost start to feel guilty for having taken it off them. |
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I've done it! I know who they are! For many years I've been anonymously
robbed of all kinds of things including bicycles, typewriters, biros,
umbrellas, planters and/or their contents, not to mention the various works
of art, cameras, petty cash boxes, books and catalogues from the gallery
that have gone walk-about over the years. Not today, but that does not
detract from my eureka feeling. I used to think that such thieving types
could not look anything but lewd, with lacklustre skin that hadn't been
washed for quite a while and a brooding expression in their eyes.
My eyes spotted a pair of cyclists turning into the street, across the bridge from Keizersgracht. They were ghost-cycling, but that's only to be expected in Amsterdam. However, ten seconds later I realised that they were going a bit too fast. I should mention that the male cyclist carried two zinc planters containing a cat wee-scented, spherically clipped box each (these planters are utterly characteristic of this particular shopping area, which is called "Spiegel Quarter") strapped to his luggage carrier while the female cyclist, who was staunchly bringing up the rear, carried a similar sphere in the carrier basket in front. All was not well, in short. I turned around and started chasing them. It's amazing, the distance members of the public who are in a rush manage to cover while you briefly pause to rack your brain, trying to find a logical explanation for what you're about to do. Nevertheless I managed to catch up with them. I then confronted them with a question as to who had supplied them with the planters they were carrying. This, you see, is the next dilemma you face when you are suspecting a fellow citizen of a transgression: how to formulate your question in such a manner as not to be offensive in the event that they turn out not to have done anything untoward, while making it painfully clear if they have that you've definitely got their number. I decided that it would be alright for me to ask them who had supplied them with the planters. This proved to be spot on, for the female member of the duo had no answer and looked to her male companion for assistance. But let's first devote a moment or two to my overwhelming sense of dismay. The two cyclists looked perfectly decent: a youngish couple, dressed in respectable, clean-looking and un-flashy clothes, both well-coiffed and not overweight, married but no children as yet (I can't imagine anyone hiring a sitter so as to be able to go out nicking planters), received Dutch, double income, not really rude or offensive, and worst of all: their rear lamps were in working order!* The reply was that they had found the planters in the street, thrown out with the rubbish. My conundrum was that I had no idea on whose behalf I was officiating, and whether the unknown ripped-off person would applaud my intervention. He (or she) might well just have made the momentous decision to turn his life around, starting with the dumping of the cat wee-scented box plants on a non-rubbish collection day (otherwise it would detract from the symbolism of how personal this watershed decision was), and what do you know, there is me with a friendly grin on my face and an air of "Not that I'm holding it against you", cycling over to him with his pongy spheres firmly strapped to my luggage carrier. And so I resorted to the argument of exclusiveness: only Spiegel Quarter members had such spheres. So who did I think I was? Well, I'm a Spiegel Quarter member. In that case I was welcome to my spheres. But they don't belong to me! I don't care, I don't want them any more, you take them. But I'm not asking for me, what I want you to do is return them to their rightful owner! Get lost, mate. (These, of course, are the semantics of disrespectful citizens: it's when they sense themselves losing ground that the wafer-thin varnish of civilisation disintegrates.) I persisted in calling my discussion partners "sir" and "madam", but they flew the coop just as I was about to take a digital photograph of them. Nothing but intimidation, I admit, for where would a picture get you? You can't very well go to the police, not even if the planter's sharp zinc edge had severed the thief's hand - could there be a more dramatic method of obtaining a suspect's fingerprints? - and left it behind in the planter. The best you can do is hope that you've caused the suspect's imagination to run riot, keeping him awake with a niggling sensation of embarrassment for several nights at least. I never took the picture. I chased the couple, camera at the ready, until I saw them jump the lights in a breakneck manoeuvre, rear lamps respectfully twinkling, and that soon put a stop to my calculations. * Bicycles with lamps that actually work (especially the pert little lamp sitting on the rear mudguard) are something of a rarity in the Netherlands, especially in the bigger towns and cities, and are generally seen as a sign of utter respectability (in a slightly pathetic sense). |