Outsider in Amsterdam Read Online Free Page B

the strangely shaped stones, the shells, the dried flowers and the skull of a large animal, a wild boar perhaps. Van Meteren sat on the floor, on a thick cushion, cross-legged, relaxed and patient, the black hard curls framing his flat skull silhouetted against the white wall, lit up by a light placed on the floor opposite him.
    Van Meteren pursed his lips.
    “I have no coffee here. The bar will be closed now. The bar is the only place where coffee is served. To drink coffeeis really against the rules of the society. Piet always said that coffee excites.”
    He poured tea from a large thermos flask, decorated with Chinese characters. Grijpstra and de Gier were given a small cup each. They sipped and pulled faces. Van Meteren laughed. “It’s an acquired taste. This is very good tea, perhaps the best we can buy in Amsterdam. It’s a green tea, very refined, first choice. Tea activates but relaxes at the same time. To drink tea is an art.”
    “Art?” Grijpstra asked.
    “Art. A man who know how to drink tea is a detached man, a free man.”
    “Detached from what?” asked de Gier.
    “Detached from himself, from his greed, his hurry, his own importance. His own suffering.”
    “That’s nice,” Grijpstra said. “Did you hear that, de Gier?”
    Van Meteren waved a small black hand. “Your colleague heard. He is an intelligent man.”
    “Thank you,” said de Gier. “Could I have another cup of your delicious tea?”
    Van Meteren poured another cup, showing his teeth in a wide smile.
    “And now tell us,” Grijpstra said. “What exactly are you doing in this house? Who are you? What does this Society represent? Who was Piet?”
    “Yes,” de Gier said. “And do
you
like coffee? Or are you only refusing to drink it because it is against Piet’s rules?”
    Van Meteren gazed at them. “You are asking a lot of questions at the same time. Where shall I start?”
    “Wherever you like,” Grijpstra said. De Gier nodded contentedly. Grijpstra was using their usual tactics. De Gier usually asked the unpleasant questions and Grijpstra acted “father,” the kind force in the background. Sometimes they changed roles. Sometimes they left the room and only one of them would return, to be replaced by the other. They would doanything to make the suspect talk. The suspect had to talk, that was the main thing, and they could sort out the information as it came. And their tactics usually worked. The suspects talked, far more than they intended to. And very often they confessed, or served as witnesses. And then they would sign their statements and the officers could go home, tired and content.
    But de Gier’s contentment was short-lived. Van Meteren wasn’t the usual suspect. And he didn’t say anything. De Gier observed his opponent. A weird figure, even in the inner city of Amsterdam. Small, dark and pleasant. Dark blue trousers and a clean close-fitting shirt with vertical stripes so that van Meteren looked a little taller than he was. Self-possessed. Conscious even. “Do conscious people exist?” De Gier asked himself. People who know what they are doing and who are aware of the situation they are in?
    Grijpstra observed too. He saw a man of some forty years old, small and graceful. He had also classified the suspect as a Papuan. Grijpstra had fought in the former Dutch Indies and remembered the faces of a couple of professional soldiers who had joined his unit for an attack in difficult mountainous terrain. Papuans, very unusual types, contrasting with the much lighter-skinned soldiers from Ambon who had made up the bulk of Grijpstra’s men. The Papuans revered a colored photograph of the queen, pinned up in their tent. Very courageous they were, but he never got to know them well. They were dead within a few days. They had volunteered for a sniping patrol and the Javanese got them after a fight of a few hours. Two Papuans who had killed nearly fifty enemies with their tommy guns. The Javanese had caught one Papuan