Free The Devil's Playground by Stav Sherez Page B

your life, to the dread and
    spilled coffee that lies there in wait for you.
    At the arrivals lounge in Schiphol he read his name on a
    sign among a bouquet of cards held by steely eyed chauffeurs
    dressed in black. He was unexpectedly thrilled by the sight
    of it in crude black marker on the jagged corrugated piece
    of cardboard, misspelled of course, an extra H dangling between
    the O and N, but something of a thrill none the less,
    the first time.
    They drove through the ugly cement suburbs of Amsterdam,
    massive estates spanning across the flatness. It didn’t
    look like Holland, more like a squalid sector of South
    London.
    ^Was this area bombed?’ he asked the driver. ‘During the
    war?’
    ‘It was all bombed,’ the man replied.
    Jon didn’t say anything back though he knew this wasn’t
    true. He stretched his legs as far as the front seat allowed,
    trying to work the kinks out of his blood, the clots and
    convolutions brought about by being canned and compressed
    on the plane. He reached for his cigarettes, flicked
    one out, put it between his lips, sparked the lighter.
    ‘Out! Put it out!’ the driver shouted, turning to look at
    him, the cab swerving wildly. ‘Now!’
    Jon rolled down the window, threw it out. ‘I thought
    everyone smoked here,’ he said, making up his mind not to
    tip the man.
    *You thought wrong. This is my cab. I make the rules.’
    ‘Fuck,’ Jon said, making sure the driver heard.
    ‘You don’t like it you can get out.’ He turned to look at
    Jon again. ‘You tourists think you can do anything here,’ he
    added before turning back and swerving the cab into the
    right lane.
     
    The rain stopped as they entered the city proper, passing
    near the central railway station, pulsing and throbbing with
    backpackers and tourists spilling out on to the streets, the
    massive elegance of the building dwarfing the bright bustle.
    They drove across a small bridge, over a postcard canal and
    into a narrow cobbled street that seemed to hug them as
    they passed, darkening the day with the alacrity of an eclipse. Jon could feel his heart quicken, filled with the rumble of excitement that comes on entering a new city, a new country,
    that wild, swift transformation that shoots through your
    blood and sits behind your eyeballs. Suddenly you notice
    everything. The most banal of objects becomes a thing of
    wonder, the kerbstone, the small telephone lines, the way
    the roads are named, the shape and tone of the quotidian.
    He stared out of the window and watched the unfamiliar
    streets winding around the canals, the people, so unrecognizable
    from those of London — everything new and compelling,
    and the reason for his being here was almost forgotten as he
    let the rush of the city take him over.
    The driver stopped outside a pub. He pointed towards a
    thick, painted oak door. He didn’t say anything.
    Jon walked into what could have been anypub anywhere.
    Dark brown walls and red carpets. A small jukebox and a
    selection of tables. Bad white-boy blues playing. Smoke and
    the smell of beer. Hunched men sitting in silence, staring
    into their drinks. It didn’t feel like the right place and that
    sudden burst of hope departed as quickly as it had come.
    A tall, precise man with a small blond moustache and
    curly mullet stood behind the bar, playing blackjack with a
    woman balancing precariously on a stool across from him.
    Neither looked up. Jon scanned the room. Everyone else
    seemed to have melted into their tables, draped over them
    like stone statues. He felt nervous and his palms began to
    sweat as he took a deep breath and limped up to the bar. He
    felt eyes turning to look at him but the more he tried to walk
    normally, the more it hurt and the more exaggerated his
    limp became. He’d never known it could be so hard to cross
    a room.
    He caught the man’s attention, tried to ignore the disconcerting
    presence of the highlights in his hair and said, ‘My
    name’s Reed, Jon Reed. I