Free Amsterdam Stories by Nescio Page B

much.
    Bavink and I stopped and looked down at the tips of our shoes and the waves rolling in over them. The sun was gone, the red shimmer on the water began to fade, a bluish darkness rose in the south. It smelled of mud. In the distance, near the village, the arc lamps suddenly came on along the beach.
    â€œYou understand all that?” Bavink asked. “About social duty?”
    I shrugged. “What kind of guy d’you think wrote that article? Do you have a Sense of Responsibility, Koekebakker?” Hoyer had talked about that too.
    â€œHoyer sure talks nice,” Bavink said. “Awfully nice. I don’t have a sense of responsibility. I can’t be bothered with that. I need to paint. It’s not a walk in the park. What was it he said again?” “Who?” I asked. “The guy in that book, what was it he said artists were?” “Privileged.” “You know what I think, Koekebakker? That that’s the same guy who wrote the train timetables. I’ve never understood how anyone could write those either. Privileged … God is everywhere, Koekebakker? Or isn’t he? They say that too, don’t they?”
    I nodded. The darkness started to rise up everywhere from the water; the horizon to the northwest still glowed a yellowish green, the last light was leaving from over our heads. There were no clouds.
    â€œSo, he is everywhere,” Bavink said. “There, and there, and there.” He pointed all around us with an outstretched arm. “And there, beyond the sea, in the land we can’t see. And over there, near Driehuis, where the arc lamps are. And on Kalverstraat. Go stand with your back to the water there and listen. Can you stay out of it?”
    â€œOut of what?”
    â€œOut of the ocean?”
    I nodded yes, I certainly could.
    â€œI can’t, or just barely,” Bavink said. “It’s so strange, having that melancholy sound behind you. It’s like the ocean wants something from me, that’s what it’s like. God is in there too. God is calling. It’s really not a walk in the park, he is everywhere, and everywhere he is he’s calling Bavink. You get sick of your own name when it’s called so much. And then Bavink has to paint. Has to get God onto canvas, with paint. Then it’s Bavink who’s calling ‘God.’ So there they are, calling each other. It’s just a game to God, he is everywhere and without end. He just calls. But Bavink has only one stupid head and one stupid right hand and can only work on one stupid painting at a time. And when he thinks he has God, all he has is paint and canvas. It turns out God is everywhere except where Bavink wants him to be. And then some guy comes along and writes that Bavink is privileged and Hoyer memorizes it and goes around blathering it at Bekker. Privileged, right. You know what I wish? I wish I wrote timetables. God leaves people like that alone, they’re not worth the trouble.”
    I offered Bavink a cigar and suggested we walk to Driehuis. I felt like a coffee. I didn’t think it was very nice of Bavink to put down a useful fellow like that who was just doing his job. Behind us, Hoyer and Bekker came walking back; they were still going at it.
    At eleven o’clock that night we were back on the beach. The wind had picked up, the waves hissed. A little something to drink had driven off the gloominess and melancholy. A new age was about to dawn. Bekker, in the solitude of his German boarding house, would translate Dante as he had never been translated before. Bavink had a great painting in his head, a View of Rhenen, he had been there once and could see it all clearly in his mind. And Hoyer was going to go work on his social duty—he would show them. And I tried to believe it all.
    The cool wind blew around us. The ocean made a complaining sound, the ocean that complains and doesn’t know why. The ocean washed woefully up onto