The Luxembourg Run

by Ellin, Stanley

  “Yes. But there’s a detail Kees advises you to attend to.” She rubbed the

  finger along my arm again. “Van Zee had a tattoo right here. A red tulip with a

  dagger crossing its stem. After breakfast, you should go to one of those places

  on the waterfront where they do that kind of work and get yourself decorated

  with the same design. Even those who never met him knew of him as the man

  with that marking on his arm.”

  “I’ll see to it. Anything else to know about Mijnheer van Zee?”

  “Nothing pleasant. A treacherous little toad, that one. And once he

  learned who our connections were, he set out, in effect, to go into business for

  himself. No honor at all. For that matter, no courage. Can you see the

  difference it makes to me, having you as a partner?”

  She sounded positively maudlin about it, bless her corrupt little heart.

  I was not the only one to whom the maudlin was apparent. Back at home

  base in Paris, Kees led me into his kitchen-office and closed the door behind

  him. “I understand you handled all problems most capably,” he said. “Also,”

  he gave me a roguish look, “that you’ve quite turned Marie-Paule’s head. I

  hardly recognized her when you two walked in here. That glowing

  appearance, those ready blushes. Love does make a difference, doesn’t it?”

  57

  There was something too cat and mouse about this. I said flatly, “Mag ik

  mijn paspoort even zien?” Dutch seeming more emphatic than French when it

  came down to serious business.

  “The passport? Of course. And as bonus, van Zee’s driver’s license,

  now with your photo attached. And some money. In round numbers, two

  thousand francs.”

  “Fine.” I held out my hand expectantly. “Every little bit helps.”

  He smiled very broadly. “A nice payoff for three easy days, isn’t it? And

  there’s a lot more of the same to come. A little trip to Marseille now and

  then —”

  ”No. I’m out of missionary work for good.”

  Kees looked startled, then slowly the smile reappeared. “I’ll be

  damned,” he said at last. “You know, on the phone this morning Marie-Paule

  told me what you were like, but of course I took it with a large grain of salt.

  She actually sounded like a schoolgirl in the throes of her first romance. I

  should also have taken into account that, throes or not, this is a very

  hardheaded female.”

  “Very. And now the passport, please.”

  “Look, I can’t see a talent like yours going down the drain. Missionaries

  of your caliber don’t come along every day.”

  “The passport, please.”

  Kees held up a hand in protest. “First you are going to do yourself one

  favor. There’s a certain philanthropist I want you to meet. Someone who takes

  a great interest in our mission.”

  “Is he also the one who decides whether or not I get my passport?”

  “No, he has nothing to do with any such small matters. Don’t even

  mention it to him. Just hear him out. Give him an hour of your time this

  evening, and that’s all.”

  “On one condition. The passport now. And anything else you want to

  throw in with it.”

  Grudgingly, Kees pulled a bulky envelope from his pocket and laid the

  contents out on the table. Passport. Driver’s license. A sheaf of banknotes.

  “Good enough,” I said. “When will your philanthropist be here?”

  “He won’t be. I’ll pick you up at nine wherever you say.”

  “The Café Cambronne. Rue Racine near the Boul’ Miche.”

  58

  “Nine sharp,” Kees said. “But one thing. Don’t mention any of this to

  Marie-Paule. It’s not her department.”

  59

  The name was Rouart-Rochelle. Yves

  Rouart-Rochelle. The address was just off Avenue Foch in the Parc Monceau

  district. A mightily imposing building behind spiked, ten-foot-high iron

  palings, its door was opened by a uniformed maid who led Kees and me up a

  broad staircase to a sitting room. There were three couples in the room having

  coffee, and this was a surprise, considering the nature of the business Mr. Big

  wanted to discuss with me.

  At the doorway I said sotto voce to Kees, “Are they all in on this?” and

  he whispered in alarm, “No, no, for God’s sake. None of them. Not even

  Madame. Only Yves.” So it appeared that if a philanthropist wanted to stake a

  company of missionaries to their good works, he might also want them to be

  visible to his friends on occasion. Nothing to be ashamed of in good works, is

  there?

  A pale, pudgy, sleepy-eyed man with sleek black hair and narrow

  mustache — he resembled a sea-lion freshly emerged from the water — came

  forward to greet us. “Jan van Zee,” Kees said. “Yves Rouart-Rochelle,” and

  so for the first time ever I was presented to the world at large by my now

  proper name. I shook hands with my host, and his was a damp, flaccid little

  hand indeed. And then there was an en masse introduction to the company,

  drawing from it polite murmurs of, “Ah, yes. Les Amis du Bon Évangéliste.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of it. Splendid work.”

  But the last one in that semicircle broke the pattern. She stood up and

  said, “Kees Baar, it’s been much too long,” and said to me, “I am Madame

  Rouart-Rochelle, but do call me Vahna, and this is a pleasure,” all in one

  breathless trill which sounded as if she really were bubbling over with the

  pleasure of it. Madame. As exquisite an Indo-Chinese objet d’art as any

  collector could imagine in his wildest dreams.

  Lucky me. The conversational semicircle was now extended to include

  Kees and myself, but where Kees, at one end of it, drew the master of the

  house, I, at the other, drew Madame. Vahna. A Siamese name. “And,” she

  confided, “that is only a little bit of it. If I told you my whole name, you would

  be quite bored with it before I finished.”

  60

  My delighted response to this delighted her in turn. She drew her chair a

  little apart from the others and closer to me, and next thing we were tête-à-tête

  on the subject of Holland — she had never been there — and of Bangkok itself

  — a very dull place, really, and of Paris. Ah, Paris. The little shops, the large

  stores, the boutiques, the couturiers — all the best things in the world were

  here in Paris. Those exotically slanted eyes glowed at the thought of it.

  When the rest of the company took itself off Madame gave every

  indication of remaining, but her husband gave her notice to go and so she did,

  trilling a warm appeal to me to return very soon. Yves waited only until the

  door closed behind her before saying to me in chilly tones, “One surmises you

  made a strong impression on Madame. She usually finds these little gatherings

  extremely dull.”

  Kees hastily cut in on this. “We’ve waited long enough to take up our

  business, Yves. Let’s get to it.”

  “Our business,” Yves said. He studied me with eyes as unblinking as a

  serpent’s. “Yes. Kees tells me you have a talent as missionary. A great

  capability for that sort of vocation.”

  “Didn’t he also tell you
I’ve given up that vocation?”

  “He did. But he feels it’s because you have no clear idea of the rewards

  offered by it. So let us consider what may be a fantastically rewarding

  ministry for you. Have you ever been in America?”

  “No.”

  “But you speak English fluently, I’m sure. All you Hollanders have that

  facility.”

  He wasn’t joking, I saw. He really was taking me at face value as Jan

  van Zee.

  “Yes,” I said, “I speak the language.”

  “Excellent. Now there is a people that is prodigal with its money, the

  Americans. So consider the possibilities if we were to extend our mission to

  such coastal cities as New York and Miami.”

  “A French mission in America?” I said. “Would that make sense to the

  Americans?”

  “The word evangelist makes a perfect cover,” Kees said. “The

  authorities there will be even more inclined to deal with it cautiously than they

  61

  are here. We’ve already appraised that aspect of it. For that matter, the police

  there seem wide open for business.”

  “And,” said Yves, “we’ll guarantee to deal in honest goods. Nothing

  adulterated. Now what would you say, Monsieur van Zee, to becoming our

  man in America?”

  What to say? Certainly not that I still planned on instant retirement from

  his racket. Try that, and next thing I might find myself at the bottom of the

  Seine.

  The only thing left to do was temporize. “Well,” I said, “it’s not a

  decision I want to make on the spur of the moment.”

  The lids over those serpent’s eyes were raised almost imperceptibly, a

  sign, I took it, of profound surprise. “I don’t understand,” said Yves. “Anyone

  else would jump at this offer.”

  “Perhaps,” Kees put in smoothly, “our Jan is concerned with whatever

  unpredictables may come up in a foreign mission. But given another day or

  two —”

  ”One day,” Yves said flatly, “and that’s all.”

  “Excellent,” said Kees. “Then we’ll meet here again tomorrow

  evening.”

  In the car he gave me a sly poke in the ribs. “Don’t think I can’t guess

  why you’d like to prolong negotiations, my friend. Another chance to hold

  hands with Madame, right? But beware, Casanova.” He gestured at the

  building behind the high iron palings. “That whole monstrous place is a

  dollhouse, and she’s the Siamese doll it was bought for. And nobody plays

  with dolly but her husband. Remember that if you value your skin. Now where

  do you want me to drop you. Marie-Paule’s apartment?”

  “No, I can stay at the tabernacle tonight. Tomorrow I’ll find a place for

  myself.”

  At the tabernacle he left the motor running while he unlocked the door

  for me. “I’ll see you in the morning, copain. Meanwhile, guard against

  dangerous dreams.”

  In the office-kitchen I made myself a dinner of soup and bread, then took

  out my new passport and examined the signature. There was paper and pencil

  in a cabinet, and time to spare. On one sheet of paper after another I practised

  the signature until it came easily. Then I worked out the kind of script that

  62

  would fit it, a jagged, almost vertical handwriting, until I finally had samples

  that looked to me as if the original Jan van Zee might have produced them.

  Satisfied at last, I stretched out on the floor, my jacket serving as pillow, for a

  series of fitful naps until the first light of dawn showed through the window.

  Then suitcase in hand, I strolled to the nearby Gare du Nord. There, after

  buying a ticket to Amsterdam, I invested in a picture postcard. I took my time

  mulling over a proper message and settled for Education continuing. I signed

  it David, addressed it to my grandfather, and dropped it into the box just as the

  warning sounded to board my train.

  I could only hope he would understand that it was a small repayment for

  past kindness and not a bad joke.

  63

  Amsterdam. Then, when the mood

  seized me, I moved north and west through Scandinavia and England, and as

  the days shortened I turned south and east through the Continent to the

  Mediterranean. I was not alone. Back and forth a whole tide of the counterculture

  flowed, northwest and southeast according to the seasons.

  Total freedom. Total commitment only to the moment. Even the ritual of

  sending a postcard to my grandfather once or twice a year was undertaken only

  in response to impulse, and, impulse or not, I made sure to mail it from

  whatever town I was leaving that day. It was the last lingering vestige of

  David Shaw letting it be known that any reports of his death were greatly

  exaggerated, a concern that Jan van Zee shrugged his shoulders at next day.

  As for survival now, having a carte d’identité allowed me the sweaty

  privilege, whenever money ran out, of loading and unloading trucks, doing

  harvesting during crop seasons, and in the most dire emergencies turning to

  kitchen duty again, although, thank God, no longer as a lowly member of La

  Société des Cousins.

  To the counter-culture, among whom I led my nonworking life, this

  occasional spasm of proletarianism was utterly baffling, but it didn’t keep the

  more helpless or troubled from turning to J. van Zee when occasion demanded.

  Need a medical adviser, a travel guide, a psychiatrist, an interpreter, an expert

  on local customs, an advocate who could talk you out of the hands of the fuzz?

  See van Zee.

  I knew I had a reputation among my kind. What I didn’t know for a long

  time was that the reputation had spilled over into various police headquarters

  along my meandering path. I discovered it one summer day in Amsterdam, my

  home base if I had any such thing as a home base.

  It was the Provos, the youth activists, who first hit on Vondel Park as a

  gathering place, but they were essentially street people, and the park soon lost

  its appeal for them. So after a while it became a haven for the flock, allowing

  for some halfhearted raids by the fuzz — de smeriss — when neighborhood

  pressure became intense. Halfhearted or not, as far as the flock was concerned

  de smeriss was de smeriss the world over and always a bad scene. It was an

  64

  attitude I shared with them until that summer day when along came a distinctly

  different breed of fuzz.

  I was playing chess with a girl, Anneke Brun, who had become very

  important to me, when I was aware of an outlander trundling a bike across the

  rolling meadow in my direction. A bulky, middle-aged man with a walrus

  mustache and, despite the summer heat, wearing jacket and tie.

  He parked the bike near us and showed me a police I.D. card. “Hendrick

  Spranger,” he said. “And you’re Jan van Zee, right?”

  “Right.”

  He said, “For my sins they’ve put me in charge around here. I thought the

  smart thing was to get together with you about it.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because at headquarters while I was going through all the park reports

  they dumped on me I noticed that your name kept popping up in them.
<
br />   Favorably, too. So I checked you out with some police bureaus outside the

  country, and you seem to be in their good graces as well. A concern for the

  kids but a level head. Somebody we can talk to.”

  “That’s my Jan,” said Anneke, whose Jan indeed I was.

  Spranger bobbed his head at her. “I’m glad to hear you say that,

  Juffrouw —?”

  “Anneke. Just Anneke.” She was a big sunshiny girl who could charm

  the birds out of the trees, and Spranger, I could see, was as susceptible as any

  other bird. He said, “Anneke. Yes. Well, I don’t know how to make either of

  you believe it, but I’m not the enemy. In fact, I got stuck with this detail

  because I have a name for being easygoing about the youth movement.”

  “Is it possible,” said Anneke wickedly, “that you’re in the wrong line of

  work?”

  “I might be. But now suppose you and your young man arranged for me

  to speak before this crowd in a friendly way. Tell them very honestly what’s

  expected of them and what the government offers in return. From them, decent

  behavior in public. From us, medical services, welfare money in an

  emergency, counseling —”

  ”Who’d listen?” I said.

  “I would,” said Anneke.

  65

  So I put my imprimatur on the proceedings and saw to it that a fair

  number of the flock attended them. That they did any good was doubtful, but,

  as Anneke pointed out, they did take some of the onus off Hendrick as plain

  unadulterated pig. It didn’t make anyone very happy to have him show up, but

  since he kept his eyes tight shut to the soft drug scene he could at least show up

  without the alarm being set off. And show up he did, not only on duty in the

  park, but even off duty at our cafés to talk out his troubles with Anneke and

  me.

  Most of what he had on his mind concerned youth — de jongelui — and

  what it was up to nowadays. Ach, de jongelui! Why this way of life, especially

  for those who came from prosperous and devoted families? This was largely

  directed at Anneke, whose prosperous and devoted parents, preparing to

  emigrate to South Africa for business reasons, found that their precious teenage

  daughter would not abandon the crazy Dutchman, van Zee, and go along

  with them. Pleas, tears, and anger, and in the end the parents went off without

  her. But why, demanded Hendrick. A bright and pretty girl who could live like