OLIVER AND I SELDOM received mail, outside of my bijstand cheque once a month, the regular invoices for Oliver’s fees from the Conservatory, and the electricity and gas bills.
One morning I found in the scattering of mail and flyers at the foot of the stairs a manila envelope addressed to me, marked on the reverse with the insignia of the Vreemdelingendienst. I pushed open the door to the street for better light and as bicycles whirred past outside I tore at the envelope with shaking hands and drew out the letter. Nervously, I ran my eyes over the Dutch legalese. I had been granted leave to remain in the Netherlands indefinitely. I would be issued with a United Nations travel document. I could travel anywhere, except to South Africa, and I was free to work.
I did a little jig, right there on the pavement. A cyclist, his wheels a blur, shot me a curious look as he pedalled past me, almost colliding with an Amsterdammertje. I laughed out loud as he wobbled, righted himself, and turned into the next street.
I had no one to share this news with; Oliver would only be home at dusk. With a future suddenly before me, I strolled around the sunny streets in a daze of elation. The Vondelpark was like a beach today. Amsterdam’s citizens all seemed to be outdoors sunbathing on the green grass. The sounds of a string quartet drifted on the air from a distant band-stand. Shirtless cyclists floated by, leaving in their wake a whiff of cologne. In Amstelstraat a muscle-man clad in chaps despite the heat eyed me up as I walked past De Gouden Beer, a leather bar with blacked out windows. The image of the buildings on the opposite banks of the river was reflected, razor sharp, in its panes.
Eventually, I flopped down into a wicker chair on the pavement outside De IJsbreker, an art nouveau café, and joined the sunbathers there. I ordered an orange juice and three jenevers and allowed a narcotic numbness to settle over me. I locked into an alternating contemplation of a Spanish man in a white singlet further down the row from me and a pair of swans – their feathers startlingly white against the darkness of the canal’s current – with three cygnets. The Spaniard had dark hair and brown shoulders, giving him a Moorish aspect. He also had rings on every finger of his hands, I noticed, as he pulled at a cigarillo. I watched him in an erotic reverie, listening for the fragments of his heavily accented Dutch, small elusive talk, as he conversed with the woman beside him.
The swans were attempting to steward the cygnets, tiny blobs of yellow down and stubbly nascent feathers, into the canal’s further reaches, only to have them weave back to the safety of the bank when they encountered the tug of the current. It was endearing, the swans corralling the cygnets with their substantial wings, tucking them close. I caught myself smiling. They made no progress in the time I sat there, and finally took shelter under the roots of a tree whose roots struck down into the water.
That night Oliver and I celebrated my new status at the Ankara with meze and a bottle of heavy Turkish wine, almost the consistency of sherry, with the flavour of dried figs and an intoxicating afterglow. We talked about a holiday, a visit to London, the bookshops, the world’s greatest concert halls, the theatre, spoken English! I wanted to order a second bottle, but Oliver wouldn’t have it. I did not have work yet, he pointed out sternly, and there was an economic recession. I should be frugal with my bijstand.
Later I lay curled against him as he drifted into sleep, unable to do the same, my mind alive with the possibility of new freedoms.
As it turned out I found a job very quickly. A lecturer at the Conservatory had posted an advertisement on a pin-board in one of the corridors amongst the lecture rotas. Allegro, a second-hand classical music shop in Utrechtsestraat, a few blocks from where we lived in De Pijp, was looking for a shop assistant. Fluency in English would be an advantage, the advertisement stated.
Oliver could not believe our luck. “It’s serendipity!” he exclaimed when he arrived home, waving the piece of paper around.
At first I cried off, arguing that I did not know enough about music.
“Nonsense,” he responded. “You have a broad working knowledge. That will be enough.”
No one was going to ask me in what key a particular Shostakovich symphony was composed – nothing that complex or detailed. I should go for an interview at least, he urged. In fact Oliver was more excited than I was. He knew Allegro well. It was a specialist shop dealing in rare recordings. Students and collectors came from all over Europe to buy there.
So one early morning I made my way to Allegro for an interview. I had put on a tie for the occasion and borrowed a jacket from Oliver. Even that early, the day was humid. It would soon be mid-summer. I could feel sweat trickling down under my collar.
Allegro had a small shop front and the display was cursory – frayed record covers pinned to a board covered in red baize, newer recordings arranged in a display, fanned out like a deck of cards, in the forefront, illuminated by a brass editor’s lamp. Posters for the summer season at the Concertgebouw were pasted on the pillars that stood on either side of the glass and wooden entrance.
I stepped nervously inside and a bell tinkled above me as the door closed. A gasp escaped my tight chest. The vault under the roof was filled by a magnificent chandelier, an extraordinary tracery of crystal and pearl, blazing in the upper reaches of the room’s oak beams and rush ceiling.
The floor of the shop was rough, unvarnished, burnished in places into a gleaming ebony patina by the footfalls of the ages – or so I imagined it. The place had a distinctly previous century feel to it – all-wood surfaces and oak cladding, which absorbed the chandelier’s brightness and gave the room its muted light.
At the back of the shop were a series of sagging couches up-holstered in the fleur de lis and rococo swirls of the Golden Age – yellows, reds and wheat. In the centre of the space there were several coffee tables strewn with catalogues, and against the length of the back wall shelves with what I would later discover were reference works in many languages. Vinyl records were stacked upright in rows in wooden Portuguese sherry crates resting on simple construction workers’ trestle tables, which were worn and blunted with use and clearly from another age.
Most astonishing were the walls. These were covered floor to ceiling in posters – of performances, historic record covers, portraits of composers and conductors, and antique sheet music. I briefly took in Callas at La Scala in 1963, a wood-cut portrait of Shostakovich, and the sleeve of a new recording of Mozart piano Allegros by Alfred Brendel.
In the corner closest to the door was a broad counter, a sixteenth-century artefact in brass and wood. This was the sales point, upon which stood three modern cash registers. Behind it was a table for wrapping and sorting.
There was a young man behind the counter. He was like an incarnation of Oliver perhaps five years ago, only more thick set. A profusion of untidy hair tumbled about his ears and his black-framed round glasses gave him a decidedly owlish look. He was dressed in a blue silk shirt with a mandarin collar. Archetypal music student, I thought. I also knew instantly that he would be awkward, shy in ordinary social interactions, but sharp and passionate when discussing music.
I introduced myself in my faltering Dutch. “I am Matthew,” I said. “Here for the job interview.”
“Ah,” he replied. “I am Wim. We have been waiting for you.”
I guessed we were about the same age but there was a deferential quality to him. He avoided direct eye contact. He asked me to follow him through to the office at the back of the shop. This was a more modern, minimalist space – the walls clean and white, the furnishing more perfunctory. Three desks and an oak circular meeting table. There were some prints of old Amsterdam on the walls. It felt like a renovation; perhaps it had been added on when the store grew too full.
Here I was introduced to Janneke and Toon. Janneke was in her late thirties, dressed simply in a white shirt tucked into black denim jeans. Toon was twenty-something, more formal, and had on a blue office shirt and charcoal jacket, but no tie. Like Wim, his hair was long, but his had been styled to fall back away from his shoulders, leaving an unclouded face – typically maritime Dutch – flawless pale skin and bright blue eyes.
They offered me coffee, which I was glad to accept. My hands were shaking and I was relieved to be able to close them around the bowl of the cup.
“Relax,” said Janneke. “And for heaven’s sake take off that tie and jacket. It’s too humid.” Her hand swept the table. “And you can see that we are casual.”
The interview was careless, unstructured. They were intrigued by my past, by South Africa, by how I had arrived in Amsterdam, and the kind of life I led as a vluchteling. I tried to fill in detail, doing my best in my halting Dutch. Eventually, Toon reached over to me and touched my sleeve. There was a small smile in his soft tone. “Please,” he said, “speak English.” Already I liked them. Janneke clicked her tongue in sympathy when I talked about Paul, my jailed comrade, the repression back home, how it was compulsory for young men to serve in the military. My having had to flee. I must have talked for about an hour. They were completely engrossed and I found my nervousness abating. I took a sip of coffee, which had grown cold. “The job?” I prompted. “What else do you need to know about me?”
The question refocused the discussion. Janneke explained in her heavily accented English that I was the only applicant thus far. My reaction had been fast and there might be others, she said, but they had an enormous backlog of unclassified stock and they could not be choosy now that summer was at its peak and the tourists would soon start to flow in. This was their busiest time of year.
They asked me a couple of questions about my knowledge of music, but they were mostly concerned that I had some sense of the chronological progression of classical music, so that I would correctly place lesser known composers. I talked them through my understanding of periods – of who belonged where; some composers were difficult to place given the brevity of their careers, but I drew on my hours of listening to Oliver’s music and my categorisation of his collection.
They had a system, Janneke said. They bought boxes of secondhand records from deceased estates, from collectors who were divesting, from people who were shifting from 78s to cassettes, and from other second-hand shops with no specific interest in the classics. They also imported the cheaper recordings from the Soviet Union and other Eastern European states. I would have an apprenticeship, she told me. My job would be to catalogue new stock onto a system of hand-written cards, by period and composer, and then place the records in the appropriate stack. I was to examine the LPs for flaws and scratches and grade prices accordingly. Eventually, I would come to know the stock, appreciate the value of each recording and match customers to needs. They had a substantial clientèle from all over Europe, with English as the common language for most of those who travelled specifically to Amsterdam to buy rare recordings. Others ordered by mail. There would be enquiries and orders by phone and I would also be assigned to these. I would look after their needs, which recently had become overwhelming.
“You will be on probation,” said Janneke.
I nodded.
“Do not arrive late and do not smoke on the premises,” she added severely. “After three months we will review your position and who knows, maybe then you will become part of the Allegro family.”
Toon insisted that we toast my employment there and then and he fetched some Amstels from the fridge at the back of the office.