THE HAGUE SUITS me fine, but I don’t care for its natives. The city is like me: patient and orderly. It suggests its personality, but does not assert it. It prefers to be discovered slowly. Lacking a spirit of adventure, I chose a neighbourhood—actually, a street—Denneweg, with its antique shops, fashionable stores, and restaurants. Patiently, I got to know the businesses and restaurants as if I were carrying out a meticulous investigation for the Court. In the process I made a few acquaintances I consider friends. Friends in exile will never be more than acquaintances.
In a hip street in the old town, there’s a Chinese woman who sells Italian products. I wooed her stupidly and she pretended not to know, the way the Chinese government claims not to understand the concept of human rights. There are a number of antique shops with handsome naïve paintings that I would buy if I had a house and a wife. It’s a wonderful thing, dreaming about that in front of a shop window. I love dreaming, even if I’m not romantic. And then there are the restaurants. I’ve been to just about all of them. Fiesta Latina, Maxime, Limon. I bring my files with me and hope to meet someone. Nothing happens, but I must admit I’m rather reserved. Next I go to a wine bar where the saddest people on earth meet. All men, important and wealthy. We talk about our lives elsewhere, our travels, and women pass like lightning flashes in the sky. Usually my last stop for the evening is at the Hothard, a floating bar on a canal that separates the French and the American embassies. I order a coffee, sink into my wicker chair, listen, and reflect. Sometimes the complexities of a file or palpitations whose causes remain unknown create anxiety that can be cured only with wine. Nothing serious.
Silence. No horns or squealing tires or sirens. A quiet, orderly city, where calm and tranquility reign. A black duck with a white spot on its head, the same kind that starred in The Ugly Duckling, executes ten-metre sprints on the canal. In the sky, clouds moving with the same urgency flee the North Sea for the warmth of the continent. The bar rocks from time to time, and I feel I’m navigating down a peaceful thoroughfare. Along the canal, two rows of identical trees stand at identical height. The houses do not compete to stand out. Their facades are stern, but if you inspect them carefully, you can make out a detail or two, friezes, wrought-iron ornamentation, the arrangement of the windows, the style of the doors, and even fake candles that beautify the entrances. These small personal touches, always discreet, tell the passer-by that all the houses were built on the same foundation, with the same need for solidity and light, with the same will to shelter the life behind the bricks from the gaze of outsiders, but that no one will ever confuse two dwellings. They offer themselves like mannequins in the shop window wearing clothes from the same collection, but with different accessories. The Dutch are like their houses, conformist, expressing individuality in a few carefully chosen details. I don’t much like the Dutch of The Hague.
We might be tempted to deduce from their architecture, the orderly nature of the landscape, and their social organization that the Dutchman is respectful of the environment, and is polite and sociable. The average Dutchman is the opposite of his country. And I include women in my generic Dutchman. The individual in question is noisy, vulgar, and impolite. Maybe because he’s an incorrigible libertarian, but he doesn’t believe that serving a customer requires a certain form of abnegation and respect. Here, the customer is a worker who has to labour to be served, and if he demands a little attention, more often than not he’ll be insulted. On his bike, the Dutchman is a kamikaze who seeks out pedestrians and shouts Banzai! at the sight of a vessel to attack. On the sidewalk, the Dutchman forms a barrier with his bicycle, his stroller, his boyfriend or girlfriend. When you murmur “excuse me” to slip politely past him, he looks at you like you’ve invaded his country, and you quickly understand that it’s better to simply step into the street. The Dutch resemble their climate. Violent gusts of wind, sudden rainstorms, persistent drizzle, low skies, and, at times, a little sun that hardly brightens their faces or makes them happier. Luckily, there are immigrants working in businesses and establishments. Indonesians, people from Sumatra and Surinam, warm, copper-hued smiles, though all of them speak that horrible, guttural, off-putting language known as Dutch.
But really, I’m not too unhappy, neither with the Dutch nor with my solitude. If I were in Brazil, I’d while away all my free time on the beach or listening to music. In France, I’d spend a fortune on restaurants. In Barcelona, I’d haunt Las Ramblas till late at night and eat a plate of fried fish at four in the morning. Back home in Montreal, I’d check out rue Saint-Denis, or avenue du Mont-Royal, or rue Saint-Viateur, knowing I’d meet friends, or at least acquaintances, and sharing a few secret codes with women on their own, a few references that would guide us through the labyrinth of relationships, in love or just for a night.
I take my pleasures that are not without their piquancy, even if they seem tiny, and I work the rest of the time. So much the better: what I’m accomplishing is important. I direct all my energy and thoughts to my mission, and sometimes I wonder whether a happy man could expend the same energy I do. I’m not unhappy, I’m just busy. And accomplishing important work. I’m sure of it.