Onder Zeeniveau

The morning after we met, I went to class, and Amit went back to the student room on the Prinsengracht. I finished earlier than usual and cycled towards Prinsengracht, I rang the doorbell, and she opened the door. She was surprised and happy to see me and invited me in. She made breakfast with coffee and avocado sandwiches.

From that moment on, we were inseparable. A lesbian joke is that lesbians rent a truck on the second date to transport all their stuff to move in with each other, but I didn’t want Amit to move in with me. She had to keep her room. The relationship with T, in which after three months I had wondered whether this was how I was going to spend the rest of my boring life had cured me forever of the desire to live together, so I wanted Amit to keep her room on the Prinsengracht, even though she was never there.

Winter with Amit started, I went to college, and I don’t really know what she did.

One morning she came back late, stoned, and enthusiastic from shopping, she had met a friend from Israel at the supermarket. Finally, she was able to speak Hebrew again. He lived around the corner.  He was a blond boy, a bit of an albino, he had light eyes, light eyebrows, white curly hair, and a sweet face. She went to see him increasingly, drinking coffee, playing backgammon. It turned out that there were more Israelis living in the beginning of the van Beuningenstraat, Yigal a boy with a beautiful curly ball lived together with a lovely delicate Israeli girl who would die a few years later in a particularly tragic way from poisoned heroin but more about this later. The young group of Israelis lived off the hashish trade.

Amit took me one day. It was very cozy, they were very hospitable, there was plenty to smoke, eat, and drink and there was plenty of talk and laughter. All in Hebrew.  

I may write about this Israeli connection later or why not now? Why not now? Because it was the beginning of an exciting and unhealthy time. Not only were these Israelis in the hashish trade, but criminals came and threatened my health and tranquility and people died because of their activities, people and acquaintances of mine were pressed to the head. It sounds exciting. It was, but it wasn’t fun or exciting.

There was that night when I understood that something was wrong.

We were invited to join Yigal and his sweet, beautiful wife Ayala who had a little crush on my Amit. They lived in a ground-floor apartment on the Fannius Scholtenstraat. A hallway with a glass door, and behind it a narrow corridor with two doors, the front door was their bedroom, and the door at the end of the hallway led to the living room. The wall between the living room and the kitchen had been broken out and in the middle was a table full of treats. Delicious Israeli food. Humus, falafel, and tahini, shakshuka, a dish of eggs and tomatoes, a salad of cucumber and tomato, finely sliced green salad, pita bread, olives, and avocados.

We were just going to eat when the bell rang. Yigal walked to the door, we heard a bang, glass shattering and screaming, and sounds of a fight, and someone fell. Ayala jumped up, shouted something, and ran away, through the door into the garden. Amit shouted to come along, to leave and she pulled me along, we ran after Ayala who was climbing over the fence at the back neighbors, and we also jumped over the fence.

Ayala yanked open the kitchen door, there was a family watching TV, who looked at us in surprise. Ayala ran across the room, we ran after her, down the hallway, out the front door and we ran down Cliffordstraat, and with a huge bend, we ran and ran to my house in the Van Beuningenstraat. Ayala cried hysterically, she thought Yigal was dead, and she wanted to go back home but she didn’t dare Amit tried to calm her down but Ayala insisted.

Amit went with her.

I’m not sure of my memory anymore. I’m not sure when this happened and who the people were who played a role in the whole thing.