Postcards From No Man's Land by Aidan Chambers Read Free Book Online

wall at his side was top to bottom a mirror reflecting himself and Alma and the tables on his other side. Italian designer version of a working-men’s caff? Making a point, or a pretence anyway, of being anti-bourgeois unposh?
    ‘And what about you?’ Alma asked. ‘Are you on holiday?’
    ‘Kind of. My grandfather was wounded in the Battle of Arnhem. Some local people looked after him. But he died. I’m going to visit his grave at the battle cemetery.’
    ‘You’ve been to Holland before?’
    ‘No. Well, I was brought once by my parents when I was a baby, but I don’t remember that.’
    ‘And the people you’re staying with in Haarlem?’
    ‘The family of the woman who looked after my grandfather. She and my grandmother have kept in touch. Really, it was my grandmother who was supposed to come now but she couldn’t. She fell and broke her hip.’
    ‘I’m sorry. You’ll attend the commemoration of the battle next Sunday?’
    ‘My grandmother thought I should see it.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m named Jacob after my grandfather.’
    Remembering home he suddenly became inward and didn’t want to say any more about all that. He dabbed flakes of croissant on to a finger-end and licked them away.
    ‘Have mine,’ Alma said, passing her plate, ‘I’m not hungry’, and waited while he had made the usual polite noises before asking, ‘And how did you get mugged?’
    ‘I was having a drink in the … Leidseplein?’
    She said it, he repeated it, she chuckled. ‘Better!’
    ‘Well, there, anyway!’ They laughed together at hisincompetence. ‘I’d put my coat over the back of my chair. Suddenly it went flying past me! I chased after the guy who took it. Just a kid, really. Well, my age, roughly. Had a red baseball cap on. Backwards, naturally!’
    ‘Naturally!’
    ‘He ran this way and that way, and up this canal and down that one, along one street, across another till I was completely lost. Chased him down this street, as a matter of fact. I remember the bridge just outside.’
    ‘Vijzelgracht.’
    ‘If you say so!’
    Alma smiled indulgently. ‘You must try.’
    ‘I will, I will. Promise!’ Maybe it was the coffee that was making him cheeky, or more likely the relief he was feeling. But he could see Alma was enjoying it too. ‘Couldn’t catch him. I’m not a great runner and he was wickedly fast. But the odd thing is, I’m sure he wanted me to chase him.’
    ‘What made you think so?’
    ‘He’d wait sometimes till I’d nearly caught up and then off he’d go again. Why would he do that? You’d think he’d want to get away as quick as possible so he couldn’t be recognised later.’
    ‘Perhaps for fun.’
    ‘Fun?’
    ‘He sounds to me like a regular thief, not just someone doing it because he’s desperate for money to get drugs, which is the reason for most of the muggings in Amsterdam, of which there are a lot, I’m sorry to say. In cities everywhere these days, so I’m told. But if you mug people as a job, let’s say, perhaps it becomes … vervelend … tedious?’
    ‘Boring?’
    ‘Exactly. Boring. Every job has its boring times. For a thief too. Making a good chase out of it, making it a chance that he might get caught, adds some spice. And perhaps he liked the look of you. Thought you a worthy challenge. Youshould feel complimented.’
    ‘Oh, thanks! Some compliment, to steal everything I’ve got.’
    ‘And then give you a run for your money.’
    He laughed. ‘Your English is very good.’
    ‘You English! Always impressed by anyone who can speak more than their own language.’
    ‘About all I can manage is holiday French.’
    ‘People learn what they have to. The English can always get by because your language is international. We Dutch have a minority language surrounded by countries with major languages. And historically we are traders. We have to speak other people’s languages to survive.’
    ‘Still, I wish …’
    ‘It’s only a matter of application. If you