‘Hello,’ said Peter.
The tug still puffed out the occasional plume of smoke, as if still panting from the effort. Captain Seegers checked the mooring lines. ‘Otherwise I’ll have to pick it up in K-k-kampen tomorrow. And we’ve just come from there. And they don’t like our kind of b-b-boat there.’ He pointed to a couple of nasty marks on the side of the vessel. ‘Do you see w-w-what I m-m-mean?’
‘Paint and eggs,’ shouted Peter from the roof. Captain Willem started hooting with laughter. He turned a winch, which lowered a gangplank hanging upright against the boat. Next, the door hidden behind the gangplank opened. A woman of about 40 walked ashore down the plank in high heels. She was wearing sunglasses. Captain Willem disappeared inside through the door.
André nudged me and grinned. ‘Here she comes.’
The woman looked around her as if she had just stepped ashore on an island inhabited by savages. I saw that the tug was called Little Red Rooster, while the big box had no name. Meanwhile, some more people had gathered on the quay.
No one said anything. We were all waiting for an explanation from one of the three people on the boat. Captain Willem Seegers reappeared. He had changed his clothes, and now looked like a waiter in a chic restaurant. He had exactly the same kind of bow tie as Karel Giesma. He fixed a sign next to the door. SWEET LADY JANE, it said, and underneath: FLOATING SAUNA, with the opening hours.
‘R-r-right,’ said captain Willem. ‘Th-th-that’s up.’ Peter disappeared inside through the hatch.
A little later we found ourselves in the bar of the Sweet Lady Jane. There were windows on the side of the boat facing the water. There were red curtains in front of them, through which you could see the vague contours of the other side of the river. There was soft pink carpeting on the floor, and a couple of comfortable sofas were placed around gold-coloured side tables. Captain Willem pointed to the woman behind the bar. ‘Madame Olga,’ he said. The woman had kept on her sunglasses and greeted us with a barely perceptible nod. ‘My mother,’ said Peter.
‘What would the gentlemen like to dr-dr-drink?’
‘A beer for me, captain,’ said André.
‘Yes, we’ll have a beer, too,’ I said, pointing to David. We didn’t feel at ease. Madame Olga opened a fridge.
‘You may be thinking: what a funny b-boat this is,’ said Captain Willem, to break the silence. ‘Well, the g-g-girls will be here tomorrow.’
Peter smiled. He was roughly the same age as us.
‘We’ll be moored here for a week or so,’ he said. ‘That’s for publicity. Usually we’re in the paper after about three days. Then everyone knows we’re here, and we move to a spot approved by the council. And then the men come.’
‘The men?’ asked David. ‘Your father said: the women.’
‘Yes. To the brothel.’ Peter’s father stood nodding in assent. ‘Peter has the gift of the g-g-gab. I don’t kn-kn-know who he gets it from. Not from m-me, in any case.’
‘So it’s not a sauna,’ I concluded. André looked at me reproachfully.
‘A kind of sauna,’ said Peter. ‘We’ve got a kind of sweatbox and a Turkish bath.’
‘It’s a sauna for fucking.’ André said it as if that was a generally recognized kind of sauna. Peter’s mother looked angrily at him and put three bottles of beer and glasses on the bar. She now said something for the first time, in a language we couldn’t understand.
‘That’s Russian,’ said Peter. ‘She says it’s the first and last time we shall see you here, as the Sweet Lady is only for men over 21.’
‘Shame,’ said André.
Peter told us that he would be going to school in Zutphen. In Kampen he had been in the fourth year of high school.
‘Great, then you’ll be in our class. At least if you’re coming to Baudartius.’
‘Of course he isn’t,’ declared André. ‘It’s a Christian school.’ Madame Olga nodded to indicate that he was.
‘We have another friend,’ said David, after he had explained to Peter where our school was. ‘Joost. He’s not here at the moment, he’s stargazing on the heath. His father’s a doctor.’
‘A d-doctor,’ cried Captain Willem. ‘We n-need one here for the girls.’ He said something in Russian to his wife, who nodded in agreement.
David grabbed a pen from the bar and wrote something on a beer mat. ‘Perhaps it will be better if you call yourself. This is the number.’
Captain Willem nodded. ‘If you lads will excuse me, then I’ll g-g-get to work for a bit, because everything must b-b-be ready by tomorrow. Peter will stay with you for a bit. He’s a poet. I’m very proud of him.’ Those last words came out without a stutter. For the first time, Peter looked a bit embarrassed. ‘He’s a b-bit ashamed of it, but that’s non-non-nonsense. His poems are won-won-won-derful.’ We looked at Peter.
‘It’s true,’ he said.
Peter had something serene about him. He did not seem to belong in a floating brothel, which, come to that, applied to his father and mother, too. They were more like an extravagant, gallery-owning couple, specializing in Russian art.
When we had finished our beers, Madame Olga gave Peter a nod. He nodded back. On board Sweet Lady Jane, there was a lot of communication with short nods.
We climbed onto the roof.
‘So, tomorrow the whores will arrive,’ said André.
‘The girls,’ said Peter. ‘We never call them whores. It doesn’t sound nice, my father thinks.’
‘How many of them are there, actually?’ asked André.
‘Four.’
‘Are they pretty?’
‘We wouldn’t get any customers if they weren’t.’
André thought for a moment. ‘And do you get a free turn?’
Peter looked at him. Then he started laughing. At first a short hiccup, which turned into longer howls and ended with a regular shaking, as if he had convulsions.
‘Sorry,’ said Peter, when he came to his senses a little. ‘But I thought it was a funny question. No, I’m not allowed any turns at all.’ He threatened to fall into a coma of laughter again.
‘Is that so funny? It’s not all that odd, is it? If your father has a garage, you’re allowed to drive the cars, aren’t you?’
‘Drop by once we have our permanent mooring. If you stand in the wardrobe in my room, you can hear the noises from Cabin 3 with a glass. It’s amusing.’
‘Okay,’ said André. ‘Amusing. You’re on.’ Peter climbed back down, and we followed. ‘Amusing,’ André repeated again.
In the bar, Madame Olga polished the gold tables until they shone. She said something to Peter.
‘She says I must ask if I can be your friend,’ he said, in a tone as if the question, besides being quite normal, was totally superfluous.
‘That’s fine,’ said David. André and I nodded to indicate it really was fine. Peter nodded to his mother. She nodded to Captain Willem, who was standing on some steps, replacing a light bulb above a sofa.
‘I’m v-v-very happy about that. Friendship is the most beautiful thing in the world.’
A week later, Peter joined our class. He was modest and calm, but also had a self-confidence you wouldn’t immediately expect in a boy of 16. It was striking that he got on just as well with the girls as with the boys. The girls behaved as if they had known him for