Dear Editors of The Unsafe Journal,
I don’t know whether I managed to click “send” before the security guard yanked me from the computer at the library. He kept tugging at my coat-sleeve while I kept batting his hands away until he grabbed the back of my chair and dragged me from the computer. Positioning himself between me and the screen, he raised a finger as a warning. This made me very angry. So I rummaged in my bag for that gargantuan book by Pik and whacked him with it in his potbelly again and again until he tore it from my hands and wrestled me to the ground.
Off I went to the politie, quite possibly the last people on earth who would understand my predicament, although, on the other hand, also more common sensical than the academic class. Perhaps it was an opportunity. Never one to squander one of those, as I entered the interrogation room, I prepared myself as if I were appearing before my defense committee. Beggars can’t be choosers, you know.
“What are you doing here,” the police officer asked me. She was middle-aged with highlighted blond hair, wrinkles in her brow so deep they looked ironed in. A younger, scrawny man with deep eye sockets and a receding hairline sat next to her, looking on, hands at the ready to type.
“I’m conducting doctoral research into the painter Halibut Schmidt – “
“No. What are you doing here?” She asked, glancing around the room.
I slumped back in my chair, disappointed. “I took some books from the library.”
“The security guard said you were aggressive.”
“That’s a misinterpretation. He asked me to return the books and I gave them back to him.”
“He said you hit him with them.”
“I was a bit overzealous with my hand gestures.”
“You were what?”
“Sorry. Enthusiastic. I was very enthusiastic about giving them back.”
The young man typed that into their record.
“Why were you stealing books?”
“I wasn’t stealing. I was safeguarding.”
“You were what?”
“For my research. I was keeping books for my doctoral research.”
“And which university employs you?”
“Maasdam University.”
The woman leaned over and jutted her chin in the direction of the computer screen. The man typed something, then shook his head.
“I do not see this,” she said.
“See what?”
“I do not see you.”
“I’m right here.”
“No,” she sighed. I was annoying her. “I do not see you on their website.”
My ears started to burn. Surely, they couldn’t have terminated my contract already. To have acted so quickly after our last meeting – it would mean – the conspiracy! But nevermind; I can’t get into that here. “I’m between departments at the moment,” I said hurriedly.
“How long have you been doing this ‘research’?” She emphasized the last word.
“Ten years.”
“Is that normaal for a promotie?”
Normal. Normal! I hate that word, normal. It irks me. I could feel myself getting angry again, a tick in my right eye, my fingers tapping my knees, that old, twisting feeling seizing my gut. I adjusted myself in my seat accordingly. “I have encountered certain misadventures.”
“What?”
I turned toward the man to avoid her discouragingly blank stare. It was the same stare I had met in office after office at the university. Was there no one in this wide world who would understand?
Perhaps I was going about it all wrong. This police officer didn’t want to hear about dead Nazis. I frowned. In fact, nobody seemed to want to hear about dead Nazis. Not my dead Nazi, anyway. They didn’t care. Did that mean it wasn’t important? Sitting in the interrogation room, racking my brain for ways to convey the significance of what was happening, it finally occurred to me, dear Editors, that Schmidt being a Nazi was not the problem here. Sure, it was my particular problem’s flavor, but not the problem per sé. Excited by this incredibly late-blooming realization, I tightened my buttocks and straightened my back, and presented my case to my ad-hoc committee:
“Mrs. Politieagent, do you live in a house?”
“Apartment. But – ”
I raised my finger, like the security guard, and with pleading eyes, implored her to let me speak. “Even better. Let’s say your building is made from bricks. These bricks come from a certain brickmaker. They’re beautiful, which is why the architecture firm who constructed your building selected them. However, they are not actually designed for bearing heavy loads. They’re meant for something else entirely. The firm knows this, but ignores it. In fact, the firm is mediocre, with no new ideas of their own. But the firm is ambitious. They believe the beauty of these bricks will help their project win approval. They’re right: the municipality approves the plan. They receive investments from top backers. People such as yourself start to purchase units within the building, they sell out. And they start to build.
The residents move in, and before long start complaining: of moisture, cracks and bending and bulging walls. But the firm is now entrenched in city politics; they have gone on to build dozens more units using the same model and the same bricks. The firm blames the tenants for poor maintenance and not understanding the nature of bricks.
An inspector comes and notices the problems the residents are complaining of. He files a report. The employee who receives the report hands it to his superior. But the superior is friends with the firm and put his stamp of approval on dozens of units built with exactly the same bricks. The inspection is filed away and disregarded.”
“Ehm, tja, oké miss, we do not have time –”
I raised my finger again, clearing my throat. “By this point, the entire city is filled with complaints that have nowhere to go. The municipality has built a system for handling housing complaints together with the firm. They fall into a crack that is growing and growing. New municipal employees are told that the system is built to streamline complaints to wherever they need to go, so they never question the fact that these complaints keep coming in. They just keep sending them along to nowhere. Over time, the people come to believe that if the municipality doesn’t care, it must be because there’s nothing to care about.
An outsider arrives to the city. The outsider sees the bricks and marvels at their beauty. Intrinsic to their beauty is their fragility. They look like red-stars on the verge of bursting. The city glimmers and glows, it bulges and quakes. The families dwelling in the homes moan and mumble to themselves that everything is fine, because the firm and the city and the investors and the magazines say so.”
“Dit meisje is echt gestoord,” she muttered to the man typing. He made a quick gesture as though grabbing a fly in front of his forehead.
“But suddenly the outsider starts raising the same concerns. In good will she insists she wants to work at the municipality to help preserve these buildings. The city employs her, but then forbids her from executing her job. Even though all the people she meets on the street agree with her that something needs to be done, the city won’t let her. They keep reading her plans for improvement and delaying, telling her to revise them over and over, which she does. But the approval never comes. Why? Because if they were to let her work, they would be admitting that something was wrong. But none of them are willing to break the illusion. And the longer the lie endures, the harder it becomes to let go of it.”
“Bel even de Spoedeisende Psychiatrie.” The woman directed her colleague.
“Damn it. Don’t you get it? The ‘city’ is modern art history,” I said, raising my voice. “The beautiful bricks are Schmidt, the firm and the municipal employees are Baksteen, Schoonmaakster, Van der Laffe, Ridder-de Wit, and Pik and goodness knows who else!” I stood up. “THE UNIVERSITY IS THE MUNICIPALITY, THE MUSEUMS THE INVESTORS…” I climbed onto my chair, and then from there jumped onto their desk.
“Mevrouw! Doe normaal, joh!”
“I AM THE OUTSIDER! AND THE PEOPLE –THE PEOPLE ARE YOU! DON’T YOU SEE? YOU’RE PAYING TAXES FOR A SYSTEM THAT IS NOT SERVING YOU, IT’S ONLY SERVING A FEW! IF YOU DON’T SERVE THEIR NAVEL-GAZING GOALS, THEY WON’T HELP YOU!”
At this point the agents hauled me down from the desk and handcuffed me and put me in a holding cell. I waited there, heart racing, for about an hour before a psychiatrist came to examine me. And now, dear Editors, I promise you, I am not insane, but for some reason when this woman came into question me all I could say was “the walls are falling” over and over. Not my name, not Schmidt, nothing. The walls are falling. The walls are falling. Had I been saying that the entire time? Had they even heard my story? My brain had encountered a glitch. The walls are falling. I heard whispers of various clinics and my health insurance until they looked at my ID card again and saw the expiration date was in five days.
“Do you have anyone you can call?” she asked.
I nodded. Wanted to say “my mother” but could only say that cursed phrase. Hers was the only number I knew by heart.
The moment she heard my voice – she had not heard from me in weeks – she booked a flight in two days and a room in a hotel near the airport. It was all over. Or would be, soon –
I still had two days to plea my case one, final time.
TO BE CONTINUED
Susana Puente (b. 1992, New York) is a writer and an art historian based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She is the author of De God van Nederland. Leven en werk van Pyke Koch (Prometheus 2026). Out now! Get your copy here.