1995 - The UnDutchables (21 page)

Hans awoke the next morning to the familiar sound of mooing, belching, flatulating cows. ‘
Mama, papa, you have saved me
,’ he mumbled hoarsely, for he had lost his voice in the damp, cold night. As he peered over the dike, he saw a strange sight—barges of cows being transported to safety. ‘
Godverdomme!
‘ he thought, ‘
I must be hallucinating for lack of food. What I wouldn’t give for a soggy uitsmijter!
’

A loud ruckus nearby suddenly caught his attention as an army patrol vehicle came to a halt along the dike. It was the platoon commander, a long-haired, lanky lad from Fri-esland, assigned to the area. Our young hero could hear loud voices in the distance as the commander spoke with some townsfolk who were debating whether to evacuate or stay put. ‘
In my mind, the situation is not life threatening here. As far as I’m concerned, you can just stay
, ‘ said the commander.

In the meantime, his squad of soldiers was building an emergency dike with sandbags. Hans heard both laughing and complaining emanating from the ranks. ‘
It’s hard work, filling up the sandbags, and long hours. We must talk to the union about this
, ‘ was the crux of the complaints. Hans learned that each bag weighed about 15 kilos, so in one day, several thousand kilos would pass through each soldier’s soiled, sweaty hands. ‘
The coordination and safety aren ‘t the best. It’s good that the workinspectors can’t see this. Ha ha
,’ was one of the jokes Hans could hear. The exercise was very important for the townspeople, since word had reached them that Heerewaarden was charging
HFL
5-for a solitary sandbag, instead of issuing them free.

The commander and residents were still discussing matters when the mayor suddenly arrived on his Bicycle. ‘
What are you doing here? All you people have to evacuate immediately!
’ he bellowed. ‘
Ja, but the mobile unit doesn’t agree
,’replied the commander. The mayor burst into anger and retorted, ‘
The mobile unit is completely wrong. Everyone has to get out. It’s time for the mobileunit, police, volunteers, demonstrators, protesters, environmentalists, firemen, farmers, Vrouwen, flikkers, and everyone else to…OBEY ORDERS!
’ As the mayor and the military squabbled over power, the townsfolk quietly slipped away to carry on with their lives: the concept of ‘orders,’ and the obeying of them, was something they would rather not contemplate.

In the end, the mayor won, as evidenced by a stream of traffic crawling slowly across the distant bridge later that morning. Hans recognized people from his own town in what looked like an endless gypsy caravan, with furniture, suitcases, Bicycles, chickens, toys, pets and potted plants stuffed in cars, trucks, tractors and buses, or piled high on the roofs of the vehicles. The ever-present wind shifted direction and Hans heard the angry voice of a neighbour exclaim, ‘
Unbelievable! We are fleeing for our lives, yet we still have to pay the toll for crossing the stupid bridge!
’ Everyone was leaving while Hans the saviour was stuck in the source of the scourge.

A rustling noise at his feet startled him, and he looked down in dismay. A rabbit was tunneling into the dike that he was trying to save! ‘
Sodemieter op!
’ he croaked at the creature, wondering what he could use to plug this potential breach. Just the other day, he had seen a group of men from the Royal Hunters Association paddling around in boats, trying to rescue rabbits and other wild creatures from various dry havens such as trees, so they could hunt and shoot the critters after the flood.

His thoughts turned again to the evacuations. In Gameren, 40 gardeners had remained in their nursery, refusing to move. On the island of Mederhemert, everyone remained at home. Even the replacement dike master of Groot Maas en Waal stubbornly stayed on evacuated territory. So why was Hans so alone now? He thought that maybe it was the dreaded
Mobiele Eenheid
(mobile military patrol) that was responsible for his isolation. Typically, fugitives were collected by such patrols and escorted to emergency relief camps—a few hours later, many would be back home again, having escaped from the confines of safety. He comforted himself with the thought that maybe help would arrive after all.

Visions of evacuating the pigs and cows from his father’s farm were vivid. Before the evacuation, Hans had no idea how sensitive to stress and disease pigs were. Although moving the animals had taken a whole day—some had left in trucks, others on the train—it had not been the most organized move in Dutch history. Many farmers had no idea where their livestock had been relocated to, the animals had no idea where they were, and some recipients had no idea where their new charges came from. Other concerned citizens had graciously offered asylum for snakes, spiders, rats and other cuddly
cloggy
pets.

In his moments of boredom, Hans tried to envision life in one of the (free) relief camps. He had seen people interviewed on TV who reported that life was generally quite acceptable there. At one camp housing 1,300 evacuees, most thought that things were fine. ‘
They’ve thought of everything here. It’s a bit like being on vacation
, ‘ said one of the evacuees at the camp. The more enterprising inmates sifted through evacuated insurance papers, purchase receipts and bank statements, and spent their days calculating how best to capitalise on the calamity.

Yet this would not be Holland without some whinging and whining. One woman grumbled to reporters that her knitting had been left behind and she did not want to spend money on more wool when she had some floating around in her home. To some evacuees, snoring was the main nightmare. ‘
The neighbour to my left snores, the guy behind me snores, and the neighbour to my right coughs all night long. This is no party. Everything is well taken care of, but I can’t last much longer
, ‘ said a resident of Zaltbommel. One man staying at an antique car museum couldn’t take it any longer and sought refuge in a soundproof ice cream truck. The whole concept started to sound like luxury to Hans.

The sound of a boat engine rescued the boy from his thoughts, but alas not from his situation. He peered over the top of the dike and couldn’t believe his eyes. There they were, boatloads of gaping disaster-tourists. They were smiling, waving and snapping photos of him as they sailed past, having paid
HFL
6,50 each for the tour. As bad luck would have it, our hero could not scream for help.

Then something so extraordinary and wonderful happened that Hans ceased feeling sorry for himself for a few moments. The event happened when he noticed the daytrippers gather on one side of the boat, madly waving, jumping up and down, yelling, and generally making even bigger fools of themselves. He turned to see what could cause them to act so apelike when he suddenly saw lots of TV cameras and the whole media circus swarming along the dike about a kilometre away. The next thing he knew, he saw his beloved Queen, hatless and decked in rubber boots and raincoat, stomping through the mud to survey the flood damage. It was a moment Hans would never forget. Unfortunately, the entourage was headed away from him.

Hans consoled himself by daydreaming about meeting his Queen. Later that day, a defiant environmentalist who had refused to leave the town was walking along the top of Hans’ dike, allowing his dog to fertilise the cycle path in the traditional Dutch manner. The environmentalist heard our hero groaning. Expecting to rescue a small, furry animal in distress, he bent down and discovered the weak and hungry child. With disappointment, he bellowed, ‘
Godverdomme! What are you doing there?
‘ Hans cleared his sore throat and gave the simple, yet honest answer, ‘
I am keeping the water from running out, you klootzak!
’ then added, for effect, ‘
Send for help. We must shore up the dike
. ’

‘
No way!
’ the environmentalist replied logically, ‘
The town is deserted now. Besides, if I do that, the authorities will come later and build all kinds of ugly new dikes and emergency water walls that cause visual pollution. Ja! They might even erect some of those ugly new wind generators that don’t look anything like our lovely picture-postcard windmills. That’s horizon pollution!

‘
I haven’t had my morning bread yet
, ‘ the boy pleaded, ‘
do you have any?
’

‘Better than that, here—’ the environmentalist replied as he threw the boy a small bag of muesli and pointed to some dandelion leaves growing just out of reach. ‘
You should really consider fasting instead of eating everyday. This way you can purify your body. Well, I must leave now to hick a few dikes!
’ was his parting gesture.

So there the boy remained for yet another night, thanks to his enviro-animal-rights friend. It was only the thoughts of humbly recounting his adventures on NED-2, BRT1 & 2, ZDF, BBC and CNN (and the
geld
that could be gained) that shored up our hero this second night. Where were the stampeding media hordes? If only they would pass by, he could sign autographs and perhaps even a book contract.

As daylight came the following morning, the environmentalist returned with others of his ilk, and they had heated discussions and debates about all things and theories environmental, again ignoring tired and hungry Hans. ‘
It is mankind and greedy polititians that are to blame for the rape of the Rhine. We have been raping nature for 40 years
, ‘ said one of the caring crowd. ‘
Yes! Nature is showing us this was wrong
,’ declared another. All the green guys agreed that they were being unfairly blamed for the floods, even though they were partly responsible. True, they had prevented strengthening and extending the dikes for many years with their protests, but all they wanted was to preserve the Rembrandt landscape. Now everyone was mad at them. It was unfair because the politicians were already using the floods as political fodder for elections. After some hours of debate, the environmentalists departed for more debate and
inspraakprocedures
, leaving Hans behind once again, and giving him the distinct impression that these floods were simply just the result of too much talk.

Then something really fantastic and unusual happened, and it cheered up Hans immensely. The sun came out! ‘
JA, JA, JA! This is an important sign. Now I know I’ll be saved
,’ he thought.

And he was right. Later that day, he saw mobs of people dancing on the dike and returning home. Horns were blaring, but not from joy—everyone was furious at the long lines of traffic. Hans heard a busload of impatient inebriated locals screaming that the return home was more of a disaster than the evacuation and that they should somehow be compensated for both. He wondered why the drivers were all making a huge detour instead of taking the direct route across the bridge. Later, he learned it was to avoid paying the bridge toll again.

Our hero, a bit thinner for his ordeal, was eventually discovered by some returning farmers, who found his tale most incredible. A few minutes later, the local chapter of greenies returned to the scene, having at last found a solution to the problem of the deserted digit in the dike. Despite the experiences of the past week, the townspeople accepted the green-team dike-mender’s credentials and no-ticably subdued rantings about ‘
nature’s way of objecting
’ and humanity having ‘
no right to impose its hedonist…blah, blah
. ‘ With that, the farmers all wished the boy a speedy recovery, and left to find their cows, pigs and chickens, and to buy more batteries for their calculators (which were sure to work overtime in the ensuing months, considering that many of the recently repatriated were protesting, filing lawsuits and making major money machinations about their flood losses). The sight of at least five zeroes lined up before the decimal point brought some to the brink of orgasm.

Then suddenly, without a word of warning or regret, the dike mender, with one swoop of his axe, divorced the boy from the barrier, close to the knuckle. In one motion, he had permanently plugged the leak, aesthetically appeased the green team, saved the son from starvation…and also stopped the kid from picking his nose and making his point! In future debates, when people would pontificate, ‘
There was no disaster, there was only high water
, ‘ or ‘
The ‘95 floods caused inconvenience, not a disaster
, ‘ there would be at least one hero, Hans Verdrinker, who could prove, with one hand raised, that indeed there had been a disaster, though now part of him was…

‘
JUST ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WAAL
. ’

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