Later, "contemporary" means 1986 when, after an objective gap of thirty four years, Time Patrol agent Manse Everard revisits Amsterdam where he sees:
scruffy youth from the Dam to the Central Station;
cafes and bars on alleys off the Damrak;
discrete sleaze shops;
extraordinary bookstores;
centuries-old houses along the canal;
a place that serves eel for lunch;
the Stedelijke Museum;
the Rijks;
the Museumplein;
the Singelgracht;
Vondelpark;
gleaming water;
sunlight on leaves and grass;
a canoeist, an elderly couple and a band of cyclists.
That is the contemporary description but there are two intrusions of a deeper perspective:
first, the gap has been longer for Everard because, since 1952, he has joined the Patrol and traveled through the ages, for example to the periods of Elizabeth I and Cyrus the Great;
secondly, he knows that all the past, present and future life of Amsterdam is like diffraction rings on unstable space-time.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The "extraordinary bookstores" would interest me, even tho I can't read Dutch! But I assume Manse would have no trouble quickly learning Dutch if he had a case requiring him to use that language.
Ad astra! Sean
A few years ago I visited Britain for the first time since the 1970's -- London and Brighton, mostly.
The things that struck me most forcefully was how -clean- central London looked, how colorful, with the buildings stripped of most of the old grey-black coal smoke accumulated throughout a century and a half.
And how many East Europeans there were -- most of the service staff we encountered as travelers.
Mr Stirling,
That sounds really good. Unfortunately, people find ways to make it anything but good.
Paul.
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