Three short moments from Amsterdam

By Will Fisher, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

The moon hung full and low and serene over Gaasperplas, the mile-long lake lying a short stroll from my Biljmer apartment. I was walking with a friend whose eyes seemed hand shaped to reflect moonlight back into mine. Our night had taken us halfway around the lake, stopping occasionally to watch small waves lap against the handful of shores and beaches scattered along the waterfront.

We rounded a corner, stepped out from a thicket of trees and caught sight of a bonfire a few hundred feet ahead of us. Intrigued, expecting some teenage gathering, we started walking closer and closer. The bonfire was lit but the ground around it seemed empty, untouched. A throng of indistinct silhouettes lay in ordered rows behind it. We perched a few yards away, unsure what we may have been waiting for.

Suddenly, one of the shapes rose, and stood facing the fire. He walked, slowly, dreadlocks swaying in the wind, and we realised that the silhouettes were people, lying frozen on the grass. He leaned towards the flames, and, thrusting his hand forward, pulled out a burning branch. Turning again to his audience, he began to dance, swaying gently, embers floating against the sky. We were transfixed. He began to chant – low, hollow words in a language neither of us understood. Finally, after a minute or two, he turned to a second, unlit bonfire, the first time we had noticed its presence, and threw the branch inside, summoning a second holy flame. The silhouettes rose, standing together as one.

“My friends, thank you for joining me tonight.”

A sermon followed, allusions to ten different gods and scriptures, the sacred melting pot. His eyes met ours once or twice, moonlight on fire, and he smiled at our rapt attention. As he drew to a close, he motioned for his audience to gather. They obeyed, huddling around the first bonfire. He pulled a series of instruments from thin air, and, handing them around to outstretched arms, led the crowd in song. For an hour they played, campfire songs, hymns, melodies I knew by heart, music unlike anything I had ever heard. The fires slowly died; he kept singing, the crowd kept playing. One or two left as time passed. Most stayed.

Eventually, the (sermon? session? ritual?) drew to a close. He gave one last thanks, took the instruments to an unmarked van, and left. We waited for the audience to slowly spread into the night, and, barely saying a word to one another, continued walking around the lake. The moon made its way further across the sky.

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“Shave my head.”

“No.”

“But you’d be great at it!”

“Absolutely not.”

So proceeded the most cyclical 10 minutes of a party I have ever attended in my life. It was midnight, I was tired, and the Frenchman whose birthday we were celebrating had just spent half an hour gloriously and inadvisably giving himself a buzzcut. The German I was in conversation with, not to be outshone, had decided that what the world needed at that moment was a second skinhead. Unfortunately, for reasons yet unclear, he had elected me as barber and was in the process of attempting to convince me to wear this crown.

I had never shaved somebody else’s head in my life. I had, however, shaved my own, following a peculiar moment of spiritual clarity in my first year of university. It looked terrible. Past mistakes echoing the walls of my skull, I repeatedly rejected his generous offer, unwilling to take on this particular burden. Nothing would convince me otherwise.

Almost nothing. The next day, all three of us were due to appear at a political conference in Utrecht. My German friend had been on the fence about attending, not least because of our prior engagements the night before. As we talked, a deal slowly started to form. If I agreed to shave his head, he would guarantee me his appearance the following day. This did the trick.

Midnight in a darkly lit bathroom is not the ideal environment for a haircut, although his helpful acapella renditions of every Socialist anthem he knew did brighten the room somewhat. The godawful job I did was received enthusiastically, and he ran to show off his scalp to every other attendee. The Frenchman responded with blasé amusement, acknowledging the humour of two mediocre buzzcut jobs showing up to a political conference together.

The Frenchman never made it to the conference. The following day, my German comrade stood alone, Adam in the garden, ashamed of his nakedness, shivering in the cold January wind.

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In Autumn, very briefly, the Earth had two moons. An asteroid fell into near-Earth orbit for fifty or so days, starting one day in late September. My friends and I decided that we were going to throw it a party.

We pulled out all the stops for it. I made a loaf of sourdough bread, lovingly scored with a remarkably successful crescent moon crust. We cut cheeses and strawberries into stars and laid out snack plates for the evening. We made a collective playlist of songs, all vaguely moon, space, night etc themed (admittedly, we did have to ban one of the party attendees from adding to the playlist, as we’d by this point universally decided that he had the worst music taste any of us had ever encountered). The evening was ready.

It was lovely. No strange occurrences, no last-minute changes of plan, no bald Frenchmen. At one point a frog Jellycat got a small amount of Pepsi on his foot, which was about the heights of the drama that night. We rounded up around 11pm, and while everyone else went home, I stuck around to help the host clean everything up. Everything was wonderful that night. Five months later, it’s still one of the fondest memories I have of my time here in Amsterdam.

It’s been a pretty good time so far, all in all.