Post Christmas 2011 - Incident in Amsterdam

Seated in The Amsterdam City Museum cafeteria, waiting to order lunch. The WC attendant, a kind looking elderly woman, is seated to our left about ten feet away. She begins shouting; gesturing at a man who appears to be pushing past her toward the cafeteria exit. I'm rattled: is he a druggie or has he stolen something? 


A cafe chef  or manager rushes from the kitchen toward the incident. The woman turns to us, exposing a large swell, a raised red blotch, across the right side of her face. Several restaurant employees converge, blocking the man from escaping. 


I'm still rattled-worried-but can't figure why. How much concern must I give this: what's reasonable? Am I called to act or is this an episode that  rules of a culture not mine are prepared to manage? 


Employees press the offender against a wall and he will not get away. The chef/manager lectures him. The atmosphere remains animated and harsh words fill the air--all of them loud and regressive. The sounds are a mix of Dutch & English but similar in that they both convey the distress and the confusion. The manager uses his cell and announces that he is calling the police. 


We learn from a young woman--a waitress--that this very average looking man refused to pay a 50 cents toilet charge. When the woman insisted that he pay or leave the cafe he struck her with enough force to raise the wound. 


The police arrive and lead the culprit away. The man has quieted and almost seems remorseful. He is accompanied by--and why this is surprising I still don't understand--a very bourgeois-looking woman. She is carrying shopping bags from several local chic  shops as though the two had been out on a very normal adventure in the city center. She looks to be the man's significant other. My partner and best friend Barbara says, "I'm  afraid for that woman he's with. If he's willing to hit a stranger what must life be like in their privacy for her?" The remark is of course the proper sentiment and it makes me wonder even more. 


I remain fearful and believe it's because the incident doesn't fit the expanse of my ethical range, however broad or confined that may be. Is this a darkness that all of us share? Is such striking out common? Is the well-dressed stranger a monster or a reflection of what anyone is capable of?  


I cannot accept moving about with comfort in a world where a man will hit a woman--or anyone-- because he doesn't choose to come up with the cost  that he clearly owes and that she is clearly entitled to.