Where the Past Sleeps

Workers digging the foundations of a recycle bin ran into this smiling skull. My friend,a Haarlemmer with an interest in local history,is excited. The site is located beneath the Botermarkt (Butter Market) and dates back to around 700 years ago.

Haarlem is made of the bones of history fleshed with myth and legend. The city was founded a thousand years ago on a narrow strip of high ground,valuable beyond measure in a country forever pressed by the hungry sea.

I have taken a room at the Bot B&B run by the Bot siblings. It is near the Gandhi restaurant. I stop at another Indian restaurant to ask for directions. The desi manager mistakes me for a waiter newly joining the Gandhi’s workforce and eagerly questions my terms of service.

My room is well appointed,the walls adorned with old photographs of the Bot family dating back to the 19th century. Earlier in the day,I had taken the 15-minute train ride from Amsterdam Centraal. As you draw into the station,you can see the River Spaarne,that bisects the city. A windmill is on the banks,its sails spinning slowly in the wind.

The station is high and airy. With its art nouveau turrets,it is one of the oldest in the country. Behind the station is the Dolhuys,literally the Crazy House,a former mental asylum turned into a museum of psychiatry. Most of the exhibits are in Dutch,but the intrepid visitor can pick up Sigmund Freud action figures in the gift shop or visit the adjoining St James church,now a coffee shop covered with black and white comics drawn on the walls. The view of the circular canal from here is serene though its denizens,bellicose swans,which menace pedestrians,are not.

Tracing the skein of history’s fated paths leads us to the Fifth Crusade. In 1219 AD,Pope Innocent conceived a grand offensive aimed at annihilating the Ayyubid Empire,the possessors of Jerusalem. Key to this plan was the invasion of Egypt,and key to that was the fortress-port of Damietta on the mouth of the Nile. The port had formidable defences,the most critical of which were great iron chains,which hung between towers,running under the water and preventing ships from entering the harbour.

As the Crusader fleet was confounded,three ships from Haarlem,commanded by Templar knights,seized the day. They formulated a solution merging Dutch engineering skills and Templar determination. The knights contrived to build giant metal saws projecting through the keels of the ships,and smashed through the chains.

This is a scene which medieval Dutch painters returned to repeatedly,the unfurled sails,the towers of the port and a shattered chain whipping past as the Dutch warships breached the defences. The echoes of this past can still be heard in Haarlem. Nearly 800 years later,the Crusade is still alive,in heraldic symbols,in the coat of arms of the city,speaking of a history written in fire and sword.

In the end,this heroic exploit stood alone. After the fall of the port,the Crusaders marched on to Cairo. The crafty Sultan al-Kamil opened the dams on the Nile and flooded the plains. The heavily armoured knights were bogged down and suffered defeat.

With its Templar founders and Masonic builders,Haarlem is ground zero for a conspiracy theorist. Walking the streets,taking in their names,is to traverse a cartography of legend,an overarching grid ripe with elder meanings. I stroll through Gierstraat with its antique stores and rare bookstores,the shop windows crammed with cartularies,dusty dollhouses,Escher jigsaw puzzles and lithographs.

The architecture is a theosophy in stone,the unusual square city layout hinting at its true origins — it mirrors Jersusalem.

Amidst the cobblestone streets riddled with cycle paths,in quiet antique bookstores where owners drowse behind counters,you can imagine running into Lucas Corso from Arturo Perez-Reverte’s The Club Dumas searching for a mysterious tome. Or could that man nervously sipping coffee be Casaubon from Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum,discoverer of The Plan,the ultimate conspiracy theory?

“Scire,tacere” — “to know and to be silent”,is the motto of this world.

Nowadays the only secrets that Tempeliersstraat holds are nice kebab shops,for cheap and best dining. The heart of the city is the St Bavo Cathedral and the wide Grote Markt square. I step into the serene hush of the cathedral. Everything is superlative — the choir screen is one of the longest in Europe,as the bell-tower is the highest. Sunlight filters through immense stained glass windows depicting the fall of Damietta. One end is dominated by the industrial-sized organ with more than 5,000 pipes. A plaque mentions that a 10-year-old Mozart played here.

Cannon balls pit the cathedral’s walls,stigmata of the siege of 1572,when the Spaniards sacked the city. In the corner is a curiosity,the dog-whippers chapel. Dogs and children were allowed inside the church but misbehaviour meant they would be whipped by the church official. Over the years,the dog-whipper evolved to the church-warden of today.

The cathedral is paved wall-to-wall with over a thousand graves. The gravestones are covered with cryptic glyphs. Shoes denote that the deceased was a member of the cobbler’s guild,for example. A few gravestones appear to be locked with copper plates. Legend has it that one man was prone to beating his wife. They were buried side by side. In death he continued as in life,and his skeleton was seen thrashing his unfortunate spouse. After such incidents,troublesome tenants were identified and their graves locked.

On Sunday,the Grote Markt square bustles with peddlers. We stop at a stall selling herring,meant to be eaten raw. The fish are patriotically served with tiny Dutch flags and taste of the North Sea chill. Night falls,as a melancholy soundtrack performed by gypsies on accordions fills the air. Passers-by throw in coins more for their persistence than musical accomplishments.

I return to the spot of the excavations. It has been covered,restored to how it had been. I become aware of that other city,the invisible city of bone that lies beneath our feet,that is being built perpetually,that we will all become citizens of one day. In the blue-black distance,the great bells of the Saint Bavokerk toll,as they have every night to commemorate the fall of Damietta all those centuries ago. Echoes of the past ring over a city,where the past is not really dead,merely sleeping.