Our starter plates had been waiting for a while to be taken away. We were getting to the point of the evening when, pink with glasses of wine, we were trying to figure out who the famous grizzled Englishman with the soft jaw was. Our table companions, Willem’s little brother and our sister-in-law, had seen this gentleman sitting on a terrace during their summer vacation. They recognized him, but couldn’t remember his name. Since then we tried to solve the riddle together every now and then. Alastair Stewart from the BBC I now suggested, or the one with the round eyes from Moulin Rouge, what’s his name. Jim Broadbent. Or Robbie Coltrane, but not dead. Or, no, Bilbo Baggins.
Only after twenty minutes did we realize that Willem hadn’t been at the table for a while. He appeared to have called us several times. There were also apps left in our community app group where it went from a humble ‘Guys, the toilet lock is a bit stiff’, to ‘CAN SOMEONE COME NOW!!!’ had gone.
We rose as one man and stumbled down the stairs to the basement, where the toilets were. “William?” I chirped. We heard his voice muffled from behind a door. “Yes, here I am,” he said awkwardly. My sister-in-law and I started giggling like Pavlov dogs, because there’s nothing more fun for women than to find men in a precarious, slightly humiliating situation. Call it an instinctive reaction, call it a historic act of vengeance, but we clapped our hands with trembling pleasure.
After my brother-in-law felt the door from top to bottom, we decided to call in a professional. The waiter who came to help us looked less amused. “My brother is stuck in the toilet,” said my brother-in-law. “Did he say big brother,” I muttered, after which my sister-in-law and I started to splutter again.
“This is a very bad time,” replied the waiter. “It’s very busy upstairs.” With short, jerky movements, he began to unscrew the hinges with a screwdriver.
“Willem,” he suddenly shouted very loudly. “You don’t have to pull the door yourself.”
“But I don’t do that at all,” I heard softly. It didn’t want to float. My brother-in-law started helping the waiter. The waiter sighed furiously at every loose screw. Behind the door it was now quiet. It suddenly occurred to me that Willem might suffer from claustrophobia. Not that he had shown it before, but isn’t everyone a mosaic of fears and phobias these days? “William?” I said. “Are you still okay?” There was a gloomy murmur. My amusement evaporated. Laughing at men is the best thing ever, until they are really powerless, I think. You also have to watch it. Just look at Thierry Baudet.
The waiter unscrewed the last screw. “Yes, now push it, Willem”, he ranted. With a thunderous roar, the door came apart at the seams.
Willem walked out somewhat disheveled, but dignified. “Glad you didn’t have your pants on your knees yet,” my sister-in-law tried. We walked back to our table, where a cooled main course was waiting for us. Silently Willem began to eat.
“Jeremy Clarkson,” he said calmly after a while.
I looked hard at my sister-in-law.
“Maybe,” she said wisely.
A version of this article also appeared in the December 10, 2022 newspaper