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Admittedly, ten to nine turns out to be the worst time to start interviewing people. “I’m in a hurry,” someone says, half-running, half-walking. An elderly woman looks at her watch while walking. “No time,” she apologizes. “Must go home.”
‘Now I’m going to run’
Furthermore, the footpath along the Utrechtse Singel is empty. Very empty. The only one who is running now, and still has some time, is Anne. She also checks her cell phone to check the time – five minutes before she has to be inside – but it is possible for a while. “My house is around the corner.”
She comes from a friend, has eaten there, they started early. “It is strange that there is a limit to our evenings,” says Anne. Another look at her phone. “And now I’m going to run anyway.”
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Liza and Tjalling think it is much quieter now on the street than yesterday around this time. The couple takes an evening walk along the water every evening, this time a little earlier than usual. “It’s really crazy,” says Tjalling. “This walking path is normally the amusement park of the pandemic, it is always busy. And now you see people walking faster, they are in a hurry, there are no groups of loitering youths making noise.”
Silence before the storm
It feels, he says, a bit like it is almost old and new. People are rushing home. Silence before the storm.
Suddenly, somewhere, no idea where, voices sound. There is a countdown. Ten! Nine! Eight … And then the church tower lets it be heard: it is 9 pm. For the first time since World War II there is a curfew in the Netherlands, not because of a war between armies and countries, but a war against a virus.
Watch here how the start of the curfew went in the rest of the Netherlands. The article continues after the video.
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There are bangs, fireworks, a flash of light in the clear sky. A boy roars from the window of his apartment on two floors: “Yes! Everyone go home !!”
Patrick hears and smiles. The student lives in the street here, yes, he hears the bells in the church tower too, and yes, he has to go in immediately after this interview. “I just had a lasagna with a friend, we watched a movie, it really ended exactly ten minutes before curfew.” Well thought out, because it is also exactly ten minutes drive home for Patrick.
Quieter than midnight
He walks in, closes the door behind him. And that is actually the moment, a few minutes past nine, when it is quiet in Utrecht. Quieter than midnight, because now the city has to make do without groups of young people, without people taking a walk, without evening athletes.
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Johan calls it ‘a bit scary’. Dog Sansa is Johan’s license to take to the streets. Normally he always runs his last lap at 8 p.m., now after curfew. “I wanted to experience this sometimes,” he says. “It is unreal. I have lived in Utrecht for years, but it has never been so quiet.”
Suddenly you hear everything
“The people have disappeared like snow in the sun,” says taxi driver Mimoun. He’s waiting for customers, but he doubts he’s going for another ride tonight. It will probably be an evening turning your thumbs, watching videos on his phone, listening to the radio – killing the silence.
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Striking: suddenly you hear things that you normally do not notice in a noisy city. A rolling empty beer can over the cobblestones. The ticking of traffic lights (which are now suddenly superfluous due to lack of traffic). People who close the window of their house. Cyclists who lock their bikes.
No dog on the street
Like Roy, with the well-known orange cube backpack from his employer Thuisbezorgd on his back. And with an employer’s statement on his phone. “Just to be on the safe side, I have it with me,” he says. He has not been checked yet. “I like cycling and working this”, he grins. “Mindful. There is no dog on the street. I can easily drive everywhere.”
That dog’s is not quite right. It is precisely the dog owner who walk through the city at their dead ease, the bowel movement of their Fikkie suddenly gives them a freedom that the dogless do not have.
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Anyone walking on the street without a dog can be checked by the police in the center. Police officers drive around one of Utrecht’s main streets in cars and bicycles. Your reporter is also monitored by an agent.
“Without a statement you will be fined, ma’am,” said the officer. Strict look, great strides. But there was an explanation, so there was no fine. Whether they have already been handed out a lot, the officer was unable or unwilling to say.
Just finished evening shift
A young woman is being checked on the cycle path further on, she takes her statement from her backpack: she works at the Altrecht care institution, has just left an evening shift. At the Neude, Nico is waiting for his bus, he is a restaurant owner. “I’m legally out,” he says, waving his statement. Not much later he gets on his bus. He is the only passenger.
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It is just as empty at Utrecht Central Station. Noah, a security guard by trade and just finished his shift, takes a photo of it with his iPhone. “This is bizarre,” he says. “This is something you will still know in three or four years’ time.” Two officers arrive, they do not check, but ask if there is an explanation.
Noah nods from behind his face mask, which suddenly seems so superfluous in an otherwise deserted station.
No groups, no parties, no walkers
The later it gets, the quieter it is in the city. No groups of young people, no parties, no evening walkers. The clock strikes 10 p.m. The sound echoes over the water, over the canals, echoes against houses.
The silence that set just before curfew was no calm before the storm. There was no storm. It was a silence for an even greater silence.
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