A night on campus with security: ‘I heard banging, but no one was there’

A pitch-dark Sports Center, suspicious noises, and a haunting fantasy that takes hold of you. What happens at night on Tilburg University’s campus? Univers made a lots of extra coffee and walked with security for a night.

It is almost midnight when security guard Samba makes his first round through the University Library. Here and there students are still working: tired faces with hairstyles that have been smoothed out in the course of the day. They hardly notice when the tall security guard slaloms between the workstations with great strides.

‘We’re about to close,’ he says kindly to each of them. ‘It’s important to make eye contact, so they know you’ve seen them,’ he explains. So Samba (43) goes down all three floors, checking every room and every nook and cranny.

Then he walks the same round again. ‘To check whether everyone is really gone and whether personal items have been left behind.’ He only skips the toilets: ‘I don’t want to embarrass anyone. And if someone is actually hiding there, we’ll find out in a moment when the alarm is set on the building.’ Once the revolving door at the entrance has come to a halt and is locked, the daytime heart of the campus suddenly feels awfully large and desolate.

Cameras in every corner

Outside, the last students are leaving campus. They cycle shivering into the dark and cold January night, thoughts already focused on their beds. Sleep is far from an issue for Samba; his night shift has now begun in earnest. Together with his colleague, operator Patrick, he is responsible for keeping the University safe.

The security unit resides in Vigilant Building under the stairs to the library. There, Patrick (56) sits behind a wide table above which nine screens hang. The screens are split into multiple images: he can really watch every corner of Tilburg University, both inside and outside. At night, he watches images of the exterior of the University in particular, so he can see any disturbances already on the outside. ‘We mainly try to prevent the alarm from going off at all.’

Not suitable for everyone

Patrick has worked as a security guard at Tilburg University since 2008. Just like Samba, he works morning, evening, and night shifts. The night shifts, from quarter to eleven in the evening until quarter to seven in the morning, are fine, but certainly not his favorite shifts. ‘Evening shifts are nicer because they are busier. If you’re doing rounds, have to be at an emergency room (Emergency Response Team, ed.) incident, or there’s a collision in the parking lot, time goes by a lot faster.’

Night shift, on the other hand, is an art it itself and by no means suitable for everyone. ‘You have to be able to stand it,’ Patrick agrees. ‘You have to be fit and clear-headed and not mind sleeping during the day. Moreover, you have a lot of freedom during night shifts; you have to be able to deal with that too. For example, I’m quite capable of watching something on Netflix, but if something happens on campus and I don’t see it, that’s my responsibility.’

The smell of physical exertion

Despite the fact that it is now snowing, and the campus is very slippery in some places, Samba jumped on a bicycle to patrol outside. Armed with a flashlight, keychain, and walkie-talkie, he checks all the buildings belonging to the University. In doing so, he is in constant contact with Patrick, who can follow him via the cameras from a warm Vigilant Building.

While cycling, Samba shines his flashlight on the Sports Center. ‘To see if there are any strange things happening on the outside before I go in right away.’ It is pitch dark in the Sports Center, but the smell of physical exertion is still in the air. Imperturbably, Samba steps into the dark hallway. When the beam of light from his flashlight falls on the stationary treadmills and cross-trainers it looks quite uncanny, as if the room has been abandoned in a hurry.

A glance into the unlit sports hall also produces a surreal image. You see nothing, but your brain automatically completes the image of the room. With a little imagination, you can hear the squeak of the soles of spinning sports shoe on the marmoleum floor and the shrill resounding of bouncing balls. If you listen very carefully, you can even hear a ball gently whizzing into a net.

Absolute silence

He creates an impression of having no fear, but is the security guard really never afraid of what he might find when he enters such a large unlit building at night? ‘No,’ Samba says firmly. ‘Where I come from in Senegal it’s dark at night too, there are no lights there at all. So I’m used to it.’

Inside the indoor sports café, it smells like a mix of coffee, sandwiches, and other snacks. Samba checks the space, as well as the kitchen, “just in case there are any fire-hazard devices left on.

The light from his flashlight shines through the windows of the outside walls. Anyone walking by outside might think that there is a break-in going on here now. ‘That’s possible, but people who live around here know that we do our rounds of the Sports Center about this time.’ After literally every room has been checked, and the other buildings are also in order, Samba signals to Patrick via walkie-talkie that he is coming back to the campus.

On the way back, the absolute silence is striking. The asphalt of Conservatoriumlaan, so chaotic during the day, looks snowy and deserted. But then there is the muffled banging of a party in one of the student flats on Verbernelaan. From the window, a few tipsy partygoers wave enthusiastically at Samba. The latter shrugs his broad shoulders and walks stoically on. ‘I like to work at night, because it’s nice and quiet then.’

Pushy ex

In Vigilant, One of These Nights by the Eagles blares from the speakers. Patrick has turned on his playlist. It is now past three o’clock. ‘Around this time it gets tough mentally,’ he says. ‘You start getting sleepy.’ His remedy: “Go outside, out into the cold. A glance at the wall of screens reveals that the campus looks uneventful.

‘Occasionally something happens,’ Patrick explains, ‘but mostly it’s quiet at night. Of course there have been the occasional break-ins, and when there is construction on campus, there is a camera pointed at the construction site all the time, because tools and materials are highly sought after by thieves.’

There are times during his shifts when he has to remove obnoxious students from the library, or protect employees from a pushy ex. ‘Let me put it this way: if someone in this campus is planning to take revenge on a former partner, we are capable enough to act appropriately on that.’

Does Patrick ever think about what happened at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam last September? Looking serious: ‘Definitely. Look, Tilburg University has an open campus. You can’t tell from the outside who is a thief, or who might be up to something else.’

Poltergeists

The strangest thing Patrick experienced on campus happened in former Prisma Building. ‘There was no one left in the building, but when I was closing an office, I suddenly heard a lot of noise. I looked into the empty office, and it turned out that a closet had been blown open. That’s weird, isn’t it? Are those poltergeists, or something?’ He tells it with a serious but playfully questioning look.

‘Another one of those,’ he continues, ‘and here a colleague was present, so you can ask. We were closing the Black Box in Esplanade. Suddenly we hear a loud: thump, thump, thump! To illustrate, he hits his fist hard on the table three times. ‘So we looked through the peephole and see nothing at all. I thought: maybe someone is rehearsing and we’re talking too loudly, but no, there really was absolutely nobody there.’

Then, for the first time this night, something moves on the screens. Suddenly, people appear on a screen. It is 5:30, still pitch dark, but the cleaning crew is already reporting for the start of their work day. Samba too is getting ready to go out again and open Tilburg University’s doors for a new day.

Patrick and Samba look back on a quiet night shift. “You know,” Patrick concludes, “security is like health insurance. You don’t need it for a long time. Until something happens, and then you better have it.’

Translated by Language Center, Riet Bettonviel

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