A Widow for One Year (79 page)

Ruth sat quietly at the table, signing the last copies of her new novel.

“Even
cops
are reading you!” Maarten said to her.

“Well . . .” Ruth replied. She couldn’t say more. When she looked at the bookshelf, where she’d seen his face, the window that had been opened amid the books was closed. Someone had replaced the books. The cop’s face had vanished, but it was a face she’d never forgotten— the plainclothes cop who’d followed her through the red-light district was following her still!

What Ruth liked best about her new hotel in Amsterdam was that she could get to the gym on the Rokin very easily. What she liked least about it was its proximity to the red-light district—she was less than half a block from
de Wallen
.

And it was awkward for Ruth when Amanda Merton asked if she could take Graham to see the Oude Kerk. (Amsterdam’s oldest church, which is thought to have been built in about 1300, is situated in the middle of the red-light district.) Amanda had read in a guidebook that the climb to the top of the Oude Kerk tower was recommended for children—the tower afforded a splendid view of the city.

Ruth had postponed an interview in order to accompany Amanda and Graham on the short walk from their hotel; she’d also wanted to see if climbing the church tower was safe. Most of all, Ruth had wanted to guide Amanda and Graham through
de Wallen
in a way that would provide her four-year-old son with the
least
opportunity of seeing a prostitute in her window.

She thought she knew how to do it. If she crossed the canal at the Stoofsteeg, and then walked nearer the water than the buildings, Graham could scarcely glimpse those narrow side streets where the women in their windows were close enough to touch. But Amanda wanted to buy a souvenir T-shirt that she’d spotted in the window of the Bulldog café; hence Graham got a good look at one of the girls, a prostitute who had briefly left her window on the Trompetterssteeg to buy a pack of cigarettes in the Bulldog. (A very surprised Amanda Merton got an inadvertent look at her, too.) The prostitute, a petite brunette, wore a lime-green teddy with a snap crotch; her high heels were a darker shade of green.

“Look, Mommy,” Graham said. “A lady, still getting dressed.”

The view of
de Wallen
from the tower of the Oude Kerk was indeed splendid. From the high tower, the window prostitutes were too far away for Graham to discern that they were wearing only their underwear, but even from such a height Ruth could pick out the perpetually loitering men.

Then, as they were leaving the old church, Amanda turned the wrong way. On the horseshoe-shaped Oudekerksplein, several South American prostitutes were standing in their doorways, talking to one another.

“More ladies getting dressed,” Graham said absently; he couldn’t have cared less about the near-nakedness of the women. Ruth was surprised by his lack of interest; the four-year-old was already of an age where Ruth would no longer let him take a bath with her.

“Graham won’t leave my breasts alone,” Ruth had complained to Hannah.

“Like everyone else,” Hannah had said.

For three consecutive mornings, in his gym on the Rokin, Harry had watched Ruth work out. After she’d spotted him in the bookshop, he’d been more careful in the gym. Harry kept himself busy with the free weights. The heavier barbells and dumbbells were at one end of the long room, but Harry could keep track of Ruth in the mirrors; he knew what her routine was.

She did a series of abdominal exercises on a mat; she did a lot of stretching, too. Harry hated stretching. Then, with a towel around her neck, she rode a stationary bike for half an hour, working up a pretty good sweat. When she was finished with the bike, she did some light lifting, never anything heavier than the two- or three-kilo dumbbells. One day she would work her shoulders and arms, her chest and back the next.

All in all, Ruth worked out for about an hour and a half—a moderately intense, sensible amount of exercise for a woman her age. Even without knowing her squash history, Harry could tell that her right arm was a lot stronger than her left. But what particularly impressed Harry about Ruth’s workout was that nothing distracted her, not even the awful music. When she was riding the bike, she had her eyes closed half the time. When she worked out with the weights and on the mat, she seemed to be thinking of nothing at all—not even her next book. Her lips would move as she counted to herself.

In the course of her workout, Ruth drank a liter of mineral water. When the plastic bottle was empty, she never threw it in the trash without screwing the cap back on—a small but distinguishing feature of a compulsively neat person. Harry had no trouble getting a clear fingerprint of her right index finger from one of the water bottles she’d thrown away. And there it was: the perfectly vertical slash. No knife could have cut her so cleanly; it had to have been glass. And the cut was so small and thin that it had almost disappeared; she must have done it when she’d been much younger.

At forty-one, Ruth was ten or more years older than any of the other women in the Rokin gym—nor did Ruth wear the stretched-tight workout gear that the younger women favored. She wore a tucked-in T-shirt and the kind of loose-fitting athletic shorts that are made for men. Ruth was conscious of having more of a belly than she’d had before Graham was born, and her breasts were lower than they used to be, although she weighed exactly what she had when she was still playing squash.

Most of the men in the gym on the Rokin were at least ten years younger than Ruth, too. There was only one older guy, a weight lifter whose back was usually turned to her; what she’d seen of his tough-looking face was partial, briefly glimpsed in the mirrors. He was very fit-looking, but he needed a shave. On the third morning, she recognized him as she was leaving the gym. He was her cop. (Since seeing him in the Athenaeum, Ruth had begun to think of him as her very own policeman.)

Thus—in the lobby of the hotel, upon returning from the gym— Ruth was ill prepared to encounter Wim Jongbloed. After three nights in Amsterdam, she’d almost stopped thinking about Wim; she’d begun to believe he might leave her alone. Now here he was, with what appeared to be a wife and a baby, and he was so
fat
that she’d not known who he was until he spoke. When he tried to kiss her, she made a point of shaking his hand instead.

The baby’s name was Klaas. He was in the blob phase of babyhood, his bloated face like something left underwater. And the wife, who was introduced to Ruth as “Harriët with an umlaut,” was similarly swollen; she carried some excess fat from her recent pregnancy. The stains on the new mother’s blouse indicated that she was still nursing, and that her breasts had leaked. But Ruth quickly judged that Wim’s wife had been made
more
wretched by this meeting. Why? Ruth wondered. What had Wim told his wife about Ruth?

“You have a beautiful baby,” Ruth lied to Wim’s unhappy-looking wife. Ruth remembered how wrecked she’d felt, for a full year after Graham was born. Ruth had great sympathy for any woman with a new baby, but her lie about Klaas Jongbloed’s alleged beauty had no discernible effect on the baby’s miserable mother.

“Harriët doesn’t understand English,” Wim told Ruth. “But she’s read your new book in Dutch.”

So
that
was it! Ruth thought. Wim’s wife believed that the bad boyfriend in Ruth’s new novel was
Wim,
and Wim had done nothing to discourage this interpretation. Since—in Ruth’s novel—the older woman writer is overcome with desire for her Dutch boyfriend, why would Wim have discouraged his wife from believing
that
? Now here was the overweight Harriët with an umlaut, with her leaking breasts, standing beside a very trim and fit Ruth Cole—a very
attractive
older woman, who (Wim’s wretched wife believed) was her husband’s former lover!

“You told her we were lovers. Is that it?” Ruth asked Wim.

“Well, weren’t we—in a way?” Wim replied slyly. “I mean, we slept in the same bed together. You let me do certain things . . .”

“We never had sex, Harriët,” Ruth said to the uncomprehending wife.

“I
told
you—she doesn’t understand English,” Wim said.

“
Tell
her, damn it!” Ruth said.

“I’ve told her my own version,” Wim replied, smiling at Ruth. Claiming to have had sex with Ruth Cole had evidently given Wim some sort of power over Harriët with an umlaut. Her downcast appearance gave Harriët a suicidal aura.

“Listen to me, Harriët—we were never lovers,” Ruth tried again. “I’ve
not
had sex with your husband—he’s lying.”

“You need your Dutch translator,” Wim told Ruth; he was openly laughing at her now.

That was when Harry Hoekstra spoke to Ruth. She’d been completely unaware that he’d followed her into the hotel lobby, as he had every morning. “I can translate for you,” Harry told Ruth. “Just tell me what you want to say.”

“Oh, it’s
you,
Harry!” Ruth said, as if she’d known him for years and he was her best friend. It wasn’t only from the mere mention of Harry the cop at the bookstore that she knew his name; she also remembered it from the newspaper account of Rooie’s murder. Besides, she’d
written
his name (taking pains to spell it properly) on the envelope that had contained her eyewitness account.

“Hello, Ruth,” Harry said.

“Tell her I never had sex with her lying husband,” Ruth said to Harry, who began to speak in Dutch to Harriët—much to Harriët’s surprise. “Tell her I let her husband masturbate beside me—that was all,” Ruth said. “And he beat off again when he thought I was asleep.”

As Harry went on translating, Harriët seemed cheered. She handed the baby to Wim; she said something in Dutch to her husband as she started to leave. When Wim followed her, Harriët said something more.

“She said, ‘You hold the baby—he’s wet,’” Harry translated for Ruth. “Then she asked him: ‘Why did you want me to meet her?’ ”

As the couple with their baby were leaving the hotel, Wim said something plaintive-sounding to his angry wife. “The husband said, ‘I was in her book!’ ” Harry translated.

Once Wim and his wife and baby were gone, Ruth was left alone with Harry in the lobby—except for a half-dozen Japanese businessmen standing at the registration desk, where they’d been mesmerized by the translation exercise they’d overheard. What they’d comprehended of it was unclear, but they stared in awe at Ruth and Harry— as if they’d just witnessed an example of cultural differences that would be hard to explain to the rest of Japan.

“So . . . you’re
still
following me,” Ruth said slowly to her cop. “Do you mind telling me what I’ve done?”

“I think you know what you’ve done. It’s not too bad,” Harry told her. “Let’s take a little walk.”

Ruth looked at her watch. “I have an interview here in forty-five minutes,” she said.

“We’ll be back in time,” Harry replied. “It’s just a short walk.”

“A walk
where
?” Ruth asked him, but she thought she knew.

They left their gym bags with the concierge. Instinctively, Ruth took hold of Harry’s arm as they turned onto the Stoofsteeg. It was still early enough in the morning for the two fat women from Ghana to be working there.

“That’s her, Harry—you got her,” one of them said.

“That’s her, all right,” the other prostitute agreed.

“Remember
them
?” Harry asked Ruth. She still held his arm as they crossed the canal onto the Oudezijds Achterburgwal.

“Yes,” she answered in a small voice.

She’d showered and washed her hair at the gym. Her hair was a little wet, and she was aware that her cotton T-shirt was not quite warm enough for the weather; she’d dressed only for the walk back to her hotel from the Rokin.

They turned onto the Barndesteeg, where the young, moon-faced Thai prostitute stood shivering in her open doorway in an orange slip; she’d grown heavier in the past five years.

“Remember
her
?” Harry asked Ruth.

“Yes,” Ruth answered again.

“That’s the one,” the Thai told Harry. “All she want to do is watch.”

The transvestite from Ecuador had left the Gordijnensteeg for a window on the Bloedstraat. Ruth instantly recalled the feel of his baseball-size breasts. But this time there was something so obviously male about him that Ruth couldn’t believe she’d ever thought he was a woman.

“I told you she had nice breasts,” the transvestite said to Harry. “It took you long enough to find her.”

“I stopped looking for a few years,” Harry replied.

“Am I under arrest?” Ruth whispered to Harry.

“Of course not!” Harry told her. “We’re just taking a little walk.”

It was a fast walk—Ruth was no longer cold. Harry was the first man she’d ever been with who walked faster than she did; she almost had to jog to keep up with him. When they turned onto the Warmoesstraat, a man in the doorway of the police station called after Harry—Harry and the man soon were shouting back and forth to each other in Dutch. Ruth had no idea if they were talking about her or not. She guessed not, because Harry never so much as slowed his pace during the short conversation.

The man in the doorway of the police station was Harry’s old friend Nico Jansen.

“Hey, Harry!” Jansen had called. “Is this how you’re going to spend your retirement, walking around with your girlfriend in your old place of business?”

“She’s not my girlfriend, Nico,” Harry had called back. “She’s my
witness
!”

“Holy shit—you found her!” Nico had shouted. “What are you going to
do
with her?”

“Maybe marry her,” Harry had replied.

Harry held her hand across the Damrak, and Ruth took his arm again when they crossed the canal over the Singel. They weren’t far from the Bergstraat when she got up the nerve to say something to him.

“You missed one,” Ruth told Harry. “There was another woman I talked to—I mean, back in the district.”

“Yes, I know—on the Slapersteeg,” Harry said. “She was a Jamaican. But she got into some trouble. She’s gone back to Jamaica.”