Once More with Feeling
Still seven days, he thought. Seven days with this bunch, all over Switzerland; loud Dutchmen looking to make a scene; Rik the giant, and a fool; and Marjon, whatever she was. A tale of the 1990s.
He boarded the 43 bus at Leiden station, and as soon as he did she knew he would sit next to her. He’s going to talk to me, she thought. At some point, he will try to make conversation. She hoped he wouldn’t, but helplessly; she knew he would. She suspected he was American. Once the bus pulled away from the curb, he asked her the time, in English, pointing at his watch, which had stopped. She held up her wrist for him to look at: quarter to six, read the hands on her Seiko. But for the rest of the trip, until he got off at Rozenplein, he was silent.
As soon as she got in the front door, the phone rang. It rang three times before she could pick up the receiver. It was her boyfriend, calling from Amsterdam, saying he would be late—perhaps as late as eight or nine o’clock. She should get something to eat, he said, and not worry about him; he would buy something in Amsterdam, a broodje perhaps, and eat it on the train.
Her name was Anja. She was 24, a secretary at the Oriental languages faculty of the university in Leiden. She had worked there for three years, meeting her boyfriend, eight years older than herself and a student of Chinese Civilization, not at Leiden but at the University of Amsterdam. The fellow on the bus, whom she had taken for an American, she was sure she had seen before. Not once, but a few times. He liked walking around the city. He stopped in often at the library on the Witte Singel to read magazines and newspapers. He was very good-looking, she admitted to herself, tall and thin with combed blonde hair and wire-rim glasses, perhaps 30 years of age. He seemed to have nothing better to do with his time. He was always by himself.
At ten o’clock she turned on the television, to watch a show she had come to enjoy, and looked forward to each week. It was a police show set in New York, on Nederland 1 Tuesday nights. Like all such programs it was in English, but with subtitles, so she could follow the story line when the dialogue became too slangy for her to understand. In this episode a married woman, said by her husband to dress provocatively, had been raped—she was afraid to tell him the truth. In another development, a detective who was shy and self-conscious had decided to leave his wife, having fallen in love with a gregarious woman who worked in the station house, answering the telephones. She had fallen in love with him too. And the raped woman’s husband had surprised everyone when told the facts of his wife’s assault, and taken her into his arms. So everything had ended well for nearly everyone—the detective’s abandoned wife was not a character who ever appeared onscreen, so for all practical purposes she couldn’t be said to exist. It was ten to eleven when the show ended, and Anja’s boyfriend, Rik, had still not returned home. It was nearly midnight when he called, saying that the meeting had dragged on for much longer than anyone expected, and that he would be spending the night in Amsterdam, at his brother’s. By that time she had gone to bed.
She had been right in nearly all respects—he was 30, he did go into the library to read newspapers, and he was American. And he was alone. He was staying in his parents’ home, those times he was home, when he wasn’t off traveling for his work, which was in tours. Eighteen of the 30 days of the month, he was somewhere in Europe at the front of a bus, with a microphone in his hand, speaking to tourists from America about Munich, Prague, Paris, or Barcelona, wherever he was at the time. He escorted groups into museums and palaces and arranged their tickets. At hotels he was first off the bus and into reception, where he would take care of keys, meals and other details. He booked his guests into restaurants and shows, and when they had special requests, took care of those too. Occasionally some of the men, those traveling alone, would take him aside and ask about escorts. These requests he was reluctant to deal with, and usually suggested they speak to the hotel concierge, who always had a few printed cards on his person. In Vienna, a town which he knew better than most, having lived there for a year as a student, he would propose the name of a club, where he knew his guests would be safe and entertained and not taken advantage of. He always warned the men that these evenings could be very expensive, far more so than in the States. He had been lucky, though—no one had ever come to him the next morning with a complaint. He had been doing this work for four years.
He spoke French, German and Spanish, and having grown up in Holland, Dutch as well. It was his languages which had gotten him the job with Portside Tours, of Baldwin, New York; but in Holland he often spoke English, as he had with the girl on the 43 bus. He had seen her through the window before boarding, seen her to be pretty, and as the bus was nearly full knew he’d be justified in taking the empty seat next to her. He hadn’t needed to know the time, knowing the bus left at quarter to and quarter past each hour, and even if he had, could have asked her in Dutch. But this was not his way. He used English, as if his foreignness would somehow make him attractive to a stranger. Sometimes it worked. A girl he had met on the Amsterdam train had begun talking to him, asking him how he liked Holland and what he had seen so far, and it was several hours afterward, by which time they had consumed a few drinks in a café in the Rembrandtplein, when he finally revealed that not only had he lived practically his entire life in the Netherlands, but spoke accentless Dutch as well. She had thought it a charming ruse, and they ended in bed together. It was a short, happy affair, and it had been his last, not quite six months ago.
As he came in through the door, he could smell the roast beef baking in the oven, and knew that along with the beef dinner would be potatoes, green beans boiled in water, and gravy. ‘Out all day?’ asked his mother.
‘The afternoon,’ he replied. ‘I was in Leiden.’
‘There was a call for you. About five o’clock. Mr. Smitkruis from the Amsterdam office. He wants to discuss with you the arrangements for next month.’
‘Did he say where I’d be going?’
‘Not really. Only not Munich. And not Berlin. And he said something about Geneva.’
This was a surprise—November was Germany’s month, as regular as time itself. For three Novembers in succession (excepting the last) he had taken Portside groups to Germany. They would land in Frankfurt airport; he would greet them at arrivals, escort them to their bus, and they would begin: Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, Nuremburg, Munich, Würzburg and Heidelberg, arriving thirteen days later back in Frankfurt, where Delta flew straight to New York. Out of curiosity he decided to call Smitkruis at home.
‘Henk? Adam Bailey. My mother said you called.’
‘Hello, Adam. You’re not going to Germany this time.’
‘Yes, I heard. Where to then?’
‘Switzerland. How well do you know it?’
‘Well enough. Parts of it.’
‘Geneva? The lake?’
‘I can wing it.’
‘Good. You’re going down in three days. You’ll meet the group at Cornavin. The train station, mind you, not the airport. A short tour. Only eight days. I’ve sent the details down by post. You should have them by tomorrow.’
‘Americans?’ Adam thought to ask.
‘No, actually. Most of them are Dutch.’
As they came off the train, dragging their bags along the platform, Adam was impressed. For one thing, they were young or youngish—the oldest member of the group seemed to be no more than 40. And they were good-looking, and more than half were women. The usual Portside group was composed of middle-aged or elderly couples from Long Island, which was one reason Adam had gotten bored, and was thinking of getting out—no chance of adventure with that kind of customer. Once a woman had made a pass at him, late at night in the bar of the Hotel Imperial in Vienna, but she was drunk and married and her husband was asleep upstairs—none of which would have deterred Adam, ordinarily, except that she was well past 50, fat, and coarse. This group coming into Geneva was something Smitkruis, Portside’s European representative, had put together on his own, and as he looked his charges up and down Adam could see there were distinct possibilities at hand.
Once on the bus they breezed quickly through Geneva. The schedule was brief: a lightning stop at the Reformation Monument; an hour and a half for window shopping along the Rue du Rhône—this group was too poor for real shopping—then to the Palais des Nations for a tour. A young woman escorted them around the building, pointing out the tapestries, the murals, the statues, and mentioning which countries had given what. She stopped before a wall, on which was a map outlining the entire organization, and she asked the group where they were from. ‘Holland,’ one replied, and she said, ‘Well, that’s very interesting. As you know, most of the United Nations is in New York, with several specialized agencies here in Geneva, but there is a very important branch in Holland, in The Hague. It’s the International Court of Justice,’ and as she spoke some of the Dutchmen began to laugh, and even hoot. ‘Well, of course, you would know that,’ she said, her face burning scarlet. And she swept on into the hall, past the great windows opening out onto the lake, and then into one of the conference rooms, where several African delegates were debating, in French, the problem of global desertification.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ Adam said, as she led the group through the double doors and out into the lakefront gardens. ‘It’s how the Dutch are, in case you hadn’t realized. They can be very rude. They don’t mean to be. They just are.’
‘I suppose I insulted their intelligence.’
‘You’re American, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. But I grew up here.’
‘And I grew up in The Hague. I was a guide myself.’
‘At the International Court of Justice?’
‘Absolutely.’
He asked her name, and was on the verge of asking for her phone number, when a woman he supposed was her supervisor approached and whisked her away. ‘My next group’s coming,’ she said. ‘Enjoy the rest of your stay in Geneva.’
‘It was nice talking to you,’ he said.
After lunch, a picnic in the U.N. gardens, and a short visit to the Red Cross museum opposite, they returned to the bus, and drove for an hour along the lake to Lausanne, and then to Montreux. At Lausanne they had an hour to visit the new Olympic museum. It was nightfall by the time they arrived in Montreux, at the Hotel du Quai, not actually in Montreux but Villeneuve, a few miles out of town and several hundred francs cheaper. Dinner was at a nearby restaurant, which they could walk to, and would be served at eight. Having dealt with the bags and the keys and the woman who wanted extra coat hangers and blankets sent to her room, Adam discharged the bus driver for the night, having given him his cash allowance for his meal, and went over to the restaurant, named ‘Au Vieux Moulin,’ although there was no evidence of any windmill in sight.
After supper, which was soup, roast chicken, salad, and french-fried potatoes, Adam returned to the hotel; then decided he would head across the street, where there was a café. There had been problems at the restaurant: some plates broken, some singing, more shouting—a bit too much Dutch merriment; the patron had not been pleased. Entering the door to the café he saw two of his group, a man and a woman, at a table by the window, and went to join them, having been waved over by the man, who was huge, a Dutch giant, not much under seven feet.
‘Our fearless leader,’ the man said. ‘You’ve had a long day. Have a drink with us.’
‘I hope the bed in your room won’t be too small for you,’ Adam said.
‘To tell you the truth, I haven’t been up to my room yet,’ the man, whose name was Rik, admitted. ‘But it will be. It always is.’
‘If we’d known, we could have made arrangements. But there was nothing in my file. I can call ahead to the other hotels.’
‘If you like.’ He didn’t seem to care. ‘I get by. I sleep on my side, with my legs curled up very tight.’ The woman giggled.
‘My name is Marjon,’ she said. ‘And you already know Rik.’
‘Where are you from?’ Adam asked.
‘Amsterdam. Rik too. But he lives in Leiden. With his girlfriend.’
‘Which . . . is not you?’
‘Which is certainly not me.’
‘This is a strictly professional association,’ protested Rik, his eyes and his smile suggesting to all he enjoyed the pretense. ‘Marjon and I are colleagues in the department of Asian culture. Together, we explore the mysteries of the Orient.’
‘And so you have come to Switzerland?’
‘An excellent substitute, actually. And much cheaper than going to China. Like the Chinese the Swiss are inscrutable. This is a closed civilization. Geneva, like Beijing, or even Zurich, a forbidden city. Outsiders are not welcome. They may come, they may observe, but do not expect to be given any confidences.’
‘This trip is sponsored by the university social club,’ Marjon said. ‘For students and friends. In this case, I am a friend. I am not a student.’
‘I am the student,’ Rik said. ‘Studying very hard, as you can see.’
‘He is deceiving his girlfriend,’ Marjon said. ‘Deceiving her, with me. s a woman, I am ashamed of him. Rik, you should be ashamed.’
‘I am certainly ashamed. Look at me, I am red with shame.’ And so he was, red with something, namely drink. They were drinking pastis. Adam guessed they had been sitting there for several hours. They had not been to dinner, he remembered.
Marjon went on, giggling more as Rik began laughing, a laugh as large as his frame, filling the room with booming sound. ‘I may have to withhold favors from you tonight,’ she said. ‘You need to be taught a lesson. This is no way to treat a woman.’
‘Anja can take care of herself. She is an attractive girl, and very sexy. In fact, I suspect she is seeing someone too.’
Marjon stopped laughing, as if it was she and not his own girlfriend he had insulted. ‘Actually I bet she isn’t. Instead she waits for you, and waits. And hopes that things between the two of you might get better. I think I’ll have another drink,’ she said, as the waiter flew by, missing her signal.
‘Rik,’ she said, very suddenly, very sharply. ‘You will have to do something about this. And very soon.’
It was late at night and he was standing at his window, in an attic dormer, facing the lake above the tops of trees. It was an old hotel, and as the wind blew in off the water he could fill the chill seeping in from cracks and gaps in the window frame. The cold had come down very suddenly. It is probably snowing in the mountains, Adam thought. Soon there would be skiing.
A knock at the door disturbed him from his reverie. ‘It’s open,’ he said. Into the darkened room a figure stepped; he wasn’t quite sure whose. ‘Turn on the light,’ he said.
The light flicked on, revealing Marjon, in slippers and an oversize T-shirt which she wore like a nightgown.
‘Can I come in?’
‘Sure. Would you like to sit down?’
She sat in the chair by the wall, the only chair in the room. Adam remained at the window.
‘I was just gazing out on to the lake,’ he said.
‘You are lucky,’ she said. ‘Our room has no view. Just the street. Very dull.’
‘This isn’t much of a view. Come, have a look. It’s just darkness.’
She got up and went to the window, and having looked outside, stayed, standing next to Adam.
‘It’s hard to sleep with Rik,’ she said. ‘He tends to take up all the bed.’
‘He’s a large man,’ Adam replied.
‘I suppose you don’t think very much of us.’
‘I don’t think anything of you at all.’
‘And why not? Why don’t you think?’
‘You’re my clients. What you do and how you do it is not my business. My business is to take care of you.’
‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘in this line of work, it is sometimes your business to sleep with your clients. As a means of taking care of them.’
He said nothing, but she was expecting an answer.
‘One would like to think so,’ he said at last. ‘It doesn’t usually work out that way.’
‘Perhaps this trip will be different,’ she said.
‘Perhaps. ‘
‘Rik is a big baby,’ she said. ‘He’s good fun, but I can’t take him seriously. I’ve known him a year now. A year is enough, I think.’
‘Is it true about his girlfriend?’
‘That he has one? Who loves him, and doesn’t know what he’s up to? Yes.’
Adam was silent.
‘She is a beautiful girl. Very pleasant. I’ve met her. She deserves better. She is younger than Rik, but more mature.’
‘You are thinking something,’ she said after a while. ‘Why don’t you tell me?’
‘I guess I’m thinking,’ Adam began, ‘that if a person is lucky enough to have one girlfriend who loves him that much, he shouldn’t be allowed to have a second. At the same time. That just diminishes it for the rest of us.’
‘Rik is very selfish,’ she said. ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’
‘No.’
‘But you used to. And something happened.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d like to stay a while,’ she said, as if she had just entered a happy kingdom where there was much to explore and plenty of time to indulge. ‘Here, in this room, while Rik is sleeping. Do you think that might be possible?’
Adam looked at her, closely, for the first time, a slim blonde girl with a rosy Dutch face, a nice figure carved from butter and cheese which would run to plump in ten years’ time, like the rest of her type; and felt a terror rise within him.
‘You aren’t sure,’ she said.
‘No. I never am,’ he confessed.
‘I like men to be sure,’ she said, only she seemed to be saying it with sadness and not spite. ‘Most women do, you know. You might be happier if you understood that.’
Still at the window, he wondered what it was exactly that had been offered him. Was it sex, or only company? If it was sex if would not be the first time he had run away from it, when it was there, right before him and available, in his room. Three days before he had had a letter, from New Zealand, from the girl he was once in love with and whom he had gone to visit. He had stayed five months before running away again. She stayed behind. Now she had finished her degree, she wrote, had gotten a good job and a nice flat in Auckland, and was busy all the time. All her friends lived in town; there were always parties and dinners to go to, and she was taking taxis everywhere. Taxi girl, he used to call her; it had been a source of stupid conflict between the two, one of many. He hated paying all the time for cabs; she hated being forced to drive when she wanted to go out. She had begun dating someone, she added, but broke it off after a few weeks. “I wasn’t ready for it,’ were her words. But soon it would be Christmas, with an attendant number of new parties and get-togethers, and being beautiful and personable and, he thought, perhaps even a little eager, she was sure to meet someone very soon. That was what he thought; she hadn’t indicated anything of the kind. The terror rose in him again, and he knew he would not sleep. Still seven days, he thought. Seven days with this bunch, all over Switzerland; loud Dutchmen looking to make a scene; Rik the giant, and a fool; and Marjon, whatever she was—confused, probably, just like him. And then December, and another trip; Christmas at home, with the folks; and New Year’s, and the same all over again. A year ago he had been in Auckland, and had made a promise. A year later, the promise broken, he felt a pit in his stomach, and thought, to his surprise, that this might mean he would begin to cry.
The roads were frozen, and the bus moved carefully through the January night, skidding slightly as it pulled into the station. On Fridays the bus was always crowded, all the students going home to their parents for the weekend; she thought she might visit hers too, in Voorburg; perhaps they would go skating. They were calling every day now, offering to do things for her, inviting her home for dessert or coffee, but for the last few weeks she had wanted to be alone. In the mob pressing forward onto the bus she saw the American in his black leather jacket. He had a magazine rolled under his arm, a scarf wrapped tightly around his throat, the collar of his coat pulled up around his cheeks. A woman laden with shopping bags sat down next to her; she felt a mild irritation.
Stepping onto the bus, he proffered his ticket to the driver, and headed for the rear. That girl again, he thought, as he passed down the aisle. He continued to the back, squeezing into a seat on the last row, between a black man reading a newspaper from Africa, and a girl whose breasts, he could tell through her sweater, were lovely and full. Recently he had called New Zealand; he had begun writing letters. This time he would stay, he promised. He would stay, he would stay; he would never leave. She must take me back, he said to himself; she must save me. Please save me, Helen, he pleaded, save me from myself; and the bus went off, leaving at least two of its passengers lost in circumstance, the one in his grand delusion, and the other in her own bitter certainties.
(circa 2008, read aloud by author here)