“You lived here back when it was a squat?” I ask, trying to reconcile the middle-aged vrouw with the young anarchists I’ve seen in pictures.
“Oh, yes. I knew your father.”
“What was he like then?” I don’t know why I’m asking that. Bram was never the hard one to crack.
But Mrs. Van der Meer’s answer surprises me. “He was a bit of a melancholy young man,” she says. And then her eyes flicker up to the flat, like she’s seeing him there. “Until that mother of yours showed up.”
Her dog yanks on the leash and she sets off, leaving me to ponder how much I know, and don’t know, about my parents.
Fifty
The phone is ringing. And I’m sleeping.
I fumble for it. It’s next to my pillow.
“Hello,” I mumble.
“Willem!” Yael says in a breathless gulp. “Did I wake you?”
“Ma?” I ask. I wait to feel the usual panic but none comes. Instead, there’s something else, a residue of something good. I rub my eyes and it’s still there, floating like a mist: a dream I was having.
“I talked to Mukesh. And he worked his magic. He can get you out Monday but we have to book now. We’ll do an open-ended ticket this time. Come for a year. Then decide what to do.”
My head is hazy with lack of sleep. The party went until four. I fell asleep around five. The sun was already up. Slowly, yesterday’s conversation with my mother comes back to me. The offer she made. How much I wanted it. Or thought I did. Some things you don’t know you want until they’re gone. Other things you think want, but don’t understand you already have them.
“Ma,” I say. “I’m not coming back to India.”
“You’re not?” There’s curiosity in her voice, and disappointment, too.
“I don’t belong there.”
“You belong where I belong.”
It’s a relief, after all this time, to hear her say so. But I don’t think it’s true. I’m grateful that she has made a new home for herself in India, but it’s not where I’m meant to be.
Go big and go home.
“I’m going to act, Ma,” I say. And I feel it. The idea, the plan, fully formed since last night, maybe since much longer. The urgency to see Kate, who never did show up at the party, courses through me. This is one chance I’m not going to let slip through my fingers. This is something I need. “I’m going to act,” I repeat. “Because I’m an actor.”
Yael laughs. “Of course you are. It’s in your blood. Just like Olga.”
The name is instantly familiar. “Olga Szabo, you mean?”
There’s a pause. I can feel her surprise crackle through the line. “Saba told you about her?”
“No. I found the pictures. In the attic. I meant to ask you about them but I didn’t, because I’ve been busy . . .” I trail off. “And because we never really talked about these things.”
“No. We never did, did we?”
“Who was she? Saba’s girlfriend?”
“She was his sister,” she replies. And I should be surprised, but I’m not. Not at all. It’s like the pieces of a puzzle slotting together.
“She would have been your great aunt,” Yael continues. “He always said she was an incredible actress. She was meant to go to Hollywood. But then the war came and she didn’t survive.”
She didn’t survive. Only Saba did.
“Was Szabo her stage name?” I ask.
“No. Szabo was Saba’s surname before he emigrated to Israel and Hebreified it. Lots of Europeans did that.”
To distance himself, I think. I understand that. Though he couldn’t really distance himself. All those silent films he took me to. The ghosts he held at bay, and held close.
Olga Szabo, my great aunt. Sister to my grandfather, Oskar Szabo, who became Oskar Shiloh, father of Yael Shiloh, wife of Bram de Ruiter, brother of Daniel de Ruiter, soon to be father of Abraão de Ruiter.
And just like that, my family grows again.
Fifty-one
When I emerge from my bedroom, Broodje and Henk are just waking up and are surveying the wreckage like army generals who have lost a major ground battle.
Broodje turns to me, his face twisted in apology. “I’m sorry. I can clean it all later. But we promised we’d meet W at ten to help him move. And we’re already late.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Henk says.
Broodje picks up a beer bottle, two-thirds full of cigarette butts. “You can be sick later,” he says. “We made a promise to W.” Broodje looks at me. “And to Willy. I’ll clean the flat later. And Henk’s vomit, which he’s going to keep corked for now.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “I’ll clean it all. I’ll fix everything!”
“You don’t have to be so cheerful about it,” Henk says, wincing and touching his temples.
I grab the keys from the counter. “Sorry,” I say, not sorry at all. I head to the door.
“Where are you going?” Broodje.
“To take the wheel!”
I’m unlocking my bike downstairs when my phone rings. It’s her. Kate.
“I’ve been calling you for the last hour,” I say. “I’m coming to your hotel.”
“My hotel, huh?” she says. I can hear the smile in her voice.
“I was worried you’d leave. And I have a proposition for you.”
“Well, propositions are best proposed in person. But sit tight because I’m actually on my way to you. That’s why I’m calling. Are you home?”
I think of the flat, Broodje and Henk in their boxers, the unbelievable mess. The sun is out, really out, for the first time in days. I suggest we meet at the Sarphatipark instead. “Across the street. Where we were yesterday,” I remind her.
“Proposition downgraded from a hotel to a park, Willem?” she teases. “I’m not sure whether to be flattered or insulted.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
I go straight to the park and wait, sitting down on one of the benches near the sandpit. A little boy and girl are discussing their plans for a fort.
“Can it have one hundred towers?” the little boy asks. The girl says, “I think twenty is better.” Then the boy asks, “Can we live there forever?” The girl considers the sky a moment and says, “Until it rains.”
By the time Kate shows up, they’ve made significant progress, digging a moat and constructing two towers.
“Sorry it took so long,” Kate says, breathless. “I got lost. This city of yours, it runs in circles.”
I start to explain about the concentric canals, the Ceintuurbaan being a belt that goes around the waist of the city. She waves me off. “Don’t bother. I’m hopeless.” She sits down next to me. “Any word from Frau Directeur?”
“Total silence.”
“That sounds ominous.”
I shrug. “Maybe. Nothing I can do. Anyway, I have a new plan.”
“Oh,” Kate says, widening her already big green eyes. “You do?”
“I do. In fact, that’s what my proposition is about.”
“The thick plottens.”
“What?”
She shakes her head. “Never mind.” She crosses her legs, leans in toward me. “I’m ready. Proposition me.”
I take her hand. “I want you.” I pause. “To be my director.”
“Isn’t that a little like shaking hands after making love?” she asks.
“What happened last night,” I begin, “it happened because of you. And I want to work with you. I want to come study with Ruckus. Be an apprentice.”
Kate’s eyes slit into smiles. “How do you know about our apprenticeships?” she drawls.
“I may have looked at your website one or a hundred times. And I know you mostly work with Americans, but I grew up speaking English, I act in English. Most of the time, I dream in English. I want to do Shakespeare. In English. I want to do it. With you.”
The grin has disappeared from Kate’s face. “It wouldn’t be like last night—Orlando on a main stage. Our apprentices do everything. They build sets. They work tech. They study. They act in the ensemble. I’m not saying you wouldn’t play principal roles one day—I would not rule that out, not after last night. But it would take a while. And, there are visa issues to consider, not to mention the union, so you couldn’t come over expecting the spotlight. And I’ve told David he needs to meet you.”
I look at Kate and am about to say that I wouldn’t expect that, that I’d be patient, that I know how to build things. But I stop myself because it occurs to me that I don’t need to convince her of anything.
“Where do you think I was last night?” she asks. “I was waiting for David to get back from his Medea, so I could tell him about you. Then I arranged for him to get his ass on a plane so he could see you tonight before that invalid comes back. He’s on his way, and in fact, I have to leave soon to go to the airport to meet him. After all this trouble, they’d better put you on again, otherwise, you’re going to have to do it solo for him.”
She laughs. “I’m kidding. But Ruckus is a small operation so we make decisions like this communally. That’s another thing you have to be prepared for, how dysfunctionally co-dependent we all are.” She throws up her arms. “But every family is like that.”
“So, wait? You were going to ask me?”
The grin is back. “Was there any doubt? But it pleases me no end, Willem, that you asked me. It shows you’ve been paying attention, which is what a director wants in an actor.” She taps her temple. “Also, very clever of you to move to the States. Good for your career but also it’s where your Lulu is from.”
I think of Tor’s letter, only today the regret and recrimination is gone. She looked for me. I looked for her. And last night, in some strange way, we found each other.
“That’s not why I want to go,” I tell Kate.
She smiles. “I know. I’m just teasing. Though I think you’ll really take to Brooklyn. It has a lot in common with Amsterdam. The brownstones and the rowhouses, the loving tolerance of eccentricity. I think you’ll feel right at home.”
When she says that a feeling comes over me. Of pausing, of resting, of all the clocks in the world going quiet.
Home.
Fifty-two
But Daniel’s home. That is a mess.
When I get back, the boys have left, and there is crap everywhere. It looks like how Bram used to describe it in the old days, before Yael arrived and asserted her brand of order.
There are bottles and ashtrays and plates and pizza boxes and every dish seems dirty and out. The whole place smells like cigarettes. It’s certainly not a place that a baby should live. I’m momentarily paralyzed, not sure where to start.
I put on a CD of Adam Wilde, that singer-songwriter Max and I went to see a few weeks ago. And then I just go. I empty out the beer and wine bottles and put them in a box for recycling. Next, I dump the ashtrays and rinse them out. Even though there’s a dishwasher now, I fill the sink with hot, soapy water and clean all the dirty dishes, then dry them. I throw open the windows to air our the place, and sunshine and fresh air come blowing in.
By noon, I’ve collected the bottles, tossed the cigarette butts, washed and dried the dishes, dusted and vacuumed. It’s about as clean as it was on its best day with Daniel, though when he comes home with Abraão and Fabiola, I’ll have it spotless. Ready.
I make a coffee. I check my phone to see if there’s any word from Linus, but it’s sitting on my bed, dead. I plug it in to charge, setting the coffee on my shelf. The envelope is still there, with the photos of me Yael, Bram, Saba, Olga. I run my finger along the crease of the envelope, feel the weight of history inside. Wherever I’m going next, these are coming with me.
